jaystreet issue 1

JAY STREET MAGAZINEJOHNS HOPKINS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE

SPRING 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTSLIFE AT HOPKINS

HOPKINS STUDENTS FAMILIAR WITH LiIBRARY RATS 3IS HOPKINS JOINING THE IVY LEAGUE? 5

THE CRAP ABOUT NO HOPKINS TRADITIONS 8WHERE IS OUR SCHOOL SPIRIT? 11

HEALTHHELPING BALTIMORE’S UNINSURED 13

ADDERALL ADDICTION 15CELLPHONES THAT CHANGE LIVES 19

TECHNOLOGYFACEBOOK: FRIEND OR FOE? 21

SUSTAINABILITY AT HOPKINS 23THE PROBLEM WITH BLACKBOARD 26

CRACKING THE CODE TO THE BRAIN 28

AROUND CAMPUSHOMEWOOD’S NEWEST BUILDINGS 31

CAMPUS BUILDINGS: BEHIND THE NAME 13CREATING A BUSINESS SCHOOL 37

THE CHOICE OF BILLINGS 39

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EXECUTIVE STAFF

ELIZABETH TRAMPOSCHERIC VOHREric Vohr is the founder and executive producer of Jay Street Magazine. He also co-produces a weekly NBC radio show on pain management and has written for The Saturday Evening Post, The Washington Post and Ski Maga-zine.

ERIN VIGIL ANDY SCOTT

SERA BOERGER KATIE NAYMON

JESSICA DEBAKEY CRISTI O’CONNOR

GORDON SCOTT

WELCOME TO JAY STREETOnline Journalism: JayStreet is a brand new class offered by the Center for Leadership Education that is open to all students. This class combined writing, editing and designing the website, along with insight from guest speakers from many of Baltimore’s magazines and newspapers. Students chose their own article topics and conducted interviews. Meet the staff that put together to inaugural issue of JayStreet!

CONTACT US:

WEB: http://jaystreet.org/emagazine

EMAIL: [email protected]

Elizabeth is the web developer and writer for Jay Street. She is a Senior at Hopkins majoring in Environ-mental Engineering.

Erin Vigil is a Sophomore is a neuroscience major from Texas. Her interests include photoraphy, running, swimming, and being a bad ass. On campus, she is a mem-ber of Alpha Kappa Psi and Ataxia Ambassadors.

Andrew Scott is a Junior from Santa Cruz California. He is a Public Health major with a minor in Global Environment Change and Sustainability. Beyond aca-demics he played three years of division III water polo at Johns Hopkins, and was the president of his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi.

Sera Boerger is a junior Economics major from Palo Alto, California. On campus, she is part of the busi-ness fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, and plays on the women’s squash team. Her interests include graphic design, entrepreneurship, invest-ment, and sipping margaritas on the beach.

Katie is a freshman majoring in Writing Seminars and Political Science. She is from Cleveland, OH. She is a member of the JHU Wind Ensemble and the Hopkins Hosting Society.

Jessica is a third-year Public Health Studies student at Hopkins,hailing from Bethesda, MD. She is particularly interested in publichealth communications, which is what spurred her interest towardsJayStreet and its mission. It has been a great experience for her tobe a part of the founding staff.

Cristi O’Connor is a junior from Worcester, Massachusetts. She is majoring in Public Health Stud-ies and has an interest in global health. She is also minoring in Global Environmental Change and Sustainability.

Gordon Scott is a Junior Molecu-lar and Cellular Biology Major. Hailing from New Hampshire, he is currently following a pre-med route, and hopes to attend medical school in 2013.

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back there will be evidence ofmouse life in this library. The average mouse lives less than a year in the wild, but two to three years when in captivity. 12:00 a.m. Getting bored of my reading, I analyze the glob of peanut butter; have the mice outsmarted me? Neg-ative. Everything is how I left it two hours ago. I decide to move closer to the bait so that I truly do not miss anything from here on out. Some mice play dead if they can-not quickly escape from a frighten-ing situation. 12:50 a.m. I only had a light dinner and the peanut butter is looking really tempting right now. Mice can only go two to four days without eating before dying. 1:00 a.m. I have an exam tomorrow, and this mission is proving hopeless; it’s time to pack up and leave. I am not-so-secretly thrilled, because I really did not want to see a mouse...and now I can honestly tell my editor that I gave it the “college try.”

foods with a high sugar content. 10:08 p.m. Hopefully the mice are hungry at this hour, because my books don’t look very inviting in this fluorescent light. I do not want to be here long—just long enough to snap a picture of a mouse enjoying my peanut butter in front of the bookshelves. Mice build their homes around food, because they like to eat 15 to 20 times a day. Have the mice outsmarted me?10:30 p.m. I am crouched in the row of shelves next to the scene of the inevitable crime, doing some casual reading, waiting to hear a squeak to my right. Nothing. The typical mouse has an average speed of 8 mph and a top speed of 15 mph. 11:01 p.m. Decided to wait two rows away. Nothing. Medical and scientific researchers use between 20 and 30 million mice each year in the United States alone. 11:20 p.m. I am studying in a cubicle next to my friend; hopefully when I check

1:04 a.m. As I approach the security desk, I glance to my right to wave goodbye to some friends that have been stationed at the front couches on M Level all night. In the nook created by the stairs above this area, behind an occupied armchair, I see motion. My camera is buried in my backpack, and my eyes do not want to believe what my mind has been hoping for all along; but, whether I like it or not, I have discovered a mouse in the library. I watch as a blur of gray fur scurries into a crack under-neath the stairs, its ultimate destination most likely the food at Cafe Q. Why did I not think of this? My petty glob of peanut butter cannot compete with an entire cafe! Although I may have been out-smarted this time, at least I know they exist. There are mice in the Johns Hop-kins University Milton S. Eisenhower Library. Need to see it to believe it? I understand; so did I (unfortunately). Stake out Cafe Q and let me know what you find. I'll be studying, on C Level, avoiding the mice.

STUDENTS FAMILIAR WITH LIBRARY RATS BY JESSICA DEBAKEY We’ve all heard the rumor around the campus: mice roam the stacks of the Milton S. Eisenhower (MSE) Library. Legend has it that at night, while hundreds of students stare mind-numbingly at their laptops, the tiny rodents come out to play. But is it true, and if it is, where do the little rascals come from? It’s hard to know who first saw the MSE mice; in fact, hard data on these “library rats” is surprisingly low considering how much attention they get. I myself am terrified of mice, so when JayStreet decided to inves-tigate the story, it came as a shock when my hand rose up to claim it. My editor insisted that in order to do this story justice, I would need to stake out the library and find solid evidence; essentially, I would need to invite a face-to-face encounter with a mouse.

Just refer to me as the Mouse Whis-perer from here on out. 10:00 p.m. I prance into Q Level and head straight to Cafe Q, my coffee shop of choice on campus. “One venti Americano, please!” I know I will need as much caffeine as I can get for the night ahead of me. 10:04 p.m. It is customary to visit the pleas-ant and friendly social scene on M Level, the top-most floor in the library, before descending the stairs into the four levels of silent caves below, where undergrads and grads bury themselves in books and do “serious work.” So, after swiping into MSE, I scan the tables for familiar faces, bracing myself for the mis-sion that faces me. The weight of the textbooks on my back is pulling me (I am on a double mission: find some mice and cram for an exam,

since it is finals period), and I decide that I must go down into the depths. C Level will be my field site. I do my best work there, and my sources tell me that C Level is good mouse-hunting ground. The library has roughly two million books and actually sunk two inches by the time it was fully stocked. 10:06 p.m. In spite of the fact that my goal is to find a mouse, I’m secretly terri-fied of the possibility of meeting one tonight. Again, I question the state I was in when I agreed to write this article. Reluctantly, I pull the jar of JIF creamy peanut butter out of my backpack and dab a glob onto a napkin that I place in an unoc-cupied back corner of the C Level stacks. Most mice prefer peanut butter to cheese, because they are drawn to

Have the mice outsmarted me?

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LIFE AT HOPKINS JAYSTREET MAGAZINE

United States, as typified by the ivy that grew on their buildings over time, according to “Ask The Dean” at collegeconfidential.com. And while the idea, and the phrase “Ivy League” first emerged in the 30s, it was not until 1945 that the “Ivy Group Agreement” was signed. At first, it only applied to football, requiring that each of the eight institutions have the same academic standards, eligibility requirements, and administration of financial aid for football players. However, in February 1954 the Agreement was expanded to include all sports within the eight universities, and renamed the Ivy League, according to McCa-

rter’s guide. Today, the term Ivy League has grown to represent something that some might see at the antithesis of sports: academics. Specifically, it represents an elitist club of univer-sities that mark the top of every high school A-student’s admission list, according to “Ask The Dean” at collegeconfidential.com. In fact, big sports schools like Texas A & M, UCLA, and University of Florida have teams that eclipse those at most Ivy League schools. Now that it is clear what and who the Ivy League is, the question still remains, will Hopkins join? And the answer is a clear and resounding

no! Fake campus map used in the film “Social Network”“There is no discussion of expan-sion in the Ivy League at any level. Any rumors stating something in this vain are just that--unfounded rumors,” said Scottie Rodgers, Asso-ciate Executive Director of Commu-nications for the Ivy League. All eight universities currently in the League have been members since it was first formed. The pos-sibility of Hopkins joining the Ivy League was discussed briefly around that time, 60 years ago, but never pursued fully, according to Jerome D. Schnydman, executive assistant

“Have the mice outsmarted me?”

BY ANDY SCOTT

A couple of years ago, a Hol-lywood film crew filmed scenes for the movie “The Social Network” at Johns Hopkins, pretending it was Harvard. And while Oscar Wilde coined the saying “life imitates art,” im-agining Hopkins as an Ivy League school is a case of art imitating life--this rumor has floated around the campus for years. But is it true, or is it just as fake as the Hopkins campus map that was painted crimson and named Harvard for the film? In order to get to the bottom of this rumor, one first has to answer the question, what exactly is the

IS HOPKINS JOININGTHE IVY LEAGUE?

is the Ivy League? The name “Ivy League” first appeared in the 1937 New York Tribune as a term to describe a potential first-ever athletic confer-ence between Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Uni-versity of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale, according to William H. McCarter in his book, The First Ivy League Football Guide. These eight universities competed in a variety of sports, but at that time there was no official organization that gov-erned intercollegiate competition. The Tribune came up with the term Ivy League, because these schools were the oldest universities in the

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THE CRAP ABOUT NO HOPKINS TRADITIONS BY GORDON SCOTT “The crap about no Hopkins tradi-tions is just that,” said Neil Grauer while sitting in the Gilman Atrium. Grauer ought to know: not only did his grandfather, his father and he all graduate from Hopkins (1907, 1936 and 1969, respectively), he is the original artist of the Hopkins Blue Jay, co-wrote the book La-crosse with Hopkins coach David G. Pietramala and published a book on Hopkins Medicine entitled Leading the Way: A History of Johns Hop-kins Medicine. Jokingly, Grauer admits that many people incorrectly assume that Hopkins has few, if any, traditions. Some say Hopkins students are too focused on grades to concern themselves with the triviality of traditions. Where are the strange rituals incoming freshmen must perform, or the secret societies

executive assistant to the president, and secretary to the Board of Trus-tees. Schnydman said that window of opportunity has closed. According to Schnydman, even if we could join the league, it is un-likely we would. He said Hopkins would have to move all its Division III sports teams up to Division I (Men and Women’s lacrosse are, as of now, the only Di-vision I sports at Hopkins.) Accord-ing to findthedata.org, this could cost Hopkins an additional $500,000 to $1 million per sport. With 12 men’s sports and 10 women’s sports at Hopkins, this would increase the schools annual budget by $10-20 million. And given that only 14 uni-versities turned a profit from their Division I sports in 2011, according to the NCAA’s website, this is likely not a smart financial investment. Also, schools in the Ivy League cannot provide athletic scholar-ships, which could seriously affect the lacrosse team. Division I lacrosse teams, like Hopkins, hand out an average of 12-13 athletic scholar-ships each year, according to athlet-icscholarships.net. So it looks like the dream of joining the Ivy League is just that: a fantasy. Perhaps the closest Hopkins will ever get to the Ivy League is its brief Hollywood cameo when it pretended to be Harvard. However, in spite of these cold hard facts, each

new crop of students will likely bring with it a new crop of rumors, and the age-old question will continue to drift across the quad on warm spring days, “Is Hopkins going the join the Ivy League?”

