Every weekend this summer, The News will update you on the latest in Murray. Whether you’re in town or at home for the summer, you’ll find what you need at TheNews.org. This update is for July 18. Email us with any questions, concerns or tips.
Price Doyle Fine Arts building in need of exterior repair
By Mary Bradley, Assistant News Editor.
After approximately 40 years of standing tall on Murray State’s campus, the Price Doyle Fine Arts building is due for some major exterior repairs.
Over the last few weeks, facilities management has noticed the vertical white exterior “fins” of the building have begun to separate from the building, causing debris to fall and visible cracks between the fins and the building.
Multiple fins have begun to detach, however an exact number has not been reported.
After barricading the surrounding area, facilities management launched an investigation to determine the cause and repairs needed for the building.
“The fins are decorative attachments and do not affect the structural integrity of the building, however they need to be secured in order to reduce the risk of falling away from the building any further,” said Kim Oatman, chief facilities officer, in an email to The Murray State News.
To secure the fins, facilities management has placed straps around the fins to prevent any additional separation or debris, as per recommendation of a structural engineer.
However the straps are a temporary fix to the problem, which will require additional investigation and further analysis of the deterioration. This fix ensures safety for those near the building, but a more permanent solution has yet to be determined for the building.
President Davies arrives on campus, meets with administration
By Lexy Gross, Editor-in-Chief.
President Robert Davies didn’t waste a moment when he arrived in Murray for his first week on the job.
Davies and his family attended Freedom Fest and spent the July 4 weekend getting to know Murray residents. He said he’s already walked to Dairy Queen, eaten at The Big Apple Cafe and grabbed a doughnut from Sammon’s Bakery.
Davies also attended Summer Orientation July 7, where he spoke with students and parents on campus. As he transitions into his new job on campus, Davies said he hopes to learn with students.
“I’m going to be going through a similar process as the students,” he said.
Davies sent a campus-wide email last week discussing his intentions as president of Murray State. He specifically talked about diversity on campus and his hope to increase it.
A primary focus will be on students wanting to transfer from community colleges to four-year universities to complete their degrees. He also hopes Murray State will reflect on national trends of the increase in first-generation college students and non-traditional students entering classrooms.
As Davies prepares for the year ahead, he knows it won’t be easy to finish every task on his plate.
“The typical eight-hour work day isn’t existent for me,” Davies said. “It’s a balancing act.”
Public Safety joins the Safe Zone Project
By Rebecca Walter, News Editor.
Public Safety and Emergency Management officially joined the Safe Zone Project this week, uniting alongside several other organizations on campus.
The Safe Zone Project serves as an alliance for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, faculty and staff through education, advocacy, visibility and skill development.
The project is designed to reduce prejudice and discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression at Murray State, according to the Safe Zone Project’s page on Murray State’s website.
The Safe Zone symbol, which can be seen on many campus buildings, shows that the organization has decided to be an active and visible ally and can be trusted to maintain confidentiality and respond to individuals with understanding.
Interim Police Chief Roy Dunaway, Assistant to the Chief Jeffrey Gentry and Operations Captain Robert Bringhurst met Wednesday with Safe Zone coordinators to discuss participation.
Training has been set for Public Safety’s supervisory staff for Aug. 6. Each supervisor will be responsible for dispersing materials and training other staff members.
Commercial airline crash kills 298 in Ukraine
Yuras Karmanau and Dmitry Lovetsky, Associated Press
ROZSYPNE, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners spread out Friday across the sunflower fields and villages of eastern Ukraine, searching the wreckage of a jetliner shot down as it flew miles above the country’s battlefield.
The attack Thursday afternoon killed 298 people from nearly a dozen nations — including vacationers, students and a large contingent of scientists heading to an AIDS conference in Australia.
U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, but could not say who fired it. The Ukraine government in Kiev, the separatist pro-Russia rebels they are fighting and the Russia government that Ukraine accuses of supporting the rebels all deny shooting the passenger plane down. Moscow also denies backing the rebels.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a cease-fire Friday in eastern Ukraine and urged the two sides to hold peace talks as soon as possible. A day earlier, Putin had blamed Ukraine for the crash, saying the government in Kiev was responsible for the unrest in its Russian-speaking eastern regions. But he did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down and did not address the key question of whether Russia gave the rebels such a powerful missile.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry released a video purporting to show a truck carrying the Buk missile launcher it said was used to fire on the plane with one of its four missiles apparently missing. The ministry said the footage was filmed by a police surveillance squad at dawn Friday as the truck was heading to the city of Krasnodon toward the Russian border.
There was no way to independently verify the video.
Ukraine has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and the Unites States has offered to help. But access to the sprawling crash site remained difficult and dangerous. The road from Donetsk, the largest city in the region, to the crash site was marked by five rebel checkpoints Friday, with document checks at each.
By midday, 181 bodies had been located, according to emergency workers in contact with officials in Kiev. Malaysia Airlines said the passengers included 189 Dutch, 29 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine Britons, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one person each from Canada and New Zealand.
Still Nataliya Bystro, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s emergency services, said rebel militiamen were interfering with the recovery operation.
Separatist rebels who control the crash site issued conflicting reports Friday about whether they had found the plane’s black boxes or not.
“No black boxes have been found … we hope that experts will track them down and create a picture of what has happened,” said Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai.
Yet earlier Friday, an aide to the military leader of Borodai’s group said authorities had recovered eight out of 12 recording devices.
Since planes usually have two black boxes — one for recording flight data and the other for recording cockpit voices — it was not clear what the number 12 referred to.
DON’T MISS: Gender neutral restrooms installed on campus