The Oracle MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015 I VOL. 52 NO. 119
Inside this Issue
A S S T .
Discounts make being a student worth the money. Page 4
Montage
S PORTS USF men’s golf dominates the green in NCAA Regional. BACK
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
Entrepreneurs expand future of business By Russell Nay
LI F E STYLE
www.usforacle.com
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Entrepreneurship has always been a strong value in the U.S., one that lends itself to innovation and pushes for new businesses. This innovation in business is invaluable to emerging markets and inventions, such as the growing popularity of 3-D printing. “I think 3-D printing will be like microwaves — there’s going to be one in every house,” said Derek Redmon, a growing entrepreneur and USF alumnus. Last week, President Barack Obama delivered a call to action urging the increased support of entrepreneurship in the U.S. and around the world. He focused on empowering women and youth entre-
preneurs in his administration’s global entrepreneurship programs and elected nine new members to the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship — a group of business leaders committed to helping entrepreneurs in the U.S. through donations and mentorship. “At a time when the world is more interconnected than ever, we’ve got unprecedented opportunities to help more people access capital, resources, networks,” he said. “Entrepreneurship breaks down barriers between cultures, between faiths at a time when we need more than ever the capacity to understand and work across borders.” Entrepreneurship is also a valued force at USF, one which was showcased last month when the USF Entrepreneurship Center
hosted the seventh annual Fintech Business Plan Competition in the Muma College of Business. The competition allowed student startup companies to present their business ideas to prominent leaders in business, like Fred Steube, senior director of emerging technology at Cox Target Media, and Manuel Aguilar, a business banking executive at Regions Financial. The men judged which start-up had the best business plan and which company would be worthy of the $15,000 grand prize. Of the 50 initial applicants and seven finalists, student startup Visualflo ended up taking first place. “It’s been a huge opportunity,” said Redmon, co-founder of Visualflo. “(Visualflo) got introduced to the whole Fintech competition on a whim. We saw the
poster (for the competition) one day … and said, ‘Hey this is going to be good practice for us; we can figure out how to pitch to people’… As we went through the process, we realized we had a pretty good shot.” Not only did the competition allow Visualflo a chance at $15,000, but it also created new connections for the student startup in the form of an additional competition. After winning the Fintech Bussiness Plan Competition, the founders of the winning company were entered into Florida Venture Forum’s eighth annual Early Stage Conference, which took place May 14. Florida Venture Forum is a statewide organization which helps entrepreneurs obtain funding for their startups, as well as develop
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Sigma Kappa new sorority on the block By Christopher Collier A S S T .
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The USF sorority community will have a baby sister to add to its family come the fall. In April, the USF Panhellenic
board voted to adopt Sigma Kappa as its newest member on campus. Founded Nov. 9, 1874 at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, Sigma Kappa is like many sororities on campus. The sisters value friendship,
personal growth, service and loyalty. “It’s not that they were different, it’s more that they actually meshed with the type of community we already have,” said Victoria Hetman, USF senior Panhellenic executive
board member and vice president of recruitment. Last fall, the USF Panhellenic board voted to open for extension. Extension is the process by which a sorority or fraternity joins a university. In other words, USF was inviting a new sorority to campus. After researching the student life at USF and how the university views Greek life, Sigma Kappa decided to make a bid. The national director of extension at Sigma Kappa, Melinda Mettler, explained how the sorority was considered. “We actually made a trip to campus and we really realized that USF was a good fit for Sigma Kappa,” Mettler said. “Any sorority that is interested has to submit a packet of materials, so we submitted a packet of materials to USF’s Panhellenic community.” From the different packets of materials received, only three sororities were chosen as finalists to come to USF in
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USF College of Nursing ranked No. 1 By Grace Hoyte N E W S
E D I T O R
For those veterans hoping to go into nursing, USF Health’s College of Nursing was recently ranked No. 1 for veteran-friendliness. According to online news publication Military Times, the ranking was based on several metrics, including size of veteran population and affordability. Commitment to veteran-related programs was also taken into consideration in the process. USF was noted as offering “a special nursing degree for veterans who have trained as medics.” Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Interprofessional Initiatives
Rita D’Aoust leads the program, V-CARE. In addition to V-CARE, USF was lauded for being a veteran-friendly college for receiving a bachelor’s in nursing. The college also has a research initiative, the Accelerated Resolution Therapy, which was designed to investigate a method to treat service members and veterans who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. Additionally, the college recently implemented another initiative called the Research and Education to Rehabilitate and Restore the Lives of Veterans, known as RESTORE LIVES, which serves to increase partnership across the many military-focused ventures.
