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Page 2: Music can be utilized as learning tool Page 3: ASU offers childcare to students, faculty, staff Page 4: Rugby gears up for Final Four Serving Arkansas State University since 1921 T HE H ERALD Fast Feed Opinion Sports Campus WWW.ASUHERALD.COM VOLUME 88, ISSUE 52 Monday, April 26, 2010 Did you participate in Springfest this year? Baseball falls to South Alabama Page 4 Visit asuherald.com to place your vote in our next poll 83 % No. 17 % Yes. Cecily Long Senior Staff Writer ASU Chancellor Robert Potts announced Friday that he has assembled a task force for campus safe- ty. The task force is made up of 10 people who repre- sent various aspects of the campus. According to an ASU press release, the task force includes: Patrick Dixon, di- rector of Residence Life; Adrian Everett, Student Government Association president; Len Frey, dean of the College of Business; Beverly Boals-Gilbert, pres- ident of the Faculty Associ- ation; Gary Harpole, direc- tor of operations for the city of Jonesboro; Ed Kremers, vice chancellor of Finance and Administration; Kevin Linker, president of the Graduate Student Council; Randy Martin, president of the Staff Senate; Lucinda McDaniel, of the university counsel and Rick Stripling, vice chancellor of Student Affairs who will serve as chair of the group. The task force was de- signed to evaluate campus safety measures and pro- vide recommendations on improvements to Potts by June 30. Because the group has yet to meet, Len Frey said he doesn’t have any expec- tations at this time as to how the group plans to go about researching campus safety. Frey represents the deans of the campus and said that he appreciates ASU’s efforts toward hav- ing a safe campus. “Clearly there’s nothing more important than to have the safest campus pos- sible,” Frey said. He added that he is looking forward to assessing the sense of security the staff and stu- dents have on campus. The task force will also feature a city representa- tive. As director of opera- tions of Jonesboro, Harpole works in the mayor’s office. He said that the city is will- ing to help ASU improve safety measures in any way possible. “Obviously the city of Jonesboro and ASU are tied to the success of one anoth- er,” Harpole said. “When students choose ASU they’re also choosing the city to live in. (Jonesboro) has always been dedicated to the concerns of the cam- pus.” Task force to evaluate campus safety Honoring our own Retiring communications dean, journalism chair reflect on time at ASU Molly Carpenter News Editor “My idea has always been to treat people the way you’d like to be treated.” For the past 40 years, that is how Joel Gambill, chair of the department of journalism, has treated his faculty, staff and stu- dents: with respect. Gambill, who will retire on June 30, came to ASU as an un- dergraduate in 1961 after being encouraged by a neighbor who was also a student. He originally hoped to become a meteorologist, planning to land a job with NASA or the Navy, be- cause he had a strong interest in science. However, his Composition I class, taught Tex Plunkett who founded the ASU Journalism de- partment changed his mind. “He is who I really owe my ca- reer to,” Gambill said. According to Gambill, “Tex,” called him into his office and asked him if he had ever thought about journalism as a career choice. “I thought you had to be smart [to be a journalist],” Gambill re- sponded. He said Tex told Gambill to take journalism in the fall and he, Tex, would worry about whether or not he was smart enough. Gambill still believed he would become a meteorologist, but be- cause he liked Tex, he decided to give it a try. “I always had liked news and sports, but in high school I’d never thought about journalism,” Gambill said. He immediately went to work for The Herald, covering sports and news. At that time, The Herald had two co-editors, and Gambill said they took him in and “adopted” him. “My life became journalism because of them,” he said. Continiued @ asuherald.com Dr. Joel Gambill Chair of the Department of Journalism Wendy Miller Herald Editor For the past 20 years, Rus- sell Shain, dean of the College of Communications, has been working along with the faculty members to maintain “ a tradi- tion of excellence.” As the semester comes to a close, Shain’s time as dean is also coming to an end. “Where the college goes now will depend on new leadership, which I have great confidence in, and the faculty and the stu- dents,” Shain said. Osa Amienyi, current chair of the department of radio-televi- sion, will be serving as interium dean of the college once Shain retires on June 30. Shain’s higher education lead- ership position within the Col- lege of Communications, which began in July 1990, was not his first. Shain served as dean of jour- nalism and mass communica- tion for 10 years at the Univer- sity of Colorado at Boulder and as academic coordinator for the telecommunications program in the College of Engineering at