5 9 C M Y K

* THE fashionably late GREEN ISSUE *

For College Students, By College Students with

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WITH
YOUR
ROOMIE
33
AND MORE
WAYS YOU CAN
SAVE THE PLANET
+PLUS
JASON SCHWARTZMAN
The Coppola Connection
STUDIES THAT SIZZLE Fall 2007

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fall_2007 current

green fever
Back to School:
Green for a Week. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 departments
Current asks one ordinary student to take on a Sports:
lifestyle that would make Al Gore proud. “Inconve- A League of Their Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
nient” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Are big-spending schools making a financial foul
Eat Your Words (And Veggies) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 by blowing money on the court when they should
How to shop green without breaking bank. be funding the classroom?
Making an Eco-Abode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
From silk and hemp undies to stapleless staplers, features: next_step Health:
Killing Ourselves Softly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
everything you need for a greener school year.
We’re all going to die. Does anyone care?
Divining Their Futures 32
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .
Cover Story: Running on Empty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Most of us can’t even decide what to wear each day,
Easy Being Green 22
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .
When working out gets out of control.
let alone what we’re called to do with our lives. But
Kermit was wrong—well, partially. It may take
these faithful few are ready to do God’s work. Relationships:
a lot of hard work and ingenuity, but these six
campuses are proving that college students can Let’s Talk About Sext, Baby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
Fast Money ................................................. ......... 36
save the world, one group shower at a time. Text messages change the rules of romance. A
I-banking lures a host of liberal arts grads with
vibrator that talks back.
Plus: promises of big bucks and a lavish lifestyle in ex-
Campus Green-o-Meter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 change for long days and longer nights. Will you be YourTurn:
What 16 tree-hugging campuses are doing right... seduced, too? Returning to Tech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
and wrong. One student reflects on the school year ahead.
Cooking by the Books .............................. 38
clipfile Blending an undergrad education with a dash of interview
current’s news and tips for campus life. daring, a new breed of Top Chef hopefuls bring the Last Word:
Therapy Pets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 classroom to the kitchen. Arnold Schwarzenegger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Blind science, footbaths, fundraising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Kindergarten Cop has graduated to tackling
Freshmen, theses and bad speeches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 backspin global challenges, using his famous face (and bod)
Pogs, underage drinking and cellies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Student Body. . . . . . . 43 Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 along with his political clout to take on the
Rutgers b-ball and bad applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Not quite hippie, not Keep an eye out for biggest issues of tomorrow.
Second Life and summer jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 quite hipster. We dare these young virtuosos.
you to define Alex. Spinto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Fashion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Six guys, three guitars,
On the Cover:
Christina Bell, Shannon Holste and Word art tees. one state: Delaware.
Emily Richardson, environmental Film. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Playlists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
activists at Washington College. Ugh, not another 3rd. Like Party Shuffle, but
Photographed by Jim Graham. Schwartzman . . . . . . 46 made by humans.
His wild ride.

This page: Photo by Mirando Popkey; Illustration by Phillip Fivel Nesson; Photo by Ari Gunnarson fall 2007 | current 1

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5

editors_note

Bright Green Ideas

...because we know you haven’t actually changed your lightbulbs yet...
You might think that, in the fall of 2007, those feels like a perfect fit, catch up
we’re coming a bit late to the green game. Just with some of your more adventurous
about every magazine on the planet has shared peers’ summer internships on Clipfile’s
its two cents about saving the planet, and it’s global summer jobs map.
fair to wonder what remains to be said. As it Looking forward this fall holds a
turns out, putting off the green issue couldn’t whole new meaning for the students
have worked out more perfectly—because the of Virginia Tech, site of the tragic April
story just keeps getting better and better. shootings that resulted in 33 student
On campuses around the country, initia- deaths. Tech’s Robert Bowman takes us
tives that kicked off two or three years ago inside his and his classmates’ thoughts as
have blossomed into powerful, mature ex- they struggle to begin anew while remem-
amples of environmental activism. Writers bering those they lost.
Jody Pollock and Veronique Greenwood Our Backspin (A&E) section was largely
crisscross the country to find six outstand- designed as a space to highlight some of
ing programs, taking us from California, the most talented 20-somethings out there,
where student activists have changed the and that makes Jason Schwartzman an un-
face of sustainability across the UC school system, to usually good subject for a profile. Now
small-town Carbondale, Ill., where one young woman’s bright idea co-writing and co-starring in Wes Anderson’s
put buckets of worms hard at work recycling. We hope that you’ll next movie, The Darjeeling Limited, Jason—only 27—talks with
be inspired by the example of this new generation of the globe- Peter Fritch about his famous family, writing a film with the indie
conscious—and if you are, we’ve put together four pages of tips and master and shying away from VIP status.
picks for kicking off a more sustainable school year yourself. For For words from another famous Schwarz—Schwarzenegger, that
more ideas and more of everything, make sure to check out the new is—check out Last Word. Speaking with Current’s Daniel Stone
website we’re launching this month in beta: newsfreak.com. outside his Sacramento office about his front-and-center role in the
As the semester begins, the just-grads of the class of 2007 are green movement, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called ours the
coming to the wistful realization that it’s not, in fact, time to re- “generation that’s going to take this thing through the roof.” That
turn to campus. In the spirit of looking forward, we’ve created may sound like a tall order, but really, who among us wants to dis-
next_step, a special features section to explore one of the hottest appoint Arnold? After all, he’s ongoing proof that it’s never too late
jobs you’ve heard about—i-banking—and two you might never have to discover your greener side.
considered: becoming a top chef or a religious leader. If none of Rachel Johnson and Rebecca Rohr

For the Record

As a student-activist working closely
with antiwar veterans, I’m struck by Matt Mireles’
April article about veterans returning to campus.
Mireles and Current not only misidentify the name
of our organization, International Socialist Organi-
zation (ISO), and our newspaper, Socialist Worker,
but mischaracterize our beliefs and actions.
Most striking is the story’s lack of any reference
to veterans organizing against the Iraq War. The
idea that the antiwar movement was (or is) hostile
to veterans returning from war is a bizarre inver-
sion of reality, one that gained traction only after
the Vietnam War. During the war, soldiers were the
backbone of the antiwar movement.
Further, Mireles writes that the ISO, a “nagging
bone of contention” for veterans, “argues in favor
of North Korean nukes” and has “been known to
call U.S. soldiers ‘baby killers.’” In fact, as can be
verified by a glance through the web archives of
our newspaper, Socialist Worker, the ISO is neither
for North Korea nor for nukes, while the bit about
calling veterans “baby killers” has been a Rambo-
inspired right-wing fantasy for going on three
decades.
Antiwar veterans like Agustìn Aguayo and
Suzanne Swift have done jail time for refusing to
return to Iraq. Their contention is not with antiwar
organizations but with the war machine and its
apologists, who, it seems, would like to bury their
stories as deeply as those of their predecessors.
— Chris Dols, ISO, U. of Wisconsin-Madison ’07
Current regrets the mistakes in the names of the
ISO and its newspaper and should have contacted
the organization for its response. We welcome let-
ters and feedback at currentmag@newsweek.com.

xx
2 current
current | spring
| fall 2007
2007

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current If you
went to…
Current Editorial Staff
Executive Editors | Rachel Johnson, Rebecca Rohr
Managing Editors | Sarah Kliff, Daniel Stone You’d be
Section Editors | Alexandra Hiatt,
Rebecca Kaden, Chip Sheridan
Staff Writers | Jane Gagnon, Temilola Sobowale
Copy Editors | Sophie Brickman,
able to…
Vivek Ravishanker, Kurt Soller
Staff Editors | Alicia Cowley, Lina Jun, Cecilia Soler
Art Institute in Philadelphia: go from Appetizers to Zeitgeist, p.37
Creative Consultant | Michael E. Jones
Editorial Director | Samantha Henig Arizona State: say no to Styrofoam, p.30
Editorial Advisor | Mark Starr Berea: call a biodome your home, p.29
Bowdoin: help Step It Up, p.30
In This Issue... Clemson: live life on the beat, p.9
Jen Ator Tatiana Lau College of the Atlantic: take apart Big Boxes, p.6
Allie Baker Catherine Lauigan Columbia: be wined and dined, p.36
Taylor Barnes Elizabeth Lewis
Alex Benenson Dan Loeterman Cornell: turn a tropical paradise even greener, p.9;
David Benjamin Janie Lorber stand the heat in Hell’s Kitchen, p.40
Lyndsie Bourgon Jackie Mantey
Robert Bowman Danielle McNally Delaware Valley: summer with lions, tigers and bears, p.9
Hillary Brody Joseph Midkiff Drake: dial up the heat, p.14
Katie Connolly Jemimah Noonoo
Ariel Davis Ruth Olson Earlham: meet “Jesus,” p.32
Matt Donnelly Robert Padnick Eastern Illinois University: explode onto the scene, p.8
Ben Eisen Jennifer Pelly
Sabina Ellahi Julianne Pepitone Emory: watch your food grow, p.31;
Katherine Evans Jody Pollock bump into the Dalai Lama, p.34
Michael Fodera Miranda Popkey
Peter Fritch Oscar Raymundo Florida: win the big game...x2, p.10
Jane Gagnon Sarina Rosenberg Harvard: smell Robert from a mile away, p.18;
Nikki Greenwood Kiersten Rowland
Dan Haley Chip Sheridan send your avatar to class, p.9
Matt Harper Temilola Sobowale Haverford: help kids play nice, p.9
Isia Jasiewicz Daniel Stone
Candice Jones Tara Tavernia Macalester: save your change, p.24
Maura Judkis Rory Wallace Northwestern: fight the power, p.6
Rebecca Kaden Trisha Wolf
Sarah Kliff Jordan Worley Ohio State: travel in high style, p.10
Carolyn Kylstra Amanda Yezerski Penn: work hard and party harder, p.37
Parsons: turn your shoes into a hat, p.49
Current Project for Student Journalism Reed: sleep with the fishes, p.31
Rochester Institute of Technology: share the Big Love, p.6
Current Business Staff
Director of Business Operations | Chip Sheridan School for Visual Arts: cross-dress with confidence, p.43
Director of Marketing | Peipei Zhang Southern Illinois: warn friends not to order the worm tea, p.25
Director of Recruitment | Ada Pema Tufts: do it in the dark, p.30
Staff Director | April Qian
Interim Director of Finance | Rebecca Anders
UC-San Diego: put stars on the map, p.9
Legal Counsel | David S. Korzenik University of New Orleans: get a virtual tan, p.9
Business Advisor | Paul Gillespie UMich-Dearborn: keep your feet squeaky-clean, p.5
UNC-Chapel Hill: lose your training wheel, p.49
Newsweek, Inc.
Chairman and Editor-in-Chief | Richard M. Smith UNC-Asheville: set your soundtrack a-simmer, p.51
President and Chief Operating Officer | Harold Shain Union: have a beer without fear, p.7
Executive Vice President, World Wide UVA: cook the books, p.38
Publisher | Gregory J. Osberg
Editor | Jon Meacham
Washington College: bathe by the buddy system, p.26
Managing Editor, Design | Amid Capeci West Virginia: make your mark in outer space, p.9
Consulting Editors | Brian Braiker, David Kaplan, Barbara Yale: be a real-life Planeteer, p.23;
Kantrowitz, Raina Kelley, Lisa Miller, Mark Starr, Peg Tyre
Senior Vice President, Manufacturing and
stay in Goldman Sachs’ sights, p.37
Distribution | Angelo Rivello
Manufacturing | Bill Barone, Becky Cassidy,
Kristin Denninger, Paul Smith, Lauren Pangione,
Kathy Magennis, Cintia Senmartin, John Nallen,
Vicki Randolph, Bob Serrano, Karen Stark
Distribution | Scott Bauer, Jack Widener

Advertising
Advertising Contact | Mongoose Atlantic, Inc. fall 2007 | current 3
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tech_travel_culture_news + more “One of the few good things

about modern times: If you

clipfile
die horribly on television, you
will not have died in vain. You
will have entertained us.”
— from Breakfast of Champions, by
Kurt Vonnegut, an American novel-
ist who attended Cornell, Carnegie
Mellon and the University of Tennes-
see and died in April at age 84

UNLEASHED

PROZAC
POOCHES
by Sarina Rosenberg,
Northwestern

Colleges no longer bat an eye

at offering students extra time
for tests or an array of on-cam-
pus counseling. But now some
university health officials say
they’re facing disability requests
of a different animal. A grow-
ing number of students with a
range of psychological disorders
want their “therapy pets,” which
include ferrets and tarantulas
along with more traditionally
cuddly pups and cats, to move
into campus housing—and even
attend lectures.
“Almost all the literature I
read in the disabilities services
field says that these are becom-
ing more frequent requests,”
says Becky Lambert, director of
Pet Doctor: Furry
Student Support Services
Sevick, who friends can make
at Arkansas’ John Brown suffers from portable therapists, too.
University. She began re- PTSD, began
having panic
viewing nationwide policies attacks when
after JBU received its first forced to part than meet a physi- ing out in classrooms and dorms shouldn’t assume that these pets
with her pet
therapy pet petition earlier ferret, Lilly. cal need. would endanger other students will simply snuggle up to life
this year. That was a criti- and raise a number of sanitary on campus, says Jane Jarrow,
Therapy pets are a new trend cal distinction to officials at Our issues. Sevick said she began suf- president of the national group
in psychiatric care, and an unde- Lady of the Lake University in fering panic attacks when forced Disability Access Information
veloped legal framework means San Antonio, Texas two years to part with her pet. She filed an and Support. Guide dogs for the
that universities must handle the ago. Sarah Sevick, an incoming ADA complaint, but the case was blind undergo years of training
issue on a case-by-case basis. The freshman suffering from post- never heard because she dropped before they are deemed fit to
Americans with Disabilities Act traumatic stress disorder, asked out of school. roam the ivory tower.
(ADA) requires universities to to have her ferret, Lilly, join her Some universities have been “Pets make all of us feel good,”
accommodate disabled students, on campus to ease her panic at- open to admitting four-legged she says, “but unless they per-
but it doesn’t discuss therapy tacks. But the school refused, cit- creatures through their gates, form a specific service, they don’t
pets, intended to comfort rather ing concerns that a ferret hang- Lambert says. But school officials belong on campus.” ■

4 current | fall 2007 Photo: Veer


SCIENCE
NanoSight
by Julianne Pepitone,
Syracuse
“We’re all blind at the na-
noscale,” says Andrew Green-
berg, education and outreach
coordinator of the nanotech
program at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison. Sci-
entists depend on models to
visualize data at that level, since
a nanometer is only 1 x 10-9 of a
meter—1/1000th the width of a
human hair. “I wondered,” says
Greenberg, who knew a blind
science student in grad school,
“can we build a model that gives
an idea of shape in a different
way, such as touch?”
So he co-founded the In-
dependent Laboratory Access
for the Blind. Taking a lesson
from Braille, ILAB constructs
3-D models by converting 2-D
images of nano material into
numerical values and then into
layers of plaster. Cary Supalo,
another co-founder—who, as
a blind chem major at Purdue,
received only a Braille textbook
and relied on lab partners to de-
scribe all visuals—says the con-
cept is catching “like wildfire.”
Blind people do have one big
advantage, he adds. “We have to
problem-solve every day—the
epitome of what scientists do.” ■
Now You
See It:
Greenberg
and senior
Mohammed
Farhoud with
3-D model of
‘NanoBucky.’
Illustration by Eric Shansby; Photo by Aaron Mayes / University of Wisconsin-Madison
5 9
CAMPAIGN ’08
POLITICAL PAYBACK
by Janie Lorber,
Duke
In the first-ever U.S. presi-
dential election of the YouTube
world, 2008 hopefuls vie to prove
that they can upload videos and
personalize Facebook pages. But
Republican Mitt Romney believes
he knows what students really
want, and it’s not tech savvy—it’s
cold, hard cash.
His campaign’s campus wing,
Students for Mitt, rewards stu-
dent fundraisers by paying out 10
percent commission to those who
RELIGION
Next to
Godliness
by Matt Donnelly, BU
Once-calm bathrooms at the
University of Michigan at Dear-
born are making waves.
In June, the school announced
plans to install two foot-washing
stations—a $25,000, several-
month project—to better accom-
modate devout Muslim students,
who must wash their hands, face
and feet several times a day before
prayer. But the plan sent some re-
ligious groups into an uproar, ar-
guing that the school’s decision to
fund the baths with student fees
constitutes discrimination and
C M Y K
5
ing earnings to the campaign.
Others wonder if the program
toes a fine line.
According to the non-partisan
Association of Fundraising Pro-
fessionals, accepting commission
is unethical because it detracts
from a candidate’s real cause. But
the tactic doesn’t violate cam-
paign finance laws.
“Professional fundraisers get
paid too,” says professor Richard
Hasen, an election law special-
ist at Loyola Law School in L.A.
“It doesn’t strike me that there’s
raise more than $1,000. Other
anything legally or necessarily
ethically suspect about it.”
Still, unless students can ex-
top prizes include sports tickets, ploit adult connections, they may
video iPods and limited edition have a tough time cashing in:
Mitt Bobbleheads. So far the pro- only 1.4 percent of college stu-
gram is one of a kind on campus. dents reported contributing to a
Grant Starrett, a sophomore campaign in 2000.
at Stanford University and the Barack Obama’s website in-
national chairman stead asks supporters to
Romney
of Students for Mitt, believes he skip their daily caramel
says students join for knows what macchiatos and donate
students
Romney’s fresh ap- really want. that $4.95 to the cam-
proach to politics, not paign—a tactic likely
the profits. “A lot of these kids more in line with the resources of
are just enthralled with his new your typical college kid, but a lot
ideas,” says Starrett, who contrib- less sweet a deal. ■ —with Trisha
uted 100 percent of his fundrais- Wolf
violates the First Amendment. pus’ Muslim Student Association,
UM-Dearborn officials say
the project is meant to include
says many opposing the plan
believe—erroneously—that the
students of all creeds. Kiera Mc-
Caffrey, spokeswoman for the
project is state-funded. He has
fought for the installations de-
Catholic League for Religious and spite threatening emails and even
Civil Rights, disagrees. accusations of terrorism.
“Give me a break. Not having The university’s primary goal
tests or days off on holidays is is to preserve a safe, sanitary
showing respect,” she “A lot of the environment for all
says. “This is special time it feels students, according to
like Muslims
privilege.” She acknowl- versus non- a written statement.
edges that other student Muslims.” Proponents stress that
groups receive a por- the baths can be used
tion of student fees, but feels the by athletes or sandal wearers too.
money is dispensed unfairly— Senior Laura Lloyd says this is
“Christians can’t even get $25 for just another example of religious
Holy water,” she says. Dearborn tension in Dearborn, which has a
officials could not be reached for large Muslim population. “A lot of
comment. the time it feels like Muslims ver-
Majed Afana, VP of the cam- sus non-Muslims,” she says. ■
fall 2007 | current 5
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C M Y K
clipfile
THEN+NOW
STUDENTS ARE A-CHANGIN’
by Oscar Raymundo, Northwestern
We all want to believe we’re
nothing like our parents were at
our age, and new evidence shows
we’re right—sort of. UCLA’s
Higher Education Research In-
stitute has given a survey to hun-
dreds of thousands of incoming
college freshmen each year since
1966, successfully collecting
data from more than 8 million
students at more than 1,200 col-
leges and universities.
How do we measure up?
Some of the findings aren’t at
all surprising: kids from rich
families continue to attend pri-
vate universities—no shocker
there—while the number of
minority students enrolling in
college is steadily growing, espe-
cially among Asian and Latino
populations. But when it comes
to slightly more taboo topics,
the report noted shifting beliefs
about politics, God and race.
> Polar Opposites: Political
Every year, tens of thousands of your classmates write thesis papers. Most are
THESES too long, some are weirdly specific and a bunch are just plain boring. We combed
PIECES last year’s batch to find a handful that seem worth a second glance.
PAPERS THAT POP
“‘Products From the Bottom of Hell’:
Rap Performances of the American
Gothic Narrative.” Joe Bernstein,
Northwestern University. An analy-
sis of how rap albums from the late
’80s and ’90s by N.W.A., Public En-
emy and the Gravediggaz adopt and
complicate the cultural tradition of
fearing the “other” as a threat.
“‘Polygamy Loves Company’: The
Narrative Construction of ‘Family’
in Big Love.” Carly Gioia, Rochester
Institute of Technology. Looks at
the hit HBO show about a polyga-
mous family in Utah, arguing that
6 current | fall 2007
5 9
Fight the Man:
Core values may
have shifted, but
we’re still our
parents’ kids.
moderation is definitely on the
decline: more students than ever
are labeling themselves either
liberal or conservative.
> God Is Dead: The per-
centage of students claiming
no religious affiliation jumped
Cartoon Meta: In an animated
movie by Anthony Mair at the
School of Visual Arts, characters
find themselves acting in a
student film that lacks a story.
5
from 13.6 percent in 1966 to
19.1 percent in 2006. The most
significant decline was reported
by Jewish and Protestant fresh-
men, while the proportion
of self-reported Catholics re-
mained fairly stable.
> Race Card Denied: Over
a third of students in 2006
claimed that racial understand-
ing is “essential” or “very impor-
tant,” but 19.1 percent declared
racism is no longer a major
social concern.
> Family Guy:
Despite the changing
times, we haven’t com-
pletely abandoned our
family values—raising a
family is students’ No. 1
priority for life after college, a
response that has held mostly
constant since 1966. Our eager-
ness to develop a meaningful
philosophy of life, however, has
steadily dwindled. ■
its narrative encourages viewers to
understand polygamy as an alter-
native lifestyle and question their
accepted notions of family.
ALTERNATIVE MEDIUM
Instead of writing about legisla-
tion for a senior thesis, Elsie Flem-
ing and Daphne Loring created it.
The ’07 grads of the College of the
Atlantic in Maine used their theses
to create an initial draft of a bill
requiring an impact study of all
companies seeking to build a “big
box” store in a Maine community.
That legislation passed—earning a
real-world summa—this June. ■
Photo: AP; Movie still courtesy of Anthony Mair
OUT LOUD
Grad Speak
No graduation is complete
without it: the often hokey,
sometimes moving, rarely unique
commencement speech. Here are
some ’07 high- (and low-) lights.
THE SAD BUT TRUE
Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Harvard
Radcliffe was a great place to
live. There were more women
[than men] up there, and most of
the guys were science-math types.
That combination offered me the
best odds, if you know what I
mean. This is where I learned the
sad lesson that improving your
odds doesn’t guarantee success.
THE BUSH JOKE
Washington Post’s Bob
Woodward, Bucknell
I sent a copy of that 21-page
memo to President Bush. My
colleagues at the Washington
Post said, “You sent George W.
Bush a 21-page memo? You’re
crazy. There’s no evidence in all
of Bush’s years at Yale and Har-
vard Business School that he ever
read anything that long.”
HEARD THAT ONE
BEFORE
New York Times’ David
Brooks, Wake Forest
The average collegiate GPA for
a self-made millionaire is 2.7.
You know all those morons who
sat in the back of the classrooms
goofing off? In a few years you’re
going to have a new name for
them: Boss.
OBLIGATORY
ATTEMPT TO RELATE BY
MENTIONING BEER
GM’s Rick Wagoner, Duke
400 years ago today, Captain
John Smith landed in America,
met Pocahontas and, well, you
know the rest. It took months be-
fore he could get a message back
to England: “Have landed in Vir-
ginia. Send more beer.” ■

