LIFE CENTRAL MICHIGAN
A turnaround season
WEDNESday, dec. 3, 2014 | MOUNT PLEASANT, MICH. | ISSUE NO. 42 VOL. 96
Life in brief employment Work hour limits reinstated Effective Jan. 4, Central Michigan University employees in non-benefit eligible positions will be restricted to a maximum of 50 hours per bi-weekly pay period. This includes the fall and spring semesters, including exam weeks, spring break and holiday break. At the start of summer classes, students may work up to 80 hours per pay period until the fall 2015 semester. According to an overview of the policy from Human Resources, the hour limitations apply to student employees, temporary staff, graduate assistants, Global Campus adjunct faculty and less-thanhalf-time fixed-term faculty. Hours worked in a resident assistant or multicultural adviser position will not count toward the work hour limitations. These caps apply to the combined hours worked for all positions held by an employee. Employees working multiple assignments are expected to self-monitor their total hours, combined for all assignments, to ensure they do not exceed the limits. If workers go over their hours, they will face reductions in the number of future hours they can work. If employees continue to exceed the limitations after two warnings, they will be fired. Malachi Barrett, News Editor
biology CMU Herbarium receives $7.5 million to digitize specimens Central Michigan University’s Herbarium received $7.5 million in grants from the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Program to create an online database of plant, fish and mollusk specimens. CMU is part of a collaboration of 25 institutions nationwide cataloguing 1.7 million specimens. By placing samples online, researchers will save time normally spent physically sorting through specimen samples. The national effort will focus on non-native species of the Great Lakes and will include all species previously collected in North America, including those that have the potential for ecological harm. There are at least 180 non-native species living in the Great Lakes, but with this collection, more than 2,500 species will be put online. Using the national biodiversity database, scientists will be able to identify a species’ initial location, the direction of its spread and patterns of invasion and monitor species that could become invasive. The data generated will be publicly available in a national database called Integrated Digitized Bio collections, or iDigBio, which has 24.7 million specimen records to date. Malachi Barrett, News Editor
LIFE INSIDE EDITORIAL: CMU is one of many Michigan universities innovating and adding new courses. »PAGE 4A
NYE
Recapping Field Hockey’s 2014 campaign from beginning to end »PAGE 1B
Selfless
athletics
Football attendance numbers up from 2013
sacrifice Student donates liver to save her father’s life
By Dominick Mastrangelo Sports Editor
By Karissa Lutz Staff Reporter
W
hen her father was diagnosed with a rare incurable disease, Madeline Goyette was there for the nerve-wracking process of finding a donor. donor and recipiHer father, Tom, had a disease ent’s livers will called primary sclerosing cholgrow back to full angitis, the hardening of the liver size about three bile ducts. His only medical option was to have a liver transplant. months after surgery. Donors Nine people were eliminated are able to return as possible donors after going to work and school through the testing process. In a couple months June, the Davison sophomore after surgery. Recalled a transplant coordinator turning to normal and started the testing process. activities gradually Goyette was a match. When her mother, Cathy, found is recommended. On Oct. 6, Goyette out, she was concerned about the and her father went dangers of donating an organ. in for their surgeries. “When she said she was going After about 12 hours, to do it, I already felt like I had a both wall closing in surgeries on me,” Cathy “I couldn’t be were done said. “She was more proud of my with no insistent. My daughter for being complica19-year-old so selfless. It’s really tions. Docdaughter bequite amazing. It’s tors ended came this unbeup taking out lievable woman something you who had her wouldn’t expect, to 60 percent Goyette’s head on her have your daughter of liver and shoulders and step up and transplantwas like, ‘This save your life.” ing it to her is what I have father, whose to do.’” entire liver Although Tom Goyette, doctors told Madeline Goyette’s father was removed. Goyette is Tom the proHenry Ford Hospital’s youngcess was relatively safe for the est living liver donor. donor and often for the recipient, Today, Tom’s recovery is Tom said he was hesitant when he going smoothly. He must get found out his daughter wanted to blood work every week and will donate part of her liver to him. have to do follow-ups for the “I didn’t want my daughter put rest of his life to make sure his in harm’s way,” he said. body is not rejecting the liver. Though the surgery had risks, Though his recovery will be a donors are able to return to their lifelong process, Tom credits normal activities after a rest his daughter for saving his period, according to the New life. York University Medical Center. The liver is the only organ able to regenerate itself, so both the w liver donor | 2a
