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Michael, a senior finance major, finished last semester studying for a set of stress-filled exams and the Graduate Management Admissions Test, which he’ll take this month. Because he has attention-def-icit disorder, Michael has been prescribed Adderall to help him handle his heavy load of school-work. Michael became familiar with Adderall at a young age: He started taking the drug in the third grade.
And now, Michael sells it to his friends.
Illegal use of stimulants like Adderall or Ritilan is not rare among college students, ac-cording to a 2006 study by Alan Desantis, a communication professor at the University of Kentucky. Out of 1,733 students surveyed, 585 – 34 percent – said they had taken stimulants illegally. And of that 585, 72 percent said they used them to study or stay awake longer.
Ryan, another UA student, said he doesn’t use all of the Adderall he’s prescribed, but he just sells what’s leftover.
“Back then, I had to go to school every day for eight hours straight, so I had to take it to pay attention through that,” he said. “Now, I don’t have to be as atten-tive, which is why I’m able to sell it.”
Selling the pills is fairly easy, Mi-chael said. He never tries to push the is-sue; his friends usu-ally take the initia-tive to buy it either
for themselves or their friends.
One such person is Drew, a junior fi-nance major. Drew said finding Adder-all is simple.
“It’s super easy. Off the top of my head, right now, I
could call seven different peo-ple who have it,” Drew said.
Even though he’s taking a prescription drug illegally, Drew said he doesn’t consider the matter to be all that seri-ous.
“I’m taking it to study, not to get high.” Drew said. “I’m able to procrastinate, then cram all
night and still make an A.”That is the exact reason why
students like Amanda Rabun think Adderall is a serious problem.
“I understand people need to take it for ADD, but when people take it illegally, I feel like it’s cheating,” Rabun said. “They’re able to stay up all
night and cram and make good grades while I’m doing it the old-fashioned way with energy drinks and coffee.”
Heidi Scher, the associate director for the Center for Edu-cational Access, has plenty of experience with students pre-scribed to drugs like Adderall: Scher meets with these stu-dents to discuss why they need the accommodations.
Scher said Adderall can be a miracle drug for those that actually require it. She remem-bers one student who experi-enced radical changes in his grades after being prescribed to Adderall.
“What finally convinced his parents to take him in for an evaluation is he almost failed his freshman year of high school,” she said. “They knew that something wasn’t right. He literally went from almost fail-ing to A’s and B’s. That’s how drastic a difference it can make for a person who needs the drug.”
Scher is concerned about the potential side effects the medication can have on those taking it illegally.
“We don’t know what the after-effects would be for some-body who is taking it illegally,” Scher said. “They haven’t been evaluated by someone who understands the drug, so they could be taking something that could be very harmful to them down the road. If you’re not evaluated and your medical history isn’t taken into account, who knows what the long-term effects might be.”
Side effects of Adderall range
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“From Earth to the Universe” is a cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy, which was in 2009. This exhibit, set up in front of the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, is the traveling version that the UA was selected to house during the months of December and January.
VIEWS FROM SPACE
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Students turn to prescription drug Adderall to stay focused on school
Jordan GrummerContributing Writer
MICHAEL BRYANT/PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/MCT
Nearly 35 percent of students surveyed by Alan Desantis, a communication professor at the University of Kentucky, said they had taken stimulants like Adderall and Ritilan illegally.
Chartwells gives employees gift of unemployment
Even though being unem-ployed during the holiday season sounds less than ideal, for many Chartwells employees, it’s just what they need.
Chartwells, the dining service on campus, has a layoff system that allows its food service em-ployees to be classified as unem-ployed over the winter break and summer rather than simply hav-ing the time off. This lets them have the opportunity to apply for unemployment benefits.
“Part-time employees have a temporary layoff where their names go to the unemployment office and then they still have their jobs when they come back,” said Morgan Stout, director of opera-tions.
The dining ser-vice, which includes the cafeterias as well as places such as Club Red, Star-bucks and Quiznos, employs more than 400 people in a semester, Stout said. The system of unemployment over breaks has been around as long as Chartwells has – about a decade.
“As an employee, it’s a good thing,” said Mary Lou Jackson, who works in Club Red under Brough Commons and has been with Chartwells for five years. Af-
ter a co-worker said the system was weird, she corrected him and said that it wasn’t, because it al-lows her to get unemployment benefits in the summer.
For some, the system means extra time off that is rarely found in other full-time jobs. Deshae Brown, who works in Freshens, the smoothie and ice cream shop in Maple Hill, said the system al-lows the employees to get the same break as the students do. She said she was unaware of the temporary unemployment at the time she was hired, but she likes it, anyway.
“Other people have to work all year and can’t wait for vacations, but we get all these breaks,” she said. “It makes me want to come back to work.”
Others, who can’t or don’t draw the un-employment benefits, see it as more like a forced break. Terry Corwin, a Chartwells employee for five months
who works in the Union Food Court, in the Northwest Quad cafeteria and for the catering ser-vice, said he could have filed for unemployment but wouldn’t have gotten anything. He said he didn’t have any significant gaps in his work history and that his applica-tion would have been declined.
“If I had known I would be off
so long, I would have done extra work on Dickson or something,” he said.
Starbucks and Quiznos re-mained open for enough time over the break that their work-ers were not unemployed long enough to draw the benefits, said Andrew Jones, who has worked at the Starbucks since it opened two and a half years ago. He said as a student working part-time the unemployment benefits never ap-plied to him.
Ebony Thomas, a Chartwells cashier in the Union Food Court, said she has mixed feelings about the layoff system. She said her fiancé tried to get the benefits a couple of years ago and could never get any until last summer. In the three years she has worked for Chartwells, she never applied for them because she was a stu-dent and never thought about it, but now that she has graduated, she decided to apply over the win-ter break.
“You have to nag them, but it worked for me,” she said.
Her persistence paid off, and she plans to apply again in the summer if she is still working for Chartwells.
Stout said the summer system involves voluntary layoffs, and most are long-standing employ-ees who do it every year.
“It seems to work well for everybody, and I would venture to guess other universities do it, too,” he said.
Lana HazelAssistant News Editor
See ADDERALL on Page 6
“As an employee, it’s a good thing.”
— Mary Lou Jackson, Chartwells employee
UA Housing director
to run for U.S. Senate
Brian WashburnLifestyles Editor
Randy Alexander, UA di-rector of Housing, announced Tuesday his candidacy for the Republican Party in the up-coming U.S. senatorial election.
At a press conference in the Fayetteville Town Center Tues-day, Alexander announced he would run against Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who’s up for reelection this year.
Alexander, who has more than 30 years of e x p e r i -ence in manage-ment, is the vice c h a i r -m a n for the Wa s h i n g -ton County Tea Party, the group that met and protested throughout Fay-etteville last year to fight excess taxes and health care reform.
Alexander is looking to take the views and institutions he has gathered through the local and national Tea Party to Washington D.C. to fight excessive spending and the Health Care Reform Act, he said at the press conference.
“I am not going to Washing-ton looking for bipartisan so-lution,” he said. “I am going to Washington looking for a fight.”
The fight Jackson referred to deals specifically with his
RANDY ALEXANDER
See ALEXANDER on Page 6PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY
LARRY ASH AND JACLYN JOHNSON
Transition seminar series to be hosted at health center
All student veterans are invited to attend the “From Boots to Books Transition Seminar Series,” which will be hosted from 3:30 to 5 p.m. every Tuesday in the Mul-tipurpose Room in the Pat Walker Health Center until March 16. The workshop is intended to assist student veterans in their transition from military personnel to college student. For more information, contact Danette Heckathorn, mental health clinician at the PWHC, at [email protected].
Music auditions for ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’ begin Jan. 14
Auditions for the spring semester open to full-time UA students from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14, for the April 17 performance of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” at the Walton Arts Center. The Mashburn Foundation has issued more than 42 scholarships to UA students since 1993. For application and audition location, please contact [email protected] or [email protected]. The Mashburn Scholarship Foundation is located at 1765 N. College Avenue, Suite 9, Fayetteville, 479-582-1936.
Oboe concert set for Jan. 15
The Fulbright College Department of Music will feature UA oboe professor Theresa Delaplain in concert at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 15, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Building. She will be joined by UA profes-sors Ronda Mains, flute, and Tim Thompson, French horn, with guest artist Robin Guy on piano. Free parking is available in the parking deck, which can be accessed from Stadium Drive and is located directly to the west of the Fine Arts Building. Admission is free and the public is welcome to attend. For more information, Call the De-partment of Music at 575-4701 or visit Music.uark.edu.
Fulbright Trio to be featured in concert Jan. 19
The Fulbright College Department of Music will feature the Fulbright Trio in concert at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 19, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the Fine Arts Building. The trio will perform pieces by Corelli, Haydn and Kodaly. Free parking is available in the parking deck, which can be accessed from Stadium Drive and is located directly to the west of the Fine Arts Building. Admission is free and the public is welcome to attend. For more information, call the Department of Music at 575-4701 or visit Music.uark.edu.
BRIEFLYspeaking
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER | Page 2 |WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 NEWS
CORRECTIONSThe Arkansas Traveler strives for accuracy in its reporting and will correct all matters of fact. If you believe the paper has printed an error, please notify the editor at 575.8455 or at [email protected].
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The Arkansas Traveler, the student newspaper at the University of Arkansas, is published every Wednesday during the fall and spring academic sessions except during exam periods and university holidays.
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PROFILESfrom the Hill
As a health educator, what are some of the pri-mary issues you address every year?
The primary areas I ad-dress are related to women’s health, body image and eat-ing disorders. They are very relevant on a college campus because there are so many opportunities for them to compare themselves to other women.
How prevalent are eating disorders on our campus?
The actual incidences of eating disorders on campus are not real high, but we see unhealthy relationships with food every day. The last data we have shows that almost 50 percent of women on campus
believe that they are fat, even though their families and friends tell them that they are thin. And we also get those messages from our culture continually.
What are the dangers of eating disorders?
Eating disorders are rare, but when they do happen, they can be deadly. They are not something to ignore; the sooner a person addresses the issue, the much more likely they can get through it with-out relapsing.
How did you decide to become a health educator?
I chose the profession of health education because of experiences I had in my younger life. My friends had health issues, body image is-sues, substance abuse (issues) and alcoholism. I felt that if
these things can be prevented, then the world can be a better place. Our field specializes in preventing the conditions be-fore they develop.
What makes your job unique or rewarding?
It’s very rewarding, first of all because I get to work with a very energetic population and a population that is anx-ious to learn new things and are excited about where they are going in the world. The rewards are more intrinsic in that every once in a while you’ve had the opportunity
to meet someone and change their life, and that is very re-warding.
What are some common non-drug addictions?
We see that across our culture. We have advertisers that try to convey that energy drinks are just as healthy as a nutritional diet. They can be abused. Any substance, if it’s abused, can cause harm to the body. It’s a matter of bal-ance. One message I always try to get across to any group
Health educator helps students stay balanced
STEPHEN IRONSIDE Staff Photographer
Susan Rausch, health educator at the Pat Walker Health Center, emphasizes “balance” as an important part of students’ lives.
Jaclyn JohnsonAssistant Managing Editor
See PROFILE on Page 6
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER |UATRAV.COM WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010| Page 3 NEWS
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Drug-related crime and other incidents on campus might be increasing, but cam-pus officials said they find the increase to be completely nor-mal – and they actually ex-pected it to be more dramatic.
“This is not a new phenom-enon,” said Daniel Pugh, dean of students and vice provost for Student Affairs. “Keep in mind there is proportionality and the number of people on campus now: We’ve grown, so that number will change.”
He cited the recent con-struction on campus, which added new residence halls, including the Duncan Avenue Apartments, which added about 1,800 beds to the cam-pus.
Lt. Gary Crain, public in-formation officer for the UA Police Department, also sug-gested that the size of the campus directly correlates with the increased drug use and crime on campus.
“Perhaps an overall in-crease in drug use (is) due to a larger population,” he said. “Keep in mind there are al-most 20,000 students enrolled here, and the individuals re-sponsible for the incidents are not all stu-dents.”
For this rea-son, Crain said he does not find the numbers alarming – but he maintains that the UAPD’S goal is to reduce the number of incidents, regardless.
An important change in the process of identifying stu-dents who use drugs is to find the people who are dealing
the substances. “In the past, police only
did controlled burns,” Pugh said. “Now, they are following up on conversations and find-ing out where the drugs are originating.”
