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The February 23 issue of the Boise State student-run newspaper, The Arbiter.
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I n d e p e n d e n t S t u d e n t V o I c e o f B o I S e S t a t e S I n c e 1 9 3 3
february 23, 2015 Vol. 27 Issue 46
The Arbiter arbiteronline.com@arbiteronline @arbiteronline
Rate My Professors “Top 10”
Male cheerleaders face social backlash,
p.8
Health Services points out un-healthy relationships in media,
p.6
Creative Writing club offers ex-cited writers a sale space,
p.11
admiration or objectification, p.12
hoots & giggles
02/23/2015Pg 2
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis
FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 23, 2015
ACROSS1 Thom __: shoe
brand5 Greek Zs
10 This, in Spain14 Poi source15 Motionless16 Like spider webs17 __ the Impaler:
model for“Dracula”
18 One of a 1492trio
19 Ritual flammablestack
20 They’re juiced inJacksonville
23 Anteater’s soundin the comic“B.C.”
24 Mobster’s gal25 Hawaiian wreath26 Flood-control
project29 Garbage barge
puller31 Odorless gas33 They’re baked in
Boise37 Disaster relief
org.38 Put the kibosh on39 Exec’s “By
yesterday!”42 They’re boiled in
Bangor47 Sets aside for
future use49 __ and improved50 Barnyard home51 Suffix with transit52 “Green __ and
Ham”55 Knock sharply57 They’re shelled in
Savannah62 One-liner, e.g.63 Make __: get rich64 Dining table
expansion piece66 Degree recipient67 Guts68 Year-end
clearance event69 Office note70 Deuce toppers71 One-named Art
Deco artist
DOWN1 Network that once
employed VJs2 Muscle prone to
cramps
3 Devastated Asiansea
4 Caffeinated pill5 “Be quiet!”6 Oklahoma city7 Early brunch hr.8 “Star Wars” droid,
familiarly9 Hollywood
hopeful10 “College Football
Playoff” network11 Crow’s-nest
telescopes12 Deep serving
bowl13 Infant’s bodysuit21 __-Rooter22 Voice above
tenor26 “What’s the __?”:
“So what?”27 Fruity cooler28 “Li’l Abner”
matriarch30 Departed32 Furnace output34 Lukas of
“Witness”35 “Shop __ you
drop”36 Neural impulse
conductor40 Museum
collection
41 Would-be social worker’smaj.
43 “__ your pardon”44 NFLer who plays
at theMeadowlands—in NJ, ironically
45 Scolds but good46 Ugly duckling, as
it turned out47 Lumber mill
blockage
48 Bump from whichcactus spinesgrow
53 Xbox enthusiast54 Cathedral
topper56 Throb58 San __, Italy59 Jealous feeling60 Rip61 Word after sea or
before Lake65 Doctor’s charge
Saturday’s Puzzle SolvedBy Kurt Krauss 2/23/15
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC 2/23/15
crossword puzzleComic Strip
sudoku
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” -Bill Gates
ISSUEIN THIS
Distributed Mondays & Thurs-days during the academic school year. The Arbiter is the
official independent student newspaper of Boise State University and a designated public forum, where student editors make all content deci-sions and bear responsibil-ity for those decisions. The Arbiter’s budget consists of fees paid by the student body and advertising sales. The first copy is free. Additional cop-ies can be purchased for $1 apiece at The Arbiter offices.
arbiteronline.com1910 University Dr Boise, ID 83725
Phone: 208.426.6300 Fax: 888.388.7554
Contact Us
10
6
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEFEmily Pehrson
editor@ arbiteronline.com
MANAGING EDITORJustin Kirkham
managingeditor@ arbiteronline.com
NEWS EDITORAlx Stickel
news@ arbiteronline.com
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOREryn-Shay Johnson
& Sean Buncenews@
arbiteronline.com
SPORTS EDITORNate Lowery
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITORBrandon Walton
CULTURE EDITORPatty Bowen
arts@ arbiteronline.com
ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITORAugust McKernan
arts@ arbiteronline.com
PHOTO EDITORTyler Paget
photo@ arbiteronline.com
COPY EDITORSBrenna Brumfield
Leslie Boston-Hyde
design managerJovi Ramirez
GRAPHIC DESIGNERSTed Atwell
Jared Lewis
BUSINESS MANAGERMacArthur Minor
business@ arbiteronline.com
NL News Director Farzan Faramarzi
14
Perkins, Morris high flying
5
Foundational studies gets a makeover
Disney breaks free of past princess roles
The Fab five lead men’s lacrosse to victory
Twitter gets government inquiries
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NEWS
02/23/2015Pg 4
Health Services promotes healthy relationshipsAlx StickelNews Editor
Love is in the air, which means students are getting sick with the love bug. Re-lationships are popping up like a contagious virus.
