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Show Monday, Jan. 8,2007 Logan, Utah * Campus Voice Since 1902 www.utahstatesman.com Textbook exchange gives students a new place to make a sale BY LIZ LAWYER Editor in Chief Photo illustration by Tyler Larson USU's INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY is working to get campus-wide wireless access by fall 2007. IT said students and faculty requested better wireless access and U5U wants to expand for future growth. IT services expanding campus wireless access BY ARIE KIRK Assistant News Editor Because of student, staff and faculty demand, USU's Information Technology (IT) is working to provide campus-wide wireless data service coverage. The coverage is expected to be fully implemented in main campus buildings by the end of this semester, Student housing will have the service by the beginning of the 2007 fall semester. "Our goal is to ensure service. We want secure, scalable, future-ready wireless data service that is accessible everywhere at Utah State University," said Eric Hawley, associate vice president for IT. "We want USU to have the best wireless coverage in the region and make sure that it is available to all students, staff, faculty and guests." At this time, there are buildings and outdoor locations on campus where wireless Internet is not available. Marty Emrick, physical infrastructure team coordinator, said there are currently 161 access points throughout USU's main campus, providing wireless service in approximately 50 buildings. With the addition of the new service, Emrick said there will be 400 access points on USU's main and north campus. Student housing buildings will have 300 wireless access points. "One of our huge goals is to provide student housing with the same level of service that other wireless users have throughout campus," Emrick said. "We want to cover all the insides and outsides of buildings by the end of the year." IT is also working to provide wireless Internet to Distance Education campuses around the state of Utah. In the past few months, Hawley said teams of IT staff members have been surveying locations on campus and developing plans for distribution and implementation. They are also leveraging USU's fiber and cabling infrastructure to accommodate the needs of those at USU, he said. "Implementation will occur in a phased approach with portions of on-campus student housing and buildings in the main Logan campus coming online piece by piece through Spring Semester and extending to the Innovation Campus and Research Foundation over the summer and fall," Hawley said. "Our hope is that everything will be in place before 2007 is out." In the spring of 2006, Hawley said IT conducted a survey of 200 students, 100 faculty and 100 staff members. The majority of those polled said wireless coverage was inefficient, causing IT to seriously evaluate the service in olace. Hawley said the fast-paced and everchanging world of technology was also key in deciding to update the system. "Wireless, voice, data and video are converging, and utilization of wireless systems in both number of people and bandwidth requirements are on the rise," Hawley said. "We must have an infrastructure prepared to support it." Emrick said the implementation of this service will cost around $1.5 million. The project planning and implementation will be supported by housing departments and USU facilities, he said. Hawley said, "Information Technology believes that wireless data is / a core service used by the entire enterprise - auxiliaries, colleges, departments, students, faculty and staff. As such, IT is funding the initial phases as part of the over-IT enterprise business plan and in partnership with other university units." USU has had wireless technologies for many years, Hawley said. The desire to make the university "100 percent wireless," however, began this year with the direction of IT Vice President M. K. Jeppesen. • WIRELESS see page 3 Students who got stuck with a stack of unwanted textbooks during the bookstore's buy-back last semester have another chance to turn a profit this week. Pi Kappa Phi, USU's newest fraternity, is holding a book exchange in the Merrill-Cazier Library in Room 101 from Monday until Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For $1, students can leave a textbook at the sale along with a contract stating how much they are willing to sell the book for. If a book sells, the fraternity will take 10 percent of the proceeds, and the seller will take the rest. Any books that don't sell will be returned to their owners at the end of the week, said Ryan Pooler, Pi Kappa Phi social chair. "We basically got the idea when we saw the need on campus," said Brad Larkin, a student who is not a member of the fraternity but is helping organize the event. "Students around campus wanted to have other options to the bookstore. Some said they felt ripped off by bookstore prices." Students who participate in the consignment sale will be able to set the price as high or low as they want, Larkin said, so they won't be stuck with the price offered by the bookstore or alternative book buyers like Aggie Books. "Students can even put a book out for free if they pay the dollar to leave it at the sale," Larkin said. Pi Kappa Phis book exchange is an opportunity to sell unsellable books or to try to get a better price on books that will be used in classes in an upcoming semester. The USU bookstore will purchase books that will be used again, but new editions of texts are issued every few years, leaving old editions worthless. The bookstore buys used books for 50 percent of the price of the new text, but will only buy enough to fill faculty orders. Once the quota is filled, students must go elsewhere to sell their texts. Wholesalers also buy used books to ship to other schools, but only for 5 to 30 percent of the new price. Books that will not be used again or are in bad condition can't be sold to the bookstore or wholesalers. Larkin said the fraternity is looking to raise at least $600. Pooler said the fraternity is hoping the sale will generate up to $1,000 for Pi Kappa Phi, who will give the money to Push America, a national organization that raises funds and awareness for people with disabilities. Push America is supported by Pi Kappa Phi chapters across the country. -ella@cc.usu.edu Utah lawmakers want smaller class sizes SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - State lawmakers are hoping they can find enough cash to reduce class sizes in the state's schools so students can get more personal attention and improve academic quality. About half a dozen bills have been filed that would reduce class sizes, but it's unclear whether the Republican controlled WIRELESS ACCESS Legislature will agree to fund any of them. COVERAGE POINTS Utah has the largest classroom sizes in the country, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. On averUfarfiState age, Utah classes host 27 students, compared with 22 nationUNIVERSITY f ACttimi tank* m l Dni«> wide. In urban and suburban districts, those numbers are often higher. Many Salt Lake Valley classrooms have 30 or 40 students apiece. Sometimes there are more students than desks in some cases. "In large classes, you spend a lot of time doing crowd control," said Leah Spencer, a Murray High School science teacher. f Afu/j raurtesy of Eric Hawley THE COLORED AREAS show the places where IT hopes to have wireless coverage by fall 2007. The map is the proposal for the first phase of wireless access. Smaller classes allow teachers to spend less time managing behavior and more time helping students master the lesson, according to a policy analysis from WestEd, a regional education laboratory. More than a decade of research has revealed lasting benefits for students in smaller classes. But the benefits are conclusive only if schools achieved classes of 20 students or fewer without compromising resources such as teacher quality or classroom environment. That can be expensive. In Jordan School District, Utah's largest, it costs $6 million to reduce classes by one student, spokeswoman Melinda Coltori said. And although Jordan district averages about 23 students in K-3 classes, some elementary schools have 36 or 38 kids in a class, she said. In those cases, the school adds a teacher's aide. Other districts rely on creative scheduling. Crowded schools in Alpine School District bring half the class to school early for 60 or 90 minutes of reading or math instruction. The class has 30 kids most of the day, then the early group goes home and the other 15 kids get their reading and math lessons. Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, wants to enforce how districts spend class-size reduction money. He'll propose a bill that will withhold funds from districts that don't get their classroom numbers down. "Right now we're spending $74.4 million for class-size reduction with virtually no strings attached," he said. "We've got some kindergarten classes with more than 30 kids and the district is getting its share of this money. That's a scandal." So instead of putting even more funding into "a black hole," he'd like to see funding increases for teacher salaries and technology that would improve teaching in large classes. "If we were to increase teacher pay to the national average or reduce class sizes by four students across the boaTd for the same amount of money," he said, "for me it's a no-brainer." |