While the event is intended to increase dialogue of the subject on campus, there are a number of services offered that already help foster diversity, such as the Rainbow Resource Center, located on the main floor of the Union.

Emily Hart, a senior in the Division of Social Work and head coordinator of the center, said that the center has a number of programs, one of the key features being the opportunity to meet other like-minded students.

“The biggest thing we offer students, both GLBTQ and non[- GLBTQ], is the social networking opportunities here at the center,” she said.

Hart added that giving students a positive, safe environment to interact is central to the center’s mission.

“We are in a very typically conservative area, which means that more help and support can be given, the better,” she said. “It’s a safe environment for everyone really. Anyone can come in as long as they are respectful.”

One feature of the center is its expansive library of GLBTQ-related books and media.

According to Hart, the center has the largest GLBTQ library in the state (980 titles in all) that they work to keep updated. The center recently received a $500 donation from TriO and is using the money to update their library.

TriO Programs is based out of the office of Student Educational Opportunity and is designed to help individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Along with being a safe environment and having the library, the center also offers academic support.

“We can also help students academically through assisting students with making schedules or working with the registrar’s office,” Hart said.

This support is extended by the center’s mentoring program, which helps incoming GLBTQ students adjust to college life.

“We have a peer mentoring program now that will take students who have been down here a year or longer, and they can mentor incoming students, to help start a relationship with campus and better integrate into Laramie’s community,” Hart said. “This is a program we piloted in the fall, and it is run specifically out of our office.”

There are, however, a number of challenges associated with running the resource center, Hart said.

“On average, we have close to 3,600 [students], who are members of the GLBTQ community, who go to school at UW. We are also the only hub in the state, so we try and network with GLBTQ students throughout the state,” she said.

Hart added that another challenge associated with the GLBTQ community in Laramie is the political climate that causes many students to be hesitant to be open about their sexual orientation.

“It’s really difficult to get solid statistics on how many GLBTQ students are currently enrolled at UW, because many students don’t want to come out,” she said.

In the future, Hart said she hopes to continue to expand the services the resource center can provide students both GLBTQ and non-GLBTQ.

“I think the work we do here, and the services we provide, are important—not just to the GLBTQ community on campus—but to the state as a whole,” she said.

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The Branding Iron is a Student Media project. Student Media gives University of Wyoming students valuable experience in writing, editing, advertising, sales, graphic design, photography and production through its publications with the guidance of professional staff members. If you find a mistake in an article, e-mail us at bi@uwyo.edu. We will make sure to torture the poor soul until it's corrected. Just kidding. We probably won't do anything, since we're busy studying for finals.

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Ferguson will perform her senior violin recital free of charge at 7 p.m. tonight in the Fine Arts Concert Hall.

“A senior recital is a required component of the culmination of your musical study at UW. It provides the opportunity for you to show your family and friends how much you have learned and grown as a musician,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson started playing the violin at the String Academy of Wyoming when she was six years old. She also plays the viola and is planning on switching to viola later this year.

One of Ferguson’s professors is Sherry Sinift, who teaches studio violin and violin pedagogy at UW and is a supervising teacher for the UW String Project. Sinift also performs with the Summit Chamber Players, another ensemble on campus.

Branding Iron

The Branding Iron is a Student Media project. Student Media gives University of Wyoming students valuable experience in writing, editing, advertising, sales, graphic design, photography and production through its publications with the guidance of professional staff members. If you find a mistake in an article, e-mail us at bi@uwyo.edu. We will make sure to torture the poor soul until it's corrected. Just kidding. We probably won't do anything, since we're busy studying for finals.

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Yet, I am not alone. Untold numbers of students all across campus are now in the end-of-the-semester homestretch. Many will spend the next week trying to complete a half of a semester’s worth of studying and coursework.

The library and computer labs that dot campus are filled with student’s rushing to complete their work on the final papers of the semester.

Yesterday afternoon, I saw one young woman who had to be typing at 90-words-a-minute, rushing to complete her research. What surprised me was the stress that was evident on her face did not deter her from banging out what had to be three pages in 20 minutes.

I suppose stress and procrastination can bring the best out of some people. If I could use pressure as motivation to produce work so fast, I would have had the rest of my assigned writing done last week.

Then there are the students who are trying to complete the reading of multiple chapters, if not books, right before they are to be tested on the material.

