Evergreen fires alarm the campus community

By Katie Bresnahan

Over the weekend several doors in Evergreen Hall were set on fire, causing the building to be evacuated.

“As a resident who lived in one of the rooms that was lit on fire, I felt endangered,” said Bryan Paterson, a sophomore biology major. Paterson lives in just one of the eight apartments that were lit on fire before the Department of Public Safety and the local volunteer fire fighters were notified at 12:19 a.m. Sunday.

Colonel Emil Fioravanti, UMass Dartmouth’s Director of Public Safety explained that the largest concern with these fires was smoke inhalation. “It’s not even so much the fire. It’s the smoke. It’s the confusion. It’s people running, people tripping, people getting hurt responding. If there are people in the building with disabilities [who need] assistance getting out, it’s very, very complicated,” stated Fioravanti.

“If you have a smoke filled building, a lot of things can go bad very, very quickly and that’s what we experienced this past weekend,” said Fioravanti. He explained that the fire department had to go into Evergreen and blow a lot of smoke out of the building.

Fioravanti said that the Department of Public Safety is still looking for the person or people responsible for the fires last weekend. He said that any individuals found responsible for these dangerous acts they will be charged and removed from the school. “It’s not going to be good,” he added. “Fire is not something you want to mess around with. A lot of people are very upset about this.”

I hope the people who tried to set fire are caught soon… We are lucky no one got hurt,” said Paterson.

“The folks at residence halls really need to take heed, if they see or hear anything please pass the information along to us and it’s going to be investigated thoroughly,” explained Fioravanti. Anyone with further information concerning this matter can contact Public Safety at x8107.

Rape victim is remembered 25 years later

NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. — You hear cheering as you are raped continuously by four—or was it six?—men in a local bar. You can hear the other men egging them on, telling them to “F*ck that B**ch.” The bartender wipes the counter and ignores the incident. You scream for help, but your voice is drowned out by the small crowd’s yelling. The pool table underneath you is rough and rubbing against your back as the men take turns. You’ve had a drink, but you’re not drunk, and you know, you can feel exactly what is going on.

This is what happened to 21 year old Cheryl Araujo at Big Dan’s, a New Bedford bar, twenty-five years ago.

In March 1983, Araujo’s daughter had just turned three-years-old and a small birthday bash was held. At the end of the long day, after her daughters were tucked in, Araujo went to buy a pack of cigarettes. Finding the local store closed, she walked into a neighborhood tavern instead. She bought a drink and talked to another woman. She watched two men play pool and played a song on the jukebox. She didn’t plan to stay for long.

Soon afterwards, she refused to leave with two men and was grabbed from behind by a third man. He dragged her to a pool table and threw her down on it. He stripped her below the waist and, while some held her down, several men took turns raping her. The other patrons in the bar heard her screaming for help, and many of them cheered and applauded the men. Not one person on the scene attempted to help her. This went on for two hours.

This occurrence garnered national attention. The trial was televised, and it eventually became a landmark in rape cases. Six men were originally charged with rape and four received sentences ranging from nine to twelve years. Two of the other defendants were acquitted on the basis of “reasonable doubt.”

Throughout the trial, thousands of people demonstrated locally in support of the rapists. In the local Portuguese neighborhoods, which were highly “traditional,” the female victim was seen as the guilty party. All throughout the trial, her habits and life, including sexual and private history, were dissected in front of the world, in an attempt to convince the jury that the woman had brought it upon herself somehow, that she had instigated, or that she was promiscuous enough to have sex on a pool table in a bar with four to six men. Protestors stated, “She should have been at home,” and “What else would she expect being out at a bar at that time of night?”

Many protestors viewed the convictions as an attack on the Portuguese community, since many of the men were Portuguese—the victim was as well. Some even framed it as an attack on legal and illegal immigrants nationwide.

It is unfair to say that the Portuguese community as a whole responded in this manner. In reality, older Portuguese families were angry about the protests in support of the rapists and truly shocked by the fact that so many Portuguese women were supporting rapists as well. It created a temporary but clear divide in the community.

