jan. 25 edition
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Tuesday, Jan. 25 edition of The ParthenonTRANSCRIPT
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011Marshall University’s Student Newspaper marshallparthenon.com
Residence halls incorporate new technologyStudents can now request housekeeping, maintenance through e-mail News, Page 2
Onlinemarshallparthenon.com
Inside
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Volume 114 I No. 69
News .......................... 2Sports ........................ 3Opinion ....................... 4Sudoku ....................... 5Life ............................. 6
44° 29°
The Biggest Loser8 p.m. NBC
One Tree Hill8 p.m. CW
State of the Union9 p.m. CBS
Dirty Jobs9 p.m. Discovery
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Marshall University
Career Services has
a lot to offer students
and can help in the job
search after graduation.
Page 4
“It was so moving,”
Gergely recalled, “how
she was able to step
aside from her grief to
help others.”
Page 2
The world is a-Twitter.
Find out more about this
social media website.
page 6
Two Marshall students
start a women’s lacrosse
team.
Page 3
News
Sports
Online
Opinion
Legislature proposes change to state House district mapState would be divided into 100 districts
New students begin semester without benefi t of orientation
COURTESY OF WEST VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE’S OFFICE OF REFERENCE & INFORMATION
This map shows the 58 state House districts in West Virginia. Some in the legislature are proposing changing the map to feature 100 districts.
BY ANNA SWIFTTHE PARTHENON
The West Virginia
House of Delegates intro-duced a bill Jan. 12 that would split up the state into one hundred single-member districts.
West Virginia, which currently has 58 districts, is one of 10 states that continue to carry multi-member districts.
The bill, HB2367, is being sponsored by nine delegates, three of whom
come from multi-member districts. One sponsor, delegate Linda Sumner, R-Raleigh, comes from a district with five representatives.
The bill is cited by sponsors as leading to greater accountability and effective representa-tion, serving as a check on corruption and cor-recting inequities in representation.
Marybeth Beller,
See HOUSE I 5
BY MARIBETH SMITHTHE PARTHENON
New students in the
spring semester do not re-ceive the same benefits of an official orientation as the freshmen in the fall.
For freshmen who start studying at Marshall in the fall, the programs to get acclimated are both informative and exten-sive. The week before school starts, freshmen have the campus to them-selves to get adjusted without the stress of up-perclassmen and classes. This week is called Week of Welcome.
Students who start at Marshall in the spring, however, do not have the same opportunities to get used to the campus. First semester students in the spring are thrown directly into classes and expected to know what to do.
This is not because ad-ministrators simply do not want these students to succeed; it is because of timing issues.
“The week before spring semester is the first week of January and is a problematic week” said Frances Hensley, asso-ciate vice president for academic affairs. Hensley went on to explain that it is a problematic week because the university is busy taking care of stu-dents that have issues and who are trying to schedule classes.
Although it has never been done in the past, Hensley said she was
See STUDENTS I 5
BY JOANIE BORDERSTHE PARTHENON
Marshall’s campus is home to various organizations for people of faith. So why aren’t these students getting involved? Krystal Ashmeade and Kailyn Reid say it’s because of a lack of visibility.
“I didn’t know there were events for other orga-nizations,” said Ashmeade, sophomore pre-nursing major from Waldorf, Md. “I’ve never even seen pro-motions for meetings of other religions on campus.”
Ashmeade was involved in a Christian ministry on campus at the beginning of her freshman year. She said she was aware of organizations for Bap-tist and Catholic students as well as the Black United Students.
Reid, junior medical imaging major from Charleston, said she is not familiar with many campus organizations.
“I think students would be open to different re-ligions, but I’m not familiar with any on campus,” Reid said.
Both Ashmeade and Reid agreed that the vis-ibility of religious organization is small.
“I would be interested in campus religious events
if they were opening up to people,” Ashmeade said.Ashmeade said she would be open to and would
like to see religious organizations on campus promote their meetings and events. One of the reasons Ashmeade says that she doesn’t get in-volved is because of the lack of knowledge she has about the various events going on.
“A table in the student center is a really effective way to get students attention,” Ashmeade said.
Handing out fliers and getting out on campus and engaging students are also tactics that Ashmeade said would be an effective way to let students know what is going on with organizations on campus. Ashmeade said when she got involved her freshman year, it was through Facebook.
There are many different organizations on cam-pus including a wide range of religions, including organizations for Muslims, Catholics, Christians, pagans and other groups.
Joanie Borders can be contacted at [email protected].
For a list of organizations, service times and locations, see page 5
Religious organizations lack visibility
JOHN YEINGST | THE PARTHENON
Mike Cochran, a music education major from Daniels, W. Va., performs at the Campus Christian Center Monday.
Tuesday, January 25, 20112 marshallparthenon.com
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BY ASHLEY MANNONTHE PARTHENON
Students can take part in helping to save lives by organizing or volun-teering at a Red Cross blood drive.
