lclark.us

Willamette Week super-sleuth Beth Slovic picked up on a hot news lead this week: our poster debacle from the beginning of the year (You remember… this [also this this this and this]).  The best part is reading the comments from people who think they have exciting and new perspectives on the whole thing.  Plus someone trying to troll-bait Lyell Asher.

As you’ll perhaps recall, the previous entry in Beth’s ongoing series of sensationalizing months-stale  tidbits of Lewis & Clark student politics is the reason this is a valid Google search.

P.S. Thanks Angela Webber (’10) for linking me to the Willamette Week’s coverage.

LC student and all-around awesome dude Jonah “I have a stage name now” Luke just released an EP. Here are some reasons to get it:

1. It is good.
2. It features a lot of LC students doing backup vocals and such.
3. It is cheap ($6).

GET IT!  GET IT!  GET IT!  GET IT!  GET IT!

Or at least listen to it and tell him how much you like it (only do this if you liked it).

So I diligently renewed the domain, but I forgot that WordPress.com like to gouge the consumer (and is actually ridiculously well-run and open, considering the main alternative).  Long story short, I forgot to renew the WordPress domain-mapping service.

WELL THAT’S FIXED NOW!

Also, happy 1 year-ish anniversary of lclark.us!

Also, welcome to our new president Barry Glassner.

Also, good luck to LCSSA, our school’s union.  It has been in contract negotiations with the school for… months (?) now and I don’t know how that’s shaping up, but here’s to an amicable solution for both parties (or the union).

Also, starting next week, smokers have to utilize the toxic hovels mandated from above designated smoking areas in low-traffic areas of campus instead of the convenient but right-on-the-campus-tour walkway between Howard and Watzek (Oh you know I kid.  Heartsies.).

Also, I GRADUATED IN MAY AND I’M STILL WRITING ABOUT MY UNDERGRAD COLLEGE.  WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!?!?!  Actually, I just got my post-college internship upgraded to a real job (in the field of my major!!), so I’m super psyched about that.

Still looking for students who are interested in keeping this pet project of mine going for the coming year.  I’ll probably still post occasionally if I hear about something LC-related that piques my interest, but I wouldn’t mind if someone else wanted to take over for the more day-to-day/week-to-week posting.  There’s only so much I can know/care about as an alum with new adventures taking up my time.

Currently, my plan for this website is to keep it maintained but to phase myself out as a content creator.  We’ll see how that works out.

Good luck with RA training, RA friends!  I hope you’re having a good time! (this is not sarcastic… RA training is awesome).

Good Night and Good Luck?

Some people here are famous.  Not because they actually cultivated any sort of fan following, or even really did anything to attain traditional celebrity… perhaps they don’t even know that they’re famous.  But they are.  Like running rolly-backpack man, for example.  I think he graduated 2 years ago, but I guarantee that during my sophomore year, pretty much everyone knew who running rolly-backpack man was.  He was the guy that was always running somewhere, with his rolly-backpack in tow.

Another great example of an LC celebrity is Tim with(out)-a-tail.  His campus-wide reputation for having a tail pinned to himself was so far beyond his own friend circle that I knew freshmen who’d never met Tim, and who started attending LC after Tim had stopped wearing his tail, who knew him as “Tim without a tail.”  They actually had no personal recollection of Tim *with* a tail, but he was still “Tim without a tail.”

There are plenty of others worthy of mention: smiling suit-guy (guess what he did), Jimmy (whose laugh is extremely unique.  He’s not “the dude with a weird laugh” because at any table in the Bon, at least one person knew his name was Jimmy, so when he’d start laughing at something, it was the unspoken job of the Jimmy-knower at the table to inform everyone else that it was Jimmy, and soon pretty much everyone at LC knew his name was Jimmy, even if they’d never seen his face), and the elusive ”KAZ,” whose name was etched into basically every blue fiberglass lunch tray at the Bon.

The purpose of this post is to thank these heroes for making our campus interesting.  Simply their existence creates an intangible unity that no amount of icebreakers or community-building can accomplish.

So, who is your favorite L&C celebrity?

Hey, did you know that in April 2010 (that’s last month, you guys), Princeton Review published a list of the 286 Greenest Colleges?

Oh, you didn’t? Well, here’s the reason I’m writing about this:  guess where Lewis & Clark ranked!

If you guessed anything between 287 and infinity, you may be correct!

We even lost to South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, which, aside from having a quaint and mockable name, is proud that it  received $30,ooo and an endorsement from Halliburton.

yeah that Halliburton.

So, why were we left out?  I don’t know, but I have brainstormed a few possibilities:

1. Perhaps we are actually not that “green.”
2. Perhaps we didn’t play nicely (intentionally or otherwise) with Princeton Review or whomever crunched the data on their behalf.  I know that the college doesn’t have time to bend backwards for every rando making a list… perhaps we just didn’t make available enough information to be included.
3. Perhaps PR dropped the ball/didn’t know the ball existed to begin with.

