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.”