Life is fair, if you are lucky enough to be thin

The impres­sion we make by our phys­i­cal appear­ance may or may not be by choice. People observe some phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tic and then, either know­ingly or not, asso­ciate per­son­al­ity traits with the ones they can see.

Neon hair and facial pierc­ings com­monly con­vey non-conformity. Those who wear glasses are asso­ci­ated with the char­ac­ter­is­tic of intel­li­gence. There are other bla­tant aspects of appear­ance though that are not cos­metic and can­not be so eas­ily changed.

Height, skin color, and gen­der are accepted as unchange­able aspects of a person’s phys­i­cal appear­ance, and, as such, soci­ety has deemed it unac­cept­able to attribute per­son­al­ity traits based on these fea­tures. Unfortunately, body weight is not included on this list.

Body weight seems to be the last phys­i­cal aspect against which our soci­ety and laws deem it per­mis­si­ble to be discriminatory.

Currently, there is no fed­eral law mak­ing it ille­gal for employ­ers to dis­crim­i­nate on the basis of weight. Only one state, Michigan, has laws against this.

These laws, or rather lack thereof, do not strictly con­cern occu­pa­tions where size could affect per­for­mance. This means that it is entirely legal in any state besides Michigan for employ­ers to deny an appli­cant because they don’t like fat people.

If body weight was indica­tive of job per­for­mance, I sup­pose that I could not fault an employer for doing what is in the company’s best inter­est. However, a recent study out of Michigan State University found that, con­trary to social stig­mas, over­weight work­ers were not lazier, more emo­tion­ally unsta­ble or harder to get along with than their “nor­mal weight” colleagues.

“Previous research has demon­strated that many employ­ers hold neg­a­tive stereo­types about obese work­ers, and those beliefs con­tribute to dis­crim­i­na­tion against over­weight work­ers at vir­tu­ally every stage of the employ­ment process, from hir­ing to pro­mo­tion to fir­ing,” said Mark Roehling, the scholar who headed the research.

With the past year serv­ing as an excep­tion, I had been obese my entire life. As I began to lose weight, I noticed changes in the way I was treated by oth­ers. The minor things are the ones that I have noticed the most, like more pass­ing smiles on the side­walk and more doors being held open for me. I have to won­der though, why I am sud­denly now more deserv­ing of social niceties.

I can say from expe­ri­ence, that with every pound I lost, I was treated with more kind­ness and respect from peo­ple I did not know.

What I have come to think is that the main­te­nance of social stig­mas regard­ing weight has to do with the idea of fault. Most peo­ple would agree that los­ing weight is dif­fi­cult and some may even rec­og­nize that there may be a genetic pre­dis­po­si­tion to obe­sity. Many of these same peo­ple would still find a per­son “at fault” for being above the ideal weight.

This then leads to a line of thought that since a per­son is at fault, or they “choose” to be over­weight, then it is accept­able to judge them for a choice because it is some­thing that they could con­trol or change.

I can say defin­i­tively that no one wants or chooses to be obese. No one would ever choose to be treated with less dig­nity, respect and love by their fel­low human beings on a daily basis.

Losing weight is one of the hard­est things a per­son can do and is there­fore not some­thing one can read­ily or sim­ply change. It is unfair that neg­a­tive stig­mas are still asso­ci­ated with body weight. Personal atti­tudes toward body weight being allowed to affect one’s right to fair treat­ment how­ever, is far, far beyond unfair.

The legal­ity of dis­crim­i­na­tion based on weight is unciv­i­lized, une­d­u­cated, uncom­pas­sion­ate and unjust.

The Bulldogs look to improve on poor fin­ish from a sea­son ago

The Bulldogs head into the 2009–2010 sea­son with 21 return­ing let­ter­win­ners from last year.

Ferris fin­ished the 2008–2009 sea­son with five losses in its final six reg­u­lar sea­son con­tests. In the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) play­offs, the Bulldogs were swept by the University of Nebraska-Omaha on the road in a first round exit.

This sea­son, the Bulldogs will lean on the expe­ri­ence of their defense to carry the team. The defense fin­ished fifth in the CCHA in goals allowed a year ago and seven of the eight defense­men have returned. The unit is so deep that head coach Bob Daniels believes he will have trou­ble decid­ing which play­ers to dress.

“I think it is going be a real headache for me though,” said Daniels, “I can already see real issues in try­ing to decide the six defense­men dressing.”

