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(08/31/01 5:45am)
Students will gather 2 p.m. Saturday at Whittenberger Auditorium in remembrance of Helen Sarah Walker, whose life ended abruptly this summer after being struck by a drunk driver. \nWalker -- home for the summer -- was driving to her friend's Texas apartment. \nThe memorial will allow students who were close to Walker an opportunity to honor her life and achievements, said junior Ann Aurbach -- the event organizer and a close friend to Walker. \n"The service provides an opportunity for all friends and people who knew Helen to get together to remember her, to celebrate her life," she said. " "We need some closure to celebrate our time with her." \nWalker was slated to graduate in May with a double major in theater and drama and computer science with a minor in American sign language. She was actively involved in local theater, serving as stage manager for the Bloomington Player's production of "A Chorus Line," technical director for IU's Broadway Cabaret and was the University Players Technical Director, friends said. \nWalker was planning to move to Houston upon graduation to begin working as an assistant stage manager at the William H. Hobby Theatre. \nAurbach said the tone will be joyous, filled with reflection. \n"Rather than a somber service, we want people to laugh," Aurbach said.\nJunior Townsend Teague and graduate Maggie Mae Jacobs will speak to the audience, remembering Walker's impact. Anyone close to Walker or those that just want to show their support are invited to attend, Aurbach said.\nWalker's death came on the heels of summer break where dear friends went their separate ways, leaving a vacant spot in the hearts and minds of her friends, Kevin Mogyoros, a junior, said.\n"The service is difficult for a lot of friends because Helen died over the summer and we weren't able to share in the grieving process," he said. "This allows us to get together and share our individual memories of Helen."\nMogyoros was also involved in organizing the service. He said the mood of the service will be happy and lighthearted because that is how Helen would have wished it. \n"She was always upbeat and always had a smile," he said. "And that is the tone we are trying to foster." \nMogyoros said Walker can best be remembered as a friend. He said vestiges of Walker's hard work can still be felt today. \n"She was so many things to so many people," he said. "She contributed so much to this campus." \nFor Teague, Walker was a tremendous worker. \n"She didn't ask for anything from anybody," he said. "She put in endless, endless work."\nTeague said it's important that Helen be remembered for the volumes of time and effort she devoted to the Theater Department. \n"Theater is an art about people, Teague said. "And Helen is one of the people that make that happen"
(08/30/01 5:14am)
You would sooner find senior Tiffany Fisher on the balance beam than on the driving range at the age of 13. It was then that the lone senior on the women's golf team felt burned out from her gymnastic experiences. \nTom Fisher, Tiffany's father, encouraged her to try golf. He put her in three clinics where she began to develop interest and skills for the sport. That experience led to the opportunity for Fisher to caddy for her father at a local club championship in her hometown of Easton, Penn. Her father won the tournament, spurring Fisher's devotion to golf even more.\n"He won and I saw the rewards and all that golf had to offer," Fisher said.\nFisher honed her golf skills, becoming a three time District XI champion at Easton Area High School. A well regarded business school, legendary golf coach Sam Charmichael and an attractive Bloomington campus all contributed to Fisher's decision to attend IU.\nIn previous years, Fisher has posted exceptional scores in several tournaments, including last year's Big Ten Championships. She shot a career low of 205 to finish fifth. Fisher also completed the season with four more top-25 finishes and is the team leader with 92 career rounds played. \nNow the only senior on the team, Fisher looks to continue on a successful career with a decorated and enjoyable last season.\n"I have a lot of mental goals this year, and want to enjoy the process of playing golf since this is my last year of eligibility," Fisher said. "And obviously before I graduate I would love to win a tournament. As for team goals, we really want to win the Big Ten Tournament and hopefully get to nationals." \nFisher attributes her mental strengths and abilities to her childhood days as a gymnast.\n"My mom was my gymnastics coach and it was serious club gymnastics; we practiced six days a week four hours a day," Fisher said. "It really taught me focus, work ethic and a lot dedication, all things that really helped me golf."\nThese traits have also helped Fisher garner the respect of her teammates and the title of captain.\n"She is a good leader, a good friend, and a huge part of connecting the team," freshman Megan Mulhaupt said.\n"I think Tiff is a really good role model for the team," sophomore Ambry Bishop said. "She is always willing to listen to any problems and creates unity for our team. Not only is Tiff a great leader, but she is also a hard worker in everything she does."\nBut Fisher's achievements have not all been racked up on the golf course. She has twice been named an Academic All-Big Ten athlete. As a student in the Kelley School of Business, Fisher plans to major in marketing and operations management and has career aspirations in the sporting world.\n"I hope to stay in the golf or sports industry on the business side and maybe consider being a certified Ladies Professional Golfers Association member," Fisher said.\nWith the completion of her golfing career at Indiana on the horizon, Fisher is approaching this season like no other.\n"I am trying to take a new approach this year, and make sure that I am enjoying every moment since this is my senior year and I probably won't have the opportunity to play much golf again since I will have to get a job"
(07/19/01 12:31am)
My earliest memories are of living in a trailer park in Plymouth, Ind., in 1953. The following year my parents moved to a rented house until, a few years later, they were able to buy one. But my trailer-trash roots are firm.\nNeither of my parents went to college. Both from large families impoverished by the Great Depression, they could only try to realize their dreams of higher education through their children. Education was important to my parents, and they encouraged my interest in reading while tolerating my lack of interest in sports. My mother especially always told me I'd be around nicer people if I went to college.\nMy father was a construction foreman and later worked in his brother's scrap metal business. My mother was a housewife, later a factory worker. I've begun but never completed a college degree; I'm a janitor and dishwasher, which keeps me working-class, but you know, my mom was right: I do meet nice people around a university food service, including my co-workers. My life's not quite what my parents had in mind, but that's how it goes.\nI'm not pretending to be a typical working-class person, whatever that might be. I believe I'm more typical of the person who's the first in his or her family to go to college. One common trait of such people is our alienation both from our working-class background and from the middle-class or professional academic environment into which we've moved. Alienation of that kind is a good thing.\nI'd never heard of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt before he died at Daytona earlier this year; I don't pay attention to auto racing, or any other sport. I did start paying attention rather quickly to some reactions I saw to the outpouring of grief and media attention his death inspired. On a local Usenet newsgroup, for example, the response of several members of the IU community to Earnhardt's death was to jeer that it was of interest only to inbred Kentuckians who show butt crack. "Trailer parks around the nation have lowered their flags to half staff, that's certain," wrote one. "Wow, Nascar fans can read?" queried another.\nObviously some of this stuff was meant as humor, which shows how much higher education enhances wit. But it was expressive of an attitude that I've seen all too often: that working people without university education are an inferior breed, fit only to marry their first cousins and appear on tabloid TV shows. "Low-class" is very commonly used to derogate behavior or opinions that someone dislikes, such as racism or other prejudices. Professionals with graduate degrees, by contrast, are paragons of enlightenment. Right?\nWell, no. Education too often teaches people to find reasons to do things they shouldn't. The war in Vietnam was started and escalated by educated men of good family, not by illiterate West Virginians married to their cousins. It was educated medical men who castrated and sterilized the "unfit" in these United States, in the early twentieth century. Indiana was a leader in this eugenic practice, which inspired German science and politics later on. Ivy League colleges like Yale had quotas to limit the number of Jews they admitted -- and elaborate pseudo-scientific rationales to keep women out altogether.\nOr consider Rush Limbaugh, son of a corporate lawyer, scion of a well-to-do Republican family. The average dittohead (according to a marketing survey done at the peak of Limbaugh's popularity) has at least a bachelor's degree, an annual income of $53,000 and no more than one Mercedes up on blocks in the front yard.\nI am not romanticizing working people: I know very well, from experience, that we can be as narrow and bigoted as university-educated professionals. The great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once wrote to his student Norman Malcolm: "What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc., and if it does not improve your thinking about the important problems of everyday life, if it does not make you more conscientious. ... You see, I know that it's difficult to think well about 'certainty', 'probability', 'perception', etc. But it is, if possible, still more difficult to think, or try to think, really honestly about your life and other people's lives. And the trouble is that thinking about these things is not thrilling, but often downright nasty. And when it's nasty then it's most important."\nI don't believe these words apply only to philosophy; I'd say they apply to education in general. Or rather, they should, but too often they don't.
