The Northerner Print Edition - March 24, 2010

COVER STORYLooking to the future:Three Student Government members weigh in on SGA future.

8 & 9

VIEWSCome on, just smile for me:Giving a friendly ‘cheese’ can make life easier on everybody.

7 & 10

A&EWill play music for money:NKU Jazz Ensemble headlines festival to fund local cause.

13 & 14

NEWS 4, 5 & 6Foundation of knowledge erected:GenEd requirement changes concerns for students.

3March 24, 2010

The NorthernerUniversity Center Room 335Highland Heights, KY 41076Editor in Chief: (859) 572-6128News & Sports: (859) 572-6677Features: (859) 572-5859Advertising: (859) 572-5232Fax: (859) 572-5772

E-mail: [email protected]

furtherdetailsEntire content is copyright of The Northerner and may not be reprinted without prior con-sent. Views expressed do not represent those of the administration, faculty or student body.The Northerner is considered a designated public forum. Student editors have authority to make all content decisions without censor-ship or advance approval. The Northerner staff respects the right to a free and open dialogue as allowed under the First Amendment.

PRINT EDITOR-IN-CHIEFMark Payne[[email protected]]

WEB EDITOR-IN-CHIEFEmily Teaford [[email protected]]

PRESENTATION EDITORKarli Wood[[email protected]]

A&E EDITORJeremy Jackson[[email protected]]

PHOTO EDITORCharlotte Etherton[[email protected]]

COPY EDITORSEmily Christman[[email protected]]

Zach Grady[[email protected]]

Chad Hensley[[email protected]]

ADVISERGayle Brown[[email protected]]

AD MANAGERWilliam Fisher[fi [email protected]]

northernerstaff contactinformationEDITORIAL CARTOONISTPatrick Delaney[[email protected]]

ASST. PHOTO EDITORCassie Graves[[email protected]]

STAFF WRITERSMichael Willis[[email protected]]

Alex Owsley[[email protected]]

Jesse Call[[email protected]]

WHAT’S INSIDE

SPORTS 11 & 12Winning streak snapped:Baseball team musters only fi ve hits in loss to Miami.

COPY DESK CHIEFBetina Kemker[[email protected]]

SPORTS EDITORDrew Laskey[[email protected]]

EDITORIAL ADVISERRyan Clark[[email protected]]

WEB CONTENT MANAGERJim Clark[[email protected]]

NEWS EDITORVern Hockney[[email protected]]

I, Mark Payne, the print editor-in-chief of The North-erner, made a mistake. In the March 3 issue, I accidentally cut a very important part out of the “Influencing a vote?” story. I learned of the mistake from reporter Jesse Call and immediately posted an updated version online. However, the mis-take in print can never be updated, so what I’ve cho-sen to do is reprint the last

portion of the story that was cut out. To read the full version of the story please visit www.thenorth-erner.com. And to Martin Henderson, Keith Kaseke, Dean of Students Jeff Waple and North-erner reporter Jesse Call, I’m deeply sor-ry for my mistake.

The Portion that was cut ...

Henderson also said that Dean of Students Jeffrey Waple encouraged the Judicial Council to speed through the removal proceeding and that he impacted the way the students

voted by making comments on Chaney’s behavior that was not among the impeach-ment charges.

But Waple denies he en-couraged students to give inadequate consideration to the case.

“I never said that. I think what I was saying was they need to get to it in a timely fashion. Sometimes these is-sues tend to drag on, and its not fair for the accused or

the accuser to drag it on,” he explained.

Henderson said that Waple describe Chaney’s behavior in secretly recording some conversations with Kaseke as “deceitful.” Waple said that he did describe the be-havior in that way and that he was unsure of whether it impacted the students’ deci-sion.

“To hide it to me shows that there’s an ulterior mo-tive,” Waple said about the recordings. “I think that’s un-professional...You wouldn’t necessarily go into a meet-ing in the real world with a supervisor and tape record them (without knowledge.

Even though he was un-sure about whether his com-ments influenced the out-come, Waple wanted to be clear that the decision be-longed to the students alone. The office did provide train-ing and support to ensure due process was afforded to the accused.

“We’re not involved in any deliberation, or in decision making, nor involved in the vote. So, the students made that decision on their own which it should be that way,” Waple said. He also said he thought Chaney received ad-equate due process.

ASST. SPORTS EDITORMike Collins[[email protected]]

Making mistakesPrint editor-in-chief gives apology

If you usually avoid see-ing your academic adviser before registering for classes, it would be best to give it a second thought this time around. A major overhaul of the general education pro-gram has gone into effect for all undergraduate stu-dents. This means that some of those classes you took for general education credit may no longer meet that require-ment. However, the recent changes to the general edu-cation program are not sup-posed to leave any student disadvantaged or cause any student to spend more time at Northern Kentucky Uni-versity than need be. Still, many students are concerned about the changes.

“I want to emphasize that this transition will not change a student’s current major re-quirements and that no stu-dent will be disadvantaged by this program change,” said President James Votruba in an e-mail announcement to students on March 15.