Pugh la-bels drug dealers as “ p r e d a -tors” and “a threat to the campus c o m m u n i -ty” because
they could bring harm – like weapons and organized crime – to campus. In his opinion, a student who smokes a joint invites a criminal to campus, because it requires a drug dealer to make the transac-
tion. “(Dealers) are not inter-
ested in a couple of students dropping out of class,” he said. “They usually are not students, and their only inter-est is money.”
To monitor drug use on the UA campus, the Pat Walker Health Center issues a survey in addition to the Benchmark Survey, which asks students about alcohol use.
UA faculty and staff also have taken steps to ensure the campus remains safe, and they are constantly looking for ways to improve the pro-cess of drug recognition and the penalty for students who use drugs.
Pugh said that finding the drug users and dealers on
campus is the first step in the drug prevention pro-cess, starting with improved training of the Resident Assistant staff and the campus Alco-hol Coalition.
With training as a Drug Recog-nition Expert, UAPD Officer Logan Crane plays a vital role in this step.
“The UAPD was not in search of a DRE when Offi-cer Logan Crane was hired … but he was the best fit for the department,” Crain said. “In his role as a patrol officer, his (DRE) training will be a bonus and he can assist other patrol officers who do not have that
training.”The next step,
Pugh said, is edu-cating students about the effects of drugs. He thinks that UA officials have covered that area consistently by inviting speak-ers to address the
issue and by the increasing supervision of on-campus or fraternity parties.
“We are cracking down on frat parties,” he said. “We are improving communication with the leaders of fraternities and the Panhellenic Council. We’ll continue down those roads.”
The UA also has cracked down on alcohol violations:
Now, when underage stu-dents are caught drinking, their parents are contacted by Monica Holland, director of the UA Office of Community Standards and Student Eth-ics. Then, students must meet with a counselor for an alco-hol assessment.
UA officials suspend those students who were caught using drugs, which means students must appeal to be re-admitted into the university if they want to return.
Pugh encourages students to make the distinction be-tween reality and the statistics of drugs on campus.
If students think most of their peers are smoking mari-juana, Pugh said the UA is “sending the wrong message.
“The norm is (that stu-dents are) not doing drugs, actually,” even if the minority – students who do drugs – get more attention in the news, he said.
“Most students are doing just what they’re supposed to,” he said. “The UA’s average GPA is 3.0 or higher.”
In terms of solutions, Crain plans to keep utilizing new initiatives to continue reduc-ing the number of students who use drugs and drink al-cohol.
Part of that, Crain said, is to “expose the fallacy that ev-eryone does it.”
In past drug-related inci-dents, Pugh said he thinks UA officials have appropriately responded. He also said that campus officials have many new ideas to handle drug and alcohol use on campus, but that those steps are not yet public information.
Ashley Tull, associate dean
Drug-related crimes increasing on campus,but numbers are still normal, officials say
April RobertsonStaff Writer
RANDALL BENTON/SACRAMENTO BEE/MCT
“We are cracking down on frat parties.”
— Daniel Pugh, dean of students
Last year, UA students passed the SAFER Referen-dum, which calls for the penalties for illegal alcohol use on campus to be equal to those for marijuana offenses.
The rules haven’t been changed yet, but it’s a step in the right direction, said Jacob Hol-loway, the former president of the UA chapter of NORML.
Holloway said he wants the is-sue to continue to be voiced by students un-til changes are made, but he noted there have been some positive effects from the
SAFER referendum already.“The most obvious is almost
every student I talk to knows marijuana is safer than alco-hol,” Holloway said. “People are asking questions about why things are the way they are.”
Holloway said his orga-nization is working with ad-
ministrators to get the changes i m p l e m e n t e d , but it takes time.
“I’m confident we can get the changes made, and we’ll work with them for as long as it takes,” Holloway said.
Holloway said NORML’s main goal is public education. He wants to make sure people have a greater un-derstanding of drugs and the
war on drugs, other than what they might have been taught when they were younger. Hol-loway called this reeducation a valuable public service.
“All drugs get lumped together, and that doesn’t give you a good idea on what’s dangerous and what’s not,” Holloway said.
Senior Will Camp-bell, a physical therapy major, sees both sides of the marijuana argument.
“As long as people who use it are responsible, then I have no problem with it,” Campbell said. “On the other hand, I feel like we should obey the government and the rules they set up for it. But it’s going to happen. There are a lot worse crimes that you could commit.”
Students still look to lessen penalties for marijuana use on campus after
passage of SAFER ReferendumJordan Grummer
Contributing Writer
See MARIJUANA on Page 6
See DRUGS on Page 6
To some students, popping an “Addy” the night before a big test is a simple, harmless way to stay alert and focus on studying, no worse than drinking a cup of coffee or buying an energy drink.
But to experts, using Adderall, a prescription drug meant to treat attention-deficit disorder, is serious business. And according to Heidi Scher, the associate director for the UA Center for Educational Access, students who use the drug illegally – without their medical history considered by a doctor – might be at risk for dangerous side effects.
In today’s Traveler story, “Students turn to prescription drug Ad-derall to stay focused on school,” three UA students admit to using the drug to help them concentrate on schoolwork – and some of them are selling to their friends.
Using and selling drugs like Adderall and Ritilan on college cam-puses isn’t unusual: According to today’s story, 34 percent of students surveyed by Alan Desantis, a University of Kentucky professor, said they had used stimulants illegally, mostly to help them stay awake studying.
But, as with any prescription drug, Adderall could potentially cause serious side effects, like suicidal thoughts, depression, seizures or heart palpitations. And, because Adderall is amphetamine-based, it can also be addictive.
According to a story from National Public Radio, though Adderall might increase concentration and motivation for some, its use on college campuses is “a little worrisome, because basically that extra motivation that you feel when you’re using these drugs is the result of the drugs’ effects on the brain’s reward system,” said Martha J. Farah, director at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania.
Nothing is ever as good as it seems, and Adderall fits the bill. Taking the drug isn’t as innocent as it might appear during some late-night studying sessions. And if most students can get through four years of college without resorting to prescription drugs, it’s likely the 34 percent of students surveyed by Desantis can, too.
For those students who think they might have attention-deficit disorder, a doctor at the health center can help. But those using Ad-derall as a copout – an “easy” way to keep up on schoolwork – could face some not-so-simple health problems in the future because of it.
Check UATrav.com
for daily updatesOPINIONPhone: 575.8455 | E-mail: [email protected] 4 |WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 Editor: Tina Korbe | Managing Editor: Kimber Wenzelburger
Most people looking back on their col-lege days will see the grumpy old professor whose lectures were created in the 1930s and subsequently displayed to each new class of students like a museum exhibit. This piece of nostalgia puts students right in the middle of an active academic debate.
Tenure is a longstanding point of con-tention in academia and outside of it. Conventional arguments abound against professors whose job security renders them lazy and neglectful of their pupils. But the issue of whether to continue or abolish the tenure system is much more complex than complacent professors make it appear. Especially in the physical sciences, it is an issue of academic freedom, economic resources, legalization of the academy, qual-ity of education for students and the inter-personal concern for fostering a united academic community. Under the burden of money and structural precedents, tenure is dying, and it must be saved.
The concern for academic freedom is well-placed. Without the economic security tenure provides, professors might succumb to external pressures as they seek to expand the knowledge base of their universities through research and teaching. That is, they might compromise the integrity of their thought and instruction to meet the demands of administrators and others who secure their financial futures.
A related, but rarely-mentioned, issue here is that we are risking the academic environment in which long relationships allow professors to form a community of mutual nurturing and the ability to con-nect their interests for students’ benefit. Education needs context, and, to enable teachers to construct a solid and persisting network amongst themselves, a degree of institutional support, security and longevity is needed.
Too often, though, especially in economic times that require public universities to cut their budgets and hike tuition, arguments for “academic community” fall on deaf ears. After all, with tenure, professors can’t be hired or fired easily in response to budget
changes from year to year – so cuts have to come from other areas. On top of expense and job performance, tenure can create a sense of entitlement that in increasingly fre-quent cases causes rejected candidates to file law suits against the review committee.
But let’s look at the facts. According to the Department of Education, since the 1970s, full-time tenure-track salaries have only increased by 5 percent, while the average tuition at public universities has increased 125 percent. Tenure is not what is costing so much.
Even with a tenure system, universities
employ temporary faculty. In the present tough job market, many professors are happy just to have the job. And the school doesn’t have to provide a lab start-up fee, which is typically in the range of $300,000, according to an article in Science Careers.
In the end, though, this doesn’t neces-sarily help the university financially because employees without institutional backing in the form of lab space and research fund-ing can’t apply for federal money like the National Institutes of Health grants, accord-ing to the same article. Untentured profes-sors are stuck in a cycle of desperately coming to the university for employment, but not being able to sustain themselves as researchers after being hired.
Mistaken economics is not the only thing working against tenure: The shift in edu-cational emphasis from distinct disciplines to an interdisciplinary approach has jeop-ardized and will continue to threaten the system until the process of obtaining tenure is updated to reflect this shift. Without well-defined and independent achievements in one traditional field, it is difficult to earn
the respect of senior faculty who make the decision to grant tenure. Science, however, is collaborative. More than ever, groups are crossing departmental boundaries, and mul-tiple private investigators have their names at the top of research publications. The old standards are changing, and, if tenured positions are cut, the ability for professors to realize this sort of cooperation is also slashed. As academic pursuits, especially in science, become more interdisciplinary, young professors must be given the resourc-es to enact this major cultural change in academia.
So, how do we overcome the financial and cultural barriers to a thriving system of tenure? Culture will change over time – as long as new professors are allowed to join the academic flock. The real problem is the practical, but many focus groups are already attacking the situation. The National Academies’ Board on Life Sciences, for example, has suggested that established faculty could share lab space with non-tenured professors until they are granted their own lab. The Board has also proposed university incubator facilities, where young faculty are concentrated and supported by pooled resources.
On a more radical note, we could elimi-nate the temptation of hiring non-tenure-track professors altogether by banning such positions. Grad students looking for employ-ment would be happy, and a senior grad student nurtured by excellent permanent faculty could be just as effective as a teacher without the resources to provide any conti-nuity to students.
Times are tight, yes, but we can’t let uni-versity administrators surrender academic excellence under the dollar’s pressure. We are smart – let’s creatively shape university policy; federal, state and private funding; and the modern spirit of collaboration into a new structure that supports tenure and the slow ferment of intellectual progress.
Caitlin Williams is a senior biochem-istry and international relations major. Last semester, she wrote a special series on education for The Traveler. Find it online at UATrav.com.
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER
When News Editor Bailey McBride and Lifestyles Editor Brian Washburn first proposed a drug-themed issue, I doubted its campus-wide relevance.
Surely, I thought, most other UA students took D.A.R.E. as seri-ously as I did in elementary school. After all, I knew of at least one person who memorized the message even more scrupulously than I did: He still wears his free T-shirt.
My question for Bailey and Brian, then, was simple: Who does drugs?
The answer? Nearly everybody.According to the most recent National Survey of Drug Use and
Health, an estimated 20.1 million Americans aged 12 or older use illegal drugs – drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and inhalants. Illegal drug use also includes the abuse of prescription drugs – a surprisingly common practice among college students, as our front-page story and accompanying editorial about the irrespon-sible use of Adderall make clear.
More than half of all Americans drink alcohol, according to the same survey. And alcohol, however socially expediently you slice it, is admittedly still a drug.
And, as long as I’m being a stickler, I might as well add caffeine to the list and accuse myself of the very shortcoming I thought was so nonexistent.
“A Dr. Pepper a day keeps the, well, doctor away” might as well be my motto. It cures my every ill. If I’m tired, I drink a Dr. Pepper. If I’m cranky, I drink a Dr. Pepper. If I’m tired and cranky, I drink a Dr. Pepper with vanilla.
Clearly, I’m not alone, as the article on p. 8 indicates. College stu-dents average 1,263 mg of caffeine a day – or more than five times the national average, according to a survey conducted by researchers at Western Kentucky University. In another study by a professor at Loyola University, 55 percent of the college students surveyed said they used caffeine on a regular basis. Other researchers estimate 80 percent.
