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(12/01/10 2:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It was a time when very few women had faculty positions at IU.A time when there was no childcare system on campus, no policy to deal with maternity leave and no domestic abuse or rape shelter in Bloomington.It was a time of isolation —but it was also a time of action. In 1977, Jean Robinson came to IU as the coordinator of the women’s studies department. The fledgling program had only been around for four years and it didn’t yet offer degree options.“Getting courses about women taught on campus was a real struggle,” Robinson said.But set up in a national era of social progressiveness, protest and women’s liberation, the office in Memorial Hall became much more than a typical academic department.“It kind of became a place for both students and faculty who were interested in the women’s movement to gather,” Robinson said. “In some ways it was pretty radical.”The department, along with a feminist bookstore in Bloomington and the recently established Office of Women’s Affairs, quickly created a small network for the women students and faculty who wanted to make changes in the campus climate, she said.“The offices were a place to gather and Dunn Meadow became the place to protest those issues, to be confrontational about the controversies,” Robinson said.During the late ’70s and into the ’80s, IU women protested both for and against abortion policies, spoke out against sexual assault and harassment, and demanded a sense of security on a campus that had seen far too many assaults and rapes.In 1988, a group of students erected a rape crisis shantytown in Dunn Meadow to comment on lack of safety. They set up tent-like structures plastered with signs about rape and camped out for days.“The number of people who spent the night was very small. It was more about the messages they were displaying,” said former Dean of Students Richard McKaig. “This was ‘we have as much of a right to be out late at night and not be afraid of rape as you do.’”The shantytown and other acts of insistence resulted in the creation of the Sexual Assault Crisis Service, where counselors would be on call 24 hours a day to assist assault victims, according to an article from the Herald-Times in August 1988.Former member of IU-Bloomington Women’s Collective Ruth Walker was quoted in the article saying, “Embarrassing the University by erecting a shanty in Dunn Meadow has worked, bureaucracies don’t do anything unless they’re forced to.”Robinson said there was a very effective coalition between women students and faculty in place as the campus safety issue gained momentum in the ’80s. Women’s Wheels, a campus transportation service for women, was started because of the coalition, in addition to the rape crisis line run through IU’s Counseling and Psychological Services, she said.In 1998, Robinson became dean of the Office of Women’s Affairs and began working alongside then assistant dean of the office, Carol McCord.“The role of the office at that time was to work for and with women on campus to identify barriers to campus opportunities and work to overcome them,” McCord said.By the late ’90s, women’s issues on campus had changed quite dramatically.“In the late ’70s, feminism was really alive and we really achieved a lot, from more women getting promoted to students feeling like they had more control over their lives,” Robinson said. “But when I became dean feminism wasn’t as visible.”The office was still dealing with cases of sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace, but the tone was much different.“It’s more subtle which is good and bad news,” McCord said. “When it’s so subtle that you can’t prove it, it’s harder to helppeople.”These quiet injustices that became the norm in the ’90s still dominate the gender scene today.“There’s a lot of reasons why you would look around and think we don’t need this office,” McCord said. “But clearly we’re not past our problems yet. That glass ceiling is still around.”McCord said there has still never been a female IU president, a female dean for the School of Education or for the College of Arts and Sciences.“Within the last 20 years that I’ve been here I’ve known all of the women deans on this campus,” McCord said. “That’s scary to me.”Bias, stereotypes and sexism are harder to articulate today, and in combination with the term ‘feminist‘ taking on a very negative societal connotation, McCord said.She said she thinks there has been a backsliding in women’s progress. There’s been a transformation from a women’s culture in the ’70s of solidarity and sisterhood, she said, to a culture where women are encouraged to not speak up and not stand up for one another.“To protest as a group you have to be solid as a group,” McCord said.The one demonstration that has seemed to withstand the test of time has been Take Back the Night — yearly domestic abuse rallies that have taken place in Dunn Meadow for more than 10 years. However, attendance through the years has waned significantly, she said.“The sexual assault issue should be made better because there are more women on campus, but it’s not,” McCord said. “Women still feel ashamed and embarrassed to bring up sexual assault.”Though challenges still remain, the unity of campus women during turbulent years and the existence of a space where thought could be turned into action have had an immeasurable effect.“I do think the world is a better place for women now than it was 30 years ago,” Robinson said.
(11/04/10 4:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Freshman Tianyi Xu left Hanjin, China, traveled across the world and moved into McNutt Quad in August.But she said she still feels like she lives in China.“I don’t have the feeling I’m in another country because I am surrounded by Asians,” she said.University housing policies can contribute to the isolation and subsequent self-segregation of international students on campus. Some residence halls have too many international students, while some have too few and a sort of double-edged sword sometimes ensues. “If there are too many students from any one country, they can rely on each other so much that they form their own subgroup and don’t reach out,” said John Galuska, director of the Foster International Living-Learning Center. “If there are too few students from one country, they become isolated.”He said this sometimes happens with groups of Chinese students that live in the same dorm. The Foster LLC has 40 students from China this year.“They become a force of their own,” Galuska said.Sara Ivey Lucas, assistant director for housing assignments for Residential Programs and Services, said about 130 international students were assigned to Forest Residence Center this year, in contrast with the 35 assigned to McNutt Quad. One of the reasons for this is because of admission acceptance and registration dates.“They’re on a different time line than U.S. students. Their time line for acceptance is much later,” Galuska said. “This leads to some strange housing situations.”A great deal of the students assigned to Forest were placed there because they applied later, and because most overflow housing was available in that dorm, Ivey Lucas said.Most international students do not apply for housing until the spring and summer before their first year, Ivey Lucas said.Of the 721 international students that arrived early to campus, 400 applied in April and May, 100 applied in June and the rest applied in July and August. Domestic students, she said, will apply as early as November.“It’s hard to take care of those international students that apply in July, but it’s just as hard to take care of the domestic students that also apply in July,” Ivey Lucas said.She said the housing department treats international students just like domestic students in regards to assignments. The earlier they register, the more likely it is they will get their first choice. “It’s really much more evenly distributed than people believe,” Ivey Lucas said.She said the problem boils down to preconceived notions and rumors of where all the international students should live — which dorms are “international dorms.”“My staff is trying to dispel the rumors that every group has it’s pipeline and feeder system,” Ivey Lucas said. “Everyone falls into the same kind of trap.”She said she and her staff do their best to find out where each international students’ interests lie and try to recommend a dorm that will be most supportive.“Just because you’re a Chinese student doesn’t mean your necessarily interested in global business or in sharing your heritage with similar students,” Ivey Lucas said.Despite the extra steps taken to avoid stereotypes, a change in the system could benefit international students. “I don’t feel lonely,” Xu said. “But actually it’s like a circle that we would like to get out of.”
