GRAPHIC BY JILLIAN HOBDAY I STAFF
An altered photograph in the Georgia Regents University view book shows Augusta State University basketball players with jerseys lacking the university name.

By Travis Highfield, Editor-in-Chief

Georgia Regents University President Ricardo Azziz took full responsibility for a view book that was recently distributed featuring altered photographs of Augusta State University athletic teams.

Azziz said Wednesday in an email sent to faculty, staff and students that the photos were in no way meant to erase the achievements of the Augusta State athletic programs and reiterated that Georgia Regents is “proud of ASU’s and GHSU’s past accomplishments.”

“The alteration not only represented an error in judgment, but demonstrated an insensitivity to our history, to GRU’s history, rooted as it is in the long traditions and richness of our seminal universities, Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University,” he said.

News of the altered photographs was first reported by The Augusta Chronicle on its website Wednesday, Feb. 27. The senior vice president of communications and marketing, David Brond, responded quickly with an email of his own Thursday, Feb. 28, calling the altered photos “an error in judgment” and saying the photos “do not reflect the views of University leadership, the Office of Communications & Marketing, or the Athletics department.”

The Augusta Chronicle reported around 5,000 view books were produced for the Office of Admissions, totaling $10,000 in all.

Prior to Azziz’s email, Vice Provost Roman Cibirka issued a statement claiming full responsibility for the approval of the view books. Cibirka concluded his statement with a promise.

“In future recruitment materials to actively recruit undergraduate students to the best of our ability, we will give more careful consideration to the rich and highly successful histories of ASU and GHSU as they are the foundation of our consolidated university,” he said.

The view books are no longer being distributed as officials work to produce corrected version.

It was a bizarre non-apology.

In an email to faculty, staff and students, Ricardo Azziz claimed partial responsibility for the admissions view book featuring Augusta State University athletes minus the Augusta State moniker. But instead of apologizing to the university and the greater community, Azziz simply made note of the mistake with the bolded statement, “We messed up.”

You don’t have to tell us you and your team made a mistake, Azziz. We’ve pointed that out since the beginning. What needs to be heard right now is this “isolated incident” was just that, and we need to hear you apologize for being insensitive to the history of one of the state’s oldest and most storied universities.

Let’s face it, we couldn’t care less for the history of a university that is less than a year old, especially for one that has undergone a merger the way Augusta State and Georgia Health Sciences University has.

This process has been long and grueling, no doubt. But when the student body has put up with the smoke and mirrors for as long as we have, attempts to erase the history of our dedicated athletes constitute the final straw.

But we’ve got another bone to pick with you, Azziz. In your letter, you discredited the role of the “media” with the statement, “the degree of editorial irresponsibility exhibited by a few members of the media reduces the resulting discussion about what is inarguably one of the paramount ventures for the future of our community and for Georgia to the lowest possible levels.”

Clearly, you didn’t read our editorial in the Feb. 26 issue of The Bell Ringer, where we addressed the general misuse of the word “media.” If you did, we’re sure you could have been a bit more specific about which members of the media you are referring to.

You seem to have the wrong impression of what the role of “media” is.

As a newspaper, we are happy to celebrate the successes of our community as they happen. We are equally happy to uncover the misdoings of the people we put in to public positions.

We are protectors of the community, not inhibitors. We give a voice to the voiceless. We seek the truth and report it.

While that may not be popular with you, to some, we are the white knights of the world; not much gets past us.

So tell us, Azziz, what would have happened if no attention was paid to the misrepresentation of Augusta State’s past athletes? Would it have been a success on your part? You’re fighting something that is bigger than yourself right now.

GRAPHIC BY TRAVIS HIGHFIELD AND JILLIAN HOBDAY

By Travis Highfield, Editor-in-Chief

The GRU Disc Golf Club will be able to fling plastic once again.

