Emma Fiander – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Fri, 03 Nov 2017 07:42:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Emma Fiander – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Can sororities at Stanford host parties? https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/03/can-sororities-at-stanford-host-parties/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/03/can-sororities-at-stanford-host-parties/#respond Fri, 03 Nov 2017 07:27:19 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1132459 The Daily investigates why sororities aren't represented in the campus party-hosting scene, and whether that's a bad thing after all.

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While Greek organizations and boozy campus parties may go hand-in-hand in American pop culture, the portrayal is only true of half of Greek life. Gaggles of freshmen descending upon the Row on a weekend may dance the night away at any one of the seven housed fraternities, but one place they invariably skip over is the Cowell Cluster, home to Stanford’s three housed sorority chapters.

While Greek organizations — specifically fraternities — may host more all-campus parties than any other student group, sororities rarely do the same. This is true not just at Stanford: Most sorority chapters around the country face some kind of restriction on large parties where alcohol is served. The Daily investigates why the other half of Greek life isn’t represented in the campus party scene, and whether it’s a bad thing after all.

National chapter restrictions

Why don’t sororities throw parties? According to Inter-Sorority Council (ISC) Vice President Julia Duncan ’18, it’s really more of a question of whether they can.

“Individual sororities’ national organizations have rules against holding parties that largely [stem] from their national insurance policy and the liability that would come with throwing parties,” Duncan said.

Duncan clarified that she does not know of a sweeping rule from the national governing body for Greek life organizations, the National Penhellenic Conference, which expressly bans sororities from holding parties. However, though there is no one governing policy – either from NPC or from Stanford – that disallows the female half of Greek life from holding parties, most, if not all, sororities follow rules set down by their own national leadership that say as much.

Because individual chapters have a complicated legal relationship with their governing national agencies — including insurance coverage for incidents involving alcohol – many sororities simply forbid their members from holding events that might implicate the larger organization.

But that’s not to say sororities at Stanford never throw parties. They arguably do, only on a much smaller scale. For example, like many Stanford organizations, most sororities throw a Special Dinner, or Special D, at least once a quarter. The same goes for sorority formals. At both functions, alcohol is typically served, and sorority members may invite friends and dates who are not part of the chapter.

In these cases, the definitions get hazy. Duncan says it’s about what sororities here feel they can get away with without alerting their national organizations.

“Most chapters skirt the rules on this,” she said. “Most national organizations have rules that require third party vendors of alcohol because the liability shifts to the third party – so the vendor’s insurance covers the event, not the chapter’s.”

Duncan added that chapters can expect no help from the national organization if they break the rules. If an incident such as an alcohol transport or property damage were to occur at a party where alcohol has been provided in the absence of a third-party vendor, the individuals in the chapter would be liable rather than the national organization.

“It’s actually very legally precarious for sororities to throw Special Ds and provide alcohol themselves,” Duncan said.

Running a Special D without proper insurance coverage might be risky, but Duncan explained that the stakes are much higher for all-campus parties, where the possibility of police involvement as well as health and safety concerns is usually higher.

Pros and cons

Legal risks may not be the only reason sororities are reluctant to host large parties in their houses. Alpha Phi social chair Alexandra Hellman ’19 said that the restriction itself strikes her as unfairly gendered in principle but that planning an all-campus is not a particularly appealing prospect in practice.

“On the one hand I think it’s kinda sexist that sororities can’t throw parties while frats can, which gives them the power to determine a lot on campus,” Hellman said. “On the other hand, all-campuses and big parties are a massive hassle… Personally, I’m happy I don’t have to go through that as a member of a sorority.”

Hellman added that liability issues for all-campus parties afflict fraternities too. Although national fraternity organizations do not have the same ban on parties, the various risks associated with serving alcohol to a large crowd of students are no less concerning.

Duncan agreed, saying that she would rather not have an all-campus in her living space. She also commented that many people – especially upperclassmen – may not be keen on going to a party thrown by a sorority in the first place.

