ASU News - Community

Students share tourism ideas with city chiefs

lccampb — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:58:04 -0600

Jeremy Brooks is among the first to say it.

The two-letter word eases out of the junior’s lips and bounces around the packed classroom, gaining momentum until it’s repeated hundreds of times by a bevy of students.

Many of them don’t even seem to realize the importance of the word – “we” – as they discuss unique ways to increase tourism in five rural Arizona communities. But Tim Tyrrell’s smile keeps widening as his students sound more and more like longtime residents of the small towns they hadn’t known existed before taking his Tourism Planning course.

“We want to bring in the tourism aspect but keep our small-town feeling,” says Brooks, standing before a huge photo of the city of Coolidge’s only dine-in restaurant.

Brooks was among 50 students of the School of Community Resources and Development who spoke to community leaders April 23 to share their ideas for attracting visitors to the Arizona communities of Chino Valley, Gila Bend, Jerome, Coolidge and Superior.

This marked the first time in the 10-year history of the course that students have presented their improvement strategies directly to representatives from the cities and towns.

It’s a new way the College of Public Programs is putting theory into practice, helping students at the Downtown Phoenix campus apply what they learn to directly affect communities.

Students formed five teams, ventured into communities to assess the area’s resources, and spoke with local officials, residents and visitors.

They came up with ideas for sustainable tourism development that minimizes the negative impacts of tourism and takes full advantage of its benefits. The Arizona Office of Tourism co-sponsored the project.

Student suggestions for increasing tourism ranged from adding an outdoor civic marketplace in Chino Valley where residents frequently would gather, to making the inactive mines of Jerome safe enough to open for tours.

Team members who focused on Gila Bend proposed a plan they say would double tourism in the city, which has less than 2,000 residents.

They suggested building a “desert oasis attraction” with a hummingbird facility, a small café with outdoor seating, and trails featuring native minerals and geology.

“We see this as a way to celebrate the natural area of Gila Bend without depleting its assets,” says junior Austin Beber.

Another idea included adding a gateway in Jerome similar to the Cincinnati Gateway, allowing talented folks from the town’s artist colony to play a role in its design. Residents could vote on their favorite artist’s renditions to help in providing a unique identity for their community.

Melanie Oliver, Superior’s interim town manager, says she was particularly impressed with a team’s idea of marketing the town in an “Old West” theme, complete with an attraction that would make tourists feel they were on a Western movie set.

“I think they did a wonderful job with their presentation,” Oliver says.

Corey Schubert, corey.schubert@asu.edu
(602) 496-0406
College of Public Programs

Travel tips for this weekend

ckussala — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:12:40 -0600

Fans planning on attending the Arizona State baseball game or softball NCAA regional on Sunday, should be aware of the following travel tips. Several downtown Tempe streets will be closed or restricted for the Tempe International Triathlon. The following roads will be closed from 5:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, May 18:

o Mill Avenue in both directions between Curry Road/Washington Street and Rio Salado Parkway

o Rio Salado Parkway in both directions between Ash and Mill Avenues

o Westbound Rio Salado Parkway between Priest Drive and Ash Avenue

o Eastbound Washington Street between Priest Drive and Center Parkway

o The westbound Loop 202 off ramp at Priest Drive

o The eastbound Loop 202 on ramp at Priest Drive

The following roads will be restricted to one lane from 5:30 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, May 18:

o Eastbound Rio Salado Parkway between Priest Drive and Ash Avenue

o Northbound Priest Drive between Rio Salado Parkway and Washington Street

The following bus detours will occur from the start of service until 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, May 18:

o Valley Metro bus routes 1, 56, 66 and 76

o Orbit Earth

Parking and Transit Services has no further information on these restrictions. PTS does not close or restrict City of Tempe streets; PTS relays traffic notices to our customers so they can better plan their travels around the Tempe campus. For more information on these street closures, including bus detours, please visit http://www.tempe.gov/streetclosures/ or www.valleymetro.org/bus.

