Participants filled out their forms online and then brought in a printed waiver and their registration fee to Norris. According to a Dance Marathon press release, the organization is moving towards a paperless registration system in the future.

“In the past, everything was done in paper,” said Allister Wenzel, DM’s finance co-chair, in a press release. “The Exec board and Finance committee would spend hours upon hours the week after registration meticulously entering the data from these paper forms into a Google spreadsheet. We saw online registration as the future, not only in streamlining the workload on our end, but also allowing the dancers to register in a more convenient way and being environmentally-friendly in the process.”

The first all-DM dancer meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 27 from 7:30-8:30 p.m. in Fisk 217.

Photo by Ribarnica on Flickr, licensed under the Creative Commons.

How do the Kellogg undergraduate certificate programs work? What courses should one take to get into the program? How competitive are the programs?

The undergraduate certificate program is one of the many benefits of Kellogg being at Northwestern (besides the yummy food in the Jacobs Center, of course). You apply for the program during sophomore year, so don’t worry if you aren’t sure about it just yet. However if you’re thinking ahead, you overachiever, read on.

There are two different certificates you can get, in either financial economics or managerial analytics. Each certificate program takes about 50 students, with a maximum total of 100 between the two each year. The process is fairly competitive, so aim for a good GPA freshman year. Kellogg recommends at least a B or better in all the required classes and related courses. For a list of those, check the Kellogg Web site. There is also an essay required, in addition to faculty recommendations. Remember how fun applying to college was? Get ready because you get to do it again.

However, once you’re in the program, you take four courses taught by Kellogg faculty and get the opportunity to do an optional summer internship. Finding an internship is impossible in any field, so if the school’s going to hook you up with one, this is a major benefit. Also a benefit: enhanced career services.

Still have questions? Check out an academic interest session during Wildcat Welcome. Trust me, they’re probably more interesting then the mandatory Essential NU sessions you have to sit through.

North by Northwestern file photo.

How easy is it to get past the freshman freeze?

Just so we’re all on the same page, the freshman freeze referenced by this inquisitive young 2013’er is the Northwestern policy that prohibits freshmen from entering fraternity and sorority houses during the first few weeks of school, and prohibits the organizations from advertising themselves or their events.

In the past, the freeze lasted four weeks, from New Student Week until typically October. However, a movement to change the length of the freeze successfully got the university to reduce the freeze from four weeks to three. You lucky freshmen will get to experience a rank, nasty-smelling dirty fraternity basement sooner then the rest of us did. Be excited.

Now, about getting into a fraternity house during those three weeks: Don’t do it. Well, you can if you really want to, but the brothers probably won’t appreciate it. If the Interfraternity Council catch freshmen in a frat house, the chapter can receive a variety of punishments, ranging from a scolding to the extreme of not being able to hold recruitment. Do you really want to be “that kid” who prevented Lodge from having a pledge class in the winter? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Sorority houses are dry, so no parties there. But freshman girls aren’t permitted to enter them until recruitment preview in November, so don’t get try to sneak your way into them and curry favor with the older girls in your dream sorority. As for freshmen boys, well, congratulations are in order if you make it to a sorority bedroom in the first few weeks of school.

Photo by chorazin on Flickr, licensed under the Creative Commons.

I was just wondering how students in general (particularly engineers) study for and take notes in their classes.

Just like in high school, everyone has their own way of taking notes. Most people will bring laptops to class if the professors allow it, if not for the quicker typing skills then because “Gchatting and Facebook stalking” looks very similar to “copious note-taking.” Classes that ban laptops tend to have less people showing up and staying awake, but probably more focus than laptop-heavy groups.

As far as studying is concerned, methods range from copying notes over and memorizing flash cards to getting drunk the night before the final and taking the exam with a terrible headache and a need to stop and vomit midway through. It’s really your call on this one.

