Issue 88

The third volume of the Feedback Forum was held on Mar. 25 at Balkans-ki Academic Center. The forum was or-ganized by Adjunct Instructor of Bul-garian Sabina Wien, and was hosted by students Alena Permyakova and Rafael Bastos. The conference engaged AUBG students and faculty representatives to discuss the effectiveness of aca-demic practices at AUBG.

Seven students of different stand-ings shared their opinion about the classes held at AUBG. Five professors from different departments attended

the event and discussed feedback and suggestions from students.

The forum began with student Daria Kuznetsova. She gave positive criticism on the courses and em-phasized four things she valued at AUBG: practicality, international per-spective, guest speakers and equal distribution of academic material throughout the semester.

The second participant Jafar Ja-farov spoke about student engage-ment in the learning process. “You have to know why you are teaching

and be passionate about it and show students that their learning is appli-cable in real world,” he said.

Student Diana Teloian took the floor next. She said she liked group projects at AUBG, as well as the fact that most of the classes are interac-tive and the professors come pre-pared. The only thing she disliked was that some professors use exams from previous years which makes it easier for students to pass the course.

Outstanding Students Acknowleged at Honors ConvocationStory by Veronica Coval, [email protected], photos by Darya Yanitskaya, [email protected]

News

O n Apr. 6, the Twenty First Honors Convocation Ceremo-ny gathered faculty, adminis-

tration, and students to honor aca-demic excellence and extracurricular achievements.

The ceremony was held at the America for Bulgaria Foundation The-ater Hall and was opened with the performance of AUBG Choir. Presi-dent Michael Easton and Provost Steve Sullivan recognized the presi-dential scholars and students on the Dean’s list.

Provost Sullivan announced the outstanding seniors in each major. They were selected according to their academic results, enthusiasm and ac-tive participation in the events and activities related to their field of study.

The awards are as follows,Outstanding Achievement in Com-puter Science: Zlatko Joveski, Milos VukicevicOutstanding Achievement in In-formation Systems: Ermir Ismaili, Kaloyan KolevOutstanding Achievement in Math-ematics: Zlatko JoveskiOutstanding Achievement in Eco-nomics: Aleksandar Gabrovski, Taisi-ya MerkulovaOutstanding Achievement in Jour-nalism and Mass Communication: Ksenia Lukanova, Radina RoussevOutstanding Achievement in Business Administration: Saskia Troycke, Mile TasevskiOutstanding Achievement in Mod-ern Languages:French: Daria KuznetsovaGerman: Aleksandar NikolovBulgarian: Darya SalichshevaOutstanding Achievement in Histo-ry and Civilizations: Maya BabayevaOutstanding Achievement in Euro-pean Studies: Yana Hristova, Nina Brkuljan

Outstanding Achievement in Po-litical Science/International Rela-tions: Khafiz KerimovOutstanding Achievement - EMBA: Vesselin MilenkovOutstanding Achievement in Vocal Music: Azaliya Zaripova, Elena ZhdanovaOutstanding Achievement in Instru-mental Music: Nursultan AbdykasymovOutstanding Achievement in Writ-ing: Mariela Hristova

Apart from honoring academic ac-complishments, the administration honored the students who greatly contributed to the student life on campus with their active participa-tion in extracurricular activities. Outstanding Contribution to the De-velopment of Athletics: Martin PopovAl Cyrus Theatre Award: Yan HristovOutstanding Peer Councelor: Mar-gita KolchevaOutstanding Student Adviser: Di-ana TeloianOutstanding Contribution to Com-munity Volunteer Service: Margita Kolcheva

Outstanding Resident Assistant: Roatislav NedelchevUniversity Council Essay Award:I place – Evisa LumaniII place – Vasil NikolovIII place – Ina GjikaAnnual AUBG Programming ContestI place – Tornike Gogniashvili, Valentin NykoliukIII place – Aleks Angelov

The ceremony concluded with an-nouncing the presidential medalist of the class of 2014. For the first time in AUBG history, two people shared the title of the presidential medalist. Bo-ban and Ivan Markovic received this honorary award for their outstanding academic work, active involvement in university activities, engagement in social service, intelligence and potential; both were accepted for numerous graduate programs in top European and American universities.

The Markovic brothers said that they came from a family of workers and are honored to be the first two family mem-bers to receive a university degree.

Issue 88/April 14, 2014

All Shook Up: Shakespearean LoveStory with an Elvis Presley TwistNew musical by the Broadway Per-formance Club rocks the ABF The-ater’s stage with Elvis hits. The re-view and photostory on page 3.

Environmental WeekRaises Awarenesson Campus

Environmental week promotes preservation initiatives, recycling, healthy lifestyle, and awareness about global issues. “Don’t Just Dream, Go Green” on page 2.

