NUMBER 43 VOLUME 101 MARCH 8, 2013 ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ABILENE, TEXAS
Learning Studio Eases Videos with ‘One Button’ New studio simplifies video projects for students and faculty, using a simple USB drive. ACU is the first university to have this studio installed outside of where it was founded, Penn State. The Learning Studio gives students and faculty the opportunity to easily record video content with one touch of a button through a new system called the One Button Studio. The concept is simple. Users bring their own USB drive to the One Button Studio in the Learning Center, plug the drive in to the monitor, and hit the button to record. The user stands in front of the monitor to record their video. The system records the content onto the USB drive instantly. Kyle Dickson, director of the digital media center, explained the system’s usefulness for students. “Some students have had difficulty editing video recorded with traditional camcorders,” Dickson said. “Now they have access to high-quality video and lighting without having to understand how a piece of equipment works and can edit the video clips on their own computers.” Students can record video quickly when pressed for time on assignments. “Ten years ago, the rule of thumb was to dedicate one hour of editing time for every one minute of video you wanted to produce,” Dickson said. “With the One Button Studio, the time is cut down tremendously.” Bryana Guy, sophomore interior design major from Keller, said the studio will help her with future assignments. “It all sounds very simple,” Guy said. “Recording video is complicated for me usually, so I am excited to have an easier way.”
INSIDE °Alum, professor to explain ‘God particle,’ the Higgs boson – page 3 °Alum creates employment website – page 3 °Chapel series offers Chapel credit and pre-marital counseling for engaged couples – page 4 °Students’ Association grants $710 in conference requests, leaving $848 left in the budget and $16,791 in remaining requests – page 4 °Faculty stages mock radio murder mystery – page 3 °Women’s basketball team loses in first round of Lone Star Conference – page 8 °Soccer team recruits 12 incoming freshmen for first Division I class – page 7 °Women’s tennis team loses to Barry University while men’s team prepares for weekend matches against Prairie View A&M, Rice and Incarnate Word – page 7 °Five seniors show off their artwork in Senior Showcase – page 5 °How to react to the tuition hike – page 6 °HashtagACU and Throwback Excerpts – page 6
The studio will be ideal for projects in multiple departments. “Instant video recording is helpful for assignments in a range of classes, whether it’s communication, foreign language, history or business,” Dickson said. “We have a number of faculty who want their students to capture short bits of content that can be turned in quickly.” The One Button Studio concept was developed at Pennsylvania State University. ACU is the first university to have a studio installed outside of Penn State. Dr. John Weaver, dean of library services and educational technology, said faculty will benefit as well. “We are excited about the faculty’s ability to use the studio for recording lectures and online presentations for their courses,” Weaver said. “Through the One Button Studio, videos can easily become a part of the classroom experience.” Weaver said the studio will help the ACU community become comfortable with the latest technology. “The studio is intended to develop digital fluency on campus and help students more readily The One Button Studio is located inside Studio 1 of the Learning Studio in the Brown Library. To use the studio, make a reservation for Studio 1 at the front desk of the Learning Studio or online at http://blogs. acu.edu/learningstudio/grouprooms/. – by Jocelyn Nederhoff
Freshman nursing majors Megan Turner, from Colleyville, Kaila Daley, from Boerne, and Jonny Anyasi, from Mansfield, take advantage of the warm spring weather while studying for midterms. (PHOTO BY MANDY LAMBRIGHT)
Soccer, baseball teams give back
The ACU soccer and baseball teams not only make a difference on the field, but also in the classrooms at Martinez and Taylor Elementary schools. Both teams have taken time out of their busy schedules to expand the minds of young children by reading, teaching math, making patterns with shapes and being mentors. The soccer team goes to Martinez Elementary every Tuesday and Thursday at 12:30 p.m. The women meet with Mrs. Allen’s first grade class each week. Madison Brown, sophomore interior design major from Frisco and outside midfielder, said she enjoys mentoring the kids. “The kids could theoretically read to themselves but it’s not hard for kids so young to get off task,” Brown said. “It’s easy to see that they enjoy it more when they are reading to us and vice versa.”
