Or at least that is the perception that most of get, and even more so after scrolling through enough personal ads to be scared to ever anyone ever date again. However, what if, for arguments sake there was seemingly normal, generally attractive human experimentally posting on Craigslist to prove once and for all what is out there?

Enter Michael John Seal, a 21 year-old student who claims his reason for posting is, “more than anything, it’s something of an embarrassment, but I metabolize those feelings with the original intention of the posting: an experiment to see if there are normal people out there.”

Tired of being the terminal bachelor and determined to avoid the usual caliber of “unstable, volatile, selfish” women he dates, Michael sought out the refuge of Craigslist, a rather unconventional tool for someone his age, who usually just tries their luck at the nearest bar.

“Posting online seemed like a way to filter out the crazies. Maybe. I have considered the possibility that it’s a good way to locate only crazies, but they can be picked out pretty easily on the first response.”

What makes the Craigslist approach to “dating” or what have you, so much more appealing is the ability to, as Michael suggests, filter out your responses. For Michael’s ad he asks that you reply with your favorite band in the title of your e-mail, which acts as the initial basis of judgment. Those jamming out to Miley Cyrus, Creed, or Nickelback do not make the cut. If so lucky to pass round one, Michael then judges the competency of the reply-er by their ability to create coherent, well-formed, articulate sentences. This may seem picky to some, but as an English major, he’s a stickler for grammar.

This weeding out process has proven necessary as his ad has garnished a lot of attention, which Michael boasts is by in large due to his “Gentleman’s Quarterlyesque
 picture”. Which to his defense, he was a bit apprehensive to posting, because he was sick of women only interested in him based on looks, but decided that in the realm of Craigslist, those who post sans picture are often considered some kind of spam.

Spam is something all too familiar with Craigslist, and Michael guestimates that roughly half of his replies were some kind of Spam messages asking him to “verify” his credit card number, which we can all safely assume means “steal and give to identity thieves”.

About an eighth of his responses were from characteristically boring or shockingly aesthetically unpleasing. Michael believes even that at least of them had Aspergers Syndrome.

Although to his avail there has been some triumph.

“The rest were people like me in one way or another. When it comes to meeting people they’re too busy to go out, or hate going out, or always meet assholes, or don’t like paying eight bucks for a martini and watching some guy barf on himself because he did nine shots of Jaegermeister in ten minutes.”

As far as finding a legitimate personal connection, Michael is inching towards finding something resembling the real thing, as he has found a handful of selective girls who are very close to what he’s looking for and even borderline attractive.

Despite all the trials and tribulations that have come from one simple posting on Craigslist, Michael is adamant about his initial reason for posting in the first place.

“ I don’t really expect to find ‘love’ or ‘companionship’ or whatever. I think I was just curious”

And for this reason I think it’s safe to say that curiosity fueled the Craigslist.

UMass statistics show that in the three-year span since BASICS was implemented there has been a 38-percent reduction in binge drinking, a 26-percent decline in frequent binge drinking and a 14-percent drop in underage binge drinking. However, as recent as the weekend of September 18^th there was a record high of 48 emergency calls in the area, over half of which were related to alcohol abuse.

Those emergency calls may be an isolated incident, but there still seems to be a division between the perception and the reality of the BASICS program.

Chris * a UMass sophomore, recalls of his BASICS experience as ” a waste of time and money”. Chris says that he was more or less a victim or circumstance. ” I wasn’t doing anything any other college aged student would be doing on a Saturday night, the only thing was, I got caught, and because of it, I now had to spend $100 and two hours listening to information that I already know.”

According to the BASICS website the program involves “two 50-minute sessions. During the first, you’ll complete an online questionnaire and meet with a prevention specialist. At the second session, you and your prevention specialist will discuss your questionnaire, compare your results to other UMass Amherst students and explore ways to reduce your risks.”

For those who voluntarily attend BASICS the workshop is free. However, the majority of participants are judicially sanctioned and thus they have to pay either $100 if it’s for his or her first offense or $175 if its for his or her second. This money is used towards purchasing gift certificates as incentives for students to participate in BASIC surveys, which they use for the bulk of their information.

The information BASICS uses is all UMass based and the program relies heavily on comparing an individuals drinking to the drinking of those who reply to the survey.

Danny King, a UMass senior and survey participant says, “I always answer them because I get a free gift card, but I don’t always answer those things honestly because I just never trust that they are anonymous, so I always downplay my drinking.”

