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(08/24/10 5:20pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU School of Journalism announced its fall Speaker Series today, with author Gay Talese, CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan and author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman as guest speakers.The three will give free lectures to the public through the series, which was launched four years ago, as well as the opportunity to meet some of the top media professionals of the nation.According to an IU press release, “Talese wil speak on Wednesday, Sept. 15 and Logan will speak on Tuesday, Oct. 12, and their presentations will begin at 7 p.m. at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave. Friedman will speak on Thursday, Nov. 4 at the IU Auditorium. All the lectures are free and open to the public.”For more information on the Speaker Series or to read about other top journalists who have been guests of the program, visit journalism.indiana.edu/journalism-experiences/speakerseries/.— Bailey Loosemore
(08/12/10 12:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>One fish from the Showalter Fountain is missing, and no lead is currently in sight.A complaint that the fish went missing was made to the IU Police Department at 6:18 p.m. Aug. 1, IUPD Lt. Craig Munroe said. The report estimated that the fish was stolen sometime between 6 a.m. July 31 and the time of the complaint.Officer Dan Leeuwen of the IUPD wrote in the report that there was a beer can near the fountain and that the ground around it was wet. In the fountain, he observed a pole where the fish had been attached.“It appeared that some of the other fish had been moved and tampered with,” Munroe said. “I don’t know how difficult it is to get one off, but they usually (turn up).”The stolen fish, with an estimated worth of $10,000, was added to the fountain in August 2009, said Sherry Rouse, curator of campus art for the IU Office of Risk Management. The fish is the smallest of the fish that surround the Venus sculpture in the middle.“The whole entire sculpture was preserved, and part of that renovation was to have a new fish installed,” she said. “It’s smaller because when Robert Laurent made the sculpture, he didn’t want the fish in the front to cover Venus.”Rouse said she was heading out of town for vacation when a member of the IUPD informed her of the theft.“Usually when the fish are stolen, they lug them around, then they get heavy and leave them,” she said. “A lot of times these things happen as pranks, but usually they happen because of some reason. And in the middle of the summer, it’s kind of unusual.”Rouse said one fish was stolen during the 1987 NCAA championships. When former IU men’s basketball coach Bobby Knight was fired, a couple more were lost, she said.“For one person to pick it up is very difficult,” Rouse said. “It was probably more than one person. Generally we get them back. I would be willing to say if someone turns it in, we’ll look the other way and be happy to accept it.”
(08/05/10 12:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Residential Programs and Services added a new meal purchasing option this year.The All Access Plan will allow students to pre-pay for money to be put in their Campus Access accounts.Students can choose a plan from $400 to $1,400 and will receive half of the amount each semester. Payment for the plan will be billed directly to the student’s bursar account.“Students can say ‘I know I’m going to use my Campus Access card on a regular basis, and I want to set my initial money to $800,’” said Patrick Connor, executive director for RPS. “You can go in and select the All Access Plan, and it will bill $400 for each semester. The thing that’s different than Campus Access is that it’s not going to be available for you to use ‘til the start of the school year.”The idea for the program came about as a response to the 2008 Student VOICE Project conducted by IU President Michael McRobbie. The report worked with students to determine which areas of campus could be improved, and dining services was one of them.“There’s always confusion about the meal plan,” Connor said. “We came up with this solution for the 2010-11 school year. We hope it has a positive impact on the campus and makes the way residents have better access to food on campus. We’ll continue to strive and look for better ways to do that.” IUSA Chief of Staff Neil Kelty said IUSA thinks the new program is an excellent idea.“It’s nice to have an ID card to spend money all over town,” he said. “Things like Kroger will be more likely to pick up Campus Access.”A main part of the All Access Plan is the cooperation between RPS and the Indiana Memorial Union Dining Services, as well as the building’s Director’s Office, Connor said.“It’s a better way for students to identify in advance a way to set aside money to use in the Union,” he said.Discussion of the new program took place throughout the spring 2010 semester, Connor said, and shortly after July 4, an e-mail was sent about the program to all students who had signed a contract to live in a residence hall in the fall.All Access is mainly promoted for first-year students living in the dorms, Connor said, but any student can purchase a plan.“You just have to go to the RPS website to access it,” he said. “Once you choose All Access, if you use it, you can still add more. It’s not a separate account. It’s still in your Campus Access account.”The All Access account will work the same as Campus Access and will not include any additional discounts.“The only time there is a bit of a discount is in the residence hall laundry rooms,” Connor said.IMU Dining Services, led by the Sodexo Foundation, is currently in the process of finding a permanent manager, Connor said, and no definitive decisions concerning discounts will likely be made until a new manager is selected.“To my knowledge, it’s still up for discussion,” Connor said.
(07/29/10 12:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In response to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s “yellow light” rating, the Indiana University Student Association has decided to make language changes to some of IU’s policies, including those in the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities and Conduct and Stop It! Brochure.According to FIRE, a yellow light university is one with at least one ambiguous policy that encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application.“IUSA vehemently opposes any University code or rule that seeks to restrict or infringe on any student’s rights to assemble, advocacy and expression,” Murat Kacan, chief of communicationsfor IUSA, wrote in an IUSA letter response. “We hold the First Amendment to be amongst our greatest rights and have no tolerance towards its repression in any form.”Members of IUSA, including Kacan, participated in a conference call with FIRE on Tuesday to clarify some of the yellow light ratings and figure out a way to raise the rating.“We think that IU is a green light school,” Kacan said.Some of the language in the student code, brochure and other policies could be reworded to better fit FIRE’s standards, Kacan said. However, he said FIRE has a few inconsistencies.The Stop It! Brochure, which offers students information on how to report incidents of harassment, was one of seven IU policies given a yellow light rating.“They used the brochure and cited it as University policy,” Kacan said. “What FIRE was trying to imply was that if you are offended in any way, we will investigate it. Really, it’s just a tool for students to know that there are places to go where they can receive support. For us, the First Amendment is implied, but for FIRE, they want more specific language.”There were a few issues with policy language that IUSA members agreed could be better stated, Kacan said. One example is the vagueness with which the University defines “fighting words.”“That is something we’re going to approach,” Kacan said. “I would say that we hope to submit the language changes within two weeks.”In addition to changing the language of some of the policies, Kacan said IUSA will also look to make another location on campus available for protests. Currently, the only designated spot is Dunn Meadow.During the conference fall with FIRE, Kacan said they went over each yellow light issue to examine the language of the policies.“Its not that the policies were restrictive,” he said. “At no point did FIRE tell us, ‘You just need to get rid of this policy.’ We’re going to continue working with them. We already have examples of correct student code languages.”While IUSA will continue to be in contact with FIRE, Kacan said it is good to take a step back and look at the organization making the rankings.“When they’re doing these investigations, all the research comes from online,” he said. “They straight-up told us that they didn’t see the need to contact the student body in order to determine the ranking. He said, ‘We can’t see how contacting the student body would change the rating for the school.’”When looking at IU in terms of restrictions, Kacan said he believes IU does encourage freedom of speech.“We feel like the University holds free speech as one of the highest rights on campus,” he said. “I’ve seen protests on campus, and I think the school in a way is damned if they do, damned if they don’t. The point we’re trying to make is the student code really falls under our domain, and we can’t just leave it up to the University to fix or change it.”To read a letter response from IUSA regarding FIRE’s “yellow light” rating, visit www.iusa.indiana.edu.