Madeline Goyette, liver donor
Meagan Dullack | Photo Editor
A review of the announced game-by-game attendance figures at Central Michigan University football games this season reveals that more people attended games this season. However, the announced figures will likely be different from the actual paid attendance numbers that CMU Athletics submits to the NCAA. Kelly/Shorts Stadium hosted an average of 16,306 people during a six-home-game span in 2014, according to the department. Just as it did last year, the university will conduct an internal audit of 2014 attendance figures, signed by President George Ross, and submit the results to the NCAA in February 2015. CMU’s average home game attendance over the last five years is 16,940, compared to 18,360 at Western Michigan University and 6,628 at Eastern Michigan University. The largest crowd, 25,531, at Kelly/Shorts Stadium this fall showed up on Sept. 13. when the Chippewas hosted Syracuse University. CMU’s lowest attendance figure was 7, 689 Nov. 15 when the Chippewas played Miami Ohio). Craig Willey, associate athletic director, said there are a number of factors that boosted CMU’s attendance in 2014. “Having a marquee Atlantic Coast Conference program like Syracuse and our rival Western Michigan at home obviously helped us,” Willey said. The movement of the CMU student section, Willey said, was one the biggest factors in the increase. “We were also able to drop our single-game ticket price,” he said. “We always struggle with back-to-back home games like we had with Miami (Ohio) and WMU.” The NCAA Division I requires that a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision, average at least 15,000 in actual or paid attendance for all home football games on a two-year rolling basis. w attendance | 2a
SGA sponsors online alternative to CMU Bookstore By Jordyn Hermani Staff Reporter
To counter prices set by the Central Michigan University Bookstore, the Student Government Association partnered with Texts.com to create an alternative. According the Texts.com, the average student at a four-year public university spends $1,200 on textbooks each year. The site hosts a free student exchange. Students are able to buy and sell books with their peers. There are no fees or commissions for student exchanges, and the platform is secure and designed to work with verified oncampus networks. All users must authenticate with their CMU email accounts. “(They have) already been working with a lot of colleges through their student governments. They contacted me in the summer about (cmich.texts.
BINGO BASH!
com),” said SGA President Chuck Mahone. “I wanted to make sure that it was quality and that it was something that would benefit our students.” SGA Vice President Mariah Urueta and Mahone researched the company and its relationships with other colleges before committing to the free partnership. “This website is really essential in
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actually getting students in contact with students now that SBX is gone,” Urueta said. “This can be done in a safe way — it’s all meeting on campus.” Urueta, who was largely in charge of setting up the website, said the set up was seamless. “(Texts.com) provided everything,” she said. “It didn’t cost (SGA) any money.” SGA receives no money from the book sales. Although the partnership was finalized prior to the fall semester, Mahone said he wanted to be “intentional” with the release time of the website, holding off until students could utilize it. “(SGA) wanted to wait until this semester when books and everything are pertinent and people are trading and everything,” he said. Both Mahone and Urueta were interested in the idea as a means to offer an alternative to CMU Bookstore.
“(Cmich.texts.com) is extremely important because it is really unfortunate and too bad but the university requires that professors make their students buy a book in the first place,” Urueta said. “Even if (students) have an online copy they still need to buy a book and are directed to the Bookstore, which I don’t think is a bad thing, I do think it is a bad thing when it turns into a money-making process where the books are completely overpriced.” When asked how SGA would benefit from the creation of the webpage, Mahone said SGA benefits when students do. The site is currently active and can be used to buy and sell textbooks. Future plans for the site, as talked about in previous meetings of the House of Representatives, could include being able to buy and sell used furniture, clothing or jewelry although such activities are not available yet.
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