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ISU senior forward’s appeal for another year of eligibility has been denied by the NCAA.
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THURSDAY
March 11, 2010, Volume 204 >> Number 118 >> 40 cents >> iowastatedaily.com >> An independent newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890
Government of the Student Body
ISUtv
Senate allocates Flying Cyclones simulator funds Meeting includes bylaw updates correcting grammatical errors, logo alterations, tuition rates By Paige Godden Daily Staff Writer
Jessica Love, graduate in engineering academic and student affairs, and husband Geoff Love, senior in communication studies, laugh during an interview March 2 as they talk about their story of how they got married. Both of them are producers of the sitcom “Jess, Jeff and Jared.” Photo: Karuna Ang/Iowa State Daily
Couple produces sitcom Married pair creates life-inspired show By Abigail Barefoot Daily Staff Writer
Watch ‘Jeff, Jess and Jared’:
Check out older episodes of “Jeff, Jess and Jared” online at www.isutv.stuorg.iastate.edu
The police were pounding at the door, Jeff’s brother was choking after accidentally swallowing a ring, and Jess was confused and trying to figure out what is going on — all the while Jeff was realizing his wedding proposal to Jess isn’t going at all to plan. This is just one of the hilarious moments of “Jeff, Jess and Jared,” a sitcom on ISUtv created by Geoff and Jess Love. The sitcom tells the story of Jess and Jeff, who have just recently gotten engaged, and Jeff’s brother, Jarred, who comes to live with them after finding out his roommate is a little strange. The show focuses on the wedding plans and the relationships of the main characters and the scenarios they get themselves into, often with amusing results.
Geoff and Jess decided they wanted to create a television program after seeing ISUtv’s booth at Clubfest last year. After seeing all the sports and news shows on the station, they decided to try something different, something they enjoyed watching — a sitcom. The two decided to write what they knew, and the sitcom was born. “We didn’t have a lot to work on. We had just gotten married and we went with that,” said Geoff, a senior in communication studies. The couple wanted to show the positive side of marriage. “We wanted to show people that it’s more than just ‘Bridezilla’ — it’s about the re-
lationship between two people,” Geoff said. For the real-life couple, there was no question about whether or not to get married, despite the fact that they are students. “It was an easy decision for me,” said Jess, a graduate student in educational leadership and policy studies. “I knew he was the person I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. It just made sense.” The couple will have been married for two years in May. In the beginning the couple learned the challenges of creating a sitcom. “There’s a lot you have to factor in — the time of day, what someone is wearing so it all matches up later on. There is a lot you just don’t realize,” Jess said. After looking at the original pilot, they decided to reshoot the whole thing to make the episode crisper and cleaner. “I don’t want it to be like YouTube and look amateur; I want it to be professional,” Geoff said.
see SITCOM on PAGE 3
Protest
ISU students remain actionless despite 99.7 percent tuition hike By Tyler Kingkade Daily Staff Writer College students from both public and private universities across the country took to the streets protesting tuition hikes March 4. In some cases protesters were beaten, hundreds were arrested and riot police were called out in various cities. Despite a 6 percent tuition increase for the 2010-’11 school year and a 99.7 percent hike for in-state tuition since the 2000-’01 school year, Iowans remained silent. In the fall students will pay $3,052 for a semester of in-state tuition — more than an entire year of tuition in 2001. Jean-Pierre Taoutel, senior lecturer in world languages and cultures, is surprised no action has been taken in response to the increases. “I’ve been at Iowa State for 10 years now and I’ve seen so many tuition raises,” Taoutel said. “It seems as though students complain but nothing happens and they end up paying the tuition raise.” Taoutel often discusses the issue in his classes.
Graphic: Tyler Kingkade/Iowa State Daily
“What I was trying to say in class was if all the students would unite and do like they do in France, where they strike, I’m pretty sure some teachers would go with them,” he said. The American Association of University Professors sent a letter written by American Association of University Professors General Secretary Gary Rhoades to approximately 400,000 members urging support for the March 4 protests. “The American Association of University Professors endorses those actions, and encour-
ages our members and their colleagues nationally to make the following weeks and months a time of action and education,” Rhoades said in the letter. “Our challenge is to reverse patterns of public policy that are further privatizing higher education in terms of who it most serves and benefits, shifting costs to students and families in what amounts to an excise tax on education, and increasingly focusing colleges and universities on serving an ever narrower band of private interests,” Rhoades said.
The letter went on to salute professors in California and students who engaged in protests. Jason Williams, senior in marketing, said other than some chatter between friends he has not noticed much voicing of opinion on the matter. Williams believes students need to see where the additional money is going. “If some students see that and feel their money is going to something they don’t think is worth it then they might be
see COSTS on PAGE 3
The Flying Cyclones were allocated $14,220 for a new airplane flight simulator at Wednesday night’s meeting of the Government of the Student Body Senate. The club has 28 members that spend a lot of the time grounded due to Iowa’s bad weather, said a representative from the group. For $120, a person with a pilot’s license can fly in good weather conditions, but there haven’t been many of those lately, the member from the Flying Cyclones said. The group is planning on saving the $120 for flights, and they will be able to fly on bad weather days. The group is also hoping to attract new members with the simulator but said someone who knows how to properly run the simulator will be present while a student or new member is learning. Bylaw updates were passed at the meeting. The updates corrected grammatical and numbering errors previously in the bylaws. President of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate Aaron Gross, graduate in entomology, gave an update to the GSB Senate. Gross said they have been meeting with administration and talking about budget cuts. Gross added that the Graduate and Professional Student Senate is looking to allocate all of its money this year, something that hasn’t happened in the past. President Jon Turk, senior in political science, said that he has been working with the Director of Diversity Lulu Wu, senior in biochemistry, on tuition rates — specifically for non-Iowa residents. Turk said he and Wu have been looking into English-inten-
see GSB on PAGE 3
Baseball
Professor creates improved formula to predict success By Sarah Gonzalez Daily Saff Writer Mathematical analysis is taking a larger role in professional sports. Kerry Whisnant, professor physics and astronomy and sports fan, potentially improved a basic formula to predict baseball success. Whisnant studies sabermetrics, the analysis of baseball statistics, when he isn’t researching and teaching. “Some people view the sabermetrics crowd as a bunch of eggheads whose results don’t really apply to reality,” he said. Sabermetrics is often criticized as being too simplistic by not accounting for a variety of variables. However, the analytical equations that have been developed by the Society for American Baseball Research since the late 70s are being used by multiple teams in Major League Baseball. Whisnant presented a paper analyzing the distribution of runs per game in a contest hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan Sports Analytic Conference in Boston on Saturday. The conference included a baseball analytics panel. “Three major league teams, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Boston Red Sox, had
representatives on the panel and they indicated that they most definitely use analytics when helping them choose players,” Whisnant said. Whisnant’s paper discussed a formula he developed that extends a basic model designed by Bill James. James, a pioneer of sabermetrics and senior advisor for baseball operations of the Boston Red Sox, wrote a formula that has been studied and used for decades. His formula uses the number of runs scored per game and number of runs given up per game to determine how often a team will win. Whisnant extended this formula to incorporate the distribution of runs into the winning equation. “People had talked about how the distribution of runs might affect things but I don’t think anybody had really done anything quantitative,” Whisnant said. The original James formula only focused on the number of runs. Whisnant’s formula shows it’s not only the number but the consistency of runs that counts. Whisnant hopes his formula will eventually be part of the growing role statistics analysis is playing in sports. “It’s clear that the teams are really using this stuff — they’re blending it with their traditional scouting,” he said.