The Ferris State University Department of Public Safety explained to the Torch what the pro­ce­dures and pro­to­col are for a non-specific bomb threat after one was left on a voice­mail in the Business Office at the Timme Center two weeks ago.

Martin Bledsoe, direc­tor of pub­lic safety, said there is an emer­gency response and dis­as­ter con­trol plan. (more…)

When I first heard there was a bomb threat, I was wait­ing to receive a text mes­sage from Ferris’ text mes­sage emer­gency alert system.

I waited for it, and waited. Finally, at 12:12 p.m., the text mes­sage came through warn­ing stu­dents of the threat. But wait, wasn’t the voice­mail left around 8 a.m.? The fact that I received the text mes­sage more than four hours later con­cerns me. (more…)

If you’ve been fol­low­ing the race to the pres­i­dency, you may have noticed the obvi­ous flaws of the poten­tial candidates.

For exam­ple, one of the run­ners, Mitt Romney, the for­mer gov­er­nor of Massachusetts, came under fire recently for an inci­dent that occurred back in the 1980s when Romney tied his dog in a ken­nel to the roof of his car and drove to Canada, accord­ing to an arti­cle from Reuters. (more…)

Enrollment increase for spring 2012 semes­ter

Ferris State University offi­cials are report­ing an increase in enroll­ment for the spring 2012 semester.

Ferris’ stu­dent pop­u­la­tion is up by 162 stu­dents from the spring 2011 semes­ter to 13,705 stu­dents, which is a one per­cent increase. According to a press release from University News, the area that expe­ri­enced a major­ity of growth between the spring semes­ters is in online edu­ca­tion, where the num­ber of stu­dents has increased from 147 to a total of 789 for spring 2012. (more…)

Gregory and his son, Karl, went on a trip to Kuito, Angola, Africa to train six men on how to drill water wells. Prior to tak­ing the trip, Gregory said his pas­tor had taken a cou­ple of well drillers over to Africa to train the men. The pas­tor became ill and could not go, so Gregory and his son vol­un­teered. (more…)

Like mil­lions of Americans, I no longer have any type of health insur­ance. I found this out when I had to pay for some pre­scrip­tions out of pocket.

One pre­scrip­tion cost over $300, which I was not able to afford. Another one cost $30 that I had to pay for out of pocket. I was not pleased when I dis­cov­ered this. (more…)

No Torch next week

Due to next week being finals week and Holiday Break com­ing up, there will not be an issue of the Torch pub­lished. The next issue will be avail­able on Jan. 11. (more…)

College is a priv­i­lege all of us are lucky to expe­ri­ence, but as the gap between the rich and poor widens, the more dif­fi­cult it becomes to graduate.

I am in my third year of col­lege and in the time I’ve been here, I’ve paid for col­lege by myself and with help from finan­cial aid. (more…)

FSU American Marketing Association places first in donor aware­ness move­ment

Ferris’ American Marketing Association (AMA) is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the national organ donor aware­ness move­ment, AMASavesLives.

Ferris’ AMA chap­ter placed first among chap­ters in new donor reg­is­tra­tion and third in social media posts in a com­pe­ti­tion. The aware­ness move­ment requires par­tic­i­pat­ing chap­ters to uti­lize var­i­ous social media out­lets and cre­ate online videos to raise aware­ness about organ dona­tion. (more…)

At the University of California-Davis, a group of stu­dents peace­fully protest­ing for the Occupy Wall Street move­ment were pep­per sprayed by cam­pus police.

In recent weeks, a video sur­faced of the inci­dent tak­ing place – although police had warned the pro­tes­tors to remove the tents before they took action, pep­per spray­ing them was the wrong way to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion. (more…)