Spinnaker [Distributed: Wednesday, February 7, 2007]

Thousands of students at the University of North Florida may be able to have the state pay for their summer classes.

A Senate Bill authorizing the use of Florida Bright Futures for summer classes was recently introduced into the Florida Senate. SB 228 was filed in December by Senator Evelyn Lynn, chair of the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee.

"It is fair to say that she is very influential and accordingly, her issues are likely to be successful," said Janet Owen, vice president of Governmental Affairs and associate general counsel for UNF.

While no companion bill has been filed in the House, SB 228 has been referred to the Higher Education and Higher Education Appropriations Committees where it will be heard, debated and possibly amended before going to the Senate floor during the legislative session scheduled to begin March 6, Owen said.

"I've been trying to sell it on the basis that students will be able to complete their schooling faster and then leave slots open for more students to come in," Lynn said. This will in turn save money for the state, she said.

"I think the big issue for this bill will be the fiscal impact to the state, specifically, the lottery from which Bright Futures is funded," Owen said.

Approximately $6.3 million in Bright Futures was awarded to 5,585 undergraduate students at UNF during the fall term last year, said Deborah Kaye, Director of Enrollment Services.

Kaye said the number of undergraduate students receiving Bright Futures at UNF increases by approximately 600 per year.

"I think it's mostly the freshmen coming in and some transfer students that bring Bright Futures from their community colleges," she said.

Of the almost $30 million in financial aid that was paid to UNF last term, loans composed 51.4 percent, state scholarships were 22.1 percent and grants another 16.1 percent with the rest made up of private and institutional scholarships, Kaye said.

While the bill will not increase the amount of scholarship money available to each student, it proposes to allow them to use their Bright Futures awards toward summer classes, which has not been allowed in recent years, Kaye said.

Kaye said she would expect summer enrollment to increase if the bill is passed. It would have two implications: more summer classes would have to be offered to keep up with demand and students would be able to graduate sooner because of the ability to continually take classes.

"There are so many tremendous benefits to that [finishing earlier]," Lynn said.

"I believe that all of the state universities are very supportive of this bill," Owen said. "I have worked with the University of Florida and the University of Central Florida to help generate support for it on the House side."

Bright Futures was created by the Florida Legislature in 1997 and had a budget of $70-80 million, Owen said. In the 2006-2007 state budget the Bright Futures appropriation was about $347 million, she said.

Students want more food choices

New survey finds Ospreys are looking for Asian, Mexican cuisine

The University of North Florida community wants Asian and Mexican food choices in the new student union, according to a recent Chartwells Survey.

More than 700 students, faculty and staff participated in the survey conducted from Jan. 16 through Jan. 23 by answering a range of questions. The survey questions included such topics as types of food venues, brand names and price ranges. The participants answered the questions on palm pilots, which made results more readily available to Chartwells.

The No. 1 choice of the respondents was an Asian-style food option on campus, followed by Mexican food, sub sandwiches, and grill cuisine, said Dave Jordan, Chartwells resident district manager at UNF. The results also revealed that dine-in food venues were preferred over grab 'n' go, he said.

"We had in our minds what we thought the students would pick, and it was almost exactly the same as the results," Jordan said.

Patrick Nelson, a sophomore athletic training major, took the survey and said it was a good idea because Chartwells administered them all over campus and asked questions to get a generalized idea of what students want to eat.

"Wackadoo's' prices are going up, so I hope they bring in cheaper options," Nelson said. "A burger at Wackadoo's is $7, but I can go to McDonalds and spend $3 on the same thing."

Jordan said Chartwells can't control the prices set by the brands that will be located in the student union, but they are taking prices into account when choosing what food venues will be part of the student union.

"Whatever goes into the student union, there will be a wide spectrum of prices," he said.

The results showed that under the Asian-style food venue and grill cuisine, the brand did not matter as long as the quality was good, Jordan said.

For Mexican food options, participants ranked Moe's Southwest Grill as their first choice, Salsarita's Fresh Cantina second and Taco Bell third, he said. The first choice for subs was Panera Bread followed by Quizno's Subs and Subway, he said.

"It's really cool because the students actually have a say in what is coming on campus," said Beca Grimm, a freshman communications major who also participated in the survey.

Jordan said he believes Chartwells has an accurate picture of what UNF's students want in the student union because the majority of those surveyed were freshmen, faculty and staff, and they will be part of the UNF community when it is built.

