Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Issue 15, Volume 122
New York City UT steam plant renovations in progress trip inspires, educates student journalists R.J. Vogt
News Editor
• Photo courtesy of Andrea Tucker
UT journalism and electronic media students pose with Anderson Cooper during their trip to New York City last week. Students had the opportunity to meet famous media professionals in the Big Apple.
David Cobb Assistant News Editor Times Square, the Empire State Building, tours of NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News and the Food Network. The chance to meet top television personalities and executives including Anderson Cooper and Michael Strahan. The list continues with Broadway shows and networking events with other media professionals, specifically including some of UT’s most successful alumni. Sounds like an exciting summer, right? A group of 20 students within the School of Journalism and Electronic Media experienced all that and more jam-packed into four-and-a-half days during a trip to New York City just last week. Sam Swan, director of internationalization and outreach professor, has been escorting UT students on a variation of the trip every year since 1987 with the hope of inspiring journalism students to reach for any seemingly lofty goals they have. “There’s no way you could ever do anything like this in a class,” Swan said. “I set up this trip to create opportunities for students to meet alumni working in New York, leaders in the field, people who are reporters and anchors and producers and managers,” Swan said, “so that they can talk to them one-onone so that they can explore internship opportunities and job opportunities. That’s the reason we did it.” For Marvyl Cockrell, a JEM senior, the trip quickly turned from an excuse to see New York into a professionally rewarding experience. “If I had known what I was going to learn this week, I would have paid $5,000 to go on this trip,” Cockrell said. “It was not only getting to have a great time … but just every moment you were thinking ‘how is the next day going to top today.’” For Swan the highlight of the trip was seeing the original map of “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite,” a legend
in broadcasting. It was something Swan had never seen before in his 26 years of taking the trip. “But there were so many different highlights,” he said. “For students, they may all have something different that they enjoyed.” For Cockrell the best part was the networking opportunities that were provided. She was specifically enthralled by a discussion with Food Network executives on the last day of the trip. “This trip changed my life,” Cockrell said. “I’m not exaggerating. I can’t even describe how much I got out of this trip. For going into this field, these people, who are at the top of their networks giving us personal advice, and they were not sugar-coating anything, it was good for a lot of us to get that feedback.” The majority of the students that went on the trip are enrolled in Swan’s JEM 411 course and will be working in a hands-on environment together for the next few months. The group experience of seeing the rigors and rites of passage that media professionals in New York have taken is something Swan feels will be beneficial for his class. “I do it at the beginning of the semester because most of us are working together to produce a newscast everyday,” Swan said. “So when they can come together as a group and really bond like that, it makes working together in TV so fun, because it’s such a team-oriented thing.” Cockrell encouraged students to participate in the trip, but warned that they need to be prepared to present themselves in a professional manner to some of the best in the business – which in the end is exactly what Swan intended when he started the trip in 1987. “I hope they believe that it doesn’t matter where they’re from, if it’s some small town in Tennessee,” Swan said. “It’s not where you’re from, but if you have the dream to one day make it all the way to the Big Apple, you can do it.”
Construction cone orange has become a common sight around UT these days, and there are plans for new changes on Neyland Drive. In Governor Bill Haslam’s State of the State Address Monday night, he addressed the need to fund UT’s steam plant conversion project, a $25 million project. Dave Irvin, associate vice chancellor for facilities at UT, spoke Tuesday afternoon in front of the steam plant. Originally built in 1961, the plant provides steam for heating, domestic hot water and lab sterilization. Administration has begun a plan to convert it from coal-burning to natural gas-based. “This is a very important project on many levels and we’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” Irvin said. “Many of the controls are outdated. We can’t get parts for them and they’re tremendously inefficient.” The plant has also faced scrutiny for its pollution. A coal-based operation, UT’s steam plant is the second biggest polluter in eastern Tennessee. Irvin said the conversion will vastly improve the problem. “It will reduce our emissions by 50 percent, our carbon dioxide emissions by two-thirds. To put that in context, that’s the equivalent of taking 7,000 cars off the road on a daily basis,” Irvin said. “It makes a huge impact in terms of our quality, in terms of this city and its livability, and in terms of our carbon footprint.” The design planning has already begun, funded by UT. Irvin said the plant has asked for $24 million of the budget to be funded by the state legislature.
“We’ll be having a lot of conversations with local legislators. We believe we’ll have a definitive answer by the end of the legislative session,” he said. Sustainability has become a hot topic in recent months, and UT recently began offering a degree program on the subject. Nick Alderson, a senior in environmental studies and sustainability, will be one of UT’s first sustainability majors. He feels ambivalently about the new plans for UT steam. “I’m excited about it, but I wish they had gotten more student input so it could have had a larger impact,” Alderson said. “I think they probably would’ve come up with a longer term less emissions plan.” Alderson described a 2011 trip to Ball State in Indiana. They had just installed the largest geothermal system in the United States, rendering their steam generation almost completely free. “I wish the administration were thinking more long-term and really look at the options. We’re going to natural gas, which is fine, but it still has emissions,” Alderson pointed out. “Maybe 20 or 30 years down the road, you’re going to have to switch again to something else.” Last year, some students began protesting against UT’s coal dependency. Alderson serves on the committee for campus environment, and said that this was the chancellor’s response. “The committee supported it because it didn’t really have a choice. This was the plan and they were going forward with it,” he said. The project will increase efficiency by more than 10 percent and capacity by more than 20 percent. Construction could start as early as next fall.
• Photo courtesy of TVA
Bull Run Fossil Plant, near Oak Ridge, has been the single-generator coal-fired power plant in the TVA system since 1967. Bill Haslam has proposed to convert the steam plant on campus from coal to natural gas.
GSS passes leave policy, tables domestic partner benefits confident that the resolution two we can write something ulty, the proposed graduate in and get graduate students leave policy would allow for a won’t get flat out rejected. That confidence comes protected,” Walker said. graduate student to temporarGraduate Student Senate Currently, there is no set ily leave the grad program for from Walker’s claim that at passed a resolution to create least one of above administra- leave of absence policy for all six weeks for four separate reaan official leave of absence tors already supports the leave graduate students. This leaves sons: for childbirth/adoption policy for graduate students. of absence policy, although he them susceptible to being for family or dependent care The revised resolution, personal health reasons which was first draftand military service. ed in November, SGA Elections was approved at Additionally, GSS Monday’s GSS also voted against an meeting. Copies of amendment to the the policy will be “Student Government sent to Chancellor Association 2013 Rules Jimmy Cheek, Dean and Procedures” packet of Student Maxine that would have prohibDavis, Provost ited campaigns and canSusan Martin and didates from using “all Dean of Graduate tuition-funded, univerStudents Carolyn sity, staff, or departmenHodges. tal resources in order to Martin Walker, freely produce campaign the anthropology materials that might othrepresentative of erwise be of monetary GSS and the resoluvalue.” • Photo courtesy of GSS tion’s main author, This means that potensaid the resolution Graduate Student Senate, or GSS, represents the official voice for tially any printer, screen is designed to start graduate students as a branch of SGA. printer or other device conversations and that is funded through debate with UT would not name which specific kicked out of their program tuition, even if available to all administration about developif they have to leave for an students, would be prohibited one. ing a leave policy. He expects “I would like to think that extended period of time due to from being used in an SGA there to be back-and-forth with the definite one support issues such as illness or having campaign. on the policy’s fine points, we have … we could definitely a child. especially when it comes to Inspired by the leave of start a conversation and hopeSee GSS on Page 2 financial concerns, but he is fully within the next year or absence policy used for fac-
Justin Joo
Staff Writer