If, however, you want to put that $50,000 tuition bill to use and get decent grades, a few ways to ensure you won’t completely fail out:

• Go to class. Half the battle is showing up. Simply being there and listening, even if you don’t take notes, will help you immensely.
• Read. Eventually. Even if you don’t do the reading before the lecture — and knowing when you can get away with that is a useful skill to have — crack those books you paid $50 for and at the very least, skim it. Can’t hurt, right?
• Talk to the professor if you have any questions. Talk to the TA if old men scare you. Talk to your fellow classmates if the idea of talking to your hot TA makes you stutter. Don’t be afraid to set up a study group.
• As for those of you crazy enough to be engineering students, McCormick sophomore Kirsten Swonger warns that “MATLAB is a state of mind, a thought process. You have to know how to change your thoughts, go in a logical order and make sure you’re not missing any links.” For your required design classes, “keep an open mind,” and don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you find yourself struggling, utilize the McCormick Tech Tutoring program.

North by Northwestern file photo.

But really, where’s the Keg? Where are all the parties during those first couple weeks?

You think we’re going to tell you where the parties at? No shot — then you’ll get there and drink the place dry before we get a chance to show you how it’s done.

In all seriousness, don’t worry about “finding the parties.” Wildcat Welcome is crazy amounts of fun. And if you really want to know where parties are, just scour Facebook for fundraiser parties or ask upperclassmen who live in your dorms. Or, go out and enjoy Evanston or Chicago while it’s still warm!

Oh, okay. The Keg is on the corner of Sherman and Grove. Google Map link here.

The recent ASG elections were truly a disappointment. After spending countless hours interviewing all of the executive officers and numerous senators about what ASG could improve upon for an article this past fall, I was excited for an election that would surely bring out the best that student leaders at Northwestern had to offer to lead an organization that seemed to be bordering on effective. I was pumped for a debate on the candidates and their abilities to bring about results. Instead, I saw mudslinging, unprofessional behavior and downright absurdity.

When I read that newly-elected Mo Safdari sent out an email to his friends that called presidential candidate Bill Pulte an “evil genius” and claimed Pulte had used illegal campaign methods, I was somewhat amused and only slightly appalled. Then when Safdari proceeded to blame his unprofessional emailing on his own exhaustion, I could only say one thing: really?

But then it was reported that the election commission was blaming Mike McGee’s campaign for the fault, claiming Safdari had been a representative of said campaign. The election commission then posted a letter for students to read before voting that explained the ways in which Safdari had been incorrect.

While this was the appropriate way to handle the email, and I must give props where props are due to the election commission, the original email should not have existed in the first place, and is a symptom of a larger problem of this election cycle. In an attempt to win, the candidates resorted to the lowest of lows — character defamation.

As I talked with friends about the election, I heard rumors of bribery, racism, manipulation and general “douchebaggery” with regards to all of the candidates, especially during the 48 hours before the runoff between Pulte and McGee. But then, how else would we have differentiated between the two? Their platforms were almost identical.

And you know what? The issues the candidates discussed should be the same. Unlike in national presidential elections where there is a true difference of opinion, as a whole this student body agrees on what we want from the administration. We want more campus-wide concerts and events. We want shuttles to make our dorm-to-class commutes easier. We want a reasonable alcohol policy and meal plans that don’t scam us out of cash. ASG claims to represent the wishes of the student body, so logically the candidates platforms should be similar — they should both be what the students want.

With no difference in platforms to discuss, we moved on to the question of character. In this regard, we probably should have been focusing on what we wanted in our ASG president: someone who can represent us to the administration while keeping a handle on the massive bureaucracy that is ASG. We should have been discussing which candidate can best keep things moving and get the best results, who can push our initiatives forward and make sure that every student group gets the amount of funding it needs. We should have been asking which candidate can set realistic goals and achieve them. Instead we took the low road and argued about which one is less of an asshole, in a conversation that seemed to be led by the candidates themselves. This is the kind of crap that makes ASG seem ineffective to the student body and why no one can take the institution seriously, except those within it.

