Although most students at Santa Clara never have to question when or from where their next meal will come, millions of people throughout America and around the world are in a constant state of worry about this.

Educating students about the issues of hunger and poverty and explaining how these impact the daily lives of many people are the two main goals of Santa Clara’s new club — Bridging the Gap: Alleviating Poverty. This week, BTGAP joined the Food and Agribusiness Institute to host Hunger Week.

Christine Cate, a founder of BTGAP, said, “We are hoping to raise awareness about hunger, poverty, food justice and environmental impacts of food production in America and also globally.”

Problems of poverty and starvation around the world are escalating, demanding even more attention from people such as Santa Clara students to help make a significant change.

“(Hunger) is more common than most students think,” said Cate, “yet, all preventable and fixable.”

BTGAP has been posting facts about hunger and poverty throughout Hunger Week via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and encourages Santa Clara students to join them in raising awareness.

The club hosted its first event for Hunger Week on Monday in Benson Memorial Center, bringing together club members and all others interested, to view the documentary “A Place at the Table.” The documentary’s focus was on poverty, hunger and undernutrition in America.

Cate said that it is a sad truth that there are “50 million people in the U.S. — one in four children — that don’t know where their next meal is coming from, despite our having the means to provide nutritious, affordable food for all Americans.” The event was considered an “eye-opening” and “heartbreaking” experience by the attendees.

“In our country, hunger is an issue for so many people. In the Santa Clara bubble, this sometimes seems impossible to students as they toss out half-eaten taco salads, but the issues is still prevalent in the world,” said freshman Hannah Baker. “I grew up with people who did not know where dinner was coming from, and that is scarier than anything I’ve ever dealt with. Helping to alleviate this fear from a child or an adult’s life is ever poignant and important.”

BTGAP hosted “Food for Thought — Feeding10Billion,” on Tuesday, which featured a lecture series given by Paul Matteucci from Feeding10Billion. Matteucci discussed his project, which involves exploring creative and sustainable solutions for the world’s growing need for food.

On Wednesday, the club hosted an event at Santa Clara’s Forge Garden to bag beans into individual portions. The bags are to be distributed to local farm workers and their families, so students have the opportunity to directly impact the lives of individuals and their families.

Today, a day-long feast will mark the end of Hunger Week 2013. Students are welcome to raise awareness of hunger and show their support for the cause by wearing the yellow wristbands that may be attained during club tabling hours throughout the week. BTGAP hopes the events throughout the course of the week will help Santa Clara students and locals realize that something can be done to alleviate the problem of hunger and poverty in the world.  

Colorful posters and books ornament the walls, illustrating how the Bollywood film industry reflects the cultural shifts in globalizing India. The Visual Culture of Bollywood exhibit, currently displayed in the lower level of the Harrington Learning Commons, gives students an opportunity to view other cultures and social forms.

 “The films have also become more international in their themes, reflecting influences such as manga, noir and Hong Kong martial arts cinema,” said Rohit Chopra, one of the curators of this project and a professor in the Communication Department.

Conscious American themes have also infiltrated the film industry such as the use of global brands DNKY and GAP, for example.

In order to execute this project, the curators — Helene Lafrance, Chopra and Judith Rodriguez — spent a lot of time collaborating.

Chopra remarked that they “wanted to be as representative as possible in terms of themes and various aesthetics and styles while also providing some sense of historical balance.”

Students working at the library also helped with the project by folding and distributing brochures. The Office of Global Engagement, the Communication Department, the university library and the Office of Multicultural Learning also gave support for this exhibit. Helen Otero, office manager in the Communication Department, helped manage expenses for the project.

As lofty as this project was to procure, some small challenges came along the way. It was difficult for the curators to set up the project in the library because they did not want to create noise and distract students studying.

The curators hope to foster discourse about Bollywood and South Asian culture, and the world in general. Through the use of technology and networking, the globe is becoming increasingly interconnected, allowing people to engage within foreign political, cultural, traditional, societal and economic constructs.

