GCAA releases NAIA All-America selections
July 10th, 2011
The Golf Coaches Association of America has released its list of Ping All-America selections for NAIA.
First Team
Kevin Anderson, The Master’s College
Pierre Carlsson, Cumberlands
Justin Lower, Malone
Josh Manske, Grand View
James Marchesani, Oklahoma City
Axel Ochoa, Oklahoma Christian
Jon Pannone, South Carolina-Beaufort
Andrew Robb, British Columbia
Oscar Stark, Oklahoma Christian
Armando Villarreal, Texas Wesleyan
Second Team
Estaban Aristizabal, St. Thomas (Fla.)
Arvid Bengtson, Shorter
Clark Collier, Oklahoma City
Aaron Flores, Our Lady of The Lake
Chris Hawley, Johnson & Wales
Logan Herbst, Oklahoma Christian
Zach Lindsey, Reinhardt
Fredrik Lindblom, Cumberlands
George Thacker, South Carolina-Beaufort
Aaron Watkins, Cumberlands
Third Team
Steve Edman, Holy Names
Ryan Ellerbrock, Point Loma Nazarene
Heinrich Frylinck, Southern Nazarene
Michael Loppnow, Wayland Baptist
Connor McCracken, Lewis & Clark State
Derrick Meier, Viterbro
Michael Palmer, Oklahoma City
Richie Schembechler, Malone
David Sheman, British Columbia
Nick Soglanich, Johnson & Wales
Alastair Tidcombe, British Columbia
Preston Wilkins, Oklahoma Christian
Tags: Selections
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Seattle Prep’s Dick Sandstrom to retire after 36 years
July 10th, 2011
When Dick Sandstrom was first hired as a teacher at Seattle Prep, the school needed a boys soccer coach.
“It was kind of a new thing around here,” Sandstrom said. “Not a lot of people were doing it. (But) the Sounders, the first Sounders, were kind of a big hit.”
To better prepare himself to coach a program he would lead for the next 36 seasons, he went down to the Sounders’ offices and talked to Jimmy Gabriel for about three hours.
“I was not invited or anything,” Sandstrom said. “I just went in and I wanted to learn a little bit about soccer.”
The one thing he held onto after that meeting had little to do with formations or strategy, but instead he took away that, “you’ve got to let the kids play.”
“Doing football and doing soccer, high-school kids make mistakes,” he said. “It took me about 10 years to learn that they weren’t making mistakes or screwing up to upset me, they were making mistakes because they were high-school kids. Once I learned that, it was a piece of cake. Working with kids, yeah they make mistakes, but they’re trying hard.”
After amassing more than 320 wins as the soccer coach — he also spent 10 years coaching football — Sandstrom decided it was time to step away from the program.
“Health-wise, I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do on the field,” Sandstrom said. “I had excellent assistants. They were doing the job and I was going along for the ride. I said, ‘You know, I love this. I can come out and (be a spectator) and I don’t have some of the other grief and that, so what the heck, now is the time to go.’”
Sandstrom said the boys program will be handed over to girls coach Andy Hendricks, who led the Panthers to the 3A state title last season and was a longtime assistant with Sandstrom.
“The young bloods need to be doing this,” Sandstrom said.
When asked what he will miss most about coaching soccer, he said it will be the interaction with the players.
“People say, ‘well, you don’t get in teaching because of the pay,’ but you don’t include the experiences you get from the kids in the pay,” he said. “Maybe you do get into teaching for that type of thing, because that made it well worth my time and I hope they had just as good an experience as I did.”
Tags: Dick Sandstrom, Sandstrom
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UAW Local 4121 reaches contract agreement with the UW
July 9th, 2011
After months of bargaining and contract extensions, the members of UAW Local 4121, the union that represents teaching assistants (TAs), research assistants (RAs), tutors and other Academic Student Employees (ASEs) at the UW, voted to ratify a new one-year contract with the university.
The union members met June 8 to vote on the new collective bargaining agreement and 97 percent of the members approved the contract, passing it by more than the simple majority that was needed.
The union’s bargaining team has been meeting with the university about its contract since February. The bargaining period was supposed to end by April 30, but was extended until the union and the university came to an agreement.
The new contract includes terms about the preservation of academic quality, the UW maintaining health insurance premiums for ASEs, a new ASE child-care reimbursement program and an offset in the cost of increases in mandatory student fees by $50 next year.
David Parsons, president of UAW Local 4121, said that, instead of waiving the mandatory student fees, which was one of the union’s main requests, the university agreed to provide an increase in ASEs’ compensation to offset the increase in the student fees, which he sees as a good first step.
“This is a conceptual breakthrough,” Parsons said. “This is the first time in years that the university has done something to address this fee problem. Nobody thinks of this as a complete solution, but it’s a step in the right direction and something that people are looking forward to building upon.”
David Williams, a member of UAW Local 4121 and a graduate student studying physiology and biophysics, said that he was glad to see the fees addressed with compensation.
“I feel really good about the fact that we have addressed these fees as wage decreases,” Williams said. “They’re a part of our wage structure. They’re fees we have to pay as part of our employment at the university.”
Peter Denis, interim assistant vice president of UW Labor Relations, said that there was a good exchange of ideas between the union and the university, and the UW administration felt comfortable making these agreements despite financial constrictions that have resulted from cuts in state funding for the university.
“In these economic times, anything that has a dollar sign attached to it is very problematic,” Denis said. “We listened to the representation of the ASEs and the university felt that this was an appropriate move to make at this time.”
Parsons said the new child-care program will be modeled on the Child Care Assistance Program provided by the Student Parent Resource Center. The university will dedicate $25,000 to the program and ASEs can claim up to $600 per quarter if they haven’t already received it from the Child Care Assistance Program.