Awards honor ASU, community leaders

isanche1 — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:44:36 -0600

ASU’s Chicano/Latino & Staff Association (CLFSA) recently celebrated the contributions of community leaders and members of the organization who are making a difference within the ASU community and Arizona.

The ceremony, held annually at the university, provides an opportunity for the members to connect and re-establish relationships with ASU faculty and staff, in addition to community leaders who want to create stronger bonds with the university.

The event also serves to inform the community of new projects, challenges and success stories of the organization.

“The CLFSA is notable because faculty and staff work together to achieve common goals,” says Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner, president of the organization. “Most of the projects could not be accomplished without staff participation, and ASU is a place that encourages cooperation among faculty and staff.”

Edmundo Hidalgo, president of Chicanos Por La Causa, said that being the recipient of the César E. Chávez Community Service Award is a great honor, because he is an ASU alumnus and the award gives him an opportunity to remain involved with ASU.

“Many of the members of the CLFSA were my mentors, and I always knew that I could count on them when I was a student,” Hidalgo says. “ I’m no longer a student, but I believe it is important to give back to the university and the community because most of us did not reach our goals alone.”

Hidalgo received the award for his contributions to the Arizona community, and for his dedication to raising scholarship money for ASU students who were unable to pay in-state tuition.

The organization was founded at ASU in the fall of 1970. It aims to establish a better understanding of the problems faced by Latinos, and its members study ways to express concerns to the proper university administrators so that practical remedies can be implemented.
The recipients of this year awards are:

• Manuel Servin Faculty Award – Regents’ Professor Cordelia C. Candelaria, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

• Christine Marin Staff Award – Anita Verdugo Tarango, University Student Initiatives.

• Roberto L. Pastor Student Award – Elenia Sotelo, Urban and Metropolitan Studies Undergraduate.

• César E. Chávez Community Service Award – Edmundo Hidalgo, president and chief executive officer of Chicanos Por La Causa, and ASU’s Hispanic Research Center.

• Laura Rendón Scholarship Recipients – Esther Duarte, incoming ASU student; Raul Martinez, current ASU student; and Myriam J. Hubbard, transfer ASU student.

Faculty develop Spanish screener for language disorders

evelasco — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:32:00 -0600

Two faculty members in ASU’s Department of Speech and Hearing Science and a faculty member in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education has been awarded a $1.6 million grant to develop a Spanish language screening measure to identify children at risk for language impairment. The four-year grant has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences.

There are currently no measures of language impairment designed specifically for Spanish speaking children. Existing tools have been translated from English to Spanish with the assumption that a translation is a valid measure. However, the tools do not take into account, changes in language complexity, cultural background or literacy. This can result in unidentified language impairment in children who need treatment or in children who have typical language abilities being identified as having a language disorder.

“Tests that are available now are culturally or linguistically biased,” says Laida Restrepo, associate professor in the department of speech and hearing science.

“They are based on experience. So if you don’t know the vocabulary or if you don’t know the forms that others are using, you are penalized. Because these children don’t have the same experiences as English-speaking children or may not have the advantage of a highly literate environment, a screener is needed that recognizes these differences.”

Shelley Gray, a speech and hearing associate professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is on Restrepo’s team, along with Joanna Gorin, assistant professor in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education.

“With the current instruments, children are not being accurately identified. When children are tested outside of their native language with improper tools, it raises an issue of validity,” says Gorin, an expert in educational assessment design and analysis.

The team will develop dynamic tasks for the screener that will control for experience and culture.

“We are developing tasks that evaluate language and evaluate abilities that could contribute to the problem a child’s having. Dynamic learning tasks assess how your brain is functioning while you learn the new material. And that is different than most tests that evaluate knowledge at one point in time. But dynamic learning tasks actually allow you to watch children learn something new and see the problem by the mistakes a child makes, or the amount of effort it takes for the task,” notes Gray.

