Brit Snodgrass rapped his maroon and gold robe tighter around his body against the evening spring chill that had settled on the East River Flats. “This may have been the very same robe that He wore when He accepted His almighty position,” Snodgrass said, the firelight from the torches that dotted the valley reflecting in his thick, black-rimmed glasses.

Snodgrass, of course was referring to the Almighty Robert H. Bruinincks, President of the University of Minnesota. (Editors note: Snodgrass agreed to the interview only if we promised to capitolize all references to the President). In the torch-lit field behind Coffman, members of the “Friends Loving an Unadulterated Bobby Bruinincks” student group (FLUBB) gathered to “worship this man who may not be a man at all,” said one group member, “but a bureaucratic being,” he adds with awe.

The leader of the student group, Snodgrass, was chosen under very interesting circumstances. “So yeah, I was able to figure out that Lord Bobby was born on a Tuesday evening, which is seven letters long,” said Snodgrass, a second-year Mathematics major. “And my middle name is William. Not only am I graced to have the same name as Him, but it has the same number of letters as the day of His birth.” Immediately many of the followers of the group began twirling around in circles chanting “Bobby” 7 times until Snodgrass lost his glasses and spent at least 5 minutes trying to find them in the dark, dew-covered grass.

Not all at the university are grateful for FLUBB’s presence. Stevie Prude, co-chair of Students for Pessimistic Values, another student group at the university, is not at all happy with FLUBBs’ participation on campus.

“They’re fucking nuts!” Prude says, from his group’s cramped office cubicle on the second floor of Coffman that is also shared with eight other groups. “They have the whole fucking third floor,” Prude adds, “And they turned in their fees request on a cocktail napkin!”

“It was a napkin from His office, the office of the President,” Snodgrass said when he had been questioned about the unique way that the group had submitted their fees request. “We pulled it from His trash the week before. It had this interesting coffee stain on it that bore a resemblance to our great Leader,” he adds.

Currently, FLUBB receives $847,289.00 dollars in student fees funding. This is in comparison to $30.00 for the Minnesota Daily, $24.99 dollars for the Queer Student Cultural Center, and $0.02 cents for Students for Pessimistic Values.

“Our Leader has graciously supported us, bearing great gifts,” Snodgrass says, “We want of nothing.”

When asked about the huge discrepancy between the amount of funding FLUBB recieves and the amount the Minnesota Daily receives, Harry Peacock, head of this year’s fees committee just shook his head. “I have no idea, “ he says disgustedly. “In fact, get away from me.”

In the meantime, FLUBB continues to grow and prosper. On the banks of the Mississippi river, the light from the torches reflected dully off a huge finger painting of the President. “I like to think of us not as students,” Snodgrass says, stopping spinning for a moment to catch his breath, and find his glasses again, “But as people who once were lost, and now … aren’t as lost.”

In the midst of the brutal Minnesota winter, most freezing pedestrians would hardly consider the grey and barren University of Minnesota campus to be particularly beautiful. But as the weather has grown warmer and the days sunnier and longer, campus has slowly shed its wintery grit and grime to reveal green grass and blooming flowers. While the university’s grounds and buildings (many of them, anyway) could be considered quite pretty on bright spring day, it takes a considerable amount of work to keep them that way.

On April 20, the university celebrated its annual Beautiful U Day, even though the weather wasn’t quite so gorgeous. Despite the rain, volunteers turned out to partake in a little spring cleaning and gardening, including picking up trash, planting flowers and tidying up buildings. “We still had hundreds and hundreds of volunteers,” says coordinator Lori-Anne Williams. “People were everywhere in the rain and mostly people still did what they’d planned to do—it was great. I was excited that so many people wanted to be a part of it in not-so-perfect weather.”

Since its inception in 1997, Beautiful U Day has become an annual campus tradition that is held on or near Earth Day and involves faculty, staff, students, alumni and members of the surrounding communities. Each year, volunteers come together to clean, paint, plant, and “generally revitalize the university.”

Beautiful U Day is a three-time Minneapolis Committee on Urban Environment Award winner for “innovative approaches to campus improvements” and is considered a success by those who work for months to organize it. “It’s to celebrate what we’ve already accomplished—we have made the campus more beautiful,” says Williams. “I think we’re taking better and better care of it.”

Many different student groups and organizations sponsored events in coordination with Beautiful U Day and offered their services as volunteers. MPIRG handed out free reusable coffee mugs to students outside Coffman. “The only condition for students getting a mug was signing a pledge that they would fill the mugs with fair trade products whenever possible, and that they would work to reduce their personal waste by using the mug as opposed to repeatedly buying paper cups,” says Andrew Thomas, MPIRG’s organizing intern.

One of the major goals of Beautiful U Day, though, is encouraging students to try to beautify their environment more frequently than once a year. While doing so might occasionally involve picking up litter or washing windows, people can make a more consistent impact by reducing their “environmental footprints” with certain changes in lifestyle. “Part of it is to raise awareness so that people are thinking,” Williams says. “I think students need to think about what kind of footprint they’re leaving. We can all become a little bit greener. I believe that what we can do is just to take little steps until these things become habits.”

