Bloomington Herald-Times articles
Aug. 24-25, 2006
WTIU focuses on music for membership drive
by Andy Graham
August 25, 2006
Those of you who couldn't go see John Fogerty at the Verizon Wireless Music Center up in Hamilton County last Saturday night can get the next best thing this Saturday night in the comfort of your own home courtesy of WTIU.
WTIU, as part of its annual fall membership campaign, is debuting a concert film by Fogerty and his band at 9 p.m. Saturday.
The show, titled "John Fogerty: The Long Road Home," was filmed a year ago at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles. It features a 19-song set list chock full of Creedence Clearwater Revival hits such as "Green River," "Born on the Bayou," "Have You Ever Seen Rain," "Down on the Corner" and "Proud Mary."
Critics assign timeless status to those CCR tunes and to many from Fogerty's solo career. Although written during the culmination of the Vietnam era, 1968-72, songs such as "Fortunate Son" - fueled by anger that children of the privileged aren't the ones called to war - remain entirely relevant.
"The Long Road Home" is not the set telecast earlier this year as an episode of the PBS series "Austin City Limits."
"This is a new show," Ann Wesley, WTIU marketing director, confirmed Thursday. "It was released by PBS earlier this summer, but we didn't have a June membership campaign, so this is our first airing of it."
Music features prominently in other highlights of the fund drive, which runs from Saturday through Sept. 3.
Included is a concert film of the St. Louis Brass Quintet taped before a standing-room audience at Indiana University's Auer Hall last July. That show will air at 9 p.m. Aug. 31. The quintet features IU professor Dan Perantoni on tuba.
Some other highlights of the campaign schedule include:
"John Denver: A Song's Best Friend," 1 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday; "Andre Rieu: The Homecoming," 7 p.m. Saturday; "Broadway's Lost Treasures," 11:30 a.m. Sunday; "Great Performances: South Pacific in Concert from Carnegie Hall," 8 p.m. Wednesday; the Mike Sodrel/Baron Hill debate, 8 p.m. Thursday; "American Soundtrack: Doo Wop's Best on PBS," 9 p.m. Sept. 1 and 2:30 p.m. Sept. 2.
Wesley said the membership drive fuels areas beyond programming.
"Our educational outreach effort has suffered from serious budget cuts," she said. "That includes our Ready to Learn program, preparing families to send their children to school.
"We'll distribute anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 books for children. The U.S. Department of Education used to fund it, but no longer does. So we're dependent upon our membership campaign to keep the program alive."
IU astronomer agrees: Pluto not a planet
By Steve Hinnefeld
August 25, 2006
It's about time. That's what Indiana University astronomy professor Dick Durisen said about the news Friday that Pluto is no longer a planet.
The International Astronomical Union, meeting in Prague, voted to reclassify Pluto as a "dwarf planet."
"I've been saying in my introductory astronomy classes for years now that Pluto should be demoted," Durisen said.
Textbooks had labeled Pluto a planet since it was discovered in 1930. But in the 1990s, astronomers found similar bodies in the Kuiper Belt beyond Uranus. A year ago, scientists found a distant object that orbited the sun and seemed larger than Pluto. Called 2003 UB313 or Xena, it forced astronomers to wrestle with what was and wasn't a planet, Durisen said.
He endorsed the astronomical union's definition of a planet as a celestial body that orbits the sun, has sufficient mass to assume a nearly round shape and has enough gravity to dominate its orbit.
"I think it's very logical. I think they've finessed this very well," he said.
But he said there's likely to be resistance from the public, which may find it confusing that once there were nine planets and now there are eight.
"I think if you asked the public, they'd like to keep it as a planet," he said.
Durisen said this isn't the first time a planet was demoted. When the asteroid Ceres was discovered in 1801, it was called a planet. But astronomers reclassified it when they learned more about its size and orbit. Friday's move makes Ceres a dwarf planet along with Pluto and 2003 UB313.
Local Ivy Tech enrollment jumps 20%
By Steve Hinnefeld
August 25, 2006
Enrollment at Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington grew this fall by 20 percent, according to figures released Thursday by the state Ivy Tech office.
It said 4,495 students were enrolled at Ivy Tech-Bloomington on Monday, the first day of classes. That's up from 3,756 on the first day of 2005-06.
It's the 13th straight year of enrollment increases for the campus.
Ivy Tech-Bloomington Chancellor John Whikehart said there's been a big increase in students in health and life sciences programs and also in students who plan to eventually transfer to Indiana University or another four-year college.
The campus has 97 students in Hoosier Link, a new partnership with IU Bloomington, and a total of about 200 students living in IU dorms and taking classes at Ivy Tech.
