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(09/24/09 4:36am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The coal-burning Central Heating Plant on Fee Lane will cease to exist if a new campaign on campus has something to say about it.On Sept. 16, IU became one of 30 campuses nationwide to join the Sierra Club’s Campuses Beyond Coal campaign to end burning coal for energy on college campuses.IU is among 60 college campuses across the nation that still rely on coal for the production of electricity for the majority of campus buildings and residence halls, according to a report distributed by the Sierra Club last week during a demonstration outside the IU Central Heating Plant.The report notes that the CHP, which produces steam that heats most IU buildings on campus, burned 68,000 tons of coal in 2006. Monica Embrey, the campaign organizer for the IU campus, said the campaign exists because burning coal for energy is the most destructive industrial process in the U.S.“Our goal is to completely shut down these plants and switch to cleaner energy sources,” Embrey said.Each campaign will be entirely student run, Embrey said.“This is a group of students who are really dedicated to addressing issues of global warming, as well as public health concerns,” she said.Embrey said the campaign has already received plenty of positive feedback on campus.“We have a petition going out to President McRobbie, and it has just been overwhelming support,” she said. “We’ve only been collecting signatures for a couple of days, and it’s been really encouraging and exciting.”Working with the administrationMuch of the strategy for the campaign will involve putting pressure on the administration to continue to step forward in implementing sustainable energy technologies on campus, Embrey said.“These are campaigns that have been specifically launched at these universities,” Embrey said. “IU was chosen in part because of steps it has taken toward sustainability, and we hope to encourage that process.”Embrey said she has already met with IU-Bloomington Provost Karen Hanson and Director of Sustainability Bill Brown to share the campaign’s goals.“Our plan is to continue to work with them and put pressure on the administration to step away from coal,” she said.Although the University’s Physical Plant has seriously considered burning wood chips, biomass and other carbon-neutral materials in the production of electricity, Brown said there is still no timeline as to when a complete switch could happen.“We did have a plan before the Sierra Club was here, and we would like to get that point, but there are a couple of considerations,” Brown said. “One is money, and the other is time, and those are the two problems that we have to solve.”Brown said any possibility of becoming completely carbon-neutral on campus will be a long-term process. He said the University still needs to research what specific kinds of biomass in Indiana are readily available for the production of energy.“The technology is certainly developing, and we’re exploring the alternatives,” he said. “But we certainly haven’t discovered the answer yet.”Still, he said the University is ready to collaborate with the Sierra Club in realizing those long-term goals.“We certainly welcome the participation of the Sierra Club,” he said. “We’re glad to have them on campus as another student group.”Cutting coal starts at collegesJames Gignac, Midwest director for the Sierra Club, said the Campuses Beyond Coal campaign began after a successful Sierra Club campaign stopped the construction of new coal-fired power plants across the nation.He said the logical next step was to turn the nation’s attention toward phasing out existing coal-fired power plants, especially those on college campuses.“What the scientists are telling us is that we need to phase out coal’s contribution to global warming by 2030 if we are going to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of global climate change,” Gignac said.College campuses are of particular interest to the campaign because universities should be the leaders in the development and innovation of clean-energy technologies, Gignac said.“Given the large amount of interest about wanting to have a clean-energy future, schools that can make this transition can offer an attractive place for students in the future,” Gignac said.And while the main goal is the same for every campus, Gignac also said each school will have its own way of ending its use of coal.“There’s not one solution to phasing out coal. It’s really a package of different types of solutions,” he said.Some schools might be able to stop their use of coal faster than others, Gignac said. But the initial goal is to seek meaningful reductions and create a path to phase out coal. Gignac said the amount of enthusiasm from students across the nation is a good indicator of how effective the Campuses Beyond Coal campaign could be.“This fits into what is happening nationally, which is a growing movement to phase out coal and transition to clean energy,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting, and we’re seeing a lot of enthusiasm from young people all over the country.”
(09/16/09 2:04am)
What do Amelia Earhart, Robert Stroud – who is better known as the
Birdman of Alcatraz – and Fletcher Christian all have in common?
For many, it might not seem like a lot.