One way to develop these habits is to become active with other students on campus that are working to encourage sustainable and environmentally-friendly lifestyles. “Cornercopia” is a student-run “transitioning to organic” farm on the St. Paul Campus that grows over a hundred varieties of fruits and vegetables. It was started in the spring of 2004 when students wanted to develop a place on campus to grow organic foods. The student group What’s Up in Sustainable Agriculture received a Beautiful U Day grant to plant perennial trees, shrubs and flowers on the student farm as part of a design for a natural ecosystem. The design includes plants that will grow well together—for instance, an apple tree might be used as a trellis for a grapevine.

The farm also has a highly educational mission and it’s designed to get students as involved in the process as possible. “It’s important to give students hands-on experience and it also teaches them skills you need in the business world,” says Courtney Tchida, student programs coordinator for the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture. A farm planning and growing class is offered during spring semester and internships are available for students during the growing season.

But it’s not just students who are working beyond Beautiful U Day. The university as an institution is working to create a more sustainable campus, from teaching and research to waste management, building design, and purchasing decisions. “All the departments are working on different ways to be more efficient,” Williams says. “We want to be a greener university.”

For more information on the university’s sustainability mission, visit the Sustainability and U website at . To get involved with the student farm, go to .

Hybrid cars, compact fluorescent light bulbs, Green Routes, organic fruits and veggies, recycling, fair trade, pesticide-free household and hygiene products, local agriculture, biking, hemp clothing, free-range chicken and eggs, windpower, soy milk, public transportation and more. These are just a few components of adopting a sustainable lifestyle—if you can make sense of the environmentally-friendly barrage. Sound like a lot to deal with? That’s where the Living Green Expo comes in.

The fifth annual Living Green Expo, which will be held Saturday and Sunday, May 6 and 7, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days at the Grandstand building at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, is sponsored by a variety of local environmental groups, non-profit organizations, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and other local businesses such as Target, 3M and Twin Cities Natural Food Co-Ops. The expo aims to bring green options to Twin Cities residents to make life simpler and more sustainable.

“Let’s be concerned about how we’re living our lives in the long term,” says Ami Voeltz, the founder of the Twin Cities Green Guide and the lifestyles and recreation team coordinator of the expo. “More than anything, it’s inspiring,” she says.

This year’s expo is drawing big names. Will Steger, a Minnesota native, environmentalist and artic explorer, will speak Saturday at 1 p.m. about the climate changes he’s seen firsthand. PBS’s Wanda Urbanska, who hosts Simple Living, will talk Sunday at 1 p.m. about ways to reduce stress.

“There’s something there for everyone,” says Laurie Gustafson, marketing officer of the MPCA and the expo. “This is about choices and trying to meet people where they’re at, without the guilt factor,” she says. That’s why there’s such a focus on education at the expo, Gustafson explains.

There will be more than 66 free workshops, with subjects ranging from eco-tourism to “green collar jobs” to wallet-friendly health food. They even have workshops on “sustainable medicine for your pet,” on sustainability in religion and, of course, on sharing energy-saving solutions.

More than 230 companies showcasing green products, resources and services will be at the expo. There’s an eco-fashion show scheduled, live music and other environmental artists, such as Richard Bresnahan, a professor of art and sustainability at Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict.

Local band The Owls will play at 4 p.m. on Saturday. You might recognize their single “Air” from Radio K.

The extensive list of exhibitors, artists and green organizations won’t include politicians. “This is an event sponsored by so many different organizations,” Gustafson says. “We have a common interest, but there won’t be any campaigning. It’s not a Democrat or Republican thing.” Gustafson says she wants people to learn and get informed at the expo—without the politics.

That doesn’t mean green issues shouldn’t be on political agendas. “As individuals and as a community, we need to be conscious” of our environmental choices, Voeltz says. Frank Duoma, team coordinator of transportation for the expo, agrees. “We need to start to think about these alternatives,” Duoma says. The market will likely adjust to take care of these concerns, Duoma explains, but he favors a dual approach, implementing regulatory measures alongside natural market shifts.

“Avoid the single-occupant car,” Duoma says. It’s the best way to reduce emissions and improve your ecological footprint, which Duoma explains as a person’s impact on the environment in everyday living. Walk, bike, carpool or ride the bus whenever possible, Duoma suggests.

But living green isn’t a lifestyle that can be adopted overnight, everyone admits. The expo is about “how to incorporate simple living ideas” into everyday life, Gustafson says. “We’re looking for simpler ways to live. It’s a fun thing to be a part of.”

Outside, puddles slowly evaporate from the desolate wreckage that is the Lake Street reconstruction project. But inside the Heart of the Beast Theater on East Lake and 15th Avenue, community members of all ages and cultures are hard at work, preparing the pieces that will make up the 32nd Annual May Day Parade and Festival.

The Heart of the Beast May Day Festival began in 1974 with a small group of artists, but has grown to include 17 full-time artists and hundreds of community volunteers, and has attracted over 50,000 spectators to Powderhorn Park in the past.

The planning process for the parade begins early at two community brainstorming sessions in February and March. For the last 23 years, the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater has hosted the public meetings, which determine the yearly theme.