Goals allowed are not mea­sured solely by the defen­sive play, but by goal­tend­ing as well. Daniels said that the goalie posi­tion is still a ques­tion mark in terms of who will be the starter on open­ing night. Daniels would like the goal­tend­ing to improve this season.

“It was ade­quate for our team,” said Daniels. “We want to be a cham­pi­onship team, but we need cham­pi­onship goaltending.”

Junior Pat Nagle started 22 of the team’s 38 games last sea­son and had a 2.29 goals against aver­age (GAA) in con­fer­ence play. Sophomore Taylor Nelson started 16 games and recorded a 2.39 GAA, while senior Jordan Barber did not appear in any con­tests. Regardless of who starts, Daniels said he wants one of them to step up into the start­ing role.

“I’d to see one of them really step up, if not both, and make a run at CCHA goalie of the year,” said Daniels.

The offense is the biggest ques­tion mark for the team, accord­ing to Daniels. A sea­son ago, the Bulldogs ranked 10th in the CCHA in goals scored. The offense was expe­ri­enced last year and was sup­posed to carry the team.

“Last year I thought going in the strength of our team was going to be our offense,” said Daniels.

Ferris lost three of its top seven point-scorers from last sea­son, includ­ing Brendan Connolly, who led all play­ers with 28 points. There are, how­ever, many play­ers on the ros­ter that had lower goals and assists last sea­son than the pre­vi­ous year.

“The good news is, within our locker room, we have guys that have had good years,” said Daniels, “they just didn’t have them last year.”

Daniels said there is a pos­si­bil­ity of mov­ing a defense­man to for­ward on a given night if the offense needs some help.

“I’m not going to limit myself to keep­ing guys in the stands if we can find a way that they could help us,” said Daniels.

Senior cen­ter Cody Chupp will serve as the team cap­tain for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive sea­son. Daniels said that Chupp is a good stu­dent, a mature player, and an extremely hard worker. Assistant cap­tains have not been selected, but Daniels said he will announce them dur­ing the season.

Ferris begins the 2009–2010 sea­son with an exhi­bi­tion game against Wilfred Laurier on Oct. 4 at 2:00 p.m. in Ewigleben Ice Arena.

Jared Crockett, a full-time Ferris stu­dent and Big Rapids cit­i­zen, has recently decided to try his hand at local politics.

Crockett, 33, decided to chal­lenge incum­bent Mark Warba in the may­oral elec­tion that will take place late in November. Crockett has never ran for office before, but said that he wanted to bring together the Ferris and Big Rapids communities.

“This town would be noth­ing with­out the stu­dents, and the stu­dents would have noth­ing if the peo­ple who lived here didn’t work at the place that they want to go to,” said Crockett.

Crockett is a pub­lic rela­tions major at Ferris and a bar­tender at Applebee’s. He has lived in Big Rapids for the major­ity of his life, pro­vid­ing him with a knowl­edge of the peo­ple of the area.

“I’d like to think that so many peo­ple know me that peo­ple will swing by my house and tell me about their prob­lems,” said Crockett.

He cited the fact that with the recent pres­i­den­tial elec­tion last November, around 2,000 new stu­dents reg­is­tered to vote in Big Rapids and would be eli­gi­ble to vote in this elec­tion as well. He plans on reach­ing out to the Ferris com­mu­nity to get reg­is­tered stu­dents to vote in the elec­tion. He recently vis­ited the local estab­lish­ment Different by Design to acquire cam­paign paraphernalia.

“I really don’t know how to get stu­dents to care about city issues,” said Crockett.

Some of the points that he men­tioned in a recent inter­view that he wants to con­cen­trate on include allow­ing soror­ity houses within the city, improv­ing off cam­pus stu­dent hous­ing, and allow­ing fra­ter­ni­ties to dis­play their let­ters on the out­side of their house.

Crockett was very prag­matic about his chances. Warba, the cur­rent mayor, is an attor­ney and has served one term as Big Rapids mayor. In the pre­vi­ous elec­tion, Warba won with a total of 690 votes.

“I’m the underdog…but I’m going to give it my all…I’m ready for it. I’m just enough in the pub­lic eye where peo­ple can talk to me,” said Crockett.

Being some­one who has not been pre­vi­ously involved in pol­i­tics, Crockett wants to come off as not intim­i­dat­ing and some­one who is avail­able at any time to be reached about city problems.