(04/04/01 5:08am)
Conflict Resolution Services held a two-hour discussion panel Monday at 7 p.m. in the Oak Room of the Indiana Memorial Union to inform students about diversity on campus as well as discrimination and local resources available to victims. The event was the second installment of the organization's Week Without Violence program.\nThe panel consisted of three representatives from various campus advocacy groups. \nMark Bryson spoke on behalf of the Office of Diversity Education, graduate student Eloiza Domingo represented the Commission on Multicultural Understanding and Doug Bauder participated on behalf of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Student Support Services.\nResolution services member Marissa Codey, a graduate student, helped organize the panel.\n"Our goal throughout the week is to bring the campus and residential communities together to discuss the issues of diversity and discrimination," she said.\nThe workshop began with Bryson, a diversity educator, explaining how and why people develop stereotypes and prejudices.\n"We are only born with two fears -- a fear of falling and a fear of loud noise," he said. "Everything else is learned. When toddlers play together in a park, color doesn't come into play." Bryson said that while growing up, humans receive misinformation about other groups of people from sources such as their families and the media. He said these prejudicial ideas are stored in "mind tapes," which are played in the brain whenever someone sees members of groups they have stereotyped. Eventually the mind tapes "go on automatic" and cause impulsive reactions.\n"That's why we need these workshops," Bryson said. "They can't transform us, but they can inform us. Through awareness, we can check ourselves."\nDomingo, a graduate student employed by the commission, explained the organization's functions.\n"We try to consistently provide diversity programs on campus," she said. "In addition, deans and faculty sit on the board of COMU. If you need information or help regarding multicultural issues quickly, you can contact us and we can help you avoid any red tape."\nDomingo said the commission is trying to combine all IU multicultural resource pamphlets into a single booklet. In the past, the association has intervened with regard to the Ku Klux Klan murals in Woodburn Hall Room 100 and the swastika floor and wall tiles in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.\n"We produced an eight-minute video to make the students who have classes in Woodburn Hall Room 100 feel less overwhelmed by the murals," she said. "We stated the history of the murals and why IU commissioned them. We also made the point that the KKK is a sad chapter in the history of Indiana, but it must not be forgotten. In terms of the swastikas, we put up a plaque in the HPER to explain that the building was built before World War II and the Nazi regime, and that the swastika was a religious symbol before the Nazis adopted it. These are examples of how COMU tries to promote understanding."\nBauder discussed the objectives of GLBT, for which he serves as commissioner. He said the organization provides counseling and support for homosexual, bisexual and transgendered students, as well as educational tools for students to learn more about these groups.\nBauder said a team of GLBT workers review sexual orientation harassment complaints made to the Student Ethics Office and decides how to rectify the situations.\n"Does harassment stop by reporting it?" he asked. "No. But we can collect enough information to intervene effectively."\nHe asked audience members to pretend they were members of that GLBT team and to create settlements for two complaint scenarios.\nBryson said he hoped those who attended benefited from the discussion. \n"We want people to take what they heard here and apply that knowledge elsewhere," he said.\nThe Resolution Services will continue its Week Without Violence with a discussion panel on school violence at 7 p.m. today at the First United Methodist Church, 219 E. Fourth St. \nThursday, a domestic violence discussion and a wrap-up meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. respectively in the City Council Room of the Showers Building.
(04/03/01 4:53am)
Within the depths of Bryan Hall, covering five floors and 5,000 square feet, sits the history of IU in boxes, file cabinets and storage bins. \nThis is the University Archives. \nThe University Archives is the largest and most comprehensive source about and for IU. Records include everything from blueprints and news clippings to schedules and scrapbooks.\nIn 1883, a fire destroyed many of the University's administrative records, as well as the science building and the Owen Museum. Undamaged files were moved to a storage facility in Maxwell Hall called the President's File Room. The archives were kept there until 1936, when Bryan Hall was built. Five floors and 14,000 cubic feet were designed for the storage and preservation of archival records.\n"Right now a majority (who use the archives) are administration and staff," said Phillip Bantin, archive director. Bantin said students, researchers and alumni are also among the main groups of people who use the archives. \n"We have a number of students who come in for class work," he said. About 10 to 12 people a day request records.\nSenior Laura Blanford used the archives for a journalism class project about "a new look at old IU." \n"I had to go to the archives for old Indiana Daily Students and bulletins," she said. "I'd heard of the archives before, but our professor recommended it."\nResearchers have used the archives for projects such as the research and development of Crest toothpaste at IU and the role of the University in the Manhattan Project.\nThe archive stacks are closed to the public because of the confidential nature of the records. The public must make requests to the staff, and the staff retrieves the records.\nAmong the items in the archives are a life-mask of William Lowe Bryan, the first touch-tone telephone used in Monroe County, given to former IU president John W. Ryan, and the plane steering wheel from Wendell Willkie's "One World" tour. \nPapers and records from former University Chancellor Herman B Wells' presidency take up almost two floors.\n"There's about 120 file cabinets for Herman Wells," said Bradley Cook, reference specialist and photograph curator. "And then altogether, including his chancellor's papers, we probably have another 500 boxes of his papers." \nThe earliest known record in the archives is an acceptance letter to former IU president Andrew Wylie into the American Antiquarian Society, dated July 16, 1815.\nHolding more than 12 million records, as well as 2 million photographs, the archives has limited space. \nBut the archives is getting help.\nBoth the Main Library, which has been campaigning for more storage space, and the archives have been granted new areas designated for storage. \n"It's very hard to keep up space-wise with the records that are generated," Bantin said. He said 400 to 500 linear feet of records are generated each year. \n"Administrative files and faculty papers are the two big categories of records that come in every year," Bantin said. \nArchive employees are working to develop ways of preserving and protecting electronic records, such as e-mails and electronic financial and student records.\n"We have received funds from a funding agency associated with the National Archives in Washington, D.C. We've had two projects funded by them … to develop strategies at IU for managing electronic records," Bantin said. "We're one of the few institutions of higher education, of colleges and universities in the country, to be seriously working on this issue."\nThe archives is also working on two projects other than the Electronic Records Project. \nOne is a photo database. Workers are cataloging the 2 million photographs onto a photo database, so they can be searched on the Internet. \nThe second project is the Cushman Project. \nCharles Cushman graduated from IU in 1917. He was an amateur photographer who took pictures of the social history of America throughout the 20th century. His photographs -- 18,000 of them -- were given to the archives. The archives is digitizing them and placing them on its Charles Cushman Web site.\nBantin said there are three ways the archives can help students -- understanding the University, helping them with everyday class work and introducing them to primary sources.\nThe archives has two exhibits on public display. One is of the life of late Bloomington Chancellor Herman B Wells, located in the Education Building. The other is an exhibit about African-American firsts at IU, which is in the south lounge of the Indiana Memorial Union.
