MOZDY FEATURED Senior Erika Mozdy is featured as this week's Senior Spotlight on page 12. Vol. LI NCAA mascot Li. Jumper visits Behrend by Lauren Packer editor in chief Junior plastics engineering technology major Nick McGrady couldn't believe the size of the crowd at the Junker Center for last Saturday's basketball games. McGrady also couldn't believe he lost a 6-foot 5-inch frog he was responsible for at the basketball games. J.J. Jumper, the official National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball mascot, is the frog who went missing. "I spent all day watching over J.J to make sure he could handle all the kids," McGrady said. "I have never seen a crowd that large in the Junker Center before. They really got into whatever J.J. was doing, whether it was dancing, cheering or throwing out prizes." Behrend applied to the NCAA for the chance to host the mascot. In past years, Jeopar y challenge returns by Justin Curry news editor All-too-familiar game show music will be filling the Reed Union Building this evening with the return of Jeopardy Challenge. This program is in its fourth year at Behrend, and since its inception has been sponsored by Residence Life and the Student Activity Fee. Jeopardy Challenge begins at 9 p.m. in McGarvey Commons. "We have had an extremely success ful history with the program in the past few years," said Jill Forsman, Residence Life. "We generally have more first-year students come to the program than up perclassmen." The program is set up similar to the actual show. Three students are selected at random to participate in the round, and go to the front of the room, into three contestant areas. Overhead is a scoreboard to keep a running total of the student's score. "The game board itself is set up as a slide show on a Power Point presenta tion, said Forsman, "and categories range from Behrend history to trivia." This year's installment of the chal lenge is boasting quite a hefty sum of prizes to be collected by the students. Over $2,000 worth of prizes is up for the taking at the event, with the major ity of the prizes being donated. "We have some extremely nice prizes this year," Forsman said, "We have a Playstation, Playstation games, and a pen from Logitech that can actually be used for recording notes in class, and then al lows the user to download the notes to their computer." Guest host for this evening will be Dr. James Kurre and his wife Gail. The student board planning this event is made up of fout students, Brian Forsman, METBD, Wes Stewart, MEBD, Doug McConahy, EEBD, and Rebecca Gordman, DUS. One of the bigger highlights from past Jeopardy's that won't be occurring this year is the "Celebrity Jeopardy" round whose past contestants included Dr. Jack Burke, Dr. Ken Miller, Dr. John Cham pagne and Ms. Kelly Shrout. "This event always turns out to be a great night for everyone," commented Forsman, "because not only is it a social activity in which participants get to meet new people, but it's also an academic activity, in that most people walk away learning at least one or two things they didn't know before." • NEWS 1-4 EDITORIAL 5 NAT'L CAMPUS NEWS 6 Inside This Issue CALENDAR 7 A&E 8 4., The Behrend eaconWEMIVIBI JAN 1 E) i(ECID .7"; J.J. Jumper was free. This year, Behrend had to pay $lOO, plus the cost of lodging and transportation. "We are pleased to support the NCAA Basketball's official mascot," said Brian Streeter, director of athletics, in a press release. "The program illustrates the importance of sportsmanship and other positive values, which are vital facets in intercollegiate athletics." The power forward frog stands well over 6 feet and wears size 26 shoes. Add a mess of orange hair and you understand why 900-1,000 people of all ages packed the Junker Center for a chance to see J.J. Jumper. "The kids love characters like J.J.Jumper," McGrady said. "Anytime J.J. would come out to the stands, a whole group of kids would run to him and just have a good old time doing whatever he was doing." " I had a feeling that there was going ININTEND COLLEGE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. CELEBRATIONS PLANNED •% Penn State Erie Student - Publication• UM.I4 Students prepare to observe Martin Luther King's birthday. See page 4. Friday, January 16 , 2001 to be a large crowd," explained Stacy Pondo, assistant to the director of athletics. "We sent out over 4,000 tickets to summer campers. One ticket went to a child, the other went to an adult to accompany the child." Not just a mascot, J.J Jumper has the power to "increase enthusiasm, promote participation and sportsmanship and educate youth on physical, educational and emotional values", NCAA basketball says. Sounds to good to be true for one frog to represent Division I, II and 111 basketball teams, and do the all the above, right? That's why there are five J.J. Jumpers across the country who travel to the various basketball arenas. The man behind J.J. Jumper is kept a secret from the crowds, but all five are students at universities across the nation. Behrend's J.J. Jumper is a student at the University of Nebraska. FEATURES 9 AD 10 SPORTS 11-12 NEWSROOM: 898-6488 E-MAIL: Offices are located FAX: 898-6019 behrcolls@aol.com downstairs in the Reed Union Building " Personally, I think the best part of the day for me was getting to know him (the man behind J.J. Jumper)," Pondo said. " He's out there for the kids, he's not out there for himself. He's an entertainer enjoys what he does. For that, the kids really appreciate him." "Every time J.J. went in for break, kids would be asking when he was coming at the Junker Center. * 4414 *Mils has any hard on back out and if they could get something." McGrady said. "J.J. was definitely a big hil." We site offers pe review College students across the country taking action on an Internet Web site cifically designed to critique the prof sors that critique them throughout I semester. At www.ratemyprofessors.com si dents are capable of rating the prof sors they had during their college cart Students are allowed to rate their pi fessors in the three following categories Helpfulness, Clarity, and Easiness. A new addition recently added to site allows students to rate the hottt sexiest professor on campus. The tot. from the helpfulness, clarity and easini categories are averaged together to gi the professor an overall rating. The overall rating is represented Jri zed smiley faces. If the professi. received a good overall rating by stu dents, then he or she receives a happy yellow smiley face by their name. A green face is an average rating, and a blue frowning face is a poor rating. The new addition of hottest/sexiest professor on campus is represented by a chili pepper next to the professor's name. Each of the three categories is based on a scale from one to five, with one being the worst and five being the best. Students are also capable of leaving a message about the professor for view ing by other students. Every new rating is reviewed and the Web site holds the right to delete comments or an entire rat ing. Not all comments are deleted; there is a top 15 funniest ratings page. In this page you will see the likings of, "BOR ING! But I learned there are 137 tiles on the ceiling," and "I learned how to hate a language I already know." What are Behrend students who used this site saying about the site? Vince Canzano, EEBD 06 said, "It's way bet ter than the campus' course evaluations, mainly because the site actually gives the students a chance to see what other stu dents are saying about the teaching meth ods and styles used by professors on campus, whereas the SRTE's are for ad ministrative use only." jib:o ng hAS consitetts, Online since 1999, RateMyprofessors contains more than 200,000 ratings from 1700 schools in both the United States and Canada. The site is completely free, updated daily, and students remain anonymous when posting comments and Pte' Mora by C.J. lannini staff writer
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