February is dedicated to bringing awareness to heart health and teen dat-ing violance. Health Ser-vices is spotlighting the importance of healthy re-lationships.
“I think that a healthy relationship fosters an overall sense of well-being and happiness,” said Sarah O’Brien, case manager for Health Services. “I think
we know that people that are in healthy relationships also tend to be physically healthier as well.”
O’Brien said, statistical-ly speaking, teenagers and young adults are at greater risk for entering and stay-ing in an unhealthy or abu-sive relationship.
The information pro-vided by Health Services is particularly pertinent to students.
Tara Brooks, assistant di-rector of patient and busi-ness services for Health Services, said she thinks the media contributes to the problem.
Brooks said poor rela-
tionships are constantly being portrayed on TV and in other media, and it’s hard for students to identi-fy what makes a healthy re-lationship and what makes an unhealthy one.
“We not only want to take care of everybody on campus, but we also want to give them quality educational materials to help them build lifelong, healthy habits,” Brooks said.
For more information and interactive materials on healthy relationships, check out Health Services’ website: healthservices.boisestate.edu
Unhealthy Relation-ship Indicators:• One partner
checking cell phone, email or social me-dia without the other’s permis-sion
•One partner con-stantly puts down
the other•One partner has
extreme jealousy and insecurity
•One partner has explosive anger or temper
•One partner tries to keep you iso-lated from family and friends
•One partner false-ly accuses you of doing things
•One partner has mood swings
•One partner is re-ally possessive or controlling
•Physically hurts the other in any way
02/23/2015 Pg 5
NEWS
855.855.1961 www.peacecorps.gov
Discover the Benefitsof Peace Corps Service
Life is calling. How far will you go?
Information SessionBoise State University
Wednesday, February 255 to 6 p.m.
Student Union BuildingBishop Barnwell Room
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Amber Gomes will discuss how you can make a difference overseas and
return home with the experience and global perspective to stand out in a competitive job market.
Saudi Club grows without ample spaceSean BunceAsst. News Editor
During the week they pray individually, up to five times a day wherever they can find space: the hallway, the stairwell or even an un-occupied bathroom.
On Fridays, though, the Saudi Club prays together. However, due to the number of members, space is hard to find.
“They would like to all pray together. There’s about 300 of them,” said Associ-ated Students of Boise State president Bryan Vlok. “And that’s not a possibility be-cause we don’t usually have a room available for them to all do that some Fridays.”
According to Vlok, there’s a perceived hierarchy for re-
serving space on campus.After talking to Brent De-
long, Student Union Build-ing director, Vlok said De-long feels the Saudi Club keeps getting bumped, they are a religious group and academics takes precedent. Delong was unavailable for comment.
“I don’t believe that’s true, but that’s how (Delong is) interpreting it and that’s how (the Saudi Club) is feeling,” Vlok said. “If that’s how they’re feeling, we need to obviously change things over there to make sure the students aren’t feel-ing that way.”
The Saudi Club started in 2010 with 40 members. It now has 500 members in total and grows every se-mester.
Although the group re-serves space in the SUB every Friday, they often get switched to a smaller room.
“I tried to reserve the conference room in the Stu-dent Union Building on the second floor, and they have some rule that they didn’t tell me that religion is the last on the list,” said Ab-dulrahman Alfadhel, Saudi Club president. “If they have a conference, they will change our room and give the conference the bigger room. That’s happened al-most every time.”
With 300 active mem-bers participating in Friday prayer, this often means they have to pray in two groups, and not everyone gets to join in.
“I understand school is
something for academics, not for religious things,” Alfadhel said. “With this amount of students that do the Friday prayer, it’s hard to get everyone downtown to the Islamic center and do the prayer.”
Currently, a separate re-ligious group meets on Thursday nights at the Uni-versity Church, despite its scheduled demolition. Vlok is attempting to reserve this space for the Saudi Club as well, knowing this will only be a short-term solution. Vlok sees the problem only getting worse.
“Here’s the other thing;
we don’t have the space. The question always comes up, ‘Where would we put something like this?’” Vlok said. “When the University
Church comes down this summer, the group using it now is going to be dis-placed, so where do we put them?”
Genevieve LingComm 273Courtesy
Boise State’s Career Fair is returning Wednesday, Feb. 25 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admittance is free to all students.
A variety of local employ-ers will be at the Jordan and Hatch Ballrooms in the Student Union Building to give students the opportu-nity for potential employ-ment and to receive more information about their companies.
The event is expected to host organizations suitable for students of various ma-jors. Examples range from the Ada County Sheriff ’s Office, Bodybuilding.com and Micron Technology
Inc.In an email, Debbie Kay-
lor, director of Boise State’s Career Center, detailed the importance of realizing stu-dents don’t have to be look-ing for a job to attend the Career Fair.