AUBG Griffins HostAnnual GriffinbowlTournamentAmerican football teams from So-fia and Blagoevgrad fight for the champion’s title in annual Griffin-bowl tournament. Read more on page 4.

First Steps to CareerSuccess: 21st AUBGJob & Internship Fair

Annual Job Fair brings the rep-resentatives of 59 Bulgarian and international companies to AUBG campus. Read more on page 2.

Continued on page 2

Have you ever wondered why Mark Waterhouse is not seen on campus anymore? The true story behind his resignation and the future of the Dining Services on page 5.

www.defactobg.com www.telerik.com

defactobiweekly

Resignation of Wa-terhouse and Future of Dining Servises

AUBG Students Give Feedback on Academic Process NewsBy Sonja Methoxha, [email protected] London-Based

Designer Gives Insights into Data Visualization

Professional digital designer visits AUBG. The insight into the industry on page 5.

Saving by Stealing

A touching story of a book thief dur-ing World War II. How much power do words have? Book review on page 6.

T he Annual Environ-ment Week took place on campus on Mar.

23 – 29 under the mot-to “Don’t Just Dream, Go Green.” The organizers of the event were People to People International (PTPI), Better Community Club (BCC), AUBG Olympics, the Green Campus Committee, and the Outdoors Club.

The week kicked-of f with “Olympics Goes Environ-mental” which took place in Skaptopara 1 Residence Hall yard where the AUBG Olympics prepared a set of challenges. The par-ticipants had to do push-ups, jump on ropes, rotate around a stick , and run in the swimming f lippers. In order to present the spirit of Environmental Week, some of the obstacles pro-moted going green. In one of the challenges, for ex-ample, the participants had to separate garbage into three categories – plastic, metal, and paper. At the end of the event, prizes were given to the best participants.

A T-shirt workshop orga-nized by BCC and PTPI took place on Mar. 24. Students created their own environ-mentally friendly green T-shirts. Some participants drew images of the planet Earth on the T-shirts while others wrote mottos re-

lated to the theme of the week, such as “Proud 2B Green,” “Reduce Reuse Re-cycle” etc. Later, continu-ing the tradition of previ-ous years, the T-shirts were hung on a clothing line on campus.

The screening of the doc-umentary Trashed followed the sequence of events on Mar. 25. The movie was shown in the America for Bulgaria Foundation Stu-dent Center; it presented and examined the issue of environment sustainability through disposal of waste materials.

On Mar. 26, Campus Beau-tif ication brought by BCC was held in Skaptopara 1. Initially planned to be in the Skaptopara 1 yard, it was moved to the main lob-by of the dormitory due to unfavorable weather con-ditions. Students planted their own plants. Some of them chose to take their f lowers to their rooms, while others left them to be put around lobbies in dif ferent dormitories.

Treasure Out of Trash workshop was held in the main lobby of Skaptopara 2 Residence Hall on Mar. 27. The Better Community Club provided the partici-pants with the used plastic bottles, jars, light bulbs and decorating materials. At the end of the workshop, jew-

elry boxes, vases, and ac-cessories were among the many items designed and made by the participants.

The next event, the Healthy Living Day took place on Mar. 28. A bake sale was organized on the ground f loor of the ABF Student Center. Bon Appé-tit Club prepared healthy sandwiches, salads, and brownies. Besides promot-ing healthy food, the pur-pose of the sale was fund-raising for Joseph Belo, a young boy who is f ighting cancer. Later, students had the opportunity to try out yoga and zumba. Despite of the cold weather, a group of students gathered out-side and exercised together with the zumba instructor Bissi Bogomirova.

The events during the last day, Mar. 29, were di-vided into t wo par ts . In the morning, 17 students went to raf ting on Struma River, 20 km away from Blago -evgrad. This tr ip of f icially opened the season of the ex treme outdoor spor ts at AUBG. Giorgi Toklik ish-vil i , the president of the AUBG Outdoors Club, said that the equipment was provided by the raf ting in-struc tors and the par tici -pant spent more than one hour on boats . It was the second raf ting event orga-nized by the club, Toklik i -

shvil i added. Later that evening, the

Ear th Hour concer t took place in the area bet ween Balkanski Academic Cen-ter and ABF. At exac tly 8:30 pm most of the l ights on campus were turned of f for one hour. At the same time, the people who at-tended the concer t l ight-ed candles suppor ting the initiative of energy pres-er vation. The AUBG Rock Jamming Club and Female Folk lore Ensemble Svetl ina per formed. Adjunc t Assis-tant Professor in Writing John Mullen played the f lute.