Gorin will help create the new screening measure in Spanish working with Spanish language items, for children ages four to eight, generated by Restrepo and Gray. She said this unique collaboration exemplifies the benefit of leveraging expert knowledge from different disciplines.

“This is an exciting project for me because it really hits on my primary emphasis, which is merging substantive theory with assessment design and analysis. So few projects I work on can do that,” Gorin says. “It’s incredibly important to start out with a well-specified model of what you’re trying to measure or it’s basically going to have a lot of noise and error in it.”

The goal is to design an assessment that is easy to administer and score by paraprofessionals in Arizona schools.

Notes Restrepo, “There are still not enough highly qualified bilingual personnel in Arizona schools. So often you have people with a high school degree working as a teacher’s aide or paraprofessional. We want them to be able to administer the screener easily, without requiring knowledge of technical information.”

The hope is to develop a universal screening tool for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students across the United States and for speech-language pathologists to assess first- through-second-grade students who have been referred by teachers, physicians or parents.

The belief is that early and accurate identification of learning impairment risk will lead to timely evaluation, identification and treatment. As a result, English language learners can be more successful academically, which ultimately impacts academic achievement in U.S. schools.

“Often times we get referrals of Latino children who are already too far behind in their education. So this screener will help identify children at risk and provide them with services early and access the services they should be receiving,” says Restrepo.

Adds Gorin, “Pre-school and school aged children should be screened as soon as they go to school. It’s really important for early intervention. The earlier children that have disorders get help the better you can prevent children from failing in school, and as Laida said, it has clinical application and it has educational application for our own research and others as well.”

“As speech-pathologists know, there are no validated language screening measures available for Spanish-speaking children. Now there will be a tool that researchers and speech-language pathologists can use to identify children at risk for language impairment.”

Verina Martin, verina.martin@asu.edu

480-965-4911

Mary Lou Fulton College of Education

Graduate students also aspiring philanthropists

acohara1 — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:13:26 -0600

Andrew Carnegie once said, “It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than it is to earn it in the first place.” Students enrolled in Philanthropy: Theory and Practice (NLM 550), a masters-level course taught through the School of Community Resources and Development in conjunction with the ASU Lodestar Center for Nonprofit Management and Innovation, learned this lesson first hand this past semester. In a class project that will culminate with a $20,000 check presentation to one Valley nonprofit, students were able to gain hands-on experience and a new insight into the ups and downs of being on a foundation board.

Taught by Roger Hughes, executive director of St. Luke’s Health Initiatives (SLHI), a Phoenix-based public foundation, the course gave students the opportunity to make a $20,000 to grant on behalf of SLHI’s Health in a New Key community development program. Students narrowed down a list of over 20 qualified nonprofits to five finalists. The class then divided into teams that worked with the potential recipients to develop persuasive proposals for support. Following team presentations, the students played the role of foundation board members and selected what they considered to be the “best fit” with the grant requirements.

Hughes explained that SLHI provides the grant in order to give the next generation of leaders in the nonprofit sector valuable experience in the actual business of philanthropy and to introduce them to the principles of strength-based community development.

Acting as both fundraisers and board members, students were forced to see things from several—often conflicting—points of view.

“It was a valuable lesson in what constitutes a strong grant proposal and the reality of the subjective nature of many funding decisions,” said student Genevieve Croker.

Fellow student Bethany Taylor agrees. “As a development officer, I always thought that raising funds was hard, and that giving money away, in comparison, must be easy,” she said. “But by participating in this exercise, I learned just how hard giving money away could be. When you are forced to choose between multiple worthy organizations, it is truly difficult."

In the end, Stepping Stones of Hope, an organization that offers grief and bereavement services to children and their families, was selected to receive the $20,000 grant.

“All the proposals were good,” said student Damon Lemmons. “But this one gave us the greatest sense of community leverage and sustainability."

