History of the lawsuit

On June 4, five federal lawsuits were filed against APSU and Lantz Biles, director of Public Safety. Leonard Fulcher, former police officer; Georganna Genther, police supervisor; Susana Milton, police officer; Charlie Struckel, assistant director of Public Saftey and Kristie Winters, police officer, filed lawsuits in the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Tennessee by attorney Robert J. Martin. Recently Genther and Winters dropped the lawsuit. Martin said he could not comment on why they dropped the case. A trial date has been set for Feb. 27, 2012 according to Martin. Genther and Winters had not responded to e-mails from The All State as of press time on Friday, Aug. 27.

What the lawsuits say:

FULCHER

Suing APSU for retaliation harassment and hostile work environment.

Hired to the APSU Police Department in April 15, 2009. Shortly after, his psychological evaluation reached the chief of police who, “violated the privacy act by disclosing personal information … to other employees.”

Fulcher stated to the EEO division of APSU that he believed the chief was discriminatory against female officers, as well has his own incident. Shortly after this statement, Fulcher was notified that he was demoted.

Charges brought to APSU include threatening, reprimanding and harassing, issuing negative performance evaluations, working under abnormal conditions, denying benefits and otherwise affecting him.

Fulcher requests full compensatory damages, court and attorney fees, other relief the court may deem and a jury.

MILTON

Suing APSU for retaliation, harassment, gender discrimination, sexual harassment
and hostile work environment.

Milton joined the APSU campus police department and filed complaints against the chief of police for sexual comments in February 2008.

“The university interviewed several witnesses and found that the chief had indeed violated policy and disciplined him for said discriminatory conduct.”

Milton has since been denied a sergeant position she was for which she was qualified, as well as denied training that would enhance job performance.

She is now asking for compensatory damages, attorney’s fees and other relief the court as well as a jury.

STRUCKEL

Suing APSU for subsequent retaliation, retaliatory harassment and hostile work environment.

Struckel testified against the chief of police in December 2008 confirming that he did witness sexual harassment and discrimination from the chief.

Shortly after, Struckel was subjected to threatening, reprimanding, harassment, abnormal and other adverse conditions.

Struckel requests compensatory damages, court and attorney fees, anything the court may deem proper and a jury.

By BRIAN BIGELOW | Staff Writer

Due to increased enrollment this semester, some APSU students will be housed in hotel rooms at the Riverview Inn until on-campus rooms become available through the inevitable “no-shows, cancellations, academic suspensions and non-payments,” said Joe Mills, the director of Housing/Residential Life and Dining Services.

“This year we stopped taking applications for all non-first-time freshmen on Aug. 10,” Mills said. “That was the first time we have done that in my 20 years at APSU.”

“We continued to take freshman applications because of freshman residency requirements,” Mills said. The Riverview Inn, located at 50 College St., only a few blocks from campus, will house 120 students affected by the housing overflow in 60 rooms reserved by APSU.

The rooms usually retail for $99 per night and consist of two double-size beds, a dresser, a television with cable and a single bathroom.

APSU is receiving a discounted rate, but the exact amount of the discount is confidential. Payment for the hotel comes out of the students’ housing fees.

The hotel has wireless Internet throughout, a restaurant, an indoor pool, and a coin operated laundry on site.

“Our goal is to make it as comfortable as possible for them,” said Mike Turner, the sales and convention services manager at the Riverview Inn. “We’ve had overflow in the past and we understand the growing pains. We’re happy to have the business and we’re glad Austin Peay has grown so much.”

As rooms become available on campus, students will be moved from the hotel into dorm rooms.

Julian Texido, a freshman physics major who will be housed at the Riverview Inn, said he was “disappointed” with the living arrangements. “They only have one dresser with four drawers; that’s not a lot of space for two people.”

Having previously attended Governor’s School at APSU as a high school student, Texido had stayed in the Harvill dormitory and said the dorm rooms there were “actually bigger than the hotel rooms.”

