81 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(05/05/14 4:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After her 44-minute long preparation period, Mrs. Marvin walks outside her classroom at the end of the hall and watches the flood of students pass by.One thing is always on her mind as she stands by her door.“I think about what kind of day the students are having,” Mrs. Marvin says.Right before the bell rings for third period, the students perform a ritual. One by one, and sometimes two by two, they file into the classroom, pick up notebooks, slide into seats, place jumbo-sized binders on top of their desks and prepare to learn. Once the bell beckons, a petite blonde woman with glasses at the tip of her nose walks from outside her classroom door and steps into what has been her arena, her niche, her warzone for the past 41 years — the classroom. Studies show the transition from sixth grade to middle school can be the toughest one a child faces, but Patricia Marvin is an expert at handling the distracted, puberty-stricken, disorganized children. She’s been teaching English to seventh and eighth graders at Tri-North Middle School since some of her students’ parents were their age. This year, Mrs. Marvin is one of 41 teachers in the Monroe County Community School Corporation who are retiring. She’s not worn out. As a matter of fact, 63-year-old Mrs. Marvin wouldn’t mind teaching a few more years. But 41 years of teaching, including 30 years at Tri-North, is enough for her. She has four grandchildren, with two more on the way, and she wants to be able to spoil them with her husband while she’s still alive. Her parents weren’t granted that luck with her children.Year after year, Mrs. Marvin has been on a seemingly eternal mission to prepare her middle school students for the dog-eat-dog world that is high school, the next chapter of their life.When Mrs. Marvin was in seventh grade, she studied ballet under world-renowned professional ballet dancers like Andre Eglevsky. She was well on her way to becoming a professional ballet dancer in New York. She danced at the Joffrey Ballet dance company. Her dreams to live out her passion for dancing came to a halt after a sudden injury the summer following her high school graduation. The doctor told her it would take at least three years for her to heal. At 18 years old, Mrs. Marvin realized she would be missing out on the most crucial time for a professional dancer. The Long Island native, who had moved with her parents to Lafayette between her freshman and sophomore year of high school, decided to stay in Lafayette and attend Purdue University. While at Purdue, she taught ballet at the YMCA, worked for a horticulture professor and wrote for the Purdue Exponent for two years. She still did not know what she wanted to do after college. Her mother encouraged her to get a teaching degree, just in case. “I said, ‘I don’t want to teach,’” Mrs. Marvin said. “My mother said, ‘Well, just do it for me.’ I said, ‘All right,’ so I got my education classes done and I student taught. I fell in love with it.” After graduation, she taught high school in Monon, Ind., for four-and-a-half years. She said it was the hardest period of her teaching career because the students were so far behind. After teaching there and getting married to a teacher who taught fourth grade at the school, Mrs. Marvin taught at North Newton High School in Morocco, Ind., for two-and-a-half years. She then took a six-year break from teaching to take care of her four children at home before transitioning to Tri-North Middle School, where she has taught for 30 years. “I got a job here teaching seventh and eighth grade thinking I’ll get a job in high school because I always thought I wanted to be a high school teacher,” Mrs. Marvin said. “I never wanted to leave middle school.”*** On another day, in another seventh-grade class, the students are louder than usual, especially the boys. Mrs. Marvin said it was because of all the candy and sugar the students had during Easter.As soon as the bell rings, one student shushes his peers and the room full of seventh graders gets a little quieter. Mrs. Marvin walks in. Sam raises his hand.“I think I forgot my brain at my house. I don’t know if I can do this.”Mrs. Marvin walks toward the student and lifts up a section of his hair. “Well, I don’t see any holes,” Mrs. Marvin says as she examines his head.“No?” Sam says.She walks back to the center of the classroom.“OK! Notebook! Get that notebook open, we are going to talk about ‘Lawn Boy.’”Last week, the students were learning about inferences. This week, they are learning about themes and are reading chapter 13 from “Lawn Boy” by Gary Paulsen. As Mrs. Marvin reads, she stops every so often to make sure the students understand the difficult words.“‘Expertise,’ what does that word mean?” Mrs. Marvin asks. “Drew?” “What you’re an expert at,” Drew said. The students listen to Mrs. Marvin read the rest of the story attentively as she walks back and forth, looking at the students from time to time. After she finishes reading the chapter all the way through, she tells her seventh graders to open their notebooks and make inferences about what will happen in the next chapter.*** Mrs. Marvin’s teaching career at MCCSC began in 1984, the same year that Tri-North became a middle school in MCCSC. Throughout the time span of three decades, some things have changed and some have stayed the same. She still sees kids that don’t pay attention and kids that don’t bring their materials. “That frustrates me a little bit, but it’s annoyed me for the past 41 years,” Mrs. Marvin said.But kids didn’t have cell phones in the 1980s. Mrs. Marvin said the advances in technology have caused students’ focus to shift. “I think kids are so used to instant gratification,” Mrs. Marvin said. “For example, an instant response to a text message, or an instant score on a video game or instant information over the Internet. They’re not willing to wait, and they’re not willing to take time to work through things like the way people used to when they had to no matter what the subject is.” Years ago, Mrs. Marvin said, there wasn’t collaborative networking between teachers. Now, Mrs. Marvin loves the meetings with her co-workers in the morning. The two classrooms to the left of Mrs. Marvin’s belong to two other English teachers, Lisa Riggins and Myra Farmer. During Mrs. Riggins’ and Mrs. Farmer’s prep period, they talk in Mrs. Riggins’ classroom. Mrs. Marvin was one of the people that hired Mrs. Riggins in 1984.“She’s somebody who’s pumped up, ready to do whatever we need to have done or she’s ready to try new things,” Mrs. Riggins said.They call themselves the “Three Musketeers” because of the tight-knit community they established together throughout the years. They know each other’s children. They spend time outside of the school together. “We understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and celebrations,” Riggins said. “It’s not just about coming to work. We’re a family here.” Both Mrs. Riggins and Mrs. Farmer believe there will be a void when Mrs. Marvin leaves. “In this profession, no one can just slip in,” Mrs. Farmer said. “We all know we’re replaceable, but replaceable doesn’t mean the same quality.” All three of the English teachers said there are many misconceptions about their lives as teachers. “That we work 180 days a year,” Mrs. Farmer said. Mrs. Marvin prepares during the summer.“That we leave at 2:30 in the afternoon,” Mrs. Farmer said. Mrs. Marvin has never left earlier than 4 p.m. and sometimes stays at school until 6 p.m. to finish grading papers and work on lesson plans.“That we check in and check out everyday,” Mrs. Farmer said. “That this is a job, not a profession.”Mrs. Marvin wakes up at 4:45 a.m. to start her day and leaves around 6:30 to prepare for school.