OCR Text |
Show Monday News June 22, 2009 GEAR UP student to attend Oxbridge Academic Program Saving Rock Canyon HLORAINEGHOLDSTON BMEGGIEWOODFIEinj faews writer Sophomore at East High School and participant in Utah's statewide federally funded GEAR UP Education Program, Nia Jamshidi has been accepted to the Oxbridge Academic Program at Oxford and Cambridge. In addition to her acceptance she was awarded a $3,500 scholarship to help pay tuition for this summer's program. For more than two decades, the Oxbridge Academic Programs have brought thousands of young students to Oxford and Cambridge for imaginative teaching, experiential learning and cultural enrichment. These programs are especially designed for students in grades eight to twelve who have high academic aspirations to pursue a degree in higher education. Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs or GEAR UP is a program sponsored by Utah Valley University to increase the number of low-income students to enter and succeed in post-secondary education. GEAR UP provides students with opportunities to develop skills that are essential to college readiness. Counselors of the program help not only students but parents navigate the often challenging process of preparing for higher education. Jamshidi immigrated to the United States when she was ten years old with her parents who sought to increase her chances of achieving her goal to study anthropology and paleontology. She originally joined GEAR UP in 2006 to receive more information about scholarships but when she and her counselor heard about the Oxford Academic Programs they decided to apply. u It is my dream to attend Oxford University" said Jamshidi. "I was really happy when I found out I get a chance to see it this summer." News writer The beauty of Rock Canyon in Provo is known around the world. Local students flock to it for hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking and camping every day of the week, and the canyon has had visitors from as far away as Austria and France. It is almost literally our own back yard, located just behind the Provo LDS Temple -- a five to fifteen minute drive from downtown Orem, Provo, Pleasant Grove, Springville, and many other local cities. But what many people don't know is that this land is privately owned by several people. One of them, Richard Davis, would like to see the iconic Red Slab — very popular with rock climbers and visible from the freeway- reduced to chunks of rock for landscaping along with the rest of the entire south cliff face. Davis has been quoted in the media saying he'd be just fine with someone buying the land from him at a reasonable price. In reality, he bought the mining rights to the 85 acres for $100,000 in 1998 — and now will not sell it for less than millions of dollars. "We make an offer, he makes an offer back, and that's where we are now/' Senator John Valentine, partial owner of Rock Canyon, told the Daily Herald in April. Valentine is a major part of the effort to spare Rock Canyon from quarrying. Davis has made several attempts to quarry the canyon since 2003, when he illegally excavated some rocks from the cliff face without municipal approval. Most recently, in February 2009, he has applied to operate a rock quarry at ten hour days during weekdays, using up to twelve trucks through the local residential neighborhood. He has attempted to assure the public that the operation will not be very loud and will spare the mostused parts of the canyon, as well as having no impact on the beauty of the canyon. He argues that the asphalt trail is not used much by the general public. The general public begs to differ. According to about two thousand surveys collected . at the canyon by everyday users over two weekends, the asphalt trail is used as commonly if not more so than any other trail in the canyon. Property owners who live close to the canyon protest that the noise of blasting rock with dynamite, the gigantic mining vehicles, and the massive clouds of dust they generate would be unacceptable. Regular visitors also bemoan the damage Davis' attempted 2003 excavation has already done to the canyon, and decry the idea that removing an entire cliff face from the mountain side will not impact its aesthetic value. Red Slab, LLC, is the major driving force behind the preservation of Rock Canyon. Other companies, such as The Monogram Station in Mapleton, have thrown their support behind the preservation efforts. The Save Rock Canyon . Facebook group currently has over 2,900 members. But will it be enough? Advocates say the threat is very serious, and unless public awareness of the impending doom of Rock Canyon and the legal efforts to save it are backed by the entire community, we could soon be looking not at a beautiful cliff face, but a pile of gravel. Until the mining application was purchased, "no one really took (the threat) seriously," said Sean Egli, founder of the Facebook group and advocate of preserving Rock Canyon. Recently, Provo councilman Steve Turley made it clear that he intends to buy a 2,500 acre area of Diamond Fork canyon, regardless of the owner's reluctance to sell. The debt accrued to keep their land.in their hands is crippling thier efforts, and the land where several of the land owner's relatives are buried is now being threatened. Utah County's canyons are unique and precious to its inhabitants. Many see the attempts to buy up and sell our recreational treasures as pernicious acts of greed. The only thing that can truly save the land from destruction and/ or development is the action of the community. For more information on saving Rock