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Show StatesmanCampus News Wednesday, Oct. 12, 201 ► Page 3 From Page 1 New summer school system intended to increase enrollment go to school during the summer. It's always been my time for working and getting as much money as I can to survive the next school year." Coward said summer of 2012 will be an experiment to see if the changes will draw higher enrollment numbers. Sixteen of the 41 university departments submitted a tentative proposal of which classes would be offered for summer sessions. Five of these departments were then chosen for the first round of funding for the 2012 pilot program. Coward said he couldn't yet disclose which departments were selected, because they haven't been notified yet, and they "deserve the courtesy of hearing it first." He said, however, "Two of the departments are in science, two in education and human services (and the last) in humanities and social sciences." According to Jessica Hansen, coordinator senior for the Registrar's Office, student feedback regarding summer semester classes shows that it is enormously difficult to stay on campus in the summer. Referring to the current summer program, Juel Odulio, a freshman majoring in pre-nursing, said changes could certainly be made to make summer school "more attractive." Hansen said several steps are being taken to ensure this happens. "There will be two sessions in the program. A four-week session that starts on May 7 and ends on June 1, and a seven-week session that begins June 4 and ends July 18," Hansen said. "It will also be standard bell time, so students can take back-to-back courses throughout the day." The new summer school schedule will make more classes available to more students by introducing what Hansen called a standard bell time. This means each class will meet at a set time for a set period to prevent course overlap. Hansen said this should allow students to coordinate better. She also said that in the past courses would meet once a week for four hours and it would monopolize a student's entire day, which would keep them from being able to schedule other courses. With the new model, a student should hypothetically be able to take a full 12- or 15-credit regular semester course load. "The aim of changing to these two sessions is for students to be able to take courses that are more relevant to their majors. That's what the colleges and departments are being (asked to do)," Hansen said. Morales also said the new funding model focuses on encouraging departments to teach more according to what the students need. "The basic idea of this funding model allows the departments to keep virtually all the revenue they generate during the summer, which in turn lets them put classes out there that the students want and need," Morales said. Erica Jensen, a freshman majoring in mathematics, said this new model is a much smarter idea when compared to the current summer school program. "I think I'd be more inclined to take a summer semester class, and I might consider summer school later on," she said. "I think it's a great idea." Through the new model once a class is listed online it must be taught, and it is up to the individual departments to coordinate funding, staffing and selection of classes. "This means the departments are going to have to carefully choose which courses they offer," Coward said. "There is a fail-safe where the university is going to make up the difference if the experiment falls through." If the model is a success this summer, then the Administration will continue to add departments until all 41 are implemented into the program by 2015. This will mean the income and resources of each department are directly tied to the number of student hours they offer. The five departments selected for the first trial run averaged 2,332 student credit hours over the past three years. According to estimates from the submitted proposals, it should increase student credit hours to 5,829 for those five departments, which would be an increase of 150 percent. "(This is), of course, exactly what we want to see if we can bring about that kind of increase," Coward said. "Instructional costs are about $275,000. The funding module we are trying to put in place would return $461,000 to the departments. We're trying to set (this) up as a win-win." PROVOST RAYMOND COWARD announced in a Faculty Senate meeting Monday, Oct. 3 that five departments will use a new scheduling system for summer school next year. The system will make a wider range of classes available. AMBER MURDOCH photo - amber.murdoch@usu.edu From Page 1 Harvard prof. explains medical reality of becoming a zombie inspiration from watching "Night of the Living Dead." He said within a zombie's brain synapses dance back and forth. He also discussed how a zombie might exist physiologically. His medical research lends preference to a slowmoving, decaying zombie breed with progressive degeneration, he said. Far different from the other, quicker Hollywood zombies. "I prefer the slow ones, because I think they are scarier, and they lend themselves better to medical ideology," Schlozman said. "Having time to think is the worst thing humans can have, because if we have enough time to think, we have time to screw up and things go south." This omits fast-paced films such as "Zombieland" and "28 Days Later," he said, which feature sprinting reanimated, flesh-hungry corpses that arguably aren't zombies at all and therefore deserve a different form of physical discription altogether. Schlozman focused heavily on the composition of the human brain, and the functions that drive our actions. He compared the brain of a zombie to a crocodile, which is urge-driven to eat anything warm blooded. But, he said, a zombie is more like a drunk crocodile, lacking coordinated movement, depth perception or balance. He presented case studies of "morning briefs" in which a new patient would be introduced to a doctor. The odd behavior would be considered a drug case, or "PCP until proven otherwise," he said. After routine checks to diagnose the cause, zombies would fail tests for drugs and vital signs would be failing, with increased white blood cells fighting infection. The biggest clue, he said, would be when they tried to bite the doctor's nose off when he tries to get a better view. After the medical presentation, Schlozman explained why popular zombie movies are such common venues for social commentary. "Most zombie movies aren't about zombies, because zombies aren't very smart," Schlozman said. "They are about how humans screw things up. You could eat a sandwich and get away if you kept your wits about you. Zombie movies are a blank slate, by definition; there is nothing there. They allow us to bring out our worst." He said they also allow us to display our most basic human instincts — to band together for common purposes and relate to each other's pain. Students asked questions after Schlozman finished his speech. He