After spending much of the 2012- 2013 academic year inactive, the club, which won the 2010 National Collegiate Disc Golf Championship, had its charter reactivated this past week but not without difficulty.

John Baker, an undeclared sophomore, became the club’s president at the beginning of the year after the former president, Kolbe Seklecki, became ill. Upon taking the reigns from Seklecki, Baker said his primary focus was to receive funding so the team would be able to travel to tournaments throughout the Southeast. To learn more about the funding process, Baker set up a meeting with Betsy Adams, the coordinator for Greek Life and Leadership at Georgia Regents University. When he got there, however, he wasn’t prepared for what Adams had to say.

“When I went into the meeting, expecting to just find out information about what we needed to do to get funding, I come to find out we’re not even an organization with the school,” he said. “We’re not official. We don’t have a charter. We don’t have anything. We cannot represent ourselves anything GRU, anything associated with the university.”

Most of the shock stemmed from the former president of the GRU Disc Golf Club never making any mention of the deactivated charter, he said. After Adams made him aware of the club’s status, Baker said he immediately tried to find a way to rectify the situation.

“She said if you can complete the chartering process quickly and show her evidence of how it was Kolbe’s fault, she would reconsider us and maybe deem us active,” he said. “These were her exact words: ‘Give me everything you have proving Kolbe dropped the ball.’”

Baker then printed out several pages of Facebook messages he had shared with Seklecki and handed them over to Adams. By the end of the week, Baker had completed all of the forms necessary to reactivate the charter

The reactivation request, however, was denied.

“I gave him an opportunity to make a case for why they should get an exception,” Adams said. “Unfortunately, that documentation itself was not strong enough to grant exception.”

Adams also noted that at no point was the club ever stripped of its charter. Charters remain in place, but can only become active when members follow the appropriate steps to reactive the charter once each year. This includes having an active roster and attending the Student Leadership Workshop in either the fall or spring semesters.

Jason Allind, the club’s head coach, decided it was time to contact Adams in an attempt to persuade her to reconsider her position when he caught wind of the club’s troubles.

“Basically what happened is I told her that this club has a lot of support and meaning to a lot of the people in the community, not just to the students,” he said. “I think showing some support for it hopefully helped in the grand scheme of things. I think she had good reasoning to why she was not allowing the renewal of the charter. I’m just glad she was solution oriented and came up for a way for us to do it.”

The solution was simple, Baker said.

“As long as we turned in an active roster with officers and one other member, so five members total, and one of the members attended the (Student Leader Workshop), we could be active again,” Baker said.

Baker then went to a fellow student for help. The student, who had attended the leadership workshop, joined and the charter was once again active. For Baker, it was a lesson in awareness.

“Really, it was just a breakdown of our organization,” Baker said. “Their deadlines are set. It’s not like we met their deadlines or anything and she just told us no. We were so late with everything only because we were not aware of what was going on.”

With an active charter and the trouble behind it, the club will be able to compete in the Georgia Tech Collegiate Golf Invitational beginning Saturday, March 9. The team will also be eligible to compete in the National Collegiate Disc Golf Championship at the Hippodrome in North Augusta, S.C., the week of April 3.

JACQUELYN PABON | STAFF

By Travis Highfield, Editor-in-Chief

It was going to take more than just a busted chin and 11 stitches to keep Kim Smock out of a bout.

It was 2009, and the Soul City Sirens had made the short trip to Columbia, S.C., to take on its rival, the Richland County Regulators, in the season opener.

Smock, who was a jammer with the Sirens at the time, rounded a turn when a Regulator by the name of “Truck Stop” collided with her at full speed. Failing to regain control over her body and land properly, Smock’s chin met the track, absorbing the full impact of the block.

But she wasn’t done yet. After speaking with the medics about the severity of the injury, she convinced them to wrap her up so she could finish the bout.

“What they did is they got this gauze and they wrapped it around like it was a toothache or something, and I just went back out and skated,” Smock said. “I think I got 25 or 26 points in the jam. I think they were just afraid of the blood.”