The results of the survey and Chartwells selections will be given to Auxiliary Services, which will run them by administration, and they will then be submitted to the Food Service Advisory Council, made up of students, faculty and staff, Jordan said.

"Once a month, four student members [of the council] that represent Student Government meet," said the director of external affairs for Student Government Steven Henin, a junior Political Science major. "There is a wide variety of student representation [on the council]."

"This university is really great at making student perspectives their No. 1 priority, and that carries over to the food options in the student union," said Student Body President Justin Damiano, a senior Business Economics major.

Student Government has allocated four spaces for permanent food venues in the student union building, a new space for Wackadoo's and one space for temporary food options to come to UNF a few days a week, such as the current situation with Miracle Kate's Hot Diggity Dogs, Damiano said.

Chartwells waited for the survey results before starting negotiations, Jordan said.

"We have national contracts with some of the brands, but we still have to negotiate site contracts," he said. "Some brands will simply refuse UNF, and a lot of this is based on the size of the school, sales and the menu of other brands."

Final decisions as to what exactly will be in the student union will be made as close as possible to the opening date of it so that the most popular choices will be selected, Damiano said.

The survey was one of the largest conducted this year at UNF, Damiano said.

New Web site offers parking tools, info

A new Parking Services Web site is available to save students a trip to the long lines of the Cashiers Office and to provide easy-access information to students.

At the end of January, the Parking Services Web site changed to a new page that will be more "customer-friendly," said Director of Auxiliary Services Vince Smyth.

Development of the new site began last November, and students were able to use a new service to purchase decals online in December. Smyth said the main goal of the site "is to provide students with information in a much better way than the old, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

There is not a direct link to buy permits on the Web site but it may be added in the future, Smyth said. For now, students can purchase parking decals through their myWings accounts with a credit card under the Academics/Students tab, he said. There is a 1.5 percent convenience fee added when purchasing decals online. Students are able to print out their receipts and bring them to the Cashiers Office to pick up their decals. Cash or checks are also accepted at the Cashiers Office without any fees.

New features of the Web site include the "Parking Tips" on the right side of the page with advice to students such as "Even if your classes start at 10:00 a.m., come to campus at 8:00 or 9:00 and study in the library or the Mathews computer lab. You're more likely to find a good spot and be better prepared for class, too."

A section for disability parking and visitor brochures was also added to streamline the site, Smyth said.

The new Web site better serves students by making things easier to find, Smyth said.

The links include where to appeal a ticket, the rules to avoid getting a ticket and a campus map with the option to magnify particular areas around campus with labeled parking lots and numbered buildings.

The Web site provides easy access to information to all people parking on campus. The items are separated for students, faculty and visitors so the pertinent information is quick to find, he said.

"The Web site provides more accurate up- to-date information about parking on campus," Smyth said.

Students file class-action suit over book prices

In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that could affect thousands of college students who think they are overcharged for textbooks, two Daytona Beach Community College students have sued the nation's largest collegiate-bookstore chain and their school.

The class-action suit, filed in Orlando's federal court, alleges unfair and illegal pricing practices and seeks to recover at least $5 million in damages.

It accuses the Follett Higher Education Group and DBCC of overcharging students pennies on each used-book sale and underpaying them when buying books back.

Though that may amount to only a few bucks each semester, the students argue that, when multiplied by thousands of students at each of the company's more than 750 bookstores, it adds up to millions.

Co-plaintiffs Thomas Rebman and Danny Brandner also say the college is "complicit" in the textbook company's actions because through DBCC's contract with Follett, it receives up to 10.5 percent of all bookstore revenues annually. In a recent 12-month period, the college reported collecting at least $400,000 in commissions from Follett's operations on the school's five campuses.

"This isn't about me or Mr. Brandner," Rebman said. "It's that still to this day, students are overcharged [...], and they [DBCC administrators] refuse to enforce the contract."

The suit - filed in late September - is unique, according to attorneys and industry experts, and may have implications for thousands of students nationwide if a judge allows it to go forward as a class action.

Textbook prices have rankled college students for years.

Student-government coalitions and advocacy groups in 14 states launched a campaign in 2003 that included a push to persuade universities to negotiate better prices with book publishers.

A Government Accountability Office report in 2005 found college-book prices have increased at twice the rate of inflation in the past two decades.

A congressional advisory committee is undertaking a yearlong study to find ways to rein in prices.