(09/07/09 2:32pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Comedy, music, spoken word and burlesque dancing combine to transform some nice Jewish girls into raunchy burlesque performers.The traveling comedic troupe Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad will be performing two shows at Bear’s Place tonight with tickets set at $10. Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. Both are for audiences ages 21 and older.According to a press release, Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad “dare to deconstruct years of tradition and guilt in a fast-paced vaudeville extravaganza, complete with kick-lines, punch lines and a rendition of ‘L’chaim’ with a fist in the mouth.”Susannah Perlman, “ringleader” and creator of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad, said the idea for the show started about seven years ago after performing an event for the New York-based Heeb magazine. She said the event allowed her to meet a lot of women performers who defied many of the typical stereotypes about Jewish women and thus inspired her to create such a unique show.“I wanted something to have a variety feel to it and have comedy, spoken word and burlesque,” Perlman said.Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad has since become a nationally recognized act performing to sold-out crowds in major cities on the east and west coasts.Those attending tonight’s shows can expect to see comedic performances from performers seen on Comedy Central, HBO and late-night TV. All musical performances will include accompaniment from a backing band called The Four Skin.Perlman added that people don’t have to be Jewish to “get” or like the show, and she said she is also excited about performing for the first time in Bloomington.“I think it’s safe to say that this is something that doesn’t usually come around to Bloomington that often, so we will be changing Bloomington forever,” she joked. “Since Indiana went blue, the country got Obama, and now Bloomington gets us.”
(09/02/09 4:30am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Although alumna Katie Pollom graduated from IU in 2005 and now lives in St. Louis, she can still be found sealed onto a table top at Bloomington Bagel Company holding a bagel on top of a Michigan ski slope.Pollom said she loved Bloomington Bagel Company since seeing the pictures on the wall for the first time. “The owner told me that if I went and took a bagel with me, I would have one too,” she said. But Pollom’s picture is only one of an entire collection that has become a trademark tradition at the Bloomington Bagel Company stores on Dunn Street, Morton Street and now at the Shoppes on the East Side. During its 13 years of operation, the Bloomington Bagel Company has collected pictures of its customers and their bagels from around the world. Each table in the stores is decorated with a variety of different pictures, but what they all have in common is the presence of one, most likely stale, bagel from the store.Suzanne Aquila, president and owner of Bloomington Bagel Company, said she was inspired after seeing another restaurant do something similar.“I thought, well, in the Bloomington community, we really are all over the world,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be fun to track where everybody goes, but also see how we all change through the years?”To submit photos, customers must use bagels from the store, and the picture can’t be taken in Indiana, Aquila said. Whenever a customer submits a photo, they receive a dozen bagels for free.The pictures are then sealed onto tables made by a local Bloomington artist and placed in all three stores. Aquila said there are pictures of people holding their bagels in China, and even a photo of two pilots holding up a bagel inside an airplane cockpit in mid-flight.“One of the most popular photos happens to be a woman who’s topless on a beach and strategically places her arm over her chest, so people fight over that table,” she said.Susan Williams, director of University Communications, has pictures in the store from trips to Washington and Italy.“We have a group of friends we travel with, and we go to the Bloomington Bagel Company every Saturday,” she said. “We have traveled together to various places, and if we go somewhere new now, we always try to take a bagel and get a photograph.”Williams also said the photos represent something more than simply smiling faces of people holding bagels starring back at customers.“I go in there and I look at all those pictures, and it just reminds me of what a remarkable place Bloomington is to live in,” Williams said. “Its kind of a microcosm in that there are so many interesting people from all over the world here, and I think for me, that’s what those photographs emphasize. It represents why I love Bloomington.”For Pollom, her Michigan ski trip picture provides a lasting legacy in Bloomington, especially now that her sister is starting her freshman year at IU and will be able to go to Bloomington Bagel Company.“Anytime that I’d have a family member come visit, we’d always sit at the table with our picture on it,” Pollom said.With each start to the fall semester, Aquila said she usually expects a significant wave of pictures to come from customers who traveled during the summer. However, she said she is interested to see how many pictures she’ll receive this year since the economy prevented many people from taking extensive vacations.“It will be interesting because financially, it’s been a lot harder for people to travel this summer, so we’ll see less pictures, or maybe not as many exotic ones,” she said. “It depends on how the economy affects people.”Regardless, Aquila said she is proud of the effect the pictures in her stores have on the sense of community around Bloomington, while creating six degrees of separation worldwide.“I had an amazing experience where I ran a race in another city, and I had something from BBC on me, and someone came up to me and said ‘I love Bloomington Bagel!’” she said.Pollom said she agrees with the idea that the pictures have created the incredible sense of a global community.“I think that a bagel is something that’s a little out of the ordinary in so many places in the world,” she said. “It’s cool to see the bagel in front of various world monuments, and it has kind of created a sense of community inside that store.”