Upon re-entering the bout, Smock scored the winning point.

Though she has since hung up her competition skates, her 26-point performance stood unbroken for many seasons after.

The Sirens renewed their rivalry when they hosted the Regulators Sunday at Red Wing Rollerway. And while the injuries may sound gruesome, head coach Jason Craig said they just add to the excitement surrounding the bout.

“There is a 10-foot buffer between you and the game,” he said. “There is no wall between you and them. If you come around a curve and someone hits you, you slide and you slide right into the fans. You can catch a baseball at a baseball game, but there’s not that many sports where you can catch a player.”

The players, Craig said, can come from just about any background imaginable, though not from the background he anticipated when the team was formed five years ago.

“We have teachers, accountants, a librarian, a photographer and we’ve even got one girl who is some sort of nuclear chemist over at Plant Vogtle,” Craig said. “It’s all over the place. We thought you’d go downtown, go into Firehouse (Bar), go into Soul Bar, clear them out and bring them up here to play and watch roller derby. We wouldn’t even be here if that’s what we were depending on.”

Betsy Hart, a 28-year-old nuclear chemist at Plant Vogtle, said the decision to lace up her skates and join the team became an easy one after learning that she could train as she went. After watching the Sirens for a year, she made her move.

“It seemed like a lot of fun,” said the third-year power blocker. “A bunch of women playing a full contact sport, it just seemed like a great thing to do. This is all women, and it empowers women, so of course I wanted to do it.”

The sport has seen a steady rise in popularity over the years, Craig said. The Sirens, who are nearing the end of their status as an apprentice-level team with the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, have been able to travel further to play more skilled teams each year. Once it obtains member status, the team will be able to compete for a spot in WFTDA’s national rankings.

But for Craig, nothing beats competing in front of a home crowd.

“We’ve got a good core of probably 350 fans that all I have to do is remind them that we are having a bout and they’ll be here,” Craig said.

The Sirens’ 2013 schedule features seven home bouts and six away contests. Home bouts, played on Sundays, will take place at Red Ring Rollerway on Washington Road.

The result between the Sirens and Regulators was not final at press time.

JACQUELYN PABON | STAFF
Members of the Soul City Sirens wait for jammers from another team to break through the blockers during a December invitational at Red Wing Rollerway in Augusta, Ga.

 By Travis Highfield, Editor-in-Chief

One homecoming activity left some students feeling blue Monday, Feb. 18, but not with school pride.

The event, which was listed as “Wear Blue Get Food” on university advertisements, was held on the first day of Georgia Regents University’s homecoming week. The premise was for students to wear a blue article of clothing in exchange for free food in the JSAC Food Court. However, when some students showed up, they were turned away for not wearing the right shade of blue.

Senior communications studies major Karleigh King was one of those students.

King approached the food line wearing a red Indiana University hoodie, which prompted a response from one of the event coordinators, who she identified as Assistant Director for Student Center Operations Dean Smedley. After lifting the sweater to show a blue Georgia College & State University shirt, she was denied the free food.

“I said, ‘Are you guys really not going to let me have any food?’ and (Smedley) said, ‘Yeah. Dead serious. We’re not,’” King said. “They just kind of embarrassed me in front of people and I didn’t appreciate it, so I just walked away.”

Smedley said students were turned away because the event coordinators were, in fact, looking for a specific shade of blue. The advertising to the event, however, may have left out the specific shade of blue required to receive free food, he said.

“School colors,” he said. “I’m not sure what the advertising said because I’m not involved in the advertising, but students were supposed to wear school colors. The whole purpose of the event was to promote school spirit.”

King said she had no reason to believe the shade mattered and also noted the ambiguity spread by word of mouth.

“(My friend) said all you had to do is wear blue,” she said. “She didn’t say anything about the color, what shade or that it had to be GRU related.”

