This is Sports in :60 for Thursday, May 5, 2011

The 2011 Senior Class Gift Committee put on a free yoga event in the Upper Quad during convocation hour May 3.

St. Thomas almuna and CorePower yoga instructor Kristen Lucius, who is also the gift officer for the development office, led the 14 individuals who attended the session. Participants who donated to the senior class gift received a T-shirt and a luggage tag.

“We’re just doing this for fun for awareness of the senior class gift, and it’s free,” Lucius said. “But if people want to, they can make a donation.”

The class was similar to a C1 entry-level class at CorePower, designed around a Vinyasa style of yoga. Vinyasa yoga is one of the most commonly practiced styles in the West. Sometimes called “flow” yoga, the classes usually focus on breathing and dance-like movements.

Seniors Hannah Gikling and Kaitlin Denis attended the event as members of the Senior Class Gift Committee.

“We’re actually in a two-credit yoga class at St. Thomas right now, too,” Gikling said.

Freshman Emily Clark said she heard about the event through fellow participant senior Laura Zimmerman.

“I invited all of my friends to come and join us,” Zimmerman said.

Participants said they were glad to be outside soaking up the sun while relaxing with yoga.

“I’m excited that it’s warm finally,” Denis said.

“It’s nice and sunny, and we thought it would be a fun way to draw attention [to the senior class gift,]” Lucius said.

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached omas5009@stthomas.edu.

About 350 St. Thomas and St. Catherine University students participated in the 27th Relay for Life in the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex field house.

Forty teams registered for the event, which lasted from 7 p.m. April 30 to 7 a.m. May 1, to raise money for cancer research. Participants raised $28,520, an increase from last year’s $28,000.

“I feel really good about the direction [Relay for Life] is going,” said junior Matt Ellenberger, Relay for Life co-chair and president of St. Thomas’ chapter of Colleges Against Cancer. “The numbers of participants, of funds raised, are up from previous years.”

Teamwork

St. Kate’s junior Taylor Schaubschlager and other members of the Colleges Against Cancer chapter teamed up with St. Thomas for the Relay for Life event. Schaubschlager, a chair of St. Kate’s Colleges Against Cancer chapter, said her main motivation to participate was her mother. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when Schaubschlager was in fifth grade and died in 2008.

“She battled strong the whole time,” Schaubschlager said. “It was just kind of sad because she used to come to the relay events I would plan, and she used to walk the track as a survivor, so the first one that she wasn’t there was kind of hard.”

Many students participated in the relay because they know, or knew, someone battling cancer.

“I have a friend from high school who just got diagnosed this past year,” freshman Julia Carroll said.

St. Thomas freshman Kjerste Gast also said she wanted to walk for loved ones.

“My grandpa died of brain cancer, and then my grandma had breast cancer for a while,” she said. “So I’ve done [Relay for Life] before, and I just wanted to walk for them,”

Freshman Madeline Motola said Relay for Life is an important event for her family.

“Both my grandparents and my dad have suffered through [cancer],” she said. “I just think it’s a really cool way to show your support for them and to kind of show everyone you support the cause as well.”

Ellenberger said the most inspiring moments of the event for him were the acoustic guitar performance and the luminaria ceremony, where participants dropped glow sticks into paper bags to light the field house while they walked.

“Matt Griswold played a few songs he wrote especially for Relay [for Life],” Ellenberger said. “It was really touching. I cried a little bit.”

Relay activities

Students started arriving at 5 p.m. to set up team “campsites” and enter their names for prize drawings. The relay started with laps from cancer survivors, caregivers and individual teams.

When participants weren’t walking, they played games such as bean bag toss and Nintendo Wii boxing and ate food provided by local restaurants. Participants could take a photo with Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders for a $1 donation. The Twins, Minnesota Wild and the Tommie mascot also made appearances at the event.

“There’s a lot to do,” freshman Krissy Atterholt said. “I’ve done the Velcro wall, I’ve played some games, eaten some pizza.”

Freshman Alex Steen agreed.

