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FEATURES/2 SPORTS/6 Today Tomorrow INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS GROWING UP From ISO to mid-year, new freshmen find home Chiney Ogwumike steps Partly Sunny Showers away from home up in sister’s absence 52 43 44 40 The StaCARDINALnfordTOD DAYaily A n I n d e p e n d e n t P u b l i c a t i o n THURSDAY www.stanforddaily.com Volume 239 February 24, 2011 Issue 20 UNIVERSITY DAPER Start-up buys college essays to leave Stanford wary of plagiarism potential the second largest contributor after Harvard. allow users to copy, cut, paste or print personal The Essay Exchange’s Stanford representa- statements. tive, D’Shai Hendricks ‘14, said the majority of “We have talked to over 100 admission offi- Roble gym these essays came from the current freshman cers,” O’Connor added. “We’re willing to work class. with them so that all of the essays are in their “Initially, when I sent out the first e-mail, college admission department.” Stanford Drama and most people were confused about what it was,” According to Stanford Director of Admis- Hendricks said. “ Later, most people basically sion Bob Patterson, representatives from the Dance slated as new tenants understood it’s three minutes of your time, and Essay Exchange have not contacted the Univer- it’s an opportunity to make money.” sity. He further noted that the website raises a ANASTASIA YEE/The Stanford Daily By ISAAC GATEÑO “The [website] was founded on the premise red flag for plagiarism. that college admission is unfair,” said Essay Ex- “When we read completed essays, we are Tentative plans are in place for By MARIANNE LeVINE change co-founder and CEO Rory O’Connor. able to discern if the essay was written by the ap- the Department of Athletics, Physi- STAFF WRITER “Our goal is to make personalized college in- plicant by making connections with the addi- cal Education and Recreation sight more accessible and more affordable.” tional information the student provides,” he (DAPER) to vacate Roble Gym. Stanford students looking for an extra buck According to O’Connor,part of the website’s wrote in an e-mail to The Daily. Stanford Drama and Dance Divi- or two can now earn cash by uploading their success comes from the idea that quantity Patterson said the University is engaged in a sion are slated to take over the personal statements to the Essay Exchange.The makes quality. “discussion about what we want to do in the fu- space. new website says it aims to give disadvantaged “We offer a better selection,”O’Connor said. ture” to combat plagiarism in the college appli- “It seems to be the general plan high school students access to a cheap alterna- “The main advantage we have over books with cation process. that DAPER will be moving out of tive to college counseling, but University offi- application essays is that our selection is grow- One possibility is partnering with outside Roble, and Drama/Dance will have cials are skeptical. ing, and the options are changing all the time.” vendors who run authenticity checks on the ad- use of the spaces in Roble that they Started last August by three Harvard Busi- In fact,the website’s virtual writing tutor is so mission essays, he said. are vacating,” Drama Department ness School alumni,the Essay Exchange pays $2 personalized that high school students can For others, the problem goes beyond plagia- chair Peggy Phelan wrote in an e- to current and former students at 25 elite uni- search for personal statements that best match rism, and some college counselors remain un- mail to The Daily. versities every time a prospective applicant their individual backgrounds. Students are convinced by the Essay Exchange’s stated pur- Don Intersimone, director of Fa- reads their admission essay. given a preview of each essay before they decide pose. cilities and Capital Planning, con- Despite a slow start, the Essay Exchange whether or not to buy it. Individual essays can “I don’t think the inspiration for it truly came firmed that DAPER would vacate gained popularity by advertising on Facebook be purchased for $7.50. from any desire to level the playing field,since it Roble’s locker rooms, showers and and by word-of-mouth promotions from on- In the past,websites like the Essay Exchange doesn’t level the playing field in any substantive swimming pool. campus representatives. Since its launch, the have been criticized for allowing plagiarism. way,” Alice Kleeman, a college counselor at “Drama will have the opportu- website has gathered approximately 700 essays, O’Connor, however, was confident that this nity to make use of [those spaces],” including 128 essays from the Farm. Stanford is problem could be avoided.His website does not Please see ESSAY,page 2 Intersimone said. He added that this development would “provide