Election fervor gripped the country Jan. 3 as the Iowa caucus results signified the beginning of the presidential hopefuls’ race to secure party nominations.

p. According to CNN, 22 percent of Democratic votes and 11 percent of Republican votes in Iowa were cast by the 17 to 22-year-old age group. In Michigan, exit polls showed that 17 percent and 13 percent of Democratic and Republican votes, respectively, were attributed to the same age group.

p. The increasing importance of student voters is an evident trend.
“Campaigns realize that when they take young people seriously, young people will respond to that and turn out to vote,” Tobin Van Ostern, the national deputy director of students for Barack Obama, said. “It’s a great trend that we are seeing, and likely will continue for some time to come.”

p. In Virginia, the primary will be held Feb. 12. Students, whose political opinions have often been stronger than their numbers at the polls, are now taking steps to increase their political influence.
Ross Gillingham ’10, the campaign coordinator for the College’s Young Democrats, said that the primary concern for the group is registration drives.

p. “Though we are not allowed to endorse a candidate in the primaries, we are involved in statewide registration drives, and we continue to aid the [Student Assembly – led] voter registration drive,” Gillingham said.

p. Van Ostern also reinforced the important political position students play.

p. “Students, and young people in general, have a huge role in electing candidates,” he said. “Not only do they provide a large proportion of active volunteers such as phone bankers and canvassers for most campaigns, [but] they also are voting in increasing proportions.”

p. Van Ostern has worked closely with the Obama campaign to increase student turnout; “In Iowa we saw over 50,000 young people come out and vote, at least double what there was for the under-30 age group just four years ago,” he said.

p. “With new media, such as YouTube and Facebook, becoming involved in political campaigns, elections are becoming a bigger part of our lives,” Alexa Hoyne ’10 said. “It’s easier to become involved.”

If you pass Ashwin Rastogi ’08 in Small Hall, ask him any physics question; according to his recent results on the Physics GRE, he should be able to answer it.

p. Rastogi, a physics and mathematics double major, received a 990 on the graduate school entrance exam, placing him in the 97th percentile nationwide and catching the attention of top graduate schools.

p. Professor Christopher Carone of the physics department told William & Mary News that no professor could remember this having happened before.

p. The Graduate Record Exam, or GRE, is administered by the same company that runs the SATs. There is a general GRE as well as GREs for specific topics. The exam covers topics such as electromagnetism, particle physics and quantum mechanics and it consists of 100 multiple choice questions. A perfect score of 990 requires a student to get 85 or more correct answers.

p. Rastogi’s scholastic achievements at the College are impressive. He said that he first came here to study physics and chemistry, but soon switched to physics and math.

p. “I was really inspired by some of the brilliant mathematics professors we have,” he said. Rastogi, in addition to the typical physics course load, has taken two graduate physics courses and worked with Carone to research theoretical particle physics.
Rastogi studied intensely for the exam. He said he reviewed his notes from classes, studied a friend’s notes from a previous GRE exam and completed all four practice exams released by the company.

p. Come test day, Rastogi was predictably nervous.

p. “I did feel the expected uneasiness and anxiety on the day of the test, though, since I had been preparing for it for several months,” he said. “While taking the exam, however, I felt that it was a much easier form than the practices I had taken.”

p. He said he spent the next few days and weeks going over the test’s problems in his mind, identifying a few problems he had gotten wrong, and worrying about having made a bubbling mistake on the answer sheet.

p. Then he learned about his perfect score.

p. “I was really surprised and excited about my score,” he said, adding that family and professors were also very impressed.
Rastogi plans to attend graduate school and has applied to 12 schools, including Harvard University and MIT.

The College announced Friday that James B. Comey ’82, the former deputy U.S. attorney general, will be the guest speaker for this year’s Charter Day ceremony Feb. 9 where he will also receive an honorary doctorate of law.

p. Also in attendance will be retired Supreme Court Justice and current Chancellor of the College Sandra Day O’Connor, as well as Harriet Mayor Fulbright, president of the J. William & Harriet Fulbright Center, and James C. Rees ’74, executive director of Mount Vernon, the plantation home of George Washington. Both Fulbright and Rees will also be awarded honorary degrees at the ceremony, which is scheduled for 10 a.m. at Phi Beta Kappa Memorial Hall.

p. Though the ceremony is almost a month away, Comey has some ideas for his speech.

p. “I’d like to talk about public service, and how William and Mary prepared me,” Comey said. Comey graduated as a double major in chemistry and religious studies, but during his time at the College, which he describes as “four of the most important years of [his] life,” he realized that he wanted to explore his interest in reading, writing and public service.

