School of Music | Student Recitals | Bailey Performance Center Morgan Concert Hall | 2:00 - 9:00 p.m.
KSU Owls vs Western Carolina Baseball Game | Stillwell Baseball Statium | 5:00 p.m.
Thursday | May 2nd
First Day of Final Exams
Student Government Association | General Meeting | Student Center University Rooms | 3:30-4:45 p.m.
Friday | May 3rd
Student Recital : Zac Evans, Saxophone | Bailey Performance Center Morgan Concert Hall | 8:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Saturday | May 4th
KSU Community and Alumni Choir Performance | Bailey Performance Center Morgan Concert Hall | 8:00-10:00 p.m.
Don’t miss any OWL Events!Check back each week for a new calendar of KSU’s upcoming events.Don’t see your event? We want to know!Please send event information to newseditor6@ksusentinel.com
A KSU professor has been put on administrative leave after the administration learned about his felony arrest earlier this month.
Kenneth Charles Robinson associate professor of management and entrepreneurship was arrested and charged with child molestation and sexual battery. He turned himself in to the Fulton Co. Sherriff’s office on March 1 and was released the next day on a $100,000 bond.
“An inquiry by an Atlanta media outlet has brought to light criminal charges filed against a Kennesaw State University faculty member,” KSU said in a statement released Tuesday. “Robinson has been placed on administrative leave from his faculty position, pending further review by University officials.”
In a brief email to his 50 person senior level Management course he said, “false accusations can be made by anyone! In the U.S., everyone is innocent until proven guilty! However, some presume guilt by false accusations, a true travesty!”
The Coles College of Business has named interim professors for the courses Robinson was teaching this semester. Strategic Management will be taught by Stewart Napshin, Venture Management will be taught by Richard Peters, and his study abroad management course Ellen Cross.
According to Atlanta media sources the incident occurred on the night of November 22nd when Robinson reportedly climbed into bed with the 14-year-old daughter of the woman with whom he was drinking.
“Dr. Robinson strongly denies the charges,” George M. Weaver, Robinson’s Attorney told Fox 5 Atlanta. “We expect that he will be fully exonerated.”
Some inconsistencies have been noted by investigators reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Robinson and the mother were drinking when an argument started between the alleged victim and her mother.
Afterword the mother and Robinson entered the room of the alleged victim so her mother apologized. The responding officer reported that he was told the apology ended with a “group hug” while all three were lying in bed. However, reports of the hug were left out when the events were retold to the investigating detective.
Robinson is accused of climbing into bed with the alleged victim later that evening and touched her inappropriately. The mother and teenager’s sister then confronted him at 1 a.m. the next morning.
The matter is still under investigation by the Atlanta Police Department.
In a letter from Vice President of Student Success Dr. Jerome Ratchford to the Student Activities Budget and Advisory Committee, he asked for a $190,000 transfer to the contingency fund.
SABAC is the voting body that determines where and how student allocated funds are distributed among Registered Student Organizations. Dr. Ratchford asked for a transfer from Prior Year Surplus to the contingency fund in order to continue funding RSOs for the rest of the Financial Year.
In the SABAC meeting minutes from Nov 28 two options are discussed as to how to handle the $188,000 budget shortfall in FY13.
One option discussed was to take back 11 percent of funding that went to line item organizations, amounting to over $190,000.
The second option offered was to transfer $190,000 from the Prior Year Surplus fund into the contingency fund. According to the minutes this would leave $1.3 mil in the PYS fund for other emergencies.
Bob Wise, Director of Development for the College of Science and Mathematics, motioned for the $190,000 transfer from the PYS and the motion was passed in a eight to zero vote.
“We have spent $110,000 already so far this [financial] year,” the meeting minutes noted. “There [has] been an increase with more organizations that have started up and an increase in fees also. We would fully support this transfer to help these students with more funding.”
There has been no mention of this transfer in the publicly available SABAC meeting minutes from this semester. In the first three meetings of this semester SABAC has allocated over $20,000 to 12 different organizations.
Public records of each board meeting are published at http://www.kennesaw.edu/studentsuccess/sabac.shtml and a meeting schedule is also available. SABAC meetings typically occur every other Wednesday during the semester from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
During SGA’s open meeting last week, Lynda Lyons made a presentation about Childcare on campus.
She stated that there will not be involvement with any curriculum based programs at the present time and that they are beginning negotiations with third parties to provide childcare for students, faculty and alumni. The details have not yet been worked out, but there is a PowerPoint and booklet with details that she has made available for interested groups. In other news, SGA President Rosalyn Hedgepeth discussed the House Bill 512 which would allow students to carry concealed firearms on campus.
Hedgepeth opened the discussion with an overview of the current law that has passed the House and will arrive at the Senate next week. She explained her opposition to the bill and stated that she has signed a letter to the Senate on behalf of KSU expressing opposition to the bill.