Some will be able to break the work load down into chunks, which they will be able to complete over the next week.

Others will surely have to finish the bulk of their reading the night before the work is due. Yet this is not really what can be considered reading; it’s more like scanning.

For some, covering such a large amount of material will not have much if any effect on their grades. For others, trying to do so much with so little time will turn out to be disastrous for their GPA this semester.

And of course, there will surely be those students who, besides just having to rush to complete the last of their reading and projects, will also cram overnight for their final the next day. They will take to their notes, reading them over and over for hours until its test time.

Once again, this may work to some students’ advantage. But for others, such studying techniques will have a devastating effect on the grades they receive on their finals. Surely they would have done better had they kept looking studying their notes over the past few weeks.

Some will fret and strain over whether they put up a strong enough effort towards their classes. Some will wish they had more time to prepare. But we will all know soon enough whether our efforts were enough.

It is what it is. Finals are here, whether you like it or not.

codyconnor

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Starting this spring, the WyoOne identification cards all students receive will feature a new design. ASUW and the WyoOne office planned and executed the redesign in about three weeks, Liz Rader, ASUW chief of staff, said.

The new design affects the back of the I.D. and will include six phone numbers, which “will help students if they are away from other resources,” Lynne Swearingen, WyoOne I.D. manager, said.

The numbers are contacts for the Wyoming Union Info Desk, WYDOT Road Conditions, ASUW, UW Dean of Students, SafeRide and UW Police. Another new element will be the ASUW logo. The re-design was partly funded through $300 business discretionary funds, according to Rader.

The committee that decided what would be chosen to be displayed on the back included ASUW president Cameron Nazminia, vice president Liz Brown, Rader, adviser Matt Caires and dean of students Dave Cozzens, Nazminia said.

Some of the groups that were left out included Night Owl, I.D. Office, Residence Life and Dining, Student Health, Admissions, Financial Aid and Registrars Office, according to Rader. 

The reason for picking the final six numbers were space restrictions and that the excluded services can be reached through the numbers included, such as the Wyoming Union Info Desk, she said. 

“One more good [number to include] would have been a crisis hotline, such as a suicide prevention hotline.”

Rader, along with Nazminia and Brown, were the driving force behind the re-design this semester and, along with good timing,  lead the swift implementation. “Our supplies were running low, so it was the time to order new card stock,” Swearing said, explaining why the I.D.s are being changed in the middle of the school year. 

She also said that students who already own a WyoOne I.D. will not have to buy a new one, as well as  “no [additional] charges for the cards.”

Swearing said she appreciates the convenience and safety ideas students brought to her office. “ASUW is willing to work with us and we with them. It is good for us to work with students,” she said.

The initial idea for the re-design came from Rader. “Originally, it was Liz [Rader’s] idea,” Swearing said.  “I went to GASCA, a student conference at Texas A&M … and that’s where I got the idea for the I.D. cards,” Rader said. “I didn’t initially do it, since I didn’t have the contacts.”

Email: David Demic 

codyconnor

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The article, “Plasticity of animal genome architecture unmasked by rapid evolution of pelagic tunicate,” discussed the group’s recent work, which achieved the successful sequencing of the entire genome sequence of a kind of tunicate known as Oikopleura dioca.

The successful sequencing of the Oikopleura dioca is important because of the evolutionary turnover of duplicate genes within the organism. Tunicates are a group of underwater saclike filter feeders that are found mostly on the ocean floor.

“Gene duplication is a fundamental process enabling the evolution of new molecular functions, as species diverge in evolution, and potentially also as cancer cells evolve. Understanding the dynamics of, and constraints on, duplicate genes is important to understanding functional differences between genomes,” David Liberles, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biology, said.  

The research on the Oikopleura dioca gene sequence coincided with ongoing work in the Statistics Department by associate professor in the department, Snehalata Huzurbazar’s, who was seeking ways to improve models for gene duplicates.

Ph.D. students Anke Konrad, molecular biology, and Sarabdeep Singh, statistics student, were two other contributors to the research, according to a UW news release. Liberles said that he and his colleagues have been working on this specific area of research for a number of years. 

“Research in my group characterizing the fates of duplicated genes began in 2003 with the work of former postdoctoral researcher Nick Braun, and has continued with two graduated Ph.D. students, Shruti Rastogi and Tim Hughes,” he said. “The modeling framework used in the study began with a paper published with Tim Hughes in Journal of Molecular Evolution in 2007.”