Here are some common misconcep-tions about the Ivy League shared by the students:

“I think it is more tradition to be a part of the Ivy League then academic achievement or anything else, ” said Michael Campellone ’13.

---------------------------------------“We would have to be more selective in admissions,” said Randy Cohen ‘15.

---------------------------------------“We need more funding for athlet-ics to be in the Ivy League,” said Alex Reese ‘13.

---------------------------------------“We need a lot more funding from alumni and a bigger alumni base. A lot of athletics are funded by alumni in the Ivy League,” said Kyle Maurer ‘12.

---------------------------------------“We need to be far less modest about academics and lacrosse, a lot more pretentious,” said Jerald Liu ‘15.

---------------------------------------“We would need to invest a lot more in sports, recruitment and more,” said Ricky Mulroy ‘15 and Pat Carney ‘15.

---------------------------------------“I really think that the rumor starts because of the chance of more recog-

nition for our school, especially for all sports,” said Alex Whittam ‘13.---------------------------------------

“We need to care less about lacrosse to be part of the Ivy League,” said Johnny Beal ‘14.---------------------------------------

“Wouldn’t we need an invitation to join?” said Chris Skoff ‘14.---------------------------------------

“It’s not even possible for us to join,” said Girender Mohinani ‘14.---------------------------------------

“We would need more Asians,” said Mike Phippen ‘15.---------------------------------------

“We need a stronger alumni base,” said Nicket Dedhia ‘14.---------------------------------------

“We would need more Division 1 sports teams,” said Harrison Johnson ‘13.---------------------------------------

“Who said we wanted to even join the Ivy League?” said Pat Hampton ‘14.---------------------------------------

“We need our football and basketball teams to be better to join,” said Dan Hilton ‘14.---------------------------------------

“I heard we refused admission years ago, so we don’t need to do anything to join,” said Trevor Plumer ‘15.---------------------------------------

“Can we even be accepted into the Ivy League beyond joining the football conference?” said Michael Nakan ‘14---------------------------------------

“To join the Ivy League we would need to invest a lot more in sports, which is a lot of money,” said Alex Whittam ‘13.---------------------------------------

“I heard this rumor when I was a freshman, and I still hear it all the time now. Pretty much the rumor is that the Hopkins’ administration has been asked many times to join the Ivy League and we refuse for what-ever reason,” said Ross Schofield ‘13.---------------------------------------

“I do not think we can ever join the Ivy League. The Ivy League is a tra-dition and will never make any new additions,” said Jeremy Maurer ‘12---------------------------------------

“We need a stadium, a big stadium to join the Ivy League,” said Gerard Hampton ‘15.---------------------------------------

à la Yale’s Skull and Bones? Even campus hangouts exist for study-ing first—the new Brody Learning Commons, clearly indicates its main focus is “learning.” Original Grauer Cartoons De-picting Freshmen OrientationHowever, in spite of Hopkins’ aca-demic focus, Grauer insists that the school was, and is, rich in tradition. One of the most famous traditions of yore was the Cane Society, a gen-tleman’s club for juniors and seniors in the 1920s. Members would dress up like high-class gentlemen of the time (think suits and canes and fan-cy hats), and make frequent outings to downtown Baltimore speakeasies, which flourished during Prohibi-tion. The induction ceremony, a club tradition, was a tap on the shoulder from a member’s cane. Grauer said that “tap” might be too delicate a

word. Often the process could be quite savage. The Cane Club would also hold a yearly drunken parade through campus. All the members, blasted on illegal liquor and beer, would march through the center of campus wearing only carnations (flowers), derbies (fancy hats) and spats (fancy shoes). Yes, that’s right: wearing only these bits of clothing. The lacrosse team used to have a small cannon, which would fire blanks after every goal scored by our team. Though delightful to think about, this tradition was banned by the NCAA when it took over the regulation of lacrosse. How-ever, during its time it did lead to an interesting story or two. Once, when Hopkins was playing Navy, some of the Navy midshipmen ran onto the field and stole the cannon. They proudly retreated to the box Fake campus map used in the film “Social Network”

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Grauer’s drawing for an upcoming Terps Game. The Bluejays had just bested the Navy and are charging on.

seats where the Navy Admiral was sitting. Unfortunately, much to their horror, when they barged in excited to show off their prize, they found then- JHU President Milton Eisenhower had decided to join the Navy Admiral in watching the game. Though Eisenhower was amused, the Admiral was anything but, and the chastised students promptly returned the cannon. While these are traditions of the past, Grauer says that our campus is still rich in traditions. The Hopkins Pep Band has kept alive its own small traditions in the face of the years. Grauer’s grandfather was given a school songbook that was handed out to all students (a tradition no longer followed). Within its pages are the songs “Hail Johnny Hopkins” and “To Win.” To those of you unfa-miliar with the Lacrosse Pep Band, “Hail Johnny Hopkins” is still played when our team enters the field, and “To Win” is still played after every goal. Both of these songs were written for Hopkins, and have been played for three generations of Hopkins students

for the same reasons. Grauer himself is a tradition in many regards. The lacrosse players often go over to his house during the year, be it for eating crab cakes or visiting. Furthermore, when he was a student, Grauer drew com-ics for the school’s paper. Among his creations is the original Blue Jay that has since adorned the Hopkins Lacrosse equipment, only recently replaced. Unbeknownst to Grauer, a former lacrosse coach would cut these comics out and pin them to a bulletin board in the team locker room. When that lacrosse coach retired, the new one came to Grauer and told him they needed a new set. Ever since, Grauer has been drawing comics for the lacrosse team—there is a new edition drawn before every game. If Hopkins beats the team from the previous matchup, the picture will remain the same, but if Hopkins loses, Grauer makes sure to redraw a new picture for the next matchup. Remarkably, these drawings have been posted on the board for over 40 years. Recently, Grauer’s artwork was

exhibited in the athletic center. Another tradition that has been passed on from class to class is the Gilman Seal, a tradition so well-known that it is often mentioned during campus tours. The legend holds that stepping on the seal has different fates for different people. Current students who step on the seal won’t graduate, prospective students won’t be accepted and professors won’t be granted ten-ure. There is now roping around the seal to protect both the seal itself, and the fates of those who might accidentally tread on it. It’s not just old traditions that have lasted: Homewood has its fair share of newcomers. Our Spring Fair has been going on for 41 years now. Every year, the tickets to the headline act sell out, hundreds of booths are set up throughout campus and the week leading up to Spring Fair weekend is charged with anticipation. The fair is the largest fully student-run fair in the nation. Also, unlike many schools, Hopkins’ main sport plays a spring season, so the Hopkins home-

coming weekend is also during the spring. Another similar campus wide tradition is the Lighting of the Quad. This is a yearly celebra-tion of the start of the holiday sea-son, and is ushered in with treats and President Daniels “flipping the switch” to light up the campus in bright white lights. Those in attendance get the chance to enjoy the frosty tradition while eating snacks and drinking hot bever-ages.A more recent addition to Home-wood traditions is the President’s Day of Service. Originally called Freshman Involved Day, it was started 15 years ago as a fresh-man introduction to the city of Baltimore. Originally only 200 volunteers were involved at 15 different service sites. Current President Ron Daniels, who took office fall 2009, changed the name to President’s Day of Service, and included any undergraduate who wanted to help, not just incoming freshman. Held yearly in the fall, attendance is over 1,000 students working at 45 different sites. Hopkins does have a few more lewd traditions as well. Walking past the Mattin Center, one may notice a life-sized statue depict-ing a female, which has, over the years, acquired an immature polish on the chest. Purportedly, one will be blessed with good luck on an upcoming test after a quick rub. An even more sala-cious tradition is the infamous D-Level Challenge. The goal is the

same as that of the Mile-High Club, though in the bottom-most, and quietest, floor of the library. Though universally known, one is unlikely to hear of many attempt-ing, much less accomplishing the feat, yet it is an unavoidable fresh-man topic of conversation. The Beach is also a tradition unto itself. Without fail, the first nice spring day will bring out a massive congregation of Hopkins undergrads playing Frisbee, la-crosse, or just tanning. Many who leave campus fondly remember the explosion of activity the Beach sees on the first warm day of the year. So while at first glance Hopkins may seem to lack traditions, the truth is we not only have a rich history of them, but traditions are still very much alive on today’s campus. Sure some of the old ones are gone or have been replaced, but next time you pass the pol-ished statue, decide not to step on the Gilman seal or listen with pride to our pep band playing “To Win” after every Hopkins goal remember: the whole crap about Hopkins not having any tradition is just that: crap!

Original Grauer Cartoons Depicting Freshmen Orientation

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So what exactly is school spirit and why is it important? According to Cole, school spirit is the emotional side of going to school. He said it is extremely important because it’s the way students show how they value and appreciate the school they attend. “It creates energy for studies and all campus life. Being excited about even one thing can carry over to many other things. It can sell the school and sell yourself once you graduate,” he said He went on to say that school spirit has many beneficial short- and long-term effects. “Daily, your excitement and involvement in all things Johns Hopkins brings all sorts of ‘soft skills or people skills’ beyond pure academics, that give you an edge in life. Long term, you may become a recruiter or mentor for Johns Hopkins, and continue to raise the value of your Johns Hop-kins investment,” Cole said. So what did Cole say should be done to improve school spirit ? He said that schools that have a lot of spirit make it a priority. “They spend money on sales and PR positions that promote the school. They budget money

wonderful facets of Johns Hopkins.” He said a big drive to raise awareness will help johns Hopkins develop its own identity which, in turn will improve school spirit. And Cole said school spirit does not only improve the college experience, but it can also help the school’s budget. “Every time Johns Hopkins is positively portrayed in the media, the Johns Hopkins stock rises. Johns Hopkins becomes more desirable. Donors become more in-volved. Alumni give more. Alumni volunteer more.” How to best improve school spirit will likely require some study and thought, but one is thing for sure, it needs help. According to Cole, “[School spirit] adds another dimension, beyond time in the library. Life after school involves people, not just books, and school spirit brings that dimension and those skills.” One thing is for sure, school spirit starts and ends with the students, so for those who wonder where Hopkins’ spirit is, perhaps

Bill Cole, sports psychologist and mental game coach

for activities that bring people on campus, or back to campus once they graduate. They have an ac-tive alumni network and positively promote the school in publications and the media,” he said. Cole said that while Johns Hopkins does some of this, it likely needs to work harder to identify and celebrate what makes the school special. “Beyond the fantastic medical school and the number-one rated lacrosse team, students should be able to easily talk about all the many

While school spirit can easily be found at universities like USC, it is no where to be found at Hopkins.

