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Utah State University
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Logan, Utah
Today is Monday, Aug. 27, 2007 Breaking News
Don’t expect the Stadium Express or 800 East Express to be quite so fast. Construction delays cause rerouting that tacks on drive time and a new drop-off location.
Campus News
Construction forces Shuttle to reroute
The roundabout on the west side of the TSC is being redesigned to increase student safety and decrease traffic. The project was supposed to be completed before school began but it will not be done until Labor Day. Until construction is finished, three Aggie Shuttle routes have been diverted. GIDEON OAKES photo
The Tanner Fountain will be off until next spring as it undergoes rennovation. Page 4
Features Students get used to new roommates, a new home and a new lifestyle as school starts again. Page 7
By ARIE KIRK news editor
To increase student safety and reduce traffic near the Taggart Student Center, the roundabout on the west side of the building is being redesigned. Construction is not expected to be completed until next week and, as a result, three Aggie Shuttle buses have been rerouted. The Stadium Express, 800 East Express and the South Campus Express have been affected. In place of the usual drop-off and pick-up near the TSC, the three routes will stop on the corner of 700 N. and 800 East, near the meters on the west side of the street. The Stadium Express and the 800 East Express are being
detoured to 600 East. The Campus Loop route has not been altered. Alden Erickson, Aggie Shuttle supervisor, said the shuttle system is working to remain on schedule and maintain its convenience to students despite the changes. “We will do our best to stay on the same schedule, but we’ll be delayed a bit. Students are going to have to walk a little more,” Erickson said. “We are going to do what we have to do and we are going to do our best to accommodate our passengers’ needs.” The Aggie Shuttle will return to its normal routes once construction is finished. Joe Izatt, assistant director of Parking and Transportation Services, said student safety was the primary reason behind rede-
signing the congested roundabout on Champ Drive. “We’ve tried to help create a better traffic flow,” Izatt said. “It is going to be nice when it is done. I hope it creates a space where buses and vehicles can coexist and be safer for students. That is the driving force behind this.” As part of the redesign, the planter area has been split to create two roundabouts. Curbing in the area was also removed to create a larger space for vehicles. Stanley Kane, director of Facilities Planning, came up with the concept. He said this design will ease traffic and create a pedestrian zone between the TSC and the Institute, where students can walk without being put in danger. The north roundabout is for pri-
vate vehicles. The south roundabout is restricted to buses, delivery and emergency vehicles only. It will have a gated entrance. After construction is completed, the Aggie Shuttle will still stop in front of the Alpha Chi Omega house. Buses will then also stop inside the electronically operated gate. Once inside the gate, delivery vehicles will be directed to the dock area behind the Military Science building where they will unload, rather than stopping near the student entrance to the TSC. Kane said these changes were made in response to the number of
-See CONSTRUCTION, page 6
Webmail replaced as campus e-mail provider
Sports
By SETH R. HAWKINS editor in chief
Athletic Director Randy Spetman gives guided tour through the new north end zone facility, still under construction. Page 12
Opinion “The world is an uncertain place, and by the latter portion of next year I’ll be deployable ...” Page 16
Almanac Today in History: On this day in 1883, the most violent volcanic eruption in recorded history occurred on the uninhabited island of Krakatau in Indonesia. The explosion caused 120-foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people.
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Following requests from students for a more advanced student e-mail system than what WebMail could offer, USU Information Technology Services has made a new e-mail system available: Aggiemail. Previously, USU students used WebMail or WebMail Plus as their student e-mail accounts. USU IT Services received many requests from students for a service that would be more reliable and would have more capabilities than what was currently offered by the WebMail system, said associate vice president for IT, Eric Hawley. The solution: Aggiemail, an e-mail system that was created in partnership with Google. Aggiemail looks and functions exactly like Google’s Gmail e-mail services and has nearly all the benefits of a full Gmail account, such as 2 GB of e-mail storage space, a calendar feature with sharing capabilities, Google Chat and Google Documents. Another added benefit to Aggiemail accounts is the account remains active even after a student graduates from USU. Aggiemail also works in conjunction with Gmail accounts, meaning users of Aggiemail can use Google Chat to instant message with Gmail users and share calendars and documents with Gmail users. All these features come Research more info @ at no extra cost for students as utahstatesman.com Google provided the Aggiemail service to USU free of charge, Hawley said. “When you look at the Aggiemail e-mail system, the ability to use Google (applications) to share and work on Word documents or Excel type spreadsheets without e-mailing documents back and forth is huge,” Hawley said. “If you’re in a project group of four or five students, in the past, if you were the group leader, you would have to take the Word document back from five students, do all the edits and get it back together. Online, you can do it all together. I’ve heard some students say that’s a great academic benefit. “Students are also able to, if they have a smart phone, get and receive e-mail on their smart phone. So if someone is in class and wants to look up their schedule and check their email real quick, they can. Plus, no cost for these features.” Realizing the limitations of the cc.usu.edu e-mail service, a board of USU IT officials and technical advisers started working on creating a new system in the summer of 2006, Hawley said. Some options considered included an in-house system powered by Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Live and Gmail,
MissingLinks
-See AGGIEMAIL, page 6
Students in connections, an orientation class for incoming freshmen, get a tour of campus as part of their first week at school. Provost Ray Coward said this year’s freshman class will be one of the biggest in the past ten years. PATRICK ODEN photo
Large freshman classes are answer for enrollment woes By LIZ LAWYER assistant news editor
tists say, one data point doesn’t make a trend,” Coward said. “We’ve made enormous progress. Last year and this year we will have brought in these two large freshman classes, and that will stabilize enrollment. As these classes move through and we continue to bring in large freshman
When USU President Stan Albrecht promised the Board of Trustees to fix the enrollment problem at USU, he set the bar high. Over the past six years, the number of -See ENROLLMENT, page 4 students attending USU’s main campus has steadily decreased from 17,663 in the fall of 2001 to 16,634 in 2006, according to numbers on the Board of Trustees’ Web site. Albrecht made that promise in January 2006, and he said it would be done within 18 months. That mark passed in July. If things have gone well, USU should now be on the rebound. According to Provost Ray Coward, this year’s freshman class will be Graphs provided by the Office of Analysis, Assessment one of the biggest in the past and Accreditation. The numbers provided by the Board of Trustees Web site differ slightly from the total numbers on 10 years. “Last year we had a strong these graphs. A red line indicates a bad trend, black indicates a freshman year, but as scien- neutral trend.