Vice Provost Patrick Moy-nahan echoed that commit-ment to students, but said he wanted to make clear that “disadvantaged” means that it will directly impact your ability to complete your de-gree program on time. Stu-dents who have taken classes that are no longer eligible for general education credit are not disadvantaged—those courses will be counted as elective credit.

The program will only re-quire students to complete 37 hours of general educa-tion courses, instead of the previously required 48-52. Moynahan said the program will give students more flex-ibility and an opportunity to take more classes in which they are interested as elec-

tives. It is also designed so that students will have a bet-ter understanding of why they have to take the courses required in the general edu-cation program.

“What we heard loud and clear is that (students) don’t know how this ties in to what they are going to do,” said Moynahan. “Our redesigned courses will make it clear what students are expected to learn.”

Votruba said: “The change

was prompted by both in-tellectual and administra-tive reasons. Many universi-ties are currently revisiting their general education re-quirements in light of major knowledge breakthroughs, new views concerning how best to organize the general education curriculum and changing beliefs concerning the knowledge that every student should be expected to master. It is also the case that our general education

program has, over time, seen a proliferation of courses to a point where it became very difficult for students to un-derstand and navigate.”

Votruba also said the re-cent accreditation process by the Southern Associa-tion of Colleges and Schools (SACS) played a role in bringing about the change.

“The SACS accreditation process was an important factor in our efforts to bring greater focus to the general

education program,” Votru-ba said. “SACS requires the establishment of learning outcomes for each course and an assessment process that allows one to determine whether those outcomes are being met. It also requires that the assessment process feedback into course design and content so that there can be continuous improvement. Our old curriculum, with over 270 general education courses, made it nearly im-possible to satisfy this expec-tation. The new curriculum, with fewer required credits and fewer general education courses, aligns us with the SACS expectations.”

A massive campaign is un-derway to alert students to the changes as they prepare to schedule their classes for upcoming semesters. The university has created a one-stop shop for students both online and in person. The Web site and e-mail created to respond to questions can be found at http://gened.nku.edu and [email protected]. More helpful resources are available, too: a walk-in center that takes questions about the general education changes located in FH 220 and the use of the myNKU Web portal. The portal has added a feature that shows students how their classes will translate over to the new requirements. Students will see red symbols when they have not met all the require-ments in one area, and green symbols when they have completed all requirements. Moynahan said that the ef-fort is to make this change as easy for the students as pos-sible.

The announcement of the change has left many stu-

4 Edition 45, Issue 9

NEWS

Jesse CallStaff writer

Foundation of knowledge erectedGenEd requirement changes cause concerns for students

See FOUNDATION on page 5

Karli Wood/Layout editor

The university has rebuilt the basic building blocks of the general education requirements.

5 March 24, 2010

NEWS

FOUNDATION from page 4

Senator Skype

Photo courtesy of Vern Hockney

Abby Gross, a nursing major at NKU, teleconferences with senator Katie Stine con-cerning the lack of funding for NKU in a recent House bill. Keith Kaseke said that this is the fi rst teleconference of its kind between student government and a senator in the state. Senator Stine lives in Fort Thomas Kentucky and has fought for funding for NKU projects in the past.

dents concerned. One of those concerns is the expense of administering the changes.

“We will fund a new Di-rector of General Education who will oversee the program and insure that it is being car-ried out as intended,” said Votruba. “The added cost of the new program can be man-aged with funds coming from the university General Fund which is a combination of stu-dent tuition and state appro-priation.”

But Votruba said that the cost may pay off in savings.

“Another way to look at cost is that, because it is a much more easily understood program with fewer courses and fewer required credits, it has the potential to be less costly in terms of student and advising errors which can re-sult in more tuition costs and delayed time to graduation,” Votruba said.

The process of making the change and sharing it with students has also brought concern.

“As a student intern in the Department of History and Geography throughout the 08-09 academic year, I heard the frustrations of faculty members who are involved in Faculty Senate committee work,” SGA Justice Martin Henderson said. “My advisor and a few other faculty mem-bers raised my awareness of the “Foundation of Knowl-edge” process. While the streamlining of the general education program is a posi-tive approach, I’m concerned with the haste of program’s implementation and the bur-den on faculty advisors for in-coming freshmen.”

Votruba said he was pleased, however, with the effort of the faculty to come together despite the various strongly held views on gen-eral education.

“Our faculty worked through these issues and pro-

duced a new general educa-tion curriculum that has a strong intellectual foundation and is far easier for our stu-dents and their advisors to un-derstand and navigate. This is a major achievement on our campus and I am proud of the leadership shown by our fac-ulty,” Votruba said.

The general lack of student awareness to the process of changing the requirements was also a concern. Some se-lected students served on a committee suggesting chang-es, but many students were unaware that the changes were even being considered.

“I was not closely involved in the development of the curriculum so I can’t com-ment on the extent of student input,” Votruba said. “It is generally understood that the curriculum is the primary re-sponsibility of the faculty and they determine its content...Provost (Gail) Wells and I have both received a number of student comments praising the new general education curriculum.”

