Wednesday, August 26, 2015
sdsucollegian.com
SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT-RUN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1885
Campus perimeter streets receive makeover SDSU, Brookings City Council rename campus entrance streets
University Blvd PAT BOWDEN Reporter After a request to rename the streets surrounding SDSU campus was approved over the summer by the Brookings City Council, the new university-inspired street titles have freshmen feeling more at ease about where they are, but left other students doing double takes on the new signage. The new street names; Jackrabbit Avenue, previously 16th Avenue, University Boulevard, previously 11th Street, Campanile Avenue, previously 13th Avenue and Rotunda Lane and Student Union Lane, previously Grove Lane; help define campus borders. These changes were originally requested by the school in order to address security reasons concerning campus entrances, as detailed in the 2025 Design and Master Plan. “Based on security issues, they’re trying to focus on primary campus entrances, which is why they looked at the streets as perimeters,” Brookings Planning Administrator Dan Hansen said. Per the school’s request, the decision went to city council to vote on, which would not only affect the names on the street signs if it passed, but it would also affect any residential or building address on that road. “Generally, all the streets are on a plat and they name all of them so people can build buildings and houses [with street addresses] … SDSU petitioned the council to change the names of the streets around campus, and as a result
some of the streets got changed that had been there for hundreds of years,” Hansen said. “The reason they came to the council is because some of the streets, like Jackrabbit Lane, had public addresses on them … [which would have been subject to change if it was passed because] houses retain the street name that the front door faces.” The new street names are taken well by freshmen, who think they can benefit from the image the university has on incoming students. “It (the street names) brought it all together more … you can tell when [campus] stops or when it’s not related to the school,” freshman university college major Reed Murray said. “I think the new street names would help new students—they’re not all the same [now]; it would be easy to mix up all the numbered streets.” However, not all of the streets the school requested to be changed were approved by City Council. 8th Street, which the school originally requested be changed to South Campus Drive, was determined by the council to impact too many people’s addresses if it were changed, therefore it was left with its numbered name. “The reason they didn’t ap-
Jackrabbit Av prove everything they asked for was because many people were affected, such as 8th Street,” Hansen said. “[On the other hand], changing 16th Avenue was easy because it was a two-block stretch of road and there were only one or two addresses that had to be changed.” Because of address changing reasons, street names are typically not changed. Hansen said, “I’ve been here almost 30 years and I’ve seen maybe 10 street name changes.” These changes not only help define campus entrances better, but they also have integrated the school even more deeply into the city. “I think they [the new street title] make the ties stronger with the city … [but] it doesn’t make it confusing. I think if you know campus well enough it shouldn’t make a difference, the names are just different,” Hansen said. Aside from address changes that can mess up mail and shipping routes, there are other safety concerns that are considered before a street name can officially be changed. “We want developers to keep the [street] names forever, because their primary purpose is for 911 services,” Hansen said, “and if they’re called, they need to know right where to go.”
BAILEY HILL • The Collegian
SDSU implements new natural resource law enforcement program HANNAH KOELLER News Editor The South Dakota Board of Regents recently approved a new degree program for South Dakota State University that is only offered comparably in four institutions nationwide: natural resource law enforcement. Paul Turman, vice president of academic affairs for the SDBOR, said this degree will have a huge effect within South Dakota in the next decade. “Hunting and fishing … isn’t going anywhere in South Dakota. We need to expand Game, Fish and Parks,” Turman
said. “In the next five years, the number of employees with this skill set will increase by five percent.” Turman also discussed the ease for students currently majoring in other, similar fields to shift into natural resource law enforcement. “For students who might have been studying wildlife management, resource management or criminal justice, coursework from those courses will fit into the new degree program. Sophomores, juniors or seniors can realign their path to get enrolled into this major as soon as they want, ” Turman said. The natural resource law enforce-
ment degree will build a firm foundation for students in environmental policy, natural resource management, criminal justice and conservation biology. Students enrolled in the degree program may also benefit if they double major in wildlife and fisheries. Before seeking approval from the SDBOR, institutions make proposals based on feedback from industry representatives and from students. SDSU found that students studying resource management and criminal justice needed accommodation of the resource management skill set. Turman said the SDBOR will not take
credit for the implementation of this new degree. He gives all the credit to the Department of Natural Resource Management and the Department of Rural and Sociological Studies at SDSU. Troy Grovenburg, assistant professor of the Department of Natural Resource Management at SDSU, said the process of creating this degree began two years ago. “We began working with South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks (SDGFP) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) approximately two years ago on the idea of a conservation officer degree,” Grovenburg said.
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Construction on Dana J. Dykhouse stadium continues
Parts of the stadium will be complete in time for the 2015 football season, completely finished by 2016 season DREW CARROLL Managing Editor The Jackrabbits will call Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium their home at the beginning of the 2016 South Dakota State University football season. Although the project won’t be complete until next season, many of the pieces of the project should be completed for this season. Some new features completed on the project include bleachers and concourse areas on the east and south sides of the field and a new video board. These steps of the roughly $65 million process of converting Coughlin-Alumni Stadium into Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium are set to be ready for use Sept. 12 when the Jacks host the University of Southern Utah in SDSU’s 2015 home opener. “We have been told over and over again that the east side bleachers and the south side bleachers will be completely done and ready for butts to sit in,” said Jeff Holm, senior associate athletic director of facilities and operations. “Last year at this time, we didn’t know whether the concession stands and the bathrooms would be complete underneath those areas, but most recently we’ve been told they will be done by the first game, September 12.” The southeast ticket booth will also be in full operation during the home opener. When the season opens, the ticket booths on the west side of the stadium will be temporary positions until
Work on the video board on the south side of the stadium continues. The video board is scheduled to be completed and operational by Sept. 12 for the home opener against Southern Utah at 6 p.m.
DREW CARROLL • The Collegian
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