Two floors of Library closed during summer
By Christopher Collier A S S T .
N E W S
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Two floors of the USF Library will be closed this summer for general maintenance involving upgrades of the fire sprinkler system. The fourth floor will be closed from May 1 to June 30 while the installation is completed and finalized. The fifth floor will be closed from July 1 to Aug. 20. Library materials
will be available through the Library website, by calling the Library or making a request at the front desk. The materials that are authorized to be checked out of the floors are limited to currently circulating books and media and USF faculty will need to use the PRONTO service in order to receive the materials in their campus mailbox. For more information, visit lib.usf.edu or call (813) 9741611.
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their business networks and attract investors. According to the organization, the Early Stage Conference has helped early-stage companies obtain over $34 million since its start. Companies at the conference present their business ideas to investors, who offer winning companies investment options. “There were companies (at the conference) who were established, and then there were a bunch of student companies,” Redmon said. “We were representing USF as a student company, and there were other companies from UCF, FSU, UF — all the state schools, private or public. So we were representing USF as what student companies have to offer …Unfortunately we didn’t win, but … it was a really good way to meet people to figure out what companies need to do to raise money.” Visualflo LLC, which became a company in 2014, is a 3-D medical printing company which creates physical models of diagnostic scans. These models provide medical physicians with a physical representation of a patient’s body part, be it a bone or an organ, which they can hold in their hands instead of view on a screen and use to more accurately diagnose a patient. Redmon said these models are also used to improve pre-surgical planning and allow physicians a
way to physically show a patient what is wrong with a part of their body and what a surgery would do to remedy it. “I think 3-D medical modeling is going to become a pretty big piece of the health care industry, specifically surgery,” Redmon said. “We want to provide that to as many doctors as we can… (and) having a patient-specific … to-scale model — you can’t put a price on that.” According to Redmon, the idea for the company formed when he met another of Visualflo’s co-founders, Andres Cabezas, two years ago at the Foundation for Orthopaedic Research and Education (FORE) in the Florida Orthopedics Institute. At the time, Cabezas was a biomechanics researcher at FORE, and Redmon took an internship there. Redmon said the two worked on creating 3-D models of shoulders from CT scans, which helped doctors there develop better pre-surgical planning. However, he said the lab they worked at never printed out the models — something Cabezas and Redmon, who have backgrounds in engineering and biomechanics, wanted to explore further once the two left the institute. “Andy had been thinking about it for probably five years at that point, but we had never started a company,” Redmon said. “Andy and I moved in together, and late December we said … ‘Let’s start a company.’ … We got a friend who could do the 3-D printing, and we
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said, ‘Let’s just put all the pieces together and see what happens.’” While Visualflo experienced an easier time establishing itself compared to other startups because of the short time it took to find an initial client, Redmon said creating a business from scratch and being a successful entrepreneur was no easy task. He said it mainly takes a good idea, a skilled team and a lot of funding and business connections, as well as working long hours and having belief in the idea behind one’s business. “Being able to provide a product and a service is probably one of the biggest things for any startup,” Redmon said. “We were very lucky because we already had the skills and just had to put them together and start providing the service. We (became a company), and two weeks later we were sending models out. For us, it was really easy.” Redmon said Visualflo will become a part of USF’s Student Innovation Incubator in the fall, which is a partnership between the USF Center for Entrepreneurship and USF Connect aimed at helping develop student startups. He also said Visualflo is looking to become a larger part of USF at the incubator and may even hire USF students. “We’re talking with (the incubator) and having them purchase a 3-D printer … as well as maybe hiring part-time or full-time engineering students,” Redmon said. “... I think it’ll be important to spread 3-D printing as well as medical modeling.”