"They're basically the 19-year-old students coming right out of high school," Whikehart said.
While the numbers released Thursday were for students enrolled on the first day of school, Ivy Tech-Bloomington will release its own final totals next week, including hundreds of students who sign up in the first week of classes. Whikehart said 4,526 were enrolled as of Thursday.
Across the state, Ivy Tech had a first-day record 69,803 students at its 23 campuses. The number was up 6.9 percent from last year. Bloomington passed Evansville to become the fourth-largest campus behind Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Terre Haute.
Whikehart said the growth is straining the capacity of Ivy Tech's building on Daniels Way, off West Ind. 48. The campus had 2,663 students when the building opened in 2002.
"We're pushing the physical limits of the building," he said.
A biotechnology training facility that the Monroe County Redevelopment Commission plans to build next door to Ivy Tech will help ease the crunch for science classrooms and labs, Whikehart said. But it won't open for 12-18 months.
Also, Ivy Tech's work force and economic development department will move next week to the Depot building at 301 N. Morton St. in downtown Bloomington, freeing some campus space.
Whikehart said the college is offering more online classes, an approach that uses less classroom space and offers flexibility for student schedules.
"We just have to be extremely creative in how we're delivering instruction," he said.
State's economy not all of universities' work
Our opinion
August 24, 2006
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels makes a point when he asks that Indiana University and other colleges and universities maximize their impact on the state's economy - in his words, to work at being "bigger and better economic engines."
In a talk to seniors at Bloomington High School North Tuesday, he cited Purdue as the school that's taken the lead in that direction. He didn't mean to be critical, he said, but added that he just meant to "emphasize opportunities for more dynamism" among all the Hoosier universities.
He cited in IU's favor its recent efforts in life sciences, also noting its strong language programs, increasingly important as the world shrinks.
We agree. IU and all of Indiana's institutions of higher learning must maximize their efforts to improve the state's viability in an increasingly tough world market.
But it's also important to recognize that in some ways, comparisons between IU and Purdue are of the apple/orange type. Purdue is an engineering and agriculture school. IU is a liberal arts institution. In West Lafayette, they work a lot with the hardware of the world. At IU, there is a lot of hardware work, too, especially in the biological and medical sciences. But an important part of IU's mission is one of understanding our world and atuning to its life.
It is the anthropologists, the sociologists and historians, the musicians, the artists, the English majors who work to bring those messages home, to translate for Hoosiers the critical news and culture that is so important for survival.
We hope the governor and legislators also understand that need.
IU, student settle false-arrest lawsuit
by Bethany Nolan
August 24, 2006
A lawsuit filed by a former IU student claiming she'd been wrongfully arrested in December 2004 has been dismissed.
Monroe Circuit Judge E. Michael Hoff dismissed the case earlier this month, after attorneys for both Kathryn Faster and Indiana University said the case had been settled.
According to a settlement agreement, Faster agreed to release IU from the lawsuit provided they attend a meeting with her attorney and Monroe County Prosecutor Carl Salzmann in an attempt to expunge her record.
Regardless of whether that attempt is successful, Faster said she would dismiss the action, the agreement said.
In the lawsuit, filed in December 2005, Faster asked for $350,000 after saying she was wrongfully charged with fraud and false informing following an investigation by IU police into the theft of her bank card. The university denied Faster's claim.
IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said earlier this week the university had no comment on the case beyond the details provided in the settlement agreement.
An attorney for Faster, David Colman, didn't return a call seeking comment.
Students settle in at IU; Especially for first-year students, moving in is an experience in itself
By Marcela Creps
August 24, 2006
Kelli Maxwell, a freshman living in Foster Quad, had a memorable start to her move-in day Wednesday.
Leaving Fort Wayne at 3 a.m., she and her parents, Dennis and Karen Maxwell, were the first to arrive at the dorm.
"I got here before they gated it," Dennis Maxwell said, referring to the barricades that IU police put out to control parking at dorm entrances. "I got here about 6:30."
Inside the first set of doors into Foster, Kelli and Karen Maxwell waited until for the next set of doors to open. Upon arriving, they didn't find anyone who would let them in.
"Just a drunk girl," Karen Maxwell said. "She stumbled around, tried to get in, then she fell asleep. Actually I guess you'd call it passed out."
The encounter didn't seem to bother the Maxwells. Neither did seeing their oldest child off to college.
"I'm alright," Dennis Maxwell said. "I think the mom and her have had a few moments."
Karen Maxwell also said she was fine — so far.
"I'll see what happens when I leave," she said.
Meeting up with old friends
Jeff Unger arrived at Forest Quad after the driveway was closed off, but he was first in line to enter when 9 a.m. arrived. Unger drove in Tuesday from Atlanta and was excited about meeting an old high school friend from Florida who also has a daughter attending IU this fall.