In addition to all of these events, a photo contest was organized. During one week, students submit-ted pictures representing the motto of Earth Week – “Don’t Just Dream, Go Green.” Chosen by the Face-book likes, Ksenia Lukanova won the competition with 681 student vote. Her pic-ture promotes saving paper on campus by printing on the both sides of the page.

“We are happy that more and more people are start-ing to raise interest towards the environmental cam-paign, but we hope that it will become even bigger in the next few years,” said the member of BCC and one of the organizers of the week Tereza Georgiveva.

Credits

Editor-in-ChiefDarya Yanitskaya

Senior EditorVeronica Coval

Assistant EditorsAnastasiia HryshchenkoGaukhar MurzagaliyevaHeidi Pullyard Giorgi Rostomashvili

Visual EditorStefani Nikolova

Copy EditorsDarya Yanitskaya

ReportersJetmira AllushiVeronica CovalTereza DenkovaSezen HodzhaSaida KarimovaMaria Markina Sonja MethoxhaGaukhar MurzagaliyevaHeidi PullyardGreta TalmaciAnna Zahorodnyuk

PhotographersAnna ZahorodnyukDarya Yanitskaya

Printing expenses covered by Telerik.Printed at "Silver Print," 400 copies.defacto (c) 2014

Exchange student Heidi Ericson proceeded. She said she enjoyed history classes because professors leave space for discussions so that students can analyze information. She also said she valued professors’ high degree of preparation for classes. “A good educator is understanding, as for cul-tures, differences, respectful and loves to teach,” she said.

Exchange student Luc Lag-niau said there is no teacher without a student, and no student without a teacher. He suggested professors were concrete and challeng-ing during the lectures. He said those who speak lan-guages other than English in the classroom are disregard-ing the foreign students and are being rude.

Lagniau said he appreci-ates the small number of students in a classroom, which allows discussions, but asking students for their opinion does not al-ways work. “Sometimes you have to point at the student to answer you, and he/she

will talk because there is no other option,” he said.

Student Konstantina Ban-dutova followed. Bandutova compared education at AUBG with that at other universities in Bulgaria. She said thatc comparing to the Bulgarian institutions where students are given only facts, AUBG classes are open to discus-sions, which motivates stu-dents to come prepared. She said she liked the interaction between professors and stu-dents, and put the emphasis on the students’ need for the knowledge of professors. Bandutova suggested that professors were more selec-tive in terms of the academic material in order to save time for discussions.

The last student to talk was Tedi Kosovrasti. He pointed out that notes are of a great value for students, especially the ones study-ing Computer Science and Mathematics. He said he val-ues the Liberal Arts educa-tional system, the diversity in methods of teaching, and the activities to promote learning.

T he 21st Annual AUBG Job & Internship Fair took place in America

for Bulgaria (ABF) Sports Hall on Apr. 2.

Around 200 students of all standings attended the event to meet the repre-sentatives of 59 Bulgarian and international compa-nies who were offering full-time jobs, internship, and summer employment.

“ This year we have seven newcomers from all parts of the country and also a visit-ing company from France,” said the coordinator of the Career Center Ivailo Aksha-rov. “No significant impor-tance is put on a special major. We have companies from different sectors and all of them have different departments,” he added.

The students were of-fered an opportunity to in-teract with real managers and ask questions regard-ing their professional ca-reer. The Job Fair is equally important for the seniors, looking for full-time op-portunities and training programs, and for other

students, who are seeking an internship to put their theoretical knowledge to the test.

“I made a list of the com-panies, did some research of what they are looking for and their requirements. I’m planning to win them with my charm,” said stu-dent Hristo Nenov.

The lack of the job op-portunities not related to business administration or computer science available at the fair was a disadvan-tage the students faced. Those who did not meet the requirements of the companies could hand in their CV and get feedback, test their communication skills, and learn about the characteristics of a poten-tial employee.

“ They should be really proactive, interested in finance and our field of services. Fluent English is required, and another Eu-ropean language is prefer-able,” said a Deloitte audit representative.

The companies from oth-er fields of interest, like

Hop Online, a marketing agency using online chan-nels for the promotion of their clients, demanded excellent English writing skills, social media market-ing skills, and openness in personal relationships.

Coca-Cola HBC was of-fering a two-year full-time training program for gradu-ating students. “This posi-tion is a perfect chance to get familiar with all the de-partments and get in touch with a lot of members,” one of the company representa-tives said. “We are looking for a fast-learner, with the passion to learn and devel-op personal qualities.”

“It is a very good pro-gram with opportunities for development in all de-partments, but it is far from competitive regard-ing payment and, in my opinion, people are being brainwashed with videos how the product is actually healthy and people lose the idea of the actual fea-tures of the product,” said student Ivailo Yanev who attended the fair.