I charge the next group of ASG leaders, who will be working sleep-deprived and without credit for a common goal: don’t let your campaign methods dictate your leadership. Because after a hellish campaign, we deserve better than that. Really.

An ASG-sponsored administrator forum on Thursday night allowed the approximately 40 students in attendance a unique chance to speak candidly with President Harry Bienen, Vice President of Student Affairs William Banis and Vice President of Finance Eugene Sunshine on a variety of topics.

The forum began with a question from Katie Funkhouser, Weinberg senior, about the hearing and appeals process regarding sexual assault. Throughout the night, Funkhouser and Jenn Rugolo, Music senior, kept coming back to this topic.

While both felt the administrators did not completely answer their questions, Funkhouser was “very grateful for the opportunity to ask them.”

Other questions concerned minority enrollment and the environment of diversity on campus. Bienen replied: “Our commitment is good. Our results aren’t as solid.” He believes we’ll see the results of the recently implemented No-Loan Pledge with the incoming class.

Conversation also stirred around the topic of town-gown relations. Bienen argued that “Evanston wants unencumbered money” but that “it’s never going to happen.”

“The notion that we don’t pay enough is strange to me,” Bienen said.

Sunshine went on to explain how Northwestern was one of the few campuses to pay an athletic tax that yields close to $700,000 for the city of Evanston. Furthermore, the town makes anywhere from six to seven million dollars annually off of real estate taxes on land that Northwestern has sold to Evanston in years past.

Michael Lobel, Weinberg sophomore, asked the status of medical amnesty and the administrative focus on alcohol safety. Banis explained that the university is looking into medical amnesty but there are legal complications to consider.

Other topics discussed included Northwestern sports, connecting with other students in Chicagoland and the funding of the Qatar campus.

The forum ended on a nostalgic note, with each administrator choosing one word to describe Northwestern. Sunshine went with “challenging,” Banis argued for “excellence” and Bienen joked that he was going to say excellence, but that had been taken so he would say “great but complicated.”

Maggie Jim, SESP junior, organized the event for ASG and considered the forum a success.

“I thought it was really good the way students were a lot more active and passionate about the issues they wanted to address,” Jim said.

Funkhouser agreed: “I think ASG did a fantastic job and I respect them and grateful for the opportunity.”

First, YouTube showed off their new upside-down layout, complete with instructions for viewing.

Screenshot of YouTube by author

Woot, an online store that sells random stuff for cheap, had an awesome offer today: random crap. Only $3.00, plus $1,000,000.00 for shipping.

Screenshot of Woot.com by author

Qualcomm Innovation, a wireless networking company, showed off their newest networking technology, including the Wolfpigeon, expanding networks…

Screenshot of Qualcomm.com by author

…the Sharkfalcon, which uses “ruthless flying killing machines” to prevent Wolfpigeon insurrections…

Screenshot of Qualcomm.com by author

…and of course, the Crocodeagle, to keep the sharkfalcon population low.

Screenshot of Qualcomm.com by author

For some fun text-filled pranks take a look at the Guardian in the United Kingdom explained that after “188 years of ink” they’ll be switching to publishing exclusively via Twitter. How trendy of them.

And don’t forget Google, those tricksters, who introduced us to “CADIE: the Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity.” No, I’m not sure what that means either.

Finally, your very own North By Northwestern showed off our newest sister-site, geared towards our favorite demographic: the Vikings. Bursting at the seams with puns, pillaging, and Nordic heavy Viking metal rock (Sweet Home Scandinavia is my jam!), Norse By Norsewestern truly made my morning.

Screenshot of Norse By Norsewestern by author

We sometimes forget that those in charge of us are just like us. Once they get into office, the fact that they have trials and tribulations of their own fades into the background. We never remember that in a democracy, the people about whom we bitch and moan are the people whom we chose to lead us.

