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(12/03/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>My mother says I should only drink alcohol when the situation absolutely merits.Luckily, I am very skilled at finding reasons to celebrate, and I hold my holiday toasts in high esteem.I’d like to propose one now.Here’s to holidays where we as Americans don’t feel the need to disguise our alcoholic tendencies under the guise of Irish sainthood, Mexican patriotism or any of those other entities you would never think of celebrating unless they could somehow incorporate alcohol consumption.I prefer to acknowledge the fact that we as a nation just appreciate good old-fashioned consumption, particularly during the holiday season.For instance, how many times a year do you actually stop to appreciate Irish saints?Really, if you said anything more than once on March 17, I’d be shocked.On more occasions than I’d care to discuss, I’ve received phone calls from one stammering, intoxicated voice or another at some ungodly hour of the night.“Come celebrate with us! It’s Arbor Day! Why aren’t you here?” the voice might stutter.“It’s now — Oh, let me see — 3 a.m. on a Wednesday. If I’m not there already, it’s because I don’t want to be,” I’ll explain.“Aw, come on! Someone has to celebrate Hawaii.”“I think you’re thinking of Pearl Harbor Day.”It’s gotten to the point where my friends will celebrate almost any so-called “holiday” just to have a somewhat-convincing reason and a half-decent excuse to drink on a Tuesday night.Lately, our toasts, that first-drink ritual to commence each evening, have gone somewhat downhill.“Here’s to Presidents’ Weekend!”“To D-Day!”And as we continue to make toasts, the chanting becomes increasingly erratic.“To Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat month!”“To World Menopause week!”“To Heimlich Maneuver day!”I suppose exceptions could be made.One could reasonably infer that federal holidays would justify drinking since one would presumably get the day off from work, school or other official duties.Thus, it is acceptable to drink on the following nationally sanctioned occasions: New Year’s Day, MLK day, Washington’s birthday, Memorial, Independence, Labor, Columbus and Veterans’ days, Thanksgiving and Christmas. That’s 10 right there.Additionally, these non-official Hallmark holidays could be equally as valid as officially sanctioned holidays — as they have more festive themes and, thus, are better suited to drinking and general bar-appropriate merriment: Mardi Gras, Super Bowl Sunday, Groundhog’s Day, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Good Friday, Easter, both nights of Passover, April Fool’s Day, Earth Day, Arbor Day, Mother’s and Father’s days, Cinco de Mayo, Flag Day, Patriot Day, Halloween, Election Day, Black Friday, Hanukkah, Pearl Harbor Day, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa and New Year’s Eve.Thus, by this accord, and with the addition of weekends and two weeks of vacation per year, you could reasonably be drinking a comfortable 100 nights of the year, no justification needed.So, let’s hear it for the boys.Here’s to you, my friends — misters Jim Bean and Jose Cuervo and Captain Morgan.May your holidays be aplenty and your liver stay strong.— chkent@indiana.eduFollow columnist Chloe Kent on Twitter @the_real_ck.
(11/21/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Winter can’t make up its mind. One day, it loves us. The next day, it snows a record three feet.People claim to enjoy winter because of the feeling they get when they come inside from the snow. I can’t begin to understand this in the slightest, since all I want to do when I return indoors from snowy weather is submerge myself in hot water. But I find that I do well in winter. I suppose it suits me. The chill allows me to hide my accumulated layers of fat beneath thick sweaters. If I lived in a warm climate, I would have to attend to issues of weight maintenance, tanning and hair removal, none of which I’m very consistent with — I can barely remember to exercise or tweeze my eyebrows. I also would be clueless if I couldn’t get away with wearing seasonally-ambiguous scarves for three out of four seasons. So California’s out.Also, I don’t think I would do well in a place of perpetual warmth because of my arms. I have noticeably muscular arms, which has always bothered me. Whenever people lightly touch my arm in conversation, their eyes go wide, and they make a face as if to say, “That doesn’t belong there.” and tell me something in jest like, “Whoa! Nice biceps.” during which I crawl into an emotional hole and throw earth on myself until my arms are completely immersed.It wasn’t until the era of Michelle Obama biceps and the Tracey Anderson method a la Gwyneth and Madonna that bigger arms became OK. And thank goodness. I really could not have asked for better timing on that.However, I would still have a hard time in continuously sleeveless weather.I’ve reached the consensus that the only thing worse than winter is not having it. So the next time I complain about ruining my shoes or having to walk to class in the snow, I’ll think, “At least it’s not nice out.”— chkent@indiana.eduFollow columnist Chloe Kent on Twitter @the_real_ck.