p. “I thought I wanted to be a doctor. I took biology, chemistry, all the hard things.” Comey said. While on his way to one such class, he stumbled upon an opportunity to take a religion class titled Death.

p. “I took it, and it was taught by this amazing ethicist who recently retired. So I took another class, another class and another, until I had enough for a major,” Comey said. “What I liked most about religion is that it offered classes in ethics — ethics in warfare, religion, ecology. It taught me about ethical decisions, and how to make hard decisions in life.”

p. Comey applied this education to his career, and following a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School, he became a federal prosecutor, serving as a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He also served as Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Richmond Division of the U.S. Attorney’s office. Currently, he is the senior vice president and general counsel of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, where he acts as legal counsel for the corporation’s Board of Directors.

p. Comey hopes to apply the lessons he learned at the College to his speech Feb. 9. “Not to sound sappy, but [the College] had a huge impact on my life. Anybody’s college education is a huge part of who they are.”

p. When asked about recent events at the College, such as the logo change, Comey remarked that, “Every decision needs to have broad involvement, not just from alums and faculty, but from students currently at the College. It’s easy as an alum to picture the College the way it was, and in a lot of ways it’s still like that, but it’s your College now, and you live there, in a way you know best.

p. “As long as students are represented, that is the best way to make decisions,” he said.

__College also announces MLK speaker__

Governor Tim Kaine will visit with students today in the University Center’s atrium at 5 p.m. He will discuss civic involvement and the College’s dedication to the community, according to President Nichol’s Jan. 15 e-mail.

p. Students Helping Honduras founder Cosmo Fujiyama ’07 and Nichol will be present at the interactive discussion, and faculty and community members are also invited to attend.

p. According to the College’s Office of Student Volunteer services, most of the College’s service groups are expected to attend.
Nichol sent an e-mail Dec. 18 with information on budget decisions for 2008 to 2010; Kaine recommended making the six-and-a-quarter percent budget cuts for higher education permanent that were discussed in the fall.

p. The College also announced Wednesday that civil rights activist Myrlie Evers-Williams will speak next week during a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration ceremony. Evers-Williams was the first female chairperson of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and is the widow of civil rights pioneer Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963 by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

p. She will give a lecture entitled, “Tomorrow’s Leaders: Their Voices, Our Journey” Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. in the Commonwealth Auditorium. The movie “Ghosts of the Mississippi,” which chronic-les Evers-Williams’ three-decade fight to convict her husband’s killers, will be shown Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. in the same location.

__After more than 40 years of service, Sam Sadler to hang up his feathers__

The College announced Tuesday afternoon that Vice President for Student Affairs Sam Sadler will be retiring June 30, ending his 45-year career in Williamsburg as a student and administrator.
Sadler said his primary reason for retirement was his family.

p. “It is time for me to repay my wife and family with more of my time,” Sadler said in an e-mail to the Parents Committee. “They have not had as much of that as they deserved over the years. Truth be told, it is their sacrifice that has made what I do possible.”

p. Sadler said he had originally planned to leave last spring but refrained because of the Wren Cross controversy.

p. “I think that decision would have been badly misunderstood and misrepresented and I didn’t want that to happen,” Sadler said.
Sadler’s decision to retire is regrettably coupled with the announcement of his impending surgery next week at the Duke University Medical Center.

p. “My illness certainly played no part in my decision to retire,” he said. “After all, it was not even known when I made the decision.”
Sadler plans to return for the remainder of the semester after an expected eight-week recovery period.

p. Chancellor Professor of Government Clay Clemens will chair the committee to select the next vice president for student affairs, which will include student, faculty and alumni participants.

p. “There are a lot of talented people who will apply, but Sam — as everyone will agree — is an institution here,” Clemens said. “Finding someone to come in on his heels will be monumentally difficult.”

p. In an e-mail to students, alumni, faculty and staff, College President Gene Nichol said that Sadler will be remembered most for his extraordinary devotion to the College and its community. Few others have been as committed to the student body, actively listening to their thoughts and concerns, no matter how trivial or bizarre.

p. “There’s nothing that beats the energy, the freshness, the exuberance and the optimism of the talented young people that come to William and Mary,” Sadler said. “And I will sorely miss that.”

p. As an undergraduate, Sadler was involved in many activities including leading the cheerleading team, serving as the charter president of Alpha Phi Omega and singing in the William and Mary Choir. As an orientation aide to incoming freshmen, he even assisted one student named Timothy J. Sullivan, a future president of the College.

