One of my professors gave a handout to my Linguistics 203 class a few weeks ago. The article, “An A is not an A is not an A: A History of Grading”, focused on the tradition of dispensing grades for educational assessment, and it was quite an interesting read.

However, the article’s author, Mark Durm, did not pen the most fascinating line on the piece of paper Dr. Taylor gave to us that day.

Instead, a quote by Plato resting on the final page seized my attention, and incidentally, it almost single-handedly represents the way I view the world: “All learning has an emotional base.”

I believe in order to truly “learn”, a person must have some type of personal want for the information presented to him or her (whether or not that want is based on moral, ethical or logical reasoning is beside the point).

At its core, learning needs emotion, and the most important things to be learned must have the strongest emotions at their foundations. But what is the most important thing to be learned?

I think anyone living in the Brookings area who has ventured to Oakwood Lake in the winter and rested a patient ear on the frozen surface knows.

My cousin Craig helped me discover it when he showed me how to destroy the Technodrome at the end of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time” on SNES.

Gazing into the Grand Canyon a few years ago led me a little closer to my self-realizational thesis.

Seeing My Morning Jacket at Red Rocks this past summer played a part, and my grandma’s banana bread certainly has a lot to do with it.

Doing some deep thinking while driving home from Wahpeton, N.D., the night my dad severed his left-hand fingers definitely ties into my theory.

Holding my brother’s daughter in my arms for the first time pushed the answer into my head, yet I still don’t know how I can begin to describe it to another person.

I guess it’s what the words “epiphany,” “love,” and “faith” stand for. It’s simply something more.

As I write this column on the eve of my 21st birthday – apparently a big deal in our society – I realize that I have learned more from examining my own feelings and emotions than I have in any classroom here in Brookings or back in my quaint hometown of Rosholt, S.D.

Maybe this doesn’t give me the right to dole out advice to my fellow Jacks. If you agree, please quit reading now.

Our generation is living in and creating an incredibly confusing time – the American empire is falling, our environment is melting, and Joaquin Phoenix is rapping – but in order to survive, we must not get too caught up in trivial facets of our daily routines.

The night that follows the day you read this, go outside and breathe. Take it in.

It doesn’t taste like tests or smell like homework. It doesn’t schedule you for a morning shift or use up the last bit of toilet paper without replacing the roll.

It is what it is, and it’s life. Enjoy it while it lasts. You might learn a thing or two.

For the past year, Americans have heard messages of change from now-President Barack Obama. If his recent budget proposals for 2010 are adopted, students across the country will see this mantra in action.

The president and his advisers aimed four main proposals at college students – one of which is “originating all new loans in the direct-lending program.”

Currently, all federal student loans are disbursed through two channels: the Federal Family Education Loan Program and the Federal Direct Student Loan Program. The former provides subsidies and assurance to private lenders, while the latter grants monies directly from the government.

Under the proposed changes, all consolidated loans made available through Washington would originate directly from and be paid for by the U.S. Treasury and sent to students through the Department of Education.

Jay Larsen, director of Financial Aid at SDSU, said the changes would not go into effect until after the next school year. Students still have to fill out the usual FAFSA for 2009-2010.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan testified before the House Budget Committee on the proposed budget’s elimination of the FFELP.

“It no longer makes any sense to heavily subsidize a guaranteed student loan program that is barely functioning in the current financial crisis when we have a stable, lower-cost method of meeting the needs of all eligible students,” Duncan said.

Some private lenders are staying neutral in reacting about Obama’s proposals.

“We acknowledge the president’s proposed budget and are encouraged by the administration’s focus on finding new ways to ensure quality education is available to all,” said Staci Schiller, marketing program manager for Wells Fargo Education Financial Services.

Yet some members of the private sector have publicly criticized Obama’s plan.

Education Finance Council president Peter Warren said in a press release, “The administration’s proposal to eliminate the private-sector based student loan program and to finance all student loans directly through the Federal Government via the issuance of U.S. Treasury debt is not in the best interest of students, schools or taxpayers.”

Austin Hoffman, a senior broadcast journalism major at SDSU, is also skeptical of the president’s proposals. “I like the idea of going through smaller, local banks,” he said. “For a lot of students, it’s a learning process.”