Environmental Week Raises Awareness on Campus News

News

By Sezen Hodzha, [email protected]

AUBG Students Give Feedback on Academic Process

First Steps to Career Success 21st AUBG Job & Internship Fair

NewsIssue 88/April 14, 2014

By Maria Markina, [email protected]

Continued from page 2

A ll Shook Up, a musical staged by the Broadway Performance Club, premiered at the America for Bulgaria Foundation (ABF) Theater on Mar.

31 and literally rocked the stage. The action of the musical takes place in the 1950s

in a small American town. It tells a story of a young mechanic Natalie, dreaming of leaving home and fol-lowing her aspirations, who falls in love with Chad, a guitar player roustabout and a ladies man. Other characters include Dennis, Natalie’s best friend who has a secret crush on her; Jim, Natalie’s widowed fa-ther; Sylvia, the owner of a local bar; and Sandra, a museum keeper.

AUBG alumnus, Eftim Eftimov and student Ceci Dimitrova played the main characters lively and pas-sionately. The dancers did an outstanding job as well: complicated choreography moves were performed almost professionally. The combination of the light-hearted, optimistic and easy to follow plot based on the Shakespearean play Twelfth Night, as well as the legendary Elvis Presley music brought the audience back to the era of tight pants and rock-and-roll. It made the audience burst out laughing, sympathize with the characters, and sing along. The costumes and the background fit the overall image perfectly.

Angelina Markova, the director of this years’ musi-cal, said the reason they chose All Shook Up among all the other options is because they knew it would make a good story. “He [Elvis Presley] is the one who broke the stereotypes,” Markova said. “He was a reb-el. And history remembers rebels.”

One of the dancers, Elena Akhmetova shared her feelings about performing on stage. “It was really ex-citing and fascinating,” Akhmetova said. “We all were very thrilled, and our hearts were beating very fast.

We were just enjoying every second.” She also added that the best part of the process is becoming close with the people and sharing moments together.

Sofia Baldina and Kostas Giouzakov who attended the musical performance in Blagoevgrad said they thought the performance was great and the scenar-io was good.

The crew took off for the tour around Bulgaria. The re-maining six performances were held in Sofia, Pleven, Var-na, Plovdiv and Stara Zagora from Apr. 5 to Apr. 13.

All Shook Up: Shakespearean Love Story with an Elvis Presley TwistStory by Gaukhar Murzagaliyeva, [email protected], photos by Darya Yanitskaya, [email protected]


Photostory

T he annual Grif f inbowl tournament took place on Mar. 29-30 at Bachinovo base -bal l f ield. I t was hosted by the Grif f ins,

the AUBG American footbal l team. The tournament was held in a f lag foot-

bal l format , which is a l ighter vers ion of Amer ican footbal l . The rules of th is game are s imi lar to the or iginal vers ion, but instead of tack l ing players to the ground, f lags are removed f rom the opposing team members. One match consists of t wo rounds of 30 min-utes where e ight players f rom each team compete on the f ie ld.

The Sofia Bears, the Sofia Hawks, the Grif-f ins and the Elder Grif f ins, the AUBG alumni team met at Bachinovo f ield. The Elder Grif-f ins did not par t icipate in the tournament, but played a fr iendly match with the Grif f ins on Mar.29

Another two games took place on the f irst day of the tournament: the Grif f ins vs The So-f ia Bears, and the Sofia Hawks vs. the Sofia Bears. The Grif f ins vs. the Sofia Hawks match and the f inals were held on the second day.

The S of ia Bears became the winner of the Gr i f f inbowl, the S of ia Hawks took second place, and the Gr i f f ins – won the third place. The scores of the tournament were the fol -lowing: the S of ia Bears- the Gr i f f ins 20:21, the S of ia Bears- the S of ia Hawks 28:00, the S of ia Hawks – the Gr i f f ins 18:00, the Sof ia Bears – the Sof ia Hawks 28:18.

“ We didn’t expect our opponents to play ver y well l ike this,” said member of the Grif-f ins Khash-Erdene Ganbat. “ I bel ieve that was one of the biggest mistakes we made…. Dur-ing the game with Bears [the Sofia Bears] we underestimated them from beginning and couldn’t keep it up later on,” he added.

The players f rom the S of ia Bears, the lead-ing Amer ican footbal l team in Bulgar ia , con-

s ider the AUBG Gr i f f ins a strong opponent . “Ev-er y t ime we are ver y sur-pr ised of their level , as they are not semi-profes-s ional team l ike us,” sa id the S of ia Bears player Anton Doykov “ We think they have a ver y big po -tent ia l which can one day develop into a real col lege -footbal l team program.” Only a few AUBG students attended the event . “ I fe l t b i t d is -appointed because there weren’t many students f rom AUBG to suppor t us…only a few people who were c lose to the

players,” G anbat sa id.The Grif f inbowl is an annual tournament

held by the AUBG American footbal l team in association with the Bulgarian American Footbal l Federation.

