Western Front - 2000 April 14

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FRIDAY, April 14,2000 The Western Front
Western Washington University Volume 112 Issue 5 Bellingham, Washington
Women reign on a rainy night
Daniel J. Peters/The Western Front
Marchers pour from the Performing Arts Center following a presentation sponsored by the Women's Center.
Take Back the Night, a 19-year annual tradition, draws more than 200 people
By Erin Crumpacker
. THE WESTERN FRONT
It was a rainy and wet
evening for women of Belling­ham
but that didn't stop them
from taking back the night.
Take Back the Night is an
annual event including a rally
and march protesting the ongo­ing
societal and physical vio­lence
against women.
The Women's Center spon­sored
this event. Rosalynn
Greene and Monica McCallum,
co-coordinators of the center,
spoke to the crowd at 6:30 last
night in the Performing Arts
Center and emphasized that if
women and men allow oppres­sion,
it becomes a natural part of
our society.
"We need to stop prioritizing
what we fight for in order to
eliminate oppression," Greene
said.
Greene added that the march
for women isn't just for physical
violence against women.
"This march is against any
violence against women" she
exclaimed
Robin Elwood, a Western stu­dent
and coordinator in the
Women's Center said Western
has participated in Take Back
the Night since 1981, 19 years.
"Take Back the Night was an
international outgrowth of the
'60s and 70s," Elwood said. "It
started in Germany in the early
'70s and spread to the United
States in the late 70s."
Prior to the march the excite­ment
was present in the PAC.
More than 200 students and
community members applauded
to humorous interludes from the
radical cheerleaders.
Greene, a cheerleader said the
cheers are a good way for them
to get the message across.
Katie'" McLane, a volunteer
and trainer at the Women Care
Shelter in Bellingham, dis­cussed
several personal stories
from the times she has experi­enced
at the center. She empha-
See RALLY, page 4
Photo Illustration by Jay Tarpinian/The Western Front
Voyeurism can become a problem on college campuses.
Reassessing campus safety
Restroom peeper at U.W., robbery, causes
UP to stress need for student responsibility
By Kacee Gradl
THE WESTERN FRONT
Creating a safe environment on
college campuses has always been
a great concern for students and
administrators, but recently it
has taken on special importance.
Two weeks ago, a 29-year-old
man was arrested at the
University of Washington after he
was caught videotaping men
using campus restrooms.
According to police reports, the
suspect had a stash of 38 explicit
videos of men at urinals dating
back as far as October 1999.
Due to this incident, as well as
the armed robbery that occurred
April 6 in Western's Higginson
residence hall, ways to keep col­lege
campuses safe are of grow-
See PEEPING, page 4
Center gets serious
about Earth Day 2000
By Gabriel Joseph
THE WESTERN FRONT
Western students for the past
11 years have usually celebrated
Earth Day with delicious food
and great music, part of
Western's festive Earth Day
Fair. Unlike years past, howev­er,
this year's Earth Day cele­bration
will take a more serious
tone.
This year the Associated
Students Environmental Center
plans to bring about two dozen
speakers to The North Cascades
Environmental Conference, a
free, day-long series of lectures
and panels with environmental
activists and urban developers.
The conference starts at 9
a.m. Saturday with 8 a.m. regis­tration
in Arntzen Hall 100.
While the music, food, and fun
was a great diversion to attract
attention to the earth, said A.S.
Environmental Center Co-
Coordinator Patrick Taylor, the
previous celebrations did not
seem to accomplish the
Environmen-tal Center's goals
of raising environmental aware­ness
and moving people to act on
them
"I enjoy being out in the sun­shine
and listening to good
music, eating Mallard's ice
cream," Taylor said, "but at the
same time we didn't seem to be
accomplishing our goals which
are raising environmental
awareness and prompting peo­ple
to action, which is the origi­nal
intent of Earth Day."
Ryan Orth, the other co-coor­dinator
for the Environmental
Center, said, "While there were
speakers there (in years past),
they were drowned out by the
music."
This year's environmental
conference is significantly
cheaper, Taylor said. The confer­ence
cost the A.S. about $2,000.
Most of the speakers are not
charging the Environmental
Center, except for the two
keynote speakers, Milenko
Matanovic, a community plan­ner,
and Cha-das-ska-dum
Which-ta-lum, a Lummi Nation
elder.
See CONFERENCE, page 4
Candidates
gear up for
A.S. elections
By Andrea Mclnnis
THE WESTERN FRONT
Western's Associated Stu­dents
Board of Directors elec­tion
will take place April 25 and
26 in Red Square.
Election coordinator Stephen
Shurtleff and current A.S.
board members hope to see an
improvement on last year's
approximately 15 percent voter
turnout.
"In my opinion, a good
turnout is about 17 percent, but
my goal is to get 30 percent,"
Shurtleff said.
He said his biggest challenge
as coordinator is to encourage
students to vote.
"Voters will get to see candi­dates'
different approaches this
year," Shurtleff said. "Some
candidates have on-campus
leadership experience from
Residence Hall Association to
bring to their positions, and
some have previous A. S. leader­ship
experience."
Vice President for Business
and Operations Michelle Yousey
said the candidates will start
visiting residence hall councils
next week.
"The A.S. positions carry one-year
terms, which begin during
spring finals week and run
until the following year's spring
finals week," Yousey said.
Amy Finkbonner, A.S. vice
president for activities, is the
only current board member
running in this election.
She will run against Drew
Eggebraten and Jake Barry.
"I'm starting to realize that
the people I've worked with and
who have supported me aren't
going to be here next year,"
See ELECTIONS, page 3
IN THIS ISSUE
Play ball
Western's men's baseball
looks to build on strong tra­dition
while struggling to
be in the public eye.
See story page 8.
It's sexual
T h e r i s q u e
classic "Les
L i a s o n s
D a n g e r -
euses" runs
t h r o u g h
Sunday.The
play was
directed by Western gradu­ate
student Jessica
McLaughlin
See story page 6.
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