Helen Thomas, the longest-serving member of the White House Press Corps, spoke on Thursday night in the McCormick Tribune Center at the invitation of the College Democrats. She reflected on our presidents: the men who have held the highest position in the land, elected by tens of millions of people, culled from the best of the brightest (hopefully) and chosen for a multitude of qualities. These men have risen to the top of the heap and have proven to the country that they can be responsible for us all.

And then they let us down. Thomas spoke nostalgically of John F. Kennedy, a man with far-fetched goals but the power to inspire a nation to believe in them. She turned her scorn on Richard Nixon, who broke the country’s spirit after the Watergate scandal, and his successor, Gerald Ford, who claimed to end the “long national nightmare” but according to Thomas, simply perpetuated it by pardoning Nixon. Thomas weaved tales of these presidents and their mistakes, to the delight of the aspiring journalists and political junkies who seemed to be carried away by her anecdotes. It was like hearing your grandmother reminisce, in a docile tone, about her childhood, as if those were the better days.

Thomas broke my heart and then put it back together. As I listened to her wistful tones, I myself felt nostalgic for a time I had never experienced. She talked of a country that was hopeful, a “golden era” as she called it. As she stood, slightly hunched behind the podium, she asked us, “Who are we? What have we become?” I was taken aback. She’s right — what has happened to us? How did we get here?

And it made me think: Our country is a lost adolescent. The United States is that awkward, rebellious teenager, who gets drunk one night and ends up with a tattoo the next day in a language that he doesn’t speak. As a nation, we’re simply making it through each day, hoping that the mistakes we make don’t permanently scar us.

Some of us know where we’re going in life (damn you, HPME students). The rest of us, well, it’s up in the air. We’ve experimented with English classes and tried engineering, only to declare a major in art history. We’re unsure if it matters, since we’re going to grad school anyway. If we could have our way, we’d major in having a job after graduation, with a minor in not hating every moment of said career. The specifics are incomplete, and the path to recovery is unclear.

Thomas’s speech made me think that our country is jumping around in a similar way. We tried a Republican administration for a while, now we’re letting new people run the show. But what’s going to happen next is the scary unknown. This could be the worst depression since the Great one, or we could be okay in a few years’ time. If we pull our troops from Iraq, we could be ushering in an era of peace, or we could be making a huge mistake and leaving a country in ruin.

Thomas reminded us of this uncertainty as she talked of the mistakes our presidents have made: the wars, the deaths, the domestic policies gone awry and the simple human errors. Every decision our president makes has the potential to bring the end of the world, as Thomas explained, or could redeem past mistakes to be the beginning of something amazing. She comforted us by saying that “Obama’s on the right track” with his economic policies.

We think it’s our prerogative to criticize the government; after all, we elected them. But we should also be aware of whom we’re critiquing: a teenager, much like we are now, trying to figure out what the next step is. Thomas, like anyone’s grandma might do, reminded us that while the golden days might have been better, the future is anyone’s game.

According to Zambrano, NBO wants student leaders to consider the benefits to customers when planning ticket sales for their groups’ events.

“The online box office provides an additional opportunity [to purchase tickets] without having to come to Norris, especially without having to wait in long lines for popular events,” he said.

The discounts offered to student groups include $15 off the event setup fee for the first ticketed event put up for online sales. Student groups will receive $10 off the credit card setup fee for the first event put up for online sales where the box office prints the tickets.

The box office will take $5 off the event setup fee for subsequent events occurring before May 15. Finally, there will be no event setup fees of a $15 value for online fundraising drives with specific end dates, not lasting more than a quarter.

Zambrano suggested that student groups consider various criteria when deciding whether or not to sell tickets online, including convenience to customers, intended audience, customer feedback and additional costs.

