On paper, Ferris State will be field­ing a much dif­fer­ent team in 2009 com­pared to the one that took the field in bur­gundy and gold in 2008.

With an inex­pe­ri­enced offense, the Bulldogs were able to lean on their defense in route to a 6–5 (5−5 GLIAC) record. However, this year will be a 180 degree turn-a-round from last season’s squad as this sea­son kicks off.

Ferris is ranked sev­enth over­all in the GLIAC Football Coaches Preseason Poll. In order to prove that pre­dic­tion wrong and improve on the 2008 record of 6–5, Ferris will need sev­eral new faces to step up and play beyond expec­ta­tions on defense as they replace the seven lost starters. The offense will have to use last years expe­ri­ence and take advan­tage of the return­ing nucleus in order to take large strides in the upcom­ing year.

Heading into the 2009 sea­son there are many new faces amongst the Bulldog’s defense hav­ing lost seven starters from the 2008 team. The only return­ing starters are Kory Deering (DT), Angelo Williams (CB), and C.J. Lee (FS). Defensive cap­tain Chad Wilson (SS) tore his ACL in prac­tice and will be out for the year.

That leaves very notice­able holes in the front seven as they have lost all three start­ing line­back­ers and three-time All-American defen­sive tackle Jake Visser. Jordan Morgan who was red-shirted as a fresh­man is hav­ing an excel­lent camp and is expected to start at DE.

Even though they lost all three line­back­ers, defen­sive coor­di­na­tor Duane Wilson said there should not be much drop off from last year at the posi­tion since they have sev­eral fourth year and fifth year seniors at the position.

Ferris has also brought in four­teen recruits on the defen­sive side of the ball, which should bring a lot of com­pe­ti­tion to the seven open spots.0

“We may not be as big as we were last year, but we are very ath­letic and quick so expect an aggres­sive defense,” said Coach Wilson.

Another thing to watch for on the defen­sive side of the ball is the pos­si­bil­ity of see­ing a 3–4 scheme at times this year. Coach Wilson said they will be stick­ing with their basic 4–3 scheme but since they have quite a few line­back­ers that can run, they may imple­ment the 3–4 at cer­tain times through­out the year. If teams start try­ing to spread the Bulldog defense out, keep an eye open for a pos­si­ble change of strat­egy on defense.

The offense will be return­ing seven starters includ­ing two wide receivers, four offen­sive line­men, and quarterback’s Tom Schneider and Kyle Parrish. Schneider and Parrish will be bat­tling for play­ing time and there is also the pos­si­bil­ity of both of them being on the field at the same time.

The biggest dif­fer­ence maker on offense should not be a par­tic­u­lar player but the expe­ri­ence that they gained from last year, which in turn should make this year’s offense a much more con­sis­tent force. Ferris will be look­ing to improve its average16.5 points per game, which ranked last in the GLIAC. Last year the Bulldogs strug­gled notably in the first and third quar­ters in which they were outscored 56 — 105. Lack of expe­ri­ence and con­sis­tency is what Coach Pierce believes was the main cul­prit to the Bulldogs offen­sive woes.

2009 Football Schedule Date Versus Time Aug. 29 Tiffin 7:00 PM Sept. 5 Ashland (Fireworks) 7:00 PM Sept. 12 @ Findlay 12:00 PM Sept. 19 Grand Valley (Blues & BBG) 7:00 PM Sept. 26 @ Northern Michigan 4:00 PM Oct. 3 Michigan Tech 7:00 PM Oct. 10 Indianapolis (Homecoming) 2:00 PM Oct. 17 @ Wayne State 12:00 PM Oct. 24 @ Northwood 12:00 PM Oct. 31 Hillsdale (Hall of Fame Game) 2:00 PM Nov. 7 @ Saginaw Valley 12:00 PM

A big fac­tor last year which hurt the team was their inef­fi­ciency once they got the ball within the red zone. They were able to score thir­teen touch­downs on 31 trips within the opponent’s twenty-yard line. This year Coach Pierce believes that with the expe­ri­ence they gained from last sea­son the offense will be able to develop more of a com­fort zone and have the abil­ity to keep teams more on their heels.

