November 16, 2011 | Volume 110 | Edition 2B Club Updates pg. 2 Campus News pg. 3 Campus Life pgs. 4-5

Off-Campus News pg. 6 Entertainment pg. 7

KSG Elections Coming Soon

For more information on upcoming KSG elections stop by the Student Life office on the third floor of the Campus Center.

Google Transition UnderwayAs you may have heard, Kettering Uni-

versity’s e-mail and calender system is now migrating over to Google Apps for Education. The migration is scheduled to happen after the current term has ended. The change will allow users to access the Gmail system and use other Google Apps. This will allow for increased storage space (2GB to 25GB) and easier inte-gration with mobile devices, among other things.

The IT Department is allowing those who are in-terested to migrate to the Google system early. So far, about 15% of students have migrated to the Google sys-tem. There are a couple ad-vantages to taking part in this early adoption. For one, you will be able to receive more per-sonalized help if you are experiencing troubles or have issues with the migration. This is due to the fact that once the full migration is complete,

by Tom Gale, staff

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A New Vision For Kettering University

by Rebeccah MacKinnon, Copy Editor

On October 27th, President McMahan cut short classes so that all faculty, staff, and student representatives could participate in a campus-wide vision planning meeting. Held in the Sunset Room, this meeting served as a medium for various members of the Kettering Community to come together and create a vi-sion for Kettering in the next century.Each person, upon entering the room, was given a randomized table assignment to en-courage people to sit with those who were not in their department. This ensured a good mix of faculty, staff, and students were at each of the tables to encourage collaboration.

“Education is changing,” said President McMahan in his opening speech, made while standing precariously on a countertop. “It is go-ing to fundamentally change what we do.” He went on to show a slide of his son on a laptop during a car ride. He was giving a presentation to various members of his online class scattered across the globe, from the United States to as far away as Hong Kong. This is this kind of technology integration that the next generation expects, he said, and “we have the opportunity to work in this world.”

In the past, universities have been judged based on its entering class: their SAT/ACT scores, average GPA’s, and many other statis-tics. However, in this new, technology laden world, “universities are going to be rigorously judged by what [they] produce,” according to McMahan.

It is in this world that the crowd was asked to see themselves. “Take a breath,” said the President “and come out of the tactical and into the strategic.” He asked that, when brain-storming, they focus on the broad, key areas that Kettering needs to work on rather than the

specifics. Once deciding where Kettering needs to focus its energy, then the detailed, strategic plan will be defined.

After the speech, Dr. Jim Huggins, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Planning Assessment Council member, followed suit and climbed on the counter to direct the throngs of participants in the brainstorming activity. “We’re trying to come up with as many ideas as possible,” he said, encouraging the crowd to write down anything that came to mind. Partici-pants would have five minutes of independent brainstorming, followed by ten minutes of discussion among their table.

Dr. Huggins first asked the crowd to ponder the following question: “What are the three most interesting ideas you just heard [in the president’s speech]?” After a bit of scrambling to find a pen and remember what they had just heard while playing on their smart phones, large amounts of scribbling filled the room. Once the sharing time began, various ideas floated around the room. Many were astonished

at the degree to which the next generation is ensconced in their technology bubble. Others commented that this mind-set is vital to the future. Roy Densmore of the Physical Plant zeroed in on a key question: “What can we give [future students] to put them way ahead of the game?” This is the main idea that permeated this question’s discussions.

After ten minutes of conversation, Dr. Huggins asked the crowd another question: “What would Kettering be like if you had the power to make it any way you wanted?” Again, five minutes of writing was followed by lively discussion. Debbie Stewart, Student Affairs, wanted to see a more vibrant campus life, where students hang out on campus. Dr. John Geske, Department Head of Computer Science, mentioned wanting to see Kettering have a more broad based education for its engineering students. He also had hopes that the University would treat its employees as resources rather than expenses, when the opposite mind-set current pervades society. Mr. Densmore had a more broad, yet equally admirable goal. “I want other universities to model after us,” he said. “We should have waiting lists rather than trying to fill rooms.”

As the conversations wound down, the President resumed his tabletop post to deliver a closing statement. “This is the beginning of a process, not the end,” he said, assuring all those in the room that what was done in the hour meeting would not be wasted. “We have the opportunity to revolutionize Kettering and the Flint Community,” he said, and does not intend to waste it. His vision for the future is to, one day, see in a magazine the phrase “Flint, Michigan, home of Kettering University…”, showing that that revolution was carried out successfully.

the IT Department may not have enough man power to handle all the issues it might cause for individuals. Another advantage is that you will

be able to start getting familiar-ized with the Gmail interface (if you have not already been using it for personal accounts) while the current system is still available for use.