Wanting to make a difference is often what sparks people to hold blood drives. Cheryl Gergely, communica-tions program manager, said that one of the most difficult interviews of her career was when a mother who had lost her 17-year-old son held a blood drive in his mem-ory. The teenager had been accidentally shot by an arrow and de-spite all efforts, did not survive. Many units of blood were used in the fight to save his life.
“It was so moving,” Gergely recalled, “How she was able to step aside from her grief to help others because she knew it would make her son happy,” Gergely said.
Gergely, an employee of the Red Cross, has worked in many different positions throughout the company. She is now the media spokesperson for the Huntington office and works to emphasizes the mission of the Red Cross as well as raise aware-ness about the ongoing need for blood. She said she has heard many sto-ries (like the one of the grieving mother) and knows the importance of having a relationship with the community in this type of work.
“Over the years the best thing about the job is the personal connections
with donors, volunteers and the media,” Gergely said.
The nature of the Red Cross’ mission makes forming such relation-ships very important. Kara Spurlock, volunteer recruitment and train-ing supervisor said she agreed with Gergely’s sentiment. She works closely with volunteers who work at blood drives. Many volunteers are reg-ulars at the events and currently range in age from 11 years old to 94 years old. Spurlock said volunteers do not neces-sarily have a difficult job but need compassion to
do what they do. “A volunteer is the first
and the last face a donor sees. People start to look for and ask for [the regu-lars],” Spurlock said.
Spurlock also said that not only is compassion and a drive for helping others something that volunteers should pos-sess, but volunteering is rewarding also.
“At the end of the day, no matter what kind of day it has been, we know that we’ve helped save lives,” Spurlock said.
Student groups and or-ganizations that wish to help and receive commu-nity service hours at the
same time can organize blood drives. At Mar-shall, groups interested may contact Chris Jones at (304) 526-2959 or [email protected].
Students interested in volunteering for the Red Cross may contact Kara Spurlock at (304) 526-2985 or [email protected].
The next blood drive at Marshall University is Feb. 2 and Feb. 3 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Don Morris room of the Student Center. It is sponsored by the ROTC.
Ashley Mannon can be contacted at [email protected].
Red Cross can save lives with students’ help
FILE PHOTO
In this February 2009 fi le photo, students and faculty give blood during a blood drive in the Memorial Student Center sponsored by the American Red Cross.
BY DALTON HAMMONDSTHE PARTHENON
Marshall University’s residence department has re-ceived a well-needed technology upgrade this semester.
A new feature introduced this semester is allowing students to request housekeeping and maintenance assistance through e-mail.
The e-mail service along with the ability to still call in housekeeping and maintenance requests allows residence services to respond to students faster than ever.
“It made sense to start using e-mail because that’s what students use now. It’s a step we needed to take,” said Le’Kesha Glover, an assistant director for Hous-ing and Residence Life.
“The ability to accept requests through e-mail makes it easier for us, and the students as well, because it al-lows us to be more accurate and prioritize requests,” Glover said.
Glover also said that the call system was more dif-ficult to operate because sometimes students couldn’t be understood.
The majority of the problems that were reported had to do with cable or the Internet, things that Glover said weren’t a part of the housekeeping and mainte-nance staff ’s responsibilities.
Other advantages of the e-mail service is that it al-lows the housekeeping and maintenance employees to be more efficient when it comes to determining what the students need from them.
“It makes it so much easier,” said Bonnie Ross, a work control technician who has had to answer a ma-jority of the student request calls during her time at Marshall.
“It also allows us to be more responsible since we know exactly what the students want when they send us an e-mail,” Ross said.
Ross said she receives around a thousand e-mails a month and has seen an increase since the e-mail sys-tem has been introduced.
Marshall University’s IT department helped create the system, which was asked for through surveys com-pleted by students.
Residents can submit a request by going to the hous-ing page on the university website and clicking on the link on the page.
New maintenance system allows e-mail requests
See MAINTENANCE I 5
BY ASHLEY GROHOSKITHE PARTHENON
Marshall University Career Center is partnering up with the Graduate College to assist students seek-ing professional careers. As students begin deciding their futures after graduate school, the career cen-ter welcomes experienced and skillful advisors to encourage graduates with tips on resume writing, interviewing, professional image, and manners. Al-though students may not have a full awareness of the assistance that is offered on Marshall Univer-sity’s campus, they have shown interest in asking for help during past career workshops.
Glen Midkif, Marshall University’s Event and PR Coordinator has confidence in this semester ’s workshops that assist undecided and unpre-pared students for “life after Marshall”. Midkif is hopeful for this semester, as he reflects on the surprising response from students’ interest in previous workshops. He emphasizes the impor-tance of discovering and obtaining internships while students are currently enrolled.