In response to the crime, a rape crisis center was established in New Bedford, and for the first time, in part to counteract the Portuguese women who sided with the rapists, the women’s groups throughout the community. The case had a national ripple effect, forcing legislators to look at laws and court procedures in such cases, especially because of the media. A few years later, the movie “The Accused” came out, based on the story of Cheryl Araujo.

Araujo had to move to Florida with her family to escape the stigma and shame forced upon her by the community. She died a few years later in a car accident, but her story is not forgotten, especially amongst other rape victims. For every raped woman who takes the crap and tells her story, endless other women are saved.

To commemorate the life, suffering and death of Cheryl Araujo and to help educate the campus community about this fundamental event, the Women’s Resource Center will show “The Accused” on Tuesday, April 8 and Wednesday, April 9. The first showing will be at the Women’s Resource Center in Pine Dale Hall Suite 7136 at 6 p.m. Pizza and refreshments will be served. The second will be in the CVPA (Group 6), room 153, at 7 p.m.

We will be ending Sexual Assault Awareness Month with a local speaker, who has experience with the case and will be discussing the laws at the time and how they have changed. This talk will be given at the end of the Kick the Silence event on Wednesday, April 30, which will be taken place from 4 to 8 p.m. in the quad.

For more information, contact Kim Sylvia of the Women’s Resource Center at 508-910-4584 or at ksylvia@umassd.edu.

Where are your parking fees going?

By Stephanie Luz

With parking fees reaching the one-year mark, many car owners are wondering where the money is going.

“For what I have seen so far, the additional money for parking hasn’t added to any increase of security or any decrease of brake-ins whatsoever. What is this money really going towards and why?” asked Daniel Frawley, a political science major at UMass Dartmouth.

Colonel Fioravanti explained that parking fees are going towards many projects on campus including lighting, call boxes, cameras, and striping (painting lines on streets). Fioravanti said that the current fees are not enough to support an institution of UMass Dartmouth’s size. He explained that some money will be saved in cash reserves to pay for repaving lots and making road repairs.

Students at UMD are concerned about the parking plan. Ashley Dobson said,“The parking plan is a well thought out idea, but I have found in numerous incidents that there is no parking where I have paid for parking and spaces have been taken by people who have not paid for parking.  I also wish that they would put up more call boxes with the parking money, because there is not nearly enough on campus.”

Fioravanti noted, “We are preparing to do an engineering study on [surveillance cameras]. We are making final adaptations.” Fioravanti explained that plans for wireless security cameras are being reevaluated. In addition to an engineering consultant, there will also be a consultant for parking. “The name of this consultant will be announced at the end of the week,” said Fioravanti. The consultant will be evaluating the possibility of either adding parking lots or extending existing lots.

Stolen hangtags will no longer be a problem. Fioravanti said, “We are going back to stickers with the barcode. We are hoping that it will avoid a lot of the fraud, and a lot of the missing hangtags that we had before. We are also looking into some high-end tags that have holograms in them… We are very optimistic.” Students and faculty will be able to purchase these stickers online before the next academic year.

GREENING THE CAMPUS

Ride your bike or take a hike

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

By Katie Bresnahan

Chances are the largest and most expensive object you own or operate is a car. Americans have had a long and passionate love affair with the automobile. We’ve built our economy, our cities, our suburbs, and the majority of our transportation system around it. Like the rest of the United States, our campus is organized for the private automobile, with a significant portion of our built environment dedicated to driving or parking.

Our transportation choices don’t have to revolve around our automobiles, but they’ve become so ubiquitous that it’s often difficult to visualize our lives without them. However, three converging forces are helping to wake us up to the realization that we need to rethink our commitment to the automobile.

The first is climate change. Roughly one third of the greenhouse gas emissions that are jeopardizing our planet and the species that inhabit it are related to transportation, and to the car. Students who drive only from New Bedford to campus three days a week during the school year add one ton of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. It is unsustainable for us to continue driving in the ways that we are used to, unless we are willing to literally drive ourselves into extinction.

