The College of Pharmacy has changed its terms for students enrolled in the professional program.

Instead of simply being referred to as third, fourth, fifth and sixth year students, they will be known as first, second, third and fourth professional year students.

“Many colleges of pharmacy already use the P1 through P4 terminology. So it’s a logical move and the students have already started using it on campus,” Dr. Joel Houglum, coordinator of the student affairs for the College of Pharmacy.

The designation clarifies the difference between students who have been selected for the professional program and those still in the pre-professional phase.

“I think it’s much better than, ‘Oh, you’re a fourth year’. No, I’m P2, professional second year,” Kristie Stangl a P2 student said.

“We divide the curriculum into two components the pre-pharmacy phase and the professional phase,” Houglum said.

The pre-professional program is the initial two years in the six year curriculum of the College of Pharmacy. The program requires students to take 28 math and science credits plus the university requirement already set. The majority of students admitted into the professional come from the SDSU pre-pharmacy phase.

“For the professional program, what we do is select who we feel are the best 60 students from the applicant pool,” Houglum said.

Each fall 60 students are admitted into the professional program. Several determinants including GPA, ACT scores, communication skills and math and science aptitude are considered.

A bachelor of science degree is viewed as an advantage. However, a degree does not mean all the pre-requisites have been met. The only thing a student with a bachelor’s degree must be aware of the required pre-pharmacy courses they might not have taken.

At the end of the third professional year, the clerkship rotations begin. This 44 week block of time is divided into various rotations. One group of rotations is required. The student is then give a choice of which rotation electives he or she wants to take.

“That is where to some extent we are different from other colleges of pharmacy. Some colleges of pharmacy just have a lottery system to determine which student is going to which rotation.

The six years, two in the pre-pharmacy program and four in the professional program, lead to a Doctor of Pharmacy degree. But it is not always fun and games.

“In any major you have have the classes you don’t like, so it’s just suffering through the ones you don’t like and getting to the others,” Jessie Boehm said.

Many look to the future. The average salary for the SDSU graduating class of 2001 was $70,500, plus a signing bonus.

“Our pharmacy program has earned an outstanding reputation for excellence of the education we provide, as well as for the excellence of our faculty, staff and students,” Dean Danny Lattin says in his on-line message.

The election on November 4 gives South Dakota voters some interesting choices. With this year being an off year for a presidential election, the votes conceivably have more weight for South Dakota.

Three races are shaping up in the state. The lone House of Representatives seat, one of the two Senate seats, and the governor’s position are available. In only one, the Senate spot, is the incumbent running for re-election.

Both of the federal elections have crucial implications. All 50 states have elections, but only a handful have slightly contested elections this year, according to Dr. Gary Aguiar, assistant professor of political science. Therefore, the South Dakota election is important and one of many that could change the outlook in Washington.

The Senate elections across the country will not severely alter the body’s landscape. Currently, the Democrats have 50 members, Republicans have 49 and there is one Independent. The races for a Senate seat are important in several regards. The most important is the majority leader, who holds the power of determining what the issues are in the Senate.

The House election is the more interesting race. The House has 222 Republicans, 211 Democrats and two Independents.

“The person elected to the House won’t have much seniority but that person is likely to determine which is the majority party and that makes a whole lot of difference as to what gets through the House,” Aguiar said.

Seniority matters most in the Senate. Incumbents hold that advantage over other candidates. Seniority gives the candidate the pick of committees and the opportunity to become a committee chairman.

Issues in both elections are similar. Local interests, such as agriculture in South Dakota, are always an election issues.

“One thing, especially in South Dakota, is to what extent can a candidate bring federal dollars and federal programs to the state. What kind of clout do they have to bring the money to the state that another candidate may not have?,” Aguiar said.

National issues for South Dakota deal more with benefits for veterans and the military. National security is important but not as important as in places like New York and Washington. Something that has come up and likely will continue to come up is the money spent on campaigns.

In the Senate race, the possibility for expenditures has been predicted at $14 million between Sen.Tim Johnson and Rep. John Thune. This election could see the most money spent in South Dakota history.

“Obviously, the problem is who’s giving that money and are they having a disproportionate influence on the policy making process?” Aguiar said.

The concern is when outside interests spend a great deal of money and try to affect the political processes.

Due to the fact that the Congressional race is so close, this vote is important. The South Dakota vote for president is a bit more controversial.

“Presidential elections, we don’t have as much of an influence as we might have because we are so reliably in one camp, and we’re so small,” Aguiar said.