“People are already so critical of the night life at Stanford, and I can imagine sororities throwing a party to be the next punchline,” Duncan said.

Kappa Alpha Theta social chair Kiki Couchman ’20 brought up another reason to eschew the all-campus: social insecurity.

“A lot of my good guy friends are in KA and they’re on probation right now, and that’s like a whole issue too, because they’re not able to have all-campuses,” said Couchman. “They just feel inferior to, like,  Kappa Sig or whatever, because they feel like they don’t have their name out there and nobody’s paying any attention.”

She added, “It’s interesting, because it’s just like, [sororities] are always like that.”

Greek bureaucracy

Couchman does wish that things would change, however.

“Row houses can throw parties, and that’s totally fine,” she said. “So it’s just kinda weird that we’re so attached to this name and this organization. It makes it a whole power thing.”

For Couchman, the party issue reveals the sometimes uncomfortable relationship between the individual chapters that most girls see when they rush a sorority and the sweeping national organizations that figure much less in their actual experience. 

While the three buildings in Cowell might be physically similar to any other Row house, entry requires more than just a good draw number. The prize at the end of rush is not just membership in a close-knit campus community, but a sprawling national group complete with its own traditions and idiosyncrasies. Couchman said she personally doesn’t see that changing anytime soon.

“I think Greek life will be abolished before the policies change,” Couchman said. “It’s a bureaucratic system. It’s just not gonna happen.”

 

Contact Emma Fiander at efiander ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Columbae hosts “Resist Trump Action” parties https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/14/columbae-hosts-resist-trump-action-parties/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/14/columbae-hosts-resist-trump-action-parties/#respond Wed, 15 Feb 2017 07:15:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1123034 Columbae is hosting “Resist Trump Action Parties" to mobilize students against President Donald Trump's administration.

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“Hi, my name is Janet Coleman-Belin, a constituent from Santa Monica, California. I am calling to urge Senator Dianne Feinstein to oppose the continuation of the Dakota Access Pipeline.”

Coleman-Belin ’19 read this from a script, marked “Urgent 1,” lying on a dining room table in Columbae. The paper also included scripts opposing Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court and Rex Tillerson’s nomination as secretary of state. Another paper, “Urgent 2,” contained scripts for Cabinet picks Scott Pruitt, Betsy DeVos and Rick Perry.

The scripts were part of Columbae’s “Resist Trump Action Party,” held on Jan. 31 and Feb. 14.

The event was a joint effort by Stanford Women in Politics (SWIP), the Black Student Union (BSU) and Politalk, a Columbae-based group, to mobilize students against President Donald Trump’s administration.

“With everything that’s been happening really quickly over the past week, I think it’s really important for people to realize that there’s still things you can do,” said Nora Tan ’18, eating associate at Columbae and a Politalk member. “You can still voice your concerns because those do matter.”

“If we end up being silent right now, people will think, ‘Oh, this is okay — we’re sliding by with the nomination of this person and this person,’ whereas if we try to push forward now, it’s like yes, there’s still that sliver of hope,” Tan added. “I think maintaining that hope is really important.”

As part of its resistance “parties,” Columbae opens its house to the public every Tuesday night from 9 to 10 p.m. The open space provides a place for anyone who wants to take direct action to do so.

A whiteboard in the Columbae dining room explains a three-step approach. First, it says, students should save their senators’ and representatives’ phone numbers as favorite contacts in their phones. Second, students should call the numbers using the scripts provided; for less time-sensitive issues, there is also a letter-writing script. Finally, participants are asked to message their friends and family and ask that they also speak up.

The gatherings serve as a starting point, with the hope that students who attend the event will take what they learned and apply it to their broader life.

