CONGRATULATIONS, GRADS! Check out the full list of graduates for Saturday’s A4 & A5 commencement at the Lawlor Events Center TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012 nevadasagebrush.com | @TheSagebrush FIRST COPY FREE. ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS EACH | SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO SINCE 1893 | VOLUME 119 NUMBER 15 By Ben Miller bustling business that buys and sells clothes and WELCOME TO MIDTOWN offi cial members. They include restaurants, bars, antiques. It’s growing at about 18 percent every banks, a church, salons and a museum. The place was a mess, Jessica Schneider year. Burners fi lter in and out of the doors when The efforts behind MidTown started before Bernie Carter, one of the owners of Carter thought. Burning Man comes to town every year, teenag- Schneider set up shop, but she joined early and Bros. Ace Hardware, said he wants the area to be It was 2008 and the nameless neighborhoods ers buy Halloween costumes and local bands has been the president of the MidTown organiza- family-friendly but college students are still one south of downtown weren’t a pleasant sight litter the counters with fl yers and CDs. tion for about four years. The business owners of the biggest target demographics for MidTown. to Schneider. There was graffi ti on the walls, Where there was once squalor, Junkee now sits involved had the same goal: get more people into After all, they could be the future of the area. hypodermic needles on the ground and trash in the middle of a vibrant, growing urban area the area. “I know undergraduate and graduate students tumbling around in the street. The area seemed whose resident entrepreneurs seek to challenge “You turn on the lights and cockroaches spend a lot of time at the university studying and like a place to leave quickly. the culture of Reno itself. scram,” Schneider said. “It used to be the graf- in the library, but every once in a while you want But she couldn’t leave. She had sunk more than How did she do it? fi ti was every night, now it’s like once or twice a to go out and try a new eating experience or a $11,000 into a business in the area. When she With some cleaning, some advertising and month. There’s just more eyeballs on you.” new opportunity,” Carter said. “Or, if you’re close realized the kind of environment she was about some elbow grease. And after a merciless reces- Schneider and the owner of Süp started walking to graduation or you’re graduating, maybe you to open shop in, she sat down on the fl oor of the sion, Schneider and a growing army of business up and down Virginia Street on Wednesdays and have an idea that you want to start a business or empty building and cried. owners, in what is now known as the MidTown picking up trash, businesses started to improve be employed here.” “I thought to myself, ‘What am I doing?’” she District, are providing a model for the changing their aesthetic qualities and slowly but surely, said. cityscape of Reno. more companies opened in the area. Today, Four years later, Junkee Clothing Exchange is a MidTownDistrictReno.com lists 50 businesses as See MIDTOWN Page A6 & A7 NSHE considers Achievement center near future student regent By Megan Ortiz ment of Legislative Affairs. In early November, the Associated For the fi rst time, a bill will Students of the University of be introduced in the legislative Nevada senate passed a resolu- session to amend the Nevada tion urging for the creation of a constitution to add a voting student regent position. student member to the Nevada The proposal, Bill Draft Re- System of Higher Education’s quest #201, was then crafted by Board of Regents. the Nevada Student Alliance and The education commit- presented to the Legislature’s tee sponsored the project Interim Committee, according in September, according to to Jason Geddes, chairman of Michael Stannard, director the board of regents. emeritus of the undergraduate student government’s Depart- See 201 Page A3 Evaluations offer academic insight Juliana Bledsoe /Nevada Sagebrush By Zachary Volkert in a way that his students could Once used books lay alone in a desolate Getchell library, which President Johnson hopes to start construction on by summer 2013. understand and that his total “Well, my freshmen year of lack of coherency led to a lack Staff Report County Regional Transportation ter would be constructed where termined to be too expensive college I defi nitely wrote that of attendance, all of which was Commission for about $7 mil- the 52-year-old Getchell Library compared to original con- my core humanities professor indicative that the university President Marc Johnson plans lion. These funds will go towards stands today, which has been struction, said interim Provost was an incompetent man-child, does a piss-poor job of screen- to demolish Noble Getchell the Fire Science Academy debt, vacant since the opening of the Heather Hardy. but the