“Activists everywhere take to the classroom.” That’s the philosophy supported by the College’s women’s studies department, which is making activism a part of its curriculum and redefining the practice in the process.

p. Sophomore Katie Dixon is one student taking advantage of this opportunity. Dixon and a group of classmates chose to tackle the issue of body image on campus, to “dispel the notion that all women are or want to be model thin,” according to Dixon’s professor, Jennifer Putzi.

p. “We decided to try to find the female stereotype believed by most undergraduate women to define [College] women, and then take photographs of women of all sizes for a display with statistics and quotes,” she said.

p. To implement this project, Dixon and her group surveyed a number of campus groups, ranging from sororities to service organizations. Questions asked girls their current weight, their ideal weight and their concepts of the typical College female.
The project is a major assignment in intro to women’s studies, a class required for all women’s studies majors.

p. It requires students to implement an activism project that addresses a major issue facing women on the college or community level. But it was students, not faculty, who demanded that activism become more central to the women’s studies major. Students are now addressing the history of activism and its role in the women’s movement as part of the intro level class.

p. “I think it is incredibly important to learn activism in a classroom,” Dixon said. “Before I took intro to women’s studies, it was very difficult for me to find things I was passionate about defending and I certainly wasn’t sure how to go about defending them.”

p. Activism was a central component of the women’s movement of the 1970’s in the United States. Women’s studies is a discipline rooted in this history, making it a field of study “inseparable from feminist activism,” according to Putzi.

p. “We’ve lost touch with this as a movement, I think,” Putzi said. “And our students are forcing us to rethink this relationship again. They are finding that doing quality activism requires good research and planning. Many academics find that doing good research often requires activism as well. It just makes sense to me to teach both.”

p. Dixon believes that a new brand of activism has arisen in recent years. It’s a more quiet and open-minded form of activism with grassroots origins. As Dixon sees it, these new activists defy stereotypes that portray the activist as one who relies on “in your face tactics” to make her point.

p. Dixon’s activist, on the other hand, is neither boisterous nor narrow-minded.

p. “[Activists] listen and accept both sides of any argument, and I think that is what makes them great activists,” Dixon said.

p. “Activism is simply finding a cause you care about and doing something to change the way it is perceived or the way the cause is,” she added. “It is in marches and megaphones, but it is also, more and more, in seemingly quiet men and women and quiet classrooms and organizations, in petitions [as seen in the Wren Cross controversy] and classroom projects like the one being implemented for women’s studies.”

The owners of Aroma’s on Prince George Street suspect an unnamed former employee of embezzling more than $1,000 from the coffeehouse, which currently employees approximately 12 College students. The suspected employee was not a student.

p. “We try to run as concise as we can in terms of the administrative and other procedures in order to ensure that everyone is accountable,” co-owner Don Pratt said. “But every once in a while you have a bad apple.”

p. An Aroma’s employee who wished to remain anonymous said the suspected employee was a manager who often handled cash. She said he quit on the spot after being questioned about the missing money.

p. Williamsburg Police are currently investigating the crime but could not be reached for comment.

p. Pratt said that he was told the suspected employee has left the state. He also said he talked to several judges and insurance carriers recently who told him that this type of crime is on the rise.

p. “In the past eight years since we opened, we employed over 500 people, and the vast majority of those have been students,” he said. “The actions of one do not reflect on the actions of those who are working in a very dedicated way, and again most of those are students.”

The College’s chapter of the Jewish student organization Hillel gathered together both Jewish and non-Jewish members of the community, including President Gene Nichol, for a Seder held in the Wren Hall of the Wren building on the second night of Passover, April 3.

p. “For the second night we invited the entire community and had a special ‘learning Seder,’” Hillel President junior Alex Eichel said. “This was something we had never done before. We did this because so many non-Jews were asking about Passover and wanted to come to a Seder. [It] was a great success.”

p. The Seder, the traditional Passover prayers and meal ceremony, included audience participation in the readings and explanations for all the songs as part of Hillel’s effort to educate those interested about the meaning and traditions of Passover.
A two-night event, the Great Hall was packed both for the learning Seder and the regular Seder. This was the first year that the Seder was held in the Wren building.

p. Despite the Seder’s timing during the after effects of the Wren Cross controversy, the Great Hall was selected more for its practicality than as a political statement.

p. “Since the first night of Passover was a Monday night, all of the sororities booked the rooms in the UC and every other space that fit 100 people,” Eichel said. “No sorority would switch rooms with us. The only other spaces available were the Alumni House and the Great Hall. Why did we choose the Great Hall? The Alumni house was very expensive. We had the Great Hall booked before the Wren controversy even started.”

