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(04/17/15 11:30am)
She earned several accolades during her freshman season for the women’s track and field team in the discus throw and shot put. She was named Southern Conference Outdoor Champion in 2014 and joined the conference’s indoor and outdoor All-Freshman team. She also set an Elon University discus school-record this season.
(04/13/15 7:55am)
A critical error and five-run bottom of the sixth inning led the College of Charleston Cougars baseball team to an 8-3 win against the Elon University Phoenix on Sunday.
(04/12/15 5:25am)
After losing Friday's series opener at the College of Charleston 11-3, the Elon University baseball ended the Cougars' 10-0 undefeated record in Colonial Athletic Association play with a 4-1 win on Saturday.
(04/12/15 4:04am)
While 18 runners left on base may not be a typical recipe for success, the Elon University softball team cashed in on enough opportunities late in its second game to split its doubleheader against the University of Delaware Blue Hens.
(04/11/15 2:43am)
A horrendous seven-run first inning for the Elon University baseball team propelled the College of Charleston Cougars to an 11-3 win.
(04/05/15 11:37pm)
The Elon University softball team did not come out with the intensity it needed to fend off an opponent hungry for a conference win.
(04/04/15 11:17pm)
The doubleheader between the Elon University and Towson University softball teams today was a tale of two completely different games.
(04/01/15 6:36am)
She joined the Elon University women’s basketball team as a walk-on and played for one minute during her entire freshman season. In her sophomore year, she made seven appearances totaling 21 minutes.
(04/01/15 5:34am)
Free passes hurt the Elon University baseball team throughout the course of its game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tar Heels on Tuesday. Despite a late comeback, the early struggles led the Phoenix to a 10-5 loss.
(03/25/15 1:43am)
It was a nice night for baseball in Raleigh as the Elon University baseball squad competed against the North Carolina State Wolfpack. Besides the weather, there was much left to be desired.
(03/23/15 12:29am)
Elon University freshman Danny Crowe delivered a walk-off single in the 13th inning in his first at-bat of the season to give the Elon University Phoenix an 8-7 win and series sweep against the James Madison Dukes.
(03/22/15 6:17am)
The Elon University baseball team has had its shares of struggles on the mound throughout the course of the season. Saturday proved to be an exception as junior starter Michael Elefante delivered the Phoenix's first complete game of the season en route to a 17-3 home victory over the James Madison Dukes.
(03/21/15 3:54pm)
Senior shortstop Andy Moore delivered a walk-off single on Friday in Elon University’s first Colonial Athletic Association baseball game to give the Phoenix a 5-4 win over the James Madison Dukes.
(03/19/15 6:09pm)
As the second round of March Madness begins, our sports section offers its predictions. Each bracket has Kentucky as the winner. Feel free to comment on your thoughts on our brackets and which one you think will win.
(03/13/15 11:00am)
Junior Laura Conroy returned home from a busy schedule filled with classes, homework and sorority activities and glanced down at the small calendar she bought while studying abroad in Ghana. As the memories of delivering soccer balls and helping out local Ghanaian communities returned to her mind, she realized she got more out of the trip than the Ghanaians who had received her help.
“We provided [the Ghanaians] with material goods, but I think they provided us with a lot more because I walked away still with their faces in my mind,” Conroy said. “I’m not sure if they think about us, but I definitely still think about them.”
Although Conroy said she benefited from the experience of giving back to the local community she had visited, some like Heidi Frontani, professor of geography, think offering aid does more harm than good.
“[By giving handouts], you create dependent communities that are just sitting there waiting for the next group of people to come through and give them things,” Frontani said. “That’s not what people want. Nobody wants that anywhere in the world.”
In order to ensure students have productive experiences while studying abroad, Elon offers several opportunities for students to practice global citizenship through service. As founding director of Project Pericles, a program designed to provide students with a sense of social responsibility and civic concern, Thomas Arcaro has led several service trips to Africa.
According to Arcaro, providing meaningful aid is not as easy as people think.
“Service isn’t easy if it’s done right,” Arcaro said. “If it’s done in a partnering, not patronizing, way, it’s really a lot of work. It’s rewarding as hell, but it’s a lot of work.”
The key to providing effective aid through service is to spend money wisely, he added.
“There’s a huge cost of going [to Africa],” Arcaro said. “That cost has to be more than offset by the value added of what we would do in country ‘X’ or ‘Y’ or whatever that country is.”
While some students choose to spend a semester abroad, others like Conroy go abroad during Winter Term, which can be a major expense.
The most recent cost, credit and prerequisites chart shows that the 2016 Winter Term study abroad costs range from $3,750 to $8,100.
People choosing to do service in Africa independently would pay more than $1,000 in airfare alone. With other costs of travel, such as food and shelter, a round trip experience to the continent could easily exceed $2,000.