Sandy Spieler, a member of the Heart of the Beast Theater, described what goes on at these meetings as a series of questions to each individual about the state of their city, nation, and world. “What is it that makes you sad and angry? What gives you joy and inspires?” the brainstormers were asked. Based on the responses, Spieler asks a second question: “What does everyone wish this city to be like in 50 years?” The purpose of this query is to encourage the community to cross the borders that divide it, to get to know neighbors, and to share experiences. This year’s suggestions for Minneapolis in five decades include “better transportation for all, garden and community spaces, use of sustainable energy that works with the living systems of the earth, a sense that no one is illegal, and a state of peace for the city and world.” The participants then find a common “umbrella” that connects their ideas into a theme.

This year, the theme is “The Time Is Now.” Artists and volunteers have formulated storyboards of plans for the five subsections that comprise the middle of the parade. Each of the five sub-themes gets a section in the parade, complete with a float, puppets, and masked dancers. Because of Hurricane Katrina, the parade will begin with a great flood, symbolizing the disparities in our world, Spieler says. When the parade reaches Powderhorn Park, a ceremony featuring a giant sun puppet, a great tree of life, and over 300 dancers and puppeteers marks the finale. These final images are symbols of hope for the future and the rebirth associated with May Day.

Soozin Hirschmugl, co-section leader for “The Time is Now to Speak the Truth,” has been working with the Heart of the Beast for 15 years. Hirschmugl’s section focuses on Janus, the two-headed Roman god of doorways. “He’s the god of beginnings and endings … polar opposites, the past and the present,” Hirschmugl explains. A giant two-headed mask of Janus will adorn the float, while rolling doorways pushed by skeletons will precede and follow. This section also will feature dancers dressed in raven and crane costumes, to symbolize death and hope respectively. Hirschmugl enlisted the help of local organizations including South West High School, the Harriet Tubman Shelter, and immigrant rights groups to make doorways representing truths they believe need to be spoken. By crossing the threshold of the doorways, the skeletons, once “in the closet,” are brought to light.

A series of green banners stating, “All May Marry,” “All May Love,” and “All May Grow” surround the workstation for the “The Time is Now to Walk Hand in Hand” section. Ramon Cordes, an artist who began as a volunteer at the age of 12, describes this section as focusing on the physical connections between people. For Cordes, the best part of the process is coming together as a community to build. “It’s a great way to get your voice out,” he says above the sounds of about 100 busy volunteers and artists who are participating in tonight’s workshop. Like Cordes, many volunteers start as children and grow up in the theater, carrying on the tradition every year.

Tina Nemetz, a volunteer of 10 years, has created a banner for the “Hand in Hand” section reading “All May Be.” Her hope is to encourage people to put energy into loving, accepting, and being friends with others.

Tonight, Nemetz is working on a giant papier mache bookworm. This creature will be part of the “The Time is Now To Check Out Our Common Wealth” section. The new Minneapolis Public Library on Nicollet and Fourth Street will be opening two weeks after the May Day Parade, and this section celebrates the wealth of knowledge to be found and shared in the library system. The float for “Common Wealth” will feature a “Banned Book Band” along with the herd of bookworms.

Nemetz discovered the May Day Festival shortly after moving to the Powderhorn Park neighborhood. “One day I woke up and there were 50,000 people in my front yard!” she recalls. Since then she has attended and participated in the parade, along with her son and daughter. “This neighborhood has more artists than any other place in the state, per capita,” Nemetz says of the Lake Street-Powderhorn Park district. This contributes to the strong sense of community and cooperation that is present in the Heart of the Beast Theater. “Once you get over your fear and you go through the door, this is probably the most loving place that I have ever been,” she says. Nemetz encourages everyone to become involved with what she describes as “the most significant event of the year.”

Volunteers range from young children to students to older artists and community members. Most are from Minneapolis, but one woman had come from Viroqua, Wisc., bringing with her a foreign exchange student from Germany. The mix of cultures in the theater is obvious in the bilingual signs describing each station in Spanish and English.
Cordes emphasizes the economy of the materials used, including recycled grocery bags, newspapers, plastic containers, fabric, and cardboard. Even the clay is recycled and reused from year to year. Hirschmugl estimates that the clay used for the Janus mask mold is between 25 and 30 years old.

Kevin Long, who has worked as a technical director and freelance puppeteer for the Heart of the Beast Theater, sees the May Day Festival as a coming out after a long winter. He enjoys watching every spring as things go from the planning stages to conceptualization. Long and the rest of the artists and volunteers are well aware of the approaching deadline. Last year he stayed up until 4 a.m. the day of the parade, putting the finishing touches on his float. “Some of the paint was still wet as we pushed the thing out the door,” he remembers.

When asked if she thinks everything will get completed in time, Nemetz smiles and says, “It always does.”

The May Day Parade begins at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 7 and runs along Bloomington Avenue from 26th St. E. to Powderhorn Park. The festival in the park continues until dusk. Rain date is the following Sunday. A free public workshop is scheduled for Thursday, May 4 from 7-9 p.m. for those interested in being involved with the May Day Festival. For more information call 612-721-2535.

