30 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
IN HIS EMPTY ART STUDIO on Woodlawn Avenue, senior Troy Mottard is repainting the walls a fresh hue of white. His jeans and navy sweatshirt, splattered with bits of paint, are characteristic of the rest of his wardrobe. He takes a break from stirring paint and fiddles with the black iPod sitting nearby. It, too, is splashed with a drop of red.
In 1964, residents of the rural town Elkinsville, Ind., located 45 minutes from Bloomington, found themselves facing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who’d claimed much of town as the future site of the Lake Monroe Reservoir. The Army succeeded, razing the city’s church, school, farms, businesses and all but a few homes in the process. Former residents now reconvene at the town’s previous site each year.\nIn compiling such stories online, bloomingpedia.org has breathed new life into nuggets of regional lore like this.\n“I think the Web site makes local information more accessible,” said Mark Krenz, the IU alumnus who created the Web site in 2005. “There might be information about these things at places like the Monroe County Historical Society, but \nnot stories.”\nBloomingpedia, like the popular online encyclopedia it mimics, wikipedia.org, lets any user edit and create articles.\nThe difference between the two is that Bloomingpedia focuses only on Bloomington and the surrounding area. Sites such as these are known as “city-wikis,” and dozens of them have popped up in recent years.\nOver time, the Web site has developed a cult-like following. The site has more than 5,000 pages of content, and has had 1.3 million page views since its inception in 2005. Its most involved users have made thousands of edits.\n“All of us involved have a common love for Bloomington,” said Chris Robb, a wiki enthusiast who works closely with Krenz on the site daily – all unpaid. “We’re interested in participating in our surroundings and capturing part of the community for others.”\nStill, Krenz mentions “more contributors” as a goal for \nthe site.\n“The draw to the wiki format is that it allows everyone to collaborate on bringing information to the current and writing about the things that they are interested in,” he said.\nOn the academic level, Wikipedia and similar Web sites have struggled to gain credibility. Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, who received a doctorate from IU in finance, has railed against that image, contending that many entries are put through an “extensive process of compromise,” he said in a 2007 interview with Mother Jones magazine.\nIU professors generally bar using Wikipedia as a source in academic work. But some, such as L. Jean Camp, an associate professor at the School of Informatics, acknowledge the \nsite’s usefulness.\n“(Wikipedia) is a good starting point for research,” Camp said. “It is high-speed, word of mouth information ... but (it) can be used as an introduction or for finding related topics.”\nA team of researchers from the School of Library and Information Sciences has even worked to study Wikipedia. Their efforts included creating a “map” of Wikipedia that shows which articles are viewed most often or most often linked to other articles. Each article on the map is represented as a black dot.\nThe map, in a display of the extensiveness of Wikipedia, measures 5 feet by 5 feet.\n“After we created the map, we saw that the most viewed articles are the most divisive,” said Bruce Herr, a senior software developer at IU who worked on the project.\nBloomingpedia’s operators don’t combat others posting wikis on their site and instead embrace a multifunctional role.\n“We don’t delude ourselves to thinking that people won’t make mistakes,” Robb said. “It takes baby-sitting, but there are enough eyes on it.”\nKrenz added that people alternately use the Web site as a “city history,” “city directory” and “social networking site.”\nHe welcomes all three.