(03/29/01 4:21am)
About 80 people came together Tuesday night at the Banneker Center to discuss the fault lines that separate blacks from whites in Bloomington. A topic that rarely occurs without debate, the discussion of how the races interact in Bloomington became emotional.\nBut those involved say the discussion moved them toward better understanding.\n"Surprisingly, there is a very nice crowd here tonight, very lively, and racially mixed," said professor Jeffrey Isaac, who moderated the event. "It is not very common to see this here." \nThe crowd was varied by gender and race. Of the attendees, men, women and children from the white, black and Asian communities were represented. \nAs a founding member of Bloomington United, Isaac said he expected the meeting to help generate public discussion about the role of black people in Bloomington. \nThe town meeting stirred up discussion -- much of it heated. Panelists spoke about their experiences as blacks in Bloomington. Paul Norris, IU chief of police, reminisced about how blacks were allowed to work as barbers in the downtown barber shops, but could not cut the hair of black people. \n"Even as a child this disturbed me," he said. "I didn't understand why Mr. Ellis could cut hair downtown, but not mine."\nPatrick Efiom, a social worker for the Monroe County Community School Corporation, said he and his wife found a racial slur spray-painted on their door after moving to Bloomington.\n"Many in the community were ashamed and did not know the words to say after this happened," he said. "But they gave great support."\nLa Verta Terry, a community activist, said she remembered racial tensions she experienced in Bloomington. Terry was the first black teacher to work in the Bloomington school system.\n"Bloomington's state of denial I did not realize until the night the Korean man (late graduate student Won-Joon Yoon) was killed," she said. "This reminded me of the night Martin Luther King was assassinated." \nTerry said she received many phone calls on both occasions -- phone calls of apology. \nWhat started as a simple question and answer segment after the panelists finished transformed to individual testimonies of anger.\nGraduate student Patricia Tucker eagerly expressed her anger.\n"When I came to IU, I wasn't looking to be integrated," she said. "But now that I know how life is on an integrated campus -- I am ready to leave!" \nTucker proceeded with an explanation.\n"The first three times I spoke with white men off campus, I was asked, 'So what brings you to Bloomington?'" she said. "Which I translated into the language of the new Budweiser commercial, 'What are you doing here?' 'What are you doing here?' 'What are you going to do here?'"\nMinutes later the group laughed about the lack of black professionals in Bloomington. The group was not laughing at the issue, but a comical statement made about the fact. \nBut Tucker did not see the humor in it. \n"It's not funny, people!" she yelled.\nAnd the crowd quieted down.\n"I came to Bloomington in 1999, and I was surprised to see that a city with such a large renowned institution as IU had no black tradesmen," Tucker said. "Where are the black policemen and government workers that make up the middle class?"\nThe discussion turned serious.\n"I had been commuting to the police department at IUPUI," said Norris, a longtime Bloomington resident. "It wasn't until IU was forced to hire African-Americans that I began working in here in 1989." \nSeveral others attested to a lack of job opportunities for blacks. Some testified to being the only blacks in their offices. \nThe meeting took a turn to more social issues. \nIt was agreed the issue of community needs to be dealt with -- more so than race. \n"What happened to the block parties we used to have?" mused Mark Bryson of the IU Office of Affirmative Action. "We used to bring out the food and games and just have a great time regardless of race"
(03/01/01 8:18pm)
This AIDS awareness week was not out of the ordinary. There were the usual talks and conferences that no one seemed to get excited about. A long time has passed since my days of involvement with the issues of AIDS, and I thought it might be interesting to see what was happening. That day proved to be one that stirred old memories and a realization that I had lived through what was called the AIDS epidemic.\n Before coming to this small Midwestern town, AIDS occupied much of my life. At that time it seemed nothing out of the ordinary.\nMy first experience with AIDS was working as a nurse in a downtown homeless shelter. While I was giving a flu shot to a man, he informed me that he was HIV positive. I thanked him for letting me know. When I finished, I realized blood from his injection site was running down my finger. Those were the days before we used rubber gloves. \nI can still picture the sink where I dropped the syringe and quickly washed my hands. I was so shaken that reassurances from my fellow workers didn't calm me. I remember going for the HIV test and waiting a few days for the results. I was planning to get married, and if the test came back positive, my whole world would change. Luckily, it was negative. That scenario is forever etched in my mind -- the room, the syringe, the sink, the man's face, the blood and the shaking in my body. \nLater I worked at an art school as a nurse. The creativity and unconventional lifestyle of the students made work fun. For too many of them, the secret they entrusted me with was that they were HIV positive. They were barely starting their lives and had to deal with ending them. \nMary was one of the students who will always be an important person and memory in my life. Through her, the AIDS epidemic became more than a reality. \nMary just walked into my life one day. She stood at my doorway with a piece of unfinished metal sculpture in her hand. She looked weak and complained of not feeling well. As I tried calling her boyfriend to come get her, she expressed concern that she was HIV positive. She told the story of a past relationship and how her former lover had died of AIDS. She had been tested but never went back to get her results. \nHer worst fears were eventually confirmed. The walls in Mary's apartment were hung with her pictures, many of which reflected the turmoil within her. She gave me a drawing, a pencil sketch of her cat, dedicated to her favorite nurse. It still hangs in my home today.\nMary graduated and went home to Texas to live out her life. We corresponded a few times, and then about two years later her mother called to say Mary had died. I flew to Texas to pay my last respects. On the memorial table were photos of Mary and me together. This final ceremony brought closure. \nMany of the students were involved in AIDS activism, marches, sit-ins and demonstrations but continued promiscuous behavior. The gay pride parade saluted the gay community and focused on AIDS prevention, and the next day a student leader in this fight came into my office to complain of discomfort from his sexual activity. \nSo many of their practices were foreign to me. I would sit, listen and be there for them. There were times I questioned the morality of it all, and then I reminded myself that it was not for me to judge but to understand. The students taught me the difference between responsible relationships and those that abuse and injure. \nI became an activist, championing for students with HIV. I tried to tell the world how they were suffering and what hardships they faced, my main purpose being to show that our college students were being infected and were in need of information and support. I spoke, taught and became involved in a myriad of activities. I was given money to produce a video, and students from different colleges who were HIV positive volunteered to be on the tape. \nI am away from all that now and have settled into a quiet little town where AIDS isn't supposed to happen and homosexuality is a damnation. But to me, AIDS and homosexuality have personal names and faces that serve as a symbol of caring and strength to those who had the fortune to meet them. \nMay all those who were touched remain in our memories forever.
(02/28/01 2:48am)
Outside the swirl of activity surrounding the Secret Sailor bookstore, a group of young people are talking, sharing a big cookie among themselves.\nOn a typical Thursday night such as this, visitors to the bookstore can walk in on a Bloomington Anarchist Black Cross meeting. Participants sit in a circle on old chairs and a beat-up couch. Some are petting John Henry Tofu, a fat black cat with white paws and facial markings. The counter is littered with stickers promoting various bands. The walls are covered in posters, some of them homemade.\nThe Sailor, 202 N. Walnut St., is a hub for activism of many different ideological stripes throughout the community. It also caters to the literary tastes of anarchists and others non-mainstream political beliefs. \nThe Anarchist Black Cross is one such group that meets at the Sailor. It might bear an intimidating name, but that night's agenda was centered around putting on a benefit concert for jailed environmental activist Josh Harper and what they call "guerrilla gardening" -- planting flowers and shrubs in public areas that need greening up. \nAt the back of the store, Pages to Prisoners, a group devoted to providing inmates with books was holding another meeting.\nSam Dorsett, one of the store's co-founders, said he has noticed people are glad the Sailor exists; that there's a place besides Borders and other bookstore chains; that it's a more open atmosphere for discussion of different ideas.\nSince its opening last February, he said the store has been open to meetings for various activist organizations. He said the store forms an important link in the chain of anarchist communities across the country.\nDorsett, 25, and his friends had such good experiences buying materials from alternative book sellers and selling them on their own that they decided to open the Sailor.\nSeveral months after opening, they decided the store should be collectivized. The Sailor is now a worker-owned cooperative and members of the collective are not paid for the hours they spend at the store. Workers set their own schedules for the week. It was understaffed and Dorsett said collectivization was the ethical way to run such an enterprise. \nAn unnamed donor pays for most of the Sailor's rent, said collective worker Rebecca Rakstad. Sometimes there is an occasional benefit show to help pay for the overhead. Most proceeds from the many concerts and benefits organized by the Sailor go to some of the organizations to which they play host.