Bryan Hayes, a junior communications studies major, said he was there when his friend was turned away despite wearing a navy blue jacket. Smedley again turned the student away saying the shade was too dark to merit free food, Hayes said. After his friend unzipped his jacket to reveal a blue t-shirt, Hayes said he was shocked that his friend was allowed access.

“It was the same color blue as his jacket,” he said. “Not only that, (his jacket) was the same color blue as everyone running the event.”

Despite this experience, however, Hayes said he wouldn’t mind participating in the event as long as some clarity accompanies the advertisements.

“To be honest, I would make it more inclusive,” he said. “If you are going to make it exclusive, just say it. Say it has to be GRU attire or blue jeans don’t count, make sure it’s this shade of blue. Just clarify.”

By TRAVIS HIGHFIELD
editor-in-chief

A muffled whimper echoed throughout the second floor of Rains Hall on what appeared to be a normal workday.

Hearing the sound, John Jenkins, the publications coordinator in the Office of Public Relations, decided to check on a co-worker in the adjacent office, preparing to console her. However, when he stepped in the door, he found her working as if nothing was wrong.

Confused, Jenkins then visited the office on the other side of his only to find the occupants typing away just like any normal day.

“Everyone was doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing,” he said. “But (it) still sounded just like a woman crying.”

No one in the office was able to explain the noises they heard that day, but Jenkins said the crying woman incident is only one of several unexplained events that have occurred to him and his co-workers.

“Catching things out of the corner of your eye has been a big thing,” he said. “A lot of it I can blame on bad peripheral vision, obviously.”

In one instance, Jenkins said he was reclining in his chair when something in the hallway caught his attention.

“There is a vase sitting here right outside this door,” said Jenkins as he motioned to the door leading into his office. “It’s always been there. But I could have sworn that I looked around the corner before and saw a guy bending down right here near the door.”

Startled, Jenkins got up and looked out the door only to find the vase in the hallway.

Though Jenkins’ experiences were largely limited to the building he works out of, Rains Hall, rumors of paranormal activities span the entire Summerville campus of Augusta State University. Kathy Schofe, the director of public relations and publications at Augusta State, said she believes the campus could have eight to nine unique ghosts, depending on who you ask.

“There are three in (Rains Hall); two of them have been physical sightings,” she said. “(There are) two in the Benet House. There’s one in Bellevue (Hall). There is one in Boykin Wright (Hall). There is at least one in Washington Hall, and there is the Confederate soldier. The most documented has been the Confederate soldier.”

The solider, Schofe said, is one of the first sightings that has been reported at the university and is usually spotted walking toward one of the campus’s two cemeteries. Three people have also claimed to see the solider inside Rains Hall.

“The most recent sighting was by one of our staff, and it was in the afternoon,” she said. “It was not in the evening like you traditionally expect to hear and see these sorts of things.”

When the employee was leaving to go home for the day, she encountered the solider after rounding the corner. Schofe said the employee described the figure as having undefined facial features but definitely the appearance of a military officer.

“It wasn’t wispy,” Schofe added. “It was just like a man standing there.”

Just a short walk away from Rains Hall, Bellevue Hall has its own share of hauntings. Employees report that they have seen the apparition of its former resident, Emily Galt. Galt was rumored to have killed herself by jumping from the second floor of the building after learning about the death of her fiancé. A brief investigation by the Office of Public Relations, however, found that Galt may have died in a mental institution in Virginia.

Gina Thurman, the acting vice president for student services at Augusta State, has worked in Bellevue Hall for several years and said she often hears unexplained voices and footsteps when in the building. Having been acclimated to the footsteps of her coworkers, Thurman said the unidentified footsteps she would hear were distinctly slow and deliberate.

“From my office upstairs, it would sound as if the person turned and went to the other side of the building,” she said. “And the person who was in the office on the other side of the building would say that she heard it and it sounded like it was coming to my side of the building. Of course, we would go look and nobody will be there.”

