Eye on the Triangle

This week’s Eye on the Triangle episode was a little different than usual. Because the N.C. State Board of Trustees is meeting Thursday and Friday (be sure to check the blog Thursday and Friday, and WKNC 88.1 at 7 p.m. Thursday for updates!) to vote on student fee increases, the EOT brought you a special episode on one fee that is facing contentious debate: the student centers renovation fee. However, we also had our (extended) Hear This segment, which featured Shit Horse from Odessa Records.

There are a lot of events coming up this week, so be sure to check them out. The Technician staff will be playing the Daily Tarheel staff in flag football at 4:30 p.m. Friday (we’ll be live blogging from the game!), and of course Fridays on the Lawn at 6:30 p.m. with Kooley High and The Beast in the Wolve’s Den in Talley Student Center.

NEWS

This week in News, Evan Garris gave us a rundown on several topics, ranging from Obama’s trip to China to Iran’s nuclear program. Here are links to some of the articles referenced in the newscast:
National
Obama wades into Internet censorship in China address
Fears grow over Iran nuclear sites
Local
Police find body of missing 5-year-old
University plans for Kay Yow Memorial and Cary basketball court dedicated to late NCSU coach Yow
North Carolina tornado outbreak

SPORTS

This week in Wolfpack sports, we started off with statements from both the Technician editor and the Daily Tarheel editor to each other’s staffs about Friday’s football game on Miller Fields at 4:30 p.m.

Derek Medlin and Tyler Everett then talked about football, basketball, predictions and stats. You can also check out Derek’s personal blog, Cardiac Pack.

VIP/SOUNDBYTES

To go along with our VIP segment this week, Matt Moore went around campus and asked students about their thoughts of the fee for the student centers and the Board of Trustees vote, which we had our VIP guests, Peter Barnes, former Student Centers president, and Christian Stackhouse, student senator, listen to and address in our discussion about the new fee. Barnes was one of the main advocates in the Rally 4 Talley campaign, while Stackhouse voted against the fee increase in the interest of the student body. We also played interview clips from Marycobb Randall, current Student Centers President, who also advocated the increase, and Jordan Hammond, a current student senator who was in support of the renovations personally but voted against the increase because of the student body votes against it. The fee, if approved by the Board of Trustees (Thursday and Friday) and Board of Governors (early next year), will increase the student centers fee by $83 for the next academic year, $165 the following year, and not to exceed $290 for the next 25 to 30 years.

HEAR THIS

Music industry veteran and Kingsbury Manx band member Paul Finn raised some eyebrows when he pulled a rather ambitious move in June of this year – he launched a brand new record label with three albums.  Mike Alston was WKNC’s local music director at the time and had inquired about the Kingsbury Manx album, but he was surprised when it came packaged with debut albums from two bands he had never heard of – Americans in France and Impossible Arms.  Well, all three albums were spectacular (Independent Weekly agreed) and Odessa has put out a few more releases since.  Kelly Reid spoke with Finn about the launch of the record label, the inspiration ...

With the most recent shooting at Fort Hood, Texas and the shooting in Orlando, Florida, this week’s Eye on the Triangle focused on emergency preparedness, with an online exclusive from one woman who was at Virginia Tech during the 2007 shootings. In Hear This, we reviewed some of the Troika Music Festival, and in Community Canvas, we brought you coverage from First Friday.  And we brought you our weekly Wolfpacker of the Week and Soundbytes segments.

NEWS:

As always, our news team duo brought you news from around the Triangle and the nation in our weekly news segment.

Information for the newscast was taken from the following articles:
Wake County temporarily closes H1N1 vaccine clinics
No rest for the weary as rest areas close
All Campus Card to receive update, consolidation
Dow hits 2009 high
Supreme Court won’t stop Muhammad execution
Iran accuses U.S. hikers of espionage
Berlin remembers fall of the wall
N.C. native credited with stopping Fort Hood shooter
Obama presses Senate to pass its health bill

SPORTS:

Our weekly Wolfpack football update from our sports aficionados Derek Medline and Tyler Everett.

VIP:

When the shootings at Virginia Tech occurred, everyone was glued to their TV and computer screens, listening for and reading updates on the statuses of the victims, on the shooter and his motives and on the university’s response. It was a shooting that took place only on that campus, but it hit close to home for many because it could happen to anybody. A similar phenomenon occurred with the most recent shootings at Fort Hood, Texas and Orlando, Florida. Though they were not on the same scale, the situation in each incident was similar – something triggered one man to go off on a shooting spree, unexpectedly, injuring and killing numerous people. And though these tragic incidents cannot be predicted, at least on college campuses, set emergency plans and alert systems can save many lives. Eye on the Triangle’s VIP this week focused on emergency preparedness. Promotions Director Kieran Moreira sat down with Association Vice Chancellor for Environmental Health and Public Safety David Rainer to talk about N.C. State’s emergency alert systems and we’re bringing you an online exclusive interview with Eileen Coombes who was at Virginia Tech during the 2007 shootings.