The Griffins players said that the preparation of the tournament is time consuming and it is hard to combine the process with studying.

“ We have prepared for the tournament the whole spring semester as the Grif f inbowl is the only tournament we host. I bel ieve al l of the guys worked pretty hard,” said the presi-dent of the Grif f ins Petar Georgiev.

American footbal l star ted to gain its popu-lar ity in Bulgaria in 2008 when the countr y joined the International Federation of Ameri-can Footbal l ( IFAF) .

Th e A m e r i c a n fo o t b a l l t ra d i t i o n wa s s t a r te d at AU B G i n 2 0 0 3 by D a n a i l S h o p ov a n d S t a n k o S t a n k ov. A ye a r l ate r, t h e A m e r -i c a n Fo o t b a l l C l u b wa s fo u n d e d at AU B G . B y 2 0 0 6 , m o re t h a n 5 0 AU B G s t u d e nt s p a r-t i c i p ate d i n t h e c l u b. I n 2 0 0 6 , t h e m e m b e r s o f t h e c l u b fo r m e d fo u r te a m s, a n d t h e f i r s t c h a m p i o n s h i p wa s h e l d . S i n ce 2 0 0 6 , AU B G A m e r i c a n fo o t b a l l te a m s s t a r te d p a r t i c i p at-i n g i n t h e o rg a n i z at i o n o f t h e g a m e s o n a n at i o n a l l e ve l .

In 2008, the team became the host of the First National American Flag Football Tourna-ment in Bulgaria which since has become a tradition.

AUBG Griffins Host Annual Griffinbowl TournamentStory and photos by Anna Zahorodnyuk, [email protected]


Mark Waterhouse, the former Dining Services Executive Chef, was fired earlier this se-

mester after working for six months. The Canteen was experiencing finan-cial difficulties and therefore, Alexan-der Alexandrov, the Vice President for Finance and Administration at AUBG was appointed as the head of Dining Services to resolve the issue.

According to Waterhouse, he was officially fired for not being able to provide a degree or relevant diplo-ma from 35 years ago. In addition to this, there was a conflict of person-alities between Waterhouse and an administrator and he was fired with-out any warnings “verbal or written”, Waterhouse said.

“The university wants to outsource the dining service, and I was used as a scapegoat for the administrations inability to adequately budget the departments,” Waterhouse said. He continues by stating that the canteen and depreciation charges were always going to create a huge loss for din-ing services. “After being in charge of the dining only for 6 months, it was deemed to be my fault.”

Frustration was a big part of the job, it created a sense of wanting to quit, he said. A few aspects such as com-munication and getting the staff to embrace change, “the staff got paid so little there was no incentive to work,” as well as not having the sup-port of the managerial staff made the job more frustrating. But, “I never re-

ally wanted to quit ... I am not a quit-ter and wanted to see out my plan.” Warehouse said he will not be com-ing back, if there is no change with present administration.

If dining services are to be out-sourced, Waterhouse has some ad-vice for the company who takes over, which would be to think about the stu-dents and not just the profit margin. “I do believe that won’t happen, and the dining will be pushed back into what it was before I came or worse!”

Waterhouse has a few plans “I am a great believer in positivity, and see one door closing another one open-ing, ” he said. He is consulting with a food startup in Sofia as well as con-sulting with food related to Balkan tourism. “What better to holiday in a rural setting, see how cheese, wine and culinary delights are made by the grandmothers and then try out this for yourself.”

“The university is a great institution that has some great professors ... I was glad to be a small part of the new ABF building and in general the student population. I admire the students greatly as they are the backbone and future of the place, they have high morals and the capacity to make the changes the university needs to go forward,” Waterhouse said. In addition to this, he wants students to know that we should all work towards knowing when to say the right thing, do not sit back and do nothing when something really needs to be said. “It could be an

idea, a suggestion, an observation, a criticism...but for some reason they don't want to speak up,” Waterhouse said.

Dean of Students, Lydia Krise was noxt able to comment on the situa-tion. “I can't talk anything about any personnel issues.” But Krise did say “[Waterhouse] was very innovative in terms of working with students to meet student demands.” The menu had a variety that was not seen before Waterhouse was hired, and he was ex-cellent with social media and the din-ing services web page.

When Waterhouse was in charge, Dining Services offered a variety of food such as sushi and noodle bar, ac-cording to a work-study student, Vla-dyslav Vasylenko. “He was charismatic and so great, the ladies really liked him when they talked to him in Bul-garian,” he said. Waterhouse had orga-nized English courses for the women who work at the canteen so communi-cation could become easier. He want-ed more of a standard for the place, where the women would be able to explain what was in the meals.

