THE BG NEWS Day Thursday
Month xx,20, 2008 November 2008 Volume103, 103,Issue Issue63 x Volume
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A popularity contest for the birds
Preparing for an all-out ‘orange out’ By Alexandria Clark Reporter
Even though the gates of Doyt Perry Stadium don’t open until 4:30 p.m. tomorrow, the University’s Falcon spirit has been on display since the beginning of this week. University offices such as the Athletic Department, Office of Residence Life and University Dining Services are taking part in many activities this week to get students, faculty and alumni ready for tomorrow’s last home football game against the Buffalo Bulls starting at 6 p.m. Brian Delehoy, assistant athletic director for marketing, said the Athletic Department is declaring the game an “Orange Out” day. “We would like all attendants to wear their orange this Friday,” Delehoy said. “We want the fans to show their spirit and support for the Falcons.” To encourage attendants to wear their orange the University Bookstore and Student Book Exchange (SBX) are offering 20 percent off on all orange BG apparel this week. Also, the first 2,000 BGSU students to through the Doyt Perry Gates will get a free orange Tshirt. Not only is tomorrow’s home game important because it is the last home game of the season,
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By Freddy Hunt Editor-in-Chief
The Buckeye is the state tree of Ohio. Tomato juice is the official state drink. The cardinal is the state bird of Ohio... but also of Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. On Nov. 4, while the country was racing to the polls to vote for the 44th president of the United States, over 77,000 fourth to eighth graders in the state of Florida cast their votes for a new state bird.
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Seven states claim the cardinal as their state bird Florida’s current state bird, the mockingbird, is also shared by Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee and Mississippi. “The main reason is because many Floridians think there are more interesting and unique birds that represent Florida than the mockingbird,” said Judy Gillan, conservation stewardship coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
See CARDINAL | Page 2
Local recycling center puts the ‘green’ in Bowling Green By Courtney Flynn Reporter
Community residents’ vehicles line up at all hours of the day with recyclables to drop off in front of the Bowling Green Recycling Center. One such resident, Gary Thomas, is thankful Bowling Green offers such an outstanding outlet to recycle materials. Thomas works for the newly reopened Cla-zel Theater and said having a place where the Cla-zel, and other members of the community, can bring its recyclables has its benefits. “I’m a big green person, so having a place that keeps trash from going to the landfill, which can also save money, is a plus,” he said. The Bowling Green Recycling Center first opened in 1978 in the parking lot of Cooper-Standard Automative Inc. on Main Street. The program started with a $100 loan from the Bowling Green Jaycees Club and two men with two semi-trailers and gallon barrels, said Wood County Solid Waste Director Ken Reiman. Just a little over five years later the program picked up speed and moved to its current location at 1040 N. College Drive, Reiman said he has been there from the beginning. “This was something I got enthused about to make the community better,” he said. The Recycling Center has taken great strides to go from being a two-man operation in a parking lot to offering a 24hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week drop-off center for all Wood County residents. Just inside the sliding doors at the drop station, labeled steel crates are lined up against the wall to help the recyclers decipher which product goes in what container. These crates are emptied and shipped to receiving centers two to three times a week, depending on the weather, Reiman said. He also said it is important people put the right product in the right container to avoid problems and extra work.
BEN LOHMAN | THE BG NEWS
CLEANING UP: A group of locals including junior Bridget Haley do their part to recycle as they recycle their various items. Bridget (left) says she comes and recycles every Monday.
Reiman said the products cannot be properly recycled if they are not separated according to material type because it throws off the composition of the final decompressed product of hundreds of aluminum, cardboard or paper recyclables. The workers rarely have to deal with this problem though. “Ninety-nine percent of people that bring things out do it right,” Reiman said. “If they didn’t drop it off we wouldn’t be there.” Due to the efforts of many community members, the Bowling Green Recycling Center provides jobs for four full-time employees and one part-time employee. Scott Reiman is the manager at the center and one of the four full-time employees. Scott has been working at the center for 17 years and looks forward to the unpredictability of the job. “Every day is a different day,” he said. Recurring mishaps that add to the unpredictability of the job include machine breakdowns, unexpected large recyclable loads and the problems that can go along with sorting, Scott said. Even with daily mishaps, the employees and community members are able to create about seven million pounds of pro-
See FOOTBALL | Page 2
ILLUSTRATION BY DANNY WHITE | THE BG NEWS
cessed material a year, Ken said. He said the numbers change year to year and he believes this year the numbers will be higher than seven million. “It’s a good-sized recycling operation,” he said. The center has also set up a 16 smaller, satellite recycling operations in Wood County. “Our mission is to recycle as much as possible; it doesn’t have to go to this center.”
Recyclable Items The Bowling Green Recycling Center, located at 1040 N. College Drive, can recycle the following items: ■ ■ ■
■ ■ ■ ■ ■
Hard and soft cover books Aluminum cans Magazines/catalogs on smooth glossy paper with plastic wrap removed Newspaper Phone books Plastic bottles without the cap Flattened cardboard boxes Scrap metal: iron, steel, copper and aluminum.
Source: Wood County Solid Waste Management District Web site
USG urges students to utilize its own professor evaluations By Dru Sexton Reporter
USG is hoping students will take advantage of professor evaluations created to give them an advantage when choosing classes which best suit them and appeal to their specific needs. Last year, professor evaluations were one of the many goals USG set to help students know what to expect from a class when they register. The idea behind the project was to create a more efficient, specialized version of ratemyprofessor. com, with the idea of giving students some insight as to what the class requires. USG Sen. Jessica Molina was one of the representatives who spearheaded the project. She said it was originally on the agenda last year. According to her, the first step was researching the whole faculty evaluation plan. Next, a few senators randomly selected students and asked what they would like to know about professors and classes before registration. Molina said USG then selected frequently asked questions and submitted them to the Faculty Senate, who then gave feedback. After a few minor changes were made, USG made the evaluations available online. To help gain support, USG advertised via flyer and chalking on the sidewalks, she said. But despite their efforts, there was little response to the first USG-conducted professor evaluation. “We were shooting for 500 and we had about 300 hundred submitted, but we expected our sample size to be small,” Molina said. “It was the first time, and for the first time, the sample size is always small, unless you have some incentive.” Kevin Basch, the USG senator in charge, said the evaluations “were very labor intensive” because they devoted hundreds of hours compiling data. He said USG would like
to conduct the evaluations on paper rather then online, because it would help get a lot more responses if they could be conducted at the end of classes. But the cost of paper keeps this from happening. USG President John Waynick said first-year technical difficulties with getting them online and entering all the data caused minor problems, and added to the time it took to make the surveys available. “We had over 2,000 lines of data responses, each year we expect more and more people will take the surveys,” he said. Especially because the questions come entirely from the student, and contain very helpful information pertinent to registering for classes, he said. Basch said it is not an evaluation of the professors, but is here to help students decide what best appeals to them in the classroom. “If students use this resource, they can find classes that correlate with their learning styles,” Basch said. The questions on these surveys are very different. The evaluations are available for almost 900 professors and their courses and are also completely confidential. A student’s University ID number is only used to verify that the student is currently enrolled. On the evaluations, students won’t find questions about if a professor is good or bad, but questions to help identify how a particular course is structured. Sample questions on the survey include areas like how well a professor follows their syllabus, or if it is necessary to buy the book. Freshman Nathan Pytel said when it comes time to register for classes, it helps to know what a student can expect. “I think the evaluations are a great idea and more people should fill them out,” Pytel said. “It makes things easier so that students are not caught off guard.” To access the evaluations, students can go to www.bgsu.
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