(09/08/10 4:25am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“Welcome. You are in the classroom.”The PowerPoint presentation for today’s Survey of Hip Hop lecture had begun. Classroom banter trickled to a halt — business as usual.Professor Fernando Orejuela stared out at his 200 students but he saw no one.Orejuela’s classroom might be more accurately described as, business unusual.His classroom is not lodged in a stuffy corner somewhere in Ballantine Hall. It is not plugged up with dozens of sweaty, preoccupied students sitting much too close together.It is a virtual classroom.Orejuela sits comfortably in his office, from 4 to 5:15 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, to deliver his lectures via Web conference. The students log in, put on their headphones and enter the virtual space where they can see their professor, watch the corresponding slides and hear the MP3s playing different samples of hip-hop music.“It was an experiment at first, but it seems to work well,” Orejuela said. “Your generation seems to communicate well in this environment.” Virtual classrooms such as Orejuela’s are asserting a — figurative — presence on campus.Alternative class settings are increasing in both demand and execution — from mild integration, such as the incorporation of interactive blogs — to complete upheaval of the traditional classroom. “It’s so dispersed,” said Margaret Ricci, instructional technology consultant for IU’s Teaching and Learning Technologies Centers. “Everyone’s doing their own thing. There’s all kinds of stuff, all over campus.”Ricci became flustered about the number of courses and professors integrating innovative technology such as Web conferences.“Good luck getting that figure,” she said. “It’s not coordinated at all.”It may take time to grasp the big picture, she said, because many professors are experimenting with the technology in their own way.Orejuela, for example, has been teaching his class online since 2006 but it continues to advance technologically.“It was sort of discovered by accident,” he said. “We discovered through trial and error that we could put up PowerPoints, then we discovered that we could play MP3s.”Orejuela said the nature of the class was particularly conducive to the new technology. Because it’s a hip hop class, he said, the music played can have has deep, loud bass and potentially offensive lyrics. This could be disruptive to neighboring classes in Ballantine.More important, he said, was the size of the class. The ability to transform a 200-student lecture hall into a more personal experience became his focus.“I can talk more to my students in this environment that I ever could in Ballantine Hall,” Orejuela said. Senior and member of the class, Eric de la Rosa, agreed.“It feels like a more one-on-one experience,” he said. “In a lecture hall everyone can see you, stare at you. Here, it’s not as scary if you have something to say.”But completely depending on technology to run a classroom is not seamless. Orejuela said the chat room is where students can comment, and it sometimes gets chaotic. Having two teaching assistants troubleshoot during class time is necessary.“If they’re talking non-stop, we can keep clearing the chat room. They get the idea quickly and they shut up,” Orejuela said.The technology itself can also be a problem. Students are instructed to use a landline, instead of wireless internet to download a specific Adobe Flash application to avoid breaks in the music and Orejuela’s voice.De la Rosa said sometimes students will get booted off or experience other technical problems. But it was usually because they weren’t following the correct procedure.“If a student decides to open up Facebook, they’ll mess up the lecture on their end. It will mess up the feed,” Orejuela said. “My assistant usually finds out that their doing something else on their computer.”Both Orejuela and Ricci said the benefits usually outweigh the potential costs, especially for large lectures. Terry Hutchens, adjunct faculty member of IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, is experimenting with Web conferences for the first time. Hutchens teaches Sports Writing at both IUPUI and IU Bloomington.Hutchens has taught the course 15 times since 1990 at in Indianapolis, where he lives and works for the Indianapolis Star.This semester Hutchens is combining two classrooms — one in Indianapolis and one in Bloomington. One day a week he is in Ernie Pyle Hall working face-to-face with his students. His classroom at IUPUI is video-conferenced in. The second day of class, his Bloomington students are projected on the big screen in Indianapolis.“I can always see the guys lounging on the couch in the back when I’m in Indy,” Hutchens said, smiling.Hutchens said the biggest advantage of his joint classroom was reaching more students. In the past, Hutchens’ class hovered around five to eight students each semester. Now, he has 22 total — 11 on each campus. “You’re able to reach more people,” he said.Orejuela said it would be beneficial for large lectures to try the virtual lecture technology, but anticipates resistance.“The older faculty are afraid of the technology,” he said. “There’s all this multitasking that has to take place.”At this point, Ricci said the administration is not pushing professors to add these technologies, though some individual departments are. Hutchens seemed optimistic about growth in this area.“I’d like to be able to type on the computer screen so they can see it in Indy too,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a way.”
(09/06/10 3:25am)
Check out a list of recent book titles written by members of IU faculty.
