Not as large as a marching band, but with just as much spirit, the William and Mary Pep Band entertains Tribe fans on the field at halftime. Last fall the pep band began scrambling.

p. “If you watch a show, it is quickly apparent where the ‘scrambling’ part of the “scramble band” moniker comes,” Kenneth Barry ’08 said. “Instead of marching and playing, scramble bands run around in mass chaos while a joke is being read over the stadium microphone. As the joke comes to an end, the band forms a shape that helps with the punch line and plays a song that is the punch line or is heavily related.”

p. Scrambling is a hit with both students and band members.
“With scrambling, I don’t need to know anything about marching, because I just get to run around, chase people and do all sorts of crazy things on the field,” Ben Bromley ’08 said.
Due to the hard work that the band members put into developing their scrambling routines, the organization Friends of the William and Mary Pep Band created a scholarship to reward outstanding members of the pep band.

p. “All of the halftime shows that we put on are products of the creativity of the members of the band. This requires a huge time commitment behind the scenes. These scholarships will help to reward and publicly acknowledge this hard work,” Barry said.
In order to receive a scholarship, band members must first be nominated by a peer. If the student accepts the nomination, then he submits a statement that explains his involvement with pep band. Statements will then be reviewed by the FWMPB board and recipients will then be selected.

p. According to the pep band’s website, in 1995 the College’s marching band comprised of just 30 members, disbanded due to indifference on the part of faculty and students. It was with the demise of the marching band that the pep band came into being.
Eager to play, pep band members worked with Tribe Athletics, student government and college administrators to create performance opportunities. The pep band played in the stands until spring 2006, at which point they were no longer satisfied with being stuck in the bleachers.

p. “Football games just aren’t the same without our getting on the field. I was ecstatic when I found out we would be doing a halftime show,” Dani Derringer ’09 said. “For the alumni who want a marching band, we play music on the field. For people who don’t miss themed music played while marching intricate drill, we have a comedic script. The pep band is about bringing school spirit to athletic events and having fun.”

p. The pep band will scramble next at the James Madison University game Nov. 10.

If you type ILoveNichol.com into a web browser, you might be surprised by what you find.

p. Instead of taking viewers to the pro-Nichol website with a similar name, IHeartNichol.com, the site directs viewers to an anti-Nichol website, ShouldNicholBeRenewed.org.

p. IHeartNichol.com is the main distributor of the IHeartNichol.com buttons. On the buttons, the word “heart” is represented by a heart shape.

p. “I’d seen the buttons around campus and initially thought that the website was ILoveNichol.com,” Joe Luppino-Esposito ’08 said. He registered ILoveNichol.com and directed it to ShouldNicholBeRenewed.org. Luppino-Esposito is a Student Assembly senator and the editor-in-chief of The Virginia Informer, a conservative newspaper on campus that has called for Nichol’s contract not to be renewed.

p. Luppino-Esposito, who is unaffiliated with ShouldNicholBeRenewed.org, says he registered the website on a whim.

p. “The site ILoveNichol.com was available, and it only cost me a couple of dollars to register,” he said. “It seemed like it made sense for someone to show another side of the story.”

p. Luppino-Esposito believes that IHeartNichol.com is centered around love for Nichol and not on concrete facts. By redirecting viewers to ShouldNicholBeRenewed.org, he hopes to give viewers another perspective.

p. “Now, more than ever, with the review of Nichol going on, students should see both sides,” he said.

p. David Solimini ’04, an active participant in the IHeartNichol.com campaign, believes that the creation of ILoveNichol.com is an attempt to undermine the student-run efforts of IHeartNichol.com.

p. “These anti-Nichol and anti-College activists know they can’t win on the merits of their arguments, so they’re resorting to this kind of petty, dirty trick,” Solimini wrote in an e-mail to The Flat Hat.

p. Christina Hoffman ’09, who is involved in the IHeartNichol.com campaign, said that she is upset that ShouldNicholBeRenewed.org willingly misdirects students.

p. But Hoffman does not believe that viewers directed to ShouldNicholBeRenewed.org from ILoveNichol.com will accidentally sign the petition against the renewal of Nichol’s presidency.

p. “William and Mary students are too smart for that,” she said.

