SJT assumes chair of Chamber of Commerce
GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg was recently named the chair of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber of Commerce is a nonprofit organization geared toward improving the business climate in D.C.

Barbara Lang, the Chamber’s president, told The Washington Post that Trachtenberg was a good choice for the position even though he is not a traditional business executive.

“He’s the largest private employer in the District of Columbia, and he runs the University like a business,” she told The Post.

GW employs more than 13,000 workers and is the largest non-government employer in the city. Trachtenberg was elected to the three-year post last year but spent the first year training for the position. He will officially head the body this year.

The D.C. Chamber of Commerce consists of 1,800 members ranging from small family-owned to large corporate businesses.

-Aaron Huertas

Organization budget deadline approaches
Student organizations have until Friday at 7 p.m. to submit their mid-year allocation budgets.

All organizations wishing to receive funding for the spring semester must give budgets to the Student Association Finance Committee. New organizations should also hand in their initial allocation budgets by Friday evening.

Budgets can be dropped off in the SA office in Marvin Center room 424 or e-mailed to [email protected].

Campus a cappella group releases first album
Fans of the a cappella group Emocapella can now purchase its first CD, “I’m Sorry.”

The all-male Emocapella is the first college singing group to solely sing “emo” music, which combines doo-wop and punk rock.

The CD costs $10 and is available at Web site http://www.smartpunk.com/ product.
php?item_id9211.

Songs on the album include “Just a Friend,” “Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend,” “Cute Without The ‘E'” and the Emocapella original tune “Canon in DD.”
-Julie Gordon

Faculty members discover new star
Two GW professors, along with researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Fight Center in Greenbelt, Md., announced their discovery of a new type of star last week at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Atlanta.

Collaborators Alaa Ibrahim, assistant professorial lecturer of physics and William Parke, chair of the physics department discovered the star – XTE J1810-197 – in July 2003.

The star is the first transient magnetar, a neutron star that had been faint but increased dramatically in brightness. A neutron star is the remains of a much more massive star that exploded in a supernova event. A magnetar can be up to a thousand times more magnetic than most stars.

GW revamps home page
GW unveiled the second of its three-phase Web site plan last week. Changes to http://www.gwu.edu include new topic listings, instead of using department names and a GW Web site index for navigation.

University officials surveyed hundreds of members of the GW community and took their feedback into account when designing the site.

– Elizabeth Chernow