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friday, jan. 16, 2015 | MOUNT PLEASANT, MICH. | ISSUE NO. 46 VOL. 96
Advisor to student ratio below optimal level By Grant Lefaive Staff Reporter
Cori Kromrei | Staff photographer Downtown Mount Pleasant offers a variety of businesses for students to utilize, however most of the student traffic is at restaurants and bars.
Downtown divided Student traffic downtown begins and ends with nightlife By Kelly Rocheleau Staff Reporter Annie Kozlowski doesn’t often visit Mount Pleasant’s downtown district. The Mount Pleasant senior said she doesn’t believe there is much to do, and when there is she often doesn’t hear about those events in time. “I’ve lived here my entire life and I don’t hear about things going on downtown until the day of (the event), when I’ve already made plans,” she said. “There really isn’t a lot for college students to do there.” Many of her friends who also attend Central Michigan University don’t venture to the downtown district unless it’s to find one of the many bars in the area. “I know a lot of people that go down there at night to go to the bars, but not a lot of people who go during the day, to the shops and places like that,” Kozlowski said. With restaurants, shops and grocery stores located both on CMU’s campus and on Mission Street, few significant efforts have been made to get college students to explore the eight blocks to the downtown district. “There are a lot of shops downtown that are more expensive,” Kozlowski said. “We all know that college students are poor, so a lot of people can’t afford to shop down there.” It is not uncommon for downtown districts of college towns to battle for students’ free time and dollars. Yet some cities like Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor have downtowns with stores and restaurants that attract university students. Michelle Sponseller, the city’s director of downtown development, said her department doesn’t have the budget to advertise toward any certain group, college students included. “I don’t have a separate budget to market specifically to college students. When I’m doing marketing for an event I think about what will have the widest audience that would be interested in that event,” Sponseller said. Sponseller said the department only has money to spend on marketing events, instead of
any specific downtown businesses or locations, limiting the number of different groups that can be specifically marketed. Last month’s Christmas celebration is an example, she said. The event, which hosted musicians, Christmas carolers and other attractions downtown on Dec. 5 and 6., was given a marketing budget of $2,000. Half of that budget was spent on fliers distributed to businesses. “However, by the time we were done with the paper we had [spent] $1,000. (That) is not a lot for a marketing budget,” Sponseller said. “In a perfect world, we would have the money to market different things not only to students but to a much wider audience, but unfortunately budgets are very tight and we just don’t have that ability,” Sponseller said. Written by Sponseller, a summery of plans to improve downtown within the next five years offers multiple ideas meant to increase foot traffic downtown. A $10,000 study planned for this year will determine where additional lights should be included downtown. The lighting changes are scheduled for implementation in 2017 and 2019 with a price tag of $200,000. Sponseller did mention one aspect of the downtown section she said college students flock to. “From Thursday to Saturday after 9 p.m., Mount Pleasant has an active nightlife,” she said. The Bird Bar & Grill is widely considered to be a large component of that nightlife. Ben and Stacey Breidenstein, general managers of the downtown staple, acknowledge CMU students are a large part of that success. “There are a lot of specialty shops [downtown] that aren’t directed at college students,” Stacey said. Detroit senior Jessica Shampine, enjoys vodka-waters with friends Bay City senior Megan McCarthy and Detroit senior Ricky Hohn at the Bird on Thursday night. Shampine said she also doesn’t believe some downtown busi-
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Adjusting to an increase of students in need of advising during the spring 2015 semester, the Office of Academic Advising is making the best of its limited time. Executive Director Michelle Howard calls the strategy “Express Advising.” Each student appointment will be 15 minutes. Although this semester isn’t as busy as the fall scheduling period — during which Howard’s office alone saw 5,000 students — the Office of Academic Advising will be running at full strength this month. The ratio of students to advisors is 1 to 600-700 at CMU. This is more than double the National Academic Advising Association recommendation of 1 advisor to every 300 students. Howard said her department recognizes that students require advising on a caseby-case basis and individual students have different needs. General academic advising is provided to students who have not signed a major at each of the success centers on campus. Success centers are located at w RATIO | 2
CMED finalist hopes for expansion By Zahra Ahmad News Editor
Expanding the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center by helping serve rural areas in Pennsylvania, James M. Herman said his career has been developing him to be the dean of a College of Medicine. One of four finalists to replace founding dean Ernest Yoder as leader of Central Michigan University’s, Herman is the associate dean of primary care and primary care research at Hershey. CMED has inducted two classes and will accept its third class after April 30. The next dean will have to finish the curriculum for fourth year students as well as develop and maintain key relationships with practices in Michigan. He graduated from John Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1978. He also was a family physician for more than 20 years. During a campus forum, Herman met with CMED officials Wednesday Jan. 14 in the Health Professions Building. Herman joined Penn State College of Medicine as a Hershey Medical Center company professor and chair of family and community medicine in 1991. He joined the college when it was under stress with only seven physicians and one struggling practice. After implementing a collaborative approach with hospitals, the opportunity to expand was presented to the college. The college now has 80 physicians and w CMED | 2
Research
Wrestling Students and Faculty research in china Members of research team studied mussel species
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Beyond the mat Coach shares special bond with players, staff.
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CORRECTIONS - JAN. 14 Central Michigan Life misidentified senior gymnast Taylor Noonan as a volleyball player. We have corrected the error on our website.
It was reported Mount Pleasant would expand curbside recycling programs in the city. The city has no plans to expand its recycling and it already collects for rentals of three or fewer occupants.