RFoC Hosts Day Of Cultural Cuisines

By Hope Bishop

The RFoC is a common hangout for many students on campus, a place to eat a variety of American foods; however, this year’s International Food Fair turned the dining area into a buffet of culture, a place to sit back and experience an entirely new country.

The annual International Food Fair is a fundraiser for SVSU’s English as a Second Language (ESL) program. 

Kelly VanConnett, a chef of the RFoC, said, “The food fest began in 1999, but was a lot different then. It was held in Groening Commons, and students prepared the food in their dorm rooms. Now the RFoC provides accessibility to the kitchen and makes things a lot easier.” 

International students from Africa, Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Saudi Arabia, Korea, Thailand, Palestine, Kuwait, Germany, Mexico, Pakistan, France, Colombia and students from the United States all cooked foods from their home countries.

The students prepared a variety of ethnic foods at stations set up for each country.

Juan Velasquez, a student from Colombia learning English at SVSU said, “We made sancocho, a very popular Colombian soup. The ingredients weren’t hard to find – potatoes, corn, cilantro, avocado, chicken and green bananas.” 

“I like American food,” Velasquez said, “but I cook Colombian food all week.”

Representing Kuwait, mechanical engineering major Ali Ali said, “We made chicken sauce and rice because it’s a very traditional food. The spices were hard to find here, though.”

Victoria Wilson, an undecided student from Germany, prepared kartoffelputter (potato pancakes) and zwiebel kuchen (onion cake). 

“It is very good and is a family recipe,” she said. “Everything was easy to find.”

The fair provided the SVSU community with opportunities to sample the variety of foods and cultures.

Nursing freshman Lindsey Wallace said, “It’s interesting to see what different cultures eat and fun to try something else than American food.”

Kailah Happ, an athletic training freshman, said, “Personally, I am used to American food – and there isn’t any ketchup or ranch around here.”

Jolene Jaquays, an ESL specialist at SVSU, said, “I’m really picky, but I managed to find something delicious from every country.”

College Democrats and Republicans Prepare For Elections

By Noah Essenmacher

SVSU’s College Democrats and College Republicans have their own executive elections coming up this winter.

The College Democrats will elect new officers in two weeks while the College Republicans will hold their election during the first week of the winter semester. 

Senior political science major and current vice president of the College Democrats Darren Kregger said incumbent officers will run unopposed for new offices in the annual election. 

“There is actually only one contested race,” he said. “There are three returning board members who don’t have any competition, and I think we are all nominated again because they trust us and we work hard [to] make sure things get done.”

“[We] make sure that people are on the same page. There is a lot of communication going on.”

Kregger is nominated for president, and political science major and current secretary Justin Alexander is nominated for vice president. Current treasurer John Kauten is nominated for another term in his current office.

The contested race for the secretary office will be decided in two weeks. Kregger expresses confidence in all of the candidates.

“For all of the candidates, no matter who wins the one contested race, they’re all more than capable of leading,” he said. “Really, from our leadership, I’m looking for stability and consistency and making sure things still get done and bringing new ideas to the table.”

The College Republicans are looking for leaders who are hard-working and committed to their organization according to political science junior and president Brandon Sprague. 

Other current executive board members include political science junior and vice president Bridget Sobek, political science junior and secretary Aaron Baylis, and elementary education sophomore and treasurer Tara Robishaw.

Sprague said switching the group’s election to an “every-semester cycle” was a decision made with hopes of increasing student involvement.

“We had been electing once a year, and we felt that with people joining midway through the year that it really wasn’t fair to them to have it locked in for a year,” he said. 

Sprague said biannual fall and winter elections prevent future officers from becoming complacent in their positions, a situation that Sprague said has not been an issue for current leaders. 

The College Republicans hold elections for president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. Current office holders are renominated unless they choose not to run, and challengers must be nominated and seconded. 

“What we will do is have anyone that is nominated in an actual race will get up and have a few minutes to give a speech about why they deserve the position,” Sprague said. 

Sprague encourages student involvement in the College Republicans and its elections. The group plans several activities, including a trip to the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C.

“Come to one of our meetings and see what we are all about,” Sprague said. “Myself included, we’re not the stereotypical Republicans. There is very much diversity in our group. We have people who align more with the Libertarian Party and some that come in because they have more right-leaning views, but just as a group we are very diverse on many issues.” 

Sprague said the organization’s goal is to get Republicans elected to local positions and to increase Republican presence on campus.

Kregger welcomes interested students to attend College Democrats meetings and find out more about the group. Voting privileges within the group are reserved for members who are “involved and showing up for meetings.”

“If [students] can come and they want to be involved ... there are cabinet positions where there is probably going to be more turnover in appointed positions.”

In addition to supporting Democratic candidates, Kregger said the organization seeks an active presence on campus. 

The group is planning a Casablanca theme party, a fundraiser in the Saginaw community and an event for the United States presidential inauguration. 

“One of the biggest recruitment opportunities is always the Cards Party in the fall,” he said. “But also it is just getting our name out there or doing events on campus to show people that we are active.” 

Children's Hospital To Benefit From Up 'til Dawn

By Sara Kitchen

College students typically have a laundry list of reasons why they’ve stayed up until dawn during their college careers, few of which are as good as addressing letters to support the 

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. 

Each year, SVSU’s student-led Up ‘til Dawn organization plans for an all-night letter-addressing party that benefits the Memphis-based pediatric treatment and research facility. 

St. Jude’s accepts all children who suffer from cancer and other catastrophic diseases, regardless of a family’s ability to pay for treatment. 

Volunteers at Up ‘til Dawn are supplied with the materials to send letters to friends and family members requesting donations for the hospital, which runs primarily on fundraising efforts. 

Up ‘til Dawn director and pre-pharmacology senior Ashleigh Corlew led organizational efforts that began early in the semester and produced a registration list of over twice as many students as last year.

Of the program, Corlew said, “I just love it. I’ve been to the hospital in Memphis. You can’t even explain how amazing this place is.” 

Corlew, who returned to direct the program for the second consecutive year, said the group reached more students this year by contacting nearly every registered student organization (RSO) on campus and attending their meetings. 

“We’re still fairly new,” she said of Up ‘til Dawn, which is in its fifth year. “People are still finding out about what we do. We’re just trying to get the word out that it’s a great cause.”

Students who brought 50 addresses or more were entered in a drawing to win an iPod. 

Several students representing RSO’s signed up as teams.

Social work senior Ashley Sherbino volunteered with fellow members of the Student Social Work Organzation (SSWO).

“This is going to a great cause, and what we’re going into gives us a different outlook on what we’re doing this for,” she said. 

Sherbino tapped into her high school graduation open house list to fill her address quota and said she planned to stuff letters throughout the night.

