I n d e p e n d e nt
Issue no.
S t u d e nt
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53
April
02
2012
Volume 24
w w w.arbiteronline.com
Boise, Idaho
First issue free
Top Stories
Champion Broncos
Talkin’ Broncos win yet another national championship.
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Tease
Cody FInney/THE ARBITER
Anna Milder pumps her truck with regular gas at the Shell gas station on the corner of University Dr. and Broadway Ave.
Type tease info here please. Just make it good!
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Regionals
Helping students save on gas Alternative transportation options encourage students to find new ways to get to class
Ellie Parton Journalist
Bronco Gymnastics prepare for NCAA regionals next weekend.
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Weather Today
Boise State students are feeling the burn at the gas pump this spring. The cost of fuel continues to rise daily. As of March 28, the national average price for gas was $3.91 according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. In Idaho, drivers are spending $3.75 for a gallon of regular gas. That price has jumped over 40 cents per gallon over the past month. Nicole Kopczynski, sophomore communication major, is one of many students who has been affected by the recent spike in gas prices. “I can’t drive as much as I would like,” Kopczynski said.
“I have to utilize my car wisely.” Kopczynski has used Boise State transportation services in the past. “I used the shuttle service when I lived in the dorms last year,” she said. Kopczynski said she would begin using campus transportation again if gas prices reached $5, or she would use alternative modes of transportation such as biking. The Boise State University Transportation and Parking Services provides a variety of options for students seeking alternatives. The Boise State University Shuttle service is another option available to students and faculty. The shuttle operates from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through
Thursday and 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Fridays. It offers rides to students and faculty from the East Stadium Parking Lot to the other end of campus with various stops along the way. ValleyRide Transit is another option available to students. Students may take advantage of ValleyRide busses for free with a “BUS” sticker on their Bronco Card. Routes are available around Boise and also into Eagle, Meridian, Nampa, Caldwell, Star and Middleton. Biking is another option that can help students save money at the pump. There are more than 1,000 parking spaces for bikes on campus, making it an accessible option for students.
Boise State Transportation also encourages students to carpool. According to JC Porter, assistant director of Boise State Transportation and Parking Services, there have been no changes made in transportation services because of the rise in gas prices. However, Porter has noticed a rise in the use of the alternative options his department offers compared to previous years because of the rise in gas prices. “In 2007, when gas prices hit $4, we did see a rise in the use of Valley Regional Transit,” Porter said. Student transportation is affected by the rise of gas prices but there is no extra student fee used to fund the
transportation. The funding comes from the money from parking permits and event parking.
Online Tell arbiteronline.com what you are doing to save money on gas as prices increase. 1. Public transportation 2. Biking / walking 4. Carpooling 5. Nothing, I’m using my car normally
Anthropology professor more than ‘guy in that suit’ Ellie Parton Journalist
Partly Cloudy
55º high
20%
chance of precipitation
Tomorrow
Partly Cloudy
64º high
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chance of precipitation
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Rainy
52º high
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What’s Inside News Briefs
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The Arbiter
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Professor Chris Willson has been a Bronco for 12 years. He began as a student and is now teaching in the anthropology department. “For six weeks or so my students listen to me as ‘the guy in that suit,’ ” Willson said. “And then at one point they realize I’m not just ‘the guy in that suit’ but that I’m just a normal person.” Although Willson aims to create a professional and respectable atmosphere in his classes, he allows his students to get to know him better as the semester progresses. Outside the classroom, Willson has a wide range of interests including music, art and photography. “We all have are own colorful pasts. Long before I became a student and decided to teach what I do, I had interests in music and played in a number of bands,” Willson said. In Willson’s free time, he still enjoys playing music. “It’s a mix of rock and roll, ambient, experimental, sometimes classical music. I have a recording studio at home and I put out albums quite often. I’m kind of a one-man-band thing,” he said. Willson puts his music on a website, dysfunctionalmusic. com, where anyone can listen to and purchase his music. Half of all the proceeds from his music are given to charities. Willson is also a family man
with two children. He is the father to an 8-year-old and a 20-year-old. Willson came to Idaho from California in 1993. He started his journey as a Bronco in 2000 as a biology major. Like most students, he ended up changing his major. “I wanted to study plants, but I must have taken a class or a workshop in one of the introductory level courses that just really struck me as far more interesting and more applicable,” Willson said. “I think anthropology is fascinating because we use so much of the other sciences to support what we do as a social science.” Willson graduated from Boise State in 2004 with a degree in anthropology and got his masters in anthropology from University of Idaho in 2005. Willson came back to Boise State to continue the research he had started as a student and to continue his work with the Center of Applied Archeological Science (CAAS). He was hired at Boise State as an adjunct professor in spring of 2006 and became a lecture instructor in 2010. Willson’s students are his favorite part about being a professor. “There’s a diverse mix of students. We have students from all around the world, exchange students, we have students of all different ages and backgrounds and I think that makes it really interesting,” Willson said. “I feel like I have the opportunity to connect with a
CODY FINNEY/THE ARBITER
Chris Willson stands over tables of artifacts in the anthropology building. number of people.” Willson teaches upper- and lower-division courses in the anthropology department. He said his introductory classes are applicable to anthropology majors and students of other
majors as well. “A lot of students will not become anthropologists, but by the end of the course they figure out there’s a number of different ways in which they can approach problems and it
makes them better if they go into philosophy, or political science, or criminal justice,” Willson said. “They have a better sense of culture in what humans are and how we define ourselves.” arbiteronline.com