Utah State women's basketball hopes to start strong against Idaho State

By Ashley Springer

The Utah State University women’s basketball team is looking to start off strong when it takes on Idaho State University on the road on Tuesday.

USU has started off behind in the first quarter in both of its road games this season with losses to the University of Northern Colorado on Tuesday and Brigham Young University on Nov. 24. Against Northern Colorado, the USU Aggies were behind 26-20 at the end of the first quarter and lost 74-60. Against BYU, the Aggies were behind 27-18 at the end of the first quarter and lost 81-69.

“Good teams set the tone early and establish their routine and their rhythm,” said USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “That’s just a good thing for any team to start off strong, set the tone.”

Finkbeiner said it’s important the team doesn’t dig a hole for itself like it did against Northern Colorado.

“Our last away game we dug a hole early, spent a lot of energy catching up, finally went ahead and then just fell flat,” Finkbeiner said. “So we just got to be consistent, start well.”

Against Northern Colorado, the Aggies were behind 44-31 at the half, but held the Bears to four points in the third quarter to take the 51-48 lead. However, in the fourth quarter, the Aggies were outscored 26-9 and Northern Colorado took the win.

“We need to have the energy from the beginning,” senior forward Tijana Djukic said. “So as soon as the ball is on the court, we need to execute well and have effort and just play the best we can.”

Finkbeiner said in order to start off well, the best shooters need to have more opportunities early on to score and the best rebounders need to rebound the ball.

“I always use the phrase: ‘Let’s have no surprises,’” Finkbeiner said. “Being predictable with no surprises is big because that represents consistency and a little bit of stableness to us.”

Additional focuses for Tuesday’s game, Finkbeiner said, will be the Aggies’ man-to-man offense and defending Idaho State’s screens and cuts.

Djukic said her main goal for the game is simply “to win.”

“We got to worry more about ourselves,” Finkbeiner said. “We have to execute… It’s going to be a well contested game, it’s going to be very competitive and our girls have to be on.”

Utah State defense improves against Haskell

By Ashley Springer

Defense was key going into Friday's game. 

The Utah State University women’s basketball team knew it and did it as the USU Aggies won 90-63 against Haskell Indian Nations University, the Aggies second non-Division I opponent, on Friday night.

The Aggies held Haskell to just 35 points during the first three quarters of the game with Haskell only scoring eight points during the third.

“One of our main focuses was our defense,” said USU sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu. “We look towards that when conference time comes because we’re a transition team and that really allows us to transition the ball.”

The Aggies had 20 fast-break points on the night compared to Haskell’s zero and had 28 points off of Haskell’s 22 turnovers.

“We need to keep the energy on defense… because it makes it so much easier on offense for us,” Nakkasoglu said.

According to USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner, one of the areas the Aggies struggled during Tuesday’s game against the University of Northern Colorado was defending the off-the-ball cutter.

Against Haskell, the Aggies got into the passing lane to disrupt passes by either by deflecting the ball or getting the steal. The Aggies had 17 steals on the night, 16 of which came during the first three quarters.

“We’re stepping off a bit more and kind of putting our numbers to the ball so they don’t look to drive as much, and when they cut, jump to the ball and do all the fundamental things to minimize them cutting over us and getting easy baskets from their cuts,” Nakkasoglu said.

“We’re trying to get the ‘A-word’ involved in our game: aggressiveness,” Finkbeiner said. “Both going to the hoop offensively and then looking for steals. That spread zone… we call ‘The Twilight Zone,’ we want to go for steals, we want to go for deflections. It’s a high-risk, high-reward and we’re trying to sell that to the girls. And tonight was the first time I’ve seen our ‘Twilight Zone’ begin to kind of look like it’s supposed to look, you know, go for those long passes, get the hands on the basketball and create some deflections, create some steals.”

Freshman guard Rachel Brewster is the defensive captain for the Aggies.

“We’ve spoken a lot with the team about talking... so that was a big thing tonight,” Brewster said. "And I think what’s good tonight we were able to... be more aggressive. And we got to see what happens when we do get up and get the steals, so hopefully we can transfer that to our other games.”

The Aggies also recorded six blocks on the night behind senior forward Tijana Djukic’s three.

“I think it was better,” Nakkasoglu said about the defense. “There’s still a lot of room for improvement… We have to bring this energy and we have to bring this execution of our defense every single game. We can’t be too happy with this; we just need to keep going up from here.”

The Aggies hope to use this experience when facing future Division I opponents.

“We just look at what we did well and have to go if we keep doing that and we keep building on that when we move into the next games, then it’ll work out,” Brewster said.

Utah State gets big win over Haskell

By Ashley Springer

The Utah State University women’s basketball team won 90-63 tonight against its second non-Division I opponent, Haskell Indian Nations University.