“We’re hoping that we get new faces each time because I think that once somebody shows up and they realize how easy it is to call their representatives… They pretty much feel comfortable enough to do it on their own,” said Hattie Gawande ’18, co-president of Stanford Women in Politics. “The idea is, if people still want that support and that community, totally come on Tuesdays, but for people who really don’t feel comfortable calling their representatives for the first time, we’re providing that space to help them do that.”

The first Resist Trump Action Party was held during the week of many confirmation hearings, and therefore, those in attendance were primarily focused on voicing opposition to the Cabinet nominees. Because most of the hearings are over, this week’s event turned its focus on specific bills that have been proposed.

“It will be much more about broader action than about specific conformations in the weeks going forward,” Gawande said.

DeVos, Tillerson and several other controversial proposed Cabinet members were confirmed, despite the efforts of groups across the nation similar to the Resist Trump Action Party. The outcomes led many to express discouragement with their calls. However, Gawande disagrees.

“It does feel like a really tiny and insignificant action, but we know it works and we saw that during the Betsy DeVos vote,” Gawande said. “It’s highly unusual for confirmations to be as difficult as Trump’s confirmations were.”

DeVos, who is now secretary of education, had the closest confirmation vote in American history. This was partly due to Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who listened to complaints from many of their constituents and voted against DeVos along with all Democratic senators.

The most important thing, Gawande insisted, is to keep calling, no matter what.

“I think there’s a lot of skepticism in the pro-Trump camp that the momentum is going to keep going,” Gawande said. “I think they think that protest fatigue is going to set in… I think that if the pressure stays on months into his tenure, I think people are going to get a lot more nervous.”

 

Contact Emma Fiander at efiander ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Professor emeritus of theoretical physics Sidney Drell dies at 90 https://stanforddaily.com/2016/12/23/professor-emeritus-of-theoretical-physics-sidney-drell-dies-at-90/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/12/23/professor-emeritus-of-theoretical-physics-sidney-drell-dies-at-90/#respond Sat, 24 Dec 2016 02:43:19 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1121070 Sidney Drell, a respected physicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, died Wednesday at the age of 90 in his home in Palo Alto.

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Sidney Drell, a respected physicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, died Wednesday at the age of 90 in his home in Palo Alto.

Drell was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, professor emeritus of theoretical physics at SLAC and national security expert, as well as father of three children including incoming provost Persis Drell.

“An accomplished physicist, his contributions to improve national and international security made our world a better place,” said Tom Gilligan, the director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford,in a statement to Stanford News. “We are especially grateful for Sid’s relentless dedication to eliminating the threat posed by nuclear weapons and know that his important work will continue to frame the issue.”

Drell spent more than half his life dedicated to the issue of national security, specifically the area of nuclear nonproliferation. He advised Congress, the military and intelligence agencies from his position on several panels, including the JASON advisory group and the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

In 1966, Drell assisted in the development of the McNamara Line, a physical barrier that was proposed as an alternative defense to bombing North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Two decades later, Drell became one of the first co-directors of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, now known as the Center for International Security and Cooperation. He went on to found a program alongside former Secretary of State George P. Shultz at the Hoover Institution that sought to outline a practical plan to eliminate nuclear weapons in 2006.

Beyond his work as a national security advisor, Drell contributed greatly to the field of theoretical physics.

He began his career in 1950 as an instructor of physics at Stanford. He took a position as a researcher and assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology two years later, only to return to Stanford as a physics professor in 1956. His research was focused on quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics.

He served as the deputy director for SLAC from 1969-1998, where he formulated the Drell-Yan Process with research associate Tung-Mow Yan. The process went on to play an instrumental role in the field of particle physics.

In 2013, President Barack Obama presented Drell with the National Medal of Science for, according to the National Science & Technology Medals Foundation, “contributions to quantum field theory and quantum chromodynamics, application of science to inform national policies in security and intelligence, and distinguished contributions as an advisor to the United States Government.” Drell was also one of 10 scientists honored as “founders of national reconnaissance as a space discipline” by the US National Reconnaissance Office.

