Change in campus bus routes enacted
The D bus will no longer be seen on campus streets this year. It has merged with the E route and adopted its name.
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The D bus will no longer be seen on campus streets this year. It has merged with the E route and adopted its name.
IU biology professor Keith Clay was honored Wednesday for his work in creating the IU Research and Teaching Preserve.
In the midst of one of the hottest days of the year, students at the Campus Community Gardens were reminded of fall.
IU professor emeritus of biology Albert Ruesink died Sunday of leukemia at 74.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Amy Waggoner chose a seat in the corner of a small classroom. Shoulders straight, she sat inches away from the back of her wooden chair, using a second seat to prop up her leg. The other students in the room gave her the occasional glance but otherwise ignored her.Waggoner, 47, has a bad spine, and while she doesn’t use any assistive aids, she can’t sit in most classroom chairs, and it’s still difficult to get around campus. Waggoner, like many other disabled students, has trouble maneuvering IU’s campus due to its natural terrain and inaccessible buildings.The day before classes start every semester, Waggoner gets to her classrooms early to scope out the chairs. If there doesn’t appear to be a chair she can use, she calls Disability Student Services, who contacts building maintenance to arrange for adequate seating accommodations for her when school starts.This process, however, can take up to two weeks.“You’re very alienated,” Waggoner said. “If you factor in the mobility issues and the fact that you have to be very proactive and assertive about what your needs are, and then you have to have a very thick skin.”Waggoner said it’s difficult to get around campus and enter buildings, citing the Herman B Wells library as one of the hardest buildings to access via ramps. “The door you go in and the path you take is three times as long as if you were able to just go right up the steps,” Waggoner said. “It’s as if when they’re putting these entrances in, there’s almost an underlying ‘Well, at least we provided them with a way in’ instead of being proactive and thinking, ‘Let’s provide them the fastest way in.’”It’s hard to make IU accessible for students who are disabled, DSS Director Shirley Stumper said.The University tries its best with wide sidewalks and plenty of ramps, but its old buildings and natural geography pose obstacles for physically disabled students, she said.“You can’t change the grade of a hill,” she said.The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990 and prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. It also provides a set of standards on accessibility.According to the ADA, an incline should rise a maximum of one inch for every 12 inches.“Think about that as you walk around campus,” Stumper said. “You walk around campus and you know that almost every place there’s something steeper than that.”The hill from the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center to the Herman B Wells library, for instance, has an incline far greater than one inch per every foot, Stumper said. That makes it difficult for a student in a wheelchair or someone with a walker to make it to the library.“That’s why we provide van transportation,” Stumper said.However, the van is used solely for academic purposes, Stumper said. “For a person with a disability, it’s part of their life to figure out how to negotiate the natural terrain,” she said. “So we try to even that out as much as possible, if it’s realistic to do that.”Waggoner, who came to IU for her undergraduate studies in 2008, is currently a graduate student in the European Studies program. She had been out of school for 20 years but came back to pursue an undergraduate degree in English. “You just get exhausted mentally trying to figure out the maze of how to get into a building, and then you get mad that you have to take such long routes to get somewhere,” she said. Kaleb Crain, who is majoring in educational science, came to IU because of its top-notch education school. He stayed despite the difficult terrain and seemingly thoughtless architecture that are part of his daily life — they are a struggle for someone in a wheelchair, like him.“There are plenty of times I have to go a longer, more inconvenient way than your average able-bodied student,” Crain said. “There are even times when it’s frustrating when steps were put in where they could clearly make it a ramp and fit it for universal design.”Crain said he may not complete his degree in four years because of the number of classes he has had to drop due to not being able to access his classrooms.“There are times when it’s not communicated to disability services when elevators are out,” Crain said. “So I’ve had to miss classes because I can’t get to them. I’ve had to drop classes because the building was completely inaccessible.”Crain said he couldn’t even get into Swain West because all of the accessible doors open into stairwells, and he can’t maneuver around them.The DSS has a 24-hour elevator repair team on speed dial, Stumper said. According to the ADA, public institutions like IU have to make buildings accessible to all students by providing accommodations like accessible bathroom stalls and elevators if the building is more than one floor.Many of IU’s buildings were built before 1990, however, and were not held up to the ADA standards.Currently, accessible parking sits between Merrill Hall and the Jacobs School of Music’s annex. Those coming from Third Street in need of accessible entryways must go around the annex and up a lift to get into Merrill Hall.“They’re redoing that whole area,” Stumper said. “It’s because the grade of the land is more than accessibility.”Stumper said while it’s realistic to change the ramp at Merrill Hall, there are places on campus where it would be too difficult or a financial burden on the school to make it accessible to students with accessibility issues.She said she thinks these problems on campus do encourage students to look at alternative colleges.“It’s old,” Stumper said. “It’s got cobblestone in places. It can never be smoothed out.” Crain said he knows the financial burden the University would be under if it renovated all of its buildings to be accessible, but he does want the university to communicate with the DSS regularly.“If I’m not going to graduate in four years due to the accessibility issues,” Crain said, “I’m thinking I’ll be done in six.” Waggoner said she’d like to see changes to IU’s campus, but only if it’s in the right direction. She recommended IU’s architects seek more input from disabled students when considering new additions to the campus.“You can only really deal with a problem adequately when you speak to the experts,” she said. “And the experts are the people that maneuver it everyday with issues.