Author: Amanda Ayers

Bucknell Concert Committee will bring American Grammy Award winning hip hop artist Nelly to campus on Friday, April 13. The mash-up duo TimeFlies will open for Nelly. The doors will open at 7:00 p.m, and the show will start at 8:00 p.m. Tickets go on sale Monday, Feb. 20 in the LC Mall, and will cost $25 for students. General public tickets will be available for purchase on Feb. 20 at $30 a piece.

“We chose Nelly based on availability and what we thought would work on campus. We’ve had a little bit of a challenge this semester with availability, pricing and who is touring. We actually put in a few bids that didn’t work. So finding such a great artist this late in the game, we just jumped at the opportunity,” Zack Beltran ’13 of the Bucknell Concert Committee said.

Nelly was born Nov. 2, 1974 as Cornell Iral Haynes, Jr., in Austin, Texas, but grew up in St. Louis, Mo. In high school, Nelly formed the rap group St. Lunatics, which consisted of Nelly and other hip hop artists Murphy Lee, Ali, City Spud and Kyjuan. The group failed to attain a record deal and Nelly decided to go solo.

Nelly was signed to Universal Records in 1999 and the label released Nelly’s debut album “Country Grammar” in 2000, which debuted at the No. 3 spot on the Billboard 200 and peaked at No. 1. Recognizable singles from the album include “E.I.” and “Ride Wit Me.” “Country Grammar” was certified as having gone nine times platinum in April of 2004 by the Record Industry Association of America.

Nelly’s sophomore album “Nellyville” was released in 2002 and debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 Music Albums. The lead single, “Hot in Herre” was a number-one hit and won Nelly the Grammy Award for Best Male Rap Solo Performance in 2003. Other popular singles off the album include “Dilemma” featuring Kelly Rowland, “Work It” featuring Justin Timberlake, “Air Force Ones” featuring Murphy Lee and the St. Lunatics and “Pimp Juice.” “Nellyville” was certified as having gone six times platinum by the RIAA.

Nelly contributed the single “Shake Ya Tailfeather” featuring Diddy and Murphy Lee to the “Bad Boys II” film soundtrack in 2003. In 2004, the single won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.

In the fall of 2004, Nelly released dual albums entitled “Sweat,” a rap-based album and “Suit,” an R&B-based album. “Suit” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart while “Sweat” debuted at No. 2. Nelly broke barriers with his ballad “Over and Over” from the album “Suit” due to his unlikely duet with country music star Tim McGraw. In the winter of 2005 Nelly rereleased a compilation of tracks from “Sweat” and “Suit” called “Sweatsuit.” The new album had three new tracks including the No. 1 hit “Grillz.”

“Brass Knuckles,” Nelly’s sixth album, was released in the fall of 2008 despite several delays in production. Notable singles from the album include “Party People” featuring Fergie and “Body on Me” featuring Akon and Ashanti. 

Nelly’s most recent album, entitled “5.0,” dropped in November of 2010. Artists featured on the album include T-Pain, Chris Brown, Akon, Plies, T.I., Kelly Rowland, Birdman, DJ Khaled, Avery Storm and Diddy-Dirty Money. The most popular song off the album was “Just a Dream,” which is Nelly’s highest charting song since “Grillz.”

Nelly is also known for his status as an entrepreneur. In 2003, Nike and Nelly agreed on a one-year deal to release a limited-edition sneaker called the “Air Derrty.” He later signed a shoe deal with Reebok. Nelly has been a part of the advertising campaigns for Got Milk? and Ford Motor Company. His energy drink “Pimp Juice” was very successful, selling one million cans during the first two months after it’s introduction in the summer of 2003. Many people, however, criticized the name of the drink, mainly for it’s misogynistic name connotation. Nelly owns the female clothing line Apple Bottoms popularized by Flo-Rida in his song “Low” in which he mentions the brand. Nelly also owns Vokal, a clothing line catering to men.

Nelly runs the non-profit organization “4Sho4Kids Foundation.” The organization is dedicated to improving the quality of life for children with developmental disorders. Nelly also began the “Jes Us 4 Jackie” campaign in 2003 with his sister Jackie, who was diagnosed with leukemia. The campaign looks to educate African-Americans and other minorities about the need and importance of bone marrow transplants. Sadly, Nelly’s sister passed away from the disease in 2005.