“Even though I have to be up at 5:15 a.m., I’m still staying up ‘til dawn,” she said. “I’ve got lots of Diet Coke and the company of friends to keep me awake.”

Mechanical engineering sophomore and Up ‘til Dawn executive board member Shawn Stover was one of two guest speakers at the event. Stover shared his recent experience with kidney failure. 

“I know how hard getting funding for medical expenses can be,” he said. “With my situation last year, insurance companies paid for everything. I don’t know how I would be able to pay for school otherwise.” 

Stover underwent seven months of dialysis and received a kidney transplant from his father in 2007. 

“It means a lot to me that everyone comes to this,” he said. 

Volunteers also received a performance from SVSU’s hip hop dance team and Forte. A buffet of food donated from local restaurants fueled hungry letter-stuffers.   

Corlew expects to receive updates on the amount SVSU’s letters are generating in coming months and hopes to hit the $20,000 mark. 

She wishes to thank all those who volunteered and contributed to the night’s success. 

Vanguard Vision: Online Professor Ranking Sites Breed Culture Of Indolence

The path of least resistance – It seems to be the path chosen to many college students. While Web sites such as Ratemyprofessors.com and CampusBuddy.com provide a seemingly noble service, they make it easier for students to not challenge themselves, and have helped create a generation of young people who feel they’re not paying for an education, but rather for the small white piece of paper handed to them at the end of their four years of attendance.

The issue - The professor rating Web sites have on a student’s scheduling habits.

Our position - Some of these sites provide students easy access to important information – like grade frequencies, percent of students passed and failed, etc – that are making it more simple  for students to build the easiest schedule possible, forgetting the reason we’re here is to be challenged culturally and intellectually.

Robert Frost’s quote about taking the road less traveled is such a common colloquialism, it’s almost a cliché. Regardless of the possible writing faux pas that comes along with beginning an editorial with a cliché, it’s important to note that most college students do not follow Mr. Frost’s ideal.

For most of us, the road less travelled is better left to someone else. We put more effort in holding out for late afternoon classes, registering for the easiest courses and finding the easiest professors. 

The latter is getting easier by the semester, it seems. Web sites such as Ratemyprofessors.com and CampusBuddy.com offer students peer opinion on professors, and in the latter’s case, the actual grade frequencies of nearly all a school’s teachers. 

While this at first seems an incredible help to students – after all, the last thing any of us wants is a semester dealing with professors who are impossible to work with, and they do exist here at SVSU – it also creates a culture of indolence. 

There are a number of things offered by a university – a new social network, a mind-opening experience, the opportunity to visit and explore different cultures and countries that for most are a world away. However, the cardinal charge of an institution is providing its students the best education their money can buy, and preparing them for the rest of their life by helping them to learn how to deal with difficult tasks through progressive thinking and problem solving. 

These things aren’t gained by filling our schedules with the classes so easy we can get away with showing up 30 percent of the time and turning in work we know is substandard. Settling  like this is a terrible habit to stumble into. We should create our party schedule around our school schedule, not the other way around.

And sure, we all have a class or two we just need to fill credits – something else that should rise contempt in even the most languid student. These sites help us 

With that, these sites do carry serious merit. Without them, underclassmen and transfer students would be left with even less an idea of what to expect on the first day of each semester, and, in the case of CampusBuddy.com, important information on the grading practices of those teaching.

For students looking to challenge themselves, a site such as CampusBuddy helps show which professors are too difficult, which ones are challenging and fair, and which are barely as interested in attending class as the kid in the back who can’t help but snore through his one o’clock class. So keep in mind, we could be mortgaging our future because some spited student gave their professor an expletive laden review.

Thanksgiving Spirit In Limited Supply With Modern Americans

By Stuart Chipman

Each year, on the last Thursday of November, when autumn sets the trees ablaze and the first snowflakes begin to paint the landscape, most of the United States sits down to celebrate, watch a football game, gorge on turkey and gorge a little more on pie. Then, they waddle over to the couch and flop down into a tryptophan-induced coma to rest up before the most vehement shopping day of the year. 

But rewind. Back at the dinner table, though there is a regrettable loss of focus in this area, many families still make a point to express their gratitude for the unearned privileges they and their ancestors have received, hence the name of the holiday. 

But when did this noble tradition start. Rewind some more. In 1621, a group Wampanoag, in their infinite hospitality, saved the lives of a group of ill-equipped colonists who had sentenced themselves to starvation with their lack of knowledge of their environment. 

Everyone who attends elementary school learns this in history class. Thanksgiving is a time not to just give thanks in general, but to celebrate hospitality, acceptance and generosity. Or at least it ought to be. Unfortunately, the hospitality the colonists received did not start a domino effect; the horrible exploitation that followed did. As Squanto was thanked for his hospitality by being tossed on a slave ship to Europe, the spirit that started Thanksgiving was turned into the spirit that has dictated the history of immigration in the United States.

America, for any group of first-generation immigrants besides those first colonists, has hardly been the land of dreams. Instead, Africans, Irishmen, Germans, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Asians, Pilipinos and Latinos have been welcomed with animosity, racism, abuse and exploitation. The last immigrants to the U.S. to be met with a warm welcome were those settlers received by Native Americans. Promptly thereafter, the genocide of nearly 12 million American Indians had effectively established the rule of the white man. So long and thanks for the food. 

Since then, the United States has accepted more immigrants than any other nation in the world. The brutal trials that each generation of new American immigrants endured makes the U.S. appear to be some global fraternity with a horrible induction ceremony. Indeed, most immigrants would gladly down a few shots and take a naked lap if that would earn them status as an American. Instead, they endured cotton fields, long hours in the hazardous factory, life in the shanty-towns or abuse by the long arm of the law, and still that was often not enough. There is no longer any benevolent tribe of Wampanoag waiting to deliver them a feast. The only relief that immigrants to the U.S. can hope for is that another group would succeed them and inherit the contempt of society. 

A recent receptor of this contempt is the Latin American immigrant. Despite the benefits they bring with them – paying far more in taxes than they use in services, doing work that native-born citizens usually consider too dirty or too dangerous (the hotel industry in the Southwest would collapse without immigrant labor) and boosting the economy by lowering the dependency ratio (most immigrants are in their prime working years between 18 and 65, and do not depend entirely on social services) – despite this, people still create a repertoire of derogatory names and myths for Latin Americans, and our government agencies reflect that animosity.

I spent Thanksgiving last year at my brother Gordy’s house in Lansing. My family ate dinner and then everybody over the age of 25 promptly fell asleep, and Gordy and I waltzed around his neighborhood carrying our remaining Thanksgiving cheer between us and sharing it with his friends from El Salvador. I spoke few words in English all night as I celebrated with some of the most hospitable, kind and pleasant people I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. I thought at that moment, this is what Thanksgiving is all about: Hospitality between cultures.