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Change seems to have been IU’s motto the past several years.Administrators’ plans have directed the University toward new paths, and new schools have been formed as older ones consolidated.Administrators are at the forefront of these changes, standing on podiums and before committees, explaining the University’s new direction to the IU community.The voice of the student, however, remains in the background. The newest batch of these University-changing documents is the IU-Bloomington Campus Strategic Plan.The document is meant to carry the University into the next century, meaning big changes for the administration, faculty and students.On the list of 167 individuals who were part of the Strategic Planning Committee, only six were students: four undergraduates and two graduate students.These committees were each responsible for writing reports that led to certain sections of the Strategic Plan.For instance, the Graduate Education team wrote a full report on the needed changes to the graduate experience at IU, which became the foundation for the Graduate Education section in the Strategic Plan. Ronald Arruejo, a master’s student in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, was one of two graduate students involved in the process. The other graduate student, David Breed, was unable to attend any of the Strategic Plan meetings due to conflicts with his class schedule — he was kept abreast via email, Arruejo said.Arruejo served on the Graduate Education team, offering input and comments where he could.“Basically, on some issues they solicited my opinions because I am the only one that would know about it,” he said.Arruejo said international education and diversity retention were two areas he was able to contribute to during his committee meetings. While he missed the first five meetings because of a late appointment as the Graduate and Professional Student Organization treasurer, he said he soon felt like part of the group.“I was there more on the commenting side,” he said. “They were able to incorporate my ideas, but I wasn’t the one actually writing the final words that you see on the provost’s plan.”Executive Vice President and Provost Lauren Robel spoke on the Strategic Plan at faculty meetings, a campus town hall meeting and her State of the Campus address. Each time, she emphasized the importance of public comment.“The need to have students involved in something like this is just really obvious,” she said.A small council of administrators and faculty chose the student team members for the Strategic Plan, Robel said. When senior Gene Kim contributed to the Undergraduate Education team, he sat in a room packed with professors and administrators. Only two other students could be looked to for support on student views. Kim was the only international student. “They need some student input when they form plans and all those kinds of things, but it was difficult for me to contribute my perspectives onto that process,” he said. He attributed this difficulty to the large number of “experts” on the committee. As an international student from South Korea, Kim originally wanted to be on the International Initiatives: Students team, but he was told his perspective was needed in the Undergraduate Education section. No students were on the International Initiatives: Students team.“When we tried to form plans specifically for international students and how they should be involved in student organizations, per se, I had to provide some extra information to professors, because they don’t know much about what international students on campus are going through,” Kim said.He said he was happy with his part in the plan but, looking back, he wished there had been more international student input in his committee.“I think this is a rare opportunity for me to be involved,” he said.In addition to those six students who directly worked on the Strategic Plan, Robel said she worked to reach out to multiple student groups.On a campus of more than 40,000 students, Robel directly spoke to 322 students outside of the committee, according to a document from her office.This included a total of 41 students who gave input on the Undergraduate Education section. Those students were a part of IU Student Association and the Deans Advisory Council. This number also includes the 45 graduate students at a GPSO meeting whom Robel spoke to as part of additional outreach for the plan. Arruejo said he was satisfied with what he contributed and the document his committee produced, but he did wish there was a louder graduate student voice in the committee.“At minimum, I wish there was another graduate student that was actually a doctorate because they have very different needs than a professional student,” he said. Arruejo said he would have liked one graduate student in the humanities, one from the sciences and one each from a master’s and doctoral program — at least three in total.While the Strategic Plan is far-reaching across campus, IU has also changed at the school level. In cases of school mergers, such as the School of Library and Information Sciences becoming a department within the School of Informatics and Computing, students had to work to voice their opinions. In 2012, when the SLIS merger was first announced, Anand Kulanthaivel was in the middle of completing a master of information science through the school.By the time he graduated in 2013, SLIS was no longer a school, but a department. Student voice was minimal, he said. Most of what SLIS students contributed went through the faculty.“I wish there were more opportunities for student input,” Kulanthaivel said.While he said the school and faculty created a very open atmosphere, he thought student input in the merger could have been improved.As students were given updates on the merger, Kulanthaivel said the SLIS students realized there wasn’t much they could do.“So much of it was set in stone already,” he said. “We felt pretty helpless.”Students in the School of Journalism had more opportunity to voice their opinions about the school merging with the Department of Communication and Culture and the Department of Telecommunications to form the Media School.Bari Finkel, a senior in the journalism school, is part of the Journalism Student Advisory Board, a group that advocates for journalism students as the school becomes part of the new Media School.“This entire operation takes so many people, and I think the student voice is probably the most important voice in this,” Finkel said. She said there have been disconnects between students and administration outside of the journalism school and disconnects between the students of telecommunications, communication and culture and the journalism school, but it hasn’t slowed down the board. “I think that the student voice is invaluable in all of the categories because we’re the ones who are going through the programs now, and we’re very conscious of our education,” she said.The advisory board has put together reports about what the students want to see in The Media School, including space for student media, improvements to the senior capstone and a mentor program, Finkel said.The board has also started to work with CMCL and telecommunications students to advise on a Media School-wide level. The Journalism Student Advisory Board will continue to contribute to the changes brought about by the Media School next year, Finkel said. And it should be in place for at least the first few years of the new school.