Upcoming event: "Stuff-a-bus" blitz night

As Utah State University students go out in the community and knock door-to-door in the freezing cold, there are families in need that are grateful for their help and sacrifice to make their own lives a little easier. The service center will be hosting another “Stuff-A-Bus Blitz Night,” on Nov. 28, 2011. This will be the fourth and final blitz night taking place at the Romney Stadium parking lot at six p.m. Students, faculty and staff of USU are all welcome to attend the event and will participate in donating food for the Cache Valley food bank.

An Aggie shuttle driver by the name of Alben Erickson started “Stuff-A-Bus,” seven years ago for Subs for Santa and the Cache Valley food pantry. He then turned it over to the Service Center Department that is currently headed by the Associated Students of Utah State University's service vice president Maddie Busteed.

There are three parts to the stuff-a-bus program, according to Busteed. The first being the blitz nights which are done on four consecutive Mondays in November. Students and staff meet at the Romney Stadium parking lot and then proceed to split up into groups, taking shuttles to different parts of the community to gather food.

The second part includes a contest titled, “Penny Wars” where volunteers gather change from the community and students to donate to the food bank.

The third and final part to the program is the “store days.” Volunteers go to different stores around town and ask people to buy food at the store they're at then leave it in boxes at the front of the store.

“We have four more store days,” said Busteed, “we'll stand outside the stores for four to five hours asking for food donations... and at the end of November the food bank will let us know how many pounds of food were donated,” she said.

Hannah Leve, a sophomore at USU, attended the blitz night with her sorority during Greek Week. The entire Greek community came for it and around 300 people were in attendance.

“We had an awesome response from the community. People would give us everything they had in their pantry and we got to meet and talk to people while doing it.” Leve said.

USU sophomore, Stephenie Duncan also attended a previous blitz night for the food pantry.

“I thought it was pretty fun, it was cool to see how many people showed up to help. Doing service made me feel so good, I love doing service and it gave me a great opportunity to do some,” Duncan said.

The food pantry is open Monday through Thursday and is available to people in the community in need. For upcoming events and ways to donate and help the pantry, more information can be found at the Cache Community Food Pantry's blog at http://cachefoodpantry.wordpress.com/.

(J.Ruggles)

Love it or hate it, USU course evaluations are now online

Utah State University has plans to eliminate their carbon footprint by the year 2050, according USU's Sustainability Council. As part of this plan-- students' end of semester course evaluations have now gone from paper to online. A controversy has developed as this change continues to take place between students and teachers, as some are welcoming of the new change and others begrudgingly adapt to it.

A mass email was sent to teachers and students at USU on Nov. 16, 2011 notifying them of the transition and what to expect with questions and concerns that may emerge.

Tonya Triplett, a professor of physics and science at USU, has welcomed the change with a positive attitude. “So many surveys are now taken in this manner that it seems like the old way was simply that – old. If the same data can be taken another way, we should do it,” Triplett said.

Teachers will no longer be taking time out of their class for students to bubble in evaluation forms and turn them in. Formerly the teachers were not allowed to be present during this process and most saw it as a waste of valuable class time they could be using to teach. Instead of this method, an email with the course number will be sent to the students in the class and it is then the students responsibility to fill out the evaluation and submit it of their own free will and on their own time.

Some students have welcomed the change while others see it as more of an annoying inconvenience as one more email fills up their inbox. Other concerns involving true anonymity have been questioned as well.

“I feel with them being online... it's easier to connect them to an actual student. When you did them in class, it was completely anonymous because you just wrote on them,” Kade Beck, a current student at USU, said.

Within the email notification, it addressed why students should take the course evaluations because without a grade incentive many students will ignore, or fail to fill out the form.

This concern was addressed by Michael Rushton, a junior at USU.

“I'm a fan because now they don't waste my class time to fill them out. Plus it makes us not have to fill them out. I can ignore the emails because evaluations are lame,” Rushton said.

Kevin Rothlisberger, another USU student made a similar statement.

“I don't think many students will do the course evaluations, event though it is convenient,” Rothlisberger said.

Students also feel they will only fill them out if they have something bad to say about the class and/or teacher. This could potentially have a very negative impact on the teacher's class. Whether a professor at USU will stay or go is very heavily weighted on these evaluations and if they receive mostly negative reviews it will affect their career and standing as a teacher of higher education at USU.

If the majority of students choose to not take these course evaluations meaningfully it will lessen the effect the evaluations have and the purpose for them. Students also may feel it pointless to fill out these forms because although students make suggestions to better the class room it doesn't mean anything will change.