A few weeks ago, Immigration and Naturalization Services burst into the restaurant where these Salvadorans worked – guns drawn, cussing and swearing – and hauled them outside to the parking lot where they laid them face-down on the pavement and chained them together before putting them in the back of a van and bringing them to Detroit.  

Some of these immigrants have been in the U.S. for over 20 years, received mortgages to buy homes, been legally married in the U.S. and had children who were in school. The first had come as political refugees and made trips to the Immigration Services building in Chicago as frequently as possible to bring the rest of their family to the U.S. One by one they came, documented and legal. They worked 50 to 60 hour a week at a popular restaurant and a tortilla factory saving money. Nobody knew why they were being arrested. The INS is the only law enforcement agency that does not need a warrant to arrest people or search them. 

For whatever reason this family was arrested, the treatment was barbaric. This country was built and survives on immigration. Immigrants do not “take our jobs,” NAFTA does. They are not any more prone to violence or criminality that than the domestic population, statistics that show an incredibly high crime rate among undocumented immigrants are usually including their working as crime, and we all know the horrible effects that pool-cleaning, housekeeping and landscaping has had on California – mainly clean pools, clean houses, and pretty lawns. This story is just an illustration that the spirit of Thanksgiving is only celebrated on one day a year. I challenge Americans to match the unwavering hospitality of the people we treat so poorly.

Intelligent Design Helpful To Show Diversity Of Theories To Students

By Luke Deming

In 2005, the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District court case in Louisiana questioned the place of the scientific theory Intelligent Design in American schools.  The school board required a message be read in science classes  indicating there are flaws in the Theory of Evolution and a book advocating Intelligent Design is available for students who want to read it. Students were also encouraged to keep an open mind with scientific theories. Why should a school district be sued over a million dollars because it gave an alternative to Evolution and told students to keep an open mind? The school board was only informing students about Intelligent Design – the theory was not taught in class, it wasn’t advanced as a better theory than Evolution, and students were not told to stop believing in Evolution.

The controversy over teaching Intelligent Design (often linked with Creationism) in public schools has created tension between students, parents, school boards, teachers and scientists. Intelligent Design is the idea that some intelligent cause (usually a supernatural being) created life on Earth, instead of life developing through indirect evolutionary processes such as natural selection. 

Intelligent Design has typically been tied to religion and, as a result, has not been taught in public schools. While Evolution has proven to be a solid theory backed by decades of brilliant research, Intelligent Design also has a place being taught in American schools.  

Just to clarify, I am not a Christian, I have many problems with organized religion and I don’t consider myself religious. But, if American schools want to compete with the world, its students can’t be limited. The curriculum needs to be expanded to have the most complete and thorough education in the world. That starts with teaching theories that aren’t in textbooks but have support from legitimate scientists, such as Intelligent Design.

In a 2004 Gallup Poll, 35 percent of Americans believed that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was well supported with evidence. It is clear that more educated people are more likely to believe in Evolution because 52 percent of college graduates believe Evolution is well supported by evidence.  But 45 percent of Americans believe that a god created human beings in their present form (this belief denies the evolving process taught in schools). Is it that Americans are dumb and unwilling to believe the Theory of Evolution that has an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community?  Is it that Americans haven’t bought into Evolution because of scientific or religious beliefs? Or could it be that they are curious to learn more about the creation of the Earth so they can have a firm belief?

Detractors of Intelligent Design theory often rely heavily on emotional arguments – for example, “it’s religion with science involved.” Intelligent Design doesn’t claim any religious god as creator of the universe, it doesn’t require repentance of sins, it doesn’t say people are going to heaven or hell and it doesn’t use any religious text. It merely makes the argument that life on Earth might have been created by an intelligent force instead of random chance. While Intelligent Design may seem similar to religion, it is by no means a religion or a religious scientific theory. The separation of church and state has no effect on the theory because it’s not a religion.  

Others claim that since Intelligent Design’s backers usually are Christians, it is simply Christianity repackaged. Judging a theory by its supporters is unscientific and wrong. Intelligent Design needs to be considered on its own merits if we are going to determine if it is a religious scientific theory. Further, many supporters of Intelligent Design aren’t Christians – this includes atheists who believe a superior alien race created the universe (odd, yet probable considering the enormity of the universe – good chance mathematically there is a brilliant race out there).

Intelligent Design also is attacked for finding flaws or gaps with Evolution. But American children should be educated on these gaps and flaws. 

While Evolution is a solid theory, its flaws keep it from being perfect. Dating methods that are supposed to support Evolution often produce inconsistent results and require significant assumptions. Also, fossil records haven’t produced the millions of missing links it predicts. But just because Intelligent Design backers refute Evolution doesn’t mean that Evolution backers shouldn’t refute Intelligent Design. 

Evolution supporters should point out that Intelligent Design hasn’t been properly researched, and its mathematical formulas are often assumed or subjective.

Every scientific theory has flaws, gaps and holes in it. While it is important to know the strengths of a theory, recognizing its weaknesses is the next step to truly understanding it. 

Teaching children scientific theories and not exposing their flaws and gaps is not just an error of education, it is blatantly misinforming them. By refusing to consider anything but Evolution, and not pointing out flaws in Evolution, we are limiting ourselves on finding out how life on Earth was created, and we are stunting our children from learning about all the possibilities.

Letter: Voting Is A Right, Not A Privilege

To the Editor:

Just a thought on the article in this week’s Vanguard. It is in reference to the voting on election day. The Kochville Township representatives are wrong.The definition of privilege is something that is conditional or granted after birth, such as driving. Those who choose to drive must, by law, earn the ability by passing state-wide tests. Period. No questions asked.  

A right is an inherent, irrevocable entitlement held by all human beings from birth. This includes voting. Plain and simple.

-Judy Herek

SVSU student

Letter: I "Heart" Female Orgasm

To the Editor:

Am I the only student that didn’t get a thrill out of the “I heart female orgasm” program at this institution? I thought this university was supposed to be one of “higher” learning, not a university that brings in speakers on the topic of pleasuring one’s girlfriend.

Now, before you dismiss me as a prude, hear me out. I am not advocating that sex education is bad. It is helpful and morally correct (in my opinion) to educate ourselves and youth on the consequences of sexual conduct. I am not even saying that sex is bad or taboo to talk about, either. It should, indeed, be taught that sex is not a taboo, but a normal thing for married couples. Let me say that again. Married. And the 75 percent of Americans who claim to be Christians would agree too, right?  