Iraq war damages U.S. reputation
What 'is' isn't what's fair
Why do you love me? \nIt's a question feared by boyfriends and girlfriends alike. \nWhen asked this question by your significant other, do you go with your gut response of "I just do," or search for a better answer then rattle off a list of generic qualities such as "your perfect smile" or "how you take care of me when I'm sick"?\nTurns out, it might be best to risk criticism for your lack of a "real" answer and go with your gut on this one. The answer really isn't that simple. \nA bevy of scientific studies have tried to answer the questions of what attracts one person to another person and what eventually causes some people to fall in love and some to fall out of love. Though science has provided some ideas, love and attraction are still very much a mystery. \n"Research is only starting to scratch the surface of love and attraction," said Erick Janssen, an associate scientist and director of graduate education at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, and an adjunct professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences.\nSo why do we fall in love anyway? Why don't we pick our partners more sensibly? The answer, Janssen said, may have something to do with nature looking out for our best interests and something to do with just letting ourselves fall.\nHormones play an important role in falling in love.\nFalling in love causes a chemical reaction to take place in a person's body, providing a feeling of euphoria, said William Yarber, a professor of applied health science and gender studies and a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute.\n"It's like a drug," he said. "That's why people feel like the world is rosier and they get a little zip in their step." \nUnfortunately, our bodies build tolerance to the dopamine-causing euphoria, and the feeling fades. Some people have a hard time tolerating that. When the euphoric feeling disappears, they end the relationship. \n"Falling into it's the easy thing," Yarber said. "Staying in love -- that's the toughie." \nFrom the beginning of time, interaction between sexes has occurred among various species for one common purpose: reproduction. In some species, like the dung beetles biology professor Armin Moczek studies in his lab, reproduction is the only purpose for male and female interaction. \nBesides our choice of habitat and nutrient source, we have a lot in common with these beetles. Dung beetles dig tunnels under dung pads and carry pieces of the pad down with them to nourish their eggs.\nIn humans, as in beetles, mating behaviors are a product of evolution, Moczek said. Some male beetles have developed horns that help them fight off other male beetles trying to sneak into their tunnels to inseminate the female beetle already inseminated by the male guarding her tunnel. A male who lacks horns uses sneak tactics to gain access to the previously inseminated female to inseminate her himself. \n"In a wide range of organisms, including beetles, and sometimes humans, males can't help but beat the crap out of other males when it comes to females," Moczek said. "But by admitting a degree of biological determinism, I don't equate that with lack of control over our behavior."\nAlthough humans have more than just reproduction to gain from interaction with the opposite sex, several studies have shown successful reproduction is still an important, yet sometimes subconscious, driving force in determining who humans are attracted to.\nWhile attractiveness varies among cultural and personal tastes, a landmark 1951 survey by Clelland Ford and Frank Beach showed there are only two traits women and men consider universally appealing in terms of sexual attractiveness: youthfulness and good health. The reason? Finding a mate capable of producing one's offspring is an instinctive urge in all animals, including humans, according to sociobiologists. \nYarber adds physical attractiveness to the list of universally appealing traits. "If you see someone who's very attractive, you can pass those traits on to your offspring," he said.\nSongbirds seem to have a similar strategy. \nUnlike beetles, birds pick one "social partner" to mate with and care for their offspring for an entire year, said Nicki Gerlach, a graduate biology student studying the mating habits of dark-eyed juncos. But one-third of female birds end up mating with males they perceive as "more attractive" to father their offspring. \n"The attractive males usually don't lose any paternity at home but are gaining babies elsewhere," Gerlach said. \nFemales tend to be more attracted to male birds with more testosterone since they sing more often and strut around in displays of courtship frequently. But since more of their time is occupied courting females, females find them to be worse parents, and the "unattractive" birds still get the job of raising his social partners' offspring.\nIn humans, there's a lot of debate over what type of mate we're attracted to. Some theories say we look for people with traits similar to our own and our parents' -- they remind us of the intimacy we shared with our parents when we were babies. Yet others say we're attracted to people who are more genetically different than us to avoid inbreeding.\nAdrienne Evans, a graduate biology student, said she sees opposites at work in her six-year relationship with her live-in-boyfriend, Francis Fernandez. He's the quiet book nerd while she's the outspoken science geek. More importantly, his ancestors come from Spain, Ireland and Cuba and hers come from a pale British Isle background as well as Germany.\n"We probably don't have a common ancestor in there," she said. \nOr maybe attraction is even more subconscious than we think. Pheromones, odorless chemical substances released into the air by humans, are a topic of much debate among scientists. Pheromones work by arousing sexual interest in people who subconsciously perceive them, and some scientists say they still play a role in who we're attracted to. \nA commonly-quoted study of pheromones by Claus Wedekind that required women to smell men's worn T-shirts found women were most attracted to the genes most different from their own. \nBut other scientists say humans may not be able to detect pheromones at all.\n"We have the necessary equipment (the vomero nasal organ in the nose used to detect pheromones), but we don't know if it still works," Janssen said. \n So what does it take to make a relationship last? \nIt could be that your love maps match. John Money, a world-renowned sexologist, says humans are programmed before birth with a subconscious list of likes and dislikes depicting their perfect mate. These "love maps" cannot be controlled and are the reason one person seems to stand out in a crowded room. The closer another person fits your love map, the more likely your relationship will succeed. \nRelationships need to be in balance with Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love in order to last. According to the theory, passion, intimacy and commitment are all required in order to have a successful and loving relationship. \nWhile passion can happen in an instant, intimacy and commitment take more time to develop, Yarber said. Passion can also fade more quickly, so it helps to be creative in keeping passion alive. \nRelationships that last are also more likely to be abundant with the hormone oxytocin or "the love drug," as Janssen calls it. Oxytocin promotes a feeling of bonding and contentment in couples. It can be released through a variety of ways, including during orgasm.\nSo is it science guiding us on our journeys through love?\n"In some ways I think yes, we're all animals. We're still programmed to breed and pass on our genetic material," Evans said. "But at the end of the day, you have to talk to that person and whether you're compatible outweighs all the biology"