“Our team will be very com­pet­i­tive, show a lot of pas­sion to be suc­cess­ful, and will play with high energy,” said Coach Pierce.

The key games this year will include a “home” game against Michigan Tech (Oct. 3) which will be held at Fifth Third Ball Park in nearby Comstock Park. The “Battle at the Ballpark” will serve as a fundraiser and give Ferris a unique and excit­ing stage to show­case their pro­gram. Though the field is not setup for foot­ball, Coach Pierce believes fans should look for­ward to see­ing their Bulldogs in a dif­fer­ent and more excit­ing atmosphere.

Another key match-up will be when Ferris hosts four time defend­ing league cham­pion and pre-season favorite Grand Valley State (Sep. 9). The Bulldogs will be open­ing their 101st sea­son on Aug. 29 when they host Tiffin University in the sea­son opener.

Graduate pro­grams hit hard­est by tuition hikes as uni­ver­sity strug­gles with state and fed­eral fund­ing woes

The Ferris State Board of Trustees voted Monday, July 8 to increase tuition for full time under­grad­u­ate stu­dents by 5.33 per­cent to $316 per credit hour.

While stu­dents will pay the increased amount in full at the start of term, the uni­ver­sity plans to use $1.39 mil­lion in Federal Stimulus monies to issue a rebate, affec­tively low­er­ing the per credit cost to around $311. When those checks, which should be around $5 per credit hour for full time stu­dents, will be dis­trib­uted is still not clear accord­ing to Leah Nixon, assis­tant direc­tor for new services

Ferris has increased tuition for under­grad stu­dents by a total of 13 per­cent in the last six years in addi­tion to cut­ting spend­ing by $15 mil­lion in the last eight years. A two to four per­cent cut for most depart­ments around cam­pus along with other cost reduc­ing changes yielded an over­all sav­ings of around $2.5 mil­lion in the last year alone.

Students enrolled in one of the grad­u­ate pro­grams at Ferris State can expect a $425 tab per credit hour while College of Pharmacy and College of Optometry stu­dents who are res­i­dents of the state of Michigan can expect $504 and $514 per credit hour, respec­tively.
The increase in costs has forced accel­er­ated sec­ond year phar­macy stu­dent Julie Brockway and many of her fel­low class­mates to seek a Graduate Plus loan who was sur­prised by the increase of $26 from $478 last year.

“My Ferris based schol­ar­ships are done after this year, since it’s only for four years, so I’ve got to find other ways to pay,” said Brockway.

A schol­ar­ship ini­tia­tive to help ease the eco­nomic bur­den on the fam­i­lies of Ferris stu­dents called “Opportunity @ 125” is tied in with the 125 Anniversary and is aimed towards stu­dents with high finan­cial need. This idea was first pre­sented last April as a way of help­ing stu­dents who were neg­a­tively affected by the recent eco­nomic troubles.

“The strength of our enroll­ment growth is an indi­ca­tion that stu­dents see Ferris’ career-oriented degrees as a path to suc­cess in these dif­fi­cult times,” said President David Eisler regard­ing the university’s con­tin­ued growth to nearly 13,000 stu­dents enrolled at the Big Rapids, Grand Rapids, Kendall College and satel­lite cam­puses, though the uni­ver­sity has worked through a $6.9 mil­lion decrease in state and fed­eral fund­ing since 2003.

In the same meet­ing the Board of Trustees voted to increase tuition and approved a bud­get of $175.7 mil­lion for Fiscal Year 2010, President Eisler’s con­tract was extended another year and he was offered a three per­cent raise. Eisler declined the raise due to the cur­rent eco­nomic chal­lenges of Michigan and main­tains an annual salary of $235,000.

Saginaw Valley State University had the high­est increase at 6.33 per­cent fol­lowed by Western Michigan University and University of Michigan at around 5.7 percent.

Editor’s Note:

The Torch cal­cu­lated the per­cent­ages and fig­ures by divid­ing the rel­e­vant year by the pre­vi­ous year and trun­cat­ing the change to the sec­ond. Official fig­ures were given to the Torch in doc­u­ments pro­vided by the office of Admissions and Records.