“Help stop violence?” asks Jenny Strand, before thrusting small yellow fliers into the hands of two polo-clad students crossing the stretch of pavement bridging the University of Minnesota’s East and West banks. “Eat pancakes for dinner,” the papers exclaim in bold black type over an illustration of a super-size stack of flapjacks.

The fundraiser (at greasy-spoon favorite, Al’s Breakfast) is a playful ploy to promote a serious event: Take Back the Night, a rally denouncing violence against women. And it works. By 5:15 p.m. on Friday, every bar stool beneath the long yellow counter is occupied by students in tees and tanks. Strand shouts orders (“wheat-chip and mozz-eggs”) over the Queen song echoing throughout the oblong restaurant, as university junior Bridget Becker plops chocolate-filled pancake batter onto the grill, next to a woman scrambling eggs in a pan.

At $6 a meal, the girls hope to raise enough money to help fund the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group’s ninth annual TBTN.

The event has empowered survivors and supporters since 1978, when crowds first swept the streets in TBTN marches across the United States. Most occur in April—Sexual Assault Awareness month—and the same is true for this year’s rally, scheduled for April 27.

Last year, over three hundred activists stormed through Uptown, halting traffic as they flooded onto Hennepin Avenue from Loring Park. Hand-painted signs hoisted into the air beamed their message to Minneapolis: “We are women. We are strong. Violence against us has gone on too long.” Volunteers with megaphones lead deafening chants of, “What do we want? Safe streets. When do we want them? Now!”

“By the time you hit the heart of Uptown, everyone is cheering at the top of their lungs,” Kate Suchomel, MPIRG’s program director, says. Several hot pink streaks are woven into her coiled ponytail, and her frequent smile exudes an innocence that belies her age. But bubbling just beneath this cheerful exterior is a community activist who will shout until her voice grows hoarse to break the silence surrounding the vastly underreported crimes of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

“Two big reasons people don’t report what happened to them are, (a) they feel ashamed, and (b) they feel they’re alone in the experience,” Suchomel says. “One of the goals of TBTN is to show people they’re not alone.”

Suchomel certainly isn’t alone when it comes to organizing the march. She delegates tasks to around 20 student volunteers from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Macalester and The Collge of St. Catherine. Four of these students, including university juniors Michael Eisberner and Jenny Strand, became involved in the demonstration to fulfill class requirements for the University’s activist-oriented social justice minor.

“Each class has 30 hours service learning,” says Professor Lisa Albrecht, who teaches Introduction to Social Justice. “Central in the class is getting involved, not just discussing theoretical ideas.”

Since her first rally in 1978, Albrecht has lost count of the number of TBTNs she’s participated in. Albrecht does recall her first march in Minnesota in the 1980s. “A big TBTN happened in the community. We marched from South Minneapolis towards downtown, on streets where there were pornography theaters.”

Today, the movement is more centered on giving a voice to survivors of abuse and allowing them to overcome the fear of darkness by joining in solidarity and reclaiming public spaces. Speakers rally the marchers before they set out, sharing stories and offering support.

This year, Anna Odegaard will lend her voice to the cause. She works with battered women every day, as an advocate at the Alexandra House, a women’s shelter dedicated to ending domestic violence. “A real change can only happen as society reacts differently to violence against women,” she says. “We need to hold men accountable … Domestic violence should be as inconceivable as cannibalism.”

The sole male working with MPIRG on TBTN, Eisberner has done everything from designing the event’s Web site to e-mailing fraternities in an attempt to educate local men’s groups about the power they have to affect women’s rights issues.

“I’m planning on marching,” he says, from the comfort of a booth butted against the Purple Onion’s Fourth Street-facing windows. Reaching into his backpack, the soft-spoken student pulls out a small gopher gold hued flier. On it, gruesome statistics reflect the urgency of TBTN’s mission.

“Every two minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. One out of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lives. About 44 percent of rape victims are under age 18. Forty-three percent of rapes occur between 6 p.m. and midnight.”

This last fact is central to TBTN’s mission. “As women, we always have to think about going out alone, what time it is, what neighborhood we’re in. We have to be aware of people on the street and who’s around us,” says Albrecht. “It’s important for men to be aware of this.”

The Take Back the Night pre-rally will begin at 6 p.m. on April 27, in Loring Park, with the march through Uptown commencing at 7:30 p.m. For more information, go to , or call (612) 627-4035.

It’s still dark, it’s still jazzy, but since the smoking ban went into effect at 12:01 a.m. March 31, the Artist’s Quarter is oddly clean. The ban was signed by Mayor Chris Coleman almost a year after his predecessor Randy Kelly vetoed a similar bill. The fight to stay smoking wasn’t as fierce this time around, but there were still many dissenters.

“It’s a jazz club, you should be able to smoke,” Dave Horst, bartender at the once smoky Artist’s Quarter, says. In the weeks after the revised smoking ban went into effect, the smokers of St. Paul have found new places to smoke.

“I smoke at home, on my balcony,” Lauren Bartley says. Bartley and people like her are doing just the thing St. Paul bar owners fear most, and what many have experienced. St. Paul bars have seen a drastic change in business since the ban went into effect.