“I think for our age group, Nelly is a really popular artist. He is a Grammy winner and had a lot of hits that Bucknell students are familiar with. I also think that it will be a really fun, upbeat and exciting concert for the community,” Beltran said.

Nelly tried his hand at acting, taking part in the 2005 remake of “The Longest Yard” with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. He also appeared in episodes of “CSI: NY” and “90210.” 

The ongoing construction around campus is poised to take a significant step within the coming weeks. Construction of Academic West, a new academic building behind the Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library, is set to begin around the end of March. For the initial phases of the construction, Fraternity Road will be blocked off at Coleman Drive. Academic West is planned to be ready for the start of classes in August 2013.

The three-story, 70,000 square foot building will help to reinvigorate the University’s academic approach. Academic West will include large and medium-sized classrooms, laboratories and 59 faculty offices to be used mainly by the social sciences. Hearth spaces will be a focal point of the building, providing students and faculty with extra space to interact and work together.

“Academic West will have a number of attractive spaces where people will be able to put their heads together on group projects, plug in their laptops to a flat-screen TV to work on presentations, and study between classes,” associate vice president for facilities Dennis Hawley said.

The new building will be constructed with environmental sustainability in mind, as it will be built according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification standards. LEED is a rating system for green buildings that was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in 2000. Academic West’s silver certification means that the building will earn between 50-59 points on a 100 point scale. The most notable green feature of Academic West will be a vegetated, green roof.

Academic West will also open up space elsewhere on campus and allow for greater cohesion among various academic departments. To make space for the construction, the Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity house will have to be demolished. Students living in the current Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity house will move into the new housing built by the corn fields after spring break. The Kappa Delta Rho Fraternity house, which had been uninhabited for several years, was also demolished last fall.

“Honestly, it was so much nicer than I expected. You can tell the school put a lot of effort into the house, and we’re extremely appreciative,” Eddie Guers ’13, president of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, said.

Guers noted there were some downsides to the mid-semester move. He said that it was difficult to leave a house with so many memories in it and the chapter was moving to a much less convenient location. Additionally, the fraternity’s new house only has singles, so it will be smaller than the  existing one. A few students are going to have to find a new place to live in the middle of the semester.

Beyond Academic West, more plans are in place to expand academic space and student housing on campus. Another building, dubbed Academic East, will be raised across from Academic West to form a new academic quad. A new art building is also in the early planning stage, and additional student housing is tentatively set to open by Aug. 2015. Parking lots are also in development.

“Those results are somewhat consistent with what other studies have found, that heavy drinking reduces a person’s income but that people who drink moderate amounts on average often have higher incomes than people who never drink,” associate professor of economics Christopher Magee said.

They put together a survey that was sent out to 1,500 alumni from the classes of 2001, 2006 and 2010 and received a promising sample of 251 responses. The survey contained questions about college major, employment, salary, how often they stayed in at night to go to the library and how often they went out to drink.

Hoopes and Beeson’s study by no means encourages students to spend all of their time drinking instead of studying. Instead, it supports the importance of making time for both socializing and studying.

This past summer, two seniors, Drew Stonesifer and Theresa Narus joined the ranks of “Bucknell in Love” when Stonesifer proposed to Narus at a nearby lake.

“We lived right around the corner from each other on  Lari 2 freshman year but didn’t actually notice each other until we went to the same InterVarsity small group in late October that year,” Narus said.

“Kappa Kisses was a huge success and is a philanthropic event that is done annually by Kappa chapters all across the country,” Liz Fennell ’13, president of Kappa Kappa Gamma said. “We are donating to ‘Bike the US for MS’ who organizes cross country bike trips that raise awareness for Multiple Sclerosis research while volunteering for patients along the way. We chose this philanthropy because one of our Kappa sisters, Kaitlyn Smith and her boyfriend Mike Anderson (also from Bucknell) are participating in it this summer in honor of Mike’s father who was diagnosed with MS in 1996. We wish them the best of luck on their journey and look forward to more successful philanthropy events in the future!”

The event raised nearly $500 for the charity.