Unfortunately, all of these drug-use habits can have adverse effects on our health, from weight gain and depression to seizures and suicidal thoughts – and that is ultimately why all of this is important. The only way to avoid the consequences is to avoid the cause – and avoiding the cause starts by not avoiding a discussion of it.
It’s never pleasant to realize a habit you cherish is less than stel-lar, but, by signing on to do this issue of The Traveler and by making this issue our first issue back, we commited to broaching an “ugly” topic to remind ourselves that we want to hold each other and the newsmakers we cover to the highest possible standards.
Cheers,
Tina KorbeEditor
READER COMMENTSFROM UATRAV.COM
Tenure holds us together
On the article “Live Razor-back mascot Tusk II
has died”
From reader “mpetty”:
Wait a second ... a RUS-SIAN boar?! And our color is RED? Am I the only one see-ing these connections?
From reader “Jeremy”:
My only hope is that the circumstances of his death allow him to be eaten.
And that is a humor-ous observation, but surely football is one of the more capitalistic things at the UA.
On the editorial “Alcohol education needed to
prevent rapes on campus”
From reader “Deidre”:
Honestly, I think it’s all about common sense, being aware of your surroundings, knowing your limits (with alcohol) and knowing how to defend yourself in any given situation. It’s everyone’s responsibility to know how to avoid an attacker or know self-defense.
If you could prevent some-thing bad from happening, why wouldn’t you?
On a movie review of “Blindside”
From reader “Megan”:
Before criticizing Hollywood for their depiction of race isses in this movie, I would encourage you to take a look at the deep (racial) issues and vast divide that is very present between blacks and whites in Memphis, Tenn. With a deeper look, you might notice that, while it makes us uncomfortable to admit these racial truths that still exist in our culture, Hollywood may have done a better job than you realize in depicting the real situation. For the most part African Americans do not attend private schools, and white students don’t often
attend public schools. The Tuoeys were lovingly playing the role of savior in real life to Oher through displaying genuine Christian love and compassion. Those around them didn’t understand what they were doing, and they were regu-larly accused of doing it for self-glory or to better their school’s high school football program. In the end the Toueys have proved that this wasn’t about them, foot-ball, fame or their glory, but serv-ing the less fortunante as their strong Christian faith teaches.
And in case you are wonder-ing, yes, I grew up in Memphis and know the Toueys personally. I went to middle school with Collins and we were in Bible study together for a short time.
The Arkansas Traveler welcomes letters to the editor from all interested readers. Letters should be at most 300 words and should include your name, student classification and major or title with the university and a day-time telephone number for verification. Letters should be sent to [email protected]. Letters appear in the order they were submitted as space permits. The editor reserves the right to edit or refuse letters on the basis of length, accuracy, fairness, liability and sensibility.
EDITORIAL BOARD TINA KORBE | Editor KIMBER WENZELBURGER | Managing Editor BAILEY MCBRIDE | News Editor
Caitlin WilliamsGuest Columnist
Letter from the Editor
Caffeine counts, too
FOR ILLEGAL USERS, ADDERALL’S NOT RISK-FREE
With drug and alcohol in-cidents on the rise on cam-pus, safety is a concern for both students and UA officials.
The most important is-sue is awareness, said Reggie Houser, Housing safety officer.
“Students don’t believe they are ever going to be a victim,” Houser said. “If they ever re-ally thought that, they would learn more about (safety).”
After an alleged rape in Hum-phreys Hall early last semester, administrators asked Housing officials what was being done to promote safety awareness.
Housing offers information about safety policies and pro-grams during freshman orienta-tion and weekly safety awareness meetings, but few students at-tend the meetings, Houser said.
One problem that Housing has is “tailgating.” Residence halls have been locked 24/7 since 1992, but “tailgaters” fol-low residents and slip through residence hall doors before they can close and automati-cally lock. This was how the security rover accused of rap-ing the Humphreys resident was able to get into the hall.
Housing has not been able to find any hardware options to
prevent tailgating, so the respon-sibility of prevention is left up to the students, Houser said. If stu-dents entering a residence hall notice someone trying to tailgate, they should make eye contact and ask if the person needs help, then suggest he or she check in with the front desk, he said.
Another problem is students not escorting their guests in the residence halls. Students are responsible for their guests’ behavior, so they should be sure to escort them back and forth to the door, Houser said.
Closed-circuit video cameras were installed in public areas of the residence halls within the last few years, and UA po-lice used footage to catch the video voyeur in Pomfret Hall during finals week last semester, Houser said. Cameras have been moved or added in response to a rise of criminal activity.
Cameras can’t catch all criminal activity, though. Most sexual crimes on campus are ac-quaintance rapes, for example, and cameras aren’t present in students’ rooms, where most of the assaults occur. In these cases, students must report the crime, but it still could result in one
person’s word against another’s. This, coupled with the stigma of rape, might be why seven out of eight rapes are not reported.
As far as a recent increase in crime, Houser does not think that much has actually changed on campus. Crimes have to be re-ported by students, and whether students take the initiative to report crimes affects statistics. Residence halls are almost 100 percent occupied by students, and it was students who re-ported the smell of the sassafras root that clued in officials to the ecstasy lab that was being built in Pomfret Hall, Houser said.
This might be the reason why statistics go up or down in any given semester, as opposed
to the actual crime rate i n c r e a s i n g or decreas-ing, he said.
Lt. Gary Crain of the UA Police De-
partment agrees that crime may not actually be on the rise, and he said that there is little differ-ence in crime rates if viewed over numerous semesters. It might appear that there was more crime last semester because many of the cases were unusual and attracted a lot of publicity.
Houser did recognize that there had been an increase in
the number of students who had been transported to the hospital because of alcohol use.
“Any time you have an in-crease in the abuse of alcohol or drugs, you are going to have an increase in other crimes,” and statistics show that a large part of sexual as-saults involve al-cohol, he said.
Many students said they still feel safe on campus, regardless of any recent crimes.
Karmen Childers, a freshman ap-parel studies major, never feels unsafe on campus, she said. She fol-lows the safety tips set forth by the university, like never walk-ing alone at night, and became aware of safety practices during her orientation, she said. There are plenty of signs and posters in the residence halls promoting safety, and she noticed they in-creased after the alleged rape in Humphreys Hall last semester.
“I feel safe during the day because there are a lot of people around,” said Erika Barahona, a
sophomore pre-nursing major. Barahona is more concerned
at night, she said, because she has an evening lab on cam-pus and has to walk back and forth to the parking garage.
Nick Snyder, a senior anthro-pology major, does not have any
safety concerns on campus, he said.
“I feel fairly safe; I don’t try to think about the negative things,” he said.
Though he works at Club Red in Brough Com-mons until after midnight some evenings, Snyder
lives off campus and his real concern for safety is after he leaves the university, he said.
Houser said he has two chil-dren who live on campus and he is not afraid for them; he thinks living on campus is safer than living in an apartment.
Snyder thinks university of-ficials are doing their best to provide a safe campus for stu-dents, but he thinks safety poli-cies, programs and awareness could be promoted even more.
The UAPD might work with Off Campus Connections to pro-vide more information about off-campus housing safety aware-ness in the future, Crain said.
Childers agreed that the UAPD should focus more on safety of off-campus students who do not often use facilities where most safety awareness is promoted, such as residence halls. But, she said, students should be proactive in their awareness of safety programs.
The UAPD has 24-hour pa-trols on campus, and the pa-trols are well-staffed, Crain said. UAPD officers also began the Campus Lighting Tour a few years ago, inviting students and staff to join them as they walked the campus and checked the lighting. Last semester, the program evolved into a stu-dent initiative, in which stu-dent residents chose to keep watch on a zone around their hall with the help of the UAPD.
UAPD officials try to think ahead and plan to make the campus safer, Crain said.
“When we all work to-gether, we make the in-dividual safer,” he said.
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER |UATRAV.COM WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010| Page 5NEWS
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LARRY ASH Staff Photographer Students buy books at the UA Bookstore Monday. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, eligible students can receive up to a $2,500 tax credit for some textbooks and course materials not already covered by a scholarship or grant. For more information, visit the UA Bookstore and pick up an ARRA fact sheet.
TAX CREDIT STILL AVAILABLE FOR UA STUDENTS
SAFETY REMAINS TOP PRIORITY FOR UATaniah Tudor
Assistant News Editor
FILE PHOTO“When we all work together, we make the
individual safer.”— Gary Crain, UAPD
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER | UATRAV.COMPage 6 |WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 NEWS
ADDERALLfrom Page 1
Six alleged rapes reported on campus last semester
Two alleged rapes were re-ported on campus before students left for winter break last month, bringing the fall 2009 semester total of reported rapes to six and leaving UA officials wondering whether the number can be at-tributed to an increase in crime or an increase in reporting by victims.
The fifth alleged rape of the semester was reported Thursday, Dec. 10, at the Sigma Alpha Ep-silon Fraternity house. This is the second rape to allegedly occur at the chapter this semester, the first being an anonymously reported acquaintance rape first reported by The Traveler Nov. 9.
It has been determined that the suspect in the previous case is not the same as the suspect in the new case, however, said Lt. Gary Crain, public information officer for the UA Police Department.
“We are investigating it as a criminal offense with one of-fender, so I don’t know what sanctions the fraternity will face,” Crain said.
The final incident was re-ported Sunday, Dec. 13, as an alleged acquaintance rape in the Northwest Quad D Building on campus.
“The victim has requested the perpetrator be processed through the university judicial system and not have a criminal case,” Crain said.
The beginning of the fall semester included two alleged rapes, once involving a UA Hous-ing staff member and another involving members of the UA bas-ketball team at a party at the Gar-land House, and The Traveler first reported a third alleged rape Nov. 19 after a woman allegedly woke up after being drugged and raped at the Inn at Carnall Hall.
Six alleged rapes in one se-mester might seem like a large number to some, but univer-
sity officials are hopeful that this number is a result of an increase in reporting rather than in in-crease in actual crime.
“I don’t recall a semester with this many,” Crain said, “but I would have to look at the sta-tistics.”
Clery Report data shows that in 1999 there were six reported rapes on campus, in 2002 there were nine and in 2008 there were seven.
“If you look at national statis-tics, they suggest that most rapes don’t get reported to police, so
we’ve been encouraging people to report,” Crain said. “And it may not be that there are more instances, but that more students are coming forward.”
Ongoing rape and sexual as-sault education is provided on campus through the STAR Cen-tral program RESPECT, an arm of the Pat Walker Health Center.
“Any time ongoing education is in place that encourages dis-cussion about a subject that has
traditionally been taboo to speak about, you will find that attitudes, beliefs and behaviors will change within a culture,” said Mary Wyandt-Hiebert, a health educa-tor at the PWHC and director of RESPECT.
“In addition, any time that services are readily available and openly publicized, you will find increased utilization of such ser-vices,” she said.
RESPECT offers a variety of services to the campus, includ-ing interactive presentations and educational displays to teach students on campus about sexual assault prevention and to encour-age and empower victims to come forward.
The group also collaborates with Greek Life and the Sexual Assault Recovery and Prevention Agency for the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event, and members work on projects like the Campus Clothesline Project, the Holiday Tree of Hope and Support Project in Mullins Library, and various poster campaigns on campus.
Wyandt-Hiebert said the group will continue its educational out-reach in the spring semester with continued programming and classes and annual events for in April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April. Some events will likely include the Take Back the Night March, a poetry slam, the Survivor Wall Exhibit, Survivor Stories and a mock rape trial.
“I would definitely say this se-mester had more unusual crimes than any semester I remember,” Crain said. “Having a person try-ing to manufacture ecstasy in their residence hall is unheard of, having students collecting reptiles to sell is unheard of, and having a guy use his cell phone to take vid-eos of other males showering is definitely unheard of. But when it comes down to it, at the end of the year, we will really have probably fewer crimes than previous years in many other areas.”
Bailey Elise McBrideNews Editor
“I would definitely say this semester had more
unusual crimes than any semester I remember.
Having a person trying to manufacture ecstasy
in their residence hall is unheard of, having stu-dents collecting reptiles
to sell is unheard of, and having a guy use his cell
phone to take videos of other males showering
is definitely unheard of. But when it comes down
to it, at the end of the year, we will really have
probably fewer crimes than previous years in
many other areas.”— Gary Crain, UAPD
Senior Jordan Garrett, a history major, said he doesn’t see much of a dif-ference between using mari-juana and using alcohol.
