Wiki+Collab+6+Apr.+25-May+1

Each of you need to post an answer(s) to the following questions. Add any pertinent links or additional resources as appropriate. Remember to also cite your sources!

After you have posted your answer, place a line underneath your answer. You can do this by clicking on the icon to the right of the "bullet" icon. Place your cursor where you want the line, then click the icon.

Collaboratively discuss and define the following:

Stressors can be a result of situations present on your campus or in your community. Community stressors may be problems such as crime, pollution, lack of recreation facilities, and overcrowded classrooms or residence halls. Identify what you consider to be a major stressor in your campus or community. How would you go about changing this stressor?

A major stressor around ISU is parking. Students must purchase a commuter pass to be able to park in the ISU parking lots. But unless you have a 8:00a.m. class, or arrive way early for your 9:00 class, you will not be able to park in the commuter lots. Last year I bought a commuter pass and was only ever able to find a parking space on the opposite side of campus from the COB where I needed to be. This year I did not buy a pass and have been able to find parking on side streets that are about as far away as some of the commuter lots are anyway. However, parking on the side of streets is not the safest because you can easily have your car hit. Last fall my car got scratched and my side mirror got knocked off. Also, it is not the safest walking on the dimly lit side streets after dark. Another drawback to not having a commuter pass is that you cannot park in the parking lots until after 7:00. Often there are evening activities or events at ISU that start before or at 7:00 and students have to park far away from campus and walk in the dark to and from the event. The other alternative is to park a in the commuter lots a few minutes before 7:00 and risk getting a ticket in that short period of time, which is very likely.

I think that ISU needs to do something about the lack of parking and the expense that students incur for parking. Getting rid of parking passes is not the answer because then anyone would park in the lots and students and professors would still not have a place to park. I think that ISU could build commuter parking garages instead of just have flat parking lots. They would not need a gate or attendent at the parking garages because the students would need to have passes and the police could patrol the garages. The students would have a much better chance of finding a parking space even during the day if there were commuter parking garages.

Marissa (Witzig) Hill

I live in a smaller town of 16,000, which some may not consider small, but to others it is. We are smack dab in the middle of Peoria, Il and Bloomington, IL. It is about 15 minutes to get to various things inside Peoria and a 30 or so minute drive to Bloomington. In my town there really is not much for kids to do. I mean we have parks and school playgrounds and such for the younger ages, but for the Jr. High age and even the earlier years high schoolers that can't drive. There just is not much to do without relying on your parents to take you to Peoria to the mall or other places and there is only so many movies you can go to and a lot of times the old theater does not have the ones that you want. I think a great thing for our town to implement is a Rec. center type of facility. A place for these awkward aged students to go and hang out. This place could have a food area where they can get the basics such as hamburgers, hot dogs, cheaply priced items for them to afford as well as an ice cream shop. The Rec. center could have interactive things for the kids, whether it be a board games section, or an area with a basketball court, or old classic arcade games. It also could have a large projection screen for movie nights, where age appropriate movies could be played, and just a lounge area, for the kids to get out of their homes and be in a safe and fun environment. I also think that you can add the idea of a small study area, with various study rooms that you would find in libraries and other facilities. Students could find studying to be more fun, if they didn't always have to do it in their rooms. It could be a change of pace for them. I just think that our town needs something like this to get our youth active and not just sitting around being bored. An all in one place, that the kids could stay for a long period of time and the parents wouldn't have to run the kids all over the place. I know that if I would have had something like this when I was that age, I would have definitely gone there. Something similar has been tried in our town a long time ago, but the person that owned it really did not have a passion to make it work. It would take the right people to get it up and running, and once that was complete I know that many would take advantage of it.