(07/29/10 12:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU Press, considered one of the largest public university presses, turned 60 this year and plans to celebrate with customers around the world.“Our customer base is all over the world,” said Laura Baich, electronic marketing manager at IU Press. “We do have a lot of local and regional interest, but really our books have a global reach.”Since 1950, IU Press has been an award-winning academic publisher specializing in the humanities and social sciences. The company publishes about 140 new books each year and contains a backlist of about 2,000 titles.Herman B Wells, IU’s 11th president, founded the press as part of IU’s post-war growth spurt.“The press is another one of those many features of IU that is a consequence of Herman B Wells,” said James Madison, the Thomas and Kathryn Miller professor of history at IU. “It was Dr. Wells that made sure that the press was here. We owe him in many ways a great debt.”To celebrate the anniversary, IU Press held a one-day-only online sale Feb. 17, the date Bernard Perry was hired 60 years ago as the first director of IU Press. The sale offered customers a 60 percent discount on all regularly priced books, journals and DVDs.“We were actually totally surprised by the response we got,” Baich said. “It went really well.”Baich said the company planned to have only one sale, but because of the overwhelming customer interest, it will hold another in the fall. However, the date of the second sale is yet to be determined.IU Press also offered a contest, “60 Days of Giveaways,” on its blog. The trivia contest asked one question each day about the history of the press, and blog posts with the correct answer were given the chance to win a prize.“It was my idea to do the trivia concepts to educate them about the history of the press,” Baich said. “I went through all these articles and brochures and catalogs and came up with the questions. I learned how other people view us. I learned a lot about where I live, too.”Baich said she loves books and likes working around them.“So obviously this is a great place for me,” she said. “I have a degree from IU in English, and I’m attracted to anything books. I applied for tons of jobs everywhere. It just luckily worked out that this was the place that first wanted to take a chance on me.”Madison began working with the press about 30 years ago and has published five books through the company. He has also served on numerous committees for the press, including the Press Advisory Committee, which helps the director and staff consider what books to publish and think about the subjects the press wants to emphasize.“Among university presses, it’s really one of the largest and one of the best,” he said. “They do a good job of publishing books, of publishing good books, all of the things to an author that are very important.”Madison said his experience with the press overall has been a good one.“They’re good people who really care about books, who really care about scholarship,” he said. “This is about new knowledge, which is really what scholarship is. Communicating new knowledge to readers — that’s what’s important to me and other authors. That’s why you want a good press, because that’s what they do.”
(07/22/10 12:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Junior Tyler Koss lived in Wright Quad with Jared Shears during their freshman year and worked out with Shears beginning in the spring semester and continuing through their sophomore year.“He was just an all-around amazing guy,” Koss said. “He was always there to hang out, never busy for anything. He was a really good motivator because when I started working out with him, I wasn’t really into it. He would motivate me and was just a really good leader in that sense.”Shears, a junior from LaFontaine, Ind.. died Friday in a single-car collision on Old State Road 15. The Wabash County Sheriff’s Department received a call about the accident at 1:58 a.m. Friday morning and responded to the scene.According to a news release, “initial facts show that Shears was southbound on Old State Road 15 at a high rate of speed as he crossed the northbound lane and left the roadway before impacting two telephone poles and a cement post.”Currently, sheriff’s department personnel and Wabash County Police Crash Reconstructionists continue to investigate what might have caused the vehicle to exit the roadway. Toxicology results are pending.When the two boys were in the sixth grade, Shears and Jared Harnish rode dirt bikes over a jump that Harnish’s dad built.“I got there late and was getting used to it,” Harnish said. “And he said, ‘Oh, it’s nothing, go for it.’ I ended up crashing and broke my collarbone. I don’t blame him, but he definitely had his word in there. He liked to push you to do things you wouldn’t normally try. He was good at motivating you that way.”Harnish said he met Shears in fourth grade and was good friends with him since. He also roomed with Shears during their sophomore year at IU.“He’s definitely ‘live life to the fullest,’” Harnish said. “He used to ride dirt bikes and crazy stuff like that, anything to get adrenaline pumping.”Shears majored in physical therapy, Harnish said, because he liked the human body and helping people.“He was an honest guy,” he said. “He’d tell you straight up how he felt and wouldn’t lie about it.”Koss said he remembers one specific time when he was working out with Shears but was not in the mood because he had previously pulled a muscle in his arm.“I said, ‘Jared, I’m done. My arm’s bothering me,’” Koss said. “And he said being injured is something serious, but being hurt isn’t. You have to work through being hurt. “He’s going to be missed, and I know he’s not going to be forgotten.”