National Association of College Stores figures show used books accounted for $1.9 billion in sales during the 2004-05 academic year. New books accounted for $4.4 billion during that same time period.

"Mr. Rebman and our law firm are seeking to recover for every student who was overcharged . . . or was underpaid when they sold back their books," said Marc Wites, a South Florida attorney who specializes in class- action suits.

Pam Goodman, a Follett Corp. spokeswoman, would not address the lawsuit's allegations.

"Follett believes this suit is without legal basis," said Goodman, reading a company statement.

"Follet's pricing is governed by the agreements we have with the individual institutions we serve," Goodman said. "And we take great care to ensure we are in compliance with the terms."

DBCC officials would not comment, referring all questions to Goodman.

The five-count complaint alleges breach of the contract between Follett and the college, violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and a civil conspiracy.

Before the fall semester began in August, Rebman and Brandner say, their college bookstore illegally rounded up the prices of books to the next 25-cent increment.

Used books that should have cost $88.69 and $85.31 were sold to them for $88.75 and $85.50, respectively, they argue.

And when they sold books back to the store, they say the store paid them less than 50 percent of the new retail price as required by the contract. Examples cited in the suit include the return of a college-algebra book that cost $118.25 new but was bought back by the store for $56.25, or less than half its new price. In that transaction, the student should have received $59.12, the suit says.

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SG working to make MLK class a reality by the fall semester

Many people know Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. What they may not know or understand are the ramifications and lasting influences his dream had. Student Body Vice President Dorrell Briscoe said he has a plan to fill that void.

A class devoted to MLK and his lasting impact on the world is in the works, Briscoe said. And as with any new class, there are many options available, such as who and what department will offer the class and what the class with focus on, he said.

"The answers to these questions are still in the works," said Political Science Department Head Dr. Theodore Stumm. "We may do joint teaching with the Political Science department and the history department, but as of right now there are no solid answers."

Ideally it will be a course designed to go past the surface of King's accomplishments and understand what drove him and in turn his lasting political impacts, Briscoe said.

"Everyone knows that Dr. King was the catalyst who led the Civil Rights movement," Briscoe said. "We want to create a class that goes deeper, that will teach the lasting effects of King's efforts and essentially his dream. This won't be your average history class."

Briscoe said he is hoping that there will be opportunities for the students to work with and learn from locals who worked with and knew the Kings, bringing relevance full circle to the city we live in.

African American Student Union Director Rachael Tutwiler, a senior majoring in political science, said she has been behind the idea for the class from the start and feels it will be a hit with students.

Tutwiler also mentioned that students have a tendency to be removed from history classes because they find nothing to relate to.

"In reality, have we reached a place where we can be so removed from the civil rights movement?" Tutwiler said. "No we haven't, nothing is perfect. We've come a long way but there is still work to do. This class will open people's eyes to King's philosophies in a new light."

The class is still in its infancy but the ball is rolling, Briscoe said.

There is the potential possibility of a pilot class next fall, he said.

Briscoe said he has gained the support of many people and departments with this idea.

"We think Dorrell has a great idea," Stumm said. "Dr. King is an important figure with tremendous political impact on which there is no focus. The options for this class are endless and we are doing everything we can to make it happen."

A foundation has been laid but there is much more work to be done before the class will come to fruition, Stumm said.

"We want to do it right, so we are taking it slow. With a class like this you have think big but start small," Stumm said. "Ultimately we want to give people a different perspective about King by looking at how what he did has had lasting influence on many different aspects of modern life."

University myWings system undergoes streamlining

The University of North Florida's Information Technology Services has implemented changes to make myWings and university-provided e-mail accounts more accessible for students.

A number of new features have been added to myWings to make it easier for students to navigate the Web site, said Alison Cruess, the communications coordinator for ITS.

The change to WebAccess e-mail from Horde Webmail, which took place Jan. 20, is another move ITS has made to simplify Internet browsing and messaging, Cruess said.

New additions to myWings come in the form of links to university-sponsored Web sites. Students can now access their WebAccess e-mail accounts by clicking the icon in the upper left-hand corner of the myWings portal, Cruess said.

There is also a new channel on the Academic/Students tab of myWings called quick links that provides the addresses to sites like Blackboard, ITS self service, the Wall-Street Journal and Skillport, an online training service provided by the Center for Professional Development and Training, Cruess said.