In order to offset the cost of traveling to Africa with the value added of doing service in a country, Arcaro urges students to develop a deep understanding of the place they are visiting. He and Frontani also hope more people will eliminate some of the common misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa before they make travel arrangements. According to Frontani, most students don’t realize Africa is made up of 54 countries with both urban and rural regions.
Because of the short length of Winter Term trips compared to a semester abroad, Frontani said students need to return to the places they visit.
“We have so many students going on J-Term,” Frontani said. “I think J-Term’s a great thing to do, but I would love to see a lot more follow up where a student would maybe do J-Term in Ghana, spend the time with the group, get acclimated a little bit and then already have planned at that point to stay on for the spring.”
Though Conroy said she got more out of her experience than the people she helped, she believes it’s important to visit the places you’re trying to help rather than sending money.
“When you get to hand a child their first soccer ball or their first real notebook, it’s a moment you’ll never forget because you realize that you’re actually touching a human life, not just a piece of paper that you sign a check to,” Conroy said. “I think it’s really important for people to see who they’re donating to and what kind of cause you’re helping.”
(03/06/15 12:00pm)
Whether students take car pools or use reusable water bottles, they belong to a nation using nearly one-fourth of the world’s natural resources. The overlooked key to a greener future: linking social justice and sustainability.
Julian Agyeman, a professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University who coined the concept ‘just sustainabilities,’ visited Elon University’s LaRose Digital Theatre Feb. 24 to argue sustainability is about so much more than the environment — it’s also about human equality.
“Wherever environmental degradation is happening in the world, I defy you to find a place where it’s not about social injustice,” Agyeman said to a large group of Elon students.
Bringing sustainability to Elon
According to Agyeman’s website, just sustainabilities can be defined as “the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of supporting ecosystems.” After introducing this concept, Agyeman expressed his frustration with how the sustainability agenda is construed around green issues.
Before coming to Elon, Agyeman examined the mission statements of some sustainability organizations on campus. He concluded many organizations focus on addressing the environment or social responsibility, but there are no coalitions formed between the different groups.
Shannon Temlak, a senior political science and policy studies double major and Eco-Reps coordinator, said coalitions should form between different sustainability organizations on campus.
“I’ve noticed on this campus that we have a lot of student organizations that do have a mission that is to promote certain sustainable-related issues,” Temlak said. “We have all these great organizations that all tie into sustainability, but currently, we’re not doing that great working together.”
For example, one portion of the Sierra Club’s mission is to “practice and promote the responsible use of earth’s ecosystems and resources.”
Enactus, an international nonprofit organization, works with leaders in business and higher education to develop “skills to become socially responsible business leaders.”
Similarly, the Eco-Reps Program is “dedicated to promoting sustainability and environmentally responsible behaviors. This program raises awareness of sustainability-related programs by working with Residence Life and Greek Life and delivers lessons to Elon 101 and COR 110 courses as requested.
Collaborations between these organizations could help promote the idea of just sustainabilities, according to Agyeman.
Getting a fair share
Agyeman listed off five themes to what just sustainability should look like in practice: environmental space and fair share, well-being and happiness, urban agriculture and food justice, planning for intercultural societies and spatial justice.
Data from the CIA shows the United States has the world’s largest coal reserve and accounts for 27 percent of the world’s total. An article from 24/7 Wall Street, a Delaware corporation that runs a financial news and opinion company with content delivered over the Internet, named the United States the second-richest country in the world in terms of resources — Russia ranked first. Other wealthy countries include Australia, China and Canada.
Because of this disparity in available natural resources between wealthier, more powerful nations and poorer ones, Agyeman advocated for a more equitable allocation of resources. He also said government cannot be trusted to make cutbacks for the greater good of other nations.
“Do you envision American government policymakers cutting back on our nation’s resources within the near future?” Agyeman asked. “If not, who has to be accountable for lowering that 25-5 percent gap?”
While he was specifically skeptical of the federal government, he noted there is hope for local governments to bring change.
Alamance County in action
Budget cuts have become increasingly prevalent in counties throughout the United States. Alamance County is no exception.
The county’s Planning Department site says it oversees a number of community activities ranging from water and sewer projects to land development in rural Alamance County. As the planning department’s director, Libby Hodges has witnessed a sharp decline in her department’s activities because of recent budget cuts.
“Most of the funding that we’ve gotten from the past has come from state or federal,” Hodges said. “[Securing those funds nowadays] requires someone from our department applying for the funds, and we don’t have the staff to apply or manage the funds once they’re in place.”
Despite this problem, departments try to remain optimistic about their existing sustainability efforts.
“A lot of the municipalities and colleges and universities are trying to do more with water control,” said Phil Ross, head of the Soil and Water Conversation department.
Ross also points to the county’s recycling program as another step in the right direction.
“Greg Thomas [the county’s solid waste director] has an excellent recycling program through the landfills,” Ross said. “That would be one thing we’re doing well in Alamance County.”
But Agyeman said that while these efforts promote sustainability, they do little to address social justice.