Students have been borrowing from the federal government to pay for education since 1958, when Congress passed the National Defense Education Act. Ten years later, only about five percent of freshmen students received federal loans to support their college expenses. By the mid 1970s, that number had risen to approximately 22 percent.

This trend continues today. The latest data available from the ED shows that the 2003-04 academic year saw 34 percent of all undergraduates receive federal loans.

Higher enrollment – along with rising tuition costs and a weakening economy – has resulted in more students reaching for direct federal funds.

Lilias Jarding, professor of political science at SDSU, said the government can constitutionally provide this money to students.

“The House of Representatives has the power to initiate spending, then it goes to the president’s desk for approval,” she said.

Jarding said she saw a “much higher percentage [of students] that took out loans by the time [she] went to graduate school” compared to the time she was an undergraduate – a period of only 15 years.

The specific changes in Obama’s budget proposal would start to affect the graduating class of 2011 at the earliest.

Banks are collapsing, unemployment is rising, but SDSU alumni just keep on giving.

The SDSU Foundation recently reported it received a record-setting $52.9 million in donations in 2008, a year in which many Americans experienced negative adjustments in their pocketbooks.

SDSU’s latest comprehensive, private fundraising campaign, “It Starts with STATE,” began with a $190 million goal. The plan has increased philanthropic action towards the Foundation, according to Steve Erpenbach, president and CEO of the SDSU Foundation.

“The record number of gifts is a sign of the loyalty, generosity and enthusiasm of alumni about the growth and vision laid out by President Chicoine,” said Erpenbach.

Among other benefits, financial help from the Foundation provides some students with the Jackrabbit Guarantee Scholarship. Rachel Dahl, a senior consumer affairs major, said the aid has reduced the need to dip into her savings for school.

“One thousand dollars makes a huge difference,” Dahl said. “I think it’s a good thing that also helps attract incoming freshmen.”

The Foundation has devoted $9.5 million in future receipts for the annual endowment.

The Foundation has allocated nearly $116 million, or 61 percent, of their campaign to new buildings and renovations. This is one of five categories of need designated by the university’s 2007-2012 strategic plan, which is available on SDSU’s Web site.

The other four designated categories and their approximate planned benefits from the It Starts with STATE campaign are: endowed faculty positions, $10 million; scholarships and fellowships, $24 million; research, leadership, arts, honors college and museums, $7 million; athletic facilities and scholarships, $33 million.

A few major projects the SDSU Foundation hopes to help fund include the second phase of the Performing Arts Center, the Dykhouse Student-Athlete Center and the Bioprocessing Innovation Center.

Campus aesthetics even look to make a slight improvement, as the Foundation has devoted half of one percent of its comprehensive campaign to provide for defined campus entrances, public art and campus green spaces.

SDSU’s $52.9 million figure outpaced other area universities’ recent fundraising efforts, including those of North Dakota State and the University of South Dakota. In the fiscal years ending June 30, 2008, NDSU and USD reported $14.6 million and $15.8 million totals, respectively.

NDSU suffered a sharp decrease from its $31.1 million total in 2007 – a downturn SDSU did not experience. In fact, the SDSU Foundation has raised about $3.5 million through February, according to Erpenbach. He said the first two months of the year are typically weak donation periods, yet the Foundation has done “very well already.”

A large portion of last year’s fundraising can be attributed to Avera Health’s gift of $15 million for the new Avera Health and Science Center, which began to take shape recently.

Both Erpenbach and Bob Otterson, executive assistant to the the president, referred to this as a “transformational gift” – the kind the university needs for its ambitious goals over the next few years. Otterson said the donation, which is the largest ever given to SDSU, created fundraising momentum.

In all, 10,967 unique donors gave to the SDSU Foundation in 2008, with over 1,000 giving for the first time. Alumni with graduation dates ranging from 1928 to 2008 gave to the university.

The SDSU Foundation is currently planning a donor appreciation event to be held April 30 in the Volstorff Ballroom.