Some students have complained that the food is too expensive, but “He thought a lot about the quality of food,” said Vasylenko. There has not been much of a change since Water-house left, “Not a lot of people came last semester and it's still the same, sometimes it's totally empty, some-times it's totally full, it's like waves,” Vasylenko added.

On Apr. 3, Alexandrov held a con-ference to discuss the problems and solutions for improving dining ser-vices. He was appointed by the board, according to Krise. The theme of the conference consisted of “What We Can Do about an Area, That Right Now Is Not Performing”. Dining services has always had deficit and now due to the “divided campus” situation and the building of the America for Bulgaria Foundation (ABF) Student Center, it has added more to the expenses of the university, according to Alexandrov.

Outsourcing is not being consid-ered as of yet. The university would like to come up with a few solutions and implement them before consid-ering this step, according to Alex-androv. Students were given an op-portunity to provide their solutions. A few solutions consisted of turning off the equipment that takes up a considerable amount of electricity, when it is not being used and setting certain timings to be open. A factor taken into consideration would be lowering the costs of meals. Advertis-ing towards the Blagoevgrad commu-nity is an aspect being discussed, for a wider range of customers to use the canteen. As of right now, a noticeable change that can be seen when dining at the canteen, are the surveys given to customers to rate their meal. This was implemented to instigate feed-back, so dining services will be able to see what needs improving and sat-isfy their customers.

Resignation of Waterhouse and Future of Dining Services

Constant changes in the work of mass media shapes its influence on

society. To look deeper into the question “The World in a Social Media Chaos,” AUBG Political Science Club invited AUBG students to have a chat with Maxim Behar, a Bulgar-ian businessman, a leading public relations expert, and the author of the articles on modern communications. The event took place in Bal-kanski Academic Center (BAC) on Mar. 25.

“Our aim was to invite somebody except for the of-ficial representatives of the embassies. Except for his outstanding achievements in the sphere of PR and politics, Maxim [Behar] appeared to be an outgoing and positive person and a good example for AUBG Students,” said Ali-na Ramazanova, a member of the Political Science Club.

Behar opened his speech with the statement that the chaos, brought by social media in our life, left old media dead. Behar claimed that modern journalists should be happy about the disappearance of tradition-al media, “They are selling articles, not paper, and with the help of web-sites it be-came much easier.”

Modernization made ev-erything public and turned everybody into the media. Having mentioned speed, simplicity, and self-confi-dence as the main advan-tages of social media, Behar emphasized fast reaction, actuality of the informa-tion, and transparency of the world they lead to.

The guest also drew atten-tion to interdependence be-tween the social media and the political world. Accord-ing to Behar, transparency brought us a completely front point of view, turning news into a random snowfall of opinions and arguments. Nowadays people should determine what is worth-while, he said.

Social media raised the probability of a mistake while speaking with a person, pro-viding not just the sources of communication, but also ex-pressing emotions, bringing more than just sentences.

Media brought publicity to our social life. “If somebody does something wrong, nothing can stop media from spreading it around,” Behar said. Nobody can buy Face-book or Twitter, he added. He didn’t miss a chance to point out the erroneous per-ception of the free media as

a freedom to write whatever you want. As in any contra-dictory situation there will be people who will block all the opposite views. “Yesterday you were in love, and today you are blocked,” Behar said.

After the main part the audience got a chance to ask their own questions. Students mentioned the current conflict in Crimea. “The facts are questionable, and everyone should have their own opinion. That’s why I could only advice you to go to Crimea by yourself,” Behar said.

The audience was also in-terested in the future con-nections between media and politics. “Many politicians are controlled and in a few years social media will take part in parties. Referendums, votes, and true leaders will be in the Social Media,” Behar said.

“Considering Journalism as a potential major, I was re-ally interested to hear the as-sumptions about the future of the media,” said student Alexandra Solonevich. “The growth of the connections between media and politics a little bit disappoints me, however I understand that the transparency Behar was speaking about doesn’t leave another chance.”

Women and Gender Resource Center is to be established

on campus in Fall’14. The center will collect the in-formation about women’s needs from students, faculty and staff, as well as specific information for men.

According to the initiator of this center, Assistant Pro-fessor of Arts, Languages, and Literature Dannie Chalk, it is standard to have this kind of centers at American universities. One part of the center will concentrate on health issues. It will find fe-male doctors in Blagoevgrad and Sofia for the female stu-dents who do not feel com-fortable going to a male doc-tor on campus. “The Women and Gender Resource Center will not only help female but also male students, that want to talk to male as-sistants and nurses,” Chalk said. Another section of the center will concentrate on finding scholarships, intern-ships, clubs and groups for women. It will also try to find particular opportunities available for young men.

