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Show f*\ •# WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Student pet peeves: crowds . Signpost Disaster does not strike Wildcats held back See page 4 See page 6 VOLUME 69 ISSUE 20 MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2006 U.S. OOttiNNMEHT Utahns could gain fourth seat in House By J Marko Zivkovic sr. news reporter | 77?e Signpost IIIOTOS (1Y JEFF NE8EKER (Above, left) Weber State University nursing students participate in a mock disaster training session trying to help victims, played by WSU drama students Sept. 23. The mock disaster was the culminating activity in the course which taught nursing responses in crisis situations. Students prepare for worst through mock emergency By Shayla Craig correspondent j The Signpost It was like a scene out of a horror movie Sept. 23 at Wasatch Elementary School. The school building was used for a mock disaster earthquake in which the Wehcr Stale University drama students were asked to play injured and distraught victims as WSU nursing students came to their aid. Nursing students took a threatand crisis-management course, which also included a three-week Community Emergency Response Team training. N£WPROGRAM Chinese course to be available in spring See Disaster page 9 Students, faculty see German culture through exchange Program transfers Wildcats to Germany By Logan Bovven correspondent j The Signpost By Amber Hall sr. news reporter | The Signpost Beginning on spring semester 2007, Weber Slate University will be offering a class in Chinese conversation. "The primary locus is improving conversation, specifically in Mandarin Chinese," said Julie Lefgren, who will be the instructor for the 3000 level course. Any student at WSU can take the upperdivision course and needs no prerequisite as long as they can sustain basic conversational skills in Mandarin Chinese. Complete fluency is not required, but students need to have had some exposure to both spoken and written Mandarin Lefgren said students should have had at least some exposure, whether in the form of course work or experience. The conversation class will be held on Thursdays nights from 5:30 to 8:20 p.m. The class will incorporate various mediums and subjects, using films, podcasts, articles, short stories and newspapers to discuss politics, culture, entertainment and other topics of interest. Lefgren spent two years in China, where she learned to speak Mandarin fluently and afterward went to BYU and minored See Chinese page 9 ST SOUKCt. DIANE KfiANfZ The home of Richard Wagner is in Bayreuth, Germany. A festival in honor of the famous 19th-century composer is held each year in the city. Students and faculty from Weber State University have traveled to Bayreuth in an exchange program. Weber State University is in its third year of partnership with the University of Bayreuth in Germany to exchange students and professors. WSU German Professor Erika Daines and WSU English Professor Michael Wutz, who are both from Germany, developed the program to give students and professors an opportunity to be introduced to another culture and practice their foreign language outside of a classroom. Every semester, at least one professor and several students travel from WSU to Germany, and in exchange, one professor and several students travel from Germany to WSU to basically trade lives for one semester. Matt Witherspoon spent fail semester 2006 at the University of Bayreuth where he said the European student's life differs drastically from the WSU student's life. Most courses do not include homework and only assign one difficult exam at the end of each semester. "My favorite memory was the friends from all over the world that I met and our outlandish experiences together," Witherspoon said, adding thattiewould go back to Germany in a moment's notice. See German page 7 In 2000, the slate of Utah filed suit in federal court in an attempt to earn an extra seat in the House of Representatives, and Utahns are just now seeing a possibility of getting that fourth seat. That possibility comes through a bill introduced in May 2005. In order to see it succeed, Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Ir. is now pushing a redistricting plan that would divide Utah into four districts in a way that would make the situation easier on Democratic Representative Jim Matheson. "I don't know if it's going to matter for the university, but it will have an effect as far as our personal affairs," said Laura Brimhall, Weber State University English and history double major. Currently, Weber County residents are represented in the House by Congressman Rob Bishop, whose district also includes Morgan County, Tooele See Fourth seat page 7 SOURCE-WWW.UTAH.GOV/COVERNOR Denim to become insulation for new school Students will be able to take off their pants for a good cause until Sept. 28. Weber State University is facilitating the Cotton Incorporated's Dirty Laundry Tour - one of only 14 schools in the United States onboard with the program, according to WSU Student Association President Peter Owen. Denim is being collected and will be turned into cotton fiber insulation in the construction of a new Louisiana school. "It's something that you can do and it's not asking students for money - which is, you know, always a good thing," Owen said. He added that this service project could be successful because students would "be more willing to give an old pair of jeans versus five bucks for Hurricane Katrina." Owen said the new school being built is going to help many of the evacuees in Louisiana who weren't able to return to their homes. Students will have until Sept. 28 to drop off their jeans at the Shepherd Union Building Room 422, or Thursday at the Stewart Bell Tower from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Insulation made from denim. |