The award is given to a president who exemplifies leadership to create a campus environment where learning and campus life are not undermined by the misuse of alcohol, according to Outside the Classroom and United Educators.

“The award is managed by Outside the Classroom and United Educators. They are passionate about harm reduction and alcohol awareness so we can maximize the success of students nationally,” Sara Axelson, vice president of student affairs, said.

Nominators were asked to talk about how societal conditions drive alcohol use and the magnitude of the alcohol-related problems in universities.

Buchanan cited in his acceptance speech that, at UW, these examples are easy to find because 25 percent of students in Wyoming have reported drinking before the age of 13 and 72 percent of arrests and citations from the UW Police Department involve alcohol.

“Across the nation, college and university presidents have to face the fact that young people coming to the university are already experienced with alcohol,” he said.

Nominators were also asked to talk about how their president has taken an active stand on alcohol and made prevention of its misuse a priority for their institution, as well as created new initiatives to change student norms away from alcohol use.

“President Buchanan’s commitment to addressing alcohol issues and success in decreasing both alcohol use and its adverse effects are models for the entire higher education community,” Janice Abraham, CEO of United Educators, said in a press release.

Buchanan has implemented alternative late night programs for students, mandatory online alcohol education and AWARE, which is a nationally recognized alcohol education and intervention program.

He is also the leader of the A-Team, a coalition of campus and community members to change campus, local and state laws and policies surrounding alcohol.

According to a press release from Outside the Classroom and United Educators, from 2007 to 2009, student binge drinking dropped by 24 percent, in part because of Buchanan’s work.

There was also a 29 percent decrease in students reporting alcohol interfering with academics and a 40 percent decrease in drunk driving, according to the release.

“It’s really very rare for you to see something like what is happening here at the University of Wyoming,” Brandon Busteed, founder and CEO of Outside the Classroom, said.

“You have not only many staff across the university start to get involved in a very important way, but you also see a very committed and dedicated university president who doesn’t just talk the talk but is a very on-the-point leader in espousing his belief that this is an important issue to address,” he said.

“The kind words are humbling, but this is an award for the university. It is not an award for me, and it is an award for the hard work of our faculty, our staff and of our students,” Buchanan said.

Buchanan was given $20,000 for the university, which he dedicated for use by the AWARE program.

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The release of more than a quarter-million secret cables includes brutally candid assessments of world leaders and previously undisclosed details of nuclear and antiterrorism activity.  

It represents the most embarrassing and potentially damaging disclosure of American diplomatic material in decades, according to many major news outlets and analysts.

So what can the U.S. do to ensure its diplomatic relationships with other countries in the future? 

The exact same thing you would do if you accidently released emails to all your friends calling them insulting names: you might have to apologize.

In the documents released by WikiLeaks, it was noted that diplomatic officers were supposed to undertake certain duties that might be labeled as spying. 

Now their new duty is to give the largest and most candid apologies the U.S. has ever handed out.

The insulting nature of the documents is so widespread that the U.S. could not just compensate each ally with a gift to make up for the bad nature of the secret documents.

When your secret emails bashing your friends were released, you would not be able to take each friend out to dinner and give them a gift to make up for the insult. In the case of the U.S., such a gift could come in the form of potential military technology and financial aid.

Also: All you did was call them silly names, it isn’t like you ran over their cat or invaded their country. An apology should be enough.

Just as with the emails to friends, we all know we do it, and all the countries in the world know that they also make the same kind of harsh judgments on U.S. leaders.

Any country could have had an embarrassing secret leaked that involved name-calling. And the U.S. would have forgiven them because everybody, even countries, make bad judgment calls with nicknames—and forget that words can hurt too.

Just because we labeled French President Nicolas Sarkozy as an “emperor with no clothes,” and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai as “driven by paranoia,” that doesn’t mean that a diplomatic fury against the U.S. should occur.

And can’t we all agree with the representations of the labels anyway? Or is this one of those things where, even if the documents got it right, because it is insulting we have to say it is not true?

On Monday, Hillary Clinton confirmed that she was confident, based on conversations in recent days with foreign ministers of several countries, that the administrations’ relationships with other governments would survive any upheaval.

But of course, not all of these documents were not just name-calling. Some, such as the documents detailing the frustration of Middle Eastern countries against Iran, might actually be hurtful. But even though they could have been hurtful, it appears not to be so.