“Silicon Valley is often considered a key node in a global network of capital, information and culture, and is, accordingly, seen as a driver of globalization. Yet, precisely because of its privilege, it has the luxury of being indifferent to much of what goes on in the rest of the world,” Chopra said. “Or if it does engage with the world, it tends to do so on its own conditions. This exhibit, in a small way, asks us to look at other cultural and social forms on their own terms.”

The curators hope to create similar exhibits next year at Santa Clara, including global cinema, hip-hop or media cities such as Bombay, London and San Francisco.

The exhibit will be open for all viewers in the Learning Commons until June 21.

Contact Lorilynn Lomeli at llomeli@scu.edu.

 

Seniors have been gathering every Tuesday night to discuss life after Santa Clara. The Alumni Association has been organizing Life After SCU to help soon-to-be alumni get ready for the real world.

Each event, only open to seniors, offers free food and free beer or wine. So far, the series has been quite successful. Every event has been nearly full.

The topics thus far have included Living in the City, Living Healthy, and Personal Finance.

Scott Terrill, a graduating senior, has been to all of the events so far.

“The pizza and beer are the main reason I came in the first place, but since then I’ve found that this series has offered me a perspective into the real world that I hadn’t considered before.”

According to Alumni Director Taylor Thorn from the class of 2008, the RSVP and attendance numbers are almost twice what they were last year.

“The goal of the series,” explained Thorn, “is two-fold: to present relevant topics that have significant importance upon graduation and to provide a space for graduating seniors to gather with one another, enjoy a glass of beer or wine, and engage in thoughtful conversation.”

This week, Professor Frederick Parrella spoke about the theology of marriage.

This past Tuesday, Parrella talked about how marriage has evolved with modern society to become what it is today. Some of the topics he discussed included how life expectancy of the average human is much longer now, and therefore, there should be less pressure to marry at a young age.

He explained how modern society has changed the concept of marriage, detailing how it has become less sacred and more of a promise to one another than to God.

Another session revolved around personal finance, as Tony Nguyen from the finance department addressed students and their financial responsibilities. He advised how to manage your personal funds and how graduating students should prepare to live on their own.

According to Nguyen, the turnout was much higher than expected and the students were genuinely interested.

“It was evident that personal finance and investing are huge priorities for these students,” said Nguyen.

He explained that it was good that students from every discipline attended because everybody makes financial decisions that impact their lives. These graduating seniors can make more informed decisions with some foundation of personal financial knowledge.

There are still three more events to come: Entertaining on a Budget, BBQ Basics and Wine Education. They provide an insight into what life is going to be like after graduation and ways to cope with it in unintimidating and manageable ways.

Contact Robert Wear at rwear@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852. 

Attendees at the 2013 Solar Decathlon ground breaking ceremony received practical information on energy-saving techniques as well as celebrated the construction of the Radiant House.

The Solar Decathlon team held a ground breaking ceremony last Thursday, showcasing the structure they have designed for this year’s national competition.

“The day was about inviting our sponsors, parents, advisors, any supporters of the project to come out, catch up on our progress and celebrate with us,” said Jake Gallau, senior and 2013 Solar Decathlon Project Manager..

According to Gallau, upwards of 100 people attended the ceremony, including Mayor of Santa Clara Jamie Matthews, Santa Clara President Michael Engh, S.J., and School of Engineering Dean Godfrey Mungal. The event was held at the team’s construction site on the Sobrato Hall parking lot.

As part of the event, the Solar Decathlon team, which is entirely composed of undergraduate students, shared information on the innovative features they will be incorporating in the Radiant House, such as bamboo panels as well as a radiant heating and cooling system.

Gallau said that one of the big plans they have for the house is that its solar panels will be fully integrated into the roof as one system, reducing their materials and cost.

“In (2007), we focused on the engineering,” said Gallau. “In (2009), we focused more so on the architecture. In each case, they were really expensive houses that performed really well in the confines of the competition. In 2013, we’re really hoping to take the best of both worlds and build a house that’s beautiful and expertly engineered, but is also affordable and practical.”

