Student Life

Students Star in Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues

By Broadside Staff Writer Kristen White

With monologues such as “Because He Liked to Look At It,” “My Angry Vagina,” and “The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could,” The Vagina Monologues can’t be overlooked this year.

To mark the movement known as V-day, Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues will be performed on Feb. 6 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 7 at 2 and 8 p.m in Harris Theatre.

Mason Professor Finalist for Integrity Award

Story by Broadside Correspondent Brittany Rouse

Every year, the National Society of Collegiate Scholars presents an Inspire Integrity Award to one of the professors nominated for their integrity by honor society students. George Mason University’s own Benedict Carton, associate professor of the Department of History and Art History, has been honored as one of 15 nationwide finalists.

Students Change Spending Habits

Students at George Mason University are changing their altering their lifestyles in an effort to save money in these hard economic times. Many are opting to change their spending habits by cutting back on unnecessary purchases.

Kathleen Moburg, a senior English major, decided that “there is no more shopping.”

Students Present Speeches Celebrating Life of King

Story by Broadside Staff Writer Adam Sylvain. Photo by Peter Flint.

The first annual MLK Oratorical Contest celebrated the life and accomplishments of King and his impact on the nation.

The contest took place Tuesday, Jan. 27, in the Johnson Center Cinema and was hosted by the MLK Day Celebration Committee and the Office of Diversity Programs and Services. A cash reward was offered to the top three finalists. Several distinguished faculty members were on hand to assist in judging the competition.

Go Bus, 24-Hour Library Are Massive Waste

By Broadside Opinion Contributor Sarah Fort

With the spring semester underway, I was eager to see the most recent copy of Broadside on the racks. Initially, I saw nothing that surprised me as I glanced through the pages: freshmen caught drinking in Presidents Park, advertisements for people wanting to adopt babies, sports statistics, the usual. Yearning for a little more excitement, I searched through the articles I don’t normally find interesting. What I found there actually did surprise me.

What is a “Go-Bus”? I mean, I read the article, but the concept is still somehow baffling. I read further, in horror, at the newest waste of money George Mason University—or the Student Government, I don’t know which—has decided to foist on the student body.

Sports Stars and Orators: A Week in Photos

Though we're only a week and a half into the Spring semester, the campus is already bustling as usual with student activity. The pain of the first week of classes is out of the way and now everyone's busy cheering on Mason's basketball team and getting excited for homecoming.

Broadside's photographers are back in action as well, and they caught some of the best moments of last week, including a track and field competition, the Martin Luther King Jr. Oratorical Contest, the band Skinny's performance at EFF.

Auto-Tune Lectures: Vocoding Helps Higher Education

By Broadside Opinion Editor Eamonn Rockwell

Lecture classes are almost always boring. Science has proven this to be fact throughout the ages, ever since Socrates famously fell asleep during one of his professor’s lectures and had to think up an entirely new method of philosophical questioning during the exam. Various methods have been attempted to counteract the mind-numbing dullness of lectures, such as using PowerPoint presentations. Such methods still do not overcome having a professor who is barely audible, making it easier for students to drift off into dreamland. As a result, most college students can’t remember dick even when sober.

LETTER: Contribute to Mason’s Climate Commitment

By Dann Sklarew, Associate Director, Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center and Associate Professor, Environmental Science and Policy

The paradox of sustainability at George Mason University is a microcosm of what's occurring worldwide: Over 25 years since I first came to the Fairfax campus, the Northern Virginia population explosion has consumed fields and forests while the information-service revolution transformed our region from one absorbed by 1980s material consumption into one perpetually hungry for more energy. On campus, I've witnessed a small colony of buildings in the woods emerge into a veritable city, its vitality fueled by more and more people, buildings, parking spots and dining options. In the early nineties, ex-hippie faculty drove to campus to teach Reagan youth part-timers about IT in Mason’s first "smart classroom." Today, ubiquitous WiFi, electronic classrooms and plugs (lots and lots of plugs) make 24-7 access to information, and by extension, electric power, seem like a universal human right. Even as we consume ever greater natural resources and power, Internet at our fingertips has expanded our consciousness of the adverse effects of our voracious lifestyles.

Broadside's Opinion Editor Mixes Things Up

By Broadside Opinion Editor Eamonn Rockwell

In the world of low-to-mid-quality college journalism, there are usually two types of editors depending on what kind of school you go to. Type A believes our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says Support The Troops blah blah blah 9/11 and you’re all wrong for supporting gays or women or Muslims and you’ll burn in hell, you heathenous feminazis. Type B was very lonely in high school, weighs a few hundred pounds and wants us to live in peace and harmony unless you don’t believe that transgender-on-vegetable sex education should be taught to kindergartners and supported with billions of tax dollars that are being wasted on defense spending/Israel/blah blah blah corporations.

Musings of Student #G00-------------

The Associate Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs will not talk to students. It sounds ironic, I know, but try it. Go to his office. You won’t be given a sit down appointment time, you won’t be asked to come back later, you will be directed to a form, identified by a G-prefixed serial number which will pass through several bureaucratic processes, and may or may not reach the person who represents our effective voice to the university.