Conifer Creek Townhomes PR

48^th Ave. is home to many popular apartment complexes for Grand Valley State University students. Nestled in a quiet, wooded setting while still offering modern amenities, Conifer Creek Townhomes boasts some of the lowest housing rates on 48^th Ave.

Conveniently located less than a mile from campus and minutes away from bus stops, Conifer Creek offers students the convenience of the larger complexes on 48^th Ave. but with a “smaller, hometown feel,” owner Joe Modderman said.

“We’re a little bit of a smaller complex that doesn’t have all of the craziness,” he said. “…In our world, you call this phone number and I’m the owner, I’m the manager and I’ll try to get something done instantly for you. At other places, you have to go through multiple calls and people to put in a maintenance order.”

Conifer Creek is also GVSU alumni-owned, ensuring the complex was built with firsthand knowledge of what GVSU students want and need for their living spaces.

All units come with free cable, internet, garbage services, snow removal and parking. A washer and dryer, central air and a fully equipped kitchen are also included in each apartment. In addition, pets are allowed in some units. Conifer Creek also has a roommate profile service, allowing students who room blind to be placed with compatible roommates.

Rates range from $385 to $435, depending on the unit style and the length of the lease. Unit styles include four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath; four-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath; units with garages and units with a walkout cement patio. Each unit boasts more than 1600 square feet. Both 10 and 12-month leases are available. Utilities are not included in lease fees.

However, Modderman said the building’s energy-efficient doors and windows result in lower utility costs for renters.

“Our utility costs are going to be lower than anywhere else with our same square footage,” he said. “…I built this place right.”

Conifer Creek has 32 total units, with approximately seven still available for next year. To schedule an appointment to view an apartment or for further information about Conifer Creek, please e-mail rent@conifercreektownhomes.com or call (616) 318-2035.

Published March 28, 2011 in GVSU Housing Edition

Students think outside the line with new company

Spiral notebooks are a constant companion for college students and a student’s grade usually hinges on how well they record lecture information and charts onto those familiar pages. Now, Grand Valley State University senior Ryan Weber and recent GVSU graduate AJ Montgomery hope to transform cluttered notes and figures with their notebook company Unruled.
Unlike traditional notebooks, Unruled notebooks have blank, unlined pages, allowing students to draw out diagrams, graphs or just day-to-day notes without lines cluttering up the page. The idea for the company came about last year during a late-night study session.
“I came back from the library last year really late at night and he (Montgomery) came into my room and asked me if I had any unlined, white computer paper for something he was working on,” Weber said. “…We got to talking: ‘Let’s just make notebooks like this.’ So we looked around the internet, we looked in all the office stores and no one made it.”
The closest alternative Weber and Montgomery found were art pads, which are often a more costly and impractical option.
“Those aren’t very practical for taking notes,” Montgomery said. “It’s thicker paper plus they fold out vertically and it’s just not really meant for it.”
Weber and Montgomery’s initial idea has steadily grown into a promising business. The notebooks are currently sold at both GVSU and Western Michigan University. The GVSU University bookstore bought an initial order of 250 notebooks and Weber said UBS seems pleased with how the notebooks are selling so far.
Montgomery said one of the notebooks’ main selling points is how much easier it is to take lecture notes, especially those involving graphs and figures, on clean, unlined paper.
“A lot of students in BMS (buy the notebooks) and I think Econ can definitely use them,” Montgomery said. “Maybe management and marketing could use them as well because they do a lot of flowcharts. I know that professors use the whiteboard and they’re all over the place, so it’s kind of hard if you’re trying to draw arrows and everything else for the flowcharts.”
Each notebook contains 100 durable sheets of pre-perforated, three-hole punched paper and comes in a wide variety of cover designs, created by fellow GVSU student, art design major Nate Garcia. The paper itself comes from a Minnesota-based company, but the rest of the manufacturing process, including binding and printing, takes place in Grand Rapids.
Although an outside company currently manufactures the notebooks, Weber and Montgomery plan on converting to an in-house process. After they receive their next round of orders in the early summer, they hope to begin looking for a warehouse to serve as Unruled’s manufacturing headquarters. The pair have also begun talks with national companies, some ranked in the Fortune 500, about distributing their product to a wider market.
But for the time being, their focus is on maintaining the company’s recently-launched website, www.unrulednotebooks.com, and starting a video marketing campaign based around the theme of “college lessons” learned both in and out of the classroom.
While Weber finishes up one last class at GVSU this semester, Montgomery works a full-time job in addition to expanding Unruled. Both hope Unruled eventually evolves into a full-time endeavor.
“If it gets busy enough to keep us busy full-time, then it’ll definitely become that,” Weber said. “We probably talk every day about it, but it’s not an everyday job yet. But they sold really well at Grand Valley and they sold even better at Western.”

Published Feb. 27, 2011 in GVSU Lanthorn

Students debate four political ideologies in GREAT DEBATE

Wednesday night, representatives from the College Democrats, College Republicans, Nouveaux Socialists and campus libertarians will unite for a political forum designed to introduce students to a variety of political viewpoints and ideologies while hearing debate on a variety of the nation’s most pressing policy concerns.

The event will take place on Wednesday from 7-9 p.m. in the Pere Marquette Room at the Kirkhof Center. In addition to a panel discussion and Q&A, the forum will also offer free pizza and is LIB 100 and US 201 approved.

The political forum will consist of three representatives from each of the four participating groups answering questions about a number of agreed-upon issues, including the national and local economic recovery , health care, military conflicts and undocumented US workers. Each group will outline their specific ideologies and platforms, in addition to proposing what steps policymakers should take next on certain issues. Representatives will also cite their favorite Supreme Court case and favorite amendment to the US Constitution.

“The purpose of this event is to educate GVSU students about the broad spectrum of political ideologies, and give them adequate information to make decisions about where they stand politically,” GVSU College Democrats President Paul LeBlanc said. “We were emphatic that this event should include representatives from political groups other than the two major parties, to reflect the diversity of political thought in the nation, around the world, and on GVSU's campus.”

College Republicans Chairman Kyle Smith said his group’s opening statement will focus on the federal budget and deficit spending.

“The United States cannot afford to keep borrowing money like it is,” he said. “Sacrifices must be made and we are going to have to makes some adjustments in our spending habits. 

Smith added he hopes the event will enlighten students as to where they stand politically and encourage them to become more involved in the political process.

“Overall, I encourage students to attend this event as our generation will bear the effects of the current Congress' budgets and spending,” he said. “It is one thing for students to say that they disagree with something that the government does, it is another for them to do something about it.”

GVSU student Will Hibler, who will represent the Libertarian viewpoint during the debate, said he aims to cover the need for a fiscally sustainable national and local budget, as well as the protection of free speech in regards to net neutrality legislation and the Patriot Act.

“We have been living beyond our means for years by implementing one-time budget gimmicks at the state level, and relying on federal bailout funds to cover the shortfall in our state budget, which must be balanced every year as mandated by our state constitution,” Hibler said. “Substantial borrowing at the federal has facilitated this process, but there hasn't been enough focus on the fact that this borrowing is actually done against the income of our children and grand children… By participating in this forum, we hope to emphasize the importance of personal and financial liberty, and the ability of individuals and states to set legislation, rather than adopting blanket reforms at the national level.”

Published Feb. 27, 2011 in GVSU Lanthorn