p. Sadler, whose real first name is William, met his wife, Mary Liz, at William and Mary. They married in the Wren Chapel in 1965.
Sadler returned to the College in 1967 as an assistant dean of admissions. His subsequent titles included dean of men and dean of student affairs. Since 1989, Sadler has served as the vice president for student affairs, a position responsible for the coordination of student life polices, programs and activities; student development; resident hall life; judicial affairs; and multicultural affairs.

p. “I think the exciting thing is that I’ve had a ring-side seat from my student days to the present, as William and Mary has emerged from being a good, small, regional and caring university into a place of national prominence,” Sadler said.

p. For the past two decades, Sadler has overseen almost every major event at the College, including opening convocation and commencement weekend. The events seem fitting as he has welcomed and parted with tens of thousands of students largely impacted by his management and guidance.

p. “We’re going to miss him,” said longtime friend and colleague, Professor David Aday. “I’m sure everyone will say this, but trying to remember this place without Sam Sadler is just very, very difficult.”

p. Sadler said that he would want to be remembered by students as someone who cared about them.

p. “If that happens then I feel that I will have been a very fortunate man,” he said. “When a place has been as much a part of your life as this place has been you know that it’s not easy to leave and I don’t think it will ever be gone from my system — it’s too much a part of who I am. So I am sure I will always try to be a part of William and Mary and serve it, though it will have to be in a different way at this point.”

When one of Tom Yake’s ’09 closest friends joined the Facebook group opposing the College’s new logo, Yake, the student representative on the logo committee, did not take the news well.

p. “I was like, ‘What are you doing?’” Yake said. He then proceeded to lock a group of his closest friends in the duty office of Yates Hall in an attempt to change their minds.

p. “I said, ‘Listen, this is why the logo is this way,’ and they were like, ‘Oh, well that makes sense,’” he said.

p. Yake, a self-described “logo enthusiast,” has been unable to sway the opinions of many of his fellow students, however, as nearly 2,300 students remain in the Facebook group “Students Against the New W&M Logo.”

p. “[The logo seems] more like word art than something professional,” Matt Beato ’09 said.

p. Beato, along with roommate Sen. Alex Kyrios ’09, created the group after seeing the new logo, and both Beato and Kyrios act as administrators for the group, along with Nick Hoelker ’09.

p. “I certainly never saw the anti-logo effort really getting this far,” Kyrios said. “I thought we would have a group that would have a few hundred people and people would be upset but they’d get over it. But the reaction has been so uniform for the most part that I really think we hit into something, because almost everyone in the group looked at it and said, ‘Well, this is awful.’”

p. In addition to disliking the logo’s amateurish appearance, Beato has a problem with the logo’s “M,” which he says looks much more like an upside-down “W.” Yake has heard this objection several times.

p. “The upside-down ‘W,’ or ‘M,’ — that was never planned,” Yake said. “That was not something that we thought was going to be a concern. In fact, we talked about it on the committee [for maybe two minutes].”

p. There are Facebook groups in favor of the new logo. “Students who actually kinda like the new logo” has 10 members. A second pro-logo group has eight members. Kyrios said that, since the same two people were in both of these groups, the logo opponents to logo supporters ratio is — at least, according to Facebook — 143.5 to one.

p. Beato and Kyrios have been accepting submissions for new logo ideas, and hope to either select one submission to present to the logo committee or perhaps have students vote. They have also started an online petition against the new logo, which has approximately 830 names on it. While they are uncertain what changes they will actually propose or will ultimately be made, they are happy to be actively pursuing an alternative solution.

p. “I think it’s good that we’re not just sitting here complaining, like, ‘Oh, I don’t like the new logo,’” Kyrios said. “We’re actually trying to propose a better alternative that I think students could really get behind, sort of a popular alternative to something very plain that’s being pushed onto us.”

p. Beato said that in a recent conversation with members of Information Technology who were designing the school’s new website, he learned that they plan to use the school’s cipher logo (the logo with the distinctive cursive letters) on the site, because their dislike of the new logo is so strong.

p. “If Information Technology is scared to use this logo on the William and Mary homepage, then that’s a bad sign,” Beato said.

p. Yake, who said he was “shocked” that student opposition to the new logo was so strong, has seen a number of the student submissions that Beato and Kyrios have received through the Facebook group. He said that many of the submissions were also received by the logo committee when they first started the process, and some of the ideas submitted had been discussed by the committee members while they were in session. He mentioned while the cipher logo and a student-submitted design of a “WM” with a phoenix – which Beato said has been very popular among student opponents – are great from a stylistic standpoint, they are too “complicated” to be a regularly-used logo.