“Nowadays, change is rapid fire,” Mrs. Farmer said. “It’s a reaction to symptoms.”Mrs. Farmer referred to the evolving policy actions that have been enacted since she, Mrs. Riggins and Mrs. Marvin started teaching. With the increasing reliance of standardized testing being used to assess, reward and penalize those in the classroom and in schools, all three teachers feel like there isn’t enough beneficial and thorough assessment from the federal and state government. “I don’t remember when I first started teaching people on the outside telling you how to do your job as much, like legislatures,” Mrs. Marvin said. “We are legislated so much today.”The other English teachers look at Mrs. Marvin’s retirement as the beginning of the end of an era in the ever-evolving education reform. During the past 13 years, national education initiatives, like the No Child Left Behind Act and the Common Core State Standards, have drastically changed the way the nation assesses school, teacher and student performance. In 2011, then-Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed legislation that included the implementation and regulation of charter schools, turnaround schools, private school vouchers and teacher evaluations. In the past few months, Indiana became the first state to drop out of Common Core and released similar academic standards. This year was the first time the Indiana Department of Education released the new, standardized teacher evaluations, which rates teachers from highly effective to ineffective. The ratings are tied to when teachers can get raises. After the results came in, many people questioned the validity of the teacher evaluation results. According to the data provided by the Indiana Department of Education, 88 percent of teachers and administrators were assessed as being effective or highly effective in the classroom. About 2 percent needed improvement and less than half a percent were seen as ineffective teachers. Some schools with “D” and “F” ratings didn’t have educators with a rating less than effective. MCCSC did not offer its information this year because of a contract agreement with teachers that ends after the 2014-15 school year. These teachers will be given fewer salary benefits once this new teacher evaluation initiative is enacted. “After that time, there will be a base salary and then the only way you can get a raise will be based on this new teacher evaluation system that the state is putting in place,” Mrs. Marvin said. “There are people that we have talked to in other corporations that are already under it that say even if you are deemed highly effective, depending on how much your corporation has, it could be just $250.”Mrs. Marvin said she is concerned about the ratings not for herself, but for teachers coming after her.“It’s kind of a good time for me to get out,” Mrs. Marvin said. “Not because I’m worried about where I’ll be rated. I think I’ll be fine. It’s going to be very hard to keep good young teachers in the profession.”Mrs. Marvin doesn’t think there is anything wrong with standardized testing in itself. The problem, Mrs. Marvin said, lies in the high-stakes value in standardized testing. “If that one test is so important and the kid has the flu that week, they’re not going to do that well. They need to look more at how (students) are really doing in the classroom.” Teacher and student assessment needs to be more realistic, Mrs. Marvin said. She suggested that asking students to write in descriptive language would be a better way to assess what they are learning, instead of multiple choice questions.“When in life, unless you become an editor, are you going be asked to pick adjectives and adverbs out of a sentence?” she said. “That’s something kids ask me all the time. And that’s a very good point.” *** Mrs. Marvin often dreams of her students at night. She hopes for the best for them.In one corner of her classroom, she has a board filled with post-it notes with inspirational messages, written by her eighth graders to the incoming class. There are post-it notes that say, “Don’t procrastinate” and “Always pay attention in class.” Two years ago, one of her students, Schuyler Barnes, handed her a note he got from his mother, Hannah Bolte.A line from the note read, “May your dreams come true — you have the ability to make that happen!”“It was a note that I had written to her when she was leaving eighth grade just telling her that I felt that she was going to be really successful,” Mrs. Marvin said. “It was kind of an inspirational thing.” Mrs. Marvin said she wrote it because she saw that Bolte was going through a tough time. Still, she is surprised that she kept it for so long. The date on the note says June 4, 1990 — 24 years ago. “It bought tears to my eyes,” Mrs. Marvin said as she recalled the time she saw the note for the first time in more than 20 years.It had a lasting effect on 37-year-old Bolte, who had trouble in English class.“It provided me self-esteem that carried all throughout high school and my career,” Bolte said.Bolte, a master’s graduate student and a professor, now works as an editor in her own independent sole proprietorship for university academic writing services. She said she hopes to inspire her students like Mrs. Marvin inspired her.“It really makes a difference to have an advocate, someone who you regularly interact with who enforces that you’re good enough,” Bolte said. “That makes all the difference.” *** After the bell rings, Mrs. Marvin sighs. It’s still a challenge to teach 150 students after all these years.At the end of the day, at the end of her career, she still wonders about the effect she has on her students.“It just makes you feel good to know that they’re able to follow some of their dreams or what they think they’re going to do or what they wind up doing,” Mrs. Marvin said. “I would hope that people look at me as caring, because I care deeply about my students and my family. That’s pretty much been my life.”
(04/09/14 2:26am)
Outreach Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center Lecia Brooks and IU Student Leighton Johnson discuss the State of Hate and Extremism workshop conducted on the Indiana University campus on Tuesday night.
(03/31/14 3:49pm)
The Lotus Education and Arts Foundation presents a family day of arts, music, language, and international crafts at Bloomington Binford Elementary School on Saturday.
(03/12/14 3:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU freshman Aaron Welcher remembers his score on the SAT even though he took the test a year ago. It was 1,650. He hit a little bit above the national average mark out of 2,400. “For all the studying I did, I feel like I should’ve gotten higher,” Welcher said. Two years from now, high school students from around the country will take a revised SAT standardized test. Last Wednesday, College Board President Dan Coleman announced major changes to the test that many high school juniors and seniors sweat about. The new SAT, which will be placed on the desks of high school students come 2016, will be more analysis and application based in order to improve how the test measures success in schools. These changes include scaling the perfect score back to 1600, eliminating penalties for wrong answers, substituting obscure words like “crepusular” and “acquiesce” to words students would more likely use in college and their career, making the required essay optional and creating more applicable math problems. According to the College Board, there will be three sections to the test: Evidence-Based Reading and Writing, Math and the optional essay. The new changes could in turn affect the way IU considers applicants to the University. Sacha Thieme, the IU executive director of admissions, said even though IU requires SAT or ACT scores, it’s just one factor of the admissions process. Other factors, like a student’s high school transcript, application and their GPA trends over time each play a part in determining which students are accepted to IU. In addition to these factors, Thieme said this admissions year, potential students could write a personal statement in their application. The personal statement will give potential students the opportunity to express excellent academic work, acknowledge something questionable that shows up in another part of the application or show adversity in a certain situation, Thieme said. According to the IU Office of Admissions, students admitted in fall 2013 scored an average of 1203 on the Critical Reading and Math portion combined of the SAT. The average GPA is 3.68. Thieme said usually students’ SAT scores coincide with their GPA. These revisions come after pressing concerns of the validity of the College Board’s SAT and if it could accurately measure aptitude in students that have yet to start college. Last month, National Public Radio obtained a study from the National Association of College Admission Counseling that showed students who didn’t submit SAT scores graduated at a higher number than submitters at 33 public and private colleges and universities around the country that make it optional to submit. It showed that high school grades have more of an impact than SAT scores.Thieme said she believes that SAT scores still play an important factor in considering students, but it’s not the most important factor.. “The way I look at the test, it’s part of the overall student profile,” Thieme said. High school test takers will also have access to free SAT test preparatory classes from Khan Academy. This could give students from lower income backgrounds more access to study materials for the test. She said the University is working with high school freshmen now, adding interested students to email lists and updating them about college fairs in the fall.“The IU community will be learning about the test together as the plan for the new SAT unfolds,” Thieme said. “As we learn more about the predictability and validity of the test, we need to make sure we educate the campus community about what that score means and how we compare different trends with the historical trends of the past test scores.” Welcher, who is majoring in law and public policy, said these changes are a step in the right direction toward admitting a wider variety of students. “I feel like standardized testing now puts students into boxes that don’t show who they actually are,” Welcher said. “They’re looking at the numbers that they score, they don’t look at the individual and what they have achieved.”