WHERE IS OUR SCHOOL SPIRIT? BY ANDY SCOTT School spirit is an enduring sense of public pride for the institution, according to Bill Cole, sports psy-chologist and mental game coach. It’s having a passion and excitement about the place and what it means. School spirit not only vastly im-proves the university experience, but it also helps a university grow and thrive. So how is school spirit at Johns Hopkins? One hundred per-cent of undergraduate respondents in a recent JayStreet poll said it sucks. The most common response for why spirit was lacking was that Hopkins students are too focused on studying to care about school spirit. “We have a very apathetic student body. They are only concerned with their grades and not at all with what happens in the world around them,” said Michael Nakan ‘14. “Everyone is way too focused on their studies, taking away all of our school spirit.” said Dan Feingold ‘13.

Other reasons for the lack of spirit include: Hopkins is a small school and thus more vulnerable to criticism, Hopkins does not have enough Division I sports programs like lacrosse, Baltimore is a city that is viewed by many as undesirable, and that there is no sense of unity in the student and alumni base. One of the indications that Hop-kins might have a problem with its spirit is that around campus ones sees a large number of shirts, jerseys and other paraphernalia that have logos from other colleges (according to the survey, 47 percent of students believe more people wear other university clothing on campus than wear Hopkins clothing.) Camille Kramer ‘12 said, “I think most people don’t even real-ize that they show a negative image for Hopkins when they wear other university clothing more often than Hopkins stuff.”

When asked what Hopkins could do to improve spirit, the responses included student activ-ity building through more exciting school events, creating an effec-tive spirit club, hosting more class trips, promoting other sport teams besides lacrosse, supporting a wider range of clubs and organizations, more Spring Fair-like events, and promoting a positive attitude sur-rounding Hopkins. “Improving school spirit would improve so much: attendance at school events and participation in everything,” said Nakan. He sug-gested promoting Greek life and other parts of Hopkins student life. “If we band together and show more school spirit it would do more for us then we could imagine. It would build a positive atmosphere and remove that negative stress tone that surrounds the name Johns Hopkins,” said Brendan Evans ‘14.

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health, nursing, and medical stu-dents from Johns Hopkins Uni-versity, access these medical charts and look for patients who do not have health insurance. The volun-teer meets with these individuals to see if they would like to explore primary care options that are more reliable and cost-effective than us-ing the ED. While providing access to primary care is the main focus, volunteers also see if clients are eligible for Maryland’s Supplemen-tal Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly referred to as food stamps. If the patient is interested, the volunteer enrolls them as a Health Leads client and works with them through the pro-cess of applying for health care and food assistance. When working with a cli-ent, volunteers ask about current employment, family history and economic status in order to as-sess eligibility for public insurance programs. If a client is a single adult making less than $1,053 per month, then they will likely qualify for Pri-mary Adult Care (PAC). If the client has children under the age of 20 living at home and has a household income of $2,161 or less (for a fam-ily of four), they are eligible to apply for Medical Assistance for Families. The Medical Assistance application is online at www.marylandsail.org, a website that specializes in social services for Maryland residents. Clients can also apply for SNAP through this site. Qualifying for a public insur-ance program has its limitations; a client may be impoverished, but still not at income levels low enough to qualify for PAC or Medical Assis-tance for Families. If health insur-ance is not an option, volunteers work to enroll unqualified clients in sliding scale clinics, which allow them to pay for primary care ser-vices based on their income. In the past year, volunteers have met with 214 clients and referred them all to appropriate health care services, said Appah.

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, nearly 50 million Ameri-cans were without insurance. In Maryland, 749,700 individuals lack insurance according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. (That ‘s more people than are people enrolled in Medicaid in the state.) And the numbers of uninsured are growing, according to a report by the Maryland Health Care Commis-sion. This coverage gap has become a significant problem for the health care system, on both the national and state level. Many Health Leads volunteers say they enjoy this work because they can contribute to society while also gaining experience in health care. “I wanted to do something in the community to help, especially in the medical field,” said junior biology major Laura Minang. Colli McKiernan, a student at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, said she began volunteering to gain a better perspective of how health policies impact people on an indi-vidual level. The ED setting is well suited for this type of intervention as volunteers directly address the obstacles that prevent patients from accessing primary care or insurance coverage, she said. “We volunteers at the Bayview ED face additional challenges not seen in other Health Leads’ desks:

we are the only desk to be based in an ED, so we end up seeing far more patients who are in critical need of health care assistance,” said McKier-nan. According to Appah, the program is helping change the way that health care is practiced by providing stu-dents who might have an interest in medicine a chance to gain a unique perspective on how challenging it is for clients to obtain access to basic health care. “These aspects really make our program unique not only to Health Leads but also to other service learn-ing and volunteer positions,” she said. Through their time with Health Leads, volunteers have a more thor-ough view of the system as a whole, so when they begin their medical career or work as a public health practitioner, this holistic outlook can help them to better service patients or clients, said Appah. By working as a liaison between patients and Maryland’s public healthcare system, Minang has found success for many of her clients. One client sought help from Health Leads after losing her job, and therefore her insurance coverage, due to a back injury. With no means to pay for her surgery, the client applied for PAC. With Minang’s help, the client received her new insurance card in the mail, only 40 days after the start

HELPING BALTIMORE’S UNINSURED BY CRISTI O’CONNOR The sounds of sirens, coughing and the occasional bout of vomiting add to the hushed chatter among disgruntled patients in the waiting room. It’s Thursday afternoon and the Emergency Department (ED) at Bayview Medical Center is packed. Ailments range from abdominal pain and alcohol withdrawal to broken toes and splitting headaches. Among these maladies are a fair number of people with problems that could quickly be resolved with the help of a primary care physi-cian. Yet, most of these patients will likely wait an average of four hours before seeing a doctor. Why would a patient with a stuffy nose and sore throat decide to spend their day in the chaos of the ED, waiting count-less hours to see a physician for a few minutes? The answer is simple. They have no other option.

Enter Health Leads: a nonprofit organization founded in 1996 by a Harvard University student. Since its inception, Health Leads has spread to six cities with 21 sites and over 1,000 volunteers. Baltimore alone has five Health Leads loca-tions, according to the Health Leads website. The goal of Health Leads is to help the nation’s less fortu-nate gain access to services that will improve their overall health. Specifically, Health Leads addresses the external factors—known as the social determinants of health—that indirectly affect health. One of the most significant of these factors is lack of access to health care, but other factors can include poor liv-ing conditions, work-related stress, and inadequate income. To get a better idea of how the program works, JayStreet visited

with Health Leads at the ED at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center located on Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown. The primary focus of Health Leads volunteers is helping people gain access to health insurance. The ED serves as an ideal location for finding patients in need of assistance since 80,000 Baltimoreans are without insurance, according to 2010 U.S. Census data. Lack of coverage likely forces many, if not all, of these individuals to rely on the services of the ED for their primary care needs. As explained by program man-ager Alexandria Appah, when a patient enters the Bayview ED, a receptionist records their insur-ance information in an electronic medical record at the registration desk. Health Leads volunteers, comprised of undergraduate, public

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HEALTH JAYSTREET MAGAZINE

It’s 11 p.m. on a Monday night: while many are studying at their respective cubicles on C Level, a stressed-out sophomore is hiding in the shadows making a deal with a shady character. A bag containing a white substance is passed from the “dealer” to the “addict.” It’s not cocaine, it’s not ecstasy--it’s Ad-derall. As dramatic as this sounds, unfortunately, this scene plays out over hundreds, maybe thousands, of times on college campuses across the nation. Adderall, a drug pri-marily used to treat ADHD, is also being used by students to improve academic performance. According to a study by University of Michi-gan Substance Abuse Research Center, one out of four students at a given university uses Adderall as a study aid. However, as students pop these pills to stay competitive amongst their peers, they’re expos-ing themselves to numerous health risks as well as criminal charges. And while many campuses have introduced aggressive programs to curb its use, they are, in the most part, ineffective--leaving the na-tion’s students still at risk. David W. Goodman, M.D. is an assistant professor of psychia-try and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Adult Attention Deficit Disor-der Center of Maryland. Accord-ing to Goodman, Adderall treats symptoms of ADHD by increasing dopamine brain levels, allowing users to experience improvement in focus, concentration, sustained attention motivation, initiative and organization. With Adderall, students improve their ability to participate productively in lectures--specifically, to pay attention to the professor and take notes without getting distracted. The drug also helps students sit for longer peri-ods of time and study and recall what they studied, he said. “It’s like having blurred vision. You can live with blurred vision but there’s a lot you can’t do. But then, by putting on glasses, you’re surprised by how

much more you are capable of doing,” he said. In high-pressure schools like Johns Hopkins, this makes Adderall a desirable com-modity. “I just don’t have time to spend 12 hours to commit to studying for one test or to write a paper. Ad-derall helps me get the work done in fraction of that time,” said a male junior. According to the Michigan study, Adderall abuse is highest among college students who are male, white, members of fraterni-ties and sororities and earners of lower grade point averages. Rates were also higher at colleges lo-cated in the northeastern region of the United States and at colleges with more competitive admis-sion standards. Adderall abuse is a nationwide problem, and there is no reason to believe that Hopkins is an exception to this trend, said Alain Joffe, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Student Health and Wellness Center. Joffe explained that one reason for this rise in Adderall abuse is that people are under enormous amounts of pressure at competitive universities like Hopkins. Students are under pressure from their par-ents, their peers and their universi-ty to perform so they can get high-salary jobs or into top-tier medical schools and graduate schools. “Twenty years ago, people took tons and tons of caffeine and no-doze to help them stay up and study, and now Adderall is the new no-doze,” said Joffe. According to Joffe, another factor that has led to an increase in Adderall use is the perception that everyone is doing it, and in order to keep a competitive edge, one has to do it as well. He said this is false, as is the perception that Adderall is a magical pill that will allow people to miraculously get all of his or her work done. Joffe said that taking Adder-all may help you stay awake and focus, but it will not change the fact that you are six weeks behind or that you haven’t even opened your

textbook. “It’s not going to allow you cram 12 or 14 weeks worth of work in one night,” he said.Joffe said people also have the false perception that since Adderall is a prescription drug, it’s safe to use. He said the negative side effects are very real, recalling a student who recently walked into the clinic sick from an overdose of Adderall and caffeine. The student had a term paper due the next day, which he didn’t start writing until the night before. “He ended up vomiting the whole night and came in walking like this,” Joffe said, demonstrating by shaking his whole body vio-lently. Joffe said common side effects from Adderall use include insom-nia, nausea, dizziness, increased heart rate, and a temporary in-crease in blood pressure, as well as emotional changes. These symp-toms can be especially dangerous for those who are taking the drug without a doctor’s supervision be-cause the user might have underly-ing issues that are not compatible with Adderall use. For example, if you have high-blood pressure, a mood disorder, or heart problems, taking Adderall is extremely dan-gerous. Physicians screen patients for all of these cross interactions before prescribing the drug, said Joffe. Adderall abuse can also lead to addiction, said Goodman. He said people who use it without medical supervision build a tolerance to the drug, requiring them to take higher dosages to feel its effects, which can lead to addiction. And the risks are not only limited to health concerns. In Maryland, Adderall is classified as a Schedule II controlled substance. Possession without a prescription is a misdemeanor crime, resulting in a punishment of up to four years in jail and a $25,000 fine. And posses-sion with the intent to distribute is a felony and it is punishable with five years in jail and up to $15,000 in fines. The non-medical use of Ad-

of the application process. There are currently 19 Health Leads volunteers working in the Bayview ED. Other Johns Hopkins affiliated locations include the Harriet Lane Clinic located south of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Children’s Medical Practice at Bayview. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County has locations at the Baltimore Medical Systems’ St. Agnes Clinic and the University of Maryland Medical Center. Volunteers for these programs are all undergraduate students. Appah said that these locations have a similar goal as the Bayview ED, connecting people with health care and other resources. How-ever, instead of actively seeking out uninsured clients, as is done in the Bayview ED, at these locations, a physician identifies people who are in need and refers them to the Health

Leads desk. The volunteer can then help connect the patient to resources like health care, housing, job training, fuel, and food assistance. Volunteers follow-up regularly with their clients in-person or over the phone to ensure they have successfully addressed their needs. Health Leads at Bayview ED started as an outcomes-based model, similar to the other locations, with a focus on getting patients directly into primary care. However, accord-ing to Appah, the model has changed with time. “We’ve learned it’s more process-based, more about empower-ing patients with information,” she said. “We’ve had clients come back a year later when they’re ready to actu-ally apply or reapply [for a program]. Now they have the information and know where to go for help,” she said.

