THE DAILY ATHENAEUM
“Little good is accomplished without controversy, and no civic evil is ever defeated without publicity.”
da
Monday October 4, 2010
Volume 124, Issue 31
www.THEDAONLINE.com
Vehicle strikes student on Evansdale BY JOSH COOPER STAFF WRITER
A West Virginia University student was struck by a vehicle Saturday at approximately 4:30 p.m. at a crosswalk on Evansdale Drive near Towers Residential Complex. Victoria Gonzalez, a freshman pre-journalism major, was transferred to Ruby Memorial Hospital where she was treated for injuries as a result of
the incident. She sustained bruising to her face and the left side of her body, a black eye and a cut above her left eye. She did not sustain any internal injuries. Gonzalez spent approximately five hours in the emergency room at the hospital after being transferred there, she said. Gonzalez reported she was in the middle of the Evansdale Drive crosswalk adjacent to
Towers that leads to Kroger on Patteson Drive. When she began to cross, she said she saw no vehicles to her right and the car to her left had appeared to be stopped. About midway through the crosswalk, Gonzalez said she was struck by another vehicle, which appeared to come from Rawley Lane, the off-road beside Kroger, she said. University Police Chief Bob Roberts confirmed the inci-
dent, but had no further details at press time. An investigation of the incident is still underway by the University Police Department, according to John Bolt, director of WVU News and Information. UPD will have an incident summary report available today, Roberts said. This is the second reported incident of a student involved in a pedestrian-vehicle collision this year on Evansdale
Drive. In April, a student was hit by a Mountain Line bus while using the crosswalk near the Student Recreation Center. Jason Forman, a sophomore engineering major, sustained a fractured wrist and trauma to his body from the incident. Forman said in a previous statement he was considering taking the bus company’s insurance to court. The bus driver, Jay A. Ziehm, still works
by tim saar correspondent
Chelsi Baker/THE DAILY ATHENAEUM
Kaden Lotspeich, 1, touches the Chick-Fil-A cow’s hand while his father, Nick, holds him up during the Kids’ Fair at Chick-Fil-A Saturday afternoon. The Fair was held to encourage families to spend more time together, and it offered games and activites for children of all ages.
Tea Party Patriots of WVU hopes to provide political outlet for students correspondent
Kylen Whipp wanted to give students at West Virginia University a place where they could learn more about government policies and talk with like-minded individuals in an informal environment. The Tea Party Patriots of WVU was formed this fall by Whipp, a junior biology and pre-medical major, who serves as president of the organization. “Our main purpose on campus is to try and get students more active in government,” he said. The group also wants to increase political awareness on campus, said Kent Hess, vice president of the organization and a junior biology major. “We’re out for the basic well-
being of America, kind of going back to the ideals that our Founding Fathers set,” he said. The organization not only aims to get students to be more aware of politics, but also to learn more about the issues and participate, Whipp said. “With the last election, there were many students who didn’t pay attention; we’d just like to get people to notice what’s going on around them and try to make informed voting decisions,” he said. The Tea Party Patriots of WVU is a student organization built around the ideals commonly believed by those who participate in the national Tea Party movement – the name a reference to the Boston Tea Party of 1773, Whipp said. While the national Tea Party movement is rooted in support of limited government, lower-
ing taxes and fiscal responsibility, Whipp said the campus group is more about student awareness. “We uphold those same goals, but we’re more of just trying to get students educated on campus,” he said. For instance, the passage of the health care reform bill will not only affect Whipp as a premedical major, but everyone else going into the same field, he said. “With the health care bill, there are a lot of people who don’t know fully about it, so I just wanted to try to help get that message around,” Whipp said. The group plans to organize meetings to talk with students about the candidates running for office, what they stand for and their ideas, Hess said. “We want to show (stu-
dents) what kind of officials are running right now for office and get them involved with elections,” he said. Although they do not have an official meeting time yet, the group will try to meet in late October to get as many people involved as possible, Hess said. “A lot of people think ‘Tea Party’, and they think it’s a very Republican group when it’s actually not,” Whipp said. A recent poll showed that four in 10 Tea Party members were Democrats or Independents, he said. “We just want people to realize that we’re open to any student of any political ideology,” Whipp said. “It’s based on ideas that we all agree upon.” danewsroom@mail.wvu.edu
One-Stop Shop assists December 2010 graduates By Alex Dufour correspondent
Future graduates of West Virginia University can pick up everything they need for graduation at the University’s One-Stop Shop. The shop will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today in the Engineering Mineral Resources Atrium on the Evansdale Campus and also Oct. 5 and Oct. 6 in the Mountainlair “This is the one place where you can pick up everything
you need for graduation,” said Sheila Powell, special assistant to the Vice President of Student Affairs. At the shop, students can purchase class rings, caps and gowns for graduation. Students can also participate in giveaways at the One-Stop Shop. “We are going to be giving away a $100 gift certificate to the bookstore and some new books they have just received along with a WVU Bookstore diploma frame,” Powell said.