Meijer Madness hits Ferris again with its annual shop­ping spree sale.

Watch out as the mad­ness hits Meijer again for another wild round of its fifth annual “shop ‘til you drop” event.

Meijer Madness will begin at 9 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27 and last until midnight.

Jill Ulch, Customer Service Lines Team Leader, said Meijer and Ferris teamed up a few years ago to help “break the ice” for incom­ing stu­dents new to the col­lege life and to help col­lege stu­dents meet new people.

Three shut­tles will be trav­el­ing to and from Meijer start­ing at 8:45 p.m. and end­ing at 12:30 a.m. All will be going to and from these halls: Bond, Merrill/Travis, and Miller, and also stop­ping at the West Campus Community Center and the Rankin Circle.

Not only can stu­dents come and save 10 per­cent off their total pur­chase, but the pub­lic can also come to shop and save.

Many spon­sors will be there to give out free gifts to all stu­dents to pro­mote their busi­ness. Some new activ­i­ties the stu­dents can enjoy that weren’t around in pre­vi­ous years, accord­ing to Allissa Witucki, Interim Assistant Director of the Student Leadership and Activities Office, are: Rock Band, Mechanical Bull Riding, Games Show with the DJ, Wax Hands, Nintendo Wii, Air Brush Tattoos, cre­ate your own street sign, and dif­fer­ent nov­el­ties to play on.

College sur­vival is key when first com­ing to a uni­ver­sity. Witucki said stu­dents will be handed a “Survival Bag” with all the infor­ma­tion or items a col­lege stu­dent may need in order to sur­vive college.

Survival is impor­tant but this event is lim­it­ing its sale items to stu­dents and the pub­lic. Witucki said stu­dents can save 10 per­cent off their total pur­chase but excludes gro­cery items, C-Stops, HBC, alco­hol, tobacco, pre­scrip­tions, gift cards, lot­tery tick­ets, postage, park and enter­tain­ment tick­ets and lay­aways, and items, includ­ing gas, from the Meijer Gas Station.

Jill Ulch, Customer Service Lines Team Leader for Meijer, said, “Meijer only makes a tenth of a per­cent from every dol­lar that is bought at the store, so we depend more on vol­ume than on margin.”

For this all to hap­pen, Ferris and Meijer met every other week to dis­cuss this year’s Meijer Madness. Meijer got every­thing for its store, Ferris brought the stu­dents, and Y102 brought the sponsors.

Y102 will also bring down the store with non-stop music play­ing inside and out for the entire event, said Jason Schwind of Y102.

Some spon­sors include: The Gate, Mancinos, Little Caesars, the Air Force, and much more.

A vari­ety of items will be out for stu­dents to fish for: food, coupons, pens, cozies, key chains, etc.

Ulch said Meijer makes sure to sell lots of the dorm items for first years. They make sure to have dorm refrig­er­a­tors and Ethernet cables for the dorms, rolls of rugs and bath­room acces­sories as that is what they have sold a lot of in the past.

Ulch sug­gested, for stu­dents, to look for dorm bed sheets because “the dorm beds only take twin extra long bed­ding and not a lot of stores sell that; we have some fun col­ors and designs this year. We only sell them dur­ing the back-to-school season.”

Students don’t for­get your fans. Ulch said Meijer sells lots of fans to stu­dents each year because the dorms don’t have air conditioning.

The Madness is soon to begin so get ready for some free fun and some shop­ping spree savings.

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Allissa Witucki at witchka@ferris.edu or x2674.

Former Bulldog All-American Jake Visser is still hop­ing for a chance to play in the NFL.

What Will Visser Do? NFL $310,000 17 Weeks Practice Squad $88,400 17 Weeks United Football League $35,000 6 Games Teach in Texas $34,000 1 Year

After get­ting a chance at an NFL career with the Houston Texans, for­mer Ferris State defen­sive tackle Jake Visser is with­out a team after being released by the Texans two weeks ago to make ros­ter space.