Henderson indicated that he felt the quality of the lib-eral arts education is being diminished as students with more options will take easier courses.

“What is to prevent a stu-dent, and I will use the term loosely in this context, from piling on known, less-than-suffi ciently challenging cours-es to move on to major and minor requirements,” Hen-derson said. “Again, its a mind-set issue: I pay the professor’s salary, so give me what I want. The consumer-focused, dis-tributive model have eroded the pillars of rank I, II and III universities across the U.S.A. Healthy liberal arts curricu-lum is the core of universi-ties. Sadly, many students lack the timeless value of wisdom gained through an examina-tion of the hard sciences and humanities do not see it in

that light.”SGA Senator Nicholas

Georgescu said he was not particularly impressed with the classes chosen to remain in the program.

“Did they make a good move in shaving down the re-quirements: yes. Did that lead to a more balanced education: no,” Georgescu said.

Georgescu said he thinks critical thinking should be more than something learned

over the array of classes. “I’d like to see more of an

actual critical thinking com-ponent rather than just saying that critical thinking is a goal, and every class should have it, which is nonsense,” Georges-cu said.

Specifi cally, Georgescu said he feels that Introduction to Speech should be introduced with Introduction to Logic, and there should be more classes required that include

logic as a component of the course.

In the end, though, Georgescu said he thinks the benefi ts to students outweigh the concerns.

“It seemed to me a greater disadvantage to have an ex-tra fi ve or six classes in which students really weren’t inter-ested,” Georgescu said.

The SGA Executive Board did not respond to requests for comment.


Thursday, March 4

2:51 p.m. A subject welding in the ceramics building caused the activation of smoke alarm. The fire department cleared the scene.

4:14 p.m. Victim assaulted by former boyfriend on Kenton Drive. Victim had no visible injuries.

Friday, March 5

9:06 a.m. Laptop computer reported taken from office in Founders hall.

2:11 p.m. Kindle electronic book was reported taken from an unattended desk in the science center.

3:56 p.m. Subject(s) arrested in Kentucky Hall for posses-sion of Marijuana.

4:15 p.m. Verbal dispute reported on the fine arts plaza between three subjects.

Saturday, March 6

12:12 a.m. Two individuals were charged with posses-sion of alcohol by minors in Commonwealth Hall.

Thursday, March 11

7:27 p.m. Item in wildlife exhibit was believed to be stolen. Item was reported as such and was found.

Monday, March 15

9:27 p.m. Individual reported they were receiving unwanted e-mail from an employee.

Wednesday, March 17

9:35 a.m. Laptop computer and two cameras reported taken from storage closet in Albright Health Center. 10:04 p.m. Individual reported unwanted communication from acquaintance.

NEWS

SGA began their second meeting after spring break through a video-Skype con-versation with Kentucky Senator Katie Stine, who rep-resents senate district 24, dis-cussing the lack of funding for NKU in a house bill that recently cleared the house. Part of the funding cut from the bill included money for the proposed Health Professions building.

Denise Robinson, dean of the College of Health Profes-sions, followed the video con-ference by addressing SGA on the importance of the new building and what it would bring to campus. She said that without the funding provided in the bill, construction on the building may not happen or may be stalled.

Robinson also said the new building would help alleviate the space problems facing the

college now. In the past, the college has had to turn away as many as 300 students due to space limitations.

The new building proposes to have 10,000 to 12,000 square feet of hospital simulation space which will allow realistic and sophisticated training of students in the college.

SGA also read the student fee board allocation resolution for the fi rst time. The resolu-tion stated that currently the fee allocation board received 0.00321 percent of the univer-sity budget for fi scal year 09-10. SGA proposes in this reso-lution that the amount be set at 0.0033 percent of the total university budget each year.

It should be noted that due to a computational error in the bill the actual percentages would be 0.321 percent and 0.33 percent using the num-bers contained in the resolu-tion. President Keith Kaseke said the error would be fi xed.

SGA Vern HockneyNews Editor

VIEWS

7 March 24, 2010

Nick LauxFreshman, Sports

Management

“Yeah...it’s a good way to get my voice heard.”

Jewel GilbertJunior,

Entrepreneurship

“No, probably not, just out of laziness.”

rnpCompiled by

Charlotte Etherton

“Will you be voting in the SGA election?”

norse poll responses

For more Norse poll responses and video, visit www.thenortherner.com

Ivis FlannaginSenior, Elementary

Education“Yes. I think it’s the only

way to have a say on campus.”

Come on, just smile for meGiving a friendly ‘cheese’ can make life easier on everybodyMelissa McLeodContributing writer

Charlotte Editor/Photo Editor

Rob Spaulding is one of the friendly faces at NKU.

Ira SenaJunior, Electronics En-gineering Technology

“No. I’m here to get my major and walk out.”