Hedgepeth represents the student body with the letter and stated that she did not need to explain her position since the student body elected her.
The Registered Student Organization group, Students for Concealed Carry, was well represented as information was passed out on HB 512 before the meeting. There were police present at the meeting to quell any disturbance.
Members from the RSO spoke during an open forum for 10 minutes. During this time, they refuted the information that Hedgepeth gave for her stance and dispelled myths about guns and safety. Towards the end of their time, Justin Massey stated that President Hedgepeth “did not ask our opinion.”
Massey wanted “KSU’s name off the letter and our opposition rescinded,” to which President Hedgepeth responded, “My stance as President is not changing.”
It was noted by one of the SGA senators that the Georgia Senate will be voting on this topic on Wednesday, and if they do not vote as a body at this meeting, the stance will mean nothing. The body then entered into a vote. The final vote was 3 for, 21 against and 11 abstained.
Birgit Wassmuth, the Chair of the Department of Communication, tendered her resignation March 19 in a letter to Dr. Robin Dorff, Dean of the College of Humanities effective March 20.
Wassmuth began her career with KSU in 2006 joining the Department of Communication as Chair.
“During my seven and a half years as Department chair at [KSU] I have successfully stabilized the department, managed growth, and helped put this department on the national/international map,” she said in her letter of resignation.
Since joining the Communication Department, Wassmuth has overseen the addition of 49 new classes, 34 new faculty and 842 new majors. According to her letter, during her tenure the department also began sponsoring an annual public speaking showcase in partnership with CNN and the creation of the Center for Sustainable Journalism.
“Together, we created a 2007- 2012 Strategic Plan, and I am proud to say that we completed 95 percent of all action steps by December 2012,” said the letter.
Originally from Germany, Wassmuth studied in the U.S. on a Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Minnisota- Minneappolis. She received her master’s and doctorate degrees in Mass Communication from the same university. She taught at Drake University, University of Missouri, University of Florida, Temple University and the University of Kassel in Germany before coming to KSU.
“We have no comment to add to her letter of resignation,” the Department of Communication told The Sentinel in a phone call.
Wassmuth did not mention where she had accepted another position but only said she had accepted a position as director of an accredited School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
According to the 2012 KSU Fact Book, her absence leaves 20 full-time faculty and 1,174 Communication students without a department chair.
The Department of Communication has not announced an interim chair as of now.
SGA voted Thursday against supporting the Safe Carry Protection Act, House Bill 512 ,which allows students to carry a concealed firearm on university campuses.
The bill also reforms many laws and restrictions including concealed carrying in bars, public schools while attempting to prevent the National Guard or police from disarming people during states of emergency.
A chapter of Students for Concealed Carry was officially granted Registered Student Organization (RSO) status by the Students Activities Budget Advisory Committee in early February.
The change preceded the Georgia House of Representatives approval of House Bill 512.
KSU joined Columbus State University and Georgia Tech as the third school in the state to have an official chapter recognized by the school.
“It’s definitely nice, because now we are able to promote our organization more,” said RSO president Luke Crawford. “I’ve probably gotten over 150 individual emails from different people that are all interested in the organization.”
“There are a ton of misconceptions about guns,” said Crawford. “I think if anybody is going to carry a gun, they need to do it safely . . . If you never break any of your major rules
of gun safety, it is almost impossible for somebody to get unintentionally hurt.”
On Thursday, Mar. 14, during the SGA general meeting, President Rosalyn Hedgepeth announced that she joined other university SGA presidents in writing a letter to members of the Georgia State Senate, asking them to oppose the bill.
“One of the biggest obstacles we’re facing is the president of the Student Government Association,” Crawford said. “She signed her name to a letter stating that the student body did not support House Bill 521.” Crawford said that lots of people on campus support the bill and don’t appreciate being spoken for without so much as a poll or a vote.
Shooting the wrong person always seems to be a concern says Crawford. “If I was carrying a gun, I would not go dashing in there to try and find the gunman; that is the police’s job.”
“I think it is entirely appropriate for KSU to support any group that wants to organize on campus around an idea,” Dr. Kenneth White said. “But arming students or teachers is a stupid idea to me. It would be like arming surgeons – totally unrelated to the purpose of the thing.”
To find out more about HB 512, visit www.legis.ga.gov. To find out more about KSU Students for Concealed Carry, visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/ksuscc.
According to the Student Activities and Budget Advisory Committee budget for Financial Year 2013 $164,000 was allocated to Registered Student Organizations requesting extra funds.
In the first two SABAC meetings $28,086 of the contingency fund was spent on different RSOs funding travel and lecture series.
