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Originally published March 12, 2008.

Ever since the initial mention the DI made back in November about Bill Ayers coming to visit, the campus and the Champaign-Urbana community – and the Chicago Tribune, and a decent-sized chunk of the Internet – have been debating it.

People can protest all they like, of course. None of it kept Mr. Ayers from making his scheduled visit this week.

And why should it? In order for Unit One (Allen Hall’s living-learning community) to offer in-hall classes and events, Allen residents pay an extra yearly fee of $310. They are also encouraged to make suggestions for prospective guests-in-residence, and at the end of every academic year, residents vote on the guests they would like to host. Succinctly put, Allen residents paid for the experience of the guest-in-residence program and chose to invite Bill Ayers. No other students funded his visit, but all were certainly invited to attend, as was the general public.

On its list of guests-in-residence, each year Unit One prints the same declaration of purpose: “The guests of this program live in Allen Hall and, in cooperation with students and staff, attempt to elicit an understanding for the necessity of creative thinking in society.”

This statement creates the best frame for controversial events like Bill Ayers’ brief residency. We imagine that a college education, or rather a bachelor’s degree, is a necessity in our society. What we tend to forget is that a college education by its very nature requires elements of what we now specifically refer to as a “liberal arts education” – not politically liberal experiences, but experiential learning that influences our intellects, our ideas and our opinions in relation to the world we will step into following graduation.

With this in mind, of course Bill Ayers should come to speak on our campus. We would do a tremendous disservice to ourselves and the ongoing education of the community by turning him or controversial figures like him away. By freshman year of college, everyone should know that people exist who have different or contrasting beliefs than their own. And by hosting people like Mr. Ayers, students will hopefully leave this institution with the powerful and invaluable ability to explore every opinion in addition to their own.

Before Ayers’ event on Tuesday night, a few students stood outside protesting his presence. More importantly, a few students came into the event, listened to Ayers’ lecture, and asked questions of him, despite their obvious opposition to what they believe he stands for. Ayers did not trivialize their statements – he answered them fully and well.

Mr. Ayers stressed in response that a person’s attendance at an event that reflects a contrasting perspective from her own doesn’t mean she enables or supports that viewpoint. I agree. It simply creates opportunities for personal and societal growth. How can anyone be sure their opinions reflect their best possible understanding of their world if they never change?

If they even know who he is, many students’ feelings toward Bill Ayers reflect the influence of people in their lives who were around during the Vietnam War era.

In the same way that children’s political ideas primarily mirror those of their parents until after high school, it’s easy to have an opinion handed down to us about a time period and the actions of people in it when we were not even alive.

It is always easy to have opinions about the past during the present. It’s much harder to stay constantly engaged with the present (in which Mr. Ayers is a professor and proponent of educational reform), when our opinions have the potential to shape our world.

So tonight, attend Ayers’ lecture. Give yourself a chance to hold your opinions up to the light, examine them, and compare them with someone else’s.

Bill Ayers’ visit isn’t about terrorism. It’s an invitation to think. That is what a college education is all about.

Chelsea is a senior in English and creative writing and really needs to get a super-efficient robot body.

Originally published March 5, 2009.

“Seriously, who cares?”

This all-too-fitting line closed Jordan Harp’s column on Tuesday. In it, he also gave students the benefit of the doubt, suggesting that they’re informed rather than apathetic (at least when it comes to student elections).

I’m not buying it.

Quite a few things have happened on campus as of late that suggest otherwise – that students don’t know and don’t care. While I feel the ongoing debates over Cotton Club really take the cake in terms of student ignorance and apathy, student elections this week really were the icing on top.

In an article than ran in Tuesday’s DI, two student candidates for senate openly admitted that the race for office is based almost purely on name recognition, which you know firsthand if you’ve walked across any sidewalk on campus in the last few weeks.

Our candidates, hungry for recognition, simply facilitated the student body’s inclination toward ignorance. I didn’t see a single poster offering an abbreviated list of platform points for any candidate, but I can rest assured knowing that Chris Chung has been “ghostridin’ the whip since 1988.”

For students not looking to glorify their resumes, elected student positions may not mean all that much. Their irrelevance is facilitated by this kind of obnoxious campaigning devoid of information. Though some candidates boasted campaign Web sites offering enlightenment on their stances and endorsements by RSOs, the majority of students never make it past the slogans plastered across every inch of University property.

