Beautification

The drilling of the "reflection pool" at the Student Center is coming up in the next couple weeks.

I think it's great to see this come off the ground.

The Student Center, at its current state, is very ugly.

The "reflection pool" is empty and dirty. It's just a hole in the ground that looks ugly.

And now the marquee is being replaced.

A new LCD screen is ordered and it should be up by the end of the semester.

I never had a problem with the current marquee but this new one sounds cool and can only improve the look of campus.

I'm looking forward to see what's going to come out of this Student Center Project.

Upping the health service fee

Nancy Montgomery of the Student Health Center brought up that it may be necessary to raise the student health fee to $16.

That's two dollars more.

The reason for this is because of the rise of costs for supplies. In comparison to going to an off-campus doctor, the Student Health Center is very inexpensive.

Is raising it by a couple dollars really a big deal though? Take advantage of the center once and you already made your money back. Get a $5 flu shot.

The real concern is if it the fee rises by a couple bucks, will that make the next raise easier in the future? If it raises two dollars annually, will students soon be paying $30 in 2012?

The state does have a law setting a bar on how much the school can charge for that fee so students have to worry about that much of an increase in the future.

Whatever the case is, this issue shouldn't cause too much of a problem. With two dollars, skip the double-bacon cheeseburger one day.

On a side note, after Montgomery's presentation to the ASCC Senate, I've been thinking about taking advantage of its $40 eye exams. I skipped my last eye exam because it was too expensive at the office.

Habits of Mind

Dr. Bryan Reece gave a presentation to the ASCC Senate yesterday about what he calls the Habits of Mind campaign, or iFALCON.

It sounds like a great idea. FALCON is a nice acronym for:
Focus
Advance
Link up
Comprehend
Organize and embrace
New ideas

"Falcon" is being used as an adjective here. Do you falcon? I falcon. It also pays homage to all the Apple products (i.e. iPod, iPhone).

So what's making it fun for students is the advertising that looks like the silhouette you see in the iPod advertisements.

Putting up banners and posters is a good idea. But the Faculty Senate wants to hand out cards too. Like when Taco Bell gives you your receipt, it hands you a card with the iFalcon stuff on it.

The main dilemma here is what do we do about students that will just throw them away?

I throw away all advertisements I may get with my receipts. I'm sure many people do.

How do we tell students that these are not just ads?

Instead of just handing the cards out to students, set them down around campus (like the Talon Marks) and let students pick them up willingly.

This way, fewer students will be throwing them away and they wouldn't be wasted.

But not a drop to drink

Last semester, ASCC President Michael Barrita had a plan to offer free [Yosemite] water on campus.

Pepsi shot that down. How do you make an official free water to all students on campus while Aquafina bottles are being sold?

At the end of last semester, Barrita announced that he was going to put a filter in the water fountain in the Student Center.

Now, the ASCC Cabinet is putting together reports about all the water fountains on campus to get them up to speed.

I remember Barrita saying the free Yosemite water was because of the water fountains being below par.

So why not fix the fountains in the first place? Who will fight that?

Give out free water, corporate giant Pepsi will fight.

And there's the misconception that tap water isn't as clean as bottled water.

Bottled water is tapped water in a bottle, but a lot of people think it really is cleaner.

So I ask, if all the water fountains are neat, pretty and perfect, will people drink from them?