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Show StatesmanCampus News Page 4 Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 Students to battle for Mr., Miss International title By CATHERINE MEIDELL assistant news editor International students from Finland, Dominican Republic, France, China, Lebanon and other countries will perform in front of a panel Thursday, to best represent their homeland and take the title of Mr. or Miss International in the annual international pageant. This year seven women will compete for the title of Miss International and two men for Mr. International in the Performance Hall from 6:30 to 9 p.m. The panel of six judges, composed of professors and other USU personnel, have been chosen to score the individual competitors in a number of categories, said International Student Council president Vaneet Lakhlani. The contestants will display a talent relating to their native country, be put to the test in a question and answer round and all the while be judged on the way they present themselves and their country, he said. Lakhlani and his council chose the member of the panel because each member has a different background and interests, making the competition unbiased, he said. Those crowned Mr. and Miss International will win the claim to fame with a picture of them hanging in the hall next to the international office on the third floor of the Taggart Student Center. The winner as well as the first and second runner up will receive a trophy. "International students want to bring diversity to USU's campus and this week is our chance to represent our countries to the Logan community and interact with Logan culture," said Satenik Sargsyan, vice president of international student council. The pageant has been a tradition every year for multiple decades, she said. Sargsyan said there are currently about 1,000 international student attending USU from 63 countries. The students affiliated with international clubs were each given the opportunity to participate in the pageant through and invitation sent to the various clubs. Each student who wanted to participate was told they must demonstrate a talent and showcase an outfit representing their country. Lakhlani said the contestant from Finland was able to acquire a traditional Finnish outfit. He said the talents will include Thai kickboxing, singing and dancing acts. However, the singing and dancing acts will be diverse. African dance will be contrasted by Thai dance, so the performances will encompass all the different ways one activity is woven into many cultures, Lakhlani said. "This is a pageant, but the people in it aren't going to be judged on how good looking they are," he said. "It's more or less a talent show." Lakhlani said he met with the judges to discuss the attributes Internation Student Council would like to see in the winner of Mr. and Miss International. He said he conveyed to them that it does not matter whether a competitor is a prolific pianist if they have poor character traits. Therefore, judges will be looking deeper than the talent performances. They will critique each competitor's demeanor and how well they act as an ambassador for their country. When Mr. and Miss International are crowned, it's a proud moment for their fellow countrymen, Sargsyan said. She said international students are eager to share their culture in any way they can for the USU student body to see. All cultures should involve themselves in different background they are unfamiliar with, Lakhlani said. He said, "When I came to USU, I wanted to know what American culture was all about. I went to church and church-organized activities." At the end of the pageant, the panel of judges will leave to a designated room where they will Kids: Healthy eating helps continuedfrom page 3 DURING THE INTERNATIONAL PAGEANT, students modeled their international outfits. The Mr. and Miss International pageant on Thursday will allow international students to represent themselves and their country. STEVE SELLERS photo compare score and choose who will be crowed as Mr. and Miss International. While they deliberate, live bands will play for the audience. The sequence of pageant events will begin with a welcome ceremony followed by a fashion show, talents performed alphabetical to contestant's country and finally the question and answer session. "This pageant is internationality in a nutshell," Lakhlani said. — catherine.meidell@aggiemad.usu.edu Faculty: Committee would review faculty code violations continuedfrom page 1 Shugart said. "Junk food is psychologically and physically addicting." Junk food is nutritionally depleted and high in calories, fat, sugar and salt, Shugart said. One of the worst kinds of junk food is soda, Shugart said. Coke and Pepsi both contain 15 teaspoons of sugar in a 20 ounce container and Mountain Dew has about 17 teaspoons of sugar and each teaspoon is about 20 calories, Shugart said. If an individual consumed one soda per day for an entire year, that individual will have consumed 91,250 calories, 50 pounds of sugar and 26 pounds of body fat, Shugart said. Studies have shown that body weight is directly correlated to consumption of sugar sweetened drinks, she said. "If we could get sugar water out of diet, we could change obesity," Shugart said. "It's the little things you can do to change." The marketing efforts of junk food have become extremely effective and relentless as the U.S. food and beverage budget for advertising has increased to $36 billion, Shugart said. For example, the campaign to market Cheez-Its to kids cost $32 million, Shugart said. The health of individuals and children can be protected by keeping junk food out of homes and schools and muting television commercials, Shugart said. Different countries are reacting to the marketing of junk food and trying to combat the effects. France now has health warnings on television ads and Spain has tightened product labeling, Shugart said. England has been restricting ads and banned sugar beverages in schools, Shugart said. School districts across the U.S. have also done research and implemented programs in the schools