FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2001 California University students use real-world work to learn of agriculture by Leslie E. Stevens January 22, 2001 Knight-Ridder Newspapers There's nothing like a little real world experience to teach the connec tion between agriculture and making money Whether breeding cattle, producing cheese, raising flowers or making jam, Cal Poly's agricultural students are learning the realities of risk and re ward through their enterprise projects. On Wednesday, agricultural science senior Hilary Beck was out picking tangerines in a Cal Poly orchard with a dozen classmates. The tangerines are Beck's first enterprise project, and she hopes to use the experience in her fu ture ag teaching career. "It is a great experience to be re sponsible for actual produce going to market," Beck said. She said it would be nice to make money, but her big gest interest is gaining knowledge she can later share with her students. "We want to teach our students to earn and learn," said Virginia Walter, environmental horticultural sciences professor. Students in the horticultural departments have ample opportunities "It is fun to grow things, but ultimate!yyou have to sell something," to grow and market their plants through the on-campus Poly Plant Shop, community farmers markets and sales to retailers. According to Walter, enterprise projects are often the first exposure students have to the business side of farming. "It is fun to grow things, but ultimately you have to sell some thing," Walter said. "It is important students see the other side of the coin." Potted poinsettias for the Christmas holidays are the largest project under taken by the horticulture students. A recent graduate. Terry Leppo, and ag business junior Michele Kakaha were among those who participated. Ac cording to Leppo, students potted and sold inure than 3,000 plants and grossed about $20,000. For Kakaha, the project was a turning point. ''lt let me see what I like doing," she said. As a result, she has decided to focus on marketing and publicity rather than , S murders arop leifillt ampu_ sex offenses, robberies increase by Matthew McGuire January 22, 2001 TMS Campus The number of murders decreased on college campuses this year, how ever, the percentage of sex offenses, robberies and hate crimes increased despite downward national trends, according to a new crime report is sued by the U.S. Department of Edu cation. The report analyzes crime data re ported by 6,300 colleges and univer sities for 1997, 1998 and 1999. Of the crirn.es committed, only 19 percent occurred on campus, com pared to 73 percent that occurred on public property. Of the crimes that took place on campus, about one third were committed in residence halls. Even in categories where the per centage of crimes increased, the in cident level remained below national levels. For example, while the num ber of robberies increased on cam puses, the national rate was 150,2 robberies per 100,000 persons, com pared to 12 per 100,000 college stu dent& "This report gives us a national perspective on campus safety and serves as a benchmark for parents and students to compare security at individual colleges and universities," said outgoing U.S. Secretary of Edu- As of last June, the college had 430 students participate in 53 different ag ricultural enterprise projects, accord ing to Mark Shelton, associate dean of the College of Agriculture. With the exception of some dairy projects, the vast majority made a profit, he said. The dairy unit may be a special case, said Les Ferreira, head of dairy sci ence. He said with 180 cows, they lack economies of scale available to 1,000- herd operations, a size common to commercial dairies. Also because dair ies operation are no longer located in the county, he said they pay consider ably more to ship in feed and ship out milk for processing in the Central Val ley. One of the few criticisms aimed at the budding entrepreneurs is that...at times they are competing with local businesses. It is a charge the college takes seriously, Shelton said. "We are criticized every year at Farmers Mar ket," he said. "That is why we coun sel our students not to sell below mar ket." Walter also said the horticultural unit does not intentionally advertise beyond the campus -- do not want to compete with local florists," she said. In general, the volume students -Virginia Walter professor (t environmental horticultural sciences produce is too small to be a problem for local businesses, she said. Since 1943 enterprise projects have been part of the learning experience for students. In the College of Agri culture students can earn up to four units of nongraded academic credit for their projects. Students sign contracts with their departments spelling out what they plan to do and the number of hours involved. Projects can be done by a single student or groups of more than 30 for popular beef cattle, citrus and grape enterprises. The Cal Poly Foundation, a pri vately funded auxiliary organization that provides support services to the university, acts as the projects' banker and bookkeeper. It loans money, charges administra tion and finance expenses, and splits profits with the students and depart ments. Any losses are repaid to the foundation by the departments. cation Richard W. Riley. Colleges and universities have been required to record campus crime and distribute an annual security report to students and employees and prospec live students. However, it wasp' tin-.. til this year that schools were required to report the data to the U.S. Depart ment of Education. The number of murders declined by 54 percent, down from 24 deaths in 1998 to 11 in 1999. This decrease is greater than the national average de cline of 8.5 percent in 1999. The number of sex offenses in creased 6 percent from 2,337 in 1998 to 2,469 in 1999. The study states that sex offenses are ."the most underreported crime in America. As a result, the increase could r4lect improvement in the rate of reporting, rather than an increase in the