ThunderWolf Red, available at 80/Twenty Wines

The CSU-Pueblo Foundation has developed a new way to bring in support for the university. The Foundation has partnered with 80/Twenty Wines to market ThunderWolf Red, a specially-made wine created specifically to support the school and the Alumni Association.

80/Twenty Wines is a family business owned and run by John Myers. Myers said the company has done a number of special wines for different businesses, and he was excited to partner with the university when he was approached by the CSU-Pueblo Foundation.

According to Myers, $2.00 from every bottle of the ThunderWolf Red sold will be donated to the Alumni Association in order to further scholarship opportunities for current and future students.

“We had been working on the idea of creating a new wine for the university since the beginning of the year,” Myers said. “This is the eighth specialty bottle that we have done for a business or an organization. As far as this one goes, Tracy Samora was the drive to create the wine.”

Samora is the Director of Alumni Relations at CSU-Pueblo.

“The idea came from Carol Rickman, who is a 1983 alumna, a member of the alumni board, and is probably most well-known as ‘Tundra’s mom’,” Samora said. “Carol had worked on a similar project for another organization in town, in partnership with 80/Twenty Wines, and presented the idea to the alumni board.”

According to Samora, the wine is an idea that the alumni board initially discussed in August 2013.

“We began looking at the design and concept in January 2014. We finalized the label design and name of the wine in April 2014 and wanted to have the first bottle ready to sell in August at the CSU-Pueblo Athletics Department’s annual lobster bake,” she said.

ThunderWolf Red Wine was developed in Italy and is flavored to bring out more of a fruity component. The wine sells for $12.80 a bottle, and a 12 percent discount will be applied to cases of 12 bottles, which will sell for $145.12 including tax. Myers reports that to this date, the store has sold over one hundred bottles of ThunderWolf Red.

80/Twenty Wines is located at 415 N. Greenwood in Pueblo. The ThunderWolf Red wine will only be on the shelf until the end of the year.

One of the best things about attending CSU-Pueblo is the number of clubs available for students to get involved in.  Currently, CSU-Pueblo hosts more than a dozen clubs and a variety of club interests including everything from English to film making to rodeo competition.

After years of being inactive, the Rodeo Club has been reestablished on campus by Alexandra Hyland. Hyland competed throughout high school in rodeo events and has held several rodeo queen titles.

She recently transferred to CSU-Pueblo and said that she was quite surprised when she learned that the university did not have an active Rodeo Club.

“Pueblo is big rodeo country so I was actually surprised,” she said.

Hyland sees great potential  in CSU-Pueblo students and plans to recruit enough people for the club to compete in the Spring 2015 season.

“I am so excited for the club to be up and running,” Hyland said. “I truly do believe that CSU-Pueblo has the potential to compete in the NICA (National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association).”

Hyland plans to initiate two different types of membership with the club: active members who would actually compete and non-active members who would help with fundraising opportunities or to learn more about the rodeo life.

CSU-Pueblo is located in the Central Rocky Mountain Region and would compete in NICA rodeo competitions against other schools from Colorado as well as from Wyoming and Nebraska. The 2014 -2015 season runs with five rodeos in the fall and five rodeos in the spring. Hyland hopes to take a CSU-Pueblo team to compete in the spring season.

Experience will be necessary to be considered an active member of the Rodeo Club because the members will be competing at an intercollegiate level and they must be able to provide their own horse, tack and equipment.

“I truly want this team to be a success and become a competitive team again,” Hyland said.

She plans to establish a general membership meeting in the upcoming weeks once she has a better idea of how many students will be interested in becoming an active part of the club.

Photo courtesy of colostate-pueblo.edu

Colorado State University-Pueblo is in the process of rebuilding the university’s soccer/lacrosse field and constructing a new academic building.

Both construction projects are set to begin developing in late spring 2014 and are expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

The new academic building will cost approximately $16 million and will be funded by the State of Colorado Capital Development Committee, according to Cora Zaletel, the executive director of the Office External Affairs at CSU-Pueblo.

The academic building will be 40,000 square feet and provide larger instructional space with the flexibility to serve today’s growing curriculum and student needs. The building will be designed and constructed to a minimum of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold Standard.

