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(04/30/15 2:58am)
If you ask any ASU student on campus about the ASU advisory emails, you’re going to get a response about the bees. ASU “has issued almost 10 bee alerts since March 26, and all four campuses have been affected,” reports Kaila White for the Arizona Republic. While it is important to notify students, and important to protect both the bees and individuals around swarms, the excessive advisories have turned the bees into a University-wide joke. From Reddit to Yik Yak to an ASU Bees Twitter account, students and faculty have poked fun at the fact that bee sightings are seemingly a daily occurrence.
(04/24/15 1:15am)
If you’ve got a big booty, or broad shoulders, you might start giving particular airlines the boot. A lot of people already complain about the tight spaces they’re squeezed into during flights, some of which last 10 or more hours — but it could get worse. There has long been debate over “the Knee Defender” or “ the Right to Recline vs. the Right to Defend Against Recliners” as Bill McGee says for USA Today, but now not only could passengers be forced to squish themselves vertically but width wise as well.
(03/19/15 12:02am)
One of the biggest arguments in college basketball — and many other sports — is whether or not college athletes should get paid to play. As of right now, the National Collegiate Athletic Association offers full ride scholarships for “so-called head-count sports,” which include football, men and women’s basketball, women’s gymnastics, volleyball and tennis. While sports scholarships are well known for making college a possibility for many high school athletes, only recently has the topic of paying athletes become more popular.
At the very least, the NCAA should be able to provide all Division I athletes, regardless of their sport, some scholarship amount for being a student athlete. However, this is not the case. “The odds of winning a NCAA sports scholarship are miniscule. Only about 2 percent of high school athletes win sports scholarships every year at NCAA colleges and universities. Yes, the odds are that dismal,” Lynn O’Shaughnessy said for CBS Moneywatch. The chances of a student receiving a full-ride scholarship are not as high as many outsiders realize, event though between ticket sales and advertising spots and assorted sponsorships, the NCAA makes tons of money. In fact, “The NCAA, as a whole, makes $6 billion annually,” U.S. News reports.
The time commitment that student athletes have to put forth is a huge factor for why they should be compensated for more than just tuition. “According to a NCAA survey last year, playing football required 43.3 hours per week; college baseball, 42.1 hours; men's basketball, 39.2 hours; and women's basketball, 37.6 hours” O’Shaughnessy reported. These hours are the equivalent of working a full-time job in addition to being a full time student since many, like ASU athletes, still have to be enrolled full time with at least 12 academic credits.
The NCAA says that a full athletics scholarship ranges from $11,000 per year for an in-state student at a public university to $35,000 for a student attending a private university. However, O’Shaughnessy says, “For those who do snag one, the average scholarship is less than $11,000.”
Between the pressure of huge tournaments like “March Madness" and the celebrity-like status that student athletes, especially those of big name, competitive schools, deal with on a normal basis, they should be receiving more benefits besides tuition scholarships. Very well-known college athletes are going to have to deal with being in the spotlight more than the average student.
However, we can’t forget that most are not going to go pro and need to still graduate with a decent degree. Student athletes across the board are often criticized for not being held to the same standards as the rest of the students in school. The minimum GPA that student athletes at ASU have to maintain is only a 1.8 for the majority of their four years as an undergrad. Yes, it is hard to be a student athlete, but a 1.8 is below the normal GPA for retention in the entire University itself. The requirements for student athletes vary amongst schools but in general, the GPA minimum is lower for athletes. I’m not saying that student athletes shouldn’t be given any handicap because of the classes they are forced to miss, but they shouldn’t be given one that big.
It’s an impressive feat to be a student athlete, and yes, I do think they should be compensated for playing sports for a D1 school. For an athlete going to school and dedicating over 30 hours a week to their sport, it’s as if they are just another student working full time to get through school; it just so happens that their job is playing a sport for the University. Being “paid to play,” should be treated in a similar way any student working would be. The number of hours you put in results in what goes toward your tuition, housing and meals, and it shouldn’t create a drastic academic handicap. Reach the columnist at Kayla.Chan@asu.edu or follow @KaylaRC2014 on Twitter.Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.