“If you have a prob­lem, swing by. You don’t have to go to a city coun­cil meet­ing, just come by my house on a Sunday when I’m watch­ing the [Detroit] Lions,” said Crockett.

When dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of doing a may­oral debate, Crockett said he would be inter­ested, but was unsure of what the turnout would be.

He also said that with Ferris cel­e­brat­ing its 125th anniver­sary this year, being the first Ferris stu­dent to be elected mayor would make it all that much more exciting.

Although he dis­cussed a vari­ety of issues both city and stu­dent related, Crockett mainly stressed his desire of unit­ing the Big Rapids and Ferris communities.

“My slo­gan is…one city, one uni­ver­sity, one com­mu­nity,” said Crockett.

Tailgating brings peo­ple together before the game

Tailgating goes back for over a hun­dred years with no sign of stop­ping soon.

According to tail​gat​ing​.com, tail­gat­ing was first started in 1869 when the first col­lege foot­ball game between the Rutgers and Princeton.

Tailgating often thought of as a way to sup­port a team and and social­ize with other fans has pro­gressed since the 19th cen­tury into a ver­i­ta­ble tradition.

FSU stu­dent, Jen Likowski, said “Tailgating is fun because you can relax, hang out with friends all day, enjoy great food and bev­er­ages of any choice, and then of course, there is the football.”

Tailgating is the cel­e­bra­tion in the park­ing lot, and the com­mis­sioner of tail­gat­ing knows it, because he cre­ated it.

Joe Cahn, not your aver­age Joe, is the com­mis­sioner of tail­gat­ing. He sold his house and his New Orleans cook­ing school, bought a motor home and “hit the road to explore what he calls ‘the new American community—tailgate par­ties,’ accord­ing to tail​gat​ing​.com.

“It’s the last great American neighborhood—the tail­gat­ing neighborhood—where no one locks their doors, every­one is happy to see you and all are together shar­ing fun, food and foot­ball. It’s the fam­i­lies.  It’s the fans.  It’s a com­mu­nity social.  It’s pre-game, half­time, post-game and more.  It’s the total game day expe­ri­ence,” said Cahn on tail​gat​ing​.com

Cahn is cred­ited as the world’s only pro­fes­sional tailgater.

“During his Tailgating America Tours he has used 83, 397 gal­lons of gas to travel to all 31 NFL sta­di­ums, over 123 col­lege sta­di­ums, and nine NASCAR tracks, tail­gated with hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple and served more than 326 pots of Jambalaya.”

Food being one of the most impor­tant aspects of tail­gat­ing, par­ties have a vari­ety of rang­ing from hot dogs to burg­ers and ribs.

Food is con­trib­u­tory to the atmos­phere, in addi­ton to games like lad­der ball and bean bag toss. There are some rules regard­ing mod­er­a­tion and the amount of space one is allowed to uti­lize. For that list per­tain­ing to Ferris, con­sult the stu­dent pol­icy hand­book, or just look at the copy below.

Football Tailgate Policy

Campus Fun

Sept. 30

Ferris’ Best Comic Auditions, 8:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m., Rankin Center 155

Terry McKay: Director of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service: Identifying our Mission, 7 p.m. – 8 p.m., BUS 111

Fall Job Fair Networking Reception, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., Rankin Center Dome Room

Tres Vidas, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m., Williams Auditorium

BBC Trivia Game, 9 a.m. – 11 a.m., near Starbucks, and 2 p.m. – 4 p.m., FLITE entrance

Oct. 1

Fall Job Fair, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., Wink Arena

OMSS: Hispanic Heritage Month Discussion: Hispanics in America, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m., Rankin Center Founder’s Room 238

Oct. 4–10

Homecoming, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m., var­i­ous loca­tions around campus

Oct. 5

“What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?,” 7 p.m. – 8 p.m., Rankin Center Dome Room

Off Campus

Oct. 3

2009 General Federation of Women’s Clubs Big Rapids Home Tour, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., var­i­ous homes in Big Rapids

Oct. 5

Book talk and sign­ing: Literature in Person Reading Series Presents: John Rybicki, 3 p.m. – 4 p.m., Great Lakes Book and Supply

Concerts/Shows

Oct. 1

Ghost Hunter: Chris Fleming, 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., Williams Auditorium

Tuba Bach Concert 4: Happy Octuba!, 4 p.m. – 6 p.m., Big Rapids High School Auditorium

Half of the pro­ceeds from the “Battle at the Ballpark” game will sup­port the Bulldog Athletic Program

The “Battle at the Ballpark” foot­ball game is going to be a big event, accord­ing to Associate Athletics Director Jon Coles.