The game was close throughout the first quarter with the score tied at 15 with just under a minute to go. Sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu then made two free throws followed by two layups to give the USU Aggies a 21-15 lead going into the second quarter. The Aggies maintained the lead from then on with the largest lead being 41 at the end of the third quarter.

“We needed this game,” said USU coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “Two of the three games we’ve lost were teams just like this… small, lots of threes… More importantly we needed this game just to get back on a winning track, trying to create some momentum.”

The Aggies shot at 50 percent on the night behind Nakkasoglu’s 27 points. Senior forward Tijana Djukic had a career high of 19 points and freshman guard Rachel Brewster had 17.

Brewster said she was kind of shocked about her shooting average as she shot 5-8 from the floor, including 3-4 from behind the arc.

“Lately I haven’t really had a very good shooting percentage,” Brewster said. “My shots went in so I just kept taking them.”

Nakkasoglu gave credit to Djukic for running down the middle of the lane and getting open.

“She was just easy to give it up to,” Nakkasoglu said. “She was right under the basket… she was out in front of me and it made things easier for me, it made things easier for everyone else because she really opened up the floor.”

Nakkasoglu led the team with nine assists to tie her career high.

“We are trying to take advantage, obviously, of our tall girls because they were a shorter team,” Nakkasoglu said. “I am looking to dish it off. A lot of players are going to start collapsing on me because they know I might drive.”

The Aggies had 50 points in the paint and 20 fast-break points on the night.

“That’s what we’re working towards,” Nakkasoglu said. “We’re going to keep trying to build on that. We need to kind of average that every single game from here on.”

The Aggies were led by freshman center Deja Mason’s nine rebounds, Djukic’s three blocks and both Brewster and junior forward Antoina Robinson’s four steals. The team had a total of 17 steals on the night.

Haskell was led by senior guard Arnetia Begay’s 17 points, four assists and one block. Junior center Keli Warrior also contributed one block, junior guard Kortney Meat led with five rebounds and freshman guard Ember Sloan led with three steals.

The win brought the Aggies to a 3-3 record.

“I think as a whole our freshmen class is starting to kind of get some juice going and starting to get some confidence and having some fun out there,” Finkbeiner said. “I think we played well enough to win a couple of the games we lost this year.”

Utah State women's basketball team hopes to grow from first road game experiences

By Ashley Springer


The young Utah State University women's basketball team isn't quite used to the traveling that comes with road games.

The USU Aggies’ two road games thus far in the season have consisted of an 81-69 loss to Brigham Young University on Nov. 24 and a 74-60 loss to the University of Northern Colorado on Tuesday. 

According to USU freshman center Deja Mason, the biggest challenge that came with the road games was the traveling led to a lack of energy on the floor.

“In the game, we just kind of felt not as intense as we could have been at home,” Mason said. “We just had to work on the intensity that we didn’t really have.”

Although the Aggies faced BYU first, USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner considered the Northern Colorado game to be the young team’s first real road game as it was the first game the team had flown to and stayed overnight.

USU’s 15-woman roster is two-thirds underclassmen with seven freshmen and three sophomores.

“It’s all about… experience,” Finkbeiner said. "Half our team — that was their first real road trip."

“We can’t use that as an excuse," said USU sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu. “We've got so many freshmen, but our coaches have recruited them because they feel that a lot of them can step up and play older than they are.”

Finkbeiner said some of the struggles the team faces on the road can't be practiced, such as packing luggage, traveling, the meals, the itinerary as well as the aspects that cannot be controlled like a late plane or a late bus.

"All of those things are just new and I think veteran teams have a big advantage... on the road because you can't duplicate, you can't practice it, you just have to experience it," Finkbeiner said.

“Of course everyone’s adjusting to the road games,” Nakkasoglu said. "We're going to get better as we go through the season in road games because people are going to have experienced it and they're going to know what it's like and they're going to be more comfortable playing in other gyms against other teams away from our home court.” 

According to Mason, getting used to the traveling as well as bringing energy to the games will be important in the future.

The Aggies will have two road games next week against Idaho State University on Tuesday and Utah Valley University on Dec. 10, but Finkbeiner considers the next true road trip to be the Lady Griz Classic in Missoula, Montana on Dec. 19 and 20.

"I just have a strong assumption because of this experience against Northern Colorado, there will be fewer surprises and more known things to happen and hopefully that will transfer over to the floor being more consistent and more focused and ready to play," Finkbeiner said.

“We kind of learned from this last experience how to do better in future road games,” Mason said.

The Aggies are currently 2-3 on the season. Finkbeiner, Mason and Nakkasoglu said the goal is to win at least half of the road games as well as the majority of home games.

“Since we already lost these two, these next few games are really important,” Mason said. “Good teams are much better when you win half of your away games.”

"If we do that, then we'll be in good shape come February, March," Finkbeiner said.