“This is not a job fair—it is a career fair,” Kaylor wrote. “So while the majori-ty of employers have job op-portunities, the main point of the Career Fair is to net-work with employers. With over 115 employers and 25 grad schools, there will be something for everyone at this event.”
Students interested should be dressed in prop-er attire—work suits are recommended. Students should also have their re-sumes prepared in a port-
folio and start informing themselves about the com-panies that will be present.
Students are also re-minded to bring along their Student ID’s to be scanned prior to entering in order to receive nametags.
It is also recommend-ed that students pre-pare a 30-minute com-mercial to share with companies that might be too busy to have longer interactions.
Interested students should be bright and early and be ready to give a good first impression.
For more information and questions, students can contact the Career Center at (208) 426-1747 or email them at career@ boisestate.edu.
Annual Career Fair to be held Feb. 25
church space may solve the issue.
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NEWS
02/23/2015Pg 6
Government requests more tweet removalsAntonia MassaBloomberg NewsTribune News Service
Twitter Inc. said gov-ernment requests for user data and content removal jumped in the second half of 2014, especially in Rus-sia, Turkey and the U.S.
In its twice-yearly trans-parency report, Twitter said it received 84 percent more requests for content removal and 40 percent more requests for account information from govern-ments worldwide from July 1 to Dec. 31, compared with the first six months of the year.
The report is part of a broader effort by the San Francisco-based company to shed light on govern-ment surveillance of its members. Twitter last year filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, claim-ing that restrictions on the information the company makes public about surveil-lance demands violate free-speech rights.
Turkey led in requests for tweet takedowns in the recent six-month period, the report said. The Turk-ish government issued 477 requests to remove content from the microblogging
site in the period, a rise of 156 percent from the prior six months. The company said some content was withheld in 50 percent of those cases. Russia submit-ted 91 requests for content removal in the period, and Germany submitted 43 re-quests.
The U.S. government makes the majority of in-quiries about user data, and such requests increased 29 percent in the period to 1,622.
Twitter’s compliance with those demands rose 8 percent, with the company providing some informa-
tion in 80 percent of the inquiries. Turkey became the second-largest request-er of user information with 356 requests, while Russia, which never previously re-quested user data, filed 108 requests in the period.
No user information was provided to those two countries, Twitter said.
Twitter has been issu-ing transparency reports since 2012 to disclose the frequency of government demands for content re-moval and user data. Other technology companies, in-cluding Google Inc., have followed suit.
“Providing this level of transparency is not with-out its complications and sometimes means we get tough questions and criti-cism about our decisions,” Twitter’s Jeremy Kessel, senior manager of global legal policy, wrote in a blog post announcing Monday’s report. “However, this can-did feedback helps us to be ever more thoughtful about our policies and decisions regarding content and com-pliance as we navigate com-plex, diverse legal regimes around the world.”
The social media com-pany is seeking to get even
more detailed in what it tells users about the in-formation it hands over to government agencies. In October, Twitter sued the U.S. government for limit-ing the information it can disclose about agency in-quiries.
The move distinguished Twitter from other tech-nology companies, includ-ing Google, Facebook Inc., LinkedIn Corp., Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc., which entered an agreement with the government to disclose accounts targeted for gov-ernment surveillance in groups of 1,000.
02/23/2015 Pg 7
NEWS
Foundational studies looks to define programLeslie Boston-HydeCopy Editor
Similarly to the program problems service-learning is addressing, written about in the Feb. 19 issue of The Arbi-ter, the foundational studies program is looking to fix its roadblocks and complications with their required communi-ty engagement project.
UF 200 and 300 require students 3-5 hours of com-munity engagement through-out the course of the semester.
According to Riley Caldwell-O’Keefe, assistant director of foundational stud-ies, students oftentimes con-fuse the community engage-ment portion of the university foundations courses as a part of service-learning. Due to
this, she is looking to change the assignment’s name to “civ-ic engagement.”
“You know when you have those moments and you wake up and you’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s what I needed to do?’ (I) just needed two years to think about it,” Caldwell-O’Keefe said. “We’re changing (the name) because I think ... com-munity engagement implies service—which it could be if that’s the direction that you’re UF class has taken—but it might not be.”
The program has been com-piling multiple resources to fix its problem. Foundational studies has been collaborat-ing with the service-learning department to figure out solu-tions.
Kara Brascia, service-
learning director, hopes that having a positive experience in foundational studies will encourage students to move towards service-learning. If students find a passion, they can pursue it further in a ser-vice-learning course.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome to help students in UF 200 and 300 to be able to connect with something that they re-ally care about and facilitate a way for them to contribute to that? That would be ideal,” Brascia said.
