the oredigger issue 15 - february 8, 2010

8/14/2019 The Oredigger Issue 15 - February 8, 2010

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Volume 90, Issue 15 February 8, 2010

News 2 Features 4 sports 8 opiNioN - 10~legislature day

~scientific discoveries

~geek of the week

~art of science

~baseball season preview

~track and field

~minds at mines

~nhv debate rebuttal

satire 12~faculty bios

~tupac

The CSM Center for Space Re-sources is located in the GeneralResearch Labs building, but thecenters director, Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid says its best to think aboutthe Center for Space Resourcesas CSM in space. The CSR is amultidisciplinary research centerfocused on tackling the challengesfacing space exploration today andin the future.

The School of Mines has hada history with the space programbeginning with studying some of the Apollo moon rocks, and for a

short time there was a Center of Space Mining. However there wasno concerted effort to establish aspace research center until 1996with the creation of the Center forCommercial Applications of Com-bustion in Space, as a part of theNASA Commercial Space Centersprogram, to study high tempera-ture reactions and combustion inmicrogravity, and that center lastedfor about 10 years.

The true Center for Space Re-sources was created in 2006 in re-sponse to what Dr. Abbud-Madriddescribed as amajor shift in NASA policy. In Januaryof 2004, PresidentBush gave NASA the goal to replacethe aging spaceshuttle, and re-turn to the Moon,and send the rstmanned missions to Mars. Thesegoals involve everything from thedevelopment of new technologies,to nding, mining, and utilizing plan-

etary resources, and as Dr. Abbud-Madrid said, Thats exactly whatMines is good at. Thus the CCACSwas reworked into the contempo-rary Center for Space Resources tobe a multi-disciplinary center for thedevelopment of new technologiesto meet the challenges faced bythe new era of space exploration.

The recent budget an-nouncements made byPresident Obama ap-peared to spell out an endfor an American spaceprogram with the cancel-lation of the project todevelop a shuttle replace-ment, and Lunar and Mar-

tian expeditions. However, Dr. Abbud-Madrid feels strongly oth-erwise; Its actually a great oppor-tunity for us and for universities andfor researchers, because now themoney, instead of being channeledto build the rocket, will be used todevelop technology. This opensthe door to all corporations to at-tempt to develop their own spacetransportation, and could lead tobetter and more ef cient systemsthan would have been producedby NASA directly. So, despite thefears that U.S. space ight is dying

out, Dr. Abbud-Madrid is hopeful;When [the budgetreport] came outand I read it, I said,this is great.

Since the Cen-ter for Space Re-sources is sucha multidisciplinary

research group, there are a lot of different projects all being workedon at a time. From studying how tocharacterize, and excavate soils,

Dr. Angel Abbud-Madrid, Joe Stevanak, and Ben Webster work on a re-suppression system for spacecraft.

developing sensors, studying newmaterials and how to manufacturethem in space, managing the dustthat plagues planetary research,and developing a new re suppres-sion system. Recently, there havebeen some very signi cant devel-opments in a couple of the projects.Dr. Abbud-Madrid noted that We

developed the rst prototype of alunar excavatorthat will work onthe moon. The group of seniorsworking on that project will head tothe Kennedy Space Center at theend of the semester to competewith a new version of the excavator.

Ano th er gre at de ve lo pm en thas been in Dr. Abbud-Madridsresearch into spacecraft re sup-pression. We were actually giventhe go-ahead by NASA to developthe re extinguisher thats goingto be on the new spacecraft fromnow on. And it will most likelybe adopted in the future by othercorporations for their spacecraft aswell. The system being developedat the CSR is a portable unit thatdisperses water in a very ne mist.Water is great, because watermist, as opposed to sprinklers, isvery ne droplets - like a cloud,explained Dr. Abbud-Madrid. Sothat thing gets to the re, absorbsall the heat, vaporizes very quickly,and doesnt leave all the destruc-tion that you have after using[sprinklers]. And with spacec rafts

dehumidifying systems, the waterthat is used to suppress the reis actually recycled, and the extin-guisher can be re lled and reusedas well.

Down in the lab where the resuppression system was beingtested, two of the students work-ing on the project spoke on the

difficulties of testing asystem that is to be usedin a space environment.Ben Webster, a Junior,majoring in EngineeringPhysics, spoke about thelaborious nature of set-ting up the experiments.Your normal vacuum

system, you clean out, and youclean with alcohol, and you bake itdown to get all the uids out, heexplained. But with this guy, wereliterally throwing a waterfall into itevery test I spend several hoursin there with a vacuum and a heatgun just sitting inside drying it. Notonly is setting up for a test dif cult,but being able to send informationfrom inside the vacuum chamberto a computer was dif cult as well.Joe Stevanak, a Senior Engineer-ing Physics major, stated, Whenyou try to get it down to vacuumpressures, just a few moleculescan make a difference and so,any of the feed-throughs [fromthe vacuum chamber to outside]have to be electrically and speciallyisolated so that you dont have anyleakage of gas.

The Center for Space Resourcesis on the forefront of space researchand is producing the technologythat will continue to keep the UnitedStates, and the rest of the world,headed out of Earths atmosphereand into the cosmos.

Center for Space Resources puts Mines in space

Alan DowneySt ff W t

alan doWney / oredigger

Were literally throwing a waterfall into

it every test I spend several hours in

there with a vacuum and a heat gun just

sitting inside drying it.

When [t he budget

report] came out andI read it, I said, this is

great.

Dr. Tim Scheibe visited the Colo-rado School of Mines last week aspart of the National Ground WaterResearch and Educational Foun-dation-sponsored Henry DarcyDistinguished Lecture Series inGround Water Science. The lectureseries was established in 1986 tohonor Henry Darcy who, through hisresearch, established the basis forhydrology and groundwater engi-neering. Each year, a distinguishedgroundwater scientist or engineer ischosen by an expert panel to travelthe country and present their work.

Tim Scheibe got his start ingroundwater with former DarcyLecturer and current CSM fac-ulty member Dr. Eileen Poeter, whotaught him in an undergraduategroundwater course at WashingtonState University. He then went on toearn a masters degree from Univer-sity of Washington and a Ph.D. fromStanford. He now works for Paci cNorthwest National Laboratory.

As part of the lecture circuit,Scheibe delivered a presentationentitled, Beyond the Black Box:Integrating Advanced Character-ization of Microbial Processes withSubsurface Reactive TransportModels. This lecture dealt primar-ily with the use of microbes, whichalready exist in the earths subsur-face, for bio-remediation of con-taminates to groundwater sources.

To start the lecture off, he paint-ed a picture of the diversity thatcan be encountered on our planetand how much local environmentaffects human behavior. If you wantto know me, you need to knowsomething about the environmentI live in because my behavior isin uenced by my local conditions.I would say the same is true formicro-organisms Their behavioris strongly in uenced by their localconditions.

The ide a of sub surf ace mi-crobiology is fairly new. In 1985,the US Department of Energybegan funding the study of micro-organisms in the deep subsurface.Before this time, it was thoughtthat life could not exist there dueto the complete lack of sunlight (oranything originating from sunlight).However, diverse organisms havebeen found up to 2.8 kilometersbelow the subsurface. One of these organisms has been foundto survive at temperatures above121 degrees centigrade, strain 121.

These microbes eat and live off of rocks. Uranium decay feeds theseorganisms by changing inorganiccarbon, formed from decay, intoorganic carbon. This idea has ledscientists to believe that similarorganisms may exist on Mars. Un-fortunately, the feasibility of settingup a drilling rig on Mars is currentlyoutside of reality.