"We want the myWings portal to be a place where students can have everything they need to complete their university business," Cruess said. "By including more links in the portal, it eliminates the need for students to remember the addresses for different sites. It makes everything easier to access and simplifies the life of a student."

Another new feature that may benefit students and teachers alike is the inclusion of student photos on Banner Self Service. Cruess said the photos are only available to faculty and they are taken from student's university identification cards.

"If I'm an instructor and I have 60 students in my class, this will help me memorize their names much quicker," Cruess said.

The most recent addition to myWings gives students the ability to access their program of studies via the Web site. Cruess said the information can be viewed under the Degree evaluation tab of the Academic Students section.

Changes have also been made concerning university e-mail addresses. After transferring all previous UNF e-mail accounts over to WebAccess Jan. 20, Cruess said the difference should be noticeable to students.

"WebAccess has better operability, functionality, and runs on better and faster hardware than Horde," Cruess said. "This is a big improvement for students."

The new service also includes a file storage program called WebDrive that allows students to save documents in a secure, backed-up folder, and transfer the information to other computers. Cruess said the feature resembles a "portable C drive."

Students must first install software on their computers to access the program. The link to the installation is located in the Help section on the Downloads channel of myWings.

Whitnie Scruggs, a junior communications major, has used both Horde and WebAccess e-mail accounts. She said she prefers the new university-sponsored e-mail address because of its improved functionality.

"I like WebAccess better because it has more features and it is easier to use," Scruggs said. "It took some time to adjust, but I definitely think it was a good change."

Fake degrees on rise

Web sites for obscure schools offer degrees based solely on your personal and professional lives. Transcripts and verification services are available, too.

Experts said there could be as many as 2,000 entities worldwide issuing life-experience degrees that are virtually worthless.

"This is a serious problem," said Judith Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. "And the level of attention and concern is rising."

A Government Accountability Office report in 2004 stated that 28 high-ranking officials received college credit for things such as riding a horse and owning tropical fish.

"There's been a vast national dialogue over the past year," said Kip Peterson, a spokesman for the Kansas Board of Regents. "It's an issue of importance and concern in the higher education world."

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HIV rate among blacks continues rise

More than 25 years into the AIDS epidemic, HIV continues to soar in the black community, accounting for more than half of the newly diagnosed infections in the United States in a recent yearly assessment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At the same time, health officials say, the African-American community has been slow to acknowledge the problem, prompting the CDC and grass-roots organizations to mark a yearly observance to bring attention to the epidemic.

Wednesday is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, a national effort designed to mobilize blacks to get tested, educated and treated for the disease. Well-known African-Americans - including Tony Dungy, head coach of the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts; entertainer Patti LaBelle; Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.; and former Secretary of State Colin Powell - have joined the campaign by taping public-service announcements to run on radio and television.

Of the roughly 1 million people estimated to be living with HIV in the United States, 47 percent are African-American, according to CDC statistics for 2005, the most recent year for which numbers are available. Though blacks represent only about 13 percent of the U.S. population, 56 percent of the newly diagnosed cases in 2005 were African-Americans.

"The ability to manage this terrible disease has improved and more people are living healthier and longer lives, but African-Americans have been diagnosed late and are not availing themselves to treatment," said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention. "The stigma within the community has prevented people from getting tested and accessing services needed to help manage infections."

African-American women are disproportionately affected, and black men who have sex with men have a much higher rate of infection than men of other backgrounds who have sex with men, Fenton said.

"HIV is closely associated with socioeconomic disparity in our country. Poverty, poor access to services and lack of knowledge all factor into this," said Fenton. "Stigma, homophobia and lack of open conversation in the black community have further compounded the problem."

Debra Fraser-Howze, president of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, also weighed in: "We have to make some serious decisions, a decision to first talk about the epidemic and a decision to own it. It is ours, with 56 percent of all new infections."

"We are in a quandary because we as African-Americans have to be concerned about what is going on in Africa. But at the same time we are concerned about Africa, we have to be concerned about South Central Los Angeles. Both have to be addressed," said Fraser-Howze. "Funds are dwindling and everybody is taking money to Africa when African-Americans are dying in this country."

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Corn crop concerns fuel ethanol debate

Full fuel tanks could mean many more empty bellies within the next two decades, according to new research by two University of Minnesota economists.

