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(02/18/14 4:51am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Ernie Pyle’s legacy has become so engrained in the minds of journalists at IU that many mistake the school’s name for the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism.With the implementation of the new Media School, many in the School of Journalism were afraid Pyle’s legacy would be lost with the addition of other departments. Provost Robel addressed those concerns at the Board of Trustees meeting last Thursday announcing the making of an Ernie Pyle statue.“It was important that the University honor Pyle’s legacy and the profound impact he’s had on generations of journalism scholars,” Ryan Piurek, IU director of news and media, said. “This was always part of the discussion around the new Media School.This sculpture will commemorate, in a tangible, lasting and visible way, his remarkable life and legacy.”The statue is expected to be completed in time for the dedication of Franklin Hall as the Media School in 2015, Piurek said. It will be placed outside of Franklin Hall. Owen Johnson, associate professor and journalism historian in IU’s School of Journalism, is part of the Ernie Pyle legacy committee that recommended a statue be built in Ernie Pyle’s honor.“Ernie Pyle remains, for many journalists, an icon of excellence,” he said. “His superb reporting, his superb writing is still to be emulated today.”The statue is based off of a photo taken of Pyle during World War II. He is sitting on a crate, working with his typewriter on a table, with goggles pushed above his knit cap. Harold “Tuck” Langland is a sculptor and professor emeritus at IU-South Bend, and will sculpt the statue.The crate might be expanded in order for students to sit with Pyle, much like they can with Herman B Wells and Hoagy Carmichael, Robel said. Senior and journalism major, Becca DuPont, said the School of Journalism has taken a lot of pride in what Ernie Pyle did.“For me, it goes back to traditional journalism, and we still hold that to be really important even though we are merging and moving forward with new technology,” she said.Along with the statue, the committee is recommending several other ways of preserving Ernie Pyle’s legacy, including making an annual school competition to determine the best reporter, an annual symposium and even a block or plaza in Ernie Pyle’s name. “We want to emphasize as well the inspiration that he can provide to young journalists in their reporting and writing,” Johnson said. Many of the other goals of the legacy committee will take a while to complete and require some fundraising, Johnson said.“We were lucky that the University found money right away for the statue, I think because the administration recognized how important it was as a symbol,” Johnson said.Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KatherineSchulze.
(02/18/14 4:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The issue of racial disparity in prison systems and the ways to resolve it was the topic of Michael Tonry’s lecture Monday in the Maurer School of Law.Tonry is the McKnight presidential professor of criminal law and policy at the University of Minnesota, and one of the country’s foremost experts on sentencing and criminal justice policy. “The problem is, there are vastly more black people in American prisons, and in every category of American punishment, than can be justified in either black people’s involvement in crime or in terms of population presence,” Tonry said. The only ways to fix this is to roll back the size of the American punished population and radically changing American law, Tonry said. “The causes of racial disparities in sentencing and punishment in the U.S. are the conscious policy choices of American legislators and government officials to adopt particular kinds of sentencing and correctional policies,” Tonry said. Though African Americans comprise 12 percent of the U.S. population, he said, 40 percent of America’s prisoners are black. A black man, he said, is seven or eight times more likely to be in prison than a white man.“The psychologists can tell us the causes of crime at the individual level — things that predict criminality — are the same for men and women, even though women have much lower offending rates than men, and they’re the same for blacks and whites,” Tonry said.Black people are also much more likely to be arrested for drug crimes than whites, Tonry said, adding blacks use drugs less or about the same as whites do.“All the evidence we have is, that as a population matter blacks don’t sell drugs more than whites do,” Tonry said. “They sell them at times and in places that attract police attention, which produce vast disparities in drug arrests.”An example Tonry gave is whites are more likely to buy drugs only from those they know in a home or known place, while blacks are much more likely to buy drugs from a dealer off the street.Tonry said though there are some racial differences in case prosecution level, at the convection level and at the sentencing level, they make little difference in the prison population numbers.“Sentencing laws, though, make a giant difference,” Tonry said.A few years ago, blacks in federal prison systems were serving vastly longer sentences for drug crimes than whites because of a federal law — now called the 18 to 1 law — which punished offenses involving crack with sentences of the same severity involving cocaine in 100 times larger amounts, Tonry said.Five grams of crack elicited the same minimum penalty as 500 grams of powder, he said. “It comes down to policy, and that’s the point that needs to be addressed,” Francisco Guzman, a third year law student who attended the talk, said.Tonry put America’s prison population in perspective by comparing it globally. Since the 1960s, Canada and America have been almost identical in robbery and homicide rates, but America’s prison population is massively higher than Canada’s, Tonry said. He said the difference comes when Canada didn’t enact the harsher laws for offenders that America did, like zero tolerance laws.Additionally, most developed countries don’t have the option of life without parole, Tonry said. “If we can move to the world standard that criminal history only counts a little, we would greatly reduce some of the structural pressure that sends people to prison,” Tonry said. Tonry gave four final solutions to the problem of racial disparity in the prison system: radically reducing the prison population, shifting drug policy to emphasize prevention and treatment, reducing racial profiling and reducing the weight of criminal history in sentencing guidelines. Elisheva Aneke, a first year law student, said mass incarceration is one of her major concerns, because it’s a moral issue, too. She said she thinks there should be more awareness of race-based differences in prisons, and society at large.“Race is an awkward subject, I think for most people, in general,” Aneke said. “No matter what race you are, any talk like this where people are actually getting information, I think, is good.”
