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Show Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010 Utah Campus Voice since 1902 •St Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.utahstatesman.com Opinions split following high profile performance By CATHERINE MEIDELL news editor Now that B.J. Novak's routine has come and gone, and $35,730 has been subtracted from event funding, the question remains whether or not the money spent — which comes from student fees — yielded a successful event. Financial Overview Of the 2,168 seats available in the Kent Concert Hall, 1,469 tickets were sold, roughly two-thirds, to individuals across Utah, who traveled to Logan in order to see B.J. Novak, a writer and actor for the popular NBC television show "The Office," perform his comedic routine. USU designated $75,000 for arts and lectures for the 2010-11 school year. ASUSU arts and lectures director Skyler Parkhurst, along with the events committee, decided to spend $51,000 of that sum to bring Novak to USU. Parkhurst was appointed to his position by ASUSU Programming VP Tom Atwood. In an attempt to make a portion of the money back, all who wished to attend the event had to purchase a ticket — USU students paid $10 and the public paid $20. Ticket office sales from the event totaled $15,270, less than one-third the cost of hosting the performance. Parkhurst said he believes there is a sum of money not included in the ticket office's total because ASUSU sold a few hundred tickets in other ways. Kayla Harris, 2009-10 ASUSU programming vice president, said programming originally believed they could make $40,000 back from the event. However, she said considering the limited amount of seating available and the cost of tickets, only $32,000 was possible. "If you are going to spend that much money, spend it on something every student can attend," Harris said. "I'd rather watch 'The Office' on my Netflix account for $8 per month." Parkhurst said he felt it was a good idea to invest in the show, though the bill was steep, and he wanted to make sure the funding available was used entirely because last year $35,000 was not spent. Any remaining funding does not roll over into the next year and is dispersed in other projects and programs throughout USU via a general fund. "We realized that even if no one bought a ticket, well, we'd still spend as much as last year on the rest of the events. We were pretty sure it would be successful so we did take the chance, and not spending all the money is cheating the students," Parkhurst said. Atwood said the money spent on I See PROGRAMS, page 3 ASUSU discusses changes in book return process By JESSICA SWEAT staff writer USU bookstore representatives David Parkinson and John Mortensen approached ASUSU with a proposal to e-mail students about buy-back pricing for textbooks at the ASUSU Executive Council meeting Nov. 9. He said the bookstore has been working with the campus IT department on a feature to inform students of pricing and other information for selling back their used books. The function is possible now because of bookstore's recent purchase of a system that includes a customer relations database. This means about 24,000 students would receive an e-mail from the bookstore regarding the books associated with classes the student is enrolled in. The e-mails will be sent out one to two days prior to buy-backs beginning, which begins Dec. 9 this year. "We are pretty close to functionality of this new service," Parkinson said. If the feature is ready, e-mails would be sent Dec. 8. Mortensen said this will help money come back to the university and keep students purchasing through the bookstore, which ultimately helps keep student prices low. The council also initiated detailed discussion of ASUSU election bylaws. After meeting with advisers, public relations director Lacey Nagao brought the potential legislation I See BYLAWS, page 4 POLICE ARE CUTTING LOCKS off of bikes that are not driven home at the end of the day. Some students have been forced to lock their bikes to trees because other students are leaving their bikes in the racks for extended periods of time. CARL R.WILSON photo Officers end misuse of bike racks By BLAZE BULLOCK staff writer Many students riding their bikes to school have been forced to chain their bikes to trees, said Capt. Steve Milne of the USU Police Department. The cause for this is that many students locked their bikes in the racks at the beginning of the semester and just left them there for months, Milne said. This leaves no spots for those that ride their bikes to campus every day and need a spot to temporarily secure their bicycle. "A lot of students are coming up and leaving their bikes in the bike rack for a long period of time. Not just for the day," Milne said. "So other people that ride their bike up just for the day, there's no place to lock their bikes in the bike racks. Then they start chaining them to the guardrails and to the trees and stuff like that." According to Utah State University pol- icy, locking bikes to structures other than approved bicycle racks is prohibited. The policy also states that if bikes are locked to other structures then the bicycles will be impounded. Sgt. Travis Dunn of the USUPD said there were about 100 bikes that had just been left in the bike racks. Each of the bicycles that had been left I See LOCKS, page 4 Gloomy weather increases depression cases in students By MEGAN BAINUM assistant news editor SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER symptoms can be seen in up to 20 percent of adults and occurs between November and February. Seasonal depression stems from regular depression, and can be difficult to identify. AL/SON OSTLER photo Inside This Issue 11/10/10 Women's Volleyball falls short in the fifth set against Idaho. Seasonal affective disorder, more commonly known as seasonal depression, can effect up to 5 percent of adults and up to 20 percent can have some symptoms, but psychologists say there is more to seasonal depression than feeling sad between November and February. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is more a part of regular depression, rather than being a disorder all on its own, said Mark Nafziger, a psychologist working in the counseling and psychological services department at USU. He said it is difficult to identify cases of pure SAD because usually if someone claims they get depressed in the winter, there are usually depressive tendencies the rest of the year and it's just that winter is an added stressor in their lives, so symptoms can become more severe. Thorana Nelson, who works in the mar- Four religion centers near campus offer students a place for spiritual guidance. riage and family therapy clinic, said seasonal depression has become too big of a deal in society and people are making it out to be more than it actually is. "People expect to get it now so they do, there are so many factors that go into SAD that most people don't understand," Nelson said. Nafziger said, "I have seen very few cases I would consider pure seasonal depression where they are perfectly fine the rest of the year and really depressed between November and February. However, there have certainly been people that I would say tend to get depressed in the winter time each year." However, David Stein, a professor and psychologist, said SAD is very real and is a subtype of major depressive disorder. He said there are certain factors that have to happen before someone will be diagnosed with SAD. A I See SAD, page 4 Doing some research? 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