“Live bears” across Missouri breathed a sigh of relief this week.

Student Body President Chris Polley announced the University has squashed the Student Government Association’s plans to bring a “live bear” to football games. No reason was given outside the administration’s discomfort with the idea.

I’m glad this “live bear” idea didn’t materialize because I don’t think keeping a bear captive for our amusement is something an institution of higher education should do.

But the effort to capture, collar, and cage a “live bear,” though misguided, was aimed at addressing a legitimate issue. That issue is the lack of school spirit among the students. Granted, every third freshman is wearing maroon, but what does that mean? How does that manifest in a sense of community as students?

The activities email I get every week has events the University is putting on and some by student groups. Where is, for lack of a more precise term, the voice of the students? I don’t mean things done for students, but actions taken by students, as students and not as some group.

For example, there were a few articles about the controversy last year with SGA and the money for Eagles tickets, but widespread protest? Calls for accountability? None.

Earlier this month, many campuses demonstrated in solidarity against a wave of cuts in education funding and tuition hikes. It’s not just California and their 32 percent increase.

Michigan, South Carolina, and Colorado students are looking at increases. Our freeze isn’t going to hold forever. There were over one hundred protests nationwide. Nary a word here.

Now we have this new fitness center being built while everyone holds their breath, waiting for budget cuts. Does this make sense? Even if the fitness center money was “set aside” by a student vote, doesn’t that call for a review and change of the system for allocating these funds? We shouldn’t be locked into spending millions of dollars by students who aren’t here anymore and barely gave a second thought to a building being constructed five years down the road.

RHA is considering converting Brick City into loft style “on campus” housing. Meanwhile, we’re plowing under actual “on campus” land to build special swimming pools in our new fitness center.

We have to slash our budget and risk tuition hikes somewhere down the line so we can fund this fluff. Is housing located further away from campus really what we need? How will that help build school spirit?

Students shrug it off for the most part. They are passionate in their own little spheres, but as a student body, they are uninterested in the course set for the University by the administration.

What would a “live bear” do? Bears live their lives almost entirely alone and spend a good chunk of that time sleeping. It’s somehow fitting that we would think to bring a solitary, territorial predator to try to draw people together.

Low attendance at some sporting events isn’t due to lack of spectacle. It is a symptom of a deeper lack of community among the students.

Until the root problem is addressed, all the “live bears” or maroon t-shirts in the world won’t make a difference.

A group of Missouri State University students are planning to protest construction of the University Recreation Center, a $22.9 building set to break ground next month.

The protest will occur from 2-to-3 p.m. on Tuesday, March 23, outside Carrington Hall on campus.

“There’s a Facebook group of over 150 students against the construction,” said protest organizer and Missouri State student Heather Welborn. “The most commonly posted reasons to rethink the project range from, ‘I’ll never use it,’ to ‘I don’t want to pay for it.’”

Welborn believes the construction is a waste of valuable resources during a time when the budget is incredibly tight.

“My goal is to shed light on an issue many at Missouri State feel strongly about,” she said. “This project is largely an awareness campaign.”

Welborn plans to circulate a petition calling for a student body re-vote “to see if this project is still in line with how students want their money spent.” Students originally approved a $16.5 million renovation of McDonald Arena in 2006, which later evolved into the construction of an entirely new building.

Welborn said students who cannot attend the protest but are interested in the cause should join a Facebook group called “MSU Students Against Construction of the University Recreation Center.” Information about further efforts to stop this construction will be posted there, she said.

“A protest is a great way to increase awareness on campus,” Welborn said. “It encourages student involvement in shaping and questioning the policies that directly effect them. If you hear about the Rec project for the first time through the protest, we made a difference.”

]]> http://www.msu-underground.com/archives/1114/feed 3 http://www.msu-underground.com/archives/1106 http://www.msu-underground.com/archives/1106#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:11:06 +0000 Zach http://www.msu-underground.com/?p=1106 by Zach Becker

Featuring a live orchestra, five singers, and 10 dancers, this year’s Spring Dance Concert should provide an engaging and fun experience for the audience.

The performance, titled Fault Lines, features student and faculty performers and will be held March 25-28 at Coger Theatre located in Craig Hall.

The first half will feature three short musical dance pieces, according to Ruth Barnes, Theatre and Dance professor.

