You’ve finally made it.  Four years and several thousand dollars later, the moment that makes all the blood, sweat and tears worth it has finally arrived.  And now, you have to choose.  Between relatives, that is.

As Boise State’s commencement ceremonies approach, graduates have been informed that for the first time ever at Boise State, the graduation ceremony will be a ticketed event.  For those of us with larger families (or heaven forbid any friends who may want to share in the moment), Grandma may have to stay home this year.

Or, someone can drive her over to the Hatch Ballroom.  An “overflow” location, it has been set up for the relatives and friends who don’t make the seven ticket cut.  Never fear, the ceremony will be streamed live and coffee will be provided.

As Boise State’s student population continues to increase, the campus is struggling with many of the pains that accompany growth without the structural support needed to make that growth smooth.  This year’s graduation ceremony is one of the evidences that things need to be thought out a little better.

This year, over 1,500 people will participate in the graduation ceremony.  Taco Bell Arena only holds 13,200 people.  A little simple math, and it’s easy to see that in order for the university to ensure that every graduate can have a few meaningful people there, every graduate must be limited to seven guests.

“This is the largest ceremony ever, and every year has been the largest.  It means we’re meeting our goal of graduating more people every year,” said Kathleen Tuck, Assistant Director, Publications at the Office of Communications and Marketing.

Tuck said last spring, they set up the Hatch Ballroom just in case they needed it for overflow guests, and ended up reaching capacity at the Taco Bell Arena.  This year, they are planning on needing it.

“My out-of-town grandmother won’t be able to come unless I get another ticket,” said Katie Farmer, a communication major and a senior frustrated with the university’s solution to this problem.  “My father is driving eight hours to pick her up, and eight hours back home, and I have to tell her she can’t come now.”

Annie Olson, a mathematics major also graduating this spring, has also had to pick relatives over each other.  “My own husband and children won’t get to go, because all of my grandparents are going!” she said.  “They were supportive of us while I have been going to school; how can we say that they can’t go?  So we just decided, my husband and kids would stay home.”

Tuck claims the executive team looked at several other options, including using the stadium.  “It would have cost us over half a million dollars to use the stadium, because we would have had to put down a fake floor over the turf, build a staging stand, and bring the sound system down there.”  Tuck said if it rained, they would have to cancel the entire event.

Other venues around town were also considered, but nothing seemed to be a fit.  “This is not unusual; a lot of universities have had to ticket their events,” Tuck said.

The Arbiter

But Farmer said one of her friends who attended the nursing program at SPU (Seattle Pacific University) had a solution.  Each department hosted their own graduation ceremony, so  each graduate could bring as many people as they wanted, and each department could celebrate in their own way.  As a bonus, the ceremony was not three hours long, with people sitting and listening to a long list of graduates from departments that don’t concern them.

Olson expressed similar sentiment, saying she also had visited a friend who was graduating from the University of Idaho, and the departments all had separate graduation ceremonies in different buildings. “It would have allowed for a lot more people to come,” Olson said.

Sadly more thought was not put into the solution for this year, and now the invitations have all been printed and sent out.  Too late for this round of seniors, but perhaps next year’s seniors will listen, and start rallying now to get the graduation ceremony they deserve.