Liberles also said other groups at University of Wyoming involved in genome sequencing projects include Alex Buerkle [in botany] on a pine species and Naomi Ward [in molecular biology], who has been involved in multiple bacterial genome sequencing projects.”

Liberles’ involvement with Daniel Chourrout (of University of Bergen, Norway) was his first venture into a large scale-sequencing project. 

“We have recently become involved with Webb Miller [of Penn State University] on another large scale sequencing project to characterize gene duplication comparatively in primate species,” he added.

The genome sequencing project was an international collaborative effort involving research groups in Europe, Canada, Japan, the Universities of Wyoming, Iowa and Oregon and the National Institutes of Health.

Email: Bob Kubichek 

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Graduate students, on top of taking and teaching classes, must form a thesis that is worked on for the better part of their program.

The Department of History faculty are coming together this week to help second year graduate students during the History Graduate Student Showcase Tuesday from 3:10 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the History Building Room 155.

“The showcase will highlight three of the Department of History’s graduate students who have made significant strides in their original research projects for their master’s thesis,” JoAnna Poblete-Cross, the organizer of this event and chair of the Events and Colloquium Committee in the Department of History, said.

Three students will be participating: Jacqueline Antonovich, Robert Lang and Xinyuan Mao.

Antonovich’s graduate work focuses on U.S. history, and she specializes in women’s history. Her presentation is on “Female Juvenile Delinquency in Progressive-Era Colorado; Western Perspectives on Gender Deviancy.”

Lang’s graduate work has centered around U.S. history with a specialization in American Indian history. 

“Western Battle/Massacre Sites and the Development of American Memory,” is Lang’s presentation title.

Mao has chosen to focus on Chinese history. She will be presenting on “The Ethnic Minority Policy in the Republic Period in China.”

“The most difficult thing is trying to work a paper that will be over twenty pages into a concise ten page paper. I’ve had to consider what is most important to present, what I feel most comfortable presenting and how to inform the audience [of] other information I intend to include in future work on this topic,” Lang said.

All three of these students have devoted massive amounts of time into this presentation. 

Graduate students in the history department generally work with two members of the faculty and one member outside the department. 

This event allows them to have valuable feedback the would not otherwise get. 

This is also a great opportunity for undergraduate students to experience a part of graduate school.

Each student has condensed their current thesis work to around 10 pages in order to provide a 10 to 20 minute presentation. 

“Most conferences try to group presenters into panels based off of the topic of the papers. That way, presenters and the audience can see what other people with similar interests are working on. For the colloquium, we only have three presenters, so we were all put on the same panel,” Lang said. 

“The colloquium allows the professors to see what we are doing as well.  It also benefits the graduate students because it gives us the opportunity to hear valuable feedback from other professors that we might not get otherwise,” Lang said.

The commentator for this panel will be professor Robert Dewey, who teaches and researches British, European and Pacific histories.

“Research in archives is one of the most exciting aspects of the practice of history. Come and check out the variety of stories and approaches that researchers use to write history. Refreshments will also be provided,” Poblete-Cross said.

Email: Davis Bonner 

codyconnor

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Tracey Patton takes her love for knowledge and teaching around the world.

With help from her cross cultural communication class, she has organized a project to help build water tanks for a village in Kenya. 

Today there will be an auction/fundraiser from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Union’s East Ballroom.

Patton is the director of African American & Diaspora Studies and an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism. Her areas of expertise are in Critical Cultural Rhetorical Studies and Communication. She teaches classes such as African American Rhetoric, Cross Cultural Communication (the class aiding the orphanage in Kenya) and Rhetorical Theory and Criticism.

She started her academic career with two bachelor degrees from Colorado State University, one in speech communication and another in German. 

She stayed at Colorado State and acquired her master’s in speech communication. In 2000, she earned a doctorate in communications from the University of Utah. 

Patton has taught at Iowa State University, CSU and Utah, and has also done research at Carnegie and Stanford.

While teaching classes, Patton pursues her passion of travel and publishing books.

Patton’s most recent travels took her to conferences such as the National Communication Association in San Francisco, Visual Communication Association in Portland, Oregon and the National Council for Black Studies in New Orleans.

As part of the London exchange program, Patton taught a semester abroad at the University of London, Bloomsbury campus.