One disadvantage that has been observed by the migration (especially for the students) is the fact that in order to see the Kettering e-mail or calender in the browser, one must sign into the Kettering account. This in turn means that if someone is already signed into a personal account, that account must ei-ther be signed off or switched

to the Kettering account (if multiple login is enabled). This may lead to some inconveniences for using some Google Apps that the Kettering account does not support.

With the new Google system, allowing your

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President McMahan presents his vision to the Kettering community.

computer’s mail client to handle your mail us-ing IMAP is enabled; however, this function will not be supported by the IT department.

If you are interested in checking out the new system before the official migration, you can perform the following steps to migrate to the Google system.

November 16, 2011

Campus UpdatesKettering University - The TechnicianPage 2

Technician Staff Editor-in-Chief:Matt Gessler

Copy Editor:Rebeccah MacKinnon

Advisors:Betsy HomsherChristine Levecq

Submission PolicyThe Technician welcomes submissions from Kettering

University students, faculty, and staff as long as writers identify themselves and their affiliation with the University and provide contact information. No anonymous submissions will be accepted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Technician staff or of Kettering University. We reserve the right to edit for length. Kettering University is a private institution; as such, it need not extend freedom of speech protection as described in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

S u b m i s s i o n s m u s t b e s e n t e l e c t r o n i c a l l y t o btechnician@kettering.edu.

ColophonThe Technician is published triweekly by the students of

Kettering University and financed, in part, by the Kettering University Student Activities Fee.

Meetings are Thursdays at 12:20pm in the Technician Office

Submission Deadlines3rd Edition - November 30, 2011

Layout Editor:Chris Sanocki

Staff:Tom GaleRyan DontjeJon CrombeAshwin Chacko

by Rebeccah MacKinnon, Copy Editor

by Ryan Dontje, Staff

Electronic Music Night 9th Week

To Write Love On Her Arms Day

Kettering Student Government (KSG)

by A. Buke Hiziroglu, Freshman Representative

A Note from Sigma Chi

by Clayton Roehrig, Sigma Chi Chapter Editor

Join WKUF in BJ’s Lounge on Friday, De-cember 2nd for a live concert from Deadisko Factory, Michigan’s youngest and freshest col-lection of Electro and Dubstep DJs, producers, and graphic artists! Collected from all over Michigan, its artists and DJs include locally known names such as Rebel Bass, Orbitus, Dj Mado, Stasis, and ParadOx. Admission will be free for all to attend and complementary food and drinks will be served at the event. Doors open at 7:00pm and the party lasts until 4:00am! Contact WKUF Station Manager Ryan Dontje (dont8396@kettering.edu) for more information. Hope to see you there!

This Halloween the Zeta Theta Chapter of Sigma Chi hosted our 39th annual Haunted House event. This was not only a great experience for everyone, but it was also for a good cause. All money raised through this event will be donated to the Huntsman Cancer Founda-tion. Huntsman is a great foundation dedicated to funding cancer research, cancer treatment and education programs. After two nights of haunting the city of Flushing, we served over 400 people, providing a generous donation. Thanks to everyone who helped out and hope to see everyone again next year!

PresidentHarold Dost

Vice PresidentNathan Ply

AdministratorKelly Powell

Senior RepresentativesMolly NeeringJenna Piecuch

Junior RepresentativeKristen RussellZachary Baker

Sophomore RepresentativeBrittney White

Freshman RepresentativeA. Buke Hiziroglu

Multicultural RepresentativeAndres FadulVictoria Hills

If you have any questions or would like more information on Kettering Student Gov-ernment, come by our office on the 3rd floor in the CC to our meetings on Wednesdays during lunch, visit the KSG display case in front of the library, or please visit our website at bit.ly/KUKSG.

Write the word LOVE on your arm on November 22nd (8th Tuesday) to spread awareness of depression/suicide among college students!

Depression and suicide is a major problem among both males and females our age, with the stress of classes, relation-ships, family, work, and everything else we deal with every day. And yet, even on a campus with a 1:7 girl-guy ratio, over half of the people who go to the Wellness Center for counseling are female. Getting help isn’t a sign of weakness; we all have problems, and need help dealing with them sometimes.

Stop by our table in the Great Court during common hour 8th week for more information about depression/suicide, the TWLOHA organization, where you or a friend can get help, or a marker to show your solidarity for the cause.

We will be having a movie night on 8th Monday (November 21st) at 8 P.M.

in McKinnon Theater to support the cause. The movie will be The Dead Poets’ Society starring Rob-in Williams. Admission is free, though d o n a t i o n s are accept-e d . T h e r e will also be a bake sale at the event, with all proceeds and donations going to the national To Write Love on Her Arms organization.

