Senior Tyler Larson steps up to the line

Senior guard Tyler Larson once thought he was a disappointment at the University of South Dakota.

The Las Vegas native was brought in by former men's basketball head coach Dave Boots after two years of playing for Casper College. Boots said at the time of his signing that "Tyler is a big guard with a great work ethic."

But his first two season at USD were plagued by injury and inconsistency. He's now on his third head coach in three years with Craig Smith, but the senior is finding a rhythm that has made USD a contender against regional basketball powerhouses, like Creighton.

In the past week, Larson has been playing about 36 minutes a game and was making late-game plays against Youngstown State and Creighton that put USD back into the fight when down.

“I feel like my old self, like I was coming out of junior college,” Larson said. “I feel 100 percent. Also, my coaches have a lot of confidence in me, so that helps as well.”

He led the team Dec. 5 against the Penguins with 21 points, nine rebounds and five assists. He, along with teammates Brandon Bos and Casey Kasperbauer, formed a guard trio that was making 12 of 20 three-point attempts and for 21 of the Coyotes' 37 rebounds. 

While junior guard Tre Burnette received a lot of attention for keeping USD ahead for most of the match against Creighton Tuesday, it was Larson who, again, scored a career-high 25 points and pulled down 10 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season. 

Most notably, he hit a three-pointer as time expired at the end of regulation, tying the game sty 65-65. Three minutes earlier, the Coyotes had trailed 58-49. 

While the Coyotes lost both matches this week, Smith said the level of play from Larson has shown a player ready to step up and lead the team. 

"Tyler, Brandon, these guys are making plays when we need them to, and that's what we need," Smith said. "We have a lot of games left, including conference play, so we need to not only maintain but improve this level, especially on defense."

A communications major and sociology minor, Larson said his difference in play is a matter of mentality. 

"I just feel looser. There is a comfort I feel on the court and with this group of guys I haven't had in the years past," he said. 

See Tyler's game-tying shot against Creighton

This I Believe

I worry sometimes that I’m becoming too cynical about the world. I don’t know if it’s a matter of upbringing or just the nature of being a millennial, but I’ve always kind of relished in the thought of “damning the man.” I’m not talking about raging against every indiscriminate male I meet or sleeping in Zuccotti Park as a middle finger to the 1 percent. I have a hard time trusting people when I can’t distinguish their motives. I assume they have motives. And it’s exhausting. Sometimes I see the scowl lines on my forehead from scrunching my brow over something I don’t quite believe, and I wonder if it would be easier to just let things go. Maybe I’d sleep more. Maybe I’d smile more. However, I do believe it’s necessary to be skeptical, rather than cynical.

Skepticism, to me, is a matter of who you are and why you’re doing it. It’s about that nagging tug you feel in your chest that’s just begging you to ask the question and the challenge to decipher the answer you’re given. It’s wonderful and terrifying.

Over the summer I spent in D.C., working for a wire service, I thought it would be appropriate to read the autobiography of longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas. What I found was a woman who spent her whole life as a skeptic, but an endearing, sensitive skeptic. Thomas said the key her success as a journalist was that there was no topic that did not garner a question. There was no topic that shouldn’t be questioned.

I admit I find it irritating when people stop asking questions. The face-value acceptance of information is the Achilles heel of our society. We’d rather accept what we agree with than question our own beliefs. I get it’s difficult. It’s uncomfortable. It’s sometimes confrontational. But I believe in being a skeptic because it’s always worth asking why.

            

Young professor sees eye-tracking the future of USD's CoMPARE lab

One thing Assistant Professor Brandon Nutting has done that most 30 year olds haven't: stuck electrodes to people's heads.

Nutting is one of two faculty members from the Media & Journalism department that began the Communication, Media Psychology and Related Effects research (CoMPARE) lab more than two years ago.

The program, which includes at least nine undergraduate, graduate and doctoral student volunteers, works on multiple projects to collect physiological responses to media by the placement of censors on a person to determine involuntary measurements.

“The hope is to bring in more money to the department so we can keep building our facilities and the graduate program,” he said.

Nutting was initially recruited as a doctoral student from Texas Tech to join Associate Professor Miglena Sternadori at USD to initiate the media lab. Only about nine universities in the nation offer such a program.

"It had to take something special to get me to move to Texas," he said. 













Funding for the lab's equipment began with support from the Media & Journalism department and South Dakota Public Radio. The lab is self-sustaining now that it is set-up, said Nutting. New supplies will not be needed for the next two years, but the next major purchase for the researchers could be eye-tracking equipment.

Nutting said he hopes that as the lab grows, so will the number of regional and national contracts that the university will join. A recent lab contract includes a project with the South Dakota Comprehensive Cancer Control Program that would work to create a comprehensive website to increase the number of people who pursue clinical trials for cancer. 