inci dence of sex offenses." On a national level, incidents in .volving forcible rape- one component of total sex offenses - declined by 43 percent in the same time period. On-campus robberies also in creased on campuses, despite a na tional downward trend, according to the study. Schools reported a total of 1,997 robberies during 1999, up seven percent from 1998 and nine percent from 1997, The number of repotted aggravated assaults totaled 3,777, down from 3,856 in 1998. While the decrease of NATIONAL CAMPUS NEWS North Dakota professor former student for libel graphic article A professor at the University of North Dakota has filed a $50,000 li bel suit against a female former stu dent, six months after he successfully sued the same student for slander and nearly two years after the she was found to be stalking him. Physics professor John Wagner claims that an article written by 44- year-old Glenda Miskin, in addition to being libelous, is emotionally dis tressing and exists with the intention of dragging his name and career through the mud. The article, entitled "Kinky Torrid Romance by Randy Physics Profes sor: UND ruins the Career of Religion Student with two Children," describes in graphic detail a courtship of Miskin by Wagner. Among the accusations Miskin makes are that Wagner is a sex offender and a pedophile. Miskin's article, which appears on her site, undnews.com, and is linked High school seniors sail through final year, by Matthew McGuire January 21, 2001 TMS Campus The U.S. Department of Education has just confirmed what seniors in high school have known for a long time: the last year of high school is a breeze. In a report issued last week, the Na tional Commission on the High School Senior Year described the se nior year of high school as a "lost opportunity" in a report entitled "The Lost Opportunity of Senior Year: Finding a Better Way." "Instead of meeting new chal lenges in the classroom, too many of our high school students are drifting through their senior year and discov ering that they are unprepared for the demands of this education era," said former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. "This is a lost oppor tunity we need to reclaim." The study found deficiencies in both high school students who en tered the workforce and those who entered college. two percent on college campuses fol lowed the national trend, it was a smaller figure than the national 6.2 percent decrease. Burglary is the most fiequentfy re ported crime remteci to the U.S, De partment of Education, and a total of 26,035 burglaries were reported on campuses -- an increase of 2 percent from 1998. Nationally, burglaries d dined by 10 percent. Colleges:and universities repotted 2,067 hate crimes for in 1999, * an in crease from 2,374 in 1998. The study attributes the increase to faulty re- Kiting from two-year for-profit in- Stetions, which, generally employ police officers and may have misreported some figures. by Billy O'Keefe January 22, 2001 TMS Campus at a separate site, und-fraud.com, ac cuses the university and Wagner of conspiring to cover up the accusations and drive her out of the university. "I have learned that it is not safe to make reports to UND Officials," Miskin wrote. "They will blow your confidentiality and will consider you the problem. Looking at a degree on my wall that came from an institu tion like UND would make me want to throw up. The question that still remains is, is this the reputation that the State of North Dakota and the University of North Dakota wish to project to the public who pay their salaries?" In addition to seeking punitive damages and compensation for law yers' fees, Wagner wants both Web sites, which he claims have had hun dreds of thousands of visitors, to re move the article. Miskin, who has two children, has operated undnews.com since Octo ber. Its purpose, as described on the front page of the site, is to serve those "who are appalled by what goes on according to study Upon entering college, many stu dents are poorly prepared for aca demic demands and the college must send students through a remediation process. Remediation -- often in the form of the basics of reading, writ ing and arithmetic -- takes pl. all comm colleges, if out of five four-year u cities and out of 10 pri four-year i tutions, study foun, Those st dents wh entered th workforce from high school were ound not be able to read or compute at a ninth grade level, the study found. Other findings included that: -- high schools are failing to pre Sacramento paper sues U. of California Davis for release of police reports by Billy O'Keefe January 18, 2001 TMS Campus After a public struggle that car ried on for several months, the Sac ramento Bee this week sued the University of California, Davis for failere on its part to release cam pus police reports of sexual assaults and other crimes. The 18-page complaint, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, claims that the university ignored the law in its refusal to re lease to the Bee 13 reports filed between August 1996 and January 2000, and that its "policy of secrecy about past crimes" violates both state and federal mandates. The struggle began after the Bee published a two-part report in Sep tember, in which it accused all nine UC campuses of underreporting crime statistics. The second piece in the series, entitled "UC keeps sex crimes in the shadows," focused sharply on UCD, claiming that the school ex cluded instances of sexual assault, when reported to sources other than campus police, from its crime sta tistics. UCD Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Carol Wall and Vice Chan cellor of Administration Janet Hamilton called for the paper to re- sues over at UND. a fourth-rate institution that is desperately pretending to he half way respectable.