GRAND VALLEY
GV MEN’S GOLF FINISHES SECOND IN SEASON-ENDING FALL TOURNAMENT
ST U D E N T- R U N P U B L I C A T I O N S // P R I N T . O N L I N E . M O B I L E // L A N T H O R N . C O M
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A L L E N D A L E & G R A N D R A P I DS , M I C H I G A N
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NEWS
New student ombuds position takes form Alumna Takeelia Garret takes campus position that looks to give students the chance to talk about problems and questions. SEE A3
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22
GEARING UP FOR LAST LECTURE Nominations for annual event due Friday
LAKER LIFE
Lakers mentor local middle schoolers GVSU’s geography and planning department teams up with Shawmut Hills Middle School for Geographical Information Systems Day on campus SEE A6
SPORTS
GV standouts to be added to Hall of Fame Six former Lakers, including Cullen Finnerty and Chuck Martin are set to be inducted into the GVSU Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions SEE A7
ONLINE
Ride along with GVPD during homecoming Follow along with the Lanthorn as one of our reporters live-tweets Saturday night with the Grand Valley Police Department at 9:30 p.m. FOLLOW @GVLANTHORN
LEAVING A LEGACY: GVSU students attend Charles Pazdernik’s Last Lecture presentation last year. This year’s lecture will take place on Nov. 19 in the Mary Idema Pew Library Multipurpose Room at 7:30 p.m. in Allendale. Students, faculty and staff can nominates professors for the event through Friday. GVL | KEVIN SIELAFF BY HANNAH LENTZ NEWS@LANTHORN.COM
hroughout a college career, students experience a lot of lasts. Last days of college, last first days of school and last time it’s socially acceptable to nap in public. However, students aren’t the only ones in the university setting that have final moments -- professors do too. At Grand Valley State University, one of the most anticipated “lasts” is the annual Last Lecture delivery. This year’s lecture will take place on Nov. 19 in the Mary Idema Pew Multipurpose Room at 7:30 p.m. The event is LIB 100/200 approved, as well as a Panhellenic community event.
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Maria Beelen, vice president for educational affairs for the GVSU student senate, is involved with coordinating the event. Any student, faculty or staff member can take a few minutes and fill out the nomination form to suggest a faculty member they think is particularly outstanding, both in the classroom and out, Beelan said. “The awarded faculty member will then be invited to speak on any topic of their choosing along the tradition of ‘Last Lecture,’” Beelan said. “If you were going to give the last lecture of your life, what would you say? This is an engaging and enjoyable event that enables students to see a professor in a light that they might not get to experience inside the classroom.” Computer science professor Randy Pausch had
STUDENT RESOURCES
New Data Inquiry Lab offers statistics help BY DREW HOWARD ASSISTANTNEWS@LANTHORN.COM
n an effort to help students apply statistical concepts to courses outside of the statistics field, Grand Valley State University recently opened a new student resource center called the Data Inquiry Lab (DIL) to advise students one-on-one with such issues. Located in Room 135 of the Mary Idema Pew Library, the DIL was created in partnership between the library and the faculty in the political science and statistics departments. The DIL’s staff includes Whitt Kilburn, associate professor of political
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science; Gerald Shoultz, associate professor of statistics; and Dylan Zwier, M.S. candidate in biostatistics. While other student resources such as the Statistics Consulting Center and the statistics department tutoring center already exist on campus, the DIL differs from both of these. Kilburn said the Statistics Consulting Center deals with more indepth statistical problems while the Statistic Tutoring Center is aimed at students who need help with particular statistics classes. In the DIL, however, Kilburn said the emphasis is on helping students outside of the statistics department apply statistical skills
such as quantitative data management, visualization and analysis into to their work and projects. “Most of the students who come in here tend to be from the social science departments: psychology, political science or sociology,” Kilburn said. “We also have inquiries from students at the business school. For the most part, the students have been in those cluster of departments.” Kilburn noted a couple possibilities in which students can use these statistical concepts in other classes. “Students can use statistics in a class on exercise sports science in which they’re looking to compare SEE DATA | A2
just found out his pancreatic cancer was terminal when he gave a lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” to his students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania in 2007. The next year, he published a book called “The Last Lecture,” which sparked a series in schools across the nation, including GVSU. During last year’s presentation, classics professor Charles Pazdernik focused on how he overcame his three months of hospitalization as the result of the permanently disabling spinal cord injury he sustained in a cycling accident in the summer of 2014.
EXTERNAL RELATIONS
ERC: The student senate external relations committee poses after a meeting. ERC works with the communities surrounding the university. COURTESY | GVSU.EDU
Student senate creates political subcommittee BY JESS HODGE JHODGE@LANTHORN.COM
he external relations committee, one of seven in Grand Valley State University’s student senate, hopes to maintain good relations with outside communities in order to benefit students. Andy Oeffner, 20, is the vice president for the ERC and originally joined the student senate because he wanted to not only make a difference in his life, but in other people’s lives as well. So what do the members of the ERC do to help out and aid in student experience at GVSU? The definition, as written in the student senate bylaws, states that “The external relations committee will act as a liaison between the student senate and the local community, ensuring that Grand Valley State University students have positive experiences in the areas surrounding the university.” Oeffner views it as a committee that can deal with a broad range of issues and in multiple areas. “Some areas that ERC has been dipping into (are) civic engagement, voter registration, promoting local
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COLLABORATION: Associate professor of political science, Whitt Kilburn, assists students in the Data Inquiry Lab on Oct. 20. It was created in partnership with the MIP Library and political science and statistics departments. GVL | EMILY FRYE
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businesses, maintain and improve relationships with Allendale and dealing with local safety concerns,” he said. These are not the only issues the committee deals with. Oeffner credits his ability to be involved with so many different projects to his fellow senators. “Without them, I would be moving extremely slowly on all my projects,” he said. “Being able to have people head these projects instead of having them all on my shoulders is a major relief.” The ERC was one the biggest promoters of the mobile secretary of state that was on the Allendale Campus last week. Oeffner, who is a political science major, stressed the importance of students being involved with the upcoming elections. “I don’t care who people vote for, I just want them to vote,” he said. “Young people need to realize that they are the future of the United States and they need to use their voices.” In an effort to help students understand their important role in the political and voting world, the student senate has organized a political awareness subcommittee. This committee will be SEE SENATE | A5
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