“I think this is really the right step for IU,” Finkel said. “I think it is going forward in a way that other colleges aren’t and it’s really impressive, and I’m excited to be a part of it. But it’s also scary to be a student among all of this because we know that there’s a possibility we won’t be listened to.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU is moving forward with plans for the organization of the University Strategic Plan. When finished, it will outline goals for IU-Bloomington and its seven satellite campuses.“(IU President Michael McRobbie) wants a plan to be made because IU has a multi-campus system,” said Michael Rushton, director of strategic planning.The plan will be compiled from the Bloomington campus plan, the Indianapolis plan and the regional campus plans as well as other individual departments, said John Applegate, executive vice president for university academic affairs.“What I expect is that it’ll be an integrated whole that really positions us in a direction for the bicentennial,” Applegate said.It’s unclear as to how this new plan will affect the Campus Strategic Plan, and if the Strategic Plan will have to be changed after the University Plan is finished.“It’s a little too early to say, but I would not expect huge changes in the Bloomington campus plan,” John Applegate said.Some of IU’s faculty have concerns that the Campus Strategic Plan will become obsolete.“I think that their concern, basically, is what would happen if something in the University Strategic Plan is ultimately not compatible with parts of the Bloomington, or any other campus, strategic plan,” said Herb Terry, president of the Bloomington Faculty Council.Terry said he doesn’t think that’s likely to happen.“What I really hope the University Strategic Plan emphasizes is: what is the president going to be doing that falls under his authority?” Terry said.Applegate said he thinks the Strategic Plan will be very important input into the University Plan.“We’ve had a couple informal brainstorming sessions with various faculty groups about it,” Applegate said.There will not be a committee system to put together the University Strategic Plan. Instead, there will be a draft made for public comment in the fall, Rushton said.“I don’t think it’s the president’s intent to come up with something that’ll upset the campuses,” Terry said. “The campuses do the work.”Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Soon, students won’t have to go to ratemyprofessor.com to find out if a class is right for them; IU will provide the same information.Beyond the prior grades professors have given, students will be able to find out how involved the instructor is and how much time a class might take using an online database.“The fact of the matter is students use this information,” said Dennis Groth, interim vice provost for undergraduate education.This online course evaluation was approved at a Bloomington Faculty Council meeting.Both the database and questionnaire are part of IU’s Online Course Questionnaire Policy, which was approved in 2012.“I think that the real benefit to students of these questions, which we’re asking, is to really assess how much time a student is going to spend in a given class so that they can better accommodate other classes in their schedule,” IU Student Association president Jose Mitjavila said.IU will provide only aggregate data and distribution, excluding students’ general comments, Groth said. “We just want to see answers to the qualitative questions,” Mitjavila said. The issue was raised that this database might not be useful to students who have to take a required course that only offers one option in time and professor.“From a student perspective, even in a vacuum with no other options, there would still be utility in the availability of this information in the sense that it would help students manage expectations for their semester,” said Chris Coffman, Graduate and Professional Student Organization president.IU’s Open Access policy was also discussed at the meeting. The Library Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council researched open access to make a recommendation to the BFC as to whether IU should adopt an active open access policy.The committee did not recommend an active policy, said Jason Jackson, Library Committee chair.IU currently has a passive policy in which professors can publish their articles open access if they prefer. “Our concern, instead, was open access that’s achieved through the deposit of scholarly articles and manuscripts into a repository, such as IU Scholar Works,” Jackson said. Amendments to the common calendar were also proposed and put to a vote. Every motion was passed unanimously.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After almost a year-long search, a new dean of the Hutton Honors College has been chosen. Andrea Ciccarelli is currently a professor of Italian and the Department of French and Italian in the College of Arts and Sciences. Pending approval by the IU Board of Trustees, he will begin his appointment as Dean of the honors college July 1, according to an April 24 IU press release. “It will be a challenge and responsibility to lead the Hutton Honors College at a time in which higher education seem to be focusing more on professional than on liberal arts disciplines,” Ciccarelli said. Ciccarelli graduated with a bachelor of arts and masters of arts from the University of Rome, where he studied humanities with a focus on literary studies and art history. He received his Ph.D. in Italian studies from Columbia University.He said he joined IU as a visiting assistant professor in 1990, right out of graduate school. He was tenured in 1997 and promoted to full professor in 2003. According to the release, Ciccarelli’s research focuses on the classical tradition in modern Italian literature and on migration, boundaries and exile in contemporary Italian culture.He has taught courses ranging from the Italian Renaissance to the myth of Rome in modern culture, according to the release. “The honors college is one of the most rewarding academic jobs that a professor could aspire to in a research institution such as IU,” Ciccarelli said. “The students in the Hutton Honors College are among the best in the country, and have been and will continue to be part of the strongest fabric of our society.”Dennis Groth is the associate vice provost for undergraduate education and was the chair of the search committee, which consisted of both IU faculty and students in the Hutton Honors College. “I am delighted with Anderea Ciccarelli as the new dean,” Groth said. “He has immense strengths in developing rich learning experiences for students.”Groth said he expects Ciccarelli will bring his passion for undergraduate student success to the Hutton Honors College.Provost and Executive Vice President announced Ciccarelli’s appointment on April 24. She chose Ciccarelli from a pool of three candidates.