Relay for life returns to UNH

Coordinators hope to repeat last year's success

By Rebecca Lettoulier

Published: Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Updated: Sunday, September 6, 2009

Last May, Relay for Life burst through the UNH campus for the first time, affecting thousands of cancer survivors, students, faculty and community members. Blowing by their goal of $25,000, last year's relay raised $72,000 for the American Cancer Society.

"It was the single most unifying event that I have seen on this campus in the 25 years I've been here," said Marianne Fortescue on Tuesday, speaking of last year's Relay For Life held at UNH. The event committee held its first meeting in the MUB Tuesday, with its main focus this year being involving more students and student organizations.

Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society's signature activity. It is an 18 to 24 hour event in which teams of eight to 15 people take turns walking around a track, around the clock. Each team is asked to constantly have a representative on the track at all times during the event. It is up to the individual teams to fundraise and collect donations, which go directly to the fight against cancer.

Over 700 participants walked, jogged or ran last year on the UNH track throughout the 24-hour period. When a participant isn't on the track, the football field was available to camp out for the night. The committee secured music, food and down time activities that lasted the entire 24-hour duration. This year, co-chair Kaelee Copley explained, they are hoping to show a movie on a large outdoor screen for participants who are waiting for a turn on the track.

With only nine people on the Relay committee last year, things are looking brighter at this week's meeting. About 20 students popped into MUB 203 Tuesday, interested in learning more about the Relay. Copley explained to the group that they need as many volunteers as possible. They are also hoping to reach the Greek system this year, asking fraternities and sororities to form teams and participate.

Relay For Life began in May of 1985 when Dr. Gordy Klatt took the first step of his 24-hour walk/run around a track in Tacoma, Wash. He raised $27,000 to support the American Cancer Society, and the next year 19 teams joined Klatt in his effort and Relay for Life was born.

The American Cancer Society believes the power of Relay allows a community to grieve for those lost to cancer and to celebrate the lives of those who have survived. It also provides prevention information and awareness through knowledge. "It's just really great to see college students come out for 24 hours," co-chair Nicole Decocq said. "Everyone has a connection or knows someone with cancer, and it's just really great for awareness."

Fortescue serves as the adviser to the Relay For Life group on campus. As a coordinator for the Partnership for Social Action here at UNH, she is no stranger to community service. A cancer survivor herself, Fortescue described last year's event as simply "amazing." She has worked for the University for 25 years and has never seen students so involved in anything as they are in Relay For Life. In an interview after the meeting, she spoke on the motivation of college students. "The people who talk about how disengaged the youth are obviously don't know youth today," she said.

Copley and Decocq asked the group if they thought the event should remain 24-hours this year or bump it down to 18, and the students agreed it should continue being an entire day. Last year's event was held on the first weekend in May, and Copley explained with a smile that they couldn't have asked for better weather.

Decocq joked that the Relay gets the "For Life" in its name because once you participate in one event, you're hooked for life. Copley agreed, as did others who attended the meeting and had been a part of a Relay in their hometown before coming to UNH.

Brianna Heath of Sunapee, N.H. is a junior at UNH and is excited to participate in this year's event. "I have done Relay for Life in my hometown and I'm glad I can finally help here at UNH," she said. Heath later volunteered to be the chairperson of the food and beverage committee.

Copley is looking to book on either the first or second weekend in May. Freshman Dana Laha, 19, of New Ipswitch, N.H., is looking forward to helping out with publicity for the event. "Throughout high school, I was involved in community service and now I just really want to get back into helping the community," she said when asked why she was participating.

For this year's Relay, the committee will be looking for more corporate sponsorship and donations so that every single dollar they raise can be given to the American Cancer Society. The committee would like to start raising money earlier this year, starting before second semester. To make donating easier, this year teams will be able to register much sooner and donations can be made online using a credit card. Teams will be able to send out mass e-mails asking friends and family for donations, and recipients of the e-mail are only a click away from making a donation.

The committee is looking for anyone and everyone who would like to make a difference and help in the fight against cancer. A set meeting time for this semester has not yet been decided. For more information on how you can help, contact:

Nicole Decocq - ndecocq@cisunix.unh.edu Kaelee Copley - kcopley@unh.edu Holly Randall - holly.randall@cancer.org www.cancer.org

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Scavengers steal Scan TV sign Saturday

If you read on their facebook page for the stolen sign they accuse them of taking it. I just think that the blame game has gone too far on this campus and people see fraternities as a good scape goat. Yes some do some shady stuff, but at the same time one cannot instantly blame them. "They think it was maybe a fraternity stunt or scavenger hunt of some kind." - taken directly from their facebook page. I do hope that your sign does get returned because I understand how iconic it is for the university and the MUB.

