Spinnaker [Distributed: Wednesday, November 8, 2006]

When it comes to offering foreign languages that will better prepare students to assist the United States in its economic future, Florida universities are behind the line, Florida University Chancellor Mark Rosenberg told the Palm Beach Post.

Rosenberg claimed Florida universities are not doing their jobs teaching students about cultural and ethical challenges involved with international affairs. He suggests colleges offer languages like Chinese and Arabic to better assist them in communicating more effectively in the business world.

While Rosenberg is correct in recognizing that learning Chinese is important because of the amount of trade done with the United States and that Arabic is important because of the conflicts in the Middle East, he fails to admit that teaching these languages may not be best for the universities or students.

If at any time the United States ceases to conduct business with China or associate with the Middle East, competence in the languages will no longer be a cultural fad and will therefore hold less urgency in students' minds. Once these fads fade away, all that will be left is professors with empty classrooms.

For example, during The Cold War universities sought to offer strong Russian programs, said Jorge Febles, the chair of the Department of World Languages.

But once the war passed, colleges dropped the programs and Russian majors became minors. Years later, Russian courses are still offered, but like at UNF, it has not generated student interest to justify hiring additional faculty to make it a minor.

Students in the United States just aren't interested in spending their college years intensely studying languages. They want a quick fix. In fact, general education at UNF only requires eight to 10 hours of study in a foreign language. Other majors don't require a foreign language at all, and many students only take courses that are required to obtain their degrees. Because there is not a high demand from students to obtain majors and minors in certain foreign languages, the university does not see the need to offer them.

The small bit of language required will serve in better understanding history and literature, according Timothy Robinson, director of the International Center. But that's about it.

In Europe, it's considered the norm to be fluent in two or more languages. But Florida university students are going to school in a much more homogenized environment, so when they are fluent in a second language, it's considered impressive rather than the norm.

When students start applying pressure to administration and express a serious desire to learn less traditional languages, administration might start treating the idea seriously.

Febles' primary concern is for UNF to offer classes that students will attend for more than one semester, so students will thoroughly learn the languages, and funding will be well spent. If students invest time and discover an importance in learning foreign languages, the university might respond with solutions. But until then, obtaining a French or Spanish minor is about as far as students can go.

Although a lot of changes in university curriculum comes down to money, administration won't fork it over until they see it will be spent effectively.

Green construction makes better campus

Editorial

Anyone who spends even an hour at the University of North Florida can observe one common phenomenon: crowding.

Anyone who spends a month or two immersed in the UNF environment can observe the result: expansion.

And anyone who cares to pay close attention to the expansion can pleasantly observe a trend among the campus's newest buildings and proposals: green construction methods.

The university dedicated the new Social Sciences building last month and made Jacksonville history. It is the city's first facility registered by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Wall-to-wall windows fill the rooms with natural light, water-based, hypoallergenic paint coats the walls and non-toxic glue holds down the carpets. The building, though somewhat sterile, is energy efficient, with lots of open space for air circulation.

The LEED rating should help the building gain certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the construction of low-impact buildings.

Last week, Student Government unveiled the plans for the proposed Student Union building, which will also be built using LEED guidelines.

Green building is a welcome compromise in this developer-friendly community. As can be seen with the destructive disarray of sprawl across South Florida, there is really no stopping building and development, there is only careful urban planning and taking environmental precautions. UNF's situation on a nature reserve makes it even more essential that environmental awareness is kept in the forefront.

Universities are an important place for setting precedents. They are the world's source for educated people. The Building Construction Management program in the College of Computing, Engineering and Construction even offers a track called Green Construction/ Sustainablity, where students can learn how to dedicate their professional life to these techniques.

But through university efforts like including requirements for green space and energy efficiency into UNF's master plan, all students are exposed to the possibilities of environmentally friendly expansion, which they can in turn pass on to others once they hit the real world.

More than that, these buildings prove that with a little extra effort it is possible for commerce and nature to find some kind of harmony.

Science proves celebrities' bad influence

Student Opinion

Celebrities are the latest obsession. But is this obsession a good one?