(07/18/10 11:18pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Lt. Col. John Newman has never been to Afghanistan, but learning about the country’s language and culture has opened his eyes.“I don’t leave for another couple months,” he said. “There are some things I want to study, certain phrases I can learn that will help me.”For 10 days, Newman and other service members leaving for Afghanistan participated in a cultural awareness program offered at IU in partnership with Camp Atterbury, an Indiana training and mobilization center. Each day participants took Pashto or Dari language classes, depending on where they will be deployed, for six to seven hours and finished in an hour-long cultural briefing. Many of the language sessions were taught by Afghan-American professionals or volunteers from Bloomington, including instructor Mohamed Ajab.A Residential Programs and Services employee, Ajab said he heard about the program from friends in IU’s Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region and was asked to help teach a language.“I like teaching and know many languages,” he said. “I’m so happy to be teaching the language.”Ajab said he taught Dari all 10 days of the program, a total of almost 100 hours.“They’re smart, doing good,” he said. “They’re very educated people, are learning fast.”Afghan language and culture training is required across the country for service members, Newman said.“We can’t force the American model on another country,” he said. “We want to work within their culture. By understanding their language and culture, we’re able to do things that don’t offend them, can achieve goals by avoiding conflict.”One of the program’s instructors lived in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union’s occupation of the country, and there is a huge difference between their occupation and that of the United States, Newman said.“They understand that we are there to help them,” he said. “We don’t want to take over their country. A lot of people don’t understand the mission.”Newman will be part of an agricultural team that will teach Afghan natives how to farm and manage their water — “all that stuff that we take for granted in America,” he said.Currently, much of the farming in Afghanistan is of poppy plants, which Newman said terrorists in the country use to fund their efforts.“They have all that money but can’t go to a market to buy food,” he said. “We’re teaching them farming at a basic level. War is not always about going in and blowing up targets. This is more of a war on poverty.”Newman said because of the cultural awareness taught in the program, the people of Afghanistan will be more trusting of the servicemen and -women deployed to their country. In the program, participants are taught the customs and history of the country along with ways to be polite, such as how to act if a service member is invited to dinner.“It ends up being more of a spirit of goodness and trust,” he said. “When it comes to the end of the day, trust is one of the most important things you need in that environment.”
(07/11/10 10:44pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Before transferring to Bloomington High School North, sophomore Joe Mikiska had never taken a photography class because his old high school didn’t offer one.“They didn’t have a lot of art classes, so I thought, ‘I can’t draw, so I suck at art,’” Mikiska said. “I took a photography class at IU, which I wouldn’t have if I didn’t take it at North.”Mikiska and sophomore Thea Bransby participated in the National Art Honor Society at Bloomington High School North, a club that Bransby said was part of an amazing art program at the school.“The band and music classes led me to what I’m doing today: jazz singing,” she said. “So many people have gone into music because of that program. Sometimes it was the thing that made them stay in high school.”With many school districts, including the Monroe County Community School Corporation, making cutbacks due to financial strain, extracurricular activities offered by the schools are getting pulled onto the chopping block.In June, the MCCSC announced teacher contract changes for the 2010-11 academic year calling for cut stipends for extracurricular activities such as music, sports and other after-school activities.“Schools are looking for any possible way not to spend money so they don’t have to cut, and they’ve had to make a lot of hard choices,” IU admissions director Mary Ellen Anderson said. “We, of course, love for students to have had those opportunities, because many times the extracurricular activities can really make a difference in academic interest. “We know that those things are important, but on the other hand, if cutting extracurricular activities is going to help save the job of the math teacher or the English teacher — these are really difficult decisions.”However, these cuts not only affect students during their high school years but continue to follow them into their college admission and scholarship application processes.The 2010–11 Freshman Application for Admission to IU asks applying students to list their extracurricular activities.The first page of the packet offers students “the option to provide a summary of their important extracurricular activities during high school. This is not required.”Some students enter the college application process believing that, without an extensive list of extracurricular activities, some universities will not accept them, but Anderson said that’s not the case.“That’s really not part of the overall admissions decision,” she said. “We make it primarily on the student’s academic profile, courses in high school and the GPA in those courses. I doubt personally that any school, if a student didn’t have the opportunity to participate in extracurriculars ... expects to see five clubs in these categories.”But while the activities might not affect a student’s chance of being admitted to a university, scholarship committees are not only looking for the brightest students, but the next campus leaders as well.“The Office of Scholarships awards the automatic scholarships based totally on the numbers, but then the Hutton Honors College looks holistically at the students,” said Lynn Cochran, assistant dean for the Honors College.On the college’s scholarship application, Cochran said, students are asked to write one essay discussing their most significant extracurricular activity. When the application is reviewed, it is also noted how many years the student was involved in the activity.“So, extracurriculars are really important in that sense that the faculty committee are looking for students who are really engaged and involved in high school,” Cochran said.By the time a student meets the criteria for the Honors College, Cochran said his or her academic credentials are already exceptional.“We generally make offers to about a third of that group, so we’re really looking for that top third of an exceptional pool of students,” she said. “The reason that the faculty review committee looks so closely at extracurriculars is they’re really looking to recruit a class to IU who will be leaders and enhance the existing organizations here as well as have the initiative to create new organizations.”In the applications, faculty reviewers look for students who have the drive to create a unique experience for their school and the other students, Cochran said.“They would have trouble doing that without the support of their schools,” she said.Cochran said while it is possible to find extracurricular activities outside of a student’s high school, the search can be difficult.“The problem with looking elsewhere is churches, of course, offer a lot of mission trips, but they’re not going to offer school newspapers, art clubs, sports — the programs that build a sense of a relationship with their high school,” she said. “For them to have to go somewhere else to participate in an opportunity means finding transportation, which is harder for middle school kids and freshmen and sophomores.”Cochran said the scholarship application also asks for a letter from a teacher or advisor discussing the student’s extracurricular activities, and with some activities being cut, teachers are not given the opportunity to get to know students outside of the classroom.“How many kids say later in their life they chose their major because of an important teacher that they had in high school?” she said.