(02/18/14 4:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The issue of racial disparity in prison systems and the ways to resolve it was the topic of Michael Tonry’s lecture Monday in the Maurer School of Law.Tonry is the McKnight presidential professor of criminal law and policy at the University of Minnesota, and one of the country’s foremost experts on sentencing and criminal justice policy. “The problem is, there are vastly more black people in American prisons, and in every category of American punishment, than can be justified in either black people’s involvement in crime or in terms of population presence,” Tonry said. The only ways to fix this is to roll back the size of the American punished population and radically changing American law, Tonry said. “The causes of racial disparities in sentencing and punishment in the U.S. are the conscious policy choices of American legislators and government officials to adopt particular kinds of sentencing and correctional policies,” Tonry said. Though African Americans comprise 12 percent of the U.S. population, he said, 40 percent of America’s prisoners are black. A black man, he said, is seven or eight times more likely to be in prison than a white man.“The psychologists can tell us the causes of crime at the individual level — things that predict criminality — are the same for men and women, even though women have much lower offending rates than men, and they’re the same for blacks and whites,” Tonry said.Black people are also much more likely to be arrested for drug crimes than whites, Tonry said, adding blacks use drugs less or about the same as whites do.“All the evidence we have is, that as a population matter blacks don’t sell drugs more than whites do,” Tonry said. “They sell them at times and in places that attract police attention, which produce vast disparities in drug arrests.”An example Tonry gave is whites are more likely to buy drugs only from those they know in a home or known place, while blacks are much more likely to buy drugs from a dealer off the street.Tonry said though there are some racial differences in case prosecution level, at the convection level and at the sentencing level, they make little difference in the prison population numbers.“Sentencing laws, though, make a giant difference,” Tonry said.A few years ago, blacks in federal prison systems were serving vastly longer sentences for drug crimes than whites because of a federal law — now called the 18 to 1 law — which punished offenses involving crack with sentences of the same severity involving cocaine in 100 times larger amounts, Tonry said.Five grams of crack elicited the same minimum penalty as 500 grams of powder, he said. “It comes down to policy, and that’s the point that needs to be addressed,” Francisco Guzman, a third year law student who attended the talk, said.Tonry put America’s prison population in perspective by comparing it globally. Since the 1960s, Canada and America have been almost identical in robbery and homicide rates, but America’s prison population is massively higher than Canada’s, Tonry said. He said the difference comes when Canada didn’t enact the harsher laws for offenders that America did, like zero tolerance laws.Additionally, most developed countries don’t have the option of life without parole, Tonry said. “If we can move to the world standard that criminal history only counts a little, we would greatly reduce some of the structural pressure that sends people to prison,” Tonry said. Tonry gave four final solutions to the problem of racial disparity in the prison system: radically reducing the prison population, shifting drug policy to emphasize prevention and treatment, reducing racial profiling and reducing the weight of criminal history in sentencing guidelines. Elisheva Aneke, a first year law student, said mass incarceration is one of her major concerns, because it’s a moral issue, too. She said she thinks there should be more awareness of race-based differences in prisons, and society at large.“Race is an awkward subject, I think for most people, in general,” Aneke said. “No matter what race you are, any talk like this where people are actually getting information, I think, is good.”
