You didn’t need to be Idaho’s top meteorologist to know weather on Thursday was seriously out of character for the area and it was totally hellacious to the point where I-84—Idaho’s main connecting freeway for much of the Treasure Valley—was closed.

Although the freeway was closed due to safety concerns, Boise State decided to continue classes for the day, a decision that was both wrong and put students in danger.

Many students Thursday morning checked their inboxes expecting to see a message from the university announcing closure for the day. Surprisingly, no such message waited, and to the contrary a message announcing regular schedules would be in effect from Bronco Alert along with a small eye-rolling reminder at the end to “please be careful.”

Later in the day as conditions failed to significantly improve—The Idaho Statesman accurately described Idaho as an ice rink—Sharon McGuire, Ph.D., sent an email reminding students to keep an open communication to address complications in regard to making it to first-week classes.

No matter the reason, or reasons for keeping the university open, the safety of students in unusually brutal weather should never be superseded by the usual business of school, ever.

The weather seen Thursday was not common for this area and was dangerous.

Lauren DeThorne, a freshman majoring in environmental studies, noted the uncharacteristic weather, “I’ve lived in Boise my whole life and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

This situation was more than adverse weather slowing people down, it was also a situation where critical transportation lines were officially closed and regardless of bad weather, students and staff were cut off from campus.

According to Patrick Orr, of the Idaho Statesman, in Ada County alone there were eight crashes reported with injury, 110 crashes without injury, 76 slide-offs and 15 hit-and-runs on Thursday. Freeways were not fully open again until 4 p.m.

With around 22,000 students—many of which need to drive to school—the failure of the administration to close the school was a beefheaded call which put people at risk.

“When I first walked outside it looked fine, and then I got to my car and it was covered in ice, so I was concerned that school was going to be cancelled or not, but I didn’t get any text or emails or anything,” DeThorne said.

She also noted the efforts taken by the university to clean up campus.

“When I got here, thankfully I don’t live very far, everyone was working trying to get it cleaned up and sanded over and everything, but it was definitely very scary,” she said. “I was amazed, I saw what looked like probably professors, people in dress clothes with little things on their shoes hucking ice away.”

The efforts of Facilities, Operations and Maintenance and the Landscaping Department—which were commendable—were also noted by Abel Hancock, sophmore marketing major, “I was impressed to see how much work they were putting into cleaning up the sidewalks, I was glad they were doing that.”

Hancock was only a little surprised the university stayed open noting that it was the first week of class. And while usually
he rides his bicycle to class, he was able to use his car Thursday, which simplified things in the rough conditions.

“They (conditions on campus) were exciting and treacherous and worse than they looked mostly, I didn’t think they were going to be as slippery and dangerous as they were,” Hancock said.

One thing is for sure: the people on campus really came together to make the most out of a stupid and avoidable situation.

It is great if the university has the manpower and equipment to handle the streets and sidewalks on-campus but they do not have any control of the streets and sidewalks off-campus where the ice was still abundant.

You don’t need an expert opinion to know ice was everywhere and it was thick.

Kevin Satterlee, vice president of Campus Operations and General Counsel, said to The Arbiter Thursday, “The concern for our students is paramount. The concern for the mission of the university, our employees and students that have to make it into school; all those things play into account.”

Well Mr. Satterlee, while the sentiment is a good one, next time we will bring our ice skates, because the conditions required to close Boise State are evidently quite perilous. In the future those responsible for campus safety need to get real.

Re-branding can give your organization a whole new look. The idea is  simple; organizations such as  companies and universities have a public face which people see and recognize, and when you re-brand that public face is changed or updated in some way.

There are a lot of reasons for an organization to re-brand, and in the case of Boise State our diamond logo—which has been in use since 2001—was perhaps not a great icon for the school if only because it doesn’t seem to relate to anything. The change was a good call.

While a really straightforward letter logo such as our new one is not particularly flashy or exciting, it is clean and easy to reproduce. Soon it will probably start showing up on sweaters and other Bronco swag at the bookstore.

As the university grows it is important for our image to be easily recognizable and easy to spread. The diamond logo was just not easily recognizable.

Boise State’s growth has been steady over the last few years and a cool developments have come as a result of student work, such as work on ion thrusters by the College of Engineering.

There is no telling where university developments will eventually end up. With cool sci-fi stuff like Google-backed, Planetary Resources Inc. talking about mining asteroids in the not-so-distant future, it’s not farfetched to think some of their space vehicles could one day be using components developed by Broncos.

The point is Boise State is making progress as a university and that is good news for everyone here. A more reputable school means a degree from Boise State will carry more weight, and a more respected degree is what students should be getting from their school.

Mikhiale Camacho, a sophomore studying radiology, shared some of her thoughts on the new look and if it was a match for what the university is
offering.