(04/22/09 4:02am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Despite her double major in political science and art history and her plans for law school, senior Anna Strand will be off to St. Louis after graduation to teach for two years in a poverty-stricken school as part of the national teaching corps program Teach For America.“I never really thought about teaching before, but the more I learned about the program, the more I wanted to do something completely different for two years where I knew that without question, I would be helping out every day,” Strand said.Strand is one out of 225 other IU students this year who have considered halting their original career plans to apply for Teach For America.That number has grown from fewer than 200 applicants last year. With the economy mired by a recession, more college graduates are turning to service organizations for post-graduate work.Nationally there has been an increase in the number of applications from college students to national service programs, said representatives from Teach For America and AmeriCorps, a national community service volunteer program.Trevor Stutz, national communications manager for Teach For America, said the increase in applications this year shattered what had already been a record-breaking number of applications last year.“This year, over 35,000 people applied, which is a 42 percent increase from last year, when there were about 25,000 applicants,” he said.Siobhan Dugan, public affairs specialist for AmeriCorps, said the program received 9,731 online applications in February of this year, whereas it received 3,159 online applications during the same month in 2008.“And these are just our online applications,” Dugan said. “There are people who apply directly to AmeriCorps programs, but there is no way to find out those numbers.”Dugan also said AmeriCorps expects even larger numbers in the summer after many students finish school.“Obviously we can’t predict the future, but at this rate, it’s been a consistent growth over the last four months,” Dugan said, adding that the economy is the likely cause. “We speculate there will be many more applications.”Arlington Williams, professor of economics and director of the undergraduate economics program, said the economy definitely has something to do with the increased interest in national service. He said such a rise is also likely to occur with the number of applications for graduate schools because they are a common substitute for post-graduation work.“It would make a tremendous amount of sense to me that when people have difficulty finding jobs in the traditional job market that they would tend to look at endeavors like that,” Williams said.Such a drastic increase in students’ interest has brought up speculation among the organizations as to the reasons behind the increases.“The thing that most people jump to is that it’s the economy,” Stutz said. “But what we’ve seen is that while the economy has provided some increase in competition, really we’ve been seeing that so many people have been inspired by considering more options.”Part of that inspiration, both Stutz and Dugan said, comes largely from President Barack Obama’s call to service in January after the inauguration.“It’s important to note that people who are now in college seem to be very idealistic and interested in volunteering and working within their communities,” Dugan said. “There’s a native interest there that has been tapped into, and we think that the message of service is really getting across. This is the result.”Besides the 225 Teach For America applications this year that came from IU, Stutz said 11 percent of graduating students at Ivy League universities applied, along with 8 percent from the University of Michigan and 25 percent from Spelman College, a historically black liberal arts school in Atlanta.Colleen Clark, who participated in the AmeriCorps program from July 2006 to May 2007 and is now a second-year graduate student at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said she was able to fulfill her desire to serve as well as temporarily postpone her job search.After her experience with AmeriCorps, in which she completed service projects in four states, Clark said she realized the benefits of spending time off after graduation. She was able to develop valuable professional skills while working in a rewarding environment, she said.And now, with an economic recession and a new political climate, Clark said she sees even more of a reason for students to consider service as an option after graduation.“It’s been a horrible time to look for a job, but it’s a perfect time to look for a job in national service,” she said.Many graduate schools across the nation also provide special financial aid incentives for alumni of national service programs. According to the Web site for the Graduate School of Public and Environmental Affairs, returned Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and Teach For America volunteers who are admitted into the school can have a certain amount of credit hours automatically waived from their coursework.For Strand, former president of IU College Democrats, the law school incentive is just another reason why she said she became so interested in Teach For America. And with her plans to attend law school, Strand said she expects her experience with the program to make her uniquely prepared for her future.While she said she has mostly been set on law school, she is still somewhat undecided about exactly what she wants to do.“These two years are really going to help me scope down what I would like to do,” Strand said.With the growing number of applications received for Teach For America, Stutz said the program will remain highly selective, although some growth is expected in the next few years. He said the program placed 3,600 new corps members last year, and it expects to place more than 4,000 new members this year. Still, he said the program cannot grow nearly as much as the demand for spots in it.“It will be even more selective than it was last year,” Stutz said. “But it really just provides us the opportunity to select outstanding people from a record pool of applicants.”