Brascia has been devel-oping possibilities for civic engagement. These include lists of prepared projects that students can walk into, com-munity partners that students can collaborate with and proj-ect types that don’t involve
community partners. The program will also elvaluate projects that have not worked well in the past.
The collaboration between service-learning and founda-tional studies has also brought on Molly Valceschini, an AmeriCorps VISTA.
Over the next year, Valce-schini will focus on assess-ing the needs of professors in foundational studies, re-searching the best practices to implement and, finally, develop distinct possible proj-ects to be incorporated in the classroom.
“My goal is for faculty to feel really good about their community engagement proj-ects and their ability to intro-duce and integrate it into their classes,” Valceschini said.
Starting in March, she will schedule and interview uni-versity foundation professors about how they are defining civic engagement and how they introduce it to the class.
Calwell-O’Keefe and Val-ceschini are also working on a flyer to hand out to students. Caldwell-O’Keefe hopes that the flyer will inform students and clarify what civic engage-ment entails.
“I can hand (a student) this flyer and (they) can at least have a window into the big picture,” Caldwell-O’Keefe said.
The definition of the assign-ment is only one of the prob-lems that the program hopes to address.
While developing projects, Caldwell-O’Keefe wants to
emphasize the need for facul-ty to be flexible with student schedules.
Caldwell-O’Keefe said two to three hours of service over the course of a semester is a pretty small amount of time to commit, but faculty still have to really think and plan ahead of time to make sure students can work it into their schedule.
By the end of the recon-struction, Caldwell-O’Keefe hopes that civic engagement is clearly defined.
“I think students come to Boise State for a variety of reasons, but we have a Carn-egie Classification that says we are a community-engaged university and that we are committed to that,” Caldwell-O’Keefe said.
Boise State is the first university in Idaho to receive Carnegie certification for community
engagement
Foundations proposal is approved
Foundational studies replaces core curriculum
Boise State is recertified by Carnegie
Americore VISTA arrives to foundational studies
2006
Oct. 2010
Fall 2012
2015
Jan. 2015
ted atwell/the arbiter
Pg 8
feature
02/23/2015
Male cheerleaders overcome stereotypesLeslie Boston-HydeCopy Editor
For Kody Dudley, cheer-leading in high school was a struggle.
As one of the few male cheerleaders in his region, he was constantly ridiculed by his peers, being called gay or a girl for doing a sport he loved.
“I played it off like it didn’t bother me, but it affected me to the point that I didn’t want to do it anymore,” Dudley said. “I was like, ‘I’m done. Cheerleading’s not worth it to me.’”
He quit his sophomore year of high school to avoid the harsh words from his peers.
Although more teams are becoming co-ed, male cheerleaders still have to fight against stereotypes and teasing from peers.Overcoming adversity
Despite hesitation Dudley
decided to give cheer one more try during his junior year of high school.
“People stopped making so much fun of us and start-ed saying, ‘Hey man, could you teach me how to do backflip? Could you teach me how to throw that girl?’” Dudley said.
He continued his cheer career into All-Stars, a com-petitive cheerleading organi-zation, and joined the Bron-cos in 2014.
At Boise State Dudley met senior Malachi Burt, who has been cheering for Boise State for all four years of his college career.
Burt was no stranger to the male cheerleading ste-reotype.
In high school, he received athletic scholarship offers for football, track and field, and cheerleading. Although he excelled at each, people were still surprised when he announced his final deci-sion.
“When I chose cheerlead-ing, a lot of people said, ‘Why did you do that? … Why would you choose to be on the sidelines?’” Burt said.
Burt believes that the ste-reotypes that male cheer-leaders face comes from lack of understanding the athleti-cism of cheerleading.
“It’s just people not know-ing, people not really see-ing what we do is some-thing cool until they see something cool,” Burt said. “(When people see some-thing cool), then they’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t really care if that guy is gay or straight. He can throw a girl with one hand.’”Being a male cheer-leader at Boise State.
Since joining the cheer squad at Boise State, Dudley and Burt have been highly respected and recognized by fellow athletes, students and administration. Accord-ing to Burt, President Kustra
Pg 9
feature
02/23/2015
Male cheerleaders overcome stereotypesknows members of the cheer squad on a first name basis.
Their hard work and dedi-cation are highly appreciated on the team as well. Head coach Tobruk Blaine values the physicality that Dudley and Burt bring.
“It takes four females to do what one guy and one girl can do,” Blaine said.
Males are expected to per-form the fight song, do mo-tions, keep rhythm, perform tumbling and stunts, and be able to use a megaphone during tryouts.
