The Pine Log

              CMYK
TODAY
H 85 L 62
FRIDAY
H 66 L 46
SATURDAY
H 73 L 40
Volume 91
Issue 10
Next Publication:
Monday, October 31, 2011
Visit us online at
www.thepinelog.com
Texting
and driving
outlawed but
not for on-duty
cops
Page 4
SFA Soccer
plays Sam
Houston
Friday at
7 p.m.
Inside
Former
Homecoming
Queen takes
on raising two
young boys
Page 2
SFA
Homecoming
game at 3 p.m.
Saturday
Page 8
SFA Soccer one
game away from
the championship
Page 8
The Pine Log’s Sudoku
Look for this
addictive number
game on page 3
every Monday
and Thursday
Opinions
Page 4
Columns
Robert Monks
hits the high
points on the
Wall Street pro-test
Lady Cole
wishes
everyone a safe
Homecoming
Entertainment
Page 5
Sigma Tau
Gamma brings
back their
annual Haunted
House
By Sydney Jones
STAFF WRITER
The Student Government
Association has mapped out an
agenda for the 2011-2012 school
year.
The legislative agenda is orga-nized
by categories: increase SFA
spirit and pride, encourage and
motivate sustainability, increase
student voice and processes that
impact them and improve students’
overall experience.
SGA aims to implement the prop-er
use of the SFA acronym and en-courage
students to refrain from
using derogatory nicknames.
Sustainability is an important
issue to SGA. On Oct. 19, SGA
passed a resolution stating they
would restrict “the use of organi-zational
funds to purchase plastic
water bottles for the remainder of
the 2011-2012 school year.”
Sydni Mitchell, SGA president,
said, “In order to take pride in our
campus, we need to take care of our
campus.” And that is exactly what
SGA is going to do.
SGA’s sustainability movement
will also promote bike riding to and
on campus and work with T.E.A.M.,
an environmental awareness orga-nization,
and the Physical Plant to
bring recycling closer to students.
SGA will also try and work with
Aramark to design a reusable to-go
box so students can opt out of using
Styrofoam.
SGA wishes to increase the stu-dent
voice in the PineLog as well as
starting a Student Center Advisory
Board, which would act like an open
forum, allowing students to bring
up concerns they have about the
BPSC. In addition, SGA plans to
work with the University to simplify
the financial aid and advising pro-cesses.
To improve the overall student
experience, SGA will aim to in-crease
the student retention rate
at SFA and move to make the cam-pus
veteran friendly. Research is
being conducted now to determine
whether a commuter shuttle bus
is needed in the evening for night
school students.
SGA also plans on bringing vot-ing
registration to the SFA campus,
providing answers to confused stu-dents
and helping them move their
registration to Nacogdoches while
they are in college.
Like the Piney Woods game, SGA
will provide a shuttle bus to the
Northwestern State University of
Louisiana football game so students
can cheer on the Lumberjacks.
Seats can be reserved for $10 each,
which is refundable at the begin-ning
of the trip. No-show students
will not be given a refund.
SGA meetings are at 6 p.m. every
Wednesday in Regent Suite B, lo-cated
in the BPSC. All students are
invited to attend meetings and see
how SGA is improving the SFA ex-perience.
sjones@thepinelog.com
SGA sets agenda for the year
Erika Nichols
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Lumberjack Day is an annual Homecoming
event hosted by the Sylvans and the forestry
department. The event will be from 11 a.m. to
2 p.m. Saturday behind the Forestry Building.
Caleb Murray, vice president-Conclave of
the Sylvans and forestry studies junior, says
anyone is welcome to attend Lumberjack Day
as well as participate. The event allows student
to partake in various Lumberjack sports.
“This year we’re going to have two activities,
the cross-cut and the axe-throw,” Murray said.
The activities are physically challenging
and fun. The cross-cut is an activity where
two people saw a log of wood together as fast as
possible. The ax-throw is another Lumberjack
competition where an ax is thrown at a target.