Study Abroad: United States Many students know about the opportunities to study abroad with ACU, but few are aware of stateside opportunities offered through the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. ACU is one of the 118 members of the CCCU. Four semesterlong programs are offered in the United States: the L.A. Film Studies Center in Los Angeles, Calif., the Contemporary Music Center in Nashville, Tenn., the American Studies Program in Washington D.C. and the Washington Journalism Center, also located in Washington D.C. Rachel Brown, Study Abroad coordinator, works with students who are interested in spending a semester in one of the programs. “For people who are interested in these fields, these programs are really great opportunities to get an idea of what it would be like in that industry,” Brown said. “Some students have gone for the second semester of their senior year and decided to stay and live there.” Lucius Patenaude, junior multimedia major from Phrae, Thailand, spent last fall at the L.A. Film Studies Center. His class list included Hollywood production workshop, faith and artistic development, an internship and one of three electives. “The entire course was very project-based,” he said. “I had to have a screenplay completed by
the end of a semester, they wanted us to have a short film that could be submitted into film festivals, I wrote essays and there was an expressive art project to summarize what we learned.” Outside the classroom, Patenaude had the opportunity to intern at Bold Films, an independent production company that produced the movies “Drive” and “Legion.” “The interns there read all the scripts that get submitted and then write what they call ‘script coverage,’” he said. “As I was learning how to screen write, I got to hone my eye to see what was really, really good and what wasn’t so good.” The L.A. Film Studies Center welcomes a variety of students, even those disinterested in film. “If you’re considering the entertainment industry, it is one of the best things you can do,” Patenaude said. “It was really good for me to learn how to work in a secular workplace, in a very secular environment, finding my own identity in Christ as a Christian. It was a very eye-opening experience.” For more information about the L.A. Film Studies Center or other programs offered through CCCU, go to www.bestsemester. com. – by Megan Robinson
Brown said in order to move on to the second grade, the students must be able to read at a reading level of 18 or above. The students’ reading levels in this specific class are all over the board, some well beyond the requirements, others at lower levels. She said each day Mrs. Allen tests students’ progress individually or works with them in small groups. Meanwhile, the other students are left to practice their reading, and that’s where the team comes in and helps out. “The kids are so excited to see us as soon as we walk in. It’s a great feeling,” Sarah Schoch, sophomore nursing major from Amarillo and center midfielder, said. “We help them stumble through the words they don’t know when they read.” “The kids automatically look up to you for different reasons and watch everything you do and say,” Brown said. “You never really know when something so simple can have a huge impact.” The baseball team goes to Taylor Elementary every Monday at 2 p.m.
“We meet in the cafeteria and work with four different kindergarten classes,” said Sean O’Donnell, sophomore business management major from Aledo and outfielder. “We help them with their math activities, specifically counting and simple addition, subtraction and patterns.” O’Donnell said even though some of the kids have hard time paying attention and learning, the team members like being there as buddies and people the students can look up to. While the kids receive a lot out of this experience, the team also gets something out of it as well, said Tyler Eager, sophomore business management major from Fort Worth and first basemen. “It allows us to stay young and get our minds off baseball for awhile and just hang out with some kids who really look up to us,” Eager said. “They might not know it, but they’re impacting us just as much as we impact them.” – by Margo Herrera
Social Work Students Marching for Heroes
Students taking Intro to Social Work with Dr. Stephen Baldridge, director of the bachelors of social work program, are working to raise money during the month of March for the Heroes for the American Red Cross program. The goal of the Heroes for the American Red Cross campaign is to raise money and awareness for disaster relief locally by asking people in the community to pledge to raise a minimum of $1,000 during the month of March, according to the Red Cross website. “I presented it to the class, and they thought it was a great idea, and so as extra incentive I put them in two different teams and I challenged them to raise $1,000,” Baldridge said. “If the class raises the money, whoever’s team raises the most gets an automatic 100 on the final. If the class can raise $2,000 they all get an automatic 100 on the final.” He is encouraging his class to come up with some creative ways their teams can raise money. He also encourages students who are not in his class to find out how
they can get involved in the Heroes program as well. The Abilene Area chapter of the Red Cross serves twelve counties in Abilene and the surrounding area, including Callahan, Eastland, Haskell and several other counties by providing disaster relief services, health and safety services, volunteer services, services for international or displaced people and services for military personnel and their families. “We have about 150 home fires per year in Abilene, and the Red Cross goes out and they work with those families, providing them temporary housing, clothes, food and stuff like that, and it averages about $1,000 to $2,000 per family,” Baldridge said. Anyone can get involved with the Heroes campaign in town by going to americanredcross.org/heroes and finding the Abilene Chapter, which has several teams students can donate to, or by contacting anyone in the school of social work. – by Brock Niederhoffer
Throwback Series: Edition 4 of 4
This it it. It’s our final issue of our “Throwback Series,” our twoweek-long series of front pages designed like the Optimists of old. The logo at the top of this page was first used in 1970, when the
publication changed logos mid-semester. It was used until 1973. It’s my favorite old logo – because it’d be so bad in today’s print world. Remember to check the Opinion page for more throwback excerpts, fun pieces of old stories we
Abilene Christian University
found in the old records. A huge thank you to Asia Todd, our design editor, for putting these designs together. She did a great job and deserves recognition for the blasts from the past. We will be off spring break, but
right back in the swing of things on March 20 with all the news of the day. Thank you all for reading, and we’ll be back to our normal, less text-heavy self after the break. – Mark Smith, Editor in Chief