164 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(04/06/09 4:19am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Cruising down the final stretch, Wing It captain Kristi Hewitt knew she could relax. She had sprinted ahead of the competition a lap prior during what was supposed to be a rest lap before the final sprint.“I decided to pull away on the neutral lap because I was still feeling strong, and I thought that would be a good chance for me to break away and create a gap,” Hewitt said. “I didn’t want it to come down to a sprint. My endurance is one of my strengths, so I just went with it.”Hewitt’s tactics won her the title of Miss ‘N Out champion Saturday afternoon. Delta Upsilon’s David Richardson-Rossbach claimed the men’s title in a race that was close until the very end.Richardson-Rossbach was “absolutely amazed” after leaving the track. During the final stretch of the race, his mind was clear as his eyes set in to tunnel vision toward the finish line, Eric Young of Cutters closing in behind him in a last-ditch effort to overtake the leader.“All I could think about was, ‘Go as fast as I absolutely can,’” Richardson-Rossbach said. “I knew Young was behind me, so it was ‘Just stay on the bike and keep going and keep going and keep going’ until I hit the line.”Richardson-Rossbach said the race was a closer than he thought it was going to be coming off of turn three.“I got a little bit nervous,” he said. “I thought I had it when I first came out of turn three. After I came out of turn four, I saw Young coming up on me, so it wasn’t really until the very end that I knew that I had it.”Hewitt, a two-time Individual Time Trials winner and semifinalist in last year’s Miss ‘N Out competition, said she was excited for herself and for the other competitors.“We had a beautiful day and good competition,” she said. “I was happy with the result.”This year’s Miss ‘N Outs were full of surprises and upsets, as many of last year’s competitors fell out of the competition, including Clayton Feldman of Cutters and Nick Sovinski of Phi Delta Theta, last year’s second- and third-place finishers, respectively. In the women’s bracket, Teter’s Jackie Moeller, last year’s fifth-place finisher, was also knocked off prior to the finals.Zachary Trogdon, a Gray Goat Cycling rookie who advanced as far as the semifinals, said the track was pretty well-suited for the competition.“It was fast today, but it was a little loose on the turns,” Trogdon said. “It could have been a little more wet on the turns, but other than that, it was pretty fast.”Trogdon said the race intensity varies depending on the tactics the frontrunners utilize.“It depends on the speed,” he said. “You just have to keep your wits about you. You just don’t want to be that guy that causes the accident. You just have to keep your head on your shoulders, make a move when you can and keep your eyes open.”
(04/04/09 9:47pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Kristi Hewitt of Wing It and David Richardson-Rossbach of Delta Upsilon claimed the title of Miss N' Out champion today.Hewitt won her final heat nearly a full turn ahead of the competition, while Richardson-Rossbach had a close matchup against Eric Young of the Cutters.For more updates, keep checking back at idsnews.com
(04/03/09 4:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>At noon Saturday, 260 riders are scheduled to compete in a dead sprint to the finish line.And only two, one man and one woman, will claim the glory of a title that carries heavy implications come race day: being the best sprinter to compete this year.Miss N’ Out, a contest in the Little 500 spring series, is set to take place Saturday at Bill Armstrong Stadium. It is a heat-based elimination event in which riders make their way around the track, with the last rider of each lap after the warm-up falling out of the race until a certain number of riders remain.“It’s a lot about positioning yourself and getting in good position towards the end,” said Erin Axley, a Kappa Alpha Theta rider and semifinalist last year. “It was once described to us as the musical chairs of bike racing. You just don’t want to be last.”In 2008, five of eight men’s teams with a rider that made it into the semifinals placed in the top 10 on race day, with the other two placing in the top 15.On the women’s side, the results are similar, with five of the top 10 spots going to teams with riders in the semifinals and one other placing in the top 15.“I believe that this series event is most like the actual race,” said Jenna Cerone, last year’s fourth-place finisher at Miss N’ Out and rider for Kappa Delta. “You have to be smart, pay attention to the riders around you and give it all you got.”This year’s Miss N’ Out competition returns half of the men who made it to the semifinals last year and seven of the 16 women. Nick Sovinski, last year’s men’s third-place finisher and Phi Delta Theta rider, said this makes the event all the more competitive.“It’s definitely going to be really competitive again,” Sovinski said. “I’m just looking forward to it. It should be just as competitive as last year.”Two riders who placed in the top three of last year’s men’s contest, Clayton Feldman of the Cutters and Sovinski, return this year to try to claim the title, with sixth-place finisher Matt Kain of Phi Delta Theta also vying for a second year in the finals.Jordan Bailey, a Black Key Bulls rider who placed fifth at Individual Time Trials this year, said another rider to watch Saturday is Eric Young of the Cutters.“Eric Young put up a really strong performance in his ITT,” Bailey said. “He was blazing around the track. He’s easily the fastest guy on the track. He’s got the fastest single lap, I would say, by far, so he’s got to be up there, too.”Cerone and Jackie Moeller of Teter return from fourth- and fifth-place finishes, respectively. In an interesting turn of events, Moeller beat Cerone in the semifinals, but trailed her in the finals.“I don’t really see a specific rivalry with her,” Cerone said. “Then again, I see any girls besides Kappa Delta as competition when out on the track.”Axley said Miss N’ Out gives riders a chance to practice in-race strategy and see how other teams compete in a race setting.“You want to make sure you’re not boxed in,” she said. “You want to be able to move around the pack if need be to get out of sticky spots and make sure you’re not last.”Miss N’ Out will end at about 5 p.m., when the final heats for men and women will take place.“Miss N’ Out is the tacticioner’s game,” Bailey said. “If you can play the tactics the best, then you’ll probably go pretty far. You may not win, but you’ll at least go far.”Sovinski said he plans to do what he did last year and “hope it works out” – that is, he plans to ride as hard as he can and hopes that others will do the same.“Hopefully, everyone will bring their A-game on Saturday,” he said.
(03/31/09 1:28am)
Even in unsure economic times, one thing is true, according to experts and analysts: now is the time to buy.
“If anyone has put together a plan for themselves, a long-term plan,
now is a great time to buy,” said Christopher Bomba, first vice
president of Hilliard Lyons, a Bloomington financial advising office.
“If you’re a college kid looking 20, 30, 40 years down the road,
there’s a lot of good companies out there that are at potentially
reasonable prices.”
