TECHNICIAN
Pizza box composting soars
NC State’s Waste Reduction and Recycling Office and University Housing collected more than 8,700 pizza boxes in composting dumpsters located outside six residence halls across campus in the pizza box composting pilot program’s first year of operation. The program tripled in scope during the year from two to six dumpsters to serve multiple areas of campus. Pizza boxes cannot be recycled due to the grease and cheese that usually stick to the bottom of the box, which is why they are now composted. Composting totals could surpass 10,000 boxes in its second year. SOURCE: NC State News
Wake County EMS offers solution to overcrowded ERs
Wake County Emergency Medical Services is trying to keep people with behavioral health problems out of emergency rooms. Specially trained Wake County paramedics determine whether they should steer such patients to more appropriate care: a psychiatric facility or a substance abuse clinic. Patients are sometimes persuaded to stay home and take their medication. The pilot project saved Medicaid about $500,000 in hospital and related costs during a recent 12-month period. EMS prevented 764 emergency room visits in the Wake County pilot in the past two years, which is about 20 percent of the 3,831 patients evaluated for mental health and substance abuse between January 2013 and January 2015. The savings to the Medicaid system vary from $124 to $415 per patient diverted from the hospital, depending on the seriousness of each patient’s health condition. SOURCE: The News & Observer
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SPORTS State wins three on weekend See page 8.
2015
Wolfpack Pick Up sparks budget debate Ian Grice Staff Writer
When the Student Senate passed a $413,250 Student Government budget for the 2015-2016 school year, one item in particular provoked signifcant debate. With a $25,000 grant from the Alumni Association, Wolfpack Pick Up is the most funded initiative in the budget, and the student fee increase adds an additional $13,750 to its budget. The approved budget, which includes funds from a $0.65 fee increase for the next two years, allots $0.15 of each student’s additional fee to increase executive branch programing and $0.50 to fund Wolfpack Pick Up, NC State’s ride program for disabled students and students with mobility impairments.
Prof. and Admin. Support $126,631 Staff Salaries, Benefits, Professional Development, Work Study Students
SG Developmental Activities $3,000 SG Retreat, Judicial Branch Conference, SG Banquet, SG Awards, SG Leadership Retreat
Appropriations $124,175
$ 413,250.00
Branch Operations $13,610 Legislative Branch, Executive Branch, The Brick, Brick Designer Temporary Wages, Treasury Branch Operations, Judicial Branch Operations
Committee Operations, Fall Disbursement, Spring Disbursement
in expenditures
Student Government Budget 2015-2016 Fiscal Year
Stipends $21,700
SG Initiatives $56,842.37
Student Body President, Student Senate President, Student Body Treasurer, Student Body Chief Justice, Student Body Vice President, SG Webmaster
Finance Committee Disbursement, Packapalooza, Homecoming, Leader of the Pack, Campout, Service Raleigh, Respect the Pack Wolfpack Pick Up $25,000
Office Management $30,957.63 Office Supplies and Maintenance, Network Access Fees, Transportation, Telecommunication, DASA Service Charge and Administrative Service Charge, Online Elections System
University Mandated Reserve $36,334
BUDGET continued page 2
PACK EARNS 8-SEED IN BIG DANCE ; SEE NCAA MEN’S BRACKET ON PAGES 4 & 5
Mau, student leaders talk racism on CNN Katherine Kehoe News Editor
NC State Fair cancels horse show
The North Carolina State Fair will no longer offer the show featuring performances by the high-stepping Tennessee Walking Horses. A protest and a petition containing 19,700 signatures demanding the State Fair ban the performance category preceded this decision. Protesters claimed that the training methods to prepare a horse for this type of show are cruel and inhumane as trainers use chemicals, chains and nails to irritate the horse’s ankles. North Carolina was the last state fair in the nation to hold the big lick performance category, though other states still hold federally recognized competitions. A bill in Congress to ban abusive tactics had strong, bipartisan support in 2013 but was not voted on and will likely be reintroduced this session. SOURCE: The News & Observer
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Raleigh, North Carolina
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IN BRIEF
monday march
JOHN JOYNER/TECHNICIAN
Sophomore guard Anthony “Cat” Barber takes a shot during the quarterfinal game of the ACC Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum on Thursday. The No. 2 Blue Devils defeated the Wolfpack, 77-53.