Utah State women's basketball to focus on defense

By Ashley Springer

Utah State University's women’s basketball is hoping to bounce back from Tuesday’s 74-60 loss to the University of Northern Colorado by defending better in Friday’s game against Haskell Indian Nations University.

“We definitely need to pick up our defense,” said USU sophomore guard Funda Nakkasoglu. “It was very poor against Northern Colorado.”

“We came up short last night because our defense let us down in a few situations,” said USU head coach Jerry Finkbeiner about Tuesday’s loss.

In particular, Finkbeiner said, the Aggies the failed to adequately defend the off-the-ball cutter — players who don’t have the ball but cut to get the pass and score.

“Last night we got beat by individual players beating us to the basket off of cuts, so our help-side defense will be a key,” Finkbeiner said. “It’s more about team defense, helping on the pass, helping on the dribble and making more of a dent.”

“We need to take more pride… in every defensive stop,” Nakkasoglu said. “And knowing what defensive play that we’re in and being more verbal on the court so everyone knows what’s going on.”

Today was the team’s off-day, so Thursday will be the only day the Aggies have to prepare for Friday’s game, which will be held at 7 p.m. at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum

“We’re going to put most of our thought and our practice and our planning time into defensively being more consistent,” Finkbeiner said on the focus of Thursday’s practice. “It’ll all be about defense and rebounding.”

Finkbeiner also plans to throw in defensive situations in practice such as diving on the floor for the basketball without getting injured and drawing the offensive charge.

Both Finkbeiner and Nakkasoglu noted that defense leads to offense.

“The whole team has realized that,” Nakkasoglu said. “That’s what gave us success in the Pacific game… But… in our BYU game and our Northern Colorado game and even our Sacramento State game that we lost, it was mostly our defense which affected our offense in the end… Once we get stops and steals in the defensive end, it’s easier to fall into our offensive game.”

Utah State gets the job done against Pacific

By Ashley Springer

With the game tied at 66 in the middle of the fourth quarter, sophomore Utah State University guard Funda Nakkasoglu told her teammates to do their jobs.


And that's just what they did, as the USU women’s basketball team went on to win 78-70 against the University of Pacific on Saturday night at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.

The job Nakkasoglu reminded her teammates about was to beat Pacific in three statistics: rebounds, free throws and turnovers.

“It’s pretty proven we win three of those, we got a really good chance of winning,” said USU coach Jerry Finkbeiner.

Senior forward Tijana Djukic said rebounding has been the emphasis this week.

“Coach had been getting on Tijana and some of the other bigs to get those rebounds… so they’re expected to do that and they did,” Nakkasoglu said. “They did their job today, everyone did their job today, that’s why we got the win.”

The Aggies out-rebounded Pacific 49 to 34. Djukic led the team with a career high of 15 rebounds, but every USU player had at least one.

Free throws also proved to be key in the game as the Aggies final nine points came from the line. The Aggies trailed 69-70 after a layup by Pacific’s senior guard Hailie Eackles with about 3:30 left of the game, but Pacific’s early foul trouble put the Aggies on the line five times in the final 3 minutes. Freshman guard Victoria Price secured the win by making two free throws with 18 seconds left of the game.

The Aggies made 22 of 26 free throw attempts on the night.

Nakkasoglu went 13 of 14 from the free throw line and scored almost half of USU’s points with a career high of 37. Djukic tied her career high of 14 points and recorded her second career double-double while freshman guard Rachel Brewster also scored in double figures with 11 points.

The Aggies shot at 36.2 percent on the night.

“We didn’t shoot real good tonight percentage wise,” Finkbeiner said, “but the rebounding and the low turnovers was definitely the difference of the game statistically.”

The Aggies won the turnover battle with 10 turnovers compared to Pacific’s 13. The Aggies did not have a single turnover in the second half.

“That’s unbelievable in men’s or women’s basketball to have a half that clean with the type of defense that was playing against us,” Finkbeiner said.

Price led the Aggies with four assists while freshman guard Katie Toole led with two steals. There were three USU players with one block each.

“We were just listening to the coaches and doing our job,” Djukic said. “Everyone stepped up.”

Pacific was led by Eackles’ 24 points and junior forward Eli Lopez Sagrera’s 18. Sagrera also led the team with nine rebounds and one steal. Sophomore guard Najah Queenland led with five assists and had the team’s only block.

This win moved the Aggies’ record to 2-1.

“We knew we wanted it from the get-go and although we are young, we pushed through, we pulled together, and we knew what we wanted and we got it,” Nakkasoglu said.

Utah State University’s volleyball team hopes to finish strong

 By Ashley Springer

 

Utah State University’s volleyball team is looking to focus on the details and finish out games as it takes on the United States Air Force Academy on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. at the Wayne Estes Center.