The Radiant House will be 20 percent larger than the structure built for the 2009 competition and about two-thirds of the cost.

At the ceremony, sub-teams of the Solar Decathlon group also presented posters of their work.

Now that the ground breaking ceremony has passed, the team will work seven days a week and over the summer to complete the house in time for the competition in October.

“I’m extremely proud of the team we’ve put together,” said Gallau. “It’s 30 of the best students that I’ve met at this school. They’re more than just students.”

Thirty students are in charge of their own sub-teams that focus on areas ranging from electricity and plumbing, to sponsorship and public relations.

Beyond manpower, Gallau said that the team is still looking for sponsors to fund their project.

“We’re still looking for support. Our budget is around $900,000 and we’re $400,000 out from that,” he said. Gallau encourages interested sponsors to contact the team via its website.

Once the Radiant House is complete, it will be one of 20 solar-powered houses at the 2013 Solar Decathlon, which will be held in Orange County this year. The event will begin on Oct. 3 and last until Oct. 13.

Contact Angeles Oviedo at aoviedo@scu.edu. 

Putting a cop at the crime scene before it happens with a mathematical formula sounds like it came straight out of a Hollywood movie, but with new technology, it’s now possible.

George Mohler, an assistant professor in the mathematics and computer science department at Santa Clara University, is one of the masterminds behind Predictive Policing, a new computer software. His company, PredPol, may be the next era of crime prevention.

Since police departments nationwide are facing budget cuts, this new resource allows them to be more effective and responds to public demand for crime prevention without spending more money.

Mohler started working with a team of researchers from the University of California Mathematical and Simulation Modeling of Crime project, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The UC MaSC project has one goal: to develop a statistical model for crime.

With the help of research from this group, Mohler was able to come up with a mathematical equation to predict crime based on the same formula currently used to predict aftershocks for earthquakes.

After publishing papers about his theory, Zac Friend, Santa Cruz Police crime analyst, reached out to Mohler about implementing the algorithm. The predictive policing program was put to the test.

“We decided to try the predictive policing program because our department had experienced about a 20 percent decline in staffing coupled with a 30 percent increase in call-for-services,” said Friend.

Since implementing the program, there has been a decrease in Santa Cruz crime, including residential, commercial and vehicular burglaries, dropping all burglaries by 27 percent.

Another experiment with Los Angles Police Department saw similar drops in crime.

Mohler presented the statistical model to one of his classes at Santa Clara. One of his calculus students, Omar Qazi, approached Mohler after the discussion.

“I knew I could make his software better,” said Qazi.

Qazi and Mohler started working together to further develop the software.

“(Qazi) has ultimately made this software better, and I would work with him regardless of his age because he is a unique, talented individual,” said Mohler.

PredPol analyzes the times, dates and places of recent crimes. It updates constantly when new crimes occur and then finds patterns that forecast high-risk times and locations for future crime. The cost to implement PredPol depends on the population of the city, but it is always less than the cost of hiring an officer for a year.

PredPol may violate the Fourth Amendment, however, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Professor Andrew Ferguson from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law wrote an article called “Predictive Policing and Reasonable Suspicion,” examining predictive policing and the possibilities of how it will impact reasonable suspicion.

“In the future, predictive policing will affect the Fourth Amendment reasonable suspicion analysis,” said Ferguson. “How it affects it and whether these changes weaken or strengthen Fourth Amendment protections remains unclear.”

Friend said, “The program is not a replacement for an officer’s talents, intuition or experience. It is simply a tool that helps them do their job.”

The Sponsored Projects Office at the university assists in proposal, funding, developing project ideas and submitting completed project plans. Mary-Ellen Fortini, director of Sponsored Projects, reviewed the grant Mohler submitted for PredPol.

“We have to balance between the gain and the risk — do the risks outweigh the benefits?” said Fortini. “In this case, predictive policing benefits outweigh the risk.”

Major cities around the United States including San Francisco, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Los Gatos, and as far away as Kent, England are using PredPol today. The future of the war against crime now blinks on a computer screen.

Contact Christie Vaughn at cvaughn@scu.edu. 