To date, there is no hard data that clearly indicates Health Lead’s impact on the burden at the Bayview ED. However, all agree that the program has a positive influence on the quality of their clients’ care. An while it is unlikely Health Leads will solve the problem of the nation’s underinsured and undertreated overnight, there are some patients who are happy to know that someone is on their side. “It’s always nice to hear a patient tell you ‘thank you’ after you’ve helped them,” said McKiernan. “It’s what makes me return to the hospital for every shift.”

Health Leads accepts volunteer ap-plications at the beginning of each semester. For more information, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.healthleadsusa.org.

THE ADDERALL ADDICTION BY SERA BOERGER

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derall is also against university policy. The Johns Hopkins Student Life policy clearly states that “the possession, use or distribution of illegal drugs as defined by federal, state and local statutes is prohibited. … Individuals who violate the law, in addition to being subject to criminal penalties, may be subject to univer-sity disciplinary measures.” While most universities have poli-cies against the non-medical use of drugs, they often don’t stop students from selling and buying these pills freely on campus. According to one Hopkins student dealer, “I know that I’m risking going to jail every time I sell to someone, but I’m extremely careful and only sell to my friends. Besides, it’s an easy way to make money and I feel like it’s different from selling drugs like marijuana or coke because I’m actually helping my customers do better in school.” The student said another reason she keeps taking the risk is she has never heard of anyone getting busted on campus for selling Adderall. She said she feels students are more likely to get in trouble for using cocaine and marijuana, because these drugs are illegal for all users. Since Adderall use is permitted for some and not for others, it’s harder to police. She has been selling Adderall since last se-mester. She said a doctor prescribed the pills to treat her for ADHD. Initially, she had no intention of sell-ing them. And then one day a friend needed some to finish her paper. She saw an opportunity and started dealing. Joffe said that policing Adderall is not a complete solution to the problem. “While it’s important to have a clear policy against Adderall abuse, it’s also important to look at the underlying cause of the problem, such as helping students cope with stress and pressure,” he said. This is likely one area where Joffe and Adderall abusers agree. “I guess there wouldn’t really be a need to take Adderall if we weren’t so stressed out,” said one sophomore.

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“The phone is the syringe, and what we put into it is the public health intervention,”

proper care is often too late. “There are multiple delays—the delay to recognize the crisis, the delay to take action and then the delay to receive care,” said Labrique. The immediacy of the cell phone can eliminate these delays, he said. This idea came about when Labrique and his team observed the gradual introduction of mobile phones into Bangladeshi society. In just a five-year period, they noticed that nearly all 800 health work-ers had their own personal mobile phones. In addition, about 58.5

Alain Labrique

gained cell phones. His team of researchers and field workers asked 500 pregnant Bangla-deshi women to inform their near-est clinics when they go into labor either by text message or phone call. Eighty-nine percent of the time, the field workers were able to get to the household while the birth was still happening, after having been notified via cell phone by these women. These health care workers could bring clean supplies and clean water to the birth, and could assess birthing complica-tions before arriving at the scene in order to come prepared with any necessary medications or treatments that might be needed. “We are connecting players in the system, shortening the time between crisis and care and opening up new windows of opportunity for public health intervention,” said Labrique The scope of mHealth is limitless. In 2009, it was widely reported that 60 percent of the world used mobile phones; in 2011, this percentage jumped up to a staggering 80 per-cent. As the number of cell phones and cell towers increases daily across the globe, mHealth is becoming more and more of an obvious solu-

tion to some of the health issues that plague impoverished parts of the world. MHealth is not just limited to third world countries, though. Mo-bile devices are used in the United States to monitor and improve many different health outcomes, from iPhone apps that track glucose levels in diabetics to text message notifica-tions that warn when grandma’s stove has been on for too long. “The phone is the syringe, and what we put into it is the public health intervention,” Labrique said.

CELLPHONES THAT CHANGE LIVES BY JESSICA DEBAKEY Mobile phones mean an infinite number of things to a vast amount of people. For some, they are a way to keep up with the latest gossip among friends; for others, they serve the purpose of an alarm clock or a GPS tracker; and still for others, they are fun handheld devices for surfing the Web and wasting endless hours playing games like “Angry Birds” or “Hold The Button.” However, for a few, including one researcher at Johns Hopkins, the cell phone is a valuable health care tool that can save lives. Alain Labrique, Ph.D., M.H.S., an infectious disease epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, is using ba-sic cell phones to improve the health and survival of pregnant women in Bangladesh, and eventually other

countries. Conditions in extremely poor countries, like Bangladesh, can pre-sent challenges for some of the most basic mechanisms of life, like giving birth. Even the most essential neces-sities, like clean water, can be hard to find. This and other issues have led to high maternal and neonatal death rates in the region, according to Lab-rique. In eight years, however, Lab-rique’s work has improved the birth survival rate in Bangladesh from 14 percent in 2004 to 24 percent today. Labrique was named the 2011 Top Innovator in mHealth by the mHealth Alliance for his signifi-cant strides in this field. The term mHealth refers to the use of mobile-based or mobile-enhanced solutions to deliver health. Labrique’s mHealth project, mCARE, provides pregnant

women in Bangladesh the relief ofimmediate health care through their cell phones by directly and instanta-neously connecting them to health workers in the region, thus reducing the time between crisis and care and improving the level at which health care providers monitor pregnancies. Bangladesh is a small country northeast of India and consist-ently ranks within the top 25 poorest countries in the world. Dr. Labrique lived there for eight years, observ-ing and assisting in the delivery of care to pregnant women in his study area. Eight hundred field workers, supplied by the Bangladeshi health administration and outside organiza-tions, provide medical assistance in the region; however, because of the distance between these health clinics and villages where births occur, Two Bangladeshi women get acclimated with their new cell phone.

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maintains an active Facebook page.Some students go as far as blocking the website or deactivating their pro-files--particularly during midterms and finals, when the temptation to procrastinate is great. “I legitimately go on Facebook every time I go on my computer—which is a lot,” said Karin Umfrey, a Spanish major. “I’m blocking it for the next two hours so I can study.” Hopkins sends a mixed message regarding Facebook. The university has a Facebook profile that has pages for Hopkins admissions, several aca-demic departments, every school of the university, and some class years. Johns Hopkins was even named as one of the best universities that use social media by Her Campus, an online magazine targeting college women. Some teachers have even used Facebook as an educational tool. Anand Pandian, an associate professor of anthropology, used the networking site as part of his Fall 2011 course Anthropology of Media. However, that was likely because they were studying social media as part of the class.

In spite of courses like Anthro-pology of Media, professors that embrace Facebook are clearly the exception, rather than the rule. More and more courses prohibit laptops during class, as more professors are realizing that many students don’t use computers for note taking, but for logging on Facebook. “I find it abhorrent,” said April Wuensch, a lecturer in the Department of Ger-man and Romance Languages and Literatures. “I think it’s a terrible distraction. Don’t bother coming to class if you’re going to be social networking.” Banning Facebook might work for small, discussion-based classes, but it’s next to impossible in 200-plus lecture classes. One swift glance around Remsen 1 is enough to see multiple screens of the familiar blue and white homepage. And while most students and pro-fessors agree that Facebook does not help their grade point average, stud-ies on the subject are inconclusive. According to Ohio State Uni-versity researcher Aryn Karpinski, Facebook has a negative effect on

college students’ performance. In her study, Facebook users had a grade point average of 3.0-3.5, while non-users were in the 3.5-4.0 range. She also found that non-users studied two times as many hours per week as Facebook users. However, a 2011 study by a professor at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania showed that stu-dents that frequently posted links on Facebook had higher grade point averages than students who posted status updates. The study also found that students who used Facebook the most were also usually involved with several extra-curricular activi-ties. The study concluded that the correlation between time spent on Facebook and time spent studying is weak. Whether or not the experts can agree on the benefit versus harm of Facebook, Hopkins students seem to all agree that it’s not helping them study. However, as long as students post pictures and status updates, there will always be new content to browse, and students will log on. Staying in the know, it seems, trumps schoolwork every time.

Like most universities, Hopkins maintains an active Facebook page.

FACEBOOK: FREIND OR FOE BY KATIE NAYMON It’s 11: 30 a.m. and the profes-sor is giving a complex psychology lecture. He is preparing students for the upcoming midterm. It’s an im-portant time to focus. Around the room students are bent over their computers, feverishly engaged, but they are not taking notes; they are reading their newsfeeds and the 32 new stories that popped up on Facebook overnight. Call it the ultimate time suck, Facebook is everywhere. Students check it throughout the day, includ-ing during class. They creep on high school friends, sorority sisters, siblings, teachers, classmates, roommates and people they’ll never meet. They message, poke, create events and perfect cover photos and profile pictures. And while re-cent studies are spilt as to whether

Facebook hurts academic perfor-mance, most students think it does. A recent JayStreet survey of the Class of 2015 revealed that 70 percent of students feel that Face-book use has some negative effect on their schoolwork, and 7 percent of students feel it has a very negative effect. The survey also showed that 61 percent of freshman use Facebook for one to three hours a day, 13 per-cent are logged on for three to five hours, 9 percent use it for more than five hours a day, and 66 percent have been on Facebook during class. “It does affect notes,” said fresh-man Aafia Sayid. “There are times when I’m in class and on Facebook, and I’m typing a message to some-one.”