Groundwater remediationwith microbesKevin LockSt ff W t

see groundwateron page 3

NHV coordinator responds to criticism

see page 10


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Oredigger Staff

Sara Post

Editor-in-Chief Neelha Mudigonda

Managing Editor

Abdullah AhmedBusiness Manager

Ryan BrowneWebmaster

Barbara AndersonDesign Editor

Zach Boerner Copy Editor

Robert Gill Asst. Business Manager for

Sales and Marketing

Ian Littman Asst. Business Manager, Web

Content

Steven Wooldridge Asst. Webmaster

Mike StoneFools Gold Content Manager

Tim WeilertContent Manager

Jake RezacContent Manager

Spencer NelsonContent Manager

Forrest StewartFaculty Advisor

Headlines from around the worldLocal News

Mines womens basketballteam defeated UC-Colorado

Springs in Rocky Mountain Ath-letic Conference by scoring thehighest number of points in theseason (90 points) on Saturday,February 6 th.

The Colorado School of Minesswimming and diving teams (bothwomens and mens) earned Col-orado Swimming Coaches Asso-ciation of America Division II TeamScholar All-America honors. Withthe womens cumulative GPA of 3.43 and the mens of 3.10 forFall 2009, the teams stood fourthand sixth consecutively in DivisionII schools.

The CSM Sweet Adelines andBarbershop are selling Singing

Valentines this week; they can bedelivered to any location on cam-pus on Friday, February 12 th.

Career Day is on Tuesday,February 9 th; it will be held dur-ing the day at the Mines StudentRecreation Center.

The Coal Creek Canyon En-vironmental Group had a com-munity meeting on February 4thto oppose Denver Waters Projectand to enlarge Gross Reservoir

by sending letters of protest tothe U. S. Army Corps of Engi-neers and to Denver Water.

The tickets for Winter Carnivalwill be on sale this week through

Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm inthe Student Center Lobby; theWinter Carnival is at Eldora.

Emily Trudell, Staff Writer

Jake Rezac, Content Manager

Mens Health Magazine rankedtwo Colorado cities in their list of the top 20 drunkest cities in the United States. ColoradoSprings was ranked sixteenth,and Denver was ranked seven-teenth, moving back from thenumber one spot a couple yearsago. The ranking was based onthe number of DUI arrests, theseverity of offenses, and on thenumber of deaths caused by al-cohol.

Royal Dutch Shell announcedthat it would cut 1,000 jobs afterfourth quarter revenues dropped75 percent for the energy compa-ny. Shell cut 5,000 jobs in 2009,and plans to cut production by560,000 barrels of oil per day.

Republican Scott Brown wassworn in by Vice President JoeBiden as a new Senator fromMassachusetts. Brown is replac-ing the spot of Sen. Edward Ken-nedy, who died in August afterserving 46 years.

The body of a 22 year old stu-dent of Colorado State Univer-sity was found on a set of railroadtracks just outside of Keenesburg

Thursday morning. The studentwas a member of the Alpha TauOmega fraternity at CSU, andauthorities have found no evi-dence that his death was asuicide.

NASA released photosof the dwarf planet Pluto ,showing that it undergoesdramatic atmosphericchanges. Experts from thespace agency argue thatthese photos show that Plu-to is not just a ball of rock and ice since it has dramatic

seasons and weather. A federal judge ordered

Charles McArthur Emmanuel,the son of a former Liberianpresident , to pay $22.4 millionin damages to ve citizens whowere brutally tortured during thecountrys civil war. Emmanuelwas also sentenced to 97 yearsin prison under a United Statesanti-torture law.

The American military shipped25 bomb-snif ng dogs to Iraqafter several mechanical bombdetectors were found to be inef-fective. Another 120 dogs arescheduled to be brought to Iraqwithin the next twelve months tocrack down on bombings causedby security lapses.

The Global Wind Energy Coun-cil reported that China doubledthe amount of wind power gen-erated from wind farms in

the previous year. China aims toincrease its wind power genera-tion by six times, by 2020, thoughexperts speculate that the nationwill reach that goal far sooner.Despite the increase, wind poweronly makes up 1 percent of Chi-nas energy needs.

Akio Toyoda, the CEO andPresident of Toyota apologizedfor the companys recall of over4.5 million vehicles over the globefor sticky gas pedals.

National Center for Immuni-zation and Respiratory Diseaseswarned that the H1N1 u is stilla predominant virus, and urged

Americans to get the vaccine.Only an estimated 23 percent of the public have received the vac-cination, and between 7,880 and16,460 deaths related to H1N1occurred since the virus rst be-

gan to circulate.

Boulder, CO: An astronomer inColorado has discovered evidenceto indicate that Pluto has been get-ting more red as time passes. Aftercompleting analysis of images of Plu-to taken by the Hubble Space Tele-scope, the scientist has come to the

conclusion that the northern hemi-sphere of Pluto got brighter whilethe southern hemisphere darkened.He hypothesizes that this change isa result of the unequal seasons Plutohas, forced by its 284-year orbit. Heis excited about this discovery dueto its implication in the study of ex-tremely cold locations.

Mali, West Africa: An international team of sci-entists has found that a new malaria vaccine worksquite well in young children. Adults who have been

exposed to malaria their whole lives develop signi -cant amounts of antibodies, helping them ght off the disease. Young children, however, have few of these antibodies. When children are given the vac-cine however, their antibody levels increase to thosefound in adults. About 1 million people mostlychildren die each year from malaria, and scientistshope the new vaccine will cut down on that number.

Zhucheng City, China: A groupof paleontologists has discovered alarge grouping of about 3,000 dino-saur footprints, all facing the samedirection. The prints were dated tobe 100 million years old and were

from creatures ranging from tyran-nosaurus rex to hadrosaurs. Scien-tists dont know why so many foot-prints would exists in a small area,but hypothesis the animals were try-ing to migrate or escape predators.

Vancouver, Canada: New studies indicate that birdsfeathers help the bird to feel around them. Large-feath-ered birds (such as an auklet, with its huge ume) have

been assumed to have their feathers for mating purpos-es. However, the study indicates that birds with largerfeathers run into things less.


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Scheibes research of these or-ganisms has focused primarily onexploiting, and essentially farming,them to eliminate substances inthe subsurface which are seen ascontaminants. Many of these mi-crobes reduce metals, which canlead to dissolution through precipi-tation and therefore a cleaner wa-ter source. The microbes can beused to eliminate Uranium pollutionand other toxic elements.

By gaining understanding of themicrobes metabolisms, Scheibeand his team have been able tofeed and encourage the growthof speci c microbes to target spe-ci c pollution sources. Through ge-nome studies, Scheibe has been

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Groundwater Legislature Day (L-Day) is an

annual event in which studentshave an opportunity to show-case what is going on at Minesto the Colorado State Legislature.In the words of Damian Illing, an

organizer of the event, the pur-pose of L-Day is to expose [the]Colorado State Legislature to theexciting research and student ac-tivities on campus. The hope isthat, through L-Day, the misun-derstandings between Mines andthe capital can be resolved andmitigated.

At the start of the event Illingexplained, I hope to have a bunchof legislators come, at least 20...and that they enjoy themselves.Earlier that morning, Illing and fourother members of ASCSM went tothe capital and handed out pam-phlets to the legislators while ex-plaining to them what they couldexpect at L-Day. Many of them

had attended in years past andmany had already made note of the event on their calendars.

The outer perimeter of the roomwas lined with easels, tables, and

poster boards. In the center of theroom there were cocktail tables,each with a single candle in themiddle. Blue table clothes were thetheme. Three Tomatoes catered adelicious display of hors duvresand stood by to pour beveragesand keep the scene tidy.

Several organizations were in

attendance from Mines, including ASCSM, Tau Beta Pi, Blue Key, AEG, SPS, and the Oredigger. There were also some professorsand notables from the administra-tion, such as President Scogginsand Provost Castillo. Unfortunate-ly, only four legislators were ableto attend.