Two IU scientists ranked among top U.S. AAAS fellows\nAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science selected two IU scientists to add to the elite list of fellows in its Washington, D.C.-based society. Of the 308 selected this year, organic chemist David R. Williams and evolutionary biologist Curtis Lively bring Bloomington's total number of living AAAS fellows to 42 -- a number greater than that of any other Indiana institution.\nFellows are selected because of their efforts to advance science or its applications, particularly in areas deemed socially or scientifically significant. Lively's work in host-parasite co-evolution suggests new theories about parasite reproduction patterns, while William's synthesis of complex antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor agents have led to the development of new pharmaceuticals. \nThe new fellows will be honored at the AAAS's annual meeting on Feb. 19 in Washington, D.C.
Last month the School of Informatics broadened its scope of information development with the addition of new faculty member Alessandro Vespignani. The new area of study developing with Vespignani's arrival is the concept of the network, as he and his colleagues reach across all areas of knowledge to create unified concepts of organization, no matter the subject. \nVespignani's work spans computer, social, biological and physical sciences as he theorizes about the nature of complex networks. In Vespignani's world, different nodes interact to transfer "anything and everything." The revolutionary part of his work is that what exactly the nodes and the things being transferred are is inconsequential, since he sees all networks as similar. Vespignani likes to use the comparison of viral epidemics online and biological epidemics as an example of how all networks are intrinsically alike.\n"There is a sort of common trait that is the network," Vespignani said. "One would say 'No, that's impossible, one is the biological world, one is the product of millions of years of evolution; the internet is just 30 years old, just made by computers.' What you realize is that many of the properties are similar. It's like that the network somehow prefers to be in a certain form, a certain shape."\nIt's not a great leap then to see how diseases spread similarly in biological and digital systems, or how a physicist would study them. The infection affects one node, which then spreads the malady to all the other nodes it has interaction with, and the disease begins to reach epidemic size. Biophysics and computer science have many statistical similarities in this department, which Vespignani "data mines" to build a model of how the networks move.\nThis type of "mining" involves interpreting large quantities of data and formulating a model from it. The stretch is to see how this relates to social interactions. \n"There are aspects which are common to this research," Vespignani said. "These complex features are also in (human networks). There is some kind of general organizing principles for networks."\nThe School of Informatics has teamed with the School of Library and Information Sciences to study how grants and aid are distributed among research institutions. Vespignani and Professor Katy Börner of SLIS are beginning to see, for example, that the difference between how money and the flu diffuse is slight. Both systems use specific human beings with many connections to spread. Whereas a receptionist would spread a disease more easily because of the great number of people she interacts with in a day, an eminent professor could draw in funding to a research group by his great number of ground-breaking publications, which people read. \nThese money magnets have great "centrality," to use Vespignani's diction, but what makes the grant-grabbers' situation more difficult to quantify is that prominence can come through various means, and that a group can have centrality, not just a single researcher. \n"Usually you do not author a paper just by yourself, there is always collaboration," Vespignani said. "You cannot define the impact in terms of a single author, but in terms of the collaboration. It is the collaboration between the two that is making the difference."\nVespignani is also beginning work in two other subjects. First, Vespignani and the Biocomplexity Institute at IU are examining the interactions of proteins in the human cell from an informatics point of view. Using the same principles of networking, he hopes to create a model of how different proteins relate to each other and work together to perform tasks. Secondly, he and Professor Alessandro Flammini are going back to the ideas in spreading diseases to develop correlations between traffic across airways and outbreaks of SARS across the world. \nThe vast differences in subject do not daunt Vespignani, as he finds it to be part of the character of the new "informatician" being developed at IU.\n"To do (this research), we have a physicist, a computer scientist, a biologist, whatever … None of us is doing the actual physics, the biology in the research, but we were educated as physicists, or a biologist," Vespignani said. "What we would like to be able to do is to form a student to really be something different than us … someone who has broad experience in different fields and can be interdisciplinary in a different way." \nWhile network research is just one way the Informatics faculty is creating a new field of science, informatics is not just a rehash of statistics, but instead a fully functioning medley of knowledge in general. \n"The fun part and the very exciting part is that (the School of Informatics) is not just made of physicists or mathematicians. There is really a little bit of everything," Vespignani said. "This is really an interdisciplinary environment in which you can hope to develop new insights, new projects, and new activities."\n-- Contact staff writer Jeff Alstott at jalstott@indiana.edu.