HEAR THIS:

In Hear This, Mike Alston gave you a look at the band, Lud, that played at the Troika Music Festival in Durham.

COMMUNITY CANVAS:

Mike also went to First Friday in downtown Raleigh and interviewed people at the art exhibits to see how they felt about the various art venues and more.  DJ Ones tells us this is our “most hilarious” Community Canvas segment yet.

WOLFPACKER OF THE WEEK:

Jacob Downey sat down with our Wolfpacker of the Week this week, Mindy Sopher. Sopher, an academic adviser and lecturer in communication, who is a favorite among the student body.

SOUNDBYTES:

Our Soundbytes question of the week was about the new law to take effect Dec. 1, banning texting while driving. Matt Moore went around campus and asked students if they do it and what they think of the law.

The economic recession is definitely still on people’s minds, especially graduating students. But what about students who wanted to go into a sector that already had a reputation for not providing the best-paying job market out there – the nonprofit sector to be exact? We tried to answer some of those questions for you in our VIP segment. In Hear This, we brought you a special interview about a highly-anticipated music festival that will be host to so many bands, it’s literally impossible to go to hear all of them in the three days of performances. And in our Wolfpacker of the Week, we literally bring you “news from the Brickyard to your backyard,” where a student explains his group’s attempt at raising money from all different kinds of avenues for a memorial of the beloved late women’s basketball coach Kay Yow.

NEWS:

This week, Evan and I gave listeners the weekly news update.

Information for the newscast was taken from the following articles:
Obama warns Karzai to focus on tackling corruption
U.S. backs Israel on preconditions
The Hague judges adjourn Karadzic trial to review boycott
Majority in N.C. favors public option
N.C. State students engineer electric car to inspire, win

SPORTS:

Our weekly Wolfpack football update from our sports aficionados Tyler Everrett and Sean Klemm.

For more on stats referenced, check out this story.

VIP:
This week’s VIP focused on the nonprofit sector during an economic recession and what students looking to go into that sector after graduation should keep in mind. Jacob spoke to Kelly Beck from 1304 Bikes, a Raleigh-based 501©3 to talk about her organization’s activities since the Bike co-op was shut down in June.  And he also spoke to Woody Catoe from the University Career Center about counselors advice to students looking for jobs within nonprofit organizations.

You can find more information on the University’s Institute for Nonprofit Research, Education and Engagement Web site or on  the N.C. Center for Nonprofits Web site.

HEAR THIS:

In honor of the Troika Music Festival Nov. 5 - 7, we produced an extended Hear This segment for you this week. Mike Alston sat down with Kyle Miller, co-owner of Churchkey Records in Durham, to discuss what attendees can expect this year. The music festival was first started in 2002 as a one-day Durham musicians’ festival, put on by the Durham Association for Downtown Arts, Inc, and has since expanded to a three-day music festival for all Triangle musicians. Make sure the check out the festival line up, featuring many different bands from Bowerbirds to Caltrop to the ExMonkeys and many more!

WOLFPACKER OF THE WEEK:

And finally, I sat down with our Wolfpacker of the Week, Jeffrey Johnson. Johnson is Student Senate’s Athletics Commission Chair and talked to us about the fundraising campaign for the Coach Kay Yow Memorial.

Student Media leaders are working on several projects that you don’t want to miss out on, so this week, the Eye on the Triangle team interviewed the leaders spearheading some of these projects to give you a look at what’s ahead.

SPORTS:

Derek Medlin and John Cooper Elias talked briefly about the football team, the basketball team and more in Wolfpack sports.

VIP:

In this week’s VIP, we talked to former Agromeck Editor John Cooper Elias (who also leads yearbook workshops) and current Agromeck Editor Bryant Robbins about why yearbook sales are facing a downward trend and what makes yearbooks still important in this information age. Two articles were cited in the interview about national yearbook trends, one from The Economist and one from The New York Times.

To bring the issue back to home, Matt Moore went around campus and asked students if they saw the important of the yearbook, which you can listen to in the segment.

We also discussed briefly the declining trend in all print media publications, the topic of Tuesday’s “Focused” section of Technician, titled “Is print dying?”

For more on the Agromeck, you can add Agromeck Man on Facebook.com or follow @Agromeck on Twitter.com, and you can also follow Technician@ncsutechnician.