“We have spent roughly $30,000 so far,” said Chairperson Flora Lowe-Rockett in the third meeting of FY2013. “ We have a significant budget reduction for the year. The last thing we want to do is run out of money for the upcoming year.
The reduction Lowe-Rockett referred to was a loss of over $140,000 from FY 2012 to FY 2013. The forecasted budget for the contingency fund from which SABAC funds student organizations was over $300,000.
This loss is often due to shrinking funding from the University System of Georgia according to an interview with the Vice President of Student Success Services Dr. Jerome Ratchford last fall.
“Some of that money is based off of projections of student enrollment,” said Ratchford. This means that if enrollment increases so does funding to SABAC, and funding decreases if enrollment decreases.
Some RSO travel requests total almost $1,800 even though SABAC usually only awards $1200. There is no limit on events and some organizations have requested a total of $14,565.
In these cases, SABAC has a track record of only partially funding these requests. However, some partial requests have still been in the thousands of dollars.
An average of eight RSOs appear in front of SABAC to make their case each meeting. SABAC typically gives partial awards to these student groups.
“You don’t want a $25 meatball,” said Rosalyn Hedgepeth in an interview last fall. “Things look good sometimes, but then you have to look into them more and be critical.”
However, SABAC has awarded more than 60 percent of its total budget and has given out 72 percent of the financial funding requested.
The board asks that RSOs spend their seed money ($400 given to each RSO at the start of the financial year) before approaching SABAC for additional funds. However, RSOs will often earmark this money for smaller events or expenditures.
If interested in SABAC, student fees and funding or the policies of SABAC, information about the group can be found online at kennesaw.edu/ studentsuccess/sabac. shtml.
Public records of each board meeting are published at this site and a meeting schedule is available. SABAC meetings typically occur every other Wednesday during the semester from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. A follow- up on SABAC will be in the next issue.
Rita Impey-Imes, former Curator of the KSU Bently Rare Books Gallery, died Thursday Feb 14.
Impey-Imes was born in 1954, in Houston, Mo. and graduated from Houston High School in 1972.
In 1977 she graduated from the University of Missouri with a Bachelor’s Degree in Art History. Impey-Imes married Thomas Imes, in Boulder, Col. in 1980, and worked for the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper from 1980-1987.
In 1996 she began working for KSU’s Sturgis Library in the inter-library loan unit, providing bibliographic reference and working as a reference librarian. During this time Impey-Imes also worked with the Sturgis Library staff to coordinated disaster planning and recovery, training, outreach, book repair and cataloging.
She began working with the Bentley Rare Book Gallery in 2005. The gallery is a collection of rare documents, manuscripts and books illustrating the history of the book, specifically in the English Speaking world. She worked under the former director of the Sturgis Library, Mr. Robert Williams, as the assistant curator. Impey-Imes moved to the Department of Archives and Records management in 2009 following the move of the gallery. Here she continued her work doing outreach for the gallery and curatorial work with the collection.
In October of last year, KSU Archives honored her with the creation of the Rita Impey- Imes Rare Book Conservation Fund. This fund is dedicated to conserving books, manuscripts, documents, prints and leaves in the Bentley Rare Book Gallery.
Her son Alex, and her Husband Thomas of Kennesaw; her parents, Rose and David Impey, and brothers, Mike, John and Joe of Houston Mo, sister, Julia Aubrey of Oxford Miss, and brothers Jim and Robert of Columbia Mo survive her. Her brother Dr. William Impey, an associate professor at KSU, preceded her in death.
A memorial service was held February 23 at the Winkenhofer Funeral Home in Kennesaw.
KSU Benefactor Bernard A. Zuckerman, 91, of Atlanta, died Friday Feb 22, 2013.
Zuckerman was born to parent’s Regina and Joseph Zuckerman in New York, NY, in 1922. He served in the Army Air Force during World War II flying 53 combat missions in the Pacific Theater. For his service, he was awarded both the Silver Star and the Airman’s Medal.
Zuckerman gave the university $2 million for the construction of the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art and donated over 130 works of art created by his late first wife, Ruth V. Zuckerman. Construction on the museum began in Sept. 2012 and has already hosted the 30th Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition. The museum will officially open later this spring.
Over the last 40 years, Zuckerman has been considered an integral part of the Atlanta community. After cofounding Stratton Industries, a large carpet manufacturer, he contributed to educational and cultural programs throughout north Georgia.
“Mr. Zuckerman remains one of the most important benefactors of Kennesaw State University,” said a press release from KSU.
Bernard A. Zuckerman is survived by his second wife, Suzanne Siegel, of Atlanta and daughters Rowann Zuckerman Gilman and Laurel Bellon.
According to the press release, the museum will be the permanent home of the Ruth V. Zuckerman sculpture collection and will also provide the center of the Arts District on campus. “The KSU community is honored to carry on the mission of Mr. Zuckerman’s vision and generosity.”