Whitney Dobbins

Since my hometown is actually less than 1/16th the size of Whitney's, there are the similar problems of nothing to do, but now with the grade school shut down, there essentially is nothing available to children growing up in my hometown, so they have to go elsewhere. So, my suggestion would be to do the same as what Whitney suggests for my hometown, but it would be on a much smaller scale. Another major stressor is my problems with the government, but that is something I personally have no ability to control and is a long discussion for a different forum. Aside from that, community and school stressors are relatively non-existant. My main source of stressors come from philosophies and actions at work, which I again, am not in a position to have any control over, nor will I by the time I leave the company to open my business. The main issue for me at work is the fact that I have to spend extra time to think exactly how to word comments and emails because there is a concept known throughout the company as "State Farm nice". It is the idea that instead of operating efficiently in communications by being concise and to the point (as is taught to every business major as the way you are supposed to write at work), you have to fluff the communication, so you don't hurt someone's feelings or you have to stroke someone's ego, when it is completely unnecessary and a waste of time. Since I will not be in at least a VP role before I leave the company to become an agent, I won't have any way to impact this. However, when I become an agent, I will make it clear to my staff that emails are to be efficient and to the point, and not "nice", when it comes to emailing with other employees or with any internal reps in State Farm.

Josh Rogers

There are certain things that have gotten under my skin regarding ISU over the past 4 years. My biggest stressor is the pollution. Whenever I am walking to class and driving around town I notice all sorts of garbage strewn across the streets and parking lots. I understand there are thousands of kids packed in a small area but that doesn't give anyone the right to trash the place. To go even further with that, the worst part is seeing beer cans and bottles smashed in the parking lot. These things can be dangerous. I am not sure about how many kids play in this aera but its not safe for people to be walking all over broken bottles or sharp aluminum cans. I think everyone needs to be a responsible adult and just throw away their garbage, its not a very difficult task and because of that, is one of my biggest pet peeves.

To change this is difficult. Its hard to catch people in the act. The only way I can think of is to put more garbage cans or dumpsters up in more places. I always try and pick up trash on my way to class. But there is only so much one person can do. Something that would be helpful would be to send out a letter to all ISU students just asking to throw their trash away. That would bring the issue up to a lot of people that probably don't even think twice about throwing their trash in the streets. Lastly, maybe having a trash collection day. Where people all over campus walk around in groups and try and collect garbage. It could be like a contest, who can fill the most bags. All these things would make Normal a cleaner and safer place to live, which for me, would be less stress.

Aaron Zucker

What bothers me most when I came to ISU was the lack of work out facilities. I was so surprised to find we had to pay for the rec center. I have always heard college rec centers are amazing and are free! I was so excited to work out and be able to have a place to do it. Instead I found out you had to pay and on top of that it was so far off campus, and being a freshman I did not know how to get there or want to walk there by myself. I feel this problem comes up a lot, especially rec centers without the right equipment. The society always talks about obesity on the rise, but if there are work out facilities around they are not up to date. It frustrates me to think people expect everyone to work out but where? and with run down equipment? Also, here on campus I know there are facilities in the dorms but there are no where near efficient.

To change this, I know ISU is building a new recreation center but will it be free? Will it provide everything that a college campus should offer? And in general, I feel that the states should have funding for places like YMCA, YWCA, and etc. Recreation centers are used by everyone in the community from children playing sports to the elderly trying to take classes and stay in shape. I feel YMCAs need extra funding to keep up on their equipment and maintenance. Many people depend on swimming as their way of exercise, or classes weekly. Overall, we need to appreciate the recreation centers and also hope that with obesity on the rise rates at work out facilities can go down and get funding to keep up with the changing equipment and classes.

Kaitlyn Erickson

I live in Peoria,IL. I moved here about 1 1/2 years ago to be close to ISU. I could not find anything reasonable in Normal,Il before the semester started so Peoria was my next option. What a horrible mistake. Peoria is so bad. There is lots of crime, people throw trash on the ground all the time. They don't care if its in front of their house or yours. I have to pick up beer bottles, food wrappings, you name it, its out there on the ground. I don't really feel safe coming out after dark because there are so many robberies and assaults. Although a lot of assaults happen during the day also. I really dont know what can be done to salvage peoria which is why I am leaving the area after this semester. I feel that if the city hired more cops that really patrolled the area for crime and people throwing trash on the ground that would really help. I also think that if they had more after school programs, for young kids that would possibly keep them off of the streets and give them something positive to do. The people in the community need to also take pride in where they live and keep their house's up and not trash the area. Other than that I really don't feel there is any help for peoria until those things are done.