The second reason for rethinking the automobile is the fact that we have reached peak oil. Peak oil is the notion that the quantity of oil available worldwide is limited and that, once we’ve passed the mid-point (or peak) of extracting it, the remaining oil is more difficult and more expensive to remove. Most experts believe we passed peak oil in mid-2006 and that the subsequent increase in oil prices spells long-term difficulties for societies, such as ours, which are founded on cheap energy. You can learn more about peak oil on Tuesday, April 22, at 7 p.m., when Richard Heinberg, author of “Peak Everything: Waking up to The Century of Declines,” comes to campus.

Peak oil means the same for you, your family, and our campus. We’re all going to have to learn how to do with less energy and part of that calls for us to rethink our transportation choices.

The third reason that relying solely on our automobiles is unsustainable is our crumbling and insufficient infrastructure. We’ve all read articles about bridges collapsing nationwide, but you can also see our inadequate infrastructure when you drive around the campus looking for a space to park. Even if we had the public money to continually repair and build new roads and parking lots, do we really want to continue paving our open spaces?

So given climate change, peak oil, and infrastructure issues, what’s a campus—and a country—to do? Most of the obvious solutions fall into two categories. The first is to rethink our transportation choices. This could mean choosing to walk or bike, share rides or take public transportation. Of course, we need infrastructure for these things, too, such as bike and walking paths and reliable and frequent public transportation. On our campus some things are already being done, including the new Loop bus, expanded Dart van routes, and a proposed bike and walking paths.

The second, and somewhat more interesting, solution is to re-localize much of what we do. On a regional scale this means growing, manufacturing and buying locally. Your children will likely buy many fewer things that are made in China than you do. On a campus scale, re-localization could mean building housing for faculty and staff on campus. We could also consider what it is that we all leave campus for and replicate those services within the Ring Road. What if we had campus coffee shops, a Laundromat, a Post Office, a Chinese restaurant, a pizza shop and a general store?

You can share your own ideas about Transportation during our next Sustainability Luncheons. On Tuesday, April 8, we will be meeting in the Library Browsing Area from 12:30 to 2 p.m. to discuss campus transportation with Colonel Emil Fioravanti, Director of Public Safety.

On Monday, April 14, we will be meeting again in the library from 12 to 1:30 p.m. to discuss the proposed campus bike and walking paths.

If you have questions, please call the Office of Sustainability at 508-910-6484. We hope that you can join us for one or more of these luncheons.

Susan Jenkins
Interim Director
Campus and Community Office of Sustainability

TOPICS IN MENTAL HEALTH

Eating disorders plague students

There has been a lot of media attention given to eating disorders both on the news and on television talk-shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil. There is also increasing controversy about the ways in which media images of men and women may increase susceptibility to eating disorders or body image concerns of other kinds. But almost none of these media sources clearly educate the public about what eating disorders are and how they are treated. In this article I will attempt to do just that.

In terms of psychiatric diagnoses and treatment, there are three distinct eating disorders that are recognized and described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Edition IV, and the National Institute of Mental Health. They are: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

Anorexia Nervosa

The primary characteristics of anorexia include emaciation, a relentless pursuit of thinness, unwillingness to maintain normal body weight, distorted body image (perceiving oneself as fat despite emaciation), intense fear of gaining weight, and for females, a cessation of menstruation. People with anorexia lose weight by restricting their food intake and exercising excessively. They may also induce vomiting, abuse laxatives or use diuretics or enemas to increase their weight loss. People with anorexia tend to become obsessed with thoughts about food and weight, and spend the majority of their days thinking about issues related to food. They may weigh themselves repeatedly and are very controlled in their food rations.

Both men and women get anorexia, and the illness is found across age groups, cultures and socioeconomic statuses.

There is a very high mortality rate among people with anorexia. The most common complications that lead to death are cardiac arrest and electrolyte imbalances. There is also a higher than average rate of suicide among people with anorexia. In addition to the high mortality rate, people with anorexia also frequently have coexisting psychiatric and physical illnesses including: depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, substance abuse, cardiovascular and neurological complications, delayed physical and sexual development (depending on the age of onset), osteoporosis, brittle hair and nails, yellowish skin, growth of fine hair over the body and face, anemia, severe constipation, low blood pressure and pulse, lethargy and drop in internal body temperature.