(03/30/09 4:19am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Phi Delta Theta cycling team captain Matt Kain wasn’t very optimistic after his team climbed to the top of the qualifications leaderboard Saturday at Bill Armstrong Stadium.“Talk to Cutters when they take the pole,” he said.But Cutters never took the pole. And on Saturday afternoon, Phi Delta Theta carried the pole after finishing fourth in qualifications last year and 15th in the 2008 Little 500.Along with a record-setting performance on the women’s side by Teter, which finished second last year and claimed its third consecutive pole, riders said this year’s qualifications showed the competition for the upcoming Little 500 will be fiercer than ever.The weather was wet and cold, but the track was hot, with members of the men’s and women’s teams making times that outperformed last year’s results, sometimes by a matter of full seconds.Compared to last year’s pole time of 2:23.20 and last qualifying time of 2:40.74, the men’s field this year is tighter and faster, with a pole time of 2:22.69 and a last qualifying time of 2:35.40.In the women’s field, Teter bested its pole time from last year by about four seconds. Clocking in at 2:35.54, the team claimed a spot in the IU Student Foundation’s record books, beating the old qualifying time record of 2:36.14 set by Kappa Kappa Gamma in 2005.The women’s race pack is not as tight as last year, with the last qualifying time for the women being 3:50.53, compared to last year’s 3:42.46.Teter captain Jackie Moeller said her team’s goal was not to win the pole, and that its record-setting performance came as a surprise.“It feels great,” Moeller said. “We just wanted to go out and do it on one attempt, ride as hard as we could and make clean exchanges. We expected to be fast, but we didn’t think it would be this much faster. We totally thought we’d be a lot closer with other teams today.”Moeller also said the pole puts “a lot of pressure” on her and her teammates, but she said she is confident with their position.Some teams, such as Wing It, a women’s team, decided to use the same rider twice. Despite its disadvantages, Wing It still took second in the women’s standings.“I left it all out on the track,” said Jaime Boswell, a veteran rider for Wing It and its two-lap rider. “I just tried to remember to keep my feet fast and that I was only doing two laps and I would be done after that.”Members from other top-performing teams, such as Gray Goat Cycling, a men’s team, which finished seventh with a time of 2:25.32, said they were disappointed with their times and believed they could have done better.“I know we had a little mess up on the first exchange, and we had to go twice,” Matt Kiel, co-captain of Gray Goat Cycling, said. “That slowed us up a bit. We were hoping to do a little bit better.”Of 41 teams posted to perform for the men’s qualifications, 40 made an appearance. The seven teams that missed the qualification time were Zeta Beta Tau, the Roman Gauge Switchblades, Cinzano, ACC, Lambda Chi Alpha, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Cycling 4 Freedom. All 31 women’s teams made the cut.“It’s basically defined my semester – my year, really,” said Andrew Johnson of Cinzano, who could not ride in qualifications because of a medical problem. “It was worthwhile.”For those who qualified, this is just the beginning, with Individual Time Trials, Miss N’ Out, Team Pursuit and the Little 500 still to come.“We are happy to be in the race and look forward to April 25,” Kain said.
(03/11/09 3:39am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Junior Little 500 rider Kyle McClurg said he believes he has something to prove.“I kind of feel like I was chewed up and spit out, in a sense,” McClurg said.Former two-year Cutters rider McClurg switched to Alpha Tau Omega this year because of his desire to see what greek life was all about. He wanted to join ATO his first year at IU, but because of his desire to ride for a good bike team and his uncertainty as to whether greek life was right for him, he decided to ride for the Cutters.In the end, McClurg could not escape the desire to go greek.“I did it for the bike, but there were other reasons outside of the bike why I decided to go greek,” McClurg said.Some of his reasons include his longing for a family atmosphere with fellow riders, which some independent teams – like the Cutters – lack, ATO rider Robert Perez said. Also, one of his friends was an ATO member, and he helped show McClurg the greek experience and pull him into fraternity life.“Just because he was a Cutter once doesn’t mean he can’t be an ATO,” Perez said. “He mostly had the greek mentality about life, and that’s what brought him to the frat.”McClurg said he feels he brings a variety of skills and advantages to a team, being a year-round rider who was on the winning Cutters team for the past two years, although he did not race for them in those years.“I believe I’m a hard worker,” he said. “I feel like I know what it takes to win.”ATO came in third in the race last year with only three riders. They failed to qualify in 2007 and won in 2006. A member of that winning team, Steve Ziemba, who currently rides with McClurg, said McClurg adds experience and strengthens the team.“He’s seen both of those structures of teams, independent and greek,” Ziemba said. “Next year, when he takes over, he’ll be able to hopefully keep things going.”McClurg said he will not continue to ride once he leaves IU. He and his teammates put in 300 days of training a year for one spring day.“We train all year for this one event,” McClurg said. “In the summer, I am riding for April 25.”Team members said they will make no predictions about the race, but they did say that ATO will be there, and they will compete.“There is no secret to the Little Five,” Perez said. “At the end of the day, it depends what happens in the race and who’s ready to do it.”McClurg agreed with his teammates and said he will give everything he has to make his brothers at ATO proud.“I feel like I do have something to prove to them and myself,” McClurg said. “We are going to train as hard as we can to be there in that last lap.”