“I don’t see it as any differ-ent than going to Dickson and getting drunk,” Garrett said. “If weed was legal, then it would be bet-ter because you don’t get a lot of the side effects you get with d r i n k i n g . ”
G a r -rett said the potential to harm someone else is much greater while drinking than while smoking marijuana.
“You’re not harming people when you’re high. They just want to go to Taco Bell,” Garrett said.
Garrett said he agrees with the purpose of the SAFER Referendum.
“I don’t think it should be a harsher punishment,” he said. “I realize it’s an illegal drug, and you shouldn’t get off scot-free, but it shouldn’t be any harsher than alcohol.”
Campbell said he doesn’t know about many of the negative side effects of weed
and alcohol, but agreed that weed was safer. He did have problems with both, however.
“The biggest problem is that when you’re high, you’re not taking in information and learning like you would be if you were sober,” Campbell said. “Drinking is more dan-gerous because it makes you feel invincible, whereas most people who smoke just kind of sit around and don’t do much.”
C a m p -bell said he doesn’t know much about the univer-sity’s policies but feels like those who do catch people
with marijuana should call the authorities. However, he said it should be more of a state issue than a campus issue.
“How can they decide how harsh to punish it if they didn’t decide if it’s il-legal or not?” Campbell said.
Holloway said that no matter how much educa-tion students have, it is ulti-mately up to each individual to act responsibly when it comes to drugs and alcohol.
“I’m strongly against drug abuse,” Holloway said. “Everyone has an individual responsibility to be more aware of their decisions re-garding drug or alcohol use.”
MARIJUANAfrom Page 3
“I’m confident we can get the (marijuana pen-
alty) changes made.”— Jacob Holloway, former
president of NORML
from insomnia to arrhythmias and heart valve problems.
But despite the illegality and potential side effects of the drug, Michael said he feels like he’s providing a positive ser-vice for students by selling Ad-derall.
“I don’t give it to people for the wrong reason,” he said. “I feel like it’s an energy drink for people. I don’t feel like it’s that bad because people aren’t using it to stay strung out for days on end, but they’re using it to study. That’s why, in col-lege, I don’t feel bad selling it to people.”
And that’s the exact type of mindset that worries Scher.
“I think they are either truly naïve of what they’re doing and the drug itself and what it can do to someone who shouldn’t be taking it and is, or they’re pretending to be that naïve,” Scher said.
“A victimless crime? No, there’s a reason it’s a prescrip-tion drug, just like there’s a reason you don’t need (a pre-scription) to buy an energy drink,” Scher said.
Editor’s Note: Names of stu-dents who use Adderall have been changed to protect their identity.
of students for Campus Life, reiterated this, assuring stu-dents that he and other offi-cials “are currently working to redouble our efforts on addressing both alcohol- and drug-related issues. We are also reestablishing our UA Alcohol Taskforce in the near future to address issues both on and off campus related to alcohol.”
Overall, Pugh thinks there
is no one particular group to blame for increased drug use and drug-related crime. Similarly, he believes there is no one so-lution to the problem.
“There is no magic bul-let to solve it,” he said.
But both Crain and Pugh think the answer begins with tightening the academic focus on campus.
“We can provide alterna-
tive activities and information to help individuals make bet-
ter choices,” Crain said.
But this academic fo-cus can only go as far as students al-low it.
“If stu-dents are making poor
decisions like drinking or do-ing drugs, chances are they are making poor decisions all around,” Pugh said.
DRUGSfrom Page 3
of students I work with is that balance and moderation are key. A cheeseburger once in a while is OK.
How can this concept of balance be applied to other areas of students’ lives?
Balance is key in all areas of life. Variety, balance and moderation. Variety in people, books, movies, food. Variety is something that keeps us inter-ested in what’s going on, and
balance, of course, is so im-portant. And moderation, too, because anything in excess is not going to be good for us. We define what’s excessive for us by having a good knowledge base and by the messages we get from our body. Our bodies tell us if we’re doing too much of anything, even too much exercise.
What kind of drug-ad-diction programs are avail-able to students?
We have offered support groups and different group outreach activities over the
years, but we have never had a group stick together. We have a mindset that we can deal with issues independently and that we can deal with issues on our own. They say, “I know I have this problems, but I’ll deal with it when I graduate and don’t have all this stress on me.” There is a miscon-ception that stress ends when you graduate.
Basically, what we offer now is one-on-one, behavior-change consultations. We can also refer off-campus (help) for a person who really feels like they might need psycho-therapy.
PROFILEfrom Page 2
“Most students are doing just what they’re
supposed to. The UA’s average GPA is 3.0.”— Daniel Pugh, dean of
students
theme: “Restoring ‘We the Peo-ple.’” The campaign will look to restore rights back to the people, said Alexander, who describes himself as a con-stitutional Conservative run-ning for the Republican Party.
“Most of our nation’s problems can be traced di-rectly back to our leaders
ignoring our Constitution,” according to a flyer handed out at the press conference.
But even though Alexan-der discussed serious top-ics and legislation and even criticized officials currently in office – including Sens. Lincoln and Mark Pryor – he joked and offered the group gathered in the Town Center a bit of humor to go along with his candidacy platform, including references to the movie “Titanic” and Michael
Vick and even comparisons of Massachusetts Sen. Barney Frank to Barney the Dinosaur.
But Alexander does not feel as if the topics being debated in Washington are anything to joke about, and he wants to take his mes-sage to the nation’s Capitol.
“We should learn not to send a politician to do a patriot’s job,” he said. “Our name is we the people. We the patriots. We are your supervisors and have come to take our country back.”
ALEXANDERfrom Page 1
DiversityWhat does it mean?Wednesday in Lifestyles.
E-mail: [email protected]|Phone: 575.7540 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 | Page 7Lifestyles Editor: Brian Washburn | Assistant Lifestyles Editor: Lindsey PruittLIFESTYLESTHE ARKANSAS TRAVELER
Check Traveler Top 5 next week for the top 5 staff definitions for
diversity.
Top 5 Street Drug Names
Hog Legs ! Marijuana1.
2.
This will definitely catch on. It’s code for a fat blunt.
Fun Guys ! Mushrooms
Madman ! Ecstasy
It’s probably a fairly accurate description of the effects, although the runner-up, “disco biscuits,” makes for a good laugh.
Devil's Dandruff! Cocaine
Alice! LSD
Totally disgusting,but very creative.
TravelerTop 5
3.
4.
5.
Get it? “Fungis?” Pretty good pun.
A tribute to the most psychedelic Disney movie ever, about to get even stranger with Tim Burton’s version coming this year!
In the past several decades, the modern drug culture has vastly proliferated. What first began as a thinly spread escap-ist movement became the much wider cultural revolution of the 1960s and ’70s.
No longer is the use of mari-juana limited to “hippies” or hallucinogenic drugs to ’80s rave dancers – drugs in their many forms are everywhere and available from a plethora of sources.
With widespread availabil-ity comes widespread use and, thus, widespread street knowl-edge. Middle school students often watch drug deals occur in bathroom stalls and, by the last few years of high school, a fa-miliarity with prescriptions and psychedelics develops. Through this, a web of drug-related myths occur, passed on through relationships, the media and the Internet. A few of the most common are up for review:
Drinking too much water is fa-tal: True. Although there is not a set volume of water consumption that results in death – rather, many fac-tors including body mass and various medical conditions can also contribute harm – the av-erage person would have to drink far more than the recom-mended 1.5 to 3 liters per day amount. When the body takes in too much water, the balance of electrolytes is pushed beyond the dilution limit and brain function is hindered severely. Also known as hyper-hydration, water intoxication or water poi-soning, this is a rare but deadly occurrence.
Smoking cigarettes causes
wrinkles and speeds up the aging process: True. The Mayo Clinic has found the nicotine in cigarettes shrinks the blood ves-sels in the outer layers of skin, preventing adequate blood flow and hindering the oxygen sup-ply. The decreased blood flow hinders the supply of oxygen and nutrients, which effectively damages the collagen and elas-tin in the skin that give it pli-ability and strength. Hence, smokers look much older than their non-smoking counter-parts.
Smoking marijuana makes a man sterile: False. Author Michael Tierra counters this myth in his book “Planetary Herbology.” No ingredient found in the plant has the potency to make a male impotent. Tierra writes that the marijuana seed is made up of 19 percent protein, 31 percent lipids, choline and inositol (nutrients), trigunelline and phytin (types of salt), zylose (a sugar) and various other en-
zymes, but nothing that can cause ste-rility.
Ecstasy can kill you: True. Research has found that one in every 3.5 million people who take ecstasy die from it. This statistic might
seem far from common, but it camouflages a very dangerous drug that can yield death.
Hemp is the same as mari-juana: False. Although hemp and marijuana are both derived from the Cannabis plant, the two varieties make all the differ-ence. Hemp contains less than 1 percent of THC, the chemical that gets a user high when the plant is smoked, while marijua-na contains anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of THC and thus, marijuana produces a high, while hemp does not. Hemp, on
the other hand, can be used to make toiletries, fabric, paper and various home products, among its many other uses.
Caffeine helps weight loss: False. An ABC News report in-vestigated the many myths surrounding caffeine, a sub-stance technically considered a drug. The absence of calories in black coffee and herbal teas often brings with it the assump-tion that the caffeine contained helps to speed weight loss, but the truth is that it would take 35 cups of coffee to lose even one pound in a day. Although caf-feine does speed up the metabo-lism, and in 100 mg doses can burn 75 to 100 calories, there is no long-term system of weight loss stemming from a steady diet of caffeine. In fact, in a 12-year health study, subjects that increased their caffeine con-sumption gained more weight than those who remained con-stant.
Caffeine dehydrates you: False. Researchers behind the ABC study found that for dehy-
dration to occur in the human body, an enormous amount of caffeine (such as black coffee) would have to be consumed in a short amount of time, caus-ing the extreme loss of salt and urine. However, in regular doses, such caffeinated bever-ages can count towards normal hydration.
Marijuana is not addict-ing: False. Researchers at the Addiction Science Research and Education Center at the Univer-sity of Texas report that at least 10 percent of the population can become dependent on (“ad-dicted to”) marijuana.
Social drinking kills brain cells: False. This is a “wives’ tale” of sorts that dates back to an era in which one drink was commonly thought to kill thousands of brain cells. It is possible for alcohol to kill brain cells, but only after many persistent years of heavy drink-ing. The death and decrease of brain cells has nothing to do with single alcoholic drinks over time.
DRUG MYTHS REVEALEDErin Robertson
Staff Writer
COURTESY PHOTO
The key psychoactive ingre-dient in Ecstasy was ubiquitous at George’s Majestic Lounge when Bassnectar, a DJ from San Francisco, played there Nov. 19. Sellers waded through the crowd to hawk what they ad-vertised as “Molly,” at roughly $60 per gram.
“Molly” is MDMA (3,4-meth-ylenedioxymethamphetamine) in crystal form, more rare than Ecstasy and purer because it contains none of the bind-ing agents necessary to press the chemical into a tablet. Structurally, MDMA is similar to methamphetamine, but its long-term effects on the brain are less known.
Anton Köllisch first synthe-sized MDMA in 1912, according to a 1914 patent by E. Merck. The chemical evaded notoriety until the mid-70s, when some psychiatrists began using it as supplemental treatment. Ec-stasy became integral to the rave scene that matured in the 1980s, but wide-spread use in the U.S. slowly declined after its criminal-ization in 1985.
Now, MDMA can be found in the rem-nants of that near-dead music culture, amidst glow sticks, tie-dyed bandanas and syncopated rhythms at electronic dance events, such as a Bassnectar show.
Perhaps that’s why the drug and similar “club drugs,” like BZP (benzylpiperazine), are common in Fayetteville, a hot spot for aging hippies and electronic jam bands alike.
In fact, two days before the Bassnectar concert, UAPD offi-cers arrested Joseph Hutchins, a chemical engineering major and Pomfret Hall resident, for
possession of drug parapher-nalia with intent to manufac-ture MDMA, police said.
In Hutchins’ dorm room, police found many of the in-gredients necessary for Ec-stasy synthesis: sodium metal, potassium permanganate, a plastic bottle of copper sulfate
crystals, a bottle of oxalic acid crystals, ammonium chlo-ride and, most nota-bly, a glass bottle of Brazilian sassafras oil, according to the police booking report.