Boise State paid 5.9 million dollars for University Christian Church property located at 1801 University Dr., across the street from the Student Union Building. It is the largest single land area left in the expansion zone of Boise State’s master plan.
Boise State will officially take ownership later on in May. There is not a long term plan for what will be done with the space. The purchase was made now because school officials considered the property nearly invaluable to the future growth of the university.
“For us it was just an extremely important land acquisition because as the university grows out this will be right in the middle of campus,” said Jared Everett interim vice president for Campus Planning and Facilities.
The property was purchased on the idea of land banking. Put simply this means that strategic properties are purchased with the expectation there will be a return in the future.
“Right now from an economic standpoint a very good timely acquisition because property values were near all-time lows, many of the economic reports we read indicated that property values will start to increase. And the cost of debt is also historically low,” Everett said. “So those economic principles just pointed that it was a good time for a significant acquisitions.”
In Boise State’s case, the return on the property will come in the form of whatever programs and buildings are built there.
Boise State also may have been motivated by the fact that as the UCC moved closer to completion on their new space in Meridian, they would lose the chance to purchase the space if they didn’t make a move.
“We’ve had quite a bit of interest from outside parties,” said Marcy Timm, chairman of the board for the church.
As part of the purchase agreement, the UCC will continue to occupy for the space for the next year on a nominal lease agreement. The addition of a lease agreement helped the parties reach an agreement and, according to Everett, was a factor the price.
“We really wanted our property to become part of the University,” Timm said. “They were very good to work with.”
Basically, the UCC will pay one dollar a month in rent. On top of that they will pay the operation costs, maintenance, custodial and utilities.
“They will actually have a couple hundred thousand dollars of expenses to maintain and operate the building over the next year,” said Everett. “And they’ll be paying those costs.”
After the church is vacated, Boise State will use the building in its current configuration until the plans for redevelopment are completed. The current UCC building is 45,000 square feet. According to Everett, about 35,000 square feet of that is office, classroom and storage space that the can be used immediately.
However the UCC has been using the building since the 1950s and it isn’t in ideal shape for long term use.
“You or I might not feel like it was modernized… but it is a fully usable space,” Everett said. “The building is basically a well-used but in good condition older building.”
There are no plans to renovate the interior of the building as the use is considered secondary to the future redevelopment of the space.
The UCC will be moving to a new space in Meridian and changing its name to the Parkview Christian Church. The idea of the UCC being gone is disconcerting for some.
“I grew up in Boise and that church has always been there,” said Melissa Quairn, a sophomore developmental studies major. “I’ve been going to church there since I started at Boise State. I don’t know if I want to go all the way out to Meridian every week.”
Timm insists that Quairn is a rare case and few students are being displaced.
“We don’t have that many students that attend. It’s mostly seasoned members,” Timm said.
For students who have lost their church there are worse alternatives than it becoming part of Boise State.
“If it had to be sold I’m glad it was sold to BSU and not ‘Condoms ‘R’ Us or something,” Quairn said.
The idea of purchasing the UCC property is not new. According to Everett, Boise State and the UCC have had on and off negotiations for 13 years.
“More than a decade ago the university was interested in acquiring the property and started discussions with the church,” Everett said. “This time both buyer and seller were really motivated so the transaction occurred.”

Define sustainability. Can you do it? Did your mind just go blank? Don’t feel ashamed if it did. Sustainability is a complex issue. It’s more than driving a fuel-efficient car or riding a bike to work or recycling waste. It is an issue that demands an understanding of many different vantage points to tackle. And there is an interdisciplinary research group at Boise State working toward that end.

On Friday, May 3, six professors presented on the topic of sustainability. The Interdisciplinary Research Community on “Translating Sustainability” invited professor Laura Lindenfeld of University of Maine to join in on talks about bridging the gap between university studies in sustainability and community.

The members of the interdisciplinary research group each presented on individual research or experiences that illustrated different approaches to understanding sustainability.

Paul Ziker, from the anthropology department, described the goal of sustainability as an attempt “to try and create human environmental systems that are lasting for the long term.” For him, it is about social sustainability in how material and intellectual resources are shared.

Katie Demps, also of the Anthropology department, gave this statement regarding sustainability, “When I talk about sustainability, I’m thinking about day to day interactions of people and their
environments.”

Tony Marker, taking his perspective from Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning, spoke on the necessity of finding a balance between “people, profit and planet.” It is his belief that neuroscience is a viable path to developing more “wisdom” rather than “intellect.”

Professor Erin McClellan of the Communication Department spoke about how certain ways of designing public spaces and how people interact with those spaces are indicative of certain value sets. “I think sustainability is sort of a sense of being,” she said, “over time, in a way that reflects a variety of perspectives in a way that creates a collective good.” She made the argument that public spaces should reflect more than just the values of experts or the majority in order to be sustainable and good.

Community and Regional Planning Professor Amanda Johnson spoke on the experiences she had working on a joint project between two different classes. She was able to witness the students’ conversations as they developed a “common language” regarding sustainability.