“They’re all important matches for us and for our growth and for the process of us getting better,” said USU coach Grayson DuBose. “We want to be able to go out and play composed and play consistently.”

“Right now we need to focus on a lot of our little things,” said redshirt sophomore middle blocker Carly Lenzen. “Because the whole big picture’s there, it’s just these minute things that end up costing us games.” Lenzen had nine kills in the 3-0 loss to New Mexico on Wednesday attacking at a team high of 50 percent.

One of the little things the team is focusing on is blocking.

“I want to see better blocking,” DuBose said. “We’ve always kind of been a really nice blocking team, and then this year we’ve really struggled. So I want us to finish the last couple matches by just going out and defending well.”

Lenzen said for better blocking the blockers need to have good footwork and eye work to make sure they see where the setter is setting the ball so they can be in a good position to block.

According to DuBose, one element the team is missing is the ability to finish under pressure.

“That kind of is a learned skill as much as any of the other skills: pass, set, hit. Learning how to be good under pressure is kind of a learned skill and experience makes a difference,” DuBose said. “I think we’re figuring it out, but we’re just not quite there yet.”

“Maintaining good energy… especially if we’re down we need to make our own momentum to push us through and carry on,” Lenzen said. “We put in all this time and energy and so I think it’s just time to believe in ourselves and know that we can beat these teams.”

Saturday will be the Aggies' final home game of the season.

“It’s almost the end of season, so I think just going out with a bang and having fun and leaving nothing behind on the court,” Lenzen said.

Air Force is coming off of a 3-1 loss to Boise State on Wednesday. Air Force has lost its last five matches and hasn’t won a match since its 3-1 win over San Jose State on Oct. 31.

Against New Mexico, sophomore outside hitter Rachel Gale led the Aggies with 13 kills, junior setter Erica Moscoso had 29 of the team’s total of 33 assists and junior libero Hannah Gleason led with 18 digs.

Utah State University women's basketball focusing on the big picture

By Ashley Springer

Focusing on the bigger picture.

That is the goal of the Utah State University women’s basketball team this season.

“It’s more about putting all the pieces and parts together to make the whole,” said USU coach Jerry Finkbeiner said. “I’ve always said this team has a chance to be pretty good this year.”

Finkbeiner said getting better weekly, both offensively and defensively, is the focus, especially for such a young team. The team has seven freshmen and three sophomores listed on its 15-woman roster.

“This team is… inexperienced,” Finkbeiner said. “It’s a teaching element… Our classroom’s the basketball floor, our practice is daily homework but the games are the test. So hopefully we perform better this Saturday than the previous Saturday.”
 

“We need to be better on our defense,” said freshman guard Katie Toole. “We just haven’t been as solid as we should’ve in our last couple games so that’s a big focus.”

According to Finkbeiner, a piece of the bigger picture is the team becoming more aggressive.

“It’s the blessing and the curse of having good kids, good character, good chemistry because sometimes that could be a fault,” Finkbeiner said. “We may not be as aggressive or tough as we need to be… So that’s always going to be part of the big picture is taking a group of young ladies that are good people and making them tough and turning that switch on-and-off for that two hours during the week when we play a game.”

Finkbeiner listed three statistics he has emphasized: getting more rebounds, making more free throws and having less turnovers. He believes if the team beat its opponents in these categories, the Aggies will likely get the victory.


This ideal has been reflected in the past two games. In the 74-67 win against Westminster College on Monday, the Aggies had a total of 36 rebounds, 19 made free throws of 23 attempts and had 12 turnovers. Westminster had a team total of 32 rebounds, made 13 of 18 free throws and had 20 turnovers. However, in the 86-95 loss to Sacramento State on Saturday, the Aggies had 52 rebounds, made 11 of 20 free throws and had 27 turnovers. Sacramento State had 54 rebounds — 35 of which were offensive —, made 17 of 25 free throws and had 13 turnovers.

 

 

 

 

 

Utah State University women’s volleyball hopes to keep momentum going to get a win against New Mexico

By Ashley Springer

Utah State University volleyball coach Grayson DuBose said he's been happy with the way his team has been playing over the past few matches — 90 percent of the time.

When DuBose's team takes the court against the University of New Mexico on Wednesday, he'll be looking for that other 10 percent. 

"If we can put together a whole complete match I think we’ll have a nice opportunity to go compete,” DuBois said.

“We’re really focusing on the little things like getting our feet to the ball, getting nice passes and then getting everyone up so we can get three options up for the hitters,” said USU junior libero Hannah Gleason. Gleason had 21 digs in the 3-2 loss against San Diego State University on Saturday.

DuBose said the keys for success would be to get New Mexico out of its system by serving tougher and defending its quick outside hitters.

“I always want them to think we have a chance to win,” DuBose said. “I think the mindset always has to be ‘hey we’re going to put together a game plan we’re going to be prepared’ and if we can do those two things then we’ll be alright.”