Five IU professors have been elected fellows in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a high honor for American and foreign scientists alike.\nThe IU fellows, whose work has been "deemed scientifically or socially distinguished" by the AAAS Council, are anthropology professors Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth, biology professors Mark Estelle and Loren Rieseberg and psychology professor William Timberlake.\n"It is always nice to be recognized by one's peers," Estelle said. "In this case I am particularly honored to be included with the other stellar IU fellows, Rieseberg, Toth, Schick and Timberlake."\nOnly 10 other research institutions, including Harvard, Yale and Duke, had more fellows inducted in this year's class of 348.\nIt is not just the recognized scientists who are responsible for these accomplishments, however. Estelle said he had a lot of help from his students in improving the scientific community's understanding of auxin, a hormone responsible for plant growth and development.\n"We work with a small plant called Arabidopsis, also called 'mouse ear cress' or 'mustard weed.' Over the years we have learned a lot about how auxin works by isolating and studying mutant Arabidopsis plants," he said. "It is also important to note that I am being recognized for work that was performed by many wonderful graduate students, postdocs and technicians over 18 years."\nTimberlake's work is especially relevant because it is validating that experiments conducted on animals in a lab setting are indicative of their behavior in a natural setting.\n"I have done several series of experiments indicating that common laboratory learning paradigms engage mechanisms related to the functional behavior of animals in their ecological niches," Timberlake said. "This provides a specific basis for the belief that laboratory behavior has relevance for ecological behavior work and vice versa."\nAfter being named a fellow in such a prestigious science organization, there's not much else for these scientists to do but continue with the research that got them there in the first place.\nTimberlake looks to show even more connections between animal behavior in an experiment and in the natural habitat.\n"I am interested in increasing the number of lanes on the bridge between laboratory and field behavior by considering evolutionary trends on one hand and specific neurophysiology mechanisms on the other," Timberlake said. "I am especially interested in relating spatial and temporal learning in circumstances ranging from local foraging bouts to circadian rhythms."\nEstelle said he too hopes to complete his research into the working of auxin.\n"My group will continue to study plant hormones," Estelle said. "We have a long way to go before we have a complete understanding of how auxin works. Like all biological processes, it is very complex, and many questions still remain."\n-- Contact staff writer Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu.
