Western Front - 2009 April 17

              LATIN STUDENT UNION
HOSTS FOURTH ANNUAL
HERITAGE DINNER
PAGE8
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HELP CHILDREN
WITH DISABILITES
PAGE 15
Friday, April 17,2009
AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SINCE 1970 I W E S T E R N F R 0 N T 0 N L I N E . N E T
campus
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Washington state Sen. Patty Murray poses Thursday With Western graduateSpencer Covidis arid Western senibre Thomas Evans, Simon
Trigg and Jordan Maughari, who presented the findings of their Financial Literacy Project survey, v ;-
Murray pushes for financial literacy in the sehodlisystems
Nithplas Johnson
. T H E WESTERN FRONT-
"You know the old saying, 'It takes a
village to raise a child'?" said Pam Whal-ley,
director of Western's Center for Eco­nomic
Education. "Well, it takes a com­munity
to teach financial literacy."
* Washington Sen. Patty Murray spoke
to a small group of Western students, fac­ulty,
administrators and community mem­bers
Thursday about the need for financial
literacy education at all levels of the state's
educational system.
While highlighting her newly intro-
" "duced Financial and Economic Literacy
Act, Murray said personal financial liter­acy
is currently an underfunded discipline
vital to our state's future economy.
"The challenge wilLbe in setting our
priorities to help improve our state's bud­get
problems," Murray said. "One thing
we can do is provide incentives to local
institutions."
Murray's proposed act, which is co-authored
by Sen. Thad Cochran'-, R-Miss.,
and D:S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y,
aims to provide states-with $250 million
in annual grants to teach financial literacy
to gradesK-12 and college students. .....
Following Murray's speech, four of
Western professor Sandra Mottner's non­profit
and social marketing students out­lined
the results of a recently conducted
survey that proves Western has little
knowledge of personal finance.
Beginning summer quarter^ Western's
College.of Business and Economics will
begin offering a .three-credit personal fi­nance
course.
The course has no prerequisites, and
by fall quarter the college hopes to in­crease"
the. credit level, to four and make .
the course a General University Require­ment,
Mottner said.
University
introduces
new housing
registration
Anne Maertens
THE WESTERN FRONT -w
Despite having to deal with delays
Tuesday, 950 students were able to re­new
their on-campus housing an hour
after the new online registration opened
at noon. After three server crashes April
3, Tuesday's virtual line was University
Residences second attempt at scheduling
student's housing renewals.
' Western's University Residences'
technology team spent last week working
on a system that would allow 14 users on
the site at a time, preventing another crash,
said Firass Asad, one,of the Web database
developers who worked on the project:
: "Testing the system was stressful to
a point, because you can anticipate that
there are a lot of people coming," Asad
said. "But we didn't anticipate students
giving their parents their login credentials
to try to get a place for them as well, which-means
some students had three people try­ing
to log in for them at one time."
The new process was a first-come,
first-served basis, with a cap of 1,100
students, said Resident Hall Association*
President Meredith Robinson, who serves
on the Residence Advisory Committee.
University Residences, with sugges­tions
from the student-based Residence
Advisory Committee, decided to limit
renewal housing to 1,100 students for fall
2009 to help on-campus residents save
money, University Residences Director
Willy Hart said.
For fall 2008, the cost to house an
see HOUSING page 7
Dining services holds forum to get student input
Jeremy Schwartz
THE WESTERN FRONT
Dining Services held a forum that
allowed students to voice their concerns
about ingredients used in the food served
in the dining halls 7 p.m. Thursday in
Haggard Hall room 253. The discussion
between panel members and the few stu­dents
in attendance mainly dealt with two
issues: how Dining Services 'can provide
healthier food options and how to .'best-educate
students onihgredieht.use.
The decision to. organize the forum
stemmed mainly, from the student re­sponse
to the March. 13:"-Western Front
article, which addressed student concerns
over use of the hydrogenated soybean
oil and butter alternative called Phase in
the Ridgeway dining hall, said Lisa Phil-brook,
director of business development
for University Dining Services.
A discussion between Ira Simon, di­rector
of University Dining Services, and
Willy Hart, director of University Resi­dences,
developed the idea of the forum
as a way to start a dialogue with students
about making information concerning in­gredients
more available, she said.
"Sodexo's approach is not to have,
secrets from our customers," Philbrook
said. 'v,;.
The main goal of the forum was
to gather student input on how Dining
Services, which contracts with Sodexo for
its food supplies, can be more transparent
about the way food is prepared and served,
she said.-
The seven-member panel con­sisted
of Simon, university dietitian Jill
Kelly, English professor Nancy Johnson
and four students, all who serve on the
Campus Dining Committee. Philbrook
served as the moderator between the panel
members and the students in the audi
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see DINING page 4
These signs were placed around the dining
halls in ,order to inform students whether
their food contained Phase or not. :; i