The Bucky Awards, a completely student-run award ceremony, will be held this year for the first time to honor students and organizations that have shown outstanding leadership, determination, dedication and service to Santa Clara’s community.

The idea developed during a workshop of Santa Clara’s student organizations.

Jack Schneeman, senior finance major and student government senate chair, stated that the motivation behind the new awards was to provide students with the chance to give and receive acknowledgement for having a positive influence in the community.

“We felt it would shine a light on and commend some of our outstanding students and organizations that don’t really get the recognition they deserve,” said Schneeman.

The awards will have 11 different categories including “Bronco of the Year” and “Best Event of the Year.” All awards will be distributed in each academic school within the university.

Students were asked to email Schneeman with suggestions of students or organizations they feel deserve an award, and attach a short 100-word or fewer explanation as to why they should be honored.

“Specifics are left up to the students because we didn’t want to constrain the awards to certain traits or characteristics,” said Schneeman. “For example, Bronco of the Year is someone you think best represents what you believe Santa Clara stands for whether that’s academics, compassion, service, school spirit, industriousness, etc.”

The nomination period ended this past Friday, and judges are sifting through emails from students and compiling the possible award nominees.

In the next week or two, the nominees for the Bucky Awards will be announced, and the student government will send out a school-wide survey to decide on the winners. Elections will most likely take place during Week 6 or 7.

The award ceremony itself is still being planned by ASG and other student organization leaders. The date is predicted to be sometime between Weeks 8 and 10.

Contact Natalia Pavlina at npavlina@scu.edu or call 408-554-4852.  

This Monday, Bon Appétit, collaborating with Sustainability at SCU, will be hosting the sixth annual Low Carbon Diet Day. This event falls on Earth Day, and can be seen at all the restaurants and cafes across campus. The menus at each station will be modified to illustrate a key principal in climate change.

In past years, this event has been geared at educating students on how to refine their diets to help positively affect climate change. This year it is changing its focus.

According to Bob Lubecky, the general manager of Bon Appétit Dining Services at Santa Clara, this year the program will focus more on how climate change is affecting some of our favorite foods.

The food system is responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and it is just as important to reduce beef and cut out fruits shipped by jets in our diets, as it is to drive less or switch out light bulbs.

“It’s important to understand how our consumption affects the global climate change, and I think it’s great that Santa Clara is offering this event to help educate and make more people aware of the effect our eating habits have on the environment,” said senior William Usdin.

To prepare for this year’s theme, “Your Lunch is Heating Up,” Bon Appétit compiled a commissioned review of more than four dozen reports that project how important crops, such as corn, coffee and wheat, will fare in a changing climate. They will put their findings into easy to understand signage and materials that will be visible at all the cafes around campus.

Bon Appétit chef Michelle Brinkmann will use a cooking demonstration, which consists of an edamame burger on a house-made whole wheat bun with caramelized onions, tomatoes and arugula, to help explain these global agricultural trends, as well as encourage guests to choose more planet-friendly foods. Recipes will also be available for those interested in making them at home.

Bon Appétit is the first restaurant company to acknowledge the relation between food and climate change, and according to Lubecky, it has achieved some very important milestones since its creation in 2007. They have reduced the school’s beef usage by 33 percent, eliminating over four million pounds of methane emissions each month, of which cattle are major generators. They have also reduced our food waste by nearly 30 percent, and diverted 40 percent of what remains to biofuels or compost. Through their hard work, they have actually exceeded the original goal, which was to achieve a 25 percent overall reduction in carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 2012.

Also on Monday, Bon Appétit Management Company will be unveiling a revamped version of its online educational companion to the Low Carbon Diet program. Eat Low Carbon online uses pictures, quizzes and photos to show familiar foods that have higher carbon levels, and explains the science behind their carbon dioxide equivalent scores.

Contact Robert Wear at rwear@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.  