COMMUNITY CANVAS:

This week’s Community Canvas was extended to give listeners a behind-the-scenes look of WKNC’s Halloween broadcast from 7 - 8 p.m., an adaptation of War of the Worlds. Damian Maddalena, who will join the rest of the newly formed radio acting troupe, The Two Cabbage Radio Players, for a performance of “War Of The Worlds.“

From Technician: "Based off of H.G. Wells’ novel, the radio play imagines an alien invasion taking over New York, interrupting a broadcast in the process. Damian Maddelena, graduate student in forestry and environmental resources, first had the idea to produce the show about a year ago. He saw a live broadcast that a Los Angeles traveling troupe performed on campus, and it triggered the idea.” Check out Thursday’s Arts & Entertainment section of Technician for the full story.

WOLFPACKER OF THE WEEK:

This week, I sat down with our student of the week, Andrew Tucker. Tucker, a senior in political science, talked about his new hobby, mixed martial arts and the training he now goes through daily for his fights. He also discussed his involvement with the re-established fraternity on campus, Kappa Alpha, after a five-year hiatus.

SOUNDBYTES:

This week’s Soundbytes asked students what their favorite part of the N.C. State Fair 2009 was. As expected, most answers surrounded fried foods.

NEWS:
Evan Garris gave listeners an update on the balloon boy hoax, the interim executive director of the Alumni Association after Lennie Barton’s firing, the H1N1 vaccine running out in Wake County and more.

SPORTS:
Derek Medlin, John Cooper Elias and Tyler Everett analyzed the Pack’s performance against Boston College.

VIP:
In this week’s VIP, in honor of the North Carolina State Fair being in town, DJ Chris Cioffi took listeners on his journey to enjoy his State Fair experience, spending as little money as possible. He quickly found out that going for free was not a viable option. This year’s State Fair included a lot of representation from N.C. State, including an appearance from the infamous Hillsborough Street Barrel Monster, ice cream from N.C. State’s Food Science Department, a look at how to milk a cow from N.C. State’s Animal Science Club and more.

HOMECOMING:
As promised, Homecoming Chair Adam Compton came on as a guest to Eye on the Triangle to officially announce the Homecoming Pack Howl Act. We talked to him about Homecoming 2009 events and how they compare to previous years’ events, and then let him explain the Pack Howl act, which is NOT going to be a band this year. If you haven’t read Special K’s blog post or listened to the show, we won’t ruin the surprise for you.

COMMUNITY CANVAS:
Mike Alston interviewed Megan Gulledge for this week’s Community Canvas on her artwork, after reading about Gulledge in Goodnight Raleigh.  Gulledge has an opening at First Friday at the Busy Bee. Here is an excerpt of Gulledge’s bio from her Web site: Certain experiences in life change the way you see the world.  When I was in college I traveled to Ireland with eleven other art students and two professors.  We were required to keep journals to document our experiences through writing and drawing.  One of the more interesting techniques that I learned from keeping a journal is to almost remove yourself a level, step back from what you are so immersed in for the sake of capturing it in a more effective way.  A result of that trip was a new perspective on life, an obsession for moments.

HEAR THIS:
Music clips in hear This and throughout Monday’s show were from local musicians that are part of the weeklong Cherry Bounce line up. To tell us more about the festival line up and it’s progression, Rachel Sloane sat down with event organizers Billy Warden and Greg Behr. You can read more about the festival on wknc.org/blog.

WOLFPACKER OF THE WEEK:
This week’s Wolfpacker of the Week was Zach Schnell, a junior in environmental technology and member of the Wolfpack Environmental Association. He sat down with Jacob Downey to talk about sustainability on campus.

SOUNDBYTES:
Student Media Photographer Matt Moore went around campus and talked to students about what they think of the proposed government soda tax. The tax is intended to help pay for health care reform and combat obesity.

Greek Life is the focus of VIP interviews with Interfraternity Council President Benton Sawrey and Director of Greek Life John Mountz.

In Hear This, Kelly Reid features Greensboro’s Bronzed Chorus and Durham’s Luego.

Matt Robbins is our Wolfpacker of the Week., founder of the Finish The Tower campaign.

This week’s Hear This consisted of the EOT team giving listeners a look into local history within WKNC’s own library. Mike Alston gave a brief history and clip from the Backsliders, which broke up in 1999; Jacob Downey — the Boy Wonder Jinx, which broke up in 1998; and Rachel Sloane — Ladderback, which broke up in 2002.

For Community Canvas, Mike sat down with photojournalist Jason Arthurs who graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2003 with a degree in journalism to hear about his work. Arthurs now works as a freelancer and produces both print photography and video content.

Finally, this week’s Wolfpacker of the Week was Liz Walters, a senior in graphic design and representative of Campus Arts Council and Arts N.C. State.

Saja Hindi interviewed VIPs Campus Police Chief Tom Younce and Capt. Jon Barnwell about some of the football preparations. Restrictions to tailgating and hours have been a topic of much debate in recent history due to a shooting that occurred at a tailgate in a lot off Trinity Rd. in 2004. Alumni Tyler Dukes and Kenneth Ball talked to Saja Hindi for EOT’s VIP about how they tailgate and why it’s important to them. Both Dukes and Ball worked for Technician when the shootings happened and tailgating hours were restricted, which they talked about as well.