“Graduate students are going from being a se-nior to college graduate. They need to be prepared for life beyond Marshall,” Midkif said. Midkif highly recommends students to begin networking as much as they can. He reflects on past students’ experiences with becoming an employee for the job that was once an internship requirement.
“Students should avoid waiting until the last min-ute. They may think that they will get the job as soon as they walk across the stage to receive their diploma, but that isn’t the case.”
He realizes that when the economy is rocky, stu-dents can expect up to 6 to 9 months of searching for a job after they leave college. He advises that students should look beyond what they already know about the potential job they are seeking. He wants students to study the job descriptions and ask themselves if they can acquire and even exceed the skills that the par-ticular job is expecting of them within their first four years of college.
Midkif says he realizes that looking for a job is indeed a full-time job in itself, and encourages students to ask for guidance from the available re-sources at Marshall.
They will be reviewing resumes Jan. 27. The work-shops will be located in Drinko 402 from 4-5p.m.
Ashley Grohoski can be contacted at [email protected].
Workshop prepares college graduates
BY COREY OXLEYTHE PARTHENON
Undergraduate Research Day isn’t just a day for legislators to decide whether they want to give universities money or not. It is an event for students to display their research and talk about something they love.
For many Marshall students, Tuesday will be just a normal day in the classroom, but it will be entirely different for 17 others. These stu-dents will be representing Marshall University at Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol on Jan. 25, 2011. It will be the eighth straight year this event has taken place in Charleston.
Undergraduate Research Day provides students with an opportunity to show West Virginia legislators what students, faculty and staff conduct research on at Marshall. It also provides an opportunity for West Virginia legislators to possibly send grants to Marshall in the future.
“It ’s educational on both sides,” said Mar-shall University professor of chemistry Dr. Michael Castellani.
“It’s educational for the legislator because they learn what the students are doing. It’s educational for the students because it enables them to convey to people outside of their area how valuable their work is,” Castellani said.
Castellani said part of this is to educate the legislator on how we use our time. He said it gives us a chance to show the legislator a little bit about what we do here.
“We started the research last May and just finished up this month,” said Ben Blodgett, senior chemistry major from Knoxville, Tenn. “I have put in a little over 600 hours of work to get this done.”
Blodgett said he’s researching a very small piece of photosynthesis and, in the distant fu-ture, we hope to mimic photosynthetic processes in a lab setting. He said photosynthesis produces oxygen and that process also produces hydrogen gas, which can be used to fuel cars.
Blodgett said he had never done anything like this before and the concepts in the beginning were a little above his head. He said the dif-ficulty of the challenge made him want to work harder and now the concepts come easy to him.
Courtney Nichols, senior chemistry and biol-ogy major, said the way she got involved was by
emailing professors and talking to them about their research.
“Dr. Kolling told me at the beginning of last summer that he was getting ready to start a biochemistry research project and I was really interested in that,” Nichols said. “I have never done anything like this before and I am really nervous presenting it.”
Laura Mader, senior biomedical science ma-jor from Huntington said she is excited about presenting on Tuesday. “It’s been really fun (working with research),” Mader said. “Dr. Serrat told me I would be working a project instead of being the stock girl mixing solutions and right then, I was sold.”
“It’s not like you’re just an undergraduate,” said Morgan Efaw senior biomedical science ma-jor from Paden City, W.Va. “Dr. Serrat wants you brought up on her level, she wants you to know what you’re doing, and that there is a purpose to what you’re doing.”
Alison Williams, who graduated in May with a biology degree from Hurricane, W.Va., also worked with Mader and Efaw. Their research consisted of how varying temperatures and ex-ercise affect bone mineral density and growth plates.
“It’s been a great learning experience,” Mader said. “Since this is my first job outside of baby-sitting, I have not only learned what it’s like to have daily hours, but to learn to work with co-workers and have a boss.”
“I think it’s great,” Castellani said. “We really want to expand this and make it available to ev-erybody in every discipline.”
Undergraduate Research Day is on Tuesday, Jan. 25 from 8:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. at the Capi-tol rotunda in Charleston.
Corey Oxley can be contacted at [email protected].
Marshall students prepare for annual Undergraduate Research Day
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Females will soon be sharing the lacrosse field after years of Marshall University offering the sport for men only.
After playing lacrosse in high school, Charleston na-tives Rachel Ford and Jamie Gunnoe were not ready to forget the game.
“It’s the one sport I loved playing and was actually good at, I didn’t want to give it up after only playing one year in high school,” Ford said.
Lacrosse is a sport of Na-tive American origin played with two teams of 11 players using handled rackets. The purpose is to catch and carry a small rubber ball to throw towards the opponents’ goal.
Both Ford and Gunnoe described lacrosse as a mix of field hockey and soccer. Unlike mens’ la-crosse, there is no contact in the womens’ version of this sport.