“We’re welcoming everybody to come out
and give it a shot,” Murray said. “Lumberjack
day is a social activity where you can meet a
lot of people. It’s very interesting to watch and
participate.”
According to Murray, “Outside of
Homecoming the Sylvans compete every year
in an annual forestry competition that in-volves
15 other schools. This upcoming March
we will be going to North Carolina to compete
in several events.”
“The club has traditionally consisted of for-estry
majors but we are trying to branch out
toward the agriculture department or people
who seem interested,” Murray said.
Any student on campus who is interested is
welcome to join the club at any given time; the
membership fee is $5.
According to Murray, meetings are held
once a week and anyone is invited to attend.
Information regarding the meetings can be
found via Facebook.
“Being a member of the Sylvans is an op-portunity
to make friends and even travel the
country to compete,” Murray said.
The Sylvans compete in competitions and
have devolop skills that are not normally
learned in other clubs. Last year the Sylvans
competed in the annual national forestry con-clave
and placed second overall.
“You also get to be a part of one of the most
winning teams on campus,” Murray said. “We
haven’t come in less than third out of 15
schools.”
Murray says he hopes to see 40 or more peo-ple
at the Lumberjack Day event and is looking
forward to it.
The Sylvans have been hosting Lumberjack
Day the day before Homecoming since the
1970s. It’s a school-honored tradition that
has stayed alive and continues to be fun and
eventful.
enichols@thepinelog.com
SFA Sylvans host annual ‘Lumberjack Day’
This SFA tradition has survived since the 1970s and is open to the public
SFA’s leadership honor society Omicron Delta Kappa welcomes
Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, as the keynote speak-er
for its third annual leadership conference.
The event begins at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, in the Baker
Pattillo Student Center Grand Ballroom, and admission is free.
Students are highly encouraged to take part in this prestigious,
once-in-a-lifetime event. The RSVP form is available at https://
forms.sfasu.edu/studentaffairs/odk-rsvp.asp.
Gandhi, who lived with his grandfather for 18 months, is a
renowned speaker and activist who has continued working in
his grandfather’s footsteps. Together with his wife, he founded
the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence headquartered at the
University of Rochester in New York. The institute’s mission is to
foster understanding of nonviolence and how to put that philoso-phy
to practical use through lectures, workshops and community
outreach programs.
Following Gandhi’s keynote, participants may choose from a
number of educational sessions presented by SFA student leaders,
faculty and staff. Lunch is included.
The closing speaker is Karen Walrond, author of “The Beauty
of Different” and the popular blog Chookooloonks (www.chooko-oloonks.
com). Walrond orchestrated a “photobomb” when mem-bers
of a church in Florida threatened to burn copies of the Quran
on the front lawn. She asked readers to mail her peaceful photos to
be delivered to the church, and hundreds responded to her call for
action.
Walrond will be available for a book signing at the close of
conference. Copies of her book are available for purchase at SFA’s
Barnes & Noble bookstore in the student center.
ODK is sponsoring its own “Peace Project,” and peaceful photos
may be submitted to sfapeaceproject@gmail.com
The conference is cosponsored by the Office of Student Affairs
Programs, the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs and the Office
of Multicultural Affairs, with additional support from the SFA
School of Honors and E-Tech.
For more information, contact Jamie Bouldin, SFA’s assistant
director for leadership and service, at jfbouldin@sfasu.edu.
Arun Gandhi to headline
SFA leadership conference
KORBIN PATE/ THE PINE LOG
JOHNATHAN TYLER/ THE PINE LOG
Homecoming Week is always a busy time for students.
The week started out with a pep ralley at the coliseum
and a showing of the orginal “Wizard of Oz.” Throughout
the rest of the week Tau Kappa Epsilon hosted its annual
Car Bash to raise money for Driving Jacks. There will
be a tailgate before the Lumberjacks take on McNeese
for the Homecoming game Saturday.
Homecoming Week at SFA a fun time
Page 8
Thursday, October 27, 2011 PINE LOG The
The Independent Voice of Stephen F. Austin State University