For the first time this year, the University Program Council is hosting an Open Mic Night on April 16 at 7 p.m. in Jacks’ Place.

According to Katie Fritz, a senior graphic design major, Open Mic Nights are held to give students a chance to show their talents.

“The purpose is to give students on campus with talent a venue to exhibit their talent on campus,” Fritz said. “We have an intimate, coffee shop-type atmosphere down in Jacks’ Place.”

Sophomore music merchandising major Jada Joseph also thinks that students will benefit from the opportunity.

“I think it’s important because there are a lot of talented people on campus, and this is a time for them to show everyone that they can play a musical instrument or sing and showcase a talent that they have,” Joseph said.

Senior Kyle Beck, a media production major who has performed at past events, said the atmosphere is ideal for student artists like him.

“I play guitar, sing and write my own songs,” Beck said. “When the campus does something like this, it’s a nice setting because your friends can go, and it’s a nice and relaxed atmosphere. There are not too many opportunities in Brookings to do stuff like this. When you play an instrument or sing, this is the kind of thing you like to do because other people get to see what you’re working on.”

Fritz said the atmosphere will be great for performers and audience members.

“It’s going to be a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere – not a formal atmosphere,” Fritz said. “It’s a good event to attend, especially at the end of the year.”

Fritz said that people like Beck are typically the type of performers they have, but they are open to new talent.

“We have a lot of singers, songwriters, guitarists and pianists,” Fritz said. “We haven’t had any poetry, [but] it would definitely work.”

Beck said that Open Mic Night would be perfect for students who are new to performing.

“It’s about as low-pressure a place as you can do,” Beck said. “It’s good for experimental types of stuff. You may have never played before in front of people you don’t know, and it’s a good place to test those waters.”

Joseph said student should attend to relax and see what their peers are up to.

“I think that everyone should attend to show support for their fellow students,” she said. “It’s a good way to relax after a long day at school.”

Beck thinks it is important for students to attend to experience other people’s talents.

“I would really encourage people to go,” Beck said. “It is a lot of fun. You can go and listen to what your peers are doing with their creative juices. You might be surprised; there might be somebody you sit next to in class.”

Something new to this Open Mic Night is the inclusion of a caricaturist.

“We had her when we had the convocation, and we’re having her back to give Open Mic Night something extra,” Fritz said. “It’s free, but you’ll have to wait in line.”

According to Joseph, signups started March 31, but students interested can sign up until April 15 at 5 p.m.

Christopher Schmit, a civil engineering professor at SDSU for 11 years, was recognized for his commitment to students on Feb. 24 at the faculty recognition ceremony in The Union. Schmit received the Edward Patrick Hogan Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“Schmit is noted for helping bring technical engineering material to life for students in civil and environmental engineering,” a University Relations press release said. “He has developed online graduate courses for place-bound students across the state and region. Such work is emulated by civil engineering departments across the nation.”

“Dr. Schmit goes out of his way to make sure his students have the best learning environment possible, and he is always available to answer questions even if the questions don’t apply to the classroom,” said Matthew Pajl, a civil engineering graduate student. “I think I speak for all of Dr. Schmit’s students – past and present – when I say that we are blessed to have such a good professor and friend.”

Schmit, who teaches several classes, most of them either graduate or a combination of undergraduate and graduate students, said the online program was originally conceived out of necessity.

“We had students that were SDSU graduates that were going across the country, and because of the nature of their work, they weren’t able to come to campus,” he said. “[The program] started probably three years ago. It started by recording our lectures. We don’t have a lot of online graduate students. It can range from one to six in any given class. This gives them a pathway to their degree, and we continue to offer classes online.”

But Schmit said there are a few unique problems with the system.

“The classes are not online only,” he said. “It does present unique challenges. Building rapport with online students compared to the students I see three days a week is difficult.”

Bruce Berdanier, head of the civil engineering department and one of the people who nominated Schmit, said the nomination was to recognize years of dedication by Schmit.

“When you look at how students review him, not just recently but over the last nine or ten years, he’s obviously one of the top teachers in the department,” Berdanier said.

Delvin DeBoer, a civil engineering professor who was another member of the nominating team, said Schmit has helped students, which is why he deserved the nomination and the award.

“Dr. Schmit exhibits a remarkable passion for teaching and makes sincere attempts to engage each student with the course material,” DeBoer said.

We have all heard that laughter is the best medicine but could laughing while performing yoga be even more medicinal?

This is the concept behind laughter yoga.