This event is sponsored by realSERVICE, Kettering’s community service group dedicated to helping the people of Flint and Genessee County.

photo courtesy of TWLOHA.com

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November 16, 2011

Campus NewsKettering University - The Technician Page 3

Front to back crash testingby Dawn Hibbard, University Communications

Front to back or back to front, either way you look at it back seat passengers have been, well, taking a back seat in crash safety research. Dr. Massoud Tavakoli and a team of research-ers at Kettering University’s Crash Safety Cen-ter are remedying that with a research project funded by TRW to ex-plore improving rear occupant seat belts and safety components.“The adult front occupant has been receiving a great deal of attention for the last couple of decades, and as a result, a num-ber of safety systems have been implemented to protect the front seat occupant,” said Tava-koli, professor of Me-chanical Engineering. “The adult rear occu-pant is now emerging as a likely candidate for improving safety,” he added. In a frontal crash, the rear occupant does not benefit from airbag deployment. So, the question is whether or not improvements can be made to the seat belt and its components, such as the pre-tensioner, to mitigate injury probability for the adult rear

occupant in a frontal crash, explained Tavakoli, who will be conducting the research with Dr. Janet Brelin-Fornari, Crash Safety Center direc-tor and professor of Mechanical Engineering, and a graduate assistant.The TRW-funded

research with Kettering will attempt to answer that question. Tavakoli said the plan is to use a combination of several design variations for the rear seat seat belt to quantify its effect on reducing injury to the rear seat adult oc-cupant during a frontal crash. The rear occu-pant research grant is for $30,000. TRW has sponsored several re-search projects with the Crash Safety Center at Kettering amounting to more than $100,000, according to Brelin-

Fornari. TRW was an original donor toward the construction of the facility and donated capital including a frontal crash test dummy, high speed video camera, and miscellaneous equipment and materials, she added. Their most recent dummy donation was a new (used) ATD (Hybrid II 50th percentile male).

Genesee County Probate Court is not im-mune from the ‘doing more with less’ mantra most public sector entities are dealing with in a tough economy right now. Fortunately, though, some Kettering University Industrial Engineering students offered some practical analysis that could help the court as it looks to tighten its budget.

As part of their senior capstone project in Dr. Matthew Sanders’ class, LeAndra Leverette, Roger Olle, Laura Piccinini, Aaron TenHuisen, Alex Turkawski and Shaun Yuchasz took an exhaustive look at Genesee County Probate Court in search of ways for them to streamline operations, make services more customer and employee friendly and, hopefully, offered sug-gestions that will help the court save both time and money.

The busy court is currently dealing with staffing reductions, putting added strain on re-maining employees. The students used several Industrial Engineering principles to help ease those burdens on the court’s employees.

“We used concepts that we’ve learned at Kettering and tried to implement them into the court,” TenHuisen said. “This (staffing reductions) has led to inefficiencies that have put more stress on their jobs, so we tried to use these (IE) concepts to alleviate that.”

The students presented several ideas to probate court employees on Sept. 14. Among the suggestions was making better use of the court’s website as a tool for the community. For example, instructional videos could be created and put online, explaining to the community what forms and information they’d need when visiting the court, how to fill out those forms and where to file them. This would cut down on time that employees have to spend with patrons, making sure they are filling out correct forms when they come into the court.

The students also suggested reorganizing the layout of the office so employees helping patrons would have quicker access to scanners and printers. Sorting bins for different files would also be arranged so that forms could be sorted into categories as they’re processed, not later on.

Students also showed court employees ways that printers and other equipment could be used more efficiently to cut down on print-

by Patrick Hayes, University Communications

Dr. Massoud Tavakoli, Tony Hain and Dr. Janet Brelin-Fomari accept a $30,000 research grant from TRW representative Paul Lange (center) and John Wilkerson (far right). Photo courtesy of Kettering Communications

Students Advise Probate Court

ing costs.The idea behind working with the court

was simply to give an outsider perspective. Sanders’ students have done similar projects using IE principles to solve practical problems in several industries and businesses, working with Genesys Hospital, Flint Farmer’s Market, Fernco, Lowry Computer Products, Family Or-thopedic Associates, Sodexo, Genesee County, Crystal Filtration Co., CBC Recycling, Simco LTD, Android Industries, General Motors SPO, Mercedes Specialty Foods, Atlas Technologies, Ring Screw Textron, Landaal Packaging Sys-tems and Harvesting Earth Farm, among others.

“The students don’t go to say, ‘Hey, this is how you should be doing things,’” Sanders said. “They go in to observe and make suggestions from what they see using Industrial Engineer-ing principles. Maybe some things will work, maybe some things won’t. They are just offering a fresh set of eyes on the problem.”

The court employees were impressed with the professionalism of the students and how thorough their analysis and presentation were. They plan to implement some of the strategies presented by the students.

“It was very beneficial to us,” said Jim Bau-er, probate court administrator. “Like everyone else, we’re dealing with budget cutbacks. The students asked really good questions and made some good suggestions for us to consider.”

Another group of students in Sanders’ capstone class worked on a project to help a local hospital reduce, or eliminate, patient falls during hospital stays.