Discussions on medical mari- juana and issues regarding steelworkers captured the legislatorsattention. Students took the op-portunity to converse amongstthemselves and enjoy the horsduvres. There was also somehealthy interaction between thestudents and the administration.Some students expressed satis-

faction at getting to meet thosethat run the school. The facultyseemed to fare similarly in thatthey too enjoyed the opportunityto interact with those present and

Alec WestermanStaff Writer able to model and predict trends of

biomass growth and therefore theeffectiveness of bio-remediation.

To trigger biomass growth, organiccarbons are injected into the sub-surface. Ethanol, acitate, lactate,and even molasses and vegetableoil have been used. When the bio-mass takes off, the microbes aretriggered by their preferred foodsource, and begin to attack thevolatile substances in the ground-water system, greatly reducing thetarget pollution source. In one of his eld studies, Scheibe was tar-geting Uranium contamination, If we can stimulate the [microbes]that reduce Uranium, instead of theones that dont, we may be able toprolong Uranium reduction [at thesite].

had a good time regardless of thelack of legislators.

The four legislators seemed toenjoy interacting with the studentsand relating to them on a variety of issues. They circulated enough sothat almost everyone got a chanceto talk with them. They also took the opportunity to catch up withthe administration and faculty per-tinent issues.

While hopes for attendancemay have been unful lled, thehope that legislators gain expo-sure to what is going on at Mineswas most certainly ful lled. Atthe end of the evening, nobodyseemed to express serious regretat having attended.

Looking years ahead, Illing ex-pressed hope and said, Id liketo see this become one of thehuge events of the legislaturescalendar. He described how im-portant L-Day is and that its futuresuccess would do great thingsfor Mines. L-Day is an annualevent, so watch for it next spring

semester. It is a good chance tomeet those setting the future of the school and raise awarenessfor whatever organization of whichyou may be a part.

Mines goes to Denver

To the left, Center for Space Resources director Dr. Abbud-Madrid and Engineering Phys-ics junior Ben Webster check pressure gauges on the vacuum chamber.

Below, Engineering Physics senior Joe Stevanak and junior Ben Webster clean and pre-pare the vacuum chamber.

Center for Space Resources, see page 1

ALL PHOTOS ALAN DOWNEY / OREDIGGER


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ERIK LORD / OREDIGGER

Art of science

Image: Bicycle wheel

I dont mind occasionally having to reinvent a wheel ; I dont even mind using

someones reinvented wheel occasionally. But it helps a lot if it is symmetric,

contains no fewer than ten sides, and has the axle centered. I do tire of trap-

ezoidal wheels with o set axles. ~ Joseph Newcomer

Sitting on the corner of 12 th andWashington, the Old Capitol Grillis a landmark feature on Goldensdowntown main street. Estab-lished in 1866, this historical build-ing is not only a part of Goldenshistory, but of Colorados as well.

The building itsel f is named theLoveland building after its con-structor, W.A.H Loveland. TheLoveland building was, in fact,the original capitol building of theColorado territory and held Colo-rados rst legislative sessions in1866. A battle raged in Congressover the issue of the location

of the state capitol; should it beGolden or Denver? Golden lost bya mere vote; a vote many believewas bought. Although the Love-land building lost out on the honorof becoming the capitol building, itstill continued to play an importantpart in Goldens history.

Mines itself held sessions withMr. Loveland as one of its rst trust-ees. Loveland become involvedin the Colorado Central Railwaysand used his building as a one of his central of ces. Later, the build-ing became a dry goods store andfrom 1941-1971 was one of thelargest grocery stores in Jeffer-son County. In 1971, the Lovelandbuilding converted to become theMercantile Restaurant and has re-mained in the restaurant businesssince then. Although the buildinghas had been worked on manytimes in its 144 years, the mostrecent update gave the buildingits 1920s faade and the charmit has today. In 1997, the building

nally become home to what weknow it as, the Old Capitol Grill - aname be tting its historic past.

Old Capitol Grill servesgreat food and history

Apart from the buildings his-tory, there is another major partto the Old Capitol Grill - the food!With decent prices, the Grill offersgreat food that even a college kidcan afford every now and then;the average meal is around $10.

The menu offers a range of items,from Bison Burgers and CapitolPunishment Chili to sh tacosand pot roast. A giant BBQ pulled-pork sandwich and heaping pile of fries is a mere $9.

Aside from a delicious meal,the atmosphere was cozy and in-

viting. Photos detailing the historyof the building surround the tablesin the back. The front bar area of-fers sports-fans a place to watchthe games.

Overall, the Old Capitol Grill isa worthwhile visit for two reasons:its long-standing history in ourquaint town and some great food.

A couple of tips for rst-timers. The Grill has some great lunchspecials like BBQ ribs, rotisseriechicken, and soup and sandwichcombos, and you can avoid thenight-time crowds!

KATIE HUCKEFELDT / OREDIGGER

Katie HuckefeldtStaff Writer

f e a t u r e spage 4 february 8, 2010

Geek WeekoftheDo you consider yourself a

geek?Definitely! I love reading and

learning. I like problem solving.I like putting my intelligence touse.

How did you come to be atMines?

Well, Ive always wanted to bean Architectural Engineer, but Ireally did not want to go to Boul-der, so I had to look elsewhere.My sister graduated from Minesin 2007, and she is probably themain reason I am here. She en-couraged me to get my Civil En-gineering degree and then go tograd school for architecture. So,here I am, and I dont regret it!

What is your favorite geeky pick up line?

You must be Windows 95,because you are making me un-stable.

What is the geekiest thing you hav e se en or don e?

Recently I have become ad-dicted to Halo. I was once intoWOW and Guitar Hero, but Iveweaned myself off those.

Star Wars or Star Trek?Why?

I guess Star Wars. My boy-friends roommates watch Star

Trek all the time while I amthere, but I like the story of StarWars better.

What are your hobbies?Reading and

rock climb-

ing. LikeI said, recentlyIve begun playingHalo. Mostly I justhang out at myboyfriends housewith him and hisawesome room-mates.

What is thegeekiest thing

you own ?Oh I dont

know. Unfortu-nately, most geekystuff isnt pink, and

since 99% of my po-sessions are pink, itshard to say. I guess my

TI-89 , but then again,what Mines studentdoesnt own one of those?

What has been your favo rit eclass at Mines?

Thats a hardone. I haventparticularly en-

joyed many of my clas ses yet,since I havent started many of my Civil courses yet. I really likedEarth freshman year. I liked go-ing out and doing the labs.

What is your favorite piece

of technology?Oh there are too many tochoose from! Well I go throughwithdrawals without my cellphone, so I guess I would haveto say that, though I love myiPod and computer dearly aswell.

What is your favorite mov-ie?

Probably Ferris Buellers Day Off . I love my Harry Potter mov-

...Katie Dahl, Sophomore; Civil Eies too though. I really like Marx Brothers movies also, they arehilarious.

What is your favorite book?Harry Potter! Specifically,

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.

What clubs or activitiesare you involved in?

Just ASCE, I dont like to payto be a part of a group. Im mis-erable at sports, so that is out. Idont really fit with many groupsin this school, so I just kind of domy own thing.

Who is your role model andwhy?

I would have to say my sister.She worked her ass off to makeit through this school before me.She has a great career and ishappy and successful and doesall that she can to help me getthrough too.

What is your favorite OS?Why?

Windows 7. I am quite tech-nologically challenged, but I canuse Windows 7 without a prob-lem, at least with the help of myboyfriends roommates.

What is your favorite for-mula and why?

I guess the quadratic formulabecause Ive used it

so much. MaybeF=ma, but thatreminds me toomuch of Phys-ics 100.

