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ERAU Students to Train at Mars Research Station Ashley Hollis-Bussy Team Astronomer The Society for Human Performance in Extreme Environments (HPEE) was created for the purpose of bringing people who are involved in extreme human performance activities together to share their ideas and experiences. The goal of HPEE is to express lessons learned from extreme environments so that we can learn how to adapt to similar situations. HPEE simply defines extreme environments as: “settings that possess extraordinary physical, psychological, and interpersonal demands that require significant human adaptation for survival and performance.” Examples include spaceflight, aviation, and life in polar regions, mountains, underwater, deserts and more. The ERAU student chapter is centered on extreme recreational environments. These activities can take place in the air, water, and on land with activities such as skydiving, ATX training, bungee jumping, scuba diving, water skiing, surfing, rowing, mountain climbing, skiing/snowboarding, marathon running, cycling, motor sports, etc. The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is a research program that is owned and operated by the Mars Society. HPEE has been working with Mars Society to send undergraduate students to the station to conduct their research that will enhance our understanding of the future habitation of Mars. MDRS is essentially an analog space facility located in Hanksville, Utah, which supports Earth since it is interrelated with Mars. MDRS hosts field seasons that are two weeks long for professional scientists and engineers, as well as college students of all levels, in training for human operations specifically on Mars. The relative isolation of the facility allows for rigorous field studies for research in a two-week simulation that functions as if the crew members are conducting a real expedition on Mars. Continued on A4 >>

Jack Taylor/The Avion Newspaper The Henderson Welcome Center is home to the University Administration and the newly revitalized Chancellor’s Office. The Dean of Students Office is conveniently located on the Second Floor of the Student Center.

Constancy of Change

Offering Perspective in a Period of Transition and Development... Deborah Bandy Dir. of Strategic Initiatives To say that change is constant is both a contradiction and undeniably true. From the moment sperm meets egg, life is constantly changing. The newborn discovers with every waking that they can do something new. Within a year, the baby is walking, reasoning, responding to emotional stimuli, and achieving what was impossible just moments before. Change is our first lesson. Yet we come to loathe change. We come to loathe it because we find comfort in the familiar. And we loathe it because often we don’t understand it. “It was fine… It was good the way it was. There is no reason for change.” Maybe it was good the way it was. Maybe it was fine the way it was. But change more often yields improvement. That’s how we learn that we can make things better. Recently, the number of minutes that you spend in a Monday/Wednesday/Friday class was changed. Many said, “This is stupid. Why change it? I don’t like it. This is dumb.” The backstory is that this was discussed, debated, analyzed, and systematically researched for years before being implemented.

Businesses, governments, institutions and families are constantly changing. When a new administration moves into the White House, we expect change. When a new administration moves into Henderson, we have to anticipate change. Change is never for its own sake. Change is hard. So why change? At Embry-Riddle, the first and ultimate question that drives change should always the same: Is this in the best interest of the University — in the best interest of the students? Even when change may not look that way, you can be sure it was debated, analyzed, and systematically researched. When I was seven years old, my parents announced to me that we were moving – moving away from the big, loving, extended family that had been a constant in my life. We were moving to another continent. I wouldn’t see my cousins or my grandparents, my aunts or uncles, for two years. Of course, my first questions were, “Why? Don’t I have a say? My family? My friends? My school?” How could this change be decided when I wasn’t consulted? My parents didn’t have to consult me. They knew I would resist. I wouldn’t have

changed what was the comfort and love in my life. So, the grown-ups decided what was best for our family. They debated, analyzed, and systematically researched the possibilities. I’m so grateful my parents didn’t give me the power to decide. I would never have had a life filled with the most amazing, educational, and stimulating experiences had that dramatic change not come. Every move after the first was at the same time lamented and embraced. I had learned that change was painful but ultimately awesome. We recently observed the 50th anniversary of Embry-Riddle having moved to Daytona Beach from the Miami area. We looked at what it was then and what it has become, and the changes are impressively grand. The changes are even more dramatic when we compare what T. Higbee Embry and John Paul Riddle envisioned 90 years ago to what Embry-Riddle is today. You want to see change? Stand out the quad and ponder what flight has become as you see the Wright Brothers’ Flyer in contrast to a commercial airliner ascending over the COAS. We are in a period of change at Riddle. We have

a new administration. The changes have affected us all. And while we don’t know the backstories (we’re not privy to the analysis, the data, the debate, and the research) we should be confident that it is for the good of the institution and for the good of the students. Were it not, it would not be. That is the motivating force for all who labor at this amazing university. Ask the why and how questions, but accept that you can’t have all the answers. Ask your student government to represent you. Demand that this award-winning publication pursues the important, meaningful stories so that you can better understand the changes. What you shouldn’t do is rush to judgment, blindly believing that change was made erroneously or without the diligence the status quo was due. Everyone here wants Embry-Riddle to be better tomorrow than it is today; all want you to be more than when you arrived — more educated, more mature, more compassionate and have the capacity to make more of a contribution to the future of our world. This is why we are all here. We are here to change.