Despite the rumors, Thurman said she has yet to see any apparitions in Bellevue Hall.The former housekeeper would report seeing a younger woman in a long white gown ascend the stairs when she unlocked the building in the morning, she said.

Galt’s spirit is also believed to be interested in technology, Thurman said. One particular incident involved a former employee who was having trouble with her computer. When Information Technology Services remotely accessed the desktop, an employee found a file on the hard drive that wasn’t there before.

“(The ITS technician) asked, ‘What’s this file on your hard drive that’s called Emily?’” she said. “So they opened it, and it was like writings from the 1800s. (The employee) freaked out and told them to delete it.”

Thurman said she never believed in ghosts prior to working at Augusta State, but that all changed when she saw her first apparition in the window of Boykin Wright Hall. At this point in her life, Thurman said she is no longer scared about any run-ins with spirits on campus.

“I don’t think of them in terms of the ghosts that you see in the movies where the person is out to get you,” she said. “My husband does think I’m crazy, but over the years he has learned that I believe what I’ve seen and heard.”

At what seems to be an un- likely location for a monastery, one professor spent more than a month learning the benefits of an uncluttered human mind.
Will Bryant, a temporary full-time instructor in the Department of Communications and Professional Writing, spent 44 days at Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, S.C., to learn how the resident Trappist monks use their silence to live a life of fulfillment. Bryant, who is in the last stages of his doctoral program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, said his stay was part of his research for his dissertation titled “Contemplation and Mindfulness in Education: Between Self and Other in Modernity.”

“I am studying, among other things, silence and solitude and their effects on us and how it impacts the process of edu- cation,” he said. “I mean education not necessarily within the confines of the walls (of the classroom), but education that occurs within our culture and society. I am interested in finding out how silence and solitude affects that type of process.”
While doing preliminary research, Bryant said he came across several articles that mentioned Mepkin Abbey and decided he wanted to learn more about the South Carolina monastery.
“I did some research about them online and decided that I was going to go there,” he said. “Fortunately, they have a monastic guest program where you can sign up to stay at the monastery for a month. So that was what I did the first time I visited there.”

The program, which generally lasts for 30 days, gave Bryant the opportunity to live and work in close proximity to the monks. In his time there, Bryant helped the self-sufficient monastery with the cultivation of their trademark product, mushrooms, which were then sold to local restaurants and grocery stores.
The day starts early for the monks, Bryant said, and everything adheres a strict schedule.
There is a schedule that is set up for them throughout the day that begins at 3 a.m.,” he said. “The first thing they do is they meet in church for prayer. Then there are times throughout the day, seven times actually, where everyone gets together as a community to pray. In between that are meals and work details.”
Though the monks generally live a life of silence, that does not prevent them from providing some guidance to their guests, Bryant said.
“It’s not that they won’t speak to you,” he said. “If you have a question or something of course they will. But if they do speak to you, they guard their words very closely. They see every word that they utter as very special and has a specific purpose for it. The reason they don’t talk as much is because they are trying to keep a certain amount of silence in themselves so that they can continue to pray.”
Bryant said he tries to emulate those teachings in his own classroom.

“As far as how I teach, I try to remind myself that the student has as much to offer me as I have to offer him or her,” he said. “So I am very mindful of how much I talk in class. Like the monks, I guard my words and try not to lecture them as much as I am trying to have a conversation with my students. I think that helps build rapport, and I think it helps build a friendship in the classroom so that we can both recognize that we are both here to learn; we are here for a purpose.”

Pam Hayward, the communication department chair, said Bryant has already applied the lessons he learned from the monastery in only his second year of teaching.
“Last semester, I had the chance to visit one of his classrooms, and it was a fantastic educational atmosphere in there,” she said. “I found myself getting caught up in what was going on in the class. He had a great rapport with every student in that room. They were open and willing to discuss and they went through the material in a very careful way. He has a real gift for teaching.”