Long story short, no one has any idea what people are running for, and the lack of “serious power” behind elected student officials convinces voters that it doesn’t matter. If we’re all too cynical about these positions to even bother to vote for the candidates, then no one will give a second thought to demanding a change in the power structure. If we want student officials to have more than just a voice that administrators can promptly ignore, it begins with the general student population giving a damn.

We care so little that most students don’t even seem to know their rights – that is, what methods of campaigning the Student Election Commission bars in order to maintain our privacy. According to the 2009 election guidelines packet, candidates cannot campaign “within 50 feet of any publicly accessible university computer,” nor can they post campaign material on other surfaces besides University bulletin boards or Illiosks.

I found campaign handouts conveniently left beside the printer in a computer lab Tuesday morning after online voting had opened, and I definitely ran into campaign ads stapled up in classrooms for most of February, an activity that is expressly frowned upon.

Finally, the kicker for me was receiving not one, but two generic campaign e-mails to my University account from a candidate. While I was unable to find anything expressly listed in the Appropriate Use Policy or other Information Tech Policies, I have a strong hunch that this is not allowed – otherwise, we’d have all gotten something from every candidate even entertaining the idea of running for student office.

At the end of the day, our right to avoid visual assault by campaign material is sacrificed by our lack of information. In addition, we lose our right to demand that our elected body of student officials actually wield some power in the process of shaping our experiences at this institution, from our tuition rates to the number of recycling bins available on campus.

No, voting on its own isn’t enough to make a difference. But it’s the first step toward proving we as a student body care about what happens on campus. Instead of advocating to administrators the meaninglessness of our voices, we have to vocally push for change, starting with the enforcement of campaign guidelines and moving all the way up to the roles of our student politicians.

If we want change, we have to make it ourselves.

Chelsea is a senior in English and creative writing and wonders if froth art in coffee is a subtle form of flirtation.

Originally published February 26, 2009.

Many U of I students can identify with the dilemma of expensive, heavy textbooks. But only more recent attendees have experience with the latest phenomenon in textbook production and usage: e-textbooks.

It’s not as though we didn’t expect them sooner or later. Universities have long subscribed to systems like Blackboard and Moodle that enable professors to make course readings available online – something most students use every day. Since the beginning of February, techie and business news sources alike have bombarded us with information about Amazon’s Kindle 2.0 and the developing e-book revolution. To top it off, the publishing industry declines a little further each day, cutting employees and reducing the amount of potential books taken in. For them, less physically produced books means a lot of savings.

Factor in universities, especially ones that rent textbooks to students, and students, and once again, the desire for frugality in a recession becomes clear. But does the implementation of cost-effective e-textbooks stand to benefit the people using them?

Northwest Missouri State seems to think so, as they’re studying the progress of 500 students this semester to determine whether a book-free campus is a viable option.

In a story Monday from NPR’s Morning Edition, an instructor said that she felt students were more likely to bring their computers to class than old-fashioned textbooks, and an e-textbook would actually encourage them to do their reading. While the number of computers brought to class has undoubtedly increased over the last few years, especially given the progressive decreases in laptop size and weight, instructors are deluding themselves if they believe that most students use laptops solely for relevant purposes like taking notes.

SNES emulators, instant messaging and online homework for other courses monopolize much more of students’ interest than keeping up with the lecture in which they’re sitting.

It’s difficult for anyone raised in this Internet-reliant age to resist the strong temptation to surf, and when someone’s web activities wander, so does the attention of the students sitting behind them. Just because a student can reach their textbook easily on their computer doesn’t ensure that they’ll glance at it during class instead of playing Super Mario World or checking Facebook.

Many e-books just don’t grab readers’ attention enough to keep them away from more entertaining enterprises. Most simply replicate the material of the physical book in a digital format.

A host of other beneficial capabilities of an electronically accessible textbook are debuting, however. Some e-texts allow readers to – get this – highlight the text. Others even permit the copying and pasting of content.

As someone who marks up readings with both a highlighter and a red pen, this is nothing new or even terribly helpful.

After all, people tend to remember more when they physically write information instead of just copying and pasting into a Word document.

But let’s put the functional mediocrity of e-textbooks aside and return to the issue of expense. E-books are purported to cost roughly half the price of regular books. But I can recall paying over $60 for an e-textbook for a logic class I took for my Quant. II requirement.

The access code I received at the bookstore was good for a single use. That means if I had a bad Internet connection and accidentally botched my code input, I’m out $60 with no book access. And because I successfully registered for my “book,” I still couldn’t sell anything back at the end of the semester.

So what the e-textbook frenzy comes down to is this: Publishers save money; universities save money; and students are still forced to foot the bill. Given that this economic downturn started with loans, maybe people should start considering how much money students take out in loans to pay for growing college expenses like textbooks – before it’s too late.

