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(01/09/01 11:53pm)
I'm no big city expert. I'm from the Midwestern suburbs, so city living is not something I experience on a daily basis. Before spring break last year, I hadn't tackled one of my ultimate vacation destinations: New York City. So in March, I piled in a car with four other people and set out for the Big Apple. Endless hours and arguments later, we arrived, and I had a pretty good time. In July, I returned to New York for an internship a little older and slightly wiser. In August, I returned even older and far wiser. So now I will share some of my knowledge. It's not the Bible of New York City vacations, but hopefully these guidelines will improve someone's trip:
(12/07/00 5:32am)
He knew what to expect of his appointment to the IU board of trustees. As a former member of the Carmel Clay School District school board, he knew he could help direct policy. He was a veteran of school board meetings where thousands of angry parents showed up ready to give the board a piece of their collective minds. \nHe was ready to face hundreds. He was shocked to face only two or three onlookers among a room full of University administrators. "I don't think people even think about (the trustees)," trustee Stephen Backer said. "The only time they ever see us is if we raise tuition and when we're visible because of something like the Bobby Knight affair."\nJohn Walda, Frederick Eichhorn, Backer, Cora Scott Breckenridge, Stephen Ferguson, Dean Hertzler, James Morris, Peter Obremskey and Ray Richardson form the board of trustees, IU's governing body. The nine members of the board govern the property, student and faculty conduct, tuition and admission policies of all University campuses. They interview, hire and fire the president of the University. When things go right, people around the state look to the board of trustees. And when things go wrong, they do the same. \nThe trustees have been in the spotlight recently because of the termination of former men's basketball coach Bob Knight. A 48-plaintiff lawsuit has been filed against the trustees, accusing the board of violating Indiana's Open Door Law before the University's president fired Knight. \nAn alumni group called Take Back IU began circulating a petition in October calling for the resignation of the entire board of trustees and other members of IU's administration. \nSelection process\nPeople can become trustees in two ways: Three members of the board are elected by IU alumni and six are appointed by the governor. All serve three-year terms except for the student trustee, who serves a two-year term.\nAnyone interested in running as an alumni-elected trustee submits a 300-word statement detailing why he or she wants the job. These statements appear on a ballot sent to alumni. Breckenridge said candidates for the alumni election must also get a petition signed by at least 100 alumni. \nOf the current board, Breckenridge, Morris and Richardson were elected by the alumni and Walda, Eichhorn, Backer, Ferguson, Hertzler and Obremskey were appointed to their positions by the governor. All the trustees must hold at least one collegiate degree from an IU campus. Hertzler, a senior at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis, fills the seat on the board reserved for an IU student. The student trustee is selected from a list of recommended candidates provided by the student body presidents on all IU campuses. \nAll candidates have an automatic connection to IU because of their status as alumni. Trustees president Walda said his love for IU goes back to his days of involvement in student government organizations.\nJohn Grew, executive assistant of physical policy for Gov. Frank O'Bannon, said O'Bannon looks at several factors when choosing whom to appoint to the board of trustees.\n"Generally, the types of things he looks at are employment background and if the types of responsibilities that person has in their job match up with the responsibilities of the trustees," Grew said. "He sees if they have a community service history or experience serving on local boards."\nBoards of trustees at most other Big Ten schools operate in a fashion similar to IU. But some schools, such as the University of Michigan, operate under a board of regents. Members of the board of regents are elected on the statewide partisan ballot along with state senators, representatives and other public offices. \n"You work terribly hard to get your party's nomination," Rebecca McGowan, a member of the University of Michigan's board of regents said. "And then you work hard to get editorial endorsements of leading newspapers around the state. That's the best opportunity to get the word out." \nAt IU, the trustees meet publicly about once a month during the school year. The meetings -- which last all day, including during meals -- rotate among all IU campuses and are announced in advance along with an agenda. Walda said he spends, on average, one day each week on trustee issues. \nThe power of the board \nA university board of trustees doesn't easily compare to the governing bodies of other major institutions, such as corporations or school districts. The best comparison Richardson could make to describe the board's role is that of a firefighter.\n"Universities are different and operate different than any comparable institution in the outside world," Richardson said. "It's far different than a corporation because in a corporation the governance comes from officers... The trustees react kind of like a fire department. In many respects you're just putting out brush fires, but it's important trustees also do long-term planning for the improvement of the University." \nBacker said he believes one major difference in higher education governance is the detachment from the people affected by decisions.\n"In K through 12, you're really in the trenches," Backer said. "The board of trustees is somewhat removed from the people we directly affect. It's kind of a rarified atmosphere. You don't get down in the trenches as much as I would like because there is so much business you have to do in not much time."\nUnder the Indiana Code, IU is owned by the board of trustees; anything from the copyright on the University's official Web site to project signs at campus construction sites lists the board as IU's owner.\nThe board of trustees does everything from reviewing and authorizing the budget to lobbying legislators to listening to and responding to student concerns to dealing with faculty issues, Walda said. \n"I don't like being drawn into petty operational issues. There are some personnel issues we are always asked to get involved in -- things like how are the meals in the dorms or parking issues on campus," he said. "The trustees should stay at a level where they provide a vision for the University and a strategic plan for achieving that vision."\nAlthough the trustees are given a great deal of power by law, Richardson said the board doesn't actually act on some of these rights.\n"The statutes say the trustees have total power and authority even down to setting the curriculum," Richardson said. "We don't do that. The trustees step in and exercise their authority only in circumstances when we think we have something to add."\nRelationship with the president \nOne of the major powers the board of trustees does exercise is its right to hiring the president of the University. \nWalda said the trustees take that power seriously, and actively sought out candidates in their last search about seven years ago, finally recruiting and selecting IU President Myles Brand. And that is the same power that will lead them to select the next president, when the time comes.\n"That is one place the trustees do exercise their authority," Richardson said. "There is no procedure set out for (firing the president.) It's not even under consideration, despite the fact we have a petition out there."\nDespite the lack of a precedent, Walda said that most of the time boards of trustees and a president know when it is time to part company.\n"The way things are arranged for most presidents is if the board loses confidence in the president, they either resign or are asked to leave," he said. "But these are very intelligent people; if the president doesn't have the confidence of the board, they know it is time to move on."\nWalda said the board of trustees has a good relationship with Brand, with whom he speaks several times a week. Doing consulting work for other universities has shown Walda what can happen when the trustees do not have a productive working relationship with the president.\n"A board at odds with the president stagnates the whole institution," Walda said. "You're unable to make progress."\nAccomplishments and misconceptions\nBeing in the public eye has made the trustees aware of the view of the University and the board in the eyes of the people they serve -- students, faculty and alumni.\nWalda has discovered the views of certain members of the public through what he calls "fan mail, or anti-fan mail, depending on your perspective."\n"I think people's biggest misconception is they think we deal with the day-to-day business of the University," he said. "Most of the communication I get from the general public is about admission issues, meals for kids in dorms, parking when they get to campus or seats at basketball or football games. What people don't understand is that we really focus on the big picture for the University." \nDespite the nature of the requests, Walda said he doesn't mind the public asking him to help with even these things.\n"I just kind of open doors and let things take their own course," he said. "I don't find something to be a misconception if I can help someone get to the right person"