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order to give a presentation before the final decision was made. “We gave a presentation in March and then we were notified shortly after that the Panhellenic community had selected us, so we are very excited to be the chosen group,” Mettler said. Sigma Kappa has over 152,000 members across 116 collegiate and 120 alum-
ni chapters. The number of chapters is expected to increase as schools accept the sorority into their Greek life communities. There are nine sororities currently sitting on the Panhellenic Council, per the website for the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. What sets Sigma Kappa apart, Mettler said, is its commitment to philanthropic pursuits in Alzheimer’s disease research. In 2014, the sorority raised $444,000 during the national Walk to End Alzheimer’s. Since 1984,
Sigma Kappa has raised over $2 million toward research for Alzheimer’s. “We love chapters that are passionate about their philanthropies,” Hetman said. “I don’t know if I would say that’s what determined (getting accepted) or not, but that’s definitely always a pro to see another chapter that’s as passionate about their philanthropies as our chapters are.” According to Mettler, the future of Sigma Kappa on campus will involve recruitment and outreach with the
USF community. “Starting in the fall, we will actually have staff members — they’re called leadership consultants — they will move to Tampa and they will live there for the entire academic year,” she said. These paid consultants will be instrumental in getting the word out about Sigma Kappa and are intended to bring a presence to the university in which they are stationed. They are chosen from recent Sigma Kappa graduates, among whom one will be assigned to USF.
Sara Chacon, national vice president for extension at Sigma Kappa, said joining a sorority as a founding member of a chapter gives an individual a certain level of influence over the path a sorority. “You are getting in at the ground level of developing a new chapter, bringing together women who come from probably different backgrounds and experiences but who are all going to share similar core values, which are our sorority’s values,” Chacon said.
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Lifestyle UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
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A thrifty Bull’s guide to a day on the town By Grace Hoyte C O M M E N T A R Y
There is nothing fun about being stuck on campus or in the dorm because funds are low and everything entertaining is expensive. But being a USF student may be just enough to bring entertainment and good food into your price range. For just the flash of a USF ID, many local stores and restaurants offer discounts, many of which go beyond free fries at McDonald. Beginning the day: An early morning Bull would be glad to hear that Village Inn Pancake House and Denny’s offer a 10 percent discount with ID. For those who like coffee first thing, Dunkin’
Donuts and Sacred Grounds coffee house both offer 10 percent off, with Dunkin’ also giving out a free donut for the purchase of a medium coffee. Morning fun: With breakfast checked off the to-do list, the morning is looking productive already, and a few places around the university offer discounts for shopping and services. Girls (and confident guys) might consider treating themselves to a mani-pedi at Nail Trap, where students can get 10 percent off a service total of $35. If your to-do list doesn’t allow for a lot of self-pampering, you might consider stopping by MIT Computers. Here students get 10 percent off labor costs, and a working computer will definitely be handy when it’s time to take
that last class online or type up that term paper. For the cosmetically minded, Attitude Plus Barber and Beauty gives Bulls $10 haircuts. For some great all-day fun, Busch Gardens offers USF students $50 all-year passes with blackout dates. One trip will more than pay for the ticket, as one-day tickets for nonstudents is 1.5 times as much. The discount is also perfect if a whole group of dormmates want to spend the day riding rollercoasters and going back through the food line with one all-day-eat pass. Mid-day food: When lunch time rolls around, the last thing most students want to do is fork over a ton of cash for a child’s size helping of food off campus. Instead, try CDB’s Pizza,
where students get 15 percent off. Alternatively, for the fastfood loving health enthusiast, EVOS provides a 12 percent discount. Afternoon: Matinees are a great way to spend the afternoon, and AMC Theaters sell $7 tickets on Thursdays as well as discount student tickets all year round, with ID. If hitting the waves is your thing, stop by Fly-b-High Wave Runners, Inc. for 15 percent off equipment rentals, just don’t forget the sunscreen. But for those with other priorities, Mega Express Lube offers a full service oil change for $19.95 and Dianes Hi Glow Paint Body Shop will take 10 percent off services, just for being a Bull.