REM-
MEMBER
THIS? POGS 19
96
It sounds like the sort of old-
timey playground game you’d see
in sepia hues in a battered old
photograph—children entertain-
ing themselves by chucking a me-
tallic circle at a pile of cardboard
pieces. Yet it was only a decade
ago that youngsters spent hours
doing exactly that with pogs.
ON CAMPUS
Drink Up!
by Chip Sheridan,
Dickinson College
The Greeks dominate many
campus’ social scenes, making
admins struggle to take back the
START-UP SUCCESS
SELLULARPHONE
by Jenna Youngs,
U. Missouri-Columbia
After breaking his fifth cell
phone in a year, Brian Laoruan-
groch, a graduate of the Univer-
sity of Missouria at Columbia’s
business school, was fed up.
Determined to avoid shelling
out another $250 to Sprint,
Laoruangroch scoured eBay for a
phone compatible with his plan.
Then he thought, if he could
do this for himself, why not for
other hapless dialers in need of a
low-cost phone replacement? So
Green Mobile, Inc. was born.
Gathering five fraternity
brothers as business partners,
Laoruangroch set off on a mis-
sion to make replacing cell
phones easier and cheaper.
Initially selling used models
on eBay, Laoruangroch soon ex-
Photo by Kiersten Rowland; Illustration by Michael Jones
5 9
night. But Union College found its
answer in the Minerva program,
which turns a blind eye to underage
drinking as a tactic to encourage
partying responsibly. Now in its
fourth year, the program assigns all
freshmen to one of seven Minerva
Houses where students can play
panded to his own aptly named
site, sellyoularphone.com, which
he later replaced with gogreen-
mobile.com. Now the six friends
run both the website and a loca-
tion in a Columbia, Mo. mall.
Green Mobile purchases used
5
The rules of the game, origi-
nally from Hawaii, are simple:
players put an equal number
of circular cardboard pogs in a
center pile and take turns throw-
ing a “slammer,” a heavier plastic
or metallic disc about twice as
thick, at the pile in an effort to
flip the pogs, then pocket the
ones they successfully overturn.
It’s kind of like craps for
kids—only without the risk of
squandering much more than a
50-cent game piece.
pool, meet with professors and at-
tend meals. They can also, regard-
less of age, imbibe with dinner.
The program provides a needed
alternative to the binge-drinking
scene, says Tom McEvoy, the dean
of residential life and director of the
Minerva program.
phones in bulk from distribu-
tors, replaces old batteries with
new ones and tests the phones
to ensure quality. Then they cat-
egorize them by service provider
compatibility on the site.
Partner Davie Holt says the
fall 2007 |
C M Y K
The game’s popularity un-
leashed a flood of intricate pog
designs, featuring everything
from celebrity mugs to holo-
graphed unicorns, many of which
can still be purchased on eBay.
Despite the fun (and perhaps
anticipating the birth of the Texas
Hold ’Em generation), numer-
ous schools banned the activity
as gambling. It seems overzeal-
ous principals feared that toying
around with one kind of slammer
could land kids in the other. ■
Some student scoff. One calls
the Minerva parties “really lame”
and says he only goes for the free
booze. Even so, the push for mod-
eration may be working. “When
people drink at the Minervas,”
another student says, it’s “not to go
out and get trashed.” ■
company sells an average of
1,000 phones per month on their
website, and they’ve generated
more than $500,000 in total
sales in the past six months, ac-
cording to Laoruangroch.
As part of its expansion plan
to open more stores, including
one in Champaign, Ill., Green
Mobile produced an advertising
campaign featuring Laoruan-
groch costumed as the “Green
Mobile Man”—a hero deter-
mined to save customers from
expensive cell phone purchases.
Holt says customers come to
them both to replace broken and
lost phones and to upgrade to
better models at a lower price.
“They want to change their
phones like they change their
shoes,” Holt says. “With our
phones they can just remove the
SIM card, switch it out to a new
phone and go.” That's a plan that
should get good reception. ■
current 7
Folio Mag Pg Vol MO
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clipfile
COURTSIDE

ESSENCE ON IMUS
by Matt Harper, Dickinson College
Essence Carson, the six-foot Current to discuss her whirlwind
guard for the Rutgers women’s year and her hopes for her last
basketball team, was thrust into season as a collegiate star.
the national spotlight along with Current: Looking back on the
her teammates last April during controversy surrounding Imus’
the Scarlet Knights’ exhilarating comments, how do you feel about
run to the NCAA championship how the situation unfolded?
game against the Tennessee Lady Essence Carson: A lot of Brave Knight:
Essence Carson takes
Vols—and again soon after, when people were pretty much expect-
charge on the court and
radio “shock jock” Don Imus made ing it to be a long, drawn-out soap in the Imus fallout.
his infamous comments about opera, but I believe we did a great
the team. As the team’s captain, job of keeping it short and sweet
Carson led the ladies through the and just being precise about what
media storm, appearing on TV message we wanted to convey to
programs including Larry King people across the country. I be- the people of their home state and Current: You’ve said that
Live, The Today Show and Oprah. lieve that we helped a lot of people at Rutgers. you would like to cap off your
Carson has been lauded for open their eyes. Current: There has been a career with an NCAA champi-
her eloquence in the Current: You told lot of buzz recently about Imus onship. Are you and the team
“Whenever
face of controversy as anyone thinks the country that Imus returning to radio in coming determined to accomplish that
well as her abilities on of this year’s “stole a moment of pure months. How do you feel about this year?
championship
the court, having been they automati- grace” from your team. that prospect? EC: Definitely. We realize
twice named Big East cally connect EC: Not only from EC: We expected him to come that, you know what, it’s going to
it with Imus.”
Defensive Player of the us, but also from the back. For him to come back on be that much harder than it was
Year and winning four gold med- championship team. Whenever the radio, more power to him. last year to return to that same
als with USA Basketball. Off the anyone thinks of this year’s cham- Who knows how he would host stage because right now we have
court, the Paterson, N.J. native is a pionship they automatically con- his show now? Maybe, just a target on our backs. So we have
music major who plays the piano, nect it with Imus. The only people maybe, he might watch what he to walk into every game like ev-
bass guitar, drums and saxophone. that pretty much realize that Ten- says, but I don’t think he needs eryone’s going to play their best
This summer she sat down with nessee won the championship are to prove anything to anyone. game when they play Rutgers. ■

DON’T
BE
THAT
GIRL
THIS APPLICATION BOMBED
by Current Staff

Ah, the college application
process. A universally beloved
chance to cobble together 18 years
of history—GPA, SATs, list of clubs
you went to once—into a package
of paperwork that conveys the very
core of your being.
For one woman, that package
got her more attention than she
bargained for. Her application to
Eastern Illinois University arrived
on campus in an envelope that
seemed too small and overstuffed
to contain normal documents, with-
out a return address and with the
institution’s name misspelled. Its
suspicious appearance compelled
university officials to call the bomb
squad to inspect the package. It
took about five hours—and a run
through an X-ray machine—for the
investigators to declare the ap-
plication and the mail center area
safe.
It comes as something of a sur-
prise, then, that EIU administrators
decided to accept the student just
11 days later. According to campus
spokesperson Vicki Woodard, the
envelope held a completed applica-
tion, including three pieces of pa-
per and a check to pay the submis-
sion fee. Apparently that’s about
all it takes to become a Panther at
EIU, where the acceptance rate is a
whopping 73 percent.
This student may have secured
herself a slot in the freshman class,
but we still think her application
faux pas was enough to earn admis-
sion into the ranks of girls and guys
you so don’t want to be. ■

8 current | fall 2007 Top

Photo by Jim Photo courtesy ofUniversity;
O’Connor/Rutgers Cereality, Illustration
bottom illustration by Veer
by Cat Lauigan
 5 9 C M Y K
5

SECOND LIFE
Virtual U.
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
A quick look at a world of summer jobs you could have had.

by David Benjamin,
JOHN RICE, CLEMSON ’09
UCLA HOMICIDE DIVISION
Greenville, SC
In Hurricane Katrina’s wake, Worked in County Sheriff’s Office
New Orleans’ colleges and uni- for a taste of real police work
versities shut down for months.
If there is another such disaster,
one local school intends to keep KRISTIN ANTONACCIO & WILLIAM CHANG,
DAVE KRAMER, UC-SAN DIEGO ’08
right on teaching. The University DELAWARE VALLEY ’09 INDIE MUSIC BIZ
of New Orleans, a public univer- EXOTIC FELINE CARE London, England
Boyd & Bridgeport, TX Kickstarted new U.K. & U.S.
sity with an enrollment of more Prepared food and cleaned cages indie-rock groups for young
than 17,000, has opened a virtual for lions, tigers, bobcats, cougars agency Traffic Marketing, Ltd.
and grizzly bear cubs
campus within the digital world
KATHRYN MONTALBANO,
Second Life, allowing students to HAVERFORD ’09
take courses online if their real- CONFLICT ZONE
Belfast, N. Ireland
world campus is hit by another Played team-building games with
crippling storm. cross-religious groups of kids to
break down social barriers
If you’ve somehow missed
the buzz, Second Life, run by
San Francisco’s Linden Lab, is a
virtual 3-D universe where users
create avatars (online charac-
ters) that interact. It’s like The
Sims—only you have to spend
real money to build a house, and
anyone in the world can be your
neighbor. The program serves as
a cheap and efficient way to set
up classes online: UNO paid only
$980 for its 16-acre “island”—a
slice of virtual real estate on
Second Life—plus an ongoing
monthly fee of about $200. More
than 60 schools, including Har-
vard, Princeton, Stanford and ANDREW
HEILMANN,
MIT, have already established a CORNELL ‘09
presence in Second Life. FOUR SEASONS
GREEN GLOBE
Although UNO is not re- Bali, Indonesia
quiring students to create ava- Met with local village
chiefs to promote eco-
tars—yet—several courses will be awareness at two Four
available online starting this fall. Seasons properties
While many were happy to hear
about the university’s participa-
tion, some, like junior Lauren
Miller, were a bit put off. She TATIANA ROSTOVTSEVA,
feels that the university should NORTHWESTERN ’09
REBECCA MCCAULEY, EDUCATION REFORM
“use resources elsewhere on cam- WEST VIRGINIA ’07 Accra, Ghana
pus” and says she had no trouble
NASA SPACE FLIGHT RESEARCH Helped write a standardized
Greenbelt, MD curriculum for a nursery school
with Blackboard after Hurricane Helped NASA scientists develop a in Ghana, learning hands-on
Mars dust sample reader expected about African education
Katrina. That may be, but you to be sent into space in 2009
can’t fly on Blackboard! ■

Infographic by Amanda Yezerski, reporting by Tara Tavernia and Elizabeth Lewis fall 2007 | current 9

Folio Mag Pg Vol MO

C M Y K
sports_
NCAA High Rollers
Spend Big, Win Big
Dan Loeterman wants schools to level the competition
and trade in team jumbo jets for the campus good.
N ever before had the same
two schools met for the NCAA
football and basketball na-
tional championships in the
same year, until Florida beat
Ohio State in both 2007 title games. The
twin meetings were hailed as a remarkable
coincidence, but that’s hardly the case given
the growing disparity in athletic budgets
between a few high rollers, like Florida
and Ohio State, and the rest of their NCAA
competition.
Ohio State and Florida rank as the first
and fourth biggest spenders on sports
among NCAA programs, according to in-
10 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
formation available on the website of the
U.S. Department of Education. In the ’05-
’06 academic year, Ohio State became the
first school ever to crack nine digits, with
a sports budget of $101.8 million, while
Florida spent $78.2 million on its sports
programs that year.
It’s no surprise that the schools spending
the most are also among the most success-
ful. Although colleges cannot bid for top
players by offering them contracts the way
pro teams can, the big spenders do have a
huge advantage in wooing the best players.
Imagine you’re a top football recruit be-
ing pursued tirelessly by multiple schools.
Together Again:
Florida and Ohio State
battled it out for two
championships last
season. Coincidence?
Texas draws you in with its recently reno-
vated, $150-million stadium. Michigan ups
the ante, showing you designs for its newly
approved $226-million renovation plan.
Then Florida calls. It may not have new
stadiums and arenas, but it boasts two
of the hottest coaches: basketball’s Billy
Donovan and football’s Urban Meyer. With
annual salaries of $3.5 and $3.25 million,
the two are the highest- and second high-
est-paid coaches at public schools in their
sports, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Wait, says Ohio State, come play for the
Buckeyes and you can travel in style. Ohio
State spent the most on football team travel
in ’04-’05, according to a review of athletic
expenses at public universities conducted
by the Indianapolis Star.
And each of these schools can cite an-
other compelling reason to play for them: a
Bowl Championship Series title within the
last five years.
Between these perks and others, it is
becoming increasingly difficult for schools
with smaller athletic budgets to compete
for a championship. Based on the 2006
Photo by Associated Press

list of top college spenders, only two teams
ranked lower than 15th—traditional
football powerhouses Florida State and
Miami—have won the Division I football
championship since 1991. That’s an inevi-
table result of what John Fizel, co-editor
of “Economics of College Sports,” calls the
“arms war” of athletic spending. “Every
time someone adds a new facility—whether
it be a weight room, training facility, sta-
dium or dorm—the other teams feel obli-
gated to meet that,” says Fizel, who directs
Penn State’s online MBA program. “If one
gets ahead, they will have the advantage in
recruiting, retaining athletes and winning.”
This arms race may result in part from
the fact that, at some of the biggest spend-
ers, the athletic departments are almost
completely autonomous, often functioning
with little oversight from university offi-
cials, and, more importantly, with separate
operating budgets. Almost all of those ath-
letic programs are self-sustaining, and tend
not to share their profits with the general
university. Instead, they funnel excess cash
into reserve funds to be spent later on more
expensive coaches, state-of-the-art facilities
or perks for athletes.
Given the huge divide between the top
spenders and the next tier, it seems naive
not to take spending into account before we
are wowed by some programs’ continued
success. We already do that with pro sports:
when the Yankees win the World Series,
we love to denounce their bloated payroll
as the decisive advantage. But when teams
with lesser funding win championships, as
the Marlins did when they beat the Yankees
in 2003, they are hailed as David slaying
Goliath.
While payrolls and salaries for the big
leagues are routinely discussed, budgets
barely earn a mention in the rah-rah cover-
age of big-time collegiate athletics. Yet we
may be heading toward—or perhaps are al-
ready in—an era when the top spenders like
Ohio State and Florida become a Yankees-
esque super-elite, perpetually dominant
across new seasons and changing line-ups.
Why should this concern anybody be-
sides fans of those poorer schools forced
to battle with giants? Perhaps because 18
of the 20 schools that spend the most on
5 9 C M Y K
5
sports are public universities. So while their whopping $23.9 million—it used the
athletic programs bloat with enormous money to buy new scoreboards for the foot-
television deals, donations from alums and ball field and a plane for team travel, even
ticket and merchandise sales, many of the as University Regents slashed $6 million
same universities are also struggling to from the university budget as part of state-
cope with drastic spending cuts, a result of wide cuts. At Texas last year, just $1.2 mil-
nationwide budget-trimming at the state lion of a $14.2-million athletic profit was
level. At Florida, for example, enormous transferred back to university academics.
debt in the College of Letters, Arts and Sci- Meanwhile, tuition costs for students are up
ences cost the dean his job and led to major again—on average 5 percent over the past
cuts in the English and math departments two years—due to state scrimping. And at
in the fall of 2006. The previous academic schools whose athletic departments are not
year, Florida’s athletic department had self-sustaining—most schools, because ath-
turned a tidy profit of $4.2 million. But the letics are so expensive to maintain—money
profits generally end up in one of those ath- can pour directly from the university into
letic department “reserve funds,” instead of sports even during tight times. Rutgers
enticing scholars of Shakespeare or number University, for instance, faces massive
theory to Gainesville. Schools like Florida layoffs in an effort to close a $66-million
have a way to bail out ailing academics, but spending deficit in the general university’s
the opportunity is being wasted. budget, but its athletic department received
Rather than allowing athletic programs $14.5 million from those same general
to hoard the profits, universities should be university funds in the ’04-’05 year. That’s
held accountable for how they prioritize more than any other athletic department in
spending. If athletic departments were the country, according to the Star’s review.
required to give a sizeable portion of their As the arms race spirals ever upward,
profits back to the university, cash flow it risks compromising the competitive
into starving academic programs would re- integrity that, among other charms, distin-
open and teams with smaller budgets could guishes the college game from pro sports.
compete more successfully with their There is little hope for re-
wealthy opponents. Of course, if ath- Schools like versing the trend in the near
letic departments knew they had to Florida have future. The NCAA’s October
surrender profits at the season’s end, a way to bail report warned universi-
out ailing
they might find other ways to spend academics, ties to rein in the disparity
the money first. But that highlights but the between the rate of athletic
the present system’s essential flaw: opportunity is and general spending, in-
permitting those departments to op- being wasted. sisting that “the rate of such
erate as autonomous fiefdoms within growth simply cannot be
the university. maintained.” But the NCAA tends to move
The NCAA does recognize this prob- toward reform at a glacial pace, so don’t
lem. An October 2006 report on athletic count on any imminent policy changes to
spending released by the association urged level the playing field.
schools to make their revenue and expense In the meantime, nobody should be
sheets more transparent and accessible. shocked to see another Florida and Ohio
And it found that athletic spending at Divi- State “coincidence” in the BCS champion-
sion I schools is increasing at a worrisome ship game this season. After all, the schools
rate—three times that of the spending of have 180 million reasons between them
the general university. why it just might happen again. ■
So where does the money wind up now, if
not with the university? It feeds right back Dan Loeterman is a sophomore majoring
into the arms race and the competition to in journalism and poli-sci at the Universi-
recruit the best players, says Fizel. In ’04- ty of Southern California. He has to admit
’05, when Georgia’s athletics department that a huge athletic budget doesn’t seem so
turned the largest profit of any school—a bad when your school is ranked No. 1.
fall 2007 | current 11
Folio Mag Pg Vol MO
C M Y K
health_
When Your Body is
Grandpa’s Age
Sarah Kliff sizes up the risks of a sedentary lifestyle.
Don’t know your cholesterol, do you? Didn’t think so.
R ebecca Corman thinks about
her health, maybe even more
than most. She played vol-
leyball at her high school in
California and, now a senior
at the University of Washington in Seattle,
strives to fit four workouts into her weekly
schedule. She tries to make healthy deci-
sions at the grocery store and to remember
her multivitamins. But when asked about
her cholesterol and bone density, Corman
draws a blank.
“I have no idea,” she admits. “When I go
to the doctor and they say I’m okay, I don’t
really think about it.”
Certain numbers are key on campus,
like a high grade point average, low weight,
cheap happy hour and the digits for the
12 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
health these studies paint. “I honestly don’t
pay attention to what I eat,” says Greg Mos-
koff, a junior at the University of Missouri
at Columbia, who has not had a check-up
in three years. “I don’t overindulge or gorge
myself, but I also don’t keep track of what I
am eating.”
That’s not good enough, according to
a recent study of 800 University of New
Hampshire undergrads, which found that
60 percent of male students had high
blood pressure and more than two thirds of
women were not getting enough calcium,
iron or folate. The researchers also looked
for risk factors like elevated blood pressure,
high cholesterol and insulin resistance—all
signs that point to an increased chance of
coronary heart disease and type II diabetes.
More than half the students in the study
showed signs of at least one of those risk
factors.
“Many of the students were astounded
that they could be at risk for what they
viewed as elderly-related diseases,” said
Joanne Burke, a researcher who led the
UNH study.
Jordan Caley is among those students. A
nutrition major at UNH, Caley says she has
usually paid attention to health issues and
watched what she ate. But until this study,
she never thought about checking her blood
pressure or cholesterol. “You never hear of
a 20-year-old having a heart at-
“Many of the tack,” she says. “Nutritional con-
students were
astounded cerns in college are much more
Jimmy John’s that delivers
straight to the library all night
long. Low cholesterol or high
bone density don’t quite make
the list. “People think in terms
of appearance instead of what
that they
could be at
risk for what
they viewed
as elderly-
related
diseases.”
they’re doing for their body,” says Corman.
“And I think that changes how people are
going to take care of themselves.”
being thin for girls, and building
muscle for guys.”
While the UNH study is one
of the first to track college stu-
dents’ blood pressures and cho-
lesterol levels, previous research
on weight gain has also indicated unhealthy
habits running rampant on campus—not
exactly groundbreaking. And though we’d
New studies are testing how that attitude all prefer not to hear scientific proof of the
plays out for college students, and our col- feared freshman fifteen, a 2005 study of
lective grade is not good. Risk for obesity, undergrads at Washington University in
coronary heart disease and type II diabe- St. Louis revealed just that. WashU Medi-
tes—all of which sound like old people’s cal School’s Susan S. Deusinger reported
ailments—is just as high among undergrads that 70 percent of her subjects experienced
as it is for our parents or grandparents. But significant weight gain between their fresh-
convincing students to care is no easy task, man and sophomore years. It was not quite
no matter how dire a picture of our future the monstrous 15 pounds students dread—
Photo: Veer