The documents seemed to detail several Arab nations’ hostility towards Iran—most notably Saudi Arabia—with King Abdullah repeatedly implored Washington to “cut off the head of the snake” while there was still time.  

But the Iranians chalked Abdullah’s statement up to American psychological warfare that would not affect the country’s relations with other nations.

So if a man such as the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who found out his neighbors apparently wanted his country attacked from the documents, can ignore the release, shouldn’t other nations? . 

Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, pointed out in an article for Foreign Policy, that there were no big lies in the release. 

Maybe there were things you wish someone wouldn’t have heard: but there were no lies, scandals or scary realizations—just a lot of red faces. 

So in the end, what will be the implications of the release? Most likely, a lot of apologies and a lot of changes to the security standards for the State Department.

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The obvious question is will Obama cement himself as a second term president in 2012 using the cunning skills he employed in 2008, or is time for the Republicans to shine with a candidate that will capture the country.

At first glance, it doesn’t look good for the president, because many voters lashed out against the Democrats.

Though many Democrats claim the midterms were just a reaction to the bad economy, polls show midterm voters were not just disenchanted with the promises of 2008. You could argue that the midterms were a referendum on the Democratic policy, agenda and brand.

History tells us that if Obama is able to turn the economy around, his chances of being re-elected increase dramatically than if the economy continues to be stagnant or takes a drop.

In an article by Dan Balz in the Washington Post, Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University and author of “The Disappearing Center,” said the most important thing to remember about a midterm election is that it indicates nothing about future elections. 

However, the economy does.

The example that mirrors Obama’s current situation was Ronald Reagan and his first term in office.

In the early 80s, the U.S. economy was faltering and unemployment was at more than 10 percent. 

Comparatively, looking at polls, Regan’s drop in approval ratings mirrors that of Obama today.

Yet, how did Reagan win his bid for re-election in 1984?

The biggest indicator was how the economy rebounded significantly during Reagan’s third and fourth years in office. 

Unfortunately for Obama, no one is predicting the same increase in economic activity today that was seen in the early 80s. According to the Congressional Budget Office, recession caused by financial crises tend to linger longer.

Yet, there is a lot of good news for Obama historically.

In the past, the public has been generally inclined to re-elect a president whose party has just recaptured the White House. In the 11 elections for a president whose party had regained the White House, the incumbent won 10 times. The only exception was Jimmy Carter in 1980 (who lost to Reagan).

Bill Clinton’s first term can also give Obama’s political team hope.

In the first midterms after Clinton was elected, the legislative branch also saw a Republican surge with Clinton’s approval rating dropping below 40 percent. Yet, Clinton came back to win re-election and leave as one of the few presidents who was more popular at the end of his terms than at the beginning.

The election will also be decided by other factors outside of Obama’s control, such as the Republican candidate for presidency in 2012.

Currently the field is wide open, but many old names from 2008 are being tossed around.

Though no candidate who could be seen as a “serious” threat has formally announced their candidacy, it is assumed that Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin will all be running again.

These candidates have been making an effort to get their names and faces on the airwaves, and many are already making visits to hot primary states.

Romney is apparently letting donors know it’ll be awhile before he looks to 2012. He also claims that any presidential campaign he builds will have a much smaller staff than in 2008.

Other candidates that appear to be making a run for the presidency on the Republican ticket include Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Chris Christie and Haley Barbour.

How well do these candidates fair?

In a handful of polls comparing potential presidential candidates against Obama, only a few candidates seemed to be able to compete, namely Romney and Huckabee. One or two polls show Gingrich and Palin close behind Romney and Huckabee.

But it mostly appears that Obama will win in these projected races.

Before Republicans think of their chances against the sitting president, they must make sure they can compete against the large and strong list of candidates in the 2012 Republican primary.

Email the author: mdonofri@uwyo.edu 

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Tuesday nights in the Union, slip on a pair of blue suede shoes and hit the dance floor.

UW Swing Club meets at 7 p.m. every Tuesday in the Union next to The Rolling Mill Café.

“It’s really a great opportunity to get some exercise and learn how to dance,” club president Charles Fournier said. “Its something else to do on campus. It’s active, it gets you to be involved with other people and it keeps a culture and tradition alive that’s been in the states since the early twenties.”

The type of Swing the club teaches is known as Big Band Swing. They teach the Charleston, the Jitter Bug, the Lindy Hop and Boogie-Woogie.

Along with weekly dancing in the Union, the club is always planning new events. Earlier in the year, they hosted a Halloween dance.