Maybe critics are right. Maybe the practice of telling kids to wait until marriage to have sex is not working. What about the other influences that may come into play, however? In other words, what about the media that is on TV, the way our society as a whole views sex, infiltrating into our minds and/or programs like “I heart female orgasm” that talk about sex like it is some nonchalant, watercooler discussion. Vanguard staff writer Courtney Duncan even said, “I’m not going to go as far as Solot and Miller did about the pleasures of sex, because I think that mentality is excessive, but I will say that sex needs further discussion in schools.” (Nov. 17 issue) I completely agree. I was at the event and I felt that it was distasteful and excessive; that the speakers went too far in talking about sex, like it should be enjoyed by anyone and everyone, married or not. Have we lost all sense of moral decency and upright?

I applaud Program Board for always trying offer the latest and greatest entertainment for our campus; however, I just simply ask them to choose more wisely when allocating our school’s funds toward events that are as distasteful as the one witnessed this week.

– Adam Christopher Arnold

Secondary Ed. Senior

Hat Tricks Highlight Weekend

By Adrian Nida

The Saginaw Valley Club Hockey team swept the weekend with wins over Jackson Community College on Friday and Delta College on Saturday. The sweep brought them up to 10 consecutive wins, a record for the team. Their overall record stands at 15-2-0-1. 

The Cardinals opened Friday night’s game against Jackson with a 1-0 lead after the first period.  The goal was scored on a power play by junior forward Jon Tibaudo, who went on to get a hat trick and his 103rd career goal.

After a slow start in the first, the Cardinals gained an 8-0 lead during the second period, towering over the Generals. Saginaw’s second goal was scored by senior forward Jake Trombley, his first of two goals that night. Freshman defenseman Steve Pelky scored Saginaw’s third, fifth and final goal of the game, notching a hat trick as well.

Jackson was able to slip the puck past the Cardinals’ freshman goalie Jake Chaillier at 5:09 of the third period, leaving the score at 8-1. 

Hat tricks were in the stats for the Cardinals once again on Saturday night as freshman forward Ben Welch scored three of Saginaw’s four goals against Delta. Welch slipped his first past Delta’s goalie on a power play at 12:07, assisted by Tibaudo and Pelky. The Pioneers came back at 17:54 in the first, tying the score 1-1. 

Saginaw senior defenseman Brian Jensen was sent to the box at 3:27 in the second, allowing Delta a power-play goal and the lead. The Pioneers held on through the rest of the second period, closing it with a 2-1 lead.

Assistant Captain Brian Jensen explained the team’s struggle during the first two periods. 

“We were playing on new lines,” he said. “We didn’t get to practice on them so we didn’t get a gel going. They were switched back so the third went well; we got a lot more production.”

At the start of the third period, the Cardinals’ line changes showed. Assisted by senior forward Matt Fogal and junior defenseman Chris McGuire, Welch scored his second goal of the game, knotting the score at 2. The Cardinals went on to take the lead with Welch’s third goal at 5:15 on a power play assisted by Pelky. 

Delta answered back when a tripping penalty on Saginaw freshman forward Tim Tibaudo allowed the Pioneers a power play goal to tie the score 3-3. The Pioneers were then sent to the box and the Cardinals were able to break the tie on a power play. Jensen scored the game-winning goal with assists by Tim Tibaudo and senior forward Nate Engstrom, locking their 4-3 win.

“I couldn’t have done it without Tim,” Jensen explained. “He made the play happen. He grinded the puck and worked it out to Nate. Nate shot and I ran where the rebound was going.

“To have a 10-game win streak feels real good,” Jensen said. “And Delta’s number six in the nation so it was good to win at their house.”

Spikers Fall To GVSU In NCAA Midwest Regional Finals

By Anthony Fontana

The Cardinals volleyball team’s record-setting season came to an end yesterday after losing to Grand Valley in the NCAA Midwest Regional finals.

The Cardinals got things started off taking game one from the Lakers by a score of 26-24. In a game that saw neither team get more than a three point advantage, SVSU used a late rally to seal the game. Grand Valley took game two after rolling out to a 22-10 advantage. The Cardinals did manage to close out the game on a 9-3 run to bring the score to 25-19. The Lakers kept the pressure on the Cardinals in game three, with a 25-19 win. Grand Valley closed out the match with a 25-12 win in game four to advance to the 2008 NCAA Championships.

The Cardinals offense was led by senior outside-hitter Sarah Redoute (Clinton Township, Mich.) who notched her 12th double-double on the evening with 16 kills and 10 digs, while freshman outside-hitter Annie Buxton (Aurora, Ont.) chipped in with nine kills. Junior setter Kait Harris (Essexville, Mich.) dished out 24 assists. Senior Carmen Schacher (Flint, Mich.) had a team-high 16 digs.

After falling to Grand Valley State last week in the finals of the GLIAC tournament, the Cards got little rest before having to face off against Michigan Tech in the opening round of the NCAA Midwest Regional, which took place at Grand Valley. Making the task even more daunting was the fact that the Cards had squared off against the Huskies a week earlier. 

The Cardinals had no problem advancing past the Huskies, winning in straight sets by scores of 25-17, 25-23 and 25-20. 

In the first game, the Cards got off to a torrid start, leading by as many as 10 points before Michigan Tech was able to make a mini-run at the end of the game to bring the score closer, although the Cards were never in any real danger of dropping the game.

The second game was an up hill battle for the lady Cards who fell behind early. They were able to pull out the come-from-behind victory in a tightly contested match that saw many lead changes.

The third game was a back-and-forth battle. Michigan Tech took their last lead of the game at 8-7 although the Cards were able to score the next three points and take a 10-8 lead. They would not trail for the remainder of the game, finishing off the Huskies 25-20, and capping off the first round victory. 

Next up for the Cards was Northern Kentucky, whom the Cardinals had already lost to earlier in the season, dropping a 3-2 decision. 

The Cards gained revenge, as they won the match with scores of 19-25, 25-11, 25-17, 19-25 and 15-13. 

After dropping the first match, the Cards rebounded and won three out of the last four games to pick up the 

3-2 victory.

The first game was close through out, with the score tied at 17 before Northern Kentucky was able to score the next three points to take a 20-17 lead that the Cards could not overcome.

The Cardinals dominated the second game, leading by as many as 13 points before finishing off Northern Kentucky 25-11.

The third game was close until the Cards scored five straight points midway through to take a 14-8 lead, which they would not relinquish.With their season on the line, Northern Kentucky came out in the fourth game determined not to have it come to an end. In what was a close game throughout, Northern Kentucky used mini three-and-four run scoring sprees to take the game 25-19. 

SVSU got off to a quick lead in the fifth and final game. They scored the first two points to take an early lead. After Northern Kentucky got on the scoreboard, the Cardinals responded by scoring three of the next four points to take a 6-2 lead. The biggest lead of the game belonged to the Cardinals at 9-4. Northern Kentucky had one final last ditch effort in order to continue their season although it was not enough. They cut the Cardinal lead to 14-13, although the Cardinals were able to get the final point they needed to secure the victory.