“Andrea will be a creative and thoughtful leader for the Hutton Honors College,” Robel said in the release. “He is highly respected by his colleagues and has an outstanding record as a scholar and as a teacher.”Maria Bucur, associate dean of the College and Fritz Breithaupt, who had served as interim dean since July 2013,were the other two final candidates for dean. Ciccarelli cited planning, organizing and strengthening the courses offered in the Hutton Honors College, as well as attracting the best teachers and scholars to teach for the Hutton Honors College, as some of his more short-term goals.“One of my main goals is that of broadening as much as possible our courses offering, creating opportunities for interdisciplinary studies that connect the liberal arts, scientific disciplines and professional education,” Ciccarelli said. “This interdisciplinary approach, eventually, should prove fundamental to prepare our students to live in an ever-growing global world. It takes practical, theoretical and cultural knowledge to understand the complex interactions that compose our international society.”He said current and future jobs will require analytical thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as an appreciation for what is ethically right. “The HHC already teaches courses that equipped our students with these intellectual weapons, and my aspiration is to outreach to all schools in our campus to form a curriculum that promotes specific research abilities, while fostering intellectual synergy,” he said. Robel said Ciccarelli’s experience will be an asset as he takes on the role of dean of Hutton Honors College.“His administrative experience as director of the College Arts and Humanities Institute, chair of his department and director of an active overseas study program will serve Hutton well as it moves into the next phase,” Robel said. “I am delighted that he has agreed to accept this immensely important position as the honors college is poised to become a central hub for interdisciplinary curricula on the campus.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU employees were alerted they might be vulnerable to tax fraud in an email sent Thursday to faculty, staff and temporary employees. Multiple IU offices have received reports from faculty and staff who have been unable to file their 2013 tax returns electronically because someone has already filed a fraudulent tax return using their personal information, according to the email.“This tax fraud is basically a form of identity theft,” said Mark Land, director of IU Communications.Tax fraud is a rapidly increasing form of fraud.1.6 million fraudulent returns were filed with the IRS in the first six months of 2013, the email said, citing a recent article in the Boston Globe.Only 271,000 cases were reported in all of 2010.While IU employees have been affected by tax fraud, it’s not a result of a computer breach through the University, according to the email.According to the University Information Security and Policy Offices’ website, it has received approximately 25 reports from faculty and staff who have experienced fraudulent 2013 federal tax returns. These cases have been reported to the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and the IRS. “This is not an attack on IU,” Land said. “This is just something that happened to IU.”However, if employees becomes a victim of tax fraud there are resources they can use to help protect their identity.There are three major credit bureaus in the U.S.: Trans Union, Experian and Equifax. Any of these bureaus can alert people if someone applies for new credit in their name. “All we can try to do is to provide general information,” Land said.Jerry Minger is the University director of public safety.In his email, he advised employees who experience a tax fraud issue to file a report with the IU Police Department. If they are Indiana residents, they may also want to request a security freeze on their credit report, according to the email. That way, it’s more difficult for credit accounts to be opened in their name without their knowledge. Information about requesting a security freeze can be found at http://www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/2411.htm.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s going to be a delicious semester next fall with the new Themester “Eat, Drink, Think: Food from Art to Science.”The College of Arts and Sciences announced the new theme Wednesday with the unveiling of the 2014 Themester bus.Tracy Bee is the director of academic initiatives for the College and organized the Themester.“Each year, the College chooses a theme that connects the undergraduate classroom experience to issues of great and lifelong importance,” Bee said. The theme will include special courses focused on food from multiple areas of study and a series of events that will go along with the theme, said John Lucaites, associate dean of the College. “Food and the role that food plays — social, cultural, political, economic context — is an important and interesting consideration for many people,” Lucaites said.Larry Singell, the dean of the College, attended the unveiling Wednesday.“Food is one of the great universal unifiers across the whole world, and it’s an important part of our culture,” Singell said. “Sharing a meal has actually been, over time, one of the great human events.”Humans identify with food in incredible ways, whether it’s ethnically or otherwise, Lucaites said.Though the events list isn’t finalized yet, it will include movies at the IU Cinema, IU Art Museum and Lilly Library exhibits and a lecture series about obesity, Bee said.“We’re partnering with the Office of Sustainability for the first time since 2010, when we focused on the theme of sustainability,” Bee said. “Each year, the Office of Sustainability puts on a food festival, ‘Big Red Eats Green,’ and Themester is proud to be a part of this event this year.”The Themester will also include a panel discussion about the modern meat industry and a food-themed performance by the University tWits. The College is also working with Union Board to bring in a speaker, Bee said. Most of the Themester events will be free and open to the public.“Aside from attending events or signing up for Themester courses, undergraduate students are involved in Themester in a number of ways,” Bee said.Students were part of the planning committee. There are 10 Themester interns, and students are training to give the themed tours of the IU Art Museum, she said.Themester began in 2009 with the theme, “Evolution, Diversity and Change,” Bee said. Sustainability, war and peace and networks have also been past topics.