The Bulldogs will be fac­ing off against the Michigan Tech Huskies on Saturday, Oct. 3 at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park, Mich. Kickoff is set to begin at 7 p.m. on the main home field.

“Normally, we have five home games, this year we have six and we wanted to do some­thing cre­ative,” said Coles. He said the Ferris State and Michigan Tech game will be the sec­ond col­lege foot­ball game to take place at Fifth Third Ball Park. Grand Valley ver­sus Wayne State bat­tled in the inau­gural match in 2007. Proceeds are to be split evenly between the Bulldog Football Program fundraiser and Fifth Third Ballpark. All pro­ceeds will be raised from ticket, con­ces­sion and spon­sor­ship sales. Coles said the money raised for the Bulldog Football Program would cre­ate more oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dent athletes.

“Financially, it’s a great sit­u­a­tion,” said Coles of the deci­sion to split the proceeds.

“If all goes well, the profit to both of us (Bulldog Football Program and Fifth Third Ball Park) will be about any­where from $60,000 to $64, 000,” said Coles. He added, “We’re hop­ing to come home with at least $30,000.”

Coles said the gross total rev­enue would be around $100,000.

Taking out the expenses, every­thing else is strictly profit, accord­ing to Coles.

Pregame activ­i­ties include an an Army Virtual Station, which is a sim­u­la­tor that will let fans expe­ri­ence what it’s like to be an American sol­dier. There will be a bean­bag toss tour­na­ment spon­sored by The Gate, as well as two rock bands, Saraph and Sargent Avenue, who will be play­ing out­side the stadium.

Rocket foot­ball games for youth will take place in the morn­ing before the game. There will also be tail­gat­ing, a rock-climbing wall brought in the by the National Guard. During the half­time show, the Michigan Tech Band will be per­form­ing. But with all these inven­tives, stu­dents are still mixed on whether or not they plan to attend.

“I think it’s extremely com­pli­cated to go watch a foot­ball game,” said Alyssa Anderson, weld­ing and engi­neer­ing tech­nol­ogy student.

Patrick Cavanaugh, biol­ogy stu­dent, said, “My cousin plays for Michigan Tech, so I’m going to watch it.”

While alco­holic bev­er­ages are not nor­mally served at foot­ball games, they will be served at the Battle at the Ballpark game to those 21 and older.

Tickets are cur­rently for sale and can be pur­chased in advance at the FSU Athletics Ticket Office. The cost for stu­dents is $5, $10 for the pub­lic. There will be free shut­tle bus rides to the game, that leave at 3:30 p.m. from Top Taggart field.

For more infor­ma­tion about the event, visit fer​ris​state​bull​dogs​.com.

Volleyball team splits week­end matches

The Bulldog vol­ley­ball team spilt two home meet­ings this weekend.

Ferris began the week­end with a matchup against Saginaw Valley State on Friday, los­ing in straight sets.

The Bulldogs fell behind by 10 points in the first set, but man­aged to pull within five points late in the match, only to fall 25–19.

The sec­ond set proved to be more com­pet­i­tive for Ferris. The Bulldogs led late in the set 26–25, but could not hold on as Saginaw Valley responded with three straight points to close out the set, 28–26.

Saginaw Valley con­tin­ued its momen­tum from the end of the sec­ond set, jump­ing out to a 3–0 lead to start the third. Ferris was unable to over­come the fast start and strug­gled through the rest of the set, ulti­mately los­ing 25–16.

Junior Arielle Goodson led the way with 10 kills and added four blocks. Redshirt fresh­man Samantha Fordyce car­ried the Bulldogs in assists, notch­ing 30 of the team’s 31 assists. Senior Kristy Gilchrist tal­lied the most digs for the team with 11, while sopho­more Lisa Tobiczyk and sopho­more Ashley Huntey each had 10 digs.

The Bulldogs reclaimed home-court advan­tage on Saturday and com­pleted a sweep of their own, win­ning in three straight sets against Lake Superior State.

Ferris raced to an 8–1 lead early in the first set and posted a 12–5 run dur­ing the mid­dle of the set. Lake Superior State never recov­ered as Ferris went on to con­vinc­ingly win the set, 25–10.

