Stanwood wants to estab­lish a top­less bar called Gentlemen 131 within the next year.

Have you seen our movie the­atre, restau­rants and shop­ping cen­ters? No, of course you haven’t, because there are barely any of those as it is. To those of you say­ing this club will gen­er­ate busi­ness which will lead to more jobs and prof­its, I say no way.

I have a lot of respect for the female pop­u­la­tion in this city and believe we are a lit­tle classier than work­ing at a top­less bar. I would hope most girls hold them­selves to higher stan­dards than tak­ing off their shirt for a cou­ple bucks. If this is true, the club would have a small selec­tion of girls will­ing to work there. (more…)

While sit­ting in a class in Johnson Hall, I can hear the bass being played out­side, through the build­ing, in the street com­ing from stu­dents’ cars.

Not that I mind the dis­trac­tion from class, but I am always shocked I can hear the bass from so far away. I can’t help but think of why peo­ple are play­ing their music so loud, espe­cially the bass. It’s not cool and it’s espe­cially not good for your ears. (more…)

The gun­shot went off. Their feet started mov­ing. They all ran so fast. Then it was my turn. I was the final leg of the team. I could make or break the suc­cess of the relay. As soon as the baton hit my hand, I ran faster than I ever had before, feel­ing as if some­one was chas­ing me.

I rounded the cor­ner of the track only to real­ize I was ahead of every­one else. That is when I real­ized our team could win. I ran faster until I crossed the fin­ish line. My mile relay team broke our school record that day. I fin­ished my lap in a minute and nine sec­onds. (more…)

On March 14, Greg Smith, for­mer Goldman Sachs exec­u­tive direc­tor, resigned from his posi­tion through a pub­lic col­umn in The New York Times dis­grac­ing one of the world’s largest invest­ment banks.

He claimed Goldman Sachs’ val­ues changed since he began work­ing for the firm straight out of col­lege. Smith noted a few key points as to why he was resign­ing. One being the com­pany was sim­ply focused on mak­ing money for the firm and not mak­ing deci­sions on what was best for the clients. Smith said lead­er­ship used to be about “ideas, set­ting an exam­ple and doing the right thing.” Now he saw lead­er­ship within the com­pany as who­ever makes the most money will be pro­moted. (more…)

After being away from a com­puter, a TV and pretty much any means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion for five days dur­ing my vaca­tion to Florida, I didn’t think I had missed too much fuss in the news over spring break.

Shortly after check­ing out my emails and the hot top­ics online after com­ing back to Michigan, I was struck with the story about Kony 2012.

If you haven’t heard of this yet, Kony 2012 is a cam­paign started by Invisible Children, a U.S. Charity, in order to raise money to aid in the cap­ture of Joseph Kony. (more…)

We’ve spent the past eight weeks try­ing to sur­vive through home­work, meet­ings, pre­sen­ta­tions and snow just wait­ing for spring break.

I’ve been count­ing down the days until this care-free week and now it’s almost here. Anyone who can afford a trip away from the cold weather will prob­a­bly be head­ing out of Big Rapids within the next few days. (more…)

I attended the Leadership Summit Conference at Grand Valley State University this past week­end and found myself lis­ten­ing to a pre­sen­ta­tion about LinkedIn, the largest pro­fes­sional net­work on the Internet.

I was fas­ci­nated that 150 mil­lion mem­bers from more than 200 coun­tries are con­stantly search­ing for new employ­ees or new employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. According to the LinkedIn com­pany overview at linkedin​.com, their mem­bers con­ducted over 4.2 bil­lion pro­fes­sional ori­ented searches in 2011. (more…)

“I pulled my back reach­ing for the but­ter in the refrigerator.”

This was one of the funny “stu­dent excuses” I came across after read­ing count­less real-life dilem­mas stu­dents have told their pro­fes­sors as to why they missed class online. You know the drill. I had car trou­ble. I was sick. I couldn’t get my paper to print. I was work­ing. I had no time and so on. (more…)

My brother told me he checked the Asian-American box to his ACT appli­ca­tion because he wanted to appear more intel­li­gent than what his results may have showed. He was also being a smart-alec, so who knows if it is actu­ally true.

A recent arti­cle from Boston University’s Here and Now web­site claimed some­thing dif­fer­ent is hap­pen­ing with col­lege admis­sion appli­ca­tions. Asian-Americans are pur­posely not mark­ing what eth­nic back­ground they belong to because of the high expec­ta­tions that come along with it. (more…)

If you’ve ever been in a long dis­tance rela­tion­ship, you know how dif­fi­cult they may be and you may miss you sig­nif­i­cant other more than you’ve ever imagined.

For those who are cur­rently in one, or may have to be apart from their loved one for some time, there is a new prod­uct you may want to hear about. It is called “Pillow Talk.” (more…)