Chelsea is a senior in English and creative writing and can’t wait to see the Vagina Monologues this weekend.

Originally published February 19, 2009.

These dire financial times force everyone to change their spending habits. Recreational spending on things such as clothing, going out to dinner and music, will only decrease further in the months to follow.

Coffee drinkers may be feeling the recession pretty hard already. Since Moonstruck Cafe and Bar Giuliani closed their doors, campus-based caffeine addicts have to settle for Starbucks and Espresso Royale as places like Caffe Paradiso, Aroma Cafe and Cafe Kopi are out of their way.

So what’s a coffee drinker to do during a recession?

Now more than ever might be the best time to switch to brewing at home. You don’t need fancy, expensive brewing equipment to craft a fine cup of coffee. Just the basics will do: a coffee pot, a grinder, a standard-sized scoop and a thermal mug.

Of course, the most important part of all are the beans.

What most recreational coffee drinkers tend to forget is that altitude, climate, soil content and a number of other growing factors affect the taste and quality of the coffee that steams in their mugs every morning.

So, do the global economy and your stomach lining a favor by spending more on the beans you buy. We’re all in this recession together.

I say this because even up to the year 2000, middlemen working with companies like Folgers paid coffee farmers abroad approximately 35 cents per pound of coffee, and little has changed since then. Plus, Folgers’ packaging isn’t going to tell you much besides, “Inside this canister is coffee that someone grew outside of the U.S.” For all you know, the horrific instant substance contained within was grown in a field created by eliminating a forest and subjected to a wide range of pesticides.

Enter fair-trade coffee, the proclaimed darling of many coffee connoisseurs. A number of roasters offer fair-trade blends, including Espresso Royale, Starbucks and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters from Vermont. Green Mountain tends to be popular with the social-justice-oriented subset, given that they offer 21 different types of fair-trade-certified coffee, most of which are also certified organic and cost $8.49 for a 10- to 12-oz. bag of beans.

The real benefit purchasing from Green Mountain is that they provide information regarding the small farms and co-ops through which they import coffee, all of which are paid a minimum of $1.26 per pound of coffee in keeping with their fair-trade standards.

It still doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well, the only step left to take aside from getting on a plane in search of your coffee beans is to try direct trade coffee.

Direct trade is a newer market philosophy implemented by roasters like Intelligentsia, whose 12-oz. bags of coffee can be purchased for an average of $13 at establishments like Caffe Paradiso and Art Mart in Urbana. For first-time bean buyers this might sound expensive, but consider that purchasing of a “grande”-sized cup of regular coffee at Starbucks every day translates to $11.20 per week. A 12-oz. bag of coffee is going to last you much longer if you’re drinking an average of three cups a day.

Plus, glancing at a bag of Intelligentsia’s Black Cat Classic Espresso will tell you that the coffee varietals are red and yellow bourbon grown at an altitude of 1,200-1,450 meters in Brazil and El Salvador from producers Sertao and El Borbollon.

They even give you a sense of the flavor: notes of dark chocolate, cherry and cane sugar. Finally, through direct trade relationships with farmers and co-ops, Intelligentsia also boasts an average 20 cents more per pound that they pay directly to coffee producers. Compare that with fair-trade wages getting caught up in exportation costs, and hopefully the choice becomes a little more clear.

So the next time you pass your once-favorite coffeehouse and need a fix, think of yourself and others. Invest in some beans instead.

Chelsea is a senior in English and creative writing and wonders if these plugs in her tear canals are going to work.

Originally published February 12, 2009.

Some Americans were tearful over the event. Others, enraged. Some were ashamed of the trust and hope they placed in this rising star, now fallen from the sky. My children’s children will be feeling the repercussions of his actions years from now.

Yes, Alex Rodriguez admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs from 2001 to 2003, when he was with the Texas Rangers.

Oh, and some economic stuff happened, too. And some fires somewhere.

In the president’s first prime time news conference, he rambled on and on about how some bill he wants to push through Congress will do blah blah blah, 4 million jobs, 800 billion dollars, whatever. Thank God Michael Fletcher from the Washington Post got the night back on track by asking Obama what he thought about A-Rod’s admission of guilt.

I mean, who really cares about the government passing one of the most dicey pieces of legislation since the PATRIOT Act with little to no regulatory measures built in, or that our children’s children’s children will likely still be paying for it?

