Experience Softball team has returning starters
P a ge 6
Tuesday • February 22, 2011 • Vol. 104 Issue 21
Briefs
Pi Kappa Alpha to join fraternity, sorority life
Wyrick Commision to meet on Friday
The Wyrick Commission will be meeting at 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 25 at the Burgess House to discuss possible modifications to the guidelines as well as continue the process of approving the proposals for elections.
By Amanda Hess The Standard
Study Away Fair to be held Wednesday
The Study Away Fair is an event for students who are interested in studying away and for faculty who are interested in leading short-term programs. The event will be held at 11 a.m. in the PSU Atrium.
Rec Center info forum on Thursday
Campus Recreation is hosting an information forum about the new Recreation Center. Questions from students will be answered by the Recreation Center Council at 12:10 p.m. on Thursday in the Blair-Shannon Gallery Lounge.
Calendar February 22 to February 28
Tuesday
Student Activities Council meeting 4 p.m., PSU 313 PRSSA meeting 5 p.m., Craig Hall 325 Student Senate meeting 5:30 p.m., PSU 313 KSMU hosts Liane Hansen 7 p.m., Coger Theatre
Wednesday
Study Away Fair 11 a.m., PSU Atrium Interfraternity Council meeting 5:15 p.m., PSU 313 Panhellenic Council meeting 6 p.m., PSU 313
Thursday
Recreation Center Information Forum 12:10 p.m., Blair-Shannon House Gallery Lounge Faculty retirement panel 3:30 p.m., Taylor Health and Wellness conference room Students for a Sustainable Future meeting 4 p.m., Temple Hall Pit Because Writers Matter Book Group 5 p.m., Siceluff Hall Library Criminal Justice Society: Probation and Parole guest speaker 5 p.m., Strong Hall 201
Friday
English Department presents William Trowbridge 7 p.m., Carrington Hall Auditorium
Monday
“Forgetting Sexuality, Remembering Catastrophe” 3 p.m., Meyer Library 101
Michael Gulledge/THE STANDARD
Porn film star Ron Jeremy and Southern California pastor Craig Gross debated the moral and social effects of pornography.
Experts debate porn Jeremy, Gross discuss industry in Internet age By Nick Simpson The Standard
The world of porn has had its ups and downs. The onset of the Internet has changed every form of entertainment in ways that are still being discovered. So when music and films are being downloaded and discussed even before being released, how is an industry that dares to defy the definition of “art” affected? Ron Jeremy, star of more than 1,800 porn videos, and Craig Gross, a pastor from southern California, discussed this very question on Feb. 16 in the PSU. The debate was part of an annual event hosted by the Student Activities Council (SAC) and Wolfman produc-
tions and was met with a large attendance. Courtney Current, junior in the Communication Department and SAC lecture chair, was tasked with organizing the event. “We anticipated packing the house, but I really think we should have reconsidered the venue,” she said. “We had the theater packed at a capacity of 580, but we also had it simulcast in the food court where they clicked in 669 people in attendance. So we had over 1,200 people here, which means we probably should have had it in Juanita K.” Gross opened the debate and discussed the creation of his site, xxxchurch.com, a site that hopes to reach out to those struggling with pornography addiction. “Our approach for what we’ve done is just to help people who want help,” he said. “We hand out Bibles that say, ‘Jesus loves porn stars.’ We created free software that monitors where you go online, and it sends a report of any porn site you visit to
your girlfriend, to your mom, to your dad. We want to get the conversation out on pornography, not to take away your rights.” But Gross had a definite personal obligation to question the role of pornography in a person’s life. “It’s not just entertainment,” Gross said. “When my kid watches Spiderman, he doesn’t think he can climb walls. He understands that’s just television. But when you guys watch porn, immediately you think this is what sex is like. Porn has taught you pretty much everything that you now know about sex. It’s not just part of entertainment.” Gross went to great lengths to discuss the life of the female porn star and how powerful she can feel when sitting on a million dollars. “Porn does not empower women just because you give a woman a bigger paycheck,” he said. “They make more money than men because, obvi-
See PORN page 7
Pi Kappa Alpha will introduce itself and new members at 7 p.m. on Feb. 25 in the PSU ballroom. Pi Kappa Alpha (PIKE) is an international fraternity that began in 1868 at the University of Virginia. The organization has recently started a five-week expansion process to look for members to custom-build its organization on our campus. Daniel Stockton, chapter consultant of Pi Kappa Alpha, said PIKE is a general, secret, social gentlemen’s organization. Since PIKE began, it has grown to more than 230 chapters across North America and more than a quarter of a million lifetime members. “Our goal at Missouri State is to develop men of integrity, intellect and high moral character,” he said. “In doing so, we believe we will have created a truly life-long fraternal experience for our members.” MSU’s PIKE chapter will be the Zeta Chi chapter, Stockton said. The expansion model has changed since they left MSU in 2003, and this model has made many successful chapters at colleges like Texas Tech, the University of Florida and the University of Iowa. Stockton said PIKE does not have a house. A house for fraternities and sororities is becoming less relevant. “Today’s students don’t want to share their bedroom and bathroom. They want to have apartment-style living in which they have their own room and possibly own bathroom,” he said. “For organizations like ours, it becomes very expensive and inefficient to meet those demands. We will evaluate the market and make See PIKE page 8