Google Fiber could offer students new opportunites Conor Kennedy Correspondent
Google Fiber’s arrival in the Triangle area could benefit students’ educational opportunities at NC State, particularly for researchers who work with big data and aspiring entrepreneurs. In January, Google formally announced its plan to lay thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables throughout the Triangle as part of its Google Fiber service, bringing Internet service up to 100 times faster than a basic broadband connection to homes and businesses in seven municipalities in the Triangle area, as well as Charlotte. Seth Hollar, associate director of NC State’s Engineering Entrepreneurs program, said this is a huge step for the region in terms of recognition as one of the leading parts of the country for technological research and development. The introduction of Google Fiber will result in an increase in entrepreneurial opportunities at NC State, adding more resources for students hoping to start their own businesses and improving research experiences with the ability to transfer and process larger amounts of data, according to Hollar. For students in the Engineering Entrepreneurs program who primarily focus on the senior design sequence, Google Fiber could
bring more tools to improve their projects and possibly offer them a greater amount of exposure to companies that might be interested in partnering with students in the future. The increase in bandwidth is also a major bonus for participating research universities, according to Hollar. “It would change how people perceive the web and open up new ideas for potential goods and services, further pushing forward the already accelerated technological applications available in the Triangle,” Hollar said. Marc Hoit, Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at NC State, agreed Google Fiber will help the Triangle continue to assert itself as a major technology hub in the U.S. Hoit has been working with Raleigh officials for three years to bring Google Fiber to Raleigh and NC State. This kind of Internet connection could also allow for researchers to transfer files with huge amounts of data, which could benefit university connectivity and research possibilities. ResNet, the Internet provider for on-campus dorms, can provide gigabit capability to some areas on campus, but most of campus experiences a 10 megabit capability. Hollar said if Google Fiber were to be implemented on campus, it would be a drastic improvement, potentially up to 100 times faster than current speeds.
FIBER continued page 3
Student Body President Rusty Mau joined three other student leaders from universities across the country to discuss racism on college campuses on CNN’s State of the Union program Sunday morning. Moderated by CNN anchor Dana Bash, the panel featured Mau; Elliot Spillers, Student Government president-elect at the University of Alabama; Julia Watson, undergraduate student body president at Northwestern University; and Jalen Ross, president of the University of Virginia Student Council. The panel addressed a commonly held belief that the United States’ younger generation is living in a post-racial society, particularly on college campuses, citing the video of fraternity brothers in the University of Oklahoma’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon singing racist chants as evidence against it. “I think a critical challenge to overcoming racism in America is acknowledging that it is a problem,” Mau said. Part of acknowledging that problem, Mau said, includes recognizing the implicit biases and pre-existing privileges that each student and person has, often without ever realizing they are present at all.
“I think a critical challenge to overcoming racism in America is acknowledging that it is a problem.” Student Body President Rusty Mau
The fact that so many people have an idea that the U.S. is post-racial is both good and bad news, according to Ross, Virginia’s student council president. The good news, Ross said, is that it is possible to think that at all—as what happened in Oklahoma is not happening on every bus all the time. The bad news, however, is that not seeing these things happen constantly allows people to ignore the subtler biases that are present in everyday life. “Colorblindness is still blindness,” Ross said. As an example, Ross cited that in today’s society, a resume with a black-sounding name is 50 percent less likely to be responded to than a resume with a white-sounding name for candidates with equal skills. “I think we are a little distracted by the big things you can see,” Ross said. “You can point to that bus in Oklahoma, but the everyday things that we actually have to work on, we can work on that.” Watson, the undergraduate student body president
RACE continued page 2