Visser, a two-time NCAA Division II All-American and Academic All-American, was released by the Houston Texans on Aug. 6. Visser went undrafted in Aprils NFL draft, but signed a free-agent con­tract with the Texans 72 hours after the draft. Visser had been par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Texans off-season pro­gram and tak­ing part in the Texans’ train­ing camp.

The Texans released Visser to open a ros­ter spot after start­ing cor­ner­back Jacques Reeves suf­fered a frac­tured fibula dur­ing a prac­tice ses­sion. The team then signed vet­eran cor­ner­back Deltha O’Neal to help bol­ster their sud­denly depleted defen­sive back­field, which has only one healthy vet­eran cor­ner­back in Fred Bennett.

Visser will now hit the NFL waiver wire, where any team can claim him and add him to their ros­ter, with­out hav­ing to re-negotiate a con­tract with him. If more than one team tries to claim Visser, the team with the worst record would be awarded his rights. The Texans can also reclaim Visser and place him back on their roster.

“My agent has been in con­tact with a cou­ple of teams, but I haven’t heard any­thing per­son­ally from any teams though,” said Visser.

Visser had aspi­ra­tions for an NFL career, but he also had planned for a career out­side of foot­ball. Visser has one class left to take before he can grad­u­ate with a degree in sec­ondary edu­ca­tion and has aspi­ra­tions to become a teacher.

“I’m going to keep my focus on work­ing towards a degree so I can move on with a career in teach­ing,” said Visser.

For now, Visser will have to wait and see if he gets another chance with an NFL fran­chise or if he will have to move on with a career in edu­ca­tion.
“I’m going to keep work­ing towards a career in foot­ball and con­tinue to stay in play­ing shape for the next year or two so that if I get the call from a team, I’ll be ready,” said Visser.

Frivolous lit­i­ga­tion is alive, well, and as ludi­crous as ever.

Warning: area near bot­tlenose dol­phin exhibit may be…

Correct, most peo­ple would assume that the area around the per­form­ing bot­tlenose dol­phin exhibit to be wet. Zoogoer Allecyn Edwards, how­ever, is not one of these peo­ple. Edwards filed a $50,000 law­suit against the Brookfield Zoo on Aug. 20 for a slip and fall she took near the tank in August of 2008.

More ridicu­lous than the fil­ing of the law­suit itself is the detailed claim of the suit. In the claim, Edwards says the zoo, “reck­lessly and will­fully trained and encour­aged the dol­phins to throw water at the stands mak­ing the floor wet and slippery.”

If you are already scratch­ing your head at this point I would urge you to stop, as her the claim gets even more inane.

Edwards fur­ther asserts that the zoo, “failed to pro­vide warn­ings of the slip­pery floor,” and “failed to pro­vide mats when the staff knew that the floor would get wet and slippery.”

Under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, I think Edwards’ claim does “hold water.”

Edwards must have never before been to or even heard men­tion of an attrac­tion like this in her past expe­ri­ences. She also must have had no idea that in places like zoos or those akin to Sea World it is com­mon for guests arrive early to shows of this nature to get the seats near­est to the tank for the spe­cific pur­pose of hav­ing the ani­mals splash water on them. Edwards must also be unfa­mil­iar with the nature of water and how it has the ten­dency to reduce fric­tion between two sur­faces, which may then increase the risk of slipping.

Is per­sonal lia­bil­ity for one’s own actions com­pletely a thing of the past? Perhaps it is no longer the respon­si­bil­ity for indi­vid­u­als to assess assumed risks when going about their daily activ­i­ties. It must be that the owner of one’s instan­ta­neous where­abouts is account­able for that person’s well being.

Instances of friv­o­lous lit­i­ga­tion may make great water-cooler con­ver­sa­tion, but they may also make huge dents in the check­books of the defen­dants involved.

It’s easy to be reminded of that McDonalds cof­fee law­suit in 1994, when a woman named Stella Liebeck sued the com­pany after spilling hot cof­fee on her lap.

The evi­dence pre­sented dur­ing the trial con­vinced the jury that, despite already hav­ing a label present on the cup, the tem­per­a­ture of the cof­fee was unrea­son­ably high and that McDonalds would have to cough up some “McDough” to cover Liebeck’s med­ical costs.

