When I walk into Student Government Association’s Student Senate every week I usually do not know what I will be writing about in the paper the next day. The article usually involves legislation or issues brought up in the meeting. But sometimes, how something happens is more of a story than what happens.
Several interesting things worth writing about came up at senate on Wednesday, but what struck me were the repeated motions to either eliminate or shorten meetings and reports. In the interest of time, senators chose to skip almost all of the caucus and committee meetings and reports.
Vice President Rodney Blount commented on the senate decision during his comments, and reminded senators they have a responsibility to the student body to take the time to discuss concerns.
Student Senate is young at the moment, with many new members. While senate did not abuse the ability to skip sections of the meeting last term, it did happen. This is still the first month of the new terms, and I thought it was interesting how easily the motions to hurry the meeting along were passed.
While important and interesting issues and topics were brought up at senate, it was one of those instances when how the meeting happened stood out more than what happened at it.
Submitted by Erin Moody, chief reporter
Frequent visitors to the DN|Online may notice a new addition to the top of the site today: the Ball State Media Partners’ bar.
No - not that sort of bar, but rather a series of links representing our fellow student media outlets at the university. (It’s missing from this blog site right now, but we’re working on that.)
Earlier this year, students, staff and faculty in the College of Communication, Information and Media got together to discuss the future of media convergence at Ball State. Out of the numerous brainstorming sessions we’ve been involved in, one of the most liked ideas was the addition of a universal link bar across all the student media Web sites.
As you see, this idea has come to fruition.
Many users noticed the change at the launch of our site redesign earlier this year. Until this school year, Ball State’s student media were distant from one another - rarely working together or socializing. Admittedly, there’s still a long way to go until perfection — but we’re at least well on our way.
NewsLink, WCRD and the DN proudly display the bar as of today. In the meanwhile, Expo’s presence on the Web continues to be developed and Ball Bearings is working on adding the bar to its pages, as well. By the end of the year, we hope to launch an even bigger project that promises to be your first place for news in Muncie and around Ball State.
Since our media partner links have moved to the top of the site, the DN LINKS area will soon transform into something different, providing more “quick links” within the DN site. We welcome your comments for what those links should be and encourage you to e-mail editor@bsudailynews.com with your suggestions.
In the interim, we hope you enjoy these exciting developments in Ball State media.
We certainly are.
Each day, the staff of the Daily News tries to have a package story prepared to fill the main news hole on page one. (That would be the big story in the middle of the front page.) We have planning meetings once a week, along with other smaller group meetings to coordinate these large, usually more in-depth, stories.
The package for Wednesday’s paper was supposed to be an informational graphic about tornadoes. We felt this was approriate because tornado season just started, and Indiana is in what some call Tornado Alley.
However, when we sat down in Editorial Board Tuesday night, with snow covering campus, we had to reconsider our package. Snow doesn’t exactly convey the idea of a tornado, so running a package on torandoes was not as timely or newsworthy as we had hoped.
We decided to hold the tornado package to run on another day, and instead we decided to package our story on the expansion of the Ball State recreational center. This story had a lot of information and interesting to students. The rec center addition has also been a major issue on campus and in Student Government Association.
Overall, our decision to package the rec center was probably a smarter move than trying to run something about tornadoes when it was snowing outside.
Submitted by Emily Ortman, news editor, and Brandon Stuck, assistant design editor
The hot topic within the sports program at Ball State University is the search for the next men’s basketball coach after Tim Buckley and his assistants were relieved of their coaching positions. On BSUFans.com, the Ball State sports fan message board, just about every single person you can think of has been thrown out there. There also seems to be some who think Mike Davis, IU’s former coach, should be our next coach. I would say that is pretty unlikely, as he has voiced his issues with mid-majors in the past. Other names thrown out that are pretty unrealistic are Steve Lavin and Rick Majerus.
When we ran the Buckley reassignment story on Thursday, I put together a list of four names that could be possible replacements and I still think they’re four of the most realistic ones. In no particular order:
Ray McCallum - He seems to be the most popular choice. For those who don’t know, Ray coached here from 1993-2000 and took BSU to two NCAA Tournaments before leaving for the head coaching position at Houston. He also played here from 79-83 and is widely considered to be one of the two greatest players ever at Ball State (Bonzi Wells being the other).
Tracy Webster - Tracy played college basketball at the University of Wisconsin in the mid 90s and was a pretty solid Big Ten Player. This past year, he was an assistant coach for Bruce Weber at Illinois, but before that, he was Tim Buckley’s assistant here at Ball State from 2000-2003. He is also cousins with Ball State’s freshman point guard, Maurice Acker.