There is nothing more awkward than running into someone on campus that you have only met once or twice and expect to receive a cheerful greeting in pass-ing, only to find them look-ing away once eye contact is made. Even worse, a good friend passes you by and is far more concerned about shuffling through their MP3 player than conferring a ca-sual greeting. Last semester, I attended Asbury Universi-ty, a small, private college in Wilmore, Ky. The way people talk to one another in a small setting, such as Wilmore, in contrast to an institution that enrolls around 15,000 students a year is like send-ing Hank Hill into New York City (without any propane).

I’ll admit it is quite intimi-dating to say, “hey,” or even crack a smile at someone that you don’t know very well or not at all. During the first few weeks of school, I would

just plug in my headphones as I walked to class to avoid any awkward confrontation. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to anyone; I just didn’t know how people would re-act.

After about a month, I be-came familiar with where my classes were and started rec-ognizing students that were in my classes. I began to loos-en up and engage in small talk with them. For instance, I ran into a classmate in the elevator after taking a really hard Spanish exam. I asked him what his name was and what he thought was most difficult on the exam. The elevator stopped at the sec-ond floor of Founders Hall and he got off and said, “See ya’ in class on Wednesday!” It was my first break-the-ice conversation and to my sur-prise, it wasn’t too difficult.

I’ve noticed from all of my classes that many students at NKU are commuters; the

vast majority are, in fact. At Asbury, most students live on campus. Unless you were de-termined to remain reclusive, you were seemingly forced to get to know people. At NKU, however, one may only be on campus for a couple of hours a day and never actually talk to anyone. Often, a lot of the camaraderie is missed when people commute from home. This is true at any college or university.

Whether you are a com-muter, a transfer student, or someone that has been at-tending NKU for a couple of years, I think that you would agree that small talk can help pull you through a long day of classes or even turn a bad day around. I am not saying to go share your life story with a stranger but the point that I am trying to make is that a simple wave, smile or casual small talk can make someone feel more than one in 15,000.

Three very different SGA members share their ideas on what is happening in SGA right now. Michael Walther, Leigha Phelps and Nathaniel Burton sat down to discuss what they saw as issues that SGA needed to work through to better represent the stu-dent body.

These senators were asked to sit down with The North-erner because they each have a unique perspective concern-ing NKU’s SGA.

Michael Walther has seen how a more established SGA operates. Leigha Phelps has been associated with NKU’s SGA since her freshman year and has seen the organization grow through the years. Na-thaniel Burton is experienc-ing his fi rst taste of SGA this semester.

The interviewees were told that this was not to be used as a campaign platform.

The Northerner will be run-ning a full centerspread next week with a biography of each candidate and what of-fi ce they are running for.

Michael Walther

Michael Walther is a gradu-ate student attending NKU. He comes to the university from Miami University where he served on SGA. He was recently appointed to the sen-ate, but has attended meetings since before spring break and was a driving force behind the new Student Concerns Com-mittee.

Walther has the unique perspective of how a different university’s student govern-ment works. This allows him to compare Miami Univer-sity’s older, more established SGA to the young SGA of NKU.

“The great opportunity at NKU is with the right leaders — with the honest, up front, really determined and self-sacrifi cing (leaders) — you could single-handedly drive

SGA,” Walther said.But there are three major

issues Walther sees keeping the goal from happening. A lack of leadership develop-ment causing disenfranchise-ment of new senators is one such issue.

“We recruit these dynamic, energetic freshmen, sopho-mores and even juniors...they want to participate, they want to learn about govern-ment. They have a passion for change and this-that-and-the-other, and they get in and see what SGA is and they get dis-enfranchised because there is no leadership development,” Walther said.

A second issue that pre-sented itself was SGA’s cred-ibility around campus and to the student body.

“SGA doesn’t have cred-ibility here,” Walther said. “You have so many terrible elections, you have appeals, you have dirty politics, you have impeachments.”

But Walther offered a sug-gestion as to how this situa-tion may be rectifi ed.

“You have to be account-able for what you say and do, you have to be transparent in what you’re doing, and, I think, you have to follow the rules,” Walther said.

This doesn’t necessar-ily mean that issues will be handled faster, sometimes bu-reaucracy gets in the way, but Walther said the point is to get things done.

“If you want to go from A to B it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you follow the speed limit, you’re still gonna get there if you drive a Ferrari or a pick-up truck,” Walther said.

The third issue that con-cerned Walther was how SGA communicates with and then represents students. He said he believes SGA has to be the watchdog for students. They have to be willing to fi ght for what students want and not necessarily an administrative

agenda. Walther said the only way to represent the students accurately is to get down in the muck and the mire and do some good ol’ campaigning.

“The only way to do that is to get out there — and it’s messy and it’s dirty and it sucks, because you’re gonna hear a lot of things you don’t want to hear, because it is not pleasant to deal with com-plaints all the time — but you have to. And I think the reason it hasn’t (happened) is because it is an unpleasant process,” Walther said.

But not everything is bleak for SGA. Walther has seen growth in the last few meet-ings and is pleased with the way SGA is going.

“I think they are doing the best that they can,” Wal-ther said. “It’s a shame they couldn’t have started this at the beginning of the year or at the beginning of the academic year, but all’s well that ends well.”