According to laughteryoga.org, “Laughter yoga combines unconditional laughter with yogic breathing. ? The ultimate objective is to bring good health, joy and world peace through laughter. ? Laughter is universal with no language or cultural barriers.”

Pam Wilson, a junior Spanish and media productions major, said the concept is the most interesting part to her.

“I would be interested in it because I would be interested to see how it’s set up.”

Laughter yoga, according to laughteryoga.org, was developed by Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician from Mumbai, India. The first class, taught by Kataria in 2005, had just five people. Only four years later, the trend has “become a worldwide phenomenon with more than 6,000 social laughter clubs in 60 countries.”

The East Central Multi-District (ECMD) in Brookings is jumping onboard with the trend. For the first year, laughter yoga is being offered through the adult education program. The class starts Feb. 21 and will be offered twice that day from 1 to 2:30 p.m. and from 3 to 4:30 p.m. for $20.

ECMD Business Manager Dee Dee Buettner said the class is being offered through a suggestion of the instructors, Jill and Dan Johnson.

“Anytime a person requests to teach a class, they give a presentation to our board,” Buettner said. “So far, we’ve had a lot of people sign up.”

Buettner said there are still several openings in either of the laughter yoga classes, and the ECMD will take registration for this class up to the day before. Payment is due at the time of sign-up.

According to Buettner, college students probably have a lot to gain from the class.

“It’s in the health and recreation section,” she said. “College students are under a lot of stress, and laughter is the best way to use energy and have a healthy and good feeling. It’s got to be something that’s a real stress-reducing thing.”

Laugher is known to have healing powers. The Associated Press (AP) reported, “Numerous scientific studies have found that daily laughter can help lift depression, lower blood pressure and boost the immune system.”

Still, the AP story warns, “Yoga and health experts say little has been done to study the combined effects of chuckles and chakras.”

Charlie Kenyon, a senior media production major, said laughter yoga does not sound like something he would be interested in.

“Laughing while standing on one foot sounds dangerous,” he said.

There are others who think the concept is farfetched. According to the AP, “Roger Cole, a San Diego-based certified yoga instructor ? said he worries about the forced nature of laughter yoga.

“The idea that putting a posture, as it were, on your face – a smile – is an idea that’s not foreign to yoga,’ Cole said in the AP story. “But the whole concept seems pretty contrived and uncomfortable. I think it could work, but there are more tried and true versions out there.”

The healing power of laughter does not just come from real laughter. In fact, according to laughteryoga.org, “The concept of laughter yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits.”

Junior pharmacy and Spanish major Melissa Schram said she thinks the concept is interesting. She also believes students could gain from the class.

“I think it would be beneficial for students to encourage working out as a fun activity instead of another thing to get done.”

By the end of the semester, the electrical engineering and computer science department at SDSU will have a new home.

Previously known as Harding Hall South, the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building is near completion, with May 1 set as a tentative ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Dennis Helder, head of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, said the new building is a dream come true. Since 2003, the electrical engineering and computer science programs have been combined but have never been housed in the same facility. According to the Feb. 27, 2008, issue of The Collegian, the department is currently spread thin in four buildings on campus: Harding Hall, Crothers Engineering Hall, Solberg Hall and the Administration Building.

“After we move, faculty (and students) will all be together ? so they can interact,” Helder said.

Currently, most electrical engineering faculty offices are in Harding Hall, which is troubling to all faculty of the department, Helder said.

“We’re a high-tech organization. The premiere high-tech department on campus lives in a dormitory built in the 1950s and ruled unfit for student use in the 1960s,” he said. “[The new building] means that we’re moving out of a dormitory into a building that was designed for us.”

Lewis Brown, dean of the College of Engineering, said that serious talks about a new building began in 2006, but plans quickly sped up in 2007 when donors for the building met face-to-face with President David Chicoine.

Faculty should be able to move in during Spring Break, Brown said.

The total cost of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building was $7.5 million. “The funds were raised entirely from private gifts from individuals and corporate. No state money was used,” Brown said.

The new building consists of four floors. The lower floors will be used primarily for academics, with several new, large classrooms built specifically for engineering students. Two of the classrooms are dual-projector classrooms, which means professors can display content from two different sources simultaneously. The white boards have recessed lights in certain areas, which will make it possible for the professor to have a presentation on the projector and also write on the board, with both being visible to the students.