~Nadine Ayers~

I was actually I transfer student when I starte attening ISU. I came from a smal town with a poulation of 3500 people and I went to a small commnity college for the frist two years of my college career. It was definitely a stress experience going out on my own, figuring out where everything was and where all my classes where at. I also had 3 roomates which I did not know prevriously. Talk about learning to deal with different personality's!! They weren't the cleanest people I have ever met and since I am a neat feak coming back to a messy apartment was an ideal situation. It was also a stressful time because I wanted to go out and meet new people which was hard just living in an apartment as opposed to living in the dorms the first two year. I also think that the crime that happens on campus is a stress facor too. Being a female I almost refuse to take a night class just because I don't want to have to walk across campus at night and worry whether something is going to happen. I think the University has done a good job about preventing crimes on campus or assaults on campus by organizing the group called STOP to walk you to your apartment or car. It is definitely something I would consider using if I were to walk by myself in the evening. As for being a transfer student and meeting new people, ISU didn't really offer anythig, that I know of. I know they have a transfer day to take a tour of the campus, but I think there should be something so everyone can mingle and get to know people.

Whitney Farrell

I think that one of the stressors that bothers me the most living on a in my community of about 16,000 is the crime and suicide rate. When I was in high school alone, four of my classmates commited suicide in the four years that I was in high school. My choir teacher also passed away from cancer my senior year. After high school, two more students took their lives since I have been in college. It was hard for my friends and I to deal with these deaths since everyone knows everyone in our community. Following the deaths, our school, as well as community were extremely sad and emotional for weeks following each death. It also seems like everyday when I lived at home, I would see numerous burglarys, fights. murders, assult charges, etc in the newspaper or read about incidents that happened on the front page. Each time something like this happens our community is put under alot of stress, but sometimes having things like these happen bring community members together. To help these problems, there should be websites or places people can call with information to a crime that is about to happen, and for people who are feeling depressed at work, school, home, offer classes they can take to help deal with the stress or handle their extreme emotions.

Allison Ptak

One of the biggest stressors that we have to deal with in my community is crime. I live in the northwest suburbs near Chicago and we have a relatively nice town. I would say that our town is upper middle class, but this tends to go against us. We have great schools, but since our town is somewhat wealthy, we have a large crime problem with thefts, burglaries, and vandalizing. People come to our town to steal because they know that people in our town have money. There have been several instances of car jackings, breaking and entering, and even armed robberies on the main streets of our town. There tends to be an unspoken competition between our town and neighboring towns. This tends to lead to vandalization because of jealousy. People of other towns vandalize ours so theirs will seem to look better. I know that our town's problems are not as severe as others, but it is scary to think that you get home one day and there is someone in your house with a gun trying to steal your television. In order to change this stressor, several things that are out of citizen's hands needs to be done. We need to increase the amount of police in our area. Our city counsel needs to take further action regarding the vandalizing by neightboring towns. There is not much that I can do personally or even the town's citizens, but our town needs to step up as a whole to combat these problems.

Stephanie Harrington

I think one of the biggest stressors in our community is parking. I grew up in a very small town of around 6,000. You could park anywhere you wanted and nobody would care. In Bloomington-Normal, you have to pay for most parking and the towing businesses make thousands off of the college students. All of the apartments I have lived at have had strictly enforced parking. One of my friends got towed from my parking lot less then 10 minutes after she parked in my parking lot to bring me something. She went back out and her car was gone. ISU is also very good at giving parking tickets. I have paid one myself and although it was only twenty dollars, that can mean a lot of stress for a poor college student. Twenty dollars is nothing compared to the eighty dollars or more charged for towing. This causes a lot of stress because sometimes it is hard to find parking close to campus. A commuter pass costs around eighty dollars which isn't bad for two semesters. However, some of the other parking passes are a lot more expensive. A parking pass in the College of Business parking garage is around $350 and other lots may be more. I want to be able to get to class fast and not worry about where I'm going to park. Some commuter lots are filled at 9:00 a.m. and I have to pay seventy cents to park. Worrying about parking, you are also worrying about money, which most of us have on our minds all of the time. Another example of this stress involves the location of parking lots further away from campus. My freshman year, I felt like my car was miles away. It was only about ten blocks but when there was a ten below wind chill it felt like a lot longer. I think there is a lot that could be done by the University and the city to ease the stress in the situation and make parking for students more convenient.