This week, the Santa Clara community will be celebrating its third annual Swap for Good, an event hosted around the country by various parties and organizations to collect donations for victims of domestic violence

Hosted by the Office of Sustainability, Santa Clara Community Action Program and the Retail Management Institute, the swap will allow students and staff to exchange clothes, tools, toys and other goods to benefit local community organizations that our campus currently supports.

Programs through SCCAP’s Homelessness Department will be the primary benefactors of this event, including the women and children of Santa Clara and San Jose’s Home Safe shelters.

Senior Michelle Tang, an intern at the Office of Sustainability, is responsible for bringing Swap for Good to Santa Clara when she was a sophomore and looking for different ways to educate students about sustainability.

Tang said that one of her favorite parts about the event was that it wasn’t exclusive. Last year, some of the most frequent donators were employees at the Benson Memorial Center.

“We’re doing really innovative stuff in terms of extending that invitation to our whole campus community,” said Tang.

What makes Santa Clara’s Swap for Good stand out is that our campus is one of the only colleges who hosts the event, which is usually sponsored by private parties or in people’s homes.

“I want us to be a model for other college groups to do this type of thing,” said Tang.

Beginning on April 17, students are able to drop off donations in bins located in the lobbies of each Residential Learning Community, at the SCCAP office, Campus Ministry, the Multicultural Center, and at the event table in Benson.

Student volunteers will pick up these boxes and organize the goods over the weekend until the Swap for Good “store” opens on April 22.

From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., students, faculty and community members may shop in the Benson Parlors and learn more about the need that they are serving.

Students and fellow organizatioThe swap comes just in time for spring cleaning, and serves as a great and innovative way for students to get rid of unnecessary belongings that will be difficult to move out of their dorms or homes come summer.

Contact Rachel Davidson at rldavidson@scu.edu.  

Starting this spring, residents of the San Jose area will begin to noticing an increase in construction activity in the area.

After 10 years and over 100 public meetings to gain the support of both California taxpayers and the federal government, Santa Clara County is finally ready to begin the long anticipated expansion of the BART to San Jose.

The project plans to extend the transit system an extra 10 miles, from Warm Springs in South Fremont to Berryessa Road in San Jose. This undertaking is predicted to finish by 2018 and is estimated to cost around $2.3 billion. This is by far the most expensive public works project Silicon Valley has ever seen.

Already, residents of the effected areas are beginning to notice the changes.

According to Gary Richards of the San Jose Mercury News, trees are being removed to add auxiliary lanes. Interstate 680 will be widened about 12 feet in both directions between Sycamore Valley and Crow Canyon in the shoulder area.

The removal of trees is not all that awaits San Jose. Richards explained further that the project will also involve the demolition of buildings, relocation of utility lines and occasional street closures.

The expansion finally became possible about a month ago when $900 million in federal funding came in following Santa Clara County’s recent approval to raise sales taxes.

Senator Dianne Feinstein was a key agent to gaining financial support from the federal government. She explained that “the people of Santa Clara were willing to raise their sales tax, and that really produced a very high percent of local funds. And with those local funds it wasn’t too difficult then to go to the federal government.”

The BART began its first construction on June 19, 1964, and ran through Oakland and Fremont. Since then, the transit system has grown vastly and now extends to San Francisco and many other areas in the Bay. The new BART route will reportedly host an estimated 23,000 riders on a daily basis.

BART proponents and officials still hope to extend the transit system another six miles, through downtown San Jose and reaching the Caltrain depot right here in Santa Clara.

Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff said, however, that “funding will be a challenge,” and worries about the BART’s 40-year-old cars — incidentally the oldest cars in the nation.

Contact Natalia Pavlina at npavlina@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852. 

The de Saisset Museum’s new exhibit “Seeking Answers,” displays abstract and realistic photographs of landscapes creating a simplistic yet intriguing appreciation for nature.

The collection, which opened on April 12, exhibits former Bay Area photographer Wynn Bullock’s work. These photographs are especially unique because they capture the beauty of different environments and the nature within the Bay Area.

Some of the areas depicted in his photographs include Yosemite National Park, Monterey, Carmel and Cannery Row, many of which were taken in the 1950s. These landscape photographs are printed in black and white gelatin silver print.