(04/14/09 2:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Senior Paris Gray knows all too well how hard it is to get a job in Washington, the goal of many political science majors after college. Jobs and paid internships seem to be disappearing, and the cost of living in a place like Washington is hardly cheap.But rather than fret about all of the networking and resume-sending he’ll need to do in order to get that ideal job, Gray has decided to quit it all for now and try teaching instead.Gray said he is applying for Teach For America, a competitive nationwide program that allows recent college graduates to become teachers for two years in underprivileged and poverty-stricken inner-city schools across the country.“Being a political science major, it will definitely be something different from the path I’m supposed to take,” Gray said. “But there are just a lot more opportunities in teaching right now than there are working in Washington.”Gray is not alone, either.According to a March 13 New York Times article, the recession has sparked a new sense among many young people to take the challenges of finding traditional work into their own hands. Whether it is through more unique jobs in completely unrelated fields or in entrepreneurship, many students are suddenly finding that the recession is providing opportunities to gain experiences they otherwise would not have considered. Some said their experiences will be an advantage when they return to the traditional job market.“I’d say probably if I could find something working for the government, I would definitely go there first,” Gray said. “But the way the economy is, I would definitely take a short thing first and then see what I could do from there.”Experts who work with students in finding jobs said being flexible is key during a recession.“It’s a challenging market for all job seekers across the board,” said Eunice Donovan, associate director of professional development at the Graduate Career Services office at the Kelley School of Business. “Whether it’s the liberal arts student or the business student or the student who has even had a few years of solid work experiences, there are just fewer opportunities,” she said. “With the market, students have to be very persistent and very creative with their job search approach.”Because of these increased challenges of the job market, Donovan said many career service offices have started emphasizing flexibility and openness to positions that might not necessarily be what they immediately desired.“Certainly, we’re encouraging a little bit more flexibility with their searches,” she said. “Maybe they’re not going to get this specific position with their dream company that they thought about maybe getting after graduation, but what is the next step to getting there?”For some students, that next step can come in unusual places. In graduate student Daniel Weddle’s case, it came when trying to deal with an entirely different economic problem.After having trouble paying rent with his fiancee, Weddle said he recently found an opportunity to work on the Kiss My Grass farm in Morgantown, Ind., where the food he cultivates can be sold to a Bloomington co-op for money he can use to pay his rent.Weddle said the farm is part of a system called Community Supported Agriculture, which has become increasingly popular in the recession and provides people with an opportunity to work on farms and receive a share of food in return. In Weddle’s case, however, his share of food is sold for rent money.“It’s kind of a convoluted process, but it’s a way to use hours worked to earn food, to use food to earn rent,” Weddle said.Weddle said he had no prior farming experience before hearing of the opportunity to work on a farm. But he said that he has had an ongoing interest in alternative local currencies, which emphasize community involvement instead of simple monetary transactions.But if he hadn’t had trouble paying rent in the first place, Weddle said it is unlikely he would have even bothered.“There are definitely some overtones of recession fear,” he said.And with this new farming experience, Weddle, who holds an undergraduate degree in business, said he is now interested in using his experience to seek an internship this summer in permaculture.Gray, on the other hand, got teaching experience through working summer jobs at schools in Baltimore, his hometown, and even took a semester off to be a teacher’s assistant at his former high school. But his interest in the Teach For America program has just as much to do with an interest in simply trying it out.“I really just want to test teaching out to see if I like it,” he said. “And if it’s not my cup of tea, I’ll definitely go to Washington or go back home and do something with politics.”Gray said he expects an opportunity with Teach For America to provide experience that will help him with his government job search after his two-year commitment with the program.“Teaching puts you into perspective, especially wanting to be a politician,” he said. “Working in the school system and seeing how it works, I would be able to have an insider’s view that could help me later on.”And even beyond the career search, Weddle said the opportunities available to students within the community can provide an even more profound sense of relief from the recession, as well.“These are the kind of places that, when the money dries up, the social currency and social respect that you build up in those areas can become the support that helps you in a bad economy,” he said.