(08/26/10 4:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Freshman Mariah Highbaugh is waiting for the moment when she can finally tell her parents to leave. For her, move-in is not some sappy, bittersweet ritual – it’s a new step that was a long time coming.“I have been really excited for a really long time,” she said. “I’m not nervous at all.”Her father David Highbaugh shares similar sentiments. Somewhat out of character for a parent on move-in day, he said he was not concerned about the looming "good-bye."“She’s really independent,” he said. “I didn’t raise no chumps.”***The Highbaughs have been moving Mariah into her new dorm for more than an hour. The mound of plastic storage units, 24-packs of root beer and the mess of computer cables that sat teetering on the curb in front of Read Center is finally starting to recede.“I might have brought too many shoes,” Mariah said. “This whole suitcase is shoes.”Though coming to a close smoothly, the move-in was not without obstacles. Mariah and David slid into campus rather easily, somehow avoiding the dreaded 10th Street traffic and directional confusion. Mariah’s mom Kim Highbaugh was not so lucky.“Your mom is still lost,” David said. “She’s slow, dude.”Conversation is chaotic. Thoughts are scattered.“I forgot a toothbrush.” “Kim, you needed to turn right.”The elevator is too small for the group that has been waiting, after they were stranded on the wrong floor.Mariah said she is eager to set up her room, meet her roommate and most of all, to get the week rolling.“I want to meet people,” Mariah said. “I originally wanted to go to a college where I knew no one at all.”David interjects after overhearing his enthusiastic daughter. “Where can a man get a can of pepper spray around here?”Kim finally arrives.“It was too hard to find,” she said. “I don’t like campus. It’s too busy.”The goodbye is drawing nearer. Despite her dad’s pushing, Mariah doesn’t think she’ll go to the Freshman Induction Ceremony.“I think that sounds like a bit too much,” she said.Mariah’s older brother is now a senior at Purdue University. With a “been there, done that” philosophy, David said he is ready to let his daughter go.“She needs to get out there and fly a little bit,” he said. The room is settled, the car empty and true to their non-emotional pledges, Mariah’s parents are ready to leave – but not before they get some food.“I smelled some garlic over on Atwater,” David said, “That’s where I’m looking to go.”
(04/22/10 2:59am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Tim Baumann stares transfixed at a small, dusty piece of broken pottery. The object is imprinted with half-crescent designs that were made by someone’s fingernail.“Look at this personal connection,” he said, placing his own fingernails in the markings. “I’m touching exactly where they once touched.”Baumann, the curator of Collections at the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archeology, described this as his passion — getting to know ancient people.The Laboratory of Archeology at IU, somewhat out of view on the side streets of campus, breeds that kind of passion; a passion that is based on a legacy.The laboratory was established in 1965 thanks to a large endowment from Eli Lilly. While most know Lilly for his booming pharmaceutical business, Lilly was quite the archeologist. In fact, he is considered to be the founder of Indiana archeology, Baumann said.Today the lab is run almost completely on an additional endowment from Lilly. The lab houses more than 10,000 collections that date back to the late 19th century. The collections are made up of millions of artifacts, almost too many to count.Lilly is responsible for everything that the lab and the program has and does, said Interim Director and Senior Research Scientist at the lab, William Monaghan.But that legacy is in danger of being lost as records and artifacts decay with time.While the main role of the laboratory staff members is to conduct research in the field of archeology, a perhaps more important role is preserving what has already been found.“We have to take care of these artifacts forever,” Monaghan said. “Not for a year, not for a century, but forever.”Monaghan pulls out a tattered box from the stacks. The box is filled with artifacts from Angel Mounds that are wrapped in paper bags. On those paper bags is an ink stamp explaining the history and properties of each item. This box is one of the hundreds stacked in the small room in the basement of the lab.“Every minute it sits here, it’s disappearing,” Monaghan said. “We can’t do the science if we lose the history.”The lab is currently searching for a grant that will enable them to revamp the collections. The ink stamps need to be archived and the artifacts need to be repackaged in acid-free containers, Baumann said.“We’re trying to be like Eli Lilly and carry on his legacy,” Baumann said. “But we’re just not as rich.”He estimated the project would cost a few million dollars.“I just hope they listen,” Monaghan said, gently sliding the box back into place.Once a grant is obtained the project will likely take a few years to complete.Updating and preserving is crucial because the laboratory contains some of the most developed and extensive collections in the world. For example, the lab has the largest collection of negative painted pots, where color is added by making prints.The lab sees researchers that come from all over to study records and objects. The lab also houses material from nearly every federal agency that owns land in Indiana.In October the lab will see research archeologists from all over the world at the Midwest Archeological Conference. A conference of that scale has not happened since 1978.“We hope a new summary volume on Indiana archeology will come out of that,” Monaghan said. “The last time that was done was in 1937 because of Eli Lilly.”For Baumann preserving the artifacts is about preserving a culture. “Material culture is the way to get at and understand the culture of the people.”
(04/14/10 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sophomore Luke Walker describes archeology as a field where one can get paid to discover history, paid to rewrite textbooks.Recent research by IU archeologists further proves Walker’s idealized description.Long-held beliefs about Thomas Jefferson’s dream home, Monticello, in Virginia have been revamped thanks to an IU team that spent spring break conducting field research on the plantation. They discovered that Jefferson changed the original land surface of Monticello more drastically than previous archeologists and historians believed— about 25,000 cubic feet more, said William Monaghan, interim director and senior research scientist at the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archeology at IU. It was Monaghan, Walker and undergraduate student Joel Marshall that conducted the research during break. “We could see the original ground line where Jefferson dumped fill,” Monaghan said. “There was two to three times more fill there than everybody thought.”The IU team was helping with a long-term project at Monticello called the Monticello Plantation Archeological Survey, a project that is being carried out by archeologists from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. The purpose of the survey is to discover what Monticello looked like before Jefferson lived there and what it looked like after he restructured it, Monaghan said. The ultimate goal is to get the property back to Jefferson’s original vision in order to improve the site’s historical accuracy. “We want to provide our visitors with a more accurate historical representation of Monticello,” said Sara Bon-Harper, archeological research manager at Monticello.Monaghan and his two field assistants, Walker and Marshall, were given a grant to join Monticello archeologists and work on a specific part of the survey dubbed “the kitchen road project.”They used two state of the art methods to uncover the location of two roads, one leading to the kitchen, that Jefferson created in the 1800s and have since been lost, buried under layers and layers of time and restructuring. One of these techniques was a process known to archeologists as electrical resistivity. The process involves injecting electricity into the ground at certain points to measure how easily currents can pass through. They were looking for areas of earth with high resistivity, areas that told them where gravel could be located. And where there is gravel, there were likely once roads, Monaghan said.Once those spots were identified, a physical core of the ground would be removed for closer examination. Bon-Harper said their work allowed Monticello archeologists to more carefully place excavation sites based on where roads were likely located.At these sites, the Monticello archeologists hope to restructure the roads, which have been officially located. The next step is for the foundation to approve the rebuilding, Bon-Harper said. But the “kitchen road project” became about more than just roads.An offshoot was the discovery that Jefferson did a great deal more restructuring to the land than once thought. In order to create his ideal plantation, Jefferson had to manually flatten the top of Monticello Mountain, Monaghan said. He scraped away from certain areas, and added to others. The original roads were much further below current ground level, and the IU team brought this to light.Now archeologists are wondering why Jefferson added so much fill, and where that fill came from. “Every time you go out and research new questions come up,” Monaghan said. “An archeological site is never static.”Though Monaghan’s portion of the project is complete, the total survey of the plantation will likely take a lifetime, he said.It has been going on for more than a decade.“We’re looking at parts of history for which there are incomplete records,” Monaghan said. “You’ll find that a lot of details in life weren’t really kept in records.”