“You saw this translation happening from these classes and these students,” Johnson stated. “You would hear these students say, ‘(Are you) talking about a sustainable downtown, or are you talking about a livable downtown? How can you determine what sustainability means?’… What we found is through this kind of collective learning process… there has to be this kind of common
language that you share.”

Johnson made the point that phrases like “green” and “sustainability” don’t mean anything unless there is enough discussion to translate the different vantage points on the matter into a more collective understanding. “Not a single field can accomplish this by itself,” she said. “And that’s why this interdisciplinary work that we’re doing is so important because we’re all thinking about it in different ways and have a very different set of inputs into this kind of systems thinking.”

Laura Lindenfeld was invited  to speak at this presentation based on the work she has been doing.

“They came across my work and I study how universities can leverage their capacities to solve sustainability problems,” she said. She works in a similar interdisciplinary group that involves around 100 faculty.

For Lindenfeld, sustainability is a collective effort, and one that doesn’t just occur in the universities.

“I think it is important that universities help their immediate communities. Especially as public universities, we have an obligation to deliver back to our immediate communities.” This is the foundation for her idea that research, teaching and service go hand in hand.

“We need to think more strategically about how those things inform each other and complement each other,” Lindenfeld said.

Sustainability is meaningless, Lindenfeld stated, unless we can leverage whole universities and think systematically about how we turn our attention to the communities in which we live. And this involves what she and the research cluster refer to as “translating sustainability.” Lindenfeld described it thus, “When I think about translation, I think about connecting, bridging, spanning… (It is) never a one-way street. It’s about reciprocity.”

However, the process of negotiating a collective understanding of sustainability and translating it into action is very difficult. During the panel discussion at the end of the presentation McClellan pointed out the challenge of communication. “We don’t have a central language… We all can agree that there’s something about sustainability that we should be talking about, but how we talk about it is not agreed upon.”

Marker complicated the matter further. “Sustainability is actually a whole set of really complex problems,” he said. “There’s not one answer for this.”

Director of Community and Regional Planning Jaap Vos added to the discussion. “The big question I have is are we actually asking the right questions?” But it is often the case that a lot of wrong questions must be asked before the right ones are found.

For senior environmental studies major Shaun Wheeler, it’s important to have malleable ideas.

“If you’re sailing, for example, sometimes you have to steer away from your destination in order to get there,” Wheeler said.

One of the important things he said he learned from this discussion was the need for more “collective energy” in finding the right direction.

“I have satisfaction with the concept of bridging the campus community with the Boise community.”

Fellow environmental studies major Russell Bridges was impressed with the idea of interdisciplinary programs.

“Because Environmental Studies is so broad… this concept of this program being interdisciplinary is my livelihood. More interdisciplinary programs should be developed.”

This presentation was the beginning of sharing ways to  understand sustainability as a community, and develop ways of motivating collective action. No one claimed to have the right definition of sustainability or even the best. The goal was to open dialogue and share research  in order to present different ways of looking at the issues and hopefully, develop a better plan to approach it.

Election season is over.  The candidate banners have all been taken down and our television commercials have gone back to being about fast food and footwear.  Though this may seem like an unlikely time to start a conversation about our civic duty to vote, here I am.  My argument–for those who may find politics a little on the daunting side, now is the perfect time to start educating yourself a little at a time, when the candidates, the news and the commercials are not all up in your face.

I confess that I haven’t always taken advantage of my civic right and responsibility to vote.  For me, turning 18 meant that I could finally move out of my parents’ house, and very little more.

As an young adult in the world, I understood that I should vote, but I also felt strongly that it was irresponsible of me to show up at the polls and vote for candidates I knew nothing about.  The only politics I had exposed myself to was whatever I could find on television, and it could never hold my interest for any length of time.  It was too boring, somewhat confusing, and the banter between the candidates was ridiculous.  If I wanted to watch childish he said she said, I wouldn’t break up the fights between my two and four year old.

So, I gave way to complacency.  I didn’t understand politics, and I felt I was too busy to try to unravel the complex web it is.  I would hear other people in my life complain about certain political issues, and having no knowledge or background of the counter argument, I was easily swayed by what they said.  It is very easy to adopt an idea when presented with a reasonable argument why.  But political issues almost always have two opposing sides with two very good arguments, and it is important to understand issues on the fundamental level before you can really form an opinion and choose a stance.