(12/07/00 5:00am)
Writing a book is an act of faith. Faith that your work has value. Trust that the work can touch someone's lives and hope the book will find its audience. You write for love and never for money. \nTo make the money so they can continue to do what they love, some writers turn to teaching. Professors Manuel Martinez and Jonathan Ames now balance the jobs of teaching students to create fiction and developing their own creations. Martinez says the payoff of writing fiction is receiving the letter saying the book is going to be published.\n"You feel ecstatic, a kind of euphoria. That's the real pay-off," he says. "When you get that letter you feel successful. Every writer writes to be understood, and the letter means someone has finally heard you."\nMartinez and Ames are just two IU writers who have been successful enough to get paid for the process they love. The New York Times Book Review has covered books by both writers in its pages. In the book review, reviewer David Murray praised Martinez for "convincingly" creating a fictional story around a true-life event. Reviewer Elise Harris has praised Ames for "an unusual ability to take crack-smoking, balding and Oedipal fixation and whip them up into an elegant comic meringue." \nFinding a publisher is just one step in a long process of writing, editing and waiting. When the process is done and the book hits the shelves the writer keeps going, beginning the cycle again and again.\nPortrait of the writer in the coffee shop\nYellow, purple and orange floors clash and complement the red and paisley booths of Soma coffee shop. Old posters of children dressed in '70s-era clothing demonstrating good health and safety habits advertise the merits of such advice as "Wash Carefully" and "Stay Neat" from the coffee shop's back wall.\nMen and women dressed in similarly diverse clothing relax on the couches at the front of the store. Magazines with titles such as New Age sit in a rack near the door and a giant plastic candy corn sits against a wall.\nA few minutes late, Ames, a professor of creative writing, enters the store and slams the door against the cold. Meeting at Soma was his idea and, as the bass and saxophone-heavy jazz continues to play over the speakers, Ames relaxes amid the eclectic atmosphere and further explains the inspirations for his four published books -- two novels, a memoir and a screenplay novelization.\n"I write about the agony and the ecstasy," Ames says. "About loneliness and love and sex and comedy. I write about screwballs and nuts and dreamers, who I like to put in comic and perverse situations. I guess that relates to real life -- all the people I like are nuts and lunatics, including myself."\nBecoming a writer was a childhood dream for Ames -- that is, after he stopped wanting to be a professional athlete. He didn't actually begin writing until high school. During his senior year, he wrote a novella and was able to sell it to a publisher who had him expand the work to a full-length novel.\nTo finish a project, Ames says his "life has to revolve around writing," although not in the 9 to 5 sense. He wakes up in the morning to write, takes a break and continues in the afternoon. He usually writes in silence.\n"I don't need a pretty window and I'm happy without much outside stimulation," he says. "I don't mind if the phone rings, although sometimes it sure rings too much."\nBoth of Ames' novels and his memoir were written in the first person because he likes to speak directly through the character. In the future, he's interested in exploring new territory by writing in the voice of a female narrator. \n"I thought about actually writing a book under a woman's name with a female narrator," he says. "I'd try to sell the book using my girlfriend's picture."\nAlthough that plan might be extreme, many of Ames' friends and acquaintances show up in his writing eventually. These real experiences and inspiration from other books play off each other to bring his stories together.\n"I want to somehow create the same effects of the way jazz music is played -- all the factors play off each other," he says.\n"I draw upon people I know but never in a way that is mean. The people are always somehow always shown admirably because I find that person fascinating. Most people get a kick out of it."\nAll of Ames' experiences are useful to him in the classroom. He tries to share with his students any experiences that can be helpful. Occasionally, he learns his lunatics, screwballs and dreamers have made an impact before a student walks into class.\n"I taught a course this summer and I asked the students why they signed up for the class. I was shocked and embarrassed when one student said she had read my books and thought I was one of the great writers in America."\nAnother interview, another late writer\nPacing the hallway of Ballantine Hall's fifth floor is an exercise in intimidation. Book reviews from amazon.com, The New York Times and others are taped on the doors of several closed offices. Cartoons, newspaper clippings and other papers bearing literary comments or criticism adorn the doors of a few others.\nDespite having a 2 p.m. appointment, Martinez's door is shut and his office is dark. Black and white postcards and a mini-poster for some type of opera are taped to the frosted windows. The hallway is quiet except for the pacing of a nervous reporter. Martinez, award-winning author of the book "Crossing," was supposed to arrive 15 minutes ago.\nSuddenly an additional pair of feet hurries down the hallway. All intimidation flies away as Martinez apologizes, smiles and opens up his office door. The office is somewhat in a state of disarray. Martinez is on leave, so the desk is clear of essays and other student papers. There is no computer in the room; only a crowded bookshelf. A poster of Cesar Chavez stares at the room from one wall.\nThis semester, Martinez is taking a break from teaching to work on his second book, tentatively titled "Drift." Finding ideas for his work come from anywhere and everywhere. People often come up to Martinez and share great ideas for a book.\n"I always tell them I've already got 10 ideas," he says. "You never run out of ideas. The problem is sitting down and writing about them. People think writing is this mystical process, that you're suddenly hit by the light or under the spell of a muse. What you really do is sit down every day and write."\nWhen he is writing something, Martinez sets up a rule for himself. He sits down and doesn't get up until a certain number of pages are completed. Martinez thinks this is what separates people who want to be writers from writers themselves.\n"It really is one percent inspiration and 99 percent discipline," he says. "You never really begin to be a writer until you begin writing pages and force yourself to do what it is you do."\nWhile "Crossing" was inspired by a true story, "Drift" is more closely mirrored on events in Martinez's own life. In the book, a boy runs away from home in order to deal with his unstable mother. Through themes of leaving home, loss and holding on to what is valuable, Martinez tells the story of what his life is and what it could have been.\n"You invent this persona of yourself," he says. "But the severity is different. This kid gets really involved in violence whereas I by the grace of God escaped any real damage."\nWorking with details of his own life give Martinez a chance to see how he became who he is today and how he still reacts to the events of his past.\n"One of the subconscious things that occurs is you write about feelings you think are in retrospect but when you re-read you find there are a lot of issues still unresolved," he says.\nSo far, Martinez has used his work to explore being a Chicano male. He thinks it is possible to write from another perspective but not without a purpose in mind. Perspective aside, Martinez touches his readers by writing his emotions.\n"You always write what you know," he says. "Although 'Crossing,' in some ways, had nothing to do with me, it's still ultimately about my own experience. I breathe life into the situation. Even if you're writing about something in science fiction, you still revolve the characters around who you are. What you know is central to the fiction. It dictates the action and the meaning."\nWhen the work pays off\nBefore a book hits the shelves for others to read, the writer gets a few finished copies in the mail. Martinez was in his office at IU when he got a package in the mail. He checked his mailbox and found a few copies of "Crossing." He was surrounded by friends from the IU faculty as he looked at the book and examined the cover for the first time.\n"I checked the mail and there it was in a little box," he says. "It was really bizarre. It feels almost surreal."\nWhen Ames received two copies of his first book via Federal Express, he says the most exciting part was to hold the book in his hands. \n"It was a wonderful moment," he says.