(03/05/14 7:40pm)
Artist balances work and passion for painting.
(03/05/14 4:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the middle of his shift, as he pushes a trash can down a crowded hallway in the Indiana Memorial Union, the artist stops in front of a painting on the wall. The electric colors beg to explode outside the frame. “I wish I could’ve added a little more gray here,” Joel Washington says, his hand hovering above the canvas. The acrylic painting shows jazz legend Wes Montgomery thumb-strumming his hollow back electric guitar. Washington painted it 15 years ago. He often paints portraits of famous musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, the Beatles and Billie Holiday.“When I look at this,” he says, examining his Montgomery portrait, “I see ways I could add more color to it. But it’s already paid for, and there’s nothing I can do about it now.” Students hurry past, but they don’t notice Washington in his uniform. He doesn’t blame them. After all, he has other things to do as well. His job requires him to always keep it moving. He has bathrooms to clean, floors to mop, glass windows to spray. “It’s like I got my own reality show with all these cameras around me,” Washington says. “There’s security everywhere. I got to get back to work.” He takes one last glance at his painting, then turns around and pushes the trash can toward another hallway.*** Washington lives in two worlds. One where his art of musicians, artists, clowns, movie stars and IU faculty fill the city he’s called home for years, and one where he works to pay the bills. Somewhere in between those two jobs lies the dream to make art a full time job, showcasing his psychedelic acrylic paintings to the world. Like many artists, he is waiting for his big break — the moment when his art earns him a living. The moment when he can finally break away. At 54 years old, he believes it’ll come along, someday. “I’m going to continue networking and wait for someone to be interested, but in the meantime, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing,” Washington says.So, once again — just like every weekday — Washington rises at 3:45 a.m. After he gets ready, he locks his apartment door and carefully treads down a flight of stairs. He drags himself into the pitch dark, serene morning for the 25-minute hike to the IMU. As soon as Washington clocks in at 5 a.m., he begins to prepare the IMU for the day’s inhabitants. He becomes the shy greeter, the sweeper, the cleaner and the observer once he’s on the clock, but the art never leaves his mind. Washington checks his assignments for the day, then pulls a bright yellow Kaivac cleaning machine into an elevator and heads upstairs to fill it with water from the supply closet. He opens the gate to the billiards area, disappearing into a dark abyss. As soon as he turns on the lights, the room brightens and Washington appears in full color. A supervisor walks past to make sure he is on task. “You got to do what you got to do to earn that dollar,” Washington says. Washington puts a neon yellow ”Closed for Cleaning” sign on the door of the men’s restroom.He is alone in his territory. He has to make sure everything in his designated hallway — the computer lab, the billiards and the ATM area — are ready for students.However, things are different when he’s at home. When he’s home, he’s usually painting. And when he’s painting, he’s usually alone. And when he’s alone, it’s always quiet. *** Washington put in a DVD and plopped down on his couch. In sepia color, the words “Wizard of Oz” appeared on the television screen. He grabbed a tube of Cadmium yellow paint — one of 14 paint tubes on the table — and squeezed out the last tiny blob onto his palette, a white paper plate. Washington was adding the finishing touches to a painting of jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie blowing his trumpet, layering more color and depth onto the late trumpet player’s face and body. The whole piece only took him a few days. He painted commission pieces for other people the past few weeks. Dizzy was for himself. Painting is his therapy. It’s how he meditates and reflects. He whirled a black paintbrush in murky green water, tapped it on the side of the cup, and dabbed the tip of the brush into the bright yellow paint. He shaded in the root of Dizzy’s long, narrow nose. He squinted, leaning his head forward or to the side as he thought of what to tackle next. “When I was growing up I used to look at movies, fantasies,” Washington said. “It kept me away from the everyday stuff.” Washington grew up in Haughville, Ind., a low-income neighborhood 10 miles outside of Indianapolis.His first dream was to be a Disney animator. As a child, he watched George Dunning’s Yellow Submarine, an animated movie based on music from the Beatles. He started drawing sketches, cartoons. His apartment houses numerous production sales, most notably from the Fat Albert cartoons. By the time he was a teenage, he knew he wanted to be a full-time painter. “I use to draw all over the walls as a kid back then,” Washington said. His older sister Marsha remembers how imaginative he was. “He would draw caricatures of people, but if it was on my end of the stick, I didn’t think it was funny at all,” she chuckled. Washington moved to Bloomington when he was 15, graduated from Harmony School and spent a year at Ivy Tech. For years, he has designed and sold skateboard decals locally.He loves human expression, whether it’s classic movies like “Casablanca,” music by Billie Holiday or pop art by Andy Warhol and Peter Max. Pop culture still influences Washington’s work. His 10-piece Frank Zappa series hangs in Laughing Planet Cafe. He has James Dean in the Village Deli, and Sam Lightnin’ Hopkins in the African American Arts Institute. The Indiana State Museum purchased his Jazz Man piece in 2007. The piece was featured along with three of his other art works in the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, for three years. In 2010, he had a 50th birthday arts show in the City Hall Atrium. That same year, he put his Michael Jackson commemorative portrait in the hands of famed producer Quincy Jones. In 2012, he presented his David Baker to the jazz composer and IU music professor. From January 21 to October 14, 2012, the Indiana State Museum featured 24 African American contemporary artists from Indiana in an exhibit titled Represent. One of the paintings featured was a 6-foot scene of the “Godfather of Soul” James Brown getting helped up by one of his background performers after falling to his knees during one of his famous cape routines. Kisha Tandy, the assistant curator for History and Culture at the museum, organized the exhibit. Seeing Washington’s art come alive, so large and bold, is what makes people connect to his work, Tandy said.“When I saw it, I got it,” Tandy said. “Even though I never saw him live, I saw him perform on television. Joel captured the essence of James Brown in the painting. He tells the story of music history through his artwork.” Back at home, Washington sets his painting aside and thinks about the Tin Man, the character he most closely resembles in the “Wizard of Oz.” “He was searching for a heart, and he already had one,” Washington said. “I always try to be compassionate. There are things I search for that I already had. What’s important for me is to be humble. I don’t have an ego, I just want to be as kind to people as I can.” Washington paused. “You can’t be ashamed of what God gave you,” he said. *** In his father’s house in Indianapolis, there are old school report cards. “At the top of all of them, it says ‘Joel is a great artist, but we wish he would focus on his other school work,’” Washington said. Washington was born in February 1960 in Indianapolis. He grew up in Haughville with an older sister, a younger sister and a younger brother.Marsha Washington, his older sister by a year, said she still believes Joel will make it as a full-time artist. “I have great faith in God that a perfect window or opportunity