Jordan River Forum

Student chant result of paying more for worse seats\n"Stand up, old people." Mildy innappropriate? Yes. Extremely humorous? Yes. Regardless of what you think, this chant draws attention to a big issue: student tickets.\nA large part of the home court advantage, especially in the Big Ten Conference, comes from the student section. Students are loud and in your face, and as they fade farther from the basket year after year, they grow tired of watching the alumni sit behind the basket with their thumbs you know where.\nSure, you give a lot of money. We know. But while you sit quietly 20 feet from the action, I'm 15th row up in the balcony thinking about how other Big Ten teams, like Illinois, are moving more and more students closer to the court. So, yes, I'm chanting at you to stand up and support the team like I am. You took my seats. I'm paying more money than last season for worse seats. Perhaps, instead of calling us rude and classless, the best answer is to make some kind of change. IU needs to give the alumni more seats? OK, but don't put them behind the basket. You say students don't get to the game on time? Maybe the alumni would like to hike that endless flight of stairs up to the nosebleeds. Maybe we're not in any real hurry to run up there and get high-altitude sickness.\nAll joking aside, there's nothing I love more than being at an IU basketball game. In fact, I haven't missed a single tipoff, and I've stayed for all 40 minutes of every home game. If this issue can be resolved, excellent. If not, I'll still be there screaming my head off. Go Hoosiers.\nDon Ueber\nSophomore\nLack of respect evidenced by "Puck Furdue" chant\nAs a loud and proud 1988 graduate of IU I always enjoy my return trips to Bloomington as an alumni. However, the article in the Dec. 12 IDS regarding the student-led chant at the Purdue-IU basketball game is totally missing the point. First, I was sitting in the north bleachers and am grateful as an alumnus to have the opportunity to have such great seats. I know from my days as a student the bleacher seats are a prized location. Do the alumni appreciate this opportunity? Most don't seem to. I thought the student chant was entertaining and fun. The alumni sections are usually about as much fun as attending a funeral, and the student-led chant did actually lead to the folks in the north bleachers standing up and cheering for a change.\nHowever, there are two points that seem to have been totally overlooked that need to be addressed. The first is the trash talking that player Earl Calloway did to Purdue coach Matt Painter. This is not the NBA and that kind of talk is completely unacceptable. Coach Kelvin Sampson should have pulled Calloway off the court so fast his sneakers would still be on the floor. In addition, Calloway should be on the bench for the next couple of games until he can learn to play with a little class and sportsmanship.\nThe second overlooked issue is the chant the student section engaged in during the second half of "Puck Furdue," or "Fuck Purdue." It was hard to tell which was being said, but it was very offensive and embarrassing. This game, while only reaching a limited audience on TV and radio, was broadcast to the nation and I am sure the chant was loud enough to be picked up. How embarrassing for IU. How do you explain to any children in attendance what the students were yelling?\nI hate to bring out the Bob Knight card, but you know that if either the trash talk or chanting had happened during a Bob Knight game, a timeout would have been called and Coach would have addressed the crowd or player at that point. IU used to have some of the loudest fans in the country who displayed some class and sportsmanship. Now they are just loud and obnoxious.\nDavid Bromer\nAlumnus\nPrivatization will harm IU-community relationships\nPrivatization of IU services will inevitably harm Hoosier workers. Big businesses, which could end up running the Bookstore, IU Motor Pool and other services do not have the connections to the Bloomington community or interests in the well-being of employees that IU has established over its nearly 200-year history.\nMany of my co-workers here at IU have spent their entire adult lives working for the University, thus earning higher wages and more benefits than less experienced workers. These longtime employees are likely to lose their jobs when private companies, looking to cut costs wherever possible, take over.\nWorkers could also lose their means of protecting their rights on the job if IU services are outsourced. University workers have the right to join a union that negotiates higher wages and benefits and protects workers from exploitation. When private companies take over, workers are often discouraged from joining unions. This is the case in the IMU, where, unlike other food-service employees at IU, Sodexho employees cannot join the AFSCME Local 832, which represents campus workers.