51° / 44°
IDOL’S OLDIES NIGHT
INSIDE
Seven contestants competed in Mountaineer Idol’s Oldies Night. A&E PAGE 12
RAINY
News: 1, 2, 3 Opinion: 4 A&E: 9, 10, 12 Sports: 5, 7, 8 Campus Calendar: 6 Puzzles: 6 Classifieds: 11
joshua.cooper@mail.wvu.edu
‘Green’ competition begins throughout WVU community
steered in the right direction
by tim saar
for Mountain Line, but is in a non-driving position. Roberts said in a previous statement that he does not think the area is unsafe for pedestrians “Accidents are going to happen. Our job is to investigate those accidents and see what happened. Certainly, we will work with the University to make it safer,” Roberts said.
There will also be staff members from the Office of Admissions to answer questions students may have about graduate school, she said. Rob McFarland, a senior sports management major, said he will be attending the One-Stop Shop to get everything he needs for graduation and to figure out what he is going to do after he graduates. “I’ll be talking to some Admissions staff to get a little bit more information on attending graduate school because I
still haven’t made any big decisions,” he said. WVU Career Services Center will also have representatives available to answer questions about joining the workforce and strategies to help in finding a job. “I hope to get some tips on improving my resume at the Shop in order to impress companies so I can find a job fairly quickly,” McFarland said. The Alumni Association
see GRADUATION on PAGE 2
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INSIDE TODAY’S EDITION WVU women’s basketball head coach Mike Carey talks about the end of the 2009 season and how it will benefit his team this year. SPORTS PAGE 7
West Virginia University kicks off its fourth annual Ecolympics today, which will last the entire month of October. The event is a campus-wide campaign meant to spread knowledge and information on recycling, energy conservation and sustainable living. “The Ecolympics came about as a way of educating our students to recycle and PREVIOUS WINNERS conserve en- 2009 ergy,” said Bar- Summit Hall & bara Angeletti, Communications recycling coor- 2008 dinator at WVU. Arnold Hall & “We are hoping Communications that staff, stu- 2007 dents, faculty – Arnold Hall everyone that lives and works at WVU – will join us in taking the initiative.” Residence halls and University buildings will have the opportunity to collect prizes and points in challenges, as well as compete for prizes worth up to $3,500 for the residence hall that shows the most initiative in recycling and energy conservation. “If (students) want to move their residence hall into a more sustainable direction, all they have to do is recycle, turn off their lights and elec-
tronics in unused areas and make sure their neighbors do the same,” Angeletti said. The energy consumption and recycling rate at residence halls and campus buildings will be monitored for the month beginning today, she said. “This is all done per-capita,” Angeletti said, “so a building like Lincoln (Hall) can compete equally with a building like Summit (Hall), which has twice as many students.” An opening ceremony will take place from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. today, where the building with the most participants gets extra points, she said. There will also be greenthemed games with T-shirt prizes. There will be an Environmental Protection Agency Gameday Recycling Challenge during the Oct. 9 WVU vs. UNLV football game, Angeletti said. Participants can earn points during the game by promoting recycling through participating in the Mountaineers Recycle Program, she said. The building with the most volunteers working to distribute recycling bags, encourage recycling in tailgating lots and
see GREEN on PAGE 2
‘Stink bug’ infestation a growing problem across region BY GINA DAMATO CORRESPONDENT
Student housing at West Virginia University has become host for thousands of tiny, unwanted guests. Stink bugs, also known as Halyomorpha halys, began infesting Morgantown and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia as fall began, said Yong-Lak Park, an insect ecology expert from the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences. “There are three types of stink bugs, but the one that is infesting Morgantown is called brown marmorated stink bugs,” Park said. “They are going to try to retreat for the winter, therefore, hiding in homes and apartments.” Stink bugs were brought over from Asia in the early ‘90s and quickly multiplied in areas such as eastern Pennsylvania, Park said. The brown marmorated stink bugs are about an inch long. They are able to fly and emit a noisy sound when in motion, he said. The bugs are completely
harmless to humans, but they are devastating to crops. “Stink bugs are sap-sucking insects, and a swarm of them can destroy a whole field of crops because that is what they feed off of,” Park said. “They destroy such things as apples and corn.” The tiny insects have already destroyed many crops throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia, he said. Park said the insects got their “stinky” name because they emit a foul-smelly odor when killed. “The best thing students can do is vacuum the bugs. This way they do not crush them and avoid the stink bug smell,” he said. Park suggests sealing windows and doors to prevent the bugs from entering. If the number of stink bugs is out of control within a home, pest control can be contacted to help remove the bugs, Park said. However, the bugs are hard to kill because there aren’t proven methods to eradicate them, he said.
see STINK on PAGE 2
WEEKEND SWEEP The West Virginia women’s soccer team began its four-game road trip by clinching two wins over Cincinnati and Louisville. SPORTS PAGE 5