“You can’t physically hit another player, with or without a stick, and doing so would cause a penalty,” Ford said.
“It’s fast-paced,” Gun-noe added.
Starting an official team at a university is not a simple task. The women had to go through the Student Government
Association, find an adviser and create a con-stitution with a no hazing policy to become sanc-tioned as an official club.
“We had an informa-tional meeting, and we needed at least 15 girls to show interest,” Ford said. “I was glad to see we had just about 25 girls sign-up.”
On Wednesday, the team will meet at 8 p.m. in the basement of the Memorial Student Center.
“No experience is neces-sary to become a part of Marshall’s newest team,” Gunnoe said. “You just have to be a student at Marshall to be on the team.”
“We’ll start teaching the basics from the ground up,” Ford said. “Anyone is wel-come to join.”
Ford also said she was once afraid to play the sport but encourages oth-ers to give it a try.
“People laughed when I told them I wanted to play when the team started in high school, but I proved everyone wrong,” Ford said. “I’m so uncoordi-nated and I still did fine. It’s hard at first, but in the long run, it’s easier than it looks.”
The team has a Facebook group, “Marshall’s Lady’s Lacrosse,” where all new information about the team
BY BILL SCOTTDPA(MCT)
MELBOURNE, Aus-tralia — Rafael Nadal appeared to shake off his recent bout of poor health due to a virus as the top seed rolled into the quarterfi-nals of the Australian Open on Monday. Nadal avenged his loss to the Croatian 15th seed with the victory that put him into the Melbourne last-eight for the fifth straight year. The Spaniard’s victory marked his 25th con-secutive victory as a major as he bids to win his fourth Grand Slam in a row. Nadal had been plagued by a virus since the start of the year, with the top seed admitting that he’s not yet back to full fitness.
That problem seems to have been solved with the comprehen-sive win over Cilic, who saved a match point with an ace and ended with a double-fault.
“I was nervous before the match, I knew how well Marin could play,” said Nadal, who said that he felt the best on court in weeks.
“He’s very dangerous. I had to play with a high intensity and played my best match of this year,” Nadal said.
“I’m happy that I didn’t sweat so much tonight like I did in the previous two matches. Today was the first day I felt perfect physically, that’s the most impor-tant thing,” Nadal said.
There was a surprise loss for fourth seed Robin Soderling, who was unable to get past Alexandr Dolgopolov. It was Soderlings’ first loss this season after the two-time Roland Garros finalist had compiled an 8-0 sea-son and had won 20 sets without losing any before his young oppo-nent won the second.
“It was a good match, but I struggled to get into it,” said Dolgopo-lov after losing the first set in 21 minutes.
“I was playing good on the baseline. I try to play against my op-ponents’ weakness and make them commit er-rors. That’s my game,” Dolgopolov said.
“In the first set I was struggling, and I was a break down in the sec-ond. But I came back somehow and started to play better and bet-ter with every set. I’m really happy I’m through to the quarter-final,” Dolgopolov said.
Soderling, treated for a toe blister, was denied the first Mel-bourne quarterfinal of his career.
“I struggled many times in this tourna-ment,” he said. “I’ve never had a good first month in my career. But still, you know, I won a title (Brisbane) and made it to the fourth round here. It’s much better than the past years.”
The 2010 finalist Andy Murray, the fifth seed, continued his ef-fortless progress with a thrashing of Austrian number 11 Juergen
Melzer, dismantling the French Open semi-finalist with 13 aces and 30 winners in just over an hour and 40 minutes. Murray pro-duced his fifth win in the series and first against Melzer since Melbourne 2009.
“Like my first few matches, I started very well,” said the Scot. “I started hitting the ball very cleanly right from the beginning of the match. When I had the wind with me, I dictated a lot of the points, returned very well, served well in the second and third set. So it was very good.”
Spanish seventh seed David Ferrer denied Milos Raonic an his-toric first Canadian place in a mens’ Grand Slam quarterfinal with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 de-feat of the 20-year-old.
On the women’s side, second seed Vera Zvonareva defeated Czech Iveta Benesova 6-4, 6-1 while Poland’s Agnieszka Radwan-ska — playing in her first match since sur-gery — fought off two match points to upend Chinas Peng Shuai 7-5, 3-6, 7-5.
Czech Petra Kvitova followed up a defeat of No. 5 Australian Saman-tha Stosur by knocking out Italian Flavia Pen-netta 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
The winner managed 46 winners and 43 un-forced errors.
“I was very nervous in the first set,” Kvitova said. “I thought that it would be tough, so I just wanted to try for just fo-cus on each point.”
Students bring women’s lacrosse team to Marshall
Nadal shows no sign of weakness in sweep of Cilic
CORINNE DUBREUIL | ABACA PRESS | MCT
Spain’s Rafael Nadal hits a shot against Australia’s Bernard Tomic during third-round action at the Australian Open at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday. Nadal defeated Tomic, 6-2, 7-5, 6-3.
