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Show A5 WWW.NETXNBWS.NET MONDAY -APRIL 16 • 2007 One Person's Opinion 2006 - 2007 school year in review Letter to the editor Reflecting on the big stories of the past two semesters Justin Ritter Opinions Editor Veteran Benefits Dear Editor, & I I was pleased to see j our veterans receiving ! . information about their benefits. Here is more : information for those . who wish to avoid , or to solve problems ; in accessing their ; ; benefits. . Access to VA medical services varies ; according to discharge \ type and other factors, • includingcurrenthealth : status, income and : the veteran's medical benefits from other : sources. Sometimes a '. soldier who is suffering from war trauma will . accept a lower level ' discharge type in \ order to be released faster, and thus will be : . ineligible for lifelong : VA medical benefits, •" despite the presence of service-related physical injuries •:. or Post Traumatic ;.. Stress Disorder. In £' order to prevent loss of benefits, soldiers •, should complete a j& physical and document •' all possible service- ; related injuries and disabilities prior to ; leaving active duty. • The VA's budget is exceeded by the real costs of medical care for our veterans, : often leading to long waits for services, and , difficulty getting a \ diagnosis and treatment for service-related . conditions. The Salt •-. Lake City VA Center in • general has excellent, [ caring staff and shorter ' " waiting periods than * in many other parts of j . . the country. However, \*>. expect to wait for VA : docs much longer than at your local medical f facility. \ •; For help accessing ; benefits, or for answers \-,: to any other service- jjjjj. related questions, the fs GI Rights Hotline 1$ provides free advocacy !• servic.es. The local i number is (801) 556- ; 0599; the national t-; number is (800) 394- J* 9544. Additional help | can be accessed at \ veteransforpeace.org. \ Thank you, ; veterans, for risking |:. your lives and health • •: for us. I Kathy French : i Kathy French is j an Associate Member \ of Veterans for Peace i and a professor of i Behavioral Science at UVSC, i m r r w "•;-.*•. Summer is all but here, caps and gowns have been sought and bought, and even though finals are still looming in the nottoo-distant future, it's an appropriate time to look back at the past school year. There's been more to talk about than usual at UVSC this year, and for the most part, that's a good thing. Here's a list of things to remember about the past school year: University status This is what will put the UVSC fO6-'O7 year in the record books. Even as recently as last year, it was thought that • university status was still a long ways off, but thanks to UVSC president Bill Sederburg, State Senator John Valentine, R-Orem, philanthropist Ira Fulton and scores of others, UVSC will become Utah Valley University next summer. While it's important to note that not everyone is excited about the change, the change will happen, and it's to be hoped that everyone will come together to help the college transfer smoothly to become a university. The DLC It's costing UVSC students a big chunk of our parking lot, but the new Digital Learning Center will be more than worth it in the long run. And watching the cranes put the metal framing together can be a good way to pass the time if you've got a boring class in the Liberal Arts Building. Parking This goes back to that big chunk of parking lot we've sacrificed to the DLC. Many of us were in shock last August when we returned to school and realized that now there really is no place to park. While this is a problemand hopefully a more temporary one-somehow we've all been able to make it work, though some of us may have found more than Battle of the Bands The Digital Learning Center, currently under construction, will be more than worth the parking space it will take up flyers under our windshield wipers as a result. The new testing center This one is both good and bad. Candy and drink machines, an ATM and much more room to study and take tests represent the good, while the testing center's distant location represents the bad. To get the best of both worlds, take the shuttle or get your significant other to drop you off. And remember to study; walking back from the testing center isn't nearly as bad if you get the grade you wanted. Men's basketball championship The Wolverines went 21-9 this year, winning the United Basketball League championship. NCAA regulations kept the team out of the postseason as part of UVSC's transition to Division I-A, but the Wolverines have given UVSC students something to cheer about besides university status. Two years from now, postseason possibilities will open up for the team, and if they play then like they do now, UVSC students could be traveling to a tournament. In short, it's been a good year here at UVSC. As spring fever fades into summer madness and we go our separate ways, let's resolve to make next year twice as good. Opinionated Making your mark on the world Advice on living a life of action from a departing student Jeremy Pettersson Opinions Writer "Talk is cheap." This dandy, euphemistic phrase refers to people who "talk the talk," to borrow from another phrase, but don't necessarily "walk the walk." In other words, they often say what they will or won't do but then don't. The same applies to the written, especially commentary on important topics such as religion, politics, academia, wizardry, blacksmithing, etc. Opinion writers in particular pick a side, pick a fight, or point out glaring errors without offering even minimal solutions. The happy medium is a writer who can tackle both sides of any issue while offering proactive solutions. I myself am perfectly happy being perfectly imperfect and tend to fall more on the right side of this happy medium. Writing can be a powerful tool, as the toga-toting, Greek poet Euripides once said, "The pen is mightier than the blade." But in the end, such as this final article for this column, words are only words and newspaper is eventually recycled into toilet paper both mechanically ordesperately in most college housing. The next step is to actually implement what is written, using what the dictionary calls: action (£k*shdn); noun. 1. The state or process of acting or doing; 2. Something done or accomplished; a deed; 3. Organized activity to accomplish an objective; 4. The causation of change by the exertion of power; a natural process or bringing about of an alteration by force or through a natural agency. Actually, action is a verb: and this is a call to action to anyone and everyone who has an opinion, expresses an opinion and/ or simply reads others opinions, myself included. For example, during our recent student elections, many things were said and printed on colorful fliers with advertisements, replete with each party's platform. As the new student body prez, vp, vp of academics and vp of activities takes over during commencement, they need to take action to ensure that all or at least part of their delectable sound bites come in clear and are materialized into visual products. If not, the process should at least be explained so students understand either the negotiated difficulty or perhaps the neglected ease of how platforms become programs. A recent study claims that college students, more than ever before, are plagued with what the dictionary defines as: narcissism (narvsT~ siz'am); noun. 1. Unlike team, there is an T in narcissism; 2. In fact, there are three; 3. I is the most important letter; 4. I am more important than the alphabet. Okay, I made that one up, but you get the hint. This stage of life is admittedly self-centered: our classes, our degrees; our futures hanging by A thread during our finals. An AP article on this study indicated that technology such as Myspace and YouTube are part of this self-indulgence problem. Can the results of this study change in the future without the cancellation of my Facebook account? The answer is action: speaking plus writing times doing2 = change. Beyond. that, I'll just leave the nittygritty details up to you. |