(04/08/10 4:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Josh Stewart dreams of going to South Africa and researching the current sardine migration; he hopes to help save the leatherback turtle in Indonesia; and he aspires to film thought-provoking documentaries about environmental conservation.But his dreams are different than most because his are now a reality. About to become IU’s first marine biology graduate, Stewart, a senior was recently named the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society’s 2010 North American Rolex Scholar, an honor given to one student a year. Scholars are also chosen from Europe and Australia.Stewart said the goal of the scholarship is to explore potential career paths. Though currently interested in marine conservation, the award will allow him to travel the globe and meet experts on a variety of topics.“It could provide us with experiences or things we never thought we were interested in,” Stewart said. The scholarship will take Stewart to multiple countries over the course of one year. He will do marine biology fieldwork that will help him in his research. Though his travel will focus on North America, he also plans to go to South Africa and the South Pacific.Stewart described the program as a series of internships through a network of researchers who are on the cutting edge of marine biology. Directors of the program help the scholars plan and set up their year, Stewart said.Stewart leaves Saturday for New York to begin the program that will run until next April. Though not finalized, he plans to first go to South Africa to study predatory behavior associated with sardine migration. He will stay there for about a month. Claudia Johnson, director of graduate studies and one of Stewart’s sponsors, described the Rolex scholarship as incredibly prestigious and competitive.Stewart is unique because he is the first marine biology major at IU and that helped him receive this scholarship, she said. More than 600 miles from the nearest coast, IU is not the ideal school for a marine biology major. Stewart, a New York native, planned to study biology at IU and then move on to a research university on the coast to pursue his oceanic aspirations. But after taking Introduction to Scuba with Director of the Office of Underwater Science Charles Beeker, Stewart met with advisors in the Individualized Major Program to create a marine biology major for himself.Stewart is now teaching the course that originally inspired him.“That’s the flexibility of the IMP program,” Johnson said. “It allows students to take their intellectual and creative potential and develop it into something of their own.”Beeker is Stewart’s other sponsor. Both Beeker and Johnson help him select courses, design his research and carry out his projects. Johnson said the marine biology major stemmed naturally from current research at IU. She researches coral reefs and Beeker works in underwater archaeology. “He sort of combined what the two of us were researching,” Johnson said.Stewart was able to take a combination of biology and underwater science courses to construct his major. In addition, he studied abroad in Australia to take courses that weren’t offered at IU. He gained field research experience by traveling to the Dominican Republic during the summers. Though he said it was challenging, Stewart said he thinks there were more advantages than disadvantages in creating his own major. The biggest benefit was that he was the only one studying it.“I never had to fight to be a research assistant like I would if I went to a school like the University of Southern California where everyone is a marine biology major,” he said.Because of that, Stewart was able to work on multiple projects such as Captain William Kidd’s 17th-century shipwreck. Now, other students are following Stewart’s footsteps in pursuit of a marine biology degree at IU. Stewart said he knows of at least two students who have begun working with IMP advisors.Stewart is fueled by his passion. He said that seeing degraded environments and disappearing animals has inspired him to put all his energy into conservation.“What’s the point of research if there is nothing to research?” Stewart said.
(04/05/10 5:14pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Melanie Baird hated math in high school, but not for the reasons most people do. For her, math was just too easy. Now Baird, a graduate student studying math at IU, is undertaking a feat slightly more challenging than high school algebra. Beyond the coursework, Baird now faces other challenges. Gender stereotypes associated with being a female math major can take their toll. “Even my parents were surprised when I told them I wanted to major in math,” Baird said. “Most people think of the typical math major as a small, geeky guy. I don’t exactly fit that mold.”Blonde and slender, Baird described the math department at IU as predominantly male. She has never had a female math professor, and most of the math extracurriculars have little to no female participation.“There are a lot of activities that the guys will do, but as a girl I just don’t really participate,” Baird said.Senior Mutsa Mutembwa, a math and economics major, noticed the disparity most heavily in upper-level courses. She said in a 14-student class, there are likely to be only two or three women.Baird thinks the lack of female influence likely has to do with society’s perception of jobs that math majors fill.“It’s a stigma that math jobs are very industry-based,” she said. “Most lab jobs are male-dominated.”Baird wants to be an insurance analyst when she graduates, which she says doesn’t exactly break that stigma.But there’s a possibility that the stereotype is simply a result of differing gender interests.“Many females tend to go towards traditional female majors because that is what they’re interested in,” Mutembwa said.Regardless of the reason, the gap has pushed females into a minority position. Katrina Reynolds, director of student and staff advocacy for the Office of Women’s Affairs, said the biggest challenges are not only getting female students interested in the major, but also getting them to stay in the major. Being a female on the male-dominated scene, she said, leads many women to switch majors.Baird said being in the minority isn’t all bad.“There is a stereotype of it being a very male-dominated field, so being a female helps a lot,” Baird said. “They’re looking for diversity. I’m white and a female — that’s definitely an edge.”She said being female has almost always been an advantage.“I almost felt like I was favored,” Baird said. “They’re really excited when they get a girl.”Though Mutembwa described the situation as challenging, she said she has gained valuable skills as a result.“It just made me more independent,” she said. “You learn how to communicate better with both sexes.”Baird said she is slowly starting to see a change in the amount of women who study math. For example, four years ago, when she was an undergraduate math student at Brigham Young University, the male domination was far more prevalent than it is at IU.Mutembwa credits this slight increase in female participation in math and science to the job market.“There’s an increasing demand for those majors, and that is encouraging for anyone,” she said. The Office of Women’s Affairs hopes to create a stronger support system to encourage women to go into and remain in these majors. Though there might be some progress in breaking the stereotype, Baird said there is surely a long way to go.“It takes society a long time to change,” she said. “This is a stigma that is going to take a while to get rid of.”Mutembwa said she remains hopeful.