The new general classroom building will also include two large lecture auditoriums, each capable of seating 135 students; six new classrooms, each capable of seating 50 to 75 students; a two-story glass lobby containing an open-use technology lab, coffee shop and lounge areas; and three new computer labs.

“The general classroom building should be as exciting for current students as it is for prospective students because it will provide one answer to requests from students and faculty alike to upgrade classrooms and provide additional collaborative student study space,” Zaletel said.

Photo courtesy of colostate-pueblo.edu.

The new lacrosse field will cost approximately $3 million to construct and will be built at the location of the old field. It is set to contain six locker rooms with four designated for the home team and two for the visitors. The stadium will also feature a synthetic turf field and hold up to 450 people.

Zaletel believes the introduction of these new sports and academic building has the potential to attract new students.

“I think the addition of six new intercollegiate sports will definitely attract attention in the same fashion as when we brought back football, wrestling, and women’s track and field. When you combine that with a brand new facility for lacrosse and soccer, it’s a strong incentive, especially for athletes in those sports,” Zaletel said.

This will not change the way that the program is run, but rather how much students will do. Photo from http://upload.wikimedia.org

Colorado State University-Pueblo is working to encourage students to take advantage of its study abroad program by partnering with the Marketing Club.

This will not change the way that the program is run, but rather how much students will do. The Marketing Club’s goal is to gather scholarship data and then compile it into usable data. It will gather stories, pictures and interviews from students and then compact the information into a pamphlet and an attractive website, according to Timothy Zercher, president of the Marketing Club.

“We believe we will help raise the number of students who consider, and actually execute, a semester or year abroad,” Zercher said.

Zercher spent a semester studying abroad in Italy and came back refreshed and rejuvenated from his international experience. He said he hopes this partnership with the study abroad program will encourage other students to travel out of the country and experience their own adventures.

Zercher came up with the idea of partnering the Marketing Club and the study abroad program, and he and his team worked out the details.

“It’s basically a partnership with the international office, so they are taking some work load and we are taking the other. We are also coordinating with the CSU-Pueblo website directors and external affairs,” Zercher said.

Zercher and his team feel that this partnership is of great importance and will play a significant role in the study abroad program.

The Marketing Club and study abroad program are excited to present their ideas to the community, and have high hopes that the partnership will spark a new interest among students to travel out of the country for a semester or a year at a time.

Their desire is to not only keep the study abroad program up and running, but to give it a new fire that will draw more students both to send to other countries and bring others to America as well.

Rick Kreminski, the dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at CSU-Pueblo and the acting director of Institutional Research and Analysis, has suggested the idea of using YouTube for educational purposes to several of the math and science department professors, but no official proposal has come of it. File photo.

Since free math tutoring has recently become harder to obtain at Colorado State University-Pueblo, some professors are exploring the possibility of using YouTube to assist with teaching math problems.

One of CSU-Pueblo’s general education requirements is that students pass at least one math and science class. In the past, the school has provided free general education math and science tutoring for students, but the general education’s math and science tutoring center has recently shut down due to budget cuts from the university.

Being that the tutoring center shut down, the only place for students to find math help is the math center in the Life Sciences building, and the Propel Center located in the biology department. Finding available tutors in the center may be difficult due to many people needing help, and tutors are overloaded trying to help students seeking assistance, according to one tutor within the department.

Rick Kreminski, the dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at CSU-Pueblo and the acting director of Institutional Research and Analysis, has suggested the idea of using YouTube for educational purposes to several of the math and science department professors, but no official proposal has come of it.

“I have mentioned to several other faculty and student groups the idea of having faculty post review sessions on YouTube, not just for math,” Kreminski said. “I had posted some short YouTube videos a few years ago about sample math 221 problems, but in late fall 2011, I started posting YouTube of my out-of-class review sessions, and I know the students really seemed to like those. I just wish I’d thought of it earlier.”

Using YouTube to help students do review sessions is an idea which Kreminski brought up with various Associated Students’ Government members and with the Propel Center, which focuses on science tutoring. The center began preparing videos for some physics modules this past summer.

William Sergeant, a visiting mathematics professor at CSU-Pueblo, favors the idea of using YouTube as a teaching tool. He also said that organization and teamwork within the mathematics department would be a key to forwarding the idea.