“There are a lot fewer people, especially on the weekends,” Joe Young says. As a bartender at Gabe’s By The Park, Young was used to a packed, smoky bar at game time and through the weekend. Gabe’s, situated between St. Paul and Minneapolis, was one of the 16 small bars that fought against the ban to the bitter end. The establishments that fought the hardest were those who depended on people commuting from Minneapolis or other surrounding suburbs, many of whom have stopped coming.

In one respect, Gabe’s has come out ahead of many of the local bars. Unlike the smaller local pubs and hidden venues, Gabe’s hasn’t lost its regulars. “They said they would leave, but ended up staying,” Young says, raising his glass to a crowd of elderly golfers down the bar. Not everyone was so lucky. The Turf Club, one of St. Paul’s oldest bars, has lost many of its regulars.

“It’s mostly the working folks that have stopped showing up,” Dave Ricker says. “The people who get off work and want to relax with a beer and a cigarette have probably just gone home.” Ricker, a veteran bartender at the Turf Club, has also seen a sharp decline during the venue’s many concerts. Before the ban, concertgoers would show up for the whole show and smoke and drink to their heart’s content. Now patrons trickle in for the bands they want to see, slashing their bar tabs and the club’s profits.

Ricker agrees that the ban is good for public health; it has even helped him cut back on his own smoking. And Ricker, like most bartenders, servers and owners has seen the statistics and the good that smoking bans created in places like California, where the number of smokers has dropped 32.5 percent since 1988. If the ban were merely a question of health, it would have passed ages ago, but it’s not, he says. A broader question of a city’s character and quality of life can’t be measured by statistics.

“The people who pushed for this bill don’t care about small bars turning into Applebee’s,” Ricker says. Corporate places like Old Chicago and TGI Friday’s, with their razor-thin profit margins and huge budgets for perks like heat lamps, continue with business as usual.

Though Dave Thune, author of the ban, says bar owners will receive grant money to update their establishments, many are still skeptical that the money will do any good. The law states that sidewalk seating and patios must leave three feet for walkers to pass. But places like the Turf Club situated along old streets and small sidewalks have little hope of putting their grant money to use.

“It depends on the City Council,” Ricker says. “We’ve hardly got the space now.” Even if council members O.K. a few chairs in front of the club, it will be up to patrons to sit alongside noisy traffic and thick exhaust.

For the sake of fairness, most people prefer a statewide ban. According to a survey done by the Artist’s Quarter, 69 percent of respondents agreed that a blanket ban is necessary. “It’s not fair that [the ban] changes at every border,” says Kim Erickson, a waitress and bartender. “When you’re dealing with a huge metro area, it must be universal.” Thune and proponents of the ban say that once the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul show that the ban works and that people want it, the rest of the state will follow. But until then, profits are being spread dangerously thin for small bars under the current ban.

Regardless of the health issues and a preference for a statewide ban, smokers and non-smokers alike think there should be a place to smoke besides the great outdoors. “I don’t know what the answer is,” Erickson says, “but people who drink have bars, fat people have McDonald’s—smokers should have a place too.”

Counting on leaving Coffman bookstore with cash to start your summer in style, you eagerly inch up to the counter, hand over your pile of this semester’s textbooks and the counter clerk starts scanning away. Gazing at the screen, you notice you are banking $2 for a book that cost you $60. The clerk hands you a pathetic “stack” of cash—much more slender than the one you shelled out months ago to buy the books—and you’re pushed to the limit.

And you’ve got reasons to be pissed. Students pay an average of $900 a year on textbooks, according to a July federal Government Accountability Office report. Textbook prices have steadily increased at twice the rate of inflation since 1986 and identical textbooks can often be purchased overseas for less than half of the U.S. price. Publishers sometimes offer incentives to professors to assign new editions. Occasionally, professors even assign books they’ve written themselves. And, as most can attest, bookstores only buy a used book back at a maximum of 50 percent of its retail price. Still mad?

Why are textbooks so expensive? According to Doug Armato, director of the University Press, it’s because books are expensive to create in the first place. It costs about $20,000 to fully publish the first copy of an average book. Printing additional copies can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $12,000 a print run, Armato explains.

Nonetheless, the GAO confirmed that textbook prices increase at 6 percent per year—twice the rate of inflation. Increasing costs, the GAO says, are largely due to packaging and supplementary materials. Those CDs and workbooks, often not assigned, that are bundled with required textbooks are a chief reason for driving up prices (10 to 50 percent), the GAO report explains. This also hurts your resale power, as the bookstore sometimes won’t buy back a book if you don’t have the CD, workbook or have used the Web passcode. Frequent revisions, resulting in new editions, are another reason cited for skyrocketing prices, the GAO says.

The GAO also points out that U.S. textbook prices are lower overseas—sometimes up to 50 percent less. This is due to marketability in the U.S., such as a “willingness and ability of students to purchase the textbook,” the report says. The report also notes that publishers have “taken steps to limit” cheaper online “reimportation” of books back into the U.S.