Burt wants to perfect ev-ery stunt and routine. He believes that by setting a high standard for his perfor-mances, people will see him as an athlete.
“I don’t allow people to see me cheer and think anything else but, ‘Wow, that was ath-letic,’” Burt said. “Whether you’re gay, straight, femi-nine, a male, a female, a freaking bear or whatever you are, if you’re an athlete,
you want to be known as an athlete.”
Not only have Dudley and Burt added a new element of stunting to the team, they unite the team.
“I think they unify us be-cause being around girls all the time can be really ex-hausting, so they’re there to break that up,” senior flyer Kelsey Messer said. “Having a true co-ed team will set the program apart from other schools.” Looking to the future
Male cheerleading is on the rise across the nation. According to an article from KTVB, male cheerleading is growing in Treasure Valley high schools. Blaine wants to continue to grow Boise State’s program by adding more men to the team.
Blaine is hoping to recruit and maintain more male cheerleaders from surround-ing areas. Blaine wants to travel to competitions to
promote the program. She hopes to have at least six men on the cheer squad ev-ery season. Currently, Dud-ley is the only male cheer-leader hoping to return next year.
“No one has done male re-cruiting in this job, so it’s go-ing to take me going out and reaching to those males who are involved with cheerlead-ing ...” Blaine said.
Dudley has seen male cheerleading grow and be-come more accepted in Ida-ho. He hopes the growth will continue and more people will start to respect cheer-leading as a sport.
“People know football, basketball, baseball and stuff like that,” Dudley said. “I want them to recognize cheerleading as one of the top sports, something that you just can’t do because you have nothing else better to do with your time. You have to be a good athlete to do it.”
In 1898, Johnny Campbell from University of Minnesota
picked up a megaphone and cheered,
“Rah, Rah, Rah! Ski-U-Mah! Hoo-Rah!
Varsity! Varisty! Minn-e-so-tah!”
After Minnesota organized its first
all-male yell leader squad in 1899,
other colleges joined the movement.
Women started to join
cheerleading teams in 1923 at Minnesota
When World War II struck,
many college-aged men
had to fight in the war.
Teams slowly became all female.
1960s: cheer grows in
high schools and grade school
1980s: All-star cheer is created
Yell LeadersA history of
design by ted atwell/the arbiter photos by leslie boston-hyde
Culture
02/23/2015Pg 10
Happiest place on EarthChris DennisStaff Writer
Growing up, many stu-dents enjoy watching classic Disney movies.
Disney’s portrayal of gen-der roles has taken steps to-ward representing women as equals to men instead of as helpless objects.
This brings up mixed mes-sages that Disney movies have expressed in the past and how they affect student’s lives.
“I think most Disney women characters are these hopeless females that need to find a man to have a rea-son and a purpose in life,”
said Sydney Bullock, a sophomore in pre-nursing. “It gives girls a wrong idea of their worth in society.”
As a country, the portrayal of women has come a long way. This can be seen in the evolution of how gender roles were portrayed in clas-sic Disney movies versus now.
“I think that in most Dis-ney movies the prince is the hero rather than the princess but lately, the movie ‘Fro-zen’ seems to be trying to change Disney’s standard of women,” said Kyle Ostrem, sophomore mechanical en-gineering major.
The debut of “Frozen” and
other new Disney movies like “Brave” and “The Prin-cess and the Frog” signals a changing of cultural norms with a female protagonist. But, it still holds on to some of the same biases seen in past films.
Disney had originally planned to call the movie “The Snow Queen” instead of “Frozen.”
This intended title indi-cated the story was about a woman.
“In the actual story (Anna) saves her brother, not her sister,” said Jonathan Lundy, adjunct professor in the Communication De-partment. “The person that
did the research (might have been) uncomfortable with a women saving a man.”
Lundy thinks this movie has taken a step in the right direction by empowering women but that it still holds on to the antiquated view of women characteristic of classical Disney movies.
He grew up like many Americans, watching and loving Disney movies with traditional family values.
“It certainly taught me what role men and women should have to some extent,” Lundy said.
In most Disney films, the man is portrayed as the sav-ior to a woman in distress.
It makes men think they need to strive for incapable women.
Children are shown that they should strive for a relationship that emu-lates Disney fabricated expectations.
“Assessing Gender-Relat-ed Portrayals in Top-Gross-ing G-Rated Films,” a study published in the June 2010 issue of “Sex Roles,” an aca-demic journal, surveyed 101 top grossing box office films released in the United States and Canada from 1990 to 2005.
“The findings also reveal that traditional roles and responsibilities were still prevalent for females,” said the study.
“Women were nearly twice as likely to be parents
or in a committed romantic relationship. This result il-lustrates that a sexual double standard for males and fe-males was alive and well in G-rated content.”