The Peay Pickup and Plant Shuttle will provide transportation to and from Riverview Inn, Mills said, and students with cars will be issued temporary parking passes to park in green parking zones until they are assigned a room on campus.

Gavin Fitch, a freshman music education major affected by the housing overflow, said, “The room is nice,” but, “while it has its benefits, it’s a huge drawback from living on campus,” citing concerns over the availability of transportation from campus late in the day.

According to the APSU website, the Peay Pickup stops running at 2:30 p.m., on Monday through Friday.

There are currently 1,411 beds on campus and a new residence hall is under construction on Castle Heights Road to be completed by Fall 2011, followed by the demolition of the Cross, Killebrew and Rawlins dorms.

“We will gain about 30 beds when the new housing is done and [Cross, Killebrew, and Rawlins are] torn down,” Mills said. “If enrollment continues to rise, we might experience similar issues.”

The Cross, Killebrew and Rawlins dorms will be replaced with a new 400-bed residence hall to be finished for the Fall 2013 semester.

According to the APSU Provost Tristan Denley, 9,024 students had enrolled at the APSU main campus for the Fall 2010 semester as of press time, Friday, Aug. 27 an increase of 659 students over the same date last year.

The growing pains continue to effect other branches of Austin Peay. The Fort Campbell enrollment numbers are also up by 130 students over last year.

“Because of the purges, confirmations and late enrollments, there are always some significant fluctuations … over the last few days before classes begin, and the first few days of the semester,” said Denley.

“Last year our final enrollment was 10,188. I am projecting that we will break or be very close to 11,000 (students) overall,” Denly said.

“Last year TBR schools grew on average by 4-5 percent. We grew by over 8 percent … to be growing once again in a similar fashion is quite extraordinary.”

Fall 2010 final enrollment totals will be available Nov. 5. TAS

By MARLON SCOTT | Senior Staff Writer

While for many students fall means the start of classes and the end of summer vacation, for a lot of student athletes and their coaches, fall means hope.

All the running, lifting, jumping, sweating, eating, kicking and swearing in the heat of summer finally comes to an end in the fall. Coaches in every sport drill in to their players the mantra “what you do in the offseason, pays off in the regular season.”

The following is a list of the sports that begin in the fall and some of the athletes who play them at APSU. Now is the time when predictions fade to the background because everyone is 0-0.

FOOTBALL

Who doesn’t know it is football season?

The talented legs of runningbacks Terrence Holt and Ryan White will power the 2010 Govs. The two combined to lead the OVC in rushing last year and plan to do so again this season. Expected to lead them on offense will be redshirt sophomore quarterback Jake Ryan.

However, White, Holt and Ryan are three of only 15 starters who returned this season. Of those 15, only three are on defense. The rest are made up of new faces including the over 25 freshmen who joined the team this year.

“You don’t know what the freshmen are going to do until you get them in the first game,” said head coach Rick Christopel.

“Hopefully, they won’t get too over excited and too nervous, and burn out before they get out there on the playing field.”

“We have a good nucleus of guys. If we can keep them healthy and get the freshmen some game experience, I think we will be okay down the road.”

The Govs will open the season at home Thursday, September 2, against the Cumberland Bulldogs.

CROSS COUNTRY

They are always on the road. All they do is run.

Less than 20 people make up the men and women’s cross country teams at APSU and they are hardly recognized except when seen running around campus early in the morning.

Unheralded, the two teams will hear the first starting gun of the season at Belmont on Friday, September 3. They were picked eighth in the OVC preseason poll. However, head coach Doug Molnar told APSU Sports Information he expects his team to finish better than the prediction.

“We finished eighth in both the men and women’s competitions last year so that’s probably where we should be picked,” Molnar said. “I believe we are going to be stronger than both those finishes by the time the championship rolls around. I really like theses two teams and how close-knit they are with one another.”

VOLLEYBALL

Serve, block, dig, set, and kill.

In the Dunn Center the Lady Govs volleyball team is ready to prove they will not miss a step under their third coach in three years, newly promoted Haley Janicek. For two straight seasons, they have won over 20 games in the regular season. However, it’s the post season where they are focused on showing their most improvement.