(11/19/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Before I begin, I’d like to solicit your help, dear readers. I’m on the lam.I’d really like to delay joining the real world for a while — as long as possible, really. So can anyone tell me if there is a version of a post-college gap year? Does that even exist? Seriously, there’s a bounty in store for whomever emails me. Make my dreams come true.I’m 22, and for essentially my whole life, I’ve been a student.I’m about to graduate in a few weeks, and then all of a sudden that won’t be my identity anymore.I’m not going to quote the obvious: “Good Riddance,”“Graduation (Friends Forever),” “I Will Remember You.”I don’t feel that nostalgic. I guess it hasn’t kicked in yet. Right now I’m just nervous to leave the collegiate world — the self-assuredness, the comfort, the cushion between legal adulthood and the so-called real world where you can still get away with wearing sweatpants most anywhere.The big “What now?” is a familiar rite of passage for graduating collegians each semester.This is not an exclusive privilege reserved for college seniors. In fact, at every phase of life we encounter “What now?”I just finished Ann Patchett’s essay of the same name, and she confirmed that the process of change does not necessarily have to be a scary thing.As we transition from one chapter of our lives to the next, fear of the unknown does not have to prevent us from the excitement that a new leg of the journey brings. We can enjoy the free fall.I know this, I do. But I’m a senior graduating in December.Every time this “next step” is brought up, my lower intestines — or gallbladder, or whatever internal organs are around there, I don’t know because I’m not pre-med — feel like they’re eating themselves.My hands get shaky and I start trying to distract myself or change the subject or brush it off.“Just wait for it,” every college graduate who returns to visit tells me. “You’ll become a different person once you get out of here. Your alcohol tolerance will be shot. You’ll be in bed by 10. You’ll go out, like, once a week, tops. You’ll have a shitty job you’ll hate that probably will have nothing to do with what you’re majoring in...”“But it’s fun, though.” others protest. “You and your friends will be making money — actual money — so you can do things. You’re still young, and everything’s new and exciting. I mean, aside from the shitty jobs and apartments, it’s actually really fun, promise!”“What will you do now?” they inevitably ask.“I don’t know yet,” I say. “But I still have time.” I have to ask: is now when life will “begin?” What parameters define this real world? Paying your own bills? Having a 9 to 5? Going to bed at a reasonable hour and eating a proper breakfast?Framing things on your walls and maybe having a real, live plant in your home? Possibly even something as excruciatingly domestic as an orchid?Even then, what would be left? A woman weighing in at slightly more than she did before? Marketable job skills? A lifestyle that has steadily corroded my liver? A diploma? A cap-and-gown set I might return but also might not? Here I am, less than one semester away from getting initiated in the greatest fraternal organization of all, the adult world, and all I can do is worry about whether I’ve wasted my time.Or if I’ve made the right choices. All I can do is sit around some afternoons and experience the heart palpitations that accompany startling realizations that something else must start brewing.Real world, real job, real adult. Time to get cracking.— chkent@indiana.eduFollow columnist Chloe Kent on Twitter @the_real_ck.