But seriously, folks, the kicker for me happened when I caught a brief snippet of the news Monday night. A montage of clips from a “60 Minutes”-type interview played – Rodriguez seemed kind of insincere the whole time, and then the newscaster followed with “Now, on to the fires raging in Australia.”

In case you hadn’t heard amid all the discussion of the A-Rod scandal and what it means for Major League Baseball, wildfires continue to ravage the southern Australian state of Victoria. Officials said Tuesday that potentially more than 200 people have died. Authorities have still been unable to identify whether arsonists have been involved with fires in Churchill and Marysville, although the dryness and heat – including Melbourne’s record high last Saturday at 115.5 degrees – are clear contributors. More than 750 homes have been destroyed, leaving thousands without a place to live.

And here we are, hung up over steroid use. Maybe I could concede if someone found out Michael Phelps was jacked up on ‘roids instead of just smoking pot, but as things stand, it’s not worthy of the serious national news coverage it’s been given.

On the other hand, if A-Rod wants to fund part of the now-passed stimulus bill with his bloated salary as penance for his heinous misdeeds, then maybe we can talk. Or maybe, if the MLB allows the usage of performance-enhancing drugs, they could be sold by the federal government or taxed heavily in order to help pay off the $1.2 trillion debt that carried over from the end of the Bush administration.

Perhaps we’re just looking at steroid use in the wrong light. We need a little of that good ol’ American ingenuity in times like these.

Someone should have suggested to Congress that a regulated performance-enhancing drug market would establish more jobs than something like tax cuts or green initiatives.

President Obama said at his press conference in regards to the A-Rod doping scandal that “it tarnishes an entire era, to some degree.” Honestly, I believe he’s right.

The handling of the whole situation has tarnished much more than just Rodriguez’s career, his once-inevitable Hall of Fame legacy or even the National Pastime and the faith of its fans.

In a country where journalism as an industry is desperately floundering, the presentation of this whole issue has tarnished what it means to be a credible news source.

Credibility isn’t established purely by presenting factual information. Credibility means having a solid reputation based on an ability to provide not only accurate news, but pertinent and thought-provoking insight. We’re experiencing enough financial credit problems as it is in America. The last thing we need is a lack of journalistic credit, too.

Chelsea is a senior in English and creative writing and loves meeting others who appreciate the value of Kenneth Branagh’s version of Hamlet.

Originally published February 5, 2009.

Every year, University housing sends new paraprofessionals through a variety of training sessions in order to prepare them for their residence hall positions. One of the training requirements for these students is an actual course, EOL199.

While new housing staff takes a specific version of this course, many sections are offered for undergrad students, recently revamped from EOL199 to EPSY203. Titled “Social Issues Group Dialogues,” the class “provides students with opportunities to converse on specific diversity and social justice topic areas offered as separate sections,” according to its description in the spring semester course catalog.

Essentially, the idea behind the course is to spend the latter part of the semester engaging in in-depth conversations with a small group of other students about specific social-identity-related topics such as sexual orientation, religion, race and ethnicity, among others.

Given the University’s current climate regarding issues of diversity, especially race and ethnicity, it’s encouraging to see that so many sections of this potentially eye-opening course are being offered for this semester (nine in all).

At the same time, I don’t think this is an effective implementation of this course. Its potential to do a lot of good for the University community is being stunted by its presentation.

First, it’s not even a full-semester course. That makes no sense given the complexity of the topics under discussion. One semester may only be enough to scratch the surface of subjects within gender, racial and religious studies, but six weeks is not even enough to make a mark.

Second, each course section admits students only by application. This may not be a big deal for students interested in taking EPSY203, but it eliminates campus-wide appeal. A student’s desire to take the course is likely precipitated by some interest or experience in diversity education, and while it’s fantastic for everybody to think deeply about social issues, this is not necessarily the type of person who really needs to take classes such as these. Rather, it’s the students who won’t go through the hassle of filling out an application, the students who have never given a thought to social identities and issues – the students who believe “diversity” is just some politically correct term that will disappear after graduation.

What we need is a broader version of EPSY203, one that lasts a full semester and examines social issues related to not just one specific aspect of social identity but to all of them. Courses meant to fulfill the non-Western/U.S. minority culture and behavioral science gen ed requirements don’t put students in a room together with the object of engaging them in dialogue about their life experiences being black, lesbian, Christian, poor, straight, differently abled, Muslim or white. For many students, the gen ed requirements put in place to make them “well-rounded young leaders in today’s world” are forgettable lectures in which their instructor doesn’t know their name or grade their assignments, much less push them outside their comfort zones.

