The prob­lem, as always, is parking.

The Big Rapids Community Library ren­o­va­tion project is slated to begin this sum­mer, bring­ing some changes to FLITE and park­ing. The $860,000 ren­o­va­tion will improve the weight lim­i­ta­tions of a build­ing that was designed to be an ele­men­tary school, not a library.

“All of our book­shelves are along the out­side walls because our floors are not rated to hold the weight of book stacks, so a lot of the space we have in the library is not usable,” Miriam Andrus, the library interim direc­tor, said. (more…)

The Rankin Center is host­ing The Art of Architecture, an exhibit fea­tur­ing the devel­op­ing skills of Ferris archi­tec­tural students.

The exhibit came from the mind of Paul Long, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor within the School of Built Environment. The exhibit cen­ters around a senior design project called Small Town Studio, which chal­lenges stu­dents with the task of rethink­ing and redesign­ing por­tions of Big Rapids. (more…)

Adam Castanier has defied the odds.

Ask any graphic design major about their pro­gram, and they’ll tell you they’re not in it because it’s fun. They use words like “hard work” and “all-nighters” or, as Castanier put it, “long hours.”

“Graphic design and I have a love-hate rela­tion­ship,” Castanier said. “ It’s nice to be able to work cre­atively like that, [but] you also get burned out really quick. A lot of peo­ple drop out or just can’t hack it. It’s a lot of hard work and long hours. But if you love it, you kind of stick with it. I can’t see myself quit­ting it.” (more…)

Jeff Gibson has seen the world—or at least a good chunk of it.

Gibson doesn’t seem to be the world trav­el­ing type. Walking into the cof­fee shop, he is hard to notice because he doesn’t stand out in his jeans and Ferris hoodie. At first glance, one might pass him off for any other unas­sum­ing Ferris stu­dent mulling about cam­pus. He blends in with the 30 other stu­dents in Biggby bent over com­put­ers and books.

But he is kind and approach­able, typ­i­cal of the small town of Decatur he was raised in. (more…)

As humans, we need art—it is a release, an escape.

This is why Natalie Bycraft draws and paints. She isn’t look­ing for fame or money; it’s just some­thing she loves to do. As a fresh­man in the pub­lic rela­tions pro­gram, she joined the Imagine More Art Association (IMAA) and found an out­let for relaxation.

“I heard this story from some­one. He loved work­ing on cars, and then he became a mechanic. He had to do it all of the time, and he got sick of it. I don’t want that to hap­pen with my art. [If I] keep it as hobby, I won’t have to lose the hobby that I’ve known for­ever,” Bycraft said. (more…)

If you watched Mumford and Sons play at the Grammys, you wit­nessed a miracle.

“When we released ‘Sigh No More,’ our man­ager said, ‘We’re prob­a­bly gonna sell about 150,000 records,’” Marcus Mumford said in a recent Rolling Stone arti­cle.
 
But they made it–the long shots, the under­dogs, the dream­ers. (more…)

Entertainment Unlimited (EU) hosted Kevin Roberts, “The Food Dude,” as he enter­tained and edu­cated Ferris State University stu­dents Friday night with hot sauce and mayo hate.

Roberts kicked off the night with a sim­ple state­ment: “I hate mayo.”

He gave away T-shirts printed with the phrase to var­i­ous stu­dents through­out the night in addi­tion to bot­tles of hot sauce and food he made on stage. (more…)

Scott Barger Jr. has ambitions.

At 20 years of age, he walks ahead of his peers by leaps and bounds as a senior in the busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion pro­gram at Ferris, but his heart lies beyond his class­work with a reg­is­tered stu­dent orga­ni­za­tion (RSO) called Shred. He is the president.

Urban Dictionary def­i­n­i­tions for the term “shred” are var­ied and, at times, just plain silly. However, the gen­eral Internet con­sen­sus asso­ciates the word with board sport: Surfing, snow­board­ing, long­board­ing and the like. Essentially, a per­son who “shreds” can surf, snow­board or long­board with excep­tional skill. (more…)

Brandon Schnotala does what he wants.

He loves art, so that’s what he pur­sues. Before col­lege, he didn’t weigh the pros and cons between career options or how much he might earn. Schnotala knew what he wanted to do and noth­ing else mattered.

His chief rule is there are no rules, eclec­ti­cism at its finest. He might not say as much, but look­ing through his port­fo­lio, he cov­ers the bases from hand drawn abstracts to Shakespearean poetry and rap lyrics. (more…)

When Entertainment Unlimited brought come­dian Chad Daniels to the Rankin Center Dome Room on Thursday, I have to admit I was skeptical.

First, I cheated. I knew I had to cover this event, so I went to Daniels’ web­site and read up on the guy. Then I went to YouTube and watched a few min­utes of his shtick to see if it would be worth my time.

I wasn’t impressed. (more…)