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D’ANGELO HURD 1986-2008

Family mourns death of UNF’s own

Student’s suicide marks third in past 10 years

By Jonathan Morales | News Editor
on November 19th, 2008

After UPD discovered a body inside a parked car on the fourth floor of Garage 44 around 2:15 a.m. Nov. 12, investigators declared it a case of suicide.

“From the scene, it was pretty obvious [it was a suicide],” UPD Chief Mark Foxworth said.

But the family of 22-year-old psychology major D’Angelo Hurd, who was found with a gunshot wound to the head and a 9mm Glock pistol in his lap, are not willing to accept his death as a suicide.

“We would rather just call it a death because ultimately, you never know,” said Hurd’s mother, Hazzel Sutton. For her and the rest of Hurd’s family, the death was a shock.

Although Hurd’s demeanor never seemed to change in the months prior, Sutton feels her son might have been overwhelmed by his full-time class load, particularly a statistics class he was struggling with, she said.

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FOCUSED ON NATURE

Class focuses on environmental issues

By Rebecca McKinnon | Staff Writer
on November 19th, 2008

UNF’s global environmental struggles class is hosting the first Environmental Awareness Day on the Green Nov. 25. Five groups of students from the class will be doing demonstrations and talking with other students to raise awareness for environmental issues.

The creator and instructor of the class, Dr. Suzanne Simon, never planned the event into her syllabus.

“There was this growing sensibility within the class that rather than simply write one more paper… many of the students basically said they would rather do something,” Simon said.

The students chose topics such as battery recycling and disposal, preservation of animal habitats, and water and electricity conservation. They connected these broad issues to real problems at UNF and in the Jacksonville area.

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FOCUSED ON NATURE

Garbage exposed on Green

By Sadie Seal | Contributing Writer
on November 19th, 2008

The second annual Garbage on the Green is scheduled to take place Nov. 18, and the UNF Environmental Center is abuzz with activity in preparation.

The event will kick off with a campus clean up from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and will continue from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. with the trash audit and expo.

The trash for the expo will be taken from four buildings on campus, an administration building, an academic building, the food court area and a housing building.

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Put on your dancing shoes

By Sarah Gojekian |
on November 19th, 2008

The largest philanthropy event in the nation is scheduled to take place Nov. 21 and 22 at the
UNF Arena.

The Children’s Miracle Network-sponsored Dance Marathon is the first campus-wide event of its kind, with a little more than 220 dancers registered so far.

The event will force participants to be on their feet for 18 hours straight from 6 p.m. Nov. 21, when dancers will be welcomed and divided into groups, to noon Nov. 22, when the total amount of money raised will be announced.

All proceeds will benefit the CMN at Shands Jacksonville and Wolfson Children’s Hospital.

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The News Around - Nov. 19

By James Cannon II | Assistant News Editor
on November 19th, 2008

Jacksonville’s Mayport to house nuclear aircraft carrier, Law makers clash about $750 billion financial bailout, Russia pushes for $200 billion bailout to back banks

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Cashier’s Office main source of registration holds

By Andrea Farah | Contributing Writer
on November 19th, 2008

During the registration period, holds on accounts are often mentioned in the context of unfair treatment from the university to its students.

Once holds are placed on students’ accounts, students are unable to access their transcript, register and even graduate.

“It doesn’t matter whether you owe a penny or $5,000,” UNF Bursar Margaret Partyka said.

The Controller’s Office system records all fines imposed on the students’ accounts by various departments and places a hold on each of these accounts programmatically overnight, she said.

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Computer viruses spread on campus

By James Cannon II | Assistant News Editor
on November 19th, 2008

The university’s Information Technology Services department recently experienced an up-
tick in computer viruses, which started in October, said an Information Technology Services spokeswoman.

There were 1,478 incidents of virus detection on 30 managed computers – staff and lab machines – which is considerably higher than the last several months, said Alison Cruess, ITS communications coordinator.

The virus triggered the university’s virus protection – Symantec’s new Bloodhound software that tracks down heuristic viruses.

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University program helps alleviate local, nationwide teacher shortages

By Laura Franco | Assistant Features Editor
on November 19th, 2008

The nation’s education system currently faces a critical shortage of professionally certified teachers, and Northeast Florida is not exempt from the problem.

About 1,400 classroom teachers in the area only have temporary teaching certificates, according to the regional coordinator of the North Florida Personel Development Partnership who founded a program aimed to do something about it.

Dr. Kathryn Krudwig started the Educator Preparation Institute at UNF last November to help alleviate the problem in the local school districts.

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Students’ impressions of Obama

By James Cannon II | Assistant News Editor
on November 19th, 2008

Grace Ambrose
Freshman, Undecided		 Bandeth Sok
Sophomore, Nutrition		 Noah Kaplan
Junior, Foreign Relations
What attracted you to the Obama campaign?
“In the beginning he seemed like he represented the change we needed. I really liked his education policy.” “I am actually a Republican. Mainly his stance on the war on terrorism … I liked his position to refocus our efforts on Afghanistan to capture Osama.” “He didn’t just stick to black and white. He could see the gray area in between.”

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How Florida’s new amendments affect college life

By James Cannon II | Assistant News Editor
on November 12th, 2008

Four amendments passed in the Nov. 4 elections from the Florida ballot, and two failed. The Spinnaker picked two that were most significant for college students: Amendment No. 2 and No. 8.

Amendment No. 2: Florida Marriage
“This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized,” as stated on the Florida ballot.

4,885,009 voters marked yes for approval.

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