\nThe close ties between IU and Bloomington make schooling at IU unique, rooting our education in the belief that through higher learning we can strengthen our community. This connection also benefits Bloomington, providing not only jobs but a sense of identity and way to have a positive impact on Indiana and the world as a whole.\nIn choosing to end this relationship, IU trustees are neglecting their obligation to students, workers and all of Bloomington. At the expense of the people for whom they are supposed to work, our trustees have chosen to instead focus on profits.\nSolomon Boyce\nSenior\nParking solutions must occur before faculty gets angrier\nThis morning, I noticed that more staff parking on the southwest side of campus had been eliminated -- this time behind the Tri-Delta house. Why are southwest side staff members being inconvenienced again? Our C spots are already full before 8 a.m.\nIf I hadn't already upgraded from a C to an A permit, I would get one now. However, it isn't fair that our already underpaid staff should be expected to shoulder hundreds more in parking fees per year because construction projects were (poorly) planned to coincide.\nSome suggestions for alleviating parking issues for C permit holders:\nFirst, turn some A spots to C spots immediately. Yes, this includes some of the spots behind the Quads, the lots surrounding Hawthorne Avenue, the law-school lot, and even the spots in the Atwater and Ballantine garages.\nSecond, cut some or all of the permits given to the construction crew on the Simon building. They are not IU employees, and the University has a responsibility to its employees first.\nThird, the shuttle from the stadium takes too much time to get to Third Street -- let's get a shuttle route that actually works instead! Start the free shuttle service from Bryan Park to Third Street again, this time for employees. I realize that neighborhood residents will resist as with Bloomington Transit's shuttle, but I bet IU administrators can make them reconsider.\nFinally, as unpopular as this may be, turn some of the non-employee parking spots into staff parking. The School of Optometry visitors' spots could be cut by half. Additionally, as much as I don't want to inconvenience students, we must turn over to staff some of the student spots saved for the southside greek houses and residence halls. Students are able to walk to their classes and work, but staff usually have no option to walk to work or to be without transportation in case of family emergencies.\nThe current situation amounts to a bait-and switch for C permit holders on the southwest side. The administration should initiate some solutions soon, before staff anger reaches a boiling point.\nAnna Bednarski\nDepartment of Biology academic adviser\nMisuse of Adderall dangerous for \nstudent body\nIn response to Nick O'Neill's Jan. 10 article, "A's in a pill":\nStudents taking attention-altering medications like the drug Adderall for the so-called "boost" needed to focus on their schoolwork should instead focus their attention on the warning that Counseling and Psychological Services Director Nancy Stockton delivered regarding the "compromises" involved with the improper usage of Adderall (or any prescribed or over-the-counter medications for that matter).\nWhile it's easy and convenient for a student to pop a real-good-feel-good pill to get through physics class, the consequences of popping any pill without proper knowledge of how that drug may interact with the user's own body chemistry and or with other forms of medication the user may be taking at the time can easily put that user in harm's way. I know: Having taken wrong medications in the past has left me with on-going seizure disorders, which resulted in totaling my car while behind the wheel. \nIn short: medicine is nothing to mess with. \nAs students of higher education, we attend college for a reason: to learn. So for the people illegally selling Adderall and for the people taking Aderall outside of a physician's care, educate yourself on the dangers involved with the drug the next time you feel the need to pill-pop. As for the junior in the article who feels he does "not see any problem" with selling Adderall to his classmates on a regular basis, I have just one question for you: Who died and made you pharmacist?\nBrad Whetstine\nStudent\nText-message words shouldn't be used in academic settings\nDear IDS Readers:\nDid you bat an eyelash at the "word" IDS in the salutation? IDS is unknown to those at Purdue. Perhaps they would scoff at our friendly use of IDS, but who cares? Do IU students care? Oops -- another acronym!\nAcronyms reduce the verbiage in many disciplines. Scientists routinely use acronyms (FRET, NOESY, PEG, COX, etc.) with startling regularity. However, it is because the community understands the need for abbreviations. Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer; Nuclear Overhauser Effect Spectroscopy; PolyEthylene Glycol; CycloOXygenase. They are cumbersome strings of words that are conveniently communicated by acronyms (scientists do have a sense of humor!). \nBut professors do not understand acronyms from "text-message-speak" that is gaining in popularity! "Words" like TYD, BYOB, DADV, MLF are meaningless out of context. For example, "DADV" means Duck ADenoVirus, which is not mentioned in my courses -- yet, I receive e-mail and course evaluations containing that "word." I'm sure its "intended" use is unflattering!\nThe advent of "text-message-speak" is a response to technological advances. However, attempting to communicate with professors through such phraseology is unproductive. No communication occurs.\nAs a society, should we accept a decline in the conveyance of thoughts and ideas by using "text-message-speak" in professional settings? Is interpersonal communication trivial? What are possible consequences with this detached form of communication? Imagine negotiations of the Cuban Missile Crisis in text-message format:\nDSBWHTSWACCYA! \nFOBOSIB! \nWhat do the interacting parties mean by such "messages?" Who knows. Therein lays the problem.\nThe proverb "The pen is mightier than the sword" (Edward Bulwer-Lytton) is as true today as it was in the 1800s.\nThe overuse of TXT-MSSG-SPK is eroding interpersonal communication. Communication is the heart of all relationships. Overuse of text-message-speak is constricting the artery of relationships -- thereby delaying the flow of ideas.\nI ask the student body to elevate itself above the superficiality permeating society. Communicate with professors without using text-message-speak. Demonstrate that you are the learned individual that your degree suggests -- this makes it easier for us to write positive letters of recommendation!\nDavid C. Johnson II, Ph.D.\nDepartment of Chemistry\nAlumni should want to show up students with cheers\nHow I feel about Purdue is how I feel about my 17-year-old brother: pure, heated rivalry. Normally we get along well but when it comes to any sort of competition, game on. This being my first season attending games at Assembly Hall, I was stoked for the Purdue game. I've been to all other games and the energy in there is so overwhelming that I don't know how you couldn't have a good time. Wednesday night (Jan. 10), I was sitting in the front row of the balcony with a friend, and once again we heard a chant come from behind the basket, buried in the "student section." Usually it takes me a minute to understand what they're chanting, but this one was loud and clear: "Stand up, old people."\nI understand some people are offended by this, and yeah, the chant might have been rude, but it's proving a valuable point. If you are paying to sit in a seat behind a basket, by God, if you're really an IU fan, stand up and distract the opposing team! If you don't feel like doing that, I am more than happy to switch you seats so you can be in the balcony, sitting there enjoying the game quietly, while I'm behind the basket waving my arms and yelling until my head falls off. Get into the game, enjoy it for what it's worth because it may be your last game. And I'm sure there's people out there that will say something like "I'm too old to do that," which is sad if you think that way. This is your school, your team and according to your age, it's against nature to defy the age threshold and show us "young people" up? Personally, I'd like alumni and older fans to stand up and make students go "Crap, they're louder than us -- time to blow the voice box out!" I want to leave Alumni Hall without a voice, and the "older people" should try harder to do the same. Scream, yell, clap and most of all, stand up for your team.\nShannon Beaty\nSophomore\nStudent section needed to quell bad sentiment\nThis is in response to the student chanting and complaints that have been made following the Purdue game.\nWe students feel as though the focus of home basketball games should be about us. I mean, let's face it, we are the ones who make Assembly Hall one of the toughest places to play in the Big Ten. We do not have a designated student section and seem to be one of few schools that does not. When watching college basketball, it is easy to see the impact that students have on a game. For example, look at the Cameron Crazies (Duke) or the Izzone (Michigan State). These student sections are right on the court and it gives their home team a tremendous advantage. We IU students are very passionate about our basketball team and excited about what coach Sampson has brought to Indiana. We only want to help our team win, and we feel that if we had a student section, Assembly Hall would be the toughest place to play in the Big Ten.