Both Congressional elections matter more because they could determine which is the majority party.

No matter what the election results are, the next months will prove to be exciting and entertaining.

Last week, students who will live on campus re-applied for a new housing in their current building or in a different one.

In the past, a certain amount of rooms were available in each for single rooms, but for fall 2002, there will be no single rooms rented out.

Certain rooms in Waneta Hall that were being used as rooms are being reconverted into offices. This combined with increased enrollment has reduced the number individual rooms available.

The Waneta rooms had been used as individual rooms the last few semesters. The reconversion is not anticipated to have any effect on acceptance into the dorms.

“We’re always going to house everyone,” Jeff Vostad, assistant supervisor of Residential Life said.

Current enrollment in the halls is 2,750. That number is scheduled to increase in response to scholarships awarded by SDSU to National Merit Semi-Finalists.

The award offers free residence hall rent to freshman for their spring semester.

This would not be the first time SDSU residence halls were full. In the early 1990s, dorms were full but housing was furnished.

“We’ve never turned anyone away,” Vostad said.

“It sometimes seems really crowded but the process is pretty easy,” Brett Thoreson, a freshman in Binnewies Hall said.

The students who currently live in the halls get the chance to choose rooms first, Vostad said. The only requirement for getting a room is that the student is registered in classes at SDSU.

“It’s a pretty good idea of theirs to give returning students the chance at their choice of rooms,” Thoreson said.

The 33rd Annual South Dakota State Geography Convention at South Dakota State University April 4 and 5 will celebrate the career of a man who has done much for the Geography Department at SDSU.

Ed Hogan founded the Geography Department at SDSU, where he has been a faculty member for 35 years. He currently serves as associate vice president for academic affairs and chief information technology officer.

Hogan will kick off the convention with a welcome at 8:50 a.m. in the Volstorff Ballroom in the University Student Union. Two full days are scheduled with speakers, student presentations, poster sessions, the Geo Bowl, the South Dakota State Geography Bee and the initiation of members into Gamma Theta Upsilon.

This year’s speakers are Glen Sebastian from the University of Southern Alabama at 9a.m. on April 4, Phil Gersmehl from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities at 10 a.m., Cynthia Miller from Minnesota State University at 11 a.m. and G. Gray Tappen from the EROS Data Center at 2 p.m.

Speakers on April 5 include Russ Stubbles from SDSU at 9 a.m., Geoff Scott from the University of Wyoming at 10 a.m., John Fraser Hart from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities at 11 a.m. and Erin Fouberg from Mary Washington University at 2 p.m. Fouberg is also Hogan’s daughter.

Fourth to eighth graders will gather on campus to test their geographic memory for the State Geography Bee. The winner gets a chance to go to the national geography competition in May.

“It is a big deal,” said Donald Berg, associate professor of Geography. “If you want to see fourth through eight graders and their parents in near bloody conflict, you should go.”

The Geo Bowl is another test of geographic intelligence but the participants and questions will be on a different level. The colleges and universities who attend can supply teams for the game.

“It’s a competition between college and university teams with the simple reward of psychic income,” Berg said.

The Gamma Theta Upsilon initiation begins at 8 p.m. on April 4 after the bowl ends. GTRU is the international geographic honor society.

The Awards Banquet will conclude the convention at the Brookings Inn. Scholarships and awards will be handed out.

March is National Developmental Disabilities Month, and the theme this year is, “Every face in our community belongs.”

“We want to increase sensitivity and awareness, first for the students we have attending SDSU that are students with developmental disabilities and for just how successful they’re being as a result of what we’re doing here at SDSU,” said Nancy Schade, coordinator of disability services on campus.

The Office of Disability Services serves as a contact for students and employees with disabilities to discuss any concerns.

“They gave me a chance,” said Carl Westby, a freshman with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Accommodations that are made for students include extended test time to taped textbooks and lectures. These are intended to enable students with disabilities to meet academic requirements through an alternative path with no reduction in standards.

“The real critical term here is equal access. And we look at what is it based on, the nature of that disability that that student needs to equally participate or to have equal access to academic programs in our university,” Schade said.

“The more exposed people are to people with disabilities, the more they would relate to them and help them more,” said Peggy Willcuts, a pharmacy major with cerebral palsy. Exposure is a goal of National Developmental Disabilities Month. Though no activities are planned on the SDSU campus, the Disabilities Service is looking forward to future plans.

“Are there things we need to work on? Yes. I think in order to make change in an environment it takes some time. But, you have to be able to encourage people to get to a better place,” Schade said.