Film and media studies major, Dave Berenato, agrees. “Facebook poses a serious threat to my aca-demic standing as a student. It’s a constant distraction that I know will indefinitely be around for a while longer. Without Facebook, my time would be free to actually get done all of the work I need to on time.” Maggie Hashmall, an economics major, said Facebook is a problem because it makes her procrastinate and then stress out because she runs out of time for her work. “I stay on it though, because some of my friends are across the country and I want to keep in touch with them. I just feel like I’d miss something,” she said. “My friends gave up Facebook for Lent, and they’ve been getting all their work done.” Like most universities, Hopkins

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY JAYSTREET MAGAZINE

SUSTAINABILITY AT HOPKINS BY CRISTI O’CONNOR While American environmen-talism has its roots in the 1960s, inspired by books like Rachel Car-son’s “Silent Spring” and organiza-tions like Greenpeace, the move-ment has come a long way from the days of excessive DDT use and toxic waste sites like Love Canal. With global warming and climate change as the hot topics urging people to “go green,” Johns Hop-kins University has been making some green moves of its own. Established in 2006, the Johns Hopkins Office of Sustainability manages most, if not all, of Johns Hopkins’ environmental efforts. Tucked away in the Office of Facilities Management, located on Remington Avenue, the Office of Sustainability works with faculty, staff and students to implement green initiatives at Hopkins cam-puses throughout Baltimore—in-cluding Peabody, School of Public Health, School of Nursing and School of Medicine. Sustainability Outreach Co-ordinator Joanna Calabrese said the people who work in the office serve as internal consultants who identify opportunities for different departments and divisions to save money on resources and im-prove their environmental profile, minimize waste, and promote the ethics of conservation. In addition, the Office of Sustainability works with numerous Hopkins student-run environmental groups offer-ing guidance and help in turning green ideas into school policy. In a nutshell, if it’s green and happen-ing at Johns Hopkins, the Office of Sustainability is involved. The Office of Sustainability trac-es its roots back to Davis Bookhart, the Office’s current director. Hopkins hired Bookhart in 2006 to upgrade the efficiency of the power plant as an early effort to go green. While Bookhart focused on

developing a sustainable infrastruc-ture at Hopkins, the school soon enlisted a sustainability coordinator to focus on behavior change and community outreach for various green activities on campus, said Calabrese. As more staff came on board, what started as a one-man operation eventually became the Office of Sustainability. Today, the Office coordinates, advises and oversees a myriad of environmen-tally conscious activities across Johns Hopkins’ numerous cam-puses. The Office of Sustainability is guided by a group of administra-tors called the Sustainability Com-mittee, comprised of administrators from all campuses and facilities. The committee meets every few months to share best practices and to generate new ideas. In addition, a Student Advisory Council, made up of one student representative from every division of the univer-sity, meets three times a year. “As a way of keeping with the mission of educating the next generation of leaders, we make students a big priority,” said Calabrese. One of the driving forces behind Johns Hopkins’ sustainability initia-tives is the President’ Task Force on Climate Change. The task force, operated through the Office of Sustainability, was the product of an earlier program, the Climate Change Action Plan, created when a group of environmentally-con-scious students petitioned former school President William Brody to address the issue of climate change at the university level, said Calabrese. In March 2010, the Task Force created a plan to cut the uni-versity’s carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2025. After an initial investment of $73 millions dollars, the university expects to save $10 million per year in energy expens-es, all while reducing its carbon

footprint. By following this plan, carbon dioxide emissions should by reduced by 141,600 metric tons per year by 2025, according to the Office of Sustainability’s website. Eco-friendly Johns Hopkins students continue to play a huge role the Office of Sustainability’s environmental efforts. The student-run Sustainable Hopkins Infra-structure Program (SHIP), focuses on passive interventions by imple-menting projects that improve the university’s energy efficiency. SHIP Student Director Jonathan Beagan, Class of 2012, explained the pro-gram’s structure. SHIP is comprised of an Executive Board of 10 un-dergraduate students who actively search for ideas, develop proposals and work to get the plans approved by SHIP’s Evaluation Committee. The Evaluation Committee is a col-laboration of sustainability-minded professors, associate deans from the Whiting School of Engineering and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and representatives from Johns Hopkins Plant Operations. At the start of every semester, the Executive Board generates a list of possible ideas to present to the Evaluation Committee. They also receive ideas directly from the Of-fice of Sustainability. Additionally, every October, the Executive Board hosts the Green Idea Generator, an opportunity for any student to showcase his or her sustainable development idea to SHIP in hopes of earning the opportunity to apply for project implementation through the Evaluation Committee. “What it boils down to is a cost-benefit analysis,” said Beagan when discussing how SHIP judges the “green” ideas students submit. “If it pays itself back in seven years and it makes the campus more energy efficient, then it pretty much gets passed.”

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BbBlackboard

THE PROBLEM WITH BLACKBOARD BY SERA BOERGER Walking through the common room of a freshman dorm or the li-brary, one will often hear frustrated students yelling at their comput-ers as Blackboard freezes or takes forever to load. However, in spite of all the complaints about black-board, the experts say it is likely the best learning management system option for Hopkins. Blackboard, introduced to our campus in 2010, is a proprietary learning management system (LMS) that provides on-line con-tent management, assessment, and communication tools for courses at Hopkins, according to Amy Brusini, the course management training specialist at the Center for Education Resources. And while both students and professors alike seem to love to criticize it, when compared to other systems, it’s

likely the best choice for Johns Hop-kins, says Brusini.Blackboard became Johns Hopkins University’s LMS in the Fall of 2010. Our 10-year license with WebCT ended at that time and Blackboard replaced it. According to Brusini, its three main functions are the content management tool; which allows professors to post lectures and assignments online; the assessment tool, which allows professors to keep track of student’s grades in addition to creating online exams; and the communication tool, which allows professors to facilitate discussions online. Brusini said that overall, the faculty are pretty happy with our transition to Blackboard and that it has been an improvement from WebCT. While this may be the case, there are some who disagree.

Sarah Silberman, a junior English major, even dedicated a Facebook status update, voicing her frustrations with Blackboard:“Dear Blackboard, how am I sup-posed to do homework if you’re not working? :/” Sinan Ozdemir, a TA for sev-eral classes, commented on Black-board’s cluttered interface and how frustrating it is to use. He said that Blackboard complicates the process of adding new tools or updating content by providing too many options with no explanation as to what differentiates them. He added that the lack of a useful help guide or online instructions online only makes matters worse. According to Brittany Smith, a junior International Relations ma-jor, none of her professors even use it. They instead use their own web-

After the Evaluation Committee approves a proposal, it sends the project to the Office of Facilities Management for implementation. Currently, SHIP is working to con-vert the fleet of transportation vans to natural gas-powered vehicles. Another proposed project is a wind turbine on the Eastern Campus to continue Hopkins’ commitment to renewable energy sources (both the Recreation Center and the Mattin Center already have solar panels on their roofs). One of the more noticeable projects was displayed at the Lighting of the Quads this past December; SHIP worked to change the Christmas lights used in the ceremony to LED. Another student organiza-tion that works with the Office of Sustainability is a freshmen-based group called the ECO-Reps. The main purpose of the ECO-Reps is to teach sustainable living to students at Hopkins using vari-ous green projects and awareness campaigns. The ECO-Rep Program selects 10 to 15 incoming freshmen each year interested in becoming environmental leaders at Hopkins. “It’s autonomous student organi-zation meets environmental train-ing module,” said Calabrese, who serves as the group’s advisor. She said ECO-Reps often go on to assume leadership positions in influential student organizations later on in their undergraduate careers. Once in these roles, they are able to impart their vision for sustainability to these groups and to other students on campus. Since its inception six years ago, ECO-Reps have worked on various initiatives on campus. One group worked on getting the MSE Li-brary to switch to 100 percent post consumer content recycled paper and double-sided printing. Last year’s group worked as informal consultants to numerous student organizations, such as the Spring Fair committees, to help them “green” events on campus. This included introducing compost-ing and recycling at events and

ing and recycling at events and minimizing paper advertising.This year’s initiative, the Take Back the Tap campaign, is a joint-pro-gram between ECO-Reps, students from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Office of Sustainability. The students are working to minimize bottled water consumption by asking their peers to sign a pledge to stop buying bot-tled water. Calabrese said that the Office of Sustainability is working with other offices throughout cam-pus to replace bottled water coolers with water filtration systems that plug into the tap line. They are also planning to install water bottle fill-ers on existing water fountains. The key to this initiative is to promote the available alternatives. Wyatt Roscoe ‘12 agreed. “From my experiences, initiatives only works if the “green” alternative is as easy or easier than the choice people already have.” Roscoe said that clean water dispensers will be placed in con-venient locations like Nolan’s and Charles Street Market. Monitors on the dispensers will indicate how much water has been used and the amount of bottles saved and landfill space reduction due to using this alternative source. “This will allow everybody to see the practical application of this movement,” said Roscoe. Through these outreach experi-ences, it is Calabrese’s goal that ECO-Reps will use their experi-ences to integrate and encourage sustainable practices into their future endeavors.

There are many opportunities for students to show support for the green movement even if they do not wish to commit to join-ing an organization. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a program that gives Baltimore resi-dents and students, faculty and staff at Johns Hopkins the opportunity to purchase Farm Alliance Certi-fied produce directly from regional farmers at One Straw Farm. By purchasing a share in the season’s harvest for a one-time fee of $570 (due prior to the start date in June), CSA members receive a variety of fresh, in-season produce every week for 24 weeks. Each week’s yield can serve roughly four people, which works out to less than $6 per person per week. The farmers deliver the produce to the Office of Sustainability and the Center for a Livable Future each week for pick up. This idea is not only limited to produce. Calabrese said consum-ers can also pre-order local free-range chicken for delivery once per month from Albright Farms in Baltimore County. The program benefits local farmers who have a hard time competing with large corporate food producers, explains Calabrese. It also promotes sustainable and responsible agriculture practices, she said. “It’s nice to know where your food is coming from,” said Cala-brese.

For more information on how to get involved, please visit www.sustainbility.jhu.edu.

“It’s nice to know where your food is coming from,”

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CRACKING THE CODE TO YOUR BRAIN BY ELIZABETH TRAMPOSCH Ever wonder how a brain can develop addictions, lose memory or even play a role in obesity? This is exactly what Dean Wong, M.D., Ph.D., and his team does every day at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Posi-tron Emission Tomography (PET) Center. Wong, is the director of Section of High Resolution Brain PET imag-ing in the Department of Radiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He and his research team use magnetic resonance imag-ing (MRI) and PET scans to unlock the secrets of the one organ medi-cine know the least about: the brain. Wong’s group is currently study-ing a wide variety of neuropsychiat-ric conditions including Tourette’s Syndrome, dementia, alcoholism, cocaine abuse, methamphetamine addiction, schizophrenia, Alz-heimer’s, ADHD, and obesity and nicotine addiction. The team performs most of its data analysis,