"We're going to see each other today," Unger said.
Unger had plans to stop by Bed, Bath & Beyond after his daughter, Brandi, moved in. He said they ordered most of her things in Atlanta and asked for the items to be ready at the Bloomington store Wednesday.
Unger wasn't sure how he would react to leaving his daughter in Bloomington. He said writing a special letter to her during orientation was difficult.
"That was a killer," he said.
Practice makes perfect
Moving was nothing new to Pam Saine. Saine's son, Isaac Ivery, is a junior at IU.
"I moved in most of my stuff yesterday," Ivery said.
Kathy Gorkis of Naperville, Ill., waited outside Read Center, guarding a number of items including a refrigerator and a couple of 12-packs of Pepsi and Mountain Dew. Helping her older son move to college has taught her not to carry anything loose.
"You learn as you go along," she said. "Everything has to be in boxes."
Jan Wissel stood outside Forest Quad guarding two 73-quart plastic storage tubs and a tower fan. Wissel was surprised when IU President Adam Herbert greeted her.
"That's a good touch," Wissel said. "Go IU."
Wissel was helping her daughter, Kendra, move in and said she was excited.
"It's a great time for her," Wissel said.
Over at Read Center, Greg Jackson of Greenville, waited for his son, Jonathon, a sophomore at IU. Jackson got a great parking spot right next to the drive on the Beck/Landes wing of Read.
"That was the Lord," Jackson said of his prime parking spot.
Helpful strangers
Move-in day also brought out a few entrepreneurs. IU senior John Atkins carried around a sign with two friends, offering to help people move in — for a price.
"We got kicked off the porch of McNutt for soliciting," Atkins said.
He didn't have much better luck at Forest. Eventually staff told him to move along.
"Maybe we'll try the central library," he said.
At noon on Third Street, Katie Keith was helping instruct parents pulling into Forest Quad.
"I'm glad I'm not driving in Bloomington today," she said as she waited for more vehicles to pull in.
Keith, who is a senior, said things were going a lot better than in previous years.
Helping with directions and hydration, groups of students were positioned around campus, including the corner of Seventh Street and Jordan Avenue. At 12:40 p.m., Jennie Ellman said people were looking for directions.
"People want to know where to get food," she said.
Welcome Week events at IU
Welcome Week for new Indiana University students continues. Highlights include:
Today
• CultureFest: 4:30-8 p.m., storyteller Momma Sandi at IU Auditorium; food, music and games around Showalter Fountain.
Friday
• RecFest intramural festival at HPER Wildermuth gym: 1-3 p.m.
• Traditions and Spirit of IU: 4:30 p.m., Assembly Hall.
• Midnight Madness shopping, buses from dorms to stores: 10 p.m.-2 a.m.
IU police: Move-in goes smoothly
By Marcela Creps
August 24, 2006
Indiana University police officers have seen it all, from the irate to the lost, as parents and students new to IU make move-in day one of the busiest days of the year for campus cops.
Officers met at IUPD headquarters at 7 a.m. Wednesday to prepare for the day. Some officers were held over from third shift, while others were just starting their day.
Lt. Laury Flint prepped them on what to expect.
"You're not going to be able to stop people from parking because they want to move in," she said.
Flint reminded officers that parents were interested in unloading and moving their children into the dorms.
"That's ultimately the goal," she said.
Officers were also given meal cards, and were told of two trucks that would be driving around campus to offer assistance or water. Flint pointed out the orange vests on a nearby table for anyone directing traffic. There also was sunscreen, which no one seemed to use.
Foster
Before 8 a.m., traffic was quiet around Foster Quad, where officer Rob Ruble waited for the dorms to open. Ruble worked with Foster resident assistant Stacy Himmler, who gave instructions to anyone parking in front of the dorm.
"You have 15 minutes to unload all your stuff up onto the curb and then go move your car and then come back and put it into the room," Himmler said to each driver. "It'll take too long otherwise."
17th and Fee
IUPD Sgt. Craig Monroe was driving around campus around 10 a.m. when traffic started clogging up at 17th Street and Fee Lane. Monroe called in two more officers to help direct traffic.
"It'll back up everything here," Monroe said of the busy intersection. "Usually the light takes care of it pretty much."
Monroe continued to loop around the north and south parts of campus. Returning to 17th and Fee, he found traffic was moving much quicker.
"Excellent job," Monroe yelled from the van to the two officers at that intersection, as he turned south on Fee from 17th Street. "Thank you very much."