In Community Canvas, Mike Alston let listeners revisit an interview with Ryan Cummings, artist of the Hear Here compilation CD cover, in anticipation of Saturday night’s Hear Here finale show at the Pour House.

In Hear This, Kelly Reid gives listeners a review of Starmount’s debut album Tyranny of the Sphere, with an Oct. 27 CD release, as well as Birds of Avalon’s Uncanny Valley. She also gives listeners information about Dan Deacon’s show Oct. 1 at the Cat’s Cradle.

This week’s Wolfpacker of the Week, Katy “Red” Walls from the N.C. State Women’s Rugby team sat down with Jacob Downy to talk about her involvement with the team, obstacles she’s faced and what led her to join the team.

In Soundbytes, Caitlin Cauley interviewed students around campus about the Rally 4 Talley Campaign, a campaign to increase awareness of the University’s intent to build a new student center and new atrium on campus and encourage students to vote in favor of a fee increase in the student fee referendums Monday, to support this project.

VIP:
Thanks to some of our friends’ connections in the political scene, Eye on the Triangle’s Adam Compton and Saja Hindi spoke to U.S. Congressman David Price (D), serving N.C. district 4, and the spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party Jordan Shaw by phone about each of the party’s stances on the proposed health care reforms.

N.C. GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer was scheduled to do an interview but canceled at the last minute due to a pending knee surgery.

You can watch a N.C. GOP video here on criticisms of the proposed reforms. You can also read a response from the N.C. Democratic Party on the president’s health insurance reform speech here.

Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs Steven Greene also gave his Eye on the Triangle his own analysis of the health care debate, a topic he has been discussing in his classes this semester.

We also replayed Soundbytes from Sept. 7’s EOT about students’ opinions on health care reform.

COMMUNITY CANVAS
EOT’s Kelly Reid talked to local musician and licensed insurance holder Alex Maiolo about his role in leading HINT, Health Insurance Navigational Tool, which is part of the Future of Music Coalition, where according to Maiolo, “policy and law and music all sort of intersect – that’s where we are. Things that happen on Capitol Hill that affect musicians, that’s what we’re interested in.” Maiolo said his focus is on the health care crisis in the musicians’ community.

HEAR THIS
This segment was not free of a health care reform spin either. EOT’s Jacob Downey interviewed Mike McDonald, organizer of the Tom Cushman benefit concert scheduled for Sept. 27, from 3 p.m. to about 2 a.m. at White Collar Crime. Cushman, a local musician and veteran of the first Gulf War, was hospitalized for pneumonia a few months ago,  two weeks later hospitalized again due to lung failure and was admitted once again to the hospital last week. Eleven bands will be playing at the benefit concert to raise money for Cushman, who doesn’t have health insurance, to pay his bills. Read the Indy’s article for more.

The song clips played in between segments of the show all came from songs from bands playing at the concert.

WOLFPACKER OF THE WEEK

Wolfpacker of the Week, 2005 alumnus in English Language, Writing and Rhetoric Ben McNeely talked to us by phone about his new project, Modern Film Fest taking place Sept. 25 to 27. You can follow @modernfilmfest on Twitter for more information. 

Check back for updates about next week’s show. Send your ideas, comments, questions, suggestions and complaints to [email protected].

VIP:
In this week’s VIP segment, Adam Compton interviewed Durham Mayor Bill Bell and Caitlin Cauley spoke to Triangle residents Josef Komenda and Rachel Nabors. I also spoke with our resident Triangle expert, who many of you may remember as WKNC’s general manager last year, Kyle Robb, about the history of the two cities and what he thought about Caitlin and Adam’s interviews.

HEAR THIS:
In Hear This, Kelly Reid gave listeners a sneak preview into the SPARKcon music lineup.

For the full lineup of MusicSpark events, click here. To also listen to an interview Kelly conducted with Telekensis, check out this blog post.

COMMUNITY CANVAS:
In Community Canvas, Mike Alston gave listeners a look into SPARKcon arts, and interviewed Sarah Powers, who works with Visual Art Exchange, to talk about the call for artists at ArtSpark For more on ArtSpark, click here.

WOLFPACKER OF THE WEEK:
Jacob Downey sat down with the student of the week, Scott Richardson, former membership president of the N.C. State Chapter of Toastmasters. Richardson discussed his involvement with the organization and the leadership opportunities it provided him with.

SOUNDBYTES:
Caitlin Cauley went around campus asking students what they thought about the University’s athletic program.

Send all your comments, suggestions and nominations for Wolfpacker of the Week to [email protected], and check out tomorrow’s blog post about next Monday’s show at 7 p.m.