participants averaged a 9-pound gain—but
it’s still troubling.
“It’s very scary to see these things because
people are dying from the effects of obesity
and sedentary behavior,” says Deusinger. “It
is now that they need to be concerned about
this. They may say, ‘I can wait until I’m old
to do anything.’ That’s too late.”
The forces pushing toward unhealthy
lifestyles on campus come from all angles,
starting with an increasingly unfit Ameri-
can population—national levels of obesity
rose from 15 percent to 33 percent over
the past 30 years. Long days studying and
snacking in the library followed by late
nights drinking only make matters worse.
Finding the hours to squeeze in preventa-
tive measures for health problems that
won’t hit for another 40 years—almost dou-
ble the time most of us have been alive—is,
for most, simply not a priority.
“These are the least of the worries of
college students,” says Lona Sandon,
spokesperson for the American Dietetic
Association. “They’re just trying to get their
homework in on time and pass the next fi-
nal. They’re not worrying about if their cho-
lesterol is 170 or if it will be over 200 down
the road.” In fact, they probably don’t even
know whether a cholesterol of 170 is good
or bad—let alone the distinction between
“good” and “bad” cholesterol that adults
agonize over.
Researchers and nutritionists make
a clear point: the risks are real and the
diseases are serious. But when the food is
cheap and time is crunched, who are college
students to turn down a free slice of pizza
or $3 draft? Take Jackson Boyer, a junior
at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. He
knows that his frat house cuisine is far from
healthy—“almost always fried or soaked in
something,” as he describes it—but Boyer is
okay with that. “I’m fine with the way I live,”
he says. Ask him again in 40 years. ■
—with Brittany Farb and Rebecca Katz
Sarah Kliff is a recent grad of Washington
University in St. Louis who, even after
writing this story, does not know her cho-
lesterol level. She was the editor-in-chief of
her campus newspaper, Student Life, and
now writes about health for Newsweek.
5 9 C M Y K
5
Too Much of a Good Thing
Maura Judkis takes a look at exercise bulimia
Hours spent on treadmills and row- arriving on campus spurred weight loss at
ing machines may give you buns of steel and the beginning of her first year at Smith. That
to-die-for legs, but some gym rats are taking quickly spiraled into binging, purging and
their workouts too far. Colleges across the excessive exercise. She spent hours daily on
U.S. are now dealing with a new type of eat- an elliptical machine, in addition to several
ing disorder: exercise bulimia. nights a week practicing for the diving, track
Overexercisers purge themselves of and softball teams she had joined.
calories by working out for hours each day, Working out so much took its toll, and
and may also suffer from more traditional after suffering sports injuries and severe
disordered eating such as weight loss, Scafati began to fear
calorie restriction and self- Exercise for her life. She promised a friend
induced vomiting. Doug Bun-
bulimia is just she would enter a private in-pa-
as dangerous
nell, a doctor at the Renfrew as other forms tient treatment program. College
Center for women’s health in of eating support groups were helpful,
Connecticut who specializes in disorders, and Scafati says, but more resources
college can be
eating disorders, says that he a particularly are needed. Rumors that girls had
and his colleagues have seen high-risk been kicked out of school for sim-
an increased number of exer- environment. ilar disorders made Scafati par-
cise bulimia cases in the past ticularly nervous about seeking
decade, and there are probably far more help. (Kristen Cole, Smith’s media relations
out there going untreated: only 6 percent of director, says no one has ever been asked to
people with any type of bulimia ever receive leave because of an eating disorder.)
treatment, according to the National Eating So what’s a school to do to help people
Disorders Association. There are no official like Scafati? Earlier this year, reports sur-
statistics for exercise bulimia, but according faced that some universities were monitor-
to the National Institute of Mental Health, ing students’ gym use in order to identify
1 to 4 percent of all adolescents and young over-exercisers—a claim that turned out to
adults suffer from bulimia, and 80 percent be untrue. But while the idea of Big Brother
of patients are female. While the majority of watching you work out may seem extreme,
them binge and purge in the better-known some degree of monitoring could be what’s
fashion, some follow up their eating sprees necessary to keep the problem exercisers
with exercise overload. from blending in with the healthy crowd.
“I think there is a common perception “The ideal solution is that we educate train-
that exercise bulimia is ‘healthier’ than other ers and coaches and gym staff so they can
types of bulimia,” said Bunnell. “Exercise is spot people overdoing it,” says Bunnell.
culturally endorsed, so we don’t have the Scafati has since recovered from her eat-
same reaction to it as to vomiting.” ing disorder and is working on a photogra-
But exercise bulimia is a disease just as phy project of people in recovery from eating
dangerous as other forms of eating disor- disorders.
ders, and college can be a particularly high- “When I was in the middle of my disorder,
risk environment. “At the beginning of col- I never thought I’d be able to sit down and
lege there’s a social contagion effect, with a eat a piece of pizza and be okay with it,” she
new environment and all kinds of anxieties,” says, “but I just had a fantastic weekend go-
says Bunnell. As students leave the security ing out and eating with friends.” ■
of eating at home with less-judgmental fami-
lies and long-time friends, they may struggle Maura Judkis is a recent George Wash-
to maintain a healthy body image. ington University grad. Her pilates mat
For Caitlin Scafati, now 25, the stress of is starting to collect dust in the closet.
fall 2007 | current 13
Folio Mag Pg Vol MO
C M Y K
relationships_
Sexting Up Ur Nite
Andrea L. Zimmerman knows that starting a romance
should be hard...but texting is so temptingly easy.
I t’s 2:30 a.m. My phone rests in my
hand as I wait for the familiar notes
of Justin Timberlake’s “My Love”
to signal that I have a text message.
Last weekend, I met a law student at
a local bar. We exchanged phone numbers,
and I texted him the next day with a casual
“What’s up?” It’s now two days later, and
still no return text. Oh well, I think, it could
be worse: at least he doesn’t have a lame,
rambling voicemail of mine saved on his
phone to laugh about.
It was just one of many times I’ve leaned
on the crutch of text messaging to get me
through the otherwise awkward early weeks
of a budding relationship—a time normally
marred by stilted small talk and fumbling
phone conversations. Believe me, I know
that texting is the furthest thing from deep,
unbridled romance. But it’s just so easy, so
safe; I can concoct a winning message in
no time and shake off a losing response just
as fast.
14 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
found her lurking in the corners of bars
jumping (literally) when her cell vibrated.
She couldn’t get enough of her text-lovin’
fling and his sexy—and sort of creepy—late-
night messages. “Why don’t you just call
him?” I finally asked. Looking horrified,
she said, “We’d have nothing to say to one
another.” Exactly.
Maybe texting was always the doom of an
AOL Instant Messenger generation: these
are the same kids who spent middle-school
years in front of computer screens during
the wee hours, always just a click away from
learning friends’ and crushes’ deepest se-
crets (or sexiest 13-year-old thoughts). Now
they’ve turned to text messaging for a simi-
lar rush. Like AIM, texting feels pleasingly
illicit, as if we know this isn’t what we’re
supposed to do with our machines.
But a dependence on texting can com-
plicate early courtship. Let’s say my law
boy had returned my message—what next?
Maybe we’d keep texting back and forth in
the pre-dawn hours, maybe the texts would
turn salacious, maybe I’d decide I kind of
like him. But even if I did, it wouldn’t mean
much. In the nebulous realm of texting,
there is always the possibility that he’s con-
sulting his funnier friends for a good line,
or that his auto spelling function is masking
his poor grasp of the English language.
And I’m not the only one doing it. I see
other students en route to class, even in
to focus on the one-inch square of screen in
their palms. But while texting a lab partner
For now, my friends and I appreciate the
comfort and thrill of the mobile romance,
class, ignoring blackboards and traffic lights but it’s a bit harder to imagine us cackling
over mispunctuated pick-up lines—and
sexting fiendishly right back—at age 28,
to say you’re running late is simple and con- 35, 40. I’d like to think I’ll have landed in a
venient, pursuing a hot and heavy
texting. We’re
whole other story. We’re no longer sexting. And it
real relationship by then, the
romance in the language of T9 is a We’re not just kind where we do our pillow
talk face-to-face rather than
just texting; we’re sexting. And comes with screen-to-screen. But hell, if
sometimes it’s dirtier—and more its own set a few more decades of texting
complicated—than the real thing.
of symbols, means I’ll never have to make
thrills and
Take my friend Jess, a bona fide complications. awkward small talk on my cell
sext goddess. After a one-week again, I’ll hold off on intimacy
spring fling with an older guy, she parted until I’m 50.
ways with him, only to launch into a full- Yesterday, my phone rang. It was the law
fledged sext relationship upon her return. student. I stared at the screen in disbelief. I
We’re talking XXX. The seemingly playful stared for so long I missed the call. Call me
“What are you wearing?” turned into “Tell back, the voicemail said. So I texted him. ■
me what you want me to do to you,” which
turned into things I will not write lest my Andrea Zimmerman is a senior journalism
father ever read this. Jess could get any major at Drake University. She is grateful
guy she wants, yet the post-vacation weeks her parents still pay her cell phone bill.
Illustration by Shih-Mu Pai
 5 9
Hokies Seek to Heal
In the days leading up to the start of a new semester, Robert Bowman
looks back at April’s tragic shootings and forward to his school’s future.
S leep-deprived and
with eyes still raw from
crying, I walked up the
stairs of Burruss Hall
after an interview with
CNN. Burruss is normally a bustling
scene; it houses the president’s of-
fice, administrative offices and the
office of undergraduate admissions.
But two days after the shooting
that scrawled our university’s name
across televisions and computer
screens worldwide, the stairwell felt
empty and somber. As a tour guide,
I work closely with admissions of- The class of ‘11
ficers, and I hadn’t heard from many can make a fresh
of them since before April 16. start, but upper-
classmen must
On my way up the stairs, I passed return to places
two high school students, clearly lost and people that
and overwhelmed. I led them up- serve as constant
stairs to the admissions office, where reminders of last
spring.
they learned that all official tours had
been canceled. The two had traveled all the way to Blacksburg
from Cooperstown, N.Y., and though their timing couldn’t have
been worse, it was their only chance to see the school.
I looked at my watch.
“I have a free hour. Do you guys want to go for a walk?”
For the first time since Monday, I was at ease doing what I love:
selling Virginia Tech. The visitors told me they originally had been
drawn to Tech’s academic standards and football scene. Once they
were accepted, they only needed to visit campus to be sure.
Yet over the past 24 hours, their vision of the university had
changed. The smiling pictures from promotional pamphlets re-
ceived in the mail were now joined with images from the news the
night before: thousands of Hokies gathered at a candlelight vigil
to pay tribute to the 33 we lost. But the tragedy, these visitors told
me, could have happened anywhere. They wanted to be a part of
this community.
I’ve given many tours since then, and nearly all prospective stu-
dents and families echo that sentiment. Some students needed to
be dragged to visit Tech, resisting merely the association with the
tragedy. But many more hadn’t even considered attending until
they too saw photos from the vigil or the convocation—the images
of our students coming together during a time of struggle.
My university cannot rid itself of the tragedy, but we should not
C M Y K
5
your_turn
be measured by it either. Going forward,
each member of the community must
show the watching world what makes
this school amazing: our unbreakable
spirit.
Tech’s newest class has quickly learned
the sense of pride each Hokie carries.
More than 5,000 students accepted
Tech’s offer of admission, making the
Class of 2011 the largest (and most aca-
demically impressive) class in our his-
tory. Admissions did not pull any from
its waiting list of 1,441.
But though the class of 2011 can make
a fresh start on campus, upperclassmen must return to places
and people that serve as constant reminders of last spring. Many
will look down at the ground in silence as they pass Norris Hall,
forcing themselves not to picture the long fall from the second
floor windows. As they sit in class, some will continue to scan the
room for the fastest exit, just in case. But they will still have to do
their best not to doze off during Electric Theory, and they will still
laugh with friends while playing soccer on the Drillfield. Everyone
anticipates as eagerly as ever the first snowfall of the year, when
the Corps of Cadets faces off against the civilians in our tradi-
tional snowball fight. It will take some time, but things can return
to normal.
Getting ready for the new school year this fall means something
different for our community: looking forward and looking back
in tandem. Our annual blowout opening-day football game will
be a little different this time around when the Hokies open their
season. We will join together—faculty, staff, students, alumni and
even the greater Blacksburg community—to celebrate our team,
but also to honor the 32 victims. On October 28, another group of
Hokies will do their part to help the community heal, when 100 of
them will join the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C..
They are running to raise $100,000 that will endow a scholarship
honoring those who lost their lives that day in April.
The tribute of many students will be as small as placing a rib-
bon on their car or wearing a memorial T-shirt, but not a single
student will forget. Instead, we remember those we lost and we
move forward in their memory. ■
Robert Bowman is a senior industrial systems engineering major
at Virginia Tech. He was managing editor of the Collegiate Times
when the shootings broke out on campus in the spring.
fall 2007 | current 15
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cover

special issue:
smells like
Green
spirit Green isn’t just the new black this fall.
From now on, it’s a perennial staple. But
think only big-talking celebs can deck out
their lives in earth-friendly hues? Turns out
we can, too. That’s what our cover story is all
about: making just a few of the million little
choices that add up to change. We’ve come
up with 33 to get you going—and for an
extra boost, we handpicked six of our
favorite campus green initiatives, from
recycling with earthworms to showering
with friends. Maybe the sustainable—but
still sleek & sexy—dorm we’ve designed
will inspire you to spruce up your living, or
maybe mouth-watering descriptions of one
school’s locally grown dinners will do the
trick. As we’ve learned editing this issue,
you’re never too late to the green party.

p.18 p.19-21 p.22 p.30

Green for a Week | Your Money Where Greenest of Them All | Making the Grade |
Could you handle the Your Mouth Is | Some of our favorite Does your school
heat (or the freezing Back-to-school in activists charge up to measure up? Sixteen
showers)? sustainable style make change conscious campuses

Photo: Veer fall 2007 | current 17

 C M Y K
cover
green for a week (or)
How my
Life went
to trash
by Robert Padnick
Harvard University
When Current asked me to live green for
a week, I said yes—yes, I will be a hero. My
assignment: Forfeit air conditioning in the
middle of July, eat organically and locally,
carry all my trash in a bag and generally be
at one with Mother Nature for seven days.
The following is my diary. It should tide
you over until Lifetime airs my made-for-
television movie, “Mother Nature’s Gentle-
man Caller: The Robert Padnick Story.”
Thursday: I head to the school cafete-
ria groggy from last night’s cookout—my
environmental bachelor party before mar-
rying my green wife. (I suspect that our
smoke-spewing grill runs off of ozone and
dolphin souls.) But today it’s goodbye sau-
sages, and hellooo tofu and sprouts. After
my first meal of greens and beans, I stash
my leftovers in the trash bag I’m storing
in my backpack. A lady seated next to me
looks over with pity. I explain to her that
I’m keeping my trash to show how much I
accumulate, but she pretends not to hear
me. She’s only an arm’s length away.
Friday: I’m lying on my dorm room
floor spread-eagled and motionless, pre-
serving my energy like a desert lizard. As
Eat This Magazine
10 ways to get green now
1. Unplug your cell sleep when you do.
phone charger when 3. Cold? Wear a
it’s not powering any- sweater. Hot? Wear a
thing. Same goes for tank top.
the iPod. 4. Support businesses
2. Let your computer that share and prac-
18 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
ally a heinous torture. Not because it’s so
cold, but because of the demonic, Gak-like
sound of liquid soap on my body, echoing
against the bathroom tiles. I hear someone
in another shower shudder.
Monday: It’s time I explain a little
something called the Sheryl Crow One
Square Method: one toilet paper square
per number two. Apparently having soaked
up the sun qualifies Sheryl as an environ-
mental scientist. But
what Ms. Crow fails to
realize is that while rock
stars may have the lux-
ury of 30-ply potty silks,
we college students are
stuck using jumbo rolls
of tracing paper that
disintegrate upon skin
contact. She can enjoy
her butt-wiping soirees
Throwing in the Towel: with the sheikh of Dubai
Robert Padnick can’t
handle the heat of a week and Kid Rock, but I’m
without A/C. going to do the globe a
favor by using as many
I gaze up at my inactive air conditioner, I squares as it takes to avoid smelling like a
realize that global warming isn’t happen- toxic dump.
ing, it happened, and A/C is all that’s keep- Tuesday: I visit the local farmers’ mar-
ing us out of the frying pan. If only I could ket to peruse its green wares. I approach
shrink like in Blues Clues and jump into a honeycomb candles vendor and proudly
my air conditioner’s winter wonderland to tell her that I’m living green for a week.
play tic-tac-toe with penguins. I manage “Just a week?” she asks.
to type an e-mail query: Dear editors, why “Yeah, a whole week! That’s seven
have you sentenced me to burn to death? days!” I say, beaming.
Waiting for a reply, I pass out till Saturday. I wait for my pat on the head, but she
Saturday: I feel refreshed from my full- looks at me like I haven’t said anything. I
day blackout, until I get a whiff of myself. tell her it’s been hard, that I had to pass up
Yikes! I possibly smell worse than my bag nacho day at the cafeteria. Nacho day! I
of rotting beans. I take a military shower in buy a candle and slink away, pouting.
which I rinse myself in cold water, turn off Wednesday: It’s my final day, and I’m
the tap, soap and shampoo and then rinse a lean mean green machine. A paper towel
off the suds with more cold water. Sounds after washing my hands? No thanks, I pre-
like a practical measure, but it is actu- fer my reusable hand cloth. Join my friends
for pizza? No thanks, I don’t have friends
anymore due to my awful stink. One
tice green values. 8. Write to Con-
5. Bring your own mug gress—nay, e-mail. Square Method? Get real, Sheryl.
to get coffee. 9. Bank online to I wonder how green I’ll remain after
6. Eat at restaurants avoid accumulating midnight. The hand towel is no problem.
that have “bring your piles of unread, un- The A/C’s going back on, but I’ll turn it off
own bowl” programs… shredded bank state- when I leave the room. And I’m definitely
and actually bring ments. keeping my bag of trash. I just don’t have
your bowl. 10. Do readings for the heart to toss the little guy after all we’ve
7. Fill your dishwasher class on the screen been through. ■
before you run it. instead of printing. Thanks to eco-consultants Frog Design for
the trash bag idea and to Sheryl Crow’s blog.
Photo by Joe Romano

beyond organic
how to eat like a hippie
by Ruth Olson
Brigham Young University
If you’ve set foot in a supermarket in the
past five years, you already know shopping
is getting tricky. Is organic or free-range
meat better? Is your canned tuna dolphin-
friendly? How many pesticides lurk inside
your tomato? Can’t you just eat in peace?
It turns out dining green is easier than
you’d think. We asked some experts to help
you re-write your grocery list so you can
chow down with the environment in mind.
Vocab lesson
“Organic” isn’t just a philosophical
choice—for a food to earn the label, it must
obey specific U.S. Department of Agricul-
ture rules: no synthetic pesticides or herbi-
cides for crops, of course, and no antibiot-
ics or hormones for livestock. Plus animals
must have space to move freely.
This all sounds great, you say, but is that
bag of organic arugula really better for the
environment? The long-term benefits go
beyond the pesticide problem, says Barbara
Haumann of the Organic Trade Associa-
tion—organic farming methods help native
flora and fauna by supporting soil health.
No place like home
Buying an organic watermelon from
Chile can leave the globe worse off than
buying an inorganic melon grown down
the street, says Craig Minowa, a scientist
Photo: Veer
5 9 C M Y K
5
Stay Green,
Save Green
going eco on the cheap
by Katherine Evans
University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill
Veg Out:
Eating green just If you’re scrimping this year and still
requires a little want to save the world, take heart. The
extra grocery-
store savvy. best way to spend sustainably isn’t on
pricey organic sheets and a solar-powered
iPod charger—it’s on less of everything.
“Look at what you don’t need,” says
Emily Main, senior editor of National
Geographic’s webzine The Green Guide.
“It’s cutting out all those unnecessary ex-
penses you use for convenience’s sake.”
Age-old rule No. 2 still holds true: re-
use, even if the thrift-store mothball scent
with the Organic Consumers Association, makes you gag. Search craigslist.com for
because the local fruit burns fewer fossil used furniture. Remind yourself that you
fuels on its way to the shelf. Some crops are don’t need a new “Periodic Table of Beer”
exceptions, like strawberries, often grown poster; just tear out some magazine photo
with a particularly harmful pesticide. For spreads and you’ve got yourself (margin-
those, it’s better to spring for organic. ally classier) wall art. When thirsty, head
Check the wrapper for the tap (it’s free!). If your
Another culprit that’s all cell phone ain’t broke, don’t
too easily ignored is excess
excess by the upgrade it, and resist sea-
packaging, says Minowa. numbers sonal wardrobe overhaul:
Look for items packed 1.42 billion new products mean more
in glass jars or tin cans, the number of dollars college students energy consumed, period.
spend on bottled water each year
materials that are more Try to support compa-
easily and frequently re- 70 million nies making green efforts,
cycled, and always reach the number of water bottles Americans like Nokia, Dell and Sony
consume each year
for the 24-pack of toilet Ericsson. And before drop-
paper. Buying in bulk and 27,000 ping $50 on your college’s
sharing with roommates is the number of barrels of oil required to hoodie, double-check for
package and transport that water
a great way to cut down on workers rights violations
packaging. 90 (see workersrights.org).
the percent of bottles that end up in
Last, you can forget all Besides not paying a fair
landfills rather than recycled or reused
about “paper vs. plastic”— living wage, companies that
bring along a cloth bag to 1,000 run sweatshops typically
the approximate number of years
pack up instead. have lax environmental
water bottles take to biodegrade
No green eggs & ham standards, too. And hit up
INFO FROM THE CONTAINER RECYCLING INST.,
If you’re serious about THE EARTH POLICY INST. AND THE HARRIS INTERACTIVE POLL 2002. big-name lines like Levi’s,
—BY JANIE LORBER
going green, be ready to American Apparel and Ur-
eat like it. Cutting down ban Outfitters for recycled
on meat and animal products is best, says or organic clothes that don’t resemble
Sarah Bratnober of the Organic Valley items from a booth at a Phish concert.
Family of Farms, since much more land Still, says Main, “one pair of conventional
and energy are consumed generating a jeans is better than five pairs of organic
pound of meat than one of grain. ■ cotton jeans.” ■
fall 2007 | current 19
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5

cover_story
The Green Room
Cool Green
Stuff b.

b.

a.

c.

e. d.

f.