The United Na-tions Convention made sas-safras oil a strictly controlled substance in 1988, so distri-bution is monitored closely. Hutchins’ possession of the rare oil guaranteed the felony charge he received days after his arrest.
Hutchins’ case is atypical; few students ever attempt to synthesize MDMA. Far more of them, like an anonymous UA sophomore, utilize “friends with outside sources” to ac-
quire Ecstasy for recreational use.
“I’ve used it in random set-tings: on a warm day at the park, just driving around or at concerts,” the sophomore said.
The student first used Ec-stasy in high school, which made his school day “much more interesting,” he said.
Re-dosing, or taking one hit of Ecstasy after another has worn off, is dangerous, he said, but admitted to taking three doses in one night at a music festival last summer.
Ecstasy causes users to “pay more attention to the direction of sound,” the sophomore said. “The music hits you harder. It gives you a restless energy, so it just feels good to dance. Every tactile sense is heightened.”
MDMA allows the brain to release uncommonly large amounts of serotonin, a neu-rotransmitter associated with many functions, from appetite and mood regulation. This is thought to cause the euphoria and empathy associated with Ecstasy.
How high is up?Brady Tackett
Staff Writer
COURTESY PHOTO
It’s hard to believe you could outdo a year like the one the music industry went through in 2009. Deaths, controversies, prison sentences and embarrassing stage rushes have clouded the outlook for a bright future in the upcoming year. However, 2010 looks to launch new stars, new albums and possibly even new masterpieces into the realm of the music nation.
Several albums slated for a 2010 release have the potential for albums of the year. From highly anticipated sophomore releases from Vampire Weekend, MGMT and 3Oh3 to music scene veterans like Motion City Soundtrack, Coheed and Cambria and the always-delayed, finally released rock album by Lil’ Wayne Rebirth, 2010 is looking to be a busy year for music fanatics. However, only a couple albums, as of this moment, have the potential to be albums of the year right as the year begins.
Dr. Dre has been in hiding for what seems like the entire latter part of the decade (save for those ridiculous Dr. Pepper commercials he inexplicably signed on to do). But, for what seems like forever, 2010 has been slated as the release of the much-anticipated follow-up to his last monster release
Can 2010’s musical spotlight
top 2009’s?
Listen up!
BRIAN [email protected]
See MUSIC on Page 9 See MDMA on Page 8
“I think about it every
minute.”
– Cloris Leachman, after
being asked if she still
cares about sex at her
age, on the The Wendy
Williams Show
LIFESTYLES THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER | UATRAV.COMPage 8|WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010
Your head feels as though it is going to explode from the inside out. You don’t want to see anyone because you are irritable and in a foul mood. You are tired and sluggish all day. All you want is a sip. All you need is a sip. You crave it, longing for the smell, the taste, anything. You can’t go a day without it.
A drug? Yes. An addiction? Absolutely. The daily withdrawal symptoms of caffeine are similar to many classic drugs of addiction such as heroine, nicotine and co-caine. The World Health Organi-zation recognizes dependence on caffeine and the American Psy-chiatric Association has recently added caffeine dependence to the DSM-IV-TR, a manual including all mental health disorders.
“I need caffeine. I drink at least a cup of coffee and a diet coke every day,” said junior Kira Morrissey.
About 80 percent of the world’s population consumes caffeine on a daily basis and it is the most commonly used psychoactive, or mood-altering, drug in the world, according to an article from the Medicine Net Web site.
Caffeine is naturally found in certain leaves, seeds and fruits commonly placed in coffee, tea, cocoa beans and soft drinks. However, it can also be syntheti-cally produced and added to food, drinks or supplements.
The average intake of caffeine is approximately 280 mg/day -- roughly equivalent to two cups of coffee, seven soft drinks or two energy drinks. However, many UA students and professors com-monly drink caffeine to excess and don’t bat an eye.
“I average six cups of coffee every day,” said Mack Ivey, as-sociate professor of biology. “I don’t care that I’m addicted. It’s a fairly harmless addiction, but it’s a chemical addiction no less.”
Though many students wake up instantly needing their caf-
feine fix, not all addicts are simi-lar.
“I don’t have a daily routine with drinking a cup of coffee. My need for caffeine is when I feel tired or have a headache, I’ll drink coke, coffee or tea,” said ju-nior Jessica McNair.
One of the criteria for substance dependence in the DSM-IV-TR is “character-istic withdrawal syndrome or use of the substance to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.” McNair con-fesses she turns to caffeine before a prescription drug such as ibuprofen.
“If I have a headache or I’m tired I go to caffeine first. It’s a mental thing. I think I’m better so I guess I am,” she said.
More common in stu-dents is consuming caffeine during finals or to finish a major assignment. Energy drinks, coffee and soft drinks are pounded with the purpose of get-ting through the night.
Though studies have proved caffeine does not produce signifi-
cant life-threatening health risks, it is associated with several dis-tinct psychiatric syndromes such as caffeine intoxication, caffeine dependence, caffeine-induced sleep disorder and caffeine-in-duced anxiety disorder, accord-ing to the John Hopkins Medical
Center.Many students confess they
won’t give up caffeine because of the withdrawal symptoms they would experience if they did.
“If I don’t drink my caffeine,
I get a really bad headache and usually feel tired. I also feel weak and unhappy,” Morrissey said. “I constantly think about when I’m going to drink my next diet coke. It’s like a comfort blanket.”
Caffeine-addicted junior Katherine Rhoades had to learn
what it was like going cold turkey from caffeine when she was a camp coun-selor at a Kanakuk camp. Though the withdrawal symptoms were severe, it only took three days be-fore they were completely gone.
Dependence on a drug is never viewed as a posi-tive thing, and caffeine addiction is just that. Yet most students and even professors don’t view it as a problem that needs to be fixed.
Spoken like a true ad-dict, Morrissey states she will never give up her substance of choice, because “it just tastes so wonderful.”
Caffeine addiction a reality on campusMille Appleton
Staff Writer
LARRY ASH Staff Photographer
Alex Gutierrez (left), a freshman from Dallas, and Nick Carson, a freshman from Edmond, Okla., enjoy the warmer weather and a cup of Starbucks coffee on Monday morning as they start the spring semester.
Signs of caffeine addiction, according to the
World Health Organization
Withdrawal Symptoms:
-Headache-Fatigue
-Difficulty Concentrating-Irritability-Depression
-Anxiety-Flu-like symptoms
The practice of making New Year’s resolutions is a time-tested one, beginning in the foundations of Western civilization.
In ancient Babylon, the New Year was celebrated in accordance with the spring equinox. This symbolized re-birth and also marked the beginning of the planting sea-son, an important time in a civilization centered on agri-culture and a panoply of gods and goddesses represented in nature.
It wasn’t until the rise of ancient Rome that the New Year was marked on January 1. The mythical king Janus was placed in charge of the calen-dar and his symbol, two heads looking in opposite directions, represented the ability to look backwards into the past and forwards into the future of the upcoming New Year. This is
where the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions began, and has continued, albeit of-ten unsuccessfully, to date.
Many UA students have faced such failure in keeping up a New Year’s resolution in the past, and have abandoned the practice altogether. Junior Kelsey Lovewell has made the same plan every year, but has not succeeded…yet.
“I always start the year with the intention of reading the Bible every day, all the way through by the end of the year. That’s never happened, though,” she said. “Maybe 2010 will be the year.”
However, for sophomore Rumil Bautista it is not a lack of success that keeps him from making resolutions, but rather a lack of boundaries.
“I never have New Year’s resolutions because nothing says I have to wait until a New Year to make one,” Bautista
“The come up is what I look for. It’s the best part. It’s so in-tense and overwhelming,” the sophomore said. “But the qual-ity of Ecstasy is a big issue.”
It’s true: Dealers have mar-keted any tablet containing MDMA as “Ecstasy” for nearly three decades, but the chemi-cal composition of each batch varies widely because a bind-ing agent can be one of any number of chemicals, from methamphetamine to caffeine.
Despite the claim of gov-ernment anti-drug campaigns that MDMA “creates holes in the brain,” studies have never proved that the drug destroys human brain tissue. But advo-cates like the UA sophomore,
who said Ecstasy is, “in reality, fairly safe,” might exaggerate in equal measure.
On packed, sweltering dance floors, where water is scarce, MDMA notoriously in-creases the chance of dehydra-tion. But the real danger is that the brain will have difficulty restoring serotonin levels to their original amount after re-peated use of the drug, accord-ing to the National Institute on Drug Abuse Web site.
But, as if to complete the circle of its existence, MDMA has again begun to creep into clinical use. A study of the chemical’s effect on victims of posttraumatic stress disorder that began in 2005, sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Asso-ciation for Psychedelic Studies, remains ongoing.
MDMAfrom Page 7
Students hope to complete New Year’s resolutions
Erin RobertsonStaff Writer
See NEW YEAR’S on Page 9
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER | UATRAV.COM WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 |Page 9LIFESTYLES
Watch
UATVStudent Run
Television
Pat Walker Health Center http://health.uark.edu
Fifty years ago popular tele-visions shows depicted a small-town family life with a mom vacuuming in her pearls and a mischievous son, or the crazy wife and the unconditional love of husband Ricardo. To-day, popular television shows and movies depict a group of teenagers smoking pot in the basement, or two guys going to Vegas to do psychedelic mush-rooms and watch Cirque Du Soleil.
Paid programming, such as HBO and Showtime have always led the pack in promiscuity, violence and drugs. “Weeds,” a comedy about a housewife who becomes the neighborhood’s marijuana dealer, was Showtime’s top-rated show in its first season and has been nomi-nated for many awards.
Marijuana is also an on-going theme on “Entou-rage,” which is about a rising movie star and his new life in Hollywood, and, on “Californication,” there is an episode showing the dad getting mad at his daughter for smoking pot only to find out it was his stash.
However, it’s the recent drug appearance on cable television that has people concerned. Popular television shows such as “That ’70s Show,” “Gossip Girl,” “Mad Men” and even a few references on the new hit “Glee” are raising concerns.
“These are trendsetting shows. They affect behavior and attitudes, particularly teens. When glamorization of drugs has climbed, changes in teen attitudes followed,” said Steve Dnistrian of Partnership for a Drug-Free America in a USA Today article.
Students agree that these shows make drugs look ap-pealing and funny, influencing their views on doing things they might not have done before.
“It’s like if all your best friends on TV are doing it so you want to do it too, and, yes, I do have best friends on TV that influence me just like my real friends do,” said senior Jill Ivey.
Many popular movies among college students also glamorize the use of drugs,
such as Pineapple Express, Knocked Up and Half-Baked.
“A lot of the mov-ies play pot up to be funny or hilari-ous, so I tend to be not so uptight about pot,” said senior Kyle Alderman. “I don’t
think it’s a big deal. They just put it in for laughs.”
Marijuana sells, and net-works know that. As the public pushes to decriminalize pot and make it legal, sitcom writers are simply writing what they know to reach younger genera-tions as well as those living in neighborhoods with new medi-cal marijuana facilities.
Broad public support for legalized marijuana, along with the economic recession are among factors that have “helped transform the larger
dialogue… and the imagery of who is a marijuana user,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alli-ance in an article in Variety.
The topic of drugs is quickly becoming less taboo and more of an everyday thing, especially as college students are becom-ing more exposed.
“I don’t think it bothers me now. I feel like I’ve been around or been exposed to drugs, so on TV its not that big of a deal,” said junior Emily Poole. “I def-initely think putting it on TV lets people just get used to it. It desensitizes drugs.”
As fiction comedies and dra-mas are increasingly depicting drugs, new reality shows are also trying to make their way into primetime television.
“Cannabis Planet” is a half-hour paid program in Los An-geles teaching the ins and outs of pot: tips for cultivating the plant, cooking lessons, and citations for award-winning strains of the plant, The New York Times reported in an ar-ticle.
The Times also cited pro-ducers trying to sell another reality show to networks, “Top Bud,” about a pot distribution center in Hollywood.
But some students, such as Samantha Herrera, aren’t wor-ried about marijuana becom-ing more mainstream.
“You always hear that what you see on TV is going to in-fluence how you act and think about things,” she said. “But if someone is already set on drugs being bad then seeing someone on TV is not going to change that.”