CORINNE DUBREUIL | ABACA PRESS | MCT
Spain’s Rafael Nadal lines up a backhand shot against Australia’s Bernard Tomic during third round play at the Australian Open at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday. Nadal defeated Tomic, 6-2, 7-5, 6-3.
Breaking down barriers with basketball
will be posted. The women’s lacrosse
team will spend the remain-der of the semester getting organized so they can start playing early next year.
“We eventually hope to play colleges from outside of West Virginia,” Gun-noe said.
Ford and Gunnoe said they are excited to get back on the field with a
new team. “I’m just looking for-
ward to getting back on the field and getting in shape and having fun while doing so,” Ford said. “It’s such a fun sport and doesn’t get the credit it deserves.”
The girls said they hope that others at Mar-shall will enjoy the sport as much as they have in
the past.“You make such good
friends being on a team like that,” Ford said. “Especially when a lot of the girls are on the same level and there isn’t as much competition within the team itself.”
Crystal Myers can be contacted at [email protected].
BY STEVE KELLEYTHE SEATTLE TIMES(MCT)
SEATTLE — I grew up in a white-bread world. There was only one Af-rican-American family in my neighborhood. My elementary, junior and senior high schools were predominantly white.
If it hadn’t been for bas-ketball, I would have had no understanding of diversity, outside of the few pages de-voted to black leaders in my history books.
Without basketball, I wouldn’t have had any shared experiences with the black community. My life wouldn’t have been nearly as rich.
I thought about that as I spent much of last week at Edmundson Pa-vilion, watching some of the city’s best high-school players and teams com-pete in the Martin Luther King Hoopfest and later watching Washington play the Arizona schools in important Pac-10 Con-ference games.
Last week was a cel-ebration of the game in Seattle, but it also was a celebration of civil rights and equality and a celebration of the trans-formative power of hoops.
For me, the transforma-tion began in the early 1960s, when I was just entering my teens and my father came home to tell me he had invested in a basketball team.
My father wasn’t a wealthy man and my mother was skeptical when he told us he was going to be one of 11 owners of the expansion Wilmington Blue Bombers of the East-ern Basketball League.
Needless to say, as doubtful as my mother was about the intelligence of such an investment, I was equally ecstatic.
The quality of basketball in the EBL, which later became the Continental Basketball Association, was remarkable. Every team played up-tempo. The league was a run-and-gun thrill ride.
Back then, there were only nine teams in the pre-expansion NBA, which meant the play-ers in the EBL were NBA-quality.
Paul Silas played there briefly. Bob Love spent a year in the league. NBA Hall of Famer Paul Arizin played on the weekends af-ter he retired. And George Raveling was a veteran.
Many players still had dreams of playing in the NBA. And many players realized those dreams.
The league was loaded with former college players I had watched regularly in person and on television. I couldn’t wait to see them play ev-ery weekend. I couldn’t wait to see their practices.
The players of the Blue Bombers, almost all of them African-American, also became family friends.
My father invited many of them to the house for dinner. They shot hoops
See BARRIERS I 5
The worst recession since 1929 shattered American confidence in our economy and in our government. Stock exchanges crashed, and the whole world lost its savings in the wreckage. Wall Street and Detroit teetered on the edge and Washington reacted in panic.
As we attempt to reshape our politics and our badly sputtering economy, a good place to start looking for mod-els would be a business most Americans consider a part of our national identity: football. Despite the poor corporate climate, the National Football League continues to attract fans, rake in profits and dominate the television mar-ket. Why? Because the NFL puts out a good product—en-tertaining games between well-matched teams—that people will pay to watch. Perhaps economists and policy-makers should take notice. After all, if there’s anything more American than football, then it’s got to be capitalism. But the meth-ods behind the success of the NFL might surprise many of its most loyal fans, given how we proclaim our love of free markets and our correspond-ing disdain for their enemy: European socialism.
By American standards our football league is Red to the core: The league office sets a limit on how much each team can spend on its players and fines them heavily if they fail. It divvies up the revenue from its gigantic television contracts equally between every team. It allows the visiting team to collect 40 percent of the ticket sales at away games. All these regulations are designed to help teams from small-markets, like the Green Bay Packers, win Super Bowls alongside big-city rivals like New York and Dallas.
What’s going on here? Doesn’t it seem deeply un-American that the richest teams are forced to cap their spending? It’s their money; let them do what they want with it.
Let’s hope that our own politicians and business leaders here in America turn more to the National Football League as they attempt to restore civic and financial responsibil-ity to America. Even if they have to use a little NFL-style.
EDITORIAL
College is the next step after high school and it is supposed to improve our chances of getting a successful job. Marshall University Career Services is sponsoring a workshop series about life after graduate school and the path to your professional career.