The project of an online box office began two and a half years ago, under the guidance of Richard Thomas, Director of Norris Center, and Dr. William Banis, Vice President of Student Affairs. Demetri Martin’s Feb. 26 performance is the first event to utilize online Norris ticket sales.

Student groups looking for more information can e-mail the Norris Box Office.

Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight.com, a premiere public opinion polling analysis Web site, came to Professor Victoria DeFrancesco Soto’s “Latinos and U.S. Elections” class on Monday to discuss his expertise: politics and polls.

A University of Chicago graduate, Silver works as a writer and analyst for Baseball Prospectus as well as for his own Web site. His accurate forecasts for the 2008 presidential election garnered attention, and Silver subsequently appeared on cable news networks and shows such as The Colbert Report to analyze and discuss poll results.

Silver spoke with North by Northwestern about his job, baseball, and whether Obama would be a good infielder or outfielder.

So how do you feel about your immediate post-election fame?

I have a book I’m supposed to be working on that I haven’t really started on yet, but I have a contract so I’m going to have to get working on it soon. I’ve been surprised at how much attention on this has kept up after the election. While we’re certainly not getting as much traffic as we were before November 4, we’re still getting 100,000 plus visitors a day and people are paying attention. It’s been gratifying. I feel really lucky.

You started out working on baseball. How did you make the jump from baseball to politics?

I just started writing about it. That’s one thing about the Internet age: It’s very much a meritocracy. I started out writing under an assumed name and people liked it. They started listening. I would post diaries on Daily Kos, which is basically a big community-oriented site, and people would recommend certain diaries that are especially good[…].

People are too hung up, I think, on qualifications. You don’t have to have, frankly, a political science degree to talk about politics; you don’t have to be a pundit. You just have to look at the world intelligently and fairly and work hard and be creative about it.

Do you think there’s a relationship between your love of politics and your affection for baseball?

They have the same dynamics in certain ways. A political campaign is a very long event and the baseball season, especially compared with other sports, it’s a long year[…]. People need to look at the long run when evaluating a baseball team. If the Cubs have a bad couple of games, it doesn’t mean they’re a bad team necessarily.

Likewise, a candidate can have a bad day, have a couple bad polls that come out. We’re trying to maintain perspective, look at the long haul. Democrats, especially after 2000 and 2004, became very paranoid about any kind of polling numbers or anything[…]. We try to keep people calm as much as anything else. That’s kind of a baseball fan’s perspective, I think.

One of your bloggers, Sean Quinn, just became a blogger in the White House Press Corps. What kind of effect do you think your site has had on the blogosphere and the world of politics?

Obama has been very good about reaching out to the blogosphere. I think they understand that this is what got him elected[…].The line between opinion and reporting in the blogosphere is a little blurry, but it’s also become a lot blurrier in newsrooms. At least blogs are more honest about it in certain ways. This is the direction that I think we’re headed.

There’s no lack of demand for news, but the kind of buttoned-down traditional newspaper style is not the way that gets people most involved, especially not people under the age of 40. I think they like something that has a point of view, that isn’t scrupulously neutral. Deep down you know who the writer is going to vote for, you see people on CNN or MSNBC and you know who they’re going to vote for. There’s a pretense that you don’t, but it changes the way you read it. I say on the site, I’m an Obama voter, so hopefully people can judge our arguments on their own merit hopefully.

Is this what you saw yourself doing when you graduated from UChicago?

Not really– it’s been a long path. I started out with a very normal consulting job, economic consulting, which is really boring. So I quit that to go work for this baseball company and actually play poker. This was during 2004 when there was a poker bubble [and] you could almost call it. It was very easy: You could sit at your computer and press buttons or go to the casino, just drink beer and play one out of every ten hands, and make money.

Now, the game has gotten a lot tougher, people are less willing to lose money by trying to prove they’re good at poker when they’re not; but for a while, that was providing some income and then the baseball stuff. Then I had this other flash of inspiration about a year and a half ago, because of the campaign and some of the personalities involved and it took off organically from there.