Young viewers of such content may be taking these messages to heart.
The study also claimed that, “This presentation of women as wives and moth-ers and men as swinging sin-gles may send young viewers a mixed message about gen-dered parental and relational expectations.”
“Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are the protagonists of the story, but they spend most of the time sleeping or unconscious,” Lundy said. “What does that tell us about women and girls and where their true powers lies?”
Disney’s gender roles portray an inaccurate view of gender
If you have any foes
I’ll vanquish them for you,
I know you need to be saved.
I can do things myself you know.
ted atwell/the arbiter
Culture
02/23/2015 Pg 11
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Creative Writing Club does creativity rightCheyene AustinStaff Writer
Everyone knows that type of student who stares in crip-pling dread at a blank Word document fifteen minutes before the assignment is due. They question why all of their peers have been gifted with an affinity for words except them.
Everyone has been that student at one point in our lives.
This undeniable fact of life is one that the Freewrite: Creative Writing Club takes to heart and hopes to help remedy.
Whether one is an Eng-
lish major, a computer sci-ence major or anything in between, the club welcomes them to join their judgment-free community where, hopefully, they can allow their inner writer to flourish.
“It’s great to be part of a community that not only tolerates the drivel that I produce, but encourages it and tries to help me make sense of it,” said Skyler Simp-son, freshman computer science major.
The club is co-advised by Elizabeth Barnes, professor in the English Department, and Mollie Ficek, faculty tutor in the English Depart-ment, who started the club to
give undergraduate students a community for writing support.
“(Our purpose was) just to create an environment where writers are comfortable writ-ing about things that interest them and working together in a team so they don’t have to go it alone,” said Jadon Curl, freshman English major and club treasurer.
The club is open to all types of writing, including fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Peo-ple of any major or skill level are free to participate.
According to Theadora Callahan, freshman English major and club vice presi-dent, the main motivator for
the creation of the club was to provide a space for people who like writing, but don’t have the time or perceived skill level to devote to the craft on a regular basis.
“We aren’t super-writers,” Callahan said. “We just like to write.”
Callahan also said that the club is brand new—officially recognized since the begin-ning of Spring 2015. They’re looking for people who love writing to join or check out a meeting.
Club meetings usually be-gin with a prompt, a quiet time to write and an opportu-nity to share and collaborate.
According to Callahan,
they won’t tie anyone down and make them read if they don’t want to.
The Freewrite: Creative Writing Club meets every Wednesday from 5:45 to 7 p.m. in the Liberal Arts build-
ing room 202.The room has plenty of
computers and outlets avail-able for those who prefer typ-ing or want to bring their own laptop. The club is a guaran-teed no-judgment zone.
leslie boston-hyde/the arbiter
Culture
02/23/2015Pg 12
Steaming hot chili peppersPatty BowenCulture Editor
The online application helping students judge the merit of their professors, called Rate My Professors, has gone from a useful re-flection tool to a strangely intrusive conversation starter for Desiree Brunette, professor in the Sociology Department.
“I have had students tell me to my face that they took my class because they saw that I was a red hot chili pepper on Rate My Profes-sors,” Brunette said. “That’s so disrespectful.”
Brunette, like many other professors at Boise State, was deemed “hot” with a little chili pepper symbol. The pep-per informs Rate My Profes-sors users know that a large number of students have ac-knowledged a professor’s lev-el of physical attractiveness.
The helpfulness of this as-pect of Rate My Professors is under scrutiny because it brings physical attractive-ness to the attention of stu-dents instead of focusing on purely academic parts of the classroom experience.MTV’s relationship to Rate My Professor
The “hotness” of a profes-sor is not included in the overall score of the professor on Rate My Professors, lead-ing several professors like Brunette to question why it is included in the first place.
According to the Carlo Dimarco, senior vice president of MTV 360 Strategic Part-
nerships, when Rate My Pro-fessors was bought by MTV in 2006, the hotness rating “came with the business.”
“When Rate My Profes-sors was first designed by a student in Cal Poly Pamona, that student did their due dil-igence and researched what areas students were most interested in, and they came up with the notion of the chili pepper,” Dimarco said. “We didn’t want to change anything so dramatically as to take away something that was already there.”
Rate My Professors has ratings for 15 million profes-sors and has a strict process of weeding out new or old professor profiles through a comment and check process.
MTV originally bought Rate My Professors to con-nect with their college au-dience in a greater capacity. Dimarco feels that it contin-ues to serve as a good way for MTV to mark its content and connect with colleges.
“(Buying Rate My Pro-fessors) was a good way to get into the college place in a digital way,” Dimarco said. “Its profits come from advertisements we run on the site with banner ads. The site helps us market our content from some of our networks.”