This is the second year NLM 550 has been offered. Last year’s inaugural group awarded $10,000 to Girls on the Run of Maricopa County, a nonprofit that works to improve the physical and social development of young girls through an innovative running program in schools. Due to the growing interest in the course and the success of the first offering, this year SLHI was able to double its award contribution.

"Our educational curriculum is well known for bridging theory and practice through experiential learning based within the classroom experience. This is especially true in the case of NLM 550. What Dr. Hughes and St. Luke's Health Initiatives has made possible is a stellar philanthropic laboratory which is the envy of nonprofit and philanthropic studies educational programs nationwide," said Dr. Robert F. Ashcraft, director of the Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation and professor of nonprofit studies in ASU's School of Community Resources and Development.

“This was an exceptional learning experience,” said student Saso Andonoski, who comes to the Valley from the Republic of Macedonia. “The class showed the ability to go beyond expressive philanthropy and think strategically. I have learned so much from this class. This was one of my best experiences at ASU so far."

The mission of Arizona State University’s Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation (formerly the Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management) is to help build the capacity of the social sector by enhancing the effectiveness of those who lead, manage, and support nonprofit organizations. As part of the College of Public Programs and in partnership with the School of Community Resources and Development, the Center provides knowledge and tools to build the capacity of nonprofit organizations, professionals, board members, and volunteers by offering research, technical assistance, workshops, conferences, classes, and capacity building programs. For more information, visit: http://nonprofit.asu.edu.

Conference matches students with professionals

ckussala — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:47:09 -0600

More than 200 middle-school Native American students from Arizona will attend the Inspiring Voices Conference May 5 at ASU’s Polytechnic campus. The event will provide workshops and activities for the youngsters, as well as numerous opportunities to interact with 21 local Native American professionals from different industry fields.

Students also will get a chance to conduct panel discussions with speakers and have one-on-one interviews with professionals to discuss career interests and educational options. The conference will include a lively performance by Inspiring Voices speaker and well-known reggae musician Casper Lomayesva.

The conference is the result of a pilot program created in 2006 by the Office of Public Affairs’ ASU for Arizona and Americorp VISTA volunteer member Paula Stone.

The program began as a way to bring Native American middle-school children to campus for an opportunity to meet with Native American professionals. The experience was meant to serve as a way to encourage students to stay in school and pursue a college education. In 2006, the program reached 60 students.

Stone joined the ASU for Arizona team in February 2007. Her assignment was to focus on Native American youth outreach and help revamp the existing Inspiring Voices program.

Stone decided the best way to improve the program was to create authentic materials through video interviews.

“I suggested filming the life stories and career paths of local Native American role models in a variety of professional careers, in interview format, using youth as interviewers,” she says. “The films would then be taken to school classrooms four times during the school year by ASU staff, along with a brief related activity to engage the youth and reinforce themes brought out in the interviews.”

According to Stone, participating youths then would be invited to attend a conference at ASU to meet the speakers in person, receive mentoring, participate in career-oriented workshops, observe a speakers’ panel discussion, have lunch and enjoy the campus.

Over the past year, Stone spent her time reaching out to various Native American professionals, community leaders, school districts and ASU staff for help in shaping the new format for Inspiring Voices.

“I recruited 21 adults from the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas to give filmed interviews,” she says. “Many of the role models are from the science and engineering fields, and Club ASU program coordinator Lambert Yazzie was instrumental in securing the participation of these individuals. Other fields represented include education, business, government, public administration, architecture, music, art and telecommunications.”

Stone also recruited six outstanding Native American youths to serve as interviewers. She was aided by ASU student videographer Alex Delgadillo.

Once the interviews were complete, Stone faced the daunting challenge of editing and completing the videos. Stone has been so committed to the project that she learned video editing – with the help of ASU’s Learning Technologies Lab at the Tempe campus and its manager, Gemma Garcia – to complete the project.

“At the same time, I set out to recruit schools to implement Inspiring Voices, and secured seven schools to initiate the program – five reservation schools on the Salt River and Gila River Communities, and two urban schools with high Native American populations in the Tempe public school districts,” Stone says. “I designed activities to complement the films, and implementation began with about 450 participating students in September.”