(12/07/00 4:25am)
Writing a book is an act of faith. Faith that your work has value. Trust that the work can touch someone's lives and hope the book will find its audience. You write for love and never for money. \nTo make the money so they can continue to do what they love, some writers turn to teaching. Professors Manuel Martinez and Jonathan Ames now balance the jobs of teaching students to create fiction and developing their own creations. Martinez says the payoff of writing fiction is receiving the letter saying the book is going to be published.\n"You feel ecstatic, a kind of euphoria. That's the real pay-off," he says. "When you get that letter you feel successful. Every writer writes to be understood, and the letter means someone has finally heard you."\nMartinez and Ames are just two IU writers who have been successful enough to get paid for the process they love. The New York Times Book Review has covered books by both writers in its pages. In the book review, reviewer David Murray praised Martinez for "convincingly" creating a fictional story around a true-life event. Reviewer Elise Harris has praised Ames for "an unusual ability to take crack-smoking, balding and Oedipal fixation and whip them up into an elegant comic meringue." \nFinding a publisher is just one step in a long process of writing, editing and waiting. When the process is done and the book hits the shelves the writer keeps going, beginning the cycle again and again.\nPortrait of the writer in the coffee shop\nYellow, purple and orange floors clash and complement the red and paisley booths of Soma coffee shop. Old posters of children dressed in '70s-era clothing demonstrating good health and safety habits advertise the merits of such advice as "Wash Carefully" and "Stay Neat" from the coffee shop's back wall.\nMen and women dressed in similarly diverse clothing relax on the couches at the front of the store. Magazines with titles such as New Age sit in a rack near the door and a giant plastic candy corn sits against a wall.\nA few minutes late, Ames, a professor of creative writing, enters the store and slams the door against the cold. Meeting at Soma was his idea and, as the bass and saxophone-heavy jazz continues to play over the speakers, Ames relaxes amid the eclectic atmosphere and further explains the inspirations for his four published books -- two novels, a memoir and a screenplay novelization.\n"I write about the agony and the ecstasy," Ames says. "About loneliness and love and sex and comedy. I write about screwballs and nuts and dreamers, who I like to put in comic and perverse situations. I guess that relates to real life -- all the people I like are nuts and lunatics, including myself."\nBecoming a writer was a childhood dream for Ames -- that is, after he stopped wanting to be a professional athlete. He didn't actually begin writing until high school. During his senior year, he wrote a novella and was able to sell it to a publisher who had him expand the work to a full-length novel.\nTo finish a project, Ames says his "life has to revolve around writing," although not in the 9 to 5 sense. He wakes up in the morning to write, takes a break and continues in the afternoon. He usually writes in silence.\n"I don't need a pretty window and I'm happy without much outside stimulation," he says. "I don't mind if the phone rings, although sometimes it sure rings too much."\nBoth of Ames' novels and his memoir were written in the first person because he likes to speak directly through the character. In the future, he's interested in exploring new territory by writing in the voice of a female narrator. \n"I thought about actually writing a book under a woman's name with a female narrator," he says. "I'd try to sell the book using my girlfriend's picture."\nAlthough that plan might be extreme, many of Ames' friends and acquaintances show up in his writing eventually. These real experiences and inspiration from other books play off each other to bring his stories together.\n"I want to somehow create the same effects of the way jazz music is played -- all the factors play off each other," he says.\n"I draw upon people I know but never in a way that is mean. The people are always somehow always shown admirably because I find that person fascinating. Most people get a kick out of it."\nAll of Ames' experiences are useful to him in the classroom. He tries to share with his students any experiences that can be helpful. Occasionally, he learns his lunatics, screwballs and dreamers have made an impact before a student walks into class.\n"I taught a course this summer and I asked the students why they signed up for the class. I was shocked and embarrassed when one student said she had read my books and thought I was one of the great writers in America."\nAnother interview, another late writer\nPacing the hallway of Ballantine Hall's fifth floor is an exercise in intimidation. Book reviews from amazon.com, The New York Times and others are taped on the doors of several closed offices. Cartoons, newspaper clippings and other papers bearing literary comments or criticism adorn the doors of a few others.\nDespite having a 2 p.m. appointment, Martinez's door is shut and his office is dark. Black and white postcards and a mini-poster for some type of opera are taped to the frosted windows. The hallway is quiet except for the pacing of a nervous reporter. Martinez, award-winning author of the book "Crossing," was supposed to arrive 15 minutes ago.\nSuddenly an additional pair of feet hurries down the hallway. All intimidation flies away as Martinez apologizes, smiles and opens up his office door. The office is somewhat in a state of disarray. Martinez is on leave, so the desk is clear of essays and other student papers. There is no computer in the room; only a crowded bookshelf. A poster of Cesar Chavez stares at the room from one wall.\nThis semester, Martinez is taking a break from teaching to work on his second book, tentatively titled "Drift." Finding ideas for his work come from anywhere and everywhere. People often come up to Martinez and share great ideas for a book.\n"I always tell them I've already got 10 ideas," he says. "You never run out of ideas. The problem is sitting down and writing about them. People think writing is this mystical process, that you're suddenly hit by the light or under the spell of a muse. What you really do is sit down every day and write."\nWhen he is writing something, Martinez sets up a rule for himself. He sits down and doesn't get up until a certain number of pages are completed. Martinez thinks this is what separates people who want to be writers from writers themselves.\n"It really is one percent inspiration and 99 percent discipline," he says. "You never really begin to be a writer until you begin writing pages and force yourself to do what it is you do."\nWhile "Crossing" was inspired by a true story, "Drift" is more closely mirrored on events in Martinez's own life. In the book, a boy runs away from home in order to deal with his unstable mother. Through themes of leaving home, loss and holding on to what is valuable, Martinez tells the story of what his life is and what it could have been.\n"You invent this persona of yourself," he says. "But the severity is different. This kid gets really involved in violence whereas I by the grace of God escaped any real damage."\nWorking with details of his own life give Martinez a chance to see how he became who he is today and how he still reacts to the events of his past.\n"One of the subconscious things that occurs is you write about feelings you think are in retrospect but when you re-read you find there are a lot of issues still unresolved," he says.\nSo far, Martinez has used his work to explore being a Chicano male. He thinks it is possible to write from another perspective but not without a purpose in mind. Perspective aside, Martinez touches his readers by writing his emotions.\n"You always write what you know," he says. "Although 'Crossing,' in some ways, had nothing to do with me, it's still ultimately about my own experience. I breathe life into the situation. Even if you're writing about something in science fiction, you still revolve the characters around who you are. What you know is central to the fiction. It dictates the action and the meaning."\nWhen the work pays off\nBefore a book hits the shelves for others to read, the writer gets a few finished copies in the mail. Martinez was in his office at IU when he got a package in the mail. He checked his mailbox and found a few copies of "Crossing." He was surrounded by friends from the IU faculty as he looked at the book and examined the cover for the first time.\n"I checked the mail and there it was in a little box," he says. "It was really bizarre. It feels almost surreal."\nWhen Ames received two copies of his first book via Federal Express, he says the most exciting part was to hold the book in his hands. \n"It was a wonderful moment," he says.
(12/07/00 4:22am)
I'd first like to establish I'm not as completely clueless about movies as this column might suggest. I am fully aware that many of the movies on the following top 10 list will be quickly knocked out of contention by high-quality holiday fare released in order for high Oscar recognition. My guess is "Traffic" or "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" will take at least two of these spots by the end of this month. Also because of the unfortunate commercial movie environment in Bloomington, I am unable to include many high quality and very deserving art house or independent films because I never got the chance to see them. I'd like to add "Requiem for a Dream" or "Girlfight" to this list. But because the Kerasotes runs of these movies were nonexistent or extremely limited, I am unable to do so.\nThis is all incredibly unfortunate considering the best movies of 2000 offers slim pickings at best. So consider the following list The Best of 2000 for Beginners. All the movies were enjoyable and worthwhile; but the best is most likely yet to come.\n1. "Almost Famous" \nCameron Crowe's mostly autobiographical story of a 1970s teenager who goes on tour with a rock band on assignment from Rolling Stone deserves commercial success equal to its immense critical praise. It has a unique but timely soundtrack, realistic and often hilarious performances by the entire cast, and a coming of age plot with several more entertaining twists. Please go see this movie. Now.\n2. "Gladiator"\nBy considering how much I loathe classic movies about Rome such as "Spartacus" and "Ben Hur," you can see how good this movie had to be in order to make the top ten. Despite the similar plot and setting, "Gladiator" made the list thanks to the acting skill of Russell Crowe, high quality art direction and cinematography. Plus, the fight scenes are explosive, and not simply because of the power to destroy scenery.\n3. "Unbreakable"\nDirector M. Night Shyamalan's follow-up to "The Sixth Sense" doesn't have the shocking plot twist of its predecessor. But thanks to an effective marketing campaign, which revealed only the iceberg's tip of information, "Unbreakable" surprises with its unique exploration of what it means to be a super hero. It even benefits from the performance of yet another talented kid (in this case, Spencer Treat Clark as Bruce Willis' son.)\n4. "Bounce" \n"Bounce" makes the top 10 list for accomplishing the almost impossible: It's a chick movie minus the calculated overuse of sentimentality. No, this movie is not deep and it isn't going to go down as one of film's all-time classics. But try and convince me you won't set your VCR the first time it's shown on premium cable or that you won't watch it to make yourself feel better on a lonely day.\n5. "American Psycho"\nWhat could be more fun than watching Christian Bale dance to "Hip to be Square" before he hacks a woman to death with an ax as his serial killer character? Disturbingly graphic and funny at times, this movie goes inside the mind of a very original murderer.\nAnd, finally, here are the last five in no particular order:\nErin Brockovich\nNurse Betty\nMission Impossible 2\nHigh Fidelity\nThe Legend of Bagger Vance\n
(12/05/00 4:05am)