“At the end of the day, the guys know we’re equal, and that’s all that matters.”Melanie Baird hated math in high school, but not for the reasons most people do. For her, math was just too easy. Now Baird, a graduate student studying math at IU, is undertaking a feat slightly more challenging than high school algebra. Beyond the coursework, Baird now faces other challenges. Gender stereotypes associated with being a female math major can take their toll. “Even my parents were surprised when I told them I wanted to major in math,” Baird said. “Most people think of the typical math major as a small, geeky guy. I don’t exactly fit that mold.”Blonde and slender, Baird described the math department at IU as predominantly male. She has never had a female math professor, and most of the math extracurriculars have little to no female participation.“There are a lot of activities that the guys will do, but as a girl I just don’t really participate,” Baird said.Senior Mutsa Mutembwa, a math and economics major, noticed the disparity most heavily in upper-level courses. She said in a 14-student class, there are likely to be only two or three women.Baird thinks the lack of female influence likely has to do with society’s perception of jobs that math majors fill.“It’s a stigma that math jobs are very industry-based,” she said. “Most lab jobs are male-dominated.”Baird wants to be an insurance analyst when she graduates, which she says doesn’t exactly break that stigma.But there’s a possibility that the stereotype is simply a result of differing gender interests.“Many females tend to go towards traditional female majors because that is what they’re interested in,” Mutembwa said.Regardless of the reason, the gap has pushed females into a minority position. Katrina Reynolds, director of student and staff advocacy for the Office of Women’s Affairs, said the biggest challenges are not only getting female students interested in the major, but also getting them to stay in the major. Being a female on the male-dominated scene, she said, leads many women to switch majors.Baird said being in the minority isn’t all bad.“There is a stereotype of it being a very male-dominated field, so being a female helps a lot,” Baird said. “They’re looking for diversity. I’m white and a female — that’s definitely an edge.”She said being female has almost always been an advantage.“I almost felt like I was favored,” Baird said. “They’re really excited when they get a girl.”Though Mutembwa described the situation as challenging, she said she has gained valuable skills as a result.“It just made me more independent,” she said. “You learn how to communicate better with both sexes.”Baird said she is slowly starting to see a change in the amount of women who study math. For example, four years ago, when she was an undergraduate math student at Brigham Young University, the male domination was far more prevalent than it is at IU.Mutembwa credits this slight increase in female participation in math and science to the job market.“There’s an increasing demand for those majors, and that is encouraging for anyone,” she said. The Office of Women’s Affairs hopes to create a stronger support system to encourage women to go into and remain in these majors. Though there might be some progress in breaking the stereotype, Baird said there is surely a long way to go.“It takes society a long time to change,” she said. “This is a stigma that is going to take a while to get rid of.”Mutembwa said she remains hopeful.“At the end of the day, the guys know we’re equal, and that’s all that matters.”
(04/02/10 3:36am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Anyone who has driven down I-65 knows the monotony of the long, flat two-lane road characterized by farmland, trashy billboards and bad fast food.Assistant professor Stephen Selka knows this only too well.Commuting from Chicago to Bloomington every Monday, Selka says his biggest challenge is finding decent food on the road.“If I don’t pack a meal, it’s fast food,” Selka said, sighing. “Fast food was fun, of course, for the first couple of weeks.”But it’s been three years since Selka began making this trek — four hours each direction on I-65.Selka is one of the many professors at IU who routinely commutes to campus. Selka remains in Bloomington until Thursday night. During the week, he rents a room in a friend’s house, and on the weekends he returns home to his wife, who is a professor at the University of Chicago.“We both have good jobs in different cities; it’s a pretty common situation,” Selka said. “Good jobs are hard to come by and are tough to give up.”Erika Dowell, president of the Bloomington Faculty Council, said this problem is not uncommon at IU.“Indiana is pretty far removed from other institutions,” she said. “It’s an issue when faculty couples can’t find jobs in the same town ... let alone tenure track jobs at research universities.”Journalism professor Tom French’s wife works for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, while he is busy teaching 1,000 miles north at IU’s campus. French resides in Bloomington on weekdays and flies to St. Petersburg, Fla., on Fridays. This is his first year at IU.“It’s insane a little bit,” French said. “You have to get used to being in two places all the time. I get landscape-jagged.”Dowell said there are concerns that traveling professors are not as active or as available outside the classroom, but it’s a trade-off.“It’s a wonderful opportunity to have someone here who is a world-class performer or an expert in the field, even if they can’t relocate completely,” she said.School of Public and Environmental Affairs adjunct professor David Cox agrees. Cox lives in Illinois but teaches at IU on Mondays.Cox is a practicing lawyer Tuesday through Friday.He has been balancing work and academia like this for 10 years. To him, the combination is synergistic.“Because I practice in the areas of environmental and energy law, I can share practical experiences with my students,” Cox said.These professors credit the Internet for keeping them connected to their students despite separation. Clarinet instructor Eric Hoeprich’s, job is not only eased by the internet, it is dependent on it.Hoeprich is a professional freelance clarinet player in London, though he teaches courses at IU, making three week-long trips to campus each semester. When he’s not in Bloomington, Hoeprich contacts his students through e-mail and Skype if they need help.“It gives them a sense of independence,” he said. “It’s kind of a big deal when I come back, and they know that I am going to expect that they’ve done something.”Cox said he relies on help from his assistant instructors on a daily basis. When necessary, he remains in Bloomington to attend meetings or address concerns with students.Senior Lecturer of Marketing Ann Bastianelli runs into similar issues. She is a full-time professor at IU and is also an active business consultant in Indianapolis. Bastianelli crams all of her classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but she said it makes for very long days, beginning and ending in Indianapolis in the wee hours of the morning or the darkest hours of the night.Travel costs for these professors can be astronomical, and they said the University does not directly compensate. For many, time will tell whether the situation remains to be worthwhile financially. “Every year the head of the department says it is getting hard with money,” Hoeprich said. “I am very realistic. I don’t know how long I’ll be teaching.”Despite financial and physical costs, the instructors seem unwilling to give up their place at IU.Cox said he plans to finish up his law practicing days in the next two years and make Bloomington his permanent home.“IU has enabled me to accomplish all the things that I have in my life,” he said. “When I was given the opportunity to give back, I knew it was the right thing to do.”Selka said he plans to continue juggling his travel schedule, and continue eating bad fast food on I-65, indefinitely.“I’ll do it for as long as I can keep it up,” he said.