(02/14/14 6:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Recent school shootings and treacherous weather have IU administrators focusing on campus safety. The Bloomington Faculty Council and the Office of Emergency Management and Continuity discussed the facility, security and safety master plan last week, which is currently in development. In 2010, a new emergency management and continuity planning department was created at IU. That works to better prepare the school for a variety of emergency scenarios, from school shooting to severe weather.“The plans are not specific to individual hazards, to specific hazards,” Mark Bruhn, associate vice president of public safety and institutional assurance, said at the Bloomington Faculty Council meeting Feb. 4. “So, while we do spend a little bit more time on tornadoes and have spent a little bit more time over the last year and a half on active shooters, the plans are designed to address all hazards. That is, they’re flexible enough to sort of amoeba-like change.”The department follows the federal framework for emergency preparedness, Bruhn said at the meeting. By organizing the department under federal guidelines, it’s easier for IU responders and city responders to work together in a crisis situation, Bruhn said.“They all use the same terminology, they all use the same practices, the same operating procedures, and if there has to be joint command — one from the fire department at Bloomington and one from campus — they know how to speak to each other, and so all of that is coordinated,” Bruhn said.Staff training for emergency situations has three stages: a workshop that goes through every scenario, a table top exercise in which they run through a specific scenario and a larger, hands-on exercise. “You can imagine, a campus this size, if we’re going to have anything of significance in the exercise that is something that would test sort of all the moving parts adequately, it has to be a pretty large production,” Bruhn said.“We have to have theater and drama students with bottles of ketchup, and it has to be as realistic as we can make it while people still know that it’s going to happen, right?” These sorts of exercises are less frequent because of the amount of planning it takes to coordinate such a training event, Bruhn said. In addition to training some staff members in emergency preparedness, each building that has academic classrooms or offices with 10 or more people in it has an emergency control committee. “We’re really trying to build the partnerships so that those folks are empowered to be more involved for any kind of an emergency incident that may occur within their building,” said Debbi Fletcher, IU-Bloomington director for emergency management and continuity, at the meeting.The facility, security and safety master plan, which was discussed at the meeting, will work through the physical security aspects in buildings on every IU campus.“We look at new technology, new methods and new information all the time so we can make sure we are giving the best information in the most effective and efficient manner possible,” Fletcher said. One change they are considering is installing locks so classrooms lock from the inside, an idea tested at Ballantine Hall when locks were installed in almost every classroom door.The locks in Ballantine have been installed over the past couple of months, Fletcher said.Bruhn said it cost $380,000 to put locks in.While an emphasis is put on faculty training, it’s just as important for students to keep themselves informed individually on what to do in any type of emergency situation, whether it’s a fire, an active shooter or a tornado, Fletcher said. “We spend a lot of time and effort to make sure our campus is prepared, no matter what happens,” she said. “It’s important that students do their part to make sure they know what they can do.”Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter@KathrineSchulze.
(02/13/14 4:16pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The first IU Board of Trustees meeting of the year will discuss library renovations and privatized parking for the next fiscal year.It will begin Thursday and continue through Friday at IUPUI.Philip N. Eskew Jr., the chair of the facilities and auxiliaries committee for the board of trustees, will deliver a report on proposed renovations to the Herman B Wells Library, according to the trustees’ agenda.“The media room is being renovated simply because it needs upgrading,” Eskew said. The report, which Eskew said will be approved by the trustees at the meeting Friday, calls for a renovation of approximately 10,000 square feet of existing film and media archive space. “But it’s really to protect all of our media records and our archives, and put them into a format where people could go in and view the media materials in a better atmosphere,” Eskew said.The project would cost an estimated $1.1 million. The cost would be covered by campus renovation funds, as well as gifts through the IU Foundation and campus repair and rehabilitation funds, according to the meeting’s agenda.Eskew said the project will be finished by December. “It’s really just upgrading a place in the Wells Library that has needed it for quite some time,” he said.During the previous trustees meeting, members discussed the issue of privatizing parking. “Last meeting that was the discussion, and we recommended not to privatize, and that we would come back to the board with a strategic business plan for implementing best practices in parking,” said MaryFrances McCourt, treasurer for the board. The board agreed to keep university parking funded, but posed alternate questions to the committee that will be answered during this meeting.“How is it going to achieve the same amount, economically, that we would have gotten over time through privatization?” asked Thomas Reilly, chair of the board.McCourt said their key objectives are to improve the efficiency of their operations and to maintain a fair and equitable rate structure.“We’ve done a lot of work across our campuses looking internally and externally at best practices,” she said.The plan would be implemented across IU’s eight campuses, possibly spanning the next full fiscal year, McCourt said.However, Reilly said the neuroscience report is the most interesting item on the agenda.“Neuroscience is going to be the big thing in the future,” he said.Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(02/12/14 9:32pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>One.IU, the new app store for IU’s online services, is a finalist in the Best Internal App category in IDG’s Consumerization of IT in the Enterprise. “It’s a nice recognition of the fact that IU is on the cutting edge of IT,” said Alan Walsh, lifetime engagement functional chief of University Information Technology Services.Other finalists in the Best Internal App category include Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Equinix, GlobalTranz and True Value Company.IU was the only University whose app was named a finalist in CITE awards program.