Forest
Things weren't moving so smoothly on Jones Avenue behind Forest Quad. With scads of vehicles parked along the narrow road, there was only enough room for one lane of traffic. As Monroe headed east, he almost got to Rose Avenue. Unfortunately, traffic coming in from Rose clogged the narrow road and spilled into the parking lot just east of Forest Quad.
The small traffic jam seemed too much for one man who got out of his car to check things out. He appeared frustrated as he walked back to his vehicle.
"Aw, he'll be alright," Monroe said. "I know how to calm him down."
Monroe was finally able to make his way to the end of the drive, where he stopped and helped officers block off traffic. As he prepared to exit the area, he encountered another persistent driver who tried to enter the lot, despite Monroe's efforts to stop him.
Monroe used hand gestures to direct the man north on Rose Avenue, but the driver did not obey.
So Monroe jumped out of the van to talk with him.
"Sir, if there was room, I'd be more than happy to let you park here," Monroe said.
The driver backed up and moved on down Rose.
Read
Around 11:30 a.m., officer Brad Burkhart was stationed in front of the Beck/Landes wing of Read Center off South Jordan Avenue across from the Musical Arts Center. A few parked cars were slowing vehicles trying to find parking spots.
"I'm trying to find out whose car this is," Burkhart said, pointing to a small car parked in the road. When the driver returned, Burkhart hurried to the man and asked him to move the car.
Back at the IUPD station around 1 p.m., Flint said no major problems had erupted.
"I think this one was better than any one we've had in the past," she said.
Beach Boys to play at IU Homecoming; Summertime favorites warm up October at the IU Auditorium
By Andy Graham
August 24, 2006
Homecoming and "Be True to Your School" seem a natural combination.
It's been 43 years since the Beach Boys released that Top 10 hit, and many faces have changed in the interim, but founding member Mike Love still sings lead, and the group's familiar sound will fill the Indiana University Auditorium for IU's Homecoming Show at 8 p.m. Oct. 28.
Love — cousin to brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, who with Hawthorne, Calif., school pal Al Jardine were the other original members — supplied lyrics to some of the band's hits. Bruce Johnston also still is with the band he joined in 1964, when group guru Brian Wilson opted out of stage performance.
"Brian Wilson gets all the attention, with his great songwriting, genius for arrangements and skill as a producer, but the other guys went out year after year to play and sing that stuff shockingly well," IU music professor Andy Hollinden said Wednesday afternoon. "I haven't seen them recently, but they've long been known as one of the very best American performance bands."
The six-piece touring unit supporting Love and Johnston includes John Cowsill, a member of another famous musical family, on keyboards.
"They're one of my favorite bands," Holliden said. "I taught a class called 'Beach Boys, Beefheart and The Residents,' which examined three very different approaches to creating successful art.
"My students loved the Beach Boys. They'd typically come in thinking it was all about songs like 'Surfer Girl,' but came out amazed by just how sophisticated the music was, particularly from the mid-1960s into the early 1970s."
This year marks the 40th anniversary of "Pet Sounds," perhaps the Beach Boys' most celebrated album, featuring hits such as "Sloop John B" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" — and with the mega-single "Good Vibrations" coming out soon afterward. Rolling Stone magazine recently rated "Pet Sounds" the second-greatest album of all time, behind only the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
Paul McCartney, speaking of "Pet Sounds," said: "I don't know, it may be going overboard to say it's the classic of this century, but, to me, it certainly is a total classic record that is unbeatable in many ways."
IU Auditorium director Doug Booher said the band isn't only for those who remember the 1960s.
"Whether you're 6 or 66, you'll have a great time hearing this band," he said. "They've rotated in some great musicians. It is a very tight band.
"And the Beach Boys fit so well for Homecoming. Alumni come back to see old friends and reminisce, and current students can come, have a great time and make memories of their own."
Homecoming
• WHO: The Beach Boys
• WHEN: 8 p.m. Oct. 28
• WHERE: Indiana University Auditorium
• HOW MUCH: Tickets for the show are $39-$49 for the public and $19-$44 for IU students.
• INFO: 855-1103 or https://www.iuauditorium.com
Man arrested in death of college professor
Associated Press
August 25, 2006
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- A man wanted in the 1991 death of an Indiana college professor has been arrested. Benjie Scott Blauvelt, 35, was being held in Bexar County jail without bond on murder, burglary and theft warrants. He was arrested Wednesday morning by San Antonio police when he was pulled over for a traffic violation.
The Bexar County Sheriff's Office said an extradition hearing was set for Aug. 31. Officials had no information on an attorney for Blauvelt.
According to news reports, three men allegedly lured Maurice Lam, an associate professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, to their Fort Wayne apartment, where he was killed for his bank account and credit cards. Two men are in prison for the crime.