If you werestuck on a de-

serted islandand you could

only bring3 items,

w h a t

w o u l dthey be?

If myc o m p u t e r

would never die, Iwould bring it withas many books onit that will fit, my

pillow, and mystuffed lamb. Ifeel no need formuch else.

If you wereto come upwith a classfor CSM whatwould it be?

An archi -tectural designcourse.

If you couldbe anyone else, who would

you be?I dont want to be anybody

else. I like myself, and I like myfriends, and I like my tastes. Idont envy anybody.

What is one thing youlove at Mines? One thing youwould like to see changed?

I love the low female popula-tion because most girls get onmy nerves, and I would muchrather hang out with my geekyguy friends. I would like forMines to reinstate some of itsold traditions like the original Mclimb, before Mines studentsturned into pansies.

Daniel HaugheyStaff Writer


COURTESY KATIE DAHL


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h a i t ifebruary 8, 2010 page 5


Everyone was shocked; I hadnteven once considered that the epi-center could be Port-au-Prince.

My rst reaction was untem-pered, Lets go! People need ourhelp! However, Bruce Robinson,our host, kindly and patiently ex-plained our position: a group of white people, with no experiencein disaster recovery, who cantspeak French or Creole, and donthave place to stay, food to eat, orwater to drink. Of course, Brucewas right; we would have beenmore of a burden than anything.I guess thats the kind of insightone gets after working in Haiti fortwenty- ve years.

Life continued, more or less, asnormal. Bruce was working over-time trying to coordinate relief ef-forts with his organization, Cross-World. The only real impact to uswas that our work days were a bitshorter since Bruce had so muchgoing on. By Thursday, we werein full swing at Foison, laying elec-trical conduit and wiring, diggingholes for the foundation, and hav-ing fun.

Friday threw another curveball.Wed been gone for a week now,and up until this point, things werestill looking hopeful for leaving onMonday (our original return date),maybe Tuesday at the latest. Thenthe word came down, American

Airlines was continuing to cancelights and we were rebooked for

the following Saturday. This was a hit to the gut for ev-

eryone, I think. Everyone had jobsback home and most of us wereusing vacation time to be down

here. What was the plan now? Howmuch more vacation time wouldwe have to use up? What if we ranout? Some people were in moreprecarious positions than others,with a limited amount of vacationtime and no reprieve if they ran out.Saturday was our scheduled off day and we went to the beach onthe northern coast of Port-de-Paix.It was good for everyone to get a

chance to relax, tensions were highas the uncertainty of our positionbecame more and more apparent.It had been several days since wefelt any aftershocks, yet news of the destruction in Port-au-Princewas still only trickling in.

One of the biggest differencesin being in this particular mission

eld is the change in communica-tion. Information access becomesa resource almost as precious asfood or water. Satellite Internet ispaid for by the megabyte. Thereis no newspaper or evening news,at least for us. And calls back tothe United States cost $2.39/min-ute...if you can getthrough.

All of our infor-mation came fromwhat Bruce andDeb told us. Andthe only things theyknew were whatthey gleaned fromsporadic checks of news sites onlineand emails fromcoworkers in Port-au-Prince whos homes werentcompletely destroyed. Susie Day,a missionary based in Port-au-Prince, wrote, I went brie y intoDads study...then it hit...it was un-believable...it was horrible...dadsof ce caved in on me...I had notime to react, no warning...a loudnoise, then the violent shakingand screaming...I fell down on the

oor in front of dads sofa, coveredin debris. I got hit real hard to theright side of my head ... I startedtalking to God...praying...crying...my legs were buried and I had in-

jured my right arm. I guess I got up

on dads desk...the iron windowat his desk caved in with the walland I climbed on top and pulledmyself out. It was horrible outside -people screaming...rushing up thestreet...all over.

The end to Saturday reallycouldnt have been more perfect;well, plans for how we were go-ing to leave Haiti would have beennice, but one thing at a time. Deb

cooked us a Thanksgiving dinner,complete with turkey, mashedpotatoes, gravy, stuf ng, greenbeans, and pumpkin pie.

By Sunday, plans for our evac-uation were in place. I hate usingthat word, we werent in any sortof immediate danger and we hadplenty of supplies; lets call it anunplanned deviation in plans re-sulting in less than ideal travel con-ditions. The plan was to drive 10hours to Cap-Haitien, then catcha ight on Missionary Flights Inter-national to Florida. Once in Florida,we would resume our ight on

American Airlines from Miami back to Seattle.

Going to churchwas almost a surrealevent, everyone lostsomeone or knewsomebody wholost someone in theearthquake. Despitethe tragedy, peoplewere thankful forwhat they did have,and they showedit; the outpouring

of love and faith transcended theCreole language.

We spent Monday doing whatwe learned to do best: hurry upand wait. We needed to pack lightfor our journey home, so we onlytook the essentials. Everythingelse we left behind to be sent back later. One last round of soccer withthe kids and a nal check of ourbags. Tuesday would be go day.

In many ways, I feel Tuesdaymorning came to fast.

A journey of a thousand milesbegins with the rst step; ours be-gan by piling 17 people in to the

back of one 1980s Toyota LandCruiser con gured as a pickupwith high metal sides to carry car-go, plus two spare tires. And ourluggage. We left just before 7am,and set off for Cap-Haitian. Thenorthern coast of Haiti was pictur-esque. It was easy to forget thatwe were still in a country so rav-aged by poverty, war, corruption,and now a natural disaster.

The roads were as before, how-ever as we neared the mountainpass they became progressivelyworse. We crossed several giantpuddles, which would be appro-priately likened to very small lakes.We made it up most of the moun-tain range before we ran into our

rst problem, a at tire.With NASCAR pitcrew-esque

speed, we deftly changed the tireand were back on our way, al-though we ended up walking therest of the way to the summit toreduce the risk of getting another

at.Once we got out of the moun-

tains, the roads became better,we even experienced some pavedsections again (Praise God fromwhom all pavement ows...)! Thetraf c in Cap-Haitien was verycongested, however we were ableto make our way to the mission-ary compound we were staying at,which was just ten minutes fromthe airport. Frankly, we were justhappy to have a good nights rest.

The next day, we didnt knowwhen Missionary Flights was go-ing to arrive at the airport, so weplayed it safe and got there withplenty of time to spare (hurry upand wait was one of big themes forour trip and a great time to practiceour virtue of patience).

Just after four in the afternoon,we left the Cap-Haitien Internation-al Terminal and walked out to ourawaiting DC-3.

A relic of World War II, ourDC-3 was manufactured in 1944.With a cruising speed of 150 MPH(almost 3.5 times slower than aconventional 737, which cruisesat 511 MPH), it took us over six

hours to y to Fort Pierce, Florida. An unpressurized cabin meant thatwe had to y low, about 8000 feetaccording to my GPS, offering aunique view of the various Carib-bean islands.

We had a layover in Turks andCaicos to get fuel and were treatedto pizza and snacks. There was acopy of the local newspaper sittingon the table. There was a picture

Mission trip Haiti: business as usual, almostAndrew FergusonGuest Columnist

of the collapsed Haitian Presiden-tial Palace; it had been over a week since the earthquake and this wasthe rst time I had seen any pic-tures of the destruction.

When we landed in Fort Pierce,members of Debs church, BocaRaton Community Church, pickedus up and took us out to dinner!We werent able to secure hotelrooms, so the church also gave usall a place to sleep for the night,along with the rst hot shower wehad in two weeks ((When I got inthe shower, I turned the knob onthe left and let it run for a few mo-ments. The water was still cold, soI turned it off and tried the knob onthe right. It was also cold! I quietlyshouted, No! No! No! and franti-cally turned both knobs on. Aftera few seconds, the warm waterstarted to ow. Whew.)