Student Assembly President Zach Pilchen ’09 took down the Facebook profile of Julia O’Brien, a fake student that he and others created last year.

p. When asked why the profile had been removed, Pilchen made it clear that the joke was getting old and that O’Brien had served her purpose as a “sociological experiment.” Friend requests from “old men who listed nudism and naturism as interests” also contributed to the decision. “It was getting creepy,” according to Pilchen.

p. “I guess I just have this weird sociological interest in how Facebook operates,” Pilchen said. “I think it’s interesting how we are so quick to make ‘friends’ with people who aren’t really our friends. I thought I’d just take it another level and make people ‘friends’ with someone who isn’t real.”

p. O’Brien reportedly had over 450 friends by the time her profile was taken down. Pilchen added that this was not his first fake Facebook profile.

p. The creation of O’Brien brought campus-wide attention to the role that Facebook, Myspace and other internet communities play in the lives of students at the College.

p. “I was amazed how many people accepted her friend request without ever having met her,” Pilchen said. “I mean, what does that say about us?”

p. O’Brien’s profile was made using pictures found in basic search engines, and her information was filled out by Pilchen, who listed nymphomania, nudity and sex as interests and activities for the imaginary freshman.

p. As incoming freshmen entered the College’s network, Pilchen and others sent out friend requests from O’Brien’s profile, quickly making O’Brien one of the most prominent members of the Class of 2011 network. The creators were quick to exploit the self-proclaimed nudist’s popularity, using O’Brien’s profile to incite a late-night streaking event in the Sunken Garden.

p. According to Pilchen, around 100 people attended the event, with most crowding the entrances to the Sunken Garden.

p. “Everyone had shown up to streak, but they were all too chicken to be the first one,” Pilchen said. “A lot of people were there just to watch, they were all laughing and smiling… finally someone actually started streaking and a few people joined in. It was very funny.”

p. According to one source who attended the event, chants of “Julia” could be heard in an effort to get O’Brien in the buff. Needless to say, the chants were to no avail. A message from O’Brien’s profile sent prior to the event told attendees, “Don’t puss out on 2011, and 2011 will never puss out on you.”

p. O’Brien’s presence also permeated into the recent freshmen elections, with a Facebook group announcing her candidacy for Student Assembly Senate. Although she was not on the ballot, over 25 students joined the group.

p. “Most of the people in that group were in on the joke, they were guys from my frat, people who knew she was a fake,” Pilchen said.

p. Regardless, the nudist platform that was announced on the group’s page received attention, although by this time, many people were aware that O’Brien was not real.

p. “We weren’t really secretive about it,” Pilchen said.

__This article was updated Oct. 3.__

The world’s largest hydropower dam project could be facing an environmental disaster in the near future if care is not taken to address several serious problems.

p. The Three Gorges Dam located in Southwestern Asia along the Yangtze River, generates electrical power and protects against flooding of the Yangtze River during the rainy season.

p. Environmental concerns caused by the Three Gorges Dam include coastal erosion, landslides, siltation, agricultural and fisheries degradation and species loss.

p. Landslides are one of the biggest threats to the areas surrounding the Three Gorges Dam because of the steep slopes and degradation of the land around the dam. Senior engineer for the dam project, Huang Xuebin, stated that debris that could fall into the dam from a landslide event could raise the water level by dozens of meters, and that this water will cause significant flooding to the surrounding shoreline.

p. Siltation is another major concern because the dam traps silt that would normally flow through.

p. Silt scouring gates are employed to remove silt from within 100 meters of the dam, but these are not guaranteed to be effective because they have not been used on a dam the size of the Three Gorges.

p. The relatively low flow velocity of water moving through the dam may also cause increased siltation problems because it offers more time for the silt to settle out and build up.
Agricultural production may also be adversely affected by the Three Gorges Dam. Silt is one of the main methods of carrying nutrients downstream to farmland, and if silt flow is stopped by the dam, it is likely that agricultural production will decrease due to a lack of nutrients.

p. Almost all dams create erosional problems for the surrounding coastline. If erosion occurs at the Three Gorges Dam it could be devastating for China’s coastal towns, but the Chinese government is not currently projecting that the high rate of siltation will have this effect.

p. Species loss in the dam area may be quite drastic. At least three major species are guaranteed to be negatively affected by the dam construction — the endangered Siberian crane, the Yangtze sturgeon and the Yangtze freshwater dolphin. Around one-half of the total population of Siberian cranes lives in the Three Gorges at the low stand of the Yangtze River. The cranes eat aquatic weeds that grow on the bottom, but as the water gets deeper in the Three Gorges area, the cranes may no longer be able to feed on the weeds.