“Every year is different,” Bee said. “The topic drives our partnerships and the events.”This year, however, two minors, including the food anthropology minor, directly relate to the theme. “If you look at the list of Themester courses, you’ll see anthropology is very well-represented, and some of these classes will fulfill minor requirements,” Bee said. Peter Todd is a professor in the College. He is teaching a Hutton Honors College course for the Themester called “Food For Thought: The Cognitive Science of Eating.”Todd said his course will look at the way food is connected to memory, decision-making, language and even philosophy.“That’s a lot of what evolution shaped our minds to do,” Todd said. “To solve problems around finding food, figuring out what is good to eat, figure out what things to avoid, to not eat.”Several other departments are offering classes in the theme’s area, including economics, apparel merchandising and geography. The classes vary in topics from the “Geography of Food” to “Economics of Obesity.”“Food not only is a theme that can be examined and discussed in virtually every academic discipline, but it obviously touches everyone,” Bee said. “Whether you enjoy food or not, food is inescapable. You must eat.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Bloomington Faculty Council had a scare Tuesday as it wondered if the IU Campus Strategic Plan had been for nothing.IU President Michael McRobbie is making his own strategic plan for the University that will span IU’s eight campuses. The Provost’s Strategic Plan covers only IU-Bloomington.“I’m no longer clear about what the Bloomington Strategic Plan means,” Donald Gjerdingen, parliamentarian for the BFC, said during the meeting. “I just don’t know. It’s just a question mark.”Michael Rushton, director of strategic planning for the office of the executive vice president for University academic affairs, told faculty they will be taking campus strategic plans from all University campuses, and using them as the basis for the University strategic plan.“The intent of the Indiana University Strategic Plan is to draw from these strategic plans,” Rushton said. “The intent is not to have a new plan that is in conflict with what the different campus plans have done.”The new plan will draw from IU’s already existing principles of excellence, Rushton said. “We think that vision is already articulated,” he said. “What we would like is in addition to that a few strategic objectives that fall under those categories of those principles of excellence in education, in research, in faculty, in health and in engagement.”Rushton said that the campuses shouldn’t have to change their campus-orientend strategic plan after the president’s plan is made.A faculty committee won’t be formed for it, but a draft of the document will be taken to the BFC and University Faculty Council in the fall, Rushton said.Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel said she has the highest confidence in Rushton and in McRobbie for his track record of being clear about his initiatives and goals for the University are. That way, Robel said, hopefully the University Strategic Plan won’t conflict with the IU-Bloomington Strategic Plan.“So I’m hoping it won’t feel quite the disjuncture that it theoretically could be,” Robel said.Earlier in the meeting, the Principles and Policies on Tenure and Promotion was also discussed.Claude Clegg, the chair of the faculty affairs committee, headed the committee to change to document.A faculty member disputed the addition of the phrase “as a general rule” to the joint appointments and intercampus commitments section, to allow exceptions to the rule that only Bloomington-appointed faculty are allowed to vote on promotion and tenure cases.Despite this, the document was passed with one veto.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>New information has been made available on the Heartbleed virus, which incriminates the National Security Agency.The virus was made public Monday as a vulnerability in some versions of the OpenSSL program, an encrypting tool that is widely used on the Internet to protect sensitive information like credit card numbers, that’s able to bypass security and access the protective information.According to a press release, Bloomberg News reported April 11 that, according to “two people familiar with the matter,” the NSA knew about the Heartbleed virus for more than two years, and they kept it a secret and used it to collect information.The Office of the Director of National Intelligence denied the allegation, hours after Bloomberg released the information. Fred Cate, director of IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research said the allegations, if true, will show a White House unwilling to listen to the independent advisors it appointed to help ease the privacy and security leaks made public by Edward Snowden.“Normally such an absolute denial by a federal agency would be taken seriously,” Cate said in the release, “but the number of apparently unambiguous denials by the intelligence community that, over the past year, have been proven false or seriously misleading has caused serious credibility issues for the NSA and the DNI.”“DNI” refers to the Director of National Intelligence.In a 2013 testimony given by DNI Director James Clapper and former NSA Director General Keith Alexander, they claimed the NSA doesn’t collect information on Americans. The release suggests this claim turned out to be either only partially true, or completely false.“After a succession of such statements — and no action in response by Congress or the president — it is not surprising that many people doubt the NSA’s denial of any knowledge of the Heartbleed bug,” Cate said.The release said the issue of whether the NSA knew about the greatest threat to data security in the Internet’s history, according to some experts, would not be an issue at all if the NSA didn’t continue to work two seemingly contradictory missions: cyber security and foreign intelligence.Cate, who is also a professor in the IU Maurer School of Law, filed comments with the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology in October 2013. “Privacy and security advocates have long worried that in pursuit of the latter, increasingly dominant mission, the agency would learn about software and other vulnerabilities and rather than disclose or attempt to fix them, the agency would exploit them, thus compromising the former mission,” he said in the statement.Cate said disclosures by Snowden made other issues clear.“The agency has gone a step further and actively introduced vulnerabilities into commercial security products and services to enhance its ability to collect intelligence, even though this actively weakens both government and private-sector infrastructure,” he said.Because of these issues, Cate called for the NSA to be divided into two separate agencies.The President’s Review Group included his recommendation in its December 2013 report, according to the release. The group also recommended that the NSA not hide or use security vulnerabilities except in “rare instances” and for short periods of time.President Obama declined to follow either recommendation, the release said.“The president has identified cyber threats as among the most critical dangers facing the nation,” Cate said in the release. “Yet, it is hard to take this claim too seriously when key responsibility for fighting those threats is given to the agency with the most to gain by hiding and exploiting them.”Kathrine Schulze