“Everywhere I travel, for work or for pleasure, I try to learn as much as I can about an area and try to be mindful about being a ‘world citizen,’” Patton said.

Along with teaching, attending conferences throughout the U.S. teaching abroad, Patton has also been writing a book.

“I am currently writing a book with a former UW graduate student. The book is titled, ‘This Ain’t My First Rodeo.’ I have found learning about rodeo culture fascinating and hope to see it on book shelves next year,” Patton said.

Patton’s passion for education has led her to initiate an aid project in her Cross Cultural Communication class to raise money for Shalom Garden Orphanage in Kenya.

“In the Cross Cultural Communication course, we work with real world clients, like the orphanage in Kenya. Prior to working with the Shalom Garden Orphanage, previous classes worked with Rwandan Genocide survivors and most recently we worked with the Jason Friend’s Foundation, a pediatric cancer non-profit located in Casper,” Patton said.

The orphanage has 25 students and is ran by one director, Margaret Kanyiri, and her assistant. To help this year, there is an auction to raise money for the orphanage.

“There is a great deal of work and learning that goes into working with real world clients. And on top of that, all 25 students work together as a class to make sure that our efforts for the organization are successful,” Patton said.

“We have free refreshments from Turtle Rock Cafe and American Soundwave will be DJ’ing the event,” Keileigh Stibitz, one of the four student project leaders, said. “The auction will be a great time to not only benefit a great cause but start, or finish, holiday shopping.”

The project, next to aiding the Kenyan orphanage, provided the students involved in the project with the opportunity to learn the process behind fundraising.

“Our group’s job was to contact businesses in our community and get items or monetary donations, which would benefit the orphanage,” Stibitz said. “We were also responsible for organizing the event such as the DJ, auction tables and auction forms.”

Patton has now been working with the orphanage for three years, and each year there is a different goal for the money raised. 

“This year, we are assisting the orphanage in getting water tanks. Their goal is to become self sustaining and water tanks would make a big difference,” Oaklee Anderson, another project leader for the Cross Cultural class, said. “This will be the third year Patton’s class has worked with the orphanage. In the past money was raised for essentials like beds, toothbrushes, shoes and school supplies.”

The tanks would catch rainfall and include pur packets, which help to purify the water for drinking.

“Please come out and support your fellow students. You will not just be supporting us, but over 20 children who need our help,” Anderson said.

Email: Davis Bonner 

codyconnor

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Love snatched 31 rebounds and 31 points in a single game. No player has put up a 30-30 game since Moses Malone back in 1982. None of this is news but, come on, why not give the guy his credit. No one’s done it since 1982! Not Shaq, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard or David Robinson. 

No one else has done it. Kevin Love did it against the New York Knicks and everyone’s favorite lazy power forward: Amare’ Stoudemire.

Kevin Love’s performance was awesome, not only because of the insane numbers, but because of the circumstances. 

Love plays for the worst general manager, David Kahn, on one of the league’s most dismal franchises. Love makes about half of what teammate Darko Milicic makes. 

Milicic plays about 20 minutes a game, and Love is still going out to try and win a game for a franchise that is headed to the NBA draft lottery.

Furthermore, Love managed to embarrass one of my favorite overrated stars. I was in New York for that game, and it was priceless to watch fans try and defend Stoudemire’s…well, I don’t want to call it a performance. 

That would make it sound like he showed up. 

But it was fun to watch fans defending their $100 million jogging expert. I always appreciate when an underpaid player with no incentive to show for himself manages to stick it to one of the league’s least motivated players. 

Let’s face it; there is nothing for Minnesota fans to be excited about. 

Johnny Flynn is hurt. Ricky Rubio still won’t show up, and David Kahn decided to pay everyone’s favorite draft pick $20 million because any time you get the chance to pay a never-was big man $4 million a year for laughable production, you got to do it.

Love is making an effort to break that cycle. It’s no secret that Love would rather be on a team that at least pretended like it had aspirations of winning. 

Love deserves to be a contender, and when his contract runs out, I’m sure every team in the league is going to be hunting for the services of perhaps the best young power combination of forward/center, who doesn’t care about scoring.

Love will win an NBA title for no other reason than that he is such a valuable commodity, and that any halfway decent team would contend for the title with him on it.

For now, however, Love is in one of the three worst situations in basketball. 