An optimistic atmosphere permeated this meeting. Comments about the differences between previous vision planning meetings, which did not go far, and this one were fre-quent, as were comments about the new presi-dent. “[He] seems genuine,” said Mr. Densmore about President McMahan, adding that he seems dedicated to improving Kettering. Dr. Geske concurred, saying “I think it’s going to be different [this time],” a sentiment seemingly held by many in the room.

Proof of this difference is already evident in the changes President McMahan is making in Kettering’s structure. In a memo sent out to faculty and staff, he described the steps he was taking in three distinct areas. First, a large amount of organizational restructuring oc-curred in the upper echelons of the administra-tion to streamline and simplify the operational side of Kettering. Second, the University Task Force on Retention was established to improve retention among students, which is just as im-portant as increasing admission. Finally, Presi-dent McMahan created the Business Process and Security Task Force to “increase efficiency, enhance campus security, reduce paperwork, increase transparency, and simplify reporting.” While it is not immediately evident what effect these changes will have on campus, it is appar-ent that, while he is still listening, President McMahan is starting to move past listening and into action.

The results from the Vision Planning Meet-ing will be taken by the Planning Assessment Council (PAC) and turned into specific tasks that need to be carried out. Committees will carry out these tasks to create a broad vision plan, which President McMahan will present to the Board of Trustees in March of next year.

Continued from page 1

1) Go to the current Webmail system, go to Op-tions, go to Settings, scroll down to the bottom, check “Enable forwarding” check-box, type in the following:

user@kettering.edu.test-google-a.com

2) If you are already forwarding from your cur-rent webmail system to your personal email, and you want to forward from your Kettering Gmail account, also remove the personal email you are currently forwarding it to.

3) Click Save.

4) In your browser, go to mail.kettering.edu This will prompt you to sign in using your Kettering account name and password. Once you are signed in, you will be able to use the Gmail interface. The old emails from the current account will be migrated to the Google system, on a first come first serve basis, so it may take a while before it appears.

5) Alternatively, you can set up your mail cli-ent (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc) to handle your emails from Google using IMAP. For further instructions on this, please refer to the pdf provided by the IT Department: http://www.kettering.edu/it/documents/IMAP-POP-SMTP-GA.pdf

Continued from page 1Google Transition

A New Vision For Kettering

University

Kettering’s IE capstone class and Dr. Matthew Sanders analyzing Probate Court. Photo courtesy of Kettering Communications

November 16, 2011

Campus LifeKettering University - The TechnicianPage 4

Chrysler and Kettering Rekindle Corporate Partnership

by Kettering Communications

Chrysler and Kettering celebrated the estab-lishment of the first class of student co-ops that will work at the Company beginning this fall with a full day of on-campus events designed to rekindle the long-standing relationship be-tween the company and University. Chrysler Corporate Day was celebrated Wednesday, Aug. 10, on campus.

“Chrysler Day” featured informational and recruiting booths staffed by company represen-tatives, product displays showcasing many of the Chrysler Group’s 16 new or significantly refreshed vehicles and a presentation to stu-dents by Laura Soave, president and CEO of Fiat Brand in North America. Many current Chrysler Group employees who are alumni of the University were also in attendance.

“Kettering University has been a good source of key technical talent in the U.S. and at our Company for many years,” said Nancy A. Rae, Senior Vice President of Human Re-

Editorial: Kettering Takes Education and Time from Students

As we all know, Kettering has a unique schedule structure. Eleven weeks at school, then eleven weeks at work, repeat ad infinitum until graduation. This is the core of the Kettering program, and it is, as a whole, successful, as long as this school/work balance is kept intact.

However, lately it seems as if Kettering’s focus is more towards the co-op aspect of our program, in the process sacrificing valuable learning opportunities that students deserve. In the past few weeks, we’ve had reduced days twice within a week for events that are not di-rectly related to education.

All of Fourth Thursday’s classes were cut ten minutes short to allow faculty and staff the opportunity to attend a vision planning meet-ing in the Sunset Room. Students were not expressly invited to the event; while those who decided to show up without invitation were allowed in, the time was billed in a message from the Provost as extra time for students to attend the co-op fair, which was going on in the International Room at the same time. The decision to not invite students was made due to space limitations.

Because planning the future of Kettering is important to everyone on the campus, not much of a fuss was raised about this schedule change. Yes, it took away from learning time that students paid for, but the benefits that should come from the meeting outweigh this small inconvenience.

However, the next day, we were informed that yet more of our education was being taken

Photo courtesy of Kettering Communications

sources, Chrysler Group LLC. “We are excited and proud to continue our relationship with the University and its students.”

The Kettering University co-op program alternates work and school terms for students every three months. Students work for the co-op sponsor – in this case the Chrysler Group -- from freshman year until graduation and begin work on a thesis project in their senior year.