(06/17/10 12:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As a professor in the Department of History, Padraic Kenney might meet with 50 students majoring in history during any given semester and have great conversations with only a dozen of them.“If a student were to ask me what’s the difference between a B.A. and a B.S., I have no idea. That’s what advisers are for,” he said. “Faculty and students tend to think of advisers as ‘people who choose my classes.’ We can’t move ahead at this University without a really great and really prominent, in the sense of being really widely advertised to the students, advising program.”Currently, IU advisers have no career ladder, Kenney said, and an adviser who has worked for the University for 20 years barely makes more than an adviser who just started.“A career ladder says that somebody who’s been working here 10 years deserves to be rewarded,” he said. “We want to keep that knowledge on campus.” In a recent report released by the IU Bloomington Academic Advising Task Force, Kenney said it became obvious that IU’s advising program is the next important aspect of campus that needs to be tweaked to better the University. Kenney, who chairs the education policies committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council, co-chaired the task force.The creation of the task force followed the April 2009 report “Enhancing Undergraduate Education at IU Bloomington,” which made it clear to Provost Karen Hanson and other members of the University how important advising is to the campus.“The charge of the task force was to look at advising without any limits, and the first and most important thing that we show and argue in the report is that academic advising is absolutely central to the University,” Kenney said. “Universities these days are really looking at their bottom line and quickly realize that a key source of funding is students. I’m talking about the fact that it is a real waste of money if you bring in students and then they drop out.”Sonya Stephens, vice provost for undergraduate education, appointed the 25 members of the task force last fall. They began to meet as a group in October, said Mark Hurley, president of the Bloomington Advisors’ Council. For nearly seven months, Hurley said, the members met as a large group once a month and as smaller working groups on a weekly basis. The task force determined three focus points on how to improve advising, Kenney said. First, Kenney said, there needs to be a central advising office or administration. “They wouldn’t be reporting to this person, but somebody who oversees the advising and is aware what’s going on across campus, be a voice for advisers,” he said.The second focus relates to advisers’ compensation, Kenney said. “When we consider all the things about advisers, it’s amazing how little they make,” he said. “We should be both attracting the top people and holding on to them, because we also have a fair amount of turnover, which also costs the University a lot.”As the final focus, Kenney said the task force wants to provide advisers with the proper tools to help communicate with and assess students.“The hope we have is that the provost and vice provost, in creating this task force and giving us this job, were serious about really doing something about advising,” he said. “We’ll be setting up this administration and implementing some of the tools in the 2010-11 school year. I believe that we’ll see a lot of movement on this in the fall.”Gail Fairfield, associate director of the undergraduate program in the Kelley School of Business, said she immediately said yes when asked to join the task force. “I believe passionately in academic advising and want to see it more organized, professionalized and effective,” she said. “We need some campus-wide momentum to make that happen.”While Fairfield said she feels hopeful that the provost is responding positively, the bottom line depends on the University — and whether the next step is taken depends on money. “Each of these things will make a huge difference,” she said. “The career ladder itself, if able to set it up, that will make an amazing difference in moral as well as effectiveness. Right now, advisers improve themselves because they want to. We don’t necessarily get to reward them. If money were not object, we would be madly implementing tomorrow.”Greater coordination and an advising council that has a strong voice in making recommendations to the campus will help advisers and members of the administration communicate better, Hurley said. “I think a lot of people are excited, but they’re also not getting their hopes up too much,” he said. “We’re all kind of waiting to hear what the next step is going to be.”
(06/13/10 10:29pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Twenty students from nine campuses across the Midwest gathered in a small room in the IU Department of Psychology building Sunday to discuss ways for students to get involved in the fight against coal as part of the Sierra Student Coalition Coal Conference.The conference took place on IU’s campus for the first time in its five-year history, said Kim Teplitzky, coal campaign coordinator for the Sierra Student Coalition, part of the Sierra Club. “Bloomington is perfect because they’re running a campaign and there’s a coal plant right here,” Teplitzky said. “It’s showing there are young people at the forefront of the clean energy fight.”Indiana is a coal-intensive state, Teplitzky said, and members of Coal Free IU are leaders of the movement on a national level. “If they can do this here, it means we can do that anywhere,” she said. “It shows we’re not afraid of taking the big fight.” The conference brought together students from IU, Washington University in St. Louis, Michigan State University and others to discuss ideas for coal-free campuses and learn about renewable resource options to take the place of coal, she said.Through the conference, students were able to have conversations about work on their own campuses as well as gather ideas from other campuses’ campaigns, Teplitzky said. “We can talk about how we connect with other campuses and bring them together to fight coal on a national level,” she said. “Students help make that connection. They have the energy, enthusiasm and creativity.”In a working group meeting, 20 students discussed actions groups on each of their campuses have taken previously in working toward coal-free universities as well as actions they can take in the future.Ideas of shutting down coal power plants one at a time were first mentioned, but some students were skeptical, claiming many cities have large numbers of plants and having one shut down would not make a difference.One student spoke about universities turning the cause to focus on students’ excessive use of resources instead of the campuses’ use. This mention brought the idea of asking students to cut back on electricity and other resources and using the saved money to convert the campus to becoming coal-free.At the end of the meeting, Teplitzky asked the students in attendance what resources they believe they need to further progress at their campuses. Their responses fell into three main categories: education, organization and network building, including asking for educational videos and direct action training.“Our goal is to help educate our leaders on the ground,” Teplitzky said, “to support each other if they run into problems and network across the country.”Sophomore Becca Barhorst, president of the Beyond Coal campaign at the University of Kentucky, said Kentucky is a state hugely centered on coal usage. “The best thing is just hearing what other students are doing at other schools,” she said, “especially because a lot of the time I felt like I was doing it all on my own.”
(06/10/10 6:26pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Although IU provides students with two similar workout facilities, senior Natalie Rutigliano has her favorite.“HPER has a laid-back feel to it,” Rutigliano said. “The SRSC looks like a workout video.” Both recreational facilities offer similar exercise equipment, but students rarely rotate their time between the two. Many students who work out at the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation instead of the Student Recreational Sports Center say the atmosphere and the programs influence their decision.Completed in 1961 as an addition to the Men’s Gymnasium, the HPER is home to the Wildermuth Intramural Center and Royer Pool.The SRSC, completed in 1995, grants registered students automatic membership. The SRSC also includes the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center, which consists of an eight-lane Olympic-size pool and diving well. The complex is located near Wright and Teter quads on Law Lane.For some students who go to the SRSC, it is factors like space for parking, classes offered and equipment available affect their decision. Freshman Julie Bollinger lives in Wright Quad, less than a five-minute walk from the SRSC. “I like coming to the group classes they have here and all the equipment they have for us to use,” Bollinger said. The SRSC offers group exercise sessions ranging from strength-focused kickboxing and cardio classes to relaxing yoga and pilates samplers, according to the SRSC’s website. Sessions are held seven days a week and last between 30 and 75 minutes. Some students who live off-campus prefer the SRSC because it has sufficient parking. “HPER doesn’t really have any parking,” sophomore Joe O’Donnell said. “It’s just too small for how many kids use it.”Others choose the SRSC because of its equipment.“It’s probably a 25-minute walk for me,” sophomore Jenny Smoak said. “There are more machines, so in that sense it’s easier.”Senior Matt Miller prefers the HPER because it is less crowded. “It’s busy later at night, but it’s usually not that big of a deal,” Miller said.Senior Jennifer Mitchell dislikes the SRSC because, she said, many people are more interested in looking good than working out. Some girls who exercise there put on makeup and dress up to work out, she said.“I want to get sweaty and work out,” she said. “I don’t want to put on a show.” The busiest times for both the HPER and the SRSC are between 5 and 7 p.m. The HPER is seldom filled to capacity, but the limit is more likely to be reached during the first two weeks of the semester and around spring break, said Kyle Swinford, a Recreational Sports employee. Swinford said students aren’t busy with classes during the first two weeks of the semester and have more time to exercise.