“They have a lot of activities going on, which is nice, so you’re not just sitting or just walking,” she said.

Sophomore Hannah Peterson, St. Thomas Relay for Life co-chair, helped organize relay games where teams competed against each other.

“We encouraged teams to do night-of-relay fundraisers, so not only fundraise before the event but during,” she said. “One team was making bracelets, and then another team had a jail where you could pay to have a friend locked up for a little bit and then they have to find someone to pay to get them out. Another team is doing a bake sale.”

Motola said the downtime during the relay was a perfect opportunity to meet people interested in the cause.

“A lot of [the event] is socializing with friends and everyone else who’s here,” she said.

Freshman Chantel Heeren added, “And you get to exercise, which never hurts.”

Peterson said she is grateful for participants’ continued support.

“I want to thank everyone for working so hard throughout the year. It takes a lot,” she said. “To put on something this huge, I’m just really proud.”.

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached at omas5009@stthomas.edu.

About 50 students attended the St. Thomas Music and Entertainment Industry Student Association Kickoff Concert Wednesday night in the O’Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium.

Three St. Thomas student bands performed at the event: Lotus Eater, Grape Whales, and Pretty Perry and the Kidney Stones. Sophomore Emily Leininger, MEISA board member, said the concert is the club’s first event. MEISA also contributed funding for the Cloud Cult concert April 30.

“We have some cool stuff planned for the future,” she said. “We’re just kind of trying to get our feet on the ground and make some contacts.”

Junior Michael Cyrs, MEISA president, started the club last year as part of an introduction to business final class project. The project initially requested funding for an SXSW music festival, but St. Thomas would not provide funding unless a club was involved.

“We started working on that and eventually got involved in the club work instead of that one event, and now we have a club,” Cyrs said.

There are multiple nationwide MEISA chapters for students interested in the music and entertainment industries. MEISA is part of the larger Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association, of which St. Thomas has been a member for several years. MEIEA is an international organization that started in 1979 with the purpose of bringing educators and leaders of the music and entertainment industries together.

“We’re just really hoping to keep bringing some diverse music to campus,” Leininger said. She said she hopes the club will expand and “grow beyond just the music majors on South Campus and that more people get involved.”

Many St. Thomas students said they enjoyed the live performances and supporting their friends in the bands.

“It was a lot of fun to go to this on a Wednesday night,” sophomore Saarah Berenjian said. “It’s good for the student body. It keeps us interested.”

Sophomore Jackie Kruchoski agreed.

“The variety (of music) was great,” she said. “It was cool to see all these people interact and dance.”

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached at omas5009@stthomas.edu.

This is News in :90 for Tuesday, April 19, 2011.

Seedlings for the university garden are currently growing in the on-campus greenhouse and will be transplanted in the community garden behind what was formerly the Common Ground house. (Rebecca Omastiak/TommieMedia)

With warmer weather and sunnier days, St. Thomas students and faculty and members of the St. Paul community are eager to work in the St. Thomas community garden.

Seedlings for the garden are currently growing in the on-campus greenhouse and will be transplanted in the community garden behind what was formerly the Common Ground house.

Adam Kay, project adviser and biology professor, said the garden gives students firsthand experience on important environmental and social lessons.

“It combines student-led research, education, service and community-outreach in a single project,” Kay said. “On one level, the garden is an ecology research project. Specifically, we are testing how crop biodiversity and organic farming practices affect plant growth and produce yield in an urban garden setting.”

Kay said the garden will help others learn about biodiversity.

“On another level, the garden is an educational platform. The public is becoming increasingly aware of issues concerning food production and of global threats to biodiversity,” Kay said. “The garden project has provided us with opportunities to spread the word about the importance of these issues.”

The community garden has also been a service-learning opportunity. Last year, garden members donated more than 400 pounds of produce to the Emergency Food Shelf Network in New Hope, Minn.

Urban agriculture

Kay and student organizers junior Aaron Hays and sophomore Ashela Richardson attended the Urban Agricultural Summit to learn more about urban gardening and how to apply these ideas to the St. Thomas community garden.