The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform plans to file a motion with the U.S. District Court in Indianapolis to request a settlement conference to come to a compromise in a civil rights lawsuit the center filed against IU earlier this year. The suit was filed after the University restricted the center from setting up the Genocide Awareness Project, a display of images depicting aborted fetuses, in the area behind Woodburn Hall. \nAt the Oct. 4 hearing, Judge Richard Young delayed a final ruling until Dec.1 and urged the two parties to come to a compromise before the deadline. Kiply Drew, associate University counsel, and Gregg Cunningham, director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, spoke in a phone conversation about a week after the hearing and were unable to finalize an agreement. \nThe center is preparing the motion for the settlement conference, during which the judge would try to facilitate an agreement between the two parties, Cunningham said.\n"The University began that meeting by ending the meeting," he said. "Now it's time to get the judge involved in supervising a settlement conference so the judge can see exactly what the position of the University is."\nDrew, who said she had heard "through the grapevine" about the center's plans, declined to comment on the center's action until she obtained a copy of the motion.\n"I want to wait and see what the motion says," she said. \nCunningham said the center decided to request the settlement conference to find an alternative both parties are happy with, rather than waiting for the judge to rule completely for or against one side. \n"The whole idea of a compromise is to come up with a solution that isn't fully acceptable to everyone," he said. "We'll give up our desire to go to the Woodburn Hall area, and we're asking them to give up their desire to have us go to Dunn Meadow."\nOne of the advantages of a settlement conference is a greater willingness to find a solution from both parties, said Cunningham, who is also a lawyer. \nAs a result of the center's lawsuit, Cunningham said the University is requiring other groups to hold gatherings or displays at Dunn Meadow. Cunningham said research done by the center has shown this was not the case in the past, although he declined to mention specific groups that held demonstrations elsewhere. \nCunningham said witnesses at the hearing, including Drew and Dean of Students Richard McKaig, admitted displays had taken place outside Dunn Meadow in the past.\n"The University is making up the policy as they go along," he said. "The University is just sort of deciding willy-nilly who goes to Dunn Meadow and who doesn't. When we caught them, their response was, in essence, to force everybody into Dunn Meadow. As a result, First Amendment rights at IU are going to take a major hit."\nMcKaig said the Dunn Meadow area is and has been the University's designated free speech area. McKaig said Cunningham might be speaking of marches, such as the one to recognize Take Back the Night, in claiming the University has permitted demonstrations to take place outside Dunn Meadow.\n"If there were questions asked (at the hearing) about those kinds of acts, we would have affirmed those occurred," he said. "I think everybody knows they have"
(11/30/00 6:19am)
Take Back IU, a group circulating a petition demanding the resignation of the entire IU board of trustees, President Myles Brand and other members of IU's administration, placed a billboard along route 37 near the exit at College Avenue Nov. 10.\nThe petition has garnered about 3,600 signatures.\nThe billboard, which has white letters on a red background, reads: "Take Back IU petition for new leadership at http://www.takebackiu.com," said Mary Ann McCarty, an alumna and organizer of the petition.\n"We've rented it for one month and have an option to rent for another month," she said. "I know people have seen (the billboard) because they have been e-mailing."\nMcCarty said costs for the billboard, which include a $590 rental fee and an approximately $250 production fee, were funded through donations she received from supporters. McCarty said she chose the billboard from several different advertising options.\n"We thought the billboard was the most effective way to spend the money," she said. \nThe group is focusing on distributing hard copy versions of the petition, which has primarily been available online. McCarty said the group is not sure when to stop taking petition signatures.\n"We foresee going into January," she said. "When we originally started the petition in October we weren't quite sure when the end date was going to be. We decided a couple of weeks ago not to rush things because some groups have come forward and want to help with a hard copy petition drive."\nThe petition will continue to be available on the Web site. People wishing to sign the petition now have the option of keeping their names confidential. Cara Schaefer, a law student at IU Purdue University at Indianapolis, said the group created the confidentiality option because of e-mails expressing fear of retribution for signing the petition. If a person asks for his or her name to remain confidential, Schaefer assigns that signature a specific number, which appears on the actual petition.\n"For legal reasons, if anybody ever wanted to challenge the truth of the signatures, the numbers match with the true names," Schaefer said.\nSchaefer thinks this option opens up the petition to students and faculty who agree with the cause but fear consequences from adding signatures.\n"In the last month, most signatures have been confidential so it's apparently pretty popular," she said. "People feel more comfortable in signing, particularly the faculty. Students are a little more removed; I'm not sure the administration could really do anything."\nSchaefer said faculty members who were outspoken critics of the administration have reported being threatened by administrators.\nBut trustee Ray Richardson said the administration would not take any action against students or faculty who choose to sign the petition. Richardson said neither he nor the board of trustees have been directly contacted about Take Back IU's requests for their resignations.\n"Instead of taking the time to circulate the petition, these people ought to be looking for a life," Richardson said.\n"I always respond to requests. If the petition came to me, I would respond. Since the people who signed the petition only represent a small fraction of students and alumni, my answer would be negative"
(11/30/00 4:40am)
In 1976, then senior Les Shively became a voting member of the University's highest governing body -- the board of trustees -- without a rulebook, without knowing what to expect and without welcome reception from the rest of the board. This was the first time a student trustee was appointed to the board.\n"I recall the other members of the board of trustees were not very happy about it," Shively said of the student trustee position. "Shortly after my being appointed, I had a meeting with the then president and he gave me a rather cool reception. Over time, though, I think I developed a pretty good rapport with the rest of the board."\nThe IU student trustee is a voting member of the board with all rights and responsibilities of all other trustees. Although the role of the student trustee was unclear in 1976, Shively and other student trustees have shaped the position into what it is today. Beginning Dec. 5, applications for the next student trustee will be available and interested students will get the chance to put their own mark on the position.\nAfter going through the application process Shively, now an attorney in Evansville, was one of three finalists who interviewed with then governor Otis Bowen. Shively said the interview was "rigorous" and remembers Bowen was particularly concerned with his idea of the student trustee's role on the Board.\n"We'd have meetings once a month and they would go back to Indianapolis or Columbus and I'd have to stay on campus and live with the policies we enacted," Shively said. "It sort of gave me ready information into how things were working or not working and what was really going on."\nAfter teaching in public schools for six years, 1989-91 student trustee Susie Bair, now director of development at the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, came back to IU as a doctoral student. She decided to apply for the position in hopes to use her experience to the board's advantage.\n"I had learned about it when I was at Indiana State as an undergraduate and it always seemed like a really neat opportunity to perhaps give back because I felt had really been afforded some great educational opportunities," Bair said. "I thought my teaching experience would also aid me and hopefully help me to make good decisions and have good input."\nWhile Shively had to deal with a chilly first introduction to the other trustees, things had changed by the time Bair assumed the position.\n"I thought they were terrific," she said of the board. "Very welcoming and willing to listen even though I was clearly much younger."\nShively said the perspective of a student was the most important thing he and other student trustees bring to the board. One of the major issues during Shively's term on the board was the elimination of a check-off system allowing students to make donations to campus groups at registration. As a student, Shively was aware of backlash against this issue in the campus community and worked to get a moratorium on the action so student groups could find another way to attain funding.\n"The resolution eliminated this type of funding mechanism on all eight campuses," he said. "Student governments, some student newspapers and even some daycare programs were funding through the system. It was supposed to be implemented in such a short time that one of the first things I had to do was to put the brakes on it so these groups could find a way to make some sort of compromise." \nAlthough Shively's position forced him to be involved in controversial issues like the funding situation and increased dorm rates, he also had several memorable experiences.\n"I was able to go to Philadelphia for the Final Four when Bob Knight won his first national championship. I had good seats and a good time," he said.\n"I met people I never would have met, like I.M. Pei, the man who designed the Art Museum. Here is a guy I had dinner with and I pick up Time magazine with a big article on this person. (Former IU President) John Ryan was super. He taught me a lot -- he was tough on me, but boy did I learn a lot."\nFrank Otte, student trustee from 1995-97 who now practices law in Indianapolis, formed valuable relationships with fellow trustees and the University administration.\n"My interaction was excellent," Otte said. "I had a wonderful working and professional relationship with members of the board as well as the administration and I've remained in contact with some of them, whom I consider good and valuable friends. I ask (University counsel) Dottie Frapwell for advice on a regular basis. Fred Eichorn and John Walda are fellow fly fishermen whom I also like to touch base with."\nEnergy and flexibility are two things Shively and Otte said they think are important qualities for a student trustee.\n"You've got to love IU to do the job," Otte said. "You have to have patience because there are issues you can't resolve as quickly as you'd like to."\nShively said it is important to balance roles as a student and a policy maker.\n"You have to be a quick study," Shively said. "As a student trustee, you have your student responsibilities and your board member responsibilities and then extracurricular responsibilities that go along with being on the board. You have to be very well organized, have good time management and learn to get along without very much sleep."\nAll student trustees benefit from the position, Blair said.\n"I think something very telling happened when the student trustee position was created in Indiana," Bair said. "The student trustee actually has a vote. In some boards in the country there is a student representative but that person doesn't get a vote. A vote gives the position a lot more credibility and stature."\nJ T. Forbes, former assistant vice president of IU, who now holds the same position at Michigan State, said being a student trustee from 1993-95 influenced his decision to continue working for a University.\n"It's given me a deeper appreciation of the responsibilities of public service and the promise of higher education," he said.