Dimarco feels that the hotness rating more ac-curately shows whether or not students feels fondly to-wards the professor overall.
However, Brunette feels that the addition of a hot-ness rating devalues profes-
sors who aren’t considered conventionally attractive.
“It’s disrespectful to our profession and what we do, and second of all, on a dif-ferent level, it’s disrespect-ful to people to have a poor rating,” Brunette said. “It’s a way for people to potentially feel bad about themselves.”The blurred lines be-tween students and professors
“I think to sexualize your education is gross,” Bru-nette said. “We’re blurring a lot of lines in general with social media. I wouldn’t say all the ownership is put on students, but a lot of the lines of professionalism have been blurred because everything is so public.”
This publicity is taken even further through social media platforms like Face-book and Twitter. Here, stu-dents are able to learn about personal aspects of profes-sors’ lives, creating a conflict of what is professional and what is personal.
“With Facebook, unless you have a professional page, your professional and person-al lives are just out there,” said Sam Matson, clinical assistant professor in the Geosciences Department. “There’s things about my family life that maybe I wouldn’t share with all of my classes that I teach on-campus.”
This breaching of bound-aries creates an atmosphere where personal interactions between students and pro-fessors are more common-
place.Dimarco, on the other
hand, feels that this blend-ing of lines creates a great opportunity for professors to brand themselves and get the most from their interac-tions with students over so-cial media.
“I think it’s an excellent utility for students to be able to wade through and figure out whether or not a professor is a good fit for them,” Dimarco said. “So-cial media in general is a tool that we are all trying to figure out how to use it to the best of our advantage.”Peer-to-Peerrelationship vs.Peer-to-Professor
According to Matson, the hotness factor creates a peer-to-peer mentality be-tween students and profes-sors by putting professors on a level where students feel comfortable objectify-ing them.
Matson feels that com-pared to other countries, like the United Kingdom where students and fac-ulty are widely divided, the United States promotes a more informal relationship between student and pro-fessor.
“I think over here in America, there’s much more of a peer mentality which I think can be a good thing. I think it’s a good thing for undergraduates to think of themselves as researchers and being capable of doing the things faculty do.”
Rate My Professors’ hotness ranking brings student professor relationships into question#2 Tiffany Watkins,Physics
#10 Brian Hodges,Music
#7 Matthew VanderBoegh, Communication #9 Anne Allen,
Theater
#6 Lee Ann Turner,Art History
Professor ranking for “hotness” rating#1 Chris Haskell, Educational Technology#3 Laurel Traynowicz,Communication#5 Ryan Peck, Biology#8 Mandy McDaniel,Mathematics
design by jovi ramirez/the arbiter
02/23/2015 Pg 13
Sports & rec
LAX team sports youthLeslie Boston-HydeCopy Editor
Youth is running rampant among the Boise State la-crosse team this season.
The Broncos have quite the young team with a ma-jority of them being fresh-man.
For head coach Jon Mun-dy, five freshmen have sepa-rated themselves from the rest of the team.
Defenseman David Man-ning and midfielders Aus-tin Lickley, James Murphy, Alex Wilson and Ryan Price are proving to be a valuable commodity to the team’s success.
“They’re a testament that you can come in as a fresh-man and play right away,” Mundey said. “Sometimes you would think that re-turners would have a little bit of jealousy or a chip on their shoulder because young guys come and take their job. But the proof is in the pudding, and every-body’s behind them 100
percent.”Mundy started to realize
the important role that the five brought a few weeks into practice. Their roles so-lidified following the trip to UC Davis in November.
The freshmen have had no issues fitting in with the team this season and were welcomed in with open arms.
“At the end of the day, they treat us the same, es-pecially since a lot of our freshman class are going to be the ones who are playing this year,” Manning said.
The upperclassmen have developed respect for the youngest players on the ros-ter.
“They’re honestly some of the better guys on our team,” senior defenseman Nick Cherbero said.
The freshmen are already taking strides this season. In their first match against Utah State, Manning, Lick-ley and Murphy started while Wilson and Price had lots of playing time.
According to his coach, Manning had a stellar de-fensive performance in the team’s most recent 18-9 vic-tory over Utah State.
The four midfielders were also vital in the victory. While none scored a goal or made an assist, they moved the ball well and provided others with opportunities to capitalize upon.
“They’re kind of the un-sung heroes in that they continue to make plays that make the entire offense flow and the entire team better,” Mundy said.
Mundy has high hopes for the five. He anticipates that they will receive All-Amer-ican titles and be first team All-Conference players.
While Lickley feels an added pressure of being a recognized key player, he hopes to contribute to the team’s success this season and in future years as well.
“We have five guys that if they all stay … we’re going to be good the next couple of years,” Lickley said.