Food for thought
Agyeman is a firm supporter of buying fresh local food, but encourages students to stray away from their traditional definition of local.
“I want to develop a notion of local that is not seeing local as a geographic concept but is seeing local as a cultural concept,” he said. “Buy local, buy fresh usually means geographic food. It doesn’t refer to what other people want.”
At Elon’s farmers market on North Williamson Avenue, local farmers cater to members of the Elon community. But members of the Elon community come from a variety of backgrounds. More than 80 percent of Elon students live out of state. Because students come from a wide range of geographic regions, local food may refer to food from their hometown rather than an Elon farmers market.
Within Alamance County itself, residents have different cultural roots. According to data from the 2013 census, 19.3 percent of county residents are black or African-American while 11.8 percent are Hispanic or Latino. To define what is local, Agyeman urges farmers to consider the diversity within the community and make products for minority groups as well.
Bridging sustainability and social justice
When stringing together his final thoughts, Agyemen challenged students to expand their minds beyond conventional scientific research.
“We have the science of sustainability, we know what we need to do, but we’re not doing it,” he said. “This is where social science [psychology, sociology, anthropology] comes in.”
Agyeman concluded his speech by urging those in attendance to critically examine how to promote both environmental justice and social justice.
Improving parks as an attractive option for people to congregate, constructing streets for people to talk rather than roads for drivers, bringing more diversity into the work force and promoting human potential through a better educational system were among the many ideas he hoped would generate future discussion on campus.
(03/05/15 4:00pm)
After months of conducting research on homelessness, five Elon University students created a five-minute video as part of the Home Matters public relations competition. Since the video was published onto YouTube on Feb. 9, it has been received buzz from The Huffington Postand garnered over 5,000 views.
(03/04/15 6:07pm)
Ben Hannam, an Elon University associate professor in the School of Communications, sheds light on how net neutrality will impact the Elon community.
Q: What is net neutrality?
A: It’s kind of a large, ambiguous, term kind of like evolution. It can mean so many things. For me, net neutrality is the principle that all content on the Internet is delivered at the same speed at the same rate.
Q: How would you describe how net neutrality was addressed before and after the John Oliver clip?
A: I think the John Oliver clip put a face on it and made people feel like there was a threat. Before, it seemed like things nerdy people were just talking about behind closed doors. I feel that John Oliver’s HBO rant made people say ‘There’s something really at stake here.’ After that, you see people beginning to talk about it more. He was part of a catalyst for people who really didn’t have a position on it and bringing it to the forefront.
Q: Where’s your level of optimism and trust with cable companies and Internet service providers?
A: I would love to have options, to be honest with you. I would love to be able to price out my Internet service providers the same way that I do car shopping or the same way that I do when I’m picking a computer and an operating system. I want to be able to compare and contrast and look at reviews and look at service calls and look at ease of setup and how quickly they go together with the components in my house. As an entitled American with first world problems, I want to have choice. When you have Internet service providers and they talk about Time Warner and Comcast, and they’re basically carving out geographic regions that they service and they don’t service, so when your option is them or nobody, it doesn’t seem fair, does it? I’m for net neutrality because I’m hoping that it will generate more competition and that as needs for consumers increase, there might be other options to fill those needs.
Q: Last week, the FCC decision was 3-2 in favor of net neutrality. Did you expect the vote to go that way?
A: I was cautiously optimistic. It falls into election years. It falls into political scenes. It falls into financial things. It’s not a singular topic. Comcast was out ringing the bells and fighting the good fight. To be honest, the FCC said they weren’t going to regulate it [net neutrality], and Comcast’s argument was valid… I’m happy with the decision, but I can certainly see how they’d be [upset].
Q: How will this decision affect Elon students? What should students understand about net neutrality?
A: Right now, content has been locked into an Internet service provider. You’ve got AOL and Time Warner packages and you’ve had to upgrade to get HBO, and it comes packaged with 100 channels nobody wants. You’ve had to pay for the content that you want and the content that you don’t want. They act like, ‘Oh, we’re giving you 250 channels,’ and you’re like, ‘Yeah, but there’s only 10 good ones.’ If ESPN falls next and offers services a la carte, it’s a game changer for the way we distribute the content that we want. The people who are putting out good content will rise to the top and the people offering 190 channels that you don’t want are going to go the way of the buffalo. Nobody wants to pay for QVC if they’re not going to use it. What [the FCC’s decision] does is put the consumer in the driver’s seat, which is great because it could spawn a whole new generation of business, a whole new generation of content, and we don’t even know where it’s going to go yet… There’s an optimistic future about where the Internet is going next.
(02/25/15 10:51pm)
The number of Elon students completing internships or co-ops has significantly increased over time, though there have been some growing pains.
(02/21/15 9:59pm)
A university professor from Paris shed light on issues confronting Muslims in contemporary French culture Thursday in front of dozens of attentive Elon University students and faculty.