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(04/13/10 1:51am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Editor’s note: Due to the sensitive nature of this article, the alias “Sam” is used in place of the name of an IU student. While the Web site is only 14 months old, CollegeACB.com, an online discussion board, has already become a controversial site where students face homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.The Web site replaced anonymous forum JuicyCampus.com after it went under due to a lack of revenue. While College ACB, or College Anonymous Confession Board, was originally founded for students to voice their opinions and ask questions about college life, some of the more recent posts include “watch out for STD’s from: who should you be on the lookout for,” “faggots in Briscoe: name them” and “gay sluts on campus.” Sam, a junior, had never accessed the Web site before slanderous comments were posted on it with his name attached. “Some of the things were very fabricated and the truth got twisted,” Sam said. “I know they say sticks and stones, but words can really hurt and this really hurt me.”Sam is not the only one targeted on the Web site. While many students have suffered from the malicious comments posted on College ACB, the IU administration has no plans to act against the site, as it conflicts with First Amendment rights. Instead, Dean of Students Pete Goldsmith said students should ignore College ACB.“I don’t think attention should be brought to the site, it just makes people curious,” Goldsmith said. “If students become isolated or depressed because of this Web site, they should reach out to campus services and get some help. I also know that students have peers who should not abandon them when they are the subject of a personal attack.”However, for students who have been affected by College ACB, this might not be enough.“You can sympathize with someone as much as you want, but you can never understand the devastating effects of College ACB until you are put in their shoes,” Sam said. “The best preventative measure is to destroy the Web site completely.”Because of Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, there is also no legal action students can take against College ACB. Under this law, College ACB has no responsibility for user-generated content and also does not have any legal obligation to remove offensive posts. While the site offers a user-moderation button, which allows students to request the removal of a post, the site owner, Peter Frank, has every right to deny a deletion request.While personal attacks are quite common on CollegeACB, other popular topics include fraternity and sorority rankings, in which both homosexuals and Jews are singled out.Sophomore Evan Stein, the president of Sigma Alpha Mu, found some of the posts about the fraternity to be humorous. “Personally, I can’t help but kind of laugh ... that’s just the typical stereotypes, and I can’t take it with too much hate,” Stein said.However, Stein stopped laughing after reading posts mocking the Holocaust. “I’m shocked,” Stein said. “The fact that people think this is one thing, putting it on the Web site is another. This is slander and anti-Semitic.”According to internet law professor Fred Cate, unless a student can identify the poster, very little can be done at either the IU disciplinary level or the federal level.As of now, Cate said it is extremely difficult to prosecute a person for cyber bullying, citing a case from 2008 in which middle school student Megan Meier committed suicide after being cyber bullied by a mother, Lori Drew, pretending to be a 16-year-old boy.While the jury originally convicted Drew of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the charges were thrown out after the judge ruled that while she might have violated MySpace’s terms of service, she was not breaking a federal law. And according to Cate, it can take a decade to pass a law, and to win a court case, a good deal of money and an infinite amount of patience is required. Even with these obstacles, Cate offered two solutions for students ready to take action against the site. “Students should start by targeting the advertisers,” Cate said. “They should ask why they are paying for a Web site as valueless as College ACB. Companies like their reputations protected, and this might persuade them to stop advertising.”Cate also suggested students boycott the Web site. While this may seem like a rather simple solution, Frank announced on the College ACB Blog that the site had a record day on Feb. 1 with more than 900,000 posts. “No matter what a person has done, they don’t deserve to be publicly degraded so thousands can read about it,” Sam said. “After your name has been trashed, it’s never the same afterwards. Although I may be able to forget about what happened temporarily, it is always going to stick with me.”
