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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

PAGE 8 T H E

Issue 68

E D I T O R I A L L Y

Vol. 116

I N D E P E N D E N T

S T U D E N T

Strong storms/wind 70% chance of rain HIGH LOW 81 60

PUBLISHED SINCE 1906 http://utdailybeacon.com N E W S P A P E R

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U N I V E R S I T Y

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Senior student leads charge in calculator drive ‘Calculators to Classrooms’ spreads knowledge of issue, works to increase donation numbers Haley Hall Staff Writer

decided to try to take action,” Duffy said. Duffy created a Facebook group, rallied friends and focused his energy into collecting unused calculators on campus in the remaining two weeks of the fall 2010 semester. Grant Parker, senior in music, liked the idea. “When he brought up the idea for this drive, it really struck me,” Parker said. “The concept of the drive seemed like a no-brainer. Almost everyone who went to high school still has one of those things but now has

In an age of economic deficits, academic funding remains an issue throughout the nation, and the lack of necessary materials is hindering the educational opportunities of students in Tennessee and elsewhere. George Duffy, senior in physics, devised a plan to offset the unavailable necessity of calculators in underfunded schools after pondering the requests of teachers on DonorsChoose.com. This website allows teachers to post projects in need of funding. Duffy found that hundreds of thousands of dollars were sought to purchase calculators, and he began to consider the options surrounding such shortfalls. “What I saw, particularly, was one in Nashville, the Lead Academy of Nashville, and they wanted like $400 for three calculators,” Duffy said. “I saw this, and I was in my room with my roommate. He had a calculator. I had a matching calculator on my desk, and one of my friends said he was done with his math class. “I thought, ‘Hey, me and my friends could make a $400 donation and basically create the thing at George Duffy, senior in physics, receives a calculator from Francesca Freed, senior the school.’” media, on April 14 as part of his calculator drop for Lead Academy of Nashville. Upon continued investigation, Duffy found that nearly 400 schools were seeking calculators on DonorsChoose.com. He continued to ques- absolutely no use for them.” Calculators play an influential role in the teaching of tion the need for calculators in schools and the opportunities that might be employed to provide the mathematic state-required math courses, like Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry. tools. “One teacher reported that her students, if they didn’t “When I started realizing that there were these stuhave calculators, did 31 percent lower on standardized dents out there who were not going to be able to get into tests,” Duffy said. colleges simply because they weren’t wealthy enough, I

Through collection attempts on the Pedestrian Mall, donations from friends and lost and founds, Duffy managed to obtain nine calculators last fall. He donated them to Lead Academy of Nashville. “It was actually the first time I’ve actually seen someone’s jaw drop,” he said. “When I presented to the math teacher, she just looked at me, staring, like ‘Oh great. We can get the students trained in this immediately,’ and she was going to start on it the next day.” This small success spurred increasing action. Duffy and his friends increased their outreach to the Society of Physics Students, the Progressive Student Alliances, professors and passersby this semester. The group has recently named its organization Calculators to Classrooms, Duffy said. Last week, Calculators to Classrooms sponsored Cookies for Calculators, a donation drive that offered free cookies to all in the hopes of spreading knowledge of the issue and initiating desires to donate. So far, 13 graphing calculators and eight scientific calculators have been collected. The organization hopes these numbers will continue to grow as the semester ends through who have Andrea Stockard • The Daily Beacon professors agreed to inform their stuin journalism and electronic dents about their abilities to donate after they have finished their finals. “I would love to see a broader movement become of what we have started here,” Parker said. “The idea is brilliant and really requires a very few devoted individuals to make a difference. I’m excited to see what a larger amount of people could do. I try to think in terms of total numbers of calculators can we get in the hands of kids. I think that’s the most important thing.”

Speech contest delivers practicality Public speaking competition allows for application of skills

Stephanie Derochers Staff Writer

George Richardson • The Daily Beacon

A student’s car lies smashed by a tree after the storm on Tuesday. The quick-ending storm left about a quarter of KUB customers without power and several major roads blocked with trees. More photos of the storm are on page 3.

This Thursday at 8 p.m., the School of Communication Studies is scheduled to host the McClung Public Speaking Contest in the Cox Auditorium. This contest is the largest currently held in the southeast and is coordinated by honors students in Communication Studies 217. More than 800 students are currently enrolled in Communication Studies 210, public speaking, that have been narrowed down to five finalists who will speak before their peers. These five finalists will each receive between $25 and $100, provided by the Charles J. McClung Endowment. Each speech, lasting five to seven minutes, will be either an informative or persuasive speech from class. The speech competition gives students the opportunity to apply practical skills they have acquired in their classes. Contestants must demonstrate their effectiveness in conveying information to a crowd. “The purpose of this event is to provide useful examples of student speeches for their peers in Communication Studies 210 classes to evaluate while providing them an extra credit opportunity,”

Laura Arnett Smith, faculty coordinator of the speech contest in the School of Communication Studies, said. “It is also an excellent way to recognize the hard work of the students who will be teaching their peers about relevant current events.” By incorporating themes related to prescient issues, the event plans to be educationally enriching in multiple ways. The emcees for the event will be honors students James Darlington, freshman in communication pre-major, and Molly Hunt, sophomore in preprofessional interest. Students are encouraged to turn out and support those who will be speaking. “I think people should come to the contest to experience public speaking,” Hunt said. “At some point in our lives, we will have an opportunity to speak in front of people. Why not take the opportunity now to see public speaking at its best, so that when that time comes you will have an idea of how to effectively reach your audience.” A new feature this semester will be a photo montage of many of the Communication Studies 210 classes set to music and shown before the competition begins. Everyone is invited to attend.


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