Underclassmen All-Conference Award Winners Have Cards Excited For Next Year

By Anthony Fontana

After completing a 7-3 season and narrowly missing out on the playoffs, 12 Cardinal football players reaped the benefits of having stellar individual seasons by being named to the All-GLIAC TEAM. 

Making the 2008 All-GLIAC First Team for the Cards was senior offensive lineman Desi Mayner, junior linebacker John Jacobs, and senior defensive back Matthew Black. 

The All-GLIAC Second Team was  comprised of three Cardinals. Junior tight end Galen Stone joined senior running back Brandon Emeott and senior defensive lineman Brad Bush. 

The Cards managed to place six players on the Honorable Mention Team. 

On special teams, senior kicker Jeremy Burr and junior punter Kurtis Fournier were named to the Honorable Mention Team. Offensively, junior offensive lineman Jordan DeRosia and senior wide receiver Carl Grimes were named to the team. On the defensive side of the ball, sophomore linebacker Mike LeVand and junior defensive end Toby Goetz were named to the team. 

Head coach Jim Collins, who is in his first year, believes the reason so many individuals had successful seasons was because of the work ethic that each had. 

“Jeremy Burr put a lot of hard work into his kicking this year,” Collins said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he was one of the best kickers in the country during the season. Had we not went for it so many times on fourth down inside our opponents 35-yard line, he would have had more opportunities to kick field goals than he ended up getting.” 

Emeott became the first Cardinal running back to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season since the 2005 campaign. He finished the season with 12 rushing touchdowns. 

“Brandon had an outstanding season for us,” Collins said. “He really picked up his game in the second half of the season. He has great vision and is able to find the holes that the offensive line opens up for him. He had a great season for us.” 

Mayner and DeRosia helped anchor an offensive line that allowed Emeott to top the 1,000-yard mark. They also allowed a league low 10 sacks for the entire season, enabling sophomore quarterback Dan Stiefel to have plenty of time in the pocket to find an open receiver. 

Many times, the receiver that Stiefel connected with was Stone, who scored at least one touchdown in seven of the team’s 10 games. Stone finished the season with 47 receptions for 641 yards and eight touchdowns. 

“Galen really had a great year for us,” Collins said. “Especially in the second half of the season when we were trying to get into the playoff hunt and we needed a big play, we could always count on Galen. It seemed like the last half of the season he had a big game every single game, which really helped take the pressure off some of the other players.”

Jacobs and Black each had stellar seasons defensively for the Cards. Jacobs led the GLIAC in total tackles with 131 for the season. Jacobs still has another season to go and has already moved into 12th place for career tackles at SVSU. Black, who made First Team along with Jacobs, had five interceptions, which was good for third in the GLIAC. He returned one of the interceptions for a touchdown. Black also finished the season on a high note as he was named the GLIAC defensive player of the week for his performance in the Cardinals last game against Ferris State. He had two fumble recoveries, an interception and  a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown. 

Fournier had a good season punting the ball, placing sixth in the GLIAC with a 40.2 yard average per punt with a season long of 70 yards. 

Goetz and Bush had solid seasons defensively for the Cards, both placing in the top 20 of the GLIAC in total sacks. 

Goetz finished with 4.5 sacks, good for 13th place in the conference. Bush finished with 3.5 sacks, which placed him in a tie for 17th place.

LeVand, who is only a sophomore, placed 23rd in the GLIAC in total tackles with 71. He also had 3.5 sacks to cap off a strong season defensively. 

Grimes was Stiefel’s second favorite receiver behind Stone. Grimes finished the season with 37 receptions for 507 yards and three touchdowns. He averaged 50.7 yards per game. 

With six players returning to the team that made All-Conference, Collins is excited for the future.

“With all of the talent that we have returning, there’s no telling how far we can go next season,” Collins said.

Artists-in-Residence Work With Students In The Community

By Luke Deming

In 2005, SVSU’s music department made a unique adjustment to its list of faculty by adding three artist-in-residence positions.  

Jeff Hall, a jazz artist-in-residence, had worked as an adjunct at SVSU from 1974 to 2005, but he decided it was a good time to try something new.

“I had been working here at least 25 years as an adjunct and Dr. Peretz, head of the department, asked me if I’d be interested in doing this artist-in-residence [position].” Hall said. “I asked him what it was and he told me what it was and I said ‘Oh yeah I’ll do it.’”

Hall plays the saxophone, is a stand out jazz artist and has his own Web site, www.jeffhalljazz.com, where he offers a variety of music services. The change in position has changed job requirements for Hall, and has had many benefits. 

“It was an opportunity for me to get out in the community more. I was pretty much just sort of here at SVSU and I didn’t do a whole lot outside of SVSU,” he said. “Part of being an artist-in-residence is going to various high schools. So you go down to these high schools and work with the high school kids. This gives them an opportunity to hear and see and talk to a jazz artist, and also to familiarize them with the art and what we do here at SVSU.”

Hall has seen a growth spurt in students playing jazz at SVSU. This might be due to Hall taking students to perform, talk about different instruments and discuss jazz music with high school bands. 

“We don’t call it recruiting although it is recruiting. It’s just exposing the college and the music department to high schools in the area.”

Along with going to high schools, artists-in-residence also teach two classes per semester, put two concerts on a year where they perform and give applied lessons to music students.  

Currently Hall and Julie Meyer are the only artists-in-residence because a former artist-in-residence is on leave. The position has demanded more time from Hall.

“I have to admit there’s a lot more work involved than I thought. I have to do all the preparation for the concerts and I have to work with the students a lot more.”

Even though Hall is putting in more hours, he enjoys the position.  

“The thing I really like about being a jazz artist-in-residence is the opportunity to put on these concerts,” said Hall. “What we do is we hire some top drawer professional musicians from the Michigan area and do this last concert on [Nov. 15], that was a themed concert. What we did there was we played some jazz that was made famous by vibraphone players.” 

The concert on Nov. 15 was titled “Jazz: The Michigan Connection” and it featured some of the best musicians in Michigan. 

“Jim Cooper is one of the greatest vibraphone players you’re ever going to hear. And the piano player, Dave Hay, was astounding.”

Hall mentioned that bringing professional musicians to SVSU has two benefits. 

First, quality entertainment is available to the community. Second, the concerts have a unique impact on SVSU music students. Students at other universities often don’t get opportunities to interact with professional musicians.

“Our kids get a chance to go to them and talk to them,” Hall said. “In fact, what Mr. Cooper did was he took one of our students away on the night of the concert. Took him away separately for about half an hour to 45 minutes and worked with him privately. That’s an opportunity that you very rarely get.

 

“[The concerts] expose our music students to these other professionals.  They are exposed to what they do, they’re exposed to how they perform, they’re exposed to how they think.”