#1.881851:2625266419.JPG:DSC_1019.JPG:Phone Jack Jennifer Vanderwal makes a call to an alumnus, looking for donations to improve the university, for the SDSU Foundation.:Ethan Swanson

According to the American Heritage College Dictionary, “stimulus” is a Latin word meaning “goad.” Goad’s first listed definition is, “A long pointed stick used to prod animals.”

How appropriate.

The United States Congress has unfortunately passed a compromise version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or the “stimulus” bill, and President Obama added his signature last week.

The full text of the bill is available online, but it’s over 1,400 pages long, so good luck analyzing it. I’m glad our representatives in Washington are super speed-readers.

The bill is set to artificially create upwards of $800 billion over the next decade, with the majority spent in the next couple years. Our national debt is currently $10.71 trillion. Tacking on another 10 percent with one Legislative decision seems a little hasty.

But we must do something to jump-start our economy, right? That’s what Mr. President’s been telling us. The truth is that this spending spree will do nothing but prolong the painful corrections that our country has to go through.

For years, many Americans have made poor financial decisions that must be faced. Businesses erroneously expanded, individuals invested in houses with seemingly infinitely rising values and now the market needs to rectify itself.

Yet we won’t let it. We’re ignoring the problems and looking for fast, easy solutions; conventional wisdom says we can spend our way out of this mess, but we can’t.

We Americans have transformed from producers to consumers in nearly every aspect of our lives. Saving and long-term financial planning are lost arts. Credit card debt and defaulted loans are commonplace, but some still try and blame fashionable enemies like free market capitalism for our mess.

As if the credit boom created by the Federal Reserve System in any way resembles a free market. Placing fault on a plutocratic, fascist state ripe with cronyism and economic ignorance seems a little more appropriate to me.

As Thomas Woods, historian and writer of the new bestselling book Meltdown, recently said on The Lew Rockwell Show, “Merely using things up can’t possibly make a country prosperous.”

In 1939, many years into the worst economic period in our country’s history, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau even remarked, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work.”

The Great Depression lasted far longer than it had to, in part because the American people put faith in a powerful centralized government being able to resolve economic calamities that it helped create. More consuming, more spending and more stimulating didn’t help our grandparents, and it will not aid our current situation.

The big bad wolf came and blew our house down, and we don’t need him for new sticks and straw. We need him to get off our property.

For over 30 years, Charles Woodard has guided South Dakota towards a better understanding of American Indians, and on Feb. 26 at 7 p.m., he will receive recognition for his work.

The 2008 Dorothy and Eugene T. Butler, Jr., Human Rights Award presentation will be held at the Old Sanctuary in Brookings. The public is invited and refreshments will be served, so everyone has the opportunity to congratulate Woodard on his years of service – just expect a humble response.

Since he began teaching at SDSU in 1975, Woodard has become a leader in promoting what he refers to as “cross-cultural understanding” in our state. Shower that praise to his face, and you’ll probably spur a chuckle out of the doctor.

Woodard developed the “Consider the Century” campus program at SDSU, has helped teach a tutorial in American Indian studies for faculty and staff for the past few years, was instrumental in creating the Oak Lake Writers’ Society, served as Coordinator of the Brookings Reconciliation Council for 15 years and was named president of the South Dakota World Affairs Council.

A one-column list of his achievements could stretch from Volga to Bruce, yet Woodard said all he wants is “to contribute to a society that does better than it has in the past”, one that is “more inclusive, more open.”

Any credit Woodard receives for his work in human rights – no matter how fitting or justifiable it may be – he refracts to his colleagues, friends and mentors.

Woodard said that he “continue[s] to be as much of a student as teacher. I feel privileged to learn from these important sources” – people like N. Scott Momaday, an American Indian writer.

He has been much influenced by Momaday, the subject of Woodard’s 1989 book Ancestral Voice: Conversations with N. Scott Momaday.

“I’ve learned more from him than anyone I’ve ever known,” he said.

Woodard recommends the words of Joy Harjo, James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn to students looking to broaden their own cultural understanding.

“At best, literature is a history of the human spirit,” he said.

One does not have to search too far to experience diverse anthropology, either. Woodard said even in South Dakota there are “so many things to learn about human history that are residential here.”