(04/05/10 5:01pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Junior Eric Kern was supposed to be an engineering major at Indiana State University, but today he proudly wears a faded IU T-shirt with the words “Indiana Nursing” on it.Such a drastic change in major can only be explained by the events of March 2007.While driving home from work along an unlit, hilly road in Ireland, Ind., Kern’s mom caught a glimpse of something in the street. Assuming it was a deer, she quickly swerved. Her car crashed into an embankment on the side of the road, leaving Kern’s mom with three broken vertebrae.Kern, his two siblings and his four foster siblings were left without a mother figure for several weeks as she recuperated in the hospital with the support of a four-person nursing staff.During the weeks after the accident, Kern remembers visiting his mom in the hospital and seeing the nurses connect with the rest of his family. On numerous occasions, the nurses would provide him with meals or sit and talk to offer both moral and spiritual support, he said. “With seven kids without a mom to take care of them, these nurses helped to make a difference in our life when there was an empty void,” Kern said. “The impact they had on me and my family was huge.”These moments explain Kern’s nursing T-shirt. He bought it June 1, 2009 — the day that he, along with three other men and 56 women, was accepted into the IU School of Nursing. Before receiving his acceptance letter, which completed his transfer from Indiana State University, Kern became a certified nursing assistant at Memorial Hospital in Jasper, Ind., working alongside the same nurses who took care of his mom. He worked in geriatrics for three years and currently works in the emergency room.“I like trauma,” he said. “It’s where I like to call home.”This wasn’t always the case.Turning his head to the side, Kern points to a scar on his left eyebrow. At the age of 8, while roughhousing with his siblings, he sliced his head on the edge of a table and refused to get stitches. A year later, Kern came down with pneumonia and missed more than a week of school before his mom dragged him to the hospital.“I used to hate the hospital,” he said. “I probably should have had stitches or gone to the hospital a bunch of times, but I never wanted to admit I was sick.” Now, more than a decade later, Kern’s academic career revolves almost entirely around nursing. On Mondays and Wednesdays, Kern’s days are filled with nursing lectures, and on Tuesdays he has a clinical lab from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.“His work ethic is above and beyond a lot of people in the nursing school,” junior Caitlin Burden said.A day in the lifeDressed in red scrubs, white tennis shoes and an ID tag with his photo on it, Kern walks into a classroom in the Sycamore Hall basement at 7:50 a.m. Tuesday. The classroom is decorated with two posters, one of which shows a male nurse with the slogan: “Be a Role Model. Be a Nurse.” Sitting down at the table, he reaches into his bag for a Cool Blue Gatorade and a Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tart.Along with the nine women in the class, Kern watches a skills module on how to insert a urinary catheter. “We have learned to be a family,” he said. “My girlfriend is at Butler College in Indianapolis, so it’s nice to have girls to go to and talk if you need advice.” Folding his arms across his chest, he stares intently at the screen, adjusting the purple “Find a Cure” wristband he wears on his left wrist. Kern wears the wristband to support a friend and fellow nursing student who is suffering from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. As president of the sophomore nursing class, Kern helped plan a benefit concert at Buffa Louie’s to raise money for the illness.After the video, Kern snaps on purple surgical gloves and approaches the mannequin in the electric hospital bed.“Hello, Mrs. Jones,” he says. “I’ll be putting a catheter in you today.” Working through the steps, Kern emphasizes the importance of maintaining sterility and patient privacy. “You’re going to feel a little pressure,” he says, inserting the lubricated tubing into the mannequin. This is not Kern’s first experience with urinary catheters. Working at the hospital, he has seen this typically messy procedure performed numerous times.“If you get grossed out easily, this wouldn’t be the field for you,” he said.‘Focused and determined’Besides a full course load, Kern puts in a 12-hour shift at the Memorial Hospital in Jasper, Ind., once a week and also works at the registrar’s office.“Eric is the most focused and determined person I know,” sophomore Gordon Lang said. “I feel like he could choose any academic route and he could really excel in that area.”To make it to the hospital on time on Thursday morning, Kern leaves IU on Wednesday night. He spends the night at home in Ireland, Ind., and makes the 10-minute commute to Jasper in the morning. While attending to patients, Kern said he has encountered curiosity about his career path due to the low percentage of men in the nursing field. “When I walk in a room and say, ‘I’m going to be your nurse today,’ I’ve had older patients ask me, ‘What made you want to be a nurse?’ or ‘Why aren’t you farming?’” he said. “I tell them that I enjoy caring for people and helping the sick.” In the future, Kern hopes to become an emergency room nurse practitioner or certified registered nurse anesthetist in Indianapolis’ Wishard Memorial or Methodist Hospitals. Although it’s been nearly three years since the car crash, Kern said the lessons he learned from his mom’s nursing staff have resonated with him as he pursues a career. “I want to make a great impact on patients’ lives,” he said. “And I want to be able to pay it forward.”