(11/20/00 2:05am)
At a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, Craig Nelson, professor of biology and public and environmental affairs, was honored as "U.S. Professor of the Year" by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.\n"To say I'm delighted would be a gross understatement," Nelson said. "I am really grateful for the support IU has given me over the years to foster better teaching. The students have been incredibly helpful in letting me understand how to do things better."\nNelson was chosen out of a pool of 500 nominees for the award, which originated in 1981. It "salutes the most outstanding undergraduate instructors in the country -- those who excel as teachers and influence the lives and careers of their students," according to a statement by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.\nThe Council supervises the early stages of the selection process and The Carnegie Foundation chooses the four winners from the finalists designated by CASE. Nelson won in the category of research and doctoral universities.The other categories are community colleges, bachelor's degree colleges and master's degree colleges and universities.\nMoya Andrews, vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean of the faculties, said the award is the only one for U.S. professors in the country that recognizes dedication to teaching and commitment to developing innovative methods of instruction.\n"I think it's a wonderful example of how we are very serious about undergraduate teaching on this campus," Andrews said. "For our nominee to win an award for professor of the year for the rest of the U.S. demonstrates we have a high commitment to undergraduate teaching and learning."\nNelson was an obvious choice for IU's nominee for the award, Andrews said. \n"I chose Nelson because he was obviously a leader in the scholarship of teaching and learning," she said. "In his courses he does a lot of active learning; he might have a course of 100 students but he has them all engaged in activity rather than sitting and listening to him. He was clearly a leader on campus and someone who students have praised year after year for his teaching."\nStudents, faculty and advisors wrote statements about Nelson's commitment to teaching as part of the nomination process. Nelson also had to write a statement about his philosophy and evolution as a teacher.\n"You have to submit a lot of evidence," Andrews said. "You have to get the person's resume, letters of support from people from all over the country who know their work and teaching evaluations by colleagues."\nNelson said many of his teaching methods have grown out of student suggestions. About a third of the way into his courses, Nelson asks students to tell him what part of the class they liked best and what they wish was different about the class.\n"Some things they've had to tell me three or four years in a row, but eventually I get it, or at least part of it," he said. "The suggestions range from trivial things like making sure different types of handouts are on different colors of paper to things like learning how to use discussion in big classes and making themes clearer and more important."\nNelson said critical thinking is a major theme he likes to get across in his teaching and in the work he has done in the area of teaching. Nelson said critical thinking is a survival issue, in that it is something employers look for when hiring new people and something that helps people do their jobs better.\nNelson has written chapters in various teaching books and traveled all over the U.S. and world to present at teaching conferences.\n"The heart of critical thinking is complexity, uncertainty and consequences," he said. "These are all part of our lives, from our personal lives to being a citizen of the Earth."\nAt the Tuesday awards ceremony, Nelson was introduced by one of the students who wrote about his teaching during the nomination process. Ian Parker-Renga, a senior, met Nelson when he took the professor's class on evolution and was instructed by Nelson as part of the Freshman Interest Group program.\n"Throughout the semester last year I would go talk to him," Parker-Renga said. "We formed a relationship not really based on biology but based in pursuit of educational studies."\nParker-Renga, who calls Nelson 'Doc,' said he was honored to pay tribute to Nelson.\n"It was such a great opportunity to present to the country, if not just to IU, what both a model professor and a model person he is," he said. "Doc has a great smile; he smiles a lot. You'd never know he deals with some serious issues. Education is a rather serious issue, but Doc has learned to smile about it and enjoy it"
(11/16/00 5:11pm)
An IU professor is involved in a controversy about physicists' continuing search for the Higgs boson, a particle that explains why matter has mass.\nThe Higgs boson is the last undetected particle whose existence is predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, which has correctly described all experimental data on the structure and interactions of matter in the universe. \nAccording to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the reason all particles in the model have any mass. Without the Higgs boson, the particles would weigh nothing.\nGail Hanson, a distinguished professor of physics, has been involved with the European Laboratory for Particle Physics since the early 1990s. In 1995 she became part of OPAL, one of four research groups that would collect and test data to find evidence of the Higgs boson. Using the Large Electron Positron collider, or LEP accelerator, the scientists conducted searches by crashing atomic particles together at high speeds.\n"The Higgs boson is related to the electron weak force, a combination of the electromagnetic and weak force," Hanson said. "The weak force is what most think of as being responsible for radioactive decays and also responsible for many ordinary decays of particles. The electron weak theory requires there to be a particle called Higgs boson. It's the one missing ingredient in the model everyone accepts."\nThe Standard Model says particles receive their mass through a kind of friction with a field of energy, called the Higgs field, permeating all of space. The field cannot be detected directly, but the particle called the Higgs boson can be shaken loose from the field by agitating it with violent particle collisions in accelerators.\nIn September, the physicists ended years of finding no signal of the Higgs boson when they detected a possible sighting. The breakthrough occurred just before the LEP accelerator, located in a tunnel on the Swiss-French border, was supposed to be shut down and dismantled so a new particle collider could be built.\n"In physics, this is what you live for," Hanson said. "We were just about to finish running all the experiments and suddenly, at the very end, wow."\nAlthough these findings were not conclusive, the physicists involved in the project used the information to convince the laboratory to keep LEP running for another month. At the end of that period of time, in November, two more of the four experiment groups found events compatible with a Higgs boson.\n"We still don't have enough significant evidence to call it a discovery, even when you take all four events as evidence," Hanson said. "We asked for another six months of running LEP in 2001 so we could establish that this is a discovery. That was denied."\nOn the official European Laboratory for Particle Physics Web site, Director-General Luciano Maiani announced that LEP had been switched off for the last time Nov. 2. In a press release, the laboratory management announced it decided not to continue LEP because it felt the discovery did not merit running LEP in 2001 and that keeping the accelerator running would delay construction of the new, faster particle collider, which is set to go in the same tunnel LEP now occupies.\nAccording to the New York Times, Maiani said he decided keeping LEP running would be too great a gamble for the laboratory. Physicists working on it had asked for a year-long extension and modifications that would boost its energy slightly as opposed to delaying the research to build the new, faster LEP.\n"After several nights with difficult sleeping, we came to a decision," Maiani told the New York Times. "We did the best that we could. We believed that it was a decision based on the scientific case."\nWhen the IDS attempted to contact Maini, a representative said he was not granting any further interviews on the subject at this time.\nHanson said the scientists working on the LEP experiments felt press releases from the laboratory did not give any recognition to the possible discovery.\n"It's embarrassing if you think you've done something major and the official committee says you didn't," Hanson said. "You wait, you call up your friends. Especially if they have Nobel Prizes."\nThe laboratory's council will vote Dec. 15 on whether to dismantle LEP. Hanson said an end to LEP means the laboratory will most likely give up the Higgs boson discovery to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab, a Chicago-based lab conducting similar experiments. \nHanson said the discovery of the Higgs boson could be delayed until about 2007 if the laboratory scientists are forced to wait until the new accelerator is built and running properly.\n"It's a really stupid decision," she said. "I think they are going to be embarrassed by having to take it back." \nAt a lecture Hanson conducted for faculty, she said a meeting of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics scheduled for Friday could mean it might overturn the decision.\nDavid Rust, senior scientist in the physics department, was also involved in collecting data in the laboratory's search for the Higgs boson.\n"I think it's a good idea to keep (LEP) going for the next several months," Rust said. "We have a really good chance of being able to confirm the discovery"
