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NEWS

MIDDAY UPDATE: University Village set to be replaced with apartments to attract undergrads

University Village apartments are set to be demolished in June and replaced with new, modern apartments aimed at undergraduate students, MSU officials said. The 24-acre site on northwest campus will include housing units for 300 people, which is less than the current 456 apartments in University Village now, said Chuck Gagliano, assistant vice president of the Division of Housing & Food Services. He said prices are not set and will be determined by the market for housing. The families and graduate students that mostly occupy University Village apartments must move out by the end of their lease on May 15. MSU's Board of Trustees still have to approve a designer and contractor in its October meeting, Gagliano said. "Those units have reached a point where they need to be torn down," said MSU Trustee David Porteous.

NEWS

Store rents 40,000 movies

Kristen Daum
October 4, 2005

Business: Video To Go, 300 N. Clippert St, Frandor Shopping Center, in Lansing Name: Tom Leach, owner Age: 59 Time with the business: 24 years.

COMMENTARY

Columnist shouldn't dis Izzone campout

As a member of the Student Alumni Foundation Board of Directors, I am a little offended by Bob Darrow's column "Fans get a feeling for Izzone basketball" (SN 9/26). I am not an Izzone Director, but I stand behind them. If he thinks it was hazing, then why didn't he leave?

MSU

Software upgrade causes sluggish Webmail

Laura Collins
October 4, 2005

Andrea Campain said she wishes MSU Webmail was operating as usual. Right now, Campain said she has several different group projects in the works, all of which use an MSU e-mail account as a main communication form. "It's been really hard to keep up with everything going on in the group project because we can't communicate," the advertising senior said. For the last 10 days, Campain and anyone else who uses Webmail have found themselves waiting longer than normal for the server to load. Due to an upgrade in software this summer, the new e-mail system in use is not working properly at the correct speed, said Rich Wiggins, senior information technologist for Academic Computing & Network Services, adding that network users have called trying to figure out the problem. The system was upgraded in order to increase capacity, but the new server couldn't keep up with the increased amount of traffic during the fall semester. "We anticipated we needed more space to hold the amount of e-mail people are sending and receiving," Wiggins said. He said during mid-mornings and mid-to-late afternoons, he and his team have noticed that Webmail slows down significantly. To fix the problem, the office has been conducting conference calls with the software vendor.

COMMENTARY

Politics part of any justice nomination

Alex Nezich's letter, "Justice selection is about law, not politics" (SN 9/20) demonstrates a serious naiveté about the constitutional process of judicial appointments and the judicial branch as a whole.

MSU

MIPA unchanged by embezzlement charges

Margaret Harding
October 4, 2005

Some advisers, students and officials agreed that the thousands of dollars allegedly embezzled from the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association haven't affected any programs, including the fall conference held at the Lansing Center on Monday. "It's upsetting, but it hasn't affected the program that I can see," said Gayle Martin, adviser for The Source, the student newspaper at Stoney Creek High School. Raye Grill, a former MSU employee, is charged with taking more than $20,000 from MIPA and between $1,000 and $20,000 from the MSU School of Journalism. Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, or MIPA, President Brian Wilson said the organization has been able to meet its budget every year. "When we were looking at the budget, we were essentially setting the budget based on money we had in the account," Wilson said.

FEATURES

'Cinderella' still heartwarming, but go old school with video version

Lauren Phillips
October 4, 2005

At 20 years old, I popped open the old plastic carton of the "Cinderella" VHS for the first time in at least nine years and transported myself back to a childhood of footed pajamas, my favorite toys and watching movies with my family on Saturday nights. To celebrate today's DVD re-release of the 1950 Disney film, I watched the grainy tape with a sense of reality far from that of my youth.

BASKETBALL

Recruit earns praise despite size

Tom Keller
October 4, 2005

MSU men's head basketball coach Tom Izzo secured his second verbal commitment from the top tier of the class of 2006 - Raymar Morgan, a versatile, 6-foot-7 forward from Canton, Ohio. Morgan is listed as the eighth best small forward and 28th best overall prospect in the nation by the recruiting service www.scout.com. "He's just a good, well-rounded player," said Chris Monter, Midwest region recruiting analyst for www.collegebasketballnews.com. "He does a lot of things around the hoop and he has a good mid-range game." Morgan had narrowed his options to MSU, Michigan and Ohio State.

MSU

Group responds to race-related assault

Bob Darrow
October 4, 2005

The floor where Elvia Gonzalez lives in East Akers Hall no longer has a bulletin board. After racist slurs were repeatedly written on the board, it was taken down. The same goes for the message board Gonzalez used to keep on her door. That kind of harassment isn't unusual on the floor where she lives with a number of other students who come from migrant families. But those slurs were mild compared to a Sept.

COMMENTARY

Council counts

Just a reminder: You have one week left. Oct. 11 is the last day to register to vote and change your address to East Lansing before the City Council election in November.

NEWS

Family feel

When a rabbi was unable to perform Rosh Hashana services last year, MSU student Jordan Helfman spent the next five days preparing to fill his shoes. Helfman's help was needed again during this year's services at the Lester J.

NEWS

Riding on the path

Its eyes are jet black and unflinching, at a height level with my own. As I squeeze out the last of the tension in my hand brakes, it wanders to where four others are grazing on clover just 15 feet from where I sit idle on my bicycle. Its white tail moves back and forth as it studies my movement, jumping a bit when my shoe scrapes on the trail's wet pavement. Above us, sunlight pokes through holes in the dark green ceiling, casting jittery spotlights on the carpet of slick, matted-down leaves. Just then, one of them steps near the trail, thumping its front right hoof into the thick sod.

MICHIGAN

E.L. reports rise in noise complaints

Kristi Jourdan
October 4, 2005

East Lansing council members say they have received an increase in the number of noise complaints in neighborhoods, and East Lansing police say a ban on drinking games on campus has led to the increase. "I have had substantially more e-mail and telephone calls this fall than I have had the three previous falls that I've been on council," Councilmember Vic Loomis said.

COMMENTARY

Black gold rush

With no relief in sight, gas prices continue to hover around $3 a gallon. Americans are struggling to find ways to conserve energy, yet vast amounts of oil are available in the North Slope of Alaska. As a solution to the oil shortage, the Bush administration has proposed putting the entire North Slope up for lease for development.

COMMENTARY

Israel abroad safe, secure for students

While concern about student safety and security is critically important, especially regarding travel to the Middle East, The State News' editorial "Trouble abroad" (SN 9/22) recommending keeping study abroad in Israel "axed" this year rests in an unreasoned speculation and in a view that Israel has been violent or unstable "for the last few thousand years." This is not a knowing view.

MSU

MSU groups unite to aid relief

Melissa Domsic
October 3, 2005

Walking out of the tunnel only moments after the Spartans football team had raced onto the field, members of three campus groups carried their fundraiser for hurricane relief to the center of about 75,000 fans' attention Saturday. About 30 members of ASMSU, the Residence Halls Association and the MSU chapter of the National Residence Hall Honorary brought out a 40-yard-long banner, decked with signatures of fans who raised money for universities in areas hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.