\nSince the summer, the Sailor has played host to politically oriented local bands. Ian Phillips, one of the members of the collective, said the store plays host to mostly punk bands, but soon it hopes to bring in hip-hop acts and bands from other genres.\nMarybeth Legler, a sophomore and patron of the store, said she feels at ease there, even though she wouldn't label herself as an anarchist. She was introduced to the Sailor by some friends who attended Anarchist Black Cross meetings. She stopped by one day to buy a book and spent a long time sitting back and reading.\n"I really liked the vibe and I just sat there and chilled," Legler said.\nWhat's the name of the store all about? \nDorsett said that's a secret. A few collective workers could only speculate that the store's founders had a thing with pirates. A handmade red-and-blue sign hangs near the door. Its crooked letters spell, "Loose lips sink ships."\nThe Sailor popped into the media spotlight recently. Prominent local environmental activist Frank Ambrose was arrested Jan. 25 while working at the store for allegedly spiking trees on public land. The Secret Sailor collective has supported efforts to help Ambrose since then. A flier distributed by local environmental group Bloomington Defense Committee and distributed at the Sailor read, "Frank (Ambrose) has done nothing more than be vocal and be willing to put his body on the line to stop a logging program." \nThe members of the Sailor's collective might be vocal about Ambrose's arrest, but some said people have misconceptions about who anarchists are and what they do. In fact, not all of the members consider themselves anarchists, said Ryan Davis, who works at the store and is an Anarchist Black Cross member.\n"We want to work to make the community better," he said. "We're not out to hurt people."\nThe Sailor sits in between a Blimpie sub shop and the Princess Restaurant. Some of the collective members occasionally duck into Blimpie for some pop or to use the bathroom, said Jamie Chevillet, a sandwich maker there. She described them as nice, quiet people, though she said she did not know what the Sailor was.\nDavid Woken, collective worker and history graduate student, said a lot of the other graduate students he works with do not know how to respond when he mentions his work at the Sailor.\n"Some have never heard of the place, but they seem impressed by the idea of a collective bookstore," Woken said.\nNovelty aside, the collective wants to create a forum.\n"We want to build a safe space where people can put forth their ideas," collective member Frank Cappo said.\nA large banner pinned on a wall opposite the Sailor's counter stated the recently drafted conduct code for any groups or bands that wish to use the space. The code prohibits destructive action against the store, language or behavior that is racist or sexist and behavior meant to hurt others. Cappo said the Sailor is a place where people will not be ridiculed for their ideas. \nThe Sailor is more than a bookstore. The members are also geared toward helping both local activists and the surrounding community. \n"That place has a lot of momentum for social change; it makes me want to get off my ass and change things," Legler said. \nThe selection of books at the Sailor is sparse, but subjects include feminist issues, labor, anarchism, socialism, race and general fiction. They also have a large selection of magazines from all over the country and music from many independent bands. Few of the materials bear price tags. Instead, donations are accepted. \nBooks and magazines are not the only ways the Sailor educates. In the back of the store, a box full of free rubber gloves sits on a wooden table as part of a safe sex display. Taped onto it are instructions for making a dental dam out of the gloves. A small illustrated book on safer sex is next to the display.\nEducation is just one of the ways the Sailor contributes to the community.\n"We want to be a part of the community and whatever money we get, we put back into the community," Phillips said. "We want to build community, not commodities."\nThe collective wants to spark an interest, so Davis said the Sailor is also starting a "free school." Members run classes on topics such as environmentalism and philosophy and lighter fare including sewing, skateboarding and playing the guitar. Davis said it might help expose people to new ideas. For instance, someone might come in for a class on skateboarding and happen to pick up a book on politics. \n"It's a really comfortable environment. I never get the impression that they're cliquey or anything," Legler said. \nBut not every experience with the store has been positive. Dorsett said people have criticized the Sailor before -- sometimes about smaller things such as the store looking disorganized, other times about larger issues such as people believing they are all communists. He recalled one night last November when one of the store's windows was smashed. \nCappo was there after it happened. He said someone had picked up one of the bricks around a tree in front of the store and shattered the window closest to the counter with it.\n"We were disappointed because we didn't think it was motivated by anything but drunk people being silly," he said. "If people learned about the Sailor, they would see that it's a community center. It can be their store, too"
(02/26/01 4:20am)
The winners of the Web site design contest co-sponsored by Web Technology Club and Discover Financial Services were announced Saturday at a banquet held at the Bloomington Convention Center. Entrants had two days to construct an online shopping mall with a personalized feel.\n"The case was to design a virtual mall Web site," explained senior Kristin Wagner, WTC president. "The teams were to design a site that would make you feel like you were shopping at a mall so that you could visit specific stores if you knew what you were looking for and also browse if you were unsure."\nAt noon Thursday, the contest topic was posted on the WTC Web site (www.indiana.edu/~wtc). The 16 teams, consisting of three club members each, had until Saturday to complete their projects.\nAll teams presented their sites to one of four judging panels Saturday at 10 a.m. Each panel was composed of one faculty member and two Discover employees. Professors Dwight Worker, Thom Gillespie, Patricia Setser and Brian Arthaud-Day and graduate student Nate Stout participated as judges.\n"The judges were looking for a 3-D look, which was more futuristic," Wagner said. "The basic idea was to create something that would replace going to a mall."\nAfter the first round of presentations, four teams advanced to the finals. Those four teams consisted of: juniors Chris Hilbert, Cliff Dickinson and Aaron Dobbins; junior Ajit Kalra, senior Sidharth Bhatia and sophomore Namrata Gandhi; seniors Vicky Dugar, Mani Sidhu and Christine Villano; and seniors Amy Jeffs, Lawrence Fraser and Elizabeth Leuck.\nThe four finalist teams presented their sites to Eugene Thomas, business school lecturer, and two Discover representatives at 5 p.m. in the Bloomington Convention Center. At 7:30 that evening, the WTC held a banquet in the convention center that was open to all members.\nDuring the banquet, the judges' decisions were announced. The winners were Dugar, Sidhu and Villano, who each received $1,000. The runners-up were Jeffs, Fraser and Leuck, all of whom were awarded $250.\nJeffs said she and her teammates were satisfied with the results.\n"Our team worked together before on another competition and we made it to the finals there, and when we were finalists again this time, it really made us feel good," she said. "We were happy that the judges liked what we had done."\nFraser said he felt he had benefited from entering the contest.\n"In any e-business competition, you get a chance to apply what you learn in a curriculum to a real world situation, and that kind of experience is very valuable to me," he said.\nWagner noted that WTC and Discover are planning another case competition and banquet for next year.\n"We are definitely talking about doing a case competition for next year and making it even bigger," she said. "We're looking to have more teams enter and other companies attend the banquet for next year. We want to make this an annual event and by the response we got this year, I think it will definitely happen"
(02/22/01 7:15am)
An online site design competition co-sponsored by the Web Technology Club and Discover Financial Services began at noon today when the contest topic was posted on the technology club's Web site www.indiana.edu/~wtc. The entrants have two days to build a Web site to be evaluated on its operation.\nBrian Kennedy, a Discover information technology college recruiter and a 1997 IU graduate, had the idea for a Web contest in conjunction with the club.\n"I wanted to do a case study at IU and give the Web Technology Club some exposure at the same time," Kennedy said. "Also, as a company, we want to have a good relationship with the students and let them know what technology we offer."\nSixteen teams, each composed of three club members, have signed up. \nJunior Disha Puri, a club member and one of the event coordinators, said the contest has been well-received.\n"We had to close our registration last week because we had such a big list. Within four days, we had 16 teams," Puri said. "We have 18 teams in all, but two are on standby in case a team doesn't show up to present. We even have people waiting to be on standby."\nPuri said the entrants can use any computer program to design their presentations, which must run 15-20 minutes.\n"If they're not technologically inclined and don't know how to use HTML, that's okay," Puri said. "They can make a Power Point slide show or use another program to get their ideas across."\nToday and Friday, all teams can meet with a Discover employee for 20 minutes in Kelley School of Business Room 209. \nThe 16 teams have been divided among four judging panels. Each set of four projects will be viewed by two Discover representatives and one faculty member at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Kelley School of Business.