p. According to the International Rivers Network, hundreds of factories, mines and waste dumps were submerged during the construction of the dam, which is leading to major pollution problems in the Yangtze River and its tributaries. Massive industrial centers upstream are also contributing to pollution problems.

p. During the five-month rainy season, the water levels in the dam are lowered to prevent flooding, which creates a bog of effluent silt and industrial pollutants. This bog creates a breeding ground for flies, mosquitoes, bacteria and parasites, which pose serious risks to human health.

p. The East China Sea was also adversely affected by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. A decline in freshwater and increase in sediments reaching the East China Sea may cause total annual catches to be reduced by approximately one million tons. Sediment losses are also badly eroding the Yangtze River delta and the tidal wetlands.

p. The potential for the Three Gorges Dam to create serious environmental degradation has been addressed by several groups and people, including Wang Xiaofeng, the director of the administrative office that is in charge of building the dam.

p. “We absolutely cannot relax our guard against ecological and environmental security problems sparked by the Three Gorges Project,” Xiaofeng said in an interview with the Xinhua news agency.

p. The Three Gorges Dam demonstrates the tradeoff between creating an infrastructure that will be able to generate enough electricity to power China into the 21st century and the environmental and ecological devastation that can occur as a result of constructing such an expansive and invasive structure.

**Thursday, Sept. 27 –** A white female was arrested on Ireland Street for illegal possession of alcohol. **(1)**

**Friday, Sept. 28 –** A black male was arrested for trading stolen property on the 500 block of Scotland Street. The stolen property being traded was a Raleigh mountain bicycle. **(2)**

– A white male was arrested for driving under the influence for the second time on the 300 block of Richmond Road. **(3)**

**Monday, Oct. 1 –** A black male was arrested for underage possession of alcohol on the intersection of Richmond Road and Boundary Street. **(4)**

– A white male was arrested on the 700 block of Penniman Road for driving with a suspended license. **(5)**

– A white female was arrested on the 1000 block of Bypass Road for driving under the influence. The female was arrested for refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test. **(6)**

– A vehicle was damaged in a hit and run accident on the 300 block of Richmond Road. No one has been arrested. **(3)**

– A black male was arrested on the intersection of Monticello Avenue and Ironbound Road for driving under the influence, felony and possession of illegal substances with the intent to distribute. **(7)**

– A white female was arrested on the 1400 block of Richmond Road for driving with a suspended license. **(8)**

**1931**
Several autographed textbooks were donated to the library, among which included an old Latin Grammar from the library of John Marshall and a rare copy of “The Life of Devereux Jarratt.”

p. **1962**
A test was administered on Duke of Gloucester Street in which the possibility of closing the street permanently to traffuc was investigated. Williamsburg City Council approved the plan for the closing.

p. **1978**
The Student Assembly canceled a scheduled appearance of Bill Cosby at the College. Cosby’s appearance fee increased following the booking, and the SA lacked sufficient funds to meet the increased price.

p. **1983**
Two female students were discovered living in the abandoned Lake Matoaka light tower. They were promptly evicted by the College for security and health regulation reasons.

p. “I hated the dorm,” sophomore Vikki Ehrich said. “I had been thinking about living in a school bus.”

p. Ehrich, who had been living in the tower since the previous March, had been given the keys by a graduating friend who had found the door to the light tower open and changed the lock. The two students had converted the light tower into a carpeted and decorated home, rewiring the electricity themselves.

Virginia Institute of Marine Science fellow Dr. Christopher Pyke briefed the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Wednesday, Sept. 26, regarding the impact of global warming on the Chesapeake Bay according to W&M News.

p. Pyke is a 1996 graduate of the College and a fellow of the Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM) at VIMS. At the meeting, he represented the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC).

p. “The gist of my message is that climate change will pose a real challenge to the restoration goals of the Chesapeake Bay Program, particularly in the areas of water quality and living resources,” Pyke said.

This Friday, Oct. 5, local theme park Busch Gardens will hold its annual day for students from the College. This year, the ticket price for the first 2,000 students is $20, after which the price will be $28.

p. Complimentary parking passes are available for the first 625 students who request one and free shuttles will run from the William & Mary Hall parking lot beginning at 2 p.m. until the park’s closing at 10 p.m. Tickets can be purchased from the University Center or Campus Center desks. For more information, call the Student Activities Office at (757) 221-3000.