Leigha Phelps

Leigha Phelps has been a member of SGA since her freshman year, has served on multiple committees and currently chairs the Univer-sity Improvements Commit-tee. Phelps has seen the stu-dent government body grow through the years and offered her insight as to what she had seen.

Phelps said she has seen political negativity grow and a breakdown in communica-tion occur. But at the same time, she has seen the body become more diverse, which is good, she said. Increased diversity in the governing stu-dent body would presumably help to represent an increas-ingly diverse campus.

But this diversity also brought its fair share of prob-lems. According to Phelps, the more diversity present, the more values present and without a core set of common

values in place, progress can be slow.

“There is a lack of values identifi cation on the part of student government,” Phelps said. “As a group you are to determine what your values are going to be and what your goals are to uphold those values — and that discussion never happened in SGA.”

She also agreed with Wal-ther that SGA needs to get out and engage the student body more. Phelps said a ma-jor hurdle in accurately repre-senting the student body is a lack of awareness of what stu-dent government stands for.

“(The) student body doesn’t know what student government does, and the only way they’re going to fi nd out what student government does and how they can relate to student government is if student government gets out there and talks to students,” Phelps said.

Phelps cited her year-long look at the issues surround-ing the Campus Recreation Center as one of the avenues SGA has taken to relate more to the student body. She in-corporated student tours, fo-cus groups, passed out surveys in the CRC and is working on a survey that will be sent to every student, faculty and staff on campus before pre-senting a resolution on the subject to SGA. Phelps hoped this would become more commonplace when SGA is presenting resolutions on be-half of the student body.

Phelps also hopes, in the future, SGA would consider different avenues of approach when presenting issues for the student body.

“I would hope the organi-zation would branch out and broaden their horizon and think outside the box,” Phelps said. “When you think outside the box, you can reach more people who might not go about doing things the same way you do.”

Nathaniel Burton

Nathaniel Burton is a soph-omore at NKU and was ap-pointed to the senate this se-mester. Burton thought SGA was just another club to join until one of his friends invited him to go to a meeting. Now that Burton sits on the senate, he too noticed a lack of inter-action between senators and students.

“The only time that I see SGA getting their name out is during election time,” Burton said.

Burton also said that he believed some senators only want to be senator for the social status. But Burton sees SGA as a service to the stu-dents.

“I don’t think people real-ize it’s students for students and (they) try to benefi t ev-eryone,” Burton said.

So Burton is taking a differ-ent approach.

“I try to be personable,” Burton said. He said that while he is talking to people causally on campus, if they bring a concern to him, he educates them about SGA. Burton said he encourages students to come to the meet-ings and present their issues to the governing body so they can feel the same way he does about SGA.

“I can see that I can actu-ally make a little bit of a dif-ference,” Burton said

The Long and Short

Even though Walther, Phelps and Burton come from different areas of cam-pus at different times in their college careers, a common thread connects what they have said. Walther summed up the connection when he said that SGA needs more transparent elections, more transparent meetings and a greater avenue for student concerns.

Vern HockneyNews editor

Looking to the futureThree Student Government members weigh in on SGA future

9 March 24, 20108 Edition 45, Issue 9


VIEWS

Student Government As-sociation elections are upon us. With the elections come a chance for new student rep-resentatives to be elected to represent the student body.

It’s also a chance for new relationships to be built, es-pecially with NKU’s student media outlet, The Northern-er.

The past year for SGA has been tumultuous. Last spring the SGA election was marred with accusations of cheating, which led to the

election being void. In the fall, a special election was held, due to the void in the spring. Due to the delay in electing student government officials, SGA was already more than two months be-hind in business.

The special election was just the beginning to what would be a year entrapped in controversy, which fur-ther cramped the progress of SGA. The last three weeks of the Fall 2009 semester, Vice President Dennis Chaney

was impeached and removed and President Keith Kaseke faced an attempted impeach-ment as well.

We at The Northerner hope the new SGA administration moves in a more positive di-rection and are able to ac-complish what they wish to accomplish.

However, if you want people to know what SGA is accomplishing, a good re-lationship needs to be built with your student media out-let, The Northerner. We are

going to be there, but you need to come to us as well. However, if things are going wrong, we will report that — no matter how controversial or negative a story is.

Former SGA President Gabe Cronon embodied the philosophy of building a re-lationship with student me-dia, often stopping by The Northerner office and tip-ping The Northerner off to story ideas.

Reaching out to student media will give the faces of

SGA a chance to be shown to the student body, further increasing your transparency to the people SGA is sup-pose to be advocating for — the students.

SGA elections start March 31 and The Northerner has a wealth of coverage planned. It’s a chance for new SGA members, and SGA veterans, to make a difference at his or her university. It’s also a chance to form relationships with The Northerner.

Staff editorial

Talking to the pressThe Northerner staff offer suggestions to Student Government Association

SPORTS

11 March 24, 2010

The Northern Kentucky University baseball team snapped a fi ve-game winning streak with a 3-1 loss against Miami (Ohio) in Oxford, Ohio, on March 17. Before the loss, the Norse had won 10 of their previous 12 games.