The church picked us up againin the morning and drove us tothe Tri-Rail rail station where wecaught a commuter train to MiamiInternational Airport.

Amber, our group leader, gotus all on a ight to Seattle via Chi-cago.

We had a long wait at the air-port; some people read throughNewsweek and Time. Others stoleglances at CNN Headline Newswhenever they had a Haiti Up-date. Finally it was time to board.

The rest of the trip was really just going through the motions.My mind was else where (perhapsin Haiti, perhaps somewhere else)while my body was being trans-ported back to Seattle.

I kept replaying the events of the last two weeks in my head,over and over and over.

I tried sleeping, but I couldnt.Which is funny because I slept onall the planes on the way to Haiti.Now when I wanted to sleep themost, I couldnt.

We arrived at SeaTac, the exactsame gate we departed from 14days earlier. A nice sort of closure,I think. High- ves all around andone last shot of the group togetherbefore we raced to our loved ones.

PHOTOS COURTESY ANDREW FERGUSON

The DC-3, operated by, Missionary Flights International, at the Cap-Haitien International Airport on January 20, 2010.

It was easy to forget

that we were still in

a country so ravaged

by poverty, war, cor-

ruption, and now a

natural disaster.


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h a i t i febraury 8, 2010page 6


Erica Hanson plays with local kids in Foison, Haiti on January 13, 2010.

Haitians worship in a local church on January 17, 2010, the Sunday fol-lowing the earthquake, in Passe Catabois, Haiti.

Haitians worship in a local church on January 17, 2010, the Sunday fol-lowing the earthquake, in Passe Catabois, Haiti.

A glimpse of Cap-Haitien, Haiti on January 19, 2010.

JoEllen Wang, Amber Evanson, Brenna Hersh (back row), and Stew Bow-erman worship along with Haitians in a local church on January 17, 2010,the Sunday following the earthquake, in Passe Catabois, Haiti.

Traf c in Cap-Haitien, Haiti on January 19, 2010.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY ANDREW FERGUSON


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s p o r t sfebruary 8, 2010 page 7


Colorado School of Mines de-feated the University of Colorado- Colorado Springs by the scoreof 91-71 in Rocky Mountain Ath-letic Conference (RMAC) mensbasketball action on Saturday

night, February 6th, at Lockridge Arena.

Brett Green (6-of-11 FG, 10-of-12 FT), Dale Minschwaner (8-of-16 FG, 6-of-7 FT) and DrewHoffman (7-of-10 FG) scored 25,22 and 20 points, respectively, asthe Orediggers (12-9 overall, 9-4RMAC) won their sixth consecu-tive game. Hoffman, whose 20points tied a season high, con-nected on all six of his three-pointFG attempts while Minschwanerhanded out a career-best ve as-sists.

Gordon Galloway (career-high three blocked shots) andLevi Hamilton hauled in eightrebounds apiece and reigningRMAC / Baden East DivisionPlayer of the Week Sean Arm-strong contributed 12 points, sixassists and ve boards. Mines,which led 42-27 at halftime, out-rebounded UCCS 43 to 30.

Cole Smith led UCCS (7-14overall, 5-8 RMAC) in points (15)and rebounds (six).

Mines will host Regis Univer-sity and Metro State on Fridayand Saturday, February 12th and13th, respectively. The Oredig-gers will then conclude theregular-season portion of their2009-10 home schedule by host-ing Colorado Christian Univer-sity on Tuesday night, February16th. Tipoff is scheduled for 8:00p.m. at Lockridge Arena all threenights.

Courtesy CSM Athletics

Mens basketball defeats UCCS

Above, Dale Minschwaner (#23) breaks away early duringthe game and performs a NBA worthy dunk.

Above, Levi Hamilton (#40) makes a layup while heavilyguarded.

Below, Sean Armstrong (#5) easily reaches new heights tomake an easy jump shot.

Above, Dale Minschwaner (#23) wins the game opening tip-off against UCCS.

ALL PHOTOS STEVEN WOOLDRIDGE / OREDIGGERAbove, Dale Minschwaner (#23) blocks a layup.


8/12

s p o r t s febraury 8, 2010page 8


The Col orado School of Mines

womens basketball team scoreda season-high 90 points on Sat-urday evening in route to a vic-tory over UC-Colorado Springs inRocky Mountain Athletic Confer-ence (RMAC) play.

The Orediggers lead quicklyclimbed to double digits with an

Angie Charch alis three-p oint bas-ket at the 14:13 market and grewto as many as 23 points with 1:13left in the rst half courtesy of alayup from Katie Carty.

CSM led the rest of the wayscoring 50 second-half points,shooting 50.0% from the eld and81.8% from the free-throw line.Mines nished the game shooting46.2% from the eld, 63.5% from

the three-point line and 78.1%from the charity stripe. Mines alsodished out 22 assists on 30 eldgoals. CSM had 12 of its 13 play-ers score in the game.

On defense, Mines blockedeight shots, collected 12 stealsand out-rebounded UCCS 59 to33 pulling down 21 offensive re-bounds. CSM held UCCS to just24.6% shooting from the oor and16.7% from the three-point line.

UC-Colorado Springs (5-16,1-12 RMAC) was led by Lauren

Holm who nished with 15 points(8-for-11 FT), four rebounds andtwo assists. Kallie Jiblits (six re-

bounds) and Mallory Lowe eachadded six points. Lauren Wol n-ger contributed ve points andseven boards.

Emily Dalton led CSM with 16points (5-for-10 FG, 5-for-6 FT)along with four rebounds, two as-sists and two steals. Kelsey Cristcontributed 11 points (4-for-4FT), two rebounds and two as-sists. Charchalis nished with 10points (4-for-6 FG) including a pairof three pointers, three rebounds,two assists and two steals. Al-lie Grazulis posted her secondgame of the season in double

gures with 10 points (6-for-7 FT)and seven rebounds. Carty add-ed eight points and ve blocked

shots. Kait Soehner nished withnine points (4-for-5 FG), threerebounds, two assists and twosteals. Brecca Gaffney pulleddown a game-high 13 reboundsand Stephanie Fogle dished out

ve assists. The Orediggers (13-7, 8-5

RMAC) will host Regis Universityon Friday, Feb. 12th. Mines gameon Saturday, Feb. 13th againstMetro State is Senior Night andParents Night. Both games are at6:00 pm at Lockridge Arena.

Courtesy CSM Athletics

Womens bas-

ketball score 90

Below, During halftime, the Lil Diggers performed a half-time show with the CSM Cheerleaders.

Below, Emily Dalton (#15) prevents a UCCS player from driving to the hoop.

Above, Katie Clements (#5) takes a shot just outsidethe key.

Below, Emily Dalton (#15) makes an easy layup de-spite heavy defense.

ALL PHOTOS STEVEN WOOLDRIDGE / OREDIGGER


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Following one of the best cross

country seasons for the mensand womens teams, the track team looked to continue its excel-lence as it transitioned to outdoorseason. Our main focus for theseason is on the outdoor [RMAC]conference and national cham-pionships Coach Art Siemersexplained, but we still have theheart of our indoor season left.

The NCAA Division II track season is basically a year-longcommitment for most athletes. Itbegan in the fall for the distancerunners in cross country and con-tinued to indoor track during thecolder months. Of cial competi-tions come to a close at the endof the spring session. For some

athletes, this means ending inMay at the National Champion-ships. After a few weeks of restingtired joints, they will begin trainingonce again for the upcoming fallseason. They compete in one of the longest and most gruelingregular seasons in sports and itcomes to a head for the end of the spring season.

