Support for our Veterans

When a soldier returns home from a life of active duty, it is anything but easy.

Utah State University senior, Joe Livingston returned to the U.S. from Iraq after serving a full five years overseas in the army. Not only did he have to adjust to life outside of the military --- there was the added stress of adapting to family life and going to college in a new city.

The Veteran’s Resource Center at USU has made these soldiers’ lives a little easier. Under the G.I. Bill veterans are offered compensation for their time spent serving the country and therefore the majority of their schooling is then paid for by the military.

Jacob Scharton is the Certifying Official for the Veteran’s Center, as well as a fellow veteran that served 10 years of active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. If at anytime a veteran chooses to use their education benefits, they work through Scharton.

“I guess you could consider them to be scholarships, but it’s more like an entitlement program and it depends on the nature of their service,” Scharton said.

The benefits veterans receive are considered a well-deserved, small amount of compensation after the sacrifice they have made in leaving their own families and fighting for the freedom of our country.

“Chapter 33” is known as the post 9/11 G.I. Bill, this will pay up to 100 percent of tuition and fees, books and a monthly stipend, according to Scharton.

“The center helped me out with my G.I. Bill, I like that there are dedicated people for the veterans. Before they had a person but it was just one person. In the last two years there’s been a dedicated team,” Livingston said.

Adjusting to the normal routines of an every day citizen is difficult for a soldier coming home from the war. They have been used to strict schedules and discipline.

“It’s tough to adjust to being in normal society,” Livingston said. “Relaxing was the hardest part, my life has been better though. I like being part of my kids lives, you see them but at the same time you’re gone all the time even when you’re not deployed.”

The center provides multiple resources for returning soldiers. This includes psychological services for posttraumatic stress. Support for family and friends is also offered to help those that are struggling to understand their veteran’s needs.

“This isn’t as easy as the military, don’t mess around its not high school. Get your assignment in on time and if you have issues your running into, see us right away. The access and diversity center offers other services beyond making sure soldiers get their benefits. Our goal is to make sure that every student that comes into USU is able to graduate,” Scharton said.

Distracted, Drunk, Drugged, and Drowsy Driving

In the year 2009 alone, there was an estimated 11 thousand fatalities involved in alcohol related crashes, according to Alcoholalert.com.

Katelyn Johnson was driving with her mom in September of 2008, when their car collided with another car, because the driver was under the influence of alcohol.

“Because of his selfishness and poor judgment, I lost all sight in my left eye. When he hit our car, he t-boned the side I was sitting on; the passenger’s side, going nearly 60 mph in a 35 mph. This caused my window to shatter and a shard of the glass from the window went straight through my eye,” Johnson said, “it makes me sick knowing that people are still out there driving under the influence and are even texting and talking on the phone while driving. People don't realize that it only takes not even a second of being distracted to risk your life as well as the life of others.”

This week Utah State University has been promoting student and staff awareness of, “Distracted, Drunk, Drugged, and Drowsy Awareness Week.”

A display is located on the second floor of the Taggart Student Center with facts revolving around the myths with drinking and driving. There are also stories of lost loved ones due to distracted, drugged, drunk or drowsy driving, also known as DDDD.

Ryan Barfuss is the program director for the Student Health and Wellness Center at USU. He has put on several events regarding the DDDD campaign to create an awareness of the dangers involved in incoherent driving, especially with the developing risk of texting while driving.

“I don’t think we hear enough about all the issues that could affect students while driving. We hear about a few DUI’s on campus and texting and driving is always a huge issue… Texting while driving is very hard to enforce. It comes back to us personally, if we do it we know we’ll get in trouble but we should not being doing it because it’s the safe thing,” Barfuss said.

Anna Swenson was asleep at her home, on the morning of Oct. 7, 2007, when a drunk driver fell asleep at the wheel and hit her house, literally shaking her awake. The driver was fine and no damage was done excluding the section of the house run-in by the car that then had to be replaced.

There have been multiple stories of such acts that have been committed to do careless driving. Texting while driving has become the new form of drunk-driving because it makes a person just as disabled as alcohol does, according to a study done by Car and Driver magazine

“I texted and drove when I was in high school,” said, Michael Rushton a junior at USU, “but I got older and more mature and can see the negative effects it has on driving. I was lucky to not have gotten in an accident.”

“Every time we drive we don’t plan for problems and when we don’t plan to prevent them things happen. We make those choices that put us at risk,” Barfuss said.

New online course evaluations: a benefit to the University.

Jared Ballard, a student at Utah State University checks his emails 2-3 times a day. As he does so, he once again finds an electronic course evaluation waiting for him in his inbox. He has deleted the previous evaluations multiple times, refusing to fill them out.

The deadline for student course evaluations is approaching and the question of how effective they will be remains.

However, there is a method behind this generally disliked new change. Extensive research has been done by the Faculty Evaluations Committee of the Faculty Senate, according to Michael Torrens the director of the Analysis, Assessment & Accreditation department also known as AAA.

Torrens has worked closely with this committee throughout the process of changing the evaluations from paper to online.

The new course evaluations are called the Individual Development and Educational Assessments also known as IDEA.

Improvements have been made to the current online evaluations that will help establish a more critical analysis. The evaluations now include an assessment of the learning objectives that teachers claim to have taught their students throughout the course.

“This is a new and important improvement that has implications for USU’s efforts to improve courses, and for our internal assessment and accreditation processes,” Torrens said.

One of the most important aspects of the course evaluations is the fact that they have proven to provide more validity and reliability than any other student rating system, according to Torrens.

“They process over 3 million forms representing more than 200,000 classes at hundreds of colleges and universities annually. This volume of data provides an ability for research and testing that greatly exceeds anything available to USU alone,” according to USU’s AAA department.