Liebeck suf­fered third degree burns over 6 per­cent of her body after the scald­ing 190° F “McCoffee” spilled onto her lap. The jury in the trial, after being pre­sented with a book­let of over 700 pre­vi­ously filed com­plaints to the cor­po­ra­tion about the tem­per­a­ture that the cof­fee, awarded Liebeck the ini­tial amount of $2.86 mil­lion dol­lars. It is rumored that this amount was the approx­i­mate rev­enue McDonalds receives for two days worth of cof­fee. Ultimately, this amount was low­ered by a judge to $640,000. In the end though, Liebeck ended up set­tling out of court with McDonalds for some undis­closed amount.

Unlike bring­ing suit against a multibillion-dollar cor­po­ra­tion for cof­fee so hot that spilling it on one’s self incurs third degree burns and hos­pi­tal treat­ment includ­ing skin grafts, Edwards is suing a zoo and the orga­ni­za­tion that man­ages it.

The Chicago Zoological Society (CZS), unlike some omi­nous cor­po­rate giant, ded­i­cates its efforts to “inspire con­ser­va­tion lead­er­ship by con­nect­ing peo­ple with wildlife and nature,” accord­ing to their website.

The CZS is well known for sup­port­ing con­ser­va­tion efforts and research around the globe. The orga­ni­za­tion also funds and orga­nizes The Center for Conservation Leaders. The cen­ter orga­nizes out­reach pro­grams that do every­thing rang­ing from sci­en­tific dis­cov­ery pro­grams for tod­dlers, vol­un­teer intern­ships for col­lege and high school stu­dents, to pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment pro­grams for envi­ron­men­tally minded researchers and edu­ca­tors.
Edwards is fil­ing the $50,000 suit in Illois’ Circuit Court in Cook County for lost wages, med­ical expenses and the “emo­tional trauma” she suf­fered at the tyran­ni­cal fins of the bot­tlenose dol­phins and due to the zoo’s alleged negligence.

I am not against hold­ing cor­po­ra­tions account­able when they are neg­li­gent but with cer­tain activ­i­ties there is assumed some per­sonal risk. Individuals are respon­si­ble for assess­ing this risk and act­ing as they feel would be best for their per­sonal safety. Steps becom­ing wet and slip­pery is a pre­dictable and rea­son­able result of a dol­phin show at a zoo. I can only hope that if this goes to trial a jury awards this woman noth­ing but the sug­ges­tion to watch her step and get some com­mon sense.

Number Name Position Class 1 Katie Edwards Outside Hitter Senior 2 Amanda Kettlewell Outside Hitter Senior 3 Brianna Grover Outside Hitter Freshman 4 Dana Ruttle Libero Junior 5 Arielle Goodson Middle Hitter Junior 6 Paige Wyers Setter Freshman 7 Anne Sutton Middle Hitter Redshirt Freshman 8 Ashley Huntey Outside Hitter Sophomore 9 Sarah Lark Middle Hitter Senior 10 Lindsey Miller Middle Hitter Freshman 11 Samantha Fordyce Setter Redshirt Freshman 12 Lisa Tobiczyk Libero Sophomore 13 Whitney Rupp Libero Junior 15 Danielle Hamilton Middle Hitter Junior 16 Mallory Kopa Middle Hitter Sophomore 17 Aly Brecht Outside Hitter Redshirt Freshman 18 Angi Kent Middle Hitter Freshman 19 Karen Thompson Outside Hitter Sophomore 20 Kristy Gilchrist Middle Hitter Senior

With the fall semes­ter start­ing in less than a week, many stu­dents are bogged down with thoughts of books and home­work. Even though the begin­ning of the semes­ters her­alds the return to the daily grind, school does not always have to be all work and no play.

There are more than 210 Registered Student Organizations (RSO) to occupy stu­dent inter­ests. These orga­ni­za­tions vary from sports, faith-based, media and enter­tain­ment, soror­i­ties and fra­ter­ni­ties, pol­i­tics, music, the­atre, mul­ti­cul­tural, diverse sexual-orientation, and col­lege depart­ments clubs.