Hayward, who taught Bryant as an undergraduate at Augusta State University, said she had maintained contact with him during his time in graduate school.

“He and I kept in touch over the years and would see each other at conferences,” she said. “When I knew some of the areas he was studying, I asked him to come in and be a guest lecturer in my family and communication course. He did an excellent job in the classroom. I was really impressed, and it was really rewarding to see a former student come back and teach a class and do such a great job.”

”Not long after that, a temporary full-time instructor position opened up within the communications department, and Hayward said the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

At the time when we had a temporary fulltime position open, he was coincidentally knew already that he would do a great job, because I had witnessed it from a lot of different angles.

Bryant will defend his dissertation this spring. For now, he is still concerned with what he can take away from the monks, he said.

“I think the monks can teach us a lot about being patient with ourselves,” Bryant said. “Being still. Being mindful of what we do. Sometimes we just need to be quiet in our chaotic world.”

By TRAVIS HIGHFIELD
editor-in-chief 

With a charming smile and a deep Southern drawl, Ethan Holliman plays every bit the role of a politician, only now without the office.

Following his abrupt dismissal from the Student Advisory Council Retreat held Aug. 1 through Aug. 3 at the College of Coastal Georgia in Brunswick, Ga., Holliman was removed from his position as president of the Student Government Association by former Director of Student Activities Eddie Howard, Jr. Former Vice President Andrew Phillips has since accepted the role of president with JoAnna Molina filling the vacant vice president position.

Holliman’s dismissal from the retreat, Phillips said, was the result of an altercation between Holliman and the University System of Georgia’s former Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Tonya Lam.

The retreat, which featured several activities to promote camaraderie between student government presidents throughout the University System of Georgia, usually requires prior permission to miss any particular event. Holliman contends that he was given permission to miss the 2-hour long ropes course that was to take place Aug. 2, but was confronted by Lam after the activity for being the only president not in attendance.

“I was given no indication that it would be a problem if I did not participate in the ropes course,” said Holliman in a letter to The Bell Ringer. “I was certainly not aware that if I missed the activity I would be asked to leave by the conference leadership committee. Surprisingly, Ms. Lam denies our original conversation and now claims that she ‘denied my request.’ I must clearly state that Ms. Lam’s new position regarding our conversation is false.”

By missing the ropes course, Holliman voided a contract that he signed on the first day of the retreat that stated participants are required to attend all activities for the duration of the event. When told that he must leave the retreat, Lam alleges Holliman intimidated her after she grabbed the contract from his hands, Phillips said.

“I was told that she snatched it from him,” said the political science major. “I guess he had it in his hands and wanted to make a copy of it. That’s what Ethan told me: That she snatched from him and he snatched it back from her. Ms. Lamb sent Eddie Howard an email basically saying everything that had happened. Apparently after the whole snatching of the contract happened, it escalated and I don’t know if he raised his voice or whatever, but she felt intimidated to a certain extent that she called security.”

With the evidence that was presented to him, Howard said that he was then able to make an informed decision to remove Holliman from his position as president of SGA.

“He was removed as a result of a violation to the student government constitution,” said the acting assistant vice president for student life. “As the adviser of the student government association, I have the right to remove any senator or student executive officer for a just cause if I deem that it is necessary. There are times when, in a rare occasion, that I will remove a student just because I don’t think their behavior reflects what I feel should be representative of our student body. When and if I remove any student, they have the ability to repeal my decision to the dean of students.”

Holliman elected to not appeal Howard’s decision to remove him from office. He said he believes his removal is the result of a long history of disputes with Howard over the role of the student government in Augusta State University’s future.