NKU (16-6, 7-1 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference) got a solid performance from the pitching staff, but could only manage six hits in the ball game.

The Redhawks had the bats ready to go early as they hit a leadoff double and back-to-back singles to push across the fi rst run of the game in the bot-tom of the fi rst. Miami plated single runs in the fi fth and sixth innings to take a 3-0 lead.

NKU’s only run in the sev-enth inning when senior in-fi elders Patrick Muth and Evan McDole hit back-to-back doubles. McDole’s double sent Muth home for the score, trim-ming the Redhawk’s lead to 3-1.

Senior left-hander Jarrett Casey (1-2) started the game and was hit with the loss, giv-ing up one run on four hits and three strikeouts in only one in-ning. The Norse threw a total of fi ve pitchers in the game.

During spring break, NKU traveled to Harrogate, Tenn., to take on the Lincoln Memo-rial University Railsplitters. With NKU leading 6-1 late in the game, LMU scored six un-answered runs to take a 7-6 vic-tory. The Norse connected for 12 hits in the contest as Larry Pempek collected a single and a home run to go along with two RBIs for NKU. Junior in-fi elder Shannon McCormick went 2-for-4 with a home run and three RBIs.

Senior right-hander Bran-don Slusher started on the hill for the Norse and gave up three runs on seven hits and fi ve strikeouts in fi ve innings of work. Senior right-hander Josh

Blaum pitched 2 2/3 innings of relief, giving up three runs on three hits, a walk and three strikeouts.

Senior left-hander Kevin Jordan, who continues to add to his school pitching appear-ances record, was saddled with the loss when he gave up a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth inning. The run was scored as an unearned run be-cause of an error made earlier in the inning.

The Norse went on to win the last four games during the break. They defeated UC-Clermont 7-4 on March 11 in the team’s home opener at the Bill Aker Baseball Complex at Friendship Field. Junior lefty Bryan Baldini recorded the win and Stewart grabbed his sec-

ond save of the season to seal the victory.

Nine batters for NKU had a hit in the win. Jason Cisper was the only player to record more than one hit (2) and senior des-ignated hitter Joe Mack was the only player to have more than one RBI (2) as head coach Todd Asalon played several players of the bench.

The Norse swept a two-game conference series against Rockhurst on March 13 in Kan-sas City, Mo. NKU routed the Hawks 7-1 in the fi rst match-up. Cisper, Muth, and junior catcher Brian Erie had two hits a piece on the day. Cisper was 2-3 with two RBIs and three runs scored.

Junior left-hander Midden-dorf took the win in seven in-

nings on the mound. He gave up one run on four hits, three walks and 12 strikeouts.

In the second game the Norse continued to knock the cover off the ball by notching 14 hits in the contest. NKU combined another good outing from the pitching staff with hot hitting to trounce the Hawks 12-2.

NKU then traveled to Quin-cy, Ill., on March 14 and swept the two-game series against GLVC rival Quincy to improve to 4-0 record in the conference. The Norse took Game 1 by a score of 10-5 and they won Game 2 by a score of 3-2.

The only real negative com-ing from the weekend confer-ence series was Cisper’s hit-ting streak coming to an end. The senior outfi elder’s streak

reached 36 games with a hit, but ended in the nightcap of the Rockhurst doubleheader.

Following the loss to Miami (Ohio), NKU kept the winning coming as they compiled a 5-1 record from March 18-20. The Norse took a doubleheader sweep of Lake Erie College (4-8) by scores of 11-10 and 11-4 as McDole blasted a home run in each game of the double-header. The home runs now place him in fi th place in the all-time home run hitting cat-egory with 24, which is just one shy of tying his father, Kevin, in the category.

NKU then traveled to Lou-isville, Ky., and took on in-state rival Bellarmine (10-15) and took three-out-of-four from the Knights. NKU swept Satur-day’s action with scores of 9-4 and 4-2, but failed to complete the series sweep as they lost 8-6 in fi nal game of the series on Sunday after winning the day’s fi rst game 7-5.

Cisper leads the team in bat-ting average (.488), hits (40), runs (26), and stolen bases (12). NKU has eight other players with batting averages that are above .300 and each of those players has played in 11 or more games.

McDole and Muth are tied for the lead in doubles with 10 each, while Muth has knocked in a team-best 23 runs. McCor-mick leads the team in home runs with four on the year, which is double his total output for the 2009 campaign.

Middendorf has four wins on the mound to lead the Norse pitching staff to go along with 40 strikeouts. Senior right-hander Chase Stewart has fi ve of the team’s eight saves on the season.

NKU will be back in action as they head to Columbus, Ohio, on March 24 to take on Ohio Dominican (3-15) in a double-header. First pitch is slated for 1 p.m.

Tim Downer/Staff Photographer

Freshman Bradley Vanderglass take a fi erce swing at the ball while playing against U.C.