will open with his work,” she said.Washington says he faintly remembers his mother and father divorcing at a young age. He recalls his mother and his siblings moving up to Bloomington while he lived with his father in Indianapolis. When he was 15, he moved to Bloomington to live with his mother. He would call Bloomington home for the next 39 years. As a young man in Bloomington, he joined a b-boy group and started his “Lab Ratical” cartoon skateboard designs around the skate parks in Bloomington. Washington pulled out photos of himself as a teenager in the 1970s and 1980s.His pictures show a young, black man in ‘80s fitted, hip garb breakdancing and skating with his friends.In one of them, he’s breakdancing in T.I.S. Bookstore, where he used to work.He was a member of a multicultural skateboarding group and was featured in a national skateboard magazine. In one particular picture, he’s skateboarding near a basketball court, which used to be near the Bloomington Hospital.Washington says he has about 300 skateboards in his possession. He designs a skateboard line and sells them to skateboard shops in Bloomington like Rhett Skateboarding. Some of his skateboards have turned into works of art. Some are vintage. Some he rides. Washington has been riding since he arrived in Bloomington. He started working at the Union in the ‘80s, first as a food service worker and then as a custodian. He’s been there for almost 30 years. He’s always ready to move on, to do more and do better art shows. He said his mom got him started on his first, and what he considers his best, art show. “What I miss about her is that she was always encouraging me with my art,” Washington said. “She always pushed us to go for whatever we believed in. She was the one who told me that I would be where I am now.”Washington still struggles with balancing his two worlds. Pygmalion’s Art Supply Sales Clerk Ben Dines said the goal for any artist is to work on the craft full time. Dines, who also teaches private lessons, said Washington gets his canvas and paints from the store. He was amazed to know that Washington was self-taught. “That is really impressive,” Dines said. “I believe that Joel has something good going for him because it’s difficult to sell paintings.” Washington said he plans to show his work in bigger cities.“I mean, I enjoy doing stuff in Bloomington, but I want everybody to see my work, and I can’t do that if I’m not making that move,” Washington said. “I won’t rest until I’ve made that jump into showing people my work, whether it’s in Indianapolis, Cleveland, Chicago, New York, L.A.” He still wants to be able to put on a new, bigger art show. But with a heap of commissions to do, he has trouble finding the time. “It’ll be the first show I’ve done in four years,” Washington said.Aspirations aside, Washington doesn’t mind his job as a custodian. Roy Robertson, the custodial director at the IMU, said Washington knows a lot of people around campus. “For Joel, as busy as he is, all that he has to cover, I think he does a good job at trying to balance the social interaction he gets here with getting his job done and staying focused on what his tasks are,” Robertson said. “There’s so much going on for that young man. It is a full tough job for him to do. I wouldn’t want to be as talented as that in such a public venue.” Washington said he’s not afraid of losing time. Every year is a blessing, especially at 54. “Don’t remind me,” Washington said, “The more you worry about it, the older you get.” On his 54th birthday in February, Washington walked with a visitor around the IMU to look at his favorite pieces of art. He tended to be drawn to bright, colorful pieces like his own. “Sometimes I wonder what the artist was thinking, but for the most part I just admire them for what they are.”*** At 1:30 p.m., Washington walks downstairs to the employee center and clocked out. After work, he wants to take a nap. He’s been feeling tired. He hasn’t been getting enough sleep, and he doesn’t know why he’s waking up an hour before his alarm goes off at 3:45 a.m. He’s celebrating his birthday with his older sister Marsha at her house. She’s fixing him chicken and dumplings. For the first times in a while, Washington doesn’t have anything else planned but to rest. Editor’s Note: The reporter is not related to the artist Joel Washington.
(02/24/14 5:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The ninth annual Black History Month Gala on Saturday evening closed a month-long observance of African-American success in Bloomington and beyond. Community members gathered in black-tie attire — a wide variety of pastel pinks, royal blues and shimmery golds — at the Hilton Garden Inn for a celebration to honor the achievements of African-Americans in the city. “How many of you have been a Hoosier for a minute now?” Gala Co-host Beverly Smith asked the 60 community members in attendance.Many in the room raised their hands and laughed.“I’m not a Hoosier by birth,” Smith said to the audience. “I’m a Garyite, but I’ve been a Bloomingtonian for 11, 12 years now. I think that qualifies me as vintage.”At the gala, Greg Tourner, the chair of the Commission on the Status of Black Males, introduced the Outstanding Black Male Leaders of Tomorrow Awards.Gabriel Jones, a senior at the Academy of Science & Entrepreneurship, was awarded the title of the 2014 Outstanding Black Male for the high school category. During his speech, he noted how much he changed because the community believed in him. Bloomington resident Gene Shipp, 94 years old, received the Living Legend Award. Shipp served in the U.S. Army from 1942 through 1971 serving in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. He received a bronze star from President Richard Nixon for his service in the Vietnam War. After he retired from the military, he moved to Bloomington and spent a decade working as a mechanic. He also served as a deacon at Second Baptist Church.Shipp said he loved every minute of the gala.“I was honored tonight,” Shipp said. “I’m grateful that I moved to Bloomington. We have come a long way, and we have a long way to go.”IU alumna Camisha Sims said she came to the event to support not only her dad — Jim Sims, the co-host of the gala — but to also support the successes of her community.“I don’t think people realize that there is a black community in Bloomington outside of Indiana University,” Sims said.Landon Jones, called a “21st Century Renaissance man” by Tourner, received the 2014 Outstanding Black Male award for the adult category. Jones, a master’s graduate student at IU studying African studies, is active in connecting graduate students to young people in the community in a wide variety of activities.“Black History Month is progression,” Jones said. “It’s physical and mental progression. Something that I find very important as we do events like these is that people are getting involved and understanding that it really does take people working together to bring about positive and peaceful results.”Jones, who volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters, brought his “little” to the event with him.“He’s a freshman at Bloomington North High School,” he said. “The reason why we were matched together is because we’re both from Chicago. He’s been living here for about a year, and I definitely want to make sure his experience as a man of color is a positive one. “I brought him here because he can win this award. It’s not a far-fetched idea for any young male, especially young black males. When you do good, you’re rewarded for it and also there is success to it.”At the end of the event, Smith came back on stage and told the audience to not let another 365 days go by without contributing to each other’s lives and to enjoy the evening.“I’m going to turn my shoes over to some Nike flip-flops and eat my strawberry cake, but I want you to enjoy dancing and having a great time fellowshipping with your friends and family,” Smith said. “Have a great evening.”Follow reporter Aaricka Washington on Twitter @aarickawash.