“Kettering University is very grateful to Chrysler Group for hosting a Corporate Day on campus and for providing an outstanding opportunity for our faculty, staff and students to see their beautiful new products and world-class technologies,” said Kettering University President Robert McMahan. “Chrysler Group is a top-tier employer of both our co-op students and our alumni, and Kettering University is very pleased with our partnership with the Company.”

“Chrysler Day” and the new co-op program were the result of the efforts of the Company’s University Relations Program, which is part of the Company’s overall Talent Acquisition orga-nization. As part of these initiatives, University Relations has organized and supports employee volunteer teams, comprised of employees who are alumni of the assigned school and other interested employee volunteers. These teams, assigned to one of 30 major colleges and uni-versities in the U.S., work to build relationships with university leaders and create opportuni-ties for the Company to identify and recruit talented interns and employees. The University Relations team assigned to Kettering University developed plans for the new co-op program and worked closely with Kettering University

officials planning the “Chrysler Day” event.The Company’s relationship with Kettering

University and the teachings of its founder, Charles F. Kettering, connect back to Com-pany’s own founder, Walter P. Chrysler, who in 1916, as Chairman of the Industrial Com-mittee of the YMCA, was very impressed by Kettering’s teachings on the value of “practical education.” Inspired by Kettering, Chrysler and members of the Committee adopted the policy that workers should receive instruction that is adaptive to their work in the factory.

Since June 2009, the Chrysler Group has hired about 6,000 employees and continues to seek talented people to support its future growth.

away from us. Chrysler Day, scheduled for Fifth Wednesday, caused all morning classes to be cut short again by 10 minutes to give students and faculty time to watch a sign unveiling in honor of “the solidification of Chrysler’s commitment to a long-term and renewed relationship with Kettering”, eat some free food, and listen to a presentation by the Head of Manufacturing at Chrysler.

To be clear, I have nothing against Chrysler itself, or the fact that they are committing to work with us in the future. I think it is an amaz-ing opportunity for both Kettering and Chrysler to learn from each other and grow. It was a very generous business move, and I wish nothing but the best to come from this new relationship.

However, as wonderful and generous as this partnership is, it is no reason to take away time from a student’s education. Why couldn’t they have held this presentation during com-mon hour, a time when no students have class so that events like this can happen? Did we really need that extra half hour to watch a sign being unveiled? This decision is called further into question by the fact that we lost class time the previous week as well. There is rarely a reason students should miss class for non-educational events.

We are here to learn, and we only have a limited time to do so. We’re in class 5 weeks less per semester than the average college student, which adds up to 40 weeks over the course of four years. Even if you take into account the fact that we go to school for another semester, we are in the classroom for over half a year less than students at other universities. A loss of ten

minutes per class here and there may not seem like a big deal, but when you factor in how much class we’re already missing, then there’s no time to waste with events to say “Thanks for working with us.”

If you aren’t swayed by the “we should get our education” argument, think of how much of our money is being wasted. Between the two days, 120 minutes of class were eliminated per student, or about 2 hours. A term’s tuition is $14,768, which is about $923 per credit hour. Since there are eleven weeks of class, this means that, for every hour of class instruction time, each student pays $83.90. Therefore, $167.80 was taken away from each student without the service they paid for (learning) being rendered. According to the Fall 2011 census, there are 932 undergraduate students on campus during B-section, so Kettering collected $156,389 from students during the two hours they took away from our instructional time. Being conservative and saying that only a third of students actu-ally had class at any given time on these days, that is still $52,000 dollars that the University took from students without teaching them. I wonder how much of that money went towards Chrysler’s new sign.

With their parties and meetings, the admin-istration is taking away the time we pay for to learn what we need to know to be successful in this world. Kettering is a place for education, and that education should not be sacrificed to the highest bidder.

by The Technician

Photo courtesy of KettNet

November 16, 2011

Campus LifeKettering University - The Technician Page 5

Second Annual Ultimate Frisbee Tournament a Success

by Kettering CommunicationsAfter attaining ‘team’ status from Kettering

Student Government over the summer, the team recently hosted its second annual tourna-ment, Thunderstorm 2011. Not only was this year’s tournament larger than the inaugural one last year (10 teams as opposed to eight last year), but Kettnetic Thunder improved their performance as well.

“We finished seventh and had a win over the Grand Valley State B team,” said team captain Ken Kaminski. “Considering half of our roster was new, we were happy with the performance.”

The tournament was held Oct. 15 and al-though the weather was cold, rainy and windy, the tournament ran smoothly.

“The weather was better last year, but the schedule ran smoother this year,” Kaminski said. “The other teams enjoy the setup here, they like how it is compact and the fields are close together.”

The tournament acts as a fundraiser for the ultimate program, helping fund the season, which starts in January. Grand Valley State’s ‘A team’ won this year’s tournament. Hope finished second and Valparaiso finished third.