(02/26/15 8:00pm)
The “Happiest Place on Earth” is now making your wallets a little less happy. Disney has raised its prices across the board for all of its U.S. theme parks by at least $3. For many families, the news of an increase may be a smack in the face because they have to consider the cost of taking not just one, but two or more people to Disneyland or another one of the theme parks. Prior to Sunday, Feb. 22, a one-day ticket for a person age 10 or up was $96. After Sunday, it became $99, with premium annual passes jumping to $779 from $699.
For most people, $99 is not chump change, especially since this doesn’t even take taxes into account. The new prices could be considered absurd; a trip to Disneyland would definitely be out of my normal budget. Many argue that there aren’t that many new rides, and as soon as you get into the park you can expect overpriced funnel cake, cotton candy and the works, but there is the fact that while this is expensive, Americans are supposedly doing a lot better financially.The median household income in America has increased steadily in the past few years to $53,891, which is 3.8 percent above the median household income of 2011. Take into account inflation rates and new technological costs, and the $3 increase doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, it’s less than the caramel macchiato you had this morning.
Compared to other theme parks, Disney's high prices are technically on par with their demand. It can charge that much money because people are still choosing to pay to visit. In fact, “Walt Disney Co. reported that domestic park attendance rose 7 percent in the three months that ended Dec. 27, a record,” Hugo Martin reported for the LA Times. So while we want to complain about the prices of the Walt Disney theme parks, we still find a way to make it to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.
Additionally, Disney hasn’t been the only one to increase its admission prices; other theme parks are raising their prices as well. Although significantly cheaper, even Six Flags has raised their admission prices this year. Still, The Walt Disney Company seems to be able to pull in way more visitors than any other theme park, taking six out of 10 spots on the Top 20 Most-Visited Theme Parks in North America in 2012 (i.e. Magic Kingdom, Disneyland, Epcot, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s California Adventure).
Trips to Disneyland or Disney World aren’t a normal basis sort of thing and while yes, there are some people who are Annual Pass holders, most of those are just the people who live close to one of the parks. The majority of visitors are usually first-timers or visitors who don’t go more than once or twice a year.
Therefore, while yes we want to scream and protest about spending $100 on park tickets for a one-day affair, even I would be willing to give up a month’s worth of Starbucks or about two days’ pay to spend a day with Mickey and friends. Plus, at this point, it becomes “the Happiest Place on Earth” because any negative feelings will be amplified by the new dent in your wallet. Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.
(02/19/15 1:05am)
Staring into someone’s eyes for four whole minutes will not necessarily make you fall in love. Coming off the back of Valentine’s Day weekend, there is plenty of love in the air, but only what was already there. The New York Times’ Modern Love column, “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This,” by Mandy Len Catron, has shed new light on a 1997 study headed by Arthur Aron.
(02/12/15 1:05am)
There are over 1,200 species, either foreign or domestic, that are currently threatened or endangered according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Environmental Conservation Online System. The World Wildlife Foundation lists the monarch butterfly as “near threatened,” and many are seeing the crisis that they are facing as populations continue to dwindle with great alarm, leading the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to launch a campaign with $3.2 million in immediate backing.
(02/04/15 11:53pm)
Shake Shack’s recent initial public offering success, along with many other recent “hot IPOs," makes many wonder about weighing risks and rewards on opening day. It is known as a good thing for the prices of a company’s individual share to close anywhere around or over 25 percent more than the price it was offered at when the company officially goes public. For example, Alibaba, the Chinese equivalent of eBay, was marveled at for closing at 38 percent above its opening price of $92.70. The real question, then, becomes whether or not “hot IPOs” or companies with public offerings, that close significantly higher than their offering price, are worth buying that very first day or even at all.
Although some people are wary about buying IPO stocks due to their uncertain nature, many stocks with huge IPOs, like that of Shake Shack and Alibaba, end up being successful in the long run even if in the first couple months, or even a year, the stock prices are shaky. Peter J. Tanous, chairman of Lynx Investment Advisory explains research he had done on this exact question.He looked at companies that closed on opening day at least 25 percent above their opening price and were on the market for at least a year. Tanous found that, “Of the 26 qualifying IPOs, 17, or two-thirds, were higher a year later than the closing price on the day of offering. Of the 13 with a two-year record, 11 were higher than the close on their offering date two years or more prior. The two-year results are eye-popping, showing that the vast majority of these hot IPOs turned out to be good investments.”