The graduate college workshop is not the only event career servic-es is hosting. They have numerous
upcoming events including work-shops on resumes, interviewing tips, professional image and job search. Career services is here to help students with important aspects of our lives. Why not take advantage of what they are hired to do?
It’s not unusual for students who reach their senior year to be nervous about life after college.
For four years we have grown com-fortable with our environment, and transitioning to the next step in life is not an easy task for anyone.
Career Services is a resource on campus that all students should use. Just to name a few of the things that career services helps students with is our resumes, cover letters and job search. What better way is there to ease some of
the stress in our lives than having someone help us. It’s also impor-tant to have another opinion and idea because we can’t think of ev-erything we need.
Career Services website in-cludes links that can help students choose a career path or major or a list of course requirements for different majors. You can also con-duct an online practice interview, learn about student jobs of the week, tips to fi nding a job and read
student testimonials. We can’t stress enough the
great resources that career ser-vices provide. So the next time you are worried about what you are going to do after college or try-ing to fi nd a job, check out Career Services’ website or drop by their offi ce. Take advantage of what is provided foryou to put yoursef on the path to success.
What the NFL could teach the rest of America
Upcoming Career Services events prepare students for life after college
EDITORIAL CARTOON I JEFF KOTERBA I THE OMAHA WORLD-HERALD
OpinionTuesday, January 25, 2011marshallparthenon.com
4
Career Services provides useful resources
NICHOLAS A. NEHAMASHARVARD CRIMSONHARVARD UNIVERSITY
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICACongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble; and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The First Amendment
C M Y K 50 INCH
1. I used to love writing on my blog. I think I stopped blogging when I started taking Facebook a little more seriously. It’s not that one is necessarily better than the other, but one is faster and more far-reaching than the other. And it’s sad, because I think Facebook notes are shorter than my posts were … and now, with Twitter, even status up-dates are getting shorter still. Are we somewhat encouraging our ADD with all this? Maybe?
2. Facebook updates. Every few months or so, we need to re-learn how to navigate through the page. Why does it not stop doing that? It is a terribly frus-trating thing. And then come the groups that tell you how to keep the previous layout, though that doesn’t seem to hap-pen anymore.
3. According to a study from AIS Media, 27 percent of people use Facebook in the bathroom. Aren’t we becoming a little too obsessed with this thing? I just spent about 20 minutes reading my newsfeed instead of writing this column. Addictive?
4. Walls. They are so not pri-vate. There are friends that tell each other how much they love each other on their walls. Ugh. It’s amusing to see whole drama stories unfurl on my newsfeed. By the time I get to my friends, I know what happened so well that there’s no point in talking about it anymore.
5. There’s something even worse: Facebook Officiality. Peo-ple getting engaged, starting a relationship or breaking up is something that happens all the time. And it makes sense to have your friends know. But sometimes it’s ridiculous. Now you find out about it because you read it on your newsfeed, and not because you’re actually close to these people.
6. Have you noticed how your posts can be seen by people that do not know you? Friends of friends can see posts, see your profile, see everything about you .You can enter other people’s photographs with relative ease.
7. One of the consequences of updating the status of our lives is that we need to disclose more information about ourselves in order to make us more socially accepted. As if we shopped around for people who shared our interests through this infor-mation, as if we were browsing dating sites or window shop-ping. Are we giving too much?
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What I hate about Facebook
What do you enjoy most about the snow?
If the gubernatorial election were held today who would you vote for?
■ Possibility of classes getting canceled■ Being able to play with it■ I don’t like the snow at all
■ Rick Thompson .....................................................33%■ Earl Ray Tomblin .................................................... 33%■ John Perdue .......................................................... 33%
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associate professor of political sci-ence, said there will be plenty of chances for the bill to be amended though. She also said if this bill doesn’t pass, then a similar one could be reintroduced in a special session.
“I think it’s highly likely that we’ll actually end up having a special session to deal with redistricting because it is such a big deal,” Beller said.
One organization supporting the bill is the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the largest business advocacy organization in the state that works for economic develop-ment and job creation in West Virginia.
President of West Virginia Cham-ber of Commerce Steve Roberts said he supports the bill because he thinks it would bring voters “closer to their representatives” and po-tentially create more incentives for voting. This, in turn, could lead to better governance and possible economic development, results that are in line with the chamber’s mission.
“Breaking up some of the larg-est districts would make an awful lot of sense,” Roberts said. “For instance, there is a district with seven legislators, there is a dis-trict with five legislators in several places and there are districts with four legislators. That’s an awful lot of legislators for voters to really
get to know, and we don’t have a tradition of having very high voter turnout in West Virginia.”
Jordan Richardson, senior po-litical science major from Nitro, W.Va., adds that, because so many candidates compete against each other in multimember districts, a candidate can easily end up with a majority in a three-way or four-way race.