Woodard said many current students have made advances in their own social awareness. He has seen a “wider realization of what the contemporary situation is and what we need to do to improve society.”

Woodard is happy to see an increasing emphasis being put on service-learning projects on the campus.

Whether he would like to admit it or not, Woodard has been a vital part of the growing trend in South Dakota to research, appreciate and eventually understand American Indian cultures.

#1.881897:4169288145.JPG:IMG_0276.JPG:Charles Woodard will receive the 2008 Dorothy and Eugene T. Butler, Jr., Human Rights Award on Feb. 26.:Patrica Solis

The New York Times is crumbling faster than Alex Rodriguez’s reputation, and the powers that be cannot figure it out. More and more consumers are dumping print media and getting involved with the edgy kid on the block: the Internet.

Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University, along with constitutional lawyer-turned-journalist Glenn Greenwald, discussed this transformation of our national media on “Bill Moyers Journal” on Feb. 6.

The talk, available on Pbs.org, centered around what Greenwald referred to as, “The monopoly that [traditional journalists] previously exerted on our political discourse.”

Various theories exist for explaining how, why and how much the press influences public policy, and vice-versa, but the basic model for reporting in Washington has been constant: A says B, C reports B to D. End of story. (I know I’m over-simplifying things, Dr. Paulson – hang with me.)

As Rosen said, “During the age of mass media, the idea of one-way, one to many communication sunk very deeply into the political elites’ sense of self. Broadcast the message. ? The great thing about the Internet is that it runs two ways.”

Gone are the fireside proclamations, the empty declarations transmitted into our living rooms. The power is dripping out of the establishment’s hands, draining through broadband cables and coming to puddle under our fingertips instead.

With Creative Commons licenses replacing traditional copyright laws, Wikipedia providing the wealth of human knowledge in a few seconds and torrent technology connecting file-sharers around the world, the mouths behind the megaphones should be worried.

But should they be scared? After all, our new president has a YouTube page, yet the general public has demanded basically nothing concerning the recent American drone attacks in Pakistan that killed over 20 civilians. Or the Obama campaign-promise-breaking DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in California. Or that whole unconstitutional war in Iraq thing.

Bloomberg.com recently discovered the enduring strength of Washington’s castle walls when they unsuccessfully tried to uncover exactly where the first $350 billion in TARP funds has gone. The fifth of November hasn’t quite arrived.

Personally, I am optimistic that something has fundamentally shifted in the way we perceive our government’s words. At the same time, I hope “hope” hasn’t replaced our generation’s thirst for the truth, and I can only wish that we use available tools to hold our elected officials accountable. In January alone, 600,000 Americans lost their jobs, and we’re all looking for answers.

The peddle-to-me model of journalism has gone bankrupt, and consumers can no longer afford to buy the message.

Mitch also maintains a blog at leclairmitch.wordpress.com.

President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and United States Secretary of the Treasury.

I don’t think Timothy Geithner could hold two duller-sounding positions. He’s been in the news lately, but with those names, I don’t blame people for a lack of interest.

Maybe it’s for pick-up line material. No, he’s a married man, and he probably shouldn’t even try to get girls with those professional titles.

Sure, Geithner’s spent his career in the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Monetary Fund and the Group of Thirty, so he’s obviously familiar with market manipulation. This new job should be a great fit.

I just don’t understand why a person would want to control the American public’s collective checkbook, much less be stricken with such an ugly moniker.

I guess it would be his signature on all the new bills – that would be a major ego-booster. Plenty of greenbacks are being printed lately, so his swipes and swirls might soon be well-known throughout the Homeland (a little weird without “Security Department,” isn’t it?).

Geithner’s spent the last five years heading a branch of our country’s central bank, an institution that would make Julius Caesar proud. Perhaps he craves the power his pen could wield, approving all that fiat money.

The very definition of fiat money – legal tender authorized by a government but not based on or convertible into gold or silver – should drive people crazy. Especially these days, with hundreds of billions of our dollars being sent to ? I mean, spent on ? um ? where the hell did that first $350 billion go?

Unfortunately, we think that economics is only for the number crunchers, the math nerds, the “boring” people like Timothy Geithner.