- In addition to Miskin's account, the site includes stories about cen sorship, discrimination. Most recent is an alleged interview with,Playboy college playmate Veronica Folz, who in the interview refers to Wagner by name and is quoted as saying that UND has "a bad reputation for rape." Miskin also works for UND fraud,com as an editor. Wagner has also filed suit against the site's op erator, Vivian Nelson, who said that she does not vouch for Miskin's story. Wagner successfully sued Miskin in July for slander, in a case that in volved similar accusations that ap pear in Miskin's article. Miskin was suspended from the university after a disciplinary panel in 1999 determined that she was stalking Wagner via a bombardment of phone and e-mail messages. By her own design, she did not and will not return to the university. pare students for the next step, an de spite this, the assumption persists that the senior year is a time to write off rather than a vital quarter of the high school learning experience; --the structure and organization of high schools closely re rubles high schools of .veral generations ago; -- internationally merican elementary chools rank high, middle ;chools rank average and sigh schools rank near the )(mom, -- colleges and K -12 schools do not work well together to align aca demic content, admis- sions procedures and ex pectations for students. The report is the first of two reports on the subject and is de signed to lie out problems facing the American education system. The sec ond study, which will suggest changes, is scheduled to be released in June 2001. tract the report shortly after it ran "Taking alleged 'shortcomings' in statistical reporting and turning them into a deliberate effort to keep crime 'in the shadows' is a substan tial leap indeed," stated a letter con taining the retraction request. "This representation is not true, and irre sponsible to publish." In a surprise twist, officers for and employees of the UC Davis Police Department issued a vote of no confidence against Chief Calvin Handy, and told Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef that they backed the Bee's claims. The university has since denied certain public records requests by the Bee, claiming that releasing the records is a violation of privacy for those involved. In a written statement, Vanderhoef expressed disappoint ment in the Bee's decision to sue, as well as hope that the two parties can avoid litigation. "We have proposed, in good faith, a meeting between university and Bee representatives to explore other ways we may be able to pro vide The Bee the information it is seeking without placing the univer sity at legal risk," he said. "I'm dis appointed that the Bee evidently has rejected that meeting in favor of a lawsuit." Report: U. of Wisconsin recruits took advantage of shoe discounts by Matthew McGuire January 22, 2001 TMS Campus Not only did University of Wis consin athletes receive discounts from a local shoe store but recruits also appear to have violated NCAA rules, the Wisconsin State Journal reported last week. Several unidentified recruits who had signed letters of intent and were living on campus during the summer of 2000 received discounts, in addi tion to veteran players, the article stated. An internal investigation re vealed that 121 players received dis mune; totaling m= than $23,000 after the Wisconsin State Journal broke story last The school later conTirmed that student athletes had received unad vertised shoe discounts from the Shoe Box, a shoe stare located in the Madison suburb of Black Earth. The store is owned by University of Wis consin athletic booster Steve Schmitt, who also extended athletes no-interest lines of credit on store merchandise up to $l,OOO. NCAA rules forbid athletes from receiving discounts not available to the general public. The university required athletes to close any open accounts at the store and repay the discounts to charity. Some students were also suspended and required to perform community service. Among the players suspended were three basketball players, includ ing two from Wisconsin's Final Four team, 26 football players and a women's soccer player. The Wisconsin State Journal ob tained the 160-page report of their, ternal ityestigation through a pur:4 l lic-record lawsuit. The report Wai fur* bite tO the`,K4A on Aug. 21 and contained infearriaticifabaut shoe discounts to recruits. "During the past semester, several prospects who had signed letters of intent and were living in Madison prior to initial full-time enrollment were able to purchase shoes at The Shoe Box and receive a discount similar to our athletes," The State Journal quoted the report as stating. John Dowling, senior university legal counsel, told the State Journal that the university hasn't "been able to confirm that any fecruit has been taken to The Shoe Box as part of an official [recruiting] visit." U. of Michigan student found dead in dorm by Matthew McGuire January 18, 2001 TMS Campus A 20-year-old University of Michigan student was found dead in her dorm room Tuesday, apparently from unnatural causes. Candy Rong-Rong Wei, of Durham, N.O was rushed to the University of Michigan emergency room after a fellow student found her unresponsive shortly after 3 p.m Tuesday in her Mosher-Jordan Residence Hall room, said university spokeswoman Diane Brown. Wei was pronounced dea, at 3:45 p.m. at the UM hospital emergenc). An autopsy was scheduled with the Washtenaw County medical examiner Thursday afternoon, and while the death is apparently from unnatural causes, foul play is not expected. Brown said. Wei was a sophomore majoring in art and design and was fondly remembered by Matthew Schultz, a senior who worked with Wei on the online art publication "Eat the Monster." "She is one of the few examples of a true artist. Everything she produced was meaningful and touching," Schultz told the Michigan Daily, the UM student news paper. "She is someone who was engaged in the world." Immediately following the incident, the university dispatched grief counselors to the dorm, the school of art and design and to faculty, Brown said. Wei's mother flew to Ann Arbor from Durham Wednesday and her father arrived from New Jersey Thursday.
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