Hall’s next concert is on Thursday,  Dec. 4 in Rhea Miller Recital Hall and features a student jazz ensemble. Hall is the director. Hall’s next concert is in March.

“I am almost done, thank heavens, for this concert. Although I’ve got a few other things I’ve got to brush up. It’s going to be cool jazz. It’s music that was popular from the 50s to the 60s,” Hall said. “So what I am doing is I’m looking up this old music, listening to it and then rearranging it for this ensemble that I have.  So it’s time consuming, but that’s actually fun for me. I enjoy doing that so I don’t really mind putting the effort into that.”

Twilight's Effects Fail To Dazzle

By Patrick Herald

Twilight, the latest young-adult book-to-movie adaptation, is a reasonably entertaining way to spend two hours, but ultimately seems more like an extended TV show pilot than a proper film. 

Based on the first of Stephanie Meyer’s popular novels, Twilight follows Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) as she moves to a new high school and subsequently befriends Edward (Robert Pattinson), a member of the mysterious Cullen family. 

As most will know, Edward and his family are vampires, and the real conflict in the story is how Bella and Edward can navigate their quickly romantic relationship in the face of their fundamental difference. 

Stewart is a good choice for this sort of role. I recognized her from Into the Wild, where she also successfully played a character who is a bit of an outsider, but not an outcast; Bella is different but not a weirdo. Before she meets Edward, she befriends a nice, unassuming group of students. These early scenes are some of the best in Twilight. The actors seem like pretty convincing high school students, and they have the familiarity with each other that lends itself well to a group of friends. 

Pattinson overacts somewhat in his role as Edward. I realize the character is supposed to be intense and all, but if a student at my old high school made the same scowls and glowering stares all day that Edward does, he’d likely be the laughing stock of the school. 

Twilight portrays the ordinary well. Bella hanging out with her friends, Bella eating with her dad, all of these things are grounded in the real are convincing. 

When it tries to handle the supernatural, though, like Edward’s superhuman speed, it just doesn’t handle it in a convincing way. Surely it is difficult to show someone running faster than a human can run – how, after all, do you show the impossible? I thought The Matrix did a pretty good job, though. When Edward runs up a hillside with Bella on his back, his legs a blur, I had to remind myself that his name wasn’t Sonic, and he is a vampire, not a hedgehog. 

The visual effects throughout Twilight seemed more like something from television than the movies. The construction of the story line did as well, as it’s clear that the plot of Twilight is only a short prequel in the grand scheme of things. When the movie ended, I felt like I had just seen the pilot of a new show rather than a film. It’s easy for me to imagine the characters from Twilight in a new show along the lines of Heroes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It just doesn’t seem proper for a feature film. The villain is even introduced and dealt with in a brief and episodic manner.

One thing that clearly does make Twilight stand out from television, though, is the cinematography. Set in rural Washington, the gloomy and tree-covered hills, always awash with rain, set the mood beautifully. There’s even a shot of Bella and Edward at the top of a massive pine overlooking a lake that’s downright profound to look at. 

I didn’t dislike Twilight by any means, but I feel like I would be lying if I said it is a good movie. It would be fairer to call it a decent way to pass an evening, but one which is already forgotten on the drive home. Vampire movies are so numerous now that I could only be satisfied by something truly outstanding; Twilight is far from it.

A Lack Of Rap Turns Hip-Hop Into Electro Pop

By Alex Kohut

Experimentation is dicey business within hip-hop. While the genre isn’t the one-note wasteland its detractors paint it as, rap albums who stray too far from the tried-and-true formulas more often miss than hit.

Six years after the fact, Common still hasn’t erased the hippie-channeled Electric Circus from the gray matter of most listeners.

Mos Def made his 1999 debut classic Black on Both Sides seem like a faint memory when he unleashed The New Danger in 2004; a mish-mash of elementary guitar licks and equally forgettable lyrics.

Even Andre 3000’s semi-brilliant The Love Below caused a stir because the more eccentric half of OutKast had benched his effortless delivery in favor of crooning.

Despite the resistance to anything too different in hip-hop, it’s vital for emcees to keep retooling and evolving as creative artists. Fail to do that and you either fall off the map or become a caricature of your former self (hi, Snoop Dogg!).

So maybe it shouldn’t come as any surprise to see, or rather hear, Kanye West wiping the drawing board clean and drawing up a new game plan on 808s and Heartbreak.

After all, the producer/rapper invests almost as much energy in convincing the world of his complexities as he does creating music.

Unfortunately for Kanye followers, the self-professed Michael Jordan of the music industry’s new game plan is delivered to our eardrums via Auto-Tune.

The once rightfully mocked robotic voice distorter, utilized strictly by atrocities such as T-Pain, somehow has become a hip-hop staple in the last two years. 

Used sparingly by West not too long ago, he and the device now are as tough to pry apart as a parent dropping their kid off for the first day of kindergarten.

The Auto-Tune also makes any sort of fluid lyrical delivery an exercise in futility. But don’t worry, because Ye takes a page out of Andre 3000’s book here and scraps the rapping all together.

That in and of itself wouldn’t be such an issue if doing so hadn’t seemingly stripped the typically quotable Kanye of anything interesting to lament.

“Welcome to Heartbreak” is a potentially intriguing confession of self-loathing marred by cringe-worthy lyrics such as, “My god said she’s getting married by the lake / But I couldn’t figure out who I’d wanna take / Bad enough that I showed up late / I had to leave before they even cut the cake.”

I’m sure Kanye meant well with tracks such as “Coldest Winter,” an ode to his mother who died during surgery last year. 

But with precisely six paint-by-number lines spread over three verses, the content is too generic to generate anything poignant.

As with his catalog of solo classics, Kanye himself is at the helm of the production. 

Unlike his first three albums, though, West opts to limit the crate-digging and sticks mostly to a sound best linked to electro pop. 

The near-complete absence of rapping coupled with production that strays from hip-hop mores results in an album with lethargic, uninspired offerings. 

Anyone who’s followed  West’s career knows a workaholic lies beneath the childish façade. Let’s commend him for his attempt to nudge along his innovator status. But then let’s tell him he needs to head back to the drawing board.

Student Claims Voter Intimidation At Kochville Township Hall

By Sara Kitchen

An SVSU student leader says some of the more than 350 students who cast votes at Kochville Township Hall on Nov. 4 were intimidated by election officials.

Kochville Township Clerk Sheila Hill, however, says such claims are untrue.

SVSU Student Association Parliamentarian Jeremy Jones was one of several student leaders who organized free transportation using University vans to take students to and from the polls throughout the day.

Jones said some students claimed they received inappropriate treatment from election officials and at least one Kochville community member.

