Posts – Page 50 – Mason Votes

By Mason Votes Staff Writer Ethan Vaughan

Student Government President Devraj Dasgupta, elected last April on a platform of “transparency, outreach, and action,” is beginning his term with a desire to affect practical change in the university.

Dasgupta acknowledged that skyrocketing tuition costs were likely the most important issue to Mason students.

The president, however, has discarded his predecessors’ practice of lobbying the school administration directly, saying it is ineffective.

“We have to be realistic,” he said. “We had one of the highest benefit cuts for any school in Virginia this year, eight percent. That being said, it comes down to having the right advocates in Richmond. We’re a young university, so we suffer because we don’t have the lobbyists and manpower. We need to advocate. Until that happens, tuition will increase. We can only do so much.”

Dasgupta encouraged students to get involved in youth political groups like Virginia 21, composed of Virginia college students, and to lobby the legislature itself.

He plans to play his role by being a representative on the Virginia Council for Higher Education’s Student Advisory Committee.

The Council meets once a month and has its first meeting in October. Dasgupta says he is “absolutely going to every meeting.”

“I plan to support our interests within that domain,” Dasgupta said. “I ‘m going to show everyone I can that GMU is the number one up-and-coming school, that we’re rising very fast. Richmond needs to understand that and they need to give us all of the support, all of the funding, and all of the respect. We’re transitioning from a commuter campus to a more traditional university. Tuition increase will always happen, that’s the story. Hopefully we can curb it, though.”

Dasgupta also planned to provide practical services, such as a Mason Events List Serve and policy information sheets from the College Democrats and College Republicans in advance of the November state elections.

Mason Hosts H1N1 Influenza Town Hall

By Mason Votes Staff Writer Ethan Vaughan

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan hosted a town hall on flu prevention this morning in George Mason University’s Dewberry Hall.

“We keep hearing people say that this is ‘just’ the flu,” Sebelius said. “That it’s not a big deal. It’s ‘just’ the flu. But ‘just’ the flu kills 36,000 Americans every year and leaves 200,000 hospitalized, and ‘just’ the flu cutting through schools, campuses, and daycare centers has a huge impact.”

According to Sebelius, college students are more susceptible to H1N1,“for some reason, older Americans are in fact more resistant to it, which isn’t usually the case.”

The event, which was moderated by Student Government President Dev Dasgupta, also featured Lisa Barrios of the Centers for Disease Control who urged students to take basic steps such as regularly wiping down shared surfaces like kitchen countertops and computer keyboards and washing hands on a routine basis.

Sebelius encouraged students to get vaccinated against both the seasonal flu and H1N1 as a part of their prevention plan. “The bulk of the [H1N1] vaccine will start flowing in mid October,” Sebelius said. “And it will keep flowing every week. We’re going to be ramping it up to robust levels.”

Mason has announced that it will be offering the H1N1 vaccine at Student Health Services for free.

“This flu spreads easily,” Barrios said. “It’s so important to stay home. Some universities have even started making special dormitories for people infected with the virus.” She also called on student cooperation, saying that roommates should help by bringing sick individuals food and school assignments. She also cautioned people to look for more serious signs.

“Usual symptoms include runny nose and body ache but people suffering from H1N1 exhibit higher levels of vomiting and diarrhea, which isn’t as common with the regular flu,” said Barrios. “If skin turns blue, purple, or gray, or the fever goes away and then comes back, if someone is lethargic and can’t get out of bed, then that’s something really serious and you need to see a health care provider right away.”

Cabinet Secretaries to Host Town Hall at Mason

Kathleen Sebelius and Arne Duncan, United States secretaries of health and human services and education respectively, will be at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus hosting a town hall discussing the H1N1 Influenza. Sebelius and Duncan are both cabinet level secretaries and will present information about prevention of the virus, take students questions and announce the 2009 Flu Prevention PSA Contest Winner.

The event starts at 9 a.m. in Dewberry Hall and will be broadcasted live at MasonVotes.gmu.edu and Connect2Mason.com.

Universities More Moderate Than Believed

By Mason Votes Staff Writer Ethan Vaughan

America’s universities are far more middle-of-the-road than commonly believed. That’s the conclusion of paper co-authored by George Mason University’s Solon Simmons and Harvard University’s Neil Gross entitled The Social and Political Views of American Professors.

Simmons, who is part of Mason’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, says that there are fewer radicals in the younger than in the older generation of university professors, which indicates that far-left-wing views in academia are declining.

“In general we find more liberals than conservatives among professors,” Simmons said. “That corresponds with literature going back to the ‘50’s. We’ve known that for a while. They’re not particularly radical, though. University professors tend to be left of center, but pretty pragmatic. They’re not really interested in overturning the current order.”

Simmons said that conservative critics of university culture have overstated to prevalence of extreme leftism in American colleges and he dismisses the idea that professors are indoctrinating their students.

“It’s always been the suspicion of many conservatives that there’s a Socrates effect,” said Simmons, “that these wise, older men and women are corrupting the young. The information I have seen shows that professors have little effect on converting people to different perspectives. They tend to frame views rather than convert others to their own views.”

Students agreed saying that while they acknowledged that some professors have been open about their beliefs, in general they felt the instructors were respectful of differing opinions.

“My college professors have been liberals and conservatives,” said Claudia Brito. “Each professor has their own views yet most of the time set aside their political preferences. My professors’ beliefs have made some contributions to my own political and personal philosophy. So far I have had good professors whose guidance and lectures have provided me with information that I was able to incorporate to my own beliefs. Their readings have been a great help and reference my own personal and political philosophy.”

Others said partisanship may play too large a role.

“Grading policies are highly influenced by [professors’ beliefs],” said Maria Tatarska who also said that her professors have changed her political views in the sense that they’ve made her aware of current events.