Tsiganes, which means “gypsies” in French,” features choreography by Sara Brummel and music by Vittorio Mondi and Astor Piazzola.

A Divine Majority is choreographed by Darryl Kent Clark, while music is by Chopin.

Random Acts of Joy is choreographed by Barnes with music by Paul Shoenfield. Emily Brown provides lighting design for all three pieces.

“It should be kind of silly and funny and hopefully fun for the audience,” Barnes said when discussing Random Acts of Joy.

The second half features a performance of The Seven Deadly Sins, a satirical sung ballet written in 1933 by Germany’s Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht during the early rise of the Nazis.

“It is a disconnected story,” Barnes said. “It is kind of a critique of the bourgeoisie and people who say you shouldn’t sin but actually do.

“They encourage other people to sin in order to get ahead in the world and (they encounter) resistance to that on the part of the girls.”

Brummel directs The Seven Deadly Sins, while Amy Muchnick serves as the conductor and music director.

Choreographing duties for the nine-section piece were divided up between Barnes, Brummel and Clark.

“The styles change from one section of the piece to another,” Barnes said. “It’s a real journey that goes around the United States kind of randomly.”

Matthew Wilson is in charge of lighting design for The Seven Deadly Sins, while scenic design is handled by Renee Simmons and costume design by Cynthia Winstead.

“Just having live music is a major change for us,” Barnes said. “It’s great. We’re excited.”

Tickets are $8 for Missouri State students and can be purchased at any box office, online or by calling 417-836-7678.

The event will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, March 26-27, and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 28.

Since that time, the housing market collapsed, the banks went bust, unemployment reached historical levels, and now we’re looking at huge budget shortfalls in higher education.

Missouri’s higher education commissioner warned of potential 15-to-20 percent budget cuts to state universities, possibly leading to university closures, larger class sizes and even elimination of athletic teams.

And yet, we are still chugging along about to build a superfluous facility that the majority of students will probably never use and which will cost untold amounts in the future to properly staff and maintain.

Worse yet, those who actually need it the most – athletic teams – are specifically being barred from using the facility.

The times where we could afford to lounge down the lazy river are over.

Sure, it would be nice to have another pool, an indoor track, a rock climbing wall, more basketball courts, more gym equipment, and, of course, a lazy river.

The good folks in Campus Recreation have done a phenomenal job helping plan and design this project. It looks like a beautiful building with lots of great features.

But not here and not now.

Not in these economic conditions.

This project should be re-evaluated immediately. We should not be stuck constructing a building just because students four years ago voted to approve the project. It might have made sense then, but certainly not now.

Let students vote whether they think this is a good idea going forward given the current economic situation.

Student fees already paid into this project could be diverted to other, more vital projects, or perhaps just held in a fund. When economic conditions and higher education budgets improve, this idea is certainly still worthy of consideration.

Now, though, is not the time.

-Zach Becker

For the Editorial Board

If you are against construction of the University Recreation Center, join our Facebook group, “MSU Students Against Construction of the University Recreation Center.”

RecycleMania is running wild on the Missouri State campus.

Students better say their prayers, take their vitamins, and separate their glass from plastics if Missouri State is to have any chance of taking home the coveted RecycleMania trophy, along with a year’s worth of bragging rights.

The contest, which ends Mar. 27, pits the recycling efforts of Missouri State against hundreds of other schools across the country. The event will measure both the trash output and recycling efforts of the universities. The “greenest” school wins.

This marks the sixth year Missouri State has participated in RecycleMania. Unlike year’s past, though, where only recycling efforts in the residence halls were counted, this time the entire campus is participating.

The event is intended to add the drive and commitment of competition to the sensibility and necessity of recycling.

Jennifer Cox, the Assistant Director of Residence Life and Services at MSU as well as the coordinator of RecycleMania, is very excited about the competition being taken all over the Missouri State campus this year.

Although the trophy and bragging rights it entails would be nice, this is not the most important focus of the competition in the long run, she said.

“This is not about bringing a large bag of recyclable material to school and depositing them in one of the bins,” Cox said. “It’s about changing smaller decisions that all of us make on a daily basis, such as recycling papers and aluminum cans instead of throwing them in the trash.”

