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Dear Campus Community

I am deeply saddened to report the untimely death of Stirling Danskin, a sophomore majoring in music and sound recording at the University, has died.  His body was discovered across Boston Post Road several blocks away from the University of New Haven main campus earlier today.  The cause of death is not known at this time but there are no signs of foul play. This incident is still under investigation by the West Haven Police Department.

For students wishing to talk with a counselor on campus, the Office of Counseling Services, located in the lower level of Sheffield Hall, will be open with walk-in hours until 10 p.m. today and from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. tomorrow. No appointment is necessary. In addition, the University has arranged for grief counseling to be available around the clock through Empathia Counseling Services, which can be reached at 866-713-1978.   Chaplain Martin O’Connor also will be available to meet with students until midnight tonight in his office, located in South Campus Hall, room 205. Chaplain O’Connor can also be reached at 203-641-0538.

The Dean of Students Office will provide information regarding services for Stirling once they have been planned. Please keep Stirling’s family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.
Sincerely,

Steven H. Kaplan
President

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We’re going green this week! But don’t worry, all articles can be found online — as they can every week!

For the February 24, 2010 issue, click here!

Dear UNH Students:

A number of students, as well as parents, have contacted the University expressing their concerns regarding the recent letter that outlined changes in the housing process for fall 2010.  The letter was sent to inform students that the University has modified its housing selection process for the coming year so that a larger percentage of upperclass students will be living in University housing off campus than in prior years.

I take the concerns being expressed by our students and their parents very seriously and am saddened that the letter that went out has caused so much anguish and confusion.  I deeply apologize for the late notification students received regarding housing for the coming academic year as a result of our ongoing efforts to finalize negotiations for additional student housing options.  I also regret that we did not hold on-campus discussions with students in the fall about this topic.

I have been personally involved during my time at UNH in our efforts to expand our housing options, both on and off campus. In the case of the apartments at Wintergreen of Westville, for example, we have obtained special rates and seen to it that there will be ample furnished units available for our students. For our students who live off campus in University-leased housing, we have invested and will continue to invest significant funding in transportation and safety for all of our students.

I hope the information below will help better clarify the changes and help diminish some of the anxiety that a number of individuals are experiencing.  Moreover, in response to the parents and students who have contacted me and others on campus, my staff and I have examined every option possible to provide additional housing on the Main Campus and we have found some creative solutions.  As a result, this coming year we will be able to offer sophomores, juniors and seniors an equal mix of the 402 spaces in Soundview Residence Hall.  In addition, we are expanding the opportunities for upperclass students to live in University housing off campus.

I need to reiterate, however, that I fully support and stand behind the idea that students in the early stages of their studies at UNH should be housed on campus.  This position is consistent with our long-range plan to nurture their academic and social well-being as they begin their college careers.

What follows are answers to the most frequently asked questions regarding the changes being made in the housing selection process:

Why has UNH grown so rapidly in recent years?

During the past six years, UNH has experienced significant student enrollment growth as part of its strategic plan.  As a comprehensive university, UNH needed to reach its present size in order to offer its students a full range of academic programs and services.  Frankly, the model in place six years ago of running the University with four complex and costly colleges with more than 2,000 undergraduates was not sustainable.  The alternative to pursuing a growth strategy would most likely have been to close a significant number of undersubscribed programs in which many of our students are enrolled today.

With this growth, UNH has been able to enhance the vibrancy of student life on campus, add new academic programs, hire additional faculty, substantially expand our need- and merit-based financial aid programs, and make significant physical campus improvements (e.g., Soundview Residence Hall, the Beckerman Center, Bartels Hall expansion, C-Store, etc.).

As a result of UNH’s increasing popularity and success at meeting our strategic goals, we are now working to reduce first-year class sizes beginning with next year’s incoming students.  This effort will help stabilize the demand for University housing in the future.  I cannot emphasize strongly enough how vital the enrollment growth in recent years has been in dramatically improving the University and thus the value of your UNH degree.  Without this growth, UNH would have stagnated and thus declined significantly with time.  Not growing was thus not an option.

Where will rising juniors and seniors be able to live?