(03/10/09 2:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bryan Bloom, a 2008 IU graduate, worked as an advertising sales representative for manufacturing company GES International.When stocks plummeted and businesses fell out of the market, GES had to cut back. Bloom was one of those cuts in late 2008.“Basically, the company wasn’t making as much money as they used to be making, so they cut back a few people, and I was one of them,” Bloom said. “It was due to the economy, so it was out of my control.”Bloom is one of many 2008 and probable 2009 graduates who will leave IU with a degree, but likely without a job.The unemployment rate hit 8.1 percent in February and payroll employment fell by 2.6 million in the last four months, with 651,000 jobs lost in February alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Work is getting harder to find, and the jobless pool is beginning to fill with better-qualified and more experienced applicants than most college grads.“The situation is tough these days,” Bloom said, who now runs a Web site about President Barack Obama. “I’m sending out my resume and going on interviews, but the problem is someone who is 27 years old who lost their job as well is also willing to take an entry-level job in the market, making the same salary as I would. Someone who has five years’ experience is a lot more appealing to a company than someone who just got out of college.”Wall Street’s woes can be seen in most schools and departments at IU as well.Justin Grossman, associate director of information and technology systems for the College of Arts and Sciences, reported that employee participation in on-campus interviews and information sessions is down 25 percent from last school year, and full-time postings on IUcareers.com are down 20 percent in January and February compared to last year. Grossman also blogs for the College of Arts and Sciences about how the economy is playing into student job searches.“Our office continues to work with employers to convince them to consider and hire IU students,” Grossman said in an e-mail. “Students are encouraged to be patient and, if they haven’t yet began their job search, to get started immediately; a job search that took two to three months in the past can easily take six in the economic current conditions.”Marcia Debnam, career services director for the School of Journalism, said she agreed. Job searches for members of the journalism profession can easily take six months to a year under current economic strain, she said, and the best option for some students would be taking an internship, even unpaid, after graduation to get “a foot in the door.”The Kelley School of Business reported lower job opportunities for 2008-2009, with a 20 percent decline in employers coming to campus and a fall of 15 percent in the field of interviews conducted on campus, according to School of Business Dean Dan Smith. Business school employment is still relatively strong, however, as the fall in interviews only brings the number of interviews per student to 8 from 9.5, he said.Three schools that are doing well in the poor economy are the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the School of Education and the School of Informatics. Due to increased need for government workers, the respective demand for education in poor economic times and the constant need for technological advancement and prowess keep these schools stable during crumbling markets.According to a 2008 report from ACT, “In Indiana, five of the expected highest growth career fields will be education, management, health care, computer specialties and engineering.” Informatics and education are included in those categories. Still, jobs in the education sector have fallen by 4,200 in the past month while jobs in the government have increased by 9,000, and jobs in data processing, hosting and related services have fallen nationally by 2,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But these declines are small when compared to declines in other private sector markets.“The federal government is projected to hire approximately 193,000 workers in the next 5 years to offset retirements and job turnover,” said Career Services Director for SPEA Ray Clere in an e-mail. “This figure may increase in light of President Obama’s economic bailout and increased demands on particular federal agencies like the Treasury, EPA, Department of Energy, and Homeland Security.” Jeremy Podany, director of career services for the School of Informatics, said he estimates job listings for the school have fallen by about 5 to 10 percent this year, considerably less than listings in other areas like the School of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences.Jobs are available for students who are diligent and willing to look in places other than their desired field. Senior Kurt Anders said he will take a job at Edward Jones as a financial adviser. He wanted a job in management, but he said he sees any opportunity as a good one. “The bottom line is, the market can’t be like this forever,” Anders said. “(Businesses) need to get people in when the times are tough ... A foot in the door is better than nothing.”
(03/06/09 3:05am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Health care costs and bringing universal health care to Indiana were the topics of the hour as 20 members of the IU and Bloomington communities gathered Thursday near the Sample Gates.The group, Change that Works, in cooperation with the Service Employees International Union, spearheaded the event. About 50 people were expected to attend, and three speakers were scheduled to discuss their experiences with the health care system. Only one of those speakers, Karene Kidwell, attended the event.Kidwell, owner of Delilah’s Pet Shop, spoke about her personal experiences with providing health care for employees and herself and said she supports the Change that Works movement because the plan they propose would help her in her business and personal dealings.“I wish that it had gone a little longer,” said Bloomington resident Su Cowling. “I wish that they had had more representatives from the community talking about all of their stories. I think that would have been more powerful.”But members of Change that Works said they still believe they got their message across.“While the turnout wasn’t as large as we had hoped, a lot of media did show up, so we are getting the word out there,” said Lindsey Lucenta, an IU graduate and Change that Works volunteer. “I think it was a great success.”The main issue Change that Works is trying to tackle is health care’s cost and impact on state funds.“As a university, we are competing for funding with every other state funding draw, like transportation,” Julie Popper, a member of Change that Works, said. “If a quarter of the budget is already going to a broken health care system, it’s going to be hard to compete for funding for the University. If we fix health care, we are actually setting ourselves up better to provide for education and keep health care costs down.”In 2007, the median yearly wage in Indiana was $27,330, whereas the average health care premium for a family was $12,153, according to a Change that Works press release. Still, some believe the plan Change that Works supports is not the best solution.“There are problems with the health care system,” Jim Billingsly, who protested at the event, said. “But turning to government health care is the lentil soup America would be selling the birthright of liberty for.”The “lentil soup” to which Billingsly refers is from a passage in the Bible, where Esau sold his birthright – his father’s inheritance – to his brother Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup.Change that Works said its “grassroots movement” is the best solution to the problem and that congressmen and congresswomen need to look at the issue more closely than they have been.“We’re getting the word out,” Lucenta said. “Grassroots organizing is all about spreading the word and raising awareness, and that’s exactly what we are doing.”
(02/27/09 5:30am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Andrew Johnson had ridden bikes recreationally before. During the summer months before college, he said he rode about an hour a day.Then things got a little more serious. His high school friend’s father, an IU alumnus, pushed him to ride in the Little 500.“One thing about him was that he was really encouraging,” Johnson said. “He’d make you believe in yourself. He believed in you. He believed in everybody, really.”So Johnson, a freshman, decided to ride.“Lots of things I do in my life are kind of based on whims, but once I find something I want to do, I really stick with it and follow through,” Johnson said. “I’d say I’m pretty dedicated.”RIDING WITH A PURPOSEIn late October, the whim based on the father’s suggestion became much more. Johnson began to ride with a purpose.“Before I was able to say thank you for convincing me to do this, suggesting that I do it, for your faith in me – before I even told him I was going to do it ... he passed away,” Johnson said.Samuel Miller died of aortic dissection, a condition that occurs when “the inner layer of the aorta’s artery wall splits open,” according to www.americanheart.org. The aorta is the major artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. A third of patients who are not immediately treated die within the first 24 hours of dissection, while 50 percent die in the first 48. Seventy-five percent die within a two-week period.Samuel Miller died at 53 on Oct. 30, 2008, according to his obituary. His family, including Betsy, his wife of 32 years, and their five children, including Johnson’s friend Ryan Miller, were left to deal with the grief – as was Johnson, who said he was “very close” to Samuel Miller.“When I’m training, I just remember that he’s the reason I’m doing it,” Johnson said. “Now I want to do it in his honor and let people know that there’s this man behind all of this.”Ryan Miller said he appreciates Johnson’s dedication to his father’s memory.“I greatly respect his efforts,” Ryan Miller said. “The fact that it was my dad who motivated him to get involved is only a footnote – I would admire Andy’s devotion either way.”RIDING THROUGH THE PAINJohnson has dealt with some pain and frustration preparing for the Little 500: He’s scraped his knees, been in near-collisions with cars and pedestrians and climbed stairs until he’s vomited. He’s fallen, but he always climbs back on the bike. And he rides.“Andy is the kind of teammate you hope to have,” senior John Bowden of Johnson’s team, Team Cinzano, said. “He never seems to have a bad day and always keeps an open mind. His attitude and outlook is a great contribution to the team both mentally and physically.”As for Johnson, his biggest challenge is not the grind of daily training.“It’s definitely physically grueling, but the time commitment is crazy,” Johnson said. “With managing classes and all of the training, it’s difficult to have a social life. It keeps you very busy.”Johnson has a large load to carry, considering he also has two majors: linguistics and Japanese. However, he said he believes the hard work is worth it. He said he knows he is improving, even though the improvement is hard to see.“When you do it every day, it’s hard to notice the progression,” he said.THE RIDE OF A LIFETIMERyan Miller, a freshman at Purdue studying computer science, has had a hard time dealing with the loss.“It was tough on him,” Johnson said.But Johnson’s efforts have helped him deal with the pain of the loss and ride on into the future.“I’d like to think that my dad is being remembered,” Ryan Miller said. “I know that every day Andy gets up early to train or finishes miles of practice with his team. He thinks of the person who encouraged him to get involved in something like this.”Johnson said he feels his efforts are not extraordinary, but necessary.“The only thing I could really say is people give back what they get,” Johnson said. “He treated you just like another person, and he gave me lots of respect. I just try to reciprocate.”Ryan Miller said he and Johnson have been through a lot together. In the past few months, they have experienced broken bones, broken dreams and broken hearts. The Little 500 has become more than a race to them – it has become a ride of hope and a ride to redemption.“I think we helped each other through every twist and turn during those few months, and luckily things seem to have leveled off,” Ryan Miller said. “In my mind, Andy’s newfound interest in biking and the Little 500 symbolizes the first step in moving on to a brighter future.”