The team performs most of its data analysis, study preparation, and scan analysis in their offices in the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center (JHOC), located on the main hospital campus on Caroline Street in downtown Baltimore. However, the PET Center, where they perform their experiments, is in the main hospital building across the street. Stephanie Darnley is a research assistant on Wong’s team and as-sists with the scans every day. She said that the team is trying to learn how the brain works both in people with disease and also in relation to natural urges and addictions. The brain is the organ in the body that we know the least about, and yet it likely plays one of the biggest roles in our health. The process begins with an MRI scan that images the structure of a subject’s brain, said Darnley. The machine is large and tube shaped

and contains a huge and powerful magnet. A patient lies on a move-able table that slides into the mid-dle of the tube, placing the subject’s head in the focus of a magnetic field. MRIs make it possible to take images of soft tissue, which is different from X-Ray machines, which can only image hard tissue like bone. Darnley said that the MRIs help research-ers ensure that the brain structure is healthy and there are no abnor-malities in the images so they can proceed with the PET scans. It also gives them a map of the subject’s brain since everyone’s physiology is different. They can use this map to better understand the images they receive when they perform the PET scans, according to Darnley. After they analyze the MRI, clini-cians prepare the patient for the PET scan by fitting them with a special face mask so their head doesn’t move during the scan. The PET machine looks similar to the MRI in that it is

sites to manage course content. Professor Greg Duffee, of the Department of Economics, is one of the many educators that chose not to use Blackboard. When asked why he shuns Blackboard, he re-sponded, “That’s easy, I never used it. I don’t have time to learn it.” The main alternative to propri-etary LMSs like Blackboard, are open-source LMS, used by univer-sities like UNC, Weslyan, Duke, Stanford, and Yale, according to Butler University’s Learning Man-agement Systems Evaluation Report released in 2011. Open source LMSs permit users to develop and customize their own software so that the system fits the user’s spe-cific needs. Because of the public nature of this type of software it is generally free to users. Propriety software, like Blackboard, is owned and licensed by a company and has user fees. In making the decision to go Blackboard in 2010, Hopkins did an extensive campus-wide study to make sure they would be using the best system out there, accord-ing to Brusini. As part of the study, Hopkins put Blackboard head-to-head against some of the popular open-source platforms, including Blackboard’s biggest competitors, Moodle and Sakai. Brusini says clearly the two main advantages of an open source sys-tem are it costs less to purchase and it can be modified in many different ways to fit a school’s specific needs. However open source systems don’t come with tech support. There-fore a school needs a much larger IT teams to install and keep these system running smoothly. She said the study showed that these main-tenance costs far out weigh the cost in licensing fees associated with Blackboard. Blackboard is pretty good about maintenance and repairs, said Brusini. “Before, many faculty members complained about not being able to upload .pdf files onto their Blackboard sites and Black-board went and fixed that problem in their system”.

Another factor that makes Hopkins reluctant to switch to a new platform is Blackboard syncs automatically with ISIS, so any-time a student registers or drops a course, it is automatically up-dated on Blackboard, thus teachers don’t have to manually make these changes. Finally, Brusini said that in spite of the negative feelings some stu-dents and professor have regarding Blackboard, the study showed that that an overwhelming majority of faculty found Blackboard to be the easiest LMS to use. With all of this compelling evidence in favor of Blackboard, Johns Hopkins piloted the LMS in the spring of 2010, and fully im-plemented it in fall of 2010 across most of the Homewood campus. Some Hopkins departments, such as the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences’ Advanced Academic Programs and Whiting School of Engineering’s Engineer-ing for Professionals, chose not to use Blackboard. These two de-partments teach primarily online courses and chose to use the open source platform Sakai because they wanted to have flexibility in design. However, both departments even-tually switched to Blackboard after finding Sakai too difficult and time consuming to build and maintain, said Brusini. Today, essentially all of Johns Hopkins’ campuses use Blackboard, said Brusini. So while Blackboard may not be perfect, Brusini said it’s the best option and the university will not be looking to make the switch to a new platform anytime soon, at least

for another eight years. Even if they did find a better system, changing systems is an enormous, compli-cated, and time-consuming process. And this is something Hopkins is not willing to go through anytime soon, especially since they just went through this process two years ago, said Brusini. Brusini added that the biggest problem with Blackboard is people don’t take the time to learn how to use it. She recommends that profes-sors and students visit the Center for Education Resources, located on Q Level next to Cafe Q in the library. The Center is dedicated to provide faculty and staff training on Blackboard. They provides monthly workshops and online tutorials on using Blackboard. They also welcome drop-ins and provide in-dividual consultations to help them build Blackboard sites in addition to fixing whatever problems they may have. “It’s really a shame that profes-sors don’t take the time to use it. I think students would really benefit from having a central location for all their class content," said Brusini.

Have Blackboard problems? Visit the Center for Educational Re-sources at: http://www.cer.jhu.edu/

Sarah Silberman expresses her frustrations with Blackboard

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also tube shaped, although the di-ameter is smaller. Darnley said that unlike the MRI, the PET scan does not use magnetic field to get its im-age, but instead is designed to detect harmless radioactive tracers that are mixed with a chemical or drug. Re-searchers inject the tracer-chemical mix into the blood of the subjects, and the radiotracer goes to areas of the brain that use the chemical, said Darnley. This enables the PET scan to cre-ate a color-coded, three-dimensional view of the brain that shows how parts of the brain respond to the chemical, said Darnley. PET scans can trace the movement of any compound throughout the body, as long as it can be tagged with a radi-otracer, said Darnley. The process can be used to diagnose and treat many diseases. The lab produces between 40 and 50 different types of radiopharma-ceuticals. Each radiotracer created is specific to a certain disease or pro-cess they which to study said Darn-ley. According to Darnley, radiotrac-ers are chemicals that are tagged with a short-lived positron emitting radioactive isotope. The radioac-tive isotope is created in a a particle accelerator called a cyclotron, and tagged to a natural chemical, like glucose, for example, said Darnley. The radiotracers at the PET Center are created in a highly restricted area

called the radiochemistry lab. The Hopkins PET Center has pioneered the creation and methods used to analyze many of the radiopharma-ceuticals, or radiotracers, used in modern medicine today. A good deal of the studies relates to mental illnesses, so a key member of the team is its psychiatrist, Dr. James Brasic, M.D. Brasic analyzes the extent of a patient’s disease. Researchers can then see how brain activity and neuroreceptor activa-tion correlates to disease severity. Brasic is also on hand to treat any adverse events related to scanning. Most of the scans last up to an hour and a half. Given that patients have to wear a facemask that keeps their head completely still, there’s a risk of claustrophobia. It is not uncom-

mon to see a patient lose control and the entire group has to work to calm him or her down, said Brasic. So Brasic stands by to monitor the patients and administer drugs in extreme situations. Study coordinator William Willis said one of studies the team is cur-rently conducting in the PET Center involves nicotine addiction. Dur-ing a PET scan, a patient is injected with a radiotracer immediately after smoking a cigarette with a known dose of nicotine. The tracer binds to nicotinic receptors that are naturally activated when someone with nico-tine addiction smokes a cigarette. This, in turn, triggers reward centers in the brain. Willis said that once the images are created, researchers can see how the brain’s nicotinic recep-tors act in the brain of a smoker versus a non-smoker. This research helps doctors better understand ad-diction to nicotine, which could lead to the development of drugs that modify how a person with a nicotine addiction feels reward. They also study addition to stimulating drugs like cocaine and amphetamines. The current belief re-garding these kinds of addictions is that they are tied to the neurotrans-mitter dopamine, which is released when a patient takes a stimulating drug. The dopamine triggers pleas-ure, reward, concentration, and alertness. So, in essence, it’s dopa-mine that is at the core of the addic-tion. Willis said that because there is a limited supply of dopamine in the brain, addiction can deplete the dopamine, or make it harder for cer-tain stimuli to release the dopamine. Essentially, addicts then lose interest in what they used to enjoy and only get gratification from the drug.The same mechanism is being studied at the PET Center in rela-tion to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). With ADHD, dopamine levels affect alertness and concentration, and can cause imbal-ances, according the Willis. In addiction studies, a baseline scan is initially done to see the brain under normal activity. Then an ad-dictive drug is radioactively tagged

and given to the subject. Willis said that the PET scan images the con-centration and distribution of the drug in the brain and can measure the dopamine uptake. The neuro-transmitter systems that release the dopamine are always changing, and the drugs change the way the brain works. Therefore the neurologists believe addiction can be cured if the system is re-educated to find other stimuli that release dopamine. The brain is the organ is the body that still holds the most mystery for modern medicine. Will there ever be a treatment to stop addicts from taking drugs? Will there ever be a

way to prevent Alzheimer’s? Ac-cording to Boris Slavoich, M.D., the researchers at the PET Center are unraveling the mystery. “PET technology is an extremely advanced portal which is only limited by the rate at which we can produce radiopharmaceuticals. Once a diagnosis can be made and we can crack one of the codes, we will be able to map out the pathway of a specific process and know what affects it,” he said.

PET machine borehole and subject mask

HOMEWOOD’S NEWEST BUILDINGS BY KATIE NAYMON

It’s hard to take a walk around Homewood without seeing hard hats or hearing the sound of con-struction workers on their lunch breaks. And while some students are excited about what these new buildings will bring to Johns Hop-kins, some are less enthusiastic, and some don’t even know or care. Of the three major construction

projects currently underway at the Homewood Campus–Brody Learn-ing Commons, the Undergradu-ate Teaching Lab, and the Cordish Lacrosse Center–students seem to know the most about the Brody Commons. This is likely because it is sprouting up in plain view next to the library on the campus’ front lawn, and because, unlike the

other two buildings, it will serve all students. Slated to open in July 2012, it is named in honor of William Brody, former president of the university, and his wife, Wendy. The building will serve as a “four-story hub for collaborative learning,” according to Brain Shields, a university spokes-person in a press release. Flanked

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by the always-bustling Milton S. Eisenhower Library, the Commons will add 500 new seats for students to study in, as well as 15 new study rooms. The Commons will also include a cafe and atrium, technological laboratories, seminar and discus-sion rooms, and a space for the Rare Books and Manuscripts Depart-ment and the Department of Pres-ervation and Conservation, which are currently housed in the MSE Library. In addition, the Commons will have space to feature student artwork. Notably, the Commons will be the first building on the Homewood Campus to pursue LEED silver cer-tification. LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, a private non-profit organization that encourages sustainability in build-ings. “This certification is a nationally recognized mark of excellence in the areas of innovation and sustain-ability and is part of the university’s commitment to environmental

leadership by example,” according to the Brody Learning Commons’ website. While students can’t help but pass this construction almost every day, there are some who don’t see the value in the Brody Learning Commons. Vanessa Pan, an environmental engineering major, said she didn’t think she would ever use the new facility. “I don’t even go to the library now to study, so I doubt I’ll go to the Brody Learning Com-mons.” Roderick Go, an environmental engineering major, said he thought it was a good idea to have more study space because the library gets filled up during midterms, but he also doubted he would ever use it. “I don’t study well in a common area,” he said. There was even one freshman who said he had no idea what the building was for. “What is that?” was her only response when asked about the Commons. Luckily, most students seem to recognize that more study space is not a bad thing, especially in peri-

ods of the year where students rush to claim their MSE seats. “I guess it’s always good to have more places. It’s hard to find places in the library,” said Alannah Lejeune, a molecular and cellular biology major and avid library frequenter. “The library’s nice now, but there’s a lot of stuff the library could improve. So instead of trying to improve the library we have now, it’s like they’re just building a better one right next to it.” Em Mitchell, a Writing Semi-nars major, said that although she didn’t really know much about what’s actually going to be inside the Commons besides study areas, she thought it would be a really nice and convenient place to study. Emily Glickman, a Writing Seminars major, also didn’t know a lot of details about the new struc-ture but said she thought it was a great idea. “We can use as much study space as possible. I just hope it turns out the way it’s been adver-tised.” she said The Undergraduate Teaching Lab and Biology Research Wing, which broke ground in June 2011

and is slated to open in the sum-mer of 2013, ranks second in terms of student interest. This is likely because the site is tucked away behind Mudd Hall and will only serve some of Hopkins students and staff. The building, which is 105,000 square feet, will create new labora-tories for the natural sciences, and will include faculty offices, seminar rooms, and meeting rooms for research groups. One aspect of the project that has gotten some atten-tion, however, is a roof-top coffee bar and student space. In addition, the quad between Mudd and the Undergraduate Teaching Lab will have rain gardens. A rain garden uses rainwater to grow a garden—another example of Hopkins’ com-mitment to sustainability.