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Yolanda Davis heard about the dreaded phenomenon before heading off to New Orleans for her freshman year at Xavier University and wanted no part of it. Wendy Moses had likewise heard the tales before settling in as a freshman at Emory University in Atlanta but never imagined it would happen to her.\nThe two Fort Worth, Texas, women found themselves face to face with the so-called Freshman 15, the alleged propensity of students to put on up to 15 pounds when they first go off to college. Whether established fact or national folklore remains an open question, but for many of the roughly 1.5 million young people who enter college each fall, the Freshman 15 becomes a living, breathing reality.\nAs a scientifically proven phenomenon, the Freshman 15 has taken its lumps in recent years. \n"It depends on the school and individual," said Kelly Simonson, a licensed psychologist at the counseling center at Texas Woman's University in Denton. "An equal number of people lose weight."\nAccording to Simonson, a school's culture can be a factor in whether students will gain weight. \n"At TWU, you'll see every size and shape of woman on the planet," she said. "But at a place like Southern Methodist University in Dallas, there are more social pressures to be thin."\nJeanne Goldberg, a professor at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston, said, "It's a catch phrase -- nice alliteration. But it's not true."\nGoldberg said she looked at the issue 15 years ago and found that freshmen did gain a few pounds. At the end of four years, however, those same students had lost weight and weighed roughly the same as when they started college.\nMore recently, researchers at Tufts conducted another study. They found that freshman women gained an average of 4 pounds their first year in school, while freshman men gained an average of 6. \n"The reason I'm concerned about the 4 pounds of weight for women is that, in the context of the national obesity epidemic, will they lose those 4 pounds or will it be a trajectory?" Goldberg said. She added that researchers will continue to follow up to track the weight of study subjects. Tufts recently sent out its first alumni weight survey.\nWhether it is 4, 6 or 15 pounds, people on college campuses say it is not uncommon for some students to gain considerable weight during their first year. Reggie Bond, executive director of the Health and Wellness Center at the University of North Texas in Denton, said he has heard about the fabled Freshman 15 since he first entered the college environment. However, he said he doubts that it happens to most students.\n"You do have a few students who gain a lot of weight," he said. "But this does not seem to be true for a majority of students."\nBenita Jacobs, vice president of student development at UNT, concurs. \n"We joke about it a lot, and, anecdotally, you see a lot of kids who put on weight because they eat more and they eat differently than they did at home," she said. "If I had to guess, I'd say a number of students do put on weight after they first go to college. But whether it is as many as in the past, I doubt it because people are so much more health-conscious today."\nMonica Kintigh, a licensed professional counselor with mental health services at Fort Worth's Texas Christian University, said a constellation of factors contribute to freshman weight gain. \n"It's a transition time," she said. `It's not just the stress of college. Now, for the first time, they have to do their own laundry and get their own meals."\nIn addition, some students fret about the financial burden their schooling places on their families. Others worry about their social lives, wondering who their new friends will be and how they will fit in on campus. Such radical changes can lead some students to feel blue.\n"When we feel bad, we go for comfort foods," Kintigh said, foods often laden with fat and calories.\nFood at college residence halls also has been fingered as a culprit in freshman weight gain. However, colleges and universities have become increasingly sophisticated in the fare they offer. \n"Now there is such a variety of food offered at each of the residence halls," said UNT's Bond, ranging from sub sandwiches to vegetarian dishes.\nCounselors and nutrition experts caution that, while college weight gain can be a problem, a number of people develop serious eating disorders as they attempt to avoid gaining weight. \n"Some people are so afraid of gaining the Freshman 15 that they become bulimic or anorexic," said Kintigh of TCU.\nBulimics follow periods of excessive overeating with self-induced vomiting, while anorexia is an obsession with losing weight by refusing to eat. The numbers can be staggering. Simonson said that up to 20 percent of all women on college campuses exhibit some sort of eating-disorder behavior.\nGoldberg, the Tufts professor, said bulimia is the most common eating disorder at colleges and is the more easily treatable of disorders. But that does not mean that it is not unsettling. \n"What I'm concerned about is bulimia as a communicable idea on college campuses," she said. "It's not that so many people become bulimic, it's that there is a lot of imitation. Students say, 'Oh, my God, I just over-ate and this is my weight control.'"\nWhether the problem is gaining weight or losing too much, Kintigh said it is essential that students find a balance between nutrition, sleep and exercise as they navigate their way through the college experience. \n"We want students to find that balance and feel good about themselves," she said. "All foods can be good foods, but they shouldn't be used as a drug."\nFor her part, Moses has remained philosophical about her weight gain. \n"Everyone is weight-conscious, but everyone gains the Freshman 15," she said. "I gained the weight, and I know I can lose it"