Visitors of the exhibit sense the passion and connection that Bullock felt with the locations he captured.

“Coming from Seattle, it was really cool seeing the photographs of the different natural sights of the Bay Area,” said freshman Connor Ridgeway. “The cluster of photographs of Point Lobos really want me to go visit the sight.”

The Point Lobos environment was particularly inspiring to Bullock as it was a source of energy and growth. Bullock took many photos there, several of which are on display in the de Saisset.

“When he was at Point Lobos, he seemed to feel an extra measure of joy and extraordinary openness, vitality and receptivity,” said his daughter, Barbara Bullock.

As Bullock’s photography career progressed, he became interested in the study and use of light in photography, vesting away from strictly black and white photographs. He began printing in color using a variety of materials including water, transparent glue, bits of optical glass, tinted plastic and cellophane.

“He was working with color just as it was coming into vogue, and they were developing the processes to be able to produce color imagery,” said Lindsey Kouvaris, curator of exhibits and collections at the de Saisset Museum. “He was always wanting to push the boundaries and thinking about new ways of working.”

Twenty of Bullocks’ color prints were exhibited in the de Saisset Museum in 1972. He later donated some of his works to the museum.

“The museum has a long-standing relationship with Bullock,” said Kouvaris.

Since Bullock passed, his family has loaned several other color prints to the museum. The six color photographs featured in “Seeking Answers” are a part of a gift from Bullock Family Photography LLC.

“As long as I can remember, I have been filled with a deep desire to find a means of creatively interacting with the world, or understanding more of what is within and around me,” said Wynn Bullock. “When I photograph, what I’m really doing is seeking answers to things.”

Contact Mallory Miller at memiller@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852. 

The increasing kickback against efforts to improve America’s education system is a terrible mistake.

Since 2009, 45 states have agreed to adopt the Common Core State Standards, a set of guidelines that lay out in broad strokes what children should have learned by a certain grade. The Common Core was quickly embraced by the Obama administration, which promised states that adopted the standards extra funds from the Department of Education.

Now states are starting to reconsider. Conservatives argue that a single set of standards further increases the power of the federal government over education, which is the responsibility of the states. They see the extra funds as bribes to state legislators, somehow defiling the process of creating better curriculums.

Last year, the Republican National Committee unanimously voted to denounce the Common Core as part of its official election platform. At the moment, 12 states are reconsidering the program, and legislation to that effect has been passed in several other states.

California will begin integrating the new standards next year. I hope the other states do so as well.

All of these criticisms are patently ridiculous. The Common Core is nothing more than a good-faith effort to fix gaping holes in our education system. It was developed by the National Governors Association, the bipartisan body of all 50 U.S. governors, in consultation with teachers, parents and experts.

The standards themselves are broad enough that states still retain the ability to individually decide what and how information is taught. The Common Core merely provides goals for students to achieve, such as the ability to analyze a primary document.

There is nothing wrong with the DOE trying to encourage states to sign on to the Common Core by promising additional funds. This is a normal practice by the federal government to encourage programs while leaving the final decision up to the states. This approach is often used specifically to avoid the risk of seeming to extend federal authority. Any assertion that the federal government will have more control over education is absurd.

It is certainly better than nothing.

The No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2001, focused on student performance, rather than the actual material. As a result, it created a loophole in which states lowered their standards to the point where almost anyone could pass the standardized tests.

Over the past decade, reports from Georgia, Illinois and countless other places have shown that the number one goal of school districts has been to “teach to the test,” with no incentive to keep the tests academically challenging. The result has been a fragmented education system where children from one state are significantly less prepared for college and a career than in others.

The Common Core is not perfect. It sets goals without examining the difficulties of implementation and other fundamental problems with our nation’s education system.

However, it’s a step in the right direction. It’s not about the Obama administration; it’s about the future of education for our little brothers and sisters, and someday, our children. If states object to the DOE giving out extra funds, they should simply implement the Common Core without taking any government funding.

Jonathan Tomczak is a junior political science and history double major.