Michael CollinsAsst. Sports editor

Winning streak snappedBaseball team musters only fi ve hits in loss to Miami

The Northern Kentucky Uni-versity softball team captured a doubleheader sweep of Great Lakes Valley Conference rival Missouri-St. Louis (11-9, 1-3 in the GLVC) on March 21 at the Frank Ignatius Grein Softball Field.

The Norse (13-8, 7-2 in the GLVC) capitalized on a six-run sixth inning to spark a comeback that led them to a 10-8 victory in the fi rst contest of the day.

The Missouri-St. Louis Tri-tons scored four runs on fi ve hits in the opening inning after NKU recorded the fi rst two outs of the ballgame. Three singles, a double and a home run capped a solid start for UMSL.

The Norse answered quick-ly by scoring four runs in the bottom of the inning. Back-to-back singles from sophomore shortstop Jessica Farris and se-nior outfi elder Stephanie West sparked the early rally. Fresh-man designated player Em-ily Schwaeble reached fi rst on a fi elder’s choice to load the bases and Farris would score soon after on a groundout by sopho-more outfi elder Ashley Gates. On the ensuing at-bat, junior pitcher April Ehlers cranked a homer over the left-center fi eld wall to even the score at 4-all.

UMSL took a 7-4 lead in the top of the third - scoring three more runs on four hits. The Tri-tons then added an insurance run in the top of the sixth to in-crease the lead to 8-4.

But an offensive power surge from NKU came in the bottom of the sixth.

Junior catcher Jamie Raabe led off with a walk and fresh-man infi elder Katie Sullivan followed with a double to left-center fi eld. Farris stepped up to the plate and knocked the ball out of the park for a three-run round-tripper.

The homer cut UMSL’s com-manding lead to one, 8-7.

Three singles and a double would help the Norse tack on three more runs to take a 10-8 lead before heading into the fi -nal inning of play.

Junior pitcher Chelsie Roy closed the door on the Tritons to seal the win for NKU. Roy (3-3) threw for 4 2/3 innings and was awarded with the “W.” Farris was 4-for-5 with three RBIs and Ehlers was 2-four-4 with four RBIs to fuel the comeback.

In Game two, NKU picked up where they left off as they rout-ed UMSL 8-0 in fi ve innings; the game was ended early due to the 8-run mercy rule coming

into play.Schwaeble (4-0) was the hurl-

er in the circle for the Norse. She threw fi ve innings, giving up just one hit, three walks and six strikeouts to shutout the Tritons.

All eight of the runs for NKU came in the fi rst three innings. Farris singled to lead off the bottom of the fi rst and West dropped down a sacrifi ce bunt to move her to second. Senior infi elder Rose Broderick sin-gled to right fi eld driving in Far-ris for the fi rst run of the game.

A two-run homer by junior outfi elder Gretchen Lorenz highlighted a three-run second inning to push the Norse lead to 4-0.

NKU struck for four more runs in the bottom of the third inning to ice the game at 8-0. Schwaeble would retire six-in-a-row to seal NKU’s shutout of UMSL.

During spring break, NKU posted a 4-2 record at the Rebel Spring Games (RSG) in Kissim-mee, Fla.

The Norse were scheduled to play eight games in just four days, but heavy rain prevented them from playing the last two on March 11.

The Norse lost 2-0 against No. 13 Saginaw Valley State in its

fi rst game on March 8, where NKU struggled at the plate. Broderick and Schwaeble were the only two Norse players to record a hit.

NKU faced Concordia-St. Paul in the second game of the RSG and the hitting woes con-tinued for the Norse. The Norse held a 2-0 lead until the bottom of the sixth inning when the Golden Bears tied the game on a string of three big hits.

Locked at a 2-2 score, the game moved into an extra in-ning in which Concordia-St. Paul cashed in on a walk-off single to win the game 3-2.

On day two of the RSG, the Norse claimed a pair of victories defeating Clarion (Pa.) 10-2 in the fi rst ball game. The Norse defeated No. 15 California (Pa.), 5-0 in the second contest.

Solid hitting and tough pitch-ing helped the team cap off two more wins on March 10. In its fi rst game, NKU knocked off Shippensburg (Pa.) 3-2 in nine innings of action. The Norse slipped past the Huskies of St. Cloud (Minn.) State in the fi nal game of the RSG by a score of 4-3.

NKU went 45-158 at the plate, putting the team average at .284 for the RSG. Four play-

ers combined for 29 of those 45 hits. West and Lorenz went 7-16 during the six-game stretch. Broderick was 8-19 at the plate and Schwaeble connected on 7-21, tallying to a .333 average. Schwaeble also led NKU with six RBIs on the trip. Farris led the team in runs-scored with six.

From Kissimmee, Fla., NKU traveled to Springfi eld, Mo., to battle GLVC-rival Drury on March 13.

The Panthers defeated the Norse, 7-6 in 12 innings of play. Ehlers pitched 11 1/3 innings, giving up nine hits, seven runs and six walks. The Norse com-mitted six errors in the game, Ehlers was charged with just two earned runs.