“We were known as a commuter college and now with something more fun and inviting, we have a new logo to look forward to. I think it’s more appealing to newer generations coming into Boise State,” Camacho said

Boise State’s new look is similar to that of University of Oregon, which is both a respected academic institution as well as a football school. Part of the new logo is that it will almost certainly appear on Bronco football gear at some point.

In regard to the comparison, Camacho said, “I do feel like we have really great programs here such as the radiology program and the nursing program, our business program is booming, we just got a brand new building. Of course people are going to come here because they want to see BSU play, but I mean they didn’t do so hot this year so you can’t really say that ‘yes, we are just a football school,’ now I think that academics is starting to rise too.”

Ariel Strasser, an English and German double major, said, “It keeps trying to move away from football, we get a lot of football everywhere, I go home to Illinois for summer and winter breaks, and someone sees my sweatshirt it’s ‘oh my gosh Boise State football.’ But it’s got its engineering program, it’s got its business, it’s got other things
besides that.”

Another concern worth mentioning would be if the new identity for the university would make the school appear to be more of a commercial institution where students go in, pay their money and get a degree with the receipt more like a fast food restaurant, but input from students familiar with the updated look quickly quelled this concern.

“I don’t think a logo can do that, no. We were a B before the diamond that we had … It’s definitely more stylish than it was previously. I did like the diamond, but it (the new logo) does have that diagonal line it looks like its moving forward. But other than that it is just a B. It doesn’t have 20,000 students for a logo,” Strasser said.

Camacho said, “I don’t believe it cheapens the university in any way. I think it attracts more people to it; it’s not as dull as the other logo that we had. I think it’s more fun and inviting.”

Boise State will continue to grow and it will likely see many changes in years to come, but it is important that it adapts to new changes.

So, while there are many facets to a university’s public image and if it really has the credentials behind its look, one thing is certain, Boise State has come a long way over the years and its look should reflect this.

We’re a sharp, progressive campus, so it should represent itself as one.

Bikes come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. All over campus you can see fixies, mountain bikes, cruisers and more. But no matter the value or condition of the bike, nobody wants to get their wheels stolen.

Students might have the option of having additional security for their cycles provided by the university in the near future.

Parking and Transportation working have proposed bringing the Bike Shepherd program to Boise State in hopes of both helping deter potential bike thieves and recover bicycles, but also to help the university manage bikes on campus.

Bike Shepherd works by tagging bikes with sturdy, tamper-proof tags that make it clear to would-be thieves the bike is protected by more than a bike lock. It’s less appetizing for a thief when they know a bike is tracked than a bike that is not.

Students also register their bike’s serial number into the program’s registry giving them another means to find the stolen bike, and the owner can be identified by means of a simple QR code right on the tag.

Normally the tags are offered to the public for $15, but by buying a large number of tags the university may be able to offer students the tags for $10 or possibly cheaper. Not a bad price for a level of protection on your transportation.

But wait, there is more to it. By having tagged bikes which can be scanned to find the owner, the university suddenly has a way to contact students when their bicycle is chained somewhere it shouldn’t be or has been pulverized by a wayward motorcycle.

Stephen Ritter is the mastermind behind bringing Bike Shepherd to campus. He works in bicycle enforcement around campus in addition to his political science studies.

“A lot of the stuff we do, it’s best if we can contact the student, because that allows us to have more options. If we have no options then we’re stuck either cutting their bike lock and removing their bike in certain circumstances, or just leaving little tags that don’t really do a whole lot. So we had that problem, where we were very limited and wanted to open up our options. Bike Shepherd I could find that offered a viable service to the bike community at the same time,” Ritter said.

“With Bike Shepherd and the scan tag, then we have that QR number and we can scan that scan-tag, which is not prone to user error and still be able to their information and contact them and say hey, we had to impound your bike,” he said.

Ritter also noted a bicycle outside the Parking and Transportation office which—along with the rack it was locked to—had been destroyed by a motorcycle accident on Nov. 20. According to Boise Police there had been two bicycles destroyed, but the remaining bike was still locked on the rack. He talked about the lack of a way to contact the owner to inform them of their bike’s predicament.

Ritter also described the challenges the university faces when someone locks their bike on an ADA access ramp. In cases such as this the university has no choice but to remove the bike since any obstruction of an ADA ramp is a federal violation which the school becomes responsible for.

One obstacle facing Bike Shepherd is determining if students would actually buy and use the tags, but at a campus as bike-happy as Boise State, why wouldn’t you offer additional security measures to students? Seems like there is nothing to lose but some money. Ritter spoke about the process of making the pitch to various departments in the university such as Security, Housing and The Associated Students of Boise State University.

“Everybody we’ve talked to so far has been positive towards it. The last thing we want to do is move forward with it and have it be a disaster. Obviously. I don’t want to mar our good bicycle reputation we’re building, at all. Any hurdles we can see and negate beforehand is much better than moving forward relatively blindly and having a bunch of people be like hey we don’t want to do this.” Said Ritter

While bike theft isn’t exactly a rampant problem on campus, it certainly happens. What might not be taken into account is the Bike Shepherd tags would work anywhere, not just campus. And your bike is just as likely to get stolen off campus as on it.