A player like last season’s OVC Player of the Year, Stephanie Champine, cannot be replaced. However, seniors Sarah Alisaleh, Jessica Mollman and Taylor Skinner will be leaving their marks on the court and possibly in the programs record books.

SOCCER

The Lady Govs soccer team is already on the field erasing the bad taste of winning only one game last season. They have already scored 15 goals to win their first three games and are looking to continue the streak as hosts of the Lady Govs Invitational.

Michelle Johnson is one of seven seniors on the team who are determined to end their career with a winning season. Johnson made the game-winning goal in the 72nd minute of the Lady Govs game against Lipscomb Monday, Aug. 24.

According to APSU Sports Information, she is excited about the way the team is playing so far.

“This is very exciting. We’ve been working really hard this year and we’ve got a lot of talent on this team,” Johnson said.

“All the freshmen have contributed and we’ve been creating a lot of scoring opportunities. This is good momentum for our team; it’s looking better every day.”

GOLF

They are the best-dressed teams at APSU and usually receive polite claps instead of loud cheers when they play.

OVC Champion and Player of the Year, senior Chelsea Harris will start her quest to repeat as champion by playing on the greens in Paducah, Ky. at the MSU Drake Creek Invitational Monday, September 13.

She is one of the seven total Lady Gov golfers and one of the four seniors on the team.

Also swinging clubs in red and white for APSU will be five men led by seniors Brian Balthrop and Luke Sherrod.

The “home game” for our golf teams is the F&M Bank APSU Intercollegiate. It begins Monday, Oct. 18.

After the Lady Govs Invitational on Friday, Aug. 27, the Lady Govs will not return home until Tuesday, Sept. 14, against Alabama A&M. TAS

By JENELLE GREWELL | News Editor

In the basement of the APSU library, certain shelves are taped off with blue tape displaying the word mold.

Joe Weber, director of Library Services, said the mold in the library was first noticed on the last few days of June.

“Our suspicion for the cause of the mold is a combination of a number of events. The perfect storm type of idea,” Weber said.

“I am actually the first person that discovered the mold; I found it on several of our books on level three of the library, and this was probably around the time that summer started,” said Megan Hunley, student worker for the library.

Weber said he believes the mold came from the unusually hot and humid summer coupled with the remodeling for compact shelving in the building. The doors were often open for the workmen to go in and out. Weber also said the boiler was off for most of the summer for maintenance.

“It’s my understanding that the way they regulate humidity in these large buildings is they actually run the heat and the air conditioning at the same time,” Weber said.

David Lemons, director of the Physical Plant said it is possible all of the above contributed to the situation. “Higher than normal temperatures and humidity, the back doors being open during the shelving project, and the lack of reheat.”

Lemons said the boilers were off last summer with no issues so they did not anticipate these sort of problems this summer.

“We replaced the ceiling tile, and cleaned the diffuser with a cleaning agent designed for removing mold. When we replaced the tile, we noticed the sprinkler fire system piping was also dirty, so that pipe was also cleaned. We believe that this was the cause of the mold, a condensating pipe line.” Lemons said.

Weber said if heat runs at the same time as the air, it keeps the humidity between 50 and 60 percent, which he said is ideal for libraries and office buildings. “Books are most comfortable at that humidity range and so are humans.”

He said when they took the boiler offline there was no heat coming into the building and just air conditioning with the humid air from outside caused the humidity to jump to 65 percent, which is the rate mold can grow.

Elaine Berg, coordinator of Access Services, said the first book found with mold was on the third floor and as they were moving their construction project they noticed the mold in the basement.

“The spots that seem to be the worst are close to the ceiling and cold air vents,” Weber said.

Lemons said when mold is reported to the Physical Plant, the protocol is to contact Terracon for an analysis of the situation. Terracon has a state contract and is the TBR Environmental Consultant statewide and because APSU is a TBR institution, the university uses Terracon.