(11/10/00 5:31am)
IU's School of Medicine broke ground in Indianapolis on a new medical Research Institute last Thursday. The $27 million dollar building is the second part of a long range plan to construct three research centers. Projections set the building to be open at the end of 2002 or the beginning of 2003.\n"One of our goals is to increase research substantially and in order to do that we have to have space to put people" Dr. Craig Brater, dean of the school of medicine said. "The first thing that needs to happen to expand our research envelope is to have the square footage."\nThe Medicine Research Institute will house three major research initiatives. The Indiana Center of Excellence in Biomedical Imaging is funded through grants from the Indiana Twenty-First Century Technology Research Fund and the National Cancer Institute. The center will allow faculty from IU, Purdue and Notre Dame to develop technology in imaging methods and analyzing biological data.\nA private, non-profit research organization, the Walther Oncology Center, will focus on scientific laboratory research of the cellular, biochemical and molecular biology of cancer.\nThe Stark Neurosciences Research Institute will occupy two floors of the research center when it opens. After the construction of the third research building it is set to occupy the entire building. Benefactors Carole and Paul Stark funded the Stark Chair in Pharmacology in 1993 and will donate money to support the programs of the new Neuroscience institute. Dr. Paul Stark has led a team that conducted clinical trials on central nervous system compounds and played an essential role in the development of Prozac with Eli Lilly.\nA committee of faculty is currently formulating a plan to recruit a director for the neuroscience institute, said Michael Vasko, Paul Stark professor of Pharmacology. He said the new research space will enhance the work already being done in the neurosciences.\n"The purpose of the research institute is to provide an area where various neuroscientists can interact," Vasko said. "Rather than having pockets of research, we'll have a critical mass of scientists."\nA $10 million federal grant and $15 million of philanthropy money funded the first phase of the project, the IU Cancer Research Institute. No state or federal money was used at all for the construction of the new facility. A number of anonymous benefactors, Clarian Health Partners Inc. and the faculty of the School of Medicine contributed all the funds. The third building is set to include eight floors of lab and research space, much larger than the first two and will connect the three together, said J. David Smith, associate dean for development in the School of Medicine.\n"To provide for projects like this we kind of hoard every penny until we get enough money and then we start digging a hole," Brater said.\nIn the area of research buildings, Brater said the University is unable to seek funding from the state.\n"The state has basically taken the position that they don't support research buildings," Brater said. "The state certainly appreciates the research we and others do and they know it's a good thing, but basically they take the position that they don't build it themselves."\nSmith said 14 percent of the School of Medicine's annual operating budget of $600 million comes from the state. On average, Smith 70 percent of new buildings for the School of Medicine are funded by faculty, private sector and philanthropic donations. \nAll faculty contributions come from the patient fees of faculty members who maintain physicians practices, Smith said.\n"It's not a pay cut," Smith said. "It's what makes an academic physician an academic physician. That is a commitment to research and the educational missions of the School of Medicine."\nSmith said all of the new research buildings will help bring nationally known scientists and research projects to IU.\n"If you're going to have a strong research program, which is essential to the quality of the School of Medicine, you have to have state-of-the-art lab space," he said. "Quality faculty researchers can go to any institutions they want to and in order to get them to come here, you have to have quality space"
(11/09/00 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Hearing an album that starts out great but ends up mediocre is actually worse than hearing a CD horrible from beginning to end. At least a terrible CD doesn't raise any hopes of quality.
It would actually be more fun to write an all-around negative review of Fiction, the American debut of Canadian duo guitarist/vocalists Adam Popowitz and Yve. But parts of the album are very enjoyable. So enjoyable that the bad parts just seem worse.
(11/09/00 5:00am)
Career envy is one of the necessary ingredients of any great television show. Take some attractive stars, decent writing (a little less decent if the stars are really attractive) and put them in a highly enviable job environment, and it's a pretty good bet the show will be a hit. Throngs of viewers will tune in each week to vicariously live out their dreams of becoming highly successful doctors, lawyers or journalists at glamorous fashion magazines.\nI can't really feel superior to the rest of the TV-watching masses in this particular trend. Although I know I have no future as a politician, I love spending a Wednesday night planning foreign policy alongside the group on "The West Wing." The real-life pressure of working in an emergency room gives me heart palpitations, but Thursday nights are just a little better if I get to imagine slicing an aorta with Noah Wyle on "ER."\nWhile the above careers have always held a certain mystique for me, I have never once desired to be a stockbroker on Wall Street. I can barely comprehend a statistics course for journalism majors (and that should tell you something about how easy the course is). My eighth grade mock stock market project ended with debt and financial ruin. Needless to say, ads promoting "Bull," a TNT original series about life in New York's financial district, didn't motivate me to stock up on VHS and program the old VCR.\nNot only was the show built around a subject I find boring, it was created by TNT, a network only entertaining when it broadcasts programs helmed by others (NBA games or the fifty-thousandth showing of "The American President," for example.)\nBut fate brought "Bull" and I together one August evening. The season premiere of the show coincided with the night I chose to pack my things to come back to college. Finding myself downstairs with only cardboard boxes and cable television for company, I flipped to the first thing that seemed watchable.\nWith a lack of available career envy, the attractive cast and above-average writing are the first reasons to love "Bull." "Bull" follows a group of young stockbrokers as they break away from a powerful firm to become their own start-up company. Full of actors you've seen before but probably can't quite name (Malik Yoba from "New York Undercover," Stanley Tucci from "Big Night," George Newbern from "Father of the Bride," to name a few) "Bull" boasts an ensemble cast with talent and chemistry. Although the plots include a lot of business-speak, the show is smartly scripted and full of interesting sub-plots.\nAlthough it was like at first sight, "Bull" and I were unable to form a lasting relationship this fall. Classes and other more enjoyable social activities kept me from watching most of the 13 new episodes, not to mention the disastrous VCR experiences due to my Eastern standard time brain failing to record according to the Central time zone.\nBut I and all other viewers were handed a second chance to see this great series. Beginning Oct. 31, TNT began re-broadcasting all the episodes in order. If you're already sick of brand-new network TV and would rather do anything than do homework, check out "Bull" at 10 p.m. every Tuesday. You won't be persuaded to become a math major, but it will be an hour well spent.