(03/26/10 3:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Marcus Moir did all he could to yank his children away from the television screen and get them behind the massive telescope at the observatory on Kirkwood on Wednesday night. His efforts failed, but that did not stop Moir from gazing into the sky at Mars himself.Moir strained to see the elusive planet disappearing behind the thick clouds rapidly blanketing the night sky.“We’re losing it,” one of the tower volunteers shouted.The season opening of the Kirkwood Observatory was cut short Wednesday night because of a foggy sky, but IU students and local community members caught a glimpse of Mars anyway.The planet is positioned particularly well in the sky right now for viewing, graduate student volunteer Tala Monroe said.“Mars Night” marked the first in a series of Wednesdays when the public is invited to stargaze with the help of astronomy graduate students. The public nights will go on until Thanksgiving break of next semester and range in time depending on the sunset.The goal of the astronomy department is to reach out to the community, said astronomy department Outreach Coordinator Jessica Windschitl.“Astronomy is science for everyone,” Monroe said. “This is a way for us to share our science with the public.”An amateur astronomer, Moir comes to the observatory to pursue his interests outside his profession.More than 100 years old, the outdated observatory is no longer used for research purposes, so community use is its main function. IU astronomy research mainly takes place at the WIYN Tower in Tucson, Arizona.Wednesday night at the Kirkwood observatory was also geared toward younger audiences with 3-D images of Mars plastered along the tower walls and a mini Mars rover replica that is controlled through a computer monitor.About 20 students and Bloomington residents came to the event before the session prematurely ended. Sometimes the public nights see more than 100 visitors, Monroe said.Monroe has been volunteering at the observatory for a few years now. She is in her seventh year of graduate studies in the astronomy department.“As professional astronomers in training, we spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer,” Monroe said. “This allows us to reconnect with the night sky.”
(03/11/10 4:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bennett Bertenthal’s surprise resignation from the position of dean of the College of Arts and Sciences on Tuesday left many questions unanswered. Bertenthal will step down Friday at the request of University administrators, just days after announcing he will leave the post.Bertenthal alluded to his reasons for resigning in an e-mail he sent to the faculty and staff of the College Monday.In the e-mail, Bertenthal said differences in opinion between members of the University administration led to his resignation. He said goals for the College were being compromised.“The achievement of these goals is often fraught with very tough decisions, especially in a down-turned economy,” he said in the e-mail.Multiple meetings Wednesday between administration members and faculty added little to the understanding of the swift change in leadership.“The question was asked and there was no explanation,” said John Lucaites, IU professor and member of the Arts and Sciences Policy Committee.Lack of information has led to speculation about the sudden announcement.Several faculty members said Bertenthal and Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson routinely disagreed on budget issues, including cuts Bertenthal made to graduate fellowship funding.“The dean made decisions that caused concern among faculty,” said Erika Dowell, president of the Bloomington Faculty Council. “Many of these decisions dealt with how the college responds to budget cuts.”In Wednesday’s meetings, Lucaites said Hanson repeatedly stated the resignation was not due to differences in opinion about policy, but graduate fellowship funding is the first item on Interim Dean David Zaret’s agenda.Several faculty members are concerned Bertenthal’s mid-semester resignation could be a distraction.“The faculty is very unsettled by the speed and time at which this was done,” Lucaites said. “When the faculty is anxious, it makes it harder to do their jobs.”Hanson said there is never a good time to carry out drastic changes such as this because the administrative year is really 12 months long. But this week seemed to be a strategically good time.“A number of things just concluded and a number of things, including budget construction for the next year, are about to begin,” Hanson said.Zaret, an IU faculty member since 1977, will take over as interim dean until a replacement can be found. Hanson said a faculty committee will conduct the search that will likely take a year.She said the goal during Zaret’s tenure is stability, acknowledging the fears of many faculty members.“Zaret spoke strongly about moving forward, the watch word being continuity,” Lucaites said, “I guess moving forward sounds good.”
(03/10/10 1:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU’s Kelley School of Business moved up one place to 19th in Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine’s most recent rankings of undergraduate business programs around the nation. Kelley School Dean Dan Smith said he thinks the main reason for the rise is higher SAT scores of incoming students, a factor BusinessWeek weighs heavily, he said. The increase in scores was no accident. Smith said the business school has been actively placing more emphasis on recruiting students with the highest scores from the nation’s top schools.“Over the past three to four years we have needed to increase our SAT scores to be competitive with the top business schools, many of which are private and are able to secure considerably higher scoring students,” Smith said.After evaluation, Kelley maintained its “A” grade for its career services operations and also received an “A” grade for teaching quality, according to an IU press release. Smith said a goal of the Kelley School was to remain in the top 20 in the future. Since BusinessWeek has conducted these rankings, Kelley has been placed in the top 20. This year’s rankings were announced on March 4.“It matters to a lot of parents and prospective students when they are making tough decisions,” Smith said.He said higher rankings lead to more competitive applications. “We still admit the same amount of students,” Smith said. “The difference is that we’re seeing a lot more applications from stronger candidates.”Smith remains confident that IU’s Kelley School is worthy of the ranking, placing second among Big Ten schools and seventh among business programs at public universities, according to the release.“The greatest strength is our collaborative culture,” Smith said. “Students and faculty work together for a common goal, to produce the best young professionals that we can possibly produce.”He said when that goal is accomplished, rankings tend to take care of themselves.