(06/10/10 6:10pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Jan. 19, 2010 — Instead of waiting in lines at T.I.S College Bookstore at the beginning of each semester, freshman Meredith Grubbs chooses to buy her books online.“I Google the ISB number, then buy the cheapest book,” she said. “I can compare them on the computer instead of going to different stores.”If she knows someone looking to buy a book she no longer needs, Grubbs said she can get more money by selling to another student instead of selling back to a store.Textyard.com, a website created by two IU students two years ago, offers students an easier way to buy and sell textbooks directly to each other, said junior Ben Greenberg, co-founder of Textyard. The site, which allows students to search for textbooks by class number, has recently expanded outside of Indiana to universities in Illinois and other surrounding states, he said.“Our plan is to be in most states around the country by next fall,” Greenberg said. “Right now, we’re expanding to all schools with more than 20,000 people that attend them.”When students use the site to search for books, Greenberg said they can also see Amazon prices.“Students save money either way,” he said.While the site currently only offers books to buy, Greenberg said it might look into adding rentals in the future.Freshman Tasha Dykes said she used the IU Bookstore to purchase her textbooks this semester, but next semester will be different. After hearing a friend tell her about Chegg.com, she said she has decided to try renting her books.“I’m not going to keep the books,” she said. “I’m not going to read them later. I know if I sell them back to the bookstore, I don’t get much money back.”Jeff Cohen, CEO of campusbooks.com, said they launched textbookrenter.com, a rental price comparison site, in November 2009.The site brings five rental Web sites to one location, he said, and helps students understand the policy of each company.“We felt students needed a place to understand the options available,” he said. “You can compare prices and conditions and can see what other people say about the companies as well.”Renting textbooks allows students to take the discount up-front, Cohen said.However, it is not for everyone. Students who write in or highlight in their textbooks might prefer to buy them, he said, as well as students who need the books for a subsequent semester.“I think we help explain the rental market,” Cohen said. “We help students decide to rent or buy. A rental company is trying to sell you their book. We provide an objective view.”Though there are many options online to rent or buy textbooks, freshman Amal Akbik said she finds using the bookstore easier.“I look them up online first,” she said. “If I can actually see the book, I know I’m getting the right one.”
(06/10/10 12:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>While a group of seven junior gardeners stood in a circle around a bucket of dirt, Greg Speichert held up a small tomato plant.“Tomatoes are pretty sturdy,” he said to the group of 7- and 8-year-olds, “but don’t break them.”After explaining how to take dirt from the bucket and plant the tomato stems, Speichert walked around the circle inspecting the children’s work.“I think I did a pretty good job,” Rose Mary Nicholson, 7, said while smiling and holding up her plant.Greg Speichert, director of the new Summer Junior Master Gardening Program at IU’s Hilltop Gardens, teaches the group from 9 a.m. to noon every Tuesday. Lessons include everything from the different smells of garlic plants to how to spread hay. A second group of 9- and 10-year-olds is taught on Thursdays at the same time, and 11- to 14-year-olds come out when they can to train the younger gardeners.This is the first year the center has adopted the gardening program, which started at Texas A&M University. The program is taught through a book called “The Junior Master Gardener Handbook” that participants can take with them to any organization that teaches it, graduate student and Greg Speichert’s wife Sue Speichert said.“If they move, they can do it anywhere in the country,” she said. “It takes a couple days to do a chapter. We begin with the book, but we want to get out there and garden with them.”Sue Speichert said Greg Speichert discovered the program at an American Public Gardens Association conference in Texas a few years ago. She said the program got off the ground with help from Dr. Robert Sherwood, the associate dean for research at IU’s School of Education, and members of the Bloomington Garden Club, who donated money to buy the teachers’ manuals.Hilltop Gardens began as a children’s garden around 60 years ago, Sue Speichert said, and is now almost entirely run by volunteers.“With the state budget cuts, we’re down to just me,” Greg Speichert said. “We want people to learn. We can be better stewards of the planet when we learn how things work. And it’s not like you’re learning, because you came to look at the garden.”While walking through the gardens, Greg Speichert pointed to a semi-enclosed gardening area. He explained that it is his goal to finish the building so the junior gardeners can continue learning through the winter.“But we still need funding. Most of this won’t get planted,” he said, pointing to empty patches of land at the center. “There’s just not enough people.”Greg Speichert said he has worked at Hilltop for nearly three years and has been gardening since he was 6 years old. “My grandfather helped me,” he said. “He told me that sometimes plants just die — it’s no big deal.”Sue Speichert said many of the children in the program have gardens at home and get to take plants with them to transfer into their own gardens.Mason Smith, 8, said his dad helps him with his home garden.“There was this one time we put a tomato plant in a dump truck,” he said. “And we left it in there for two weeks, and it lived. So we put it in our garden.”Roxy Henry, 7, said she likes gardening because “some of the plants you can plant and eat, and some you can look at.”Through the junior program, Greg Speichert said the children will begin to become successful gardeners and move on from there.“We try to make it work on almost zero budget,” he said. “Hilltop is really Bloomington’s garden. I’m just here to facilitate it.”