(02/26/09 5:05am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>One of America’s top party schools might be living up to its name.Kilroy’s Sports Bar, popularly known as Sports, was ranked No. 36 of the “Top 100” nightclubs in the nation by Nightclub & Bar Magazine, set to be published in March. The rankings are based on volume purchased at the bar, with an arbitrary dollar amount associated with each type of drink, said co-owner Maggie Prall. This makes it possible for bars where drinks cost less, such as Sports – as compared to bars in New York, for example – to make the list.If it was based on gross sales, chances are that Sports would not be as highly ranked.Sports, located at 319 N. Walnut Street, has been in business for 18 years and is locally-owned.Junior Keenan Probst tried to explain the Sports experience as he enjoyed the scene during Tuesday’s Mardi Gras celebration.“Everything that you want in a bar is here,” Probst said with drink in hand. “There are multiple bars and multiple areas. If you want to dance, there’s dancing upstairs. You can chill downstairs. There are games. Honestly, anything you really want in a bar is here.”Bartender Tony Willemin said part of Sports’ appeal is its party-like atmosphere.“It just has the most opportunity,” Willemin said. “I think it’s just the most diverse place in town ... Working here is a blast.”Sports is one of the top purchasers of several types of liquor across the state of Indiana, including Patron, Smirnoff, Grey Goose, Jager and Jim Beam, as well as the energy drink Red Bull, Prall said. She said Sports bought and sold 5,000 cases of Red Bull in the last fiscal year.“There’s only 50 states, and we’re the No. 1 in Indiana,” Prall said. “That puts us up there.”Prall co-owns the bar with her sister Liza Prall, who said that Sports strives to be diverse, which is part of its appeal.“We’ve worked really hard to create different atmospheres in different parts of the building,” Liza Prall said. “We’ve taken a lot of time to welcome all different kinds of people. It’s a very diverse bar, and that’s on purpose.”But creating such a varied atmosphere is not without its challenges, Liza Prall said.“It was kind of hard to do at first,” she said. “But, being as big as we are, we need every last person that we can possibly get to want to come. We worked really hard to make everybody feel welcome – every race and every age and everything. We can attract everybody and entertain everybody. We appeal to everybody.”Sports’ capacity is about 850, making it one of the biggest bars in the Midwest. However, that’s not the real reason it is so profitable, Maggie Prall said.“The difference between Sports and most of the college bars that you would see is that we sell 70 percent spirits to 30 percent beer, while most college bars sell 30 percent spirits to 70 percent beer,” she said.Maggie and Liza Prall based their family-run business’ style off the melting pot that is Bloomington, Liza Prall said.“We’re all from Bloomington, and, obviously, Bloomington focuses on diversity,” Liza Prall said. “We’ve grown up in that same atmosphere and tried to recreate it in a bar. Everybody just finds a spot and feels welcome. Every type of person is represented every day of the week.”To both sisters, the recognition means a lot more than most awards they have received before.“We get a lot of awards and things that are kind of private, but this is public,” Maggie Prall said. “People that never realized what we do are kind of seeing it now.”
(02/17/09 5:22am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>President Barack Obama will travel to Denver today, expected to sign legislation sending $787 billion pouring into the economy over the next four years. Indiana experts remain divided on how the plan will affect higher education.The state is set to receive an $11 billion boost, according to the Center for American Progress, which analyzed the bill.Under the plan, education in Indiana would receive about $1 billion from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, said Senior Associate Commissioner for the Indiana Commission for Higher Education Jeff Spalding. He added that while he cannot be certain, money could be heading in IU’s direction over the next four years.“It’s trying to help people at both ends of the income spectrum,” Spalding said.That money could come in the form of research grants, scholarship funds and stabilization money that could hold down increases in tuition rates. The state must put 76 percent of the money it gets from the stabilization fund toward education, which totals around $825 million by most estimates, Spalding said. However, that money could go toward helping K-12 schools as well as higher education, so IU could see little or no aid, although that is unlikely, he said.“There will be a decision made at the state level once the federal money comes in, how much of it goes to K-12 and how much of it goes to higher ed,” Spalding said. “You can’t say with any certainty how much money will go to higher ed.”The stimulus package also provides about $500 in additional funding to the Pell Grant, a program that provides aid to lower-income families, raising the amount of aid per student from $4,850 to $5,350 in fall 2009, Spalding said. There will also be a higher cap on tax benefits for citizens filing tax returns, allowing families filing with less than $160,000 in total income to receive benefits, whereas before the maximum was $110,000, he said.These measures, along with others, follow Obama’s plan to create a stronger economy through educating America’s youth and giving American infrastructure a boost, creating jobs and providing services and safety nets to citizens nationwide.“There are some benefits that will happen for higher education in that it allows for some building that we believe will go towards higher education,” said Ken Carow, asssociate professor of finance at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis. “But it’s uncertain yet.”However, some of the experts remain critical of the plan, saying it was scrambled by Congress.“I think the whole thing just became completely politicized,” said Eric Leeper, associate professor of economics at IU. “It was never made very clear how this was supposed to get us out of the recession we’re in.”Elham Mafi-Kreft, a clinical assistant professor of business economics at IU, agreed, citing the length of the document and lack of public knowledge about the policy as reasons for the confusion about what exactly the bill means to U.S. citizens.“It wasn’t really available to be reviewed online as far in advance as promised,” Mafi-Kreft said of the 1,073-page bill. “I’m sure they could have done a better job. It was not handled well at all. I think it was one of the worst processes we’ve ever had.”Leeper also said he thinks the bill is not addressing the right factors of the economy.“I would say that the bill is actually putting the cart before the horse, to some extent,” Leeper said. “Fiscal policy requires well-functioning financial markets, and we don’t have those.”Mafi-Kreft said she believes increasing government spending is not the answer.“All that we’re doing is increasing government spending,” she said. “If we do a tax cut, we should also be cutting government spending, and it doesn’t look like we’re doing that at all.”Despite these feelings about the plan in general, Leeper and Mafi-Kreft both agreed that the bill will probably help families fund higher education. With $16.5 billion nationwide going toward student financial assistance along with another $2.1 billion for education-related issues, the plan is bound to help higher education to some degree, Leeper said.“That is going to help students,” Mafi-Kreft agreed. “For the student, the effect seems to be there.”Leeper credited the Obama administration with taking a step in the right direction.“This is a time when government needs to step up and do something,” he said. “They do recognize that there’s a crisis. The longer this is dragged out and delayed, the longer this is going to go on.”While higher education could benefit from this bill, the effects of the legislation might take a while to set in, Leeper said. This could mean the worst is yet to come.“It doesn’t take much to see how bad things are out there,” Leeper said. “It’s pretty hard out. No matter what happens, this summer it’s going to be pretty grim.”