(11/09/00 4:24am)
Monroe County residents Brian O'Neill and Jeff Ellington know what it's like to be in the shoes of Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Four years ago, the two men -- and their constituents -- went through an extremely close election. The results weighed heavily on factors similar to the recount and absentee ballot situations delaying the outcome of this year's presidential election.\nDemocrat O'Neill, now county commissioner, and Republican Ellington, who was elected to his second term on the Monroe county council Tuesday, got a taste of the recount process in 1996 when they were opponents for a seat on the Monroe County Council.\nAn evening of watching and waiting ended with Ellington as the loser Election Day. O'Neill went to sleep a winner by over 100 electronically counted votes. Despite congratulations from friends and campaign workers, O'Neill went to bed with a feeling the race was not over -- more than 3,000 absentee ballots had yet to be counted. First thing the next morning, he called the clerk's office for the final results. True to O'Neill's suspicions, Ellington was the winner by a margin of only eight votes.\nO\'Neill\'s campaign called for a recount, in part due to what it saw as discrepancies on the absentee ballots. O'Neill said many of the ballots did not meet election law requirements, such as a signatures on the ballot and the mailing envelope or two sets of initials validating the ballot from the clerk's office. In addition, the two candidates were competing for the seventh seat on a County Council with the other six seats divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans.\nThe recount results still reported O'Neill as the loser. A Monroe County judge was called in to decide if the standards used by the recount commission were legally valid. The entire process took almost four months and the judge's final decision had O'Neill down by four votes. At that point, O'Neill conceded the election.\n"It wasn't fair to prolong the process any longer," he said. \nBoth candidates look back on the process as expensive and time consuming. O'Neill had to be present while the ballots were recounted and both sides had to foot the bill for lawyers.\nThe County Council race against O'Neill was the first of two victories Ellington has had to defend. In 1998, his opponent for District 60 State Representative, Jerry Bales, called for a recount. Ellington calls the whole experience "expensive, time-consuming and frustrating."\n"Basically what happens is you sue the person who won and you sue the voters," Ellington said. "I had to go to court and defend myself. It's just like a car accident -- it's not your fault but you have to defend yourself."\nWaiting for the counting of absentee ballots, and eventually a recount, made the campaign a difficult one for all involved.\n"It makes things harder on the candidates and on their supporters and on the voters," O'Neill said. "Anything that throws in to doubt the outcome of the election is not, of course, a very good development for the community. It tends to undermine the authenticity of elected officials. I think elected officials like to go into office with some sense of having a mandate from the public saying they definitely want you to serve." \nA similar situation happened to Frank McCloskey, chair of the Monroe County Democratic Party, when he ran for his first term as U.S. Representative for the Eighth District in 1984. McCloskey went to bed on election night winning by 11 votes. He woke up and was told he was a loser. Four or five hours later, he was a winner once again. A recount process took place in all counties of the district and McCloskey was officially given the seat. McCloskey said he hopes the results of the presidential race will come to fruition more quickly.\n"Hopefully they'll get it out of the way as soon as possible. I don't think the American public can stand the uncertainty," he said. "Nationally speaking, it's come down to one vote. Hopefully in the future this will cause people to realize voting is important and this will most likely develop a scrutiny of the Electoral College process." \nWatching the Gore/Bush results Tuesday night was a flashback for Ellington.\n"It's mentally frustrating," he said. "It's like playing the lottery. You've got five of the six numbers and you can't see the last number until something's taken out of your line of sight. You have a feeling about it, but you're not sure."\nThe experiences of 1996 help O'Neill to sympathize with local candidates in addition to Gore and Bush.\n"You put so much work and energy and resources into a campaign," he said. "The one thing you want on that Election Day is some closure, whether it's learning to live with being defeated or assuming a new responsibility. It makes it a lot tougher when you think it's going to be over but in fact it's not"
(11/09/00 3:05am)
Career envy is one of the necessary ingredients of any great television show. Take some attractive stars, decent writing (a little less decent if the stars are really attractive) and put them in a highly enviable job environment, and it's a pretty good bet the show will be a hit. Throngs of viewers will tune in each week to vicariously live out their dreams of becoming highly successful doctors, lawyers or journalists at glamorous fashion magazines.\nI can't really feel superior to the rest of the TV-watching masses in this particular trend. Although I know I have no future as a politician, I love spending a Wednesday night planning foreign policy alongside the group on "The West Wing." The real-life pressure of working in an emergency room gives me heart palpitations, but Thursday nights are just a little better if I get to imagine slicing an aorta with Noah Wyle on "ER."\nWhile the above careers have always held a certain mystique for me, I have never once desired to be a stockbroker on Wall Street. I can barely comprehend a statistics course for journalism majors (and that should tell you something about how easy the course is). My eighth grade mock stock market project ended with debt and financial ruin. Needless to say, ads promoting "Bull," a TNT original series about life in New York's financial district, didn't motivate me to stock up on VHS and program the old VCR.\nNot only was the show built around a subject I find boring, it was created by TNT, a network only entertaining when it broadcasts programs helmed by others (NBA games or the fifty-thousandth showing of "The American President," for example.)\nBut fate brought "Bull" and I together one August evening. The season premiere of the show coincided with the night I chose to pack my things to come back to college. Finding myself downstairs with only cardboard boxes and cable television for company, I flipped to the first thing that seemed watchable.\nWith a lack of available career envy, the attractive cast and above-average writing are the first reasons to love "Bull." "Bull" follows a group of young stockbrokers as they break away from a powerful firm to become their own start-up company. Full of actors you've seen before but probably can't quite name (Malik Yoba from "New York Undercover," Stanley Tucci from "Big Night," George Newbern from "Father of the Bride," to name a few) "Bull" boasts an ensemble cast with talent and chemistry. Although the plots include a lot of business-speak, the show is smartly scripted and full of interesting sub-plots.\nAlthough it was like at first sight, "Bull" and I were unable to form a lasting relationship this fall. Classes and other more enjoyable social activities kept me from watching most of the 13 new episodes, not to mention the disastrous VCR experiences due to my Eastern standard time brain failing to record according to the Central time zone.\nBut I and all other viewers were handed a second chance to see this great series. Beginning Oct. 31, TNT began re-broadcasting all the episodes in order. If you're already sick of brand-new network TV and would rather do anything than do homework, check out "Bull" at 10 p.m. every Tuesday. You won't be persuaded to become a math major, but it will be an hour well spent.
(11/09/00 2:55am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Hearing an album that starts out great but ends up mediocre is actually worse than hearing a CD horrible from beginning to end. At least a terrible CD doesn't raise any hopes of quality.
It would actually be more fun to write an all-around negative review of Fiction, the American debut of Canadian duo guitarist/vocalists Adam Popowitz and Yve. But parts of the album are very enjoyable. So enjoyable that the bad parts just seem worse.
