Jared Lodge ’05 did not expect to spend any part of his spring break in the hospital getting stitches and a cast, but that’s what he did.

Lodge was assaulted by a Minneapolis police officer while he was taking part in the monthly Critical Mass bicycle ride. He is currently filing a claim with the city of Minneapolis for medical damages and damage to his bicycle.

Critical Mass began a decade ago in San Francisco. The name Critical Mass was inspired by a documentary which showed intersection crossing techniques in China’s large cities. In China, bike-traffic waits until it has enough riders-or a critical mass-to push its way through an intersection. {more}

Spring is here.

If the melting snow and the tables that have returned to the front of the Campus Center were not enough evidence for you, then here’s another clue: Springfest is coming, in a little over a week.

Springfest, which opens at 12:45 p.m. on Saturday, April 20 (the significance of the date, 4/20, has not gone unnoticed), will feature 10 bands and nine hours of music. There will also be a dunk tank, moon bounce, cotton candy, popcorn, Jamba Juice, twister, hackey sacs, footballs and Frisbees. And the beer garden will be open from 12:30 p.m.-8 p.m., so drinkers can get started early. {more}

The Macalester College Student Government will hold elections for next year's executive board on Thursday, April 18. Students will also be able to vote on the future of MPIRG.

The executive board is composed of president, vice president, financial advisory committee chair, academic affairs committee chair and the student services committee chair. A sixth position has been added this year: a chair for the newly-formed programming board. {more}

Macalester is not a school that one would immediately associate with religion. In fact, according to the Princeton Review, Macalester is the most “ungodly” school in the nation. But to the people at the Indiana-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, the Protestant beginnings of Macalester were very important. {more}

Last spring, the Macalester crew team went to Texas for spring break, where team members were able to practice twice a day. This year the team spent their break on campus, where winter weather conditions made practicing even once a day a challenge. With new restrictions on van use this year, Texas was out of the question. {more}

Sexual harassment: No due process without public oversight

There has been a common thread running through all of the letters The Mac Weekly has published regarding the last month’s tabling of Terry Boychuk’s tenure case. Everyone from Ilya Winham ’03 to German Studies and Russian Professor Linda Shultze-Sasse have labeled the trustees’ decision a grave violation of due process-both in tenure and in sexual harassment. The students who wrote the letter should have gone through the normal grievance channels, they argue, and the trustees shouldn’t have let third-party accusations of sexual harassment stop them from acting on Boychuk’s tenure.

But can Macalester’s procedures really follow due process? {more}

The record is not over yet

By ANDRE CARRINGTON

Quietly has enjoyed some thoughtful, enlightening, and engaging pieces this year, and I thought it was past time to thank everyone who has written in and everyone who has read the column. As we reach the last few weeks of this year, it’s about time to examine the promise I made at the beginning: that this would be your column. Well, it still is, and it can be even more so. {more}

Organizing, protesting, educating, and training at forums, meetings, offices, of attempts at changing things at Macalester, both big and small, long and short term. No matter how successful or not we have been, all of these attempts need to be documented and remembered in order for things to move forward, for new people to be able to point to what has already been done and work from that. {more}

Who gets a piece of the budget pie? The Mac Weekly’s request for funds on Dec. 11 to pay each section editor raised the issue of just which student organizational leaders should receive money. Currently The Weekly’s editor in chief and advertising director, WMCN’s program directors, and RAs receive reimbursement through variouse means including stipends, work-study, and raising their own funds (advertising). To research opinions on paying student leaders, MCSG contacted several schools of similar size and/or caliber to Macalester. Some, such as Oberlin and Lawrence, paid their media and student government leaders. At Swarthmore, many student leaders received funds, but often outside of the student activity fee (affiliated departments, etc.); and their student government leaders were not paid. Carleton currently pays no student leaders, but their student government is looking into the issue. {more}

Prior to our venture into the wilds of Arkansas’ Ozarks over spring break, we had two fundamental expectations. One, that we would hike thirty miles through the beautiful Ozarkian wilderness, and two, that our trip would be the stuff “Girls Gone Wild” videos were made of. Sadly, neither of these expectations came to fruition.

The vans set off from the Olin-Rice parking lot, the four seniors in one van, and the nine freshmen in the other. Though there was some occasional van intermingling, the vans mostly stayed segregated throughout the trip. There was also occasional racing, as senior John “Thunder” Ellis couldn’t stifle his competitive fire and pulled ahead of the freshmen, making obscene gestures at anyone foolish enough to get in his way.

Crossing the border of Missouri into Arkansas saw a distinct change in atmosphere. Signs advertising “drive-thru” liquors and beef jerky that “tastes like homemade,” as well as propane tanks painted to look like ten-foot long beer cans challenged our Yankee sensibilities. {more}