The other section of the cen-ter is going to deal with des-ignated places. “If someone is in trouble, under stress or was assaulted, there are spe-

cial places that are quiet and safe where they can recover,” Chalk said. The center will be in Skaptopara Two Residence Hall and will offer private space for people who need it. “It is the sort of thing that ev-ery Liberal Art School would have and it is a very good re-source for our students, both male and female,” said the Dean of Students Lydia Krise.

The staff will consist primar-ily of students from different countries so people who feel more comfortable talking to somebody in their native lan-guage will have that oppor-tunity, Chalk said. “The volun-teers will be trained on how to react and to answer prop-erly to the students needs,” said Chalk. The idea is to cre-ate a center as a non-advoca-cy and non-ideological place, where volunteers will have to understand that it is prohib-ited to push ideas on people. “The information about the center will be on a poster and on the website in order for everybody to know who the volunteers are,” Chalk said. All students that have ideas and suggestions for starting this center are welcome to share.

“I hope that students from the American University in Bul-garia will take full advantage of this center,” Krise said.

By Maria Markina, [email protected] Greta Talmaci, [email protected]

Women and Gender Resource Center to Open in Fall

Social Media Creates Chaos: PR Expert at AUBG

NewsNews


Story by Heidi Pullyard, [email protected]

News

…and the Grammy for “Song of the year” goes to Lorde. Oh, also, the Grammy for “Best pop solo performance” also goes to Lorde. The New Zealand born artist is taking over the world, and the world is taking in Lorde, whose real name is Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor.

The name Lorde comes from the singer ’s fascination with Roy-alty and aristocracy, but Lord sounded too masculine, she said. By seventeen, she already owns two Grammy Awards and one Brit Award. Lorde is the first New Zea-land artist to have a song on the US top 40 charts, and the young-est artist ever to have two Gram-mys.It ’s hard to believe that she is still underage. The audience was surprised, that her behavior is much more mature compared to celebrities who are about the same age., such as Miley or Justin. Senior in high school, she even has to ask her parents for per-mission to go out. Being raised by a civil engineer, father and an award winning poet mother, she is sma well mannered. Her talent seems to run in the family, but Lorde got the artsy bits in herself.

How did the world get a hold of this k id? Thanks to Sean Park-er, the former CEO of Facebook and co-founder of Napster, Lorde got on the playlist of the world’s most popular music service Spo-tify. From then on, her album Pure Cocaine went on to be criti-cally acclaimed, followed by a sold out world tour. Parker said Lorde’s music is l ike an antidote for mainstream. I t ’s certainly pop but not the Katy Perry type pop, he said. Speaking of Perry, Lorde rejected her invitation to join her on a world tour, because she had a ‘gut feeling’ it wasn’t r ight.

Reactions of AUBG students to-wards this singer are mixed. Al-though nobody hates her, there aren’t a lot of fans either. After hearing Lorde’s music for the first time, Spas Kyosev’s opinion was that there is nothing really special about Lorde, and she is just like other teen pop stars. On the other hand, two Lorde fans, ncluding me, making three fans on campus, think that Lorde is very unique.

Student R icardo Edwards sa id he star ted l ik ing Lorde when she f i rst came out . “Her voice is ver y unique and has a dis -t inc t tone. Also she looks ver y exot ic , her poses in photos are normal but there is something I can see in her eyes when she poses,” he sa id.

Student Hung Xuan Ngo said he first l istened to Lorde’s “Royals” because he read an article about it . He l iked the song so much, he l istened to the entire album. From then on, he was Lorde’s fan, saying that there is defi-nitely more to expect from her. On the question of how someone so young can be so famous, he said “Success comes and success goes. Whether you are 5 or 17 doesn' t matter if you know how to take advantage of that and use it for goodwill.”

Lorde has recently donated money she has earned from the sales of her extended play The Love Club to the Philippines Red Cross. With the rest of the money she plans to buy ‘geeky stuff like first editions of books and rare album releases. Right now Lorde is teaming up with MAC cosmet-ics for a limited edition summer beauty collection and, hopefully, recording some more amazing music.

M arkus Zusak's The Book Thief is an international bestsell-er that was recently turned

into a movie. It is a touching story of a book thief Liesel Meminger a Ger-man girl who lives during the time of World War II.

The book pr imar i ly touches the l ives of low- class c i t izens of the smal l town of Molching, not far f rom Munich. Due to war people are struggl ing to f ind food and employment.

At the beginning of the book, in 1939 when the war had just begun, the town is relatively calm. The au-thor explicitly describes German culture during the period. You get to learn a few German words such as verzeihung - forgiveness.