(01/27/09 4:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Professor Sumit Ganguly has a lot on his plate.Along with directing the IU India Studies Program, he teaches, writes periodically for Newsweek and India’s largest circulating newspaper, The Times of India, consults for the U.S. government about international affairs and is the research director for the Center on American and Global Security at IU.“Amongst these things, I am lucky to get a full eight hours of sleep at night,” Ganguly said.All those sleepless nights seem to have paid off. Ganguly was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, which is one of the highest honors the government of India gives to members of the Indian community living abroad.“It was an extremely pleasant surprise,” Ganguly said. “I feel I am in charmed company.”Ganguly said he believes his scholarship and involvement in public affairs and in the defense of the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Deal, a bill lifting the ban on nuclear trade between India and the U.S., led to what he called a “great honor.”Ganguly has lived in the United States since he was 18. He said life in India before he came here was much different than it is now.“India was a lot less prosperous,” Ganguly said. “It was much more difficult to travel abroad in those days. India was much less exposed to the rest of the world in those days. Opportunities for people to move up in the world were a lot more limited.”These limitations spurred Ganguly on.“It made me terribly curious of what was going on in the outside world,” he said. “It filled me with this desire to see the world because it was so inaccessible ... It gave me a real hunger and a craving to see what was out there.”Coming to the United States was a major culture shock to Ganguly, he said.Even the little things, such as water fountains and Coca-Cola, were astounding to him.“A can of Coca-Cola was 15 cents, but after playing a game of tennis, I would think twice about spending 15 cents because I would convert it into rupees, the unit of currency in India. I would be shocked by how much it would cost, so I would think twice about putting 15 cents into a Coke machine.”After attaining his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ganguly wrote extensively on topics ranging from politics of South Asia to the Israeli and Pakistani pursuit of nuclear weapons. He taught at the University of Texas at Austin for four years prior to coming to IU in 2003. He has taught courses on South Asian politics, war, international conflict and many other subjects.Ganguly has also been a mentor for many doctoral students in their pursuits of publishing and dissertations.Brian Shoup, a doctoral student who worked with Ganguly on his dissertation, said Ganguly was “instrumental” in helping him publish his book, “Conflict and Cooperation in Multi-Ethnic States: Institutional Incentives, Myths, and Counterbalancing.”“Sumit is a very good adviser,” Shoup said. “He’s relentless in trying to help his students get good research contacts in the field and will do his best to help them get jobs afterwards.”Ganguly’s colleagues also said they hold him in high esteem.Elliot Sperling, a professor of Central Eurasian Studies at IU, worked with Ganguly in the past. He met Ganguly for the first time at a conference at Harvard University regarding Tibetan affairs.Sperling said Ganguly doesn’t “mince words” regarding international and academic affairs, of which Sperling said Ganguly is a well-regarded expert both nationally and internationally.“You know exactly what his opinion is,” Sperling said. “He’s not wishy-washy. He’s very direct in his analysis of things, and he’s not very coy about stating his opinion.”Ganguly said he believes this direct attitude is necessary when trying to attain success in life.“Find something that you are really, absolutely passionate about and pursue it with all the energy you can muster,” he said. “Pursue it as if your life depended on it.”
(01/14/09 5:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>While students across the country search for ways to pay for college in the midst of economic turmoil, more and more are looking to the Reserve Officer Training Corps.“Historically, when the economy isn’t going very well, the military tends to do better,” Major Todd Tinius said.However, as far as IU ROTC is concerned, it’s still business as usual.“For us, it’s not that marked of a difference,” Tinius said. “We’re not bringing in any more in the last six months than we were before. However, we might not be the right analytical card to look at because we’ve always been doing well. If I was going to speculate, I’d say (the economy) does have an impact (on recruiting). I’m sure it’s going to make some people’s minds up for them.”Of The 272 ROTC programs in the nation, IU’s was ranked No. 1 in 2007. In the past few years, Tinius said IU’s recruitment has been going well compared to other colleges. From a group of 85 cadets in 2005, he said the program has grown to 130 cadets, bringing in 42 new cadets over the past two years. But this growth took place before the economic downfall.Certain aspects of the program have had increased interest, possibly due to the economy. A program called Leader Training Course, where a college sophomore who has missed out on ROTC the previous year can take an intensive 28-day course in the summer to catch up and be on track for graduation within the program, has increased in prospective students. There are now about 13 members of the IU community who might participate in the program, compared to an average of three or four in the past.But there might be other reasons interest in the program has increased.“I did something differently this year than I did in the past,” Tinius said. “I did a mass hard mailing and a mass e-mailing whereas I used to only do a mass e-mailing.”Despite the fiscal advantages offered by the program, IU ROTC is home to some members who joined for more than just financial reasons.“I wanted to maximize my potential,” senior A.J. Moir said. “I figured that if I’m able to, I should do it because I could be useful. It’s a nice bonus, but money didn’t have any influence on my decision.”Other students joined ROTC to pursue a career in the military.“I already did four years active duty,” senior Brett Kirby said, “and I wanted to become an officer.”The fact that people still enlist, even in war time, surprises Tinius, he said.“It just amazes me that we’re in a protracted war and we continue to find people willing to serve despite that,” he said. “When you’re in a war, it’s really hard to recruit. Nobody wants to mess with it. But we’ve done pretty well at IU.”