Evening fare: As the night progresses, one’s stomach may begin to growl, but have no fear. Spaghetti Warehouse boasts 15 percent off for USF students, and who doesn’t love some pasta? Or if you’re in the mood for Japanese cuisine, Sake House gives 10 percent off to Bulls with valid ID. Nighttime entertainment: Anyone could spend the evening in Ybor or sitting in the dorm doing homework, but the smart Bull will head over to Side Splitters Comedy Club with a friend to take advantage of the USF 2-for-1 discount. You Do the Dishes also boasts a USF discount, offering students an $8 rate Thursday nights from 7 p.m. until 10.
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA
the Oracle the University of South Florida’s student newspaper since 1966
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PRO
CON
Facebook’s Instant Articles is the next step in news
Don’t let Facebook become the hub for news
Editor in Chief Alex Rosenthal oracleeditor@gmail.com
News Editor
Adam Mathieu
Isabelle Cavazos
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COLU M N I ST
Grace Hoyte oraclenewsteam@gmail.com
Sports Editor Vinnie Portell oraclesportseditor@gmail.com
Opinion Editor Isabelle Cavazos oracleopinion@gmail.com
Multimedia Editor Adam Mathieu
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Graphic Artist Ashley Barzaga
Advertising Sales Lauren Alford Rachel Carpenter Abby Periera
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Facebook, the juggernaut of social media, is now going to funnel news articles to the 1.4 billion friends of Mark Zuckerberg. The plan, according to the Los Angeles Times, is to have outlets such as the New York Times, NBC News and the Guardian publish stories and videos on Facebook’s new iPhone app with an extension aptly titled Instant Articles. While it’s easy to scoff at the idea of having to get news from a Facebook feed, in an age of binge-watching from streaming sites and dating apps in which pictures are swiped for approval, this move is very appropriate. Instant Articles has the potential to be more informative to users than Facebook’s current attempt at keeping users in the loop, as the trending links that show up on the side of the website’s home page often focus more on celebrity news. Having a Facebook feed that can insert actual news articles in between what friends are doing is a step forward to ensuring that something useful can emerge from social media. A selling point on the app is the technology behind it, which allows for articles and videos to load instantly, reduces the chance of someone giving up on reading due to a pesky loading icon. While Instant Articles may be counter-intuitive to saving printed news, computers and smartphones have become everyday items, and news outlets having an online presence
is crucial to staying relevant. In an L.A. Times interview, Chief Executive of New York Times Co. Mark Thompson said he believes Instant Articles is a way to boost the number of Times readers and get more people engaged in the news. To face the reality of the Internet, most news outlets already have Facebook pages and Twitter handles that allow users to see breaking news, get links to read up on the news or watch videos that condense stories. Instant Articles is simply the next step in getting news to those who may not make the time to actually read up on current events and need to have them injected into their social media feeds. Knowing the option to fill a feed with news outlets currently exists, Facebook sought to create an expedited version of giving users a pool of stories to keep them well read. After all, Facebook has to compete with an Internet landscape with features such as Bing News, which snatches top stories from various outlets, and sites such as Reddit, which is composed of links to stories ranging from politics to entertainment. While Instant Articles is currently only available on the latest iPhone app, hopefully it will not be long before it trickles down to those not in the Apple loop. Until then, the remaining Facebook users will have to stick with what they “like.” Adam Mathieu is a senior majoring in studio art.