“If communication doesn’t happen, nothing’s going to happen,” said a junior student with dyslexia who wished to have her name withheld.

Students must make contact with them as early as possible for arrangements to be made. Schade doesn’t want to have this sound like a free ride. Equal access does not stand for preferential treatment.

The Office of Disability Services and SDSU want to help that hard work equal success. Briggs library offers an adaptive equipment lab. The Disabilities Service coordinates with other services such as Residential Life, the Writing Center, the Counseling Center, Health Service and the Academic Assessment and Evaluation to provide an adequate environment for a person with disabilities.

“I don’t think people with disabilities want sympathy. I think what they want is equal opportunity and that equal chance to be successful and to be included and to really experience that sense of belonging,” Schade said.

The Landscape and Grounds division of the Physical Plant has an average annual budget close to $100,000 just for garbage pick-up.

“To say we have X amount of dollars to haul trash on this campus, it really doesn’t even work in that kind of language,” said Lynne Finn, assistant director of the Physical Plant. “It just depends on the season,” Finn said.

The money is divided in salaries, rent and maintenance of the garbage truck., landfill costs, and any bin and receptacle repair or replacement.

Six full-time equipment employees and one garbage truck compose the Grounds Shop.

This force must collect all trash on campus. This means all the big bins for the residence halls, food services, farm units and academic buildings. It also means emptying the small receptacles scattered around campus and any hand picking-up that might be necessary.

The garbage truck is rented from Fleet and Travel for $5,000. The backend attachment is owned by SDSU but the cab is rented. The rental price includes refueling the truck.

The landfill cost is money paid to the city of Brookings to dump trash at their site. This annually costs $35,000 for an average of 1,300 to 1,400 tons of trash.

The two determinants of what Residential Life and ultimately the students get charged depends on the type of service and the amount of trash.

Type of service stands for the frequency of garbage collection. Currently, garbage is collected once a day and twice a day on Mondays and Fridays.

This year, Residential Life paid $47,500 for trash collection. The cost has risen recently but not by a significant amount said Doug Wermedal, assistant dean for Student Affairs.

“The campus seems pretty clean. It’s the dorm rooms that can get pretty nasty,” said freshman Matt Sticha, a resident of Binneweis Hall.

The garbage service is one of a myriad of responsibilities the Landscape and Grounds division of Physical Plant must handle.

“Our job is to keep campus looking good, and we try our hardest,” said Larry Schumann, building maintenance coordinator.

“It’s something that you don’t really notice that often, that must mean they’re doing a good job,” said George Kohlmann, a former resident of Berg Hall.

Rusty Olson is glad to be in school. After five months in a foreign country, who wouldn’t be glad to be back in America?

Olson, a construction management major at SDSU, is in the Minnesota National Guard.

In January 2001, he volunteered for a five month tour of duty in Kuwait. His job there was to guard and patrol an area with communications and other equipment.

While in Kuwait, Olson celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the Gulf War. Former President George Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf attended this celebration.

However, the whole trip was not celebrations and meeting famous people. Twelve hour shifts were spent in patrolling the area. The objective was to scan the countryside and record everything that happened.

Some days proved more eventful than others. For example, in March, a live fire exercise ended with the tragic deaths of six men. This accident occurred at Udari Range, an area adjacent to where Olson was stationed. In fact, Olson had been at the range just days earlier practicing with his unit. None of the men killed were a part of Olson’s unit nor did he know any of the men killed. But the incident brought a different mood to the camp, Olson said.

He doesn’t concentrate on the negative too much. He notes the camaraderie a trip like this produces.

“You are really in a brotherhood when you are in something like this,” Olson said.

Olson, who ranks as a specialist, held the position of machine gunner. This involved anti-armor weaponry.

Olson began his military career while still in high school in Rochester, Minn., He signed up in February. 1997 while still a senior. Then after graduating, he went down to Ft. Benning, Ga.,to participate in basic training and infantry school.

Then, after graduating, he went to Ft. Benning, Ga., to participate in basic training and infantry school. In 1998, Olson went to Germany and Austria for about three weeks.

“Many people who do not live outside the United States don’t realize what we have. We are very lucky to live here,” Olson said.

After his travels abroad, Olson headed back to Georgia for Airborne School training. He has also trained in Idaho as well.

With the terrorism of Sept. 11, he expected to leave again. But after contacting his superiors, he was told that he wasn’t needed right now. So he stayed here, keeping up with his guard commitment of one weekend each month, travelling back to Minnesota to meet his unit.