The indoor season of track provides the unique ability forathletes to train and competeyear-round, honing their talenteven during the off-season. HeadCoach Siemers highlighted someof the distinctions between the in-door and outdoor seasons, Ourindoor track is 21 years old. Its

very hard, which give us fasterrace times, but are tough on the

joints. We must constantly carefor our legs and I try to offer differ-ent ways to train.

Mines entered the spring be-hind a strong team overall, butthere is no doubt the mens teamwill rely on the consistent per-formance of the distance team.The mens distance medley relayteam [were] the national cham-pions last year and we look tosee good things out of them thisyear, said Siemers. This year, dis-

tance will rely on Mack McLain, astrong performer a year ago, BenZywicki, and senior All-American

Mark Husted. Coach Siemersis also impressed with the per-formance throughout the rest of the team. We are the closest wehave been to school records inthe throws, high jump with DavidStuart, and pole vault with Rob-bie McGourty, Tim Popp, andup-and-coming freshmen, de-scribed Siemers.

On the womens side of things,Kiera Benson joins All-AmericanSydney Laws as they look to leadthe Orediggers into postseasonsuccess. Benson tied the Minesrecord for the womens 60m witha time of 7.58s earlier this year atthe Air Force Academy in Colo-rado Springs, and is responsible

some of the fastest time Mineshas witnessed in the 200m in-door and 100m and 200m out-door sprints. As for Laws, sheplaced tenth in the cross countrynational championships last fall,the best place by an Oredigger.Laws, only having outdoor eligibil-ity, has a promising spring ahead.Her coach describes both herand Husted as the embodimentof a Mines student athlete. Theywerent standouts in high school,but have worked hard enough tobecome All-Americans.

However, Coach Siemerssees past all the success on the

eld, Track is like a family. A lotof these athletes are best friends.

Most of them are walk-ons, herebecause they want to be and itsa great way to get away from allthe studying. Yet, despite thenumber of walk-ons, Mines is stilla steady force on the track. Theyplaced third in the RMAC confer-ence championships last springand look to close the gap be-tween themselves and perennialpowerhouses Adams State andMesa State. Due to the leader-ship of this team, along with thepromising younger talent, theirgoal looks more attainable.

The Mines baseball team islooking to rebound in 2010 after adisappointing campaign in 2009.

The 09 team went 10-37 over-all, going 7-27 in the RMAC. TheOrediggers are led by third-yearhead coach Jerrid Oates and willlean on a core group of six seniors,headed by 2009 All-RMAC selec-tions Andrew Ryan (second team)and Nick Wong (third team), as wellas 2010 Pre-Season All-RMAC se-lection Cory Ast.

Ast, a 63, 190-lb left-hand-er from Westminster, Coloradostarted all 12 games in which hepitched last year. Ast led the teamin strikeouts and innings pitchedand is looking to improve on hisperformance from a year ago. Heearned Honorable All-RMAC hon-ors in 2008 and followed a goodseason with a solid playoff perfor-mance where he was named to theRMAC All-Tournament team. If thisyears team is going to be success-ful it is going to lean on its startingpitching, especially Ast.

The Orediggers were pickedto nish fourth in the Plains divi-sion and seventh overall in the

2010 RMAC Baseball Pre-SeasonCoaches Poll. The team is moreoptimistic.

Were going to make the tour-nament for sure, stated Cris Rog-ers, continuing, Were going to bein that postseason tournament.Rogers, a senior pitcher/thirdbaseman, was second on the teamin 2009 in wins, innings pitched,and strikeouts and is one of teamleaders for the 2010 squad. Thatcon dence that does notoften show through ina team coming off the type of seasonthat the Oredig-gers had last year,but it is exactly whatsenior catcher AnthonySiderius wants to hearfrom his teammates.The big thingis we need toforget about last year. It hap-pened, its behind us, theres noth-ing we can do about it now. Lets

just move on, compete, stay ingames, and do whatever needs tobe done to win.

If the Orediggers are going tonish in the top 5 and make the

playoffs, Marshall Schuler, a senior

Trevor CraneStaff Writer

Track teambuilds strength

Sam SchleismanStaff Writer

Baseball season previewpitcher/out elder believes they aregoing to have to rely on a groupof good, strong starting pitchersand a team with strong bats toscore some runs.

If one thing is sure, it is that thisyears team will do its best to, asSiderius put it, Compete, and stayin games. Were willing to do what-

e ve r it takes to avoid whathappened last year...

its de nitely a verycompetitive conference,

and it is hard to say be-cause anything can happenon any given day, but if any-body says they dont want to

nish number one, theyre ly-ing to you... were de nitely

going to playing forthe end of the

season.W h e n

asked what he thinks it will take towin, Siderius was adamant in hisresponse, Desire and competi-tiveness.

The Orediggers play a doubleheader vs. Augustana (S.D.) onSaturday, February 13 and againstWayne St. (Neb.) on Sunday, Feb-ruary 14. All four games will beplayed at Jim Darden Field.

Nick Wong (#7) dodges a tag while sprinting to thirdbase on a ground hit.

Nick Piehl (#35) beats the throw to frst during Sat-urdays game against Midland Lutheran.

Tyler Phan Thornton (#1) slides into second.

ALL PHOTOS STEVEN WOOLDRIDGE / OREGIDDER


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o p i n i o n febraury 8, 2010page 10


It appears that love is in the air. If not love, then there are certainlyenough candy hearts, infant cherubs with weapons, and stuffed animalsthe size of dorm rooms to approximate the effect. In case the commercial-ized fervor has yet to hit, or grocery shopping has not occurred since New

Years, Valentines Day is just around the corner. Next Sunday, February14 to be exact. Yes, Valentines Day is all well and good, but what aboutthe pressure! Let us face it, romance is harder than Advanced Electric-ity and Magnetism. Certainly. In addition, there are not that many girls atMines, so getting it right is somewhat important. More pressure! But relax!

The girls here on the beautiful Mines campus want to give a hand to thenice young gentlemen by taking the pressure for a perfect date off. Thecommon consensus is that a Valentines Day Date should be special, buthey who is perfect? To this effect, some young ladies volunteered theirideas for a perfect Valentines Day. Take from it what you will.

My ideal Valentines Day date? Well,it should be special Probably not a movienight. I think something that would be reallyfun and special would be to go stargazingwith thermoses full of hot chocolate.

Kassi Hancock

At this point, any date would be a gooddate But I think that something like getting

Ali Baba take-out (really good Mediterraneanfood) and going on a hike and eating when

we got to top would be something reallyfun, just about my perfect Valentines Daydate.

Kelley Vincent

Ice skating! After which, I would love to go to areally nice restaurant, not any one in particular, justone that serves really good Italian food, because

I love Italian. If its nice out, we would take awalk. If not, then we could go for a drive. That would be the perfect ValentinesDay date.

Coralyn Kiess

My ideal date doesnt have to be in Colo-rado. I would love to have an ocean front dinnerby candlelight. Then go for a long walk on the

beach and lay on a blanket with rose petalsand look at stars.

Stephanie Biagiotti

Roby BrostStaff Writer

Idealizes a Date

Minds at Mines

Trends. They run throughouteverything. From every branch of science to art and culture, trendsshow what lies beneath the surface

of our observations. One trend Ihave observed at Mines is that theincredibly intelligent are not alwaysthe best at prioritizing.

Whether you are a freshmanor an upperclassman, the issue of priorities should always be fore-most in your daily life. Personalpriorities, I contend, are a forcemore powerful than any emotion,academic endeavor, religious tradi-tion, or relationship. It is our priori-

To the Editor: As the Student Body Vice Presi-

dent, I would like to take this op-portunity to respond to last weekseditorial regarding ASCSM (StudentGovernment).