(10/29/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I dislike our school’s language requirement for one simple reason: I dabble in languages. I don’t study them. I’ve taken on many and conquered none beyond my mother tongue — let’s leave it at that. It’s a totally useless skill, starting and stopping second languages and having no real training beyond a very basic conversation in present tense. However, thanks to these experiences, I do know a lot about foreign language instruction.Foreign language instruction, in my experience, doesn’t teach you the important things required to function in any foreign country. “Yes, thank you, the discotheque was pleasant,” is far less practical and pressing than “Kindly remove your hand from my thigh before I pepper spray you.”I would argue the most efficient way to gain practical working knowledge of a foreign language is not to take four semesters of it in a college classroom but to learn it from the locals — or better yet, its young people. Young people in any given country can educate you about functional language matters, including, but not limited to, all of the newest slang words for ‘penis’ and lots of cool, language-specific sexual metaphors for homosexuality. For instance, a selection in Hebrew: sit on upside-down chairs, drive bikes without a seat, surprise owls, stir in coco.I’ve tried my hand at almost half a dozen second languages, the vast majority of which I have not mastered beyond an even intermediate conversational level. Most of the time, I can’t recall anything besides specific phrases I liked the sounds of at the time, all of which swirl in my head as static when I attempt to speak any language. Given a couple drinks, I can speak any one of six languages to you, but likely, I’ll speak them all at once. Any given sentence could be a mix of French, Hebrew, or Spanish, with a little bit of Japanese and Arabic thrown in there, too.It’s always phrases that stick with me the longest: “My aunt’s pen is on the table,” “Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica,” “May I please go to the bathroom?” If I were smart, I’d learn languages in phrases. They don’t do that in formal educational settings. They give you a textbook, and you memorize a bunch of words, typically starting with a chapter on formal greetings illustrated by big cartoon pictures. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for me. Case in point: The whole of my first-semester language instruction in Israel consisted of this variety of rote memorization, and all I garnered from it was the question “Where is the grocery store?” and the accompanying reply “There.” My second semester I was required to take an intensive Ulpan language instruction class, using an immersion approach, during which I learned more in the first two hours than I did in the entirety of the past semester. By the end of the first day, I was reading and writing in a totally new alphabet, and by the end of the first week, I could hold a pretty solid conversation on any number of small talk topics.When I mention to friends that I studied a given language at some point, inevitably they will introduce me to foreign acquaintances with something like, “This is Chloe. She speaks Japanese, too!” and before I can say anything to the contrary to defend my poor grammar and speaking ability or laugh off any misunderstandings, they’ll commence in their mother language. “Really?” they ask. “You understand Japanese?”“Hai shikashi, watashi wa sukoshi dake hanasu.” (Yes, but I speak only a little Japanese.) They go on, asking questions and probing me for more, but I’ll predictably stop them and say, “No, really, that’s all I got. That and ‘May I please go to my locker?’” — chkent@indiana.eduFollow columnist Chloe Kent on Twitter @the_real_ck.
(09/10/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>My mother stopped eating meat the day she found her pet duck hanging inside the window of a neighborhood butcher shop. My friend went meatless approximately four seconds into a PETA video about slaughterhouses. On my 16th birthday, I decided I, too, would become a vegetarian, although my decision was based on no particular reasoning aside from the trendiness it exuded in my teenaged mind.I imagined creating green concoctions in the blender with ingredients that sounded like fashionable baby names — quinoa, kale, spirulina.It should come as no surprise that I was a terrible vegetarian.I know not eating animal protein is wonderful for a number of reasons — health, ethics, animal rights, economics, the environment, taste — yet, being a full-blown vegetarian never seemed to stick for me. Luckily, there are benefits to reducing your intake of meat even if you aren’t a complete vegetarian.Some may not be aware of the various states of semi-vegetarianism, or “flexitarianism” that exist between the seemingly black-and-white diets of meat-eaters and herbivores. There are pescetarians, those who eat fish but no meat or poultry; pollotarians, those who eat chicken but not meat from mammals; and pollo-pescetarians, those who eat fish and poultry but no red meat.I’m by no means advocating that everyone stop eating meat altogether, but by holding off on meat for a single day, you can still do a lot of good for both yourself and the environment. So declares Meatless Mondays, a decade-old non-profit initiative aimed at reducing meat consumption. Meatless Mondays have been instituted at dozens of universities and public school systems across the country.According to the campaign’s official website, if everyone in the U.S. went without meat for a single day, it could save an estimated 272 billion gallons of water and 233 million gallons of gasoline, since it takes significantly more natural resources to produce a pound of beef than it does a pound of soy.While I by no means call myself a vegetarian anymore, to this day I’ve remained conscious of my intake of animal protein. Even if you can’t kick your burger habit, going vegetarian for even one meal a week could do a world of good.— chkent@indiana.eduFollow columnist Chloe Kent on Twitter @the_real_ck.