In turn, this data will allow comparisons to other university’s courses across the nation that are similar to those at USU. According to Torrens, the online method will prevent human or machine error since the forms are being evaluated by the same system and method.

Although this system would appear to be more effective, statistically the question of whether students will do them is yet to be answered.

According to a study titled Online Course Evaluation Literature Review and Findings conducted by Columbia University in the Spring of 2011, “Evaluation scores have not been shown to change when evaluations are completed online rather than on paper, even though response rates have been shown to decrease from paper to online delivery.”

The study also showed that students will leave more meaningful responses when done online as opposed to paper. And once the online evaluations are put in place students and faculty view them more positively than the old paper method.

Professor Tonya Triplett of USU addressed her thoughts on the ideas of students’ grades reflecting how they would fill out their course evaluations for her class. She suspected that a student’s grade may have some impact on the way they fill out their evaluations, and in a way she was correct, however the effect is low.

According to that same study “Grades do not have as large of an effect as do how much students feel they’ve learned, how much they felt stimulated by the class, and whether the class was appropriately difficult.”

Also, “Contrary to the “retaliation” theory, students who do poorly in a class are equally or less likely than those who do well to complete course evaluations.”

A digital summary will be available to the students through the AAA department with an assessment of each course after they have been properly evaluated.

The feedback and analysis of the current semester will not be ready until spring.

“It’s really too early to tell. We’ll have a better sense when the evaluation process is complete for this first semester of implementation,” Torrens said.

Fight the New Drug: The drug of the Millennium

The “drug of the new millennium,” has begun its attack on relationships, lives, homes, marriages and the minds of its users. According to Dr. Mark Kastlemen, a researcher for the “Fight the New Drug” campaign.

This drug is not a substance taken orally or by a syringe but it is seen. It has become a rising global issue and researchers and scientists are doing their best to ensure public awareness of it.

The drug is pornography.

On Dec. 7, 2011, the Utah State University chapter of the Fight the New Drug campaign will host an event on the third floor of the Taggart Student Center, titled “Fight Night,” at 7 p.m.

The USU chapter known as the “Aggie Fighters,” will host a movie night where students can come and learn about the club. They will then watch a movie for a study break before getting back to the books as finals are approaching.

Fight the New Drug, also known as FTND was founded five years ago by Ryan Werner, Cam Lee and Clay Olsen. In February of 2010 it was then instated as a non-profit organization and has been building its campaign around scientific facts regarding the effects pornography has on a person’s mind.

Lynn Walker is the president over the Aggie Fighters at USU and has had his own personal connection with the FTND. He started the USU chapter last spring and has been helping to promote and inform others of the cause ever since.

“New studies have shown that pornography addiction is closely related to the brain because it stimulates the same part of the brain that drugs do,” said Walker, “ the goal is to raise awareness and educate people, because this is how pornography can affect you and impact your life. We don’t say it’s wrong to look at it and talk about the morality aspect of it. We leave the choice up to them whether they choose to view it or not.”

FTND is not associated with any religious or political agendas. They are simply there to raise awareness of the facts regarding pornography and the impact it can have on a person’s life: physically, emotionally and socially.

“I like the fact that it’s all about facts and science and not religiously based,” said Zack Smith, a member of the Aggie Fighters, “they aren’t anti or hateful against pornography just simply educating the public.”

According to Fighthenewdrug.org, like other stimulating activities, “pornography activates the pleasure centers in the brain that literally flood the mind with chemicals.”

This is what causes pornography to become so addictive and harmful.

“You don’t understand it’s having a physical effect on you if you don’t know what you’re getting into. You don’t see the harm in it and you don’t see a reason to change until it goes to far. I realize that I’m not the only one affected, it affects guys and girls and it affects relationships and the quality of life for the individual caught up in it. It sucks the life out of you, like any addiction,” Walker said.

For more information on how to get involved and future events by the “Aggie Fighters” go to their Facebook page at the following link: Aggie Fighters.

A career in Women and Gender Studies?

Lacey Haggan came to Utah State University with her college books in one arm and a baby in the other.

As a single parent she worried about the probability of affording school and meeting the expectations of her professors, as well as taking care of a child.

She couldn’t have done it alone.

Haggan is one of hundreds of women who have been supported by the Department of Women and Gender studies at USU.

The Women’s Center was first founded in 1974 and then was combined with the Gender Studies Center in 2010 “to shatter the glass ceiling.”

The center is anything but a purely feminist group. It is for both men and women and has been made available to students for scholarship opportunities, grants for travel, victims of rape and domestic violence and single parents.

A current debate is occurring across the nation as critics, professors and in particular Utah senator, Howard Stephenson, have addressed the issue of “degrees to nowhere.”

And some would feel that a degree in Women and Gender Studies fits this description.

Dr. Ann Austin is the director of the WGS center and has addressed this issue on multiple occasions with those interested in getting a degree in the field.

“As a job per se, there wouldn’t be very many jobs, but it signals to your employers that you can think outside of the box and you’re interested in issues of fairness, Austin said.

Dr. Jamie Huber, a program coordinator for the WGS center received her Ph.D in Speech and Communication from Illinois. While studying for her masters she received a certificate in Women and Gender Studies.

On multiple occasions she was asked, “When will you quit studying for that dumb certificate and focus on your real career?” Huber said.

But even though most saw it as a waste of time that certificate is what got Huber, her current career at USU.

“If you’re not looking for a career in WGS, it may not do a lot for you, but it does set you apart and you could get an internship somewhere that could help you out a lot which would lead to a potential career,” Huber said.