Ideally, this introductory social issues course would be required for all undergrads during freshman year, first semester. It’s not intended to convert anyone to hardcore liberal thinking, as many might complain, but simply to act as an introduction: to make students aware of their surroundings.

Although campuses may promote diversity and tolerance differently than “the real world,” the knowledge that there are more types of people out there than just themselves equips students not only to better understand their society but also to better understand the increasingly global market. It encourages respect for others and creates cultural learning opportunities by enabling thought-provoking discourse instead of an evangelism of opinions.

Let’s face it: The campus perceives diversity initiatives like Inclusive Illinois as almost as badly managed and ineffective as Global Campus, but a required introductory diversity course has the power to really highlight social issues in a way many students may never have thought about them – through the eyes of a friend or classmate met in an intimate discussion setting every week.

Perhaps instead of just making us take a physical science or some quantitative reasoning classes, the University could include little things such as, say, teaching us to coexist with one another, too.

Chelsea is a senior in English and creative writing and is trying to learn to evenly apply 30 lbs. of pressure with her espresso tamper while rotating it 720 degrees.

Originally published January 29, 2009.

In conversation, I use the word “box.” I’m also a fan of “treasure chest” and “the Oval Office,” which I feel are underutilized. Never “cooch,” though – that sounds too cutesy. Vaginas should not be considered “cute.”

Regardless of what other terms I might opt toward for humor value, I’m quite comfortable with the word “vagina.” I don’t think there’s any better word out there for it. Call it what it is, right?

Except I’m surprised by how many people, especially women, are unsettled by it. And by “it,” I mean both the word and what it refers to.

Now, I’m not about to go on some tangent about how anybody with a vag should adore it and treat it like a sacred relic of female power. I don’t think it’s magical that a baby can come tearing out of there like an 8-pound cannonball. I don’t think shedding your uterine lining once a month is so empowering that you should collect it in a jar and paint with it (yes, that really happens).

I do, however, think it’s highly awesome that the vagina is self-cleaning.

All in all, there isn’t enough talking going on about vaginas. Not like penises. The penis is commonplace, especially in college. If you live in a residence hall, you can probably look down your hallway and find at least one dry-erase board with a penis drawn on it. It’s a fact of college life that you will probably see at least one penis you didn’t want to when someone goes streaking past your room. Penises get talked about – and touched (and scratched, and adjusted and tucked away) – in public all the time.

But vaginas are complex. An Expo marker artist has to get detailed if they want to draw a vagina on someone’s board. You can’t create a vag emoticon in an IM conversation using numbers and symbols. In many places outside the U.S., it’s still acceptable, legally and culturally, to subject vaginas to any variety of mutilation: removal of the clitoris and/or the labia minora and even the stitching together of the labia majora, as well as any combination of these. And as for the C-U, well … at least one person was so upset by a rainbow tissue-paper vulva on a bulletin board last year that it was forced to be taken down.

We need to talk a lot more about vaginas, and I mean everybody.

“But why?” you might ask. “Why should we discuss female genitals all of a sudden?”

Because you have a great excuse to: next month boasts 2009’s V-Day, an international campaign to end violence against women and vaginas. Ask around about the campus production of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues and get involved with event planning. At the end of February, go see the show, especially if you don’t have a vagina.

More than anything, for all of you who are proud possessors of your own vajayjays, go all out. You may not be able to this year, but at some point in your life, audition for a role in the Vagina Monologues. It may be a little awkward at first. It might seem embarrassing to stand in front of a crowd and talk about your sweet spot and all its little secrets. But I guarantee it will be one of the most liberating experiences of your entire life.

There’s something about running through a crowd of people entreating them to shout a certain four-letter word that begins with a “c” at a volume that will fill a theater, something about moaning in public for charity, something about learning to understand the experiences of victims of sexual assault that may not make you adore your own vagina but will certainly bring you to terms with having one.

Being in the Monologues doesn’t just expand your awareness of all the issues centered on vaginas. It’s an encouragement to disrupt the consistent silence of women on those issues, from female genital mutilation to faking an orgasm. It goes far beyond the pop-trash sex writing in Cosmo.

It’s a validation of all the experiences that go along with having a vagina and a plea that we not only start representing vaginas everywhere but talking about them openly. Researchers, lobbyists, legislators, doctors, religious representatives, teachers, parents, everybody but the people with the vaginas seem to be making decisions about them. Isn’t it about time we spoke up?

Chelsea is a senior in English and creative writing and thinks the word “pussy” is lame. There are so many better names out there.