Facebook lets people share their most intimate details online, engage in a comments war and like their grandma’s new profile picture all at the same time. Now, users can use it to get the news faster than ever. As reported in the Los Angeles Times last Wednesday, Facebook unveiled its new iPhone app Instant Articles, a feature that allows news outlets such as the New York Times, National Geographic and BBC News to display full content on the social media site. In a deal that lets Facebook and publishers share ad revenue, this partnership marks a new age for accessibility to news. While this seems like an expected merge to help boost these outlets’ audiences and provide easily accessible news to Facebook’s 1.4 billion users, blending social media and news hands the power to inform the general public to Facebook. As the L.A. Times pointed out, Facebook has the ability to offer the right ads to users based on their profiles and can target news content based on this information. Though this looks like a plus, it is actually threatening to users. If Facebook spoon-feeds news to its users, anyone using the app wouldn’t have the responsibility to actively seek it. Publishers aren’t at the whim of Facebook when it comes to articles they choose to share through Instant Articles, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Facebook won’t use its catering powers. That’s not to say outlets will begin to alter their content to
make it more appealing to the Facebook audience, as one L.A. Times column suggested, but it is safe to assume that users will trust Facebook to give them the news out of convenience. The question then becomes what will happen when users turn away from the news outlets they rely on — and that Facebook provides access to — when readers get news for free. The app also includes Buzzfeed, Bild, the Guardian, Spiegel Online, the Atlantic and NBC News. The deal outlets currently have with Facebook is that they receive revenue from all ads they sell that appear with their content, as reported in the L.A. Times. Facebook will get to split the revenue from ads it sells with the news outlets. The common worry accompanying this is that Facebook could eventually change these terms, cutting a larger piece of the ad revenue for itself. This merge is a financial concern as much as it is one of news exposure. Yet, exposure is key for the media. As the L.A. Times pointed out, users also spend more time on Facebook than on leading news outlets. While Instant Articles will get more people reading, it will also take that readership away from the outlets, along with the incentive for readers to expose themselves to news on their own. Before Facebook users hop on the Instant Articles bandwagon, they should give a critical eye to the control it gives to Facebook. Isabelle Cavazos is a senior majoring in English and Spanish.
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Notebook
Bulls finish first in NCAA Regional By Vinnie Portell S P O R T S
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The USF men’s golf team gained a unique home-course advantage when the Bulls advanced to the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship after blowing away the field with a first-place 14 under finish in the NCAA New Haven Regional. USF led second-place San Diego State (E) by 14 strokes when play concluded at the The Course at Yale (par-70, 6,803 yards) on Saturday and it will get the chance to compete for a national championship at a more familiar course. The Bulls will host the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida, a course they have consistently practiced throughout the season. Leading into the 30-team tournament, which takes place May 29 - June 3, USF’s five-man team is clicking on all cylinders, as they all finished in the top-25 players in the NCAA New Haven Regional. Claudio Correa, the AAC Freshman of the Year, led USF over the weekend as the freshman finished in a tie for fifth at 3-under par. He shot 67 in back-to-back rounds to finish off the weekend. Despite holding a first-place lead heading into the final round,
sophomore Rigel Fernandes shot a 73 on the final day to fall to a tie for 11th. Williams selected to represent USA basketball Courtney Williams was selected as one of 12 players to represent Team USA in the 2015 World University Games, which will take place July 4-13 in Gwangju, South Korea. Fifty-one athletes, including USF forward Alisia Jenkins tried out for the team, which will begin its quest for a gold medal when training camp begins in Colorado Springs on June 18. The World University Games are held every other year and are open to full-time college students between 17 and 24 years old. The USA women’s team has won nine gold medals since first competing in 1973 and went 6-0 on its way to a gold-medal finish in 2013. Led by Northwestern coach Joe McKeown, who has over 600 career wins, the 2015 USA women’s team will first play Italy on July 5. Bulls earn conference honors Despite finishing seventh out of eight teams in the AAC, the USF men’s track and field team had two members recognized for their
Chase Koepka was one of five Bulls to place in the top 25 as he finished in 16th at 1-over. PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE
efforts in the conference championships Saturday. Senior Kevin Bell came four inches short of becoming the conference champion, but settles for second out of 12 long jumpers. His jump of 24 feet, 1.75 inches on his sixth and final attempt was enough to earn him second-team all conference honors. Junior Michael Babinec took third in the 3,000m steeplechase for the second-consecutive season with a personal-best time of 9:10.84. Babinec, who also earned thirdteam all conference honors, was
just over six seconds shy of the winner, but finished only 0.63 seconds shy of second. Track and field results Junior Dwight Davis was the second and final Bull to earn second-team all conference honors when he narrowly lost the 400m dash to Chinedu Amonu, who beat Davis by one hundredth of a second. He also finished second in the 4 x 100m relay, sixth in the 200m final and fifth in 4 x 400m relay. “It was an experience,” Davis said in a statement. “Coming here from Alabama, I wasn’t ‘the guy.’