(01/28/14 5:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>While Sunday’s 46 degree weather was a break from the freezing, brisk temperatures that have ravaged two-thirds of the United States, including the Midwest for the past month, Monday marked the cold’s return.Monday’s high was 11 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, with a night wind chill as low as 23 degrees below. Wind Chill Advisories or warnings were in effect for most of the state of Indiana, according to the National Weather Service. While IU Bloomington’s campus closed during winter break due to severe weather, recent temperatures have not been enough to warrant a closing.IU South Bend and IU Northwest were both closed Monday due to severe weather. Freshman Eva Timm said the chilly weather has been stressful for her. “It’s really horrible coming to class half crying because it’s so cold outside,” she said. IU Physical Plant Electronics Technician Greg Gember stood outside next to the Eigenmann Hall parking lot Monday, without gloves. His hands were red. He talked about how easy it was to get frostbite with a wind chill so low. He said people can get frostbite if it is exposed to the wind for just 10 minutes under these extreme wind chill values.“It’s getting there,” Gember said about his exposed hands. “That’s why I keep putting them in my pockets. I keep the wind off, keep most of the exposed flesh from the wind.” Gember said he’s been interested in learning about the weather ever since he was in grade school when he witnessed the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965. According to an IU Physical Plant newsletter, Gembler attended Purdue University for a semester, enlisted in the Air Force, and received a degree in electronics at Ivy Tech Community College. In the early 1980s, he and others installed the first Doppler weather radar equipments for television stations like WISH-TV Channel 8 and WRTV — Channel Six as well as for television stations around the country. Gember is known as the “Weather Man” at the IU Physical Plant. In 2001, he helped create the weather station for IU because the Physical Plant wanted more data than just temperature and rain measurements. The weather station, which is housed in the Campus Division building on East 10th Street, is a data system that measures wind speed, direction and humidity as well as temperature and precipitation.There’s a box known as the data logger which sends the signals through sensors.“Every five minutes it takes a temperature reading and then it stores it and sends to the computer in our shop,” Gember said. “Then, our server puts it out on the web.” Gember pointed to a small device on the middle of a pole with spinning propellers that measures wind speed and direction. “It’s like a plane without the wings on it,” Gember said. “Faster that propeller turns, the faster the wind speed. Obviously, the wind’s direction is where it’s pointing. That is also feeding signals. The wind, speed and temperature, that combination gives you the wind chill.” Wind chill is otherwise known as the “feels like” temperature, and is responsible for the immediate sting of coldness that hits students when they venture outside. As Gember walked away from checking the weather station and towards the Campus Division building, Mike Girvin, the Campus Division manager, told him that they are running out of salt, which the IU Physical Plant uses to dissolved potentially dangerous levels of ice on the ground.The only salt left to spread around campus was a large heap next to the weather station, which Girvin said is not a lot.He said they don’t know when they will get any more salt. “The state of Indiana is out,” Girvin said. “Yeah, it’s a big problem across the country, everybody is out of salt. We are hoping to get some from Brookville later on in the week, but it’s a challenge right now.” For now, they are using Brine, which is a salt and water solution, mixed to make a liquid. It is sprayed on the ground with the salt to dissolve black ice from the freezing ground. On campus, Chinedu Amaefula, a graduate student, wore a scarf and a long black coat to campus Monday. He said he was in Ethiopia while two-thirds of the country was enduring the severe winter storm that lasted for a week earlier this month. He said it was 80 degrees in Ethiopia.“As you can see, I’m cold,” Amaefula said. “I was listening and watching about the artic blast in the north over there on CNN and Al Jazeera.” Amaefula said he is staying hydrated and eating proper foods while he is bracing the storm. However, he said he noticed some people weren’t as equipped as he was. “I see a lot of people walking around campus trying to look cute and trying to keep up with the status quo,” Amaefula said. “They’re sacrificing their sanity of keeping warm.”Follow reporter Aaricka Washington on Twitter @AarickaWash.
(11/11/13 4:05am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU alum and ESPN sports anchor Sage Steele credits Bill Armstrong, the late president of the IU Foundation, for changing her life.She met him while working as a waitress at Bobby’s Colorado Steakhouse. “You never know who you’re going to meet,” Steele said. “He helped me get an internship in the IU Athletic Department.”Steele stood in front of about 1,000 IU students, staff and community members in Alumni Hall on Friday for the first Diversity Leadership Conference. Steele was one of the morning keynote speakers at the conference, a collaboration between the Office of Mentoring Services and Leadership Development and the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program. The conference is a combination of two separate conferences from past years: the OMSLD’s Men and Women of Color Leadership Conference and the HHSP’s LEAD Conference. This is the first time the two were merged. The theme of the conference was building social capital and establishing a social net worth in a diverse world.This theme is a part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Themester, “Connectedness: Networks in a Complex World.” Smith said the purpose of the conference was to get students to think about ways to expand their resources in their social networks in order to lead and live successful lives. Steele talked about experiencing diversity overseas while her dad worked in the military. She talked of how she felt racism from both white and black people as a biracial woman in the United States.She said she never let intolerance stop her from working to achieve the dream she had since the 8th grade: becoming an ESPN sports anchor. “You can do anything if you have a good core,” Steele said. “No one can tell me that I didn’t earn it.” Steele also told the audience members that when they say they embrace diversity, they need to mean it. Rafael Sanchez, Indianapolis WRTV 6 consumer investigative reporter and Franklin College graduate, also spoke to students at the conference. He emphasized the importance of branching out to different people in order to increase social net worth.The Dominican reporter ordered everyone in the room to get up, sit somewhere else and meet someone they didn’t know. Sanchez told the audience it’s important to network and take initiative. “You have to either be at the table or be on the menu,” Sanchez said, “Many people will want to control your lives. Be at the table, or other people will decide for you.”Patrick Smith, executive director of the Office of Mentoring Services and Leadership Development, and Marsha McGriff, director of the Hudson and Holland Scholarship Program, served as the co-committee chairs for the conference.Smith said she encouraged students to take out their phones and tweet about their experiences using the hashtag #iudleaders.“It just made sense,” Smith said about merging the two conferences. “We had a discussion about how we could best leverage our resources to the benefit of all our students.”The conference included several sessions ranging from expanding leadership skills to advocating for change through grassroots organizations.Students could also attend a career fair that included many companies such as Google and Discover Financial Services. Hudson and Holland alumnus Johnathon Lancaster attended the career fair at the LEAD conference two years ago.Now he’s on the other side of the table working at a Fortune 500 company and talking to students about getting a job or an internship. “I actually had an offer in place my senior year by attending the conference,” Lancaster said. “When I went to the LEAD conference I really focused on how I could sell my brand."IU associate dean of students Carol McCord said even though IU has a long way to go with diversity issues, the conference was a step forward.“This event is wonderful, and I was really proud to come to campus today and have over 900 people involved in this activity,” McCord said, “I’m proud of IU and the work that it did today.”Follow reporter Aaricka Washington on Twitter @AarickaWash.