p. Although the Seder is held on the first two nights, Jews follow strict kosher-for-Passover rules for all eight days of Passover. These dietary restrictions prohibit any products made from flour, wheat, barley or oats.

p. Hillel provided dinner each night to anyone observing Passover, asking for donations from those who would partake in the meals. Dining services also had a selection of kosher-for-Passover food at both the Caf and the University Center.

p. “This is our eighth year of serving Passover food,” Commons Director Larry Smith said. “We have a wider selection at the UC and the Caf for lunch and dinner and just the cold setup at the Marketplace, [including the matzah, gefilte fish, hard-boiled eggs and charoset].”

p. Dining Services coordinated their menu with Hillel, either through Hillel Director Geoff Brown or another member of the organization. Dining Services does not follow kosher rules in the kitchen, but they do provide at least two or three kosher entrees.

p. “The menu varies year to year based on who we talk to, but it has been pretty constant over the years. Over the last couple years, I have noticed that no one goes directly to the Passover section because we have so many other options,” Smith said.
Both Smith and Resident District Manager Phil DiBenedetto attended the second night Seder, where they were thanked by Hillel leaders for their efforts in accommodating Jewish students.

p. “We have received a lot of positive feedback [about our kosher-for-Passover selection] from both Hillel and individual students,” Smith said.

p. Although their efforts are appreciated, some students think that there is much progress to be made.

p. “They are trying,” Eichel said. “Each year is a little better. But, honestly, the accommodations are slim to none compared to other schools. When I ate at the UC [my freshman year], the Passover section included matzah and a buffet of things to make a matzah sandwich with. They included ham, bacon and cheese. It’s rough.”

**Postal Service to honor Jamestown anniversary**
The U.S. Postal Service will launch a new stamp honoring the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement at a special first-day-of-issue ceremony May 11, according to The Roanoke Times.

p. __— Carl Siegmund__

p. **Mascot committee seeks input**
William and Mary News reported that the mascot committee is encouraging individuals to visit the committee’s new web site, www.wm.edu/logo/ to learn more about the process. They are planning on presenting a recommendation by early Fall 2007.

p. __— Morgan Figa__

**1966**
After a dull commencement speaker the previous year, the graduating class of 1966 claimed that “it would be more desirable to have no speaker at all” if a nationally renowned speaker could not be found. Many lists were submitted to the Dean of Students office with suggestions for the speaker at the request of the class president, who wanted more student involvement in the process. In 1966, the College selected then Secretary of the Treasury Henry Fowler.

p. **1979**
A short in electrical cords caused a small fire in Lodge Five. None of the residents were injured but the accident caused approximately $15,000 in damages. Since the College did not reimburse students for personal losses, residents went through their insurance companies to replace their lost goods.

p. **1981**
Elections for the senior class president and vice president were voided and redone after the elections commission discovered that ballots were given to ineligible voters, causing them to doubt the legitimacy of the outcome.

p. Many appeals were made by both presidential candidates about the possibility of a recount, and the commission decided to hold the elections again.

p. **1996**
For the first time, a cable TV network was installed in all dorms on campus after being a “hot topic of discussion” for two years. The Student Assembly played a major role in this change, but delays occurred in working with some older buildings.

The following numbers are based on Fall 2006 course registration data on Banner. Fall was chosen because it may best reflect the upcoming semester.

p. **1,727 out of 1,754**
The number of slots in all government classes that were filled. On average, there was less than one opening for every two government classes. The philosophy department’s classes were almost as fully booked.

p. **Half**
The proportion of slots in all computer science classes that were filled. While the department’s classes had room for 796 students, only 397 enrolled.

p. **62.13 students**
The average class size of chemistry classes, based on the number of students who actually took the class, not the cap. Independent studies and classes worth less than three credits are not counted in the average.

p. **19.93**
The average number of students in English department classes.

p. **2,093**
The total number of slots offered in Economics classes. Of those, 1,753 were filled. Each class had an average of 8.3 openings.