“There could be some benefits,” Sergeant said, “But I think there are some things the department is on first that we should finalize before we could consider whether to do this, and how, if we went forward. I would strongly be interested in participating.”

While taking the idea and transitioning it into an actual proposal will take time, the idea seems like it would be a success because YouTube is such a popular media outlet, according to an ASG representative.

He said no official proposal has been formulated yet, but the professors and ASG are ready to come together to develop this into a new method to help students with their studies.

The gathering takes place annually on the fourth Wednesday of September. and is recognized nationwide in middle schools, high schools and colleges. Photo from http://www.examiner.com

Colorado State University-Pueblo ministries set aside time this week to recognize National Student Prayer Week. 

The entire week is designated to focus on the importance of prayer in a person’s life, and the most well known event of the week is “See You at the Pole.”

“See You at the Pole” was created 23 years ago in Burleston, Tex. when a youth pastor challenged his students to gather publicly to pray for their nation, their peers and their own personal lives.

The gathering takes place annually on the fourth Wednesday of September and is recognized nationwide in middle schools, high schools and colleges.

On the designated day, students gathered around the flagpole of their school or university to pray for the state of the country, the world and other important parts of their lives.

“I think that SYATP went pretty good even without good advertisement,” said Dustin Cox, a student at CSU-Pueblo and member of the organization CRU, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ. “Four students, including myself, were there at 7 a.m. to pray for our school, our nation and the world.”

Schools all over the nation participated in SYATP, and according to the Christian Post, millions of students from sixth grade through college participated in the event.

“See You at the Pole is important to me because it allows me to come together with other Christians to pray together for others,” said Cox. “It is a place where we can see God do amazing things and I have yet to be disappointed by going to SYATP.”

“I think it’s (SYATP) important because it brings students together who care about the campus, our country, and the world, and want to make a difference,” said student Kaylah Schwartz.

“To me, prayer is the difference between religion and a relationship. Praying and seeing God answer those prayers just reassures me that I have a strong relationship with him. Prayer just makes me feel better because I know that he is always listening and caring about my struggles when people may not be aware of them,” said Sydni Riley, a second year student at CSU-Pueblo and a devout Christian.

For students such as Cox, Schwartz and Riley, prayer is a key part of their daily routine. While SYATP is an important day set aside annually for prayer, it is not the only day that these students set aside time to talk to God.

“For us as Christians, we believe that Jesus said in the Bible that ‘Where two or three are gathered together, I am there.’ Prayer becomes even more powerful in numbers,” Cox said.

Schwartz went on to say, “Prayer is important because you are talking to the creator of the world and I’ve seen how powerful he is.”

National student prayer week will continue through the end of this week.

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The profile picture on the CSU-P Confessions Facebook page. Photo from the CSU-P Confessions page (https://www.facebook.com/CsuPConfessions).

The CSU-P Confessions page on Facebook is a popular place for students to anonymously “confess” their secrets to other students on campus.

According to the page description, “These are anonymous confessions from students and anything can be submitted.”

But “anything” is a very general term for such a page as this. While entertainment was the primary motive behind the creation of this page, it is clear that most users who participate in this page use it as more of a joke than an actual confessions page.

The page contains a disclaimer, saying it is not formally sanctioned by the university. The university actually went so far as to ask the page to remove its logo as its profile picture.

“Since confessions is not an official university-managed page, we requested that the copyrighted university logos be removed early in the page’s development,” Cora Zaletel, the executive director of executive affairs at CSU- Pueblo, said. “Other than that our only interaction with that page is when it comes up as part of the monitoring process we conduct in order to maintain the university’s brand and reputation.”

One CSU-Pueblo student, who initially “liked” the confessions page, said they chose to “un-like” it after seeing some of the content on the page.

“It has grown to become something inappropriate that can even be accessed by kids who are not adults, seeing adult content on the Internet,” said the student, who chose to remain anonymous.

Although the CSU-P Confessions page is well known around the campus, only approximately 1,400 people actually interact on the page itself.

The page has been used to help improve the university campus and its activities as well.

“We have taken seriously some of the feedback gleaned from the confessions page to make improvements on campus,” Zaletel said.

According to Zaletel, a new page has been created on Facebook in response to the CSU-P Confessions page.