Another aspect included in the contract was preservation of academic quality.
“One of the major themes in our contract campaign this year has been that we are really serious about wanting to protect the quality of education and access to higher education,” Parsons said. “We got this university to commit to maintain the same level of instruction services in the College of Arts & Sciences, so that next year there’s not going to be a drop in TAs or tutors.”
Parsons said that the union wanted something in the contract to ensure that TAs would be able to address concerns about problems posed by larger class sizes.
“[What] we’ve been hearing a lot is that TAs have been seeing bigger class sizes,” Parsons said. “It’s hard to maintain the level of quality in the classroom when you have to deal with five or 10 extra students and still try to have that personal interaction.”
The contract includes that TAs should collaborate with their supervisors to work through problems with “class size increases or other matters that may make it difficult to maintain academic quality.”
“There’s new language in the contract that opens the door between the union and the university in terms of preserving academic quality,” Williams said. “It’s a recognition that ASEs play a major role in maintaining academic quality at the UW. That’s something that’s been ignored for a long time.”
Throughout the bargaining period, members of the union took actions to promote their requests, including a three-and-a-half hour sit-in in the conference room of Interim President Phyllis Wise on May 31.
“The large push of actions in the last week definitely left an impression,” Williams said. “It showed that there’s a dedicated group of people within the union that are willing to put in the time and effort it takes to convince the university that we care.”
Denis said the actions taken by the union didn’t have a negative effect on the negotiation process.
“We understood that this was a difficult time for them and for the university,” Denis said. “I don’t think that [the actions] harmed the relationship between the ASE group and the university.”
The new contract will last until April 30, 2012, and the union’s bargaining team will begin to meet with the university to negotiate again next year. Denis said that the main takeaway from the last two years has been a greater understanding between the parties.
“We have to talk again and we’re well-positioned to do so,” Denis said. “We’re at a place now where we’re talking the same language.”
The members of UAW Local 4121 will vote on bargaining goals before negotiations start next year, but Parsons said he expects the same issues of fees, academic quality and health insurance to come up again.
Williams said that the contract negotiation this year was good, but that the discussions are still an ongoing process.
“This was a victory, but I think it was a victory in a battle, not a victory in a war,” Williams said. “It will continue until the ASEs compensations at UW are comparable to those at other large research institutions.”
Tags: Contract, Local 4121, Uaw Local, Uaw Local 4121
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New Book Tuesday: The Summons of Love and Civil Resistance
July 9th, 2011
New books now available:
The Summons of Love Mari Ruti
Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan
Wearing My Tutu to Analysis and Other Stories: Learning Psychodynamic Concepts from Life Kerry L Malawista, Anne J Adelman, and Catherine L Anderson
After Tobacco: What Would Happen If Americans Stopped Smoking? Edited by Peter Bearman, Kathryn M Neckerman, and Leslie Wright
Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy (Now available in paper) Kip Kosek
Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making Graham Harman
Music Video and the Politics of Representation Diane Railton and Paul Watson
Tags: Civil Resistance, New Book, Resistance
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$5M USDA grant: Reducing foodborne illness with microwaves focus of research
July 7th, 2011
48 million illnesses per year
While the U.S. food supply is generally considered to be one of the safest in the world, approximately 48 million Americans become sick each year due to food-borne illnesses, said Catherine Woteki, USDA chief scientist and under secretary for research, education and economics. These grants support the development of a more complete understanding of the sources and implications of microbial contamination and will promote the adoption of new food safety strategies and technologies. The goal is to greatly improve the safety of our food supply and, ultimately, save lives, Woteki said.
Research collaboration
WSU scientists will join forces with researchers at the University of Tennessee, North Carolina State University, the USDA Agricultural Research Services Eastern Regional Center and the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Center. The team will look at how best to expand the commercial possibilities of microwave technologies to control harmful bacterial and viral pathogens in packaged foods. They specifically will be working with ready-to-eat foods, deli meats and seafood. WSU researcher Juming Tang said the project has several key components. The goal of this integrated project is to bridge the scientific and engineering gaps that currently limit commercial applications of microwave technologies for the control of bacterial and viral pathogens in packaged foods, he said. We are pleased to team up with leading experts in food microbiology” from throughout the nation. P. Michael Davidson, professor and head of food science and technology at UT, similarly noted, We are extremely pleased to be working with someone of the caliber of Juming Tang as well as the other outstanding collaborators on this exciting research project. The information generated, along with the processes and equipment developed, will go a long way towards providing increased protection of consumers from food-borne illnesses caused by bacterial and viral pathogens. Investment U.S. Sen. Patty Murray noted, I have been proud to secure investments in this great project, which provided the foundational research that allowed WSU to have the expertise to win this competitive grant. This new technology will keep families safe and will create good jobs right here in Washington state. “WSU is doing great work turning top-notch research into products that will increase food safety for Americas consumers and boost the local economy, and I am proud to be their partner in those efforts, she said.
Topics of focus
Participating scientists will study:
- What microwave-based pasteurization processes are required to inactivate high risk bacterial and viral pathogen
- Improving microwave systems designs
- Developing and validating the processing protocols needed to control pathogens in a variety of ready-to-eat foods.
Research team
In addition to Tang and Davidson, co-project directors include:
- Doris DSouza, assistant professor of food science and technology, University of Tennessee
- Barbara Rasco, professor/scientist at the WSU School of Food Science of food science
- Shyam Sablani, assistant professor of biological systems engineering at WSU
- Patrick Dunne, Tom Yang and Alan Wright, U.S. Army Natick Solider Center
- Lihan Huang, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Eastern Region center
- Denis Gray, professor of psychology, North Carolina State University
Tags: Foodborne Illness, Illness
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