It took years and lot more education before I began to feel differently.

Sadly, I know I am not the only American who behaves this way.  There are any number of reasons why people don’t vote, from being too busy, to not liking either one of the candidates, to simply choosing not to get involved in politics.  According to the Census Bureau, in 2010, the most common reason people didn’t vote was because they were too busy.

In our country, we are given one day in which we are all supposed to flock to the polls and cast our ballots.  But any number of obstacles can deter even the best of intentions:  work, illness, transportation, confusion over voting districts.  That’s not to mention the sacrifice of the most precious commodity in American culture, time.  Sometimes it means taking time off of work to visit the polls, and that can mean losing an hourly wage–or two–and creating an unhappy boss.

Our country tries to accomodate some of these problems by offering things like absentee ballots which can be mailed in prior to Election Day, to help people who are unable to get to the polls on Election Day.  Qualifications include everything from students to seniors, people on vacation to people serving overseas.  Recently, there has been talk of making voting even more complicated by requiring voters to provide personal identification at the polls.

Dr. John Freemuth, PhD, Professor of Political Science and the Department of Public Administration, says, “I am very concerned about the attempt to make it harder to vote.  It should be uniform, clear, fair and easy.”

Couple all of that with the next most common reason people don’t vote:  because they feel that their vote doesn’t matter in the big picture, and you start to get the big picture.  With the way our political system operates, it’s an argument that is hard to counter.

Chaz Gentry, a student at Boise State, says, “I (also) think that, like many from both sides of the political spectrum, have come to the conclusion that our state is simply a “red” state, and because of that, nothing anyone does voting wise, really matters.  Idaho will go for Mitt as president, Idaho will never elect a liberal governor, same sex-marriage will take a long time to be recognized, and gun control will stay at a minimum.  Boise is the blue pond in the middle of a red sea.”

Many people feel that one single vote doesn’t matter (except possibly in a close, small local election).  Your personal vote doesn’t choose our next leaders.  And if you are supporting a third party candidate, you can pretty much just stay home.  The Democratic and Republican Parties have loads of money, and plenty of air time and sway.  They are a force that is difficult to go up against.  In the spirit of great American politics, it doesn’t stop third party candidates from running.  But there are always those voters who will vote for their party, regardless of the issues or the candidate running.  They might even vote for a candidate that they strongly dislike, simply because he is of their political persuasion.

“There would need to be a major national catastrophe to mobilize enough people around a grassroots candidate that was completely different than the major party figures who are so good at suppressing media, etc., of alternate candidates.  Part of the reason third parties don’t have enough representation is the winner take all aspect of our electoral system as well,” said Nickolas Roehl, a student at Boise State studying Media Production.

The media has not always lent a hand to make it less confusing and obnoxious for those who are not keen about politics.  For the sake of viewership, and the constant drive for ratings, the media tends to focus largely on the horserace, and less and less on the real political issues.  When given twenty seconds to make an impression and get a message across, the media seem to focus on slips of the tongue and less on campaign promises.  For someone really looking for the hard facts, it is very difficult to slip past this veneer and at times one may have to really dig to get good hard facts. It is not difficult to see why there are many people who do not have a strong desire to acquaint themselves more deeply with politics.

“The media can play a productive role when they sort through campaign claims for accuracy, and when they can provide information on candidates’ stances and actions on policy issues. The more they turn a campaign into a horse race, with the he said she said superficial coverage, it’s not really very helpful.  It’s negative ads that present most of the name calling, ” Freemuth said.

Statistics from the Census Bureau show that while the number of white (non-hispanic) registered voters has decreased from 80.4 percent in 2006 to 77.5 percent in 2010, the racial diversity among voters has increased.  Hispanics made up 7 percent of the voters in 2010, blacks made up 12 percent, and the number of Asian registered voters remained constant at approximately 2.5 percent.  In the 2012 Presidential Election, 207,643,594 people were eligible to vote.  Of those, only about 150 million were actually registered to vote.  The total population in the United States is a little over 300 million.