Grant Lease, a math major, said he had no idea what that building was about. When JayStreet gave him the details he said he thought it was pretty cool. “Why don’t they tell us about this stuff?” he asked.

Go said he can’t wait until the coffee bar opens. “The new coffee bar on top of Mudd sounds like it’s going to be awesome,” he said. And while there was some ignorance and apathy about the Brody Learning Commons and the Undergraduate Teaching Lab, the Cordish Lacrosse Center was the only project that received criticism. The state-of-the-art athletic facility sits at the east end of Homewood Field and will house the men’s and women’s lacrosse programs, provid-ing new locker areas, coaches’ of-fices, a theater, a conference room, an academic center and a training room. The Center, a $10 million gift to the university, is named after lead donor David Cordish ’60, a three-year lacrosse player. It will open in the summer of 2012. Ryan Cunningham, a member of the men’s varsity swim team and a film and media studies major, said he thought the Cordish Lacrosse Center was a bit extravagant and that other sports at Hopkins should

be recognized. “I think that some of that money that has been spent on lacrosse should have been used to help some other teams.” Cunning-ham used the school’s substandard pool as an example since it is not regulation size. “If the school wants to excel in more than just lacrosse, they need to invest in some other teams to help them succeed,” he said. Dave Berenato, a freshman, agrees. “The lacrosse players seem to be doing well without a center devoted completely to them. I feel that Johns Hopkins could put the money to different uses.” Improving and expanding Johns Hopkins University is clearly a major priority for the administra-tion given all the construction we have seen lately. However for many students, it is little more than a mild annoyance. The reason for the ignorance and apathy was best ex-pressed by Zeba Hashimi, a public health major, who said, “I am too busy with classes, papers, and finals to be bothered about construction.”

The soon to be Cordish Lacrosse Center: opening Summer 2012

Brody Learning Commons: opening July 2012

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AROUND CAMPUS JAYSTREET MAGAZINE

CAMPUS BUILDINGS: BEHIND THE NAME BY ERIN VIGIL

Probably the last thing any Hopkins student thinks or even knows about as they sprint through Gilman, five minutes late to class, is that Gilman was the first president of our university and a member of the Yale’s Skull and Bones Society. Similarly, not many know that Remsen Hall was named after a man who accidently invented saccharin, or that Hod-son’s namesake started giving Hopkins money after some college students helped him with a flat tire on a lonely road in Oregon. In fact, it is safe to say that most students have little to no idea who our buildings are named after, or even that they are named after someone. Therefore, JayStreet decided to dig a little into the his-tory books and see what we could find out about the people behind the buildings that make up our campus.

REMSEN

Ira Remsen was a chemist as well as the university’s second presi-dent. Remsen was born in New York City. After earning an M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Remsen traveled to Ger-many to pursue his true passion, chemistry, and earned his Ph.D. Remsen returned to the U.S. and, among other notable things, he

HODSON

Interestingly, Clarence Hodson neither worked at nor attended Hopkins and actually never gradu-ated from college. Despite this, Hodson had a very successful career in finance. He founded the Beneficial Loan Society in 1914, which is now worth over 17 billion in assets, and he served as the director of more than 40 banks. How Hodson initially came to donate to our college is somewhat of a mystery. Rumor has it that it had something to do with an incident that occured while he was driving near either Hood or Washington College (depending on the version of the story). While driving, Hodson got a flat tire and the students and faculty of the university helped him change the tire. Their good deed paid off as Hodson decided to begin donating money to a their college as well as a number of other colleges. After his death, his daughter and granddaughter continued these do-nations through a family trust called the Hodson Trust. The trust current-ly donates to four universities: St. Johns University in New York City; Hood College in Frederick, Md.; Washington College in Chestertown, Md.; and Johns Hopkins University. The Hodson Family Trust has given over $77 million to date. Every year Hopkins administrators have an informal meeting with members of the Hodson Trust board to decide how to allocate incoming funds to the university.

wrote the popular Theoretical Chemistry textbook during his professorship at Williams College. His reputation drew from Daniel Gilman who asked him to become one of the original faculty of Johns Hopkins and found the depart-ment of chemistry. Despite these accomplish-ments, Remsen is most famous for something he discovered by accident, saccharin. One day he forgot to wash his hands well after working in the laboratory, which left chemical residue on his hands. While eating his dinner he tasted the residue on his hands and discovered a bittersweet taste. Fahlberg, a colleague of Remsen, recognized the potential com-mercial use of the substance, saccharin. Though sweet to taste, saccharin didn’t cause tooth decay like sugar and could thus be used as a sugar substitute.

BLOOMBERG

Bloomberg was an undergradu-ate Johns Hopkins student ma-joring in electrical engineering. After graduating in 1964, Michael Bloomberg attended Harvard Business School. In his early career he became a general partner at Salomon Brothers. When Salomon Brothers was bought, Bloomberg was fired and given a $10 million severance package, which he used to start his own company, Innova-tive Market Systems (now highly successful Bloomberg L.P.), which delivers high quality business information. Bloomberg is the current mayor of New York City. He left the position of CEO to pursue a political career in New York. As mayor of New York City, Bloomberg receives an annual sal-ary of only one dollar. Bloomberg is said to be worth $16 billion and is listed 17th in the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires. Bloomberg has donated over $107 million to Johns Hopkins throughout his

GILMAN

Daniel Coit Gilman, the uni-versity’s first president, graduated from Yale with a degree in geogra-phy. At Yale Gilman was a member of the Skull and Bones Society, a group that has had numerous members who later served as U.S. presidents, including William H. Taft and both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush. Gilman helped found and served as the first accountant to the Russell Trust As-sociation, which administers the business side of the Society . Gilman was instrumental in founding the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale College and was also one of the early presidents at the University of California. In 1875, he left the University of California and accepted an offer to establish and become the first president of Johns Hopkins. His formal inauguration, on Febru-ary 22, 1876, became Hopkins’ Commemoration Day, the day on which many Hopkins univer-sity presidents have chosen to be installed in office.

WOLMAN

In May 1966, Wolman Hall was named in honor of Abel Wolman, a Hopkins professor of sanitary engineering. Wolman helped create and standardize methods used to chlorinate Baltimore’s drinking water and also worked to benefit the New York, Detroit, and Columbus water systems. Wolman also served as an adviser on water systems to the governments of nearly 50 countries. At Hopkins,

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Wolman taught for many years and established the Department of Sanitary Engineering.

MCCOY

John W. McCoy was a wealthy Baltimorean merchant. Upon his death in 1889, McCoy left Hop-kins his 8,000 volume library, his house, and about half a million dollars. The house served as the president’s residence until 1898. The money was used to build the original McCoy Hall, which held the humanities departments at the old downtown campus. When the University moved to Home-wood, they built the new McCoy Hall, and renovated it in 1991. The original McCoy Hall burned while standing vacant.

MATTIN

Christina Mattin graduated from Hopkins with the Class of 1975, the first coed class of undergradu-ates. After graduating, Mattin joined Mearl, a manufacturer of synthetic pigments. At Mearl she served as vice president and led the development of a successful division within the company that specialized in iridescent films. The

company was later bought by a Fortune 500 company. In 2001, Mattin made a large financial gift to the University, in honor of her parents, for the purpose of establishing an arts center on campus. She noted that Hopkins had traditionally attract-ed a majority of students in the sciences, and that these students often have a high level of artistic talent. She believed that the center would give them an opportunity to explore their creative sides.

MERGENTHALER

Mergenthaler was built with funds donated by the son and widow of Ottmar Mergenthaler. Mergenthaler immigrated to Baltimore from Germany. In 1884, he invented the linotype print-ing press. The linotype printer revolutionized typesetting and in particular, newspaper publishing. Prior to Mergenthaler’s invention, setting type for newspapers was a much more difficult task, and as a result, few newspapers in the world had more than eight pages.

SCHAFFER

Dr. Wilson Shaffer, Ph.D., served as a Hopkins faculty member for nearly four decades as a psycho-logical counselor and administra-tor. During his time at Hopkins, he worked as the dean of the College

of Arts and Sciences from 1942-1948, the dean of the Homewood Schools from 1948-1967, and advi-sor to seven Hopkins presidents. Shaffer was a talented baseball player. He tried out to be a pitcher for the New York Giants and was given an offer. However, Shaffer turned down the offer and opted instead to further his education. After being an undergrad, he earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Hopkins. During his employment at Hopkins he employed his interests in both sports and psychology to better the university. He used his expertise in psychology to create the Hopkins Mental Health Clinic. He also believed that sports should be available to all students and reorganized the Hopkins athletic program to allow for intramural sports.

SHRIVER

A local lawyer and Hopkins alumnus, Alfred Jenkins Shriver, left Johns Hopkins University a portion of his estate in 1939 to build a lecture hall. One of the conditions of Shriver’s will states that the building’s walls should be decorated with murals depicting the following: the Hopkins Class of 1891 (Shriver’s class), 10 philan-thropists of Baltimore, 10 “famous beauties of Baltimore,” the original Hopkins faculties of philosophy and medicine, the original Boards of Trustees of the University and Hospital, and Baltimore clipper ships.

CLARK

Alfred James Clark is an engi-neer and chairman and chief ex-ecutive of Clark Enterprises. One of the company’s subsidiaries is Clark Construction Group L.L.C, one of the largest construction companies in the U.S. Clark also serves as a Johns Hopkins Univer-sity Trustee Emeritus. He donated $10 million toward the construc-tion of Clark Hall and served as the general contractor. In 2009, Forbes named Clark as one of the 400 richest Americans.

DUNNING

Dunning Hall was built be-tween 1964 and 1966 and named in honor of the Dunning fam-ily. Henry A.B. Dunning was president of Hynson, Westcott and Dunning, Inc., the pharma-ceutical manufacturing company which developed Mercurochrome, a common topical antiseptic. He and his three sons all graduated from Hopkins with Ph.D.s in chemistry.

MUDD

The building is named after a former dean of the University of Southern California School of Medicine, Dr. Seeley G. Mudd. Mudd is the founder of a trust that funds the construction of build-ings at various private universities

MACAULAY

Macaulay Hall is named in honor of P. Stewart Macaulay who served as the university’s secretary, provost, and executive vice president and was also key in establishing both the Chesapeake Bay Institute and the University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

LATROBE

The Civil Engineering Build-ing was renamed Latrobe Hall in 1931. Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Jr., was a Maryland native and chief engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at the end of the 19th century. Latrobe was a talented and well-known architect of his time. He was close friend of Thomas Jefferson.

MASON

Raymond A. “Chip” Mason is the founder, and was the chair-man and CEO, of Baltimore-based investment firm Legg Mason until 2007.

