Western Front - 2004 January 23

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ONCE, AT THE PALE SHOW...
Local band The Pale returns
to play Bellingham.
Accent, Page 8
HYBRID IS BETTER
Gas-electric can help to produce
pollution at an economical cost.
Opinions, Page 13
701 WINS AND COUNTING
Western women's basketball
dominated Alaska Fairbanks.
Sports, Page 11
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
ISSUE 4
VOLUME 128
FRIDAY
JAN. 23,2004
Minority students have Increased
at Western in the past five
Editor's note: This is the first in a six-part
series examining, race at Western.
By Bryan Sharick
The Western Front
During the past five'years, the number of
minority students at Western has increased
by approximately 0.8 percent. The
University of Washington, however,
remains Western's primary competition for
enrollment of minorities, Western Director
of Admissions Karen Copetas said.
Of all the students who completed and
responded to Western's non-enrollee sur­vey,
approximately 80 percent said they
were attending the UW, Gopetas said. All
students who decide not to attend Western
receive a non-enrollee survey, she said.
In fall 2003, Western had 12,680 students.
Minorities made up approximately 14 per­cent,
or 1,791, of the population, while
Caucasians accounted for approximately 79
percent, or 10,088 students, according to the
Western registrar's peak-enrollment report.
The report includes blacks, American
Indians, Hispanic Americans, Asian
Americans and Caucasians.
The 801 students chose not to check eth­nicity
on the enrollment application,
marked "some other ethnicity" or are inter­national
students, Copetas said.
"The increase in numbers (for minorities) is
good," Copetas said. "Retention of all stu­dents,
including students, of color, is up."
Reasons students chose not to attend
Western included location, cost, academic
programs and the choice to live at home,
she said.
Three goals that Western's Strategic
Action Plan, which the university imple-
Ben Arnold/ The Western Front
Michael Vendiola center, coordinator for the Ethnic Student Center, talks with
Western junior and ETC employee Janet Rellama, left, and Western junior Saveun
Svann.
mented in the early 1990s, are quality,
diversity and community.
To achieve these goals, Western attempts
to recruit high-achieving students of color
as well as successful students in the sci­ences
and business, Copetas said.
"In the early '90s, only the catalogue was
used as a recruitment tool," Copetas said.
"The entire college admissiohs world has a
much more marketing or recruitment
approach to admissions."
Jesse Moore, Western senior and the
Associated Students vice president for
diversity, said quality, diversity and com­munity
should be intertwined.
"The increase in numbers loses value
SEE Race, PAGE 5
Infographic by Justin McCaughan
This graph shows the breakdown of
Western enrollment by race for; the fall
quarters of 1998 and 2003.
Western takes
action against
closely named
anti-abortion
Internet site
By Caitlin Unsell
The Western Front
While scanning admission
requirements and college grad­uate
programs for her 16-year-old
son, Olympia resident Leslie
Donovan Shore, 44, typed
www.westernwashingtonuni-versity.
com into her computer
and came upon nothing related
to higher education.
"What popped up immedi­ately,
I mean, in the flash of an
instant, was a head of a dead
fetus," Shore said.
After Shore and others com­plained
to Western, Wendy
Bohlke, assistant attorney general
,«»l^^2iSS<;9n state, issued a let­ter^
o£ demand? oh: Dec^ 12jvto
www.aborrionismurder.org, the
site responsible for the images.
The letter gave the organiza­tion
the option of relinquishing
the domain name without any
further legal action, Bohlke said.
Bohlke said she was hesitant
to take immediate action
because the anti-abortion organ­ization
craves attention — good
or bad —- to further its agenda.
Thomas P.A. Fitch, founder of
www.abortionismurder.org,
said another party had linked
Western to his Web site and his
site had nothing to do with it.
"We have been sued 30 times
in the last year, and it never
even goes to court," Fitch said.
Fitch said his site is linked to
400 to 500 Web sites, including
banks, police departments and
universities.
SEE Site, PAGE 6
Popularity of organic food fuels local demand
Katie Scaief/The Western Front
Community Food Co-op workers Habiba Sial, left,
and Holly Johnston stock produce.
By Katie Scaief
The Western Front
One day while in college, when
Bellingham resident Kevin Murphy
was picking apples in Eastern
Washington for a seasonal job, crop
dusters sprayed the fields the workers
were picking.
"Everyone walked off the job,"
Murphy said. "We went home for the
:day — we just knew it wasn't good."
I* That experience with pesticides
galvanized his trust in organic food.
Murphy is one of many people in
the United States who are striving for
healthier produce. Organic product
sales in the country have grown by 20
percent or more each year since 1990,
according to the USD A Economic
Research Service. The service also esti­mated
mat sales of organic foods were
at nearly $8 million in the early 2000s.
Murphy said certain conventional
farming practices, such as the use of
most pesticides, can degrade the envi­ronment.
He said organic farming can
function as a solution because it uses
less detrimental farming methods.
Murphy now works as the educa­tion
outreach facilitator for the
Community Food Co-op in
Bellingham, which he has been
involved with for 15 years. He has
served a number of positions at the
Co-op, but has spent a majority of his
time in the produce department.
"Here, (organic food is) what we're
about," Murphy said. "It's why peo­ple
shop here. It's in our mission
statement."
Organic food cannot come from
animals that consume antibiotics or
growth hormones, said Joan Shaffer,
a U.S. Department of Agriculture
agricultural marketing specialist. It
cannot come in contact with conven­tional
pesticides, synthetic fertilizers
or sewage, and it cannot be produced
using bioengineering or ionizing
radiation, she said.
"People don't want to know that
they are doing something bad or eat­ing
fruit that is bad," Murphy said.
While the market for organic food
is growing, many people do not fully
understand its benefits, Murphy said.
People grow organic food to
attempt to maintain the balance
among ecological systems, according
to the National Organic Standards
SEE Organic, PAGE 6