At this point in the year, you’ve probably loaded up with all the back-
to-school basics—pens, highlighters, overpriced textbooks—but what
about a solar powered calculator? Or notebooks with covers created
from recycled records? Current rounded up a few of the eco-friendly
dorm goodies that you won’t find at your campus bookstore. And with
items like silk and hemp undies, shopping green has never been sexier.
a. Water Powered Desk Set, thinkgeek.com, $9.99 b. Album Cover Notebook, eco-artware.com, $18 c. Max- g.
Lite Spiramax Flourescent Lamp, amazon.com, $4.99 d. Stapleless Stapler, revdesign.biz, 6.29 e. Hannah
Swivel Tilt Chair, izzydesign.com, $260 f. Reware T-Shirt, reware.com, $26 g. Low-rise Bootcut Hemp Jeans,
rawganique.com, $88 h. Silk and Hemp Knickers, greenknickers.org, $50 i. Mobile Wallpaper, mioculture.
com, $28 j. Fong Chopstick Lamp, chopstickart.com, $42 k. EcoBasics Pillow, ecobasics.com, $24 l. Can-
pactor, conservastore.com, $69.95 m. Grocery Bag Trash Can, containerstore.com, $4.99, n. Bestrite Tack
Board, stales.com, $79.99 o. Seventh Generation Ultra Liquid, lowimpactliving.com, $12.50.

20 current | fall 2007

C M Y K 5 9
5

cover_story
The Green Room
Cool Green
Stuff b.

b.

a.

c.

e. d.

f.

At this point in the year, you’ve probably loaded up with all the back-
to-school basics—pens, highlighters, overpriced textbooks—but what
about a solar powered calculator? Or notebooks with covers created
from recycled records? Current rounded up a few of the eco-friendly
dorm goodies that you won’t find at your campus bookstore. And with
items like silk and hemp undies, shopping green has never been sexier.
a. Water Powered Desk Set, thinkgeek.com, $9.99 b. Album Cover Notebook, eco-artware.com, $18 c. Max- g.
Lite Spiramax Flourescent Lamp, amazon.com, $4.99 d. Stapleless Stapler, revdesign.biz, 6.29 e. Hannah
Swivel Tilt Chair, izzydesign.com, $260 f. Reware T-Shirt, reware.com, $26 g. Low-rise Bootcut Hemp Jeans,
rawganique.com, $88 h. Silk and Hemp Knickers, greenknickers.org, $50 i. Mobile Wallpaper, mioculture.
com, $28 j. Fong Chopstick Lamp, chopstickart.com, $42 k. EcoBasics Pillow, ecobasics.com, $24 l. Can-
pactor, conservastore.com, $69.95 m. Grocery Bag Trash Can, containerstore.com, $4.99, n. Bestrite Tack
Board, stales.com, $79.99 o. Seventh Generation Ultra Liquid, lowimpactliving.com, $12.50.

20 current | fall 2007

 5 9 C M Y K
5

Mean v.
Green
you are what you buy
Looking to green up your spending as you
get back into the swing of things this year?
Check out these eco-friendly alternatives to
i. basic college necessities:

Mean:
SUVs. A 2004 Lincoln Navigator gets, on
average, 13 miles to the gallon—that’s about
$3,461 in gas costs a year.
Green:
Used Bicycle, waterloocycles.com, from
$100 to $900. Bikes rank second only to walk-
ing in terms of environmental-friendliness,
j. and a used bike is even better.
h.
Mean:
The average American cheeseburger.
One environmental journalist estimated that
the yearly greenhouse gas emissions from the
production and consumption of cheeseburgers
equals the emissions of about 6 million SUVs.
Green:
Amy’s California Veggie Burger,
www.amys.com, $3.99 for a pack of four from
k. FreshDirect. It’s flavorful, low-cal, and made
from completely organic ingredients. Plus you
can just pop it in the microwave.

Mean:
n. Rubber flip-flops, like those by J.Crew or
Havaianas that are made in part with PVC, a
plastic that has been shown to release toxins.
Green:
Ethletic Sneakers, www.ethletic.com, about
$68. They’re durable, so you won’t have to
replace them every year, and look a lot like
Chuck Taylors. The latex for the sole is respon-
sibly harvested.

Mean:
Beauty supplies, like lip balm and sham-
poo, containing petroleum products. Fossil
o. fuels are insanely un-green.
l.
Green:
Burt’s Bees Rosemary Mint Shampoo
Bar, www.burtsbees.com. $6. Because it’s a
bar of soap for your hair, it doesn’t come in
a plastic bottle, and its ingredients are “99.9
m. percent” natural. It smells super good, too.

fall 2007 | current 21

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5

new haven
gothicR:omanoff
Alexandra
aretto
and Emily Cas om
fr
see their food at
ro ut to sp oo n
sp
rm .
the Yale Fa
 5 9 C M Y K
5

cover_story

when our powers combine:

planting a
new crop of
planeteers
by Jody Pollock and Veronique Greenwood
University of Pennsylvania and Yale University
Today’s college students are the first generation to grow up with green. In kindergarten, we anointed
Captain Planet our hero; in grade school, the three R’s—reduce, reuse and recycle—became a classroom mantra.
The cumulative community service hours we put in picking up trash beside local roads or cleaning wetlands be-
hind our high schools may total somewhere in the millions.
It’s only fitting that, now in college, the same kids that spent our playground days yelling “Earth! Wind! Wa-
ter! Fire!” are beginning to throw real weight behind those words. Environmental issues today are more press-
ing than sorting paper and plastic: the threat of global warming, waning of oil supply and destruction of natural
resources are complex, international problems. But on campuses across the country, we are taking them on with
real energy—solar and otherwise.
Current has unearthed students, faculty and staff at six campuses who are making some of the most impres-
sive moves toward a greener future. While the stakes may be overwhelming, these innovators prove that solving
Earth’s problems can actually be fun. And when students are committed and campuses are enthusiastic, the
payoff is big. Take a look.

dirtiest dinner Since its founding in 2001, the Yale Sustainable

Kidding Around:
growing
Alexandra Haar balances
being an undergrad and
Food Project (YSFP) has been at the forefront of the
movement to put local food on campus dining hall ta-
a single mom.

closer
Yale university
>>There’s no mystery meat on the menu at Yale
University’s Berkeley College dining hall. Instead, a
dinner menu this fall might include asparagus soup,
roasted squash, maple-syrup-and-sage pizza and
grass-fed beef hamburgers, finished off with cran-
berry oatmeal cookies. Definitely a step up from ra-
men. Not only that, but it’s all seasonal fare supplied
by producers in the New Haven area.
bles. YSFP has grown from a student group advocat-
ing for organic foods in dining halls into a full-fledged
university-funded operation serving 40 percent of all
food on campus. The average American meal travels
between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from starting point
to your plate, according to the Worldwatch Institute,
accruing a steep carbon price tag. But YSFP’s food
comes entirely from regional producers.
The project’s centerpiece is the Yale Farm, a one-
acre plot a few miles from campus. One acre isn’t
enough to supply much of the food served at Yale, but

Photo by Miranda Popkey fall 2007 | current 23

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C M Y K
cover_story
the farm is a teaching ground designed
to include students in every aspect of the
growing process. Volunteers and six sum-
mer interns plant, tend and harvest the
produce, then sell it at the farmer’s market
in downtown New Haven. Students work-
ing the farm also learn about sustainable
agriculture methods, like putting plants
where they can make the best use of re-
sources and spreading mulch instead of
nitrogen-boosting fertilizers.
So far, the results of the food project
have been delicious, and student appetites
are picking up on the difference. In a 2005
survey, 79 percent of students said they
would eat in dining halls more if the food
were sustainable and 83 percent find the
project’s offerings to be of higher quality
than other food served on campus. (Makes
you wonder what you’re missing.)
YSFP is now hard at work to make the
Passing on Gas
earth-friendly ways to fill up your tank
Every decade thinks that it’s the most al-
ternative. The ’60s brought us alternative love,
the ’80s claimed alternative rock and now the
’00s are making way for their own alternative—
alternative fuels, which are cleaner and greener
than traditional fuels like gasoline and diesel.
Northwestern’s Laura Schocker breaks
down some of the cutting-edge technologies
fueling big-time changes.
Plug it In: Electric Cars
Some of the earliest cars on the road were
electric, but the trend gave way to steam and
the internal combustion engine. Now elec-
tric cars are making a comeback, says John
Humphrey, an eco-consultant for Sustainable
Energy Partners. This fall the $98,000 Tesla
hits the streets. It’s a 100-percent electric
car—meaning that it gives off no harmful emis-
sions—that can travel an impressive 200-plus
miles per charge.
If you’re in the market for a slightly more af-
fordable set of wheels, another good (but less
24 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
flavors of topnotch, locally grown meals
complement a college budget. When the
project began, sustainable food cost an
exorbitant 70 percent more than conven-
tional food, but as the program expanded
its directors have become savvier about
spending. By making large food purchas-
ing agreements with farmers and stream-
lining their operations, YSFP brought
down the price of a sustainable menu to
just 37 percent more than conventional
food. That’s good news for the majority of
students, who value food quality over price,
portion or overall dining experience, ac-
cording to the same 2005 survey.
The Food Project isn’t meant to stop
growing at Yale’s gates; it was created as a
model for other schools seeking to incorpo-
rate sustainability into campus dining.
The project’s purchasing guidelines
are available online, and soon Yale
green) choice is a hybrid plug-in, which
uses both battery and fuel power.
It’s the Bomb: Hydrogen
Hydrogen-powered vehicles may become
a hugely successful alternative over the next
few decades, but some scientists worry that
we don’t have enough time to wait for results.
Hydrogen-powering also brings up a chicken-
and-egg dilemma, says MIT researcher Jeroen
Struben. No one will buy the car without a
widespread re-fueling infrastructure in place—
like gas stations with hydrogen pumps—but
fuel providers are reluctant to make the invest-
ment without high demand for hydrogen cars.
A Use for Eucalyptus: Biofuels
Biofuels come from biomass, which is a fancy
name for plant matter and waste. Devoting a
small percent of the arable land in the world
now farmed for food to the cultivation of bio-
mass would “go a long way toward meeting our
needs for renewable energy,” says Stanford
will release a compilation of the project’s
complete parameters for nurturing a sus-
tainable, healthy food culture on campus.
It’s a recipe book for a tastier, more whole-
some planet.
most bang per buck
pay it
forward
Macalester College
>>Some would have seen the leaky
freezer in the vegetarian co-op dorm at
Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. as a
nuisance. But to three enterprising under-
graduates, it represented an opportunity
biochemist Chris Somerville. Eucalyptus and
switchgrass are ideal sources of biomass be-
cause they consume less water (and thus fewer
resources) as they grow.
Pretty Corny: Ethanol
Produced by fermenting sugary plants like
sugar beets, sugercane and corn, ethanol
can safely be combined with gas in most car
engines in 5-percent doses. Almost all gas sta-
tions in California already provide 5-percent-
ethanol mixtures at the pump, says Humphrey,
and in Brazil—which invested in ethanol during
the ’70s oil crisis to become more self-suffi-
cient—about half of all cars run off ethanol.
Flower Power: Diesel Alternatives
Biofuels and ethanol only work with special
car engines, but biodiesel is a simpler alterna-
tive, since diesel engines are already on the

for investment. By replacing this outdated,
241-kilowatt-hour freezer with a cheaper,
energy-efficient, 42-kilowatt-hour freezer,
Macalester will save about $150 a year and
the co-op’s supply of frozen Boca Burgers.
All of that is thanks to Macalester’s Clean
Energy Revolving Fund (CERF), founded in
the spring of 2006. A revolving loan fund is
“a wonderful mechanism for capturing cost
savings from wise [sustainable] investments
and funneling them back into more invest-
ments,” says Chris Wells, assistant professor
of environmental studies and chair of the
CERF Board, which oversees project selec-
tion and allocation. A green fund like CERF
operates by taking the money saved from
successful energy-efficiency projects—like
replacing a freezer, installing low-flow
showerheads or building a wind turbine—
and cycling it back into other sustainability
initiatives.
roads. This fuel is typically made from the
oil of natural products like olives, peanuts,
grape seeds, sunflowers and soybeans.
Humphrey cautions that those products
must be planted in a sustainable way—or-
ganically or locally grown—to make this a
truly green alternative.
Here Comes the Sun: Solar Power
Capturing just one percent of all solar
energy that reaches one percent of the
earth’s surface would be enough to provide
transportation worldwide for an entire year,
says Stanford’s Somerville. But solar energy
certainly isn’t going to make cars any sexier:
there simply isn’t space on most automo-
biles for enough solar panels to power the
entire vehicle, says Humphrey, although
plugging an electric car into a solar-pow-
ered home would work nicely.
Ready to fuel up a greener life right now?
Hit up the pantry and fill your diesel engine
with straight vegetable oil—in warm weather
(and with a heater when it’s cold), a bottle
of Wesson gets almost the same miles to the
gallon as gasoline. It may cost about three
times as much, but saving the planet is
priceless, so suck it up, tightwad.
5 9
5
Before it was so eloquently defined,
CERF was just an idea bouncing among a
green-conscious trio: Timothy Den Herder-
Thomas and Asa Diebolt, both freshmen at
the time, and senior Richard Graves who
has worked as the New Media Fellow at the
Energy Action Coalition, a youth-led clean-
energy advocacy organization, since gradu-
ating in 2006. The three spent their spare
time researching notable loan funds, and
what they found was startling. Harvard’s
Green Campus Loan Fund was averaging
a return on investment of 27 percent in
2007—a number that is unheard-of com-
pared to the stock market’s average return
of 7 percent. It was doing even better than
Harvard’s own endowment. “A 27 percent
return on investment really opens the eyes
of the treasurer of a college,” says Diebolt,
proving that it’s not always “the environ-
ment versus the economy.”
The compact fluorescent lightbulb,
or CFL, is a classic example. CFLs
are significantly more expensive than
regular bulbs upfront but can prove
worthwhile as long-term investments
in reduced electricity costs.
The real magic of CERF is that it
captures, accumulates and reinvests
those gains rather than losing them
to unrelated ends, says Julian Dau-
tremont-Smith, Associate Director of
the Association for the Advancement
of Sustainability in Higher Educa-
tion (AASHE). That’s exactly how the
students presented CERF when they
came before the administration with
their ideas—as a smart investment.
They won approval and a $20,000
donation from Macalester’s student
government, the largest contribu-
tion to any single project in student
memory.
CERF is closing in on a target
goal of $100,000 in combined initial
investments and project savings,
recording $70,000 as of this spring.
The Board is currently reviewing
several proposals, including the in-
stallation of low-flow showerheads,
dual-flush toilets and low-flow fau-
cets in one dorm—expected to chop
39 percent off the water bill and save
Photo: Veer
C M Y K
100,000 gallons of water per year in that
building alone. An industrial-size wind tur-
bine is also in the works, an investment that
will produce the equivalent of 40 percent of
Macalester’s total energy needs and, within
a decade, a projected $150,000 per year for
the fund.
Last spring, Diebolt and Den Herder-
Thomas teamed up with AASHE to publish
a how-to guide for students looking to start
revolving loan funds on their own campuses.
The guide is careful to emphasize that, at
the beginning, bigger green loan funds
aren’t necessarily better. In fact, students at
California State University in Monterey Bay
began their fund with $250 from a private
donation. When CSU’s Office of the Chan-
cellor matched that $250, the fund had just
enough to replace four high-pressure so-
dium light fixtures on the indoor basketball
court. Slam dunk.
most creepy crawly
remixing
the earth
worm
Southern Illinois u.
>>Feeding earthworms wasn’t a skill
Andilee Warner listed on her resume. But
for Warner, the recycling and solid waste co-
ordinator at Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale (SIUC), feeding two million of
them everyday has become vital to her work.
The feeding is actually just one part of a
process called “vermicomposting” (literally,
“worm composting”), an earthworm-fueled
recycling method. In an average work week,
these red wrigglers compost between 500
and 1,000 pounds of food waste from three
of SIUC’s cafeterias as well as paper waste
from a commercial-size shredder, trans-
Kidding Around:
forming the leftovers into supplemental
Alexandra Haar balances fer-
being an undergrad and
tilizer for the campus grounds.
a single mom. “We’re taking
what has traditionally been waste going into
the landfill and turning it into a very pre-
cious and powerful commodity,” explains
Warner. For every pound of food fed to the
red wrigglers, only one-fourth of a pound
fall 2007 | current 25
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C M Y K
cover_story
remains after digestion and excretion to
emerge in the form of worm “castings,” or
poop.
Warner, who was named “Recycler of
the Year” by the Illinois Recycling Associa-
tion in June, can’t take credit for inventing
vermicomposting. The first recorded use
of the practice dates back more than 2,000
years, and more than 100 years ago Charles
Darwin noted in the results of an extensive
study that red wrigglers can eat their own
weight in organic matter in a single day.
Vermicomposting has long since been a
favorite of eco-conscious homeowners with
big bins (and lots of worms) to spare. But
Warner believes no one has attempted this
kind of project on such a large scale before,
and John Russin, associate dean of the
College of Agricultural Sciences at SIUC,
is certain that it’s the first example of ver-
micomposting in Illinois, if not the whole
Midwest.
On a campus where food waste once
made up a quarter of all dumpster weight,
according to trash audits—making for one
“very nasty” pile, says Russin—vermicom-
posting is expected to save SIUC $93,000
over 10 years in garbage removal costs. But
just as important are the tons of natural
fertilizer the program will generate and the
creative research it stimulates—explaining
why Warner received an initial $150,000
grant from the Recycling Expansion and
Modernization (REM) program of Illinois’
Department of Commerce and Economic
Opportunity when SIUC approved the plan
two years ago. With $55,000 more from
the university and $15,000 from Jackson
County Health Department, she was well
on her way.
Warner has learned that worms have an
important edge over traditional methods of
composting: intestines. “A banana in a pile
of leaves take a long time to decompose but
if you eat the banana, it’s a much more ef-
ficient process,” she says.
SIUC is still working out kinks in the
vermicomposting procedure. There was,
for example, the unforeseen problem of
summer starvation. The worms mainly are
fed what Warner calls a “tuna casserole” of
cafeteria waste, which includes everything
from spaghetti to milk cartons. “If it comes
26 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
into the kitchen on a food tray and it’s
biodegradable, it gets composted,” Warner
says. But when students left SIUC for sum-
mer break, Warner discovered a hitch in
the plans: the cafeterias shut down, and the
worms were left without a constant flow of
food waste.
The solution was paper waste. The
earthworms seemed to cope with the diet
change, even if it meant a downgrade in
food quality. “It’s like the difference between
eating a sausage from the griddle and a rice
cake,” she says. “Of course they like food
waste better, but if they’re going to starve,
they’ll eat paper.”
Now, after a year of eating and excret-
ing, the worms have produced enough for
the harvesting to begin. The castings that
have been accumulating in the worm beds
since last fall will be collected and used to
create what Warner calls “worm tea”—and
what most people would call watery worm
dung. Storing the vermicompost material
in a container that’s seeped in water, much
like tea in a tea bag, creates a nutrient-rich
compost-water mix ready to be sprayed
onto campus grounds.
This phase of the process has yet to be
tested on such a large scale, but Warner
is hopeful about the results and about the
potential for a recycling breakthrough.
Let’s just hope she doesn’t decide to cele-
brate success with crumpets and worm tea.
sexiest sustainability
pumped
up to
suds up
Washington College
>> Last year, several students at
Washington College in Chestertown, Md.
piled into a shower together and snapped a
picture. A little while later the photograph
surfaced online—on the official Washing-
ton College website. But there was nothing
inappropriate or objectionable about the
shower scene. It was, after all, for a good
cause: they were saving water.
Group showers—or at least staged pho-
tographs of them—are par for the course
during George Goes Green, an annual,
campus-wide initiative at WC to raise
awareness about sustainability and conser-
vation. Though it began two years ago as a
three-week-long exercise, the program has
flourished, now running for a full semester
and featuring a building efficiency competi-
tion, a sustainable ideas contest, a Green
Pledge and a No Energy Day.
Inspired by similar programs at other
schools around the country, in particular
Dickinson College, Middlebury College
and Warren Wilson College, George Goes
Green is just a part of the movement to
make going green a good time.
“Colleges have always been at the fore-
front of progress and what’s coming next.
They have to set an example,” explains ’07
alum Shannon Holste, the student behind
George Goes Green and a representative to
the Sustainability Committee of WC’s Cen-
ter for Environment and Society.
To get George Goes Green off the
ground, Holste created a coalition of dedi-
cated students, faculty and staff. “You can’t
turn the campus green on your own,” she
says. The administration was quick to join
the cause, especially since the college is
located in the heart of the Chesapeake Bay
watershed, a region continually threatened
by chemical, air and landscape pollution.
Nine teams of dorms and academic
buildings competed to claim the biggest
cutback in energy consumption over the
course of the semester. In case bettering the
world wasn’t enticing enough, the competi-
tion offered an extra incentive: the winner
got a free breakfast served by Holste and
other students during finals week—with
biodegradable plates and cups, of course.
Holste also encouraged her classmates
to sign a Green Pledge, committing them
to green practices like washing clothes on
the cold cycle and avoiding any products
involving Styrofoam. Four hundred green
flags were planted on the college lawn to
represent those who signed.
April brought “No Energy Day”—a day
of eco-festivities celebrated by classes
held outside or in the dark, a special
candlelit dinner and a bonfire party. To
Photo by Jim Graham
 5 9 C M Y K
5