(08/23/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“Maybe I’ll find a sugar daddy on the internet,” a friend mused ever-so-casually to me while lusting over a pair of $695 Miu Miu slip-ons that struck her in a magazine. She hasn’t, to my knowledge, actually pursued it (the sugar daddy, I mean, not the shoes), but for that to be even a speck of dust on our cultural zeitgeist — something people even express aloud, for that matter — astounded me at the time. “Is that even a thing?” I asked. “People really do that?”She had no answer for me, but as the numbers attest, people do indeed.In March of last year, the IDS published an article about the spike in membership of SeekingArrangement.com. The site connects older “sugar daddies” with so-called “sugar babies,” that is, the traditionally younger female recipient of a wealthy older benefactor, who is usually but not always male. According to the number of school emails registered with the site, IU was ranked 17th in the nation for highest total members, with 62. New York University came in first with 185.While the article equated the rise in membership with increasing college tuition costs, it’s hard for me to believe. There have always been and always will be people in need of money. Does that mean that when the cost of goods and services inflate or the economy takes a dive, young people naturally turn to questionable means of earning income? No way! Do you think people would have been any less interested in the concept 30 years ago when college tuition averaged an astounding 1,120 percent less than it does at present? Again, not a chance. The site gained an audience because people will always jump at the promise of quick and easy money. As long as the opportunities exist, there will always be people who will do morally questionable things for money. That’s nothing new. It does not, however, mean that the site is representative of a larger ethos among college women.Although I do find it disturbing that the seemingly-wholesome, corn-fed farm girl who sat beside me in finite might potentially moonlight as the pet of a local chiropractor, I think these sites represent less about the moral or economic failings of American society than they serve as an example of the ease to which one can find a niche for most any social faction via the internet. From Christian Mingle to JDate, there’s a dating site for every type imaginable — tall people, short people, Democrats, Republicans, cat lovers, dog lovers, Ayn Rand fans, Trekkies, farmers, single parents, Ivy Leaguers, vegans, Apple fans, scientists, people with mental illnesses, STIs, tattoos or mustaches.The popularity of SeekingArrangement.com is not a metaphor for everything wrong with our culture or a sign of impending doom. It’s not galvanizing the masses into adultery or prostitution. It just represents another niche that has cleared itself a space on the internet for people who would have found each other regardless. It is yet another slightly off-putting niche genre in the dating world. Like others before it, this too shall pass.And hey, at least we’re not NYU.— chkent@indiana.eduFollow columnist Chloe Kent on Twitter @the_real_ck.
(05/13/13 12:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On Sunday afternoon, longtime Bloomington staple Oliver Winery invited patrons to delight in the tastes and sounds of Europe with a multi-course menu paired with wines and musical stylings prepared to complement each course.The 32 attendees feasted on four courses paired with two different wines as part of a collaborative partnership with the chefs at Phresh Start — who own Soup’s On — the City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department, Oliver Winery and Studio Forza.Mike Walker is both an Oliver Winery employee and co-founder and artistic director of Studio Forza, which offers private music and art instruction.“We kind of came up with the idea and then we worked with the Parks and Rec Department to put it on,” Walker said. “The chefs came from Phresh Start, we put it on at Oliver Winery with Oliver wines, and teachers from Studio Forza as well as members of an Indianapolis-based opera played. We have a total of nine people performing. It’s a Cabaret-style, so lots of singers, a violin player, pianist, guitar, a French horn ... Chamber music.”In addition to European cheese and local fruit, the menu featured bilini with house-cured salmon, savory rabbit crepe with sautéed vegetables and chives, sweet crepe with local seasonal fruit and house-made whipped cream; deconstructed lamb hash with braised local lamb, hachier of pommes and local assorted root vegetables, fruit torte with apricot glaze, and Greek torte with eggs, spinach, tomato, and feta.“They’re doing it in four different sets featuring four different countries’ music and food paired with wine.” Assistant Training Manager Cathy Vodle-Perez said as she supervised the setting of tables and arrangement of flowers.Given that the two seem like such separate entities, how did Walker pair music with food?“To me, it seems like a natural thing, you know?” Walker said. “If you’re gonna have great food, (have) music to pair with it. We sat down with the chefs to prepare different vignettes of various cultures.“Today we’re doing French, Italian and Irish and came up with a menu that paired well with the music. For instance, when we went to match the characterists of French food with those of French music, we’re doing some fruit and berry crepes, and there’s a whole cooking demonstration on it. They’re light and fluffy, and there’s a lot of those characteristics in French music — light rhythms — so it pairs really well.”
