Today’s issue marks a first for The Flat Hat and the College. The Flat Hat has faithfully served its readers at the College for over 96 years, publishing the campus’s best news and opinions every week during the school year. Beginning today, The Flat Hat will print twice each week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and will be available at locations across campus by 5 p.m.

p. With two issues each week, we’ll be able to deliver more relevant and timely news. The College is often tarred as sleepy and boring, but our campus is filled with interesting people and dramatic events. Whether these stories are funny and personal like That Guy, or national debates over weighty topics like religion and tradition, like our continuing coverage of the Wren cross controversy, they all play an important role in making our community what it is, and they should be reflected in the pages of the paper.

p. By expanding to twice weekly, we hope to make these stories more accessible. The College and the nature of news is becoming more and more immediate. People expect news to be available 24 hours a day, and it is high time that The Flat Hat adapted. Of the 34 top tier U.S. News and World Report schools with more than 5,000 undergraduates, only three others have student newspapers that print weekly.

p. The students at the College are some of the smartest in the country, and they deserve the chance to read and help produce a top-flight student newspaper. Now we do.

p. All of your favorite features will remain in the paper. Tuesdays will showcase the “Sports Feature,” an in-depth look at Tribe athletics on the back page, and the “From the Sidelines” sports column. On Fridays, you can look forward to the Reviews section, “That Guy” and “That Girl,” Kate Prengaman’s “Behind Closed Doors,” horoscopes and the “Homefield Advantage” sports column. The News, Opinions, Variety and Sports sections and Sudoku, Street Beat, Police Beat, Under the Microscope and Confusion Corner columns will run in every issue.

p. In order to make twice-weekly printing cost effective, there will be fewer copies of each issue printed, and they will be distributed at fewer locations. The paper will no longer be delivered to individual dorms or most academic buildings, but there will still be plenty of copies in public areas such as the University Center, the Caf, the Rec Center, Swem Library and the Campus Center. For a full listing of the new delivery locations, see our advertisement on page 3.

p. The new printing schedule allows us to offer more positions and opportunities to interested students. Writers, photographers, artists, editors and business managers are always welcome at The Flat Hat, and interested students should e-mail editor@flathatnews.com to set up a meeting. Any reader with a tip or story idea for the paper should e-mail news@flathatnews.com. We look forward to continuing to serve our readers by producing a professional, high quality newspaper of which the College can be proud.

College professors nationwide have grown tired of their students’ mindless reliance on Wikipedia. More than ever, students are citing the online encyclopedia as their primary (and secondary and tertiary) source of misinformation. Last month, Middlebury College’s history department decided to ban students from citing Wikipedia in academic work. Professors nationwide have followed suit.

p. I visited the wiki-misinformation superhighway, searching “Wikipedia.” Wikipedia is a branch of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Thousands of members continually edit the site, with changes “made available immediately on the Web, without formal peer review … Wikipedia allows almost anyone to edit.” Since it doesn’t require one’s identity, it continues to be a target of “vandalism.” One of the co-founders noted, “When someone writes ‘fuck, fuck, fuck,’ we fix it, laugh, [and] move on.”

p. Students, however, find Wikipedia as a great shortcut to reading, researching and studying. Many use it as a second source, when Sparknotes isn’t enough. Most students frequent Wikipedia for information, but have sense enough to take their findings with a grain of salt. Most professors seem to have no problem with students using Wikipedia as a starting point in whatever research they are involved in, but don’t accept it as a source “in itself.”

p. A college education demands more than two clicks of a mouse. There must be a reason why teachers require their students to actually engage in dense readings and extensive research projects — no, it’s not because they’re maniacal luddites, or sadists who take pleasure in their student’s squalors; some believe that an old-school approach to research yields a fruition of knowledge not retainable otherwise. Since most students aren’t used to reading for more than two minutes at a given time, they find themselves losing focus, losing interest and losing consciousness altogether.

p. Traditional approaches to research demand time and attention, neither of which we have in this day and age. So, Wikipedia is both the starting and finishing point for many. This may arise from a general lack of experience with extensive research reading. Wikipedia is an image of our age, where we are our persons of the year, our source of entertainment on the web, our official editors-in-chief and educators of the masses.