First, I would like to apologize fordepriving the audience of a regularattendee at the last meeting; I wasrepresenting the Student Body atthe Golden City Council meeting,and said person was also in atten-dance. ASCSM has made multipleattempts to spark interest in our 60to 120 minute meetings, but ap-parently the chance to win a $10gift card to Chipotle and a variety of speakers and their presentation top-ics has simply failed to garner inter-est. Perhaps our current audiencemembers, including Oredigger re-porters, would like to help us out byrecruiting their own friends to attendthe meetings.

In terms of accountability, yourStudent Government has indeedmade great strides in this direction.Consider, for instance, the return of the Whats Your Beef with Mines?box and subsequent (and frequent)replies by Student Body PresidentJaime Thorpe in the Oredigger . Be-

ties that shape our commitmentsto the above areas (that list is notall-inclusive, I simply dont have thespace to spell everything out).

When you combine intelligence,a drive to succeed, and a lack of being able to manage priorities,

the result is not pretty. Feelings of being burnt-out, tired, and over-whelmed are just a few of the neg-ative repercussions that come withsuch a lifestyle.

Therefore, I propose a new wayto live. Consider commitments andtheir long-term implications rst,before getting in over your head.Be clear about your intentions withany person or organization, so thateveryone knows each partys pri-

orities. Finally, take the time to restso that you can make decisionswisely.

Rest, I have found, is a key in-gredient to living a successful life.

Taking time to disengage from thedaily and weekly rigors of life leads

to less sickness (both physical andemotional), and a greater sense of satisfaction.

Examine your priorities. Areyou losing sleep because yourestretched too thin? Is the work youdo for one project interrupted bythat of another? Do you want morefree time? If you answered yes toany of the above questions thenseriously consider resting up andgetting your priorities in order.

two ents T im sDrawing the line

Tim WeilertContent Manager

cause not many students are partic-ularly interested in taking 1-2 hoursout of their busy (and often exam-

lled) Thursday evenings to come toan oftentimes boring and rule- lledStudent Government meeting, wehave made a substantial effort toaddress students concerns in thismanner. As a member of the ASC-SM Executive Board, please allowme to sincerely thank the Oredigger for publishing this feedback in lieu of wasting your student fees on a rivalpublication. We also appreciate theOrediggers willingness to periodi-cally publish articles from our Boardof Trustees Representative, At-LargeRepresentatives, and other mem-bers of Student Government; thank you for doing your part to keep theStudent Body informed.

As the chair of the Parking & Public Safety Committee, I wouldalso like to remind you of the rstknown student-initiated parking sur-vey that we conducted in the fall.We received about 500 student re-sponses and have shared the infor-mation with Parking Services. Park-ing concerns on campus promptedParking Services to hire an outsideparking consultants rm, and the

Letter to the Editor suggested solutions will be unveiledin the next few weeks. Once again,student representatives will sendout an electronic survey and stationthemselves in the Student Center tocollect feedback regarding the con-sultants suggestions. Please notethat all of this information has beenrepeatedly shared during ASCSMmeetings by various student repre-sentatives.

If any student is ever curiousabout how your Student Govern-ments allocated money is beingspent, you can attend Student Body

Treasurer Ann Lotts of ce hoursbetween the hours of 8:00 am and1:00 pm on Tuesdays in the Student

Activities Of ce.Should you have any further

concerns regarding your StudentGovernments accountability, I wouldimplore you to come before ASCSMduring the time devoted to public fo-rum comments at any of our meet-ings. The next Student Governmentmeeting is this Thursday, February11 th, at 7:00 pm in the Student Cen-ter ballrooms.

Ashley YoungStudent Body Vice President

In Why NHV contradicts prin-ciples (The Oredigger 90.14),Kevin Barry charges that Natureand Human Values delivers suchmessages as money is moral-

ity and The moral thing to do isproceed [with resource depletion],business as usual. The online ver-sion of his editorial has this title:Why NHV contradicts everythingMines stands for. Nothing couldbe further from the truth.

Like other students in NHV,Mr. Barry learned about dif cultsituations in which, for example,engineers judgments are over-ridden by superiors, sometimesfor economic reasons. From thathe somehow concludes that NHV preaches that economics should trump ethics. Obviously, pointingout a reality is not the same as en-dorsing that reality. If I observe thattraf c on I-70 is heavy, I am hardlysaying that traf c on I-70 should be heavy.

Mr. Barrys account of whatNHV taught him about resourceuse is equally puzzling. We certain-

ly discuss cases that demonstratehow unrestrained individual use of commonly owned resources canlead to destruction of those re-sources (the infamous commonsproblem). Pointing out this prob-lem in no way endorses it or im-plies this is what should happen.It actually suggests the opposite:this is a problem that requires so-lutions.

NHV is in the business of de-livering some messages, but notthe sort that Mr. Barry imagines.We teach that good writing is im-portant at CSM and in professionallife. We tell future engineers thatthey should be prepared to makeintelligent ethical choices in com-plex situations and be able to ra-tionally justify them. And we shareour belief that engineers increas-ingly need the intellectual toolsto work in a world where globalsocial, economic, ethical, and en-vironmental factors all impact ap-plied science.

Beyond that, NHV does notdeliver messages, proselytize, orpreach. NHV lectures present is-sues that do not admit easy an-swers. We explore controversialcases in which there are strong ar-

guments on both sides, problemsthat elude simple solutions. Whenwe ask students to confront bothsides of an issue, our aim is to de-velop a critical skill for participatingin a democratic societythat of understanding the complex justi-

cations and values behind posi-tions opposed to our own.

As NHV presents controversialcases, we ask students to examinethe strengths and weaknesses of competing arguments and then tocreate their own argumentslogi-cally and persuasively, in speechand in writingwithin the contextof rational debate. For some as-signments, that may mean argu-ing for a position that mediatesbetween two sides; for others, itmay mean criticizing an opposingargument after rst understandingit fully.

Perhaps it is just the complex-ity of the issues raised in NHV that bothers Mr. Barry. For a rmlysettled worldview, debate itself can be unsettling. And if thesedebates disturb xed understand-ings, whether environmentalist oranti-environmentalist, that may bea sign we in NHV are doing exactlythe job we should be doing.

The message NHV really deliversDan Miller NHV Coordinator Lecturer, LAIS


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o p i n i o nfebruary 8, 2010 page


I opened the paper last week to see an opinion article bash-ing our Nature and Human Val-ues class. I was outraged andutterly confused. NHV, to me,is not teaching us opinions, buthow to have opinions and how tosuccessfully debate those ideas.Sure, we are shown cases wherethe superiority ladder has defeat-ed the morality of the engineers,but if we are supposed to learnand grow as human beings andas engineers, we need to learnfrom those situations which wenthorribly wrong.

When asked about the maingoals of the course, Dr. Dan Mill-er, a lecturer in Liberal Arts and

International Studies, and Coor-dinator of Nature and Human Val-ues, stated that the rst goal wasto help students prepare for thewriting at CSM and in their futurecareers. The course starts, afterall, by teaching us about logicalfallacies and how to make goodarguments. The second goal,Miller said, was to expose stu-dents to debates and argumentsrelated to engineering ethics andthe impact of engineers on soci-ety and nature.

This is where I get confusedreading the article in last weekspaper. The writer suggests thatwe are taught, Money is moral-ity. Granted, the case studies welook at certainly show that theiroutcomes are usually revolvingaround cost bene t analysis; but

NHV teaches students how to argue their opinions

Mines plans to eliminateone of lifes most vexing irri-tations: speaking to or email-ing a teacher without knowinghow to address them. In aclassroom setting, said Stu-dent Irritation Manager, TanyaGessing, this problem is usu-ally avoided. Either on the syl-labus or in class, your profes-sor says you can call me Dr. Bor you can call me Mr. Tabbsor even Mr.H o e n i k k e r

is my fa-ther, call meF r a n k i e . But if youredealing withfaculty forthe first timeoutside of class, youhave tocome upwith yourown solu-tion.