Canyon, visit www.PreserveRockCanyon. com Trent Bates/UVU Review Actors played victims for the drill, making it more realistic. SHOOTING from" A1 of the event were given to all areas near the simulation. Other parts of the drill included smoke bombs ignited in the Student Center and Pope Science building until the hallways were enveloped in smoke. Actors' bodies littered the hallways of the Student Center and in the library, usually OPEN from* A1 Drafting plans for a Provo-Orem Transit project have begun f MEG GIE WOOD RELDi News writer "Open World delegations give exposure to UVU on the local, national and international level," Storrs said. "For example, this particular delegation was able to meet with Senator Bennett and Congressman Chaffetz in Washington DC to discuss their purpose of coming to Utah and UVU." This program includes home-stays with residents and daily professional appointments. Each program's focus varies from federalism, representative government, rule of law> health, environment, economic development, education reform and social services. This will be the third group UVU has hosted this year. • Other countries involved in Open World include Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Lithuania and Russia. surrounded by overturned tables and chairs. The shells fired from the guns were real, but firing blank ammunition. Many officers involved couldn't remember a time they had sweated as hard. Eventually the officers progressively swept all areas of the school taking part in the drill. The officers were, impressed with how many police organizations and agencies were able to integrate .flawlessly together as a team. Plans to improve public transportation with an enhanced bus system called Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) have been underway since the Provo-Orem Rapid Transit Corridor Alternatives Analysis was completed in 2005. BRT is an innovative, high capacity, lower cost public transit solution that can significantly improve urban mobility by operating on bus lanes or other transitways to combine the flexibility of the buses and the speed of the rail. Evaluation of the existing system by the Provo-Orem Rapid Transit, resulting in the Alternatives Analysis and BRT, took place during an 8-month period. The public's involvement in the process was crucial and concerns were expressed through one-on-one interviews, open houses, Policy and Technical committees and several forums open to public comment. This solution aims to support local, commuter and student trips and to link activity centers including Brigham Young University, Utah Valley University, existing and planned student housing and retail malls in the ProvoOrem area. Long-term plans include the linking of Utah County to Salt Lake County through a regional commuter rail line. "BRT will definitely help keep accuracy in local bus times and help further improve the busing system in Orem/Provo," said Todd Robbins, Junior at Utah Valley University and UTA bus rider. "I am really excited to have the routes be 'expressed/ as public transportation deserves a greater presence in Utah Valley cul- ture." The estimated 8,000 Utah Valley University students who regularly use public transportation may feel the same way, as they could begin to see a more efficient commute to national, state and local areas. For more information regarding the project, to give feedback, or to join the mailing list, please visit the project web site at www.ProvoOremRapidTransit.info Summer Seminar promotes ethics across curriculum News editor The Ethics Across the Curriculum Faculty Summer Seminar was held May 4-8 with sponsorship from the Center for the Study of Ethics. "This conference benefits the UVU faculty because it allows us to get together with colleagues from across campus and discuss an interdisciplinary topic with renown visiting scholars." said David Keller, the Director of the Center for the Study of Ethics. This years theme, chosen by the Ethics Across the Curriculum Faculty Advisory Committee (EACFAC), questioned the ethics and public policy implications of free-market economics. Visiting scholars included Korkut Erturk, a professor of economics at the University of Utah, and Mark Sagoff, a Senior Research Scholar for the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland. The first two days of the seminar Erturk lectured regarding the history of free market economics and the rise of orthodoxy, as well as the positive critique by heterodox economists. The last two days of the conference, Sagoff lectured on cost/benefit analysis and regulatory review as well as global environmental problems, energy use and responsibilities to future generations versus poor people in developing countries today. "The main difference of opinion amongst the faculty was whether free-market economics should be left alone to operate according to the laws of supply and demand, or whether the government must intervene in market operations to avoid turbulence and chaos which causes human suffering," Keller said. The faculty will be able to take what they learned and integrate those insights in with their teaching and research. They are encouraged to'participate in the annual "Conference by the Faculty" held in January at which faculty present research papers which incorporate what they learned in the summer seminar. As opposed to the summer seminar, which is reserved exclusively for faculty, this conference is open to the public. Faculty members are also able to submit formalized * papers for publication in a yearly distribution, which is available in both the library and in the Ethics Center office. |