So, he went out and did everything he could for the T-Wolves. Not only did he produce an incredible stat line, but Love helped that team beat the Knicks. 

Much of Love’s production came in the second half when the Knicks were leading by double digits.

Rarely do we find reasons to cheer an NBA player’s work ethic in the month of November. 

So, when we do have a reason, it would be hypocritical not to. 

Nice work Kevin Love and keep your chin up, surely the United Nations can prosecute David Kahn for crimes against humanity if no one can work out a trade for you.

 Email the author: thesse@uwyo.edu 

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The Branding Iron is a Student Media project. Student Media gives University of Wyoming students valuable experience in writing, editing, advertising, sales, graphic design, photography and production through its publications with the guidance of professional staff members. If you find a mistake in an article, e-mail us at bi@uwyo.edu. We will make sure to torture the poor soul until it's corrected. Just kidding. We probably won't do anything, since we're busy studying for finals.

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A recent report issued by the Military Times Edge ranks UW within the top 20 U.S. schools for Veterans.

The report, which ranked the top one hundred schools for Veterans, looked at a pool of over 4,000 colleges in order to make its determination.

UW is 18th on the list, beating out several accomplished universities, including George Washington and Columbia.

According to the Division of Student Affairs Veterans Services, UW’s high rating comes on the heels of a series of improvements to Veterans services provided on campus.

Recently, UW began to implement recommendations from a task force, which reviewed the needs of Veterans on campus. One improvement has been the establishment of the Veterans Services Center, which now serves as a centralized office to provide various services to student-Veterans. 

The office is located in room 241 in Knight Hall and is available to all students that have served in the military.

According to the report, UW also received 4 1/2 stars out of a possible five for its level of available financial assistance. 

UW did score lower on the quality of the campus culture, receiving only a 2 1/2 star rating.

According to the Military Times Edge, the report looked at four basic criteria when developing its rankings.

First, the report looked at the financial opportunities available to Veterans at the colleges. It also considered scholarships, discounts and waivers specifically for Veterans and their dependents. 

Relaxed residency restrictions for in-state tuition and policies, which protect veterans in case of late-arriving benefits, were also taken into account.

The report examined participation in the service members’ Opportunity Colleges Consortium and Degree Network Systems and acceptance of military learning subject tests for academic credit, as well as school policies regarding military related withdrawals.

Also, the report looked at the percentage of veterans in the student body and faculty. Programs such as ROTC, local student veteran organizations and the training of faculty and staff in veteran related issues.

It assessed the number and types of staff designated to work with veterans, including the number of students receiving work-study allowances from the Veterans Affairs Department. 

Finally, the report looked at efforts to reach out to veterans, acclimate them to campus and create a veterans’ community, including mentorship programs, special orientation sessions, service projects and academic support.

Email the author: rkubiche@uwyo.edu 

Branding Iron

The Branding Iron is a Student Media project. Student Media gives University of Wyoming students valuable experience in writing, editing, advertising, sales, graphic design, photography and production through its publications with the guidance of professional staff members. If you find a mistake in an article, e-mail us at bi@uwyo.edu. We will make sure to torture the poor soul until it's corrected. Just kidding. We probably won't do anything, since we're busy studying for finals.

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Weight Watchers now has a program at UW. The program, dubbed Weight Watchers at Work, started at the end of September under a provisional trial period. 

“Weight Watchers at Work is a slight spin on the traditional program to help members lose weight,” Tammy Scott, Weight Watchers liaison to UW, said.  

The program is the outcome of the UW Wellness Committee, she said. “There were some budget cuts; our hands were tied. We’re thrilled to have a program on campus.”

To work around the cuts and other stipulations, Scott and others brought Weight Watchers to UW apart from the school. UW does not aid the group financially. 

Weight Watchers at Work is in the middle of its first 17-week program, which ends in February. After that, the group will have to find a means to continue to pay for its space on campus. 

“We’ve been sponsored for six months, but after that, we have to find a way to pay for our room,” Scott said.

Currently, 23 staff and faculty members attend the weekly meetings.

“We have a good support group. It helps to keep people accountable,” Scott said. 

She also said that having the program at UW has cut down on the time she has to devote to it. So far, only staff and faculty have become members, but the program is open to students as well. 

“Anyone can still join, even though we’ve started our first program,” Scott said. 

 Meetings for Weight Watchers at Work are every Tuesday at noon.

Email: Rhaden Lind 

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