“Often times, the person who wins is not actually the person ev-eryone wants to win; it’s just the person who got the most votes. So splitting it [West Virginia] up into single-member districts will make it much easier to en-sure representation based upon citizens having a clear majority,” Richardson said.
Beller believes, however, that the bill would not necessarily result in more equal representation but rather would just provide clarity for constituents in terms of know-ing whom to contact.
She also believes the bill would affect not only constituents but also multimember representatives and interest groups.
“It would immediately hurt legislators in multimember dis-tricts who pull their resources to campaign. It’s going to hurt them because now they have to cam-paign, raise their own money and fund everything,” Beller said.
As for interest groups, she said the bill would affect them because it is easier for such groups to tar-get candidates from single-member
districts.“If you think about it—if you can
elect three, five or six people in a district—it’s harder for an inter-est group to specifically just go after one because the constituents can divide their votes. So if you’re having only one person elected, an interest group can simply ball that candidate with negative ads.”
Roberts pointed out that, as far as he is aware, the chamber did not help to draft the legislation in the bill and that HB2367 may not be the only bill the chamber ends up supporting.
Richardson said that while he thinks there will be protest among delegates from multimember dis-tricts, the bill ultimately has hope.
Chad Minnick, junior political science major from Buckhannon, W.Va., and also a supporter of the bill, doesn’t think HB2367 will nec-essarily make it through however.
“I think the closer that we get to even representation is a good step to be making,” Minnick said. “How-ever, reflecting on state history and how we came to have our current system, it’s going to meet a lot of opposition to change something of the sort. So it’s a great idea, but I don’t see in this political climate how it’ll pass and become law.”
The House Judiciary Committee is currently reviewing the bill.
Delegates Linda Sumner, John El-lem and Troy Andes were contacted but unavailable for comment.
Anna Swift can be contacted at [email protected].
HouseContinued from Page 1
open to the idea of look-ing into scheduling some sort of acclimation program for students starting in the spring.
Even though there is currently no program for these students to ac-climate, there are plenty of resources around cam-pus for students to find help. Hensley suggested students to ask the Stu-dent Resource Center for help.
Sara Belknap, re-source specialist at the Student Resource Cen-ter, explained that they are always ready to help students who are having difficulties.
“We help them play catch up and gain a con-nection to the campus,” Belknap said.
Belknap stressed how important it was for students to feel a sense of connection to cam-pus. Compared to new students in the fall, new students in the spring have more of a responsibility to seek resources they need, she said.
In addition to the Student Resource Cen-ter, Hensley suggests that if new students are struggling, then they should get to know their adviser, seek out their Resident Advis-ers and talk to the dean of students. She also pointed out that there is a counseling service in Prichard Hall that is available to students who are in need.
Maribeth Smith can be contacted at [email protected].
StudentsContinued from Page 1
“Residents have to fill in every box and actually type out the problem, that way we can get the most detailed requests and the housekeeping and maintenance staff knows exactly what they will have to do,” Glover said.
The service is available to all campus residence hall. Students living in the First-Year Residence Halls still have to go their residence portal to request assistance.
An advantage of go-ing online is that the requests can be tracked in a database that can be
used as a reference for the housekeeping and maintenance staff.
“Being online makes it easier for us to be organized and more ef-ficient,” Ross said.
Even though the system has only been available since the se-mester started, the residence department has already been receiv-ing positive feedback.
“We’ve heard a lot of good things about it al-ready”, Glover said. “The key is getting aware-ness out about it so the students know that it is there for them to use.”
Dalton Hammonds can be contacted at [email protected].
MaintenanceContinued from Page 2
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BCMWednesdays 9:10 p.m.Campus Christian Center
Crusade for ChristThursdays 9:09 p.m. Marco’s
FloodTuesdays 9 p.m. Marco’s
fourteen21Mondays 9 p.m. Marco’s
RevolutionMondays 7 p.m.Marco’s
When does your campus group meet? Let us know at [email protected].
with me in my backyard. Some of them came to my junior high school games.
They were remarkably generous with their time. Almost 50 years later, I remember many of their names. Will Johns, Waite Bellamy, John Savage, Maurice McHartley, who always played with a tooth-pick in his mouth.
These players were regulars in my home and they told me stories about their basketball careers and stories about growing up black in America.
Bellamy, a fourth-round pick of the St. Louis Hawks who grew up in Florida, told me about the res-taurants in his hometown that barred him from entering and the white-only restrooms that he couldn’t use.
I remember asking him why he wasn’t mad all of the time, and he told me he saw progress and that progress gave him hope. And he said people like my father made him feel welcome in communities
that once were unwelcoming.My favorite Bomber was a player
named Cleveland “Swish” McKin-ney, one of the league’s legendary shooters. Swish spent hours help-ing me—unsuccessfully—with my jumper. He shot a jumper that moved through the air without ro-tation, like a knuckleball. I never learned the trick.
