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Lane appreciates Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Steckenrider named SEC Player of Week

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

PAGE 6 T H E

Issue 29

E D I T O R I A L L Y

http://utdailybeacon.com

Vol. 119

I N D E P E N D E N T

PUBLISHED SINCE 1906

S T U D E N T

N E W S P A P E R

O F

T H E

U N I V E R S I T Y

PAGE 5 O F

T E N N E S S E E

UT gives grant to entrepreneur Wesley Mills Staff Writer Jake Baron was walking back from class one day, and his shoulders were really bothering him. It seemed that this blob of weight on his back was the problem. Not too long after, Baron ran into a couple that lived in his apartment complex. They had just come back from a jog, but they did not carry their keys and needed someone to let them in. “I was wondering why someone hasn’t made a real comfortable backpack or backpack that did more than just put weight on your shoulders,” Baron said. “And then I started thinking about that, as well as why can’t people run with anything.” So it began. Over the next several months, Baron used these two instances to launch him into this winning idea of Casenova, his new and unique backpack. Once Baron found out that UT offers grants every semester for student-owned businesses, he really Studbegan to work. Tom Graves, a friend of Baron, is the operations director for Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He says that these bi-yearly grants given by UT can really aid students in their quests for entrepreneurships. “We reach out across campus for any student who has a business to make an application for the grant,” Graves said. “Typically we get around nine to 12 student-owned companies that will pitch for grant money. The intention is to provide seed money for startups.” During class, Baron would draw sketches of various ideas that he had for this new backpack. He made paper cutouts and paper models. After many wads of paper and ideas twirled around, Baron finally decided on neoprene as the material, which is best known for its use in wetsuits and koozies.

“Most backpacks have very thin straps and are very uncomfortable,” Baron said. “This one has a mesh, so it’s not hot and sweaty against your back. The other thing is that it’s tight. It’s snug against your body so when you’re wearing it it’s not bouncing around, rubbing against you.” “I see all these students with backpacks, and I said, you know, if you’ve got a novel idea for a backpack, you may be able to get some real traction,” Graves said. Baron had been in competitions before his final pitch for the $12,500 grant, but the idea was no shoo-in. Baron won first place in a 2010 competition, and then went on to compete in Vol Court, which is run through the university research foundation. “I actually ran from graduation in my gown to give this pitch,” Baron said. “Later that day I received a call from Tom Graves, and he told me that I had won the competition, and within a week he told me that I had won this grant.” The grant is from the Boyd Venture Fund. Randy Boyd, who started up the fund, set up an endowment with the business school, which is administered by the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Baron has already received $7,500 of his grant, and $5,000 of that has already been allotted for placing the order to the manufacturer in China, where he will be receiving his single-strap knapsacks from. Graves, who met Baron as a rising junior, said that Baron is the exemplary applicant of the grant. “He actually met the criteria of the grant,” Graves said. “Is the business scalable? It clearly is. Does he have a set of identified milestones that he intends to achieve with the money he will be awarded? He does. And is there real growth potential for his business? And there is.” Apparently, the sprint from graduation to the pitch platform paid off.

• Photo courtesy of tntoday.com

Jake Baron is presented a $12,500 grant from Randy Boyd, CEO of Radio Systems Corp, on Feb. 6. Baron was given the grant for development of his Casenova line of ergonomic backpacks.

Online photos worry students Caroline Snapp Staff Writer

Taylor Gautier • The Daily Beacon

Brooke Johnson, junior in child and family studies, Aeriel Baptista, senior in special education, and Frances Ferree, senior in psychology, visit with Paul, an oncology patient at the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital (ETCH), on Feb. 8. Dance Marathon, UT’s largest student-run philanthropy, raises awareness and money for the ETCH and provides community outreach through volunteer efforts.