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CREATING A BUSINESS SCHOOL BY ERIN VIGIL By the end of 2008 the world’s economy was in rough shape and many placed the blame on unscru-pulous financiers that chose greed over the health of the economy. Founded in the midst of those difficult times, The Carey Business School is taking business in a new direction driven not only by profits and the bottom line, but also by ethics and morality. The Carey Business School started in 2007 with a $50 mil-lion pledge from the W.P. Carey Foundation. James Carey was a prominent Baltimore shipper, member of Baltimore’s first City Council, and Chairman of the Bank of Maryland. He was not only related to Johns Hopkins, but also related to a number of members of the University’s first board of trustees. The school is situated in Baltimore’s Harbor East section of Fells Point. The School’s Dean, Phil-

worked and there were certain practices and policies in place that made it very difficult for employees to voice their concerns,” said Phan. He said these kinds of practices not only hurt employees but they hurt business. “If achieving the highest pos-sible profits wasn’t a concern maybe Apple could opt to distribute a little more of its profits down the street to their suppliers, so that the pres-sures for the suppliers to cut costs was not as great, and they would not have to engage in these prac-tices.” Phan said business and society have a “mutualistic” relationship. If business isn’t benefiting society, it clearly doesn’t have a place in it. Apple might not see the im-mediate effects of their unethical practices now, but violating work-ers rights could eventually hurt their business. When people see any company engaging in unethi-cal practices many will be turned away from buying their product or service, said Phan. As such, it’s important for every business model to take into account the effect all of its practices on society as a whole, otherwise, it might not be sustain-able, said Phan. An example of this philosophy in action is the new Global MBA program, according to Phan. The main component of the Global MBA is the Innovation for Human-

Nairobi villagers Hirsch encountered during his studies there

ity Project, which is done in the second semester of a student’s first year, and the Discovery to Market Program, which is done during the second semester of the second year. Innovation for Humanity pro-vides students with international entrepreneurship experience in developing nations, which gives them an opportunity to watch and participate in the action of business transforming society, said Phan. Jack Hirsch, a student in Carey’s Global MBA Program said that Carey’s attention to the human side of business is what attracted him to the school. “While many other schools that I considered, such as Yale for exam-ple, sprinkle humanitarian prac-tices into their course work, I saw that Carey really integrates these practices into their curriculum.” Hirsch’s Innovation For Human-ity project took him to Nairobi where he worked with an oph-thalmologist. In Nairobi, Hirsch’s assignment was to find a way to make diabetic retinopathy testing affordable and available across a poor underdeveloped country. This challenge taught Hirsch first-hand the positive impact that business can have on a community. Carey’s new approach not only produces well-rounded profession-als, it also has helped the school move up the ranks of business schools, according to Phan. The

school initially started with 15 full-time faculty. Today, it has more than twice this number. And with an average of over 2,500 applica-tions battling for a position at the school, they get to pick only the best and the brightest teachers, Phan said. The acceptance rate for faculty was 1 percent, which is six times more than the most selec-tive undergraduate program in the United States. Today, the Carey Business School consists of 39 full-time faculty, most of whom are on the tenure track. The Carey Business School has also formed strong partnerships and dual degree programs with the Bloomberg School of Public Health MBA/MPH, as well as the Hopkins School of Engineering, and new partnerships are form-ing. This fall will see the first set of MBA/JD students with students from the Francis King Carey Law School, a tier-one law school cur-rently ranked 39th in the nation, Phan said. Because the school is new it has yet to be ranked by many of the major rating organization. Yet already Eduniversal has ranked the school 65th in “Top Busi-ness School.” In addition, in 2010, Forbes claimed Carey School of Business offered one of the 10 most innovative business school courses. So it appears the new philosophy is paying off. Who says good guys finish last?

lip Phan, said the school’s mission is to give student the skills they need to excel in business, while also teaching awareness and conscience, so graduates not only know how to make money, but how to do so responsibly. Phan said the main goal of most traditional business schools is to teach people how to run very large enterprises. In that vein, they focus on teaching the technical and peo-ple skills required to achieve that goal. However, very few address the ethical issues associated with busi-ness. He said the mortgage crisis was a wake-up call that illustrated the damage immoral business prac-tices can have on society as a whole. When they created the school’s curriculum Phan said they focused heavily on the role business has in society, which means teaching things quite differently. Though the school still teaches traditional

business tools and techniques, they move to the next level and ask students to also think about the big-picture implications of their business decisions. In the finance industry, the objective of manag-ers is to insure their shareholders are able to obtain the maximum return on their investment. “What does this mean for the decisions that companies have to make in order to do that?” asks Phan. “What trade-offs are they making?” He said the school looks beyond just the numbers. An example of the wrong way to do business, according the Phan, is illustrated by a recent report on Foxconn, a manufacturer in China that produces iPhones and iPads. “The report was very damning and suggested that labor practices in their factories were below stand-ards, even local regulations. People were being underpaid and over-

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THE CHOICE OF BILLINGS BY GORDON SCOTT

Exceptional individuals often excel in more than one field. Da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, archi-tect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, and geologist; Galileo was a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. Therefore it is not hard to imagine that one of Johns Hopkins Medicines’ most exceptional individuals, John Shaw Billings, was not only decorated for his skills in surgery, public health, and hospital design, but he was also one of America’s premier librarians. At Hopkins, Billings is well known as one of the founders of Johns Hopkins Medicine and the man who designed the original hospital and the Dome that bears his name. However, in addition to his well-known achievements in medicine and science, many Hopkins students don’t know that Billings was also the director of the New York Public Library system.

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To remedy this, Billings stand-ardized a 6 p.m. closing time year round. He increased the number of employees, and established a system for lending out the books for home reading. He also created new depart-ments for maps, music, manuscripts, and prints. Billing also excelled in the field of public health, serving as the president of the American Public Health Association. Over his life

During his time as director, Billings lent his talents not only to the design of the building, but reinvented the very way the library system functioned, according to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) memoir on Billings. Pulling from his immense knowledge from previous travels and experiences, Billings redesigned the libraries’ heating, lighting and ventilation systems. He also was very influen-tial on the aesthetic design of the building. While these structural improve-ments provided an effective and visually appealing building in which the library could function, Billings biggest achievements was his complete restructuring of the library’s catalogue system. Prior to Billings’ appointment, librarians only had a rough estimate of the number of books contained within the state’s libraries (thought to be roughly 400,000, according to the NAS memoir). Billings created a catalogue that assigned a single card for every author and book. When he was finished, the librar-ians were surprised to learn they had in excess of 2,000,000 books in the collection. Billings then extended the system to include the holdings of all the other major libraries in the country, as well as the Library of Congress. Billings also changed the role of the staff librarians. Before he was made director, library hours were irregular. According to the NAS memoir, during the winter months, it was common for the libraries to close well before 4 p.m., while during the summer they might stay open until 6 p.m. And unlike the postal system, which boasts that “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift comple-tion of their appointed rounds,” inclement weather would often close a library. Worse still, the public library system (which at that time was composed of multiple separate smaller libraries) had little consistency between its branches.

he published a slew of important papers concerning sanitation and general hygiene–topics that were underappreciated and underde-veloped at that time said Ruggere. He also was one of the first to see value in cataloguing health statistics, such as cause of death, and was put in charge of the vital statistics for the eleventh U.S. census. He also spent time at Ellis Island where he designed a mechanized way to record the afflictions of incoming immigrants said Ruggere. He was regarded as the leading authority on public hygiene in this country and the abroad. He eventually opened the Laboratory of Hygiene of the University of Pennsylvania, which would continue research into public health, eventually forming its own school of Public Health and Hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania, according to the NAS memoir.

Billings was also well known for his work in hospital administration. He began his medical career dur-ing the Civil War as a field doctor. Throughout the war, he was an all-purpose surgeon who worked on the battlefield performing a wide variety of surgeries from 1862 to 1864. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the single action with the largest number of casualties of the Civil War, Billings worked on the wound-ed while under artillery fire, accord-ing to the book Order Out of Chaos John Shaw Billings and America’s Coming of Age, by Carleton B. Chapman. He performed difficult and radical new operations, and de-veloped a stellar reputation for both his courage and skills. By the end of the war, Billings had risen to the rank of deputy surgeon-general. After the war the Secretary of the Treasury asked Billings to inspect the Marine Hospital Service, which was in shambles. Over the years of 1896 to 1874 he traveled to nearly every marine hospital in the country according to Chapman. His work examining hospitals and health systems soon made him the na-tions’ leading expert on hospital organization and design. One of the major changes he implemented was the improvement of living conditions. He requested a full time chef, healthier rations, and larger portions. He also requested better ventilation, more space, and more bath tubs and showers, according to the NAS Memoir. Another of Billings’ great achievements, the organization of the Surgeon General’s Library, came from a marriage of his love of medi-cine with his love of books. Billings decided that the United States had to have the best and largest medical li-brary, said Ruggere. This was during the printing press boom, when there was an explosion of medical periodi-cals coming out, and Billings spent thousands of dollars on getting them all. He didn’t settle for getting cur-rent publications only, his goal was to collect any and all texts related to medical knowledge, old and new.

The New York Public Library in 1914 - Irving Underhill

The results were incredible; when he first arrived there were little over 1,000 volumes in the Surgeon General’s library. By the end of his time there, the collection had grown to well over 300,000 volumes and pamphlets. “The National Library in Bethesda is now the largest—he made it,” said Ruggere. More impressively, Billings also made a point of organizing everything in the collection: all the previously existing volumes and all new addi-tions. He created two indexes, the index catalogue and index medicus. The index catalogue was the most expensive publication by the govern-ment at the time; a massive listing of all the journals and books in the library’s collection, extensively cross-referenced. Billings put his consider-able intelligence into designing it, and it included no less than 25 different fonts, each representing a very specific piece of information. “There was a font for papers by an author and a font for papers referencing the author,” said Ruggere as she scanned through the library’s reprint. Billings’ attention to detail made the index catalogue so costly they printed only four series, stopping at Mn, before the government refused to continue paying, according to the book John Shaw Billings Science and Medicine in the Gilded Age”, by James H. Cassedy. The fifth and final series was completed later, but it is incom-plete, no journal articles are listed. His other creation, the index medi-cus, was a listing of only the specific scientific articles, published quar-

terly. Though it too went through a tumultuous period where its future was uncertain, it remarkably remains in use, now referred to as Pubmed, the worldwide collection of medical publications researchers still rely upon. But with all these accomplish-ments, it’s important not to forget what Billings did for Hopkins. Gilman and the Board of Trustees chose Billings to design the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Billings brought his enormous talent and immense work ethic to the task at hand. He researched the topic extensively, taking time to travel throughout Europe, which was, at the time, had the best medical educational institutions. In his final proposal, he included many revolutionary ideas. He designed first-class physiologi-cal and pathological laboratories, a hospital which included multiple units, and a school for nurses. Each of these was entirely new for hos-pital construction according to the NAS memoir. Drawing from his military background, and having seen the follies of other hospitals, he urged that there be only one administra-tor in charge. He advocated for medical instruction to be given in the wards, instead of in amphitheat-ers, as was the practice of the time. In amphitheaters the doctor would bring in an interesting patient, and parade them about like a circus novelty. Billings advised that there be rigorous admission tests for medical training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in order to select only the best. He was also the first to suggest graded accommodations, providing better rooms for patients who were willing to pay more, according to the NAS memoir. Like many great men before him, Billings excelled in a multitude of fields and left behind a legacy of ac-complishments. Though truly it was his entire career that was astound-ing, his work at Hopkins Hospital will remain near and dear to those individuals of the larger Johns

remain near and dear to those individuals of the larger Johns Hopkins Institution. Whether walking through the halls of Hopkins Hospital or stepping into a local library, one should remember John Shaw Billings.

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