Faces might turn red this fall when students find they have to purchase a $100 eighth edition, instead of a used seventh edition for $60, but what about the fury when they find out their own professor wrote that book they’ve been assigned? Though the university “encourages faculty authorship of instructional material,” these instructors must not “personally profit from the assignment of materials … without proper administrative approval,” according to the University Senate Educational Materials Conflict of Interest policy. It is also not allowed for professors to accept commissions from publishers for assigning other books.

Most professors who assign their own texts donate their royalties to a scholarship or other educational fund for students, says Richard Bianco, associate vice president for regulatory affairs. He explains that profiting from assigning books to students is unethical and most professors are “on the same page about this.” But there are no conflict of interest cops, Bianco says, and it is largely a “self-disclosure system.” Details on enforcement are left up to the individual departments.

But it seems some departments might not have gotten the memo on conflict of interest policy, which has been in effect since 2001. “I wasn’t aware of it,” says English professor Joel Weinsheimer, who has taught his novel, Untimely Ripped, for more than two years, uninformed that he was not allowed to profit. This may be because “it doesn’t bring in a profit anyways, so it doesn’t matter,” he says.

“Some of my students think I go to Jamaica every year” off of their student loans, Weinsheimer says. Much to the contrary, he grosses only $1 per book, and most of his Modern English class opts for used copies, so he earns around $40 per semester through royalties, he explains.

According to Armato, professors make about 7 to 10 percent from sales, which is much lower than a commercial publisher, where an author would make 25 to 30 percent. The bulk of your dollar (about 33 percent) goes to the publisher for paper, printing and editorial costs. Only 11 percent goes to the bookstore. Small author’s royalties shrink even more when you include their research and writing expenses, according to the National Association of College Stores .

Weinsheimer’s small profit margin, and then some, is donated back to the class, because he offers to take his students out to lunch, he says. Though Weinsheimer wasn’t aware, lunch is a sanctioned use of the profits under the university’s policy. What a professor wants to do with royalties is an individual choice, as long as they do not profit personally, says Bianco.

Weinsheimer says he will continue teaching the book unless his students give him negative feedback on the end-of-semester evaluations. He thinks it is a unique experience for students to get to interact with an author they’re reading in class. “Yes, Hemingway is a better writer than I am, but they don’t get to talk to him,” Weinsheimer explains.

Arlene Teraoka, College of Liberal Arts Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, agrees that this practice can be beneficial. CLA approved 21 requests for the use of books authored by the teaching professor this year—out of 540 professors in CLA. “These are books that are the only ones, or the best ones, available in English on the subject,” she explains.

Even though these textbooks may be quality tomes on highly important topics, most students don’t want to hold onto them for long. And considering that they cost hundreds of dollars a semester, the bookstore should give students a break and make good on their “book buy back” promise, right? Not really—unless you consider being handed a few dollars a real resale transaction.

The university’s bookstore buys as many used books back as it can, says Bob Crabb, director of Coffman’s bookstore. The bookstore is clued in by the academic departments as to what books students will be assigned next semester and in what quantity. Once the bookstore hits its limit of how many books it needs, it will not buy any more used books back.

If a book is being sold back for the first time and a department has requested it, the bookstore will buy it back at 50 percent of the retail price. If the bookstore is buying a twice-used book, that book will bring in anywhere from 0 to 30 percent of its original retail price, depending on marketability, Crabb explains. If the bookstore hasn’t heard from a department, it will not buy that book at all.

Once the bookstore has gone through its buy back process, they visit warehouses to stock the rest of their inventory. The bookstore tries to buy used books, but sometimes they have to buy new ones to meet the demand, Crabb says.

Chances are the bookstore’s not just buying used books to be gentle with students’ shallow pockets. Bookstores generally bank a higher profit from selling used books (34.9 percent) than new books (22.5 percent), according to NACS, because both publishers and authors do not profit on used book sales, Armato says.

Textbook buy back at the Student Book Store doesn’t operate any differently, Crabb says. “Our prices are pretty much identical. We just might hit our limits at different times,” he says.

But, if Coffman has hit its limit and won’t buy a book back or seems to be offering much less than you’d like, it might be wise to check out what the Dinkytown business will offer. There are a few other options for students who want to battle the risings costs of their textbooks.

The Campaign to Reduce College Textbook Costs says that the power of keeping textbooks affordable lies mostly with the publishers. The campaign wants students and faculty to let publishers feel the heat. They suggest that faculty try to order “unbundled books,” without supplements, and reassign old editions—available used—when possible. Some states have also tried legislation to pressure publishers to offer more affordable books. Students, when possible, can order books from British Web sites, and swap with friends. Other Web sites offer ways to order and sell your books for better deals.

For more information on the Campaign to Reduce College Textbook Costs, see .

Men teetered in high-heeled shoes at the beginning of April not only to advent the beginning of spring, but also to honor Sexual Assault Awareness month. The Aurora Center kicked off the month with “Take a Walk in Her Shoes” and passed out information about sexual assault while encouraging students and community members to take a walk down the Washington Avenue Bridge in high heels.

One in four to five women experiences rape or attempted rape while in college, and 90 percent of college rape victims know their attacker, according to the National Institute of Justice. However, less than five percent of these victims will report the assault to police, the same study states.