So in the long run, are all of these “monster IPOs” that hit the markets hard worth the investment? The truth is, not always. “Analyst and investors have been trying to put a valuation on COOL forever, but have yet to do it successfully. We have no idea if this is the Facebook or MySpace of burgers yet,” Turney Duff says in an article for CNBC. That “cool factor” is often what boosts some of the more household names into doubling in value by the end of their opening day. There are often hits, such as Chipotle, or another burger chain called the Habit, whose “shares have risen more than 80 percent from their IPO price since their debut on Nov. 20,” Lisa Baertlein said for Reuters.
Therefore, even though, “Kathleen Smith, an IPO expert and principal at ETF manager Renaissance Capital, agrees, adding that Shake Shack may not be able to cultivate the kind of following it has from New York investment industry types outside of the city,” that doesn’t mean it should deter you from purchasing stock that may reward you in many of the same ways that eating a Shackburger does – very well, I might say. In fact, if you look at companies that some say “failed” in comparison to their IPO, like Twitter or Facebook, they aren’t doing terribly. Yes, they aren’t necessarily seeing continual upwards growth but they’re still trading around the area of their opening prices.
Having faith and investing in a company that has seen tremendous growth in the past few years with the ambition to grow even more so in the near future, is still completely up to you. Truthfully, the best way to go when it comes to IPOs for companies like Shake Shack is to go with your gut. In this case, my gut also makes me want to head back to New York for a Shackburger and a black and white concrete.Reach the columnist at Kayla.Chan@asu.edu or follow @KaylaRC2014 on Twitter.Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.
(01/30/15 12:19am)
At a moment in time where the latest space race has rekindled interest in space exploration and travel, most people are still taking for granted what we have so close to us. The ocean is a vast and largely unexplored part of the Earth, considering that it covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface. So why isn’t there a “new dive into the ocean” in a similar way that there has been newly sparked interest in outer space?
(01/22/15 11:00pm)
Some say that the most important part of a company is its people. In reality, the most important part of a company is the small group that brings those people in. Human Resource departments are not just the people who do the hiring, despite often getting criticized for being all fluff and no stuff.
(01/14/15 11:41pm)
"Unlike the brands 'Made in Sweden' or 'Made in Japan' in which the country of manufacturing more often has positive or neutral connotations, 'Made in China' fails to positively capture consumer awareness in the Western marketplace,” Jessica Kraft wrote in her master’s thesis for the University of Southern California. In this assertion, she’s completely right. How often does someone go into a store with the question, “Where’s the stuff made in china?” floating through their heads as they browse merchandise. That however, might be a good idea when it comes to shopping for a brand new Volvo.
(12/03/14 11:39pm)
Since 1927, TIME has presented a Person of the Year awarded to the most influential person of the year. From the first winner, Charles Lindbergh, to the most recent, Pope Francis, the types of individuals who “best represent the news of the year” varies greatly. How then could this even be an accurate competition at all?
“It has a great origin story — or maybe more of a legend. At the end of 1927, the editors of TIME looked at the year’s covers and realized they had somehow failed to put Charles Lindbergh on the cover” Kelly Conniff wrote in a TIME Magazine article about “Everything You Wanted to Know.” While now pretty deeply rooted in news history as far as being a notable “award” to an individual every year like Conniff says, it was originally the result of an oversight. It was TIME's way of catching up and reminding people of someone significant to whom they may not have paid attention.
The Person of the Year award is often a fairly controversial choice. Fair enough, considering the criterion is "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year." As a news company, TIME has the right mindset to create the award based on influence and representation of the year as a whole instead of on praise for good deeds. But how in the world are TIME editors supposed to choose one person or even a group of a few people to represent the year as a whole? The range of individuals has no bounds and the different contestants are often incomparable. How could one, in 2012 for example, compare several people on the shortlist like Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Undocumented Americans, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Malala Yousafzai? These six parties come from different walks of life and are of totally different social and economic statuses. While one could argue that all of their contributions to society were intangible forces of good and bad, they also did completely different things. In what way could one compare Yousafzai, a young women’s rights activist to another runner-up, Apple CEO Tim Cook? There is no real way to compare the reach of their actions and stories. There is no way to measure the significance those achievements have had on both society and individual lives. In short, it’s all relative to the audience looking at TIME's shortlist for the award.