Everyone talks about how movie stars are role models for 'normal' people. Studies show that too much exposure to celebrities can have a negative effect on men and women of all ages, but I'll focus on something a little closer to home.

Have you ever been watching TV and someone like Eva Longoria or Mark Wahlberg flashes on the screen and all you can think is "She/he has the perfect body. I wish I looked like that"?

Well, you are not alone. Both college women's and men's perceptions of their body image are affected by repeated exposure to celebrities, and there have been numerous studies documenting these effects.

According to a study by Johnson and Connors, "The Etiology and Treatment of Bulimia Nervosa," 5 to 20 percent of college women have some type of eating disorder. What many people are not aware of is that many of these cases are due to the women idolizing celebrities and then feeling self-conscious about their own body image.

The Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology published an article by Renee Engeln-Maddox documenting her findings from her experiment, "Cognitive Responses to Idealized Media Images of Women: The Relationship of Social Comparison and Critical Processing to Body Image Disturbance in College Women." Maddox recruited 202 women from a university to view advertisements featuring headshots or full body shots of models.

After viewing the ads, the participants filled out questionnaires asking them to list the first 10 thoughts that came to mind, and if they had any thoughts about themselves while looking at the ads, one of which showed a woman in a swimsuit. After viewing this particular ad, 78 percent of the participants had negative feelings towards their own body image.

College guys are equally affected by images of attractive and muscular models as women are. In "Exposure to Muscular Male Models Decreases Men's Body Satisfaction," an article by Lorenzen, Grieve and Thomas published in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 104 college men were recruited and exposed to images of either muscular or average-looking men.

The participants' body satisfaction was measured before and after viewing the images. The participants who viewed the average-looking models showed no significant decrease in body satisfaction. Those who viewed the muscular men commented on dissatisfaction with their own abs, biceps and shoulders.

Celebrities can clearly affect how college men and women view themselves. Admiring and idolizing the "perfect" celebrity body can cause a person to have unhealthy feelings and take unhealthy and dangerous actions, such as developing an eating disorder. But this can be avoided.

The media is hard to avoid these days; it is everywhere. Take up a hobby. Start reading, and not those gossip magazines. Try a novel, and who knows, you might find a particular author whose writing you like so much you start collecting all of his or her books. Exercise, even if you are in perfect health. It is a good way to stay in shape, you feel energized afterwards and it can help you feel good about yourself.

Most of all, be happy with who you are. The average model has a figure that is almost impossible to attain. It is an unhealthy standard. You do not need to look like that.

Talk to your friends, family, whatever it takes to make you realize you are fine the way you are.

Not all environmentalists are humanitarians

It seems we are all environmentalists now. I know I am.

As a liberal European journalist my heart has always automatically sympathized with the small community groups and environmentalists who were campaigning against governments or large corporations that were "destroying the environment" in remote locations.

But then I was lucky enough to have to go and live in one of those remote locations and found the story being spun by environmentalists was often wrong, distorted by looking at the world through the lens of an ideology that would condemn millions to grinding poverty.

I am still an environmentalist, but it looks like many in the environmental movement have gone down a road I cannot follow.

My admiration for environmentalists started to decline when I was posted to Romania as a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times newspaper. There I covered a campaign led by Western environmentalists against a proposed mine at Rosia Montana in the Transylvania region of the country.

It was the usual story. The environmentalists told how Gabriel Resources, a Canadian mining company, was going to pollute the environment and forcibly resettle locals before destroying a pristine wilderness.

But when I went to see the village for myself I found that almost everything the campaigners were saying about the project was misleading, exaggerated or quite simply false.

Rosia Montana was already a heavily polluted village because of the 2,000 years of uncontrolled mining in the area. The new mining company actually planned to use modern methods to clean up the existing mess.

Opposing the new mine would be like opposing a Canadian company from taking over and reopening a rusting factory in a decaying U.S. city. Local people in many U.S. cities would welcome the clean-up, and new technology and jobs the investment would bring. And it is no different in this impoverished and highly polluted part of Romania.

But the environmentalists never pointed this out. They lied about support for the project and pretended there was widespread local opposition. The environmentalists also gathered huge media coverage because of the planned forced resettlement.