Numbers like these are what keeps organizations like the U’s Aurora Center determined to make changes. But the Aurora Center’s main goal is not simply to file more police reports. Instead, they want to support survivors of sexual assault in whatever they choose to do—including not reporting the crime if that’s their decision—and attack the problem of sexual violence at its cultural and societal roots. To this end, the center is sponsoring and collaborating on a variety of events in April for Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

As an overall mission, “we’re here to empower people and support whatever decisions they make,” says Liz Borer, the legal advocacy and direct services co-coordinator for the center. “Sexual assault is an experience where a victim’s control was taken away from them by force, and an important step to recovery is helping them to regain that control in their lives and make their own decisions.”

Helping victims recover is the focus of the staff and volunteer advocacy aspect of the Aurora Center’s program. The center recruits, trains, and supervises volunteer peer advocates to staff a 24-hour crisis line. All advocates have gone through extensive training and been certified by the state of Minnesota as sexual violence counselors. They are able to provide some counsel to victims who need to have their options outlined or, at the very least, an ear to listen. “We’re not counselors in the sense of therapists, but we are here for crisis intervention,” Borer says. “We do some aspects of counseling but we really just provide people options for what steps they can take next.”

The center offers telephone or walk-in short-term advocacy services for individuals, including information on legal options. Advocates will accompany a victim to the hospital, sit next to him or her at court, help file a police report, write a restraining order or file complaints with the university. The Aurora Center also provides resources for longer term counseling and support groups.

The other major aspect of the center’s mission examines the difference between preventing sexual assault and reducing the risk of being sexually assaulted. Through educational presentations, advocates seek to educate the community and raise awareness about issues that still frequently seem too “taboo” to be addressed. To prevent sexual assault, the center focuses on the person whose actions define sexual assault—the perpetrator. People can reduce their risk of being sexually assaulted—and thus becoming victims—through a variety of methods, but stopping a perpetrator from assaulting a person is not the responsibility of the potential victim. Sexual assault is not the victim’s fault.

“Sexual assault and relationship violence are the result of a culture that tolerates, supports and reinforces violence and we must change the culture to prevent violence in all forms. The Aurora Center believes that the best way to prevent sexual and relationship violence is to educate people to be respectful toward one another, show support for victims/survivors, and challenge violent behaviors and thus prevent possible perpetrators from committing a violent crime,” according to the center’s Web site.

In order to achieve this goal, Aurora Center advocates provide peer and professional trainings and educational presentations on numerous issues relating to sexual and relationship violence. “In terms of our education program, we look at what’s going on in our culture that we have such high rates of violence against women,” Borer says. “We look at images in the media, particularly in advertising, that reflect this culture of violence and we really encourage men and women to work together as allies to interrupt this culture, to challenge sexist attitudes or sexist behaviors that ultimately lead up to violent actions.” Presentations and trainings for any classes, organizations or departments at the U are free of charge.

“Sexual Assault Awareness Month is kind of a collaboration between these two aspects—advocacy and education—of our program,” Borer says. “This is just an opportunity for us to really get the word out about our program and to try to start the discussion about sexual assault and violence in our community.”

Upcoming events include a conference on the relationship between tourism and child sex trafficking, “United Front for Children,” on April 21 and a portrayal by Pangea World Theater of the experiences of battered immigrant women, “Human Rights at Home,” on April 26. Both of these events will be at the Coffman Memorial Union Theater.

Further information on Sexual Assault Awareness Month, sexual assault statistics, advocacy services, volunteer opportunities at The Aurora Center, and more is available at . The Aurora Center is located on the fourth floor of the Boynton Health Services Building on the East Bank, at 410 Church St. SE. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. The number for the 24-hour crisis line is 612-626-9111.

The second level of the Dinkydome screams food. There’s Espresso Royale, Taco Johns, Little Taj Mahal and more. In this mix a pizza and pasta joint stands with food on display, but no sign to signify a name. It leads one to wonder, “What is that place?” The answer is Yianni’s Pizzeria and Pasta Bar.

The restaurant has been open for a little more than a month and is run by 23-year-old John Nicklow, who took over the pizza place from his father, Tony. Yianni’s is a two-man operation, run by Nicklow with the help of his sole employee Joe Cerami, who met Nicklow through Tony. “I worked with his father, but didn’t meet him until about a month ago,” Cerami says. “Isn’t that funny?”

“The pizza was already here and we already had a good customer base for pizza,” Nicklow says. The business, previously called Taste of Manhattan, had about 20 to 25 regulars and now that a 20-ingredient pasta bar has been added, “business has tripled,” he says.

Nicklow changed the name to Yianni, which is Greek for John, in honor of his Greek heritage because, “It wasn’t operating as I wanted it to and I didn’t want it to be associated [with Taste].”

As for the Dinkydome, which was originally built as a library for a bible college, “We can get more people up here [to the Dinkydome],” Nicklow says. The businesses are good and the owners are good people, Nicklow says. The Dinkydome has more potential than it’s given credit for.

It may seem strange that a restaurant would open before it had a sign and menus, but not to Nicklow. “My father recommended closing until everything was together,” he says. But Nicklow “wanted to finalize ideas and hear customer input.” Once menus are finalized and printed, they’ll be passed out with orders to advertise the restaurant, he says.