Bulimia Nervosa

People with bulimia engage in recurrent episodes of eating unusually large quantities of food (binge-eating) while feeling out of control of their eating. This binge-eating is followed by purging to get rid of the food. Purging can take several forms including self-induced vomiting, or excessive use of laxatives or diuretics. People with bulimia may also go through periods of restricting their food intake and exercising compulsively to lose weight or compensate for binge-eating.

Like people with anorexia, those with bulimia frequently fear gaining weight, want to lose weight, and are desperately unhappy with their body shape. Because purging behavior is typically done privately, there is often a sense of shame that people with bulimia feel in conjunction with their behaviors. Like those with anorexia, those with bulimia also frequently have co-existing illnesses such as depression, anxiety, or substance abuse issues.

The process of binge-eating and purging can result in multiple serious health problems including electrolyte imbalance, gastrointestinal problems, oral and tooth-related problems (from stomach acid released by vomiting), chronically inflamed and sore throat, swollen glands in the neck and jaw, acid reflux disorder, and severe dehydration.

Binge Eating Disorder

Similar to bulimia, binge eating disorder is characterized by recurrent binge-eating episodes in which the individual eats an abnormally large quantity of food and feels out of control of his or her eating. Unlike people with bulimia, people with binge eating disorder do not engage in purging or excessive exercise or laxative use after their binges. People with binge eating disorder are frequently overweight or obese as a result of their binge-eating. They often experience intense shame and guilt about their binge-eating, which frequently serves to perpetuate future binge-eating cycles.

Those with binge eating disorder often experience depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. When obesity results from this disorder, they also show a higher rate of cardiovascular disease and hypertension.

Treatment for Eating Disorders:

The primary goals of any treatment for each of the three eating disorders described above include: restoring the person to a healthy weight, treating any underlying psychological issues, and preventing relapse by reducing or eliminating thoughts and behaviors that lead to eating disorders.

First and foremost, safety is addressed. This means that if someone with an eating disorder presents for treatment and he or she is at a weight that is so unhealthy that his or her basic safety is jeopardized, this will be addressed first. This is usually dealt with during a stay at a medical hospital, and may be followed by an inpatient psychiatric hospitalization or stay at a residential treatment facility where 24 hour care and monitoring can be provided.

Once safety is restored, psychological issues can be addressed. This usually involves either inpatient or outpatient psychotherapy, and may also include family therapy, group therapy, or a 12-step support group (such as Overeaters Anonymous). It might also involve the use of psychotropic medications to address any issues of depression, anxiety or obsessive thoughts. There are many studies that show that the combination of medication and some form of individual or family therapy results in greater treatment outcomes than either of these interventions alone.

There are also studies suggesting that for people with anorexia, family therapy may provide more long-term remediation of symptoms and sustained healthy weight.

Frequently treatment of eating disorders also includes nutritional counseling and planning to reduce eating disordered behaviors and provide education about healthy eating. Regular meetings with a nutritionist who specializes in working with people with eating disorders can be helpful. Groups like Overeaters Anonymous provide sponsors to help people maintain these kinds of healthy eating patterns and also to offer emotional support during this process.

There are many resources for treatment and support in managing eating disorders. The National Eating Disorders Association can be contacted at 888-931-2237 or by visiting their website at www.nationaleatingdisorders.com and they provide a list of local treatment providers. There are online resources and support groups at www.mentalhelp.net. There is also a local chapter of Overeaters Anonymous that meets in New Bedford. To learn about times and locations of these meetings, visit www.oa.org.

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder and would like more immediate support or referrals, please contact the Counseling Center at x8650. If you have questions or comments about the information presented in this article, please direct emails to rachel.lively@umassd.edu.

Rachel Lively, Psy.D.
Counseling Center

SNIPPETS FROM YOUR STUDENT SENATE

Pick up an election packet today!