Television and movies say yes to drugs
Mille AppletonStaff Writer
The Chronic 2001. Dre’s new album – Detox – promises to have plenty of rhymes, guest emcees (from Eminem to 50 Cent to The Game) and insight into the evolution of the rap game over the past 10 years. Detox is sure to highlight all of the upcoming hip-hop releases in the next year and
begin the next decade in music with a bang, as Dre did in the beginning of this decade. Whether or not this album will feature the same “up in smoke” references and themes as his last few albums is yet to be seen, but it is already expected that Dre will use this album to solidify his place on rap’s Mount Rushmore, much the same as Jay-Z did this year with The Blueprint 3.
But even though Dre looks to retake the rap and
hip-hop scene this year, another band on a completely different planet of genres looks to cement its place in rock history and take the step toward rock n’ roll history.
The emo/screamo genre might have died off a couple years ago, but My Chemical Romance never let the labeling or genre-typing place them in a category that would leave them out of the discussion to be one of modern rock’s royalty. But from recent
discussions from interviews with the band, it seems as though they will not take their regular route of theatrics and concept albums on the upcoming as yet untitled Spring release. Instead, My Chemical Romance will focus on one thought: making a great rock album (something a ton of bands over the past few years have let slip them by). If the upcoming release can catapult the band into a category with Kings of Leon,
Coldplay and Green Day, then we will be looking at the next generation of rock n’ roll Hall of Fame inductees. For My Chem to be in this discussion though, their next album is going to have to blow not only their cult following away, but those who did not expect a former emo band to release the rock album of the year.
As everybody can see from the past year, the music industry can be extremely unpredictable and, in not so
many words, out of control. This next year will see breakout hits from artists like Drake (who will have the monster debut album of the year) and a few other artists who will hit out of nowhere. But while we can all wonder and speculate as to what we can listen to now that everyone else will be in six months, it is only a guessing game as to who will be taking over the music industry in 2010.
MUSICfrom Page 7
said. Rather, he maintains a
running list of personal im-provements: “In my journal I keep a list of things I want to work on for the week.”
Many students are making resolutions to live healthier lifestyles.
“I’ve taken a gigantic plunge into avoiding fast food and soda at all costs for my New Year’s resolution,” said sophomore Dan Jordan. “So far, it’s been working all right. The withdrawals haven’t hit
me yet, but when they do, I am more than ready to take it head on.”
Sophomore Jordon Smith successfully avoided caffeine during the season of Lent, and is trying to replicate her ac-complishment for the entirety of 2010.
Other lifestyle changes in-clude eliminating debt or re-ducing stress. For Peter Ungar, chair of the Anthropology de-partment, an important New Year’s resolution is to reduce extraneous activities.
“My resolution is to stop agreeing to do extra work,” Ungar said. “I’m too overcom-mitted right now, with chair duties, teaching and advis-
ing, research associated with seven active grants, finishing a book, sitting on the editorial board of three journals and an NSF panel, and working to get a biomedical research com-pany off the ground – and, oh yeah, a family.”
Whether the resolution is driven by a need to achieve or a need to breathe, deciding to make a positive change and sticking with it is no small feat. The success of such proc-lamations is subject to much change and many struggles, but in life and certainly in the year 2010, some can find im-provements all around.
NEW YEAR’Sfrom Page 8
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ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 19) TODAY IS AN 7.You accomplish great things today, but be prepared for subtle changes in the following days or weeks. Keep the plan flexible. TAURUS (APRIL 20-MAY 20) TODAY IS A 5.Have fun today! Even if you accom-plish nothing at work, you’ll feel like you’ve made progress. Expect practical changes from a superior.
GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 21) TODAY IS A 9.Feelings get in the way of logical effort today. Your usual tactics stall. Reconsider, and wait until tomor-row. It will all work out.
CANCER (JUNE 22-JULY 22) TODAY IS A 5.Go ahead and let your imagination run away with you. You needed a vacation anyway! There will be plenty of time tomorrow to deal with practical details.
LEO (JULY 23-AUG. 22) TODAY IS A 7.You want to get down to business early, but others don’t. Their emo-tions are scattered. Give them time early, then use words to start anew.
VIRGO (AUG. 23-SEPT. 22) TODAY IS A 6. You have lots of work, and the worries that go with it. Before you get sucked under again, call out for a little help. Somebody nearby will lend a hand. You’re not alone.
LIBRA (SEPT. 23-OCT. 22) TODAY IS AN 8. Your place may be a mess, but is it a creative process? Look at what you want to accomplish. Don’t get stuck in the muck you have to go through to get from here to there.
SCORPIO (OCT. 23-NOV. 21) TODAY IS A 6.You can’t say “I love you” too often. Today you realize just how important it is to remind yourself and others that you care. Attempt to cook something.
SAGITTARIUS (NOV. 22-DEC. 21) TODAY IS A 7.By day’s end, you’re glad to have a couple of people on your side. Change becomes difficult now, and revising work will take several days but produce great results.
CAPRICORN (DEC. 22-JAN. 19) TODAY IS A 5.Open your heart to all opportuni-ties. Today enriches with beauty, confidence and optimism. Forward movement? Not so much. But that’s all right.
AQUARIUS (JAN. 20-FEB. 18) TODAY IS A 6.Your heart wants to go on a long-distance trip. Your mind is looking closer to home. If price is no object, take the most imaginative route possible. Avoid the interstate. PISCES (FEB. 19-MARCH 20) TODAY IS A 5.Find a better way to get what you need. Spending more may not help. Repurposing something you already have will work just fine.
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Former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire admitted to extensive steroid use Monday, and while I’m not the first to try to break it down for you, any time one of my childhood idols gets torn apart by the national media I feel like I might should chime in.
I may not be the least biased authority on the subject, seeing that there is a Mark McGwire “62” poster in my old room at my parents’ house and the spare tire cover, license plate and stocking I got for Christmas all had a Cardinals logo on them. But that does make my opinion relevant.
I still cherish the moment McG-wire hit his record-breaking 62nd home run in 1998 and that entire season that helped bring baseball back in the post-strike years. I’m not naïve enough to say Big Mac saved baseball all by himself, but his home run chase with Sammy Sosa was the main attraction.
Without steroids in the picture,
Mark McGwire is a surefire Hall of Famer. Some say he was a one-dimensional player (that dimen-sion’s not speed or defense), others say he didn’t perform well in the postseason (though he carried bad teams to the playoffs), while some critics say his total body of work, 16 seasons and 583 home runs, isn’t as incredible given the era he played in where the 500 home run plateau became more of a stepping stone.
But McGwire was the most pro-lific home run hitter of all-time.
That’s not just my opinion,
though his 500-foot blasts were pretty compelling, but Big Mac had the best home run-per-at-bat ratio in the history of the game.
McGwire homered once every 10.6 trips to the plate during his career – more than an at-bat better than one Herman “Babe” Ruth. For the record, single-season and career home run record holder Barry Bonds is fourth on the list (12.9). Current Phillies star Ryan Howard comes in at an impressive 12.1 at-bats per home run.
So to say McGwire doesn’t belong in the Hall with or without ste-roids is egregious. That being said, the whole reason this came up is because he did admit to using said steroids.
Here’s what it comes down too: he used substances to make him a better baseball player. Whether it was to recover from injury or give him the strength to hit the ball farther, he used drugs to help him perform on the field.
The problem is, the substances he used, performance-enhancing and all, were not banned by baseball until after he had already retired. Steroid use was obviously more widespread than everybody thought, not that everyone who played since 1990 should be suspected, but McGwire wasn’t alone in trying to get an edge that was actually legal although frowned upon at the time.
So during Big Mac’s career, he used legal substances that his peers used to help him perform better. Sounds like a good teammate to me. Technically, during McGwire’s ca-reer, steroids were on the same level of performance-enhancing drugs as Advil and Gatorade. I still think steroids were unethical before 2004, but that’s just where I draw the line – baseball hadn’t drawn that line during McGwire’s day, so who are we to impose today’s sanctions on yesterday’s players?
When Big Mac made his Major League debut (and hit 49 home runs
without steroids), weight lifting was discouraged around the league. Not that steroids are on par with energy drinks or natural strength-building techniques, but the principle is the same.
He’s not even technically a cheater by MLB standards, so I have no problem with going to the Hall of Fame (probably won’t happen) or coaching for the Cardinals. He did a good thing Monday, he’s obviously sorry for bending (not breaking) the rules, and he’s not the bad guy he’s been made out to be.
I have a different perspective on my childhood memories today, but they are in no way shattered. I wish Big Mac hadn’t done all the things he did, but he was still a great player and did a lot of good for baseball.
Matt Watson is the sports editor of The Arkansas Traveler. His col-umn appears every Wednesday.
Scotty Thurman can empa-thize with Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett.
While they play different sports, Thurman stood in Mal-lett’s shoes 15 years ago. Unlike Mallett, though, Thurman left Arkansas early following the most successful two-year run in school history.
After locking up Arkansas’ only basketball national championship in 1994 and following it up with a national runner-up finish the next season, Thurman decided to forgo his senior season and enter the NBA draft. Despite earning first-team All-Southeastern Conference honors in each of his three seasons in a Ra-zorback uniform and starring on teams with a combined record of 85-19, the Ruston, La., native went undrafted and never stepped foot in an NBA game. While 20-year old Thurman was anxious to test himself against the world’s best, Thurman, now 35, views the situation dif-ferently in retrospect.
“Being 35 is a lot different than my mind was being 20,” Thurman said. “I left college at 20 so at 21, 22 and 23 I don’t think it had really set in that I wasn’t a college student. I knew I wasn’t going to class, however I was still college age. As a kid you usually think about playing on the biggest stage, which for me at that time was the NBA. It makes you feel good that you’re finally getting the chance to explore that opportunity. Now that I’m a little
bit older, I don’t regret it, but I do wonder what it would have been like had I been able to mature another year in col-lege and experience an actual senior year in college.
“Part of that I do miss, but at the same time life is all about choices. You have to make those choices and live with them once you make them.”
The man who hit the biggest shot in Razorback basketball his-
tory – his 3-pointer with 51 seconds remain-ing in the ‘94 national championship game against Duke proved to be the game-winner – ended his career as one of the best players to don the cardinal and white. He ranks 10th among the school’s all-time scoring leaders and his 618 career 3-pointers – second in school history – are littered with buzzer beat-ers.
While acknowledging the lure of big contracts and childhood dreams of playing professional athletics have an enormous draw, Thurman also knows the feelings of being the big man on campus and earning statewide hero status while soaking in the college expe-rience should not be too eagerly shucked.
“I think about getting the chance to be a senior, getting the chance to come out on se-nior day and have you and your parents recog-nized,” Thurman said. “I have to wonder what would have happened had I had a chance to walk at Arkansas and graduate there. There’s
a lot of things that went through my mind as I got older, but I’m still comfortable with the decision that I made. I think it wound up being the best thing for me looking back on it. For me it was just about getting the opportu-nity to play on the biggest stage, wanting that opportunity and wanting to provide for myself and my family.”
And while Thurman’s legacy as a Razorback icon is firmly cemented, Mallett’s just began to take shape in his first season under center for the Hogs. The redshirt sophomore rewrote the Arkansas passing records in 2009, but the Hogs finished 8-5, far from title contention. Thurman’s advice from a Razorback legend to a legend-in-the-making: etching your mark in Arkansas history and waiting a year longer for the NFL will be trivial a few years down the road.
“That never goes away,” Thurman said of the accomplishments he played a large role in achieving. “Everyone knows that once you put on an Arkansas jersey, you’re always recog-nized here. I’m really humbled by it. I’m sure for him, leaving a legacy is a huge deal. Com-ing from Michigan, he had to sit out and then this year he wound up having a great year – a great individual season – and they were able to win a bowl game. I’m sure that now they want to build on that. I’m sure he’s excited about that opportunity.”
With Mallett’s decision to return, the Ra-zorbacks will find themselves in the spotlight more next season. The Texarkana, Texas,
Hog HoopsBasketball digs deeper into SEC play
Phone: 575.7051 | E-mail: [email protected] WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 |Page 11 Sports Editor: Matt Watson | Assistant Sports Editor: Harold McIlvain IISPORTS
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER
Making sense of Big Mac’s big admission
MATT [email protected]
Swinging for the Fences
FOOTBALL
FILE PHOTO
Jimmy CarterAssistant Sports Editor
Hoop Hogs head to Starkville to kick off SEC play
After wins over top-10 foes Oklahoma and Texas last season, Arkansas headed into confer-ence play with a 12-1 record and a wave of momentum.