(01/13/09 5:59am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>You can see a fire start to burn in junior Michael Sampson-Akpuru’s eyes as he sits up straighter in his chair, then leans forward. It’s that fire that drives him in his mission to change IU culture. And now he is not alone. While the Kelley School of Business’ MBA program is consistently rated among the nation’s best, the school is also among the least diverse – a reputation that is starting to resonate with recruiters. Kelley’s black and Hispanic population totals less than 3 percent, which is about 180 students, according to Sampson-Akpuru. And recruiters like those at General Mills have made their message clear to business school Dean Daniel Smith: Diversify now, or recruiting from IU will suffer, according to a December BusinessWeek article. IU is not the exception, with many of the schools listed in “BusinessWeek’s Top 30 U.S. MBA Programs” lacking in diversity.“You can understand the importance behind it,” said Sampson-Akpuru, an immigrant from Nigeria. “For us to get so much support, that means everybody is really working towards this.”Bringing in minoritiesSampson-Akpuru is the president of the Kelley School Diversity Council, and his work toward helping minorities find a home in Kelley is his passion. He and junior Bryan Stuart, vice president of external affairs for the council, created the group a year ago to spark the same fire in Sampson-Akpuru’s eyes in the hearts of others in Kelley. The group now has 27 members.“We really just wanted a grassroots movement,” Sampson-Akpuru said. “A grassroots culture chain at Kelley.”Businesses and corporations that come to IU for recruitment and other purposes, Stuart said, are the main source of funding for the Kelley school, in some cases providing scholarships and funding for University projects. If those businesses refuse to come to IU because of diversity-related issues, it could spell trouble for students and Kelley as a whole, he said.“Businesses sustain a lot of what Kelley is about,” said Stuart, who is white.Smith, the school’s dean, said the process of increasing the number of minority students will soon come with help from businesses.“Several of our corporate recruiters have offered to host student receptions at their companies for high school students considering the Kelley School,” he said in an e-mail. “These receptions would be attended by alumni and current students who would talk about IU and Kelley.”The Administration’s partKelley administrators traditionally have programs in place for minorities, but there is no indication that initiatives following the recruiting complaints have been established. Some of these programs include the Hudson & Holland program, which provides scholarships and career opportunities to minority students. Another example is the Junior Executive Institute for minority high school students, offering them an opportunity to work at IU toward solving real-life business problems.Smith also said the administration has set no number-oriented goal for the University over the next few years, as far as recruiting minority students goes.“There is no set goal,” Smith said. “We simply are interested in improving the level of diversity and inclusiveness.”The number of minorities isn’t the actual problem, Stuart said, but a symptom of a larger issue; it’s a Kelley culture not conducive to minority student success, he said. Sampson-Akpuru agreed.“Part of the cycle is that a lot of students come in and they cannot survive in the business school,” Sampson-Akpuru said. “Be it the curriculum or the culture, there are a whole slew of reasons why a lot of underrepresented minority students are not well prepared for the business school and not able to thrive in that environment.” The Diversity Council has come up with three initiatives to ignite change: the Diversity Challenge, Case Competition and a speaker series.The most important and largest of these initiatives is the Diversity Challenge. Eight Kelley organizations have already signed up, and they will spend 3 1/2 months finding ways to make Kelley more diverse and welcoming.“To change the culture, we need concrete action,” Stuart said. “Ideas are great, and we need ideas, but we’re going to push Kelley student groups a little bit further and ask them to actually implement ideas.” The program begins Wednesday and also includes a workshop with members of Ernst & Young, a Big Four accounting firm, in order to help organizations develop a clear vision of what they are going to do.With $6,000 in prize money available from businesses that have endorsed the project, the program offers more than just a community service opportunity.“We’re asking them for a lot,” Stuart said, “but we’re also going to give them a lot. They’re taking a leap of faith, so we want to support them.”Changing the cultureThe fire bristled up once again from within Sampson-Akpuru as he spoke about the Diversity Challenge.“For the first time, you have a concerted effort,” he said. “It fosters collaboration between student organizations, for one. Two, to have it focused on diversity – it’s never been done.”But success in this case cannot really be measured by numbers, the leaders said.“Honestly, percentage doesn’t really work out,” Sampson-Akpuru said. “If you have the numbers, but you don’t have the culture, you haven’t really made any changes.”One of the challenges the Council faces is getting others to listen. Diversity has become a “buzz word,” Stuart said, one that has lost its meaning due to overuse.“That’s what we’re trying to stay away from,” Sampson-Akpuru said, “because once you say it, people literally start glazing over you.”The Diversity Council hopes the heat from the flame that emanates from their leader will spark real change within Kelley. For now, though, Sampson-Akpuru cools off, leaning back in his chair again and casting his hands behind his head.“We’re trying to fundamentally change the culture of students and how they view the world and other students,” he says. “That’s really our mission.”
(01/13/09 3:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>By Sean Morrisonsm72@indiana.eduYou can see a fire start to burn in junior Michael Sampson-Akpuru’s eyes as he sits up straighter in his chair, then leans forward. It’s that fire that drives him in his mission to change IU culture. And now he is not alone. While the Kelley School of Business’ MBA program is consistently rated among the nation’s best, the school is also among the least diverse – a reputation that is starting to resonate with recruiters. Kelley’s black and Hispanic population totals less than 3 percent, which is about 180 students, according to Sampson-Akpuru. And recruiters like those at General Mills have made their message clear to business school Dean Daniel Smith: Diversify now, or recruiting from IU will suffer, according to a December BusinessWeek article. IU is not the exception, with many of the schools listed in “BusinessWeek’s Top 30 U.S. MBA Programs” lacking in diversity.“You can understand the importance behind it,” said Sampson-Akpuru, an immigrant from Nigeria. “For us to get so much support, that means everybody is really working towards this.”Bringing in minoritiesSampson-Akpuru is the president of the Kelley School Diversity Council, and his work toward helping minorities find a home in Kelley is his passion. He and junior Bryan Stuart, vice president of external affairs for the council, created the group a year ago to spark the same fire in Sampson-Akpuru’s eyes in the hearts of others in Kelley. The group now has 27 members.“We really just wanted a grassroots movement,” Sampson-Akpuru said. “A grassroots culture chain at Kelley.”Businesses and corporations that come to IU for recruitment and other purposes, Stuart said, are the main source of funding for the Kelley school, in some cases providing scholarships and funding for University projects. If those businesses refuse to come to IU because of diversity-related issues, it could spell trouble for students and Kelley as a whole, he said.“Businesses sustain a lot of what Kelley is about,” said Stuart, who is white.Smith, the school’s dean, said the process of increasing the number of minority students will soon come with help from businesses.“Several of our corporate recruiters have offered to host student receptions at their companies for high school students considering the Kelley School,” he said in an e-mail. “These receptions would be attended by alumni and current students who would talk about IU and Kelley.”The Administration’s partKelley administrators traditionally have programs in place for minorities, but there is no indication that initiatives following the recruiting complaints have been established. Some of these programs include the Hudson & Holland program, which provides scholarships and career opportunities to minority students. Another example is the Junior Executive Institute for minority high school students, offering them an opportunity to work at IU toward solving real-life business problems.Smith also said the administration has set no number-oriented goal for the University over the next few years, as far as recruiting minority students goes.