(03/02/09 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If finding a ride out of Bloomington feels like rocket science for some students, alumnus David Potter might have solved the problem.Potter, who graduated from the Kelley School of Business in 2006, recently co-founded a new carpooling Web site that matches its users with others who share the same or similar routes.“We actually brought in a rocket scientist to help compute route overlap,” Potter said of the Web site’s technology.The site, ShareShotgun.com, uses an algorithm that not only matches people with rides, but also calculates the exact gas prices of the specific driving day and correlates them to the mileage of the car so carpoolers have a convenient way of exchanging gas money.Potter said he and co-founder Ryan Klemann, a graduate of Washington State University, were primarily interested in starting an innovative carpooling Web site as a way of creating an environmentally conscious way to save – and even make – money.“There’s been a huge push now to be more ‘green,’” Potter said. “And I think as gas prices continue to surge, what we’re seeing is people looking for creative ways to save money.”On ShareShotgun.com, users simply type in their start and end addresses, and the Web site’s match-making technology comes up with people sharing similar routes. If there are no immediate matches, the user can save the route and be alerted as soon as a similar one comes up. The system also allows users to pay for the calculated gas money directly on the Web site through PayPal or credit cards.Potter said he likes to describe the Web site, which officially launched Jan. 14, as a combination of the best of eHarmony, craigslist and eBay.“We’re really just working a marketplace for carpooling,” he said.Since the site’s launch, Klemann said it has already generated a significant amount of buzz. New visitors might not find matches automatically on their first search, he added, stressing the need for those visitors to post their own routes.“We need people not only to sign up, but to put their own routes up so people see that they are there,” Klemann said.Some students, however, are skeptical of the idea of a carpooling Web site that matches its users with strangers. Freshman Blake Kelpin, who sometimes drives to his home in Fort Wayne on the weekends, said he wouldn’t be comfortable traveling with a stranger.“If it’s somebody you don’t know, it’s always kind of awkward,” Kelpin said. “My parents just always told me to find a ride with someone I know instead.”And while Kelpin said saving gas and helping the environment are important, he said there are better solutions, such as public transportation, that are safer and less likely to create uncomfortable situations.Nevertheless, Klemann said the new Web site should have particular benefits for college students.“To me, it seems like a great way for students to save money,” Klemann said. “It comes down to the bottom line, which is that college students are very aware, and being that the environment is a key topic, they can also take pride knowing that they’re saving the environment as well.”Potter’s experience with the Kelley School of Business played a significant role in coming up with ideas for ShareShotgun.com, he said.“Being a Kelley grad, it’s really important that you look for a niche in the market,” he said. “When you can find a way to save the environment and save money at the same time, it’s a win-win situation.”
(02/26/09 5:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Association for Computing Machinery, a worldwide computing science society, has recognized computer science professor Paul W. Purdom Jr. with the honor of “Distinguished Scientist” for his research in the field of the analysis of algorithms.Purdom, who shares the award with 26 other professionals around the world, was nominated last year by computer science professor and colleague David S. Wise, who said he thought Purdom met all of the criteria.“He has impacted the department in ways that are not well-appreciated,” Wise said. “He has always been an advocate and spokesman for the standards of research and teaching through the years.”The annual award recognizes individual contributions to the practical and theoretical aspects of computing technology, according to an Association for Computing Machinery press release published Feb. 5.Purdom came to the University in 1971 after a former student of his who he taught at the University of Wisconsin encouraged him to join the faculty, he said. Back then, IU had not even established a computer science program.But in his 38 years as a professor here, Purdom has done extensive research in the field of algorithm analysis, even publishing his own book in 1995 titled “The Analysis of Algorithms.”The book, Wise said, is something largely under-recognized for what it is.“There are competing books for the education market,” Wise said. “But his, rather than being a book about algorithms, is about the techniques to analyze them, so ironically, what shows out is the technique, not the algorithms.”Purdom said the study of algorithm analysis is primarily concerned with the general problem of figuring out how long a computer will take to solve more complex problems.“Computers can solve many problems very rapidly, but others take longer,” he said. “And if they take a long time, you get interested in just how long.”Christopher Cole, a second-year graduate student in computer science currently in his second class with Purdom, said Purdom has an excellent way of making his students think outside the box when dealing with complex problems.“He tries to teach you how to think in a different way so you can find a solution to a problem by yourself,” Cole said.As a graduate student, Cole said his interests are primarily in the analysis of algorithms as well, and thus looks forward to continuing his work with Purdom.“One of the good things about having him as a professor is just that he’s smart,” he said. “Even if he can’t solve a problem, he has a good idea of finding a solution.”Wise said it is exactly those qualities that made him decide to nominate Purdom in the first place. And although he said he has never worked alongside Purdom in his research, he said Purdom’s dedication to the standards of teaching and research were evident through his work for the department.“He’s earned it,” he said, “and by that, he becomes a standard for young folks to aspire to.”