Hip-hop star Nelly blares from the tiny computer speakers and rebounds around the 10-by-12-foot dorm room with the door shut to ward off any curious resident assistants. It's Saturday night in IU's Ashton Quad, and freshmen women and men are drinking, dancing and hooking up. \nIU sophomore Kelly Neff is dancing with and kissing a guy she has met once before. He keeps suggesting Neff and he go to her room down the hall. Neff agrees -- although she insists she will just sleep.\n"I put on my pajamas and everything -- I was going to bed! I got in the bed, and I was like, 'Yep, good night!'" Neff said. "So he slept in my bed…I guess he must have thought something was going to happen. No, I was not in the mood to do anything scandalous that night." \nIt may seem scandalous to some, but it's the most prevalent form of dating among college women today. It's called 'hooking up,' and it's as common on college campuses as tuition increases and parking fines. \n"Actual, formal dates are more rare than hooking up," senior Sabrina Shah said. "Nowadays, it's just part of the college life. It's hard to avoid."\n'Hooking up' is deliberately ambiguous; it can mean anything from kissing to sexual intercourse. It usually involves alcohol and relationships rarely result. College women nationwide are engaging in these random sexual encounters that have replaced traditional dinner-and-a-movie dating of previous generations. \nThe Institute for American Values, a private, nonpartisan organization, conducted a survey last July titled "Hooking Up, Hanging out, and Hoping for Mr. Right -- College Women on Dating and Mating Today," which has brought attention to the current dating trends of college women. Forty percent of the 1,000 women surveyed from campuses nationwide said they have experienced a hook-up at least once since being in college. One out of 10 women claimed having done so more than six times. \nThe carefree hooking-up lifestyle begins when women arrive on campus as freshmen. Shah, who's studying journalism education, has played the hooking-up game for years now. She said the attraction of hooking up is definitely lost by senior year because women are more mature. She admits she would rather graduate two months from now with a serious relationship. \nNeff came to IU two years ago expecting to meet many guys. At her high school of 2,000 people, she didn't date much. Her most serious relationship lasted throughout senior year until she and her boyfriend left for colleges in different states. But large lecture classes, a floor full of girls and the record 8,000 freshmen on campus made it more difficult to meet members of the opposite sex than Neff anticipated. \n"I figured I'd be dating a little bit more than what I am…like actually going out to dinner," the 20-year-old said. "But that does not happen. I've never had that happen here."\nWhat Neff did find happening was a lot of partying. Drinking, dancing and hooking up seemed to be the norm among her freshmen floormates. \nSophomore Mark Greenwald said he thinks men and women do know how to date. But between classes, extracurricular activities and work, it's hard to find time to go out to dinner like a "real date." He said hooking up is a good thing because you can meet people, but it can be a bad thing if nothing comes out of it. \n"Isn't this what college is all about? Beer and hooking up?" Greenwald said. "And I guess studying fits in there somewhere."\nParents sending their 18-year-olds off to get an education might be surprised to learn their sons and daughters are entering a sexual world that relies on alcohol and dancing for companionship in place of the pick-you-up-at-8 dates of their college years. \nLeon R. Kass, in "The End of Courtship" in The Public Interest, claims it seems like only yesterday that culturally acceptable paths primed young people for marriage. At the turn of the 20th century, Kass says, men came "a-calling and a-wooing" to women's homes. The next generation relied on the man's wallet and initiative for courting couples' dates. For the latter half of the century, "going steady" and marrying high school sweethearts became the norm. Now, three years into the new millennium, college dating is recognizable by keg beer, tight tank tops and one-night stands. \nA college education and a profitable career now top women's to-do lists -- marriage and a baby or two can wait. To the idea of courtship, Kass scoffs -- "Don't be ridiculous."\nThree-fourths of the way through her sophomore year of college, Neff still hasn't dated anyone seriously. She goes to parties. She drinks Jungle Juice, a concoction of Everclear and Kool-Aid, at fraternity parties. She dances.\n"I'm definitely looking for someone because I haven't dated anyone yet," said Neff, who's studying graphic design. "I'm really wanting something right now."\nNeff said the closest thing she's had to a date in college was drinking and playing cards with her fraternity friend last December.\nIn the Institute for American Values survey, one third of the women reported being asked out on two dates or fewer at college so far. But single sophomore Kyle Fellerhoff said he doesn't think dating is completely dead on college campuses. He said a lot of his friends go out with people from classes, but it's more of an informal, getting-to-know-each-other date. \nSherry Amanstein, a dating columnist for ivillage.com, said she thinks one cause of the hooking-up culture is that men and women are a lot less sure what dating is. She thinks they're confused about who asks and who pays. \nEducators and researchers are searching for deeper explanations. The changing attitudes toward sex and relationships, the readily available female contraception and the changing educational and professional status of women are among reasons given for this new culture of hook-ups.