In fact, September this year, Boise was the scene for a high profile bicycle heist when 13 of Team TIBCO’s custom racing bicycles were stolen out of the team’s trailer before the 2012 Exergy Tour. So yeah, your bike can get stolen in this town.

Phil Hobbs, a senior studying Environmental and Occupational Health works at the Cycle Learning Center noted it can be difficult to say how effective the Bike Shepherd program would be generally for the student body.

“It’s not going to be the best for everybody, many bikes here range from medium to pretty nice … it’s hard to quantify, so there are limitations,” Hobbs said.

He noted the large differences in value between some Wal-Mart bike and a high-end racing bike which sometimes make an appearance on campus.

“But overall I’m fully onboard,” Hobbs said.

Although the vast majority of students are not riding such expensive bicycles, many students depend heavily on their wheels to get around campus, town and in many cases to commute to and from work. It saves money they might otherwise spend on gas and parking.

Just because most students are not riding expensive bikes does not mean they won’t feel the pinch if their bike gets pinched. It is also difficult to say if the tags would do anything to deter thieves from stealing parts off bikes that are locked up, such as seats or wheels.

The tags wouldn’t be a replacement for making smart decisions about where you park your bike and locking it up. It would add an extra level of security for students and would at least better the chances or reuniting people with their stolen bicycles.

For the last seven years, Trojan Condoms has been going around rating universities across the country to see how they stack up when it comes to keeping students safe in the bedroom. Boise State received its report card in the mail this month.

Out of 141 universities, Boise State ranked comfortably in the upper 50 percent in spot 52, which is up from spot 66 last year. Yet after prodding around in regard to the grade, it turns out the university has more to offer than what its score suggests.

The grades are a culmination of several factors from the availability of sexual health services like contraceptives, sexually transmitted disease testing and sexual assault resources.

Researchers sponsored by Trojan queried schools on many things. To find information from each of the schools they would go to the school’s health and wellness website and try to gather information as a student might.

They got into contact with each school’s equivalent of our own Health and Wellness center and looked into services and information from the perspective students are believed to try and access it.

“We looked at the largest schools and we looked at the athletic conferences. We figured this was a good way to look at peer schools. There were smaller schools that wouldn’t necessarily meet the criteria or size, and then of course we included the Ivy League schools,” said Bert Sperling, founder of Sperling’s Best Places.

The company was hired by Trojan’s public relations firm to do research for the grades.

“We did not measure the amount of sexual activity on campus, so we did not measure the actual sexual health of students. That information is just not available and there is no good way to do that. That’s not what we’re looking for. Sexual health resources and information for students was what we were looking for,” Sperling said.

Researchers focused heavily on the websites of universities, saying that was the natural place students would go to for information about sexual health resources on their campus.

Yet there is more happening in regard to sexual health resources than can be found on the health and wellness center website.

Jodi Brawley, assistant director of wellness and marketing, said there is more going on than is obvious at the surface. While the school’s score of 52 out of 141 was still not bad – there is something to be said for the university offering a full medical clinic with a whole gamut of contraceptives for students –  some of the school’s efforts would have gone undetected by researchers.

For students living on campus there are over 30 vending machines spread throughout the residence halls where students can get some inexpensive rubber to sheath themselves with. In addition the Health and Wellness Center offers condoms by the basket-full.

“We fill the baskets weekly,” said Brawley.

Small efforts like this are in place, as well as no-nonsense talk sessions for students with health and wellness personnel to ask questions all about sexual health, also to learn the ins and outs of contraceptive which students can both see and examine samples of.

This information is not broadcast via the school’s website, so Sperling’s team performing the survey for Trojan would not have known unless they were to dive a little deeper. As Brawley explained, the university does not have a stance on student sexual health as a matter of policy but they do provide services for students, as well as education on the relevant subjects.

There is no mention of condom dispensers in the residence halls and the peer-to-peer awareness programs because those things are for the on-campus community, not the general public. The general public doesn’t go to the university for STI testing – although testing is available through the university for students – really it’s a matter of taking care of your own, and taking into account who really needs to know.

To be sure, we have to take anything Trojan says with a grain of salt. While the survey is seven years running and does provide useful insight to a school’s available resources, it is still a survey sponsored by a condom company.

While he couldn’t speak for Trojan, Sperling had this to say in regard to what a company has to gain from such a study.

“Corporations realize it does good things for them to do good things. This is a seven-year study, one of our longest lived research studies, and one that we feel the best about, because of the information it puts in the hands of students. So corporations get positive press that they are being a good citizen, it’s putting a positive light on their efforts, they want to take care of their customers,” Sperling said.

Boise State didn’t make the top ten in Trojan’s sexual health report card this year, but we’re up from last year, and we can be thankful we are not in the bottom ten.