People that screw up TurboTax. They should be in control.

In my opinion, it’s about time we regular folk are allowed to stick our wallets back in our own pockets.

I’m tired of officials telling me what’s best for my bank account. I’m sick of so-called professional types in Washington admitting they made up the bailout’s $700 billion figure.

I no longer want my peers to receive a few hundred bucks in the mail instead of me, just because I am “claimed differently” or fall into a different “bracket.” In fact, I’d like to know where that money is coming from anyway.

I don’t think I’m preaching from a church made of ignorance either. I know money is simply a measure of the value people place on different goods and services in their lives.

I also know that value is rightfully determined freely by individuals, not by a group of old, rotten clams “doing the math” in some stuffy high-rise.

And while I can’t exactly think of a sexier job title to give our friend Mr. Geithner, I am going to bestow on him a new last name: Heithner, as in the heightener. Let’s just call him the new Raiser and Inflator of Public Debt.

At least we don’t have to look at Henry Paulson’s face any longer.

Imagine Frank Zappa dressed as Odysseus, biceps extending off his sailing ship’s bow, screaming into a thunderstorm.

Roger Waters descends on a mushroom cloud, and the pair begins to battle. Intense things are happening in the background – things that make an Oliver Stone flick look like a Wiggles concert.

After a few hours of feeling as though the entire world is crashing inside of itself, a bright light shines through a fractured gray sky, and all you hear is the beginning to Pink Floyd’s “Breathe.”

Black ink on white paper prevents an easy telling of what Umphrey’s McGee can do to a person. Luckily for us, the band plays hundreds of live shows a year, with arguably their best coming in their native Midwest.

The sextet hailing from South Bend, Ind., performed six sets on the First Avenue stage in downtown Minneapolis this past weekend, converting myself and a few thousand more to their robotic blend of Rock n’ Rollism.

Throughout the weekend, Umphrey’s showcased material from their new album Mantis. Releasing this new record has seemingly flipped yet another switch inside of the band, who have filled their latest live shows with improvisations unseen since the late ’90s Phish.

Umphrey’s McGee is one of the most technically proficient bands touring in our time, but it’s the relationship they’ve crafted with fans around the world that will prove to be their most valuable asset.

For example, on Feb. 1 the band joined about 50 dedicated Umphreaks in watching the Super Bowl on the big screen at First Avenue. They mingled throughout the game and ate pizza during Bruce Springsteen’s Nationwide Halftime Cheese Fest.

Before the show on Jan. 30, they held a free meet-and-greet poster signing session for everyone who bought a three-day pass during a special pre-sale period. They’re regular folk – the type of guys that wear old running shoes on stage.

In an age of ever-increasing record deals and a nationwide fascination with whatever looks good, it’s refreshing to discover a band that treats their fans as friends. It doesn’t hurt that their music is basically the sonic version of a supernova either.

It’s uncommon to hear their songs on the radio, but anyone who has ever enjoyed a King Crimson vinyl or Grateful Dead concert recording will probably be impressed with Umphrey’s McGee. This is classic rock 2030.

Jump on Archive.org, download the Jan. 30 show, and listen to “Miss Tinkle’s Overture” or “JaJunk.” If your heart still works afterwards, go get some more. You’re one of the lucky ones.

Back to school and back to class. Usually it’s time to get out the three-hole punch and take care of a bunch of new syllabi.

Except for this semester, when many students at SDSU headed to D2L for digital versions of their biannual rulebooks.

Liz Winter, a sophomore dietetics major, said that a few of her classes “aren’t going to be printing them.” This is part of an effort to save money campus-wide.

Senior nursing student Sarah Wersal hasn’t noticed much difference in her classes, though she said certain elements of her two part-time jobs have changed.

Like many of her peers, Sarah commutes to school. She works at the hospital at Hendricks, Minn., which trimmed the budget recently, though she said, “cost containment is always an issue in healthcare.”

Some students’ families are also feeling the economy’s effects. Weston Byrd, a first year business economics major, said that his dad has been worried about his corn roller-grinder company.