(11/11/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Wainona Collins vividly remembers being close to Herman Hudson and James Holland throughout her 47 years at IU.
Collins said even though Hudson was legally blind, he was a visionary.
“This was his vision,” Collins said as she walked down the stairs of the IU Art Museum during the 25th anniversary celebration of the Hudson and Holland Scholarship Program.
Hudson and Holland director Marsha McGriff unveiled a dedication mural to the audience of Hudson and Holland students, alumni and administrators.
Smiles and claps filled the room when everyone saw the painting of brown, green and blue hues. The word “Lead” was spread out in big, brown letters on the mural. Portraits of young people of all different shades and complexions surrounded the word in the painting.
Gospel music group Voices of Hope opened the ceremony with a medley of gospel songs. Vocalist Virginia Githiri performed, and IUSA president Jose Mitjavila was the master of ceremonies for the event.
Collins, a retired IU employee, has seen the campus grow firsthand during her tenure as an Afro-American Studies Department employee.
She said she believes the Hudson and Holland Scholarship Program is necessary for students of color.
“You have to realize as African Americans we don’t have access to all the resources white students have,” Collins said.
The Hudson and Holland Scholars Program is named in honor of the late Herman Hudson and the late James Holland, African American faculty leaders who contributed to the advancement of African American studies and the social climate on campus.
Hudson was the founder of the Afro-American Studies Department and the African American Arts Institute, and Holland served as the associate and interim dean of the Graduate School for 30 years.
Former Hudson and Holland director Kevin Brown said Hudson was also the brainchild of the Hudson and Holland Scholarship Program.
Brown was the keynote speaker for the event and told the audience a thorough history of the program.
In the late 1980s there was a concern that the University wasn’t rigorously recruiting minority students. The Minority Achievers Program was created in 1987 to help recruit the bright and talented underrepresented minority students in the country, Brown said.
The program went through several changes over the years. In 1993, the Mathematics and Science Scholarship was added to the MAP in order to recruit a more rare population of African American, Hispanic and Native American students. Then, in 2004, the MAP and MASS program was renamed to what is now the Hudson and Holland Scholarship Program.
Junior Sarah Sanchez said the program has helped her realize what she wants to do for a career.She was offered a teaching position after interviewing one of her exercise science professors for a Hudson and Holland class.
“Hudson and Holland was definitely a catalyst in that situation,” Sanchez said.
She said being a student in Hudson and Holland is like being part of a
little community on such a big campus.
“I was always the minority,” Sanchez said. “Coming to this campus and having a program specifically dedicated to minority students has been so nice.”
One of the major goals McGriff said she hopes to accomplish during her time as director of the program is to create a sustainability program that uses the successes of the alumni.
“Happy students become happy donors to IU,” McGriff said.
She said they are in the process of building a Hudson and Holland Alumni Association.
“It’s brick by brick, stone by stone to get it created, and that’s the legacy I want,” she said.
During Brown’s speech, he mentioned that the program has grown
tremendously throughout the years. Within the time span of 13 years,
the program affected 1,000 students in total.
Currently there are about 1,000 active students in the program in just one year.
McGriff said she believes the more the minority demographics change in the country, the more the University and the Hudson and Holland Program will have to keep up the pace.
“We are in the generation of extreme change in minorities in our nation,” McGriff said. “In 50 years, we are going to look so different than the way we look today. I want Hudson and Holland to be a part of the legacy and landscape of IU.”
At the end of the ceremony, McGriff held up her glass of wine and proposed a toast to the audience.
“Cheers to forever,” McGriff said.
Follow reporter Aaricka Washington on Twitter @AarickaWash.