How do you feel when you get things wrong, in general, with any polls? Does it dishearten you or inspire you to create better algorithms?

You have to know if you’re right or wrong for the right or wrong reasons. You can make right predictions for the wrong reasons. For example, if you had predicted at the beginning of the year that the Arizona Cardinals would be in the Superbowl, that would not make you a genius, that would make you an idiot. Even though it actually came to fruition, there was no rational reason to expect them to beat every other team in the NFC last year. You can sometimes make a good prediction and have it turn out wrong.

We’re trying to explain human behavior, whether it’s how people will vote in the Oscars or how they’ll vote in the election or how baseball players will perform. Human beings are not predictable to do much of anything with 100 percent reliability. Whenever that’s the case, you’re going to have factors you can’t account for. We try to be honest: “Here’s what the probability is, here’s the chance we’re going to be wrong,” but you hope over time you have a better average of getting more right then you miss.

If Barack Obama was on a baseball team, which team would he play for and what position would he play?

I think he’d be the Tampa Bay Rays–they came up out of nowhere to be in the World Series, but what position…hmm…

He’s a basketball player, so it’s a whole different vibe…

I see him as a centerfielder. He’s fairly tall and he’s kind of a graceful athlete, I think he’d make a good centerfielder. I can’t imagine him being an infielder. I think he’d be a little bit awkward and kind of gawky, they tend to be shorter. But yeah, probably centerfield, I would think.

“Today, my phone rang for the first time in four days. It was my mom. She dialed the wrong number. FML“

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past week or so, welcome to the newest internet obsession: fmylife.com. The idea of the site is simple. Every entry must begin with “Today…” and end with “FML”, an acronym for the oft-uttered phrase “fuck my life.” In the past week or so, traffic to the Web site has exploded in popularity on this campus. I’ve seen it as Facebook statuses (including my own), GChat away messages, on laptops in class and being read aloud in dorm hallways. The highlight of my week was when, browsing fmylife.com, I found a new submission that resembled a Facebook status I had seen the day before. Fmylife.com has clearly found an audience here at Northwestern, but why is it so appealing?

In times of hardship and anguish, perpetual midterms and economic distress, it seems appropriate that we have flocked to a Web site that shows us the one thing that could comfort us: the fact that other people’s lives suck more. This isn’t an unusual or even undefined part of our nature. The infamous puppet-musical Avenue Q has a song about it. It’s called “schadenfreude,” a term defined by philosopher and sociologist Thedor Adorno as “largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another which is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate.” Essentially, it’s the part of our psyche that makes us laugh when Scarlett takes a tumble. There are have been studies conducted about the concept and articles written about the subject. And of course, simply the popularity of videos of guys getting kicked in the crotch helps reinforce the validity of the idea.

Fmylife.com displays a long list of miserable mishaps. Screenshot from Fmylife.com.

Here at Northwestern, we seem to have formed an attachment to the site with complete enthusiasm. “Our generation likes latching on to sites like that,” Medill freshman Zahra Barnes said, “sites with no purpose but to make us laugh.” Barnes found the site comforting. “It’s nice to know that someone else is going through the same thing.” Bayle Ellis, Weinberg freshman, says the site makes her feel better when she’s having a bad day, since she can “see the ridiculous things that happen to other people.”

Readers can also vote on each FML (either “I agree, your life is f***ed” or “You deserved that one”) which adds an enticing JuicyCampus-esque level of interactivity. In addition, the site provides space to comment on the complaints, whether to provide empathetic support or simply a “LOL”, making every moment a discussion topic. Charles Hwang, McCormick freshman, finds the site completely addicting. He loves that “it’s basically open to anybody, which makes it one of the most up-to-date sites with fresh content practically ensured every 24 hours.” He adds that the site “allows for user feedback, regardless of how limited it is.”