A f t e rsurveying the student body,school officials found that themost common workaroundwas to start emails and con-

versations with an awkwardhi or hello, or even by skip-ping greetings altogether. Thisputs neither party at ease,said Gessing. The surveyedstudents agreed. Most of thetime I just assume theyre adoctor, said one student, amath major, for example, Dr.Ridgmann. Another studentnoted that this was so mucheasier when nobody expected

Faculty biosto include pre-

ferred titlesJaneen NeriStaff Writer to be addressed by their firstname. Also, we used sliderules back then, which are waycool!

In fact, Gessing explained,even when told the preferredmode of address verbally, moststudents eventually fall back on some safe combination of the facultys last name or Mr.,then the last name. Unfortu-nately, this strategy becomesmore complicated when theindividual is a woman. Awk-ward moments like these finally

convincedthe Mines

staff to in-sert a pre-ferred formof addressfield intothe teacherbios on in-side.mines.edu. Ourd r e a m , said Gess-ing, is to atleast havethis refer-ence han-

dy when students are writingemails. This way, when theyare contacting a professor to,for instance, ask about a class

offering next semester, whenthey look up his email address,the name is right there too.

And they can make a good firstimpression. Gessing is alsoencouraging all professors tomake their preferred title ex-plicit on their syllabi. Its justanother way, she explained,we can make life a little bitsmoother for everyone.

Charlotte Adams

Staff Writer

this is not the view put across bythe instructors. Instead, they ask us to explain our opinions and ourideas of what morality is and whatethics we have. When asked if there is any real attempt to try toforce students to go against theirethics and believe somethingelse, Miller responded, I dontthink you can give people opin-ions, and I certainly dont wantto.

I am not the only person atMines who sees NHV as a goodthing. Lexi Salazar, a freshman,thinks NHV is bene cial becauseit was a relief to have a coursethat required thinking, and not

just regurgitat ion and plugging-and-chugging. Salazar alsothinks that it is a good idea tohave debates; It was my favorite

part of the course, she said. An-other freshmen, who requestedto stay anonymous, said that hisfavorite part of the course wasgroup discussion because its in-teresting to know how your peersthink, and you can come to betterconclusions when you can haveyour peers rebuttal.

Another thing about beingable to argue is to have the abilityto be objective and non-biased.While dif cult, it is essential to thegoals of NHV because one-sidedarguments seldom convince. If you do not know or understandthe argument of your opponent,your arguments will not demon-strate any logical reasoning. Weare not asked to throw away anyopinions that we may alreadyhave, but instead we are asked

to look at the arguments openlyso that we may come to a real-ization that it is possible for ourarguments to be wrong.

With this, I draw the conclu-sion that just because you geta bad grade on your nal essaybecause your instructor thoughtthat your paper was biased,you dont need to bash the en-tire course. Perhaps, instead, youshould go back, read your essayand try to approach it from an al-ternative point of view. I rmly be -lieve that the mission statementgiven by Mines (Earth - Energy- Environment) is well demon-strated in NHV. I rightly agree withDr. Miller, who said, NHV helpsstudents arrive at their own, well-founded opinion in the context of reasonable debate.

With nearly 10 percent of thenations population jobless, theUnited States is in the midst of aneconomic struggle. It seems eventhe reputable graduates of Minesare at risk for unemployment. Inresponse to the recent shortage of

job opportunities in the sci-enti c and engineering elds,CSMs spring 2010 CareerDay will feature rst-timeemployers hoping to launchMines graduates into uncon-ventional careers.

Representatives from thecorporations of Amway Glob-al, Hertz Rent-a-Car, and Fe-dEx Kinkos, among others,will be answering questionsand accepting resumes fromquali ed students. BananaRepublic has con rmed on-campus interviews, to beheld in Hill Hall. Its a sign of things to come, explained CareerCenter Advisor Jean Rayberger.There simply arent as many tech-nical jobs available to graduatingstudents, so theyre going to haveto be more open-minded aboutpotential career paths.

The Career Center, proud of CSMs high job placement rate, in-vited these neo-traditional employ-ers to attend in an effort to retainthe schools reputation. The suffer-ing economy has strongly affectedthe employment of recent gradu-ates. According to the CareerCenters 2009 Annual Report, thenumber of companies applying forCareer Day recruiting has declinedsteadily since the fall semester of 2008, which was the largest Ca-reer Day on record.

That Career Day there were219 employers present, with morethan 100 on a wait list. The follow-ing spring, there were only 181employers present with no waitlist. The report also outlines the

Centers strategy for combatingthe dif cult economic situation by[continuing] to initiate new con-tracts and educate employers of

the unique assets of Mines stu-dents, speci cally targeting localand global employers in a widevariety of elds.

Peyton Clark, the Director of the Career Center & Employer

Relations, was unavailable for aninterview, but provided this writtenresponse to inquiries regarding theunconventional employers invitedto this semesters Career Day:

We at the Colorado School of Mines Career Center are commit-ted to our mission to provide as

many opportunities to our graduating students as possible. Whilethe majority of our graduates areeducated in engineering and sci-enti c disciplines, the leaders of tomorrow will need to be well-versed in all aspects of commer-cial and government industry

including sales, marketing, meat grilling, and business.

George Karnaze, a recruiter forFedEx Kinkos, echoed the senti-ments from the Career Center. Weare honored to have the chance torecruit graduates from the Schoolof Mines. Many of the serviceswe provide [to customers] are of a technical nature, such as print-ing and binding large documents,

CSM Career Day to featurealternative career optionsErik Lord

Job Seeker for 10 Years Now

so we welcome more team mem-bers with technical experience andsmall hands.

When asked if graduates

should feel disappointed to starttheir careers outside of their edu-cational discipline, Karnaze quicklyasserted Absolutely not! Shouldsomeone feel ashamed of receiv-ing a paycheck every two weeks?

Certainly, success maybe de ned in far differentterms for future CSM gradu-ates than it has been in thepast. Just as recently as2009, the average salaryfor graduating students withBachelors degrees was$64,042. Currently, em-ployees of FedEx Kinkos inDenver earn an average of

just $14.75 per hour. Whenasked if FedEx Kinkos wasplanning to offer salaries inthis range, Karnaze repliedWe will make every effort topay new hires as much as

possible.Students and alumni are invited

to the Spring Career Day, whichwill begin at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday,February 9 th in Lockridge Arenaat the Student Recreation Center.

All attendees are encouraged todress professionally and bring sev-eral copies of their resume.

Potential candidates are alsocautioned to be much more ex -ible in their aspirations. In thepast, we have recommendedstating your desired occupationvery clearly on your resume. Thisyear, we encourage students to bemuch less speci c when describ -ing their desired position, Clark added. It will give them a greaterchance of getting selected for in-terviews.

If graduates play their cardsright, they could be getting dis-counts on printing those resumesin the future. Employees of FedExKinkos currently receive 25 per-cent off all products and services.

In the past, we have recommend-

ed stating your desired occupation

very clearly on your resume. This

year, we encourage students to be

much less specifc when describing

their desired position... It will give

them a greater chance of getting

selected for interviews.

After surveying the stu-

dent body, school o cials

found that the most com-

mon workaround was to

start emails and conversa-

tions with an awkward hi

or hello, or even by skip-

ping greetings altogether.


12/12

a d v e r t i s e m e n t s febraury 8, 2010page 12


P roudly S erving A llegro C offee & T eA

o rgAniC e SPreSSo d rinkS

Hormone-free Milk

Do you work on Campus on Satur-days? You can now get your AFPP(afternoon face plant prevention)at the Book & Brew

the oredigger issue 15 - february 8, 2010

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