(06/09/10 10:49pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There are 20 men at a party, and the women in attendance are only talking to five of them. Which man should a woman looking for a new relationship approach?A recent study by Skyler Place, a researcher in IU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, shows that men and women looking to begin dating will consider not only their friends’ opinions about new mates but also those of complete strangers, such as other men and women at a party.“Maybe the other 15 are not very good quality,” Place said about the party example. “They’re taking advantage of the time other people spent interacting with men in their potential world.”As part of his dissertation, Place and a small group of researchers conducted an experiment asking participants to rate pictures of possible dates on a number scale. After the experiment, the researchers determined whether the participants’ opinions of the possible dates changed due to strangers’ noticeable attraction to the same men.For the study, Place and the other researchers hypothesized that men and women would use the information in the same way and that each gender would react to dating preferences of strangers similarly. What they found followed the original theory.When men and women see someone of the opposite sex attracting positive or negative attention from strangers, it can sometimes affect whether they like or dislike the possible mate, Place said.“It’s called ‘mate copying,’” Place said. “It’s the idea that a female observer would become more interested in a potential male target if she saw another female interested in the same man, or a man interested in a woman because other men like her. It makes sense to see who other people are choosing.”
(06/09/10 3:23pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Jan. 19, 2010 — Instead of waiting in lines at T.I.S College Bookstore at the beginning of each semester, freshman Meredith Grubbs chooses to buy her books online.“I Google the ISB number, then buy the cheapest book,” she said. “I can compare them on the computer instead of going to different stores.”If she knows someone looking to buy a book she no longer needs, Grubbs said she can get more money by selling to another student instead of selling back to a store.Textyard.com, a website created by two IU students two years ago, offers students an easier way to buy and sell textbooks directly to each other, said junior Ben Greenberg, co-founder of Textyard. The site, which allows students to search for textbooks by class number, has recently expanded outside of Indiana to universities in Illinois and other surrounding states, he said.“Our plan is to be in most states around the country by next fall,” Greenberg said. “Right now, we’re expanding to all schools with more than 20,000 people that attend them.”When students use the site to search for books, Greenberg said they can also see Amazon prices.“Students save money either way,” he said.While the site currently only offers books to buy, Greenberg said it might look into adding rentals in the future.Freshman Tasha Dykes said she used the IU Bookstore to purchase her textbooks this semester, but next semester will be different. After hearing a friend tell her about Chegg.com, she said she has decided to try renting her books.“I’m not going to keep the books,” she said. “I’m not going to read them later. I know if I sell them back to the bookstore, I don’t get much money back.”Jeff Cohen, CEO of campusbooks.com, said they launched textbookrenter.com, a rental price comparison site, in November 2009.The site brings five rental Web sites to one location, he said, and helps students understand the policy of each company.“We felt students needed a place to understand the options available,” he said. “You can compare prices and conditions and can see what other people say about the companies as well.”Renting textbooks allows students to take the discount up-front, Cohen said.However, it is not for everyone. Students who write in or highlight in their textbooks might prefer to buy them, he said, as well as students who need the books for a subsequent semester.“I think we help explain the rental market,” Cohen said. “We help students decide to rent or buy. A rental company is trying to sell you their book. We provide an objective view.”Though there are many options online to rent or buy textbooks, freshman Amal Akbik said she finds using the bookstore easier.“I look them up online first,” she said. “If I can actually see the book, I know I’m getting the right one.”
(06/02/10 11:58pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Artificial intelligence poker bots, created by undergraduate students from universities across Indiana, will battle for the top spot in IU’s first Poker Programming Contest.The competition began May 22 and will accept entries until Aug. 14, said sophomore Eric Jiang, who planned the event.Contestants can find information, announcements and rules at http://indianapokerbot.com.“We have every contestant write an artificial intelligence for playing poker,” he said. “Once they write it, all these poker bots will play in a tournament. That’s pretty much the big picture of how it works.”Students from all over the state have shown interest in the contest, Jiang said, including undergraduates from IU, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Purdue University. The idea is not totally new, Jiang said. There has been research and writing on the subject, and the University of Alberta has featured a similar competition for the past few years.“They have graduate students doing research on it,” Jiang said. “I wanted to keep the playing field even — undergraduate students only, to keep it accessible for other people.”Faculty advisor Gregory Rawlins, associate professor of computer science at IU, said the advantage of the tournament is that students are not required to come up with the best possible bot player, but to produce one that can be comparative to others in the same time frame.It is unlikely that participants have previously made a poker bot to enter in the competition, Jiang said, but they will be able to continue work on the design and enter it in later contests.“DARPA, a research arm of the military, sponsors a project for a million bucks for a car that will drive itself across some distance out in the desert,” Rawlins said. “The first year was a complete fiasco — none of the cars completed the course. The second year, most of the cars completed, but very slowly. The third year, nearly all the cars completed and a couple of them were very fast. “So a contest just in and of itself can have great consequences. I expect great things from the Indiana community.”Jiang said he decided to go with poker because it is an accessible game to everyone.“Not like chess — that’s just a really hard game for computers,” he said. “Even though poker has a lot of strategy, you can just jump in and start playing, use some commonsense rules.”Jiang said he hopes the contest will encourage computer science students and motivate them to take on projects outside of the classroom.“It’s really important for them to have their own interests and motivations to work on,” he said. “I hope this can provide something fun, encourage them to think creatively. Maybe win a little fame and fortune, I guess.”Though the level Jiang is aiming for in the competition is unusual, Rawlins said he thinks the contest will spread knowledge of programming from the graduate level to the undergraduate.“Programming knowledge has moved down to what kids know just because they have Xboxes,” he said. “The reason I agreed to be the sponsor is to give the tools that can help them make some kind of impact.”