\nProfessors Dwight Worker, Brian Arthaud-Day, Patricia Setser and Thom Gillespie and graduate student Nate Stout are the judges. Four teams will advance to the finals. \nThe final four teams will present their sites at 5 p.m. that day at the Bloomington Convention Center to Eugene Thomas, business school lecturer, and two Discover employees. At 7:30 p.m. the club will hold a banquet in the convention center that is open to all members. \nThe judges' decisions will be announced during the event. \nMembers of the winning team each receive $1,000, while members of the runner-up team will be awarded $250. Several $50 gift certificates to Best Buy will be raffled off to banquet attendees.\nKristin Wagner, a senior who serves as the club's president, said the competition was planned to coincide with the launch of the club's Web site. The site was first made available to users Feb. 1.\n"We are very excited about (the site) because it is very educational, which is the focus of the WTC," Wagner said. "I really hope that people are going to take advantage of all it has to offer because it's a great resource for anyone interested in Web technology. We've already had almost 200 members sign up in the last three weeks. \n"Our club is one of the few that is free to members and I'm sure that that attracts many people." \nWagner said both organizations hope to collaborate again next year.\n"The WTC and Discover would like to see both the case competition and the banquet as annual events," Wagner said. "We're hoping to get some of the kinks worked out and possibly make them bigger events for next year"
(02/19/01 5:33am)
IUSA elections run Tuesday, Wednesday online and on campus\nThe five IU Student Association tickets -- the House ticket, Imagine ticket, Miracle ticket, ONE ticket and the Supernova ticket -- are working on their final day of campaigning. IUSA elections are Tuesday and Wednesday.\nStudents will vote on paper ballots or online, said IUSA President Meredith Suffron, a senior.\nOnline voting will be available 24 hours a day Tuesday through Wednesday at iuaccts.ucs.indiana.edu/iusa.\nPolls at the Main Library, Kelley School of Business, Ballantine Hall and the School of Music will be open both days from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Indiana Memorial Union poll site will be open both days from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.\nExecutive candidates must receive 40 percent of the vote or lead by 20 percent to win, according to IUSA election rules. If no executive ticket meets these requirements, a run-off will be held the week after the election.\nState social workers to gather in Indy for advocacy day \nSocial workers from across the state are expected to gather Feb. 21 at the Statehouse at the Madame C.J. Walker Theatre Center in Indianapolis for Social Worker's Legislative Education and Advocacy Day. \n"The ultimate goal of Social Worker's Legislative Education and Advocacy Day is to create community and legislative environments in which social work values are adopted and implemented by policy makers in Indiana," Marion Wagner, a social work professor at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis, said in a press release.\nThe group will march to the Statehouse at 11:30 a.m. for a rally in the north atrium. Practitioners, students and educators will then meet with individual legislators in small constituency groups.\nCongresswoman to present lecture Tuesday at SPEA\nCongresswoman Julia Carson (D-10) will present the 2001 Neal-Marshall Lecture in Public Policy 4 p.m. Feb. 20 in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs atrium. Carson will speak on "People, Partnerships and Progress."\nThe Neal-Marshall Lecture, sponsored each year by SPEA during Black History Month, honors Marcellus Neal and Frances Marshall, the first black IU graduates. The lecture is free and open to the public.\nCarson became the first woman and black elected to Congress in her Indianapolis district in 1996. Prior to her election, she served 18 years in the Indiana General Assembly and six years as Center Township Trustee.\nShe has twice been named as the Indianapolis Star's "Woman of the Year." Carson is a member of the Banking and Financial Services Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee.
(02/16/01 3:34pm)
Students in search of an unconventional summer job were in luck Thursday. Eighty summer camps from across the United States came to the Indiana Memorial Union to recruit students for jobs during the annual IU Camp Day.\nCamp Robindel for Girls Staff Coordinator Jeanne Chmelik found Robindel, located in New Hampshire, through Camp Day when she was an undergraduate at IU. \n"I ended up there and loved it so much I went back," she said. Chmelik, who was a pre-med major before her experience at Robindel, came back to IU and changed her major to education. "The product you produce and dealing with kids ... it provides purpose. It's a nice experience away from home. It gave me direction."\nJunior Eliza Hart, who said she came to Camp Day to find a job close to her home in California, agreed. \n"(Kennolyn Camp) is a residential camp with a wide variety, so you get to do everything," she said. She has never worked at a camp before. \n"I would love to be part of that experience," she said. "I love being around kids." Hart had scheduled an interview with a Kennolyn Camp representative for the afternoon.\nJan Nickless, assistant director of the Career Development Center, said students are unaware of the various opportunities the camps offer. She said students majoring in education, psychology and outdoor recreation would greatly benefit from working at a summer camp. \n"Any of these majors, you're going to get the kind of opportunity to work one-on-one," Nickless said.\nThe majority of the camps represented at Camp Day 2001 cater to children and young teens and are sports- and activities-oriented. More than 10 of the camps are YMCA-affiliated. All of the positions for summer internships are paid, and most of the camps last about 10 weeks.\nNickless said an increase in pay comes with increased experiences and skills. "For example, a freshman might make around $800," she said. "As a junior and senior, you make more because you have more experience as an undergrad."\nDarrin Eaton, program director of YMCA Trout Lodge, a family and youth retreat in Potosi, Mo., said students come and work at the camp for the many opportunities. \n"We have a lot of education majors and a lot of social workers," Eaton said. He said Camp Day is well-organized and the ideal setup gives students access to all the booths.\nAnother YMCA-affiliated camp in Louisville, Ky., features an equestrian and adventure program, which includes caving and rock climbing. Camp Piomingo, now in its 64th year, offers programs for children between the ages of 6 and 16. Representing Camp Piomingo, Jamie Jones said Camp Day "is probably the biggest one I've been to. It's considered a really good fair."\nJones said Camp Piomingo requires that applicants have previous experience with children and skills in one of the activities offered. Jones said many of Piomingo's counselors recently graduated from college, so the camp is looking to hire a lot of new people. Jones also said students' college majors do not have to coincide with education or recreation. \n"Most of our most successful counselors aren't necessarily those with lifelong plans to work with children," she said. \nCamp Robindel Assistant Staff and Program Coordinator Jolly Corley said education and recreation majors are not the only students who benefit from the camp experience. \n"For business majors, you're getting those supervision and business skills, even though you're supervising kids," Corley said. She also said IU has been good to Camp Robindel. \n"Our largest amount of counselors are from IU." \nKennolyn Camp, located in Santa Cruz, Calif., also tends to have a large IU following. Camp Director Andrew Townsend said Kennolyn, a co-ed camp for ages 5 to 14, usually has four or five people on staff from IU. Kennolyn Camp has been included in Camp Day for the past eight years. \n"This is the best job fair we go to," Townsend said. "It's so well-organized and they get a lot of people here."\nTownsend said the camp experience helps students land future jobs in many different fields. "Our take on it is that a camp counselor learns so many skills that are critical," he said. "You can't go to camp and not come out of your shell a bit."\nTownsend praised IU for giving students the opportunity to learn about the available summer jobs at the camps. "From California (to) here, IU is the best resource center for summer camps," he said.
(02/01/01 5:44am)
A 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck El Salvador Jan. 13, killing more than 700 and leaving about one million homeless in the country of about six million people.\nHistory professor Jeff Gould was there.\nGould, director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, has been in El Salvador researching a 1932 massacre of 10,000 Native Americans and peasants. He will turn the results into a documentary film and a book. \nIn his five trips to El Salvador during the last three years, he has talked to people from the countryside, which he said is an important part of his research.\nJan. 13, he was talking to an elderly man in Santa Anna, the country's second largest city, when the walls of the man's house began to shake. What followed, Gould said, was the longest 45 seconds of his life.\n"The house started to shake, and we all knew immediately this was at least a small tremor," he said.\nGould and the man cut off their discussion and ran outside.\n"It literally seemed like the walls were coming down, then they would straighten back up," he said.\nHe said the scariest part of his experience was driving back to San Salvador, the capital, where he was staying. The trip normally takes an hour. This time, it took six, he said.\n"The roads were covered with rocks and dirt from landslides," he said.\nOne road became blocked an hour after Gould drove over it, he said. It would take a week for workers to clear one lane.\nGould returned home to Bloomington Saturday. He said the quake dealt a serious blow to the country's people and economy.\n"Before the earthquake, these people were barely surviving," he said. "Now, with the earthquake, it becomes an impossible situation."