(07/11/12 11:59pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last month, IU’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs signed a memorandum of understanding with the Administrative Staff College of India in Hyderabad, India, which means big things are on the horizon for both the University and its new Indian affiliate.However, if the word “college” conjures images of tailgates and dormitories, think again.“It’s not really a college in the traditional sense of the word,” said Sumit Ganguly, professor of political science who also holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at IU. “The ASCI is an organization run by the government of India that trains bureaucrats for higher levels in the Indian civil service.”Ganguly said he thinks this partnership is important for both sides.“IU and ASCI stands to benefit through these collaborations, through exchanges of students and faculty and through common projects that can be run together,” he said. “We’re really at the beginning of this enterprise, but the first step was the signing of this memorandum of understanding, which provides a legal and institutional basis for collaboration.”SPEA professor and Executive Associate Dean David Reingold outlined four main objectives of the partnership.The first is to develop opportunities to exchange faculty and other personnel across the two organizations. The second is to organize a program on public policy for Indian civil servants.“The idea is to hopefully create a number of opportunities for mid-career civil servants to come to IU and take some classes on things like cost-benefit analysis and program evaluation and some other policy analysis kinds of classes, and then perhaps do some sort of externship,” Reingold said.The third area of collaboration the initiative hopes to get off the ground is the organization of a joint conference on the management of global cities. The event will likely take place next year, but neither a date nor place will be confirmed until mid-August.The final objective, Reingold explained, is finding a way to deliver the online MPA as a professional development opportunity for high-achieving mid-career Indian civil servants through an initiative called SPEA Connect.Along with Dean Reingold, IU Vice President for International Affairs David Zaret and others accompanied President McRobbie on his trip to India in spring as part of the president’s vision of engaging educational and government-run institutions in India, for the benefit of both sides.During the visit, the group had an introductory meeting with ASCI Director General Siripurapu K. Rao to begin discussions.“It was through that conversation that we were able to essentially be the first Western university to partner like this with ASCI,” Reingold said, calling the visit “instrumental” in forging the partnership. While a first for SPEA, this is not the only tie the University has with the country.As Zaret pointed out, “We have almost 800 Indian students who are working towards undergraduate and graduate degrees on Indiana University state campuses. We have well over 2,000 alumni who are Indian citizens. We have many faculty who are of Indian ancestry. These are important connections, and we’re working on connections elsewhere in India.”Both Zaret and Reingold emphasized that the agreement can extend beyond SPEA.“Specialized projects are still in the works,” Reingold said. “We just got the agreement signed last month, and it’s going to take a little bit of time for those projects to emerge, but they will. I think there is great potential for this program to expand to other parts of the University, to other schools. The initial faculty exchange and the jointly organized conferences are intended as first steps that will lay the basis for more collaboration and more exchanges.”Because the academic activities at ASCI are concentrated almost entirely at the graduate and post-graduate levels, the possible implications for undergraduate students are not immediately clear. However, SPEA remains open to plans for expansion to undergraduate students in the future as a longer-term goal. In the meantime, the University will continue to pursue alliances in India and across the globe.“We have about 32 priority countries in the world on which we are concentrating our efforts,” Zaret said, citing China, Turkey, South Korea, Ghana, Kenya and Brazil as examples. “We’re looking to forge agreements with top-notch institutions that create more opportunities for faculty and students. All 32 of our priority countries are important, but the connection to India is indeed special.”