Heading into conference play, Arkansas coach John Pelphrey the toughest challenges lie ahead and the Razorbacks went on to win just two of their final 17 games.
This year the Hogs (7-8) enter Southeastern Conference action with a sub-.500 record and losses to mid-majors Morgan State, East Ten-nessee State and South Alabama.
“We’re really focused already, obviously,” sophomore guard Rotnei Clarke said. “We don’t want what we had last year in the SEC. We don’t want to end the last half of our sea-son like we did last year. We want to be able to hopefully take some momentum from this last game (a close loss to then-No. 2 Texas) and hopefully do some really good things.”
Sophomore point guard Courtney Fortson’s return from indefinite suspension sparked the Hogs to compete with the top-ranked and undefeated Longhorns, despite losing 96-85.
Fortson scored 19 points and dished out seven assists while playing 33 minutes in his first game of the season. Fortson’s presence on the court provides his teammates with a big boost, Arkansas coach John Pelphrey said.
“I thought he’d come back and have a huge impact on the game,” Pelphrey said. “If you had to pick one guy who would get back into the flow pretty quickly, that would probably be one guy I’d pick.”
The Hogs open SEC play at Mississippi State on Thursday at 6 p.m. The Bulldogs (13-3) are fresh off an 80-75 win at then-No. 14 Ole Miss in their conference opener. Mississippi State swept Arkansas last year as the Hogs went win-less in their eight conference road games.
“It’s something you want to do as a pro-gram, be able to go and win on the road,” Pelphrey said. “I think those are the best moments for a team, to be able to in somebody else’s backyard and withstand all the adversity that comes your way. Obviously they’re a very good basketball team.
“They’ve got a lot of veteran guys. This will be a big challenge for us to go on the road to see what we can do to keep it close and hope-fully have a chance down the stretch.”
In Pelphrey’s previous two seasons at Arkansas, the Hogs are a combined 2-14 on the road in conference action and are 0-3 away from Bud Walton Arena this season. The Razor-backs lost all eight conference road games last season by at least nine points
“(Last year) was tough,” Clarke said. “It was frustrating. It’s especially hard to win on the road in the SEC. We’ve got to be able to protect the home court as well.
“Being able to have the opportunity to play our first SEC game on the road and have a chance at getting a road kill our first game is really a good opportunity for us.”
The Razorbacks have a short turnaround after the Mississippi State game, hosting Ala-bama on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. The Hogs open conference play with three straight Thursday-Saturday sets of games.
To stay or goBASKETBALL
See RETURN on Page 12
Ryan Mallett put off the pros for another season at Arkansas... ...15 years after leaving the UA early, former Hog great Scotty Thurman reflects on his decision.
PHOTO COURTESY UA MEDIA RELATIONS
COMMENTARY
Jimmy CarterAssistant Sports Editor
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER | UATRAV.COMPage 12| WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 SPORTSnative is already being lauded as a Heisman candidate in 2010 and the Hogs return nine starters – 10 if tight end D.J. Williams returns – to the leading scoring offense in the Southeastern Conference.
“He knew the type of kids coming back and he only spent one year playing in game situations,” said Jim Mallett, Ryan’s father. “I’m sure he’d love to have the opportunity for all those offensive guys to come back and play together again. All the receivers, offensive linemen, defense. It’s a good, close-knit group. They like to play with each other. They’re fun to watch. But I’m sure that had a big (impact) on him.”
When Thurman left school, All-American Corliss Williamson was
also entering the draft early and starters Clint McDaniel, Corey Beck and Dwight Stewart were graduating. The Razorbacks were in rebuilding mode and Thurman didn’t want to follow up two stellar years with a poor senior season.
“It had a huge impact on my decision,” Thurman said about the program’s turnover rate. “I didn’t really feel comfortable starting over. We had a lot of new guys coming in and I wasn’t so sure what the mix would be. It just felt like I had pretty much accomplished all that I could in college with the group that I had played with already. It was one of those deals where I was ready to move on. I felt that I was a little bit more mature than the guys com-ing in and wasn’t really sure how that mix would go. So it has a huge impact.
“I think in Mallett’s case, its probably a good decision on his
part because he gets the chance to come back and play with guys that he’s been there with and guys that are probably also going to play on the next level with him. So I think it gives them an opportunity to play together. “
The indelible mark Thurman left on the school and state endeared him to the Arkansas faithful even after he hung up his Razorback uniform. Despite playing profession-ally for 11 years – including stints in Cyprus, Greece, Lebanon and Mace-donia – Thurman has maintained his permanent residence in Arkansas since 1996.
“Arkansas become home in 1995,” Thurman said. “December of 1996 was when I actually moved back to Little Rock and made it home. I continued to play abroad, but whenever there was an offseason I was always here. So Arkansas has been my home pretty much ever
since I came here in 1992, except that the few months I moved back to Louisiana in 1995. Being here for so long and having college friends and other family members that went to the university, it was pretty much easy for me to make the decision for me to make this home. Since com-ing here in 1992, I haven’t had the desire to go anywhere else.”
Mallett’s full-circle journey from growing up in Lincoln, Ark., 20 miles from the UA campus, signing with Michigan out of high school and subsequently returning to his home state a year later makes putting on the Razorback helmet he dreamed of as a child that much sweeter.
“Growing up he always told me and my wife, ‘I’m going to play all three sports for Arkansas” Mallett said. “I’m going to play football, basketball and baseball. We kind of laughed and said OK. We knew that’d be kind of hard to do, but he
always told us that growing up. And he was there at the earliest age – fifth or sixth grade – football camp up there. When he was able to go age-wise, he never missed a camp through his ninth grade year. He enjoyed that. He went to the baseball camps with coach Norm DeBryan. He went to basketball camps a couple of times. So he had spent a lot of time on campus as he grew up. That had a big impact on him growing up.
“When he came from Michigan and he called us that day and was standing there looking down at that field and said, ‘Dad, I’m home.”
Mallett and Thurman played different sports in different eras for the Hogs. While Thurman left school early, Mallett put the NFL on hold for a year. Mallett left Arkansas for Michigan, while Thurman headed overseas. But both share one thing in common.
They both made it back home.
RETURNfrom Page 11
Gymnastics team up to No. 7 in nation heading into SEC play
No. 5 Razorback track team wins six events in !rst meet of yearOLYMPIC NOTEBOOK
The fifth-ranked Arkansas men’s track and field squad kicked off the 2010 season by winning six events in the Arkansas Invitational.
The meet pitted the Hogs against Oklahoma and Mississippi and gave the Ra-zorbacks an opportunity to open the season in a low-key test run.
“I always worry the first half, especially the first third of the season, you always worry about injuries,” Arkansas coach Chris Bucknam said. “We had a few dings here and there, but for the most part we got through the meet without a lot of injury and got our feet wet. I think that’s the main thing right now and the purpose.”
Senior Scott MacPherson won the mile and finished with a personal-best time of 4:08.22, beating the Southeastern Confer-ence champion Barnabus Kirui of Ole Miss in the event. Freshman Eric Fernandez finished second.
Senior Dorian Ulrey finished with a win-nin time of 1:52.32 in the 800 meter event.
Up next for the squad is a Jan. 16. matchup with former Southwest Conference nemesis Texas. It will be unusual to have a dual-meet this early in the season, but it was the only weekend the two programs could accommodate one another. Texas will come to Fayetteville to begin the indoor match and the Hogs travel to Austin, Texas, in April for the outdoor portion of the event. The event will be scored and individual and team trophies will be distributed.
“We are a performance based sport and then the accumulation of training over a season is very important so having a score
meet this early presents some amount of problems for us because kids might not be at 100 percent, but Texas will be in the same situation,” Bucknam said. “This will be their first meet and our second meet. We just feel it’s a good situation to be able to bring in a potent Big XII championship program and be able to go head to head with them.”
Men’s tennis open season
The men’s tennis team begins the season on Sunday at 1 p.m. by hosting Washington in Fayetteville. The Hogs wrapped up the fall by finishing 84-64 overall after conclud-ing with a solid performance in the Virginia Tech Challenge in mid-November. Head coach Robert Cox noted that year’s strength is the depth from top to bottom.
“We are a very deep team,” Cox said. “I think last year we were strong at the top and weak down low. This year I think it is just the opposite. We have a lot of question marks up high, but our depth is definitely stronger this year.”
The team got a new player at the break in freshman Gregiore Lehmann from France. Coach Cox said that Gregiore would need a few weeks to get his feet solid, but he would contribute this season.
The next big match for the team is against Texas on January 22nd. The team has not beat Texas since 2001.
Women’s tennis head to Florida
The girls’ tennis team travels to Florida this weekend in a tournament, but the pur-pose of the tournament is designed to allow
for some underplayed players a chance to play. The team will then host several teams, including Oklahoma St, on January 23rd in Fayetteville.
“We are just excited to be back in train-ing after the break,” Coach Michael Hegarty said. “We have a good weekend planned for a couple of the players who are a little underplayed right now. They’ll go to Florida this weekend and next weekend we’ll get ready for our first dual match against Okla-homa State.”
Swimming and diving face biggest challenge of the year
The Hogs beat North Texas 192-106 last weekend here in Fayetteville to main-tain their 18th national ranking and will travel to Missouri to take on the Tigers this upcoming weekend. Coach Jeff Poppell explained that the Tigers will be one of the toughest meets of the year.
The meet has also become somewhat of a rivalry after Mizzou was the premiere swimming squad of the Midwest until the Hogs upset them last year in Fayetteville. Now the Hogs are ranked ahead of Tigers for the first team as the teams compete with one another.
“It is our biggest challenge of the year,” Poppell said. “They are a top-25 program right now, but I feel that they are very un-derrated. We are going to have swim really well and don’t have room to make mistakes. We are going to have to huge help from our divers. Our divers are going to have to play a significant role if we want to beat Mizzou. I think it’s going to be very exciting and competitive.”
Clint LinderStaff Writer
FILE PHOTOSenior Dorian Ulrey finished first in the 800 meter event to start the season for the Razorbacks.
GYMNASTICS
Following Saturday’s sea-son-opening victory over No. 20 Arizona, Arkansas’ gymnas-tics team has moved up from No. 8 in the preseason rank-ings to No. 7.
The Razorbacks, who downed the Wildcats 195.400-192.650, are also No. 3 in the South Central Region.
In individual events, Ar-kansas is No. 20 in the country on vault, No. 2 on bars, No. 7 on beam and tied for No. 5 on floor. Arkansas’ bars score of 49.20 ties for the fifth-best mark in school history.
In the regional rankings, Arkansas is No. 5 on vault, No.
1 on bars, No. 3 on beam and No. 2 on floor.
Sophomore Jaime Pisani won the all-around title in the win over Arizona. She also tied for first on floor, tied for sec-ond on bars with a career-high tying 9.85 and tied for fourth on beam.
Pisani’s individual titles were two of five for the Razor-backs. Senior Amy DeFilippo won bars with a career-best 9.90, senior Sarah Nagashima tied for first on beam with a 9.85 and senior Casey Jo Ma-gee tied for first on floor with a 9.85.
The Razorbacks compete at No. 8 Florida on Friday.
UA Media Relations
FILE PHOTO
Senior Casey Jo Magee and the Razorbacks will look to beat Florida again after getting the win over the Gators last year 196.375-195.325.
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Life after being just feet away from Larry Bird and Kevin DurantOKLAHOMA CITY -- The Ford Cen-
ter isn’t often mistaken for the Boston Garden or Madison Square Garden, both historic arenas that have been hosts to basketball games played at the highest level.
The arena opened in 2002 and is the current home of the Oklahoma City Thunder and the former tempo-rary home of the Hurricane Katrina-displaced New Orleans Hornets. That’s solid résumé-building material for an arena.
But this is the same place that hosted a Central Hockey League team called the Oklahoma City Blazers and an AF2 football league team named the Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz. Doesn’t quite match up with the prestige of the Gardens.
(And yes, it’s the Yard Dawgz. I can’t make that up. I wish I could because evidently someone was paid to come up with that name.)
But that’s what makes this arena special. Don’t get me wrong. I was able to witness how amazing this basketball facility is in person last weekend during a 108-102 win over the Indiana Pacers. But it’s the poten-tial of that place - and the team - that got me thinking: It has so much room to grow.