All that is required to make a positive impact on sustainability and spur Missouri State along to victory in RecycleMania is placing certain items like soda cans, plastic cups and food containers and glass tea bottles in those familiar bins labeled “RECYCLE,” which are located in Meyer Library, the Plaster Student Union, and many other spots around the campus.

Cox hopes to show students both the ease of recycling and the impact it can make.

“Hopefully, habits of recycling will become a greater part of the students’ lives in the end,” she said.

What’cha gonna do when RecycleMania runs wild on you?

Terry Walls wanted to know the truth; the ugly, racist truth.

In 1950, his mother, Mary Jean Price, became the first African American applicant to Missouri State University (then a white’s-only institution known as Southwest Missouri State College).

The college failed to respond to her application, and a Greene County judge ruled against her when she filed suit against the school for their inaction. Denied the opportunity for an education, Price moved on with her life, but the scar of the racially-motivated denial have never really healed.

Sixty-years later, after wafting through the Meyer Library Archives, her son found the sordid details of how the Board of Regents was prepared to go to the Supreme Court to deny his mother’s admission to the school. Price found originally-confidential correspondence letters that indicated this intent in the file along with his mother’s original application to the school.

In 1950, four years prior to when the Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education ordered the desegregation of schools, African American students were unable to attend Southwest Missouri State College unless the studies they wanted to pursue were not offered at Lincoln University, the state’s African American college.

Price, 18 at the time, wanted to be a schoolteacher. She submitted her transcripts and a letter, stating her intentions to study library science, which was not offered at Lincoln.

The college registrar, Guy Thompson, forwarded the letter up the ranks to Southwest Missouri State College President Roy Ellis.

According to facsimile correspondence available from the library archives, President Ellis considered her application a “test case.”

While waiting on the opinion of the college attorney, he mailed four other Missouri college presidents.

In a confidential letter dated November 13, 1950, he related the difficulty of trying to formulate a policy on the admission of potential black students who were eligible under the conditional laws of the time.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fought for equal rights for African Americans during the Civil Rights movement. He worked to erase racial inequalities such as policies that denied Mary Jean Price admission to Missouri State University in 1950.

“The College should ask a local Circuit Court for a declaratory judgment,” the letter stated. President Ellis related the feelings of the Board of Regents and how they were discussing, “carrying the matter on to the Supreme Court in case the local Court decided the girl could be admitted.”

This conviction to preventing her admission proved unnecessary, as events would reveal. After the college failed to respond to Price, Tac Kaplan hired attorney Irving Schwab to file a lawsuit against the school on Price’s behalf.

But in the declaratory judgment the Board had hoped for, a judge of the Circuit Court of Greene County ruled against Price. Her chances of attending Missouri State were finished.

“Can you imagine being an 18 year old kid, and having your ambitions dashed?” Walls said. “Sixty years later; nobody acknowledges it, as though it never happened. It did happen, and we were a part of it.”

For him, and others, the fact that the story has gone untold for so long is a shock. According to Walls, his mother never spoke about it until he found the letter and local television station KSPR ran a story on it recently.

Although it was good for Price to finally speak on the matter, “it opened up old wounds,” according to Walls. Price never went on to teach and worked as an elevator operator before marrying and having children. She is now in her late 70s.

See Related Story: Students debate how MSU should respond to story of Mary Jean Price

by Victoria Branch.

As the campus community continues to react to the startling resignation announcement by MSU President Michael Nietzel, one can’t help but wonder what role the upcoming budget crisis had in his decision.

In any case, we need the leader of our college to have his or her full attention and energy directed toward the difficult situation ahead. While it would have been easy for Nietzel to sit back and collect on that big paycheck, I respect him for recognizing that his head was not in the game.

You know the budget situation is looking grim when the school is going as far as eliminating a $300 expense for an entry fee normally given to the intramural flag football champions to compete at a regional tournament (see page 7).

Scrimping, saving, and doing without will no doubt be some of the job requirements for the new president.

With all of this cost-cutting, we can’t lose sight of the primary mission of any institution of higher learning; sports, obviously.

Like a butcher, we have to be careful to avoid the bone as we cut the fat out of the budget.

It seems the first instinct usually is to gouge the students. Increased tuition. Increased cost of parking permits. More tickets and fines.