Fraternities and Sororities are some of the first stu­dent orga­ni­za­tions that come to many stu­dents’ mind when con­sid­er­ing cam­pus involve­ment. Ferris State University has many chap­ters of Greek com­mu­ni­ties. Contrary to how fra­ter­ni­ties and soror­i­ties are por­trayed in movies and on tele­vi­sion, these orga­ni­za­tions par­tic­i­pate in the com­mu­nity and help stu­dents gain employ­able skills.

Nicole Raymond, a tech­ni­cal and pro­fes­sional com­mu­ni­ca­tion and pub­lish­ing major, is a mem­ber of Sigma Tau Delta, which is the English hon­ors society.

“Networking is the key ele­ment of being a part of any orga­ni­za­tion on cam­pus, know­ing the right peo­ple is some­thing that can help you along your job search,” said Raymond. “Honestly, the biggest thing I have learned is net­work­ing and know­ing some­one who knows some­one is a hid­den “in” when job searching.”

The Black Greek Council Fraternities & Sororities, Interfraternity Council, and Professional Fraternities & Sororities are also orga­ni­za­tions on campus.

Although Ferris has its own foot­ball team among other sports, there are sev­eral club sports for stu­dents to enjoy. Jessie Hunt, busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion and human resource major, recalls join­ing the Athletic Dance Team her fresh­man year.

“I was a dancer all my life so it was nice that Ferris had a dance team so that I could con­tinue to do what I love,” said Hunt, May 2009 grad­u­ate. “I joined my fresh­man year and made manys friends, attended lots of social events, and learned a lot about how to sur­vive in the col­lege life from my peers.”

Hunt, who even­tu­ally became the pres­i­dent of the dance team, said that being in a leaderhship posi­tion taught her about self dis­ci­pline, man­age­ment, and group dynam­ics. Even though she was a busi­ness major, Hunt said that danc­ing skills helped her relate to her pro­fes­sors and apply their lessons for both busi­ness and dance worlds. She also believes she would not have been involved on cam­pus if she had not been apart of the dance team.

Equestrian, base­ball, bowl­ing, paint­ball, adven­ture rac­ing, disc golf, hockey, soc­cer, table ten­nis, mar­tial arts, the unquiely definded hip-hop dance team, and men’s and women’s rugby, lacrosse,and vol­ley­ball are included in Ferris club sports.

Keith Horvath, tele­vi­sion and dig­i­tal media pro­duc­tion major, has sev­eral clubs to keep him busy. Horvath is the pres­i­dent of the Improv the­ater group and cur­rently par­tic­i­pates in Bulldog Radio.

“I remem­ber being a DJ at the Honors Formal last year and it was a lot of fun and really awe­some,” said Horvath. “Being able to be a part of the rea­son peo­ple were hav­ing fun was was a pretty cool feel­ing and made such an amaz­ing night.”

Student orga­ni­za­tions not only help kill bore­dom, RSOs also give stu­dents a sense of belong­ing and help them assim­i­late into col­lege cul­ture. According to FSU coun­sel­ing ser­vices, stu­dents who par­tic­i­pate in cam­pus organizations/activities have higher GPAs and gen­er­ally cope with stress bet­ter than those who are not involved.

RSOs also look good on resumes and help stu­dents land an intern­ship or job post grad­u­a­tion. Horvath agrees that par­tic­i­pat­ing has helped with their resume.

“Having just one RSO shows employ­ers you can com­mit to some­thing and you can bal­ance your time,” said Horvath.

Now enter­ing the work world, Hunt wants to encour­age all stu­dents to get involved in a club sport or stu­dent organization.

“What are you wait­ing for? There are so many peo­ple to meet, things to see and do, life lessons to be learned, and you’ll miss out on great expe­ri­ences if you don’t,” said Hunt.

For more infor­ma­tion about RSOs visit the Ferris reg­is­ters stu­dent orga­ni­za­tions web­page at fer​ris​.edu or go to Rankin 175.