squeaky
greenB:ell and
Christina
e got
Shannon Holst ion
nt
students’ atte
that
by telling them e
ow ers ar
group sh erve.
ay to co ns
one w

fall 2007 | current xx

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C M Y K
room for s:
wrigglarenerr has
Andilee W
illion
more than 2 m s
ees: w or m
employ
co m-
hard at work ty
iver si
posting un
trash.
top it off, George Goes Green sponsored a
student contest to brainstorm other kinds
of sustainability on campus. The winning
student’s idea, which earned a $250 cash
prize, was two-fold: replace inefficient water
fixtures in school bathrooms and create a
campus wetland. While the wetland awaits
funding, Holste believes the bathroom proj-
ect will kick off soon.
The photographs on georgegoesgreen.
com tell a story of real impact—images of
students studying by candlelight, profes-
sors turning off unused computers and a
self-proclaimed Energy Conservation Patrol
confiscating inefficient appliances and is-
suing citations to brazen energy users. The
photo-documentation also kept the process
light-hearted, which is a huge part of keep-
ing students engaged.
Sustainability “can come off sounding
like it’s a big chore, but if you can make it
enticing and show it’s easy to make a part of
your life,” says Holste, “your movement will
be that much more successful.”
28 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
friendliest fight
think big,
play nice
university of calif.
>> The California Student Sustain-
ability Coalition, or CSSC, was born at
a time of statewide energy turmoil. The
blackouts and budget crises that led to the
recall of Governor Gray Davis were at high
boil. So, in the fall of 2002, student sustain-
ability groups from University of California
schools teamed up with the environmental
group Greenpeace to turn the UC system—
a community of more than 200,000 stu-
dents—into a sustainable force of nature.
The initial campaign, called UC Go So-
lar, brought together student activists, ad-
ministrators and faculty to tackle the lack of
formal environmental awareness among the
UCs. The proposed system-wide sustain-
ability policy brought before the university
Regents in December 2002 had big goals:
calling for new and renovated buildings to
meet LEED green building standards and
to take 50 percent of power from renewable
energy.
The real innovation of Go Solar, how-
ever, wasn’t its green ideas but its golden
touch. The 30 or so students who lobbied
the Regents worked deliberately to cooper-
ate with administrators rather than butt
heads. It’s an approach that isn’t always
embraced by college activists, who often
confuse assertion with aggression, but one
that helped make CSSC a success.
The UC Regents agreed to a revised ver-
sion of the Go Solar policy in July 2003. All
new and renovated buildings would now
be required to generate 25 percent of their
power on campus and to meet the equiva-
lent of LEED certification standards, and
the entire system would take 10 percent of
its overall power from renewable sources
by 2014. “The policy was a dramatic shift,”
Photo by Joseph Midkiff

says Mike Cox, co-chair of the CSSC’s advi-
sory board. “There was no thought of green
building or purchasing renewable energy
prior to the policy. Now the UCs are one of
the largest institutional purchasers of clean
energy in the country,” and have put $8 bil-
lion of funding into green construction, he
says.
With the campaign completed and a giant
first step made, Greenpeace left. But the stu-
dent coalition persisted, and the CSSC—now
spanning nine campuses and sponsored by
the Earth Island Institute, an environmen-
tal-group incubator—continues to research
and implement expansions of the policy they
pushed through five years ago.
The CSSC is a sterling example of how
student activists can work together with
administrators to institute change. Student
activists are at their most effective when
“they’re not just going off and shaking their
fingers at people,” says Merrillie Herrigan,
director of education for the Alliance to
Save Energy.
So what’s next on the agenda? Pushing
for local and sustainable food purchases
on campus, a project spearheaded by Tim
Galerneau, a Food Systems employee at
UC-Santa Cruz. And although this year the
CSSC replaced its traditional grassroots
structure with a more formal hierarchy,
the group’s core values remain intact. Says
Montgomery Norton, co-chair of the Irvine
Student Sustainability chapter, “When we
go to the administration, we thank them
for what they’ve done, and ask them to take
the next step.” Does saying please and thank
you mean they’re catering to the man? Well,
with the environment at stake, it’s worth
minding your ps and qs.
most conscious crib
it takes
a village
Berea College
>>Berea College’s Ecovillage is a
state-of-the-art exercise in sustainable de-
sign. It is a beacon of eco-friendly architec-
ture. It is a family-friendly example of on-
5 9
5
campus green living. What the Ecovillage
is not, says Richard Olson, the director of
Sustainability and Environmental Studies
(SENS) at Berea, is a solution. It’s just the
beginning.
The Ecovillage was built more than two
years ago at the college, located in Berea,
Ky., to provide additional housing for the
sizable “nontraditional” student popula-
tion—mostly married couples and students
with children. Conceived as the centerpiece
of Berea’s campaign for campus-wide ef-
ficiency, the Ecovillage is made up of a
complex of 50 townhouse-style apartments,
a childcare and educational laboratory, a
community center and a demonstration
house. But the moniker “village” certainly
understates the development’s complexity.
It aims to achieve a 75 percent reduction in
energy use (against the baseline of average
regional household use) and a 75 percent
reduction in per capita water use (against
average Berea household use), plus the re-
cycling, reusing or composting of at least 50
percent of all waste.
That’s a tall order, but the Ecovillage
certainly seems up to the challenge—it al-
ready features an impressively full array of
green designs, including passive solar heat-
ing, wind-powered electrical generators,
a ground-source heat pump and a natural
wastewater treatment system. Indoors, resi-
dents find recycled-fabric carpets, energy-
efficient appliances and reclaimed wood—
originally destined for landfills—making up
siding and ceilings.
Still, as Olson says, installing the right
infrastructure and technology only makes
two-thirds of the difference; the rest is up
to individuals. Residents must apply to live
in the village and sign a contract when they
move in, pledging to recycle and to take on a
few chores from a “menu” of green options,
like carpooling and composting. “You de-
pend on your neighbors,” says house director
Phil Hawn. To meet performance goals and
create a community of sustainability, he con-
tinues, “everyone is responsible.”
Hawn is one of six house directors, all
Berea undergrads and budding experts in
specific environmental fields. Pooling their
knowledge, the directors conduct ongoing
educational programs like parent lunches
C M Y K
cover_story
to teach residents how to live sustainably.
For his part, Hawn looks to create a
responsible community for the future. In
addition to his roles as house director and a
fulltime student of Sustainable Community
Development, Hawn, 41, is a husband and
father of two. His daughters, ages two and
seven, have plenty of eco-friendly places to
romp around the village with other kids,
like all-natural playgrounds outfitted with
slides built into hillsides. Plus, all children
living in the Ecovillage help recycle and
compost, making it a perfect place to raise
another generation of eco-conscious fami-
lies.
The green playground is certainly
unique, but Berea’s campus-wide effort to
reduce energy use 45 percent by 2015 is
not. In 2002 Cornell University’s Energy
Conservation Initiative declared its plan to
reduce campus energy use to 20 percent
below 2000 levels by 2012, and in 2000
the University at Buffalo pledged a one-
fifth reduction within a decade. Plenty
more schools have pledged big carbon
emissions cuts for the next twenty years.
Still, even “the forefront is not far
enough,” says SENS director Olson. No
campus in the U.S. can justifiably claim that
it is sustainable, at least not yet, according
to Olson. He warns that, unless the nation
takes major steps now, simply being more
conscientious about turning off lights or
saving water will no longer cut it. In just a
few decades, Americans may need to aban-
don the ideal of owning a house in the sub-
urbs with two cars and seriously begin to re-
localize economies, food sources and energy
systems. “If we just change the lightbulbs
and buy a Prius, we’re dead,” Olson says.
But we have to start somewhere, and not
everyone can live in an entirely self-sustain-
ing Ecovillage. So where to begin? “Go grow
your own tomato,” says residential director
and senior Kate Maginel. “That’s a start.” ■
Jody Pollock is a sophomore Spanish and
urban studies major at the University of
Pennsylvania. She will never underestimate
the power of earthworms again. Veronique
Greenwood, a senior biology major at Yale,
is sad that moving off-campus means no
more YSFP burgers for her.
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clean and green Carnegie Mellon

16 schools Green spaces built on roofs at Carnegie

Mellon stabilize temperatures in the rooms
directly underneath. Alternative transpor-
tation methods on campus include public

That Care
Luckily for the planet, there aren’t enough pages in this magazine to do justice to the
vital sustainabilty efforts taking place on college campuses around the country. We surveyed
bus passes, shuttle buses, carpool parking
incentives and electric vehicles for facility
workers. Carnegie Mellon plans to up its
green building even further and makes sure
students stay involved as part of a task force
to stamp out the campus’ carbon footprint.
75 top schools to see what they are doing right—and where they’re falling short. With the
help of Mindy Pennybacker, former editor of The Green Guide and creator of Greener-
Penny.com, we tallied up those with the best scores across the board, looking at basics like
energy-saving buildings and pesticide-free grasses along with even greater—and more un- Transportation water monitoring
usual—endeavors, from wind turbines to fish sanctuaries. Here is our green honor roll:

Arizona State U.
Arizona State University’s dining halls
have a growing appetite for sustainability.
Besides eliminating Styrofoam use and
starting a composting system, dining ser-
vices are supporting a new, entirely organic
buffet to be supplied largely by local farm-
ers; eventually, the university hopes to grow
some of its own organic food. The Office of
Sustainability would like to see more stu-
dent involvement in its projects, though.
food student involvement
Bowdoin
Bowdoin College’s small student body—
only 2,500 students—packs a big punch
when it comes to being green. This year,
students organized a rally on campus as
part of Step It Up, a national grassroots
campaign asking Congress to help America
cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.
More than 400 people showed up to sign
petitions and march in support of the goal.
Students were also the driving force behind
the college purchasing Renewable Energy
Credits, which kicked off in the spring of
2006.
Colby College
Driven by a dedication to reducing water
consumption and waste excess, Colby’s en-
vironmental studies department developed
a program called RESCUE (Recycle Every-
thing Save Colby’s Usable Excess). And so
far it’s working: dining services compost all
food waste, and each week Colby recycles
an average of 42 pounds of waste per per-
son. Every building and dorm is equipped
with low-flow shower heads and low-flush
toilets, and recycling is readily accessible
for everything from paper products to elec-
tronics.

Brown student initiative pesticides

water conservation transportation

Wrought-iron recycling stations have a

strong visual presence on Brown’s campus,
and 35 percent of all waste on campus is
recycled—not a bad number, but a little low
for a stereotypically tree-hugging school.
Dining halls serve 30 percent locally and
regionally grown food, and students started
a campus garden. Brown is now shifting to
a cleaner natural gas supply and looking
into bio-based fuel sources for the future.
Tufts
Tufts University takes 70 percent of its
energy from wind power. Even more thrill-
ing, a green campaign asks students to “Do
it in the Dark”—and the dorm that saves the
most energy in a month earns a free party
complete with pizza and entertainment.
What better way to conserve electricity than
giving out glow-in-the dark condoms?
U. of Virginia
Not content to recycle merely plastic
and aluminum, the university’s recycling
department collaborated with UVA stu-
dents to organize “Chuck it for Charity,” a
program that collects furniture and other
household items from students moving out
of apartments and donates the goods to the
underprivileged.

food living up to image generous reusing alternative energy

wind power buildings

30 current | fall 2007 * LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and refers to widely-used
national building standards developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit organization.

Cornell
Cornell’s Department of Sustainability
is helping to create a consortium of local
schools and businesses to buy biodiesel fuel.
Meanwhile, on the other side of campus,
students representing the university’s seven
colleges build a sustainable house for the
national Solar Decathlon competition each
year—earning second prize for The Big
Red in 2006. A green roof adorns the first
LEED*-certified dormitory in New York,
and another is in progress atop an under-
construction parking garage.
buildings transportation
Emory
Emory has more square footage of
LEED-certified buildings than any other
campus in the country. And its green
energy isn’t just spent indoors; the uni-
versity has designated three “food gar-
dens” throughout campus to stress the
importance of eating locally. (The gardens
are largely educational in design and will
produce little actual food.) A new policy re-
quires future construction to meet at least
silver LEED-certification.
buildings alternative energy
Kenyon College
Neighboring communities are key for
Kenyon, where the use of locally grown
food has spiked 150 percent in the past two
years. The complete inventory of campus
food cultivated within 75 miles of campus
is extensive and varied: it includes all beef
products, hormone-free chickens, Amish
eggs, dairy products, apples and other sea-
sonal produce and even local jams.
food athletic fields
Reporting credit: Lyndsie Bourgon, Hillary Brody, Sabina
Ellahi, Candice Jones, Sarah Kliff, Danielle McNally and
. Chip Sheridan
5 9
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Reed College
One of Reed’s campus landmarks, the
Canyon, covers 26 acres and splits the cam-
pus in half, serving as a sanctuary for fish and
a research gold mine for students. Realizing
that fish—specifically endangered salmon—
were struggling to swim upstream, Reed con-
structed a fish ladder in 2000 that permits
easier passage from the rapidly moving water
to calmer breeding areas on the other side of
the plot. Preserving and improving a natural
environment inside its campus, Reed has
pushed sustainability to another level.
fish Preservation Buildings
U. of Florida
Besides its athletic fields, all UF’s green
spaces, including the first Audubon-certi-
fied sanctuary at any university, are main-
tained with reclaimed water, and natural
predators are used to keep pest ecology
balanced. UF has also been making large
strides in green architecture, with more
than 50 new and renovated buildings
either LEED-certified or submitted for
certification.
buildings athletic fields
U. of Washington
The Seattle campus is completely pow-
ered by renewable energy—a fact that’s
pretty impressive on its own, but astound-
ing when you consider that the university
supports an undergrad population of
36,000. Dormitories have replaced all their
lights with long-lasting halogen bulbs, cam-
pus cafeterias serve locally harvested foods
and bicycle trails offer students the option
of traveling carbon-free.
transportation fish preservation
C M Y K
Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt students enrolled in Wil-
Skills, a class dedicated to exploring nature
(complete with camping trips!), and mem-
bers of the student group SPEAR (Students
Promoting Environmental Awareness and
Recycling) are using vegetable oil from
campus dining halls to create biodiesel.
transportation buildings
WashU
To lead the community of St. Louis into
a more sustainable future, Washington
University is willing to try anything and ev-
erything. So far, it’s installed solar panels on
top of the main campus library, made plans
to construct exclusively LEED-certified
buildings in the future and invested $55
million in a renewable energy initiative.
renewable energy recycling
Syracuse
With 247 buildings and 8.57 million
square feet of space, staying green can be
tricky (especially for a school that bleeds
orange). Proving that sometimes common-
sense ideas are just as good as out-of-the-
box ones, eco-designers focus mainly on
simple concepts—like insulation and day
lighting—that create maximum efficiency
with minimal output. New buildings, in-
cluding an upcoming engineering research
lab, a residence hall and a new basketball
practice facility, are all planned to satisfy
LEED requirements of various levels.
Things would be near-perfect, if they could
just figure out how to get citrus to upstate
NY more sustainably during the winter.
buildings citrus acquisition
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ANSWERING
THE CALL
Finding the faith on secular campuses
Students struggle to earn their G.O.D.
by Taylor Barnes and
Daniel Stone
Brown University and University
of California at Davis
When Justin Cannon moved into the
dorms at Earlham College in Richmond,
Ind., his new friends started calling him
Jesus. It wasn’t just because of his resem-
blance to iconic images of the Messiah. “I
had a full beard and told them I wanted to
be a priest,” says Cannon. And at Earlham,
a liberal arts college—even one rooted in
the Quaker faith—his life plans stood out
from those of his teasing dormmates. It’s
not that theism is absent on college cam-
puses—a startling 80 percent of college
students believe in God, according to a
2004 survey by UCLA’s Higher Education
Research Institute. Having religion is one
thing. Devoting your life to it is, well, quite
the leap of faith.
Along with a growing number of under-
graduates at secular universities across the
nation, Cannon is picking out the vaguely
marked path to becoming a religious
leader in a culture that prizes monstrous
earnings and instant reward. Many uni-
versities, like Syracuse and George Wash-
ington, were originally founded to prepare
students for ministerial service in a time
when priesthood, not banking or medicine,
guaranteed professional prestige. Since
then, most schools have academically
32 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
diversified, offering students a nearly limit- spiritual rewards to come.
less array of fields to study. Pursuing an age-old profession in the
But even as schools drift from their 21st century is in some ways just as com-
theological roots, religion maintains its plicated as ever, but given a growing list of
strong, if quiet, pull and now attracts more lucrative opportunities, it requires
more students than ever. The Association a sense of purpose—and guts—like never
of Theological Schools reports 74,600 before.
students studying Protestantism and Ro- DEUS EX MACHINA
man Catholicism in 2006—a 7.3 percent Acts of self-denial may seem a tad out
increase from four years prior. Hebrew of place in college, more widely understood
Union College has seen a 9 percent in- to be a prime opportunity for personal
crease in rabbinical and cantorial ordi- indulgences and social excesses. What can
nations since 2005. Even Islam, which make the desire to forgo worldly tempta-
requires no formal training or ordainment tion strong enough? Many students credit
process of its religious leaders, has seen a calling, usually a specific experience that
new highs in the number of young people provokes interest in a spiritual life followed
becoming Islamic scholars in the past five by small signs guiding them down what
years, says Daisy Kahn of the can seem like a lonely road.
College years
American Society for Muslim aren’t usually That’s exactly how it hap-
Advancement. a time for pened to Aaron Graham, an
What distinguishes these great acts of ’02 University of Richmond
pious few from many of their self-denial. graduate, after a week-long
What can make
peers are the sacrifices they the desire to missionary trip to Belize dur-
must make. Their paths re- forgo wordly ing high school. “I thought,
quire years more study and temptation ‘why only do this for a week?’”
strong enough
promise far less earning poten- for aspiring he says. “Why not do it for
tial than other graduate-track spiritual life?” But when he arrived at
occupations like business and leaders? college, he felt isolated, certain
law. That can make following that he was set utterly apart
God’s will a tough choice to explain—to by his call to the ministry. He turned out
friends, to family members and even to to be wrong. In the first weeks of school,
oneself. Many who pursue the ministry Graham met five dormmates with similar
point to an otherworldly calling as the aspirations. “I started not to feel alone,” he
reason behind their choice, justifying what says. “These guys were really committed.
they give up now with the expectation of Their calling was genuine.”
Photo by Steven Nagareda
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5

Spirituality 101:
Justin Cannon’s clerical
aspirations surprised
some of his dormmates.