How do we create more interest in our political system?  How do we engage people in their civic duties?  “If we were set up more like a parliament where if a party gets a one-third of the national votes, they get one-third of the seats in the government, more parties would emerge because less people would feel their votes were wasted,” says Roehl.  Of course, the odds of becoming a parliamentary system are slim.

Other than voting, Freemuth says people can find alternative ways to participate politically, like participating in a political protest.  The most important thing is to find your voice, and use it.  We are Americans, we fought to have a voice, and we should not forget what that means, and just how fortunate we are.

Kate King

Boise’s new non-smoking ordinance may be luring smokers back to campus to avoid being ticketed.  The recent smoking act has left determined smokers with few places to go and campus officials are unsure of how to prosecute violators.

Boise State University officially became a smoke-free campus in 2009. According to a Boise State news release concerning the smoking ban in 2008, 86 percent of students sided that campuses should be smoke-free environments.

Taylor Mitzel, a campus resident and freshman, shares this majority opinion. “I think colleges should be smoke-free mainly because of health. College campuses should not put others at risk from the air pollution that smoking causes,” Mitzel said.

Since the ban, the amount of smoking on campus has decreased significantly. Boise State alumnus Tyler Lyon was a student both before and after the ban.  He saw a major difference between the two.  “I remember transferring here from ISU and being really surprised to see people smoking all over campus. I hated it,” he said.

Lyon transferred during the spring of 2005 and completed his undergraduate degree prior to the smoking ban. When he returned for his master’s degree the ban was in effect. “The ban made a world of difference,” Lyon said. “It was so nice to be able to exit buildings without being greeted by a cloud of smoke.”

In January of 2012, three years after the campus-wide ban, the city of Boise put a city-wide ban on smoking in public parks, bars, restaurants, the Grove Plaza, within 20 feet of city-owned buildings and outdoor commercial patios.  The ban also led to several hookah bars in the area to permanently close their doors because of the restrictions that were imposed.

Boise’s non-smoking regulations were put into place for many of the same reasons that Boise State became a smoke-free campus – to protect the health and well-being of its citizens. But the percentage of students rallying around the new city-wide ban may not be as great. BSU sophomore Verenitze Beltran views the bans as entirely separate issues. “I think it’s right that Boise State has a smoking ban but not that the city of Boise has one,” Beltran said.

The campus ban exclusively covers the university’s public property while the city ban includes privately owned businesses. This dissimilarity causes some who are in favor of the campus ruling, like Beltran, to hold different views on the city law.

“I don’t think Boise should tell business owners whether or not to allow smoking. I know it affects their business so it should be up to them,” she said.

Regardless of the opinion of students on the more recent ban, it is still yet to be determined whether the new city-wide ordinance is helping or hindering the cause of BSU’s original sanction. One might assume that the two regulations would support and strengthen the other but the punishment for the violation of the city ordinance and the campus policy are vastly different, complicating the situation. Violation of the smoking ordinance in the city of Boise is punishable by a $69 fine if violators show resistance to law enforcement or are repeat offenders. The punishment inflicted by campus
violators is far less severe.

“It depends on their attitude, but violators will first get a verbal warning, then a written warning, and then an incident report will be filed,” Boise State’s Executive Director of Campus Security Jon Uda said. “We were never intended to be the smoking police. The ban is intended to be peer enforced by students, faculty and staff.”

Students from Boise State who may have waited to smoke until they were off campus before the city’s ban may instead decide to remain on campus to smoke to avoid the greater penalty. “Before they passed the Boise City ban I did not see nearly as many people smoking on campus.  Smokers used to go to Julia Davis Park but now they do not seem to care,” Beltran said.

It seems that smokers on campus are beginning to take advantage of the weak campus enforcement policy. “I see people walk past me with cigarettes and see cigarettes on sidewalks on campus,” Mitzel said.

An increased number of violators puts campus security in a hard spot. “It’s like a game of cat and mouse and the mouse is better,” Uda said. Determined smokers can always find obscure, unmonitored areas.

While Boise’s new smoking ban may well be improving the quality of the air we breathe, its effects are “clouding the issue” of the smoke free campus that most students and officials are promoting.