King also said that he believed that typically students who would take the time out and be motivated enough to complete an alcohol survey probably aren’t the students who are heavily drinking anyways.

Taking into account that there are students like King out there, one must wonder how much error is within these statistics.

This year the BASICS program is promoting its “social norm” campaign to show that “people believe most UMass students are drinking a lot, a lot of the time, when in fact, the majority drink moderately, if at all.”

When sharing this information with some UMass students they seemed to believe otherwise.

Jaxie Meth, a UMass Junior said, ” BASICS always finds a weird way of making it seem like no ones drinking. Last year the posters said 3 out of 4 UMass students know how to have fun without drinking, and the truth is yeah, we know how to but it doesn’t mean we’re going to.”

Despite some negative feedback, the BASICS program must be doing something right to garnish such attention as a Science and Service Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an honor to which only four college programs total have been awarded.

Binge drinking is a problem you encounter on any University campus, and while it may never be removed completely from our school, something must be said for the effort to make UMass a safer and healthier environment for students.

* Chris asked that I use a different name to keep his anonymity from taking the program because he does not want do be seen in a negative light.

Basically the issue here is concerning the “fair use” trade. There is fine line between fair use and infringement and according to copyright.gov there is no exact distinction for amounts of words of lines that may be taken without permission. Its clear that Fairey used Mannie Garcia’s photo and then altered it.

Personally I think this could have all been avoided if Fairey had just asked permission first. Better safe than sorry. More so, even if he didn’t he should have been honest and just gave credit where credit was due. The fact that he also lied to cover his tracks is very telling that he is guilty.

After being rewarded a three year federally funded grant in 2006, UMass introduced the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS) program. The BASICS website describes this program as a tool that ” helps you explore your alcohol and drug use in a non-judgmental environment. The program’s goal is to reduce risky behavior and the harmful consequences of alcohol abuse.”

As of October 2009, the BASICS program was recognized nationally by winning a Science and Service Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an honor to which only four college programs total have been awarded. 

Statistics show that in the three year span since BASICS was implemented there has been a 38-percent reduction in binge drinking, a 26-percent decline in frequent binge drinking and a 14-percent drop in underage binge drinking.However as recent as the weekend of September 18th- 20th there was a record high of emergency calls in which half were related to alcohol abuse.

Although that amount of emergency calls remains to be an isolated incident there still seems to be a division between the perception and the reality of the BASICS program.

**** a UMass sophomore recalls of his BASICS experience as ” a waste of time and money”. **** says that he was more or less a victim or circumstance. ” I wasn’t doing anything any other college aged student would be doing on a Saturday night, the only thing was, I got caught, and because of it, I now had to spend $100 and two hours listening to information that I already know.”

According to the BASICS website the program involves “two 50-minute sessions. During the first, you’ll complete an online questionnaire and meet with a prevention specialist. At the second session, you and your prevention specialist will discuss your questionnaire, compare your results to other UMass Amherst students and explore ways to reduce your risks.”

For those who voluntarily attend BASICS the workshop is free, however the majority of participants are judicially sanctioned and they have to pay either $100 if its their first offense or $175 if its their second. This money is used towards purchasing gift certificates as incentives for students to participate in their surveys which they use for the bulk of their information.

The information BASICS uses is all UMass based and the program relies heavily on comparing an individuals drinking to the drinking of those who reply to the survey.

Danny King, a UMass senior and survey participant says, “I always answer them because I get a free gift card, but I don’t always answer those things honestly because I just never trust that they are anonymous, so I always downplay my drinking.”

King also said that he believed that typically students who would take the time out and be motivated enough to complete an alcohol survey probably aren’t the students who are heavily drinking anyways.

This year the BASICS program is promoting its “social norm” campaign to show that “people believe most UMass students are drinking a lot, a lot of the time, when in fact, the majority drink moderately, if at all.”

When sharing this information with some UMass students they seemed to believe otherwise.

Jaxie Meth, a UMass Junior said, ” BASICS always finds a weird way of making it seem like no ones drinking. Last year the posters said 3 out of 4 UMass students know how to have fun without drinking, and the truth is ya, we know how to but it doesn’t mean we’re going to.”

Especially with the recent passing of homecoming weekend it is very apparent that drinking on the UMass campus is present and abundant. Undoubtedly this program does help those seeking it, but for the most part it is forced on students who don’t really believe they have a problem to begin with.