\nKass theorized the idea of courtship and dating is disappearing because of the steadily weakening stigma of women having premarital sex. \n"Why would a man court a woman for marriage when she may be sexually enjoyed, and regularly, without it?" Kass said. "Female sexuality becomes, like male, unlinked to the future…the new women's anthem: 'Girls just want to have fun.'" \nBut, throughout the parties and the drinking and the dancing, Neff asserts she is looking for something more long term than a random night. \n"There's always some kind of hope that it will go somewhere…that it will just kind of click with this person," Neff said. "And maybe you'll continue seeing each other or going to parties together…or something like that."\nAmanstein said women are doing themselves a big disservice by randomly hooking up and not developing committed relationships. She said women need to learn how to conduct themselves in relationships.\n"You're in college! You're around all these guys," Amanstein said. "You should get to know them as peers and as people."\nAmanstein, a dating and relationship expert, just wrote her second book, "Love Lessons from Bad Breakups: Discover How to Make Relationships Last -- By Learning from the Ones That Didn't." \nBut Neff contends hooking up isn't something that is looked down upon. She said it's usually something to joke about among her friends. Fellerhoff agreed hooking up doesn't have a negative connotation at all. He said hooking up is seen as a good thing among his friends.\n"It's a good thing -- you know, you've got game," said Fellerhoff, who majors in math. "We're young. We're supposed to have fun."\nDr. Drew Pinsky, quoted from USA Weekend in a Women's Quarterly article, theorized today's dating scene is ideal for men but not for women. He said hooking up seems to have been invented by and for 17-year old boys, but he thinks all the women find from the hooking-up scene is disillusionment. Pinsky, a board-certified internist and addictionologist, was a co-host on MTV's "Loveline."\nIn the survey, women could pick from seven adjectives to describe how they feel after a hook-up: Desirable, adventuresome, triumphant, awkward, confused, disappointed, empty or exploited. Sixty-one percent of the women who chose 'desirable' also felt 'awkward,' according to the survey. Forty-four percent felt 'empty.' Greenwald, who studies computer science, said he would pick 'adventuresome' and 'triumphant.' \n"Most of my friends look at hooking up as a bonus to the end of the night," Greenwald said. "And if it's a hot chick, we're definitely jealous."\nAmanstein advised women to think about how they're going to feel tomorrow before hooking up. She said women need to take a stand if they want more from a relationship.\n"If a guy wants you to come over to his dorm room at 11 at night, just say, 'No, you can ask me out on a real date,'" Amanstein said. "Stick to it, and just say screw him -- not literally."\nWhile hooking up may be fine for college women when they're barhopping, they're still dreaming of diamond rings and something borrowed and something blue. More than half of the same women who admitted to hooking up frequently in the survey also said they'd like to meet their future husband in college. Ninety-one percent and said marriage is a very important goal for them. \n"I don't think women need to be looking for marriage in college -- that puts a lot of pressure on themselves," Amanstein said. \nNeff, who has two older brothers, an older sister and a younger brother, said she definitely plans to marry eventually and have two or three children. \nNeff said she doesn't anticipate a change in the dating scene anytime soon. She thinks post-graduation dating will still be similar to college-style hooking up.\nBut Elizabeth Marquardt, co-author of the survey, calls for a change from the hooking-up culture back to traditional values. She said she hopes the survey sparks controversy on college campuses about hooking up and dating. In the report, she suggests older adults should take a more active role in guiding teen-agers in dating practices, males should take a greater initiative in dating and socially accepted rules regarding dating should resurface in today's society. \nElizabeth Armstrong, a sociology professor at IU, said the Institute for American Values' conservative views on family values might have somehow influenced the "Hooking Up, Hanging out, and Hoping for Mr. Right" survey's conclusions and recommendations. \nBecause of the institute's political position and agenda, she said they might have asked leading questions to support their theories. She said the survey failed to delve into important issues such as the male perspective and the relationship between dating trends now and marriage trends in the future. She said the survey is a good starting place to ask questions but their recommendations aren't viable strategies. \n"The problem isn't necessarily that there is a lot of 'hooking up' going on," Armstrong said. "It's a question of, 'Is it consensual? Is it fun? Is it pleasurable?'"\nOnly the women themselves can answer that question. \n"People need to realize that it's a different time," Shah said. "And as long as people are being responsible for themselves and their actions, hooking up is just a natural part of life in college"