Colonial Williamsburg has purchased a rare painting of a slave girl by Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee, the wife of Robert E. lee, painted in 1830.

p. The painting depicts a black slave girl in a red dress with a white apron, holding a wooden tub on her head. It will likely be stored in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, Barbara Luck, curator of paintings, drawings and sculptures for Colonial Williamsburg, said.

p. “We’re accessioning it, but it will get out soon,” Luck said.
Colonial Williamsburg acquired the painting from the Alexander Gallery in New York, who put out a full-page color advertisement in March to sell it. They also displayed it at an antiques show in January.

p. “A lot of people in Virginia are probably already familiar with it partly through the gallery and the antiques show, so I’m sure some people from Virginia will come to see it,” Luck said.

p. Though the picture is only four inches wide and five-and-three-fourths inches high, it was offered for $400,000 in January. The gallery and Colonial Williamsburg have both declined to reveal the price Colonial Williamsburg paid in the end, according to the Associated Press.

p. The girl in the painting is believed to be one of the slaves on Lee’s plantation, the Arlington House, which later became Arlington National Cemetery. The artist’s signature appears on the girl’s apron in the picture, but it reads “Mary Anna Randolph Custis” as the portrait was done one year before her marriage to Lee in 1831.

Rachel Reyes, 29, of Williamsburg, was sentenced Tuesday to 55 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $415,754.84 in restitution, in connection with her role in distributing fraudulent celebrity memorabilia items on eBay.

p. According to court documents, Reyes, her husband Jeffrey Reyes, 30, and her mother, Nancy Selisker, operated their own eBay accounts for the sale of the counterfeit memorabilia, which included record albums and photographs of celebrities with forged signatures.

p. More than 5,550 people were victims of the scam that lasted from July 2002 until March 2005.

p. Reyes was sentenced to 55 months in prison with three years of supervised release. Her husband was sentenced to 33 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to repay almost $100,000.

p. To conduct the fraud scheme, the three defendants purchased unsigned memorabilia from various locations in Virginia and then forged celebrity signatures on those items.

p. They subsequently posted the items for auction on eBay’s Internet website.

p. The listings falsely described these items as authentic and offered fraudulent certificates of authenticity.

p. From July 5, 2002 through March 11, 2005, using eBay account RICHIEGECKO, Rachel Reyes personally completed 5,265 sales of memorabilia with forged signatures to 3,359 victims, with losses totaling approximately $314,773.97. From July 21, 2003 through March 11, 2005, using eBay account MMASGRL, Selisker personally completed 1,620 sales of memorabilia with forged signatures to 1,104 victims, with losses totaling approximately $118,114.07.

p. From August 10, 2002 through March 11, 2005, using eBay account WOLFIE88, Jeffrey Reyes completed 1,317 sales of memorabilia with forged signatures to 1,124 victims, totaling approximately $130,520.72.

p. Victims were located in all 50 states and 33 other countries.

Although the College Delly is going out of business to make room for a Starbucks, the two other local delis — Paul’s Deli and the Green Leafe Cafe — say that business is good and that they have no intention of leaving.

p. “Business at the Green Leafe has been outstanding for the last several years,” Green Leafe Co-Owner Kevin Abley told The Flat Hat. “I … give credit to our excellent staff for our continued success.”

p. The Green Leafe is doing well enough to expand to New Town. The new outlet is expected to open later this month.

p. “Our expansion to the New Town location is a result of our efforts over the last several years to move the business beyond just a college bar,” Abley said.

p. “Business is steady … we do steady business at all times of day,” Betsy Griffin, a Paul’s Deli employee of 16 years, told The Flat Hat. The owners of Paul’s Deli were not available for comment at the time.

p. Neither Abley nor Griffin felt they could speculate as to why the College Delly is leaving. Starbucks is willing to pay more than any other business to rent the building, which may imply that it would be more profitable than any other establishment.

p. The Flat Hat reported March 23 that sentimental alumni had made offers to buy the College Delly and retain its name, but that their offers were much lower than that of Starbucks. Abley expects a Starbucks to do well in the College Delly’s location.

p. “Starbucks is a very successful corporation that I’m sure does their homework before entering into a business venture,” she said. “I have no doubt that they will be quite profitable at that location. Their huge marketing budget, buying power with vendors and proximity to the College make it a can’t miss deal in my opinion.”

p. Abley also said that he does not think that the end of the College Delly will transfer business to the Leafe.

p. “The College Delly attracts a very different crowd,” he said. “I don’t think it will change our sales one bit.”

p. “You might be surprised to know that our lunch and dinner business well eclipses our late night business,” he added in an e-mail to The Flat Hat.

p. The new establishment in New Town will reflect that, as it will be more of an upscale eatery than the Scotland Street location.
Starbucks will replace the College Delly this summer pending an environmental review.