Of course, TIME puts out its reader polls for the public to vote on who they think should be the winner despite it being independent from the actual choice. Voters can vote on who they think is the Person of the Year for 2014 from options including Taylor Swift, Elon Musk, President Barack Obama and the Chibok Girls. In a way, this is a closer indication of who truly is impacting the most people. However, sites and organizations like 4Chan are known to troll many of TIME’s online reader polls which then misconstrue data. Therefore, there is no real way to judge one Person of the Year across so many different disciplines and backgrounds.
However, Time is doing a great job with publicity to help increase awareness of influences the public and many of its readers may have overlooked, like Charles Lindbergh and his historic flight way back in 1927. Between poll updates and Twitter hashtags, it's obvious that Time is doing a great job of recognizing these individuals. However, they should move toward a general recap of the year and go for “People of the Year.” After all, you don’t see just a single Nobel Prize handed out every year.Reach the columnist at kayla.chan@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @kaylarc214.Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.
(11/25/14 12:36am)
The presidential immigration address given Nov. 20 took a backseat to "Grey’s Anatomy," "The Big Bang Theory," "Vampire Diaries" and other popular prime-time TV shows. A few of the major networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — made the choice not to air the presidential address over these shows which started at 8 p.m. ET.
While these shows do generate millions of views every week and prime time on Thursdays generates a huge audience, major networks have an obligation to air presidential addresses like this recent one, which directly affects millions of people as well as the opinions of millions of potential voters whose votes could be affected by what President Barack Obama and Congress are doing now.
According to ABC News, when President George W. Bush gave an immigration address in 2006, it generated around the same number of viewers as the State of the Union address he did earlier that year, totaling somewhere near 41 million viewers. If the same were to have happened with Obama’s address, it would have been viewed by roughly 33.3 million people like his State of the Union address earlier in the year was. Instead, its viewership was described by USA Today as similar to that of "The Big Bang Theory": 14.6 million.
For a topic that is often found in the media and political spotlight, it did not make sense for some of the major networks that are available to all television viewers to abstain from airing it. “... There can be a reluctance in executive suites if an anticipated address is seen as heavily political in nature,” David Bauder said in a Boston Globe article. This seems counter-intuitive considering that airing a presidential address is simply providing Americans with the opportunity to stay informed with issues that greatly affect them and could affect how they are treated. The immigration policies that Obama addressed in his speech could affect over 5 million people currently living in the U.S.
“The major broadcast networks generally carry presidential speeches on matters of national security and other important issues,” Brian Stelter said for CNN. The immigration address’ significance was compared to Obama’s last address at the beginning of the fall TV season. This speech, which addressed ISIS and considered national security, was given high importance. So why wouldn’t this speech also be considered an important national issue? These issues hit even closer to home considering they concern people who could be our friends and neighbors; they concern millions of people already in the U.S. and resources that need to be delegated on domestic soil.
Although one could argue that the major points of the address were released ahead of time and that there were still major networks like CNN, MSNBC, and PBS, which aired the speech, more networks should have been willing to show it because it was only 10 minutes long."I think it is of real concern to the country if we come to a place where our major broadcast outlets are not fully covering the news," David Westin, a former ABC president said in an ABC news article. For some individuals, cable news networks like CNN and MSNBC, or simply using the Internet to look for this information, could be a hassle or not even plausible due to a lack of resources.
The main point however is that although this may not have been a bipartisan announcement, it’s still an important move by our federal government that is considered part of the current news line up. Even if it deters viewers from their weekly shows, it would only be by 10 minutes. Surely these major networks could spare the 10 minutes, and for networks that are available to individuals without cable, they have a responsibility to provide the option to individuals who may want to watch even if there is the possibility of it being politically inclined towards particular party views.Reach the columnist at kayla.chan@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @kaylarc214Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.
