The number of reported sex offenses around Occidental increased between 2011 and 2013 while drug violations fell over the same period, according to this year’s Annual Fire, Safety and Security Report (AFSSR). An unprecedented number of administrators and staff from around campus collaborated on the report, which provides an overview of both on- and off-campus crimes from the past three...

In response to the record number of students participating in Spring and Fall 2014 Greek recruitment, Occidental’s Greek Council has invited the cultural sorority Delta Sigma Theta to Occidental and will choose a new social fraternity to invite as well. According to Assistant Director of Student Life, Student Activities and Greek Life Diego Silva, the Greek Council is also considering...

Spring 2015 is the last semester that Occidental's Intergroup Dialogue Program (IDP), in which students discuss controversial social issues in peer-led classes, will be offered for credit. Psychology Professor and founder of IDP Jaclyn Rodriguez cited the decline in departmental and institutional support as reasons for the end of the program. Rodriguez's choice, though disappointing to some, is supported by...

Sophomore Ashkan Mortazavi recently created the Inter-Philanthropy Network (IPN) to unite the philanthropic efforts of student groups across campus. The group, started after the success of last year's "Date Night Done Well" event, will work in conjunction with this year's Cultural Studies Program (CSP) theme of emancipation. "IPN is really just now kicking off the ground," Mortazavi said. "The whole...

Fossil Free Occidental, an activist group consisting of Occidental students, faculty and other community members, recently launched a campaign to pressure the board of trustees to divest from 200 of the world's largest fossil fuel companies that extract, refine or distribute oil, coal or gas for energy. The campaign officially launched at the People’s Climate March Los Angeles on Sept....

Haiti. Former President Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier died Saturday at the age of 63 due to a heart attack. He was pronounced dead by Haiti’s health minister in the capital Port-au-Prince. Duvalier became president in 1971 at the age of 19, when his father Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier passed on the title to his son and claimed he would be...

In his latest book, "Cooked," the New York Times-appointed "liberal foodie intellectual" Michael Pollan explores the sexuality of cheese. While he is not the first to take this course of inquiry—Aristotle examined the concept in the fourth century by comparing human conception to the curdling of milk into cheese—Pollan elucidates the many similarities between humans and cheese. But despite this...

"How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” — C. S. LewisI am terrible at meeting new people. My people skills improve fantastically if someone takes the initiative to introduce themselves, or if a mutual friend does the honors. But if not, I will sit and wait in a corner and entertain myself until it is...

My program embarked upon a weeklong excursion to the edge of the Thar desert this week, during which we visited a variety of organizations that address development issues in the western state of Rajasthan. Education appeared as a common theme in many of these visits, especially when discussing women’s empowerment. Among development scholars and workers, giving girls the opportunity to...

Students filed into Choi Auditorium for the Associated Students of Occidental College's (ASOC) general assembly on diversity yesterday. The open discussion, led by ASOC senators Adrian Adams (sophomore), Abhilasha Bhola (junior) and Kerry Sakimoto (senior), centered on the senate's Diversity and Equity Board Initiative (DEBI), the end of Intergroup Dialogue courses and student concerns about the Multiculural Summer Institute. Students...