p. With this comes the problem of accountability. Since there’s no one to blame, no harm has been made and no damage done. Ex-co-founder Larry Sanger argues that there is a lack of respect for people who know what they’re talking about: “Nearly everyone with much expertise but little patience will avoid editing Wikipedia, because they will be forced to defend their edits on article discussion pages against attacks by nonexperts.” Other criticisms include a bias of interests. People are writing what they want to read and not what’s expected in an encyclopedia.

p. In response to Sanger, an anonymous blogger asked, “How about you damn elites, you crème de la academia, stop being such snobs? I want to learn, yes, but I don’t want to listen to your highly decorated speech patterns. I want to get to point A to point B without taking a detour into bookworm-land. Make it fun, make it exciting, and stop jerking your intellectual sperm all over what otherwise could have been a fine article for those ignorant of your field to begin with.”

p. We all know that any idiot can erroneously contribute to Wikipedia. Maybe we should consider this the next time we’re studying for an exam. Use it as a source, and you’ll spend the entire night trying to verify it.

__Sherif Abdelkarim, a sophomore at the College, is a Staff Columnist. His columns appear every Tuesday.__

Over the past few months, there have been numerous and varied reactions to President Gene Nichol’s decision to alter the display times of the Wren cross. The most vocal reactions, unsurprisingly, have come from those who have felt offense, disappointment and outrage over this action, and most who have objected to the President’s decision seem to have done so for religious reasons. My reaction to the Wren cross situation comes from a similar place.

p. It is partly because of my religious upbringing and background that I do not object to Nichol’s decision. I was raised and confirmed as a Roman Catholic, a religion which uses the crucifix, a cross depicting the actual body of Jesus. We pray to the cross, our priest enters the church behind a cross, an enormous cross hangs behind our altar and most traditional Catholic churches are actually shaped like crosses.

p. When Catholics make the sign of the cross (a ritual hand motion tracing the cross on one’s body), we recite, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” articulating the significance of our movements. There has never been a doubt in my mind what the cross symbolizes for Catholics — a constant, and quite literal, reminder of faith.

p. I have now started attending a non-denominational evangelistic (not to be confused with evangelical) church. Over the course of our four-hour services, there is rarely ever a mention of the cross, and I have not noticed a cross hanging in the church building. The use of a cross is just one of the many distinct differences between these two denominations of Christianity, and yet, their foundational beliefs are still the same.

p. Essentially, I see no hindrance of faith caused by Nichol’s decision. My religious beliefs have always been extremely personal, and have not changed with the scenery, symbolism or rhetoric of my church experiences. I do not see how changing the Wren cross’s presence from “permanent” to “every Sunday, and whenever it is requested” stands in the way of Christian worship. I can understand how the presence of a permanent cross could offend non-Christians; what I do not understand is the lack of a permanent cross’s ability to offend. The presence of a physical cross may add to one’s religious experience, but its absence should have no bearing on one’s capacity for prayer, meditation or contemplation.

p. It is clear that when President Nichol made his original decision, he had no idea that the outrage would be so great. I believe that he made his decision based on comments he’d received from students and chose to alter the display times of the cross accordingly. While I certainly understand and agree with the point many have made asserting that our president should not unilaterally make controversial decisions (and while I clearly do not speak for Nichol), I contend that he did not foresee the controversy that would arise.

p. It is ridiculous to assume that Nichol would make the decision he did knowing that people would react with such fervor. The fact that his decision has turned into a controversy does not indicate a secret agenda, nor a lack of desire to consult with others on difficult issues. It is my opinion that Nichol has been criticized too harshly for this “unilateral decision” when he makes countless others on a daily basis — it is the job he was hired by this College to perform.

p. At this point it is clear that no matter what consensus is reached there will be disappointed individuals, since many personal opinions and beliefs are involved. Perhaps, then, we should take a look at what facts we have available to us. Professor Holmes from the College’s religious studies department has shown that not permanently displaying the cross does not offend history — the Wren Chapel never even had a cross until the 1930s.