(03/08/10 1:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Strengthening understanding to solve complex problems is the goal of research in nearly every field of study, from math to science and even to sex. Though similar in theory, studies about sex might involve a little something more. “In a field like this, it’s about going beyond numbers and data,” graduate student Lindsay Briggs said.Briggs, along with five other IU students, plan to conduct somewhat unorthodox research dealing with sex, gender and reproduction this year. The various studies are being partially funded by $750 Kinsey Institute Student Research Grants, designed to support sex-related graduate research.Grant recipient Andrew Hendrickson plans to research how women choose their sexual partners.“What’s really exciting is that if we understand how people make decisions related to sex, we can intervene in a way that’s easier and more effective,” Hendrickson said.He said he will be looking at what sorts of factors predict risky behaviors, such as those associated with STDs.“The goal is to improve clinical practices,” Hendrickson said. “If we find out that a 14-year-old girl is more prone to making risky choices than an 18-year-old is, we can determine better methods of prevention.”Prevention is a theme among grant scholars this year. Briggs plans to travel to Nigeria with her grant money to interview college-age locals with the goal of finding HIV prevention programs that are successful across cultures.“I want to start thinking at a more grassroots level,” Briggs said. “Finding out what people are thinking and feeling in regards to sexual partners and HIV.”Briggs wants to focus on how Western prevention programs might not translate cross-culturally.She plans to leave for Nigeria in July and conduct research for the next six months.IU students are not the only ones benefitting from the Kinsey grants.Kinsey Institute communications director, Jennifer Bass, said the grants were opened up last year to allow students from all over the country to apply.This year more than 40 graduate students applied for the grant. Three IU students and three non-IU students received the award.The Kinsey Institute hopes to continue the program for unconventional research in the future, Bass said.“We would love to expand the program and provide more funding for more students,” she said. “Students need support to conduct research like this, and good research puts our field of study at an advantage.”The Institute has made a point of supporting sex research, though the topic is often overlooked, Hendrickson said. “This project wouldn’t happen without funding,” he said. “It is an interesting project, but it is also risky.”
(02/24/10 4:27am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU’s campus will become a guinea pig for a brand new networking Web site, CultureU, that will debut in September. The site is designed to be a cultural network for college students, as opposed to one that’s purely social. Kelley School of Business Senior Lecturer Richard Schrimper is fueling the project that he said he hopes will expand across the country.“The goal is to provide a platform for students to get their talents out in the world in a somewhat professional setting,” Schrimper said.He said the Web site will allow students to build their cultural profiles and post work based on their specific focus or interests. It will be a place for peers to comment on each others’ work and for employers to seek out new talent or vice versa.The Web site will have a variety of different aspects, though at this stage nothing is set in stone.Schrimper said one of these aspects will be a list of internships and job openings from companies in all facets of art and culture.“The employer and student can find each other,” Schrimper said. “Recruiters can see the type of work they’re interested in and students can find a company that is looking for a specific talent. Everybody comes out ahead.”CultureU plans to sponsor any unpaid internships, he said, to give students even more of an incentive to join the network.“Many internships are not paid,” Schrimper said. “We hope to take a chunk of the money we generate from the site to fund the internships.”This money will come from advertising, he said.“Marketers have always had a hard time on the Internet,” Schrimper said. “CultureU builds a very specified network that advertisers could tap into to create a very focused and targeted advertising campaign based on the niches of a college environment.”Other parts of the site will be a student gallery where the posted art can be sold for profit and an area to facilitate student media. “Journalists now have to be entrepreneurs. Our platform could foster that,” Schrimper said. “We could create a college news network, with contests to find the best sports columnist, the best business reporter.”Schrimper is using the students in his A200 Foundations of Accounting classes to gather feedback on the site.“My classes have spent time giving me suggestions to make it more dynamic and user friendly,” Schrimper said. “Students from many departments are helping me, forming teams in all areas of culture.”The idea has been in the works since 2004, Schrimper said. But he said it now has the support it needs to move to the next level. Schrimper has spoken with other IU professors and Kelley School of Business Dean Dan Smith to receive feedback.Journalism professor Dennis Elliott is on board with the project, though he said he has concerns.“The idea of having a place where students can post their material and have it critiqued by peers is great,” Elliot said. “That way it could connect different schools hasn’t been done before.”Elliot compared it to LinkedIn.“It could create kind of a monster of competition,” he said. “The competitive aspects of it may need some fences.”Schrimper remains confident.“The whole world envies things that go on college campuses,” Schrimper said, “and this would be a great way to show them what is really going on.”
(02/18/10 9:32pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>2010 is International Biodiversity Year for advocacy and education, but for IU professor Vicky Meretsky, every year is biodiversity year. “We hope this will give us an opportunity to reach out, an opportunity for educating,” Meretsky said. “The people who work in conservation can only do so much without expanding the number of people involved.”Meretsky is an associate professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, but she is also an active member of the Bloomington community that supports biological diversity.She is a part of the Indiana Biodiversity Initiative, the Sycamore Land Trust and the Nature Conservancy and is currently working on the Indiana Bat Recovery Plan. The bat is an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and is likely to become extinct without intervention, she said.“We have lost some species in Indiana,” Meretsky said, citing the now-extinct Indiana parakeet. “But we also have a few coming back and in safe numbers, like the white-tailed deer and river otters.”Meretsky said she hopes the Indiana bat will soon be on this list and that she likes to think about biodiversity as the diversity of life on earth, a definition going beyond just the expansion of different species to include genetic variety in many areas. But she said protecting biodiversity is really about protecting ecosystems.“We know that healthy ecosystems make for healthy people,” Meretsky said. “Healthy ecosystems provide things like good water, good bugs to eat the bad bugs and wetlands that prevent flooding and improve water quality.”The more scientific definition of an ecosystem, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, is the air, water, land and habitats that support all plant and animal life.“The more and better ecosystems we get, the more we are protecting biodiversity,” Meretsky said.Unfortunately, because of deforestation and unsustainable human activity, Meretsky said, many ecosystems are lost forever.“Indiana’s biodiversity has declined greatly from what it once was,” said Tim Maloney of the Hoosier Environmental Council. “We’ve lost about 70 percent of our forestland, 85 percent of our wetlands and nearly all of our prairie habitats.”Though Indiana can’t get back to the point it was once at, Maloney said, a great deal of work has been done to protect what is left. “We should be doing everything we can to protect what we have left and make our current human activities more compatible with the environment.”This involves using land more efficiently and incorporating the environment into building practices, Maloney said. A large part of this involves coordinating with private landowners who might not be in tune with the practices that support biodiversity, Meretsky said.“The vast majority of land is privately owned, so it is impossible to think about protecting biodiversity without thinking about private landowners,” she said. “They may not think they make an impact, but it is so important that they are aware of how to help biodiversity on their land.”Bloomington is a particularly biodiversity-conscious city, Meretsky said, but there are still many issues that need to be addressed.“Because of the University and the kinds of people who are at the University, Bloomington is well-informed,” Meretsky said. “But we are not perfect. Bloomington is crawling with invasive species. For example, Dunn’s woods is dominated by an invasive vine that is terminating tons of native species.” She said the domination of invasive species is one of the biggest threats to biodiversity. Such species can poison native animals and crowd out native plants. Once an invasive seed is planted, it takes 10 years for it to be completely gone, she said.It’s all connected — anything that helps the environment ultimately helps biodiversity, she said.“In a few years, there will be many choices that people can make in regards to the environment,” Meretsky said. “We want people to be looking at these possibilities. Let’s get them to hear about it now so that we can get them adopting these practices earlier and earlier.”