(05/27/10 12:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On May 13, Jonathan Elmer, chair of the IU Department of English, sent an e-mail to the 16 students from one section of Tony Ardizzone’s Introduction to Creative Writing course explaining why some of their final grades had been lowered.He wrote, “I thought I should address some fundamental issues regarding this class, and the disagreements and misunderstandings that have occurred.”Many courses at IU are taught by professors with sections taught by associate instructors. However, professors teaching the courses have authority over the students’ grades, and there are different steps the professors can take in setting a fair, even standard.Halfway into the spring semester, Ardizzone began to see that the grading procedures of one AI were not consistent with the other six. “I am responsible for a degree of uniformity,” Ardizzone said. “I was getting a range of grades from six of the AIs, but she wasn’t giving me a range.”Juliana Crespo, the AI for the section, said she was more concerned with students’ learning and believed grades were irrelevant in the classroom.“You’re going to get an ‘A’ if you put a decent amount of work in the course,” she said. “And (students) respond to that.”Crespo, Ardizzone and Romayne Dorsey, director of creative writing pedagogy, met the week after spring break to discuss Crespo’s grading.“The three of us met, and they tried to convince me to assign new grades,” Crespo said. “It would be disrespectful to my students.”At the end of the semester, Crespo said she met with Dorsey again to go over the fiction portfolios, and both of them graded the assignments. Dorsey’s grades were lower than Crespo’s, but Crespo said Dorsey allowed her to assign the grades she felt comfortable giving, and that Dorsey would not change those grades.After the final grades were posted, Crespo said her students questioned why they received a lower grade than anticipated.“Tony e-mails them back and tells them that they had reassigned new portfolio grades — the ones that Romayne had assigned them,” she said.Seventy-three percent of all six sections received an “A” or a “B” as their final grade, Ardizzone said. In Crespo’s section, he said, 75 percent did after the grade changes.“What we worked with specifically was to try to get her to a sense where she agreed with the norms of the section,” he said. “And she didn’t agree; that’s her right. But it’s my responsibility, absolutely, to make sure that I have a uniformity of treatment and grades within the sections.”Crespo said Ardizzone thinks there should be a wide range of grades in the class and that she does not believe in that sort of grading system. Ardizzone said it is possible to have all A’s in one section, however, it is highly unlikely.“My response will be, ‘That’s possible,’” he said. “‘Because it’s unlikely, let me have a look at the work.’ That’s what we did in this case. What we found was that they weren’t all A’s.”During the first week of orientation, Ardizzone met with the AIs to discuss examples of weak and strong student poems.Ardizzone said he then worked with all of the AIs as a group after each assignment was handed in to determine what a fair grade range would look like. “Grades are an indication to the writer as to the writer’s relative level of growth,” he said.Claude Cookman, an associate professor in the IU School of Journalism, said he instructs his visual communication class on a criteria grading system.“You set clear criteria, and everyone who meets those criteria gets a good grade,” he said. “There’s no feeling that you have to have a set number of C’s and D’s and F’s. Students work harder when they understand that their work could earn a good grade.”Cookman said in courses that have sections with multiple instructors, students are justifiably concerned about fairness. “So I try very hard...to make sure the AIs and myself do try to grade consistently across all discussion sections,” he said.When an assignment comes in, Cookman said he asks the AIs to take a sample of 10 to 12 projects and rate the two highest, two average and two lowest grade-wise. He then meets with the AIs to discuss which project will receive what score. “This gives us some real parameters for looking at the rest of the assignments,” he said. “So, I don’t often have complaints from students.”Junior Emily Hoff said AIs helped with grading in her history class. For finals, she said the professor and the two AIs split the grading.“There’s no real way to tell if they’re grading the same,” she said. “But I think that they definitely try their best — no huge discrepancy there.”While Cookman said he supports his AIs’ grading decisions, he has changed some grades. “I may have changed a few grades over the years,” he said. “When a student comes to complain, I try to make that a teaching moment. I talk about their product and how they could do it better the next time.”Senior Philip Hawkins, a student in Crespo’s section, said while he thinks the professor has the ultimate authority over grades, the changes Ardizzone made seemed inappropriate. “We worked with (Crespo) the whole semester,” he said. “She graded our assignments.”Hawkins said he thinks grading for creative classes should reflect how hard students work, not the level of their work.“When you get a low grade, what is that supposed to say? Does that mean my work sucks?” Hawkins said.Students in all departments have noticeably been receiving higher grades in recent years, Elmer said. However, he said he does not think it is because professors are grading easier.“It certainly is a more competitive market,” he said, “I don’t think my colleagues think about this when they’re doing grades. I think they try to be fair-minded.”Marcus Wicker, an AI in the Department of English, said all faculty members and AIs in the department stick to a high standard of grading. “I think that because the economy is so tough, it’s not enough just to have a college degree,” he said. “Because of that, students are working harder. If there is an increase of grades, they should be applauded for it.”
(05/26/10 10:40pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Plastic food symbolizing correct portion sizes and bottles of Mountain Dew and Powerade filled with teaspoons of sugar sat on the IU Health Center’s display table at the kick-off event for the Step Into Fitness program Wednesday.“This is how much sugar is in a Mountain Dew,” said Bobbie Saccone, a registered dietician at the Health Center, pointing at the plastic bottle. “It has 17 teaspoons of sugar. The Powerade has 10 teaspoons. They’re both 20-ounce bottles.”The first-time kick-off event was planned to get new and returning participants of Step Into Fitness excited for the program, said Megan Amadeo, associate director of personal training at IU Recreational Sports. The nine-week program from June 1 through July 31 is free to all IU faculty and staff members. Participants can register online throughout the program and will receive a pedometer, a nutrition tracker and maps of walking routes on campus. Though the program is five years old, Amadeo said Rec Sports wanted to get the participants together to gear up for the program before it begins. “We wanted to get them signed up and excited about the program,” she said, “and educate them about all of our wellness partners on campus.”Amadeo said the marketing team chose the IU Art Museum because the building is centrally located on campus and is somewhere people might not have visited before.“It’s a pretty walk, and it’s a pretty building,” she said.Inside, visitors of the event registered for the program and were led upstairs to tables promoting healthy activities. At the Health Center’s table, Saccone held up a plate with three portioned sections labeled as vegetables, protein and starch.“The vegetables are supposed to take up half the plate, then a quarter protein and a quarter starch,” she said. “Usually, people eat half protein, half starch, and either the vegetables are on the side or inexistent.”Next to the plate were examples of pounds of fat and muscle. A passerby picked up the pound of muscle and put it next to her hip.“You would rather have that,” Saccone said. “Surface-wise, muscle is smaller, and it burns more calories than fat.”Marcia Humphress, a department manager at the IU Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, said she saw a flyer at the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation for the event and decided to try the program.“I needed something to get me kick-started,” she said. “I think getting out and walking is a win-win. This will motivate me to do that. The group mentality is motivating, too.”Marie Jackson, an internal auditor for IU, said she likes to walk and that the program will be a better way for her to keep track of both her walking and her health. She said she will try to last the whole nine weeks of the program.“I’m going on vacation for two weeks, so that might be hard,” she said, “but I’m going to try.”