Snowstorm paralyzes South The Associated Press RICHMOND, Va. — A winter storm that dumped several inches of snow across parts of the South, causing power outages, slippery roads and numerous accidents during the Presidents Day holiday weekend, moved out to sea Monday. Crews were working to restore power to tens of thousands of households that lost electricity as a result of the storm. The storm brought as much as 9 inches of snow to some areas on Sunday as it powered its way from Kentucky and Tennessee to West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. The storm system was expected to push off the coast early

Monday, with the nation’s capital getting only snow flurries, according to the National Weather Service. The storm hit toward the end of what has been an otherwise mild winter in the region. In northern Tennessee, about 20 vehicles were involved in crashes along a threemile stretch of Interstate 75 near the Kentucky border on Sunday afternoon. Tennessee Highway Patrol Sgt. Stacy Heatherly said the crashes were reported shortly before 2 p.m. in near “white-out” conditions caused by heavy snowfall and fog. Police said a youth was seriously injured. All lanes of Interstate 75 had reopened by early evening. Dozens of wrecks were also reported in North Carolina as snow, sleet and rain fell

with little accumulation, according to The Winston-Salem Journal. In Virginia, the northbound lanes of Interstate 95 were shut down following a two-vehicle crash that critically injured one man, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. The accident was reported at about 6:20 p.m. on I-95 near the interchange with Interstate 295 in Prince George County. The male driver of one vehicle suffered life-threatening injuries, and an adult male passenger in the same vehicle also was hospitalized. Snow began sticking in the Richmond area after dark, and Virginia State Police had responded to about 700 crashes as of 10 p.m. See SNOWSTORM on Page 3

According to a recent CNN article, even three years after pictures are deleted on Facebook, they are still accessible via a direct link. This raises questions about the security of Facebook and whether users’ privacy could be jeopardized. For college students, this also could pose the risk of future employers finding pictures or comments that could damage their reputation. Freshman John Delaney sees the harm in Facebook pictures not being taken down after being deleted. “If there’s a picture of when you were a freshman and you’re at a frat house and really drunk,” Delaney said, “even when you delete it, it could still pop up after your out of school and you’re trying to get a job, that could definitely be a problem.” Although Delaney himself has never experienced a problem from something posted on Facebook, he recalls a time in high school when another student got in trouble from something he posted. “There was a case at my high school where there was a kid who posted something on Facebook and he ended up getting expelled from school because the school saw it,” Delaney said. Stephanie Kit, associate director of Career Services at UT, warns that employers often check job candidates’ Facebook profiles and that it could pose a real problem when students are applying for jobs. “Basically you just really have to use common sense when you’re putting pictures and comments out there,” Kit said. “We do know that employers are checking Facebook profiles, so there’s lots of instances where they look up candidates, or they

might go out and have other employees who are already on board do the searching, so it could even be that someone you know could be looking at your profile.” Kit warns that pictures can be very dangerous, and she suggests that students be careful about what they posted on their Facebook as early as freshman year. “You need to be careful of pictures that just don’t put you in the most professional light,” Kit said. “If you’re partying or if you’re drinking or anything illegal or even potentially what your wearing or how you look, really anything that could put you in a negative light.” Even pictures that are put up by a friend could hurt one’s chances for landing a dream job. “You also find that friends take pictures of you and tag you, so those could possibly be floating around, even if it wasn’t anything of your doing necessarily,” Kit said. Kit added that social media is not all bad when it comes to job searching. She said some forms of social media could be beneficial for job hunting, such as a blog showcasing someone’s writing ability or a website that demonstrates technically ability. “LinkedIn is another social media that is being pushed for college students to get on it. It can be a great tool for job hunting because you can connect with groups such as alumni groups or other affiliations, and you can see how you connect, so it’s a great networking tool,” Kit said. When asked what the best thing to do to keep Facebook secure is, Kit said that adjusting the privacy settings as high as possible is best. “I also recommend people are smart about their privacy,” Kit said. “It’s best to make your profile as private as possible.”


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