With this upcoming series I would like to know UMass’ plan to possibly deter these riots from happening or at the very least prepare for them. In order to find this information I would talk to the Community Outreach Officer of UMass, Mark Whelihan. I would also talk to various RD’s and ARD’s of freshamn buildings in Southwest, because they are often the main offenders, and see what they are doing within the building to prevent students from rioting.  I would also try and contact people who have taken part of riots past and ask what the appeal is.

Pitch- I would pitch this story  to the Daily Collegian because it is interesting since UMass has gotten a reputation for it’s riots. It is also timely because this is an upcoming event. It would be interesting to see why this occurs so frequently and how we could stop allowing this to occur and spoil the reputation of UMass.

#2- Studying abroad is an extremely alluring and valuable experience for  a college student. Every year the International Program  Office sends hundreds of UMass students around the world. What most students don’t think about though is that what about those international students who are sent abroad here.

This article would be an expose from a different point of view, of how UMass accommodates our exchange students and what it’s like here for them. In order to do this I would talk to IPO to get a sense of how many students from foreign countries come to study here on average each semester. Erin Barrett is the exchange student advisor so I would ask her what her job entails and how her services help exchange students. I’d also ask her other questions deal with logistics. I would then go to Sylvan where they now house a majority of the exchange students to talk with one of them and get their perspective.

Pitch- I would pitch this article to  either Abroad view Magazine or the UMass Daily Collegian as a feature article. This article is interesting because I think UMass students would like to know how the U.S. and UMass is viewed by an outside objective. Also how one’s cultural lens affects their perspective.

#3 Drinking is something that has become synonymous with any college campus, and UMass is no exception. In fact for many years UMass has been trying to shake their “party school” reputation.  In 2006 the “B ASICS” program came to UMass to help prevent binge drinking and three years later in 2009, the program has won a national award from the U.S. Department of Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

For me it is surprising to hear that UMass is now one of the frontrunners in alcohol prevention because recently it has been reported that more and more alcohol related injuries are being called in by ambulances. In my article I would be searching to find if the drinking perception of the student body matches that of the Officials. In order to find this out I would talk to BASICS director Sally Linowski to find out statistical information about drinking on the UMass campus and where many of the referrals are coming from (freshman from southwest, older kids from O-Hill, etc.) Linowski would also be a good resource to ask about what the program does for students and how they have seen the fruits of their labor.  I would also talk to people from various parts of campus to see what their perception of the drinking at UMass is like.

I would pitch this article to the Daily Collegian because it is centrally focused on happenings at UMass. I think students would be interested in this story because I think that UMass has an exceedingly outward reputation that it is such a big drinking school but in actuality that might not be true.

Image from UMass RecCenter website

Yesterday the student body received e-mail informing them that the new recreational center would not open today, Monday the 28th, as planned.

The e-mail explained that the opening was pushed back “pending on final inspection by local health and safety inspectors”.

Freshman, Silvana Melvezzi, an employee of the new recreational center informed me that the new center is tentatively set to open now on Wednesday, ” but who knows, this is UMass, things never go according to plan,” jokes Melvezzi.

According to the campus recreation website, final inspections were supposed to be held of Friday the 25th, but for some unexplained reason, was re-scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday the 29th.

Unfortunately, all the equipment has already been moved from Boyden into the new facility so Boyden will be closed, and no fitness classes will be held.

Luckily this new center appears to provide a lot from a three court basketball gymnasium, an indoor jogging track, individual group exercise rooms, and even a cafe/juice bar.

It seems as though this new gym is going to be well worth the wait!

http://209.51.150.170/areyoucertain.com/images/detour_sign.jpg

Today marked the 250th anniversary of the town of Amherst and for such a momentous occasion a parade was held all along main street down to the Haigis Mall bus stop.

The day was filled with marching bands, floats, and unfortunately ungodly traffic.

UMass senior, Jack  O’Regan, a resident of Kellogg street was greatly inconvenienced by today’s parade.

“It took me nearly a half hour to get from Southwest back to my house, not to mention the three almost car accidents I nearly got in on the way back.”

Main Street to the Massachusetts Avenue was blocked off to accommodate the parade’s path. Officers and volunteers were stationed sporadically to help maneuver traffic to alternate routes. Despite their efforts many students were left frustrated and disgruntled about the towns display of pride.