The sec­ond set was closer, as Lake Superior State man­aged to force a 10–10 tie early in the match. Ferris responded with four straight points and never trailed after that, despite a late rally by Lake Superior State that pulled them within two points. The Bulldogs shut the door on the come­back with three kills and an ace, win­ning the match 25–20.

Ferris jumped out to 13–5 advan­tage early in the set. Lake Superior State man­aged to rally to within five points fol­low­ing the run, but could never over­come the quick start by Ferris. The Bulldogs took advan­tage of mul­ti­ple errors by Lake Superior State and com­pleted the sweep with a 25–16 vic­tory in the final set.

Freshman Anne Sutton led the team with a match-high 13 kills. Redshirt fresh­man Samantha Fordyce had a match-high 27 assists for Ferris, scor­ing 27 of the team’s 34 assists. Sophomores Lisa Tobiczyk and Ashley Huntey led the team in digs, with 12 and five respectively.

After this weekend’s home stand, the Bulldogs improved their record to 12–5 over­all and boosted their con­fer­ence record to 5–2. The Bulldogs are cur­rently in first place in the GLIAC North Division.

Ferris will be back in action next week­end with two matches on the road. The Bulldogs will face Findlay on Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. and will play Hillsdale on Oct. 3 at 2 p.m. Hillsdale cur­rently leads the South Division with a 6–1 con­fer­ence record.

Being a col­lege stu­dent, cafe­te­ria food gets old very fast. Fast food also gets old and gets expen­sive as well.

Here is a deli­cious and easy recipe that any­body can mix in with any food on an aver­age day. They are both a sta­ple in my home and in my family.

Mandarin Orange Salad

Ingredients

• 1 cup of boil­ing water (on stove or in microwave)
• 1 large box orange jello
• ½ quart orange sherbet
• 1 large cool whip
• 1 large can of man­darin oranges

Steps

Cost: under $10

Until recently, my post-graduation plan had been sim­ply the oblig­a­tory “get a job and pay off stu­dent debt”. I say until recently because I’ve spent the last week and a half comb­ing through pos­si­ble sit­u­a­tions for the next chap­ter of my life.

As a senior in the col­lege of busi­ness, I have a lot of options. Grad school, find­ing a job, meet­ing a rich older woman; there are so many choices to be made.

So, I’ve begun to use Petersons​.com, a web util­ity to help indi­vid­u­als search, plan, orga­nize and pre­pare for even higher roles in acad­e­mia. There are resources for finan­cial aid, study tools for the GMAT, GRE, MCAT, LSAT and all of the other assess­ments. Entire pages are devoted to prepar­ing per­sonal state­ments and mar­ket­ing your­self to schools.

Likewise, I’ve started to draft let­ters of inter­est — like a cover let­ter, but a lit­tle more ask­ing and a lit­tle less telling. Preparing to send these out to poten­tial employ­ers and putting thumb­tacks on a map of places I refuse to live (Texas).

Above all, the most help­ful and fas­ci­nat­ing part of this process is talk­ing to other peo­ple about it.

Do you have a tip or a ques­tion about Grad school, the job hunt or any­thing else regard­ing plans for your post under­grad­u­ate life? Send them to torch@ferris.edu, or com­ment on this story on fer​ris​.edu/​t​o​rch.

The his­tor­i­cal aer­ial photo dis­play was shown in the Rankin Art Gallery for a month

Aerial pho­tos are always cool to look at, but look­ing at a school’s trans­for­ma­tion over decades is even better.

Not only were there aer­ial pho­tos of the Ferris cam­pus, but also old, antique machines not used any­where any­more, and an exam­ple would be an old camera.

The dis­play was very cool and inter­est­ing because not did it only show us Ferris’ trans­for­ma­tion over years and years, but the pho­tog­ra­pher and art direc­tor cre­ated an “I Spy” theme along with it.

Next to every pic­ture was a lit­tle box that asked us if we can find cer­tain build­ings and asked where to find the loca­tion future build­ings would be, which are around now.

I liked the way they did that because it kept view­ers inter­ested in the pic­tures and actu­ally made us look at the pic­tures for longer peri­ods of time.

I never knew what Ferris looked like with­out the Quad, with­out FLITE being as big as it is now, and with­out some halls that are here today.

The exhibit showed how both Big Rapids and Ferris changed dras­ti­cally because of the college’s popularity.

As Ferris recently cel­e­brated its 125th anniver­sary or birth­day, the pho­tos are more mem­o­rable then ever.

It’s always good to see how far a school has come and how far it may go in the future.