Tonight, the Swing Club will host their annual winter dance in the Union Ballroom. 

“We call it our Winter Dance, but it’s pretty much just another opportunity to go and dance,” Fournier said.

The club is busy planning for next semester as well with a dance on Valentine’s Day and other workshops. 

According to Jennicka Jones, club vice president, everyone is welcome to attend the free club meetings and dances. 

“You don’t have to know how to dance and you don’t have to have rhythm because we teach you how to have rhythm,” she said.

Lessons for beginners are offered at every meeting and guests can come and go as they please because lessons are not on a strict weekly basis. Even dancers without partners are welcome, and they will be paired up upon arrival.

Jamie Fegler and Zack Anderson are regular members of the club. 

“It’s different every time you come. You get a lot of experience dancing with other people. It’s a lot of fun,” Fegler said. “I was involved with ballroom dance when I was in high school and there is not really any of that on campus so swing is a good way to keep up with dance,” Anderson said.

Email:Lauren Kottenstette

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The Branding Iron is a Student Media project. Student Media gives University of Wyoming students valuable experience in writing, editing, advertising, sales, graphic design, photography and production through its publications with the guidance of professional staff members. If you find a mistake in an article, e-mail us at bi@uwyo.edu. We will make sure to torture the poor soul until it's corrected. Just kidding. We probably won't do anything, since we're busy studying for finals.

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Dr. Jose Rosa spoke about the motivations behind pushing for subsistence merchants and their overall effects on developing and underdeveloped countries. Rosa is a professor of marketing and sustainable business practices here at UW.

 EWB is an international organization with the purpose of “creating a world where everyone can meet their basic human needs,” Amanda King, the UW chapter’s president said. The organization is separated between state and regional chapters, with both student and professional levels in each.    

“We put members into different teams that travel around the world to different countries,” King said. These teams then see if each location can benefit from the EWB’s services. “We ask if the place is a good fit for what we can offer, and if it is, we’ll make a formal commitment to them,” King said.

EWB’s UW chapter has multiple projects underway. The group’s first project, started in 2005, helped build a school in the village of Panabaj, Guatemala, after mudslides had struck the town following a hurricane.   

The group has also helped in Africa where they are working to bring clean water to Kenya, according to King.

Once a commitment has been made to a location, EWB will stay to help develop the area for five to 10 years.  

The group recently sent a members to Honduras. “We hope to build a hub clinic there, so nurses don’t have to hop on buses and spend a long time getting supplies,” King stated. “Architecture students have already drafted a plan and we will be working on the water component.”    

She added that the organization is a good path of professional development for all students at UW. “What people don’t seem to realize is that you don’t have to be an engineer. I’m president of the chapter and I’m not even an engineering major.”

Email the author: rlind1@uwyo.edu

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ASUW discussed the need for two students to fill open spots on an Implementation Committee at its meeting Tuesday. The committee will be tasked with transferring the operation of SafeRide to Transit and Parking Services by July 1, 2012.

The committee’s responsibilities will also include collecting information to clarify and set the final details of the merger, and conducting interviews and opinions from comparable universities, UW administrators and students, according to the senate bill that created the committee.

Students in the committee will work with the vice president and two senators from ASUW, Elizabeth Whitt from Transit and Parking Services, as well as Matt Caires, ASUW advisor and Michael Pule, ASUW program coordinator.

The Implementation Committee will be required to report to the senate and ASUW president once each semester and will report its final analysis in the spring of 2012, according to the bill.

“It is a student program and student input is very important to Transit and Parking Services, which has made that a priority since day one,” ASUW vice president Liz Brown said. 

In other business, UW president Tom Buchanan visited the senate for the first time this semester to discuss university studies requirements in the undergraduate curriculum and  college ranking systems. 

Buchanan said the university is planning to go back through the university studies requirements to see what has been working and what has not in order to make the necessary changes. 

He added that the requirements have become increasingly complicated and a stumbling block when students change majors. 

He was not concerned about the content of the courses, but rather the structure of the requirements. 

Buchanan also said the Provost’s office has issued a white paper for the discussion about the requirements. 

Finally, he talked about university ranking systems. 

“There are as many different rankings as there are weekly magazines,” he said. Adding that the system which he believes gives some of the best information is the Integrated Post Secondary Data System. It requires all universities to give the federal government the same information for publication.

The data system does not put universities on a list of where they rank as compared to the other institutions around the nation, instead universities are given the opportunity to compare themselves to 12 other schools to see how they stack up. 