“Just to forget about the last play and be in the play that we’re in and focus really on that and play with passion and our hearts,” Gleason said. “I know they play with a lot of passion and stuff so we just need to focus on ourselves and I think we’ll do well.”

The Aggies played well for four sets against San Diego State, but fell short in the last set due to serving errors. DuBose said the team has to serve better.

The Aggies had four players with double digit kills against San Diego State led by junior outside hitter Kaylie Kamalu’s 15. The Aggies tied their season high of 65 kills for a 23.2 attack percentage. Junior setter Erica Moscoso led the Aggies with 39 assists while freshman setter Kassidy Johnson, who replaced Moscoso in the fourth set and continued as setter through the rest of the match, had 15.

New Mexico is coming off of a 3-0 win over Fresno State on Saturday.

New Mexico had 52 kills for a 31.9 attack percentage against Fresno State behind junior outside hitter Devanne Sours’ 12. Redshirt senior setter Hannah Johnson led New Mexico in assists with 38 and redshirt sophomore outside hitter Ashley Kelsey and junior Cassie House both had 11 digs. New Mexico has a 21.8 attack percentage on the season.

The Aggies are currently 2-13 in conference play and 6-13 overall while New Mexico is 8-7 in conference play and 15-13 overall. If New Mexico wins the match and UNLV loses its match against third in the conference University of Wyoming, New Mexico will move to fourth in the conference.

 

Utah State University women’s volleyball team stays focused earning a win against Nevada

By Ashley Springer
 

Playing scrappier and getting a win, that was the goal.

And it was a goal the Utah State University women’s volleyball team accomplished against the University of Nevada Thursday night as the USU Aggies won 3 sets to 1 at the Wayne Estes Center.

The USU Aggies were coming off of a 3-0 loss against San Jose State University on Nov. 5 while Nevada was coming off a 3-1 win against Fresno State on Saturday. Both USU and Nevada are in the Mountain West Conference and until Thursday the Aggies’ only other conference game win was against San Jose on Oct. 10.

The Aggies won the first two sets 25-21 and 25-23. However, after a 3-0 start for the Aggies in the third set, Nevada took charge to win the set 25-20.

"When we struggled passing in the third set that's when we struggled as a team," said Rachel Gale, a sophomore outside hitter for USU.

The Aggies led 16-9 in the fourth set forcing Nevada to call its second timeout of the set. Nevada was able to come within two point, but the Aggies went on to win the set 25-20.

“The score’s 0-0, let’s go win this game, let’s go each ball one at a time, and go be gritty, go pound balls, go do what we do and go get this game,” said sophomore USU defensive specialist Maddie Day on the mindset the team had going into the fourth set.

Thursday was a career night for the Aggies. Junior USU setter Erica Moscoso had a career-high of 51 assists while Day had a career-high of 12 digs. Junior libero Hannah Gleason led the team with 23 digs and is now sixth for the highest number of digs in a single season in USU history with 434. Gale had 24 kills while junior outside hitter Kaylie Kamalu had 16.

“The thing that I really liked was our lack of errors," said USU coach Grayson DuBose. "I thought that was huge."

“We’ve been focusing on being gritty for the last half of the season,” Day said. “Our whole team was just determined to go dig balls and go throw your body at something and see if you can get it up. You’ll never know if you never go for something so just go try to make something happen and I think that’s what we did and it was successful for us.”

Nevada was led by junior right side hitter Madison Morell’s 24 kills and 16 digs. Setters Lyndsey Anderson and Taylar Rothfuss led Nevada in assists with 26 and 24 respectively.

The Aggies are now 2-12 in the conference and 6-22 overall while Nevada is 6-9 in the conference and 11-16 overall. This win marks the end of a seven game losing streak for the Aggies.

“I think we did a really good job at staying mentally tough this game,” Gale said.

“It’s huge,” DuBose said about the win. “We battled a little bit and it’s nice to finish this stuff out… It’s rewarding for them. They’ve worked really hard all season long.”

 

 

Dual language immersion program allowing students to receive college credit to be implemented in August 2016

By Ashley Springer

A new program that will allow high school students who have passed the advanced placement Spanish test the opportunity to take 3000-level college courses was presented Wednesday evening at Utah State University. The Dual Language Immersion Bridge Project, which will be put into place in August of 2016, was described in a presentation by USU graduate student Chemaris Ethington at the fifth annual Lackstrom Linguistics Symposium.

“The ideal is they take the AP test when they are in the ninth grade if they are in the dual language immersion program,” Ethington said. “But anyone that has taken the AP test and passed it, they can take the classes.”

The program is for students in grades 10 through 12.

“By the time that they finish high school they can be two to three courses shy of a minor in that target language,” Ethington said.