In addition to his academic accomplishments, Drell was a violinist who played chamber music throughout his life.

Drell is survived by his wife, Harriet, and his children, Daniel, Persis and Joanna.

 

Contact Emma Fiander at efiander ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Underpaid and ‘boycotted,’ PHEs see lowest staffing since program’s inception https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/27/underpaid-and-boycotted-phes-see-lowest-staffing-since-programs-inception/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/27/underpaid-and-boycotted-phes-see-lowest-staffing-since-programs-inception/#respond Mon, 28 Nov 2016 07:22:44 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1120415 This quarter marks the first time since the inception of the Peer Health Educator (PHE) role where multiple resident fellows (RFs) of freshman dorms have refused to hire PHEs. RFs made the decision last spring as a way to boycott the program’s wage system, and many PHEs are still unhappy with their salaries.

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This quarter marks the first time since the inception of the Peer Health Educator (PHE) role where multiple resident fellows (RFs) of freshman dorms have refused to hire PHEs. RFs made the decision last spring as a way to boycott the program’s wage system, and many PHEs are still unhappy with their salaries.

Erica Fearon ’18, the PHE in one of Stanford’s new four-class dorms, Norcliffe Hall, loves her job but finds it difficult to justify her wages.

“My frosh, who is a dining hall ambassador, gets paid more than I do,” Fearon said. “He gets paid more than I do, and I do the job of an RA, pretty much, and he just surveys people about whether they like tofu.”

All PHEs on campus are each paid $1,000 by Vaden Health Center for the school year. Their staff counterparts, resident assistants (RAs), receive $10,000 a year from Residential Education and resident computer consultants (RCCs) receive $7,000 from the Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning.

Despite being paid significantly less, PHEs complete an intense training process. And while RCC training is more technical and computer-focused, RA and PHE training tend to focus on similar concepts.

Prospective PHEs take a four-unit, letter-graded class in the spring, followed by a week of training in the fall before school starts. RAs receive two weeks of fall training and take a two-unit, credit/no-credit course in the spring. PHE training provides students with an in-depth look into all aspects of physical, mental and sexual health they might encounter in their job, from mental disorders to issues of drugs and alcohol.

(EMMA FIANDER/The Stanford Daily)
Erica Fearon ’18, PHE for Norcliffe, on left, studies with a friend (EMMA FIANDER/The Stanford Daily).

“We spend in-depth amount of time on each of these things, and the RA class is essentially, like, how to talk to people,” Fearon said. “They don’t do a lot of content.”

Much of PHE training consists of practicing potential scenarios a staff member might encounter, whereas RA training is primarily lecture-based, only practicing counseling scenarios a few times.

According to Alyssa Morrison ’18, the PHE in Soto, the extra training is what really makes a difference.

“I think that having that practical skill base was very useful going in with my co-staff, who felt kind of overwhelmed in staff training,” Morrison said. “When things would come up, they would kind of look to me a lot.”

This year, Cedro, Junipero, Arroyo, Trancos, Twain and Larkin are all without PHEs. Some RFs actively chose not to hire PHEs, while others simply weren’t matched with a PHE during the ranking process.

Lucy and Jason Lee, RFs of Cedro, fell into the latter category last spring. They wanted a PHE, but due to the low pool of applicants, they were unable to take one on. Instead they, and all of the other dorms who did not take PHEs, were able to hire another RA to take the place of the missing staff member.

“The most important thing is to have six trained staff,” Lucy Lee said. “I think that if we were short a staff member, it would have been a burden on our staff.”

So far, Cedro has not experienced any significant differences. Lee attributes this to the fact that one of the dorm’s RAs has taken on many of the responsibilities a PHE would have.

“If we didn’t have the PHE role specifically, we would have to build that into the hiring process for our staff,” Lee said.

While some RFs chose not to hire PHEs because they felt the pay gap was too unfair to look past, the Lees wrestled with the issue.

