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Show UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Friday, April 1,2005 Sports Aggie Life Partly cloudy skies with a break from the rain. Lacrosse team ready to play at Romney Stadium for first time. Band members hit the books. High: 50, low 32 Page 8 Page 4 From white-out to medicine Scriptwriter discusses women and their inventions BY J O N RASH Staff Writer Michael Sharpfmichaelsharp@cc.usu.edu ETHL1E ANN VARE holds a spool of thread above a table covered with inventions designed by women during her lecture Wednesday in the TSC Ballroom. What do cell phones, Jell-O, Scotch Gard, Barbie and brown paper bags all have in common? To the surprise of many Utah State University students who attended Ethlie Ann Vare's lecture Wednesday afternoon, these products were all the genius creations of female inventors. In honor of National Women's History Month, the USU Women's Center and Associated Students of USU invited the California TV-show writer and author to speak about female inventors whose inventions affect the lives of millions of people everyday. "Inventions by women have been saving my life since I was born," Vare said. Vare said she first became interested in female inventors in the 1980s while she was working as a rock 'n' roll journalist. She learned that Michael Nesmith of the Monkees was the son of millionaire Betty Nesmith, inventor of Liquid Paper. Vare became curious about female inventors and, with the General education classes seek to expand student minds beyond major BY HILARY INCOLDSBY Senior Writer General education requirements may not be as useless as students think. The breadth and depth courses required for students to graduate align with state regulations that students be educated in writing, quantitative literacy* physical sciences, life sciences, social sciences, fine arts, humanities, and American institutions according to the Utah State Board of Regents' Web site. "The purpose is to create a broadly educated person beyond a specified discipline," said Norm Jones, chair of the General Education Subcommittee of the Educational Policies Committee at Utah State University and chair of the Utah Regents' Task Force on General Education. "We're trying to create citizen scholars who can pick up a newspaper and have some understanding while asking critical questions." This type of student is just what employers are looking for, Jones said. Many employers have commented to Jones that they are looking for employees to have a broader education than just a specific field. Jones also said that the unstable condition of the job force today students can't be sure that they will always work in their chosen field and thus a broad education may come in handy. However, despite the purpose behind the requirements many students still CFNIFRAIS See Page 3 help of fellow-editor Greg of female inventors and their Ptacek, began researching the inventions - a list long enough subject. to fill an entire book. Vare and Vare said she began consider- Ptacek wrote "Mothers of Invention," in 1989, which won ing the multitude of inventions potentially created by women, "I the American Library Association Award that year. bet there's all kinds of things that were invented by women This was the first book ever and I've never heard of them." written solely about female inventors, she said. However, after finding "not one mention of one woman Additional books have since inventor" in books written about been written by Vare and inventors, Vare and Ptacek Ptacek, including "Patently began their own investigation. Female" and an entire textbook on female inventors. According to Vare, the U.S. Patent Office reported that only Vare mentioned inventors 14 percent of all patents were such as Hedy Lamarr, whose filed by women, not including technology designed for submapatents listed under company rine communication led to the names, foreign names and single invention of cellular phones. initials. Madam C.J. Walker became the first black millionaire in the Vare reasoned that of the five United States at age 25 after she million patents on file, 750,000 developed hair products for were filed by women, and she black people and sold them hadn't heard of one of them. door-to-door. "History seems to remember some and not others," Vare said Mary Anderson of Alabama in her lecture. "Inventions by invented the first windshield women, for some reason, have wipers for automobiles. slipped through the cracks of Gertrude Belle Elion, the first history. Individual women have woman in the Inventors' Hall of been individually robbed of Fame, discovered the cure for credit continually in the last leukemia, gout and a medication century and earlier." llWFNITIONS After further investigation, See Page 3 Vare said she discovered a slew Housing experiences delays Completion date is still expected to be fall 2006 BY ANDREW BECK Staff Writer Construction on the new student housing and parking terrace near the Taggart Student Center has slipped behind schedule, but the plan to open in fall 2006 remains. John Fitch, project coordinator with Facilities Design and Construction for Utah State University, said the construction company, Parsons Evergreene, encountered "extreme difficulty in the excavation" of the new fourlevel parking terrace. The Salt Lake City based company has fallen slightly behind their proposed timetable, but refuses to alter the prospective completion date, Fitch said. They are accelerating their efforts to get back on schedule. "Given the conditions," Fitch said, "the contractors are making a really good effort." Two levels of the parking terrace and the community center are scheduled to open in November 2005, Fitch said. The remaining residence halls and parking levels will be completed for Fall Semester 2006. The parking terrace will consist of 600 stalls. There will be two elevators for those who park in the terrace, as well as those walking to campus, Fitch said. The elevators will also be large enough to accommodate a bicycle. The new terrace will have an exit on to Champ Drive to facilitate the traffic for the Haight B. Alumni Center. Champ Drive, which was closed about the time construction began, will remain closed after the project is CONISTRl IfTION See Page 3 Lifetime award celebrates commitment BY KATHY LESLIE Staff Writer Two things are required to be successful - commitment and purpose in living. This was the message Tuesday night in the Taggart Student Center Ballroom as the Utah State University Women's Center celebrated the lives of Anne Butler and Carolyn Cragun. The Women Over 65 Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony is held annually in March in conjunction with National Women's History Month. Finalists are selected from a pool of applicants who are nominated by the community, said Janet Osborne, director of the USU Women's Center. Criteria for nominees include a local, statewide or national impact on the quality of life. The Women's Center Advisory Board, working with the USU Women's Center, looks over the nominations and selects the recipients to be spotlighted. "It is a difficult task," said Osborne. This year's honorees are women who have not only left their mark in Cache Valley, but also worldwide. Butler, of Logan, is a longtime educator. She loves to teach because it affects the lives of others. "It doesn't matter to me whether it's one person, or a group of people," she said of her service. "Every bit is important." Her teaching career took her throughout the United States as well as Japan, Jordan, Turkey and the Philippines. She also has worked with Phi Delta Kappa, a professional educational society and helped in the Navajo Sheep Project, which reintroduced a rare breed to its original Western habitat. Butler described her philosophy on life as including religion, learning, sharing and giving. WOMFN See Page 3 John Zsiray/yzs/ray@cc.u5U.ec/u CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES on the new residence hall on the west side of USU's campus. The new building is slated to be completed in the fall of 2006, in time for the new school year. |