Studying abroad is a great experience in itself, but having something to remember it with is equally important. For one, it lets you remember and even keep in touch with all those friends you made. For another, it gives you something material to wave in your little sister’s face to make her jealous.

Some of the most popular are various methods of journaling. There’s the physical option, especially useful for those artistic types who can keep sketches next to the appropriate passages. It also makes for a scrapbook type of memoranda, with ticket stubs and receipts.

The tech option is a blog. This is an easy way to keep up with all those ‘keep in touch, send us postcards’ requests too. Going broke due to postage is not a particularly story-worthy way to go. There are tons of options out there, but one of the easiest is Google’s Blogger, pretty intuitive and included in a standard Google account. Being able to include pictures is a big bonus on this method.

Both of these are ways to capture the whole experience, with as much attention to daily life as you want. There are also a few more unique options for keeping track of travels.

One is a map. The one I use is pretty basic, just country outlines and a few major cities. The lack of details makes it easy to read any notations made, indicating cities traveled to and a brief blurb on the whys.

Another way, which requires someone back home cooperating, is postcards. Landscape shots are all well and good when you have a spectacular camera and enthusiasm for photography, but for cheap-camera owners, postcards are better. Save the photos for people you meet and truly unique shots.

Most places which sell postcards also sell the appropriate postage. Just make sure to indicate you are mailing it to America, because sometimes that has different postage than another European country. Writing out trip details gives the opportunity to record the amusing tidbits often forgotten by the time you get to a computer or to your journal.

By mailing them back home, you also get the postage collection and some travel-worn postcards. Make sure to establish with your recipient they need to save all the postcards for you though.

Finally, remembering the people met on exchange. A popular way to collect signatures and well-wishes are flags from the host nation. Visitor centers and local shops have flags in various sizes. Picking a big one gives signers the option of recording memories or well-wishes rather than just a signature. This is especially fun if they write in their native languages! Make sure to get a translation though, Google Translate doesn’t really cut it.

This is ironic, given my previous column about misusing the American flag, so I wish to assure you that no Swedes have complained about this usage of their country’s symbol. Might be worth checking in your own host country just in case.

With all the creative people out there, unique ways of commemorating a trip pop up all the time. These are just some easy and fun ones to get you started.

Boise State has a rather large—and growing—international student population.  The International Student Services Department is challenging all domestic students across campus to step outside of their comfort zones, and meet some new and friendly faces.

 DARIA

Daria Ursol was only 15-years-old when she journeyed from Muldova (which is tucked between the Ukraine and Romania) to Wenatchee, Wash., completely by herself. She spent a year in Washington with an exchange family, then traveled back to Muldova to finish high school.

In 2010, Ursol had found her way back to Wenatchee and attended a small community college.  Two years later, she transferred to Boise State to pursue a degree in Multi-Ethnic Studies with a minor in Spanish.  She didn’t know a soul in Idaho when she picked Boise State, but she was awarded a great scholarship and  would still be fairly close to her friends in Washington.

Ursol has an almost unnoticeable accent.  Though she said her accent was very strong when she first came to America, she says she has worked very hard to increase her vocabulary.  She said that when she first came to America as an exchange student, the hardest language barrier for her was slang.  She would come home with some edgy words, and ask her host family what they meant.  Her host family was always shocked at the words she was bringing home, and she was always shocked to find out what they meant.

Ursol made the decision to pursue her education in the states because American society fits more closely with her own personal beliefs than did Muldova society, which she describes as still very conservative.  There are more opportunities for  people here, and she likes the fact that we are an individualistic society, compared to the collectivist society from which she came.

“I feel very fortunate being here. I consider myself very lucky. I would definitely recommend BSU to any international student,” Ursol said.

 AZIZ

Aziz Alfaleh is another international student at Boise State a long way from home.  He is a sophomore studying information technology management.  Home for Alfelah is Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and his country is footing the bill for his education.  He has been in America since January 2011.

The largest challenge he’s faced since being in America is dealing with what he calls “the tiny cultural differences.”

For example, Alfaleh, with his friendly smile, has easily made friends in class.  But there have been times when he runs into a friend outside of class, and they barely give him a nod.  At first he was offended,  he later came to realize it is part of American individualist society.  w In Saudi Arabia, that would be considered very rude.