Jamie Taloumis, another Kellogg Street resident had to alter her daily plans to account for this celebration.

” I was basically housebound for three hours and I wasn’t even able to do anything constructive because of all the honking and marching bands.”

Official Parade " Pooper Scooper"

The noise level was not the only cause for concern for local UMass residents.

” I walked out on my porch today to see what all the hub-bub was about, and was greeted with the most displeasing mix of scents my nose has ever encountered”, says Dave Elliot of 24 Kellogg Street.

This was most likely due to all the live animals at the parade, which included horses, cows, dogs, and their excrement’s.

While the parade may not have been a crowd pleaser among the residents of Kellogg, as an onlooker I quite enjoyed the days festivities.

There was such a sense of pride among all of the participants and onlookers that it was refreshing to watch such a wholesome and pleasant event.
Floats displayed Amherst’s rich agriculture and eco-friendly community,

Horse and buggy’s were seen plentifully yesterday to display the historic side of Amherst.

Ever the socialite, Minuteman Sam joined the parade to show support for UMass sports teams everywhere.

Unfortunately the only foul play was seen off the field, before the game, between drunken students and disgruntled officers.

Yesterday, there was a mounted police officer working the game, who was quite visibly uncomfortable and unknowledgeable of his horse.

Possibly it was the mix of alcohol and a short temper but onlookers watched as an unidentified male student approached the officer and told him to keep an eye on his horse.

Kayla McKinnon, an eye witness said, ” the officer got really mad and told him he knew how to do his job, and if he wanted he could have everyone arrested right now.”

McKinnon then stepped in and apologized and was astounded by what came next.

” As we were turning away the officer said we better comply because he ‘wanted to arrest someone today’.”

While for the most part, I respect and appreciate the work that the UMass police force does to protect and serve us, it seems as though some may be a bit too over zealous.

UMass junior, Molly Malandrino, watched the incident occur and said, ” It makes me very uneasy to know that there are officers out there like that who don’t necessarily have our best interests in mind. I understand it’s tough job to deal with drunk college students, but that’s just uncalled for.”

Yes, arrests happen on campus and I’m sure the majority of them are valid, but no officer should go into the field with the mindset that they want to arrest someone. That should be a last resort.

The UMass Faculty Senate voted last Thursday and decided to decrease the overall requirement of classes from thirteen to ten, but increased the amount of credits for each class from three to four.

This in theory is supposed to make the classes harder, but seems as though not much is really going to be done.

In the article Professor Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Sociology Department chair, explains that some classes already have enough workload to be considered a four-credit class so they won’t have to change their curriculum. However for other classes Devey says, ” Probably there would be some increase in reading and writing, so it would be in fact more depth in the course.”

What really makes me question the validity of this whole concept is the fact that Devey says its only probable that there will be an increase in work.  Furthermore, Professors have only until October 15th to submit their proposals of how they intend to add this extra credit hour. Well, if professors are anything like their students, they are probably too consumed with the classes they are teaching now and the various other components in their lives that they aren’t thinking about their curriculum for next Fall. Seeing that they only have roughly two weeks to put this together, I feel as though most professors won’t put much thought into it and just tack on an extraneous extra reading or paper, that in the end won’t really enrich someone’s learning.

Additionally, if most Gen-Ed classes carry enough class work to be accredited as a four credit class, then why weren’t they? What exactly does the University intend to do for the students that took these classes Freshman and Sophomore year but on received  lythree credits? I tried to contact Senate Secretary, Ernest May to find such answers, but was unable to reach him.

To me this really seems as a way to compensate for the fact that UMass doesn’t have the same funding to offer the same amount of classes.

It of course could go a different direction and some professors will take this seriously and add an appropriate amount of coursework,and overtime this coursework may become standard and make the Faculty Senate question why all courses aren’t four credits, allowing them to downsize even more. Thus we as students will have less options for classes and overall less classes to take, which would greatly reduce our learning experience.

Right now there are mixed views among campus.

Junior Jazmine Pendelton says, ” It kind of stinks for our class because, I could have used those extra credits, but I really do feel that there are more Gen-ed requirements than necessary.”

In the article Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Robert S. Feldman argues that it will be a good even trade off because it’s basically quality over quantity.

The University is always changing and adapting and hopefully this adjustment will bode well for UMass. I suppose we can theorize all we want, but we will have to wait until the Fall to see how this plays out.

Full Story as seen in Daily Collegian