Buchanan said the universities UW chose to compare itself with were a mix of regional institutions as well as institutions he says UW aspires to be similar to. 

 Email: Erin Jarnagin 

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ASUW passed a piece of legislation Tuesday night creating a committee to look into the SafeRide-TransPark merger along with a Judicial Comprehensive Review and Reform Act which will make clear the separation of power of the judicial branch from the legislative branch of ASUW. 
 
 
The merger has recently been a controversial issue within ASUW. Accordingly, when the bill was sent to the Student Interest and Policy Planning Committee, the vote was split two to two and had to be broken by committee chair Joel Defebaugh who voted in favor of the bill, giving it a due pass recommendation to senate. 
 
Last week, vice president Liz Brown, author of the bill, brought the bill to the senate for first reading and encouraged all senators to “do their homework.” Senators had several opportunities to speak with representatives from both Transit and Parking Services as well as SafeRide last week.
 
The bill, which passed with a vote of 27 to 2, created a committee to explore the idea of SafeRide, which is currently ASUW’s largest program in terms of funding, moving under Transit and Parking Services.
 
During the meeting, Brown said all of the questions regarding whether or not TransPark might change the programs would go to the committee who would be researching the merger. 
 
Sen. Pat Hurley said he felt there has been a lot of animosity toward the bill and senators should remember that the bill would only make a committee to explore the options, not implement them. 
 
 
“If you vote no, you are saying you don’t want to hear anything they have to say about [the merger],” he said.  
 
The Senate also passed the Judicial Comprehensive Review and Reform Act which was given a due pass recommendation by the Constitution Committee.
 
 
During discussion of the bill, senators talked about the need to clearly define the separation of power between the branches of ASUW and, in particular, not allowing judicial members to author or sponsor legislation. 
 
Chief of staff Liz Rader said this was important because if the bill needed to go to judicial council for any reason, the justice who authored or sponsored a bill would have to excuse himself or herself from the decision making process and it is important to have a full judicial council when making decisions. 
 
The bill also asked vice president of Student Affairs Sarah Axelson to not to make a decision on Judicial Council decisions until after the appeal period for students is over.
 
Before the bill passed, when a Judicial Council decision was to be appealed, the decision went to the vice president of Student Affairs for comment. The appeal period for students is five days after the decision is made, after which the appeal goes to the dean of Student Affairs, currently Dave Cozzens, to be decided. 
 

Previously, senators said the problem was that the vice president of Student Affairs could make their decision and add comments on the Judicial Council’s ruling before the student had an opportunity to appeal. The appeal would then go to the dean of Student Affairs, who is an employee of the vice president of Student Affairs, making the possibility of a biased outcome of the appeal more likely. 
 
 
In other business, ASUW Senate approved a new senator, Didi Gonzales from the College of Education, following the resignation of Sen. Jace Elson.
 
They also approved former senator Andrew Ssekajja as a Judicial Council justice for a two-year term.
 
RSO Funding Board granted $6,150 to the International Student Association for their International Education Week to take place in November.
 
Email: Erin Jarnagin 

jsindt

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According to the Associated Press, the Obama administration is projecting that the deficit for the 2011 budget year, which began Oct. 1, will climb to $1.4 trillion. Over the next decade, it will total $8.47 trillion. 

Though Students at UW say they do not know exactly how to solve the issue, they all noted that the continually increasing deficit is a major issue.

“I think it is terrible. I think something definitely needs to be done about it,” Brody Tate, a sophomore at UW, said, “It is a major problem that they are spending more and more money we don’t have.”

According to Hillary Wellborn, a sophomore and vice president of the College Republicans, it is disgusting that we are in that much debt, but it does not surprise her.

“When you see the amount of spending that is being done in Washington and these almost trillion dollar bills that are passed, how can we be surprised,” Wellborn said.

Leslie Brazil, a junior and president of the College Republicans, is mostly worried about how the deficit will affect future generations. Brazil believes Washington is passing a lot of bills and making all their decision without really considering the consequences of it down the road.

 “And it is not just President Obama, it was President [George W.] Bush; it is Republicans, it is Democrats. No one is reading the bills or paying attention to what is in them, and they are going to do a lot more harm than good and affect us more than anybody,” Brazil said.

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the deficit for the 2010 budget year that ended Sept. 30 will total $1.29 trillion. That’s down by $125 billion from the $1.4 trillion in 2009, the highest deficit on record, according to an Associated Press story.