Because of all of the unrest in the Middle East, Alfaleh has unfortunately been the target of unwarranted stares and a few nasty comments.  He said people here are not used to foreigners.  When the bombings at the Boston Marathon happened, he said he prayed for it not to be someone from the Middle East.  But for the most part, his experience here has been positive.

Alfelah is also well-spoken. He said he felt very confident about his ability to speak English when he came to America.

“When it comes to language I feel more American than most Americans,” Alfelah said.

Alfelah made an interesting observation about how we handle our money as Americans.  He described it as being money-driven. The example he used was from a time when he had given a fellow classmate a ride home.  The classmate had told Alfelah to pull over at a gas station; that he wanted to put a few dollars of gasoline into his car for him.  Alfelah laughed and said, “No, you don’t have to do that!  I am just giving you a ride because I am a nice person.  You don’t have to buy my gas.”

Both Ursol and Alfelah miss their families and see them very little.  Ursol got to go home last summer, but it had been a year and a half since she had seen them at that point.  The opportunity for her family to come to visit her here in America is slim at best.

“It’s easy for me to come and go, because I have an educational visa, but it’s more complicated for them,” Ursol said.

 BLENDING IN AND MAKING FRIENDS

It isn’t always easy fitting in and making new friends.  It’s not even easy for people born in America.

“You can’t walk up to someone and say, ‘Can we be friends?’  It’s just not done that way,” said Christy Babcock, associate director of International Student Services.

Language barriers are often a problem.  “The challenge can come from two different sides or both sides at once,” Babcock said, whether it’s an international student who doesn’t feel comfortable yet expressing themselves in English, or a domestic student who isn’t used to conversing with someone from another country.

Together with Multi-Cultural Student Services, it shares a couple of lounges designed to bring people from every nationality and culture together. The space is meant to be a comforting place where students can hang out, study, and have group meetings.  Everyone is welcome, but the center has had trouble gaining the interest of domestic students.

Babcock says the center holds a variety of events, but because they are marked as “being held by the international student services” and “being held at the diversity center,” domestic students don’t think they are welcome.  That has been a huge marketing challenge for them.

Domestic students often get involved with the center for service learning credits. For example, The World Cup of Tea Program partners domestic students with international students, and credits are available. Babcock says that once they get involved, they tend to stay involved.

Also, many Christian-based groups tend to be eager to get involved, and Babcock said they just have to make sure their intentions are not to recruit new church members.

Coffee and Conversation is a group that meets every Wednesday from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Student Diversity Center

For international students, it’s a chance to hang out, vent  frustrations, and make connections.  It is informal and comfortable, with people  sitting around, eating and chatting.

Coffee and Conversation typically draws between 30 to 50 students.  One of the hardest challenges Babcock faces is trying to immerse international students with domestic students in a social setting.  Sometimes, it’s a cultural problem in and of itself.

“You really see that with the Middle Eastern Students; they really stick together.  You only have a few that really try to immerse themselves,” Babcock said.  Presently, Boise State is attended by 430 Middle Eastern students. That number has doubled in the last two years.

Babcock said she would like to challenge all domestic students—to step outside their comfort zone, and openly welcome international students.

“This is a way to learn about the world without leaving your home town,” Babcock said.  You are making a new friend, learning about the world, and making someone feel welcome; something Babcock describes as win/win.