So reading the site is fun, but why do we submit our own FMLs to it? It’s the same idea as PostSecret or having a Twitter, a Tumblr or GroupHug. We feel compelled to spill our guts to the world, to bitch and moan whether anonymously or with our names attached. Perhaps it’s part of the voyage of self-discovery that is the college experience. Maybe it’s playing into our inherent narcissistic tendencies as 18-23 year-olds. Or maybe we just need to get it out there to get over it, to process it and move on.

Whether we’re reading or submitting, fmylife.com has turned into a cheap version of therapy. It’s self-medicating through laughter and empathy, and the understanding that we’re not alone in our troubles and sorrows. In fact, our lives aren’t half as bad as they could be. That awkward hookup from Friday night won’t seem as bad when you compare it to this: “Today, I kissed the girl I love for the first time. Her reaction? She vomited. FML.”

I don’t care about the environment.

I know how that sounds — like I’m an uneducated selfish snot who takes the Earth for granted and who will probably soon feel the wrath of karma in the form of a tree falling on top of me. But I can’t help it. As much as I want to care about “going green,” the fact is that it is going to be tough to reverse all the damage that we have done to this planet. We can’t turn back time: We won’t be able to take back all the soot in the air, seal up the hole in the ozone layer or even come close to rebuilding the rainforests we’ve destroyed. In fact, 35 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions is largely beyond consumer control, so it’s out of our hands. Plus, environmentalists are seriously annoying.

In spite of my dislike of all things tree-hugging, I will admit that Green Cup is a valiant effort and I’m glad the university is supporting such an endeavor. The world is broken enough as is; there’s no need for us to go around messing it up even further. However, I question the efficacy of this competition; if we’re going to paint the town green for only six weeks, is it even worth the effort? Will six weeks of me turning off the lights in my hallway help me preserve the planet once I ditch Evanston for the real world? I know that my not showering for three days doesn’t help me form any particularly good (or hygienic) habits.

These minuscule changes are short-term solutions for a long-term problem. We can turn off the lights in the hallway all we want, but we’d be hypocritical if we didn’t take it a step further. There are so many other things that we as students do that absolutely devastate the environment, things that don’t fall under Green Cup’s scope. For example, some of us drive our cars across the country to have them on campus. What’s the point of that? The little changes that Green Cup inspires aren’t enough to carry with us post-graduation, let alone make a dent in our damaged Northwestern-bubble of a world.

But I do have a suggestion. Instead, let’s stretch this competition out. I know it takes a lot of planning to put on such an event, but if instead we turn Green Cup into Green Northwestern, we’ll make “going green” a conscious decision of both students and faculty. If the idea of living a green lifestyle is constantly present on campus, then we might actually do some good both for ourselves and for the real world once we get there.

How about all those course supplements or the hardback textbooks that can’t be recycled? Let’s do something about the seemingly millions of flyers we tape to the ground that end up in the trash or as playthings for squirrels. In fact, just using the revolving door at Norris will save more energy then using the doors to either side.

Let’s expand the Green Cup to beyond the dorms and dining halls and into the academic buildings where vending machines and projectors are left plugged in all hours of the day, sucking out “vampire power.” Push the environmentally friendly effort into Norris, where the bulletin boards are littered with flyers when a small distance away are giant televisions that could be just as effective for advertising without killing all those trees and wasting the energy it costs to print on paper. Get all the hippies together and lobby the administration to consider “Green Buses” to replace the current rickety shuttles.

You know it’s bad when a die-hard tree-hater like myself thinks the Green Cup isn’t enough. I appreciate SEED’s effort, but there is so much more we can do. The Green Cup has the potential to be the impetus for a campus-wide Green movement, one that could cultivate students who leave this school with, if not a passion for the environment, then at least with habits that don’t destroy it. We won’t be able to fix everything, but we don’t have to screw things up anymore then they already are. The Green Cup is just a six-week competition, but saving the world shouldn’t be.