Stacie Amling

I think a large stressor that is occurring in the Bloomington Normal area is the budget cuts for schools. Unit 5 has had to let go all of their first year teachers and is making other drastic cuts. This is problem leads to the state deficits that are causing the Illinois government to cut school funding. As teachers lose jobs, children may not get the same educational experiences that we had when we went through elementary school. I have heard that the schools cannot afford the extra costs to take their students on field trips. If teachers want to take their students on trips they have to come up with their own support through fundraisers. This adds more work to a teachers already demanding job. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years. Our schools continue to become over populated and we need maintain the teacher to student ratios. The voice of the people needs to be heard in order for this problem to be addressed. We need to come up with other ways to deal with our budget problems. Cutting school budgets is a hard issue to face.

Dustin Huber

One main stressor I have noticed on ISU's campus is the amount of public intoxication and vandalism which occurs late at night. I was walking by one of the buildings on my way to the College of Business this past week and noticed that there were several rocks thrown at a window of a new building right off of Osage. Immediately I thought this was something that happened when someone was drunk. A lot of fights, vandalism, and sexual assaults can happen when alcohol is involved. I think students on our campus can help change this problem by having a positive influence over their friends. I remember getting emails from ISU during Super Bowl Sunday which talk about making responsible choices during this weekend. Although I thought it was a little funny at first, I think this is one way ISU officials are trying to limit this stressor. I cannot sit here and say that drinking is bad because I do not think it is, but I do think that the notion "Im drunk, I can do what I want" needs to change. This sense of no boundaries or limitations is what gets people into bad situations. Living most of my life in bloomington/ normal, I have seen this reoccurring patter for many years. I think that as college students, we can help limit this stressor if we look out for our friends when we go out at night.

Stacey Miller

I have attended ISU since my freshman year and since then I have noticed several stressors. First, I was really disappointed freshman year when I found out that the rec center was so far off campus. As a freshman, I did not really want to venture that far off campus on my own to work out. I would have to take the bus and it was just too time consuming for me. I am going to grad school here for the next few years so I am really excited to be able to walk to the new rec center. Another thing on campus that has caused me stress in the past year is campus apartment companies and how they treat their tenets. In the complex I live in, my car got hit twice this summer while it was parked and the entire bumper was knocked off each time. I had to pay a lot of money to get my car fixed each time and when I complained to the apartment complex about the situation they couldn't care less. They were not understanding at all and have done nothing to make the parking situation any safer. Several other small problems have also occurred over the year and have caused me a lot of unnecessary stress.

Christina Ryan

The biggest stressor that I found I've dealt with at ISU has been the amount of vandalism and pollution that students leave over the weekends. Every morning over the weekend, I wake up and see holes in my apartment building walls, the fire alarm is broken, there is throw-up in the stairwell, and cups and food left everywhere. My aparment complex actually hires people to come in on Monday to pick up garbage because of how messy it gets. I think that people use alcohol as an excuse to act like that. I also think that the people who cause this vandalism to my apartment building are those who don't live here. They don't think about how they would feel if someone were treating their home like the way they are treating mine. One way that this can be fixed is by having the Normal police department break up large parties in my apartment building. They do this on most nights but I also think this may cause more vandalism because people will throw away their cups filled wtih alcohol before they get outside. Then it obviously ends up inside my building. I also think that since my aparment complex now has cameras to catch people who break doors and whatnot, they can use these cameras to catch people who are littering. They should post signs that say that there is a certain fine for littering or damaging property and that there are cameras to catch them. By doing this, people will probably be too scared that they will get caught to litter or damage property. Finally, I know that I limit this stressor by talking to people I know who are littering and tell them to find a garbage can. This helps to limit the amount of garbage we find over the weekend in our building.

Laura Seifried

I get stressed out at school over the lack of recreational facilities. I avoid going to the rec because it is very over-crowded. I usual go when I don't have a lot of free time such as between classes and I cannot wait around for a machine. The new rec building is a great idea for the school and it is much needed. Working out relaxes me but its hard for that to happen when I'm stressing over being late to class. Parking at ISU also bothers me. Sometimes I need to park somewhere for a little bit and I always seem to get a ticket. Parking should be more readily available and cheaper. It annoys me that ISU has nothing better to do than write parking tickets all day.