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Incoming freshman will have a new way to plan their education this August with the launch of IU’s degree mapping program.The Indiana state legislator mandated all public universities provide a map for all Indiana residents who will attend a state-assisted university. “It’s impractical for IU to distinguish between doing this for Hoosiers and doing this for out-of-state students, so we will do it for everybody,” said Herb Terry, president of the Bloomington Faculty Council.IU already offers degree maps for most majors, said Dennis Groth, interim vice president for undergraduate education.“In many ways they have this information now available, but they don’t have it in exactly the form the general assembly required,” Terry said.There will be a map for every major for all seven of IU’s campuses. And eventually, all minors and certificates will be mapped out as well, Terry said.Groth said IU has taken an innovative approach to the legislation’s mandate.“We saw this as an opportunity to embed our values in our solution to this,” Groth said.IU-Bloomington already has the highest on-time completion rate in the state for public institutions, Groth said. “We’re already doing well,” he said. “We can improve, though. We can have more students finish and finish on time. And we can have more students retained to graduation as well.”The faculty will still define the required classes in the curriculum, and students will still be able to choose their own paths, he said.“You can’t map every possible way to fulfill our requirements,” Terry said.One concern of the faculty is that this new system will keep students from realizing they can take a different route to graduation, Terry said.“And I think the other thing that some faculty is concerned about is yes, of course, we want students to graduate in a timely fashion,” he said. “But ultimately I think it’s more important that the student follows the degree that, in their career, is best for them.”Groth said the system will be flexible to allow for the changing students’ paths, and will hopefully be able to catch a student’s setback in terms of taking, or not taking, required courses before it even happens.“We want you to, as a student, always be the owner of your destiny,” he said. “That means that we want you to make choices. You currently make choices, but we want your choices to be informed by information, and that information will be what’s implemented in your iGPS.”Groth said iGPS will build on tools that are already in place for students, such as the OneStart course planner and schedule builder. All are tools to help students plan their time at IU well and far in advance of graduation.“You don’t always stumble into success,” Groth said. “It’s something that you’ve thought about, that you’re intentional about.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>YC Bioelectric, a start-up biomedical research company by Purdue University and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, will receive funding through a 12-month period from the National Institutes of Health, according to an April 14 IU press release.YC Bioelectric is a privately-owned biomedical research company, and was just awarded $307,787 of funding for its Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer proposal, “Multi-Blot Western Device,” according to the release.The co-founders of YC Bioelectric are Stanley Chien and Hioki Yokota, both faculty at the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI. They started YC Bioelectric through the Indiana University Research & Technology Corporation’s Spin Up Program.Chien and Yokota’s work will greatly improve the speed and accuracy of Western blot, a technique widely used in molecular biology labs, according to the release.Western blot can help diagnose chronic infection with HIV, according to MedlinePlus, a U.S. National Library of Medicine service. Currently, it is often paired with the HIV ELISA test, which is commonly used to detect antibodies in the blood: the second detector of HIV, according to the MedlinePlus website. “This is a great story about scientists, an electrical engineer and biomedical engineer, collaborating across disciplines to solve a real-world problem,” said Joe Trebley, head of IURTC’s Spin Up Program, in the release.An IUPUI granting mechanism, Funding Opportunities for Research Commercialization and Economic Success, originally funded Chien and Yokota’s work. They used those funds to develop and build a prototype device, according to the release.“We are delighted that the internal grant program played a key role in enabling these researchers to transform their research findings into commercially viable outcomes,” said Kody Varahramyan, IUPUI vice chancellor for research, in the release. YC Bioelectric filed for an exclusive option to intellectual property through the IURTC in June 2012, and in February 2014, it received a notice of allowance on its lead patent US 13/282,030, according to the release.“With funding from the NIH and the allowed patent, YC Bioelectric has a lot of momentum right now,” Yokota said.YC Bioelectric will develop versions of its prototype through the next 12 months, which other researchers can test in their labs. As soon as the prototype is validated in external labs, they will seek more financing from investors and through NIH’s Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer.“There is a lot of potential here,” Chien said in the release, “and we are very thankful to IUPUI, IURTC and the NIH for the support they have provided.” Kathrine Schulze