“To be honest, it is obvious to me that Mr. Howard decided to capitalize on the accusations made against me because he found it politically advantageous to remove me from office,” Holliman said. “No doubt, we have had disagreements in the past regarding policy and the future jurisdiction of the student government at Augusta State. In fact, during my tenure as vice president, Mr. Howard attempted to remove me as chair of the student senate because I made the comment that the SGA was truly run by a dictatorship under the guise of a democracy due to his constant interference.”

Past incidents played no role in the decision, Howard said, as the single incident that occurred at the retreat was enough to warrant Holliman’s removal.

“When he was vice president, we had conflicts in regards to what his role should be as vice president and what my role should be as adviser,” Howard said. “We had to work through those issues, but those particular situations, in my opinion, had nothing to do with my decision to remove him. He could have not had any confrontation with me (prior) and based on what he did at (the SAC retreat), I would have still done the same thing.”

Holliman, who is no longer enrolled at Augusta State, is currently working as a personal assistant for Lee Anderson, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress. He plans to reenroll for the spring semester to continue his studies.

Howard said he stands behind his decision to remove Holliman.

“I would not have removed him unless I felt like there was a very good reason to remove him because I knew the person that was elected by the student body to be the SGA president is a significant thing,” he said. “My thought would be, as an adviser, my senators would understand that I would definitely not do that unless I felt like it was extremely necessary to do. I would also not remove a person like that unless I had a conversation, at that point, with my vice president because I don’t take the removal of an elected official lightly. If I had the opportunity to do it again I would probably do the exact same thing.”

Less than three hours after Georgia Regents University was chosen to be the name of the newly merged institution, Director of Athletics Clint Bryant issued a statement announcing the athletic program will continue to compete as Augusta State for the 2012-13 academic year.

Beginning July 1, 2013, the new university will start competing as the Georgia Regents Jaguars. According to Bryant, the decision was made not long after the merger was initially announced.

“We knew that when consolidation was announced that (we) could not switch horses in the middle of the year,” he said. “We already knew that we would start off an academic year still as Augusta State university.

As we turned in our NCAA sports sponsorship, and still legally being Augusta State until sometime in mid-January, it just wouldn’t have made since to flip-flop.”

The cost of the rebranding will largely be the procurement of new athletic uniforms, Bryant said. He said he estimates that expense to be more than $100,000. Also on the agenda is the repainting of basketball court at Christenberry Fieldhouse, which was originally planned to be repainted this year.

“The (basketball) court was scheduled to be repainted this year, and that is an expense that the institution picks up as a part of their normal physical plant budget,” Bryant said. “That’s a $30,000 or $40,000 undertaking itself. But knowing that we were going to have a new name, and possibly new colors and logos, we held off on that, and that will take place next summer.”

Bryant said the procurement process will have to begin this semester in order to be ready in time for next academic year. However, at this point in time, no decision has been made as to what the new logo will look like or how the name will be displayed on the jerseys.

Henrik Norlander, a two-time All-American at Augusta State and a member of the 2010 and 2011 men’s golf national championship teams, was in attendance at the consolidation forum on the campus of Augusta State Thursday. A native of Sweden, he said dropping Augusta from the name would damage the lure of the university toward international recruits.

“I think it will be especially tough for the (golf) coaches to recruit because ‘Augusta’ is such a positive word for golfers in Europe,” he said. “If you ask someone who is a golfer in Europe where Georgia is they will tell you it is Russia’s neighbor, right next to the Black Sea. They wouldn’t say it’s a southern state in the U.S. But if you ask the same person about Augusta, they know where it is because of the (Masters) tournament.”

After July 1, 2013, when the athletic program will identify itself as Georgia Regents, the record books will be updated to reflect the change. Having graduated from Augusta State in 2011, Norlander said
he doesn’t like to think about the record books recognizing the new school name.

“I guess when I think about it now it seems pretty bad,” he said before shrugging his shoulders. “There is nothing I can do but hope that it will change.”