Mallory Zimet

One of the bigger stressors of the community that I have realized more recently, especially this year at Illinois State, is the crime rate. I remembr back to freshman and sophomore year, and there would only be one or two crime alerts throughout the entire year. This year though, we have had many more crime alerts. There have been many reports of kids getting jumped while walking from place to place, even in our quad late at night. There has even been cases of males breaking into apartments and attempting to rape some women. Aside from this physical crime, I know a bunch of people who have had their apartments broken in to over a break and had a lot of their personal belongings stolen from them. This stressor can be a huge factor to the Illinois State community becuase students and faculty may be hesitant to walk to certain places at night. They may fear for their safety anywhere they go. This is never good for any community becuase everyone wants to live in a safe environment where they feel safe at all times.

Andrew Ondik

Living here at Illinois State I can think of a couple of stressors. One stressor for me is just living on campus. There is always a lot of commotion around campus which can make it difficult to get things done. An example would be, when I am trying to get school work done or study for a test, in my apartment, and my neighbors are having a party. I am also always worried about my car getting vandalized because that happened to me at the beginning of this school year. Someone decided the would break the mirror off of my car one night, which was very annoying. I'm also always worrying about my apartment being broken into. The same night my car was vandalized, my neighbors apartment was broken into and their computers and other stuff was stolen. The only way to really combat this stressor would be to live off of campus somewhere.

Brandon Taylor

I have found that there are quite a few stressors at Illinois State University. I agree with Brandon and a few other students in that the biggest thing that has been bugging me while living here is the noise and crime level. I do live off campus at the Oaks, and trust me, the noise and crime is bad as well. At the beginning of the year, someone keyed my car on the driver's side and since then I have also found numerous dents in my doors. The noise level from my neighbors is ridiculous. I work just about 40 hours a week and am a full time student, so I rarely have time to get my work done as it is. The weekends are the worst because that is when I do have the most time to do work, but it is usually late at night. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are huge party nights for college students, and especially out here. Many of the neighbors get together and have parties or drink outside and blast their music. Even during the week on nice days, you can hear the blaring music. It is really difficult to get anything done with that type of interruption. This is definitely a stressor for the Illinois State community because students are apprehensive to park and also are unable to get their studies done. As far as the noise level, I suppose it would be possible to try to go elsewhere but if it is late on the weekends there might not be other places to go. I usually just shut my window and turn on some relaxing music to distract me. I think that First Site could have their employees actually tell people to keep their music down. As far as the vandalism goes, we already have cameras for security purposes. There is also an employee at night that drives through the whole apartment complex to check things out. I don't know what else could be done with this. People need to be more careful when opening their car doors. The parking spots could be a little bigger. I just feel like alot of people don't care and therefore are very disrespectful because of it. There really isn't much to do about that. There just needs to be more accountability on their part.

Kaila Guske

I think one of the biggest stressors for the Illinois State Community is housing. Most students want to live in a nice, safe, affordable place that is fairly close to campus. This is pretty difficult to do around here. Many of the apartments close to campus are older and not as nice and up to date as most students want, and since they are close to campus, rentors are allowed to charge ridiculous amounts for them. Price is a very important factor when most students are choosing their living arrangement and with the rising costs of housing down here, students are forced to settle with housing they're not completely sure of. Single bedroom apartments are even more outrageously priced. I looked for a single last semester but could not find one under $600 and most of them were only decent at best. Another stressor about housing is safety. Many apartment complexes like to advertise about their security cameras and personnel. However, when something happens and you ask them to look over the cameras, you find out that they do not actually work and the security people happened to not be around at that time. I think something needs to be done around ISU to make nice, safe, affordable housing available to students because the amount of money the local real estate companies charge for student living is getting to be outrageous.

Emily Boresi

One of the biggest stressors for me is that of the rec. center. I like going there to workout and play walleyball with my friends, but it is always very crowded and the parking lot is filled with pot holes. I know that we are getting a new rec. center which is a lot bigger and will be better than what we have now, but since I am graduating it will be a bummer I won't be able to use it.