“We were very conflicted about the whole ‘boycotting the PHE’ idea because, yes, there’s a pay discrepancy, but part of us also thought that the people who applied knew that going in,” Lee said. “We wouldn’t want to just boycott that role if that’s something that they wanted to do. What we really wanted to do was make that more equitable in some way.”

With fewer PHEs on campus this year, Fearon worries that certain dorms are missing out on the level of experience PHE training brings to a dorm staff.

“Going forward, if the RA training absorbs more of the health-related stuff that the PHE training does, it might make sense to simply, instead of having PHEs, just have very health-oriented RAs,” Fearon said. “But right now, I don’t think the RA training is there yet, which is why PHEs are important.”

Despite the PHE pay, most students who apply for the position do so because they believe in its importance. Morrison admitted she sometimes forgets she even gets paid at all.

“Going into it, [the pay] wasn’t really a factor in my decision,” Morrison said. “I was thinking, ‘Oh I want to be invested in my community.’ Nowhere in there was I like, ‘This is the job that I’m going to use to support myself financially during the year.’ My mentality hasn’t been viewing it as that job type and more just like a role that I’ve taken on.”

While PHEs like Morrison and Fearon specifically chose to pursue PHE jobs and not RA jobs, they admit that because the positions are similar enough, the pay gap leaves little incentive for prospective staff members to choose to be a PHE over an RA.

Further, many PHEs speculate that the gender imbalance among students holding the position is encouraged by the pay gap.

“It’s very emotional and touchy-feely, and we value that, whereas men in our society are taught not to value touchy-feely stuff,” Fearon said. “To add on to that, the fact that they’re not going to get paid as much, they’re like, ‘Well, I’m not going to do this.’”

The only one male PHE staffing this year is Kayland Harrison ’17 of Roble.

“Truth be told, it was funny for a minute when people were like, ‘Kayland, you’re the only male PHE.’ I thought, ‘Oh that’s cool,’ and then I thought, ‘Oh, whatever,’” Harrison said. “Honestly, I hope that I’m a good PHE. I don’t think male or female makes a difference.”

Fearon noted that because of the gender breakdown of PHEs, the campus program is starting a kind of gender-based wage gap.

“If PHEs got paid more, we would probably attract a more diverse crowd, including more men. But the pay discrepancy also enforces a weird gender wage gap on this campus where the PHEs are primarily women and the women choose to get paid less because we see this job as something that we value,” she said. “No one intended to have this gap of diversity in the PHE program, but they’re inadvertently causing it by not paying attention.”

One place where this gender gap is made especially clear is in the difference between the staffs in sororities and fraternities. All three housed sororities have PHEs, whereas none of the fraternities do.

Shankara Anand ’17, the RA in Phi Kappa Psi, believes that the lack of fraternity PHEs is an institutional issue, one he is eager to see fixed.

“In my opinion, I think [that] in any fraternity it would be a blessing to have a PHE,” Anand said. “It’s really sad that we don’t, because, really, given a lot of the situations that you come across, especially in a fraternity and any house on this campus, PHE training is very, very relevant. It’s actually come up in our house before, and it’s pretty unanimous that we think having a PHE or having somebody with that training would be great.”

Anand, a former Otero RA, feels strongly about having a PHE, but says that those feelings come more from having previously worked with one.

“I think for a lot of fraternities, it just hasn’t really come up. A lot of fraternities aren’t sitting there saying, ‘Man, we really need to fill this niche,’” he said.

Fraternities on campus follow traditional row house staff structures, which include RAs, RCCs, community managers (CMs), kitchen managers (KMs) and financial managers (FMs). There currently is no precedented process for hiring a PHE at fraternity houses.

“It’s such a key population to reach,” Fearon said, “especially around issues of sexual assault and drinking that the University has been dealing with this fall, and a great way to do that in-house would be requiring frat PHEs.”

 

Contact Emma Fiander at efiander ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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