Concerns about food allergens in the S.U.B. have prompted a handful of students to begin organizing a group that will work with Dining and Conference Services to negotiate gluten-free options.  CaroLea Casas, a freshman, is leading the effort to change the way our food service operates. The issue is complicated for Dining and Conference Services (DCS) because people tend to have combinations of dietary restrictions rather than single allergies.  Casas, who is gluten-intolerant, is also lactose-intolerant and cannot eat animal products.  When she decided to attend Puget Sound, she was...

Puget Sound occupies a precarious position between copyright owners and students who use peer-to-peer file sharing for illegal downloading. The administration’s goal is to protect students from the consequences of copyright infringement while avoiding liability. Most students are aware of P2P file sharing. LimeWire, Kazaa, Ares Galaxy, Gnutella and BitTorrent are familiar names. The students who do not participate in illegal file sharing have friends who do. In January 2011, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation reported that 17.53 percent of U.S. Internet bandwidth is dedicated to illegal downloading. The...

Faculty, staff and other members of the campus community are searching for solutions in the wake of the collapse of the Northwest Independent Colleges (NIC) tuition exchange program. The exchange constitutes a significant portion of the employee benefits package, and its cancellation presents a serious obstacle for hundreds of students and their parents. Dependents of faculty and staff at the five participating schools (Puget Sound, Whitman, Willamette, Reed and Lewis & Clark) were able to get a tuition-free education at any of these colleges.  President Thomas announced in June that...

The Underground Christian Fellowship (UCF) is taking steps to be reinstated as an official campus organization after being placed on suspension last spring by the University’s Integrity Code Board (ICB). Before the suspension, the group was known as the University of Puget Sound Christian Fellowship (UPSCF) and functioned as a chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, a national campus ministry organization. Associate Dean of Students Donn Marshall issued formal sanctions against UPSCF after the Integrity Code Board revealed that the club had violated University policies. He stressed that no constitution may...

On Saturday, Oct. 1, a crowd of about 200 gathered in Westlake Plaza for Occupy Seattle, one of the latest in a series of protests forming in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Occupy Wall Street, which began in the summer of 2011, is a demonstration inspired in part by the Arab Spring and fueled by dissatisfaction with the economy.  Currently active in every state and in several other countries, these demonstrations are leaderless and loosely organized.  Participants range in age from teens to seniors, and they are all...

Green Dot, a national program that teaches bystanders how to deal with power-based personal violence, is thriving on the Puget Sound campus. Administrators and students alike have praised the program for its accessibility, inclusiveness and practical approach. Green Dot was founded by Dr. Dorothy Edwards, whose mission is to create a cultural shift by reshaping the way we look at violence. The term “sexual violence” was replaced with “power-based personal violence” in order to include a much broader range of harmful behavior. Director of Multicultural Student Services Czarina Ramsay does...

Residence Hall Association (RHA) elections this September yielded 30 new executive members, all of whom are now part of the extensive Residence Life network.  The RHA training retreat, hosted by the Resident Student Association (RSA) at the end of September, is designed to prepare them for the job of managing overall wellness in the dorms. Wellness remains the primary theme, but this year’s members plan to approach this objective through special emphasis on new programs and regional participation. In the spirit of accessibility, RSA Advisor Jenni Chadick has also created...

The Class of 2015, with a total of 686 students, represents 34 states and 473 high schools.  Its profile reflects national trends in only two major areas: non-Hispanic white students still make up the majority of the student body, and the women outnumber the men.  The number of UPS freshmen who belong to minority groups has increased by one percentage point since last year.  At the national level this number is growing slightly faster, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).  NCES also reports that female students took...