Any Student wishing to run for student government can pick up an election packet in the Student Senate Office (on the second floor of the Campus Center past the student affairs office) starting this week. Packets will be due Tuesday, April 8 by 5 p.m., in the Senate Office.

You will also be able to print out a packet from the Student Senate website (http://www.umassd.edu/studentactivities/senate/SenateNews.cfm), as well. These packets will be due at the same time in the Senate Office. If you choose this option, please e-mail Stephanie Luz at u_sluz@umass.edu to let her know that you will submit a packet.

All Student Senate and Class Officer positions are available. To appear on the ballot for any of these positions you need to get 25 signatures from the constituency you wish to represent (i.e. if you are running to represent College of Arts and Sciences you need to get 25 signatures from students in that college).

Also up for election is the position of Student Trustee. To appear on the ballot for this position you need to get 100 signatures from any students at the university. The election packet for the Student Trustee is not online, and must be picked up at the Senate Office.

Elections will be held the week of April 14.

If you have any questions please contact one of the elections officials at the email addresses below or at 508-999-8154.

Stephanie Luz

u_sluz@umassd.edu

Dan McSweeney

dwmcsween@aol.com

Rachel Bucklin

rbucklin@umassd.edu

Courtney Trayers

u_ctrayers@umassd.edu

Lee Lukoff

u_llukoff@umassd.edu

Career Corner

How to prepare for the annual Career Expo

By Colleen Foley

With the Career Expo coming up on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, students may be wondering how they can make the best of their time at the event. The Career Resource Center has put together some tips for making the Career Expo a productive and successful experience.

1. Learn who is coming ahead of time. Companies planning to attend are listed at www.umassd.edu/crc/. Narrow down which employers interest you the most and research their products, services and employment.

2. Contact the employers you are interested in ahead of time. Send a letter of interest including a resume tailored to the company. Mention that you will be in touch with them at the Expo.

3. Prepare a 45-second summary of your qualifications. Make the most of your time with a short and interesting summary of your background, achievements and career interests (Focus on your four strongest qualifications).

4. Dress the part. Your first impression speaks volumes to potential employers.

5. Arrive early and plan to stay late. Get to the Expo right when it opens and head to your favorite employer. Plan to stay long enough to visit every employer you want to see.

6. Take the right things with you. Bring multiple copies of your resume, even if you sent resumes to the companies already. Also bring a list of references with you to hand out to employers. Make sure that you notify your references immediately after the fair to let them know that they may be contacted by specific companies.

For more information, go to www.umassd.edu/crc.

Public Safety assures students of safety after recent assault

By Chaunte M. Hines

Earlier this month a female student who was walking back to her dorm alone around 3 a.m. was apporached and robbed by three males. They managed to steal $25 from her purse.

In spite of this attack, Colonel Emil Fioravanti, Director of the UMass Dartmouth Department of Public Safety said, “UMass is a very safe campus.”

The student walked back to her dorm alone, but prior to this she was with a group of friends.

The victim told Public Safety that she was having difficulty opening her residence hall’s main door. Public Safety later checked the lock, but claimed that the lock was operating fine.

Fioravanti advises students to walk in groups at all times in the night. Students in situations where they cannont walk with others should not hesitate to call Public Safety for a police or DartVan escort.

“I walk alone less now...especially since the girl that was assaulted was one of my best friends,” said UMass Dartmouth student, Kim Lindgren.

Mychelle Tran follows this advice as well. She said, “I try never to walk alone anywhere at night. I take the DArtVan if I have no other option.”

The victim in this assault waited nearly an hour before she reported the incident. “Residents need to immediately call Public Safety when these situations happen. There are [emergency] phones all over campus,” said Fioravanti.

The incident is still an ongoing investigation, and if anyone has any information he or she should notify Public Safety.

To prevent this kind of situation from happening again, Public Safety has extra UMass Dartmouth officers working over-time as well as more officers patrolling on the weekends.