to promote healthy eating, Shugart said. One district in Oceanside, Calif., placed healthier drink options at eye-level and moved soda and juice down and found that eventually no one was purchasing the soda, she said. Various other studies have found that people will purchase healthy options if they cost less than junk food, Shugart said. The Be Well program at USU is trying to make "healthy food more affordable," Shugart said. In the Hub, students and faculty can purchase items from the Be Well Menu and receive 10 percent off as well as when they purchase 10 items, they get one free, Shugart said. The Be Well challenge also includes exercising 30 to 60 minutes a day, drinking water in a reusable container and eating fruits and vegetables with every meal or snack, Shugart said. "I want to change the world, with small, consistent changes," Shugart said. "It's going to take a lot of effort." administrative reaction is to circle the wagons and basically support each other. And people that I know that have filed grievances in the past have said it was the worst thing they ever did, professionally, to their careers regardless of the outcome:' McEvoy motioned to the executive committee that a recommendation be presented to the full senate to form an ad hoc committee to review university-wide reports of non-adherence to the faculty code. Burr said, "I'm not aware of a lot of code violations, and I don't think it's malicious. I think it's just that administrators and faculty around here are trying to make things work." "I actually think that in more cases it's, perhaps, an honest difference in interpretation," McEvoy said. "But interpreting the code in a way that serves the interests of the administrators, not the interest of faculty." In response to the faculty's request, the executive committee discussed how there can be more faculty participation in the administrative reviews. The committee is trying to determine whether its approach should be cathartic or scientific. It also discussed the idea of selecting faculty to participate in the administrative review process by random sample. "People are feeling excluded, like they don't have a voice," Cordero said. On Nov. 2, there was a private faculty forum that excluded press. Darwin Sorensen, research professor, raised concerns about the discussions brought up in the meeting and said he feels the forum is concerned with anonymity. "Give them an opportunity to present their feelings anonymously and in a way that is available to all of the faculty," Sorensen said. "Then they have their opportunity to speak up. We get an opportunity to believe what they're teaching or not, and they're not at jeopardy." Sorensen said, "It seems to me there's something to be said for allowing the rabble rousers and those who want the voice to have an opportunity to influence the rest of us who'd rather not have a voice. And isn't that part of what a university does? It's this idea of a forum." Heath also discussed the topic of faculty input for budget conversations. Heath said Albrecht put these conversations out to the department heads, and they all handled them differently. Renee Galliher, assistant professor in psychology, shared her opinion of the Nov. 2 faculty forum. She said many faculty members didn't feel they were represented "well enough" on the six-member Budget Reduction Committee. McEvoy said, "The way it worked in the College of Business was the dean waited until he had taken away all of the degrees of freedom by filling unfilled positions and then asked the faculty for ideas on how to save $2 million. Now, he would be able to say then, that he engaged the faculty in involvement in budget discussions, but it was a phony involvement." Also in Monday's meeting, Tyler Tolson, Associated Students of USU president, reported the efforts of ASUSU to the executive committee. Tolson said he and the vice president of student services are looking into building a recreation center. Although the location is not yet determined, the campus plan calls for a signature building in the current location of the HPER field, which Tolson said the recreation center would satisfy. Tolson said the computer labs are experiencing higher student traffic this year than years previous. Increased traffic flow is not causing an inconvenience to students; however, faculty members have had to be bumped off computers at times to accomodate students. Kelly Kopp, assistant professor of plants, soils and climate, said faculty go into student computer labs for purposes of convenience. Galliher said faculty members often use the lab computers because they have software that the faculty do not have on their office computers. Computers in these labs are paid for by student fees. Tolson reported to the committee on recent school activity attendance. There were about 2,000 attendees at the Mr. USU competition, filling the Kent Concert Hall to capacity, Tolson said. Four thousand students attended the Homecoming Dance, which Tolson said was "enormous" compared to years past. There were 6,000 in attendance at The Howl, where 11 people were arrested, none of which were USU students. Tolson informed the committee that he and his cabinet are working on a trash and recycling initiative on campus. Several routes across campus do not have trash cans, Tolson said. He said part of that program will include a hand-sanitizer initiative, which is being practiced on campuses across the country. In other matters, Noelle Call, director of the Retention and Student Success Office, said within the three years the office has been in existence, it's done much more than just retain first-year students. Because of this, Call changed the office name to Retention and Student Success. There is an 85 percent rate of returning students from the leave-ofabsence students, Call said. The primary reason students state they leave and don't return is financial reasons. — peter.brown@aggiemail.usu.edu — shana.sanders@aggiemail.usu.edu Commute without the fuss... take the bus. ALTIUS one . Taking mass transit saves time, money, stress and the air. 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