responded while maintaining perspective about his survival techniques and further entertained the small crowd. He also said killing zombies unnecessarily, zombies who act simply out of hunger impulses from the brain, could be the wrong thing to do. "There is a balance between the higher and lower brain that makes us human," Schlozman said. "It's not about you, so you can't be mad at a zombie, and the more we shoot, hit, kill something that looks like us, the more it takes a toll on us; it dehumanizes us." Schlozman said there are a couple upcoming cable specials: "The History of the Living Dead," running Oct. 26-31 on the History Channel and "The Walking Dead," that begins its second season on AMC Sunday, Oct. 15. - m.p.dahl@aggiemail.usu. edu *From Page 1 Missing money possibly extracted using plastic utensils from fundraiser food up for deposit the following day. "The money was taken out of the money boxes, probably using some device such as a plastic knife, screwdriver — something like that — that would fit down into the hole and allow them to pull the bills out," Donohoe said. Donohoe said the money was probably pulled out by the plastic utensils available for students to use with the food they purchase for the fundraiser. She said new lock boxes will be installed to prevent theft in the future. "We are taking, now, measures to prevent this in the future. We've mounted a camera for 24-hour surveillance, and we will be getting different lock boxes that are deeper and harder to access the money," Donohoe said. Sonia Manuel-Dupont associate professor and adviser for the NSSLHA said money is used to buy supplies such as books, writing materials and tutoring supplies. "We use this as one way that we can generate funds to keep these programs going," Manuel-Dupont said. "Most of the children that we serve are from low-income families, and they probably don't have a lot of literacy materials in their home, so this gives them the opportunity to take things home." DESA also uses the money to support its program, Manuel-Dupont said. DESA organizes programs for the deaf community and helps prepare students for careers that interact with deaf children and adults. Campus & Community ASUSU EC passes first bill of 2011-12 ASUSU Executive Council passed its first bill of the year. The bill, GSSB 2012-01, formally splits the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences graduate senator position into two separate senator positions. Graduate Studies Vice-President Cami Jones presented the bill to the ASUSU Executive Council, and it passed as a first reading item. The council motioned to make small formatting changes to the bill before it was passed by a unanimous vote. The College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences split into the Caine College of the Arts and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences June 2010. This bill officially splits the two programs in those colleges in the Graduate Student Senate, Jones said. "It's basically a formality because the colleges have been divided, so they need separate representation from the GSS," she said. "It would be a formality of getting equal representations for the College of the Arts and the College of the Humanities and Social Sciences." Jones said the funding for the new position will come from the recently dissolved international senator position. "The funding that was delegated to the international senator is now going to the arts. The allocations are the same, just within the GSS budget." GSSB 2012-01 text can be found on the ASUSU Legislation website. - chris.w.lee@aggiemail.usu.edu Keeton named WAC player of the week Aggie quarterback Chuckie Keeton has been recognized with a pair of national honors on Sunday Oct. 9. Keeton was acknowledged by collegefootballperformance.com as an honorable mention national Quarterback of the Week, while also being named by College Sports Madness as the Western Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Week for his school-record tying performance in USU's 63-19 win over Wyoming Saturday. Keeton, a USU freshman from Houston, threw for 228 yards on 15-of-20 passing and a schoolrecord tying five touchdowns, with all five coming in the first half, and added 44 rushing yards on four carries, as Utah State scored the final 42 points in a dominating 63-19 home win against Wyoming Saturday. In all, USU scored TDs on its first eight possessions of the game, and scored 42 points in the first half, the most points in an opening half since at least 1991. Utah Public Radio begins pledge drive Donohoe said the two service organizations need the funds to continue running. She said the money stolen was everything the organizations have raised thus far, and was supposed to fund the continuance of the fundraising programs. She said the donations are being solicited to make up for the loss. "We've asked everyone in the building if they would chip in a donation," Donohoe said, "to get us back on an even keel." Donohoe said it would be a shame to lose the program because of theft. The fundraiser has been ongoing for five years without any incidents of theft, she said. Milne said theft has always been a problem on campus, and people need to contact USU Police immediately if they see any suspicious activity going on. "We count a lot on the public for information," Milne said. "If they see it call us right away." Donohoe said she hopes someone will contact the police with information that helps retrieve the money. "We're hoping that maybe there's a student or an employee somewhere that might have any information," Donohoe said. "(Or) perhaps overheard someone maybe talking about it — that they'll come forward." - chris.w.lee@aggiemail.usu.edu Briefs Utah Public Radio begins its 2011 Fall pledge drive Oct. 11 and will partner with animal shelters in Utah to provide food for their pet pantries. Sam's Club stores across Utah have agreed to donate 1 lb. of pet food to the shelters for every pledge that UPR receives during the drive. UPR Development Director Bryan Earl said listeners can help two non-profit organizations with one pledge. "This partnership with UPR will help sustain our pet-food pantry program that helps those who are less fortunate take care of their animals," said Director of Cache Humane Society Michael Bishop. "It keeps those animals from entering the shelter in the first place." ClarifyCorrect The policy of The Utah Statesman is to correct any error made as soon as possible. If you find something you would like clarified or find in error, please contact the editor at 797-1742, statesman@aggiemail.usu.edu or come in to TSC 105. USU POLICE INSTALLED a camera overlooking the lock boxes where nearly $200 was taken during a campus fundraiser. Valerie Donohoe, who is the business manager for the department of communicative disorders and deaf education, said new, safer lock boxes will also be installed. AMANDA DUNN photo a Co mp ile d from staff and media reports |