Charles Busby, a senior, sees the government as a business and believes that a good business can’t run in a deficit for as long the government has without failing in the future.

According to Jordan Evans, a sophomore, there is no way  to get out of the debt. 

“I don’t think there is anyway out of it, and I think it will pretty much just keep getting deeper and deeper and I have no idea what the solution could possibly be,” Evans said.

President Obama has appointed a bipartisan commission to study the deficit and recommend policy changes. Those recommendations are expected in December, after the elections, and the panel needs the backing of 14 of its 18 members to trigger a congressional vote. 

Building that level of consensus will be difficult as republicans are strongly opposed to a plan that includes tax increases to chip away at the deficit and democrats are less inclined to move a package that relies solely on spending cuts.

One of the contentious plans that will have a major affect on the economy are the Bush era tax cuts.

The Republicans are fighting to renew all of the tax cuts while Obama and the Democrats want to extend the tax cuts for every family making less than $250,000, but let them expire for the wealthiest households.

The difference between the two parties amounts to $700 billion that will be added to projected deficits over the next decade if the tax cuts for the wealthy are extended along with the other tax cuts.

Wellborn believes that the tax cuts are good and that they should be expanded for everyone, despite the monetary loss of revenue for the government. 

“People shouldn’t be punished for being rich. It is only fair,” Wellborn said.

Busby agrees, but because he thinks that the tax cuts will allow people to spend more money and create more revenue over all.

But not all students are in favor of raising the taxes for everybody. 

 “I hate taxes as much as anybody, but as much debt as we have, we have to pay for it somehow,” Lauren Ruttinger, a junior, said. “But, I also know that there are a lot of people making under $250,000 that are unemployed, or can’t afford much more expense.”

Daniel Forman, a junior, would rather not see them expanded for anybody, as he believes the government needs the revenue to bring down the deficit

But there are other ways to bring down the deficit.

Peter Howard, a senior, thinks that the solution is not tax cuts, but government cuts.

 “I think it is the wrong way to go,” Howard said. “I am definitely not one of those Tea Party guys, but I think we need to do what some of the European countries have successfully done and practice austerity. We need to cut back on spending quite a bit, sort of all purpose spending.”

Email: Max D’Onofrio 

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ASUW is heading a collaborative effort with UW’s Institutional Marketing Department to hang banners around campus with UW alumni names printed on them.

The Alumni Banner Project is intended to promote pride on campus and the new gold banners are hung on poles and light fixtures around campus, said ASUW vice president Liz Brown.

So far, six banners located in the Union parking loop are the first of many banners to be placed across the entirety of campus.   

These banners increase the overall feeling of a campus culture at UW, and are designed to promote and showcase student, faculty and staff pride at UW. 

The idea was created after ASUW president Cameron Nazminia went to an orientation visit at Colorado University Boulder with his sister and saw their alumni banner projects.

Nazminia was inspired when he returned to have a similar project on UW’s campus. 

 “I honestly think that it does help students buy into campus,” Brown said. “A lot of students were very excited to see them up.”

The alumni who are currently already on the banners come from UW’s pre-cleared distinguished alumni list. The banners that are soon to come will be chosen based on the choice of UW public relation check and a special committee.

The six alumni who are already on banners include William Robertson Coe, June Etta Downey, Emma Howell Knight, S.H. “Doc” Knight, Aven Nelson, UW Professor and President and Nellie Taylor Ross.

 The project was launched on homecoming weekend and funding came from sponsors who endorsed the project.

Email the author: mdonofri@uwyo.edu 

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After three consecutive years of work from Freshmen Senate, the tradition of the Octopus Tree was revived Wednesday night as President Tom Buchanan and his wife Jacque Buchanan kissed under the newly planted tree. 

“We met 35 years ago when we were students here, but this is the first time we have kissed under the Octopus Tree,” Buchanan said. 

The legend of the Octopus Tree says anyone who has not been kissed under it is still a freshman at the university, regardless of the number of credit hours the student has obtained. 

The original tree, which was condemned in the 1970s, was removed from the university grounds in the 1980s after it was determined to be a hazard. 

When the Octopus Tree was first planted, along with about 20 other trees, the groundskeeper at the time mowed over it and the other trees so many times it was caused to grow in an odd shape, giving it its name. 

Of the 20 original trees, the Octopus Tree was the only survivor of the repeated attempts at destruction, Dennis Dreher of Admissions said at the ceremony.  

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