A private graveside service will be held at the Greenwood Cemetery and a memorial service will be announced for the coming weeks. His wife has requested that donations be made to the museum in care of KSU Foundation in lieu of flowers.
A violent storm system damaged cities across the southeast after spawning several tornados and killing two last Wednesday.
The storm caused flooding in the game room and the ceiling to leak in the Student Center on campus.
Calls, emails and texts were sent out by the KSU Emergency Alert System cautioning and updating students about the storm. Classes, however, were not canceled school wide.
Some students were opposed to the school remaining open during the storm. “@ kennesawstate Is absolutely stupid. Making their students drive to class then walk across campus is ridiculous,” tweeted KSU student Kayla Michelle.
Other students also had their issues with the KSU Alert System as well.
“@kennesawstate warning means there is a tornado, watch means there could be one,”
said KSUdegreeFail. Eric Harvey asked “@kennesawstate so do I seek immediate shelter or go to class? I can’t do both…”
Some students like Taylor Hunt was just fed up with receiving repeated alerts.
“If @ kennesawstate calls or texts me ONE more time… #WEGETIT.”
“[Crisis coordinators] are the direct link to my office who are trying to get the best and most accurate information out there,” said Robert Lang, Assistant
Vice President of Security
and Safety. “We are always looking for better methods and technologies that work, but we can’t fight rumors, especially when using text, tweets and other immediate info sharing is present.”
Strategic Security and Safety is the office that issues the actual alerts and monitors radars and alerts from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency and Cobb County Emergency Management Agency.
“We use many different vehicles of information,”
said Lang. “We are always researching other vehicles that come to our attention for timely notifications.”
According to Lang, KSU suffered little damage due to the storm. “[The damage was] Minimally relative to physical problems such as small flooding in
only 3 buildings out of the
37 on campus,” said Lang. “Those issues were either fixed immediately on one, two are still being worked.”
In other areas of Georgia cities like Adairsville, received more damage from the storm. A high EF-3 tornado that was one-quarter mile wide touched down in Adairsville and was on the ground for 20 minutes.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that at least 1,000 volunteers have
arrived in the city to help clean up the damage where hundreds of cars were flipped and 97 structures were damaged.
The KSU Athletics Department will be collecting donations for those suffering in Adairsville at all on campus athletic events until Feb 12.
From my own personal experience, I can confidently say that drugs certainly have their place and use. They can work wonders. The right prescription or combination of medications can solve a litany of mental illnesses, physical struggles and emotional duress.
However, the symptoms of these issues are identical to the natural process of growing up. Oh, your eight-year-old has more energy than you? That’s surprising. Oh, your teenager is having mood swings? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with raging hormones. Oh, your 18-year-old son is yelling and angry? Don’t worry; it’s anxiety, not testosterone.
Ritalin, Concerta, Lortab, Klonopin, Zoloft, Lithium, Suboxone, Cymbalta, Lamictle, Prozac, Seroquel, Xanax, and Valium all have very specific uses (and abuses). But these medications can easily be prescribed to children (anyone 18 and under) who really don’t need to be chocked full of medication.
Anxiety, Depression, ADD, ADHD, Addiction, Bipolar, and Insomnia are very real, and very serious illnesses that require serious attention.
Far too often are these illnesses diagnosed in minors who are just growing up, or have yet to really fix their diet. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rates of ADHD diagnosis in children 4-17 years old rose an average of 3 percent a year from 1997 to 2006. This is an insane rate of increase; it is higher than average inflation during that same time period.
If Little Johnny has two bowls of sugar bombs and a soda for breakfast he will be bouncing off the walls all morning and unconscious all afternoon. Little Johnny is not bipolar, and he does not have ADHD; he just needs to eat healthier.
When Little Suzie has a panic attack getting on the bus because mommy had a car accident a week before, she doesn’t have generalized anxiety disorder; she needs to go to therapy and talk with someone about what happened.
It seems that we parent our children less and less and instead are just tailoring them to how we believe they should act.
“I don’t have a whole lot of choice,” Dr. Anderson, a pediatrician in Cherokee County, told the New York Times. “We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid.”
Anderson works with low-income families whose children are struggling with paying attention in school. His solution? Drug them up, shut them up, sit them down and then regurgitate a curriculum.
The issue with all of this is that while we drug our children, they are still developing. There is a reason minors are not allowed to imbibe alcohol or nicotine until they are of age.
It is because our bodies do not come close to fully developing until later in life. Prescribing medications to still growing children can result in serious issues with mental health.
So why don’t we all just take a step back and look at what we’re doing to minors who, by definition are not wise enough to make their own decisions. Do we really need to tell them to say no to heroin and then prescribe Klonopin to reduce stress?