Unfortunately, I am sure we will see plenty of these measures to go along with budget cuts.

Instead, I think we need to be more creative. Here are a couple ideas I had just off the top of my head.

Remember that grain elevator Missouri State bought for $1 a few years back but haven’t done anything with? I think it would make a great billboard. Businesses pay decent money for an average billboard. Imagine what they’d pay for a giant one like that.

What about that fancy new arena everyone seems to think is costing too much to maintain?

Why don’t we put JQH to good use and generate some revenue. I look on the event calendar and besides sports, I only see four special events through March. None of them are big draws in my opinion.

The Eagles came to JQH to open the place up with a bang. Why can’t we get more acts like that. Maybe someone like Bob Dylan? Oh, yeah, he performed at the Shrine Mosque when in Springfield instead.

JQH is an awesome, state-of-the-art arena. I’ve been to arenas in big metropolitan areas and I have to say, besides its smaller size, JQH was just as nice.

We are lucky to have an arena like that for a city this size. We just need to better utilize it.

We have a great university. Let us hope our new president can keep it that way through thick and thin budgets.

That said, we recognize each individual’s right to destroy their own body if they so wish.

However, develop lung cancer on your own time and on your own property! Stop polluting campus for the rest of us!

Recently, talk of a smoking ban at Missouri State University has come up, and we would like to throw our support behind this important measure wholeheartedly.

Beyond the damage smoking deals to the individuals who engage in this behavior, second-hand smoke also pollutes the air and damages the lungs of all who come near.

Designated smoking areas may sound like a good solution to the problem at first, but unless you are going to put the designated areas physically far away from the main campus, smoke will still drift about.

We all have a right to breathe clean air. No one has the right to take that away from us. Smoking creates a blight on the whole campus.

How to enforce this ban, you say?

Simple.

Fines. Lots and lots of fines.

Eventually, students will learn to put the cigarettes away.

Smokers can still smoke if they want to, but just take it off campus.

Students deserve to breathe easy.

-Jennifer Becker

For the Editorial Board

Welcome to the discussion! Whether you’ve been with us since the beginning or just picked up The Underground for the first time, thank you. You’re the reason we do what we do.

Since you’re reading an alternative newspaper, I don’t have to convince you of the sorry state of the news media.

If they aren’t framing every story as a left-right shouting match, they use the shield of so-called objectivity to quietly condone the status quo.

It’s no wonder viewers, listeners and readers are seeking alternative media more than ever.

Readers like you look for something more than just the standard fare when it comes to news. You’re naturally curious; you like to look into different sources of information.

You’re a discerning reader; you don’t take things at face value. You search for unique stories, moving stories and divergent opinions.

In other words, whether you know it or not, you were already an Underground reader before you picked up this newspaper.

As smart, savvy, independent thinkers, our readers possess all the necessary qualities to be great journalists.

Take the next step. Join us as an Underground writer!

Famed independent journalist I.F. Stone got his start with a newspaper he created in high school called Progress.

From such humble beginnings, he went on to found I.F. Stone’s Weekly in 1953, a pioneering newsletter that fought McCarthyism, racism and was the first American publication to question the official account of the Gulf of Tonkin. There are now half a dozen awards for independent journalism named after Stone, given by organizations from Harvard to Berkeley.

Missouri native Walter Cronkite dropped out of college at UT Austin to take a job reporting for the Houston Post. Of course, his later contributions to television news were lauded at length after his death last June. His work that struck me the most was his coverage of the moon landing. Cronkite’s palpable excitement belied his curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

Neither of these men had formal training or journalism degrees when they started. What they had is what you have, a discerning eye for information, natural curiosity and a love of the truth.

And you don’t face nearly the obstacles those men did. You don’t have to start your own publication. Zach and Jenny Becker, our Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, respectively, have done that for you. You don’t need to quit school to write for this paper, either. In fact, we would specifically recommend that you not do that.

This is a newspaper in the old style; a community meeting place rather than a dry listing of the day-to-day machinery of the University. If you have a story to tell, if you have something to say, reach out to us. Shock us. Make us laugh or bring us to tears. Give voice to the voiceless. Satiate the burning desire to communicate. Being part of the discussion means being part of the solution.

Stone and Cronkite are gone now. They are passing the torch to you. Come tell your story.