(09/18/13 4:24am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The board endorsed a resolution to double campus enrollment of under-represented minorities by this school year. The fall 2013 student body is the most diverse yet, but the numbers are short of the goal. Under-represented minorities have increased from 7.6 percent in fall 2005 to 13.2 percent this fall, 2.2 percentage points short of the Trustees’ goal.The plan was outlined by then-student Courtney Williams and Dr. Charlie Nelms, the vice president of Institutional Development and Student Affairs, and approved by former IU president Adam Herbert and President Michael McRobbie one year later. Tom Reilly, a newly-elected trustee at the time, said he thinks the plan lacked analysis of trends in minority enrollment and an understanding of the difficulties in calculating race. “As a result, I’m not sure that the percentage of under-represented minorities improved much at all in Bloomington,” Reilly said. “I’m not sure if there’s been that much progress at all from where we were then.”* * * Mayra Meza is one of the 7,604 students in this fall’s freshman class, the second largest class in the history of IU. She’s part of another growing population on campus — the Hispanic/Latino community.IU Bloomington’s total Hispanic/Latino population has increased by 7.4 percent since last school year. Meza, a resident of Hammond, Ind. — a city in between Chicago and Gary — came to IU as both a Groups and Hudson & Holland Scholar.At her high school she was used to seeing diverse faces.When she arrived at IU, she said she was culture-shocked. “I don’t see many people of color,” Mayra said, “It’s very rare to see multiple, different races all going in the same direction. I’m not used to seeing so many white people around me, and it’s just different.” The University set a record at IU Bloomington this fall with an 18.6 percent minority population. But there’s little improvement for known-domestic, degree-seeking, under-represented minorities — students who identify as Hispanic/Latino, African-American or American-Indian. There is speculation that the growth in under-represented minorities is actually smaller than what’s written down on paper because of recent federal changes in racial and ethnic categories in all U.S. educational institutions, law professor Kevin Brown said. In 2010, the federal government altered the application students fill out when enrolling. With the new application, any student who identifies as Hispanic or Latino, even if they also identify with other races, is automatically categorized as Hispanic or Latino. These changes mean the under-represented minority population includes a large number of Hispanic or Latino students who would have been considered “white” or “other” prior to the new regulations.Non-Hispanic students who select more than one race are automatically put into a “two or more races” category. Students who select White and Asian are classified as “two or more races,” and are considered under-represented minorities on campus, even though neither population is under-represented.The 2010 revision makes it difficult to compare data from the time when the Board of Trustees approved their goal. It also means the current under-represented minority enrollment is even farther from the trustees’ goal. A group of University administrators and faculty, including Brown; James Wimbush, the vice president for Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs; and John Applegate, McRobbie’s special assistant and executive vice president for University Academic Affairs, met Monday to discuss the discrepancies in calculating degree-seeking, under-represented minorities. Todd Schmitz, executive director of University Institutional Reporting and Research, also present, said IU should consider making under-represented minority enrollment information more transparent to the public. Schmitz hopes to sharpen the University’s comparisons to the Board’s 2005 resolution. “Now we’re going to pursue how the data would look should we go in and have a different kind of trumping rule,” Schmitz said. * * * Wimbush has been seated in his new office in Bryan Hall for only a month.The new Vice President of DEMA assumed the role after Edwin Marshall retired this summer. Wimbush already has a strategy in place for minority recruitment and retention, he said. His three-pronged approach focuses on maintaining a diverse faculty and staff of under-represented minorities, improving the climate and outreach of the culture centers on campus and boosting University minority outreach, he said. “If we put the right infrastructure in place, I believe we can have consistent gains,” Wimbush said. “I think we can do that.”An additional goal for Wimbush is to increase the number of under-represented minorities in graduate school by providing funding for an extra year and mentorship programs to help them finish strong, he said. “We’re trying to change the complexion, so that when I walk across campus, I’ll see more people that look like me,” Wimbush said. “When students go into classrooms, it’s not a formidable conclusion that the person standing in front of them is going to be of one particular race.” David Johnson, vice provost for Enrollment Management, said the University offers programs such as the Balfour Scholars Program and a new outreach campaign for 21st Century Scholars called Mindset for Success. “We are particularly focused on increasing our enrollment from Indianapolis high schools and are working to strengthen our partnerships and relationships with those high schools,” Johnson said. “By targeting this scholar population, OEM can reach thousands of under-represented students and families.”With a 4.3 GPA and an 1840 SAT score, Meza had several options for her college education. She said she chose IU over other schools because the University offered her the most affordable tuition and a strong School of Public and Environmental Affairs.She’s also found a home within her Hispanic community, she said. She’s a part of the Latino Enhancement Cooperative, which puts on the Hispanic festival for Hispanic Heritage Month, and has helped her take an active role in fostering diversity on campus. “Although we may not be as diverse as I like it to be, there’s still many opportunities for minorities to get ahead and be involved in the school,” Meza said, “There’s communities here within our big community, and we can still feel at home with our own people around us.”Follow reporter Aaricka Washington on Twitter @aarickawash.
(08/28/13 4:37am)
Viola and George Taliaferro said they had expected to be there on Aug. 28, 1963.
(08/27/13 8:48pm)
George and Viola Taliaferro will never forget about their opportunity to witness one of the most iconic speeches in American history. They were just an hour away.
(08/27/13 7:40pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>George and Viola Taliaferro will never forget about their opportunity to witness one of the most iconic speeches in American history. They were just an hour away. “We lived in Baltimore, Maryland,” Mrs. Taliaferro said. “I could not go to the March on Washington because our youngest daughter was sick.”Mrs. Taliaferro put her head down in grief as she recalled how she felt in that moment. “And I sat there in our bedroom with her in my arms, watching it on television with tears rolling down my face,” Mrs. Taliaferro recalled, “I mean, it was — it’s hard to describe it how we felt about Martin, how Martin said for all of us what needed to be said and backed it up.”On August 28th 1963, 34–year-old minister Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights leaders A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin led hundreds of thousands of people in a rally in the nations capital for economic and social equality in America. The march became officially known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The Taliaferros, as well as others who lived during that time, could not have predicted how this moment would be recorded in history. King’s “I have a Dream” speech shook the nation and is still regarded today as one of the most famous speeches of all time.
(08/27/13 4:33pm)
Viola Taliaferro, Monroe County's African-American judge, and George Taliaferro, the first African-American to be drafted into the NFL, discuss racism at IU during the time it was segregated and progress that still need to be made.