As for #1, I disagree.  Or, at least I think I do, and here’s why:

• We have a LEED certification requirement for all new projects, and have numerous examples of LEED-certified (and Silver, and Gold) buildings.
• We are longtime partners with Bon Appetit.  The Bon won’t even make you goddamn hashbrowns for breakfast if they can’t do it sustainably.  This is the company that actually stopped using bananas for awhile because of the carbon footprint.
• The strength of our Environmental Studies program/Environmental Affairs Symposium/community service recognition/remember this thing?
• Icing on the cake (possibly the entire cake as well): we have arguably the best Environmental Law school in the country.  No asterisks, no qualifiers.
• DID YOU NOT EVEN LOOK AT THE WEBSITE THEME?!

So, if it’s not number 1, maybe it’s number 2.  I hope not.  Princeton Review, like any other organization that culls student testimony, has its share of problems with veracity and reliability (the only people who are compelled to share opinions are people who either really hate the school or really love it), but it’s also a huge resource that every prospective student consults.  Even if we disagree with Princeton Review’s methods, it doesn’t mean we are above needing their help when it comes to advertising to new students.

I can’t speak to number 3 either… I don’t really know the ins and outs of public relations, or how one gets in cahoots with an organization like Princeton Review.  What I do know is that our website’s link about our own sustainability in comparison to that of other colleges returns a 404 error.

EDIT: The website functions correctly once again! Woo!

• In an extremely well-written letter to staff and faculty, President Jane Atkinson touched on the intricacies of the “poster thing” (my words not hers), defended her decision to overturn the Hate & Bias Related Incident violation and strike it from Adrian’s record (and to uphold the verdicts regarding Harassment and Disorderly Conduct), and explained that the Hate & Bias policy would be re-evaluated this Summer.

• Those three trees are definitely going bye-bye for the greater good.  Perhaps we can use some of their wood to erect a Monument to the Unknown Tree, which will stand as a reminder that every time we need to expand and modernize the janky parts of campus, the administration is ruthlessly biased against beings without central nervous systems.

So, good work with graduation everyone! I thought the event went really well. Both commencement speaker Mark Plotkin and Senior Brad Jonas gave hilarious, somewhat unconventional speeches. And then I graduated, so there’s that.  Awesome!

Remember: The cap and gown belong to you.  Your graduation gown is made from natural wood sourced exclusively from renewable, managed forests. The fabric is proven to completely decompose in soil within less than a year.  The Eco-Zip coil zipper tab and teeth are made from 100% recycled PET.  Jostens will donate $1 for each Lewis & Clark gown to an environmental sustainability project. Please do not return your cap/gown.

EDIT: There’s a meeting today in Howard 102  at 5pm for interested parties to hear Carl Vance speak about this topic, followed by a Q&A.

Following the Free Speech forum that took place last Friday (and was pretty cool), I’ve noticed an increase in vocal student support for saving three hella-old Douglas Fir Trees on our campus.  Today,  I was invited to this Facebook page.  From the page:

There are three beautiful, old Douglas firs that have lived near the chapel for years. However, their time is running out. The administration has decided to cut down these old-growth trees to make way for the expansion of the chapel. We are not against the idea of adding a new space for shows and receptions, in fact, we adamantly support the idea of adding new venues to this campus. However, it is unnecessary to cut down these trees to allow space for the expansion- for instance, there is a large patch of grass near the chapel that could be used. The administration has said that they would use the wood from the Douglas firs in the new building and would also plant more trees, but to us, this seems besides the point. It does not make up for the fact that they are cutting down very old trees. The ends don’t necessarily justify the means.

Lewis and Clark prides itself in being an environmentally friendly school- we invested a huge amount of money in the construction of a green building (Howard), conserved water this summer by not watering the grass, one of our most demanded and respected majors is Environmental studies, and we are nationally recognized for our Environmental Law school.

When prospective students go to Lewis and Clark’s website, they will come across the following:

“Lewis & Clark College is located in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.—possibly one of the most environmentally rich corners of the Earth. Without leaving campus, you can explore forested trails for moments of quiet contemplation. The Pacific Northwest abounds in natural wonders, from rugged ocean coastline to high desert and from mountain peaks to Hells Canyon. In the midst of so much beauty so worthy of protection, it’s not surprising that our law school is currently ranked first in the nation in environmental and natural resources law.”

…in the midst of so much beauty so worthy of PROTECTION…

Yet, the administration has decided to cut down three old Douglas fir trees. This is ethically corrosive to the integrity of this institution. This is a call to arms- raise your voice- join us and question the administration. We firmly believe that there must be another option that doesn’t involve the killing of these trees. Help us start the discussion.

Please send an email to the following:

Dean of the College, Julio C. de Paula: casdean@lclark.edu
Associate Dean of the College, Jane Hunter: hunter@lclark.edu
Facilities Manager, Larry Atchison: atchison@lclark.edu
Dean of the Chapel, Mark Duntley: duntley@lclark.edu

Personally, I don’t know enough of the details to have a well-informed opinion on the matter, but I thought I’d pass the info and link along to anyone who might be interested.