The Daily Targum 2013-09-13

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friday, September 13, 2013

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Mason Gross adds rehearsal building with cafe, bubble tea vendor By Nicole Gifford Contributing Writer

The Mason Gross School of the Arts opened a new building, Robert E. Mortensen Hall on Douglass campus. The building is the school’s first new construction in 18 years and houses a large movement studio, a spacious choral hall and other rehearsal rooms as well as a cafe and a bubble tea vendor. LOUIS CABRERA

The Mason Gross School of the Arts kicked off the new semester with a new, glass-covered, nearly 24,000-square-foot building with room for students to practice, perform and play. The Robert E. Mortenson Hall on Douglass campus, the school’s first new construction in 18 years, houses a large movement studio, a spacious choral hall, a suite of practice rooms, indoor and outdoor meeting space and a technology lab and recording studio, said George Stauffer, dean of the Mason Gross School of the Arts. “The new building will allow us to create a much-desired music technology program. It provides stunning choral and dance facilities,” Stauffer said. “Most importantly, it gives students and faculty a place to gather, to eat and talk informally.”

Stauffer said Mortenson Hall represents a new and positive visual direction for additions to Rutgers. Joseph A. Natoli Construction, the company that built the hall, has also worked on the Statue of Liberty as well as a few other buildings on campus, including the Livingston Dining Commons. “[Mason Gross School of the Arts administration] believes that this building raises the aesthetic bar at the University,” Stauffer said. He said it was important to first build and strengthen the four departmental programs — Dance, Music, Theater and Visual Arts — and to establish the school’s three new divisions — Arts Online, Extension Division and the Rutgers Center for Digital Filmmaking. “It is not by coincidence that just as Mortensen Hall reaches completion, the Dance and Theater Departments were ranked in the top See BUILDING on Page 6

Task force releases recommendations to reduce opiate usage By Marcus Tucker Contributing Writer

After his friend’s death from an overdose in 2002, Frank Greenagel became dedicated to the fight against drugs. Today, he serves as both the chairman of the New Jersey Task Force on Heroin and Other Opiates and as a Recovery Counselor at the Rutgers Recovery House. The New Jersey Task Force on Heroin and Other Opiates was launched in March 2012 in response to a dramatic increase in the number of arrests, treatment admissions and deaths from heroin and prescription pills. “We’ve gotten immense support

Faculty member elected to NJ research council

from the governor’s office, and it was an easy thing to put together,” Greenagel said. “People flocked to be a part of it.” Beginning in 2011, deaths in America from opiates and prescription drugs surpassed car crash and gunshot deaths combined, Greenagel said. Over 800 people died from overdoses from heroin and opiates in New Jersey last year. Many were 15 to 25 years old. Both heroin and opiate painkillers, like oxycodone and Vicodin, come from the opium poppy. They are addictive because their structure resembles endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers,

The New Jersey Task Force on Heroin and Other Opiates released their recommendations to control opiate usage in New Jersey yesterday at the Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick during the 22nd annual summit for the Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. RAZA ZIA / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

See FORCE on Page 5

Rutgers University Student Assembly

Calcado discusses construction on campus By Erin Petenko Staff Writer

By Daniel Natale Contributing Writer

Kathleen Scotto’s long list of achievements has led her to become a significant part of the historic merger of Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Following her last position as the vice president of research at UMDNJ, the scientist, researcher, teacher and New York native was recently elected as the chairwoman of the board of Research and Development Council of New Jersey. “I think I can speak for all of the past chairs when I say that it is an honor to serve as chair of this counSee COUNCIL on Page 6

Vice President for Facilities and Capital Planning Antonio Calcado spoke at Rutgers University Student Assembly’s second meeting of the year in the Student Activities Center on the College Avenue campus. Calcado discussed construction projects on campus, including the College Avenue redevelopment. PAUL SOLIN

Although students may complain about the construction scattered around Rutgers, the changes mark the beginning of an initiative to redefine the character of the College Avenue campus and create a new, uniform look, said Antonio Calcado, vice president of University Facilities and Capital Planning. Calcado discussed University development and answered student questions at this semester’s second Rutgers University Student Assembly meeting, held at the Student Activities Center on the College Avenue campus. The University has planned a variety of new initiatives on the College Avenue campus, such as the Lot 8 redevelopment program pegged to include apartment-style housing,

retail space and a large screen for programming. He also talked about issues with facilities on campus, such as the recent power outages on the College Avenue and Busch campuses. “That’s an internal problem,” he said. “Typically, the Busch campus is the one with the least amount of problems.” He said the problem might have to do with the smoke-like clouds coming from the ground between the Busch Campus Center and the Busch Suites. “There are high-temperature lines coming from underground,” he said. “When you see the smoke like that, it’s actually vapor or steam, that means that there’s a leak in the line. ... That may have melted an electrical wire, and that takes a long

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See CONSTRUCTION on Page 6


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