Nicklow now concentrates on getting everything running how he’d like it to. “There was major reorganization and cleaning to create the pasta bar and put in the display fridge,” Nicklow says. “Now you can watch when I cook.”

Nicklow, a recent graduate of St. Mary’s University in Winona, has a degree in business management, and comes from local food royalty. His father came from Greece and opened Nicklow’s Cafe & Bar in Spring Lake Park and Santorini Taverna & Grill at 394 and 169 in St. Louis Park.

John is also in charge of the reorganization of Mangia, a restaurant in the lower level of the Dinkydome along University Avenue. Mangia will re-open in two months with a full bar and will serve pizza, pasta and wings.

Yianni’s is currently “selling [food] much cheaper than we should to continue with business,” while Nicklow gets recipes and menus just perfect. “It’s kind of like my practice round,” he says.

The best part? You don’t have to wait while everything is finalized. Yianni’s is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and takes checks and credit cards. Their most popular item is two slices of pizza with a soda at an unbeatable $4.75. The pasta bar is $4.95 for vegetarian—meat can be added for $1.50. So next time you are in the Dome, consider something new, cheap and absolutely delicious.

The school year is coming to a close, and as many Superblock residents reflect on their “first-year experience” they will find that it may or may not have included those four activities. Lindsey Rae Palmer, who opted to spend her first year out of high school volunteering in Peru, found that her unconventional first-year experience did in fact include those jaunts.

After graduating from Washburn High School in Minneapolis in 2005, Palmer ditched promises of freshmen dorm life to jet off to an old Incan city in the Andes. Admitted to the University, Palmer decided instead to volunteer to teach English in Ayacucho, Peru with Cross Cultural Solutions (CCS), a volunteer abroad program.

“I knew I wanted to do volunteer work somewhere and experience life on my own for a bit [before going to college],” Palmer says. Hoping to travel to New Orleans to help in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Palmer stumbled onto CCS’s Web page and “just felt drawn to Peru,” she says. “Three days later I hopped onto a plane.”

She spent three months in Peru teaching English, working at a home for the elderly, playing with children at an orphanage, helping children at a special needs school and visiting women and their children at a prison before returning to Minneapolis last November. Smitten, Palmer couldn’t stay home long. “I fell in love with the country, the culture and the language, so I decided to return two months later [in January],” she explains. This time she traveled, unconnected to any organization, with her roommate from the CCS house to Lima, Peru—with plans to stay through August.

Working with CCS was an “amazing and eye-opening experience,” Palmer says, but she wanted to try being “independent of the program.” During this trip, she is volunteering as an English tutor and working with a program she began while traveling with CCS—an export embroidery business for women in a Peruvian prison.

Though volunteering keeps her busy, Palmer says her days are less structured now that she is traveling independently. “The idea of an ‘average day,’ by definition, does not exist in my life over here,” she says. “I get up some days and go to the beach, take a walk in the city, go for a jog or sometimes have teaching appointments.”

Like some go-getting university students who make time for intramurals, Palmer too dabbles in alternative sports. When traveling through a desert south of Lima, Palmer and some friends from California decided to try “sand boarding.” Palmer cites the experience as one of her fondest memories. “We rented a sand buggy, which looks like a tricked out golf cart,” she explains, “and drove through the huge sand mounds until we found a steep hill. We would then take our, also rented, snowboards and … you get the idea.”

A less affectionate recollection of her travels, Palmer says, was becoming sick after eating a local dish with an unacquainted stomach. (Some dorm residents—unprepared for the all-you-can-eat vibe of the cafeterias—may have similar memories.) Palmer’s culprit was cebiche, which is a traditional Peruvian dish composed of raw fish, marinated in lime, salt and onion. “Absolutely delicious,” she says, “but deadly to an unaccustomed stomach. For your sake, I won’t include the details.”

Palmer’s experience can be likened to typical college students on the home front in other ways as well. She spends many of her nights clubbing, she says. “I love to salsa, although I’m horrible at it!” she says. Also, like many freshman, Palmer is experiencing her first year away from home. “That, in and of itself, is its own life adjustment,” she says. She is also meeting people from all over the world, who come and go through the youth hostel she is staying in.

Though Palmer isn’t actually studying abroad nor earning college credit, “by default I am learning tons of Spanish!” she says. “I am learning here from life experience much more than I could ever get out of a text book,” she explains.

Though Palmer says she is not homesick or ready to come back to the States, she is anxious to begin her college career this fall. “I am excited in a sense, but I am also afraid of getting back into the routine of typical American culture,” she explains.

“As cliché as this sounds, I hope to come back with a better understanding of myself and the world,” Palmer says. She does plan to volunteer abroad again sometime as well. “It is an aspect of ignorance that can’t be broken without stepping outside of your immediate reality … a highly underrated life experience that everyone should have,” she explains.

While some students are hunting for internships or jobs, registering for more courses or banking on relaxing at home, those panicking because they haven’t decided what to do with their summer yet should remember Palmer registered to go abroad three days before hightailing a jet to Peru.