Stone’s goal is to complete 16 films before her Americorp VISTA extension expires in June (she has completed 14 interviews so far).

According to Stone, the filmed interviews are essential to ensuring the sustainability and continuation of Inspiring Voices in years to come.

For her relentless efforts and ability to foster such a successful outreach program, Stone was awarded the Governor’s Volunteer Service Award in the National Service Category during a special ceremony April 30 at the Phoenix Art Museum.
AmeriCorps VISTA places professionals in organizations and institutions to build capacity and sustainability in anti-poverty initiatives within the United States.

ASU offers cool college classes this summer

chughes3 — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:57:07 -0600

Students looking to get a head start on their college degree, or just get ahead, can choose from more than 400 summer classes – online and on campus – offered by ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

More than 120 summer classes are offered online.

“For ASU students traveling this summer, whether for study abroad or internships, all they’ll need is an Internet connection,” says Jill Schiefelbein, the college’s director of online programs.

Classes are open to current ASU students and incoming freshmen, as well as transfer students, community college students, eligible high school students and others seeking to earn college credit, including students who attend the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University.

“We also welcome students who are returning to Arizona for the summer who attend an out-of-state university during the school year,” says Gerry Corey, senior assistant dean for student and academic programs in the college. These students should first check with advisors at their university to determine whether the ASU class they are interested in will count for credit, she says.

Regardless of a student’s major, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers a variety of classes, many of which fulfill university requirements for graduation. Introductory-level and upper-division classes in psychology, biology, English, political science, human communication, religious studies, American Indian studies, geography, and film and media are among those available.

Two popular lab sciences will also be available in the summer: solar systems astronomy and geology.

“Summer is an ideal time to fit these popular classes into otherwise busy schedules,” says Corey.

“Summer is also a great time to take interesting elective classes,” she says.

History of anime, video games and justice, campaigns and elections, buried cities and lost tribes, communication in the electronic age, and politics and film, are on the summer list.

Current ASU students looking for a class will not need to pay additional fees to sign up for summer session. Others who are not current ASU students and wish to sign up for classes will need to apply to the university. When applying, they can choose to follow a degree or non-degree seeking path.

Financial aid also is available for eligible students interested in summer session.

More information, including how to register for summer classes, at asu.edu/escapetheheat or 480-965-6506.

Ashley Lange, ashley.lange@asu.edu
480-965-1441
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

ASU contest gives kids chance to interview scientists

mcoulomb — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:49:00 -0600

Arizona State University doctoral student Rebecca Clark bends the neck of a flexible lamp to illuminate a wide plain of dirt captured between two panes of glass, while three. Phoenix elementary students peer closely to see that the soil has been organized into a branching array of chambers by some very busy leaf-cutter ants.

Around the four, on every available surface are trays, experimental set ups, containing colonies of leaf-cutters and sap-sippers; big-headed ants and night ants. Of special interest: predatory, jumping ants from India.

“Excellent,” Taylor bursts out, then the barrage of questions from the trio of young students start: “Are all ants female? Is that a garbage dump? What is that fuzzy stuff?"

"This is so much fun,” Clark beams. “I love the questions.”

The inquisitors are third-graders Taylor Cheatham and Itzany Mendez, and fifth-grader Brian Varela from Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary School. That these students are both curious and articulate comes as no surprise to the accompanying adults, their parents, teachers, ASU graduate students, and the host of this excursion, Charles Kazilek. The three are the winners of the first bi-annual “Ask a Biologist” podcast contest, and they were chosen based on their vocal skills, curiosity, and creativity by the panel of judges.