p. While Beato and Kyrios both say that they would have like to have seen more student involvement in the decision, Yake believes that there was an adequate amount of student input. He is quick to point out that both the idea of utilizing the College’s shield (featured in one of the four new logos) and that of keeping the “W&M” characters came from student submissions.

p. As for actually changing the new logo, it may already be too late. Yake said that, while he does not know officially, he believes the process of getting the new logo out is already well under way, with merchandise potentially hitting stores as early as February. When interviewed following the logo’s unveiling at last December’s Board of Visitors meeting, Athletics Director Terry Driscoll had said that ideally the new logo would be in place all across campus by the time incoming freshmen arrive next fall. Beato is still hopeful, however.

p. “It might be too late, but I really hope it’s not,” Beato said, “because people really don’t like this logo.”

__Finance committee allows funding for Sex Workers’ Art Show__

The Student Assembly Finance Committee voted last night to provide funding for the Sex Workers’ Art Show, which features performances by workers from the sex industry. The committee voted 5-1 in support of the show.

Present at the meeting were S.A. President Zach Pilchen ’09, physics professor John Delos and the senators on the committee.

According to Pilchen, the sex industry, represented in this show, is an important, albeit unknown, industry.

“In reality [the sex industry] is bigger than all professional sports in this country combined,” he said.

Pilchen remarked that the show has been approved twice before, each time drawing more students than the maximum capacity. He added that the show has been expanded to include a discussion panel and a question-and-answer session.

“I know at the end of last year’s show there were a lot of questions I would have liked answered,” he said.

Delos spoke to the committee on behalf of education professor John Foubert, the founder of non-profit rape prevention group One in Four, about the negative sociological and psychological effects of pornography and rejected claims of the show’s merits, citing 16 studies that find a correlation between viewing pornography and violence, especially toward women.

“The claim that this show contains artistic genius is preposterous,” Delos said. “This is as far from healthy sexuality as one can get.”

Pilchen defended the show, claiming that it has creative value.

“It was actually genuinely substantive,” he said. “This is performance art, not people coming and doing things, like, ‘sex, ha ha ha!’”

Delos argued that many of the performances are nothing more than pornography, citing one act in which a woman swings her breasts in a circular motion. Pilchen defended the show and that performance specifically by revealing the act contained social commentary on materialism.

Pilchen also argued that the show has educational value, saying, “I think it’s an important thing that should be included in a liberal arts education.”

Many students have also spoken out. According to Zach Pilchen, a Facebook group supporting the show was created Wed., Jan. 16, before advertising for the event has begun. As of press time 220 students were members of “I Support the Sex Workers’ Art Show.”

Some senators expressed discomfort with the show’s content but cited the first amendment as a reason not to stifle free speech.

“Sex workers have the right to speak in a public forum,” Senator Ray Ciabattoni ’10 said.

The motion ultimately passed, providing $1450 towards the show. More funding comes from a variety of student organizations and ticket sales. A further $750 was approved in last year’s budget for this year’s show, and the Women’s Studies department, which in the past has financially supported the show, has not yet decided if it will again this year.

College President Gene Nichol can now strike down the show, although in the past he has approved it. Nichol stated last year that although he personally disagreed with the show’s subject, he was uncomfortable stifling free speech on campus.

Senator Matt Beato ’09 said that if Nichol and the Board of Visitors vote against the show, they will be hypocrites because they have supported it in the past and have already given some funding to this year’s show in last year’s budget.

According to Delos, Nichol faces a difficult decision.

“If [Nichol] lets the show go through it is the end of his academic career,” Delos said.

The Sex Workers Art Show is scheduled to come to campus Feb. 4. The location has not yet been announced.

p. College President Gene Nichol sent the following message to students Tuesday afternoon announcing that Vice President for Student Affairs Sam Sadler will be retiring this summer:

p. Dear Students:

p. Welcome home. I hope you had the best of breaks. Belize and the Dominican and Northern Virginia need you, I know, but the College misses you when you’re away. I am not traditionally given to interrupt your unpacking and reconnecting with a before-classes message from the Brafferton. But I’m guessing you’ll forgive me in this case. There’s much to share, and for those of you close enough to hear the Wren Bell’s forty-one noontime peals, much to explain.

p. First, I hope you’ll help me welcome Governor Kaine to campus on Friday at 5 p.m. in the University Center Atrium. The governor has heard me proclaim your ennobling spirit of service–in Williamsburg and far, far beyond–often enough that he’s decided to come see it for himself. We’ll discuss with him exciting new frontiers in William and Mary’s approach to civic engagement. Help us give him a welcome worthy of the Tribe.