Our goal for next year is to offer sophomores, juniors and seniors an equal mix of housing in Soundview Hall.  The Soundview room selection process will be held in late February/early March, in several phases.  Once the Soundview selection process has been completed, current juniors who did not receive a placement in Soundview Hall will have the option of living in University-leased housing off campus (Forest Hills, Savin Court and the Regency) next year depending upon availability. If there are any on-campus apartments available after current sophomores choose housing, the current juniors will be the next to select those apartments, based on availability, in addition to the off-campus apartments. The University also is negotiating to lease a new 14-unit condominium complex located close to the UNH campus, and additional apartments at the Regency.  At the conclusion of room selection, and based on availability, current juniors will then be allowed to choose any apartments not selected during room selection. These apartments most likely will be the University-leased apartments off campus.  The University also has finalized a lease option with the Wintergreen apartments in Westville.

Who will live in Wintergreen apartments?

UNH students also may choose to take advantage of a new lease option the University has negotiated with the Wintergreen apartments located approximately three miles from campus. Although each student’s lease agreement is directly with the apartment complex, UNH provides a free shuttle, and the lease rate for Wintergreen is less than University housing. The Wintergreen apartments are a gated community with private security, a gym and community game room. The apartments are furnished and include all utilities, cable, internet, central a/c, and a washer and dryer. Students living at Wintergreen can receive a free commuter parking sticker and UPass. To learn more about the Wintergreen apartments, visit www.wintergreenofwestville.com.

Will living in the Wintergreen apartments affect my student financial aid?

Living in the Wintergreen apartments will not negatively affect a student’s financial aid. A student’s financial aid, however, will still be based on their family’s demonstrated need as determined by their 2010-11 FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and the student meeting all necessary requirements. If you have questions regarding UNH’s financial aid policies, please e-mail financialaid@newhaven.edu.

When will students know where they will be living next year?

Students will know their housing assignments as the housing selection process unfolds in several phases between late February and mid-April. As noted above, the Soundview selection process will take place first. We anticipate that we will be able to offer rooms to the majority of upperclass students who want housing on campus and in the off-campus University-leased apartments (Forest Hills, Savin Court and the Regency).  To be eligible for the room selection process, the $250 non-refundable room selection participation fee must be received by the Bursar’s Office no later than February 5, 2010.  This fee will be refunded should we not be able to offer you a bed in University housing.

Are students guaranteed housing for all four years?

Although UNH does not guarantee students housing for all four years, we will be able to accommodate many seniors and are offering additional help locating off-campus housing to students.  This policy is clearly stated in the housing agreement that all students sign.  It also is available online at www.newhaven.edu/student-life/CampusLife_StudentAffairs/residential_life/10624/. If you were a freshman this year and the University received your paperwork by May 1, 2009, UNH did guarantee you a space in University housing for your freshman year only.

If you have any other specific questions regarding the new process, please e-mail 2010Housing@newhaven.edu and a member of the Residential Life staff will address them.  In addition, a housing forum will be held on January 25 at 4 p.m. in Dodds Theatre to answer any questions you may have.

Growth and change are important for any institution to remain competitive.  The University is doing its best to implement the new housing process while taking into consideration as much as possible the needs and expectations of all of our students.  I ask for your understanding, patience and cooperation in making this transition successful.

Sincerely,

Steven H. Kaplan

President

Dear Readers,

The Charger Bulletin will not be publishing print copies during the undergraduate winter break at UNH, however will continue to publish online!

If you have news that you would like to submit to the site throughout the break, please email us!

Our next print issue will be on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.

From all of us at The Charger Bulletin, we wish you and yours a very happy holiday season!

Sincerely,

Zack Rosen
Editor-in-Chief
The Charger Bulletin

Next Thursday is the holiday of holidays when it comes to stuffing ourselves with good food and spending time with families. Every year we sit together at the dinner table, but do we ever really put any thought into who sat at that first Thanksgiving table? What did they eat? Where did some of our other Thanksgiving traditions come from?

Take a trip back in time to 1621 when the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians shared what is today known as the first Thanksgiving feast. This feast was actually part of a long tradition of celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops. Native American had organized harvest festivals, ceremonial dances, and other celebrations of thanks for centuries before European actually arrived in North America.

Some people believe that after the first Thanksgiving took place, it was repeated every year after that. However, it was not the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the original Thanksgiving took place sometime between September 21th and November 11th and was three days long. The celebration was not even referred to as a day of Thanksgiving because a thanksgiving was a religious holiday for the pilgrims. It would have been a day to go to church and to thank God for a specific event. If it had been a religious day, there would not have been any singing, dancing, and game playing because that would never have been allowed. Because it was such a secular celebration, it was most likely not thought of as a “thanksgiving.” President Abraham Lincoln was the president who declared the final Thursday in November as an official national holiday in 1941.