p. At last week’s Board of Visitors’ meeting, College alumnus and leader of OurCampusUnited.org, Brian Cannon (‘04) revealed the extent to which outsiders have jumped onto this issue: a whopping 70 percent of the signatures from the “Save the Wren Cross” petition are from individuals with no affiliation to the College. James Ambrose, the student liason to the BOV, added that, from his conversations on campus, most students seem to think that the Wren cross is not a significant issue, and generally approve of Nichol’s performance over the past year.

p. It seems to me that the voice of protest against Nichol’s decision has been dominated by outside parties and political operatives. While I respect the dissenting opinion, I would much rather hear from those affiliated with the College who disagree with Nichol’s decision, not outsiders taking on the cause themselves for political gain. In fact, I would love to see a civilized discussion about this issue among students, an important population whose views on the matter (on both sides) have not been taken enough into consideration.

__Devan Barber, a junior at the College, is a Staff Columnist. Her columns appear every Tuesday.__

A love of the College didn’t prompt me to attend President Gene Nichol’s lobbying trip, Road to Richmond. Don’t get me wrong, I love the College, but I got up at 5 a.m. for selfish reasons: I like wearing a suit.

p. There is a certain nobility endowed on business majors, government majors and frat brothers — ties are a must. Those lucky bastards have an excuse to dress fancy all of the time. “You see, I’m meeting U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annon today, so I thought it would be a good idea to look presentable,” a government major once explained to me when I asked him about his dapper duds.

p. With these vêtements comes respectability and the promise of future wealth. If clothes make a man, then my closet full of t-shirts, jeans and thrift store sweaters bespeak a humdrum adulthood followed by an equally salubrious old age and death.
As I stepped onto the bus that morning, wearing a suit that fit my father back when people still read the newspaper, I suddenly felt seven degrees more serious. Like a chameleon, I had taken on the skin of my environment.

p. Tightening my face and pursing my lips, I sat down in silence and prayed that I would manage to fit in with all of these serious people. I reclined, afraid that my utter lack of knowledge regarding the inner workings of Virginia’s legislature would betray me.

p. “I want to thank all of you for coming,” Nichol began several hours later as breakfast was served. “Gosh, Gene Nichol is such a powerful speaker,” someone eating with me said. “He sure is,” I responded between heaping mouthfuls of egg casserole.

p. I took a break from my plate to give Nichol a decent glance and was astonished by what I saw. “Oh my god, Gene Nichol lost so much weight,” I said to the people around me. I noticed folds in his suit that had developed in absence of his once generous girth. The chest, the sleeves, everything about his suit screamed of deprivation.

p. To everyone else, Nichol was still the same ebullient, progressively minded president he had been before. To me, he was a changed man. His immense size, at one time more intimidating than a polar bear, was now less daunting than a house cat. Nichol continued speaking, but I was not listening. His “Hark upon the Gale,” though heartfelt, lacked a certain schmaltz.

p. While everyone else at the College argues about Nichol’s removal of the Wren cross, I’ll be taking up my own issue. Nichol better gain some weight. If that means adding another meal, then so be it. If Nichol has to help himself to three servings of cake a day, fine by me. Who knows, perhaps he’ll have to cut down on exercise a bit. Instead of walking across the Wren courtyard to his office in Brafferton, I suggest he invest in a golf cart. And would it hurt anyone if he kept a few candy bars in the pockets of his suit at all times?

p. I cannot stand the thought of a dimished Nichol. He deserves a size equal to his eloquence. As much as I wish we could all get by on personality alone, that doesn’t cut it. While the craziness of my personality quickly betrayed my attire’s respectability that day, it’s not my suit’s fault. I’d chosen an appearance that didn’t match the person inside me. A rodeo clown outfit probably would have been a more appropriate fit.

p. But Nichol is different. He is the certifiable real thing. A larger-than-life figure who stands up for ideals and says things too intelligent for me to comprehend. How can his size be anything but grand?

p. Nichol finished speaking and everyone began to clap. “What a brilliant man,” someone said amidst the roar of the applause. As he stepped down from the podium, I watched him walk towards the table where plates of eggs, danishes, and bagels waited to be eaten. “You can do it, Gene Nichol,” I whispered to myself. Hoping, praying, that everything would work out.

__James Damon, a sophomore at the College, is a Staff Columnist. His columns appear every Tuesday.__