WKU STUDENT PRESENTS DESERTIFICATION RESEARCH IN CHINA LIFE, PAGE B1
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TTHURSDAY, HURSDAY, AAPRIL PRIL 114, 4, 22016 016 > W WESTERN ESTERN KKENTUCKY ENTUCKY UUNIVERSITY NIVERSITY > VVOLUME OLUME 990, 0, IISSUE SSUE 2211
Higbee to plead not guilty BY JACOB DICK HERALD.NEWS@WKU.EDU After an altercation Sunday that left a WKU student hospitalized, Tyler Higbee’s lawyer said the former WKU football player will plead not guilty to charges he faces. Higbee, a WKU senior, was charged with second-degree assault, seconddegree evading police and public intoxication on Sunday morning after allegedly assaulting Nawaf Alsaleh and causing a brain hemorrhage. Attorney Brian Lowder of the Bowling Green law office of Lowder & McGill said in an interview Tuesday that Higbee’s actions were in response to a perceived threat. “This is a case of justified use of force; reasonable force, under the circumstances, based on the physical force used against him and his girlfriend,” Lowder said. “You don’t have to wait until someone hits you to utilize force against them. Mr. Alsaleh made physical contact with [Higbee], shoved his girlfriend and was shouting at him.” Alsaleh, an international student and sophomore at WKU, was in neural critical care at Tristar Skyline Medical Center in Nashville Wednesday afternoon. An attendant at Skyline said she could not release Alsaleh’s condition because of medical privacy laws. Alsaleh was unresponsive after the altercation outside Tidball’s music club on Morris Alley early Sunday morning and was initially taken to The
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Attorney general sues governor over budget BY EMMA COLLINS HERALD.NEWS@WKU.EDU Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear has followed up on his threat to sue Gov. Matt Bevin over the governor’s executive order, which immediately cut university funding by 4.5 percent. On Monday, Beshear announced that he had filed a suit against Bevin in the Franklin County Circuit Court. He also filed a motion seeking to expedite the process so university funds can be returned to the schools as quickly as possible. Bevin passed his order on April 1, and Beshear gave the governor seven days to retract the order before filing a lawsuit against Bevin. “I do not take any joy or satisfaction out of this action. Over the last seven days, it was my hope the governor would listen to reason, comply with the law and rescind his order,” Beshear said. “He did not.” The announcement came after another unsuccessful day of budget negotiations when, yet again, lawmakers failed to reach a compromise. In an effort to prevent the legislative session from ending without a budget, both the House and the Senate agreed to change the final day of the session from April 12 to April 15.
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Paducah sophomore Maddison Beyer, third from left, admires Louisville sophomore Jonathon Blair's slicing skills while Burkesville junior Kurtis Spears, bottom left, dices lettuce for tacos for the $100 Solution House's open house on Wednesday, April 13. JUSTIN GILLILAND/HERALD
home on the hill
Students work to help community on small budget BY DUSTIN SKIPWORTH HERALD.NEWS@WKU.EDU One campus group is working to make it easier for students to find a home on campus while simultaneously working to make a difference in the community. The $100 Solution House and its residents are trying to share their unique home with the greater WKU community. Burkesville junior Kurtis Spears has lived in the house for two years. “We want this house to be a place where the community feels welcome,” Spears said. “We want the community to be comfortable with using us as a resource if they need to.” The house is co-sponsored by the Alive Center in Bowling Green, Housing and Residence Life and the $100 Solution organization. The $100 Solution project challenges community members to
make a difference using exactly $100. Residents of the house are required to work together to carry out at least two service-learning projects per semester. This week, the group of five students are planning their open house along with a meal. Both the meal and the open house took place on Wednesday. Karina Bruce, a Louisville junior who lives in the house, hopes the event helps spread awareness about their services. “One of the reasons for the open house is so we can get out there, and people can see what we do and how we live here,” Bruce said. The group has focused on the issue of hunger by working with the Office of Sustainability to assist with food distribution to students in need. The inspiration for incorporating a meal with the open house goes all the way back to Thanksgiving, when the residents decided to serve dinner to in-
ternational students who might not be able to make it home. “We thought, ‘Why not have this huge dinner?’” Bruce said. “We looked back and evaluated that and thought, 'Why stop there?'” The founder and chief advisor of the $100 Solution House, Bernie Strenecky, said the house's goal can be put simply: work to make WKU and Bowling Green better places to live. “If indeed you are fortunate enough to be able to attend a university, we have a moral responsibility to give back,” Strenecky said. “It’s not an option; it’s a responsibility.” Strenecky founded the $100 Solution House with the knowledge that not all social issues have to be solved with millions of dollars. That’s the kind of thinking the house's residents hope to carry forward with their service-learning projects.
Engineering students take first place in competition BY DUSTIN SKIPWORTH HERALD.NEWS@WKU.EDU A group of WKU civil engineering students won first place in the American Society of Civil Engineers Ohio Valley Student Conference’s concrete canoe and steel bridge competitions held on March 31 through April 2. Both groups’ efforts in the two competitions earned them a place in the ASCE’s national competition among student conference winners in June. Matthew Dettman has been the faculty advisor of the concrete canoe team for more than 20 years. To him, the entire process is about preparing students for real life engineering experiences. “I see this as an incredibly valuable teaching tool,” Dettman said. “It’s as close to a real life experience as you can get. It’s about building engineers, not concrete canoes.” The final score in the canoe competition isn’t based solely on the vessel’s ability to float. There are several factors, including a paper and oral pre-
WKU’s concrete canoe team poses for a team picture after competing at their regional competition on Friday, April 1. The team finished first for the second year in a row. PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID MILLER sentation detailing the design of the canoe, a cross section of the canoe to allow for judging of the concrete and a
race of the canoe. Senior co-captain Kayla Frye of Nancy
SEE CONCRETE CANOE PAGE A2