NEWS

Acquisition of Museum Nearing
Nicole Ford | Opinion Editor

President Jesse Rogers said MSU is “within weeks or months” of owning the Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center.
“The museum board and our board of regents have voted on an agreement which would allow the university to absorb the museum and take them in as part of the university,” Rogers said.  “I’m willing to go out a limb and say we’ll be through in four months.”
According to Rogers, the association with the museum started about four years ago, before he assumed the presidency of the university.
 “It has taken us four years to get nearly to the point that this process is finished. A tremendous amount of legal steps had to be taken to move the museum trust to the Midwestern private trust. It has amazed me at how long it has taken to take all of these legal steps,” Rogers said. “We have not dragged our feet. It’s just a complicated process.”
The acquisition of the museum will not affect student tuition or funding.
“I don’t want anyone to think that we’re going to take money out of student fees or university operation,” Rogers said.  “We couldn’t take this on if it took university resources away from academic programs.” 
Rogers said much of the museum’s overhead can be absorbed by “in-kind contributions,” such as mowing the grass and maintaining the building.
MSU already has a $600,000 grant waiting to run the museum in the first two years, said Rogers.
The museum will create more interest in the university and provide MSU with many opportunities.
“It adds an entire new dimension to Midwestern State,” Rogers said.  “It makes this campus even more a center of activity in this community.  And today universities are more than places that give degrees.”
The university will hire a new director for the museum, and there will be an advisory board consisting of members of the university and the community to oversee museum programs. 
Rogers would like to see the museum develop educational programs that would benefit both university students and public school students. 
“We want to establish an education program with the collection at the museum used to teach,” said Rogers.
According to Rogers, the museum will provide MSU students with many opportunities, including senior art showings, special traveling exhibits and work in “more areas than you would think.”
“I do hope students benefit from and enjoy the museum,” Rogers said.




Police purchase new Dodge truck for vehicle Fleet
Paige Dickerson | News Editor

The MSU police added a 2005 Dodge Dakota pickup to the vehicle fleet during the Christmas break.
Because the previous car was eight years old and had high mileage, Chief of Police Michael Hagy went in search of a new vehicle.
“The old car was a 1997 and had about 75,000 miles on it,” Hagy said. “And those miles engine miles. It isn’t like a personal car where you go to work and park and then drive back come. They run all day, they sit with it running, so that is very high mileage for a police vehicle.”
The pickup will be used by every member of the MSU force.
Getting a new pickup for $1,500 was about $6,000 cheaper than purchasing a traditional police car, Hagy said.
“We can also do more things with it. We are always moving barricades and cones and we find stuff that is too big for a car so a truck is more practical,” Hagy said.
The pickup—newly fitted with police lights—will also serve as a test for the next vehicle purchase.
“We have another car with about 65,000 miles on it and is about ready to go,” Hagy said. “We’ll look at how practical this is.”
Another advantage of the pickup is visibility, Hagy said.
“We’ll see how it works. It is very noticeable and visible. We want people to be able to see it,” Hagy said.




Students reach out to tsunami Victims
Paige Dickerson | News Editor

Students at the Catholic Campus Center are gathering donations to aid victims of the tsunami.
More than 162,000 people died, 392,000 were displaced and 26,000 remain missing since the tsunami hit South Asia on Dec. 26, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Debbie Neely, campus minister at the CCC, suggested the donation drive when students returned from winter vacation.
“A friend of mine’s husband is a physician in town and they told me about an organization they work with,” Neely said. “They students here are really interested in service opportunities so I suggested we partner with the organization to help the tsunami victims,” Neely said.
Representatives from the Wichita County Medical Alliance will take the supplies gathered directly to Asia after the drive.
“We know the people are going over there themselves so we know that 100 percent of what we give is going directly to them (the victims),” Neely said.
In addition to money jars placed across campus, bins for material donations are also available. Because of religious regulations on clothing, the drive will focus on food and hygiene items. Food must be non-perishable and not breakable.
“Bags of rice, beans and pasta, that sort of thing is good,” Neely said.
Hygiene items that are needed include shampoo, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste.
“One thing we are really encouraging is for people to get travel-sized containers instead of the big bottles of things. The reason is they can make the small ones last a long time and it is easier to pack and easier to distribute to the people,” Neely said. “And even students can afford 50 cents for the small bottles.”
For more information call Deepika Ganeshram at 237-8620 or Debbie Neely at 692-9778.


Fees or Fitness: 72 percent of students say yes to proposed recreation center, poll says
Rachael Jacobs | For the Wichitan

Complaining about the absence of activities at MSU may become a brief memory. Last night the SGA passed the Student Wellness Center proposal and now it is up to the student body to vote on whether the wellness center is worth yet another tuition increase.
According to a recent poll, 72 percent of students are for the wellness center, which will include an Olympic size swimming pool and rock-climbing wall.
 “People are getting fat,” said Aaron Crum, kinesiology graduate student. “If it takes new toys to get them active, then we should get it.”
Romanch Dalal, an honor graduate said, “It would bring more jobs. Students from other countries, like myself, have a hard time finding jobs because most of the jobs go to students from the United States.”
However, 25 percent are against the idea saying MSU has more pressing issues.
 “We need more parking, please! It takes me twenty minutes to find a parking place, that’s ridiculous,” said Blake Walker, freshman theatre arts major.
A whopping 68 percent of the students polled requested more parking. A daycare was the next most requested project.
Rachel Glasgow, a junior nursing major said a daycare would be beneficial to her fellow students with kids.
Junior Amy Giles, a senator from the Sci-Fi Club said, “Parking garage would be too expensive, about $15,000 a spot and there would not be enough student support for a day care.”
Most students agree with raising the tuition $13 dollars per credit hour and student fees to $130 for the new facilities however the majority thinks it is unfair to vote on something they will not have to pay for since the fees will not go into affect until 2007.
 “Students who are going to be here should be the only ones to get ballots,” Sylvester Barajas, a freshman Computer Science major said.
 “You can’t even get into a health club elsewhere for $130, much less a new state of the art facility,” said Cindy Gorley, a senior education major.
Having separate facilities for athletes and students would be another benefit to the new wellness center.
 “When the basket ball team is at home, they are always in the gym and they won’t let us in there,” said Gairry Stewart, a junior in criminal justice.
Ashley Godwin, an MSU volleyball player and sophomore history major said sometimes athletes have to wait to train because the wellness center is overcrowded.
 “Although a wellness center would be nice, I think a parking garage should come ahead of it.” Godwin said.