Students can take up to nine credits of upper division college courses. The classes taught will cover pop culture, Spanish in the global world, and Spanish surveys of the professions. Spanish will be the first program implemented in the Bridge Project, followed by Chinese and French.

Davis and Granite school districts will be the first to receive this program according to Maria Luisa Spicer-Escalante, an associate professor at Utah State University who also works with the Utah State Office of Education.

“They have identified at least two high schools,” Spicer-Escalante said, “but they don’t know how many students will make it to this level.”

Utah is the only state in the United States with this program.

“We are really the cutting edge in dual language immersion,” said Spicer-Escalante on Utah’s progress in dual language immersion education. “Everybody’s looking at what Utah is doing.”

Deans and other representatives from seven higher level institutions of Utah got together to discuss and put this program into place.

“We started the conversations a year ago,” Spicer-Escalante said. “To discuss the needs, the possibilities and to start exploring what would be the best way to deliver the best education for these students who will come with a very high level of proficiency.”

The program will not come into effect in Cache Valley for another six years, according to Spicer-Escalante, as students in the dual language immersion programs in the valley are in the third grade.

“We have a gap of six years to prepare our teachers to face the challenges and the demands and the opportunities that this will bring into the classroom,” Spicer-Escalante said.

Ali Adair, a graduate student at USU and a teacher at Willow Valley Middle School, was excited about the opportunity the program will give heritage speakers — students who speak both Spanish and English.

“A lot of them crave literacy and kind of validity in Spanish and so with this project it will not only give the DLI students… the opportunity to take the AP test and then to take the 3000 level courses, but it will also give the heritage speakers who already speak the language really well… those same opportunities,” Adair said. “And a lot of these kids might not be headed to college and so this might be like a spring board from which they jump into the academic world.”

Utah State University and city of Logan continually implement the Americans with Disabilities Act

By Ashley Springer

 
This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Utah State University and the city of Logan continually are striving to implement the act in the community.

According to officials of the university’s Center for Persons with Disabilities, one of the main focuses in implementing the act is bringing awareness. Sue Reeves, the public relations specialist at the CPD, would like people to start seeing individuals with disabilities “as people rather than the disability.”

 “It’s a good start, but the kinds of discrimination that you saw in 1990 still are occurring today for people with disabilities,” Reeves said. “They still have issues with accessibility and discrimination and employment. Even though it’s not supposed to be there, it still occurs in practice.”

The act is still constantly being put into place in various ways such as by putting in curve cuts and automatic doors.

“All five titles have areas in them that haven’t been implemented,” said Gordon Richins, the consumer liason at the CPD, “or if they have, just in select areas.”

Logan has made changes and improvements but it is still working toward better implementing the act. According to Richins, Logan is an older city and has older buildings which makes it harder to make everything accessible.

 “The newer facilities is where you see the biggest change,” Richins said, “because the architects that put the buildings together understand the ADA and the requirements and codes.”

Richins fell and broke his neck, becoming paralyzed, just before the act was put into place. “Myself and friends that I know with disability, if they can’t get in the business, store etc. they’ll go to a newer facility in the community that they can get into to spend their hard-earned money,” he said.

Shane Johnson, the associate director of development at the CPD, hopes “not only that the original law stays preserved but that we actually add to it.”

The university is trying to do better serve those with disabilities. One newer program the CPD is continually working on is WebAIM, which focuses on making websites more accessible to those with disabilities.

“You don’t always think about what needs changed on that so that somebody can access that,” said Marla Nef, the program coordinator of Up to 3 at the CPD, “but there are things that need to be accessible so that people can view it and all those things there.”

Another new way the university is implementing the law is through its Aggies Elevated program — an inclusive campus experience for young adults with intellectual disabilities who otherwise would not be able to attend college. The program is in its second year and the CPD just received a federal grant last week allowing for a five year extension of the program.

“By that time we’ll be able to show outcomes and hopefully get the funding that we need to keep it going,” Reeves said.

Various organizations on campus are continually striving to better implement the law.

“The Center for Persons with Disabilities, the Disability Resource Center, the special education department, groups like… communication disorders in the college of education, all these groups are always working with people with disabilities and have new programs all the time that are expanding the services and number of people they serve,” Johnson said.

One of the main goals of the act is to improve the lives of all those affected.

“I’ve been able to see some of the quality of life improvements that the ADA provides,” Richins said, “such as camping at an accessible campground and other activities in daily life we Americans enjoy.”

“It’s a group anybody can join at any time,” Johnson said. “Aging comes with a host of disabilities… so we really consider that the things the ADA covers to benefit everybody universally.”

The act is “not just for people with disabilities,” Nef said. “We all will need some kind of accommodation at some point.”

 

 

Utah State University to private housing complex: No more 'Aggie'

 

By Ashley Springer

     
In September, students living in the apartment complex known as Aggie Flats received an email saying the apartment had officially changed its name to Alpine Flats. The change came at the request of Utah State University, which is consolidating its hold on the word “Aggie.”