(01/19/01 5:53pm)
This is a historic week for the United States. The 10th anniversary of the Gulf War was recently commemorated. This was the war that sent Iraq out of Kuwait and former president George Bush's approval rating to its highest. \nThough the United Nations imposed the sanctions against Iraq after the war, the United States -- Bush, in particular -- supported them.\n Ten years later, problems still persist in the troubled region. \n For most Iraqis, the war is largely a chapter in history, but a far more pressing issue are the consequences of the sanctions.\nMillions of children have died, many of them too young to have been around during the war. The United Nation's oil-for-food program, which Saddam Hussein grudgingly accepted five years ago, has helped provide Iraq's 23 million people with basic food and has put more medicine in hospitals and pharmacies. Iraq's economy, while still weak, is more stable than at any time in the past decade.\nBut Iraq complains the program is inadequate. Iraq has sold $40 billion worth of oil under the program, but has received only $10 billion worth of goods, according to U.N. figures.\nThe remaining $30 billion has gone to pay war reparations, assist the Kurds in northern Iraq and pay for the U.N. operation. And, Iraq has ordered billions of dollars worth of goods that have been either slow in arriving or have been delayed by the U.N. sanctions committee, which must approve all Iraqi purchases.\nOn Kuwait's side, the country has yet to learn the fate of more than 600 people the government calls prisoners of war. Although Iraq denies the charge, Kuwait insists they are being held as hostages. \nKuwaiti doctors noted a dramatic rise in lung cancers and respiratory diseases they blame on a toxic fog that lasted six months, until the oil fires were put out. Psychological trauma still marks many survivors of the invasion. \nKuwait's 750,000 citizens depended heavily on a work force of 450,000 Palestinians, mostly skilled workers and managers, and even more imported short-term Asian laborers. \nThe emir dissolved Parliament in 1986 to rule by decree. Kuwaitis who resisted the occupation hoped to be rewarded after the war with a more democratic, better governed country. \nParliament was reinstated in 1992, but now many Kuwaitis call that a mixed blessing. Eight years after the war, when the emir proposed a law to give women the vote, Parliament blocked it. \nTo cope with 15,000 university graduates a year, officials maintain full employment by creating pointless state jobs. About 94 percent of Kuwaitis work for the government, and salaries absorb half the budget. \nEconomists insist something must change soon. With population increases, the government can no longer pay benefits and subsidies that Kuwaitis claim as their oil-given birthright. \nKuwait University charges no tuition, and even builds shelters where students' drivers can escape the fierce heat while waiting for class to end. \nDespite some advancements since the war, life in both countries has been difficult.\nTomorrow, another Bush will take office. In the era of compassionate conservatism, will he end the sanctions that his father helped impose?
(12/11/00 8:01am)
Many of the workers in sweatshops and factories in Central America are young women who are struggling to live.\nThe wages are low and the working conditions are terrible. \n"It's almost impossible to survive. The factories are extremely hot, there's no air conditioning, no ventilation system," said Jocelyn Viterna, a graduate student in sociology and Latin America studies.\nViterna cited a recent study conducted by Maria Elena Cuadra Women's Movement, which interviewed 2,562 women in the Nicaragua free trade zone. She said the study found that 85 percent of the respondents were below the age of 26, and 70 percent were single mothers. Sixty-three percent said their pay was docked when they had to go to the doctor, and 57 percent said they were not provided with masks to protect them from airborne fluff, which often leads to health problems, Viterna said.\n"These places are almost like prisons," said junior Nancy Steffan, who is a member of No Sweat!, an IU anti-sweatshop activist group.\nCrisis in Nicaragua\nHundreds of workers have been fired by four clothing factories in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes free trade zone. The goal was to eliminate unions that have been organizing and attempting to negotiate a salary increase. At the Mil Colores factory, more than 200 workers were fired, some of which are facing criminal charges.\n"The workers tried to get a very small wage increase, in a wage that doesn't really cover the cost of living," said Hannah Frisch, coordinator of STITCH, an organization dedicated to helping women in Central America and the United States organize for economic justice.\nThe workers struggle to find a way to feed their families. International pressure is being put on the factory owners, the free trade zone management, the Nicaraguan government, the U.S. embassy in Nicaragua, and Kohl's and Target, two companies that manufacture products at these factories.\nU.S. companies seek cheap labor\nAs the world becomes increasingly global, many U.S. companies seek to cut costs by manufacturing their products in factories such as the maquila factories in Central America. \n"The point is to keep the labor costs low. Free-trade zones are a way of encouraging these businesses come over," Nancy said.\nBut the results are detrimental.\n"Basically the workers have no rights," Steffan said.\nBecause many U.S companies are believed to be involved with such factories, some people say the United States is at fault.\n"The U.S. companies have an extreme amount of power. They could very easily set standards for minimum wage. But they're making huge profits," Viterna said.\nA national effort\nSTITCH trains women in the United States and Central America to deal with issues such as how to start and maintain a union, how to be effective in increasing wages and improving working conditions.\n"We've built a core of women activists in the U.S. who support women in Central America," said Jennifer Hill, steering committee member and one of the co-founders of STITCH.\nThe group is involved in an effort to help the workers in Nicaragua win back their jobs. Hill has been to Nicaragua recently for a training session with women workers who were fired.\n"They want to win their jobs back and they want to build a union. They are in a horrible position. They've just seen several hundred people fired. How do you maintain your union when you've just been fired?" Hill said.\nCoordinator Hannah Frisch said the goal is to get the factories to rehire all the workers, to drop all the criminal charges, negotiate a raise in salary and eventually to pay a living wage.\n"These women are trying to do all this and they have to worry about the fact that the water is no good. They have to organize a union and their members don't even have phones," Hill said.\nThe college campaign\nIU students are joining in the campaign to help Nicaraguan workers get their jobs back. Earlier this semester, No Sweat! members protested outside a career fair recruiters from Kohl's attended.\n"We're trying to encourage people to not shop at Kohl's until they treat they're workers fairly," Steffan said.\n"We exposing different corporations that use sweatshop labor and make them know that their not welcome on campus," she said.\nLast year, No Sweat! convinced the administration that the University should join the Worker's Rights Consortium. Now anything with the IU logo on it has to be made in approved factories. And No Sweat! is supporting other college campuses in their fight to join the WRC, leaving Hill impressed with the results. She said she believes that the anti-sweatshop campaign at college campuses across the nation has turned into a real movement.\n"It's just made a tremendous change in the ability for Central American workers to win campaigns and sustain their unions," Hill said.