Questions are in fact the lifeblood of Kazilek. As director of technology integration and outreach in the ASU School of Life Sciences, he created “Ask-a-Biologist,” the innovative K-12 children’s science education Web site specifically to provide answers to the puzzled, perplexed and just plain curious. A portal for fun and facts, the site receives more than 200 questions a month and 500,000 unique visitors a year. As its host Dr. Biology, a Web persona created by Kazilek, has interpreted more than 20,000 queries in the last 10 years – and has only been stumped a dozen times.

“I like to say that Dr. Biology is the smartest person I know,” Kazilek quips.

Dr. Biology’s formidable intellect is backed by a pool of more than “100 mostly willing volunteers” from ASU’s School of Life Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. With more than 350 faculty and graduate students to call upon, there is no lack of experts to help K-12 students fathom the most ancient and most technologically sophisticated changes in the world.

The Web site took a technological and creative leap of its own in 2007, launching a podcast program, and creating a home base – Grass Roots Studio – where Kazilek and his colleagues record. Twice monthly, children, adults, home-schoolers and teachers can download the sounds of the Tibetan plateau or drop into a conversation with a Pulitzer Prize winning ant adventurer.

However, according to Kazilek, one voice was missing, “the children themselves.” Hence, the podcast contest and search for child co-hosts was born.

“This is such a wonderful opportunity and a day of learning and lessons for us all,” says Helen Rentz, a third-grade teacher at Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary School. “The children have never had anything like this available to them before. They were very motivated to research, to interview, to podcast, and it’s the first trip for them and their families to ASU.”

“This has definitely made an impact,” adds Joan Howell, teacher with the Accelerated Learning Procedures (ALPS) program in Phoenix in which all three students participate.

To become a podcast co- host, each student did a podcast interview and submitted a CD, much like a podcast version of “American Idol,” with support from their teachers. As winners, and as Kazilek’s co-hosts, they recorded a professional quality podcast that is broadcasted internationally. In addition to meeting and interviewing scientists, the children (and their teachers) get a day off from school and the chance to pick up some hands-on science techniques. They also receive one of the tools of their trade – an Apple Ipod Shuffle.

Cheatham, Mendez, and Varela are the first three of 12 students who will be featured on Ask-a-Biologist each year. “When do we get to see the feathers?” Brian asks.

One of the scientist’s to be interviewed is Kevin McGraw, a researcher who studies bird feather coloration and behavior. He has feathers to hand out and questions of his own for the children: “What’s the world’s longest feather?” (Five feet, seven inches belonging to a crested Argus pheasant). “Who has the most feathers?”

Varela flips over a Golden pheasant skin and passes it to Taylor whose eyes open wide. McGraw knows what make children tick. He talks about genetically engineered, naked chickens used to simulate dinosaurs running for the movie Jurassic Park and reveals that swans have more then 25,000 feathers, while hummingbirds only about 940. Varela picks up the long plume of a macaw, blue on one side, yellow on another, a question forming on his lips, one of many that will frame his interview later with McGraw.

“Can I have a bird?” Cheatham asks her dad as the children leave the McGraw’s laboratory to prepare to do their interviews. “Yes,” he replies, watching her leave. “But I’d really like to have an ant farm.”

To hear Taylor’s interview, go to the Ask-a-Biologist Web site: http://askabiologist.asu.edu/podcasts/index.html#Gutierrez (volume 33).
Details and deadlines for future contests can be found at http://askabiologist.asu.edu/podcasts/contest.html.

Ask a Biologist is recognized by the Arizona Technology in Education Alliance and the Center for Digital Education. It was also the winner of the 2003 ASU President’s Award for Innovation.

English Club shares its love of reading with Valley children

chughes3 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:19:00 -0600

There might be nothing more important in education than a strong foundation in literacy, and the ASU English Club is doing its part to spread love for reading and writing to young students.

Club members, who are undergraduate English majors in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – take their love of English into the community, by volunteering at Scottsdale-based All-Star Kids Tutoring.

“We read and do other fun activities with the children,” says Ginger Hanson, a junior majoring in English and conservation biology, and president of the English Club.