(07/05/12 12:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>To the audience watching William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the entire production seems effortless. But behind the scenes, dozens of people have worked tirelessly to ensure the production’s success. Behind the stage curtains, the crew buzzed with energy: using paintbrushes, hammers and sewing machines to put the final touches on sets and costumes. “The Taming of the Shrew” premieres 7:30 p.m. July 5 at the Wells-Metz Theatre at the IU Department of Theatre and Drama. The show, which is part of the 2012 Indiana Festival Theatre, runs until July 28. “The Taming of the Shrew” will run in conjunction with another comedy, “You Can’t Take It With You.” The casts for both shows are part of a rotating repertory and take multiple roles. “It’s challenging in that you have to rehearse two shows at once and get the scenery, lighting, and costumes all ready at the same time,” said Jonathan Michaelsen, director of "The Taming of the Shrew." “But it’s interesting also because we use the same company. The audience gets to see the actor in two different roles.” The actors are a mix of theater students and professional actors. IU alumna Molly Casey plays Katherina, or Kate, as the shrew. Adam Noble, a member of the Actors’ Equity Association and an assistant professor of movement and combat for the IU Department of Theatre and Drama, plays Petruchio, Kate’s suitor.“The Taming of the Shrew” takes place in a rather unlikely place. The setting is in Florida in present-date, giving it a “spring break-like atmosphere,” Michaelsen said. Adapting Shakespearian plays in unusual eras and locales is nothing new, Michaelsen said. He said he has seen “The Taming of the Shrew” set in the Wild West, the Edwardian and Victorian eras and the 1950s.“We changed some of the language, not a huge amount, but we interspersed it with a lot of technology,” he said. “They have smartphones and things that modern life deals with. We haven’t changed it too much, it’s still pretty straightforward, but it’s a sort of fine line to walk.”Tim Barbiaux, the play’s scenic designer for both “The Taming of the Shrew” and “You Can’t Take It With You,” began making sets at the beginning of June, using a crew of nine designers. “It takes five of us on changeover crew two hours every night to set up,” said John Houtler, a technical designer for the two shows. “We’ve mobilized everything on essentially two giant rolling wagons to make the changes easier from night to night.” Barbiaux built a dual-level 6-by-18-foot long set built on a wagon for quick changes from alternating shows each night. “I modeled the set after a typical beachfront property, using a compass rose motif mixed with a sunburst pattern, both prevalent in Florida,” said Barbiaux. “We used pastel pinks, oranges, and yellows that feel brighter under the stage lights, and foliage everywhere to set the tropical feeling.” In addition to the aesthetic, practicality and mobility are also important considerations that went into the design of the set. “To make it easier, we used indoor and outdoor tile flooring that could conceivably work in a Miami beach home or 1930s brownstone also for ‘You Can’t Take it With You,’” Barbiaux said.Like Barbiaux, Jason Orlenko, the costume deisigner for both of the productions and a recent IU graduate with his masters of fine arts, has selected a tropical color palette in his wardrobe choices for the production. “We wanted it to look like a Lacoste or Tommy Hilfiger ad,” Orlenko said. “White jeans and lounging on the docks.”Each outfit a character will wear on stage represents the careful collaboration between the director and costume designer. “Kate is the rebellious character so black and leather sets her apart from the rest of the ensemble, who wears brightly-colored pants and white shirts,” Orlenko said. At the beginning of “The Taming of the Shrew,” Petruchio is a war veteran and starts in camouflage print, but by the end of the production, he becomes Kate’s equal, and they both wear jeans, leather jackets and motorcycle boots, Orlenko said.Michaelsen said that that is typical for how shows are costumed now. “Build some, buy some, borrow some, rent some,” he said.
(09/08/11 3:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Almost two years ago, a thought occurred to senior Joshua Thomas that seemed unheard of to him at the time. He decided a gay-friendly fraternity should be brought to IU.Existing fraternities cater to various religious and ethnic minorities on campus but, despite the school’s rating as one of the most LGBT-friendly college campuses, there are no collegiate-based “gay-friendly” fraternities. After Thomas assembled a small group of five men for an interest group, the Beta Chapter of Sigma Phi Beta was colonized in 2010. In the following spring, 14 men were initiated as brothers, with twice as many expected to rush this semester. This fall marks Sigma Phi Beta’s first official semester as a recognized chapter on campus, making the fraternity the first successful expansion of the original chapter founded at Arizona State University and the first of its kind in the region.“Sigma Phi’s fall rush follows the tradition of IU’s history of providing supportive communities to various minorities on this campus,” said Doug Bauder, coordinator for the GLBT Student Support Services Office at IU, in an email. “I appreciate the work the men of Sigma Phi Beta are doing to educate the campus. At the same time, I look forward to the day when fraternities welcome men into their fraternities regardless of skin color, religion or sexual orientation.”Sigma Phi Beta offers a place for students who don’t fit into the traditional greek community, said Membership Chairman Jeremy O’Neal, who became involved with the organization last year.Membership is open to anyone who identifies as male, including gay, straight and transgender men. “In a sense, we’re making history,” said O’Neal. “Anyone who rushes is a part of it.”Thomas, who has worked tirelessly to bring his idea to fruition, said he hopes Sigma Phi Beta will be an example for other gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students on campus. “We, as an organization, are currently stepping into a heteronormative society, while at the same time trying to strive to be ourselves within the same community,” said Thomas. “I want us to show everyone that anything is possible no matter what the obstacles are.”