Here's a look at what other programs around the country are doing:


Texas Tech University: The physiological measurement lab is an experimental laboratory for 

measuring psychophysiological responses to media messages, such as television commercials, video games or Internet applications. The Center for Communication Research (CCR) houses state-of-the art technology for studying all facets of audience response to media messages — video, audio, online, commercial, informational and more. The center contains more than 6,000 square feet of research labs and provides research services to those both within and beyond the Texas Tech community.


Stanford University: The Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory is a research laboratory designed for the study of emotion and emotion regulation. Some recent studies includes a project that works to understand the physiological, behavioral and experiential consequences of important emotion regulation strategies such as expressive suppression, cognitive reappraisal, and rumination. There is also work being done to design a way to teach sixth- and seventh-graders a growth mindset of emotion regulation and give them emotion regulation strategies, with the goal of improving academic performance. 


University of Washington: The Psychophysiology and Behavioral Systems Lab (PBS LAB) at the University of Washington conducts state-of-the-art research into the etiology, course and treatment of development with the media. Recent research has focused on eye-tracking technology and using these results for several national contracts it has with ad agencies around the country. 

University of Missouri-Columbia: The PRIME (Psychological Research on Information and Media Effects) Lab is both a research and teaching laboratory devoted to the study of how different features of media affect the way people think, feel, and act. They conduct theory-driven, empirical research using psychophysiology and other behavioral science methods. One of their two main projects is monitoring the emotional responses to common online activities. Participants in the experiment use Facebook, Amazon.com and CNN.com. Heart rate, skin conductance and facial electromyography data were recorded and synchronized with a video record of each participants' activities. The goal of this study is to explore the motivation of different content changes online.


Pennsylvania State University:  The Media Effects Research Laboratory has two main wings. There is the Traditional Media wing, which examines the effects of television, film entertainment and video games. The other group is the New Media Wing, which examines the effects of online media and communications technology.

Check out a tour of USD's psychology-physiology lab below.

How to build a D-Days parade float

Members of the Cross Media Council at the University of South Dakota decided to create a parade float for Dakota Days. The video below captures the highs and lows of taking on such a project.

The year without its namesake: Al Neuharth Award 2014

Peter Prichard, former editor of USA Today, was awarded the 2014 Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media. The Oct. 9 ceremony was the first to be held at the University of South Dakota since the death of media leader and USD graduate Al Neuharth. 

"It's a great honor to get the Neuharth Award. Al was a great innovator and great newspaper man. There are a lot of great people that got this award," Prichard said. "I don't really think I deserved it but I'm honored – humbled."

Prichard served as president of the Newseum and Freedom Forum until January 2009, and currently is chair of the Newseum board of trustees. He was editor of USA Today, the nation’s largest-circulation newspaper, from 1988 to 1995, longer than any other editor in the newspaper's history. 

During his tenure, USA Today won several national journalism awards, and its circulation increased from 1.4 million to 2.3 million — surpassing the Wall Street Journal.

Prichard joined the likes of Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric by receiving the honor. He was presented the award at an evening presentation, but was part of a panel discussion on politics and journalism earlier in the afternoon. 

The panel included Carson Walker, Associated Press news editor for the Dakotas; Gene Policinski, chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute; Chad Newswander, associate professor of political science at USD; and Prichard. 

Prichard said journalism does not seem as appealing for young people to get into because of statistics that read that only 40 percent of Americans believe the media is trustworthy and unbiased. 

"I would like to see more complete stories with more attention to fairness, with more thorough reporting and less opinion-driven journalism," he said. "We have all this great technology, it makes it possible really for almost anyone to be a journalist and get a story our there instantly. But a lot of it is not really very good, and often not fair, and sometimes not even true. I'd like to see higher standards."

Policinski would later host the award ceremony and said Prichard provided signal leadership at the nation’s first national newspaper and at the Newseum, the museum of news in Washington, D.C. that was started by Al Neuharth. 

“Peter added immensely to the success of each, and continues to help the Newseum be responsive to the continued changes in how news is gathered and reported,” Policinski said. 

Peter Prichard starts acceptance speech with remembering USD alum Al Neuharth. #MCOM325 pic.twitter.com/DjwG3EOBX7
— MiC (@IvesCard) October 9, 2014

Jan Neuharth, adult daughter of the late media mogul, introduced Prichard during the evening ceremony. The last person to receive the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media was Gwen Ifill, who received the 2013 recognition in June while working for PBS Newshour in Washington, D.C.

Prichard credited Al Neuharth with the major highlights of his career, but also spoke about the future of the industry. 

"It's the best of times and the worst of times. We have more access to news and information than ever, but part of the problem is that newspapers have been so damaged by the economic troubles that they don't have the reporting staffs to do the work that they used to do. That's a problem for readers and possibly for democracy," he said.