“We’re in a privileged position to be able to go to a university. We want to do all we can to help others get here,” says Hanson.

The club provides English majors an opportunity to use their study of their subject as a positive influence at ASU and in the community.

“We want to do anything we can to create interest in the written word,” says Hanson.

The club recently co-sponsored a question and answer session on the Tempe campus with “warrior poets and papermakers,” where members and other students discussed the project “Combat Paper” with Iraqi Veterans Against the War.

Similarly, club members are using their skills and love of English at All-Star Kids Tutoring, where they provide one-on-one tutoring for elementary school children performing below grade level.

The English Club also held a Holiday Book Drive last December to benefit All-Star Kids Tutoring. More than 560 new and used books were collected.

According to Hanson, book drives are an important part of the tutoring program, because as many as 61 per cent of low-income families do not own books for their children. The program believes that access to reading material at home great improves a student’s chance for success at school.

“Our book drive was very successful and we plan to hold it again next year,” she says.

Ashley Lange, ashley.lange@asu.edu
480-965-1441
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Black Hawk helicopters land at ASU

chughes3 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:55:42 -0600

A pair of unarmed UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters made two trips to the ASU Tempe campus April 17 to pick up Army ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) cadets who will be participating in a joint field training exercise in Flagstaff through the weekend.

The pair of helicopters were on the ground for about three minutes as 20 cadets jumped aboard the Black Hawks with their gear. The scenario is scheduled to play out in reverse on Sunday, April 20, when cadets, returning from their field exercises, will disembark from the helicopters at 10 a.m. and again at 1 p.m.

Cadets from all Arizona ROTC campuses – Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – are scheduled to take part in the joint field training exercise at Camp Navajo, in Bellemont, just outside of Flagstaff. The site is used by all branches of the U.S. military for maneuver training. At the field training exercise, cadets will demonstrate their land navigation skills, locating a known-point at night, as well as battle drills.

In Tempe, the Black Hawks will land on the fields at the Student Recreation Complex (SRC), 400 E. Apache Blvd. The helicopters used in this weekend’s training exercise are from the Arizona National Guard’s Alpha Company 2-285th Air Assault.

This is the second time in recent memory that a military helicopter is scheduled to land on the ASU campus in Tempe. In February, a Black Hawk helicopter landed on the Student Recreation Complex fields for a training exercise with members of the Desert Rangers, part of ASU's Army ROTC.

The Department of Military Science at ASU was founded in 1935 and is located in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. There are 148 cadets, freshmen through seniors, who are members of the Sun Devil Battalion at ASU.

“In Flagstaff we’ll train together on different skill levels; our leadership skills will be evaluated” says Chad Norman, a senior scheduled to graduate next month with a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies degree. Norman holds the rank of Cadet Captain in the ROTC and is the Public Affairs Officer for this training exercise.

“I would like to get into a civil affairs unit, to help rebuild societies across the world or help re-establish a government in a war-torn country,” Norman says.

Upon graduation, Norman, will be commissioned in the military. His goal is to become an officer in the military intelligence branch.

There are two ROTC at ASU – Army and Air Force. The Air Force ROTC – Detachment 025 – is home of the Flying Devils, nearly 100 cadets enrolled in classes in the Department of Aerospace Studies. First founded in July 1948, Detachment 025 has had a long history of excellence in commissioning outstanding officers while continuing to change in order to meet the needs of the Air Force.

This weekend, while the Army ROTC is participating in its training exercise in Flagstaff, the Air Force ROTC will participate in a Warrior Challenge field skills competition at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott. The Challenge is a friendly competition among the Air Force ROTC cadet wings from all Arizona based detachments: Northern Arizona University, University of Arizona, Embry-Riddle and ASU.

Both Army and Air Force ROTC were originally housed in Old Main, at the heart of ASU’s Tempe campus. They each will hold commissioning ceremonies the afternoon of May 8 after commencement. More information about graduation and the commissioning ceremonies at www.asu.edu/ssc/commence/spring.