TOPICS IN MENTAL HEALTH

Incorporating humor into your day-to-day life improves health

We were in Salino, Utah when we were arrested for not going through a green light. We pleaded “maybe.” I asked the judge if he knew what time it was, he did, and I said, “No further questions.”

I went to court for a parking ticket. I pleaded insanity. I said, “Your honor, why would anyone in their right mind park in the passing lane?”

When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.

Yesterday I parked my car in a tow-away zone... When I came back the entire area was missing. – Steven Wright

Maybe these one-liners from Steven Wright make you laugh or at least smile a little. If so, how does it feel? Most of us have had the experience of being around someone who lightens our mood by saying something funny. Now there is increasing research on humor that suggests that incorporation of humor and laughter into your daily life promotes mental and even physical health. And it’s fun! In this article I will outline some of the health benefits of humor and will discuss ways to incorporate more humor into your life.

A study done at the University of Maryland Medical Center suggests that having a sense of humor and an ability to laugh at oneself or stressful situations can relax your body and increase your capacity to fight disease. Regular incorporation of laughter and humor can reduce stress, lower blood pressure, elevate mood, reduce the risk of heart disease, boost the immune system, improve brain functioning, promote relaxation and foster closer relationships.

In terms of mental and emotional health, humor helps reduce the frequency and duration of painful or uncomfortable emotions. It is impossible to feel angry, depressed, and anxious and to feel humor at the same time. If you can bring a light-hearted humor to everyday experiences, these “negative” emotions are less likely to crop up at all.

Having a sense of humor can also help you to meet new people and can bring you closer to those with whom you have existing relationships. It is fun to laugh and when you’re funny or laughing, other people want to be around you. Experiencing humor leads us to talk more, make more eye contact with other people and touch people in a compassionate way. If you can laugh with someone else, especially about a problem or stressful situation, it connects you with that person in a more intimate way and makes the situation more tolerable for both of you.

The benefits are clear! So how can we learn to laugh, have a sense of humor, and just generally lighten up? The first thing is to smile more often. Smiling, like laughter, is contagious. If you smile, those around you are more likely to smile at you. Plus, smiling releases endorphins in our brains that actually, chemically, make us feel better!

Second, learn to be grateful for the things and people in your life. Noticing the things you’re grateful for shifts your thoughts from negative (or neutral) to positive. Having positive thoughts is the first step towards humor and laughter. Chances are there is something positive you can take away from even the most negative or upsetting situation. You may have to look really hard, but there is likely to be something good — if only the bad event is over.

Incorporate happy people who laugh a lot into your life. If you hear people laughing, try to get in on it. Ask them what’s so funny. Usually people want to share their jokes or funny stories because humor and laugher feel so good that they want to experience it all over again by telling others. Seeking out people who routinely incorporate humor into their lives will influence you in a similar way. If you feel that most people around you are serious and lacking in the humor department, try watching funny movies, going to comedy shows, or even signing up for a “joke of the day” on a humor website.

You can also increase the humor in your life by finding ways to be silly or childlike (while still attending to daily responsibilities). Wearing ridiculous clothes, keeping toys around you (personally, I enjoy bobble head dolls and slinkys), telling stupid jokes or using temporary hair color are all possible ways to lighten up your mood and probably the moods of those around you. Those of us who spend time around little kids might have an easier time with this — since kids are naturally curious and funny. Spending time with kids can remind us of this side of ourselves.

Learn to laugh at yourself! We all make mistakes, have insecurities, have foibles, and do embarrassing things. If you can talk or joke about how embarrassed or uncomfortable you’ve been in these kinds of situations, you’ve learned to laugh at yourself. Other people will laugh too and chances are they will be laughing because they’ve done or felt the same thing.

Finally, one of the most important things you can do to increase the humor and lightness in your life is to learn to manage stress and any overwhelming personal problems going on in your life. This might mean that you need some professional help to cope with the painful stuff before you can feel humor again. It is very hard to feel stressed and humorous at the same time, so get some help getting that stress under control.