Kathleen Trigg, a lecturer in communication studies and a longtime Jaguar athletics fan, said she is optimistic about the consolidation but will be misty-eyed when it comes time to say goodbye to the current athletic logo: a stylized red and blue “A.”

“It’s not just a letter to me,” Trigg said. “I’ve seen it on so many of our student athletes that have come through, whether it was on a batting helmet or the golf shirts that our national champions wore. I’ve got it hanging in my office. There is an emotional attachment there. I mean, I know it just a letter and it
is not life and death. But, to me, it is A.J. (Bowman) and Garret (Siler) and Kacee Camp.”

Trigg’s office is adorned with relics from basketball jerseys to posters displaying the softball team’s schedule to another poster announcing Augusta State’s men’s golf national championships. On her office door is a picture of Allgood Hall with one of the yellow minions from Universal Picture’s “Despicable Me.” The text on the picture reads “I’m a GRU minion,” in a play on the main character’s name, Gru.

“I’m going to make the most of our last year,” Trigg said on carrying the Augusta State name for one last academic year. “I think it would be great if the last time our teams got to wear the Augusta State jersey they take the national championship (in basketball). I guess I would just like to see us go out with the Augusta State name with a really big bang.”

Both Bryant and Trigg said they are excited for the upcoming seasons, given that many of the athletic teams are coming off very successful 2011-12 campaigns. And while the institution will carry a different name, Bryant was quick to point out that one thing still remains.

“We have been, we are and we will remain a Jaguar nation,” he said.

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June 28, 2012

Augusta Hackathon 2012: The Road to a Knowledge-Based Community

Three native Augustans are putting on the area’s first Hackathon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon) in the Augusta area this weekend. Josh Bolin, a serial entrepreneur, Dr. Anthony (Tony) Robinson, Augusta State University professor in management, marketing, and entrepreneurship, and Eric Parker, an area architect, are calling software developers, graphic designers, entrepreneurs, business professionals, and the general public to participate. The event will be a marathon to hack code for a new information technology business.

The trio believe that hackathons (i.e. one to two day software coding marathons) are a great way to build businesses in the Augusta region. New businesses can be started with little capital investments since some of the key resources are the software designers and developers. The software professionals can set up shop in a relatively small and cost-efficient space to hack out code for the business proposal. The success that many software development companies continue to have helps to make their point. Facebook and Google had modest beginnings and have grown into powerful economic engines. Even setting aside those large successes, it’s hard to ignore the significant economic impact of apps that sell on Apple’s iTunes and Google’s Android markets at prices ranging from free to $.99 to $9.99 in markets with millions of customers. Equally impressesive is Groupon, an email-based marketing company that has grown from one founder to ten thousand employees in two and half years.

Bolin, Robinson, and Parker want to help build an ecosystem in the Augusta region that will support and encourage innovation and collaboration. “There are a lot of talented young people in this area who want to stay here after graduating from high school or college that can help us to grow a knowledge-based community,” Robinson submits. Bolin says that he would like to source talent for his startups in this area rather than on his trips to Washington DC and New York. Parker, an architect who has lived in Silicon Valley, adds, “We have to be sure to create a culture and environment here that allows great developers and designers to stay, grow their talent, and create new businesses.”

While the Augusta Hackathon 2012 is the first of its kind, it won’t be the last. The trio believe that many hackathons will follow given the benefits of creating rapid startups and talent pools for local information technology companies. Combine that with the relatively low costs and you have the potential for rapid and sustainable economic development. Groupme is a ccompany that was hacked in twenty four hours at a Hackathon and was sold less than a year later for $80 million to Skype. Hence, more hackathons and festivals that support innovation, collaboration, and business creation are coming.

Below are details for the event:
What: Augusta Hackathon 2012
When: Saturday, June 30th @ 2 p.m. through June 31st @ 2 p.m.
Where: Enterprise Mill,
Starch Mill Room
1450 Greene Street
Augusta, GA 30901
How: Register @ http://www.augustahackathon.com/