(02/19/10 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>About 40 to 60 percent of college students struggle with body image, said Cathy Cronemeyer, a member of the Coalition for Overcoming Problem Eating/Exercise.The Coalition and Student Recreational Sports Center sponsored IU’s second annual Celebrate EveryBODY Week, which promotes positive body image.Cronemeyer said both males and females face image issues.“Thinking about spring break week, body image concerns are prevalent,” she said. “Part of this week is to make people aware of body concerns and disordered eating and help people think more positively about their bodies.”Andy Fry, assistant director for fitness and wellness at the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation’s Campus Recreational Sports, said society is partially responsible for negative body issues.“There are so many ads that create this illusion of beauty when really we have the strength inside us,” said Fry. “We need to stop looking at what society has deemed to be beautiful and worthy. The beauty is inside ourselves.” Fry said one of the most important events of the week was the expert panel discussion that featured 2009’s Miss Indiana Nicole Pollard, social disorder and eating disorder specialist Jan Taylor-Shultz, registered dietician Janele Bayless and program director for fitness and wellness at the Student Recreational Sports Center Chris Arvin.Graduate student Cody Heeter, adviser for the IU Student Wellness Committee, said each panel member provided a different, yet critical, perspective for the discussion. The panel covered a range of issues, including signs of an eating disorder, problems that can occur from an eating disorder and the different outlets on campus students can use for help, Taylor-Shultz also emphasized the severity of all eating disorders by pulling out the funeral program of a client. Shultz said 20 percent of those who have anorexia die, and more people die from anorexia than any other mental illness.“There’s too much focus on what’s wrong with my body and how I can make it better,” said Andrew Shea, a psychologist at IU Counseling and Psychological Services. Heeter said this year’s Celebrate EveryBODY Week not only worked to bring about a sense of community at IU, but also helped students learn to harness positive self-esteem. “You are not alone,” he said. “And you are more than your image.”
(02/04/10 4:07am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As a result of budget cuts ordered by Gov. Mitch Daniels, Ivy Tech Community College lowered per-student spending by 18 percent, despite a major increase in student enrollment this past year.During the remaining 17 months of Indiana’s two-year budget cycle, Daniels ordered a $150 million cut in higher education spending due to the severe drop in state tax revenue. Budget cuts are being carried out by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to seven state university systems including Ivy Tech, Purdue, IU and Indiana State University.Ivy Tech, which has the lowest operation expense per degree according to fiscal year 2008 data, received an overall 3.7 percent reduction for the budget cycle. Compared to the other schools in the state, Ivy Tech’s budget cut was less severe, which will help it accommodate for this year’s 33 percent increase in enrollment.With more than 119,000 students registered for the spring semester, Ivy Tech has its highest enrollment ever. Nevertheless, the school would still lose .7 percent, or about $10 million, of its $350 million dollar budget during this fiscal year. Jeff Fanter, vice president for communications and marketing, said Ivy Tech is still enrolling students for fall 2010 despite budget losses.“At this time we do not have plans to cap enrollment,” Fanter said, adding that they have an enrollment study committee reviewing the situation.Ivy Tech’s major budget cut, combined with its record enrollment, is restricting the hiring of new teachers, as well as the number of classes that can be added to the school’s 23 campuses across the state.Counseling and advising services and class registration will be limited as well, said Ivy Tech freshman Andrew Yurisich, finance director for the Ivy Tech Student Government Association.“What you are going to see are longer lines at the bursar office, longer lines of people trying to register for classes and longer lines outside the financial aid office because there will not be as many people to help them,” Yurisich said.Fanter said class registration competition will be greater because many popular classes and time slots fill up quickly.“Many may get discouraged and leave because there are just are too many brick walls and too many obstacles,” Yurisich said.Ivy Tech’s yearly tuition costs about $3,000. For students such as Yurisich, who is paying his way through college on a salary earned at a local gas station, tuition cost is key.“We are committed to keeping our tuition affordable,” Fanter said. “More and more Hoosiers are seeing and understanding the value of the community college and how it offers degrees that result in good paying jobs and credits that transfer with an affordable tuition.” Yurisich said one aspect of Ivy Tech that won’t be affected by the new legislation is the funding that goes to student organizations. These funds come from credit hour payments, which enable organizations like the Student Government Association to pay their members.The experience students receive at Ivy Tech is not as traditional as those offered at other universities, Yurisch said.“Ivy Tech gives you the platform to improve yourself and it is a necessary pedestal for many,” he said.