“I was pleased to see a CSU-Pueblo Compliments page be established recently to counter what primarily is negativity spread about the university on the confessions page,” Zaletel said.

The compliments page was created on Aug. 20, 2013. The page currently rallies 142 users and contains less potentially offensive content than the confessions page does.

While IT is working hard to prevent spam from entering student accounts, it is not able to prevent all spam from entering student domains. Photo courtesy of http://www.washingtonpost.com

Colorado State University-Pueblo’s student email accounts are designed for students to communicate with professors, turn in assignments and handle other academic responsibilities required by the university.

These email accounts have recently been flooded with spam from various vendors rather than communications from professors or academic departments.

Several students have made note of this and brought the issue up with information technology services, but the problem continues despite IT’s efforts to put a stop to the incoming spam.

“We are aware of the fact that spam has been sent to various students’ email accounts,” Sherri Kidner, an IT technician, said. “Whenever we are notified that spam has been sent into a student’s email account we attempt to fix it as soon as possible.”

While IT is working hard to prevent spam from entering student accounts, it is not able to prevent all spam from entering student domains.

The student email accounts will only hold a certain number of emails before no longer accepting new messages. This becomes a problem when students receive so many spam messages that messages from their professors can no longer be received.

“It is frustrating to try and check my email when all that I see is spam; some of it from vendors that I don’t even think are real,” said CSU-Pueblo student Codee Shawcroft.

The spam can be so invasive that students miss other, more urgent messages on their accounts.

“I have missed important messages about assignments or class information because my email was overflowing with messages that do not even pertain to the school,” Shawcroft said.

IT has stated that students can take measures such as marking unwanted messages as spam when they receive them. This should prevent emails from coming from that address, but many of the emails are from a different address each time.

According to an IT source who chose to remain anonymous, the university emails are specifically set for academic purposes, and it is unknown how exactly spam came into these emails.

“The entire situation is frustrating not only for the students who are receiving the emails, but for the IT technicians trying to keep the problem from getting worse,” Kidner says.

IT intends to build up its system in order to decrease the number of spam emails flooding the system, but it could be a while before they are able to completely prevent spam.

“We are doing our best to stop the spam and as soon as we know there is an issue, we will jump on it,” Kidner said.

IT has hired new employees, hoping they can be a key to resolving the issue.

The campaign was announced on Aug. 29, with more than 100 people in attendance. The audience included students, staff, faculty and sponsors of the school. Photo courtesy of http://media.merchantcircle.com

Colorado State University-Pueblo will be undergoing renovations to the Occhiato University Center as well as receiving scholarship money through its recently announced “On the Move” campaign.

The campaign was announced on Aug. 29, with more than 100 people in attendance. The audience included students, staff, faculty and sponsors of the school.

Jennifer Mullen began with an introduction of the event and a presentation of special speakers including Dan DeRose, chair of the CSU-Pueblo Foundation; Joe Folda, director of athletics; Leslie Di Mare, president of the university; and Vanessa Emerson, president of the Associated Student Government.

The foundation has approved renovation of the OUC, which will expand the building to nearly twice its current size and improve the structural qualities of the building.

The cafeterias will be redesigned as will the size of the ballroom. The foundation hopes to begin the first steps to rebuilding the OUC within the next few months.

The goal is to have the renovations to the OUC completed within the next three years. $5 million will be used for this portion of the campaign.

The largest portion of the “On the Move” funds is $15 million, which will be dedicated to new scholarships and financial aid for first time and transfer students beginning in fall 2014.

“Our goal of this campaign is to give more young men and women the opportunity to have the transformational experience of receiving a degree from a higher education institution,” Di Mare said.

“I can tell you how excited our students at CSU-Pueblo are with the remodel of the building that is to come, and everyday we’re in our classrooms and we have that engraved in our mind that it may not be this year, but we’re going to see those changes happen on our campus,” Emerson said

A video produced by recent graduate Tyler Lundquist was screened at the announcement, showing the testimony of four students who have received scholarships from CSU-Pueblo and the impact that those scholarships have had on their lives.

“Scholarship dollars will educate (students), allow them to remain in school and graduate, and allow them to become active members of society,” Di Mare said.