College of William and Mary Students and faculty traveled to Guiyang, China to participate in the ninth International Conference on Mercury as a Global Pollutant, the conference is part of a Global Inquiry Groups-sponsored exchange in China.

Global Inquiry Groups, or GIGS, joins students and faculty in explorations of topics with international significance. They are co-sponsored by the Wendy and Emory Reves Center and the Roy R. Charles Center at the College.

Participants shared their research on the South River in Virginia with conference attendees and scientists at Central China Normal University and Guizhou Normal University.

“The goal of the project is to create new ways of thinking and communicating global issues across borders, international and academic,” Sharon Zuber, co-director of GIGS, said.

College of William and Mary law professor Paul Marcus and marine science professor Mark Patterson are among 12 Virginia educators to receive the Commonwealth’s Outstanding Faculty Award. The award recognizes professors who have demonstrated excellence in teaching, research and public service. Since the award’s inception in 1987, 35 professors from the College have received the honor — more than any other university in the state.

“William and Mary has a powerful tradition of being home to Outstanding Faculty Award winners,” College President Taylor Reveley said. “This is because our faculty is compellingly good, as Paul and Mark make so clear. We are very proud of both of them.”

This year’s honorees will receive their awards during a luncheon ceremony Feb. 18.

Tuesday, Jan. 19 — An individual reported larceny at 300 Ukrop Way. The estimated value was $8700.

— An individual reported vandalism at 300 Richmond Rd. The estimated value was $15.

— An individual reported vandalism in Lodge 16. The estimated damage was $200.

Wednesday, Jan. 20 — An individual reported larceny at 201 Ukrop Way. The estimated loss was $200.

— An individual reported fraud crimes at 201 Ukrop Way. The estimated value was $1300.

— An individual was arrested and charged for alleged possession of alcohol by a minor at 204 Gooch Dr.

Thursday, Jan. 21 — An individual reported larceny at 201 Ukrop Way. The estimated damage was $305.

Sunday, Jan. 24 — An individual reported vandalism in Dupont. The estimated loss was $200.

Harvard University researchers have published a new study in the journal Nature that suggests runners who run barefoot put less stress on the body than runners who wear regular footwear. Running without any footwear encourages the use of a different set of muscles and creates a different gait, which works to prevent repeated, heavy impacts between the feet and the ground.

Researchers analyzed the foot strikes and running strides of runners in the United States and Kenya — where many people have ran barefoot since childhood — using scales, 3-D motion analysis and high-speed cameras. The runners ran at least 12.4 miles per week.

Results showed that barefoot runners were less prone to injuries because they landed on their forefoot and mid-foot, adjusting their leg and foot movements so that they landed more gently on the ground. Modern running shoes with cushioned heels encourage runners to land on the back of their feet. This increases impact on the hips and knees, thereby increasing the likelihood of tibial stress fractures and plantar fasciitis.

“People who don’t wear shoes when they run have an astonishingly different stride. By landing on the middle or front of the foot, barefoot runners have almost no impact collision, much less than most shoe runners generate when they heel strike,” Harvard professor of human evolutionary biology, Daniel Lieberman said.

Lieberman also mentioned that the pronounced arch of the human foot shows human beings are built for long distance running.

“Humans have engaged in endurance running for millions of years, but the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s,” Lieberman said.

Cushioned heels mean that a typical runner is pounding the ground heavily at the rate of approximately 1,000 collisions per mile.

Although running without footwear works in testing, it is not advisable on littered streets. Running barefoot, or with minimal shoes, requires different muscles, and runners should transition to little or no footwear slowly.

_Flat Hat News Editor Mike Crump contributed to this report_

When Williamsburg goes to the polls in May to elect two new city council members, College of William and
Mary student Scott Foster ’10 will be on the ballot.

Foster, who officially declared his candidacy Thursday, is the first candidate to throw his hat into the ring.
He began filing the necessary petitions and paperwork with the voter registrar’s office in November.

“I chose to run in order to better connect Williamsburg issues with the wealth of knowledge existing in our community, both from the College and the residents at large,” Foster said in an e-mail. “Above all, I enjoy living in Williamsburg, and I am eager to contribute my talent and leadership to the City Council.”

Foster currently serves as the co-chair of the College’s undergraduate Student Conduct Council. He is a government major, and will be graduating from the College in May. He plans on applying to the Marshall-Wythe School of Law for enrollment in 2011.

According to a campaign press release, Foster has the support of several student groups, as well as long-time residents.

“To be elected, I will truly appeal to both students and residents. My campaign alone will have a positive impact on Williamsburg by facilitating campus and community connection,” he said.

Scott Foster for Williamsburg Communications Director and Student Assembly Sen. Erik Houser ’10 has reported that the campaign has raised $6,445 from about 40 donors to date.

In the coming weeks, Foster is expecting to hold fundraisers to build on his early campaign momentum. An event with College alumni in Washington, D.C. has already been scheduled.

Although several SA leaders have become involved in the campaign, the organization has not formally declared its support for Foster, instead focusing its efforts on voter registration and education.

“The SA cannot officially support one candidate over another,” SA President Sarah Rojas ’10 said. “On a personal level … I think [Foster] would do a great job if he was elected.”

Mayor Jeanne Zeidler M.A. ’76 has already announced that she will not be seeking reelection on May 4.
Council member Bobby Braxton has not announced whether or not he will run again.

“I stand by my statement in The Virginia Gazette,” Braxton said. “I have to get a lot of things in order first.
The petition is the least of all my worries right now.”

According to the city’s voter registrar’s office, Foster and David Defashy, a physician at the William and Mary
Student Health Center, are the only candidates who have announced their intentions to run.

“I haven’t really flushed out my platform,” Defashy said. “Rather than pushing an agenda, there has to be a way to compromise.”

Defashy is currently working on obtaining the 125 required signatures to get onto the upcoming ballot, adding that he would be able to consolidate the perspectives of long-term city residents with issues affecting the College.

The last student to run for city council was former Student Assembly Sen. Matt Beato ’08, who received 15.6 percent of the vote in 2009 but lost to Vice Mayor Clyde Haulman and council members Judy Knudson and Paul Freiling ’83.

Three and half years after forcing the College to dispose of a logo deemed “hostile and abusive” to Native Americans, the NCAA has continued to display that symbol on its website.

In May 2006, the organization ordered William and Mary to remove two feathers from its logo on the basis that the marker demeaned Native Americans. Threatened with NCAA sanctions, including the loss of the ability to host postseason events, the College complied after losing an appeal, introducing a new logo on Dec. 6, 2007.

However, over two years after that unveiling, the NCAA had yet to retract the old logo from its website.

As recently as Jan. 25, the main page for William and Mary on NCAA.com showed the old logo as its primary symbol for the Tribe. The websites for ESPN (ESPN.com) and Sports Illustrated (CNNSI.com) did so as well.

Screenshots taken on Jan. 12

When pressed for comment by The Flat Hat, NCAA spokesman Chuck Wynne said that the logos were used in error.

“The William & Mary logo was displayed by mistake and has been corrected,” Wynne said. “Once you made us aware of the problem, we immediately contacted our site content managers and had it fixed. Apparently, a glitch inadvertently replaced the new logo at some point in time with the old logo.”

He went on to reveal that the NCAA had contacted ESPN and Sports Illustrated to fix their websites as well. As of Jan. 26, ESPN.com was displaying the current logo, while CNNSI.com still displayed the previous design. Both sites did not respond to requests for comment.

Wynne dodged questions of whether the NCAA was complicit in being “hostile and abusive” towards Native Americans.

Images taken on Jan. 26