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The city of Evansville will get a new school, and Bloomington’s campus will get new gateways, the Board of Trustees decided at Friday’s meeting. The trustees approved plans for the IU School of Medicine Multi-Institutional Academic Health and Science and Research Center-Evansville, to be built in downtown Evansville. “At the time when a lot of cities in America are struggling and nobody’s doing much about it, I think it’s extraordinary to see the support of the city and all the people of the city are really behind this,” Trustee Randall Tobias said at the morning facilities and auxiliaries committee meeting.The $69.5 million plan includes a new 170,000 square foot campus. It’s projected to earn the city of Evansville $340 million by 2020.While there were four proposed sites for the school, President Michael McRobbie endorsed the downtown location specifically, and the board unanimously approved it Friday afternoon at the business meeting.The trustees’ other business involved approving satellite campus chancellor appointments and construction projects.Ray Wallace, current provost and senior vice chancellor of University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, was appointed chancellor for IU-Southeast. Susan Sciame-Giesecke was made chancellor of IU-Kokomo after having served as interim chancellor since September 2012.Two new gateways, similar to the Sample Gates, were approved for installation on the IU-Bloomington campus.One will mark the campus’s Third and Union Street boundary. In addition to the actual gates, there will be an engraved wall made of limestone. “We quickly came to the conclusion that we’re really not here to create new traditions with this,” University Landscape Architect Mia Williams said. “We’re about enforcing the excellent traditions we have.” The Chi Omega gates, which currently stand at the end of the North Jordan extension, will be moved intact to the Woodlawn and bypass gateway of the Bloomington campus, Williams said. The Board, approving all new degrees, added four degrees to IU, two degrees to IU-Southeast and one degree to IU-South Bend.IU’s new degrees are a master of science in computational linguistics, bachelor of arts in biotechnology, bachelor of fine arts in dance and bachelor of science in computational linguistics.IU-Southeast will be adding a bachelor of science in music and bachelor of science in sociology to its degree programs, and IU-South Bend will now offer a bachelor of arts in sustainability degree.The business meeting included IUSA President Jose Mitjavila’s student report, in which he brought up the lack of intramural practice space now that the new baseball fields are built in their place.“A lot of students were having to go off campus to Bryan Park and other areas to practice intramural sports and things of that nature,” Mitjavila said. “In some cases, really late at night.”Tom Morrison, vice president for capital planning and facilities, said the old baseball fields are being renovated for intramural and recreational space as soon as the weather turns.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Time travel and academic advising were on the meeting agenda for the Board of Trustees Thursday.Informatics professor Bernard Frischer presented to the board the latest in 3D modeling and what it means for the academic world.“The goal is to build up a virtual time machine,” Frischer said. “For education, for the visualization that supports education and for empirical research by scholars and scientists.”Frischer is a virtual archeologist in the new field of virtual heritage. He and his team scan the remnants of statues and entire villas in Rome to recreate them as they would have been when the villas were being used and the statues first created.“It’s very interdisciplinary by its nature, because we are involved, not in making pretty pictures, but in modeling information,” Frischer said. “And to model information we have to collaborate with specialists in really all of the fields that pertain to human behavior.”These fields include informatics, anthropology, archeology and game design.Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel, Vice Provost for Research Sarita Soni and Vice President for Research Jorge Jose looked at IU-Bloomington research more broadly. “At IU-Bloomington we define research to include creative activities and scholarship,” Soni said. Three categories are used to measure IUB’s excellence: National and international awards, publications, performances and exhibits and sponsored research activity, Soni said.“External funding for sponsored activities is important as a means of producing high-impact publications,” she said.IUB faculty have been earning more and more American Association for the Advancement of Science awards during the past few years, Soni said.“This is not an accident,” she said. “We have actually developed a concerted effort, working with the department chairs, to nominate our faculty for these awards.”The trustees also discussed developing academic advising. A new system called the Interactive Graduation Planning System is under construction, which presenters said will help expedite students’ graduation.“Advising is one of the most important aspects of student success,” said John Applegate, executive vice president for University Academic Affairs. “The role of the University is fundamentally supporting that in a variety of different ways.”Applegate led a presentation of the new system, which will include degree mapping as a key element in streamlining the graduation process.The degree map will allow students to create their own path to degree completion, but it’s designed to work best when an academic adviser is there to help steer the wheel, Applegate said. He said too many students forgo academic advising, thinking they can do it themselves, and it has set IU behind in on-time graduation rates. But the new system won’t rid students of their independence as they plan courses, Applegate said. It looks to aid them. He said the degree maps will be available as a template, but each student is in charge of their own development plan.“For every student we take at random, they will complete their degree in a different way,” Applegate said. “We don’t want to get in the way of that.”Students aren’t the only ones who will benefit from the new system. With the IGPS, Applegate said scheduling meetings will be smoother, career advising will be more efficient and advisers will have more time to actually have a discussion with students, rather than navigating the software, as they do with the present system. An exact time for the launch of the system wasn’t disclosed. Applegate said across campuses, career services are also in the works. The trustees said career advising at the Kelley School of Business is the best University-wide, and that it should be used as a model for other colleges. Improving career services has been a major project in recent years, Robel said.She said the University has spent around $1.4 million recently, trying to do just that. “It’s really been a laser-like focus for the last year and a half,” Robel said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Will Allen’s family has been farming for 400 years. A MacArthur Genius Fellow and urban farmer, Allen spoke Tuesday at the Indiana Memorial Union as part of SustainIU week. He started his urban farm 21 years ago, and it’s now the largest urban farm in the world.Urban farming can be defined as growing food and raising livestock in the city.