This is “part of an ongoing business scrub that we’re doing,” said Heidi Adams, the Utah State University trademark and licensing director, “so any businesses that are using our names or trademarks or things that are owned by the university, we’re going out and meeting with those people and making sure that either they’re not using it or that they have a contract and a license to do so.”

Alpine Flats is owned by Nelson Brothers Property Management, which has come under fire recently in relation to another student housing unit, once called Aggie Factory. The complex now known as The Factory is still under construction, even though renters were told it would be ready for this school year, causing many students to be without a place to live at the beginning of the semester.

“When we sat down and met with them, we found out they owned both companies so we addressed them using ‘Aggies’ on both housing establishments at the same time,” Adams said. “They had made up marketing materials with ‘Aggie Factory’ and ‘Aggie Flats’ on there so we gave them a grace period to use those items and then followed up with a take-down notice.”

A corporate official of Alpine Flats sent an email to the property manager Rachel Romney concerning the name change. “The name Aggie is not allowed to be used per the school,” the official wrote. “We respect exactly where they’re coming from so we changed the name to Alpine Flats.”

The request for a change in name was not due to any conflict between the university and Alpine Flats. “Utah State does not have any problems with The Flats at all,” Adams said.

Tyler Goucher, a Salt Lake City attorney specializing in patent, copyright and trademark law, said he believes Utah State has “a legitimate claim for the name ‘Aggies.’”

“They would have a common law trademark,” he said. A common law trademark occurs when a business or organization is the first to use a trademark in its state commerce, and as a result the business will be given the rights to the trademark without formally registering.

According to Goucher, two entities can own the same trademark if the services provided are unrelated. However, once an organization’s trademark becomes well known it receives a broader protection in order to prevent consumer confusion.

Maddie Christensen, a student who lives in Alpine Flats, said she was “kind of indifferent” to the change. “I think it’s kind of funny,” she said. “But I don’t know… I liked the name Aggie Flats.”

 

 

 

UCAIR executive director plans to focus on the effects of vehicle idling due to a presentation by an associate professor of USU

By Ashley Springer 

The executive director of UCAIR — an organization that helps communities and individuals make small changes to improve air quality — expressed interest in working with an associate professor of Utah State University on his findings from a study on the effects of tailpipe emissions on the air quality. The presentation of the study took place at the second annual Cache Clean Air Consortium  on Monday at the Riverwoods Conference Center.

Randy Martin, an associate professor at USU, spoke at the consortium discussing his findings from his recently completed study on the tailpipe emissions released while idling as well as during hot and cold starts in vehicles. The study tested 68 vehicles.

In the study Martin found in most cases idling — leaving the vehicle on when not moving — could actually be worse for the air than hot starts as greater amounts of emissions are released into the air during an equal amount of time.

This presentation caught the attention of Ted Wilson, the executive director of UCAIR.

One of the three of the things UCAIR focuses on is educating the public. In their educational campaign, UCAIR focuses on inviting people to carpool, use transit, turn their thermostat down and be aware of the effects of cold and hot start in their vehicles. However, because of Martin’s findings, Wilson said he is hoping to focus more on the idling issue than UCAIR had done before.

Wilson said the information Martin presented was worth his drive to Logan.

This partnership goes along with the running theme of the consortium of members of the community working together.

“In order for us all to have better air quality we must work together,” said Melissa Gibbs, one of the speakers at the consortium and the airshed coordinator for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.

 

USU’s Grad and Major Fairs combine to help students further their education

By Ashley Springer

 

Utah State University’s Grad Fair and Major Fair will combine for the first time on Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Taggart Student Center. 

Last year the fairs were planned separately but happened, coincidently, on the same day.

 

“Last year it happened by accident and we got a lot of favorable responses,” said Diana Maughan, who is in charge of Grad Fair and is the recruiting coordinator for Career Services. "We thought we would try it again.”

 

“We’re hopeful that it will be a good combination this year,” said Niki Weight, an academic adviser in the Exploratory Advising Center and one of the organizers of the Major Fair, “but that’s why we partnered — to see if it is a good partnership.”

 

Organizers are hopeful the combination of the two fairs will prove useful to students.

 

Maughan said the combination will allow students the opportunity to attend the Major Fair and then the Grad Fair to see if there is a graduate program to fit with what they want to do educationally.

 

“A lot of students may know what they want to go to graduate school for but not know what major to go for, or they might know what their major is but not know about graduate school options,” Weight said. “We’re hopeful it’s a better fit to allow students to explore the whole facet of higher education.”

 

The main goal of the Grad Fair is to assist students in furthering their education and “giving them opportunities to explore and meet with graduate programs that they may be interested in going into,” Maughan said.