(12/06/00 5:10am)
A former student visited Bloomington a few weekends ago. But\nneither he nor his wife paid hotel costs. They enjoyed the \nhospitality of an old friend -- Bloomington Chancellor Kenneth Gros Louis.\nGros Louis, who has served IU for 21 years as Bloomington chancellor, develops close relationships with students, many of whom he keeps in touch with after graduation. He attends their weddings. He invites them into his home. He has been invited into their homes. He knows their children, their brothers and their sisters. \nAnd when they visit, he refuses to be treated to a meal until the former student makes more money than he does.\nFor Gros Louis, the students define his satisfaction with his job.\n"I think this is a wonderful profession to grow old in," he said, the lines on his face hinting at his long career. "As I get older, I continue to interact with young people, and it keeps me younger. Reveling in changing values and attitudes of young people has been a pleasure."\nGros Louis' tenure as chancellor will end June 2001 when he retires and allows someone else to fill his size nine and a half shoes.\nDuring the past 36 years, Gros Louis' dedication to IU students has been unwavering. After undergraduate studies at Columbia University and graduate work at University of Wisconsin at Madison, Gros Louis came to Bloomington in 1964 as an assistant professor of English and comparative literature. He became an associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1970 and dean of the College in 1978. Since 1980, he has been chancellor and vice president of academic affairs. \nDuring his time at IU, Gros Louis has garnered a long list of accomplishments. He invites the leaders of about 25 student groups to his house several times throughout the year to learn about the happenings on campus. He developed three residence hall programs: Briscoe Fellows, Forest Friends and the Faculty Adopt-a-Floor. He originated the idea for the Wells Scholars program. \nCollins Living-Learning Center, floundering when Gros Louis took office, now flourishes with Gros Louis' guidance to improve the program. He strongly supported opening an office for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community.\nOne of his duties as chancellor, Gros Louis has appointed every dean of every school headquarterd on the Bloomington campus with the exception of one.\n"It's the deans who are the key figures in making the reputation of a university," he said. "I'm most proud of (these appointments). But there are little things too, like finding out a student's difficulty with his classes resulted from a learning disability that no one had checked for. These are small, but very important things I have done for faculty or students. \n"(They won't) be recorded in the annals of history, but I'm very happy with them," he said.\nScott Sanders, English professor and director of the Wells Scholars program, has known Gros Louis since coming to IU in 1971. Sanders considers the creation of the Arboretum, the land of the former football stadium many wanted to convert into a parking lot, a big accomplishment and a stroke of Gros Louis' characteristic vision. In 30 years as a co-worker and friend, Sanders has come to think Gros Louis' success has set high standards for his successor to follow.\n"He brings to the position of chancellor a real rich sense of the University history," Sanders said. "He has an extraordinary memory for people and events. There's no way that knowledge of history can be quickly replaced."\nGros Louis' younger daughter, Julie Gros Louis, 30, said she greatly respects her father's compassionate nature. Although she said it was initially difficult to say what she admired, she listed nine other characteristics she regards highly. Making the list were his open-mindedness, fairness, nonjudgmental demeanor and sense of humor.\n"It's hard to say what you admire most about someone when you admire so much about them," she said. \nBut Julie cannot immediately recall a specific funny memory that's a fair representation of her father.\n"I can't think of one single incident because everything is speckled with humor," she said of her father's personality. "In general, it's there all the time." \nOlder daughter Amy Gros Louis, 32, doesn't have a problem thinking of something specific. Amy said that in the mid-1980s, one of her father's student leader parties got slightly out of hand -- both the students and the chancellor jumped into the backyard hot tub with all their clothes on at 1:30 in the morning. A neighbor, who was the former mayor of Bloomington, called the police to complain of noise, and the fun ended when her mother had to tell everyone to quiet down.\n The hot tub incident is a perfect example of the enjoyment her dad gets from being with young people, she explained.\n "From the relationships he has developed with students, he has found some of his best friends," Amy said. "He really cares about people, and he will send me cards that say as long as you take care of others, you'll be taken care of as well."\n Senior Meredith Suffron, IU Student Association president, said she thought Gros Louis possesses a quiet but powerful disposition but later realized he was personable and full of laughter.\n"I will remember him most for his laughter," she said. "I'll never forget when we went to the opening football game of the season and he was quite the host. He really showed all of us students around and made us feel incredibly special."\nAmy and Julie said the remarkable character of their father is an asset to IU, and the University is an asset to her father, a man who loves to always be busy and productive. Julie predicts her father will enjoy himself once he retires but will go through a withdrawal.\n"Everything that keeps him busy -- essentially he'll be freed from that," she said. "He'll be more calm and mellow, for his own sake, but he'll be in shock with not being busy."\nBut Gros Louis is well aware that retirement will bring about a drastic change in lifestyle.\n"I have no hobbies," Gros Louis said in a half-joking, half-serious tone. "I work seven days a week, and my wife worries what I'm going to do because I have no hobbies. But I'll still have an office in Wylie Hall, and I've told Myles Brand that if there's anything he wants me to do, I'd be happy to do it."\nAmy also wonders what her father will do without the constant pressure of his demanding job. She can picture him reading spy novels in the backyard, a sharp contrast to his regimented schedule. His secretary outlines his schedule for six weeks in advance, but Gros Louis will pencil in an additional six to 10 weeks of plans to be even more organized. \nNancy Brooks, administrative assistant and special events coordinator, has worked with the chancellor for a decade. She describes his behavior as obsessive-compulsive, but she nonetheless loves working for Gros Louis.\n"I was devastated and shocked when he told me he would retire a year early," she said. "To find candidates who are as knowledgeable and versatile as (Gros Louis) will be a difficult task for the search committee."\nGros Louis admits to his compulsive nature. He always carries with him a calendar outlining his plans for the next 14 weeks, a habit that has turned time management into a science. \n"When people come to see me, and after business is done, I have time to ask how things are going with their families or their jobs because I'm well-prepared," he said. "I think a lot of what people see is that I enjoy getting to know people in terms of depth, not just a business relationship. One of the many things I've learned from (Herman B) Wells is that every person in the University is important: students, faculty, custodians, secretaries. The more you can learn about them, the better the atmosphere will be on campus"
(12/04/00 6:20am)
The heralded "New Economy" -- supposedly cured from traditional booms and busts of the past -- appears to be facing a speed bump. Economic indicators are pointing more toward a hard landing, meaning a recession. A recession occurs when the real Gross Domestic Product (subtracting inflation) is negative for two consecutive quarters, which hasn't happened in the United States since 1990-91.\nThe markets are down, higher interest rates are slowing spending, inflation is edging up, GDP growth is slowing and unemployment is increasing -- harbingers of a possible recession.\nThe Nasdaq Composite, a tech-laden tracker of stock performance, was down nearly 50 percent as of Friday. The broader stock indices are also suffering, as the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 are off 15 and 25 percent from their highs, respectively. A bear market occurs when markets go down by 20 percent or more, said James Stack, president of Stack Financial Management.\nThe Federal Reserve has raised interest rates six times in the past 18 months. This has caused many companies to slow spending on big ticket items such as computers, Internet infrastructure, software and new industrial equipment. These large items are attributed with keeping productivity humming along. \nGrowth in spending on these big-ticket items is expected to slow to less than 8 percent next year -- its lowest level since 1992, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.\nProductivity allows companies to increase wages without worrying about sparking inflation because their workers are able to produce more goods, thus making up for being paid more. This has helped keep low unemployment and increasing incomes without igniting inflation, according to The New York Times. Couple smaller productivity gains with higher energy costs, and the possibility of inflation becomes much more realistic.\nThe good news about inflation is that while it has crept up a bit, the Federal Reserve doesn't consider it a concern. "Cost pressures and price inflation had remained subdued for an extended period despite low rates of unemployment," according to the minutes of the Fed's Nov. 16 meeting.\nThe minutes went on to report that the slowing of demand should also ease inflation tensions and indicated that the Fed might drop its inflationary warning. Both companies and consumers are spending less.\nThe U.S. GDP expanded by a paltry 2.4 percent, the slowest figure in four years and less than the 2.7 percent expected. As growth slows, unemployment can be expected to increase.\nThe most notable softening in employment is coming from the manufacturing sector. A growing number of economists expect the current 3.9 percent unemployment rate to increase to 4.5 percent in 2001, according to The Wall Street Journal. \nBut there's good news. According to a recent Michigan State study, researchers found the labor market for college graduates should grow by 6 to 10 percent next year, with especially strong demand for liberal arts majors.\nThe "New Economy" is facing its first major challenge since being born with the advent of the Internet. The question remains: Will it run ashore like many dotcoms or weather the storm?