posted by: UNHAlum
Faculty members need a wake-up call

It is time the faculity sucked it up like the rest of us on campus. This year staff over $40,000 received no raise, faculity received 5.5%. Take the 1.5% and be happy.
Do You remember why you became a professor? I hope, to pass your knowledge on to the next generation.
Some of you look like greedy individuals who can only think of the God almighty dollar and not the students you teach and mentor. If we keep increasing out tuition to pay for salaries students will look at other schools and then where will you be, on the street.

posted by: Robert Pettigrew
Faculty members need a wake-up call

I don't think it's fair to compare UNH to UMass (Amherst, I assume) and UConn. Both those schools are considerably larger than UNH — 26,000 and 20,000 undergrads, respectively — while the other schools mentioned are closer to UNH's size, give or take 3,000 students. Massachusetts and Connecticut are also feeling the effects of the recession slightly more than NH is. I realize that UNH commonly uses those schools as comparators, but those two are just on a different level than our school.
There are two other things I'm going to look up before I decide how I feel about this.
First, how does the average UNH professor's salary compare to to other universities? It's probably in line with other schools, but if it's significantly lower, shouldn't UNH profs get that too?
As some have said, if the pay is lower here, professors can quit and go to other schools — if they can find an open position somewhere else. But, if a professor leaves, the school will be left in the position of trying to attract a new teacher with lower-than-average salaries. Enact the raises and UNH remains competitive in keeping and hiring the best professors.
Second, what percentage of UNH's budget goes toward paying the professors? Again, this could be that the professors are asking the university to dedicate an equal amount to paying educators at UNH as they are paid at other schools. If UNH only dedicates 15% of the budget to prof pay and the other schools all dedicate 20%, why shouldn't that be changed? Not to sound Beck-ian, but I don't know and that's something that should be looked at.
Neither of those questions deal with the larger problem of education funding from the state, which I think was something like 2 percent (and that's for all schools, not just colleges). California students staged huge protests yesterday because fee hikes raised they amount they pay per year for school to around $11,000. Meanwhile, that's close to what UNH students have been paying for tuition alone for years, and it continues to rise. If Governor Lynch and our state reps don't start working to increase education funding in the state, all the groups involved, students, professors and administration, need to start showing the kind of outrage that California showed yesterday.

posted by: Clark Kent
Faculty members need a wake-up call

The whiny, lazy, faculty all need to get fired. I haven't seen a more wanna-be-entitled bunch anywhere I have worked. They don't deserve any raises, but instead a pay cut. The rest of the staff had a mandatory salary freeze that will last probably 2 years at least. Faculty also get the bonus of cheaper benefits than the rest of the staff. To top it off they are whiners and complainers about anything not in their contract or if they feel the least bit slighted by the administration. They got out of taking mandatory sexual-harrassment training that everyone else on staff had to take, since somehow their union filed a grievance with the administration that it wasn't required in their contract. The entire training was online and took less than an hour but that's too much for those slackers.
Tenure indeed is the only thing that keeps many of them employed, and it's a concept that needs to get thrown out. Many of them are dead wood, not bringing new ideas to the table and too 'busy' to try anything new, despite having many grad assistants and others to do all their real work, and the most over the top support structure of any organization I have seen.
Yet their greed continues unchecked! Ugh!
Good riddance!

posted by: Your name
Faculty members need a wake-up call

How quickly things change.
Just last week, when editorializing about a group of campus perverts, the attitude of the editors was: "we also don’t think it’s any of our business to judge an organization just because their activities are a shock to our system." Seven days ago we were advised to "shackle our judgment" and told that the campus S&M crowd "deserves respect." Now, a mere week later, when the same editorial board concludes that the UNH faculty union's collective bargaining position is "shocking," what do the editors do? Take their own advice and "shackle their judgment?" Offer respect to the faculty? Conclude that the negotiations are none of their business?
No, none of these. Instead, the hypocritical editors tell "whining" and "greedy" faculty they are lucky to have a job, and should be satisfied with whatever the administration considers to be a fair offer -- because, presumably, the administration ALWAYS tells the truth about university finances, and ALWAYS treats the employees of the university fairly.
Why not spend some effort actually learning the facts regarding the financial situation of the university -- revenues from the state, tuition increases, higher enrollments, grant money? Why not report on the value of the faculty and the university as an economic engine for the state? Why not investigate both the enormous increase in administrative salaries and the bloated growth in new administrative positions over the last two decades? Why not write about the relative compensation of your faculty compared to those with similar education, training, and experience in other fields? I guess these tasks were too challenging. It's just easier to call faculty names.
Everybody loves free-market capitalism as long as the managers and administrators get to call the shots and the workers remain docile and content with whatever the bosses decide they deserve. But, when workers assert their rights and engage in labor negotiations as equals -- well, that is just unacceptable to our enlightened editorial masters. You're all doing a great job of learning how to be corporate lap dog journalists.
Oh, and you spelled "principal" incorrectly.

posted by: Prof. "Greedy," Ph.D.

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Relay for life returns to UNH

Coordinators hope to repeat last year's success

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