The summit was sponsored by Gardening Matters, a central organizing hub for community gardening in the Twin Cities.

“It was sort of the beginning of a process to see what needs to happen with the urban agriculture movement and how we can make that happen,” Hays said. “It’s a big process, but coming back from that it was really great to see what’s all happening in the Twin Cities, and also how our garden here can fit into that.”

Garden plans

Richardson said a variety of seedlings will be added to the garden this spring and summer, including bell peppers, large tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green beans, potatoes and cabbage.

“[It’s] just a really good mix so that it’s really diverse,” she said. “And then we have a fun plot where we’re going to do herbs, arugula. Just some various things people want to grow, just to have.”

The garden is only in its second year, but Hays said there are plans to double the garden’s size.

“Half of that [produce] will still go to food shelves,” Hays said. “And half of it will be available for people [who] help out and also for some events we’re going to have on campus.”

Kay added, “We will be planning events throughout the summer to raise awareness about food issues, gardening and biodiversity research.”

Hays said these events will draw in incoming students in addition to community members.

“We’re talking with Multicultural Student Services and trying to create a program [that] brings incoming first-years to St. Thomas for about five weeks,” Hays said. “They’d live here and we’re trying to get some programming set up where they can come and be a part of the community garden here as well.”

Plants and student diversity

The St. Thomas community garden currently includes about 30 participants from various departments and campus organizations.

Richardson said the garden allows her to meet people with similar interests. She added that she hopes more students and community members become involved this spring and summer.

“I hope that it can turn into a place where people from everywhere in the university, not just science or not just humanities, can come and get together,” she said. “That’s really the core of what a community garden should be.”

Green Team member freshman Madeline Anderson said she hopes to continue working on the garden during the summer.

“It’s going to take a while for all of these [seedlings] to grow, so it’s a lot of work, but it will be really fun to see how everything plays out and what we accomplish,” she said.

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached at omas5009@stthomas.edu.

Students can attend a book sale, listen to guest speakers, participate in a video and daily trivia contest and donate food items to pay for overdue fines.

“It’s a time for everyone to celebrate libraries,” said John Heintz, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library associate director. “There’s a lot of activity around Library Week, and it’s a way to get the word out to our communities, here at St. Thomas or our broader communities, about the value of libraries to society.”

Library Week events

The Falling Book Dominoes event, held before noon Monday, April 11, kicks off Library Week. The book dominoes will lead from the front door to the leather room, where the book sale will be held.

The book sale will be open every day of Library Week from noon until 6 p.m. Students and faculty can browse a selection of books including history books, biographies, novels and non-fiction books.

“These books have been weeded from our own library and also books that have been donated throughout the year by various people,” said Julie Kimlinger, O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library administrative assistant.

Students can also make up for overdue library fines by donating canned food items for the Food for Fines project. One canned item is equivalent to $2 in fines. The project starts with Library Week and will continue until the end of the semester. Donated food will be given to the Franciscan Brothers of Peace in St. Paul.

“Hopefully students will take advantage of that,” Kimlinger said. “It’s kind of a win-win for everybody.”

Sophomore Katie Monnin said she plans to spend more time in the library during Library Week to participate in the events.

“I’ll definitely try to stop by for some of the smaller events that they have or maybe do my homework more in the library that week,” Monnin said. “I’m definitely going to mention to my friends that study in the library all the time, ‘You should definitely go on these days because these fun events are going on and you can get free stuff.’”

Using technology to interact with the library

Students can answer a daily trivia question during Library Week on the library’s website.

“That’s kind of a popular stop on Library Week. People that are here over and over again kind of look for that,” Kimlinger said.

Students can also participate in a video contest before the Monday, April 11, deadline. The two minutes or shorter video should focus on the theme, “Create your own story at UST Libraries.” Contestants can upload their videos to YouTube and share the link on the library’s Facebook page.
A panel of judges will choose the video contest winner, and the video that is most “liked” on Facebook will win the “most popular video” prize. The winners receive iTunes gift cards and all participants receive a Coffee Bene free coffee coupon.