Rob Evans - To be honest, I do not know too much about him. He was recently fired from Arizona State after eight seasons. The connection is that Ball State’s Athletics Director, Tom Collins, came here from Arizona State in January. I don’t know what the connection is between them, if there is a bond there or if they hate each other, but time will tell.
Andy Kennedy - My personal favorite to be the next coach here at Ball State. He just completed his first season as interim coach at Cincinnati, where the team finished 19-12 and was snubbed of a deserving bid to the NCAA Tournament. Word is that Cincinnati will not retain him. Kennedy did a good job considering he was left very little time to prepare for the season after Bob Huggins was forced to resign, and he seems like he would be a good fit for the Ball State program.
submitted by Phil Friend, Sports Editor
Writing at a college newspaper, you’re not quite sure if people react to what you write. Feb. 16 I wrote “Where’s The Rock?” wondering why this campus does not have more major rock concerts. Country is good, but there’s only so much you can take.
One student shared with me his attempt to get an act to come to Ball State University through University Program Board and another group showed up to the meeting he said, and both were shot down. I can’t help the layers and processes that block them from their attempts because UPB has good intentions. However, I’m satisfied to see that people tried and people do care about what they see come to campus. Keep pushing and communicating with these organizations about how you can do a better job presenting your proposal and understanding how it works.
In today’s paper I see that Emens Auditorium will bring indie rocker Ben Folds minus him folding five April 21. Is this the result of students’ efforts or at least the issue The Daily News brought to light about concerts? I didn’t speak to Emens Director Robert Myers about that announcement, but I like my dillusionment to remain. Granted, Ben Folds is not for everyone. However, if you don’t show up and support the concert and what Emens is trying to do, what is the chance that Dave Matthews, Bright Eyes or Red Hot Chili Peppers would come to Ball State University? Little. If convincing you that attending this concert is important isn’t enough from what I wrote, I got a potential consequence that comes in three words: Big and Rich.
Spare us from them coming to our city and saving a horse for the sake of a cowboy.
Submitted by: Charles Schelle –Features
NEW YORK CITY — Seven members of the Daily News Staff, DN Adviser Vince Filak and I are closing out our stay in New York City for the Spring 2006 College Media Advisers Convention.
In our print edition, we make a habit of not tooting our own horn too often. As journalists, we’re not to be the point of the story … however, in some situations we, too, make news. In the interest of letting you know what we’ve been up to, I think it’s fair to mention why eight key members of our staff hopped a flight to NYC Wednesday.
The Ball State Daily News received two of the highest collegiate media honors for the second consecutive year Saturday. For Fall Semester 2004 and Spring Semester 2005, the DN picked up two Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Crown awards.
As for our individual staff members, the DN received a total of 34 Gold Circle awards in categories ranging from newswriting to page design - the most of any school nationwide. More »
You’ve stumbled upon the latest addition to the DN|Online — welcome to DN|Blog.
This is the Daily News’ testing ground for all things news and opinion. As a newspaper, the DN is typically restricted to the space we have in print, but with the launch of the updated DN|Online in January and the start of this trendy blogging venture this month, we’re able to provide our readers with an entirely different outlook on events and stories.
Through this blog, we’re working to make our editorial process more transparent for our readers. We want you to know what we’re doing behind the scenes today to bring you the latest information tomorrow. We’ve empowered our section editors and various DN staff members with the ability to publish the latest information, thoughts and commentary straight to this site. It can happen anytime, from anywhere and for any reason.
We’ve decided to simplify the process, too. Contrary to other news blog sites, the Daily News is using one blog to publish everything. No more site hopping from section to section or editor to editor — all of our exclusive content is on one page with the ability for you to divide the posts by category. Spend last time digging through multiple windows and more time reading about what matters to you.
We’d love to tell you what to expect on this blog in the coming weeks, but — to be frank — we’re really not sure, either. That’s part of the fun starting this blog — an exciting chance for us to disseminate information and thoughts from the newsroom to the public in a completely unorthodox fashion. While we’ll still continue to post Breaking News and DN|Updates when necessary, you can expect to see news tips and leads posted on DN|Blog before it becomes a story.
Be sure to continue checking DN|Blog for updates 24/7, but more importantly: Get involved! Post your comments and thoughts to ours by using the comment feature built into the blog.
Your feedback is welcomed and encouraged!
Thanks for checking out the site today. We hope to see you back again soon.
DN|Blog: Go Beyond the Print.
With a clear victor standing, the 2006 Student Government election season ended Tuesday night.
Team Lisec is the winner by means of statistics, but in regards to the election season itself — everyone took home a piece of the gold. After a dismal 2005 election with only one slate, Team US, stepping up to the plate, this year provided a refreshing challenge for voters.
With the second highest voting turnout in 10 years, it was no doubt the year of the student. More »