“We’ve lost that connection to what good food is all about,” he said.Everyone has an ancestor that was a farmer, Allen said. And that’s something many people have forgotten.Now, most people eat about 3 percent of really “good food,” or food that has a high nutrient value, Allen said. “Our food should be our medicine,” Allen said. It was never his intention to have the largest urban farm, Allen said. But he did want to prove urban farming was actually possible.Now his farm grows enough food for 10,000 people.Part of his non-profit was to hire young people to improve the community, he said.When he noticed the children he was teaching to farm didn’t have good reading and writing skills, he had them write about their experience every day after they had been in the field. “And their grades improved because they became connected with this kind of hands-on project,” Allen said. Along with volunteers, Allen has worked to add more gardens and foliage to side streets and public areas in places where crime rates were especially high, Allen said. Those areas saw a drop in crime, including drug dealing and auto theft. “And the drug dealers felt uncomfortable, so they went away,” Allen said. “We teach those young people a lost art.” “I said I just want to work with these kids and teach them how to grow food,” he said.For all the people it feeds, Allen’s farm has made more than a million pounds of soil.“Well, the way we’re able to do it, because over time we’ve been able to engage the community,” he said.His non-profit is also training people to become farmers, and is encouraging other non-profits to, as well.“We need to grow a lot of farmers,” he said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Cheers and screams erupted from the crowd as the Greek Assessment and Awards ceremony began. This year, 17 awards were given to multiple individuals and chapters from the four greek councils — Interfraternity Council, Multi-Cultural Greek Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council and Panhellenic Association. “We wanted GAAP 2014 to be truly student-led,” said Lierin Ehmke, Phi Mu member and host. “For this to happen, we wanted all the presenters today be representatives of our four greek councils.” Brandon Washington, Pan-Hellenic Council president and one of the emcees for the event, said the award ceremony represents community.“We all get to come here under one roof, in one setting, in one time and we’re able to see what we’re all doing,” Washington said.The Man of the Year award is given to three fraternity members who have stood out in their chapters, academically and in the community.Sean Jordan, Jose Delgado and Tyler Kelley were this year’s recipients.“It feels good that all the work you put in has finally paid off,” Kelley said. “One of the biggest things that I learned is it’s important to be involved in the chapter, but also to be involved in the community.”Pi Kappa Phi alumna Phillip Summers, who died earlier this year, was honored with an interfraternity scholarship given in his name, said Lindsay Echols, senior assistant director for NPHC and MCGC. The IFC adviser of the year award was also renamed in his memory. Kelley said Summers thought mentoring was the most rewarding aspect of his greek experience. Delta Sigma Theta, who began Cupcakes and Condoms as an event to educate students on safe sex, won the Chapter of Excellence award.The award is given to a sorority or fraternity that exemplified all six pillars of excellence. Sigma Lambda Upsilon, Sigma Phi Epsilon and Phi Mu were also awarded Chapter of Excellence.“If you don’t know her, you’ve been living under a rock,” Monica Salazar said of senior Kimberly Lucht.Lucht, a Phi Mu member, was awarded Unsung Hero is an excellence award given to individuals within fraternities and sororities. She also founded UNIFY IU.“I feel pretty speechless, honestly,” Lucht said. “I didn’t expect to get some recognition tonight.”Nick Hoke, Theta Chi member, Melissa Velazquez, Gamma Phi Omega member and Richard Dixon, Phi Theta member, were also awarded the Unsung Hero prize. “It shows that when we come together as a community,” Lucht said. “We are so much better than what we would be as individuals or just a part of our chapter.”Phi Mu as a chapter was awarded the PHA Chapter of Excellence award. “It’s just nice to know that I’ve left my mark here,” Lucht said. “I’ve left my legacy.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INPIRG is trying to reduce textbook fees. The student-directed advocacy nonprofit organization is waging a campaign for open-access textbooks, books that are published with an open-copyright license and distributed to the public at no cost.On Tuesday it asked the Bloomington Faculty Council to think about publishing more textbooks under an open-copyright license to lower textbook costs for students.“The fact that, as a University, we should at least be open to the idea of open-access textbooks is certainly a good one,” Cassidy Sugimoto, co-chair of the educational policies committee, said. An open copyright license means licensees are unlimited and a licenser can grant extra permissions to licensees.Textbook costs are equivalent to 26 percent of tuition at a 4-year public college and 72 percent of tuition at community colleges.Senior Riley Hall, a member of INPIRG, presented their case to the meeting.“These books are created by faculty, colleges or publishers and contain comparable material to any other kind of traditional text,” Hall said.They cost about 80 percent less than traditional textbooks on average, he said. “Basically, you can put your information in as a professor, and add things to make it specific to your lesson,” freshman Eleanor Spolyar said during the presentation. These books are still peer reviewed by experts in the subject matter, and can still be printed and sold in University bookstores for a small printing fee, Hall said.“I’ve had a professor here and there that was ... not really that thrilled with some of the aspects of the textbook from which they were teaching,” Hall said. “So, that increased teacher-text relationship that we get from this, I think, will allow for a much better educational experience.” The textbook proposal is part of INPIRG’s Make Textbooks Affordable campaign.“A college degree must remain within reach for families of modest means, and affordable over the long term for the borrowers and parents in repayment,” the INPIRG website states. “In response, USPIRG works to increase student grant aid, make debt levels more manageable, and protect students as consumers from practices that contribute to educational debt.”More than 3,000 professors across the United States are using open-access textbooks, according to the INPIRG fact sheet. This includes the University of Maryland and University of Illinois, Spolyar said. IUSA and the Association of Big Ten students have passed resolutions in support of open-access textbooks, according to a INPIRG press release Wednesday.“The truth is that open-access is coming, and it ain’t slow,” Sugimoto said. “And it’ll be coming for journal publications, but also for textbooks, too.”Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.