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Sports & Rec
Boise State didn’t let the dogs outKyle MoellerStaff Writer
After two tough back-to -back games on the road, the Boise State men’s basketball team returned home to take the bark out of the Ne-vada Wolfpack in a 78-46 rout.
The Broncos took the early lead and never looked back.
The team had a strong showing on offense; shooting 56 percent from field. In addition, the Broncos accumulated 17 assists on 30 field goals.
“Our offense had a nice day today and moved the ball efficiently,” head coach Leon Rice said. “It was a great effort by our guys. I liked the fact we had 17 assists today.”
But it was their defense
that stole the show. Boise State created 16
turnovers and held Ne-vada to 36 percent shoot-ing from the field.
“Our defense was really solid through 40 minutes,” Rice said. “Nevada is an athletic team and that can be scary if you let them do what they want. You have to give credit to our guys.”
James Webb III led the effort for the Broncos, fill-ing up the stat sheet. He finished the day with 22 points, seven rebounds, two blocks, a steal and a few electrifying dunks that put the arena in a frenzy.
“I had no idea I would shoot this well today,” Webb III said. “I have been working on my shot and today it just paid off.”
Webb III was able to score from the inside and
the outside. He finished the day shooting nine of 11 from the field and four for four from three-point land.
Webb credits his success to the chemistry between him and his teammates.
“We all work together as a team,” Webb III said. “We have a great offense and everyone knows their position. We like to share the ball and find open guys we know will knock it down.”
Many teams this season have been trying to figure out the rubik’s cube that is James Webb III. Like many have before, Nevada tried and failed.
“I have noticed teams getting more physical with me,” Webb III said. “I am still going to continue to crash the boards, but they are just going to have to
knock me down.”Senior Derrick Marks,
who has been the other vi-tal piece of the puzzle for the Broncos success this season, couldn’t be happi-er with Webb’s emergence.
“I always knew what he could do,” Marks said. “When he got his chance, I wasn’t surprised. Ever since he got his chance, he has taken full advantage of it.”
Marks finished the game with 18 points of his own.
The win gave the Bron-cos their 20th victory of the season, marking three straight seasons in a row the team has been able to accomplish that feat. The last time the team was able to accomplish that was over 20 years ago during the 1986-1989 seasons.
The Broncos will be back Feb. 24. when they host New Mexico.
Brandon WaltonAsst. Sports & Rec Editor
Every week, The Arbiter sports staff will be selecting a Bronco student-athlete for their athletic performances over the week. Selections will be run on Monday and be based off of the previous week, running from Sunday to Sat-urday.
The Boise State women’s gymnastics team is off to a flying start to their sea-son and much of that has to do with their two senior captains Ciera Perkins and Kelsey Morris.
Perkins and Morris’ per-formance this season have vaulted the Broncos to the No. 15 ranking in the country.
The senior duo most re-cently led the Broncos to a big win over No. 23 Ohio State this past weekend.
Morris won three indi-vidual titles in the victory, including the all-around.
Perkins posted a 9.80 on
the uneven bars and a 9.85 on the vault.
Both are having outstand-ing final seasons for the team.
Combined, they have won Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference Specialists of the Week five times this sea-son.
While Morris is busy col-lecting individual titles, Perkins posted a perfect 10 score on vault earlier in the season. She is only one of five gymnasts to achieve that feat this season.
While both enjoy the suc-cess they are having, their focus is on the team with hopes of leading the Bron-cos to their first ever team appearance at the NCAA championships.
“It would be the best feel-ing knowing we made his-tory in our last year,” Perkins said. “We have been trying to get there for three years.”
Perkins and Morris will be back in action Feb. 27 at Taco Bell Arena.
Arbiter Athletes of the Week: Ciera Perkins and Kelsey Morris
Broncos talk strategy during the sdu game.
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02/23/2015, Page 15
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hoots & giggles
Da riddles1. If I say “Everything I tell you is a lie,” am I tell-ing you the truth or a lie?2. Food can help me survive, but water will kill me. What am I?
3. How many letters are in the alphabet?
fun facts1. Idaho’s state motto: “Esto Perpetua” translates to “It is forever”.
2. Twin Falls was the sight of Evil Knievels jump in 1974.
3. If you’ve ever wondered where the name Boise comes from, it was adopted after French Canadian fur trappers who set their traps in the woods by the Boise River, which they called “La rivière boi-sée” and would refer to the trees as “Les bois!”.
Da riddles from THURSDAY1. 22 TIMES 2. DARKNESS 3. A STAMP
multiplayer dot game
dot game rulesPlayers take turns to join two adjacent dots with a horizontal or vertical line. If a player completes the last side of a
box they initial that box and then draw another line. When all the boxes have been completed the winner is the player
who has initialled the most boxes.