worst thing I ever wrote ing or examining potential Library next summer in order which reached $40 million be- Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Johnson said if funds are was probably about my biology professors.” to construct a new student fore it was sold last June for $10 Center in 2008. available it would be best to professor freshman year,” said Nolan is one student on cam- achievements center. million to the Nevada National Johnson said the Getchell demolish Getchell next sum- Cody Nolan, a neuroscience and pus who believes the assess- At the Board of Regents meet- Guard. Paying off this debt will library would need $11-$12 mer. The construction start Spanish major at the University ment form students are given ing Thursday and Friday in Las free up student fees that could million for asbestos removal, date will depend on fundrais- of Nevada, Reno. “I said he was every semester is not without Vegas, Johnson proposed to sell be used for the future student according to a Reno Gazette- ing success. completely incapable of trans- 165.26 acres in the Main Station achievements center. Journal article. After cost lating his scientifi c knowledge See EVAL Page A3 Field Laboratory to the Washoe The student achievement cen- studies, renovation was de- See GETCHELL Page A3 WEATHER FORECAST Information courtesy of Stephen Carr of the University of Nevada, Reno chapter of the American Meteorological Society. TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY MONDAY 59 57 54 51 48 41 46 38 41 34 33 25 21 16 MAKE YOUR UNDIES DAZZLE A9 A RIVALRY FIZZLES OUT A14 A2 | NEWS @TheSagebrush | nevadasagebrush.com TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012 Student voice of the University of Nevada, Reno since 1893. Fraternities accuse local business VOLUME 119 • ISSUE 15 Editor-in-Chief • Ben Miller By Megan Ortiz Rockburn said the wristbands [email protected] that were being given out by his Managing Editor • Allison Ford After accusations from two fra- security were for the purposes of [email protected] ternities of mismanagement and identifying those 21 and older, News Editor • Megan Ortiz alleged theft toward the Freight as it was an 18 and older event. [email protected] House District, the parties have Those who were not over the age Assistant News Editor • Alex Mosher said neither wishes to engage in of 21 received a large black X on [email protected] any further business with one their hand. They had a girl at the Sports Editor • Eric Uribe another. door distributing the fraternities [email protected] Barry Rockburn, manager of wristbands separately. Assistant Sports Editor • Chris Boline The Freight House District, has “There were wristbands every- [email protected] refuted any such accusations. The where,” Rockburn said. “People Opinion Editor • Gianna Cruet fraternities’complaints include taking them from the front [email protected] not receiving the mathematical door, people handing them out Design Editor • Nicole Kowalewski amount of money expected from at the bottom of the line. (The [email protected] door collections and not having fraternities) said they sold 1,000 Photo Editor • Juliana Bledsoe enough staff to handle the size wristbands at $5 each. I had 49 [email protected] of the event, resulting in turning people come up those stairs Copy Editor • Ryan Miyashiro away members of the fraternities, without wristbands — that’s [email protected] including the president of SAE. $490. I found $1 on the fl oor and Copy Editor • Now Hiring Rockburn acknowledged they threw it in and gave them $491 at [email protected] were understaffed the night of the end of the night.” Community Outreach Editor • Kyle Hills the event. While a small number of people [email protected] “We do not maintain the same purchased wristbands at the Multimedia Editor • Now Hiring staffi ng levels that we do during door, Blakeman said there were [email protected] the (baseball) season,” Rockburn about 1,000 people at the event Online Copy Editor • Emma Shaffer said. “We had a couple call outs overall. Because of the small staff [email protected] that night. I was helping work at the Freight House District that Offi ce Manager • Beverly Vermillion security, our bar manager was night, Rockburn said he was un- [email protected] helping with security, our sound able to provide a headcount. He Illustrator • Karleena Hitchcock engineer was helping — we had estimated there were 800 people [email protected] all the bodies that we had avail- during the course of the night. Advertising Offi ce • Jordan Gregory able to work that event.” Both parties said they origi- [email protected] The University of Nevada, nally started out with one line Reno’s chapters of the Sigma but because of the amount of Contributing Staffers: Alpha Epsilon and Alpha Tau people waiting, a second line Omega fraternities held the event was opened by the stairs close Alexa Ard, Miles Becker, Ivet Contreras, on Nov.