(08/21/13 3:38am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On April 16, 2007, senior Colin Goddard was late to his early morning French class. Halfway through class, Goddard was shot four times. He was one of the 17 people wounded at the Virginia Tech shooting that day. Today he uses his personal story to advocate for stricter gun control laws. He is now the campaign manager of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.On Tuesday his story brought him to IU to talk to more than 50 students enrolled in Briscoe Quadrangle’s new Civic Leaders Living Learning Center. Paul Helmke, director of the new Civic Leaders LLC and past president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said he met Goddard through his father after the Virginia Tech shooting. He contacted Goddard because he wanted to set the tone for the rest of the year for the students. “While gun control was sort of the theme, the real theme was leadership,” Helmke said. “How do you take a personal tragedy, a national tragedy, and how do you turn that into fighting for something you believe in?”The School of Public and Environmental Affairs is offering the LLC as a way to engage students interested in global, national and local policy issues such as healthcare, income inequality and gun control laws. Throughout the year the students will have the opportunity to take smaller classes that show them how to become future policy makers, advocates and leaders in their own communities.This semester, they will have many political and social guest speakers such as former congressman Lee Hamilton, U.S. Department Officer Jack Bobo, SPEA Alumni and others. At 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Shannon Watts – a Zionsville, Ind., mother who helped form Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America after the Sandy Hook school shooting – will talk to the Civic Leaders LLC students. After graduation, Goddard decided to get involved in the Brady Campaign to inform others about U.S. gun policies and help change gun control laws at the state and federal level. In 2010, Goddard investigated the lack of background checks at gun shows in Living for 32, a documentary about how he turned his story into a position for advocacy in memorandum of his 32 colleagues who were killed. Helmke had his students see the film before Goddard spoke to them at Briscoe. He said the whole focus of the LLC is to give students extra attention and opportunities. “We expect you then to do more on campus when you’re here,” Helmke said. “And we expect after you graduate to go do it in whatever field interests you and whatever community you live in.”Goddard emphasized to the students that the best way to get others to understand what needs to be changed in public policy is to put a human face to the problem. “It’s a series of steps to get them off the couch and into the public square and in their congress member’s office to cause the laws to change or culture to change in this country,” Goddard said.Freshman Josie Wenig said his testimony inspired her even more to get involved in public policy analysis. “It was just inspiring to see and hear one person’s story that one person can really make a difference,” Wenig said.The Brady Campaign reported that nine out of 10 Americans agree that the country should have universal background checks, Goddard said. But he said the campaign, the largest national grassroots organization fighting to prevent gun violence, is still working to persuade Congress to pass a bill for tighter gun control laws. “It starts with awareness, and it starts with the personal story, the human story that ultimately then gets to a better country,” Goddard said. Follow Aaricka Washington on Twitter @aarickawash
(04/29/13 4:25am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>WEST LAFAYETTE — On Friday, a group of IU students took seven hours out of their time to stand in solidarity with Purdue University students during a sit-in rally at Purdue to combat the string of racist incidents that have occurred consistently over a year.According to FBI statistics from 2011, Purdue is ranked second in the country among United States colleges for the number of reported hate crimes. The Associated Press reported that since 2012, there have been 12 hate crimes documented by police. Possibly the most well-known hate crime that happened in the past year was the defacing and vandalizing of a memorial portrait of Dr. Cornell Bell, a highly influential black business school professor, with the writing of the “n-word.” However, there have been a plethora of other cases, like Asian students being racially attacked on Twitter and students writing the “n-word” on a classroom board in front of African American students.Because of the increased racial attacks students felt on Purdue’s campus, both reported and personal, five graduate students and one undergraduate student created the Purdue Anti-Racism Coalition to create a strategic plan to not only combat racism, but increase diversity as well. They have a list of seven demands including doubling the population of underrepresented minority faculty in 10 years in which only 11 of the current full-time 500 professors are black, creating an anti-racism grievance committee, making a mandatory class about racism for incoming students, and establishing an Asian/Asian American Resource and Cultural Center to support the Asian population. A few weeks ago, the words “white supremacy” were discovered on a mirror in the Black Culture Center after a seminar in a classroom. There has been much confusion in the media as well as on Purdue’s campus over whether the words were there because of a prior class, or whether it was actually produced with malice and bias. The police concluded the report by stating the incident was indeed intentional. The “white supremacy” incident still sparked PARC to form a rally at their campus. The students believed, whether the incident was intentional or not, the increased racist incidents on campus are still an issue. The Monday after IU students met at the Diversity Coalition rally at Sample Gates to advocate for the fixing of IU’s diversity programs, the students of PARC formed an anti-racism rally at their campus. There were more than 200 people of different backgrounds marching from their Memorial Hall to the steps of the administration building, Hovde Hall. The morning after the rally, it was reported that someone had defaced a placard that had been left behind. On the poster, which originally said “No Racism,” was a stick figure hanging on a tree and a scratch out mark changed “racism” to the word “niggers.” This spawned the establishment of the list of demands for the university, including a public denouncement of racism from Purdue President Mitch Daniels. Their main goal at the Friday sit-in rally was to meet with President Daniels and to make him give a public speech about diversity. Leighton Johnson, a junior and one of the Diversity Coalition leaders at IU led the group of four students — herself, Derek Hutton-Kinsey, Emma Campbell and Brandon Washington — to Purdue University. Johnson said the Purdue Anti-Racism Coalition invited him and other IU representatives to support their efforts in combating diversity issues on their campus. When he spoke to the crowd of about 40 people, he asked them if they felt at home at Purdue. The students grumbled.“A lot of the Black and Latino students feel marginalized in the university where they’re not comfortable with themselves on campus, and they’re not being supported in ways that they should be.” Johnson said. Johnson thinks Purdue might be worse than IU when it comes to diversity, considering the fact their African-American population is 3.4 percent compared to IU’s 4 percent. “I’ve been to Purdue a couple of times and the black community down there is so separated and fragile,” Johnson said. “They were telling me there was only 1 percent. We should feel celebrated. Here, Blacks and Latinos are just tolerated.” Johnson said. Campbell, a junior and the President-Elect of the Black Student Union said she went on the trip to support Johnson as well as meet with Purdue’s Black Student Union.“I feel as though when people are more knowledgeable with the issues that are occurring, it evokes change.” Campbell said. Several PARC members took turns to speak about the lack of diversity on their campus and what the administration should do about it. They emphasized that back in the 1960s there was a slogan, “The Fire Next Time.” This year, this generation, their slogan is “The Fire This Time.” Dean of Students Danita Brown watched the rally from nearby and said it was beneficial for the students to open up that dialogue and that communication. “It’s a call to action,” Brown said. “It’s about reflecting on our values, our expectations of what and who Boilermakers truly are. Those are the first steps: just bringing everybody together. We sit in our rooms or sit in our offices, not necessarily connecting and being inclusive and its time to all come together.” Mitch Daniels spoke for two minutes to the small crowd after meeting with the six PARC leaders.“In my opinion, we had a really good conversation; it’s the prospect of something very good coming here,” Daniels said. “The ideas that this group and I have been discussing are very broadly viewed across this campus. We’ve said in the plainest English, what we do and don’t find acceptable, and now the idea is to draw the entire campus community. We need everybody, staff, faculty and our neighbors to have the same aspirations that we all share.” Daniels said he liked the practical ideas of the coalition and that he was going to start working with the PARC leaders right away. After the meeting with Mitch Daniels, Ebony Barnett-Kennedy, a junior and one of the PARC leaders said Mitch Daniels was receptive and agreed to their demands. “Our role in going in there was to talk with him and show him how we can be active in that plan,” Barnett-Kennedy said. “To show him that this is a not students against the administration and that we need to stand together to create an environment that’s inclusive for all.” Johnson said as IU students who advocate for diversity, their main goal is to build a community with the Purdue students and support them. Johnson suggested to PARC students about including more undergraduates in the coalition. “The rally is just the beginning.” Johnson said. “We’re taking it to next year, bring legitimate change to campuses state wide and hopefully even nationwide.”
(04/28/13 11:53pm)
Purdue junior Ebony Barnett-Kennedy speaks to the crowd of students, faculty and staff about the need for more diversity Friday on the steps of Hovde Hall at Purdue University.
(04/28/13 11:52pm)
Indianapolis Concerned Clergy Reverend Mmoja Ajabu cheers along with Purdue students for more diversity and less acts of hatred Friday in front of Hovde Hall at Purdue University.
(04/28/13 11:51pm)
Tyrell Conner, a leader of the Purdue Anti-Racism Coalition, leads the group in a chant, "I am a Boilermaker!" on Friday on the steps of Hovde Hall at Purdue University.