The number of hungry people worldwide could grow by more than 50 percent by 2020, as corn, sugar and other food staples are increasingly devoted to making fuel here and abroad, according to the projections by C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer.

The same trend would bring much higher food prices to the United States and the rest of the developed world, the economists predict. The sharp increase in world hunger isn't inevitable, however. The economists say increased conservation could do more to wean the United States from foreign oil than all the corn-based ethanol plants now online.

Corn and ethanol producers dispute the claims.

However, pork, poultry and egg producers are beginning to sound alarms of their own about ethanol's impact on food prices.

Some aspects of the scenario laid out by Runge and Senauer already are coming to pass. This winter's imposition of tortilla price controls in Mexico in an attempt to quell unrest is an early indication of the consequences of food price shocks, the two write.

"These impacts are (already) being felt right at America's doorstep - in Mexico."

Runge and Senauer's forecast stands in contrast to their views of only four years ago and shows how quickly the mathematics of food production are being changed by the worldwide push for biofuels.

In 2003, Runge and Senauer predicted the rise of both agricultural output and Third World incomes would ease world hunger. They expected the number of hungry people in the world to fall 23 percent, from 830 million at the end of the 20th century to about 625 million in 2025. They now believe the ranks of the world's hungry will rise to 1.27 billion people by 2020.

"But if staple food prices increase [as is now expected]," the economists warn, "the number of undernourished people could climb by 600 million or more by 2020. Many would be over the edge of subsistence into outright starvation," their paper warns. "Many more would die from a multitude of diseases."

Ethanol plants are on pace to consume more than 35 percent of the U.S. corn crop within a few years, and their growth rate has attracted the notice of food producers who rely on corn in the production of everything from cereals to butter and meat.

Richard Bond, president and CEO of chicken producer Tyson Foods, said last week that the country must "carefully consider the negative and unintended consequences of over-using grains" for fuel.

"Companies will be forced to pass along rising costs to their customers, meaning consumers will pay significantly more for food," Bond said. "If left unaddressed, the bigger long-term issue will be the availability of U.S. and global grain for protein and other foods."

In a speech last year, Warren Staley, CEO of Cargill, the commodities trading firm that also has invested millions in ethanol plants, said fuel shouldn't displace food as the primary reason for growing crops.

"We have to look at the hierarchy of value for agricultural land use: food first, then feed and last fuel," Staley said.

Zeiger of the Alternative Fuels Institute rejects the argument that hunger will rise worldwide as the use of biofuels increases.

U.S. food prices are bound to rise in the short term as millions of tons of corn are diverted to new ethanol plants. But new technologies for producing ethanol from other crops or grasses will ease the need for corn, Zeiger said.

By the two economists' reckoning, every 1 percent rise in the price of staple foods means another 16 million people worldwide going hungry. And they forecast that the prices of many grain staples will rise by 11 to 40 percent just by 2010, with steeper increases coming afterward.

While the topic is complex, the pair used simple arithmetic and numbers derived from many well-recognized sources - from the World Bank and United Nations to the Department of Agriculture - to peer into what might be ahead in the competition of food and fuel for crops.

From September 2005 through August 2006, the USDA reported 1.6 billion bushes of corn went to U.S. ethanol plants, or 15 percent of the crop.

But 73 more plants are under construction, or an increase of two-thirds in less than two years when the new facilities come online by 2008. Feeding those plants will raise total ethanol demand, "requiring 35 percent of the total corn crop even in a good harvest," they write.

And if corn-based ethanol delivered all of President Bush's call for 35 billion barrels of "alternative fuels" by 2017, reaching that goal would require 107 percent of the current corn crop, Runge calculates.

Meanwhile, 82 low-income countries already suffer "food deficits," by U.N. measures, even before the effects of food-to-fuel take hold.

While researchers are working on ways to make ethanol from switch grass and prairie grasses, breakthroughs might be years or decades away.

"It's hard to find a politician anywhere who isn't doing cartwheels cheerleading for ethanol," Runge said.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said it might take a sustained rise in food prices to change policymakers' thinking.

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NEWS

Bright Futures: State considers funding summer study

Students want more food choices

New survey finds Ospreys are looking for Asian, Mexican cuisine

New Web site offers parking tools, info

Students file class-action suit over book prices

SG working to make MLK class a reality by the fall semester

University myWings system undergoes streamlining

Fake degrees on rise

HIV rate among blacks continues rise

Corn crop concerns fuel ethanol debate

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