It seems only appropriate to end this article with a mental health joke—this one’s from the website www.gcfl.net: (Good Clean Funnies List): During a phone conversation, my nephew mentioned that he was taking a psychology course at the university. “Oh, great,” I said. “Now you’ll be analyzing everyone in the family.”

“No, no,” he replied. “I don’t take abnormal psychology until next semester.”

If you have questions or comments about the information presented in this article, please direct email correspondence to rachel.lively@umassd.edu.

Rachel Lively, Psy.D.
Counseling Center

STATE OF THE QUEER NATION

Canada bans gays from donating blood

The state of the queer nation this week is looking to Canada. Canada, as of 2005 was the fourth country to legalize gay marriage nationwide and can be looked at as more progressive on this topic. This week however, Killiam Melloy of EDGEBoston wrote an article entitled “Canada keeps gay blood donor ban in place.”

The issue of gay men being allowed to donate blood has been coming up a lot recently. Around the beginning of February, State of the Queer Nation covered another story coming from the good old U S of A on this same topic. San Jose State University in California suspended “all campus blood drives because of a long-standing government policy that bars gay men from donating blood, putting renewed attention on an issue that has been a sore spot at many liberal colleges” (see http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8141825 for further information).

The president of San Jose State University, Don Kassing said, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s position conflicts with the school’s policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

So what is Canada doing? Not banning the ban. According to the article, “Two Montreal HIV/AIDS experts say that allowing gay men to donate blood would increase blood supply with an ‘infinitesimally low’ risk of viral transmission.” Their proposition to the Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec was that they follow the new Australian method.

Australia recently lifted the lifetime ban on gay men donating blood. “Gay men in that country can give blood as long as they have abstained from ‘male-to-male’ sex for at least 12 months. Once blood is donated, all samples are screened in the lab for HIV, syphilis and other viruses. The rationale for the change in policy by the Australian Red Cross is that if a gay man had sex within 12 months, an HIV infection could be missed in the post-donation screening. After that period, the tests would conclusively pick it up. Gay men who make false declarations to the Australian Red Cross risk criminal prosecution” (see http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=78aad2b6-af46-464c-bbca-85430be3968c&k=3464&p=1 for more information).

Wainberg, one of the two specialists from the McGill University AIDS Centre said, “The tests have moved forward, but the policies of Héma-Québec and the Canadian Blood Services are in a time warp circa 1983,” referring to the progress of science in screening and testing for viruses and other diseases in blood transfusions. “Gilmore estimated that a lift on the lifetime ban would result in a gain of 136,000 blood donations per year…while Wainberg referred to a study that estimated that the risk of contaminated blood entering the mainstream blood supply is so low that one unit of HIV-positive blood might escape detection in all of Canada once every 18 years.”

In 2006, the FDA was also approached by the Red Cross and the American Association of Blood Banks to allow gay blood donors but both were refused. The FDA website says the “FDA’s deferral policy is based on the documented increased risk of certain transfusion transmissible infections, such as HIV, associated with male-to-male sex and is not based on any judgment concerning the donor’s sexual orientation.” But it is policys like this that allow judgments to be kept in the rest of society.

Source: “Canada Keeps Gay Blood Donor Ban in Place,” Kilian Melloy, www.edgeboston.com.

Melanie Correia
Secretary
Pride Alliance

CAREER CORNER

CRC’s annual Career Expo approaches

By Colleen Foley

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the job market may not be as dismal as the media suggests.

Although there has been an ongoing economic slowdown in the job market, employers told NACE that they planned to hire 16 percent more new college graduates in 2007 – 2008 than they did last year. Signing bonuses have also increased by approximately 25 percent, and college graduate salaries are expected to rise. The average increase was 4.6 percent. Average starting salaries for winter, 2008 were 4 percent greater at $49,300 than they were last winter.

Jobs in high demand for this year’s graduates include accounting, finance, engineering and computer science. NACE says that it will be a strong year for college recruiting and plans to keep tracking the college market.

Reminder: The UMass Dartmouth Career Resource Center will be hosting the 30th Annual Career Expo on April 9, 2008 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Woodland Commons. For more information, please visit www.umassd.edu/crc.