(11/08/00 9:23am)
Walking into the Fountain Square Mall Ballroom, election night headquarters for the Monroe County Democratic Party, Democrat Peggy Welch, received a long round of applause from party supporters.\nWelch was chosen to serve a second term as state representative for the 60th District. She received 58 percent of the vote in Monroe County to Republican opponent John Shean's 42 percent.\n"With each of my campaigns I've had the tendency to stay really focused on remaining positive," Welch said. "My goal was to try and focus on who I am, what I have done and what I want to do for the citizens in District 60."\nOne of the major concerns of Welch's entry into the campaign was that a presidential election year would bring out more Republican voters.\n"Typically, that would not have helped me," she said. "But it seems like it hasn't hurt us. We won Republican precincts we didn't win two years ago."\nShean was unavailable for comment. At about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night, Shean's campaign manager, John Russell said they were still waiting for complete results.\nWelch said she will enter her second term with the advantage of already being acclimated with her colleagues and staff.\n"I have a 2-inch file of legislative ideas," she said. "I'm ready to jump right into getting legislations written up. This time, I'll have some ideas ready for the first day."\nOne of the major issues in the short term will be a property tax reassessment bill. Welch said she hopes to either carry the bill or work closely with the chosen author. \nWelch said she is looking forward to working on the upcoming state budget process. During her first experience with the budget hearings, Welch said she was impressed with the pointed questions other representatives posed to agencies who came "to sing and dance about how wonderful things are." Two years of experience later, she is ready with questions of her own.\n"I have a little file now, posing potential problems and asking 'what would they do?'" Welch said. "I have more of an understanding of the agencies."\nChip Burpee, Welch's campaign manager, said he felt the campaign was a positive one.\n"Probably the second thing Peggy said to me the first time we met was she did not want to run a negative campaign," he said. "We stuck to that, too, especially when the other campaign started to really attack. Welch has been all over the district, and I think the voters saw through a lot of the tactics the other campaign used"
(10/31/00 5:50am)
After months of meetings and discussion, a site has been found for the proposed Multidisiciplinary Science Building. Friday, the board of trustees approved a location between the Chemistry Building and Myers Hall.\nJeff Palmer, chairman and distinguished professor of biology and member of the faculty steering committee for the building, said the decision on a site was in part the result of two meetings of faculty and administration. \nAt the first meeting about two weeks ago, three possible sites were presented: between the Chemistry building and Myers Hall, on the corner of Seventh and Woodlawn streets in place of the existing parking lot, and immediately east of Ballantine Hall. \nAlthough plans for the Chemistry and Myers location were less detailed than the other two possibilities, Palmer said the assembled group united behind this option.\n"We discussed the pros and cons of each location without a clear idea of what the building would look like," he said. "We came to a clear consensus that the location between Myers and Chemistry would all around best serve the scientific community."\nThis location garnered support largely because of its nearness to many of the other major science buildings on campus, including Jordan and Rawles halls. Although all parties were in agreement about the accessibility of the location, Palmer said they were faced with the problem of how to put a large building in a small area without ruining the aesthetics of the landscape.\n"IU has a unique aesthetic. For a large public university to have such large open spaces and such large wooded spaces is extraordinary," he said. "The architects were put in charge of how to come up with a plan to creatively serve scientific goals and aesthetic goals."\nAt an Oct. 23 meeting, a broad scheme for a building design was unveiled. The design, created by the University architects and architectural firm Beyer, Blinder and Belle, features floors above and below ground with underground connections to the surrounding buildings.\nThe underground component of the building is to provide for the controlled environment needed to run complex scientific instruments. To access the sub-surface of the site, University Architect Robert Meadows said 10 core samples were taken from various depths ranging from 5-100 feet. The composition of a portion of the stone that was found is suitable for facing the above ground building.\n"Molecular level instrumentation and measurement taken above ground is subject to vibrations," Meadows said. "If you put the building down in the ground and anchored to the rock, it's very stable."\nThis building will be embedded in the rock, meaning that both temperature and vibrations can be controlled. Meadows said the rock temperature of around 50-55 degrees will shield the space from radiation and humidity.\n"The underground component amounts to two floors and a mechanical floor," he said. "Think of it as an Oreo; the cookies are the lab space and the cream in the middle is where the circulation, plumbing, heat and electric infrastructure goes. It allows for flexibility; you can go up or down without doing anything else to the building." \nThe need to bring light to this part of the building will be an important aspect of the official design plans. Meadows said most buildings of this type have atrium spaces with large skylights at ground level.\n"This does not have to feel like an underground building," he said. "It's a very controlled environment to provide a very constant temperature and humidity for experiments, but the public spaces will be quite open and airy."\nPalmer said the plan is a success.\n"It was just a winner from outset," Palmer said of the plan. "We just thought it was a grand slam." \nMeadows said the University will not begin interviewing architects to create a specific design until it learns the status of state funding requested for the project. The plan for the building is being reviewed by the Commission for Higher Education to get a recommendation for funding to the state legislature. The building will cost about $60 million and the University is seeking an initial $30 million during this year's budget process.\n"We'll select a firm that specializes in hi-tech lab space," Meadows said. "What is being shown is what a master planner does -- siting the building and finding criteria for setbacks, materials and height. The design architect really goes in and really finalizes that and deals with the specifics."\nOne the primary goals of the building is to foster interaction between members of different science departments. Meadows said the underground connections to the different buildings will provide this for students as well as faculty.\n"It's the hub of the wheel," he said. "Faculty and students will be able to go between buildings internally. This ties all the buildings together and you can imagine their will be some really nice places for people to interact."\nThe faculty steering committee will continue to work with the architects and planners to ascertain what kinds of activities and environments need to be accommodated. Lisa Pratt, associate dean for science and research in the College of Arts and Sciences and chair of the steering committee, said the design for the building will put IU at the forefront among U.S. research universities.\n"I think it is exciting because it is a different kind of building than has ever been thought about on this campus," Pratt said. "Most buildings are not designed in ways that maximize the performance of the current generation of instruments"
(10/30/00 6:06am)
The Indianapolis Star filed a lawsuit Thursday with the Marion County Superior Court against IU to inspect and copy its "investigatory findings" surrounding the disciplinary action against and eventual firing of former basketball coach Bob Knight.\nThe official complaint filed by The Star claims IU violated Indiana's Access to Public Records Act. This act gives individuals and agencies the opportunity to review and copy public documents.\nAccording to The Star's complaint "IU waived its APRA exemptions when it publicly disclosed significant portions of the 'investigatory findings' through its dissemination of IU's 'Summary Report of the Trustee Review Regarding Neil Reed Allegations Concerning The Conduct of Coach Bob Knight' and made subsequent public statements about these 'investigatory proceedings.'"\nSusan Dillman, director of University media relations, said IU plans to vigorously defend the lawsuit.\n"IU followed the law in all respects," she said. "If you look at the Public Access laws, the opinion is consistent with IU's actions."\nTim Franklin, editor in chief of The Indianapolis Star, said the newspaper filed the lawsuit after asking the University for the documents and filing a request with the Indiana Public Access counselor.\n"We've tried every way imaginable short of a lawsuit," Franklin said. "This has been a very controversial issue in the state and readers are very interested. It's part of our public responsibility."\nWhen IU first looked into Knight's actions last spring and again this fall, Franklin said IU provided the media with detailed information about its findings. The Star is interested in seeing notes on both investigations in order to help the public draw its own conclusions with a full understanding of what took place.\n"IU's argument is that they did release the basic findings of the investigation and are not required to release anything else," he said. "Our argument is if you are going to release some of the findings then you have to release everything. We believe there is case law on our side."\nFranklin said The Star is not looking for anything specific in the records.\n"People in the community are still talking about it," he said. "There are a lot of questions about Knight's behavior on the one hand and the University's action on the other"
(10/30/00 4:46am)
IU's board of trustees convened for their second public meeting of the year Friday. The trustees approved the site for the proposed Multidisciplinary Science Building and a new Bachelor of Science degree in nursing for the Bloomington campus.\nThe trustees unanimously voted to build the new science building in the area directly behind the Chemistry Building. Robert Meadows, University architect, said the site will meet the aesthetic and technical requirements of the building, which will be designed to run hi-tech measurement instruments.\n"We studied the general plan for the building and as a result looked at the sub-surface," Meadows said.\nCore samples were taken near the proposed site and Meadows said the high-quality rock found underground will allow for an optimal environment to use heat and pressure-sensitive instruments.\nAlthough a design for the building has not been drafted or approved, Meadows brought an example of a possible design to illustrate his presentation. That design included an above-ground building connecting to Myers Hall, a walk-way allowing students access to the path leading to Jordan Hall and an underground wing for operating the instruments needing a controlled environment.\n "In my estimation, this will probably become one of the most significant buildings on campus" Trustee Stephen Backer said. "I hope the whole University will celebrate its development."\n Trustees also voted on the addition of new degrees on all the IU campuses. The decision to add a Bachelor of Science program in Nursing received a unanimous vote from the trustees, because of the overwhelming need of students wanting to complete their nursing degree on the Bloomington campus.\n At the beginning of the general business meeting, John Walda, president of the board of trustees, and James Sherman, professor of psychology and president of the Bloomington Faculty Council, both addressed recent statements by various people that the quality of education at IU is on a downturn.\nWalda said many of these statements have grown out of college rankings published in magazines, such as U.S. News and World Report. Because these rankings are largely based on expenditures per student, Walda said schools such as IU and Purdue, which receive low state funding compared to most of the Big Ten, are at a disadvantage.\n"There is little evidence to support those expressions of concern. They would be better to look at the comparisons of academic reputation," Walda said. "These measurements put IU in a tie for fourth place in the Big Ten and 11th among all public universities."\nAfter joking that Walda had stolen a copy of his speech, Sherman went on to express similar views.\n"I've heard some faculty predict that we're heading down the road to hell," Sherman said. "These faculty are one of three types of faculty: disgruntled, pessimistic or people seeking to further their own agendas. The problem is, I believe most faculty are quiet: they stay, teach, do work and are not inclined to talk to the press. I generally feel the mood among the faculty is one of pride and optimism"