Wednesday, August 20, 2014
96th year • Issue 1
Music Fest is back /8» www.IndependentCollegian.com
Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919
INSIDE
Toledo’s got Pride The annual festival begins Aug. 22 with Toledo Pride Nite Glo 5K. COMMUNITY / 8 »
Ready for launch Rockets hope to use last year as motivation for upcoming season.
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SPORTS / 5 »
“It’s taken three years, lots of great stories and now I’m finally comfortable declaring myself a proud member of the University of Toledo.”
ADMINISTRATION
BACK TO SCHOOL
New leader, new goals Campus Interim UT president discusses plans for this year
“I loved meeting students when they came into the class and I truly look forward to the energy as our students come on campus.”
NAGI NAGANATHAN Interim President
By Amanda Eggert
By Josie Schreiber
Editor-in-Chief
“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” This is how Nagi Naganathan described his experience preparing to take his new position as interim president – all of which happened this summer after former president Lloyd Jacobs stepped down June 30. Naganathan took over as interim president July 1 and described his experience as “an opportunity to serve this institution.” “I received a great deal of support from faculty, staff and students encouraging me to serve as well,” Naganathan said. “It is
truly an honor to serve from this office.” Naganathan said that although recruitment and retention are his primary focus for the upcoming year, he also wants to improve communication between the administration, faculty, staff and students. In addition, Naganathan wants to make a habit of “recognizing good things that are happening on campus and engaging all faculty, staff and students.” In order to do this, Naganathan will implement planned engagement activities to interact with students and faculty.
One such activity is “Walk with the President.” During this event, he will be able to meet with students in a casual setting. “It is not a business meeting; students can come up and share their experiences and other things we can do,” Naganathan said. “It is more of an engagement strategy with the students. It’s going to happen many times throughout the year.” Meeting students and welcoming back the faculty members for the school year is something See Transition / 6 »
New UT students move in
CLAYTON NOTESTINE What it means to be a Rocket OPINION / 4 »
Campus construction A guide to what happened over the summer at UT which includes the building of Academic Honors Village, a new pipe outside of Lot 10, renovations to the Larimer Athletic Complex and other construction. NEWS / 3 »
Welcome back Fashion columnists Autumn Baker and Teddi Covington help you choose what to wear for your first days back to school. COMMUNITY / 9 »
New bins to be used for trash, recycling UT’s Rocket Recycling program provides receptacles for recycling and trash on main campus. NEWS / 3 »
events welcome students
SAMUEL DERKIN / IC
Freshmen students move into Parks Tower on Aug. 19 with all of their belongings and help from their families and friends. Move-in continues for new students through Aug. 21.
Staff Reporter
Take a break from all the pre-college stress and check out some of the events coming up this week. The start of the year activities are prime time for free food and making new friends. “I think one of the biggest things is there are so many students who are looking for the same thing,” said Rudy Taylor, program manager at the Office of Student Involvement. “They’re looking to meet new people.” Taylor coordinates the First Weeks overall schedule and has a part in planning some of the major events with the First Weeks committee including the commuter welcome reception and the post-convocation barbecue. Depending on the event, Taylor said there will be between 100 to 1,000 people in attendance. The commuter welcome reception will take place on Friday, Aug. 22 from 2-4 p.m. followed by freshman convocation from 4-5 p.m. There will be a barbecue following convocation in Lot 5 next to Savage Arena from 5-7 p.m. After the barbecue, there will be a free open ropes course from 7-9 p.m. on the track level of the student recreation center. According to the First Weeks events schedule, all students who wish to attempt the open ropes course must wear tennis shoes or hiking boots. The Campus Activities and Programming (CAP) foam See Events / 6 »
TECHNOLOGY
New technology arrives at Carlson By Trevor Stearns Staff Reporter
New laptops, iPads, computers and other technological upgrades have been added to Carlson Library in time for this fall at the University of Toledo. As a result of Student Government’s requests, these upgrades were things senators thought students most wanted to see in the library. According to Dominic D’Emilio, director of college technology, client services and network services, some features have been in the works for the past two years, but were all finished this summer. “The charging tables, the computers and the laptops were all brought to us by the student government,” said Rick Gerasimiak, manager of desktop support. “We listen to the students.” According to D’Emilio, new iPads, were installed so students can come into the library and quickly check their email or browse the web without using one of the computers.
“It’s just a simple kiosk system to browse the Internet,” said D’Emilio. “We also came up with some unique printing capabilities with the iPads.” The iPads, dubbed “RocketPads”, cost about $500 each including the wall mounts that were used to hook them up. Two Mac labs were upgraded and installed with a total of six new iMacs in the process. The Mac labs are rooms in the library with sixteen iMac computer workstations. “We thought that the labs were being underutilized,” D’Emilio said. “We know that Macs are popular among the students, so we bought all new computers.” According to D’Emilio, since most of the items that were purchased were in bulk, UT was able to get discounts, so each iMac cost around $1,100. The MSRP for iMacs is currently $1,799. Another addition to the library are five charging tables which cost around $1,000 each, according to D’Emilio. At the charging tables, students will be able to
SAMUEL DERKIN / IC
Alanna Rufe, a third-year pharmacy major, uses the new RocketPads to browse the web at Carlson Library.
charge their phones, laptops or tablets. Some cables are provided, but students are welcome to bring their own as well. D’Emilio also mentioned that they incorporated these tables as a service to the students after seeing them come into the library and set their devices on the floors while charging. “We noticed that people were unplugging monitors to plug their devices in,” Gerasimiak said. “Aside from that, we found that
people were getting stuff stolen.” Gerasimiak said the added charging tables were custommade to match the existing décor in the library. He explained that these tables are also above the standard of most charging tables, as they are five feet in diameter as opposed to the normal four feet. Perhaps the biggest change in the library according to Gerasimiak is the new all-in-one computers See Technology / 6 »