The tournament also gives Kettnetic Thun-der’s more inexperienced players a chance to gain valuable tournament experience without having to travel a long way from home.

“This is great experience for our freshmen,” Kaminski said. “They get to see other teams, see what the competition is like and it helps us set goals as a team. The freshmen had a blast.”

Kaminski and co-captain Zach Johnson are not just trying to get the team ready for this sea-son, however. They are also mindful of creating a long-lasting Ultimate tradition at Kettering.

“We’ll never stop pushing the limit in

improving our team structure, training pro-cesses, and performance. We have an enormous amount of things going on and things lined up to get ready for next season and even the next academic year,” Kaminski said.

“Right now we are currently training our new A-Section Legacy Captain, Steve Wineski, and will be searching for a B-Section LC this Fall 2011 term. These new captains will go through 1-2 years of in-depth Ultimate, leadership, and management training to take over the team as Zach and I get ready to graduate in two years.”

“We’re in the process of creating a Captains Manual, which will be a highly detailed and a living document with everything a future captain would need to know and what we have learned over the years. With these devel-opments you can be sure Kettnetic Thunder and the sport of Ultimate will be a big thing at Kettering for a long long time.”

For more information, visit www.ketter-ingultimate.com or email ultimate@kettering.edu. For more photos of the tournament visit the photo album on KettNet - the Kettering Network - on Facebook.

Photo courtesy of Kettering Communications

Kettering Technology Updateby Matt Gessler, Editor-in-Chief

Kettering’s Academic Council and CETL (Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learn-ing) recently hosted a meeting to discuss what we need in terms of technology at Kettering. To start off the event, a survey was given to all attendees which asked students and faculty members to rate their experience with certain educational technology and the importance that these technologies has in the classroom. These technologies included items such as smartboards, projectors, and portable comput-ers. The forms were eventually given back to a member of the CETL so they could go through and see what students and faculty members think about the importance of certain educa-tional technology.

After the surveying the meeting opened up to discussion and suggestions for technol-ogy improvements at Kettering. This discus-sion (which is summarized below) should help Kettering build and improve upon their current uses of technology.

● Smartboards - Obtain actual Smartboards rather than

touchscreen computer monitors. There would most likely be more functionality and it might be easier to write on a larger screen instead of a monitor.

- One student mentioned that document cameras are easier to use than Smartboards

● Computers/Internet - Wifi: work on poor reliability and con-

nection/setup time - Remove requirement of two different

log-ins (Blackboard & Webmail vs. logging in to school computers)

- Desktop computers in labs are some-times unreliable and slow

● Create a link between KU Event calen-dar and a Google calendar - The current Google transition should help with this● Provide training for technology rou-tinely used in classrooms - Professors are sometimes not familiar with new technology● Provide students with laptops (This could make things easier for both students and IT) - Software is already installed and ready to go - Computers could be returned at the end of each year.● Provide more scanners for homework purposes - The library does have scanners, but more wouldn’t hurt● Mechanical Engineering department has an ancient copier that needs to be up-dated● Provide more printers so students can print in student lounges● Provide instructions on using school printers from a personal computer● Have departments use slide-shows to demonstrate current projects - Shows what each department does for potential and current students● Utilization of TV next to IT (It is nor-mally off or simply displays one message)● Android tablets to view events around campus (tablets are becoming pretty cheap now)● Touch screen computer in welcome cen-ter that would enable prospective students to explore what they are interested in.

Club Highlightsby Matt Gessler, Editor-in-Chief

realService is a club dedicated to helping people in the Flint Community and Genessee County. We meet every Monday at 8pm in the Student Civic Engagement Center (AB-1335) to discuss upcoming opportunities to help orga-nizations, the community, or specific individu-als. Some recent events include helping with a Humane Society benefit dinner, playing bingo with senior citizens at American House Nursing Home, and handing out water at a marathon benefiting several charities. Upcoming events include raking/shoveling for elderly people in the Mott Park area, helping with the college town canned food drive, helping with the Sal-vation Army’s adopt a family and coat drive, and hosting a campus-wide To Write Love on Her Arms event. If you enjoy helping others and want to get involved, please join us during one of the weekly meetings on Monday at 8 or contact Rebeccah MacKinnon (mack2844@ket-tering.edu) for more information.

realSERVICE

This up-and-coming club provides a sup-port network for GLBTQ students, staff, faculty, and pretty much anyone else that you can bring to a meeting. Although not an official club yet, this group meets every Friday at 7pm at the Good Beans Café, which is about 5 minutes away from campus. Their Facebook page pro-vides a good description of the club: A cool group of people that do not discriminate against one’s orientation who like to drink coffee (or tea) and talk it up. If you ever feel like you could use some support, or would like to help provide it, head out to Good Beans on a Friday during the term. The club is currently going through the registration process to become an official club, so if you see a signature form go-ing around for it please consider taking a few seconds to sign it.