(11/16/00 4:57pm)
Women's soccer assistant coach and former IU standout, Wendy Dillinger, is about to receive a rebirth in the sport she loves. Dillinger was one of 200 nationwide invitees to try out for the Women's United Soccer Association in December.\nThe WUSA is the first U.S. women's pro soccer league and will begin play next year with eight teams -- six in the East and two in the West. Each team has already selected three players from the U.S. women's national team. Two slots on each team went to foreign players. \nThe remaining slots will be filled after a five-day tryout Dec. 5-9 in Florida where the 200 players invited will practice and then be selected in a 12-15 round draft Dec. 10-11.\nDillinger played for IU during the 1993-95 and '97 seasons, missing the '96 season because of appendicitis. During her tenure at IU, Dillinger set school records for career goals (37), assists (24) and points (98).\nAfter graduating in 1998, Dillinger had a brief stint with Fredricksburg in Denmark of the European soccer league and continues to play semi-pro soccer for the Indiana Blaze in the summer.\nAlong with playing in semi-pro leagues Dillinger continuously practices with the women's team and plays in the men's league at the Sportsplex. She receives help from strength and conditioning coach Geoff Eliason.\n"I work out with Geoff three days a week to help me stay fit," Dillinger said. "It also helps playing in the men's league because they are quicker and faster. They play the game at a high pace and that really helps my game."\nHead coach Joe Kelley, who coached Dillinger, said she has what it takes to compete against the players in the new league.\n"There's not a lot of players like Wendy," Kelley said. "Wendy is a lightning rod player from the point that when she's on the field, everybody knows it. She does exceptional things with the ball. She can hit the ball as hard as any guy."\nKelley said her speed, ball handling and passing skills are just as exceptional.\n"She's a real hard worker," Kelley said. "She's somebody that when she's on the field, she makes the team go. She really generates the level of play of everyone around her and the team herself."\nFreshman midfielder Emily Hotz said the qualities Dillinger displays as a player have helped her in her role of assistant coach.\n"Wendy is a great player as well as a coach. She has an amazing understanding of the game," Hotz said. \nHotz, who was named second team all-Big Ten this year, said Dillinger's understanding and leadership set a great example for the Hoosiers to follow.\n"In practice, she helps us become better players when she plays with us, because she is such a strong and solid player," Hotz said.\nDillinger said the team and staff have had an effect on her.\n"Everyone has been real supportive," Dillinger said. "My teammates, the staff has all said to 'just relax' and 'don't worry about the tryouts.' I have to just play how I usually do. I'm very nervous, but I have made a lot of progress."\nBecause Dillinger received a tryout invitation doesn't mean she is going to be drafted to a team. But Kelley said he feels she has a great chance to play in this league and even somewhere better.\n"I think she can play even at a higher level," Kelley said. "She's a little hardheaded but that's a character trait that all good competitive athletes have. I wish we had her on our team again"
(11/15/00 5:03am)
Marc Haggerty was the untold story of this year's Eighth District Congressional race.\nThe scraggly-haired songwriter ran as a write-in candidate for the Green Party.\nCampaigning only in Monroe County and shunning media attention, he kept a low profile.\n"I only campaigned for the last month because I had to work, and I couldn't afford to take time off," he said. "I need to support myself just like everyone else."\nRefusing to even have his picture taken for the local newspapers, Haggerty relied mostly on word of mouth. To build up support, he made the rounds at activist meetings and rallies.\n"I attended any meeting with a Green Party angle, like I-69 or sweatshops," he said. "We reached hundreds of people."\nWhen all the ballots were counted, he had 269 votes.\nBut, hoping to mount a more visible campaign, the Green Party already has its sights set on 2002. Local activist Jeff Melton has declared his candidacy -- two years before the election.\nGenerally, Congressional candidates give it six months before they even start fund-raising.\n"I am announcing my candidacy to the public now to dramatize the lengths to which a third-party candidate must go to run a serious campaign in Indiana," he said. "This state has among the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation."\nMany local Green Party activists are still bitter about a failed petition drive to get their presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, on the state ballot. By a mid-July deadline, they needed 31,000 signatures and came up a few thousand short.\n"When John Anderson came along in 1980, states have made it harder for independent third-party candidates to get on the ballot," said graduate student Peter Drake, the Monroe County coordinator of the Nader campaign. "In some states, you simply had to have $25. But we needed 31,000 signatures."\nDespite the obstacles, Melton hopes to launch a full-fledged campaign. He intends to stump "as much as possible" throughout the entire district, which stretches to the Kentucky border. While he said he knows he has no shot of winning, he hopes to bring his set of issues to the fore.\n"When I moved to Bloomington, we were represented by Frank McCloskey who took meritorious stands on many issues," he said. "Then we got John Hostettler in 1994. He's earned close to a zero rating from environmental groups, opposes the minimum wage and never met a giveaway to the rich that he didn't like."\nThough Nader was not on the ballot, he had a strong showing in Monroe County -- receiving 2,885 votes, or 7.1 percent of the presidential votes. Nader only won three percent nationwide.\n Melton believes many Eighth District voters are fed up with "the lack of choice" between the two major parties. He cited Hostettler's fallen Democratic challenger, Paul Perry, who towed the conservative line on issues like gun control and abortion.\n "He mirrored his Republican opponent on so many stands," Melton said. "I am tired of people having to choose between two candidates who don't really represent their needs or interests. So was his Democratic base, apparently."\nPerry lost in 11 of the district's 13 counties, including Vanderburgh -- the most populous and reliably Democratic county. While Hostettler's margin of victory was a slim 21 votes, most observers agree that a Democrat has to carry Vanderburgh going away to win in the Eighth District. \nIf elected, Melton pledges to protect the environment, fight for worker's rights and social justice, and work to abolish the death penalty. A North Carolina native, the part-time college lecturer has been immersed in progressive activism since he first protested nuclear weapons as a college student.
(11/07/00 11:52pm)
Are you wondering why Myles Brand is still president of IU when the University continues to fall apart?\nWhen Brand was due for his five-year review last year, his Board of Trustees hired one person, an outside consultant named Robert Atwell, to do it, the IDS reported.\nAtwell worked to work with Fred Steingraber, who was on the IU Foundation Board with Brand, according to the IDS.\nWilliam Baker, vice president of the University of California, was named to work with Atwell only after complaints.\nFaculty members at IU were outraged, the IDS reported. Normally a special committee is appointed to do the reviews. Now it was coming down to two people, one of whom worked with Brand's buddy. \nAs one faculty member told the IDS, "Having an outside evaluater who was reasonably removed from IU … and the amount of time -- were insufficient to allow students and faculty an opportunity to express their opinions." \nAtwell held only one open meeting for students and faculty to voice their concerns, on April 1. \nAnd what did Atwell find? He produced a 14-page report discussing Brand's administration in a favorable light. Go figure.\n"It is our considered and enthusiastic judgment that (IU) has been well-served by Brand and is most fortunate to be blessed with his leadership," the report stated. \nDuring an Oct. 6 Policy Committee meeting, Brand was asked about the measly 1 percent annual raise the faculty receives. Brand just emphasized faculty salaries are higher than state averages, according to the meeting minutes, available at www.indiana.edu/~coasinfo/coascommittee.shtml.\nHe is scheduled to get another 6 percent raise next year, no matter how poorly IU continues to do. Brand is making more than the U.S. president. \nAnd Brand's track record is anything but clean. \nLast year he signed an agreement to protect human rights by saying IU products would not be made using sweatshop labor. \nIn an Apr. 4, 1999 IDS article, Brand said: "We want Hoosier fans everywhere (to) wear their IU colors with pride … (knowing) that the workers who made those garments were treated fairly." \nHe then allowed Nike to sponsor our athletic programs, even though sources such as the Christian Science Monitor note Nike's sweatshop labor practices. \nChristopher Simpson, vice president for public affairs and government relations, is always talking about what a powerful package IU is. Simpson told the IDS, "IU is a tremendous value in terms of the very moderate cost." Then why did IU not rank as a "Best Value" for a Midwest college when 124 others did rank in U.S. News and World Report?\nThe flood gates have been opened. IU has an 86 percent acceptance rate according to Barron's. One 1972 IU graduate said, "(IU) used to be a top notch school and very difficult to get in." \nNot anymore. \nWe should be trying to raise the class-rank figures.\nBut even Brand seems to be confused. On IU's Sept. 15 Web page, he said, "I am pleased that (IU) continues to attract more and more well-qualified students." He told the IDS, "I believe the rising enrollments reflect the strong reputation of our academic programs."\nBut in an Oct. 6 Policy Committee meeting, Brand said that since enrollments have gone back up, it should be possible to concentrate more on the quality of the students we enroll. \nWhen questioned about IU's decline, Brand mentions the Schools of Music, Education and Business -- all in the top 10 in the country. He acts like he helped make them successful. \nIn actuality, it was the work of other IU presidents -- such as Herman B Wells -- who helped set the stage. \nBrand charges faculty who have raised questions about the decline of IU should do their homework. It appears they have. Brand's just reading a different book. It's titled My Perfect World.\nOne professor asked me, "What would happen to the manager or CEO of a business who didn't produce?" They'd be fired.\nBrand's trustees supported his efforts and re-appointed him. \nNow it's time for action. Brand and the administration must go.