additional flexibili- ty for Drama in the Roble Gym WORLD & NATION complex.” Mum’s the Word Roble Gym has deteriorated since its 1931 opening. Last August, Santa Clara County officials shut down the main performance space, Rumsfeld Roble Studio Theater, due to safety concerns. Phelan said a study to bring the space up to code is cur- rently being conducted, but added criticizes Rice, that it made little sense to fix the theater without undertaking a major overhaul of the building. “The need for more theater and Bush admins performance spaces here is ab- solutely urgent,” Phelan said. There are only a few perform- ance spaces for theater on campus. Memoir holds top officials Prosser Studio and the Nitery both seat fewer than 100 people. Pigott responsible for Iraq war Theater seats 194, and Memorial Auditorium (MemAud) seats 1,705. By SAMANTHA MCGIRR “MemAud is too big for the kinds of experimental works I think SENIOR STAFF WRITER universities should be pursuing,and Former Secretary of Defense Donald the acoustics are not ideal,” Phelan Rumsfeld levels criticism at top members said. of the Bush administration,including cur- The size gap between Pigott The- rent Stanford professor and former ater and MemAud is one big issue provost Condoleezza Rice, in his new for the Drama Department and stu- memoir “Known and Unknown.” dent groups such as Ram’s Head The memoir, released Feb. 7, contains Theatrical Society and the Stanford a comprehensive account of Rumsfeld’s Shakespeare Company. life and political career, including his role “We cannot make a great show in the Iraq war while serving under highlighting student performances George W. Bush. and put it in a lecture hall,” Phelan While Rumsfeld acknowledges some said. tactical errors on his part, he also lays The problem of finding perform- blame at the feet of other high-ranking of- ance space is not exclusive to the- ficials. He takes aim at Rice in her capaci- ater groups. The Dance Division ty as both national security advisor and similarly lacks “a good space with JIN ZHU/The Stanford Daily secretary of state, saying she did not push Local San Jose band, The Mumlers, performed at Wednesday Night Live, which airs weekly on KZSU. the president to make firm decisions on Please see ROBLE,page 2 The alternative-folk group opened for last year’s Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco. war strategy. “The core problems the NSC (Nation- al Security Council) faced resulted from the effort to paper over differences of views,” he writes. UNIVERSITY According to political science profes- sor Kenneth Schultz,however,Rice’s effi- cacy may have been impacted by an inter- Stanford,NYC describe vision for campus nal power struggle between agencies. “There were serious divisions within the administration, particularly between By CASSANDRA FELICIANO York University are already lo- demic sources in science, technol- (MIT), New York University the Defense Department and State De- DESK EDITOR cated in the Big Apple, “there is ogy, engineering and mathemat- (NYU) and the Indian Institute partment, and ultimately the people at still room to grow,” said Julie ics (STEM) fields. of Technology in Mumbai have the Defense Department wielded the Universities across the globe Wood, vice president of public af- “Part of what has gotten us publicly announced that they are bulk of influence over decision making,” are going public to respond to fairs at the New York City Eco- through the recession better than working on “expressions of inter- he said. New York Mayor Michael nomic Development Corpora- other cities around the country est.” Furthermore, Schultz says, the concil- Bloomberg’s invitation to create tion (NYCEDC). has been . our diverse econo- “The several animating ideas iatory nature of the national security ad- an applied sciences campus in the NYCEDC research, which in- my,and we need to insure that the at work, in both the city’s call for visor position limited Rice’s ability to city.At the same time, school offi- cluded extensive dialogue with city is home to a variety of indus- proposals and the response of make demands. cials and city representatives are the business community and tries that can weather up-and- other institutions, have long been “It would have been Rice’s job as na- elaborating on their vision of a other universities in the area, down cycles,”Wood wrote in an e- a hallmark of NYU’s approach tional security advisor to insure the presi- New York City campus, as the showed that the city needed to mail to The Daily. and thinking,” Lynne Brown, sen- dent was getting views from different Mar. 16 deadline for “expressions focus on three key elements. First She said NYCEDC hasn’t re- ior vice president for university players,” Schultz said.

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