(02/18/10 4:37am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Graduate student Sara Brooks’ life was transformed after taking a two-week summer course in permaculture. But she isn’t the only one.Since its inception eight years ago, the camping course based on sustaining human activity has created quite a stir in Bloomington. It has inspired students to change majors, reverse career goals and even create an extension of the course, the Bloomington Permaculture Guild.“It drastically changed my life,” Brooks said. “I became more aware of the resources that I use and started observing things in my daily life that I could completely change.”The three-credit course runs from June 6 to 20 and brings students to the Lazy Black Bear Retreat Center in Paoli, Ind., deep in the Hoosier National Forest. “Permaculture is a holistic design strategy for creating sustainable human communities in harmony with a particular natural environment,” course professor David Haberman said.During the class, students practice permaculture in the forest and work on projects designing sustainable systems, such as making the center’s shower facility energy independent.Haberman is the brains and brawn behind the course and said he brought it to IU after being interested in permaculture for 10 years.He said permaculture is not just about food production, which many people think, but also about buildings, energy supplies, artistic expression and spiritual satisfaction. It’s about designing human communities with those environmentally conscious ideas in mind.“I thought, ‘This is exactly what college students should be learning,’” Haberman said. “It provides vital skills students will need in the future.”Twenty-five students are accepted and spend the course sleeping in tents, studying nature, swimming and sharing stories around the campfire, Haberman said.“I encourage them to check out of their normal world so they think intensively and really communicate,” he said. “The level of community that is created among the students is amazing.”Haberman said students become certified in permaculture at the end of the session, which enables them to create their own permaculture design systems. Many students not only incorporate it into their daily lives, but make it a career, he said.Course teacher Rhonda Baird agreed. Baird took the class as an IU graduate student in 2005 and has since dedicated her life to learning about and teaching permaculture concepts.“If you read the news about climate change and pollution, you can get really depressed,” Baird said. “Permaculture really says, ‘Yes, these things are true, and yes, we need to deal with them, but in doing that we will all come to a better place.’ In this way permaculture really appeals to me.”Students who complete the course are invited to join the Bloomington Permaculture Guild, a society created to provide course graduates with an outlet to share ideas and continue their work. “It can be viewed as a concrete course, but for many students it’s not,” Baird said. “They come back and join the Bloomington permaculture community, and it’s almost like a support group for people when they come back.”Haberman stressed the real-world application of the course is solving environmental problems that plague this generation.“This is about not facing the future with doom and gloom but facing it with joy,” she said.
(02/10/10 6:07am)
Part two of a series investigating the day care system at IU and in Bloomington.
(02/09/10 5:10am)
When it comes to day care in Bloomington, three nationally accredited IU centers offer 165 spots for children
ranging from birth to 5 years old. Two co-ops add an additional
18-20 spots. But the wait list to obtain one of these spots is more than
100-names long.
(02/02/10 3:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Department of Biology received a technological face-lift during winter break, gaining three state-of-the-art laboratories worth $2 million. Three weeks into the semester Clay Fuqua, Department of Biology’s associate chairman for facilities and research, said he feels confident that the update to the department’s Jordan Hall facilities was worth it.“We’re running classes everyday now,” Fuqua said. “Five different courses, each with up to nine sections. This is just the beginning.”The new laboratories are designed specifically for life sciences, including all aspects of biomedicine, biochemistry and biotechnology, Fuqua said. The labs can accommodate up to 100 students, opposed to only 60 that could work before.“It’s a considerable net increase in the space and the number of students that can be accommodated simultaneously,” Fuqua said.Courses being taught in the new spaces include the lab components of Virology, Honors Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Vertebrate and Invertebrate Zoology, Endocrinology, Entomology and Ornithology, according an IU press release.Fuqua said the update was a long time coming.“It is something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” he said. “These labs hadn’t been updated since the 1950s.”State-of-the-art technology in the labs includes improved incubation and cell growth facilities, ultralow freezers, water baths and centrifuges, according to the release. Increases in experiment preparation areas as well as refurbished biosafety cabinets add to the success of the labs, Fuqua said.“The lab experience at IU will now match much more closely than that of an actual lab that students will see when they graduate,” he said.The new laboratories are just one part of the larger campus initiative to modernize facilities in support of life sciences, Fuqua said. Within two years, the biology department will see two additional teaching labs and one new lecture hall. Within four years, there could be as many as eight to nine new or renovated research labs. Fuqua said funding for these projects will come from state stimulus money.“Revamping life sciences has been a major push from the state legislature and from President McRobbie,” Fuqua said.Above all, Fuqua said the modernization was designed to help and inspire the students.“If you’re working in a dank, dusty old lab it doesn’t really excite you as much as a truly modern lab.”