Kimlinger said quick-response barcodes will be placed throughout the library during Library Week that will lead students to prizes, such as a free coffee coupon.

Guest speakers and receptions

Linda Hulbert, associate director for collection management and services, will talk about the library’s new research online feature at 2 p.m. Monday, April 11.

“Research online is what we call a digital repository of scholarship,” Heintz said. “So faculty will be able to put published publications that they have written on there so that they can make that available to the rest of the world.”

The new feature will also include electronic theses and dissertations for the graduate program.

St. Paul poet laureate Carol Connolly will read from her latest book and sign book copies at 4:30 p.m. Monday.

“She is well-known in the Twin Cities,” Kimlinger said about the author. “She just got her second book published and said she became a writer by accident later in life, so she has an interesting story.”

In addition to these two speakers, a reception will be held for published St. Thomas faculty members.

“They’re invited to send in what they’ve done in the past year,” Kimlinger said.

Hard copies of these faculty publications will be on display in the library.

Looking forward to Library Week

Heintz said he appreciates the hard work that goes into planning Library Week and hopes faculty and students enjoy the week just as much.

“We have a ball during library week,” he said. “People worked hard at setting up these events and we think they’re fun events and of value to people. We really want to show off what we have and what we can do for students.”

Kimlinger said she is looking forward to “having more and more students and faculty discover what goes on here and finding things that they didn’t know and now can make use of.”

For more information, students can visit the Library Week website.

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached at omas5009@stthomas.edu.

This is Sports in :60 for Thursday, March 17, 2011.

St. Thomas students signed petitions Tuesday urging government officials and humanitarian groups to aid Libyan citizens. (Rebecca Omastiak/TommieMedia)

Students signed two petitions: one that addressed the refugee situation in Libya and another that presented possible solutions to ending the violence, such as a no-fly zone over Libya to halt airstrikes. The petitions will be sent to the U.S. Libyan Embassy and to the Obama administration at the White House.

Sophomore Rose Nash, who is from Libya’s capital city, Tripoli, and still has family living there, said activism, including petitions and protests, is long overdue.

“Libyans have just been waiting for this spark to ignite,” Nash said. “They’ve been waiting for this for 42 years.”

Gadhafi’s influence

Gadhafi rose to power Sept. 1, 1969, after staging a military coup. He and his seven sons exercised control over Libya, particularly using mercenaries and militants to quell uprisings and ensure complete authority.

“He is killing his own people in order to stay in power,” Nash said.

Since Gadhafi and his sons have gained complete control over the military, about 6,000 Libyan civilians have been killed and thousands are still missing. But Gadhafi and his sons have denied involvement in any deaths and injuries.

Libyan citizens began protesting Gadhafi’s regime February 15. Nash said the recent Egypt and Tunisia dictatorship protests are incentive for Libyan citizens to revolt.

“The Egyptians did it. Why can’t we do it, too?” Nash said.

Petitioning for change

Sophomore Sara Vue said she was inspired to attend the petition-signing event after seeing Libyan news coverage. She said the petitions could affect the delivery of essential supplies to Libyan citizens.

“I think both of [the petitions] are really good, especially with helping those refugees who are starving and with aid, such as medical and food [supplies],” Vue said.

Sophomore Sadaf Rahmani, president of the St. Thomas chapter of Amnesty International, emphasized the importance of every voice.

“Even one petition counts,” she said. “It might seem powerless and small but it counts.”

Rahmani said the petitions are the first step “to educate people so they know what’s going on and not let this happen again in the future because we are the next generation.”

He added that the petitions will also “get the word to the U.S. administration and to governments around the world because they need to know that people care.”

Sophomore Samali Mutazindwa from Uganda said she felt it was necessary to attend the event and sign the petition to show her support, especially because she said understands the oppression occurring in Libya.

Nash said she had to do something to help the situation in Libya.

“I have this burning that’s inside of my heart and has been going since this uprising started, because people are still dying, people are still losing their lives, and for what? Because they asked for their freedom?” Nash said.