“I have become more familiar with political affairs, especially from the election.”

Mason Offers Class on Local Virginia Politics

By Mason Votes Staff Writer Ethan Vaughan

George Mason University Professor Toni-Michelle Travis is teaching an American State and Local Government class that focuses on Virginia and Fairfax County, giving students a firmer awareness of the political forces in the community where they live.

Over the years, the class has also featured guest speakers like city planners, state representatives, BOV member Vince Callahan, Delegate Tim Hugo, and former students who now work in state government.

Travis, who has been in the Department of Public and International Affairs for the last 25 years, teaches one section of the Government 304 course each semester which this fall has about 40 students.

Travis believes that by concentrating on such a specific area of government, her students will “gain an appreciation of the history, tradition, and culture of Virginia,and how the best-managed state in the country is run.”

It’s worth learning, she said, “Virginia is a unique and peculiar state.”

Among other things, students learn that Virginia is the only state in the Union whose governor is limited to one consecutive term, it stands alone with New Jersey in holding off-year elections, its budget covers a two-year rather than a one-year period, and its judges are appointed by the state legislature rather than being elected by the people.

Virginia is also a strict Dillon’s Rule state, meaning that a localities can only take those actions specifically allotted them in the state constitution.

“It’s a mother-may-I rule,” Travis said. “A few years ago, Fairfax County wanted to build a park, so they went down to Richmond and the legislature passed a bill approving it. After a few months, though, the park was overrun with weeds; the legislature had forgotten to put a clause for maintenance in the bill, so Fairfax County had to petition Richmond for permission to cut the grass. It covers even simple things.”

Travis’s students have responded well to her local approach.

Senior Erik Amason said that the class was “more interesting than it sounds” and added that Travis’s instruction “has increased my pride as a Virginian and made me think higher of our state in relation to the rest of the Union.”

“I was particularly interested in Dillon’s Rule,” Halima Ali, another of Travis’ students, said. “Virginia seems slow at accepting changes in the political system.”

Travis agreed. “I’ve never taught this course through the lens of Democrats vs. Republicans, because that’s not what’s going on; it’s urban vs. rural, NOVA vs. ROVA.”

Bolling Will Not Attend GMU Debate

UPDATED Thursday, Sept. 24. 3:17 p.m.

By Mason Votes Director Christian Smith

For the lieutenant gubernatorial candidates, Sunday was eventful for the usually relatively quiet campaigns (compared to their gubernatorial candidate counterparts). Jody Wagner (D) posted a press release on Sunday to her website stating that Bill Bolling (R) “threatened” not to attend the upcoming debate scheduled for this Thursday at George Mason University.

“It became painfully clear to us that the Wagner campaign was more interested in debating about debates than actually holding a debate,” wrote the Bolling campaign in a dueling press release that was subsequently published to their website.

Wagner then retorted with another online statement, “Bill has decided not to show up and I hope he reconsiders. I still plan on attending the event to show my commitment to the voters in Prince William and across the state.”

Matt Wells, Bolling’s campaign manager, wrote, “Unfortunately, the Wagner campaign has refused to discuss the rules of this debate in good faith, as is evidenced by their recent press release; and has now issued a factually inaccurate and misleading statement in an effort to try and score some cheap political points in advance of the debate. Given these developments, it is clear that the debate cannot move forward as scheduled on September 24th and we have advised the debate organizers of that fact.”

A little before 11 p.m. Sunday night, Wagner wrote, “My opponent is going to be a “no show” for the Prince William 100 debate–disappointing, but not surprising,” on her twitter page.

Monday morning, the organizers of the debate made the final call to cancel it. Its success had hinged on what is called a no-use agreement. Bolling had evidently asked for such an agreement which, according to their press release, would stipulate that neither campaign would be “allowed to use portions of the audio or video of the debate for political purposes.” Wagner’s campaign responded saying that, “Despite our opposition to the last minute rule change, we offered what we hoped would be a compromise that suggested the same terms of previous down-ballot debates this year. ”

The event was sponsored by Mason, Prince William Committee of 100, Prince William Regional Chamber of Commerce, Prince William County-Greater Manassas Chamber of Commerce and Northern Virginia Community College.

Deeds and McDonnell Duel in Fairfax

By Mason Votes Director Christian Smith

Virginia gubernatorial candidates Bob McDonnell (R) and Creigh Deeds (D) debated transportation, taxes, gay adoption rights and social issues this morning in McLean, Va. Throughout the debate, McDonnell tried to define himself as a friend of business, women and the economy while Deeds went negative, spending a great deal of time on defining his opponent as a foe of women and a flip-flopper.

Although McDonnell has tried to move past his recent thesis debacle, Deeds pressed the issue several times, inserting it into topics that seemingly had no association to the social themes discussed in the thesis.

On the issue of health care, McDonnell admitted that he and his family had spent years without health insurance while he was attending law school. “I think we have the greatest health care system in the world… and turning that over to the federal government… is absolutely the wrong thing to do,” said McDonnell who believes the answer lies in employee based health insurance and focusing incentives on prevention based care. Deeds, on the other hand said that he supports the president’s plan and individual mandates with exemptions for small business owners.

While both candidates promised they would not raise taxes if elected, they each insisted the other would need to do so in order to fund their agendas.

An unexpected moment occurred when Deeds said, “There’s a hint of racism in some of the opposition to President Obama that is crystal clear.”

McDonnell appeared relaxed and calm, Deeds’ stance was rigid and his responses abrasive. Overall, it appeared that McDonnell won the debate but his campaign will have to wait to see if they can relay that win to the larger Virginia audience. With Deeds trailing McDonnell in the polls that task might not be too difficult.

View the below videos to hear the candidates’ post-debate spin.