p. I wish, beyond wishing, that was all I had to report. It’s not. I’m also writing with news that has been, for the better part of five decades and the tenure of five presidents, uncongenial to consider. Sam Sadler, our vice president for student affairs, literal spirit of the College, my great colleague and beloved friend to many of you and many of your predecessors, has told me of his intention to retire this summer.

p. He also happened to mention, not too long ago, that he hadn’t rung the bell after his last class as a student. An impossible oversight. So Sam and I and a few of his closest colleagues gathered at noon to ring the bell forty-one times, once for each year of exceptional service to his alma mater.

p. In the near half-century since Hampton gave us W. Samuel Sadler, the College of William and Mary has journeyed from a modestly well-thought-of state school to a university of real and worldwide renown. To say it plainly, he’s more responsible for the William and Mary we love today–the attention to challenging and nurturing young women and men, the unfailing spirit of community, and the ceaseless pursuit of excellence and innovation in service to others–than anybody else we know. And while there may have been “Tribe Pride” before Sam Sadler, it’s somewhat tough to imagine. The pictures of his work as head cheerleader in the mid 1960s bear me out.

p. From the first, Sam was called to positions of leadership. He served as orientation aide to a young man from Ohio we now know as President Sullivan. While dean of men, he literally wrote the Student Handbook–not, as some might have accomplished it, with a group heavy-laden with administrators, but with two students. Twenty years ago, his experience and expertise were deemed broad enough to create an altogether new position, the vice president for student affairs. He helped lead the College’s Tercentenary, welcomed presidents from Nixon to George H.W. Bush–his knee accurately predicted the weather on both occasions–and, as you may have heard, sent an e-mail or two in service of the College.

p. Much of Sam’s work is conducted in the public eye. He’s managed crises large and small, presided over our most complex events, and expertly served as the College’s de facto spokesman. He’s had a “palooza” and a handful of Facebook groups christened in his honor. (My favorite is “Sam Sadler, Will You Be My Grandpa?”) But just as much of his work, of surpassing value to me and his alma mater, is undertaken out of view. He’s the first fellow on campus from whom I expect an update, and the best counselor one could hope for on matters in his bailiwick and beyond. His flawless calm, careful intellect, and Wren-to-Matoaka knowledge of this place are utterly irreplaceable.

p. Words, in fact, are little help in describing Sam’s contributions. And we won’t depend on them in months to come. I’ll be in touch about our plans, undertaken with the help of student leaders and alumni friends, for events that appropriately recognize Sam’s decades of work with us and his mark on this place. In the short term–and it’ll be tough to keep this part a secret, I suppose–I hope you’ll send me a written expression of your esteem for Sam at gnichol@wm.edu. We’ll collect these into a handsome volume and present it to him in weeks to come.

p. There’s another thing you can do for Sam in the short term. I know you, like me, will remember him in your thoughts as he faces surgery later this week, and a recuperation of several weeks following. His prognosis is excellent, and the timing of his retirement is little more than coincidence. He’ll be back in the Campus Center by spring break and will preside over Commencement, walkie-talkie in hand, as usual, in May.

p. Clay Clemens, Chancellor Professor of Government and newly elected member of the Alumni Association Board of Directors, has accepted the unenviable task of chairing the committee that will select William Mary’s second vice president for student affairs. I’ve asked him and the students, faculty, staff, and alumni who will comprise his committee to recommend a candidate to me who could be in place by July 1. I appreciate Clay’s leadership in this effort.

p. Send me a word of congratulations for Sam. Send one to him, as well. Thank his wife Mary Liz for sharing him with us since they married in the Wren Chapel the day after her own William and Mary graduation–along the way raising two daughters who follow their dad’s example as successful educators. And if you’re like me, think, for a moment, how much he’s taught us about what it means to say, Go Tribe, and Hark upon the Gale.

p. Gene Nichol

Former United States Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey ’82 will headline the College’s annual Charter Day ceremony Feb. 9. Comey served as the second highest ranking official in the Justice Department under former Attorney General John Ashcroft for part of President George W. Bush’s first term in office.

“We look forward to hearing from Jim Comey, who exemplifies our cherished ideal of the citizen-lawyer,” College President Gene Nichol told William and Mary News. “His ennobling work at the highest level of law enforcement, as Deputy Attorney General under President Bush, and his commitment to the good and the just, hold a powerful example for us all.”

p. Former Supreme Court Justice and College Chancellor Sandra Day O’Connor will also be in attendance.