There is some really good competition out here. I just came out here and gave my team my all. Every time I compete, it’s more than me, it’s the logo on my shirt.” Anderson Charles’ third-place finish in the 800m run earned him third-team all conference honors. The junior’s time of 1:50.89 was 0.63 seconds shy of first place. Charles was leading the pack until the final 100m, when he was passed by the two top runners. Paul Barrett’s time of 51.79 seconds in the 400m hurdles also earned him third-team all conference recognition.
Baseball
USF clinches final home series over UCF By Tiana Aument C O R R E S P O N D E N T
Buddy Putnam lunged off first base and pumped his fist in the air. Surely, the adrenaline could be felt by the 1,311 spectators at the USF Baseball Stadium after he completed Saturday’s bases-loaded, gameending double play. Putnam’s reaction only hints to how much more sweet than bitter Senior Day was for the Bulls. Six seniors, including Putnam, played their final game on campus Saturday, and their farewell was sweetened after clinching the series over rival UCF. “To explain a rivalry, it’s that
extra hump at the end of the year,” senior pitcher Casey Mulholland said. “The season matters a lot and so does the conference, but beating these guys gives us an extra edge going into the postseason.” With the 5-4 victory, the Bulls (32-22-1, 13-11) are seeded fourth heading into the AAC tournament. The Knights (31-25, 10-14) are seeded seventh of eight teams. Not only did the Bulls beat their rivals, but they beat them after an embarrassing Game 1 loss. Thursday was just one of those days for the Bulls. Roughly thirty minutes before game time, USF announced coach Mark Kingston had been suspend-
ed five games following a postgame ejection after a 4-3 loss at Tulane on May 10. As a result, Kingston was absent for the entire USF-UCF series, and he will miss the first two games of the AAC Championship. When Thursday’s game started, it didn’t take long for the Knights to take an unrelenting lead. USF ace Jimmy Herget surrendered two two-out, two-run homers in the first inning. The Bulls had to sit with that for 107 minutes, while they waited out a lightning delay. When the action resumed, the Knights went on to take a 12-4 lead. The Bulls scored five runs in
the ninth, but their rally came up short. Fortunately for the Bulls, the game was not indicative of the rest of the series. The Bulls rebounded and won Game 2, 7-3, after a five-run seventh inning. The seniors shined in Saturday’s finale. Kyle Teaf drove in two and scored two, Zac Gilcrease also scored a pair of runs and Putnam completed the game-ending double play, which secured the win for Mulholland. “You can’t say enough about those guys,” assistant coach Mike Current said. “They’ve been big for us all year at different times.
Wouldn’t expect anything less, but it was an all-around great team effort.” Redshirt sophomore Tommy Peterson, who was named to the Stopper of the Year Watch List, picked up his conference-leading 15th save. “We really needed to get a good series win for a lot of reasons, and we did,” Current said. “So hopefully, this will carry us into next week, and we’ll have a good showing in Clearwater.” USF faces fifth-seeded Memphis at 3 p.m. on Tuesday at Bright House Field in the first game of the AAC Championship.