\nSecondly, we students feel betrayed by our administrators, because it is obviously all about money (which seems to be a big theme at this university), giving more seats to the donors and alumni and not about future donors and future alumni. Fewer seats, worse seats and more money? I might not be good at math, but things are not adding up to me. So to the alumni who are upset about the chanting at the game, you can only expect more of this in the future, because we are passionate and want to give our team a home-court advantage. This can not be done by sitting down the entire game. So if you want to "watch" an IU game, stay at home and "watch" it on television. But if you really want to support your team then give them the home-court advantage they deserve. Come, stand, yell, cheer and be passionate about IU basketball.\nAdam Allen\nSenior\nLet students be Hoosiers fans while they are enrolled\nResponse to "Student-led chant draws criticism" by Eamonn Brennan, Jan. 12:\nI have friends talking about how much they love going to their basketball games, sitting in Rick's Rowdies (Mississippi State) or in Cameron Crazies (Duke). What's my comeback? "Oh yeah, I sit in the top corner of Assembly Hall for our rivalry game." That's right, I sat up in Section GG, Row 15, Seat 107 -- the upper corner. For four years now, I have sat in the balcony for all of the IU-Purdue games. This is the first year that I actually have floor seats for a Big Ten game (Michigan).\nHow much does this suck? USA Today described Cameron Indoor as "the toughest road game in the nation." Why is that? It's the students that create the crazy atmosphere. The students here at IU try to get that crazy but can barely start anything because we are so spread out. As I watch any NBA or any other NCAA game, the people behind the baskets are the craziest. When an opponent is shooting free throws, they yell and wave their arms, bang sticks or whatever they can find to distract the shooter. What do I see at Assembly Hall? I see alumni (now known as "old people," which is technically correct since they are older than the students) sitting there silent as a mouse. At the other end, the students wave their arms and yell even though the shooter is completely unaware. Students should be getting better seats than the balcony for most of the games. Television cameras want to see the students going crazy for their team, not people being silent during the game. I'm sorry, alumni, but the students that are currently enrolled at IU should be in those seats. You've had your time at IU, please let us have our time. For some of us, we won't be back in Indiana to see the Hoosiers play once we graduate. Let us have the glory of being a Hoosiers fan while we are still here. And if you ain't down with that, I've got two words for you.\nJames Michael Davis III\nSenior\nSampson should use influence to get student seats back\nThe recent publication of the front-page article "Student-led chant draws criticism" (Jan. 12), regarding the "Stand up, old people" chant, made an entire campus aware of an issue that has the potential to plague the Hoosiers' home court for the remainder of the season and future seasons.\nAs a student who owns tickets and is an avid fan, I hope and will do my best to make sure that the chant happens again -- until they get up and act like the Hoosiers they dress as. This is a serious issue. I would like to quote a recent ESPN.com article where analysts picked their favorite college basketball environments. To no surprise, IU was selected as the Big 10 representative by two of seven analysts. Pat Forde had an especially enlightening comment regarding our arena: "Another place with great old-school feel -- and until they moved the students out from behind the north goal this season, it got as loud as anywhere when the home team was on a roll."\nThe decision to remove students from the north end is reaching beyond just our campus; it is affecting the reputation of many peoples' pride and joy. I was behind the north goal last year when we played Duke and I thought the arena was going to collapse from the intensity. It is something that every IU student should be able to experience at least once. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons (debt), they might not be able to sit in those seats to contribute as such and must watch alumni sit quietly. The chant will happen again.\nI can only ask coach Sampson to step up and prevent this atrocity from happening again. Please do what you can to get us our seats back next year! Coach, your team's home reputation has been hurt badly, in the eyes of each other and the entire nation. Please do what you can to make your team and its proud student followers the best they can be.\nBrian Ward\nStudent