Liesel is adopted by Hans and Rosa Hubermann. They lead her through her new life together before Hans, who was criticizing Hitler ’s policy gets sent to war for helping the Jews.

Liesel takes after her parents in her anti-Hitler views. Max Vander-burg, a Jewish fist-fighter, becomes her fr iend and shapes her character.

This is a book about books. Steal-ing and reading them are crucial in Liesel Meminger's upbringing. She steals books not to be a thief, but to receive joy when reading and holding them in her hands. They

have a special value to her. She receives a small sketchbook from Max and keeps reading it over and over again.

For her, books are not just words. For her, the words are not simple words. She uses them as a tool. Hid-ing in the shelter during the bomb-ings, she reads to her neighbors to calm them down. Books help Liesel make friends, contributed to her in-ner peace, and even save her life.

At the end of the book, when Liesel turns 14, she star ts writ ing down her own stor y. " I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them r ight," is the last sentence in Liesel Mem-inger's book. And i f you love books as much as Liesel did, i f they are not just paper sheets with pr inted words on them, then this book is per fect for you.

The book is f i l led with touch-ing moments, fr iendship, love, and kindness. I t will certainly make you smile, and leave you speechless. I t is not a book you will read once, and forget about. You will come back to this small town called Molching, to the k ind girl, who stole books in-stead of food, who helped people, not even knowing them, and who will make you love words and feel their great power.

L ozana Rossenova, a London-based designer with Bulgarian origin, visited AUBG and gave

three lectures on data visualization and mobile application creation.

The lectures were presented dur-ing the Advanced Communication Design, the Visual Communication and the Design and Layout classes, taught by Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communica-tion Dinka Spirovska.

Rossenova is a design graduate from the Adelphi University in New York. She is currently working for SVIDesign, a branding and design agency based in London.

“I wanted to show what is to be a designer in London, but at the same time to meet the JMC students with issues concerning both journalists and designers,” Rossenova said.

On Mar. 25, Rossenova gave a special lecture for the Design and Layout class about design in social context: information graphics and visual communications for NGOs.

Rossenova prepared three case

studies that SVIDesign has been working on for the past few years. The first two were about AID Trans-parency Index and Transparency In-ternational, the global measures of donors’ aid transparency and infor-mation accessibility. These compa-nies from the UK were an example of big NGOs that needed organized and easily accessible micro sites containing all of their data. Before, their data was presented in big com-plex charts, according to Rosseno-va. She said that these companies wanted websites through which they could attract public attention and demonstrate transparency and consistency. The last case included a charity organization Release deal-ing with drug addiction and abuse.

“I t is really different to work with charitable organizations as they have budget issues and do not have enough resources to cover the expenses for the extensive design process of their website and logo, and making good work takes a lot of time and a huge

budget,”Rossenova said. “ The col-laboration between researchers, journalist and designers is really important nowadays,”Rossenova said. Since researchers find big amounts of data that journalists want to use, designers can con-tribute by helping both parts pres-ent the material in an accessible, transparent and comfortable way for the general viewer.

Throughout the lecture, Rosseno-va explained the importance of the clients’ opinion. Based on her work experience, she said that although at university students have freedom to decide what works better for their own design, in the real world, there are a lot of limitations. First and fore-most is the client’s opinion, she said.

According to Rossenova, “ You have to be the people’s person. You need to k now what your cl i -ents need and want judging by their reactions.”

On Mar. 26, during the Advanced Communication Design class ses-sion she gave a lecture on the

topic ‘Creating Interactive Digital Publications for Mobile Devices with Adobe InDesign Digital Pub-lishing Suite’. She talked about the digital publishing industry and created a market analysis for the mobile industry.

“She made a demonstration to the students about how to create digital product through Adobe In-design,” prof. Spirovsk a said. Then students had a chance to design one page with a mult i-state ob-ject (an object which moves with just a touch).

The last lecture was given to the Visual Communication class on the same day. The topic of the presen-tation was “ The I l lustration Revo-lution: Radical Shifts in the State of the Book and Publishing Trade Introduced during the 19th Cen-tury.” She talked about the I l lustra-tion Revolution in the 19th cen-tury, which brought proliferation in l iterature and print design. This created what appears to be today as social media society.


London-Based Designer Gives Insights into Data VisualizationStory by Tereza Denkova, [email protected]

Lorde: a Rising Star?By Jetmira Allushi, [email protected]

Book Review

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Wicked Sick 4 - 2 Sparta

Tirona VK 2 -1 0 zatep

Review

SportsFootball ScoresWeek 7

Saving by StealingBy Saida Kerimova, [email protected].

Issue 88

Documents

Transcript of Issue 88