His outlook on life remains laid back. He will graduate in December 2003 with a general engineering degree. After that, Olson is unsure of his plans for the future.

Possibilities Olson named include returning to the Middle East to work an an engineer or going back to the Army when his six-month term ends.

Are you one who struggles each morning to get out of bed to make to class on time? For some classes, SDSU might have solved your early morning blahs.

South Dakota Sate University now has Internet courses offered fully online.

These classes allow students to avoid the hassles of traditional classes and schedules.

For example, a course taken online gives the students the opportunity to find out what the professor wants to have them know at a convenient time.

Teresa Majercik finds her Internet classes a definite help in her situation.

Majercik is a registered nurse in Mitchell. She has two children ages 7 and 4. Majercik is able to support her children while furthering her education.

This ability to take classes without suspending life appeals to many non-traditional students. All work is given by the teacher through the Learning Management System. This system is Web Course Tools or WebCT.

WebCT is a provider of e-Learning solutions for higher education. It allows the instructor to put course material online. With WebCT the professor normally doesn’t have any contact with the students.

Tish Smyer, who teaches Nursing Research and Theory 474, dislikes not seeing her students. Yet through her online course, she admits there is more communication between her and her students.

“I do like getting to know my students even better when they’re in the class,” Smyer said.

Tom Roe, who teaches of Statistical Methods 281, agrees with Smyer’s assessment.

“Sometimes it’s easier to interact with a student using the Internet then it is with a person who will come and sit in the back row and never participate,”Roe said.”

“These students on the Internet have to participate,” Roe said.

Larry Porter, instructional designer for WebCT at SDSU, calls this online participation a student responsibility

“It takes the responsibility for the learning and shifts more and more of it to the student,” Porter said.

Last semester, over 800 students took that personal responsibility.

They enrolled in classes ranging from Speech 101 and Biology 101 to Advance Nursing Practice 610 and Phytochemicals 704.

Many of these 800 are on-campus students. This set up makes available those classes that may conflict with those already in the students schedules, Porter said.

So even though two traditional courses are offered at the same time, the students have an option of still being able to take both classes.

Students don’t have to spend a great deal of money in technological accessories either.

The basics include Internet access, e-mail and a Java capable browser of at least version 4.0. Netscape version 4.5 or Internet Explorer version 5.0 and a screen resolution of 800 x 600 are recommended.

Also recommended are several system requirements for both the computer and the software. But all this high tech equipment does not take away all the possibilities of network failure.

The major complaint against internet courses is the unreliability. The recommendations of the Instructional Technologies Center at SDSU will help to minimize any network slow downs.

All these requirements and recommendations are listed through the technical requirements section of the visitors area of the WebCT division of the distance education segment of the academics portion of the SDSU web site.

The web address is http://learn.sdstate.edu/online/require.htm.

In October of 2001, the College of General Registration adopted its new name, the College of General Studies and Outreach Programs

The change was brought about for several reasons. Gail Tidemann, Dean of the College of General Studies and Outreach Programs, said that the addition of the Outreach Programs also included a broader scope of abilities that the college now has. Another reason for the change is that many students were misled by the word “Registration”.

Many students looking for the Registrar’s office or the Admissions Office with questions regarding registration would call or stop by the Career and Academic Planning Offices.

All registration issues are handled by the Registrar’s office. The new name change will hopefully stop any confusion. “Traditional students will continue to be served as they have been. The Career Center aspect will continue as it had been,” Tidemann said.

Tidemann added that the way that it has really changed is that now they have added the opportunity to serve a greater number of students through distance education and outreach programs.

These outreach programs consist of more than just the Sioux Falls campus and the Pierre Capital University Center. Coordination of all the distance education courses, via Internet and television, is one new duty.

Non-credit course workshops offered for continuing education are another. These workshops range from team productivity seminars to the University Week for Women.

“We do have a greater responsibility for providing academic support to students who are not traditionally served through one of the academic colleges,” said Tidemann.

That responsibility brings only slight changes in curriculum requirements. The Liberal Studies degree included both the Institutional and Board of Regents requirements. Previously, the degree included the Arts and Sciences requirements. The changes have led to the expansion of the college’s number of programs it oversees.

In 1983, the College of General Registration had only three programs. This year the College of General Studies and Outreach Programs has 14 programs in its care.

“The business of lifelong learning and continuing education is very, very important. Universities give folks a basic education. But to succeed today, one of the best things we can help any student develop is the ability to continue to learn throughout their lifetime,” said Tidemann.