Boulder. “I really came [to ASU] be- cause the college had excellent faculty, but it was also recruit- ing excellent students and had a wonderful group of alumni,” Shain said. Shain has a strong back- ground in journalism beginning when he was a sophomore in high school. His journalistic in- terest continued when he began working for The Lexington Her- ald the following year. When Shain began pursu- ing a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism at the University of Kentucky, he began working for The Lexington Herald full-time for three years of his undergrad- uate college career. Shain credits much of his success to his advisor and men- tor, Bob Thorp at the University of Kentucky. Continued @ asuherald.com Dr. Russell Shain Dean of the College of Communications Officials estimate 600 days of construction after bidding Nathan Carmack Staff Writer Bidding on the second phase of construction of the Caraway Road Overpass is set to begin Friday. A pre-bidding session was held on Thursday at- tended by some interested construction, said vice chancellor for Finance and Administration, Ed Krem- ers, but he would not re- lease the names of those companies before bidding had begun. He also would not di- vulge how much funding was available for the proj- ect, citing concerns that such an announcement would make the bidding less competitive. “If I put out numbers right now, that would give bidders an idea [of avail- able funds],” Kremers said. The first phase of the overpass, which has been under construction since Feb. 2009, is still projected to be finished by Jan. 2011. A completion date for the second phase has not been set, but the contract calls for 600 days to completion once bidding is complete. Kremers said the sec- ond phase of construction will extend the overpass over the railroad tracks to connect with the first phase at the intersection of Washington Avenue and Matthews Avenue. Construction of the overpass has been delayed several times since it was first proposed in 2001. Early estimates said the project could be completed by Sep. 2010 and cost as little as $8.4 million, al- though cost estimates were soon adjusted to more than $23 million. Federal funding has covered most of the cost so far, and the Arkansas Highway and Transporta- tion Department, the City of Jonesboro and the uni- versity itself have invested millions in the project. Companies to begin bidding on overpass Anna Sellers/ Photo Editor Construction workers continue to work on the first phase of the overpass project, but as of Friday, the bidding will begin for the second phase of the project. Student works to become trilingual Todd Fogle Staff Writer People learning to speak a foreign language will often say that the only way to truly learn the language is to totally im- merse yourself into it and the culture. Asuka Morimoto, a sopho- more political science and Spanish major lived that expe- rience in the extreme when she moved to Escuela Normal de Atlacomulco in Mexico for 11 months. Morimoto, a sophomore po- litical science and Spanish ma- jor from Tokyo, did not know Spanish when she began her journey abroad, but her parents had no problem with her going. “I struggled to convince my- self to go to Mexico,” she said. “I didn’t know anything about Mexico. The only image for Mexico was big hats and cac- tuses.” See TRILINGUAL Page 3 Tornado in Mississippi kills 10 Rescue workers in Mis- sissippi continued to search for survivors Sunday after a powerful tornado ripped through the state a day earlier, killing 10 people, injuring several others and leveling many homes. The storm system began in Louisiana where a tornado destroyed 12 homes and warehouses at Complex Chemical Co., which makes antifreeze and automotive fluids. The storm moved east, with the tornado striking nearby Yazoo County, Miss., killing four people. The storm then claimed anoth- er life in adjacent Holmes County and then five more in Choctaw County, includ- ing children ages 3 months, 9 and 14. The National Weather Service on Sunday gave the Mississippi tornado a preliminary rating of at least 3 on the Enhanced Fu- jita Scale of 0-5, with wind speeds of up to 160 miles per hour and a preliminary path width of one and a half miles. The tornado tore a path nearly a mile wide as it moved over parts of Mis- sissippi, leveling a church, tearing roofs off houses, overturning cars and cut- ting off power to large areas of the state. The most heavily dam- aged counties were Yazoo and Choctaw; however, the Mississippi Emergency Man- agement Agency (MEMA) said there weren’t any reports of anyone being trapped in rubble. MEMA officials reported at least 681 homes had been damaged and there were 31 injuries; however, it had not received full counts from Yazoo and Choctaw Counties. The same storm system that produced Saturday’s twister delivered severe weather to other parts of the South on Sunday, with tornadoes hitting Alabama and South Carolina. - Compiled by Jarrett Clark from Arkansasonline.com and cnn.com