The fourth floor will be available for what Helder calls “university-industry interaction.” Companies connected to the EE&CS department will be able to lease space on the top floor to do research and development while interacting with students going into the field. Brown said the department is fortunate to be able to offer such an opportunity for both companies and students. “It’s very exciting and new for SDSU to have industrial space in an academic space.”

Both Brown and Helder said that currently, it is difficult to get potential students excited about the program because they walk into a drab and dreary Harding Hall. Both feel that when the new building is open, students will be more excited about attending SDSU and will have a better sense of how high-tech the department really is.

During a tour of the new building, Helder pointed out that in Harding Hall the temperature in each room could not be controlled, so students often performed labs in September that could be as warm as 95 degrees. In the new building, each room can be controlled. He also was quick to point out the size of the laboratories. In Harding Hall, the “labs” are three old dorm rooms with the walls knocked out, making the room long and narrow, but in the new building, the labs were built with their purpose in mind, ensuring plenty of space for the students.

Even though the building is not open yet, there are already plans for phase two of the building. It will consist of a west-end extension, and when completed, all electrical engineering faculty will be moved to the building. The tentative plan, according to Helder, is to have phase two done within the next five years, but the recession may hurt the timeline.

Helder said that while the building is exciting because it is a high-tech building for a high-tech major, he said the most exciting aspect is that it was designed with students in mind.

“Every floor has student space on it. This is a building for everyone, but it was first and foremost designed for students.”

With their Students’ Association tenure ending March 16, president Chris Daugaard and vice president Eric Hanson are looking back at successes and failures and considering things they would still like to accomplish.

Daugaard and Hanson were sworn into office March 10, 2008, and officially took over March 17, 2008.

“We had a great year,” said Daugaard. “We couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to work with, both our Executive Board and the Senate.”

During their first week, outgoing president and vice president Alex Brown and Chris Schaefer, respectively, gave their successors some advice that has stuck all year.

“Our predecessors were great mentors, and they really developed the people around them,” Daugaard said. “They stressed the importance of valuing those around you, while making sure that you have time for yourself, as well. They said that representing a group like the SDSU student body was the best job in the world, and they definitely spoke the truth.”

Their biggest accomplishment, according to the pair, is the creation of the bike lanes project, which will expand the bike lanes to off-campus in an effort to help traffic flow. They also helped start a petition before the Board of Regents decided to defer mandatory laptops.

Along with off-campus organizations, Daugaard and Hanson have worked with on-campus entities to make students’ lives better.

“We’ve continued to work with the internship coordinator, the Career Service Center and the Innovation Campus to coordinate efforts,” Hanson said. “We’ve worked with university administration to help plan our campus’s future in areas of campus beautification, transportation and parking.”

Apart from their successes, Daugaard and Hanson do have disappointments from their year of service. Their biggest regret is “not seeing a new SDSU Web site before leaving office, as many Web-based student tools hinged on SDSU’s ability to make the Web an effective medium,” the SA president said.

Even though the outgoing administration gave them sound advice, both Daugaard and Hanson said it was a struggle to keep up with schoolwork and SA work.

“It’s so easy to get sucked-in, to be involved in SA work and forget about schoolwork and time for yourself,” said Hanson.

Another difficult part of the job is serving a body so diverse as SDSU. Not only are the students themselves diverse, but “the university as a whole serves many constituencies, all with their own priorities,” Daugaard said.

With the variety and rigor of SA positions, the two emphasized that SDSU’s student government body operates much differently from a high school student council.

“Sure, we allocate student fees and we sit on university committees, but we also spend much time working with the city council, the Board of Regents, the Legislature and leaders from other universities to collaborate and work on our system, university and community,” Hanson said. “It’s pretty diverse work.”

With a little over a month left in office, Daugaard and Hanson show no signs of slowing down. “We’re working with the city to broaden the scope of their Web presence in regards to off-campus housing and improve the information available to student renters, including information about who to contact if they have problems [or other general questions],” said Daugaard.

The two would also like to pass an ordinance changing SA presidential and vice presidential nominating procedure. They want the candidates to circulate petitions amongst the student body.

Daugaard and Hanson want their successors to understand that the job cannot be done alone and that it is important to surround themselves with a positive group of people.

“Without an engaged, involved senate, your work means very little,” Daugaard said, “but the group of people representing SDSU students is a powerful group and can achieve much.”

Looking back on the last year, Daugaard and Hanson are both sad to leave but anticipate great things for the future.

“We will definitely miss working with the Students’ Association,” Hanson said, “but surely those to come will accomplish much to take our university places it’s never been.”