As his name suggests, Swish was a player without a conscience and he sometimes would confront me after my games and tell me to shoot more. I would look around to make sure my coach wasn’t listening.
He also told me about his days in the Army and the names he used to be called. He told me he was a shooter, not a fighter, and he would try as hard as he could to ignore the taunts. Playing basketball was a way to escape for him.
Because it was a weekend league, players, even for home games, stayed at local motels. We’d meet them for breakfast on Sundays, and often the players would be the only black people in the restaurants.
Basketball broke down barriers.Even though these players
became friends, I never talked with black kids my age until I started hooping with them. In the sum-mers in the mid- and-late-1960s, when American cities were torn because of race, buildings were burning and the rage was intense, we played basketball together, black and white, without incident.
The courts were an oasis from the anger, the game was our com-mon ground. Basketball removed all the stigmas, all the stereo-types, all the suspicions. It’s too simple to say there was no ten-sion. Of course there was. But when the games began, race was never an issue.
I’ve always loved the game and still believe there is no sweeter sound than the swish of a jump shot soft as down. But I’m also grateful to the game.
It freed me from my white-bread world. It opened my eyes and my mind and my world. It taught me that there were no differences be-tween black and white.
And, all these years later, it still has that magical power to bring all of us together.
BarriersContinued from Page 3
Tuesday, January 25, 2011marshallparthenon.com
1. Ashton Kutcher2. Britney Spears3. Oprah Winfrey4. Twitter5. Barack Obama
6. John Mayer7. Ryan Seacrest8. Shaquille O’Neal9. Kim Kardashian10. Demi Moore
TOP 10 I CELEBRITY TWITTERS 6
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To tweet, or not to tweet
PHOTO COURTESY OF MCTPeople have grown used to the idea of Twitter as America’s stream of consciousness, but a new study suggests that the fast-growing micro blogging service is also becoming a kind of digital melting pot for U.S. adults. Susan Joufl as, The Seattle Times/MCT)
By Dagny Leonard and Derby CoxMCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE INFORMATION SERVICES (MCT)
Since its creation in 2006, Twitter, the social networking service, has taken the cyber world by storm.
At first glance it might seem like a glorified Facebook status, but Twitter is in a league of its own, connecting people with fast-paced updates. It has become more than just an outlet for status updates; it is a place for closet comedi-ans, activists, celebrities, businesses and everyday people to let others know about videos, opinions, interesting news, adver-tisements, and, yes, what they are eating for lunch.
The phenomenon in-cludes a host of new vocabulary terms and concepts that every self-respecting Twitter-er should know. Here’s a crash course on every-thing Twitter, from basic terms to its impact on the news.
TWITTER TERMSTwitter: n. a free social
networking service that connects users through fast-paced status updates. •Twitter-er: n. one who uses Twitter. •Tweet: n. short updates
or messages, of 140 char-acters or less, which are posted on your profile and sent to your followers.
•Retweet (RT): n. unof-ficial Twitter feature that indicates a re-posting of a tweet from another user. Often uses the text “RT @username” (of the original source) before the post.
•Follower: n. one who receives another user’s updates on his or her Twitter profile.
•@: n. a public mes-sage from one user to another by using the “@username” prefix before a tweet.
•Direct message: n. a private message sent from one Twitter-er to another.
•#hashtags: n. a con-vention that adds context to tweets by putting “#” in front of a keyword to link other users using the same keywords. Exam-ple: #obama
CELEBRITYTWITTER-ERS
Twitter is teeming with celebrity accounts. The famous, who once shunned the media in their private lives, are posting everything on Twitter for all the cyber world to see, amass-ing followers in the millions. Who’s lead-ing the celebrity pack?
TwitterCounter (www.twittercounter. com), a site that tracks the most popular Twitter users, lists Ashton Kutcher (username: aplusk) as the most popular Twitter-er with, as of our publication date, 2,691,112 followers.
Sure, their celebrity status is what got them followers, but it’s their tweets that really make them popular. Here are a few celebrity tweets we found to be funny, inter-esting, silly, or all of the above.
Tweets range from the funny, “Obama admitted to smoking. while we are admitting things I have a confession to make. I don’t drink enough wa-ter.” -- Ashton Kutcher (aplusk) 4:28 p.m. June 23, to the mundane, “20 min treadmill. 7.5 speed. 1 incline. 3, two minute cool down walks. I’m sore today. Ate a Skor bar yesterday. #treadt-weets” -- Jimmy Fallon (jimmyfallon) 7:26 a.m. June 25.
Need a bigger celebrity Twitter fix? E! Online (www.eonline.com) has a constantly running “celebri-Tweet” feed to keep you up to date on the lives of the rich and famous.
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Check out The Parthenon Twitter! www.twitter.com/MUParthenon
PHOTO COURTESY OF MCT