Allies

Photo courtesy of Matt Gessler

Photo courtesy of KettNet

November 16, 2011

Off Campus NewsKettering University - The TechnicianPage 6

The World According to Monsanto by Ben Braskett

The title of this movie was a bit confusing when I first walked into the theater for the Glob-al Issues Film Festival at Mott Community Col-lege. Monsanto? I thought this was a film about agriculture, not whoever this Monsanto is. It turns out that Monsanto is the largest producer of genet-ically engineered seeds in the US, with 90% of the US market, and much of the market of the rest of the world as well. It began as a large chemi-cal manufacturing com-pany, and made the very popular Roundup and the much less popular Agent Orange, a chemi-cal herbicide used in the Vietnam War shown to be extremely harmful to people. Now the compa-ny has expanded to many aspects of crop growing within the US and around the world. It is this mo-nopolizing and shady company that is being critiqued in The World According to Monsanto.

The movie begins with a farmer explaining how the benefits of Mon-santo’s genetically engineered soybeans have made life much easier for farmers. His state-ments initially seem slightly off and not totally logical. We soon realize that his statements are completely off and nowhere near the truth. Next, we are led through a long biography of the shady history of Monsanto, including many

incidences where Monsanto created products that were known to be unhealthy but were still introduced and used. One of these products is the renowned Roundup, which was blatantly

false advertised as being “biodegrad-able” when many studies confirmed that it wasn’t even slightly degradable. Another more seri-ous set of incidents showed how Mon-santo released de-cades of pollution into a community and poisoned its pop-ulation and killed nearly all wildlife in the area. In all of these incidents, Monsanto is shown to have ma-nipulated the govern-ment either by gov-ernment employees threatened or bribed by the company, or lobbyists in the FDA and national gov-ernment. One ma-jor scary point that the movie had was the interweaving of the government and

Monsanto. For example, many major figures in the FDA have worked at Monsanto and vice versa. Even one of our Supreme Court justices has worked at Monsanto. That hazing of the line between companies and government definitely caught my eye as one of the most convincing points that this movie had.

After the movie goes quite in depth into Monsanto’s devious history, it shows the effect that Monsanto has had on farmers. The major point that it brings up here is the vast monopoly that Monsanto has over farmers. For example, Indian cotton growers have been overwhelm-ingly pressured to use Monsanto engineered seeds so much that regular seeds are now al-most unattainable and Monsanto charges four times more for their genetically modified seeds than for regular ones. And if anyone tries to keep their seeds from these engineered plants for the next year’s crop, Monsanto even sends out its own “police” force to investigate who-ever does this and sues for patent infringement. This major point about how even farmers do not benefit from Monsanto supports the main idea that the real Monsanto does not benefit anyone.

Marie-Monique Robin, the director of this insightful independent film, proves her point well throughout this movie. What I got as the main idea that linked all of her arguments was that Monsanto is becoming too powerful and does not care for the products and people using the products as much as maintaining a monopoly over all biotechnology. Monsanto is one of those big businesses that has too much to gain from manipulating the government and forming monopolies. They now literally have the world of agriculture under their control. It is now the consumers’ and farmer’s turn to strike out to remove this monopoly that is forming and to reanalyze the whole concept of bioen-gineering. I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone with even the slightest interest in agriculture or what is really happening to your food. The World According to Monsanto will be shown at Kettering University at the next film festival in January.

Changes to Student Loans

by Chris Sanocki, Layout Editor

Going to college typically means acquiring students loans to help pay for the ever increas-ing cost of education. Under current law, a student is required to make payments towards their student loans equal to 15% of their “dis-cretionary income”. In the past year, President Obama outlined a plan to modify the current repayment system reducing the amount the payment amount from 15% of discretionary in-come to 10% of said income. This proposal was approved by Congress and is slated to take ef-fect to new borrowers in 2014. While this helps future college students, it does little to alleviate the financial burden this accumulated debt has on students today. In order to compensate for this, the Administration is proposing to enact this change for current students starting as early as next year. This change would provide im-mediate relief for those struggling to manage their student debts today. Also, part of this pro-posal is combining the Direct Loan and Federal Family Education Loan into a single payment for those who have both loans. Those who take advantage of this opportunity may also receive a 0.5% reduction in the interest rates on specific loans. These potential changes could take effect as early as January of the new year.

Information taken from the press release from the White House on 10-25-11

Flint Mayoral Electionby Jon Crombe, staff

The official results of the November 2011 Flint mayoral election are in with incumbent Dayne Walling taking a 10 percent lead over opponent Darryl Buchanan.

Walling was elected to the position of mayor in a special election in August of 2009 after previous mayor, Don Williamson, resigned. Williamson’s resignation was primarily due to a petition to recall him from office which received the necessary number of signatures to hold a recall vote.