“Some students had issues getting ballots to actually vote, and there were just some very inappropriate comments made toward the students about what we were doing,” Jones said. “They weren’t happy with Student Association providing transportation. They were not happy that the students were out there voting, and many people complained that students were there.”

“There were also some reports of voter intimidation,” Jones claimed, “specifically on the students. Students said the poll workers were rolling their eyes at students when they voted.”

While no students were denied ballots, Jones said one student had difficulties obtaining a provisional ballot.

“She had registered in Kochville Township but they didn’t have her on file, so technically she was still registered in Detroit,” he said, adding she had a hard time obtaining a provisional ballot.

Jones says he also had an issue with a Kochville resident outside of the Hall.

“There was one lady, she was yelling at students telling them we should not be voting here because we don t live here…we should be voting where our parents live,” he said.

Hill said, “Jeremy came in, he was a bit rude, and he said some of my inspectors were harassing the SVSU students. So I said OK I will take care of it if there was a problem. And I had been going up and down those stairs all day long checking out students who were not on the poll list.”

“After he left, I went up and I spoke to each one of my inspectors,” Hill continued, “whom all have been inspectors, except for three, for a long time, and they go to training all the time.”

Hill said no student reported voter intimidation. “Other than Jeremy, no one came and complained to me,” she said.

Lyle Brewster, a Kochville Township resident served as the Republican challenger, a position that includes making sure voters are properly registered. If something isn’t right, “we have a right to challenge it,” he said.

Federal law prohibits the display of partisan symbols within 100 feet of voting locations.

Brewster said Jones wore a Barack Obama T-shirt.

“I asked him, ‘How can you be using this van and bringing these students here with an Obama t-shirt on?” Brewster said. “That is illegal, because even the state will tell you basically that you can transport people, but you’re not supposed to tell people how to vote, and he was trying to tell people how to vote by wearing that T-shirt.”

Hill said, “We asked him to go outside and turn his t-shirt inside out and all he could do was yell at us and say ‘I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you.’ And I said, ‘I will after you change your T-shirt.’”

Jones said he was not aware of the law and cooperated when he was informed.

Brewster said he noticed another student who wore an Obama pin.

“The [inspector] said you can’t vote with that pin on, and the girl said, ‘OK whatever,’ and she put it in her pocket. I don’t think students know what the rules and regulations are,” he said.

Regarding SVSU students registering to vote in Kochville Township, Hill said, “It’s fine. In fact, when I found out they were registering, I ordered extra voting booths,” she said. Hill said she made sure an up-to-date poll book was available.

Hill said students did not have trouble obtaining ballots, “but there were many of them not registered, and if they were registered, they were registered in a different community. A couple of them we sent to Saginaw Township and to the city where they were registered to vote, but no one was refused.”

“I think that when a lot of theses students got registered here, they put their home address down,” Brewster said.

Brewster and Hill said a few students weren’t sure how to complete a ballot.

“I saw about three or four of them where the students said ‘I need a new ballot because I goofed up on this,’” Brewster said.

While several SVSU students registered to vote on campus through campaign workers, Hill says her staff and inspectors, “did not come to the college to register students. Some [students] felt that because they weren’t registered, it was our fault, and it wasn’t because I don’t know who came [to SVSU].”

“It’s not that they shouldn’t be registering or that they shouldn’t be voting,” Hill said. “That’s not how I feel. They should register and they should vote.”

“That is a privilege, to vote,” Brewster said. “If you don’t take the privilege to vote, that’s your responsibility. It’s not the township’s job to go around and ask everyone to vote.” Despite Jones’ experience, he wanted to thank the Kochville community members who were supportive of students voting.

A Peaceful Pursuit

By Mary Oakley

A post-graduation option that has sent SVSU alumni around the world is continuing to attract hopefuls with the desire to provide service in distant cultures.

The Peace Corps currently has 7,876 volunteers and trainees serving in 76 countries. Volunteers work in one of five programs: education, health, environment, business, or agriculture.

According to Kristin Wegner, the Peace Corps Recruitment Representative for the Chicago region, 21 SVSU alumni have served in the Peace Corps. The Chicago region includes Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, and Ohio.

Serving in the Peace Corps is a 27 month commitment. Participants spend three months in-country with other volunteers receiving training for the duties they will perform abroad.

“Volunteers spend the first three months in language, cross-cultural, technical, and health and safety skills training,” Wegner said.

SVSU business graduate Rollin Johnson served in the Peace Corps from 2003-2005 in Nepal and Burkina Faso, West Africa. “Part of your service is a proficiency of the language of the country you are working in,” he said.

During his service, Johnson learned two languages: Nepali in three months and function French in one month. “Peace Corps probably has some of the best language training in the world with the way it is done.”

To be eligible for the Peace Corps, volunteers must have attained a bachelor’s degree from any discipline before completing the application process.

“You have to go through a fairly lengthy application process,” Assistant Director of Career Planning & Placement Mike Major said. “In fact, the Peace Corps recommends that if you want to go into the Peace Corps upon graduation, either start the application process at the end of your junior year or at the beginning of your senior year, just because you go through a fairly extensive background check.”

The background check is a part of a six-step application process. SVSU nursing senior Darryn Crocker is currently completing this process.

The first step involves filling out an online application, requesting recommendations, and writing essays.

The second step requires potential volunteers to complete a background check.

“If nothing is red-flagged, you get sent a packet with instructions to get fingerprinted and to get a background check done,” Crocker said.

Major says that during the second step, applicants fill out a form called the SF-86, which is a 14 page security document. “It’s not too different from somebody getting top secret clearance in the military,” he said. “They basically want to know where you have lived for the past 10 years, the name of someone who knew you well at each address, and it can’t be the same person.”

Applicants are interviewed for the third step, either in person or over the phone. At this point in the process, Crocker traveled to Chicago for her interview.

By the fourth step, Peace Corps recruiters nominate applicants for their prospective positions.

“How and where Peace Corps assigns volunteers to work is based largely on matching the educational and work experience with the kinds of projects for which countries have requested assistance,” Wegner said.

Crocker has been nominated for Sub-Sahara Africa for June 2009. The nursing major plans to participate in health field of the Peace Corps.

“My recruiter told me that the programs that fit my time period with health care were Eastern Europe or Sub-Sahara Africa,” Crocker said. “I didn’t want to be in the cold, so I chose Sub-Sahara Africa.”

For the fifth step, applicants undergo a full physical and dental evaluation.

“They want to make sure you are in good health,” Director of SVSU’s English Language Program Diana Vreeland said. Vreeland taught English in the Peace Corps from 1990-1993 in Eastern Europe.

Crocker is currently experiencing the two to three-month waiting period that follows step five.

The sixth step is when the Peace Corps office of placement contacts applicants with their official contracts and locations.