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next_step
Plenty of steps still lay between Graham
and his commitment to doing the Lord’s
bidding—an endeavor that’s far from sim-
ple. He says he felt a disconnect between
the church’s work and broader problems
and “wanted to help it become a greater
force for social change.”
After college, he entered an evangelical
seminary program in Boston, and then de-
cided to enroll in Harvard’s Kennedy School
of Government for a master’s in public
policy. “I figured both pastorship and policy
training would allow me to integrate my
interest in the ministry with social concerns
Road Less Traveled:
and poverty,” he says. His ministry work Ryan Patrico celebrated
also introduced him to a woman equally Pentecost this year in
Salzburg, Germany with
summoned to religion and social service. As two Dominican nuns.
husband and wife, they founded the Quincy
Street Missional Church to address poverty
in a low-income Boston neighborhood. year, satisfaction won’t come cheap. On the other end, salaries aren’t exactly
Not everyone receives as clear a call as enviable, since priests and preachers aren’t
Graham. David Sideman says, quite simply, THE COLLECTION PLATE meant to live extravagantly, and are gener-
that he has yet to hear the voice of God. So Money is a huge issue for any grad- ally supported by their congregations. A
when he graduated from Boston University school bound student. But those en route lifelong contract with the Lord, it seems,
in 2006, he did what any confused and to the clergy encounter particularly acute doesn’t quite account for hefty loan pay-
ambitious liberal arts major would: he en- fiscal hardships, like sparse financial aid ments.
tered law school. But during his first year in opportunities and few specialized scholar- The struggle of getting on God’s payroll
Rutgers University’s law program, he found ships. On top of that, the path to ordina- isn’t limited to tuition and future interest
himself disinterested and lost. And then it tion is long. Training to become a Catholic payments, which is why some aspiring re-
hit him: “I discovered that the passions and priest can last from five to six years and ligious leaders have already made slightly
the things that I cared about pointed me to- cost nearly $30,000 annually. Christian more earthly back-up plans. Randy Schultz,
ward becoming a rabbi.” He plans to begin pastoral ordination costs around $14,000 a junior at the Georgia Institute of Technol-
a six-year rabbinical ordination program a year, says the Dallas Theological Semi- ogy, plans to become a missionary—but
this fall at the Jewish Theological Seminary nary, though the exact price tag varies with he knows his divine calling won’t pay the
in New York City. On this unforeseen path, each church’s program and the certification bills. Right now he’s a management major,
he’s finally satisfied—but at $28,000 each sought. reluctantly earning his undergraduate de-

How They Got Religion efforts for an autonomous Tibet,

How a few religious icons took
their very first steps toward God.
Pope Benedict XVI
After a visit from the Arch-
bishop of Munich, the young
Joseph Ratzinger found himself in
awe of church leaders’ ceremonial
robes. At age 15, he announced
his desire to become a bishop to
his family. A foresighted cousin
added, “And why not Pope?”
Reverend Billy Graham
Raised by two Presbyterian
missionaries, Graham first heard
his calling through Mordecai Ham,
an evangelist activist. In 1938, he
committed to the Christian church
on a Florida golf course—not
quite your typical holy ground—
and was ordained a year later.
The Dalai Lama
Two-year-old Tenzin Gyatso
had little choice when proclaimed
the 14th Dalai Lama in 1937. But
he has never been limited by the
spiritual life: he leads political
won a Nobel Peace Prize and
serves as a distinguished profes-
sor at Emory University.
Mother Teresa
The youngest of three, Agnes
Gonxha Bojaxhiu was pushed by
her siblings to join her local par-
ish’s youth group. A Jesuit priest
sparked her interest in missionar-
ies and amplified her calling to
become a Catholic nun. She took
her first vows as a 17-year-old.
Rabbi Hillel
Religious texts say a teenage
Hillel had an innate interest in
religion, studying the Torah during
breaks from his job as a wood-
cutter—a far cry from his only
brother, who was a well-paid mer-
chant, according to historians.
Reverend Martin
Luther King, Jr.
His Southern Baptist parents
fostered a love of faith and com-
munity service, but King came to
a crucial turning point when he
entered Morehouse College at the
age of only 15. He was inspired to
emulate the religious leadership
of the school’s then-president,
Benjamin Mays.

34 current | fall 2007 Photo by Christel Sonnenkalb


gree while waiting to start his career. “Most
small start-up churches can’t support a pas-
tor, so I’ll need a full-time job,” he says.
He currently works for a small tutoring
company, hoping to earn enough money to
support himself and his fiancée after their
wedding in December. “It’s not really about
what I’m interested in,” he says, “but the
work I can do with the money I earn.” After
graduation he and his wife plan to move to
Bozeman, Mont. It may seem like a long
way to go, but Schultz anticipates good
opportunities there both for missionary
work—he says the area is “heavily under-
churched”—and a business career, since
Bozeman is also home to a number of tech
startups. But he’s not putting down roots
just yet. “I’ll go anyplace else God wants me
to go,” says Schultz.
Even with hefty expenses, it’s still pos-
sible to make a livable wage, which is good
news for Shoshana and Elisa Abrams. They
graduated from the University of California
in Santa Barbara in June with a clear—and
identical—call to serve, and plan to become
cantors, the musical leaders of prayers in
Judaism.
At the cantorial program they’ll begin
later this year—also at the Jewish Theologi-
cal Seminary, but with a focus on cantorial
music and Hebrew studies—their com-
bined annual tuition will amount to nearly
$60,000. Any financial aid will be limited
to paltry federal grant money and small
independent scholarships. As a result, the
twins’ parents will end up juggling their
daughters’ interest-accruing undergraduate
loans with new ones on the way.
The Abrams take comfort knowing their
starting salary could be well over $80,000 a
year, the figure given by a survey conducted
by Hebrew Union College. Professions
within Judaism typically offer competitive
salaries to attract the best clerics, accord-
ing to the survey results. “The amount of
money is really nice to think about,” says
Elisa, “but that’s not why we’re doing it.”
MIND OVER MATTER
Some of the hugest challenges for stu-
dents entering ministry have little to do
with finances and everything to do with
day-to-day issues of, well, the flesh. Ryan
Patrico, a senior at Brown University, is a
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5
man divided. He is committed to the idea choosing a religious path, but he’s getting
of Catholic priesthood but also feels pulled there. He says that his theology and sociol-
in an entirely irreconcilable direction: a ogy studies at Boston College enhanced
relationship with his long-term girlfriend, a his faith. But since first feeling the pull to
romance that can have no future, of course, serve God in high school, he has wrestled
in the life of a priest. For now, he’s trying to with the decision. His parents, devout
keep an open mind and to put his eventual Asian-American Christians, fostered his
plans in God’s hands. “Choosing marriage spirituality, but now they are skeptical of
doesn’t mean priesthood is wrong,” he says. him making a career of his devotion. “It’s a
“I’ll just go where I’m called.” touchy issue,” says Park. “Deep down, they
Patrico finds that being outside the col- probably hoped that I would pursue some-
lege mainstream—“an environment that thing more lucrative.”
says sex shouldn’t be reserved for marriage,” Park makes an effort to control his daily
he says—is difficult. Still, he’s not a saint behavior, even if that restraint sets him
just yet and admits to the odd college foible, apart from most people his age. “Getting
like occasionally indulging in a drink. drunk is unhealthy and I’ve never really
For Earlham’s Justin Cannon, skepticism had the opportunity to have sex,” he says,
among classmates pales in comparison with conceding that maintaining his discipline
a much bigger obstacle, one that extends might become more difficult as he gets
far beyond campus boundaries: he is openly older. “But ultimately,” he says, “I just want
gay. He is a member of the first wave of to please God with my choices.”
openly gay aspirants pursuing ordainment Park, a junior, now feels more at ease
by the Episcopal Church, which elected its with his future than he did just one se-
first homosexual bishop just four years ago. mester ago; his convictions are stronger
Sexuality is still a divisive issue in the than ever, he says. Park even began to feel
church. When Cannon sought approval to strongly this summer that he is meant for
become a priest, his home church in Lex- something really big in God’s plan. What
ington, Mich. voted not to recommend him exactly does he (or the big “He”) have in
for the priesthood, a decision he thinks was mind? “Do you know Billy Graham?” he
tainted by concerns that he would use the asks. “I think I’m headed in that sort of di-
pulpit to practice gay activism rather than rection.” If he weren’t called to the Christian
spirituality. The church would The salaries ministry, Park says he would be
not discuss why Cannon was aren’t exactly at a loss for what else he would
denied. enviable, since do. “Maybe a career in music
priests and
He has since taken sanctu- or writing?” he muses. “That’s
preachers
ary in California, where he aren’t meant to never crossed my mind.”
found a bishop supportive of live extrava- Fickle liberal arts majors,
ordaining gays and enrolled gantly. Enter- prone to major-hopping, may
ing a contract
in Berkeley’s Church Divinity with the Lord, it envy such certitude. What pre-
School of the Pacific. On the seems, doesn’t med gone artist gone pre-med
West Coast, he is transforming quite account again wouldn’t appreciate a lit-
his sexuality into an important
for hefty loan tle guidance from above? Those
payments.
personal and spiritual asset. like Park know they don’t look
He started TruthSetsFree.net, a website forward to a lifetime of material riches or
to offer support to gay Christians, and has luxury. But believing you have a place in a
received donations from users that help pay higher plan, pulling your feet forward past
for his steep seminary costs. the commencement walk—that must feel
divine. ■ —with Isia Jasiewicz
FINDING (AND KEEPING) FAITH
Many more students are on the fence, Taylor Barnes is a junior Latin Ameri-
praying their four years in college will give can studies major at Brown; she hears a
them the conviction to follow a calling—or divine calling to journalism. Daniel Stone,
to be sure it’s a calling in the first place. Mo- a recent grad of UC-Davis, is glad he’s no
ses Park isn’t completely comfortable with longer an aimless liberal arts student.
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I-BANK,
THEREFORE I AM
Alter egos emerge as liberal arts grads go corporate
Overworked, overpaid and oversexed in the city

by Dan Haley
Columbia University

Nick had all the makings of your classic

idealistic humanities major: a degree in
history and dreams of becoming a musi-
cian. As an undergrad at Columbia Uni-
versity he hung out in the dorm listening
to Bob Marley and drank cheap beer like
everyone else—not exactly a power player.
Flash forward three years. Nick has
ditched the musical aspirations, added
a fake internship to his resume and quit
being politically correct. He has become
an investment banker. Why? “I went into
banking for the money. That’s the only
reason anyone becomes a banker,” he says.
“They talk about the ‘challenge’ of the
job and how ‘interesting’ it is. It’s really
just about the money.” And what’s he got
to offer the field? Well, for one thing, he
says, his Y-chromosome: “You want a hot-
shot male as the face of a firm, not some
woman.”
Spoken like the stereotypical i-banker.
But don’t even think about calling him
that—insiders take the investment banker
title too seriously to reduce it to a cutesy
abbreviation. “No one in the investment
banking industry calls it i–banking,” says
Joe, another Columbia grad turned banker.
“I mean, it’s not a f***ing Apple accessory.”
Nick and Joe, who both asked to go
by pseudonyms to protect their jobs, are
part of a growing breed of 20-somethings
jumping straight from senior seminars
into a nonstop whirlwind of dollar signs
and mega-deals—and getting paid six
figures a year to do it. With the exorbitant

36 current | fall 2007 Illustration by Phillip Fivel Nessen


salaries come long hours and high-pres-
sure demands, as well as a lifestyle that
can turn even bookish history majors
into big-spending VIPs. “You order $800
bottles of liquor for your table and you
feel pretty slick,” says Nick, who now bears
little resemblance to the tolerant, laid-back
guitarist he once was. “People ask you what
you do and you say you’re an investment
banker.”
Every year the banking industry lures in
hundreds just like Nick: liberal arts majors
willing to compromise their passions for
a shot at a different type of dream. At Co-
lumbia University’s Columbia College, an
arts and sciences school that doesn’t even
offer a business major (its strict core cur-
riculum revolves around the study of the
Western classics), post-grad jobs in finance
are among the most popular. Of the class of
2006, 29 percent said they were accepting
positions in finance right after graduation,
according to a survey conducted by Colum-
bia’s Center for Career Education.
Of course, Columbia isn’t the only elite
college sending its students to the Street.
Twenty-nine percent of ’06 Cornell Univer-
sity grads with jobs lined up by graduation
entered finance, and that’s not counting
the students pursuing consulting or other
business fields, which brings the figure up
to 47 percent. The proportion is the same at
Princeton University. And at the University
of Pennsylvania, about a third of ’06 School
of Arts and Sciences grads entering the
workforce went into finance.
The massive popularity can be attributed
partly to banks’ vigorous recruitment tac-
tics, which often include ritzy receptions
with free drinks. And the allure continues
to build upon itself. As prominent stu-
dents head off to top banks, others follow.
“I looked around and I felt like the best
people, the brightest minds, the most ambi-
tious people at Columbia were going into
banking,” says Joe. “I’m a really competitive
person, and that was a huge motivation.”
But at the bottom of it all, many say, is
the bottom line—the money that can be
made and the relatively few years it takes to
make it. Bankers speak of “exit opportuni-
ties,” the options they have after the initial
two-year contract expires. With the money
and skills accumulated over those arduous
5 9 C M Y K
5
years, possibilities can seem limitless. Coufos of Columbia’s Center for Career
“The appeal of this field is that after two Education.
years, I can do pretty much whatever I Without that key credential, Nick figured
want,” says Joe. “I can move to France and he was sunk. But he wasn’t about to let a
become a painter, or join a private equity little thing like the truth stand between
firm, or go surfing in Australia. It’s not just him and the high life. “I had a friend who
the money. Well, it is the money. But it’s had an asset management company, and he
also the freedom the money affords.” made it look like I had interned with him,”
But success in the first two years requires he says. “It had to look like I had an interest
a round-the-clock, work-hard, in the field, which I didn’t.”
“You need that
party-harder lifestyle. Last With a falsified resume and
‘I’m a banker’
summer, when Joe interned the know-how gleaned from the
feeling. If you
with the bank he now works Vault Guide to Top Internships,
don’t have it,
for, nights ending before 1 Nick aced his interviews. By
none of the
a.m. were one of his great- November an elite bank offered
suffering will
est luxuries. He’d hop in the him an analyst job with a salary
be worth it.
waiting town car—a standard of $55,000, an annual bonus
The image is
corporate perk if you work that would at least double
what
late—and hit the town. that—and a $12,500 signing
fuels you.”
“There were people who bonus. The lesson learned? Ly-
didn’t drink at all and came out just to keep ing pays. And it pays big.
up appearances,” he says. “And then there The rest of senior year was a breeze: “I
were people who would be downing tons of was just sitting around feeling great,” he re-
Macallan and Glenlivet and sneaking off to calls. “I was going to be a f***ing banker.”
the bathroom for a bump—or 12.” After graduation, Nick joined the ranks
How do liberal arts majors go from of those who boast a 100-hour workweek—
strumming the guitar in a dorm hallway to ranks that also include David, another
dropping G’s on liquor and snorting coke in pseudonymous Columbia alum. When
swanky bar bathrooms? For Nick, the idea David interned with a top i-bank in Hong
of making immediate money, and lots of it, Kong last summer, he came into his of-
without any extra education pulled him in. fice one morning at 9 a.m. not knowing he
(Medicine and law require years of school- faced a 30-hour workday. “My boss says you
ing before offering the same kind of payout, should be able to operate on four hours of
and by the time a young lawyer or doctor is sleep,” says David, nodding earnestly. “For
actually making $150,000, his banker peer around three weeks, I only got three hours
is already earning three or four times as of sleep during normal business days.”
much.) It’s a small investment with a poten- That schedule is par for the course in
tially giant payoff. Though no econ major, investment banking. But guys like Nick get
Nick knew a good bet when he saw one. through the pain by romanticizing it. “You
The only real problem was getting the need that ‘I’m a banker’ feeling,” says Nick.
job. Nick had a 3.6 GPA and strong quanti- “If you don’t have it, none of the suffering
tative skills, but he was still a history major will be worth it—you won’t push through.
with no previous finance experience. And The image is what fuels you.”
in this playing field, his Ivy League back- And though the schedule is tough to
ground wouldn’t give him much of an edge. maintain, in many ways banking is actually
The majority of new hires in banking come an easy way out, Nick says. It’s an industry
from elite “target” schools like Columbia, full of “people who want to make money
Penn, Harvard, Yale and New York Univer- but won’t take risks,” he explains. As long
sity, according to sources in the industry. as you’re “hard-working and reasonably
Nick knew his lack of a previous intern- smart,” he says, “you’ll be a millionaire.” ■
ship could be the deal-breaker. “Employers
favor students with internship experience Dan Haley is a senior majoring in English
as they have demonstrated an early foray at Columbia University. He’s disappointed
into the professional world,” says Eleanor that writers don’t get signing bonuses.
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SMART COOKIES New grads spice up their schooling
But do they have the iron it takes to become a chef?
by Rebecca Kaden
Harvard University
Harrison Keevil was supposed to be an
investment banker. He studied foreign af-
fairs at the University of Virginia, and after
graduation set off for London to intern
for Parliament. A year later he returned to
New York City for the banking job he had
lined up senior year, only to realize that his
heart was somewhere else.
The story could end there, with a dis-
gruntled banker living out his years won-
dering what could have been. But Keevil is
one of the lucky few who could decide on
a dream that’s slightly off the beaten track
and actually try to follow it. “I had one of
those ‘what are you going to do with your
life’ conversations with my parents,” he
says, “and I decided to do cooking.”
A few decades ago, Keevil’s career
change might have seemed like a tumble
down the professional ladder. But the
enormous popularity of shows like Top
Chef and Hell’s Kitchen, the household
celebrity Emeril and a summer spat of food
films have all but stamped chefing as the
new “it” profession alongside standbys like
acting and pro sports.
Reality, of course, is never as glamor-
ous as prime-time television. Topnotch
culinary jobs are hard to come by, and
38 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
once secured, they rarely offer fame or as a profession.” She adds that she wouldn’t
fortune. According to the U.S. Bureau of be surprised by the advent of culinary
Labor, head chefs in full-service restau- master’s degrees in the near future.
rants made an average salary of $13.57 per Keevil is pleased with his decision to
hour in 2006, nearly $6 per hour less than sidestep the Street to enroll in a yearlong
the overall average for amusement and program at New York’s French Culinary
recreation industries. But while the wages Institute, where he is working toward a
might suggest otherwise, chefing is hardly degree in Classic Culinary Arts. He quickly
a fallback for high school dropouts. In fact, found a passion in the kitchen that he was
many would-be chefs are college grads— never quite able to muster in the class-
students like Keevil, who trade in suits and room. “At UVA, I did the work and did
ties for the tall, white chef ’s hat. okay, but didn’t find it interesting,” Keevil
“The role of the chef is changing,” says says on the walk between the two res-
Christopher Koetke, dean of the School of taurant jobs he now holds in Manhattan.
Culinary Arts at Kendall Col- “Now I’m enjoying absolutely
Many grads are
lege in Chicago. “It used to be trading in suits every minute of learning about
that you just sort of cooked, and ties for cooking.”
but now you have to cook and the tall, white But Keevil is happy he didn’t
understand the business.” An chef’s hat. But spend his undergrad years be-
topnotch
undergraduate degree is no culinary jobs hind a stove. He credits UVA
substitute for smooth knife are hard to economics and business classes
work and a sophisticated land and rarely with giving him insight into
offer fame or
understanding of spices, of “all the behind-the-scenes stuff
fortune.
course, but highly educated that doesn’t involve the actual
cooks are finding their coursework to be an food.” That knowledge could help him
asset in the kitchen. achieve his next big goal: opening his own
Drusilla Blackman, vice president of restaurant within five years. “I’ve talked to
Enrollment Management at the Culinary people who say it’s ballsy,” Keevil says, “but
Institute of America (CIA), says about 20 it’s something I want to do.”
percent of students enrolling in each class Keevil says he has no regrets about pass-
have B.A.s. “Whereas being a chef used to ing up on the more plentiful (and immedi-
be seen as a trade,” she says, “it’s now seen ate) earnings of banking. “I cook because it
Illustration byJordan Worley
5 9 C M Y K
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Folio Mag Pg Vol MO

C M Y K 5 9
5

next_step
is what I love to do,” he says. “I get to follow the college degree pushes you further.”
my passions and live a dream every time Stanton’s studies have helped him take
that I step into a kitchen. Not many bank- his cooking to the next level. As the execu-
ers can say that [about their jobs].” tive chef of New York’s brand-new Sanctu-
Kevin Stanton originally chose the more ary Tea Restaurant, a scientific knowledge
straightforward route into chefing. After of happenings inside the oven enhances his
graduating from high school, he spent dishes. “I consider the cooking side first,”
a year working for celebrity chef David he says, “then I think about the scientific
Bouley in New York City, then “Back in the side of it”—like taking into ac-
skipped out on a typical college day being a count the effects of tempera-
experience to enroll in École Su- chef wasn’t ture control and oxidation on
périeure de Cuisine Française, a as glorified. taste. Scientific know-how is
Your parents
culinary school in Paris. wouldn’t be as a must, he adds, when cook-
But he has since learned the proud as if you ing with tea.
drawbacks of forgoing a bach- were a laywer Joint degree programs are
or doctor. The
elor’s degree. “There are things title of chef popping up that will make
Fork it Over:
you need to know about law and denotes much Stanton’s combination of Cornell grad
regulation that you don’t learn in more honor training easier to find. In May Kevin Stanton
runs the kitchen
culinary school,” he says, such as now.” of 2006, Cornell’s School of at Sanctuary Tea
Room in New
how to deal with recent trans fat Hotel Administration teamed York City.
legislation in New York and Chicago. “With up with the CIA (no, not that one), allow-
an undergrad education, you know where ing students in their junior or senior year to
and how to find information.” earn both degrees at once: a B.S. in Hotel
So Stanton returned to the classroom as Administration and an associate’s degree
a student at Cornell’s College of Agriculture from the culinary school. The program
and Life Sciences, and last spring, at the puts students in first-rate kitchens for eight
age of 27, he received his bachelor’s degree months, teaching real-world technical and
in Food Science. “I knew how to cook, but culinary skills like front-of-the-house ser-
I needed the undergraduate education to vice and advanced wine selection.
break through the wall,” he says. “Where the The leg up costs about $15,000, but it
limits of just a culinary education stop you, lends grads a “depth and breadth to their

Thai food section of your grocery

Get Cookin’ Good Lookin’
Salmon Cooked in Red
Moon Tea with Wax Beans,
Cucumber Relish and Kafir
Lime Sauce
Sanctuary Tea Restaurant chef
Kevin Stanton shares one of his
signature recipes.
Ingredients
Two 4 oz. Portions of Salmon
3 oz. Blanched Wax Beans
3 oz. Diced Cucumber
1 oz. Red Moon Tea
Salt to Taste
2 oz. Kafir Lime Sauce (see the
second recipe)
Approximate cooking time: 1 hour
1. Cut cucumber lengthwise;
scoop out seeds and discard. Dice
remaining “flesh.” Add 2 table-
spoons of salt to diced cucumber
to remove the water and let sit for
1 hour (drain the resulting liquid).
2. Salt water and bring to a boil.
Add wax beans and cook until soft
(approx. 4 minutes). You can use
a standard dorm-room “hot pot”
for this step.
3. Sprinkle salmon with Red Moon
tea (a specialty black tea with
dried strawberry and pink pepper-
corn) across the surface of fish;
place in a shallow bowl.
4. Salt 1 gallon of water until it
tastes like seawater. Heat water
to a boil, then begin to cool. Mea-
sure the temperature of the water
until it reaches 145ºF.
5. When the water has reached
145ºF, pour it over the pan con-
taining salmon and tea, adding
just enough water to cover the
fish. Allow the fish to cook in the
tempered water for approximately
10 minutes.
6. For the sauce, follow supple-
mental recipe (see next). If you
prefer something simpler, take a
bit of Crème Fraiche and add an
even smaller amount of Tom Yum
Chili Paste (can be found in the
store). Whisk this mixture until it
is completely homogenous.
Kafir Lime Sauce:
Take 2 ounces of shallots and
dice finely. Heat a tablespoon of
butter in a saucepan, then add
the shallots and cook until trans-
lucent. Add a large stalk of lemon
grass and saute for 30 seconds.
Add 6 Kafir lime leaves followed
by one teaspoon of chili paste.
Add 1/2 cup of crushed tomatoes
to the saucepan and allow the
mixture to simmer for 3 minutes.
Add 1 cup of heavy cream and
bring to a gentle simmer. Reduce
the amount of liquid by half.
Strain the sauce.