Sophomore Laura Nagel said it’s difficult to fully understand Nash’s situation and what it is like to have family in a region such as Libya.

“I’ve never been in a situation anything near that, so it’s hard for me to comprehend what that must feel like,” she said.

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached at omas5009@stthomas.edu.

St. Thomas students and St. Paul neighbors met Sunday afternoon in the open space behind the Brady Educational Center, where the university is considering building tennis courts, as part of the Celebrate the Green Space event.

Participants signed letters and petitions and worked on art projects promoting saving the green space from tennis court development. Junior Meg Veitenheimer, who helped organize the event, said the event’s purpose was to spread awareness.

“A lot of the purpose is bringing people together for an issue that they care a lot about,” she said. “Community members, students, neighborhood kids all coming together to appreciate this area and what it serves for our community right now.”

The student event organizers said they hoped the event would create a positive dialogue with St. Paul community members as well as St. Thomas administration. Senior Meghan Durkin said she hopes the university will consider all factors before continuing with development plans.

“I think the green space is a wonderful place to keep on campus,” Durkin said. “I do enjoy tennis, but I like the open area here; and I think it’s important to keep places like this on campus especially when it’s the only one left. I also know it’s really important to the community members.”

Neighbor Flannery Delaney said she was pleased with both the St. Thomas community and neighborhood response.

“We were thrilled that the students were organizing something, so we all said that we’ve got to show up and that it’s so great that the students care enough to do something, because it felt like a real community issue,” Delaney said.

Neighbor Beth Brombach agreed.

“I have two college-age kids and I know they care about these sorts of things,” she said. “It was really fun to see that students were motivated to do something.”

Delaney and Brombach have collected about 160 signatures from neighbors living near St. Thomas who are against installing tennis courts in the open space.

“Everybody knows this space and has always appreciated it and loved it,” Delaney said. “And the river is really a community resource so I feel like St. Thomas has some obligation to the rest of the community [to protect it].”

Brombach shared a similar wish for green space protection.

“It’s a really important spot along the river road, and there aren’t really a lot of green spaces left like this,” she said. “So it was really sad for us to think it could be taken away; not only for the neighborhood but for the students as well.”

Voices wanting to be heard

Many students talked about visiting the green space to spend time with friends and family, play instruments and reflect. Students and community members talked about the importance of nature preservation and biodiversity.

Veitenheimer said her personal connection to the green space inspired her to take action upon hearing the possibility of tennis court installation.

“I just wanted our voices to be heard and for [the administration] to know that people care about it,” she said.

Senior Erin Hagen said she hopes this event will “teach students to respect not only this green space but all green spaces.”

Delaney said her children motivated her to take action against the green space development.

“My daughter was so upset about it and that was what really inspired me,” Delaney said. “I’m going to show her that if you get involved in something you can sometimes make a difference.”

Moving forward

St. Thomas students and St. Paul community members at the Celebrate the Green Space event said they hoped it would get the word out about the proposed tennis court site.

“I hope this raises some awareness on campus and sort of brings it more to the forefront of the university,” sophomore Sarah Beyer said.

Durkin said she hopes the event causes the administration to consider alternate locations for the tennis courts.

“I know there [are] different considerations, and it would be great if we could keep this space untouched,” she said.

Sophomore Katie Zillmer said she hopes the university administration will reconsider its priorities.

“I think a lot of times people don’t see past what’s happening right now, and so what we’re saying is that this green space has been here a long time, and it will be here for a long time,” Zillmer said. “And tennis courts only serve a much smaller population.”

Delaney said she is optimistic about how the administration has handled the issue and the initiative students have taken.

“We felt that the university was open and responsive to the concerns of the neighborhood,” Delaney said. “And the students too have been so receptive, it’s just great.”

Veitenheimer said she appreciated both student and neighbor support and hopes the Celebrate the Green Space event continues as an annual event, as it could be “a consistent way to bring together the community and St. Thomas students, so to build that community with one another.”

Rebecca Omastiak can be reached at omas5009@stthomas.edu.