Historians aren’t really sure as to what the pilgrims actually ate. It is safe to say that there was no pumpkin pie or mash potatoes available. Historians are sure, however, that the pilgrims had venison and wild fowl. Today, our Thanksgiving dinners are centered on the turkey. The pilgrims’ meal often included many different meats and often, depending on the type of year, many vegetables were not available to the colonists. The pilgrims probably did not have any pies (or anything sweet for that matter) because there was only a small amount of sugar brought on the Mayflower and supplies quickly dwindled. Plus with no ovens, pies, cakes, and breads were not possible at all. In fact, the food that was eaten at the first feast was probably healthier for the pilgrims at that time than it would be for people now. Being more active, they needed more protein. Surprisingly, foods that are now considered part of a modern Thanksgiving meal, such as sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, and cranberry sauce, did not appear on the table.

LOS ANGELES – The lunar dud for space enthusiasts has become a watershed event for NASA.

Spacecraft that crashed into the moon last month kicked up a relatively small plume. But scientists have confirmed the debris contained water — 25 gallons of it — making lunar exploration exciting again.

Experts have long suspected there was water on the moon. So the thrilling discovery announced Friday sent a ripple of hope for a future astronaut outpost in a place that has always seemed barren and inhospitable.

“We found water. And we didn’t find just a little bit. We found a significant amount,” Anthony Colaprete, lead scientist for the mission, told reporters as he held up a white water bucket for emphasis.

He said the 25 gallons of water the lunar crash kicked up was only what scientists could see from the plumes of the impact.

Some space policy experts say that makes the moon attractive for exploration again. Having an abundance of water would make it easier to set up a base camp for astronauts, supplying drinking water and a key ingredient for rocket fuel.

“Having definitive evidence that there is substantial water is a significant step forward in making the moon an interesting place to go,” said George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon.

The October mission involved two strikes into a permanently shadowed crater near the south pole. First, an empty rocket hull slammed into the Cabeus crater. Then, a trailing spacecraft recorded the drama live before it also crashed into the same spot four minutes later.

Though scientists were overjoyed with the plethora of data beamed back to Earth, the mission was a public relations dud. Space enthusiasts who stayed up all night to watch the spectacle did not see the promised giant plume of debris.

NASA scientists had predicted the twin impacts would spew six miles of dust into the sunlight. Instead, images revealed only a mile-high plume, and it was not visible to many amateur astronomers peering through telescopes.

Members of the blue-ribbon panel reviewing NASA’s future plans said the discovery doesn’t change their conclusion that the program needs more money to get beyond near-Earth orbit. The panel wants NASA to look at other potential destinations like asteroids and Mars.

“This new and terrific result reassures us about lunar resources, but … the challenges currently facing the human spaceflight program remain,” Chris Chyba, a Princeton astrophysicist who is on the panel, said in an e-mail.

President George W. Bush had proposed a more than $100 billion plan to return astronauts to the moon, then go on to Mars; a test flight of an early version of a new rocket was a success last month. President Barack Obama appointed the special panel to look at the entire moon exploration program. The decision is now up to the White House, and NASA’s lunar plans are somewhat on hold until then.

As for unmanned exploration, previous missions had detected the presence of hydrogen in lunar craters near the moon’s poles, possible evidence of ice. In September, scientists reported finding tiny amounts of water in the lunar soil all over the moon’s surface.

But it was NASA’s Oct. 9 mission involving the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, LCROSS, that provided the stunning confirmation announced Friday — water, in the forms of ice and vapor.

“Rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could in fact be a very dynamic and interesting one,” said Greg Delory of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the mission, led by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.

The LCROSS spacecraft only hit one spot on the moon and it’s unclear how much water there is across the entire moon.

Scientists spent a month analyzing data from the spacecraft’s spectrometers, instruments that can detect strong signals of water molecules in the plume.

“We’ve had hints that there is water. This was almost like tasting it,” said Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator on the LCROSS mission.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who in 1969 made his historic Apollo 11 moonwalk with Neil Armstrong, was pleased to hear the latest discovery, but still believes the U.S. should focus on colonizing Mars.

“People will overreact to this news and say, `Let’s have a water rush to the moon,’” Aldrin said. “It doesn’t justify that.”

Mission scientists said it would take more time to tease out what else was kicked up in the moon dust.