During his time in office to date, Walling has stressed the importance of listening to the people of Flint; Holding regular forums, par-ticipating in local radio, and visiting Kettering university in February of 2011.

Official Results of the election are as follows.

2011 GENERAL ELECTION RESULTSGENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGANNOVEMBER 8, 2011

VOTES PERCENTRegistered Voters- Total . . . . . 247,059Ballots cast - Total. . . . . . . . 54,268Voter Turnout - Total . . . . . . 21.97%

Count PercentageDarryl E. Buchanan . . . . 6,868 43.53%Dayne Walling . . . . . . . 8,819 55.90%WRITE-IN . . . . . . . . . 89 0.56% Total . . . . . . . . 15,776 Over Votes. . . . . 2 Under Votes . . . . 9

November 16, 2011

EntertainmentKettering University - The Technician Page 7

Logic Puzzleby Rebeccah MacKinnon, Copy Editor

Movie ReviewThe Rum Diaryby Ryan Dontje, StaffAn Arab sheikh tells his two sons to race

their camels to a distant city to see who will in-herit his fortune. The one whose camel is slower wins. After wandering aimlessly for days, the brothers ask a wise man for guidance. Upon receiving the advice, they jump on the camels and race to the city as fast as they can.

What did the wise man say to them?

If you’re already a fan of the work of Hunter S. Thompson, then there’s really nothing I have to say here. You’ve probably already seen this movie or it’s been permanently etched into your rambling list of things to do. Honestly, this re-view isn’t really for you. It’s for the other half. Those of you who have never been introduced to the incredibly unique and strange works of a man who could have been described in much the same way.

J o h n n y Depp stars as Paul Kemp, a journalist who grows tired of living in New York during the late 1950s and moves to Puerto Rico to write for a local newspa-per. From here, the story takes many twists and turns as Kemp slips deeper and deeper into drunken depravity and falls into a conspiracy involving the island’s rich and powerful elite. While not as crazy as the previous film adapted from Thompson’s work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the film is still filled with memorable moments, even if they don’t quite live up to the insanity of watching our hero wake up in a flooded Vegas hotel room wearing a tape recorder and fake dinosaur tail.

Depp’s character acts as a thinly-veiled stand in for Thompson and Depp does an admirable job portraying his late best friend. Thompson’s notable voice and mannerisms are recreated perfectly and it is apparent that Depp fits this role perfectly.

The supporting cast also works well. Aaron Eckhart does an excellent job playing the in-credibly likable yet undeniably evil character, a type that he has become well known for. Am-ber Heard provides a strikingly beautiful and surprisingly smart love interest for Depp. Rich-ard Jenkins is welcome as always, playing the jaded and exasperated Editor in Chief of Puerto Rico’s San Jaun Star newspaper and teetering on the line between authoritative and pathetic.

It is Giovanni Ribisi, though, who steals every scene he’s in as the delightfully insane Moberg. He gets the best lines hands down, and he just seems as if he’s having so much fun letting loose and going completely off the rails portraying a character so broken and far gone that he’s completely impossible to understand.

The film strikes a peculiar mix be-tween comedy and an unexpectedly poignant

message. The film rambles on and at times it feels point-less, yet the pay-off when it sucker punches you with its unanticipated comedic or dra-matic timing is like nothing you’ll see anywhere else. It’s a movie that feels like it shouldn’t work because of its seem-ing lack of focus, and yet against all

odds, it does. As mentioned above, the film never really

ramps up to the level of crazy found in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Check this out! You will not be disappointed!), but considering its context within Thompson’s life, it really shouldn’t. The novel the film was based on was written towards the beginning of Thompson’s career and the film reflects this. It is ultimately the story of him finding his narrative voice. It reveals how he began his crusade against the unjust and depicts the strange beginnings of a truly unique style that would only continue to be refined in his later works. The film holds a high regard of reverence for Thompson and works because of it.

Overall, this is a film that is really un-like anything else out there at the moment. It’s a rambling, chaotic mess that entertains and inspires in truly unexpected ways. Those will-ing to take a chance and check out The Rum Diary will find themselves with a unique and memorable film experience that they’ll carry with them long after they walk out of the the-ater.

Word Cryptogramby Rebeccah MacKinnon, Copy Editor

“Jutncun tj pkcanfdxrrs nbxtiina zk ycjpnf zen bxnjztkc ‘Ekp?’ oxz tz

mnzj znfftors ukcdxjna penc skx yjh zen bxnjztkc ‘Pes?’” ~ Nfptc Ueyfymydd

Each letter has been substituted for a differ-ent letter throughout the entire puzzle. Figure out the quote by determining how the letters have been substituted.

photo courtesy of IMDB.com

comic courtesy of XKCD.com

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