40 current | fall 2007

 C M Y K 5 9
5

next_step
is what I love to do,” he says. “I get to follow the college degree pushes you further.”
my passions and live a dream every time Stanton’s studies have helped him take
that I step into a kitchen. Not many bank- his cooking to the next level. As the execu-
ers can say that [about their jobs].” tive chef of New York’s brand-new Sanctu-
Kevin Stanton originally chose the more ary Tea Restaurant, a scientific knowledge
straightforward route into chefing. After of happenings inside the oven enhances his
graduating from high school, he spent dishes. “I consider the cooking side first,”
a year working for celebrity chef David he says, “then I think about the scientific
Bouley in New York City, then “Back in the side of it”—like taking into ac-
skipped out on a typical college day being a count the effects of tempera-
experience to enroll in École Su- chef wasn’t ture control and oxidation on
périeure de Cuisine Française, a as glorified. taste. Scientific know-how is
Your parents
culinary school in Paris. wouldn’t be as a must, he adds, when cook-
But he has since learned the proud as if you ing with tea.
drawbacks of forgoing a bach- were a laywer Joint degree programs are
or doctor. The
elor’s degree. “There are things title of chef popping up that will make
Fork it Over:
you need to know about law and denotes much Stanton’s combination of Cornell grad
regulation that you don’t learn in more honor training easier to find. In May Kevin Stanton
runs the kitchen
culinary school,” he says, such as now.” of 2006, Cornell’s School of at Sanctuary Tea
Room in New
how to deal with recent trans fat Hotel Administration teamed York City.
legislation in New York and Chicago. “With up with the CIA (no, not that one), allow-
an undergrad education, you know where ing students in their junior or senior year to
and how to find information.” earn both degrees at once: a B.S. in Hotel
So Stanton returned to the classroom as Administration and an associate’s degree
a student at Cornell’s College of Agriculture from the culinary school. The program
and Life Sciences, and last spring, at the puts students in first-rate kitchens for eight
age of 27, he received his bachelor’s degree months, teaching real-world technical and
in Food Science. “I knew how to cook, but culinary skills like front-of-the-house ser-
I needed the undergraduate education to vice and advanced wine selection.
break through the wall,” he says. “Where the The leg up costs about $15,000, but it
limits of just a culinary education stop you, lends grads a “depth and breadth to their

Thai food section of your grocery

Get Cookin’ Good Lookin’
Salmon Cooked in Red
Moon Tea with Wax Beans,
Cucumber Relish and Kafir
Lime Sauce
Sanctuary Tea Restaurant chef
Kevin Stanton shares one of his
signature recipes.
Ingredients
Two 4 oz. Portions of Salmon
3 oz. Blanched Wax Beans
3 oz. Diced Cucumber
1 oz. Red Moon Tea
Salt to Taste
2 oz. Kafir Lime Sauce (see the
second recipe)
Approximate cooking time: 1 hour
1. Cut cucumber lengthwise;
scoop out seeds and discard. Dice
remaining “flesh.” Add 2 table-
spoons of salt to diced cucumber
to remove the water and let sit for
1 hour (drain the resulting liquid).
2. Salt water and bring to a boil.
Add wax beans and cook until soft
(approx. 4 minutes). You can use
a standard dorm-room “hot pot”
for this step.
3. Sprinkle salmon with Red Moon
tea (a specialty black tea with
dried strawberry and pink pepper-
corn) across the surface of fish;
place in a shallow bowl.
4. Salt 1 gallon of water until it
tastes like seawater. Heat water
to a boil, then begin to cool. Mea-
sure the temperature of the water
until it reaches 145ºF.
5. When the water has reached
145ºF, pour it over the pan con-
taining salmon and tea, adding
just enough water to cover the
fish. Allow the fish to cook in the
tempered water for approximately
10 minutes.
6. For the sauce, follow supple-
mental recipe (see next). If you
prefer something simpler, take a
bit of Crème Fraiche and add an
even smaller amount of Tom Yum
Chili Paste (can be found in the
store). Whisk this mixture until it
is completely homogenous.
Kafir Lime Sauce:
Take 2 ounces of shallots and
dice finely. Heat a tablespoon of
butter in a saucepan, then add
the shallots and cook until trans-
lucent. Add a large stalk of lemon
grass and saute for 30 seconds.
Add 6 Kafir lime leaves followed
by one teaspoon of chili paste.
Add 1/2 cup of crushed tomatoes
to the saucepan and allow the
mixture to simmer for 3 minutes.
Add 1 cup of heavy cream and
bring to a gentle simmer. Reduce
the amount of liquid by half.
Strain the sauce.

40 current | fall 2007

Folio Mag Pg Vol MO


management and culinary skills that natu-
rally leads to multi-unit or corporate level
foodservice,” says Emily Franco, director of
the hotel school/CIA alliance, in an e-mail.
Cornell isn’t the only one taking a mul-
tidisciplinary approach to culinary educa-
tion. The Art Institute in Philadelphia will
begin offering a B.S. in Culinary Manage-
ment this fall. With classes like Art His-
tory: Baroque to Contemporary, Intro to
Pyschology and World Literature offered
alongside Hors D’oeuvres and Appetizers
and Desserts, Plating and Presentation, the
program blends culinary training with the
liberal arts.
Even high schools are starting to foster
budding gourmands. At the Cambridge
Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge,
Mass., students study cooking, baking, and
restaurant management in classes accred-
ited by the American Culinary Federation.
Jamin Mandel, a sophomore at Ithaca Col-
lege, enrolled in the program while in high
Bagley.indd 1
5 9 C M Y K
5
school, and now he hopes to open his own
restaurant. Although he considered enroll-
ing directly in culinary school, Mandel
decided to take a liberal-arts path first to
“gain a broader education before narrowing
down,” he says. He plans to earn a degree
from Johnson and Wales University’s Col-
lege of Culinary Arts in Providence, R.I.
after graduation. Lisa Pelosi, the college’s
communications director, says interest from
students like Mandel is at an all-time high.
For those whose passion for food doesn’t
quite extend to the kitchen, the industry’s
expansion has created a menu of new,
related job possibilities, like working in
research and development or in the health
food business. Plus, someone always needs
to write the cookbooks.
Sandra Di Capua is one student taking
advantage of those alternatives. Growing
up, she spent hours at her mother’s side in
the kitchen and dreamed of becoming a
famous chef. But after summer stints work-
ing for a catering company in Rome and
an Italian restaurant in New York City, she
realized the chef ’s life wasn’t for her. “The
kitchens were just not female-friendly,” she
says, describing workplaces that were full of
“lots of talking smack and cursing.”
After graduating from Harvard this June
with a degree in romance languages, Di
Capua took a job with Kosher cookbook
writer Joan Nathan, helping to research
and craft recipes. She’s also open to work-
ing in nutrition, after a positive experience
interning at a foundation focused on child-
hood obesity. The most important thing is
sticking with food, wherever it leads her. “If
restaurants aren’t going to work out?” she
says, thinking aloud. “Maybe hotels.”
Hollywood might have helped pave food’s
way to fame, but determined students are
making cooking more respectable than
ever. “The stigma associated with being a
chef back in the day wasn’t glorified. Your
parents wouldn’t be as proud as if you were
a lawyer or a doctor,” Keevil says. “But the
title of chef denotes much more honor now.”
Not to mention good taste. ■ —with Ben
Eisen and Tatiana Lau
Rebecca Kaden is a senior at Harvard.
Her kitchen skills are limited, but she has
recently mastered scrambled eggs.
fall 2007 | current 41
Folio Mag 8/28/07
Pg Vol11:57:58
MO AM
 5 9 C M Y K
5

backspin STUDENT BODY

POSTER SHADY
Today he sports
trendier sungear,
but Alex’s favorite

BOY
Alex Smith, originally from Philly,
graduated in May from NYC’s
shades are meant
for old folks with
cataracts.

School of Visual Arts with a

degree in photography. Now a HAIR APPARENT
freelance photographer—and Since shampoo
“destroys” his hair,
full-time dreamer—he spent two Alex sticks to a
weeks this summer miles from weekly wash with
civilization in an Arkansas for- Neutrogena hand
est, taking pictures of 10,000 soap.
hippies brought together for the TOBACCO TUP
Only hand-rolled cigs
annual “Rainbow Gathering.” touch Alex’s lips, so he
But he snaps up new belong- occasionally carries a
ings just as quickly as pics, so SOMETHING Tupperware container
for freshness.
during his trip to the wilderness BORROWED
Smith filled three trashbags with Alex’s beads were
secondhand purchases—bear- actually a gift to
ing out his conviction that the a friend from her
best thrift stores are always out- father. He’ll return
side New York. “You have to go them one day.
Pennsylvania or the South,” he
declares.
Here he is, bringing the back-
woods to the big city.

e up on their e”
irls to pinm iro n tom
nt so r o r ity g to pu m p
“I wa fr a t g uys
a lls , a nd
w
THE XX JEAN
Women’s jeans— HOOP DREAMS
worn These snazzy red-
“aggressively” and-black sneaks
— are Alex’s go-to are all form, no-
pants. function. “I don’t
play basketball,”
he says, “but I love
that Nike swoosh.”

Photo by Michael Fodera current 43

Folio Mag Pg Vol MO

C M Y K
backspin
Leggings
Bite the
Dust, Again
by Allison Baker,
Syracuse
This summer, for the second
time in 25 years, we bid farewell
to leggings. They’ll probably be
back, once our childbearing days
have left our thighs incapable of
doing them justice. But for now—
again—leggings are officially out.
The spandex sensation first
struck big clinging to Madonna’s
legs in her “street chic” phase and
hugging Jennifer Beals’ hips in
Flashdance, but soon went the
way of the scrunchie, relocat-
ing from the runway to the early
morning run. Two decades later,
they were back, this time gracing
the gams of size-zero Hollywood
royals Lindsay Lohan and Nicole
Richie and seducing the every-
woman with a comfortable—if at
times grossly unflattering—alter-
native to pants, and a surefire way
to transform shirts into dresses.
But as tragic as it may be for
Kelly Kapowski devotees, the
second coming of leggings has al-
ready passed. Until, Thriller-style,
they rise again. ■
Long Live
Leggings?
We’ve had
enough for
our lifetimes.
44 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
FASHION
Style Sans
Serif
by Alex Benenson, Yale
Call it the shirt that launched
a thousand slogans. U.K. label
House of Holland’s stark neon
“fashion groupie” tees—drawing
on the famous Katharine Ham-
nett “Choose Life” and “Frankie
Says Relax (Don’t Do It)” slogan
shirts of the 1980s—have kicked
off a frenzy for word-art tees.
T-shirts over-
run with giant
sans serif text
are cropping up
everywhere from
Urban Oufit-
ters to high-end
boutiques in New
York and L.A. The Say it Loud: Slogan
tees evoke the revolu-
printed word, at tionary spirit of ’60s art
least when it comes by questioning the
power of designers
to fashion, is in. while simultaneously
cashing in on them.
At first glance the
signature tees, fea-
turing snarky rhym-
ing couplets directed
at British designers,
such as “Get Yer Freak on, Giles
Deacon, or “Treat Me Mean,
Alexander McQueen,” seem like
unlikely trendsetters. Not only do
the simplistic designs look ridicu-
lously crude against the baroque
runway landscape, but the slogans
smack of self-referential and self-
limiting industry elitism. Just
who is Giles Deacon, anyway?
Nevertheless, these tees have
single-handedly kicked off the
word art revival—a return to a
seductively simple, subversive
aesthetic dating back long before
the births of today’s trendsters.
To understand the history
of slogan tees, start with Annie
Leibovitz’s iconic shot of Rolling
Photos courtesy of Target
 5 9 C M Y K
5

Stones guitarist Keith Richards on white canvasses, asking view-

backstage on their 1975 tour. He ers to re-evaluate who can make
stands in a plain black T-shirt art and how we, as consumers,
that reads “Who the F*** is Mick determine its value. Like their
Jagger?” in huge, arched, white predecessors, slogan tees strike
letters. The tee both registers the down the notion that interesting
One Too Many:
commercial marketability of a art must be technically difficult With great movies
do not come great
name like Mick Jagger and lam- to produce. trequels.
poons its own attempt to cash in. The trend also challenges the
How lucratively postmodern. traditional economics of fashion.
Now, House of Holland is just Forget about having enough cash
one of several designers applying
the word-art technique of simul-
to blow on a designer word-art
tee; a blank cotton T-shirt, some
Three’s (Bad) Company
taneous praise and pillory. The ink and a stencil are all you need The problem with the last installment of a tril-
shirts are an ecstatic celebration to make the trend your own. If ogy, or “trequels,” as we at Current like to call them, is
of each designer’s star power in you’re looking to recreate the me- that our hopes are as big as their budgets. It’s like the
and beyond the fashion world— thodical anonymity of a Baldes- problem with blind dates: we know we should keep ex-
and they also aggressively inter- sari masterpiece—or if you’re just pectations low to avoid disappointment, but the anticipa-
rogate the role of haute couture. plain lazy—cheap custom shirt tion is just too great. We’re bound to reach the end of the
By taking the very names of high companies like Neighborhood- night asking, “Really? That was it?” and wondering if maybe we should have
fashion’s wunderkinds to make ies (neighborhoodies.com) and simply stayed home.
ludicrously simple yet expressive Cafe Press (cafepress.com) will This summer’s grand finales—Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At
statements, House of Holland is print your personalized slogans World’s End, Ocean’s Thirteen, The Bourne Ultimatum—were stuffed with
essentially questioning what ex- for you. exhilarating special effects, complex (if convoluted) plot twists and devastat-
actly designers do that any regu- In a beautiful inversion of ingly good-looking stars. But when the credits rolled, many of us complained
lar person with a silk fashion’s usual rela- that numero très was très long, très confusing and très self-important.
What exactly
screener and a com- do fashion tionship between price As Richard Roeper wrote in his Chicago Sun-Times review of the much-
mand of the English designers do tag and exclusivity, the anticipated Spider-Man 3, “I thought Spider-Man 2 was the best superhero
language can’t. that some guy cheapest handmade sequel ever made—which is why I was so disappointed by the meandering
By probing the
with ink and a word-art shirt is just as storylines, sub-par performances and lackluster bad guys of Spider-Man 3.”
stencil can’t,
purpose of the artist, anyway? recherché as a $5,000 And Spidey certainly wasn’t the only trequel to miss the hat trick—nor were
today’s word art har- custom-made suit. its producers the only looking to make a buck, not a classic. About.com’s film
kens back to a mid-century con- Of course, some are shaking critic Rebecca Murray put it bluntly in her review of Shrek the Third: “just
ceptual revolution. In the 1960s, their heads. Are we on the fast because you can make a third film doesn’t mean you should.” Ouch.
visual pioneer Dan Flavin exalted track to an anarchic, “everything Despite our groaning, trequels will likely continue to grow bigger and bad-
the possibilities of the everyman is permitted” approach to fash- der. After all, the high-budget, low-ingenuity ratio has been working out like
artist with his simple but breath- ion, where the boundary between a charm: Shrek, Spider-Man and Pirates each earned over $300 million do-
taking installations of commer- what is and isn’t “real” fashion mestically by the end of July—the year’s top three grossers as of that date.
cially available fluorescent lights. evaporates? Maybe. But who says So the next time you’re waiting at the box office, try to picture studio ex-
Around the same time, painter that would be such a bad thing? ecs tugging on puppet strings connected to your wallet and chuckling, and
John Baldessari commissioned Admit it: “Everything Is Permit- you might just find yourself shelling out for La Vie en Rose. Never heard of
sign-painters to mechanically re- ted” would make a pretty great it? Well, it’s French. And it could be just the thing to cure an American sum-
produce paragraphs of art theory slogan tee. ■ mer of overcooked thirds. Très bien. ■ —Danielle McNally

LIQUID

( )
MEASURES Sip in style with

Venetian +
a sophisticated

Spritz + cocktail that’s

bitter, bubbly
and brazenly
colored. If you =
can’t find
2 fingers sparkling white wine Aperol, Campari
2 fingers Aperol or Cynar will
work well too.
Orange slice
Green olive

Leggings photo by Kiersten Rowland; Spiderman image courtesy

of Sony Pictures; All other photos by Damien Donck fall 2007 | current 45

Folio Mag Pg Vol MO

C M Y K 5 9
5

backspin
ONE-ON-ONE WITH JASON SCHWARTZMAN

Graduating from
‘Rushmore’
by Peter Fritch, Cornell

You might expect Jason Schwartzman working dinners. “About 200 meals later,”
to be the sort of over-ambitious go-getter Schwartzman says, “we had the movie.”
that he plays in the 1998 film Rushmore. The outcome is the hilariously subdued
After all, he’s made quite a name for him- Darjeeling Limited, in theaters nationwide
self by age 27, starring in cult hit films like this October. The movie stars Schwartz-
I Heart Huckabees, releasing three albums man, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson as
and starting his own record label. But to Jack, Peter and Francis Whitman, three
hear Schwartzman tell it, the successes estranged brothers who decide to embark
that have come his way weren’t seized so on a train ride—and, this being an Ander-
much as received with open arms. With son film, spiritual journey—through India. A Wild Ride: Jason
Schwartzman, Adrien Brody
his easy-going nature, Schwartzman man- Like the film’s youngest two broth- and Owen Wilson play three
ages to capitalize on his talent in a way that ers, steered into their Indian odyssey by brothers on a trip through
India in this fall’s The
Rushmore’s poor Max Fischer never could. the smooth-talking older sib (Wilson), Darjeeling Limited.
His latest credit, co-writing and co-star- Schwartzman is no stranger to being along
ring in Wes Anderson’s next whimsical for the family ride. He’s one of the newest
family drama, The Darjeeling Limited, was stars of an entrenched Hollywood clan—
particularly serendipitous. When I ask him the son of actress Talia Shire (“Adrian”
what it was like to pen his first screenplay in Rocky), nephew of Francis Ford Cop-
with indie-flick guru Anderson, Schwartz- pola, cousin of Roman and Sofia Coppola
man laughs and says, “It all happened so as well as Nicolas Cage and brother of
quickly I wasn’t aware that we were writ- Robert, actor and frontman for the band
ing anything.” Rooney.
I thought he was just being modest. Silly Contrary to my speculations, working
me. with his family did not involve the retell- man shudders. “It would be unnatural for
The film, Schwartzman explains, ing of embarrassing childhood stories or me to be a part of that,” he says. “My idea
emerged sort of “strangely” from conversa- on-set arguments culminating with the of a wild night is getting something crazy
tions with Anderson, the writer and direc- line “God! You always do that!” Far from at a Whole Foods in Westwood.”
tor of Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums it, Schwartzman says. Acting in Darjeel- Schwartzman did develop an early
and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. ing with Roman Coppola and previously appreciation for movies, but it was just
“Wes didn’t call me beforehand “My idea of under Sofia’s direction in Marie like the rest of us: as an ordinary viewer
and say what he wanted,” he a wild night Antoinette, Schwartzman says mesmerized by the silver screen, and
says. “He was living with me is getting he benefited artistically from not a jaded studio brat barking orders at
and we would walk together at something the family connection. “Because Mommy and Daddy’s assistants.
crazy at
night and tell each other stories.” Whole they knew me as a little kid, they “I know this sounds strange, but I
Unbeknownst to Schwartzman, Foods.” could say things like, ‘Remember didn’t really grow up around movie sets.
those stories were being ar- when you were little and you My mom didn’t work much when I was
ranged into a screenplay. It was Anderson’s used to do that weird thing with your fist? a kid,” he says. And the young Schwartz-
way of coaxing Schwartzman into writing Yeah, do something like that,’” he says. man was happy to steer clear of the film
the script with him—the script for a movie But Schwartzman hasn’t translated his industry. “I didn’t really have a thought
Anderson already had in the pipeline. star-studded family tree into glamour and in my head that was like, ‘I could do that
With their ideas sketched out, the glitz. When I suggest the image of him too.’ I wouldn’t have even thought to try to
close-knit trio of Schwartzman, Ander- strutting from one VIP room to another, do something that spectacular and other-
son and Roman Coppola began nightly the paparazzi skidding behind, Schwartz- worldly, really.”