Budget proposals include cuts in funding for federal Pell grants By Lauren Healey The Standard
The federal government’s new budget proposals target Pell grant funding which could affect many college students across the country. Obama’s new budget supports the enactment of the Pell Grant Protection Act eliminating the year-round Pell grant, which offers eligible students a second grant per year, typically for summer classes. The government requires schools to divide your Pell grant into at least two separate payments per academic year. The extra grant has cost 10 times more than anticipated and has failed to demonstrate a meaningful impact on students’ academic progress, according to the budget. David Mitchell, director of the Bureau of Economic Research, said he’s not quite convinced that reducing Pell grant funding is a good way to help reduce the country’s Mitchell deficit. “Things like that aren’t very big in terms of cutting the budget, and they typically just make college more expensive for the students who do receive federal aid,” he said. “I understand Obama’s desire to look like he’s trying to do something, but I think the bet-
ter thing to do would be to address social security and health care funding,” Mitchell said. Pell grant funding takes up 0.58 percent of the entire U.S. budget. “You can’t get the budget under control by eliminating discretionary spending,” Mitchell said. “The extra money from the second grant can help people afford to take more classes, especially during the summer. If people get their degree faster and are out on the job market faster, they’ll hopefully be earning more money and paying more taxes.” Mitchell said the government is doing a little bit of something right now, so it looks like the country is saving money. “It will only lead to an even bigger problem down the road though,” he said, “and it’s coming way faster than you think. Bigger financial problems aren’t 30 years away anymore. It’s more like 10 to 15 if we’re lucky.” The federal Pell grant program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain post-baccalaureate students to promote access to post-secondary education. Students must be enrolled at least half-time and in a program that leads to an associate or bachelor’s degree or certificate, according to the FAFSA website. See PELL page 2
Matt Kile/THE STANDARD
KSMU senior news producer Jennifer Moore edits a story for NPR.
KSMU, OPT face the chopping block By Megan Gates The Standard
In discussions about how to solve the current economic crisis, the Republican members of the House of Representatives have proposed eliminating up to $430 million in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For those not familiar with the CPB, it provides money to Public Broadcasting Services and National Public Radio, both of which have outposts on Missouri State’s campus in the form of Ozarks Public Television and KSMU. Rachel Ferguson, assistant manager of OPT and KSMU, said the services provided by these stations reach about 132,000 households and most of the southwest Missouri area. “Our radio station covers mainly southwest Missouri,” she said. “On the television side, we have transmitters in the Fordland area that covers the Springfield area and a repeater station in Joplin that reaches a bit into Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas. But we mainly focus on southwest Missouri reaching 132,000 households and 50,000 children weekly with our children’s programs.” Ferguson said while they receive fed-
eral funding, they are not solely dependent on it for their stations. “We have a variety of funding sources,” she said. “The federal government is one of them, but we also get funding from our listeners, our viewers, through underwriting and through other miscellaneous sources through production projects.” However, they receive approximately 25 percent of their funding from the federal government. If that were to be eliminated, it could become difficult to maintain their quality of coverage, Ferguson said. “If they just stopped funding us all together, that would be a real game changer,” she said. “We would really have to look closely at what we do and the services we provide. It would be very, very difficult for us to provide the same level of service that we do now.” Ferguson said they are still waiting for Congress to make a decision about funding before making any future decisions about OPT and KSMU. “It’s kind of early in the game,” she said. “We’ve gotten some relatively bad news as it sounds like the House of Rep See CPB page 7