(11/20/14 12:08am)
When you give a bunch of very talented people free reign to do what they want to do, you get excellent results. Google and 3M have proven in the past that giving their employees time to work on projects and develop ideas, aside from their day-to-day work, can lead to great things. Dedicating time to work on a project with no management or direct instruction has led to some of the most historic products like the Post-it Note and Google applications like Gmail. So what happens when a lack of management becomes the entire premise of a company’s business structure so that employees can pursue what actually interests them? You get Valve Software.
According to its new employee handbook, Valve Software is a gaming company that lacks bosses. There is no management over any of the employees, but there is extensive collaboration. Valve’s employees are free to develop their own ideas and everyone is entitled to greenlight an idea. Because of that philosophy, workers are drawn to the things that they like and will often work harder and be more focused.
“Since Valve is flat, people don’t join projects because they’re told to. Instead, you’ll decide what to work on after asking yourself the right questions” says the employee handbook. Good employees are often intelligent enough to recognize where they are needed. In the same vein, their coworkers can recognize who would be most beneficial to certain projects and scout out the specialists in the office. This only works because the company can hire self-motivated, highly talented individuals who don’t need supervision and can work without any form of management.This approach has led to successful products like the video games "Counterstrike," "Portal" and "Left 4 Dead."
“We’ve heard that other companies have people allocate a percentage of their time to self-directed projects. At Valve, that percentage is 100,” the new employee handbook explains. This structure is working to Valve’s financial benefit, considering that it is worth anywhere from $2 billion to $4 billion.“More specifically, (Valve president Gabe) Newell says of the 250-person company that on a per-employee basis, Valve is more profitable than tech giants like Google and Apple” Oliver Chiang said in a Forbes article.
However, it is also very important to recognize that this is only possible for companies with the means to hire expensive talent. Valve can work this way because it isn’t a place for individuals who need hand holding or need to be taught and they are very clear about that. Within the list of things Valve explicitly says in their handbook is that they aren’t good at “helping new people find their way.” So while efficient and innovative, Valve’s flatland isn’t the ideal system for companies who can’t afford top notch developers, creatives or professionals. At the very least, it should be considered by more companies with an elite group of individuals with similar skill and mindsets working on collaborative projects. The added trust and flexibility could lead to the next great innovation of our generation.Reach the columnist at kayla.chan@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @kaylarc214Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.
(11/11/14 1:10am)
“What to Play while Taylor’s away” is a playlist curated by Spotify after Taylor Swift pulled all of her music off of Spotify with the exception of one or two songs. She and other artists like Jason Aldean have commented on the fact that they think that Spotify’s royalties are unfair and that being on Spotify and other streaming sites is more detrimental than beneficial to their music careers.
(11/03/14 10:31pm)
On Oct. 28, NASA attempted to launch Antares, a rocket with the Cygnus spacecraft headed to resupply the International Space Station. Unfortunately, shortly into the launch sequence, NASA operators decided that the rocket was not going to follow the path that it was intended for and that there wasn’t anything they could do but terminate the launch. The rocket therefore exploded close to but not on the launch pad, causing alarm among the media. But the most important facts about this event are being overshadowed by the occasional criticism that NASA is receiving about how something like this could happen.
(10/22/14 11:05pm)
Oct. 19 through Oct. 25 is National Save for Retirement Week! What may seem light-years away is not so far after all, and millennials, many of whom are now in their late 20s, are starting to think about the future in ways that previous generations have not. They are starting to think about health care, “wealth care” and other future planning, from real estate investments to wills.
(10/02/14 11:10pm)
Alibaba’s recent success brings to attention how companies become incredibly successful and make it to the top of their respective industries. The key seems to be culture. Companies who have made a name for themselves have one thing that appears to be a common feature: They keep their employees happy, and their employees being happy make the company run as smoothly and productively as possible.
(09/17/14 1:19am)
The “Digital Wallet Revolution” seems to be hitting its stride with the recent release of the Apple Watch and the announcement of Apple Pay, the company’s version of a digital wallet.
(09/04/14 11:00pm)
According to my younger sister, my wardrobe looks as if you threw a box of Crayola markers into a washing machine with a bunch of random fabric. She doesn’t approve of what’s in my closet at all because she says that most of it isn’t “what’s in.” But what does it even mean for something to be "what's in"?