Adam Adrian

One thing I consider to be one major stressors in behaviors in residence halls. I think students come in with this idea of freedom and they really neglect the importance of respect others and school property. Often times when I lived on campus there were holes punched in walls, dirty bathrooms from students who didn't dispose of personal items, loud music or noises playing at the wrong time; overcrowded elevators; which usually made you late for class and so forth and so on. This would always make me frustrated and take my concentration away from where it needed to be which was on my school work. Now I'm not one who against anyone having fun and enjoying themselves, I just believe campus living should be respected just as if you were still living at home. I think one of the things that could be done is to educate students on the importance of this through maybe orientation; making them aware of how important it is. Setting some type of rules in place that would enforce respect and staying off campus as much as possible by finding a more relaxing, calming atmosphere to study in. Cheryl Young

I think that there are many stressors in our campus. The first one being that the food in the dining centers here on campus aren't that great. I think that Linkins probably has the best/healthiest choices on campus and to most people that live on campus Linkins is too far away. Not only is the food an issue but 2 dorms on campus don't even have a dining center in them so the people that live their have to walk over to Watterson, South Side, or Linkins. I think that it ridiculous and the school needs to think about that when they are redoing the dorms. I also think that the people and behavior that goes on in the dorms is unbelievable. The bathrooms are usually disgusting even after they clean them and most people in the dorms act like no one else uses the bathrooms so they do whatever they want because they don't have to clean it up. There are people that have no respect for others and are loud and crazy during late night hours. I think that rules need to be set and enforced. Half the time there are rules but people just ignore them because no one enforces them. I think there also needs to be some consequences or warnings and after so many warnings they have to pay a price. As for the dining centers, I think that they need to think about the food that they put in them and put a plan together to get the 2 dorms that don't have a dining center to get a dining center within the next couple of months because it is totally unfair to them. Jess Roche

I agree with Emily and think that housing is extremely stressful here at ISU. If students want to live close to campus, they must pay extremely high prices for sometimes not very nice places. I live off-campus in a nice, affordable apartment. I was, however, trying to live closer to campus next year and I simply cannot afford to live in a nice apartment within walking distance. In addition, around signing time, people are often obsessed with finding that perfect apartment and can get really stressed about it. They camp out in 35 degree weather conditions just to get that perfect apartment and sometimes still don't get it. The realtors around here have such power over students and I find it very frustrating. Unfortunately, I do not know that this problem can be solved. As long as students are willing to pay the money, the prices will only continue to increase.

Maggie Krick

I completely agree with Emily and Maggie. Finding a apartment that is close to campus and that is affordabe is very stressful. They pay alot to live close to campus. I believe that it is extremely high for college students. I live off campus and it is affordable but the only bad thing is that I still have to pay for the parking fee t actually park in the lot. That eventually adds up in the end. We live through Sami and it has been a very hard and stressful time living here. They do not understand College students and its very frustrating. The only bad thing is that I do not believe this problem can be resolved unless people are willing not to live there and not agree to pay the high amounts just to live by campus!

Chrissy Burton

There are a few people on here who mentioned crime on campus. I would agree with them that vandalism is a problem on campus and has affected me three times in my four years at ISU. To some that might not seem like a lot, but to my wallet it most certainly is. My sophomore year in the parking lots my car was involved in a hit and run and my front bumper on my car has a huge crack in it and could eventually fall off. Then, my car was broken into in the parking lot I used to park in while living in the dorms my sophomore year. My ipod, ipod/radio adapter and much more was stolen out of my car around 2AM. Recently this week while parking next to Horton my car was ran into, and my passenger side car mirror was knocked off. Of course in all three inciddents no one was charged. After my car was broken into a wrote a letter the the president of the university stating that there needs to be cameras in campus parking lots. I understand that the university does not want to be responsible for things that happen on campus, however they should. University police and the president should want to make campus as safe as possible. Having and using cameras would solve so many "mysteries" that happen on campus. I guess I have never understood why the university wouldn't be reponsible for something that happens in their lots that we pay to park our cars in. I know I am not the only one that has been affected by crime on campus, I just wish there was a way to change it.

Michelle Henderson