Weber said they do not know what kind of mold is in the library yet. Terracon came in and did the inspection and analysis at the end of July and they are waiting on the results on the report. He said they will not clean the mold until they get the report back from Terracon.

“We would prefer to know just what we are dealing with,” Weber said.

“A few days ago they told the student workers that we would be the ones that were going to clean the mold off the books. The procedure that was established for that was that we would be in a room downstairs wearing gloves, masks and ponchos and wipe the mold off with Chlorox wipes,” Hunley said.

Hunley said after the library administration noticed the mold spreading they decided not to have anyone clean the books.

Weber said he requested portable dehumidifiers to get the humidity down. He knew the boilers were going to be down and without the heat he knew other means would be needed to bring down the humidity level. Weber said the humidifiers were on campus for five weeks.

“We got the humidity down to an acceptable level, so they went ahead and took those back because we were renting them. After they did we noticed the mold problem getting worse again.” Weber said they were about to start cleaning the mold when it started to grow again.
“It’s gotten to the point now where unfortunately, its almost out of hand and there are probably almost 3,000 books affected right now.” Weber said.

S through Z in the serial collection were just moved a week and a half ago and mold has already spread to those books, he said.

The moldy books were initially put into freezer bags and put them in the freezer at Austin’s Diner, Weber said.

“One of the ways you can get rid of the mold is to kill it by putting it in bags and suffocate it and freezing it makes the process go quicker.”

Weber said once the initial load of 700 books was done they realized there were another 2,000 or more books with mold and limited freezer space and cost issues with buying freezer bags.

“Yesterday, I told our student who was shelving that in order to reshelf the periodicals or anything with mold to wear a mask and gloves,” Berg said.

Weber said it is possible they could lose some of the books affected by the mold but after consulting with the Tennessee State Library and Archives they have methods on how to clean the books.

Weber said the library has many renovations in the future such as putting study rooms into the second floor, a seminar room, a space to host a writing center, new computer desks and furniture and the possibility for a coffee shop in the library.

“We want this to be a wonderful, pleasant place even though it’s an old building and getting rid of the mold is conducive to that and good for everyone in general,” Berg said. TAS

Alex Romero, a sophmore Spanish major, is checking out books at the Austin Peay bookstore. Photo by Dalwin Cordova | Photographer

By CHASITY WEBB | Features Editor

Like the many changes APSU has been making on and around campus, the Ann Ross bookstore has followed suit.

The first change made apparent was the possibility to rent textbooks, for half of the new purchase price, from the bookstore.

In order to rent textbooks students must present an active credit card that is to be charged if the rented books are not returned. However, the book rental itself can be paid for using any method including financial aid. All rentals for the fall semester are due back by Friday, Dec. 17.

The second change was mostly initiated to allow more students to afford laptops. APSU’s bookstore now offers silver Dell Latitude D260s. These laptops have a 1.86 GHZ Core 2 duo processor, a 60 GB SATA hard drive, a 1 GB RAM, a DVD CD-RW media drive, a 14.1 WXG video screen, Windows XPP Pro loaded with a 90-day Microsoft Office trial period, a 802.11 a/b/g network card and Intel 945 GM video. These laptops are still available at $429.95.

The bookstore is also now offering price matching as part of their many changes. Within 10 days of purchasing a book, if a student finds the same book locally for a lower price, the student may bring their book, receipt and proof of the lower price to the bookstore for a refund of the difference.

The bookstore is also offering digital books. About 20 percent of the books for this semester are available in digital form. These are available for purchase through the bookstore’s website or in the bookstore itself.

Lastly, the bookstore is having a clearance sale until Monday, Sept. 6. All clearance items are an extra 10 percent off during this time.

It seems that now more than ever, Ann Ross bookstore is realizing what its students need — affordable, convenient textbooks and supplies.

The Ann Ross bookstore, located in the Catherine Evans Harvill building, is open Monday through Thurday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturdays and Sundays the bookstore is only open for special events. TAS

Summer Commencement is held in the Dunn Center on Friday, August 13. Photos by Synthia Clark | Photo Editor