Green Bean Coffee Cart to Move to Cox Hall
The Green Bean, Emory's fair-trade student-run coffee cart, will relocate to the Cox Hall food court this fall. The cart has operated outside Cannon Chapel since fall 2009.
Students manage the day-to-day operations of the Green Bean, though Emory's food-service provider Sodexo maintains ownership. It opened in January 2008 and was initially located under the Dobbs University Center.
The Green Bean will replace the Emory Bakery and offer a greater variety of pastries as well as espresso drinks such as lattes and cappuccinos, according to David Furhman, the senior director of Emory's Food Service Administration. This change is also part of a larger facelift that Cox Hall is undergoing this fall, which includes the removal of Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut.
Making the decision to move the Green Bean cart was not easy, Furhman said. Green Bean student employees collaborated with Furhman in the spring to come up with a resolution.
"The cart is several years old and in disrepair, and we found ourselves at a juncture of either having to replace it or simply moving the Green Bean operation," Furhman said.
He added that the Green Bean will "benefit from a comfortable, indoor operating environment, longer operating hours and an expanded menu."
The ultimate fate of the physical cart, however, is still up for debate, though only Sodexo can make the final decision, according to College junior Sonam Vashi, the Green Bean's general manager and the Wheel copy chief.
"We feel that moving the cart will offer more opportunities to grow our business," Vashi said. "We are not just selling coffee but educating consumers about fair trade."
Emory Hospital Patient Steals DeKalb Ambulance
A patient from Emory University Hospital stole an ambulance with two DeKalb County Fire Department paramedics inside the back unit on June 1.
The suspect, whom the AJC has identified as Frank Ponquinette, 36, was still wearing a gown and rubber gloves when he climbed behind the wheel of the ambulance parked on an emergency ramp at the hospital. The paramedics were completing paperwork in the back of the ambulance when it was stolen, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on June 1.
Ponquinette zoomed away just before 2 p.m. for several miles, and the ambulance tore down a utility pole and then crashed into the Sandy Chiropractic office on Church Street. No one was inside the building, according to the AJC.
DeKalb Fire Battalion Chief Christopher Morrison Jr. told the AJC that the suspect then escaped on foot. He was taken into custody at a shopping center several hours after wrecking the ambulance.
Ponquinette has been charged with two counts of kidnapping as well as interference with government property, the AJC reported on June 3. The two paramedics – a male and female firefighter – were hurt but in stable condition at Atlanta Medical Center after the incident.
"He knew they were in the unit because he actually looked through the window in the back and he saw them and pretty much told them to just be quiet and hold on," Morrison told the AJC.
One of the paramedics in the ambulance was able to radio in their location through a tactical channel, so that 911 dispatch received a play-by-play account of the incident.
"[When] you've been in this business long enough, nothing surprises you," Morrison told the AJC. "When you think you've seen it all, something else happens."
Trethewey Appointed to Second Term as Poet Laureate
Natasha Trethewey, Emory's Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing, was appointed last week to her second term as the 19th U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, known as the nation's official poet.
Trethewey, who also serves as the director of the Creative Writing Program, will begin her next term in September.
The Poet Laureate Consulant in Poetry "serves as the nation's official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans," according to the Library of Congress website. The Poet Laureate aims to raise awareness and appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry and receives a $35,000 annual stipend funded by a gift from an Archer M. Huntington endowment.
"The Library and the country are fortunate Natasha Trethewey will continue her work as Poet Laureate," Librarian of Congress James Billington, who selected Trethewey for the position, said in a June 10 Library of Congress press release. "Natasha's first term was a resounding success, and we could not be more thrilled with her plans for the coming year."
In her second term, according to the press release, Trethewey will explore societal issues through a poetic lens in a regular feature on the PBS NewsHour Poetry Series, joining NewsHour Senior Correspondent Jeffrey Brown for on-air reports in different cities across the country.
Among her accomplishments during her first term were her "Office Hours," a tradition that former Poet Laureates upheld between 1937 and 1986. "Office Hours" allowed Trethewey to interact with the general public in the Library's Poetry Room.
"All of us on the Emory campus, along with members of the broader Emory community, are proud and enthusiastically supportive of the work [Trethewey] has done to share the creative power of poetry with the entire nation," College Dean Robin Forman said in a June 10 University press release, adding that Trethewey took the time during this past year to continuing engaging with Emory students and the Creative Writing Program.
Trethewey received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the Lillian Smith Award for her poetry collection "Native Guard." She released a sequel to that work, titled "Thrall," last year. Additionally, Trethewey has published the collections "Bellocq's Ophelia" and "Domestic Work," as well as a nonfiction book Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2010.
As Poet Laureate, Trethewey joins the ranks of several others who have filled the position, including Billy Collins, Robert Pinsky and Rita Dove.
This past spring, Trethewey was also named a 2013 member of the American Academy of the Arts, one of the United States' oldest honorary societies.
She is additionally serving a four-year term as the Poet Laureate of Mississippi and will continue in both positions.
– By Jordan Friedman, Karishma Mehrotra and Dustin Slade