Last month, freshman Laray Stoffels and four friends were heading to dinner from their dorms on the fifth floor of Towers Hall. The five of them got in the elevator, as usual, and descended toward the first floor. What happened next was not usual.
“We got like halfway between the fifth floor and the fourth floor and like it just stopped, it just completely stopped,” Stoffels said.
Realizing that the elevator was stuck, Stoffels and her friends pressed the call button and were assured maintenance personnel were on the way to get them out. Stoffel and the others on the elevator remained calm and waited to be rescued.
“One of the girls on the elevator had gotten stuck in Towers before and it took like ten minutes and they got her out, so we didn’t think it was that big of a deal,”
Stoffels said.
Maintenance arrived and after trying several different methods to fix the problem, they discovered there was no way to safely get the girls out due to their location between floors; Boise Fire Department had to be called.
“We waited longer and the fire department came and they had to pry it open with all their tools and then they just pulled us all out,” Stoffels said. “We were in there for like an hour and a half, hour and forty minutes.”
After the students were safely out of the elevator, the cause of the malfunction was revealed to be a broken second brake. Since then, the elevator has been fixed and seems to be operating normally.
While incidents such as this one are out of the ordinary, they do still occur. Since July of 2012 the office of Facilities, Operations and Maintenance has recorded 119 service calls for elevators on campus, according to Suzanne Seigneur, communications and  outreach coordinator for Campus Planning and Facilities.
Boise State has 84 elevators currently in operation, all of which require regular inspections and maintenance to keep them in compliance with state and federal safety standards. According to Seigneur, that task is contracted to ThyssenKrupp Elevator (TKE).
“Safety is our number one job and part of the reason we contract out is so that we’re hiring an expert, who is a certified technician, who comes in and takes a look at all the elevators,” Seigneur said.
Those 84 elevators keep a TKE technician busy working nearly full-time for the university. Each elevator is placed on an inspection schedule based on how heavily it’s used.
Elevators with high usage, such as those in the Education building, are inspected weekly. Elevators in buildings with medium usage—Liberal Arts, for example—are inspected monthly. Elevators that receive little use are inspected bi-monthly, such as the ones in the Extended Studies Center.
According to Seigneur, inspections involve a top to bottom inspection of the elevator car, including operator controls inside the elevator, emergency lights, the car door opening device, landing alignment, door sequencing, brakes, all fluid levels, and many other parts.
“We do our maintenance according to state and federal standards. Every elevator is also pulled off-line and thoroughly inspected every five years,” Seigneur said. “There are some times when an elevator needs to be replaced, typically when parts no longer can be obtained readily.”
The elevators in the Administration Building will soon be replaced, during the end of May and beginning of June, Seigneur also said.
Boise State spends $64,500 per year on the standard maintenance contract for all elevators on campus, with funds from the Facilities annual operating budget. The departments where the elevators are located also contribute funds towards elevator maintenance. Any unexpected service calls, such as removing an individual from a stuck elevator or repairing a broken elevator, are not included in the budget.
With all the inspections, maintenance and funding elevators receive, why does the office of Facilities, Operations and Maintenance still receive an average of ten service calls a month? According to Seigneur, most elevator malfunctions are caused by users.
“Facilities doesn’t experience many mechanical issues with the elevators,” Seigneur said. “Most of the incidences when they do have them are human-caused. It’s most often a case of the elevator doors out of alignment. Most of the time this happens when individuals see the door closing and are quick to push the door back or obstruct the door with a hand or foot.”
Seigneur recommended that riders instead press the door open button to stop the door from closing. Pranks, such as placing a coin in the track of the elevator doors, can prevent doors from opening properly. Overloading the elevators with too many people could also potentially cause breakdowns.
In 2000, Rice University administration threatened fines for students causing malfunctions by jumping up and down while the elevators were in motion, according to the Rice Thresher student newspaper. Similarly childish behavior could also cause elevators to stall at Boise State.
For those few unlucky students who do get stuck in elevators on campus, the ordeal usually isn’t too traumatic. As Laray Stoffels pointed out, she hasn’t exclusively switched to stairs.
“Nothing really happened. We didn’t go crashing down or anything, so it wasn’t that scary,” Stoffels said. “Every time I get in that elevator it kind of freaks me out but I’m not going to avoid elevators completely.

If you are stuck in an elevator on campus:
1) Don’t panic
Modern elevators are engineered in such a way that it is almost impossible for the car to plummet to the bottom of the elevator shaft, so there’s no need to worry about that happening.
Elevators are also not airtight so there is no possibility of running out of air. Take deep breaths if you begin to feel claustrophobic
2) Push the emergency call button
This will connect you to campus dispatch. They will contact maintenance to come and get you out.
3) Be patient
Depending on how severely the elevator is stuck, it may take some time to get you and the other passengers out.
4) DO NOT try and get out on your own
The elevator could unexpectedly move or you could fall down the shaft and be severely injured. The safest place for you to be is inside the elevator car.

Information courtesy of the Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation www.eesf.org.