(05/20/10 12:07am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Becca Lanter stood before an audience of about 100 people and recited from memory a three-page poem about her life at an Open Mic Night at BuffaLouie’s.It was the second time she had performed the poem, and it ended to resounding applause.“It was really one of my favorite performances,” said Eric Love, director for the IU Office of Diversity Education. “It was so personal and moving, really touching in the struggles that she had gone through. It was also a testament of strength and triumph.”Lanter, a 21-year-old senior, was killed in a collision early Saturday morning when her car hit a tree. Officers were notified of the accident at 2:16 a.m. on Monroe Dam Road. In celebration of Lanter’s life, a memorial service will take place 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the Student Recreational Sports Center, where Lanter worked for three years.“She was just a beautiful young woman,” Love said. “I always had it in the back of my mind to have her perform that again.”Lanter had a rough upbringing but kept an upbeat attitude, senior Dylan Hollenberg said. “She was such a strong girl, loved to have fun — just so happy,” he said.Robin Denhart, a Jasper resident, said Lanter majored in sales management and wanted to travel and help people with HIV.A few years ago, Lanter’s mother died, Hollenberg said, and when she was 18, she became emancipated from her family. “Her family was pretty much her friends,” he said. “She was so mature, was already paying her bills to take care of herself. She worked all the time because she had to pay her way. She did get the Lilly scholarship — she was a very smart girl.”Denhart said Lanter lived with her family during school breaks. After Lanter’s mother died, Denhart said she told Lanter she could come to her if Lanter ever needed anything. Before the end of her freshman year, Lanter called Denhart asking for a place to stay for the summer.“Once I said, ‘What are we?’” Denhart said. “And she said, ‘We’re family.’ She has a very large family, too. But she kept in touch with everyone, even if it was just to say hi.”Hollenberg said he had been best friends with Lanter since fifth grade. “I would say a lot of people would call her their best friend,” he said, “even though she had 30 best friends.”IU alumna Mariel Avila said she met Lanter her sophomore year, two years ago. On the day of the accident, Avila said she and Lanter were supposed to go boating at Lake Monroe.“I kept calling her and she didn’t answer,” Avila said. “I got the call that morning. She was the most amazing person. I know everyone says that, but she really was. I don’t think I ever saw her having a bad day.”Senior Alyssa Kettler said she roomed with Lanter their freshman and junior years. “Becca was the kind of person that took everybody in,” she said. “She could tell you about yourself, analyze you before you even knew it.”Kettler said she met Lanter in seventh grade and swam against her competitively in high school. When the two girls found out they would both be attending IU, they decided to room together.“That was just an incredible year,” Kettler said. “She was just larger than life, and she was wise beyond her years. She always had a perspective that you didn’t think of.”Kettler said she had discussions with Lanter about what they would want for their funerals if they were to happen.“We had the most ironically weird conversations about what we would want if this kind of thing happened,” Kettler said. “She wanted to wear yellow because it looked pretty and have pictures everywhere. She wanted people to find the best in everything and always found the silver lining. It’s definitely a celebration.”
(05/16/10 10:23pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The final 10th Street Mobility Study affirming a preferred course of action was released to the public May 3, said Raymond Hess, senior transportation planner for the City of Bloomington.A network of two-way streets will replace the set-up that now exists in the 10th Street corridor, Hess said. The area involved in the study extends from 10th Street to 17th Street and from Dunn Street to the State Road 45/46 Bypass. In 2008, IU partnered with the Bloomington/Monroe County Metropolitan Planning Organization to discuss ways to improve the 10th Street corridor for all modes of transportation, including vehicular, pedestrian and bike traffic, Hess said.“The north side of campus has long been identified as a traffic concern,” he said. “Numerous studies have been done in the past that go back to the 1960s. It’s been discussed since before I even began working for the city.”Graduate student Christina Sell said the area needs a change.“Especially since a student died,” she said. “It’s funny how tragedy speeds things up.”Goroves/Slade Associates, Inc. was hired in early 2008 as a consultant for the study. Hess said the company, based out of Washington, D.C., had worked on the original campus plan.“They did a fairly different approach to this study than other studies done recently,” he said. The consultants came up with three alternatives and analyzed how well they would perform, Hess said. Alternative zero was to keep everything the same. Alternative one was to make a network of one-way streets and extend Law Lane to connect with 14th Street. Alternative two was to keep the same road alignments, but make them two-way. “They analyzed it again for all different types of mobility — bike, car, pedestrian — and their conclusion was that alternative two best met the intents of the study,” Hess said. “It marked improvement for all forms of transportation.”In the one-way alternative, Hess said vehicular movement improved. However, one-ways are often associated with higher speeds and would have negative effects on pedestrian and bicycle traffic.Sell said she thinks the two-way option will be easier on motorists.“A lot of out-of-towners go the wrong way on streets,” she said.In the recently released report, Hess said some implementation strategies were identified that can be broken up into three segments. The first segment is 10th Street and Law Lane. The second is Law Lane to Fee Lane, where the consultants advised making improvements to the existing corridor so it can accommodate new traffic. The final segment is the realignment of 13th and 14th streets between Fee Lane and Dunn Street.“That’s the much more extensive part of the project,” Hess said. “There is some private ownership, and we have to be mindful of how improvements would affect the neighborhood.”This was a planning-level study, however, and it acknowledges that there is a lot of design that will go into the implementation of the final decision, Hess said. “The consultants did not have the resources or time or budget to design the corridor,” he said. “But they did identify some interim measures that can be done to make some improvements along the corridor. For example, they recommended a speed analysis and also suggested opportunities for better pavement markings. Nice measures that the city can consider on a case-by-case basis.”So far, the team has not had a chance to strategize about how to take the next step, Hess said. With federal funding spoken for until 2013 or 2014, Hess said the actual engineering is not anticipated for the next several years.“Construction is several years out beyond the engineering,” he said. “That discussion has already begun between city and campus on interim measures.”Students are one of the primary users in all modes of transportation through the area studied, Hess said, and the University targeted student opinion in the making of the study. “Hopefully we did a good job of capturing the interests of students in the study,” he said. “And they can appreciate the suggestions that came out of it, especially when it gets implemented.” Two public workshops were held to get students and community members involved in the process, Hess said.“I think everyone should have a say in what affects the entire city,” junior Maryanne Alalade said.