To complete the spring break tour, NKU traveled to Rolla, Mo., for doubleheader action against GLVC-foe Missouri S&T on March 14. The Miners took the fi rst game by a score of 4-1, but NKU stole the second game by a score of 3-2. Splitting the two-game series with S&T completed a 5-4 road trip for the Black and Gold.

The Norse will be back in action on Thursday, March 25 as they host Ohio Dominican (10-13) at Frank Ignatius Grein Softball Field.

Michael CollinsAsst. Sports editor

Softball team cranks out two


SPORTS

13 March 24, 2010

A&E

The Northern Kentucky University Jazz Ensemble par-ticipates in a variety of on-cam-pus performances every se-mester. But, for the past three years, the band has kept its instruments tuned and rhythm section at the ready in order to headline its local Blues Festival each spring.

The festival, which showcas-es a 21-piece band composed entirely of NKU music majors, is an occasion for the students to strut their musical prowess; but more than that, it is an op-portunity to revive a waning art

and to raise money in support of a local cause.

“I’m under the fi rm belief that jazz and blues are being lost to those in academia,” said William B. Hogg, assistant pro-fessor of saxophone and jazz studies at NKU. “The Blues Festival — and more specifi -cally — the EMPOWER Pro-gram, helps raise money to benefi t kids who want to learn to play jazz-type instruments.”

But many kids, says Hogg, just don’t have the money, means or direction to obtain a sax, a bass guitar or any other

instrument in order to start playing music on their own.

This is where the festival does what it does best. Through headlining local jazz and R&B bands such as G. Miles and The Hitmen, Hogg and NKU are able to raise thousands of dol-lars each year in order to pro-vide instruments and music les-sons for the Campbell Lodge Boys’ Home.

The home’s mission is to pro-vide therapeutic guidance for at-risk young men in a nurtur-ing, Christian environment, ac-cording to Barry Jones, execu-

tive director of the home. “The money raised at the festival will go directly to the EMPOWER Program, which benefi ts many of our troubled youth at the home, and allows them to inter-act with instruments and music that they otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity to do.”

Located on 115 acres of land in Cold Spring, the home men-tors 27 young men, providing direction to mitigate problems such as violence, truancy and various types of mental health.

“They have a great deal of land out there, where they do

a lot of interactions with horses and outdoor activities,” said Greg Mebs, chemical depen-dency counselor/social worker and frontman for G. Miles and The Hitmen. “But the EM-POWER Program is able to augment all that by giving the kids an alternative to their dai-ly struggles. Music is also great because kids naturally respond to it.”

According to Hogg, the pro-gram strives to make other

Courtsey of William Hogg

NKU Jazz Ensemble gets together during the Winter Blues Festival to help raise money for the Campbell Lodge Boys Home and its empowerment pro-gram. The Festival is being held March 27th, in Covington.

Will play music for moneyNKU Jazz Ensemble headlines festival to fund local causeJeremy JacksonA&E Editor

See MUSIC on page 14


A&E

connections with the home’s young men, instilling the idea that jazz is an art form that owes its inception to many of the same situations the young men are attempting to rise out of.

“What used to be an African-American community-based art from the streets has, in re-cent decades, shifted to the halls of academia—which in a sense, has alienated generations who stem from lower socio-econom-ic rungs.”

The founding fathers of jazz and blues, such as John Col-trane, Miles Davis and Theloni-ous Monk, according to Hogg, weren’t classically trained to play their instruments, but learned through hours of hard work and interacting with fel-low musicians. Hogg contends that this type of learning from the streets may be losing its

footing to college trained mu-sicians. And if jazz music and instruments aren’t accessible to those of lower incomes, jazz is going to lose popularity among African American artis-tic hopefuls, and will therefore lose prominence among the proceeding generations.

“One of the best examples that stands out in my mind is when I was working with a young clarinet player at Oyler High School in Cincinnati.”

The girl, Hogg says, had promise at playing the clarinet and even enjoyed the music. But when he approached her about participating in a school talent show, the girl declined. She instead wanted to practice dancing, in hopes of one day performing in a rap video.

“I’m not saying that dancing in a video isn’t commendable; it’s just that the kids nowadays

don’t think of playing music as a viable option,” Hogg said.

He says that many African-Americans today, and inner city kids for that matter, may put many hours of practice into basketball or other pastimes, but music has taken a back seat, and this is due in part to it not being driven home in these communities.

“That clarinet girl made me realize the emphasis needs to shift,” Hogg said. “There are other options out there and if we don’t allow younger gen-erations to embrace the art of jazz, a large part of the African-American experience stands the chance of being lost. The EMPOWER Program helps instill at least a small part of jazz and music into these young lives, and the Blues Festival en-sures that the program contin-ues.”

MUSIC from page 13

The 2010 Blues Festival

Who: The NKU Jazz Ensemble, and G. Miles & The Hitmen

When: March 27th

Where: The Madison in Covington Tickets are $10. For more information,

visit: http://madisontheateronline.com

The Northerner Print Edition - March 24, 2010

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