But this was simply a bare-faced lie.

The locals, rather than being forcibly resettled as the environmentalists claimed, were queuing up to sell their decrepit houses to the company, which was paying well over the market rate.

It was surprising that environmentalists would lie, but the most shocking part was yet to come. As I spoke to the Western environmentalists it quickly emerged that they wanted to stop the mine because they felt development and prosperity will ruin the rural "idyllic" lifestyle of these happy peasants.

This "lifestyle'' includes 70 percent unemployment and two-thirds of the people having no running water. One environmentalist (foreign, of course) tried to convince me that villagers actually preferred a horse and cart to driving a car.

Of course the Rosia Montana villagers want a modern life. They want good schools and medical care that the large investment would bring. And maybe an indoor bathroom as well.

I have come across a lot of tragedies and hard-luck stories as a journalist, but I had never covered a situation where the solution to poverty is being opposed by educated Westerners who think that people really are "poor but happy."

I had always viewed foreigners who go to the developing world and tell locals how they should live and work, as colonialists. As such they should be opposed at every juncture. But now environmentalists are doing the very same, and we in the West are blindly supporting them as they campaign to keep people in poverty.

It is sad that my fellow left-wingers and environmentalists who often come from the most developed countries are now so opposed to development. However, it is tragic that the real losers in this backlash are some of the poorest people on the planet.

No matter what results, 2006 election will change little

Whether the Democrats take control of one or both houses of Congress this November, or even if they don't, little will happen in Washington to solve most of the nation's critical domestic problems.

That's because no matter what happens come Election Day, there will be fewer consensuses and more partisanship, if that is possible, in the coming Congress than in the two years since President George W. Bush's re-election.

One exception might be immigration legislation. That is the issue on which the president and Democrats in the House of Representatives generally agree. Yet, the ability of a Senate minority, regardless of which party is in control, to block legislation could circumvent action there also.

Regardless of whether anything gets done legislatively, a sure bet is that if the Democrats do take control of either chamber they will use their majority to embarrass the Bush administration.

Majority status comes with the power to issue subpoenas. If in control, Democrats will hold high-profile hearings that will embarrass the president and his party, providing great television and even further sharpening the ideological divide.

The current GOP congressional majority hasn't been able to come up with enough votes to manage solutions to immigration, health insurance, or extension of the tax cuts that President Bush and most Republicans favor.

No matter what happens at the polls this November, President Bush will remain in the White House to veto legislation that might come out of Congress should the Democrats take control. The Senate rules that allowed the Democratic minority to frustrate GOP initiatives for the last two years would mean the GOP would certainly return the favor if they lose their majority.

And even if the Republicans retain power, their margin will surely be smaller than the past two years, when little was accomplished, and in that case the Democrats will be even better equipped to stop the GOP from enacting its priorities.

Of course, stronger public criticism of the president's policies and public hearings into his decision to go to war could exert significant political pressure that will shape almost everything that happens in Washington.

Despite the public view expressed in polls that a Democratic Congress can bring the troops home from Iraq, the chances it would end funding for the war seem slim and none. Republicans would no doubt portray such action as cutting off support for the troops, which would be a major political problem for the Democratic nominee in 2008.

And, of course, all this would be taking place during what can reasonably be expected to be a very nasty presidential campaign that has already begun, but will take center stage roughly 30 seconds after this November's election is in the books.

That doesn't mean the next two years will be dull in D.C. Actually, the discussions will probably be more substantive than the last two years.

Democratic gains, even if they don't take control of either the House of Representatives or the Senate, will mean serious debate about the parties' sharp ideological differences. If they do take control, look for serious ideological warfare.

To be sure, Bush won't get the extension of his tax cuts he wants. But it is unlikely Democrats can raise the levies either, since Bush would almost certainly veto them, and give the GOP presidential nominee a valuable issue for 2008.

All of which means expect lots of sound and fury, but little real action from Congress no matter what happens Tuesday.

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DISCOURSE

Students must push for language classes

Editorial

Green construction makes better campus

Editorial

Science proves celebrities' bad influence

Student Opinion

Not all environmentalists are humanitarians

No matter what results, 2006 election will change little

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