After hitting an all-time high of nearly $8 per bushel last summer, corn commodity prices dipped below $3 before the end of 2008.

Already drawing their diets around dollar HyVee brats, students aren’t helping themselves, said Amber Anderson, president of the SDSU Economics Club.

“Our generation’s largest problem in its understanding of economics is that ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is our way of life, but we do not understand the negative consequences that our economy undergoes,” she said.

“We spend our money as soon as it hits our accounts and take out additional loans to live more than comfortably while going to school or entering the workforce. We do not save as much as we consume, and our country lacks in that area very much.”

Yet some students have used some foresight and thought about the future. Some have even adjusted their internship plans because of recent events.

Sarah Wersal “can make a lot more money in [her] current job,” and opted to skip a non-mandatory internship.

However, students should “think about the very long run,” said economics professor Matthew A. Diersen.

Many students pay for their education through loans, something Amber Anderson thinks is unwise.

“I realize the loans I have to pay back are much larger than I had imagined at the beginning of my time here at SDSU,” she said.

Students might have trouble obtaining these loans in the future, said Diersen, who serves as adviser to the university’s Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) chapter.

Lately, instead of the usual awkward small talk falling towards topics like the weather, “people tend to bring up the economic crisis,” said Anderson. She has also “noticed people trying to understand economics and how it works” more than ever before.

Economists – such as Ludwig von Mises in “Omnipotent Government” – have warned against boom and bust cycles and the “appearance of prosperity.” Mises also said “such a boom is bound to collapse sooner or later and bring about a depression.”

Anderson’s opinions on the market echo Mises’ sentiments. She said, “I personally believe that we will continue to see business go under and people lose their jobs more and more before we will see the economy recover.”

#1.882016:3965485273.JPG:DSC_0002.JPG:Megan Weber, a first year nursing major from Bridgewater, S.D., gets the checkbook out to purchase a human anatomy textbook. :Ethan Swanson

The leading international news media seem to play Bingo with their reporting of conflicts and struggles around the world, making consumers wait patiently for a chance at victory – actually receiving the truth.

Yet again, their coverage of the recent events transpiring in Gaza have been nothing short of a game of blackout.

Thankfully both sides – Israel’s modern, U.S.-funded forces and Hamas’s retaliatory militants – have come to a ceasefire this past weekend. Whether or not the stoppage will endure remains to be seen.

One thing cannot be disputed: upwards of 1,200 Palestinians have died as a result of having their homes, hospitals and hideouts bombed, shelled and shot out by Israel.

To date, 13 Israelis have died. Reprehensible, yes, but it pales in comparison to the destruction Israel has unleashed on Gaza.

In our country, some of the most-read newspapers and Web sites have even compared Hamas’s actions to Mexicans or Canadians firing rockets across our border, effectively asking, “Well, wouldn’t you want our military to take action?”

The fact that the Palestinians have been completely quarantined in the Gaza Strip by Israel remains buried underneath metric tons of news stories justifying this by-definition-genocide as nothing more than “national defense.”

Maybe next week the Times and Posts of our country will suggest amputation for hangnails.

Unknown – and ignored – by many Americans, we have sent Israel more than $2.5 billion annually in economic and military aid since 1997, with no less than $1.8 billion being spent on their armed forces every year.

Reports of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers helping destroy tunnels leading from Egypt into Gaza have even come out recently, although you’d be lucky to find them in one of our state-worshipping media.

These tunnels are the only way thousands of Palestinians can obtain food, medicine and other necessary supplies because of the Israeli blockades, but to many outsiders, they’re just gun-smuggling routes.

However, America has a new president that has promised millions of his electors that he will take a different stance on international relations.

While I doubt America will turn non-interventionist overnight, I do remain hopeful that the new administration will end the ignorance and assistance concerning Israel and Palestine that has been constantly practiced in the past.

Ultimately, it is each and every American’s responsibility to stay up-to-date on these and other issues around the world. Use the Internet, take the initiative and find out what is going on and why.

After all, it is our paychecks that the Washington plunder-machine chips away at, sending the fragments around the world in the form of bullets and bombs.

Mitch also maintains a personal blog at leclairmitch.wordpress.com.