“If I am supposed to learn from them, they are pretty ineffective. I read the comments and find out what I already know about myself,” Triplett said.

Professor Triplett also talked about how since students will not have to do the evaluations in class she hopes students will take more time to fill in meaningful comments. Also, those professors with larger classes like Professor Triplett's that never have 100 percent attendance will have the opportunity to be evaluated by the entire class because they will all be sent to their email. However, it is still up to the student to then take the time to then do it.

“I take great personal pride in trying to be an outstanding teacher and faculty representative of Utah State University. No student evaluation, good or bad, will change who I am internally...A survey is only a survey no matter how it is taken. Personal caring help awaits students who are willing to be personal, whether in an office visit, on-line chat, or e-mail,” Triplett said.

(J.Ruggles)

GOP Debate Potluck

In a back-biting highly competitive election year, college campuses all over the country are buzzing with curiosity about which Republican Party candidate will take the lead after each new GOP debate takes place. Utah State University's, “College of Republicans Club”, will be hosting a, “Presidential Debate Potluck” on Nov. 15, 2011 for the students at USU at 6 p.m. in Old Main room number six.

Those attending will watch the presidential debate that will have taken place on Saturday, Nov. 12. The club originally planned to watch the debate happening on Nov. 15 however, that specific GOP debate has been changed to take place on Nov. 22, leaving the club to watch the previous debate.

Michael Rodgerson is the current president of the Republican Club and has been promoting this event for several weeks now to boost some excitement in regards to the upcoming debates, and elections, “we're hoping to have 30 to 40 people there and we'll have food, because it's a pot luck and there will be some non-alcoholic drinking games which should make it a good time,” Rodgerson said.

The drinking games during the debate will include taking a drink when key phrases that are commonly used by the GOP candidates are said during their debate. According to the event's Facebook page there will also be a competition to guess how many times GOP candidate Ron Paul will mention the Federal Reserve, Michelle Bachmann will mention mothers and how many times the number nine is said by Herman Cain or the other debaters.

“It is the duty of Republicans at Utah State University to uphold, protect, and spread conservative ideals,” according to the Republican Club's constitution. That is exactly what Rodgerson is hoping to accomplish by making this event open to any and all students wanting to attend at USU.

“I think a lot of people will show up because everyone likes to watch debates,” said McKenzie Soelberg, a USU freshmen and member of the Republican Club.

Those wishing to attend are welcome to bring their own food and non-alcoholic beverages to the event. Further information and updates can be found at the event's Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=268940656482874.

(T. Truong)

Life- size Angry Birds and live music presented by the Aggie Event Series

The ongoing battle between the birds and the pigs continues. As birds fly through the sky and come crashing down on slightly unstable objects, pigs are killed and blown to pieces under the pile of left over rubble from the attacks. On Thursday Nov. 10, 2011 another battle will be taking place at Utah State University in the Taggart Student Center Ballroom.

According to an article obtained from yahoo.com, Angry Birds reached over 500 million downloads as of Wednesday Nov. 2 , 2011. That’s more than any mobile phone game has ever seen since it first came to Apple in 2009. The game’s growing popularity has spread worldwide and is even making its way onto college campuses.

A life-size Angry Birds obstacle course will be created for students to compete and destroy the pigs for the ultimate prize of an eight GB iPod touch. The activity is being sponsored by the USU College of Agriculture, Education and Human Services and the Aggie Event Series.

Becky Checketts, senator for the College of Education is heading this event along with the Aggie Event Series coordinator Kellen Hansen.

“We started joking about the idea of doing an Angry Birds obstacle course and so we googled and researched it and found some videos of people that had done it, so we figured out how we could too,” Checketts said.

The obstacle course will have three levels in the preliminary round and the band, “Ember Rain” will be performing before the final round takes place. The top 10 quickest times will go to the finals.

Water balloon launchers will be used to throw the stuffed animal Angry Birds toward the cardboard course to knock off the pigs. Since the pigs can’t literally explode as they do in the actual game, a fall or obvious displacement will determine if the pig is dead.

The prizes for the event will include Skull Candy headphones for the third prize winner, a $100 gift card to the USU book store for second, and an eight GB iPod touch as the first place reward.

“The college of education wanted to put something on for the students to let people know we’re here and to get some knowledge out about the college because we don’t do too many events except for education week in the spring,” Checketts said.

The event is free to all USU students and more information can be found on the life-size Angry Birds obstacle course events page on Facebook at the following link: Angry Birds.

(J.Ballard)