“There is no set goal,” Smith said. “We simply are interested in improving the level of diversity and inclusiveness.”The number of minorities isn’t the actual problem, Stuart said, but a symptom of a larger issue; it’s a Kelley culture not conducive to minority student success, he said. Sampson-Akpuru agreed.“Part of the cycle is that a lot of students come in and they cannot survive in the business school,” Sampson-Akpuru said. “Be it the curriculum or the culture, there are a whole slew of reasons why a lot of underrepresented minority students are not well prepared for the business school and not able to thrive in that environment.” The Diversity Council has come up with three initiatives to ignite change: the Diversity Challenge, Case Competition and a speaker series.The most important and largest of these initiatives is the Diversity Challenge. Eight Kelley organizations have already signed up, and they will spend 3 1/2 months finding ways to make Kelley more diverse and welcoming.“To change the culture, we need concrete action,” Stuart said. “Ideas are great, and we need ideas, but we’re going to push Kelley student groups a little bit further and ask them to actually implement ideas.” The program begins Wednesday and also includes a workshop with members of Ernst & Young, a Big Four accounting firm, in order to help organizations develop a clear vision of what they are going to do.With $6,000 in prize money available from businesses that have endorsed the project, the program offers more than just a community service opportunity.“We’re asking them for a lot,” Stuart said, “but we’re also going to give them a lot. They’re taking a leap of faith, so we want to support them.”Changing the cultureThe fire bristled up once again from within Sampson-Akpuru as he spoke about the Diversity Challenge.“For the first time, you have a concerted effort,” he said. “It fosters collaboration between student organizations, for one. Two, to have it focused on diversity – it’s never been done.”But success in this case cannot really be measured by numbers, the leaders said.“Honestly, percentage doesn’t really work out,” Sampson-Akpuru said. “If you have the numbers, but you don’t have the culture, you haven’t really made any changes.”One of the challenges the Council faces is getting others to listen. Diversity has become a “buzz word,” Stuart said, one that has lost its meaning due to overuse.“That’s what we’re trying to stay away from,” Sampson-Akpuru said, “because once you say it, people literally start glazing over you.”The Diversity Council hopes the heat from the flame that emanates from their leader will spark real change within Kelley. For now, though, Sampson-Akpuru cools off, leaning back in his chair again and casting his hands behind his head.“We’re trying to fundamentally change the culture of students and how they view the world and other students,” he says. “That’s really our mission.”
(11/21/08 4:50am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sophomores Brian Bollinger and Daniel Essman were looking for help and guidance when they went to Mark Cuban, an IU alumnus and owner of the Dallas Mavericks.They were searching for advice or a donation to a club they formed and operated as co-presidents, the Kelley Portfolio Management Club – a club that manages money in the stock market to earn returns that can be put back into other Kelley School of Business clubs.“Right now, we’re seeking donations, and we’re trying to exhaust every resource we can,” Bollinger said.What they received was a dose of irony.The day after Bollinger and Essman contacted Cuban, he was charged with insider trading, allegedly saving more than $750,000 in investments through the use of confidential information. “I thought that was kind of funny,” Bollinger said. “I was kind of surprised to hear it after what he had just told me. It seemed like his advice was not what he was doing himself. That was kind of disappointing. But at the same time, it shows you have to be careful in everything that you are doing and play by the rules because anything you do can come back to bite you and make you look silly.”The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Cuban on Monday and alleged that in June 2004, Mamma.com Inc. asked Cuban to get in on its coming stock offering after he agreed to keep the information private.Cuban owned 6.3 percent of Mamma.com’s stock at the time and was the largest known shareholder in the search engine civil company, according to the SEC’s lawsuit.The agency said Cuban knew the shares would be sold below the current market price, and a few hours after receiving the information, he told his broker to sell all 600,000 shares before the public announcement of the offering.Cuban said in a statement on his blog, “I am disappointed that the (SEC) chose to bring this case based upon its enforcement staff’s win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff’s process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government’s claims are false, and they will be proven to be so.”Essman said he is not upset by the allegations.“More than anything, it was just ironic,” Essman said. “We heard from him literally the day before it came out. I found it kind of ironic and interesting.”In e-mail conversations between Cuban and Bollinger, Cuban expressed his dislike of students entering the market to make money. Cuban said in the e-mail he would rather see the group working toward being “great at something,” instead of spending its money investing.“He’s always been a guy who goes against society’s norm,” Bollinger said. “He’s more of an entrepreneurial spirit. If you look at professional investors working in hedge funds, they struggle to make a return any given year, whereas if you become great at one thing, such as running a company, you can guarantee yourself success no matter what the economy’s doing.”But Essman said he took Cuban’s advice with a grain of salt.“We had a pretty specific idea in mind of what we wanted the club to be and what we wanted to accomplish,” Essman said. “So, related to the club, his ideas weren’t exactly going to match.”Essman and Bollinger said they learned from the experience.“You need to be careful and think things through all the way,” Essman said. “Somewhere down the line, even if you don’t think you’re going to get caught, you never know.”
(11/20/08 4:49am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sophomore Paul Young said Monday his goal was to wrestle a perfect match.While he might not have met his goal of perfection, the team did, winning all 20 matches they participated in and winning by a total score of 107-0 in a tri-meet against Manchester and Wabash Colleges, two Division-III schools, on Tuesday.“It went good,” IU coach Duane Goldman said. “For the first time with a one-hour weigh-in, we wrestled pretty well.”The team pinned 13 of its 20 opponents, 12 falling in the first period alone, and gathered up two tech falls and a major decision during the tri-meet. “It’s always good to start off a dual season like we did the other night,” said Matt Coughlin, a 157-pound grappler who garnered two pins on the night.Matt Ortega, a 133-pound wrestler, also stuck two opponents to the mat during the tri-meet. The meet was the first time the freshman competed in a dual setting attached for IU. He said he felt it was a great experience.“It was pretty exciting,” Ortega said. “It was my first dual ever, and coming out with two wins was pretty nice.”Coughlin, who wrestled coming off of an injury from the Michigan State Open, said he faced some challenges during his matches.“I didn’t want to re-injure myself and was kind of cautious about doing certain things,” he said. “I kind of just adjusted well and got away with two pins.”Despite the team’s performance, Goldman still saw certain areas needing improvement.“We need to work on just some positioning things,” Goldman said. “There’s some technique things we need to work on. We need to pick up our conditioning in some areas a little bit.”Goldman also said he feels the team pinned well and showed the aggression he wanted to see from them.The squad said they believe they put on a powerful display against their competition and look forward to the upcoming Missouri Open on Sunday.“We’re definitely a strong team,” Coughlin said. “I thought our team looked great, and we’re going to be a strong team this year.”