“I’m very anxious to hear back where exactly they want to send me and exactly when I am leaving,” Crocker said. “I just know that it’s going to be an amazing experience, one that I feel God has led me into and I look forward to it.”

Crocker said the Peace Corps has three goals: to heal where needed, to give the country one’s culture, and for the country to give one its culture.

“That’s what made me choose Peace Corps,” she said. “I wanted the cultural exchange, while with Doctors without Borders you don’t learn the language and you don’t become part of the community.”

Reflecting on his Peace Corps experience, Johnson said, “It’s one thing to study something from a distance; it’s another thing to live it day to day. I don’t think it would’ve have been possible to have that experience the way it was provided in the Peace Corps.”

While abroad, Johnson helped with small business and business enterprise development. He worked with fair trade and helped provide loans to those who couldn’t get them from commercial banks.

“It was life-changing; it was an amazing experience,” he said. “It was very humbling as well. People that you go in to ‘help’ are the folks you learn the most from.”

Johnson said he learned more about the local culture by living in Nepal and West Africa then he thought he could any other way. Vreeland agrees. “You give a lot, but what you get in return is 100 times more then what you ever gave,” she said. “You learn a language, you learn a culture, you get such deep friendships, and it’s a wonderful experience.”

Additional information on the Peace Corps is available in the Career Planning & Placement office in Curtiss 111 or at www.peacecorps.gov.

Web Site Offers GPA Statistics

By Alex Kohut

Students across the country now have another source of assistance in the class selection process.

CampusBuddy offers online access to over 80 million official grades at hundreds of college campuses nationwide.

The site features the complied grades from college classrooms displayed as percentages under the name of each listed professor or department.

For instance, the average grade point average in SVSU’s English department is 2.84.

But unlike similar sites, CampusBuddy blends the academic side of college life with the social aspect.

With the Web site’s Facebook application, students can securely log in at CampusBuddy and network with college students.

“We’re reconstructing the social fabric of school,” says CampusBuddy creator Mike Moradian.

Moradian, a 2007 University of California-Los Angeles graduate, says the site is similar to the Facebook of several years ago, when it was strictly a college network.

Although the social element is one of the site’s main draws, Moradian and his staff of 12 have spent more than three years obtaining and compiling the official grades from colleges across the country.

Originally available only to California college students, CampusBuddy expanded its grade retrievals to include colleges in other states.

“We saw how taken students were by the site, and we made up our mind to push and make it available to everyone,” Moradian said.

CampusBuddy now offers grades from about 250 colleges, though Moradian says the site’s network is set up for 6,000 schools.

Moradian admits the decision to gather grades from colleges nationwide has severely increased the workload for the site’s staff.

“There’s a legal process we need to go through to get grades from the schools each time, which makes it difficult,” he said. “Some schools are more cooperative than others, but it’s still tough because the legal statures are different from state-to-state.”

The grade distributions on CampusBuddy are updated each semester, which means the retrieval of grades is an ongoing process.

Moradian says a lack of transparency in grading led to his creation of CampusBuddy.

“You might need to take the same econ class, but it’s three times more difficult with one professor than with another,” he said.

Even though the Web site offers the grade distributions for each department and professor, Moradian says the main purpose of this information is to help students find the best professors for them.

The site offers statistics such as school grade point average, percentage of students with a B or higher, and percentage of students with a C- or lower.

SVSU’s current grade point average is 3.00. Sixty-seven percent of its students received greater than or equal to a B, while 11 percent received non-passing grades.

CampusBuddy calculated these numbers based on the grade analysis of 3,992 classes and 90,661 grades.

In a growing pool of sites designed to disclose grading and teaching patterns of college professors, CampusBuddy is able to distinguish itself.

Though the site encourages user feedback on classes and professors, its sharing of official grade distributions ensures a mix of fact and opinion.

“Sites like Ratemyprofessor.com have a platform that’s more geared toward ranting and raving,” Moradian said. “It’s more emotion-based and doesn’t give you an idea of the class dynamic.”

Despite CampusBuddy’s format, some professors warn against making serious class decisions based on such Web sites’ information.

“If you read the fine print on these sites, you'll notice that they usually say quite directly that they make no warranties about their claims,” English professor Eric Gardner said.

Gardner says he is also skeptical about such sites because they are dot-coms.

“Dot-coms exist to make money for their owners, either through advertising revenues or other fees or both, not to help students,” he said.

Moradian objects to that notion.

“Not all dot-coms have the sole focus of making money,” he said. “We’ve invested a lot to create this service for students, and we’re working to keep the site free.”

As the site continues to grow, Moradian says the staff’s focus is on building its student base.

The CampusBuddy staff has created a better awareness of the service through advertising on sites like Facebook.

CampusBuddy is also a venue for high school and college internships. Moradian is currently searching for interns to assume marketing and design roles for the site.

With the site’s growth, Moradian says he’s received mostly positive feedback.

“I spoke with a professor in Wisconsin who thinks the site’s format is helpful for the students,” he said. “He told me he believes making the grades available to the public is going to make students work harder.”

Loiacano To Rework Kochville Rental Ordinance

By Alex Kohut

Kochville Township voters also chose change on Election Day. Township residents selected Democrat Jim S. Loiacano as their new supervisor over incumbent Patricia A. Bourdow and Republican David Sanchez.

Loiacano received 593 votes, while Sanchez finished second with 422. Bourdow, who can as a write-in candidate, likely received the majority of the 361 votes.

About 1,500 of the 2,090 registered voters in the township hit the polls on Election Day.

One of the first actions Loiacano plans to take as the township’s supervisor is the implantation of a rental ordinance.

Such an ordinance would supplement the current zoning restrictions, which limit the residents of housing to single families.

Loiacano says a rental ordinance would enable students to seek residence throughout the township and not just the town homes near campus.

He says this distribution of students throughout the township would facilitate interaction between students and other township residents.

The distribution would also thin out the volume of students living in the town homes. Loiacano says this could in turn result in fewer negative incidents in that area of the township.

He says mixing students and other Kochville residents could help erase the negative perceptions each side has of the other.

“Mixing them would get both sides to intermingle and I think also show each side the other one isn’t as bad as they may think,” Loiacano says.

Loiacano is the township’s third supervisor since 2004. Bourdow assumed the role in 2006 following the recall of Kenneth P. Bayne.

The result of the supervisor race is good news for township residents who have opposed much of the area’s development over the last several years.

Loiacano has said developers should limit development to the Bay and Tittabawassee before branching out.

In another tightly contested race, Democrat Stephen J. Yanca retained his spot as the township’s treasurer, defeating Republican Sally J. Knowlton 686-658.

The Board of Trustees appointed Yanca to the role last June, filling the vacancy left following the May 5 recall of Crystal Kaurer.

The margin of votes between Yanca and Knowlton was the same when the two squared off for the position in August’s special election.