Campus Fun

Aug. 28 — Movie in the Quad – “Up”, 9 p.m., Quad

Aug. 29 — Rockin’ in the Rec, 9 p.m. – 12 a.m., Rec Center

Aug. 30 — Caricature Artists, 12 p.m. – 4 p.m., Rankin Center Atrium

Sept. 1 - Golden Dragon Acrobats, 7 p.m., Williams Auditorium

Off Campus

Aug. 26 - FSU Unplugged, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m., Biggby Coffee

Aug. 28 - Meijer Madness, 9 p.m. – 12 a.m., Meijer

Concerts/Shows

Aug. 25 - Journey, 7:30 p.m., Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids

Aug. 25 – Aug. 30 - Disney’s High School Musical, Times vary, DeVos Performance Hall, Grand Rapids

Aug. 26 — Organissimo, 7 p.m., Big Rapids Band shell

Aug. 26 – Aug. 28 - Grand Rapids Film Festival, Times listed at grfilm​fes​ti​val​.com, Celebration Cinema, Grand Rapids

Aug. 28 - James Otto, 8 p.m., The Intersection, Grand Rapids

Aug. 28 – Aug. 29 - Michigan Film Festival, Times listed at michi​gan​film​fest​.org, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids

Aug. 29 - Rockin’ from the Roof, 1p.m. – 5 p.m., Frontline Community Church, Grand Rapids

Sept. 1 - Musician Paco Padilla, 7:30 p.m., Spectrum Theatre, Grand Rapids n

Intramural sports are start­ing up once again as the new semes­ter begins

Intramural sports will start up once again this fall, but which ones will be offered is yet to be determined.

University Recreation (UREC) offers many dif­fer­ent intra­mural sports over the fall and win­ter semes­ters. The cost ranges from $40 to $125, depend­ing on the sport. Each league is sep­a­rated into three spe­cific cat­e­gories: skill level, gen­der and affiliation.

UREC direc­tor Cindy Horn said that it has not yet been decided which sports to offer for the fall 2009 semes­ter. Horn indi­cated that dis­cus­sions are tak­ing place and the infor­ma­tion should be posted on the UREC web­site by the end of the week. For addi­tional infor­ma­tion, con­tact UREC at phone num­ber x2679.

Sports Offered

• Softball
• Flag Football
• Soccer
• Volleyball
• Sand Volleyball
• Ice Hockey
• Floor Hockey
• Roller Hockey
• Breakdown

Breakdown

Skill Level: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

Gender: Men’s, Women’s, Co-Rec

Affiliation: Greek, Open, Residence Hall

Lawn chairs and blan­kets will be needed as you head down to the quad for this year’s movie, Disney and Pixar’s “Up.”

The movie is being shown Friday, Aug. 28 at 9 p.m. in the cam­pus quad.

“Up” is a story about a 78-year-old man who dreamed of see­ing South America as a young boy. Now he, along with his house and a stow­away boy, are in for an adven­ture of a lifetime.

This movie was cho­sen by Orientation lead­ers as part of Welcome Week and is being spon­sored by the Bulldog Beginnings Committee.

This is the third movie being shown this sum­mer on a ran­dom basis.

Teresa Fogel, stu­dent activ­i­ties assis­tant, said the weather did not coop­er­ate with the pre­vi­ous two. Instead, the movies were shown in the Rankin TV lounge. If the weather does not coop­er­ate this week, the movie will be shown in the Williams Auditorium the orig­i­nally planned time.

No admis­sion fee is required.

The Ranking Student Center and Dining Services will be donat­ing free pop­corn that Phi Sigma Kappa vol­un­teered to make for all audi­ence mem­bers. Dining Services were able to get Vitamin Water Company employ­ees to bring trucks to the Quad to pass out free water as well.

“Movies in the quad have been part of a long tra­di­tion that both stu­dents and com­mu­nity mem­bers have enjoyed. With the movie being played on the big screen, hun­dreds of peo­ple are fas­ci­nated by it and end up stay­ing to watch the movie”, said Fogel.

It also gives peo­ple the feel­ing that they are at a drive-in movie with their friends.

This activ­ity is a way to get out­side, make friends, and hang out with old ones all the while watch­ing a fun-filled fam­ily movie.

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Fogel at fogelt@ferris.edu or x5936.