 

According to Major Fair organizers, the goal of the fair is to provide students the opportunity to speak with representatives from departments for majors, minors and other programs to learn about the options at the university.

The Major Fair will also be featuring a new system — card readers — to count the number of students who attend.

 

The card readers allow students to swipe their cards as they enter the fair, giving organizers a count of students in attendance. According to Weight, organizers used to have paper evaluations for students to fill out but not everyone would.
 

The card readers will also allow fair organizers to use the information to send follow-up surveys to students who attended in order to collect suggestions concerning the fair and to see if those students would like any further information.

 

The Major Fair will be taking place in the international lounge in the TSC with the Grad Fair down the hall in the TSC ballroom.

Cache Valley residents offered opportunity to become involved with the local air quality issue

By Ashley Springer

 

The second annual Cache Clean Air Consortium will dive deeper into what the community can do to clean up the air. The consortium will be held at the Riverwoods Conference Center on Sept. 21 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“This year we decided because we got a lot of the preliminary information out of the way to focus on kind of bigger scale things that organizations and institutions could do,” said Jennifer Pemberton, a member of the consortium's planning committee. "This is Air Quality 2.0, last year was very 1.0.”

Randy Martin, one of the local speakers at the consortium and an associate professor at Utah State University, got involved with the consortium because he has studied the air in Cache Valley for the past 15 years and because he lives and is raising a family here.

“The local air pollution is an important thing to understand and be involved with,” Martin said. "Awareness is the first step."

“It’s not just for experts, it’s not just for activists, it’s for anybody who lives and breathes in this community,” Pemberton said.

Cache Valley is an enclosed environment. “With the cold air in the winter putting an inversion cap on our valley, it’s basically like the cold air puts a lid on... and doesn’t allow any exchange for days, sometimes weeks on end,” said Jeff Gilbert, a transportation planner for the Cache Metropolitan Planning Organization. This causes the emissions released into the air from various sources to circulate from day-to-day without the exchange with the clean air outside of the cap until there is a storm to clear it out.

According to Gilbert, residents should be aware of what is going on with the air quality because it is a serious health issue when concentrations get high.

“When the conditions are right, we can have some of the worst air in the nation, there is absolutely no doubt about that,” Martin said.

Organizers of the consortium are hoping to have residents come ready to get involved and make contacts.

“One of the most unique things about our group and what the consortium offers and what the workshops offers is the opportunity to just meet people who have the same concerns but maybe have different skill sets,” Pemberton said. “We definitely want people to come prepared to form a team and to find people who have the resources they need to help them accomplish what they want to accomplish in the next year."

The consortium will have two keynote speakers: Ted Wilson, the executive director of UCAIR — a partnership in Utah focused on helping communities and individuals make small changes to improve the air quality — and Shane Marshall, the deputy director of UDOT — the Utah Department of Transportation. The consortium will also feature four local Cache Valley speakers: Martin; Logan Mayor Craig Petersen; Melissa Gibbs, the airshed coordinator for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality; and Cindy Roberts, of the Cache Business Resource Center. Following the provided lunch, there are four workshops participants can choose to attend.

More information about consortium registration is available at: http://www.cachecleanairconsortium.org/#!ccac-registration/c1diz

 

 

 

Day on the Quad: Things just got a whole lot bigger

By Ashley Springer



There were 288 different vendors compared to last year's count of 240 on Wednesday during Utah State University's annual Day on the Quad — an event taking place during Week of Welcome which gives clubs and businesses the opportunity to showcase themselves to students in order to get new members and customers.

Jessica Bishop, a USU adviser in charge of Day on the Quad, reached out to local businesses in Logan to rent tables for vendors to use.

According to Bishop, in the past organizers only used 240 tables from facilities at the university. With the 48 additional tables the event organizers rented this year, they were able to bring in 48 new vendors giving students even more opportunities to become involved.

The increase in vendors was also due to the partnering of Day on the Quad organizers with the university’s student newspaper The Utah Statesmen. Bishop said The Statesmen printed a map of the vendors' locations as well as offered ad space to the off-campus vendors to use.

Students also recognized the increase in vendors.

Senior Misty Fitzgerald, a representative of the USU Dancers Club, said there are a lot more vendors and different options for students to join. 

“They brought a bunch of different people up… from all over versus just on campus,” said Talysa Brimley of the Student Alumni Association.

Even with the elimination of common hour — a time in the middle of the day in which no classes would be scheduled — the quad stayed consistently busy. Vendors told Bishop they never had down time and some even had to return to their business to pick up more of the free things they were giving out to the students.

Freshmen USU students Bailee Facemyer and Mallory Bangerter came to the quad because a class required them to and they wanted to try getting involved on campus through clubs and organizations. By the end of their tour, Facemyer and Bangerter both walked away with specific clubs or organizations they wanted to be a part of and plenty of free goods.