46 current | fall 2007 Photo by James Hamilton

 5 9 C M Y K
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But Schwartzman was a natural enter-
tainer, and so he turned to music—a “more
tangible” art form, he says. While movies
seemed distant and unattainable, music
was something he could do on his own.
“With music, you can hold an instrument
and play it and create something.”
In 1994, Schwartzman and three high-
school friends started the pop-rock band
Phantom Planet, famous for its unavoid-
ably catchy hit (and O.C. theme song)
“California,” which features Schwartz-
man on drums. When the guys began to
record their first album, Phantom Planet
is Missing, in 1997, the then-17-year-old
Schwartzman assumed he had found his
big break.
His family, however, had other plans in
the making. Sofia Coppola tipped off the
casting director of Rushmore that her little
WHAT’S
ON JASONNE’SXT
NetFlix QUEUE
cousin would be perfect as Max Fischer, ❏ Nuts in M
:
ay (1917)
the precocious high school sophomore who ❏ The Misfit
s (1961)
competes with a depressed steel tycoon— ❏ Bedazzled
(1967)
played by Bill Murray—for the affections of ❏ The Hills
(Season 1)
a widowed first-grade teacher. The casting ❏ The Five O
bstructions (2
director agreed. ❏ Wall Stree 003)
t (1987)
“Here I was, going into my senior year ❏ The Makin
g of ‘Rumors’
of high school thinking about applying to ❏ 9 to 5 (198
0)
colleges, and I was making this record with
my band, and literally a few months in, I
found myself in Houston making a movie
with Bill Murray,” he says.
Ten years later, Schwartzman’s career ing a former high school a cappella star
hasn’t let up speed. In 2006, he started his still living in his past.
own record label, Young Baby Records, Schwartzman’s biggest hope now is to
and in March released his debut solo al- strike a healthy balance between singing
bum “Nighttiming” under the performing and acting. “I’m going at a pace that feels
name Coconut Records. Schwartzman also comfortable,” he says. But given the guy’s
co-stars with Ben Stiller in the upcoming history of unexpected breaks, there might
film The Marc Pease Experience, portray- be more up ahead than he sees coming. ■

fall 2007 | current 47

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backspin
STUDENT
TALENT

Sound Travels:
Canadian Ben
Caplan’s music
has Latin flavor.

BEN CAPLAN | SINGER/SONG WRITER

It changed the way I think about music.” If that isn’t worldly

Bad Breaks, Bossa Nova and enough for you, he’s also recently started playing Bossa Nova, a
Brazilian fusion of samba and jazz.
an Album in the Uven Caplan’s career began at 13 in his hometown of Hamilton,
a city close to Toronto with a bustling music scene, when his
Ben Caplan already has one Behind the Music-worthy grandmother bought him an acoustic guitar. He still draws
scandal in the bag. This spring, Caplan, now a junior at Uni- inspiration from local Hamilton acts produced by Put On Your
versity of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, thought his Drinking Cap Records, along with classics like Phish and Pink
prayers had been answered: an actual producer was offering Floyd. During the school year, Caplan headlines at the campus
him the chance to record his new album, and promised him an pub The Wardroom and venues around town.
“on the cheap” deal. It sounded too good to be true—and it was. For a guy who can play seven instruments and has a new solo
The producer disappeared without a trace before
Caplan looks album in the works, it’s hard to believe Halifax will
the project was over, leaving Caplan record-less and the part, but be big enough for long. He also plays as one half of
the studio stiffed. he doesn’t a band, Uvenburd (pronounced “oven bird”), which
Maybe that’s why Caplan, 21, doesn’t aim to be- want to be a he formed with high school friend Joe Girard in
rock star.
come a rock star. He recently built a studio in the 2004—a set-up he hopes could lead to touring. But
basement of his parents’ house so that he can use school breaks since Girard still lives in Hamilton, even practicing together
to mix, master, record and edit new music by himself, without is difficult. Still, with the release of their new album, “Flood-
worrying about producers. Defining his style as experimental watching,” Caplan is more optimistic the two will hit the road.
folk rock with Latin influences, Caplan credits his travels in “It would be a dream come true to live off my music,” he
South America and exposure to new rhythms and instruments says. “But if not, there are other important things in the world.”
there with transforming his sound. “My eyes and ears were Let’s hope that’s a line he can laugh about on VH1 someday.
opened to a new musical paradigm,” he says. “It was great to —Lyndsie Bourgon
escape the monotony of the popular North American scene. Website: www.myspace.com/caplan; album on iTunes

48 current | fall 2007 Photo by Ari Gunnarson

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ROB SPALDING | PRODUCT DESIGNER
It’s a Hat, It’s a Shoe,
It’s a Plane!
Rob Spalding can turn a hat into sneakers. Last
spring he constructed his favorite pair yet: fully wearable green
high-tops, fitted together with about forty tabs of Velcro, that
can double as a blue hat. Just pull, twist and flip the tabs, then
Velcro them back into a different shape and voila! You have a
hat—or at least a floppy head covering reminiscent of a military
helmet.
Spalding, now a sophomore product design major at the
New School’s Parsons School of Design, grew up building CD
racks and toy cars in his father’s workshop. Before long, he
started to experiment with drawing, painting, photography
and sculpture. He won a grade school costume contest with
the Tin Man, a creation that took a month to construct out of
household objects: cardboard, paint and even drier lint. Though
Spalding loved math and science, he quickly became known for
his artistic talent, much to the amusement—and discomfort—of
his friends, who occasionally found themselves the subjects of
his unorthodox art. “I did this really cool sculpture thing where I
stretched a transparent tarp over my friends posed in different
positions and took pictures of them inside,” he says.
In high school, Spalding’s product-art leanings began to
emerge: he one-upped the bulky duct-tape wallet trend of the
time by crafting his own machine-washable wallets out of origi-
nal drawings and packing tape.
After beginning college at Penn State University as an engi-
neering major, Spalding quickly realized that he couldn’t leave
his art behind so easily, and he transferred to Parsons last fall.
The move to Manhattan was intimidating—born in Arkansas,
Spalding spent his high school years in small-town Maryville,
Tenn.—but the payoff was worth it, he says. He taught himself
to silk-screen, and is opening his own T-shirt line called Bobby
Hayes—“a fun, Southern-sounding name,” he says, to match
the shirts’ bold, colorful prints. “I love being immersed in it. I
love getting my hands dirty.” —Carolyn Kylstra
Website: www.robspalding.com
Shoe photo courtesy of Rob Spalding; Unicycle photo by Adam Biel
C M Y K
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KEVIN MCMULLIN | UNIC YCLIST
The Never-Ending Wheelie
In one of his YouTube videos, Kevin McMullin hops
up stairwells and glides down ramps. But unlike others
sharing the camera, grinding on roller blades, bikes and
skateboards, he is executing his tricks on just one wheel. “I
never knew unicycling was so intense!” wrote one online
commenter.
Few do. More likely to evoke images of juggling circus
bears than tough kids hopping railings, unicycling is grad-
ually catching on as a street sport. “It’s hard sometimes to
get people to understand what I do and
“I never
that street unicycling is actually fairly
knew
unicycling popular,” says McMullin. But through
was so competitions and videos, he’s been mak-
intense!” ing a name for himself—and the sport.
First introduced to unicycling at 13 by a neighbor at
home in Saint John, New Brunswick, Can., McMullin
is credited with inventing many of the most common
tricks, like the 360-degree sidespin and the “overblunt,”
which involves grinding on one pedal, hopping over a rail
and finishing the grind on the other pedal. In 2006, he
received a Street Freestyle silver medal at the Unicycle
World Championships in Switzerland, and one of his
films, “If and Only If,” placed first at the 2007 British Uni-
cycle Convention’s video competition.
Don’t look for McMullin on UNC-Chapel Hill’s cam-
pus, where he’s a junior—he tries to practice in secluded
areas, since unicycles attract so much attention. To catch a
glimpse of McMullin’s tricks, check out his video on You-
Tube or order the DVDs he stars in, “Defect” and “Spaced
Out,” at www.unicycle.com. —Ariel Davis
fall 2007 | current 49
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BACKSTAGE
When Rocking Out
Is a Family Affair
by Jennifer Pelly, Fordham
If you think the best things about Dela-
ware are its lack of sales tax and shoutout in
Wayne’s World, think again. An unexpected
breeding ground for indie-rock groups,
this state has been home to such musicians
as Cab Calloway and Bob Marley, plus it’s
pumped out some smaller bands whose
names you might not know, but should. The
latest set of up-and-coming crooners: The
Spinto Band.
Formed in 1996, this indie-pop sextet
has drawn comparisons to popular art-
ists like The Flaming Lips—and even The
Beatles—and has toured with The Arctic
Monkeys, Of Montreal, We Are Scientists
and Art Brut across the U.S., Europe and
Japan. This August, the guys headed to Los
Angeles to record the follow-up to their hit
first release, “Nice and Nicely Done.” For the
as-yet-untitled album, slated for release in
early 2008, the band teamed up with Dave
Trumfio, producer of breakthrough records
for Wilco and OK Go.
Lots of small-town bands are friends first,
musicians second, but the Spinto boys are
50 current | fall 2007
5 9
5
sake. “Nick had just started playing with us
at the time,” explains Sam, “and he told us
about his grandfather, and showed us some
of the sheet music. We started playing some
of Roy’s songs. Now we write our own songs,
but the name stuck.” Although the guys have
moved on to create their own sound, Roy’s
music was a major influence as they devel-
unusually close. Guitarist Joe Hobson and oped their style.
drummer Jeff Hobson are brothers, as are The family act continued on “Nice and
Sam Hughes, keyboard, and Thomas Hughes, Nicely Done,” their latest and most success-
bass guitar. The Hughes brothers met guitar- ful indie-label release, which was produced
ist Nick Krill in middle school and guitarist by guitarist Jon Eaton’s uncle in Nashville.
Jon Eaton through their parents, who were The guys call it “the most professional thing”
all close friends in Wilmington, they have ever recorded.
Touring can
Dela. The web is more tightly- be tough, but The album’s hit single, “Oh,
woven still: five of the six guys had the boys pre- Mandy,” seems to be dedicated to a
relatives in a group called Sin City fer the rocker dreamy love interest named Mandy,
lifestyle to
Band, making music a natural fit. “getting up but it’s actually about the mandolin
In their early years, the boys at 7 a.m. and Krill is playing in the background.
drew inspiration from a local un- going to He had no prior experience with the
derground duo called The Pony
work every instrument before composing the
morning.”
Brothers, whom Krill credits song on a friend’s mandolin, so “it
with inspiring many local kids to start bands. was easy to come up with new songs and
“There was this spirit of making your own different ways to play,” Krill says.
music,” he says. After “Oh, Mandy” became a success,
But when Krill found sheet music in his Sears ran a commercial featuring the song.
attic written by his grandfather, Roy Spinto— Soon after, the band put out a “Mandy” mu-
some of it scribbled on Cracker Jack wrap- sic video under the direction of John Watts,
pers—the band got a kickstart and its name- who has directed videos for Fatboy Slim and
Party Animals: Band members Joe Hob-
son, Jon Eaton, Nick Krill, Thomas Hughes,
Sam Hughes and Jeff Hobson...and dogs.
Photo courtesy of The Spinto Band
 5 9 C M Y K
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Death Cab for Cutie. The video juxtaposes
real-life images with cartoon cutouts of the
guys performing, complete with the mechani-
cal mannerisms that characterize their stage
shows. (Picture all six band members’ heads
bobbing from side to side as if to the same
metronome as their guitars).
Chances are, though, that if you’ve heard
of The Spinto Band, it’s because they toured
with U.K. rock phenomenon The Arctic Mon-
keys in 2006. That’s a hot gig, but the guys
warn that touring can be a strain for young
bands on the rise. Joe recalls one especially
bad day at the South by Southwest music fes-
tival in Austin, Texas, when they had to carry
around their own equipment and weren’t
even provided free water before their act.
Still, they prefer the rocker lifestyle to “getting
up at 7 a.m. and going to work every morn-
ing,” Joe says.
With a new album in the works, the guys
may not have to become working stiffs for a
while. In the meantime, check them out at
NYC’s CMJ Music Marathon this October. ■

Indie Girl’s Dance Party 10. “Big Time Sensuality,” Björk

Tired of the top 40s? Tune in
to the soundtracks three of your
classmates live by, and pump
up your own playlist with some
old-school, indie and techno
songs that might not grace the
airwaves anytime soon—but that
instantly boost your music cred.
—compiled by Carolyn Kylstra
Her full name is Björk Guðmundsdóttir
Art history and photography major Emma Kitson spends her which, when directly translated, means “birch
tree, Guðmund’s daughter.” In Iceland, first
Sunday nights hosting “The Sunday Simmer,” a radio pro- names are commonly used alone because last
names indicate only the father’s moniker
gram at UNC-Asheville, so she knows a thing or two about al- (Guðmunds, in Björk’s case).
ternative tunes for a college crowd. Emma suggests this mix 11. “Ride A White Swan,” T. Rex
Band frontman Marc Bolan refused to learn
for those who feel like dancing to an indie drummer’s beat. how to drive due to a lifelong fear of dying in a
car accident. He was killed in a collision while
his wife, who survived, was at the wheel.
1. “This Charming Man,” 4. “Age of Consent,” New Order 12. “Michael A Grammar,”
The Smiths 5. “Flipside,” The Breeders Broadcast
Frontman Morrissey was called devious and In 2002, The Breeders performed a cover of
truculent by a judge who demanded that he Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s theme song as
pay outstanding royalties to a former member. part of their regular concert set. A member of
13. “Used Goods,” Love Is All
the show’s production staff approached them 14. “Twilight,” The Raveonettes
2. “Young Folks,” Peter Bjorn about performing on an episode, and sure Vocalist Sharin Foo was listed as one of the
enough, they appeared in the episode “Him,” “Hottest Women in Rock” by Blender in 2006,
and John first aired Nov. 5, 2002. along with Liz Phair, Joan Jett and Juliette
3. “Blue Jeans,” Ladytron Lewis.
6. “Disposable Parts,” Enon
Rolling Stone described their music as “what Radio Flyer wagons, propane tanks and old
the future was going to sound like in 1980.” 15. “Your Kisses Are Wasted
hubcaps have all been used as percussion
instruments by drummer Rick Lee. On Me,” The Pipettes
Singer Becki Pipette, also known as RiotBecki,
7. “Cough Coughing,” Menomena received her degree in media studies from the
7. “I Think We’re Alone Now,” U.K.’s Buckinghamshire Chilterns University
8. “The Beat,” Elvis Costello College, where she wrote her dissertation on

Taste for Tommy James

8. “La Camisa Negra,” Juanes
Juanes’s childhood in Medellín, Colombia
9. “Transmission,” Joy Division pornographic films.

the Classics wasn’t easy: his cousin was kidnapped, held

In high school, David Idol
dreamed of becoming an
opera singer. But after
he was accepted to NYU’s
classical voice program
last year, he found a new
passion: history. His list
features foreign and classi-
cal tracks, plus a little pop
for good measure.
1. “Revolution 1,” The Beatles
2. “L’accordeoniste,” Edith Piaf
Piaf (the subject of summer film La Vie en
Rose) was born Édith Giovanna Gassion, but
at only 4’8” tall, she earned the nickname “La
Môme Piaf,” meaning “The Waif Sparrow.”
4. “Irreplaceable,” Beyoncé
5. “And I am Telling You I’m Not
Going,” Jennifer Hudson
Just a finalist on season three of FOX’s Amer-
ican Idol, Hudson has since won an Oscar, a
Golden Globe, a BAFTA and a SAG award for
her role in Dreamgirls.
6. “Ojos Asi,” Shakira
for ransom and killed, and his father died of
cancer. He has since risen to international
stardom, selling more than 10 million al-
bums and earning 12 Latin Grammys.
9. “Us,” Regina Spektor
You may know her only for the hit song Fi-
delity (“uh uh-uh uh uh-uh...”), but the Rus-
sian-born Spektor has released eight discs.
10. “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing,”
Scissor Sisters
11. “Der Holle Rache Kocht in
Meinen Herzen (The Queen
of the Night Aria),” Lucia Popp
12. “Both Sides Now,”
Joni Mitchell
In 1965 Mitchell gave birth to a baby girl
whom she put up for adoption. She wrote
about her daughter in several songs, includ-
ing “Little Green” and “Chinese Cafe,” and the
pair reunited in 1997 when Mitchell’s daugh-
ter began a search for her birth mother.
13. “Killing Me Softly,” Fugees
14. “Beyond Recourse,”
Break of Reality
A cello rock band, Break of Reality was
formed while its founding members were
freshmen at the University of Rochester’s
Eastman School of Music. Now graduated,
they’re performing in NYC and are hard at
work trying to break into the biz.
15. “Annie Waits,” Ben Folds
16. “S.O.S.,” ABBA
Road Trippin’
Lindsay Kosan, a psych and poli-sci WashU senior, loves a
good road trip—requiring, of course, a great soundtrack.
She swears by this one to get past any bumps in the road.
1. “City on Down,” O.A.R.
2. “Deliverance,” Bubba Sparxxx
3. “Magic Carpet Ride,”
Steppenwolf
At age four, vocalist John Kay and his mother
fled from Soviet-occupied East Germany.
4. “Straw Dog,” Something
Corporate
5. “Take It Easy,” The Eagles
The Eagles broke up in 1980 after a historic
show in Long Beach, Calif. Guitarists Glenn
Frey and Don Felder verbally taunted each
other between sets. Afterwards, Frey attacked
Felder, who defended himself with his guitar.
6. “Take Me Home Tonight,”
Eddie Money
7. “Hey Driver,” Lucky Boys
Confusion
8. “Shy Guy,” Diana King
9. “The Blood of Cu Chulainn,”
Mychael Danna
10. “Nothing Better,”
Postal Service
In 2004, the United States Postal Service sent
the band a cease-and-desist letter. After nego-
tiations, the USPS allowed the band to keep its
name in exchange for a free performance and
the right to use the band’s songs in promos.
11. “Lose Your Love Tonight,”
The Outfield
12. “California Dreamin’,”
The Beach Boys
13. “Once in a Lifetime,”
Talking Heads
Born at the RI School of Design in 1974, one of
the Heads’ first gigs was with The Ramones.
14. “Crazy,” Alanis Morisette
15. “Fast Cars and Freedom,”
Rascal Flatts
16. “Love and Memories,” OAR
17. “Jenny (867-5309),”
Tommy Tutone

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last_word
Pumping Electric
THE TERMINATOR TALKS ABOUT WIPING OUT THE ECO-THREAT
BY DANIEL STONE
In his acting days, Arnold Schwarzeneg-
ger certainly wasn’t typecast as the guitar-
strumming, long-haired hippie. But with
his innovative ideas and global celebrity,
California’s hotshot governor has become a
face for the green movement. After signing
a 2006 bill reducing the state’s greenhouse
gas emissions across every sector of its
economy and appearing in April on MTV’s
Pimp My Ride to revamp a 1965 Chevy
Impala, Schwarzenegger is converting his
own image while he works to change oth-
ers’ ideas. In the cigar tent outside his Sac-
ramento office, the governor chatted with
Current’s Daniel Stone about little cars, big
planes and how to save the planet.
What motivated you to embrace the environmental movement?
The position. When you’re governor, you have the ability to make
great changes and improve people’s lives. Everything I’ve ever
done in my life has been global. Body building, show business,
those were global. Environmental issues have a global impact
and, because California is so big, we can inspire other states to
do the same thing.
Need new caption
When it comes to advocating environmental change, how much
does celebrity help? I’m not out there as an environmentalist.
I’m out there as Arnold the guy you know from the movies, you
know, all the hip things I’ve done in the past. Bodybuilding and
movies are cool, and here’s another cool thing: go and take care
of the environment. Be someone who really has the power to
contribute. That’s what it basically is—inspiring people to be part
of the change.
But to some you’re still known as Arnold, the guy with the Hum-
mers who commutes to work via private jet. We’ve now con-
verted three out of five of the Hummers. One is a hydrogen Hum-
mer and one is biofuel, and the other one uses new technology
developed in California that actually reduces greenhouse emis-
sions by over 80 percent. That’s huge. I don’t drive any of them,
because I drive with the California Highway Patrol, but I wanted
to try out the technology.
So whereas most people are talking about conservation, your
main focus is technology. That’s what I always say: besides con-
servation, technology is going to save the day. I think everyone
recognizes that the size of a car has nothing to do with it. It’s
56 current | fall 2007
5
the engine. We can change the engine and find
ways of reducing the greenhouse emissions by
50 percent or even completely with electric
cars, like the Tesla. I ordered one for myself
because it’s going to be really great to see a car
that has zero emissions—and to make it that
good-looking. Same thing with airplanes. Virgin
Air is partnering with GE to create engines that
will run on biofuel. So it’s not like saying, “Let’s
shrink the planes and make people crouch.”
No. Let’s make the planes bigger, but let’s cre-
ate the engines with new technology.
Have you found that young people are engag-
ing with environmental issues? Young people
are more and more responding to it, but they
are always ahead of everyone. If they don’t
like something, they’ll protest. Young people are very rarely up
for the status quo. They’re always up for change. I want them to
feel that they really have the power to make the changes. I think
it makes them feel good—like they’re part of the action.
What kind of new opportunities do you think will be available to
young people entering the workforce as a result of the industry
changes you foresee? In California, I think the technology sector
will explode. The Wall Street Journal called it the gold rush and
that’s exactly what it’s going to be, because wherever you look,
there are people and companies in technology coming up with
new ways to be greener. I think that young people will be a big
part of that and will get jobs in those areas.
What kind of advice do you give your own kids about being ef-
ficient? Well, I teach them not just to talk about it but to do it.
Forget the 15- or 20-minute shower—it’s the-five minute shower.
When you walk out of the room, turn out the lights. Everything
you do all day long, think about the impact. My kids are very
much into all this. For instance, my daughter currently drives
a Volkswagen, and she wants to change it to a hybrid car. But I
didn’t say anything. It was her idea.
So what role should she and her friends take in this movement?
What young people have to do is just think about what they can
do to contribute and invent new ideas. That’s really where the
future is. They’re the next generation that’s going to take this
thing through the roof; they’re responsible to get it started and
to recognize that for 400 years we screwed up the environment.
Now let’s try to fix it. ■
Photo courtesy of Duncan McIntosh, Office of Gov. Schwarzenegger