(11/20/08 4:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU’s appointment of Gen. Peter Pace, who has openly spoken against homosexuality, to Poling Chair has sparked controversy within the University community and action within University bureaucracy.IU’s Diversity and Affirmative Action Committee presented a resolution to the Bloomington Faculty Council on Tuesday criticizing the Kelley School of Business for awarding a distinguished University honor to Pace, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Poling Chair award is funded by a gift from Harold Poling that is meant to bring leaders from around the world to meet with students.Pace was responsible for a $700 billion budget, more than 2.4 million people and the largest fleet of aircraft and ships in the world, routinely dealing with life-and-death decisions.His experiences have taught him the intricacies of work between private enterprise and government, Kelley School of Business Dean Dan Smith said in an e-mail.But, throughout the past few years, Pace has made several remarks about homosexuality, including statements to the Chicago Tribune in a March 12, 2007, interview.Pace worked under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and under his jurisdiction, more than 5,000 members of the U.S. military were dishonorably discharged from the military because of their sexual orientations.“To the gay and lesbian community on campus ... it is the equivalent slap in the face as if the University gave a distinguished honor to the head of the Ku Klux Klan,” said law professor Alex Tanford. “People are now very sensitive toward doing stupid, racist things that offend racial minorities. But we are not yet at the point where people are equally as sensitive about saying stupid, negative things about the gay community.”The committee’s resolution expressed “concern and disappointment” regarding his selection for the honor and suggested the next time Pace returns, his speech should be open to the public so an open forum of discussion can be available to address these concerns, Tanford said.“The problem was the awarding of a University honor to a person who has very publicly known, highly prejudiced views,” Tanford said.Tanford also mentioned another issue: The speech was made available only to Kelley School students. He said he believes the Kelley School brought Pace here in a way that prevented the discussion of his views, and the University award Pace received could be symbolic of a lack of respect for the gay community.But members of the gay community and the Kelley School disagreed.“We have to keep in mind why he came,” said Robert Goodfellow, second-year graduate student at Kelley and president of Gay @ Kelley, the school’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender resource organization. “He was invited to speak about the critical interactions between government and private business.”While Goodfellow said he found Pace’s personal beliefs “abhorrent,” he said those beliefs had no bearing on Pace’s visits or his position within the Kelley School.“General Pace was made the Poling Chair at the Kelley School,” Goodfellow said. “The Poling Chair does not serve as a platform for personal beliefs. He was given no platform for his personal beliefs.”Pace was well-received by Kelley students and fielded questions on a variety of topics including the comments he made to the press about his views on homosexuality in the military, Smith said in an e-mail.“General Pace was invited to the Kelley School to meet with our students and to share his perspectives on leadership,” Smith said. “Having General Pace speak at the Kelley School in no way is intended to be an endorsement of his personal beliefs.”
(11/19/08 5:31am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Though the elections have ended and the tide of students rushing off to battle for their parties has died down, it’s still business as usual for IU College Republicans and IU College Democrats.“Everyone in the College Reps is feeling a lot more ready to work hard just because now we have to defend ourselves,” said Justin P. Hill, chairman of IU College Republicans. “I can see why when one party wins people could step down and relax, but that’s the exact opposite of our situation.”IU College Democrats also plans to keep moving forward with its on-campus activities.“Right now, we’re focusing on party-building activities and making sure we maintain membership,” said Anna Strand, president of IU College Democrats. “This is something the Obama campaign is going to continue across the nation. We’re also working on a lot of fundraising.”Hill and his friends within the IU College Republicans are working for the years ahead. While he could not comment on his exact plans, he said his group has high aspirations.“What we’re doing is set up a system so that, in two years and four years, the College Republicans can turn this campus red,” Hill said. “We’re going to use resources to get our message out.”Besides building their party’s campaign, IU College Democrats is also planning a philanthropic event.“We’re looking into some things right now,” Strand said. “As long as funding permits it, we would like to do something on a larger scale. We’re still gathering all of the information about the election, so there are still things going on.”IU College Republicans recently had elections to appoint new positions within. While running for chairman of IU College Republicans, Hill ran under a platform of community service and leadership.“We will be reaching out to the community,” Hill said. “We just really want to be service-oriented. We really want to reach out to the community and show people what College Republicans are all about.”Despite the election being over, many of the new members of IU College Democrats who joined to help the campaign are staying on board for their party, Strand said.Meanwhile, Hill and IU College Republicans plans to do more recruiting in the spring semester.“We have people that are picking up new roles,” Hill said. “We are actually very excited and ready to see how we can define a party.”
(11/18/08 4:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Domination is the name of the game as the IU wrestling team goes against Wabash College and Manchester College in its first tri-meet of the season.“I just don’t want to beat guys,” said Paul Young, the 165-pound starter. “I want to destroy them. I want to be able to wrestle a perfect match.”The meet was originally supposed to be a dual between Wabash and IU, but Wabash scheduled Manchester for the same day. But having a second opponent isn’t changing the approach of the wrestlers.“I think you keep the same mentality,” said 2007 national champion at 125 pounds and team captain Angel Escobedo. “You don’t want to take any opponent lightly. ... I’m going to go all out.”Being the favorite can bring added pressure for success. But the IU squad is hoping to avoid that mentality going into the meet.“I try not to see it that way,” Escobedo said. “I try to see it as a brand new year, a brand new season and a brand new record. I like to see myself just as any other wrestler, just going for that national title.”Wrestlers hope to get more of the kinks worked out from their experiences in the Michigan State Open on Nov. 9. Young went to the semi-finals at the open, losing to the eventual champion and injury defaulting in the consolation match. He and coach Duane Goldman saw some areas on which he needs to improve.“You learn a lot more from your losses than you do from your wins,” Young said. “It kind of gives you something to work toward. I was a little hesitant, so I have to work on pushing my pace in the match.”Goldman said this matchup will be a one hour weigh-in, which means wrestlers will have one hour to prepare after seeing if they have made weight for the upcoming matches. This can be a challenge because many wrestlers have to work to make weight up until they have to weigh in.Goldman said he expects his wrestlers to still perform at a high level despite the challenges of making weight.“It’s our first time making weight with a one hour weigh-in,” he said. “I want us to make weight well and be ready to compete with that one hour weigh-in.“You have to respect every opponent. You need to be prepared. ... We’ll see how it turns out.”