With stars like Kevin Durant, Rus-sell Westbrook and Jeff Green locked up with inexpensive contracts and happy in Oklahoma City - yes, OKC of all places, not Miami or Los Ange-les - this core of players could form something special.
And not just down the road. Right now. This is the same Thunder team that lost 101-98 in overtime at home to the Lakers early in the season. Not bad considering it looks almost automatic that Los Angles will walk away with another title at this point if they avoid injuries.
The pieces are there for the Thun-der. Westbrook can create offense at the point (16 points a game) while finding teammates (seven assists a
game), and Jeff Green is a man-beast and a physical specimen that scores 14 a game down low.
And Kevin Durant is just Kevin Durant.
There isn’t much more I can say about him after watching him in per-son drop 40 points, using every way possible to put the ball in the basket. He can use his jumper, he can pull up for a 3-pointer and he can get to the line with physical play with the best in the league. There is no doubt he can be a top 30 basketball player of all-time when he finishes his career if he stays healthy.
With such a young team, Durant is the leader and should be able to drive the Thunder to a playoff spot this year. And reports indicate this core of young stars genuinely want to stay together and make the Thunder special. Throw in an outstanding backup guard in rookie James Harden and things get interesting.
But the best things about all of this? A surging basketball team is only a few hours drive away from Fayetteville.
But watch out. Oklahoma bumpy road conditions are known to steal lives on the mobile phone game BrickBreaker if you are not careful.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to make it to an NBA game before, it’s an experience you’ll never forget like when Locke found the hatch during the first season of Lost. It will leave you wondering and wanting to watch for hours and hours. And you’ll wonder why the Thunder also release a live polar bear into the middle of the court followed by black smoke making strange sounds.
OK. I made that last part up. But a game at the Ford Center is an event basketball fans should experience if you haven’t.
And you just never know what will happen when you go to an NBA basketball game. With the Pacers in town, I was able to sit less than 20 feet away from Larry Bird.
The same Larry Bird that finished as a 12-time All-Star, won MVP titles in 1984, 1985 and 1986 with Finals MVP awards in 1984 and 1986.
It doesn’t matter where Larry Bird goes, he is always a legend even in Oklahoma City, where a man in 2005 requested a prison term longer than the defense had agreed to because of Bird’s number. The plea agree-ment was set for a 30-year term but the man wanted 33, which was the number of Bird’s jersey.
He kind of is a big deal. And I made eye contact with him for a whole five seconds.
The thing that made Bird special is that he didn’t care about the numbers. (Somewhere Ryan Mallett is being asked again about another broken record and saying it isn’t about the numbers).
Bird just wanted to beat the opponent to a point he didn’t even care how he did it. He would shoot randomly left handed in games and trash talk with the best of them.
Rumor has it that he even sparked an interest in creating one of the first fantasy basketball leagues back in the day that revolved around just points, assists and rebounds. And because he filled stat sheets, he was the clear first pick and it was thus called the Larry Bird League.
I didn’t mistake the Ford Center for a historic basketball palace last Saturday when I viewed it outside. But it sure did feel like it on the inside that night.
Harold McIlvain II is an assis-tant sports editor for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every other Wednesday.
Deuces Wild
HAROLD MCILVAIN [email protected]
Former Hog running back Jones dazzling Dallas Cowboys, opponents down the stretch of season
ARLINGTON, Texas – The Cowboys are a serious NFC playoff contender because Fe-lix Jones is just now hitting his NFL stride.
The best three running backs on the field at Cowboys Stadium last Saturday night all wore a blue star on the side of their helmet.
Marion Barber, Jones and Tashard Choice are no longer something solely to be discussed on paper. Rather, they form a triumvirate that can’t seem to lose to the Philadelphia Eagles no matter how many times they line up and play.
Jones, the second-year speedster from Arkansas, turned his first NFL playoff ap-pearance into something special. He put himself in the team postseason record book with a 73-yard touchdown run to ice the game for a Cowboys team that hadn’t won a playoff game since Felix was 9 years old.
His 16 carries for 148 yards rushing ranks third-best in Cowboys postseason, single-game history, behind Tony Dorsett (160) and Emmitt Smith (150). Jones also turned a screen pass into a 30-yard gain.
“Give it to the offensive line for making a lot of big holes for the running backs,” Jones said afterward. “It’s a big deal for us (to win this game). It just happens to be
the postseason when the best comes out in me.”
He grinned at this last remark.This is really a humble guy.“Felix Jones is so smooth, so subtle, and
he can see the whole field,” said Calvin Hill, former Cowboys running back and the franchise’s first 1,000-yard rusher. “Plus, he’s a great kid.”
Tony Romo praised the ground game, as a whole, for “taking pressure off” the offense when it’s trying to take control of a game, as it did Saturday night.
The running game, however, is banged up a bit going into Round 2 at Minnesota.
Barber was held to three carries for 4 yards because of a bruised left knee that limited his practice Thursday.
After the game, fullback Deon Anderson limped through the locker room with an ice bag on his right knee.
Choice, who received a concussion on his first play a week ago, carried 14 times for 42 yards but left the game a bit woozy in the fourth quarter Saturday night. He said he was OK.
“As long as Felix can stay healthy, he’s going to have holes out there,” said Choice, “and when he gets a hole, he makes the most of it.”
The jumbo video board showed no one
catches Felix Jones in the open field. On his 73-yard run, he purposely let the safety get in front of him, then moved him one way and went another.
“It was what I saw in my vision,” Felix explained. “I saw green grass.”
It didn’t matter Saturday night if it was a second-quarter screen pass for 30 yards or a 73-yard run behind the block of 353-pound pulling guard Leonard Davis. The Eagles and Cowboys have traded places.
It used to be the green shirts that had just too many weapons on both sides of the ball.
Last Sunday, Jones carried 15 times for 91 yards, and the Cowboys won 24-0. He seems to be getting stronger as the season goes along.
“Unbelievable,” said right tackle Marc Colombo, describing the speedy Jones. “The way he hits the holes, and once he gets through the line of scrimmage, he’s the best in the NFL.”
With 3:54 left in the game, Felix gave 92,951 of his closest friends a smile and arms extended when he received a friendly pat on the head from Cowboys receivers coach Ray Sherman.
He played to the crowd.Better yet, he left the Eagles in his dust.
NFL
Ray BuckFort Worth-Star Telegram/MCT
RON JENKINS Fort Worth-Star Telegram/MCT
Cowboy running back Felix Jones helped Dallas win in the playoffs with a 34-14 win last weekend.
COMMENTERY
THE ARKANSAS TRAVELER | UATRAV.COMPage 14 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2010 SPORTS
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Undermanned Vols carry banner for SECconference, shock Kansas
No Tyler Smith, no problem for Tennessee.
Despite suiting up just six scholarship players, the Volunteers knocked then-No. 1 Kansas from the ranks of the unbeaten with a 76-68 win on Sunday.
Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl dismissed the preseason first-team all Southeastern Conference selec-tion two days prior to the Volun-teers’ clash with the Jayhawks. The move came after Smith and three other teammates were arrested for various misdemeanors – stem-ming from alcohol, weapons and marijuana possession – following a traffic stop.
“I don’t know whether we can sustain (the level of play) or not,” Pearl said. “I do know there’s no margin for error. We had a lot of guys play a lot of minutes and we’re really short-handed this week. There’s a lot of learning that’s got to be done.”
The ninth-ranked Volunteers’ bench was so short, three walk-ons played a combined 45 minutes against Kansas. Freshman walk-on Skylar McBee even hit a key 3-pointer with under a minute re-maining to help ice the game.
“The lesson here is when op-portunity knocks, are you going to be ready?” Pearl said. “We’ve had three or four kids who weren’t playing a lot for us…who are now put in a situation where a lot more is asked of them. When they were going through that period of not playing a lot, if they were pout-ing, if they weren’t staying ready, if their attitude got negative, if they thought about transferring or doing something else or quitting, they would have really been hurt-ing themselves. They would have missed this opportunity that’s now been presented to themselves.”
The other three arrested play-ers – junior guard Melvin Goins,
sophomore guard Cameron Tatum and junior center Brian Williams – will remain indefinitely suspended as Volunteers (12-2) open SEC ac-tion against Auburn on Thursday and Ole Miss on Saturday. The re-maining players will have to brace themselves for the rigors of con-ference play, Pearl said.
“When conference play starts the level of intensity gets ratcheted up another notch,” Pearl said. “For players that have experience and have been there and done that, they understand the difference in
basketball in January, February and March than December. We are still short-handed and we know that going up against Auburn and Ole Miss this week, we’ll have our hands full, especially as it relates to depth. The good thing is we’re at home right now.”
Wildcats still chasing perfec-tion
Armed with a stellar freshman class, first-year Kentucky coach John Calipari has wasted little time restoring college basketball’s all-time winningest program to the ranks of the elite.
The Wildcats (16-0) are one of the nation’s two remaining unde-feated squads and moved up a spot to No. 2 in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls – Kentucky’s highest ranking since the 2003-04 season.
Freshman phenom John Wall has continued to garner national acclaim for his play as the Wildcats have moved up the polls – ranking third in the conference in scoring, first in assists and second in steals. While Wall follows former Mem-phis and current NBA stars Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans as standout
guards who’ve played under Cali-pari, the three have all excelled in different situations.
“I love Tyreke (Evans), I love Derrick (Rose) and obviously I’m loving John (Wall),” Calipari said. “But they’re different. It’s differ-ent in that Derrick took over a veteran team and so he knew they had been through it. John Wall’s taking over a team that was in the NIT (last year), so there was more he had to and he’s doing whatever he has to do.
“There are games he scores more. There are games he passes more – he set the (single-game) assist record for our school. But again, he still has a ways to go. It’s all that experience stuff we don’t have that scares me more than anything else.”
While Wall has grabbed the headlines, Florida coach Billy Do-navan said junior forward Patrick Patterson’s improved shooting range has been a boost for the Wildcats.
“I think Patrick is one of the best low-post players there is in this league and there is in the country,” Donavan said. “I al-ways felt like in high school that he could step out and make mid-range jump shots, and (he) did some of that even last year. I think now John (Calipari) has probably given him some opportunities to step even further away and step some 3-pointers. He’s always been able to do a lot of the things he’s doing now, he’s just been given a little more of an opportunity to do it.”
East proving to be power di-vision in 2009-10
The SEC Eastern division is baring its teeth this season. The East features No. 2 and undefeat-ed Kentucky, a top-10 Tennessee squad fresh off a win over then No. 1 Kansas, and a solid Vander-bilt squad.
Those three teams are the only SEC squads ranked in the top 50 of ESPN Insider Joe Lunardi’s RPI. Nine of the conference’s 12 schools are ranked among the top 89 teams, with West schools LSU (No. 171), Auburn (201) and Arkansas (223) at the back of the pack.
Five of the teams in the East-ern division have at least 10 wins, while only half of the West has double-digit victories. Georgia is the East’s only school without at least 10 wins, but the Bulldogs have the conference’s highest strength of schedule, according to Lunardi.
The Western Division won 67 percent of its non-conference games, while Eastern division teams notched a 79 percent win-ning percentage.
Mississippi State (13-3) and Ole Miss (12-3) carry the banner for the Western division, ranking 54th and 61st, respectively.
The Bulldogs knocked off the then-No. 14 Rebels in Oxford in both teams’ conference openers.
Lunardi ranks the SEC as the fourth-toughest conference, be-hind the Big East, Big 12 and ACC, respectively.
“Congratulations to Tennes-see…what a terrific win for their program and the SEC,” Calipari said. “When you go around the SEC right now, you look at Mis-sissippi State going to Mississippi and winning.
“Mississippi is good, I mean you’re talking about a top-20 team. When you talk about Arkan-sas getting guys back and now all the sudden going nose to nose with Texas. We just played Georgia. My comment is simple; I don’t know if there’s a more improved team in the country.
“You just go right up-and-down the line, (there are) other teams that are really getting it done within the league. This is turning out to be the league we thought it would be.”
Jimmy CarterAssistant Sports Editor
SECNOTEBOOK
MARK CORNELISON Lexington Hearld-Leader/MCT
Freshman point guard John Wall ranks third in the SEC in scor-ing, first in assists and second in steals.
SEC NOTEBOOK
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