“Indiana University is honored to be the only university named a CITE finalist, and this affirms the inspiring innovation of IU’s many IT professionals who can be creative in the culture of a great university,” said Brad Wheeler, IU chief information officer and vice president for information technology. One.IU is planned to replace OneStart by summer 2015. It has a core search function much like Google, a browse function similar to an app store and a site that works as well on a cell phone as on a desktop, said Brian McGough, IU director of enterprise integration for UITS. “User feedback has overwhelmingly told us that OneStart is just too cluttered,” Walsh said. “It’s hard to find things and difficult to navigate. We wanted a way to make it fast and easy to complete everyday tasks.” One.IU is currently running as a beta website, and Walsh said feedback from students, faculty and staff is encouraged.“By keeping the One.IU interface simple and intuitive, people are able to find what they need quickly, get their business done, and go on with their lives,” McGough said. “It’s Search, Click, Done. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish with One.IU.”Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(02/07/14 5:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The College of Arts and Sciences has altered its curriculum for the 2014-2015 school year to make public speaking a required course.P155: Public Oral Communication is a new course with a pilot class running this semester.The three-credit-hour course consists of a lecture delivered once a week, which most students watch virtually, and themed discussion sections held twice a week. P155 will replace the current elective class, C121: Public Speaking. John Lucaites, associate dean for arts and humanities and undergraduate education, said the course was created as a result of the state’s decision to make “speaking and listening” a primary competency students should establish as part of the Statewide General Education Transfer Library and Curriculum.By state mandate, students who enter the COAS in fall 2013 and after must complete a public speaking class in order to graduate.“All the students are going to benefit from being able to improve their oral communication skills,” P155 course director professor Robert Terrill of the Communication and Culture department said.The class will be taught in an innovative format in which most students will listen to the lecture virtually on their own time, and then attend two 50-minute discussion sections tailored to specific subjects.Currently, the sections carry themes like linguistics, philosophy, geography and folklore and ethnomusicology. AIs from those specific fields will teach the different sections, but students will also have the option to choose a section not tailored to a particular subject.Cynthia Smith, course coordinator, said she feels the small sections create a supportive, fun atmosphere.“I think it’s an incredibly helpful class to have early in your college career,” Smith said.The pilot course has been running for the past year. In the fall semester it was still taught as C121, but this semester it is being taught as P155 with roughly 600 students, 560 of which watch the lecture virtually, Terrill said. “That’s the great thing,” Terrill said. “I don’t really know what those public issues are, but presumably an AI in history or geography or linguistics would have a sense of what those issues would be that students would be able to give speeches on.”The course uses a new technology called Eagle Eye, originally used by the college for press conferences. “There are many advantages to this, not least that students can watch the lectures at their leisure and they will have the materials for the lecture with them at all times,” Lucaites said. Terrill said Eagle Eye creates a better viewing experience for the vast majority of students who will be watching the lecture online. It is voice activated, zooming in on the speaker and widening its view when no one is speaking. “The effect of watching it is very much as though there was a guy in a booth in the back with multiple cameras set up just choosing different camera angles, but it’s all run by machines,” Terrill said. The lecture was originally taught just as described — with a cameraman streaming the video during Terrill’s lecture — but he found it wasn’t engaging students.“It’s one thing to lecture to 200 people, but that doesn’t work out very well when it’s just one student alone in their dorm room watching the video,” Terrill said. “It’s not really the right kind of presentation.” The switch to “Eagle Eye” has made the class better this semester, Terrill said, and he projects it will only improve next year. “The class, the way it’s designed, does so much more for the student than a regular public speaking class the way it’s taught at other universities,” Terrill said. P155 will be available for registration in March.“The fact that this course specifically focuses on civic engagement sets it up explicitly into a rhetorical tradition of training students to become engaged democratic citizens,” Terrill said. “It extends back over 2000 years. The course really participates in an important tradition of civic education that I find very valuable.”Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(02/07/14 4:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Four girls are sitting in a group and laughing around a table, laptops and notebooks opened, but forgotten. To the casual onlooker, it seems they have been friends for years. In reality, they’ve known one another only a week. They’re part of the founding sisters of Delta Phi Epsilon: the newest un-housed sorority on IU’s campus.DPhiE had an informal rush process a week after formal rush ended. They had after-school activities and interviews.Freshmen through seniors were chosen and totaled 156 women.“Fortunate enough for us, the girls who were hand picked — chosen — are very genuine and caring and lovable,” Dina Dajani, a sophomore and founding sister, said. Dajani, like many other women in the new sorority, thought about doing formal rush, but opted out early in the process. “It just didn’t feel like me,” Shri Amarmath, freshman and founding sister, said.The women were initiated last week, and now DPhiE must go through a 10-week colonization process in order to be an official chapter, Alex Miskus, freshman and founding sister, said. DPhiE was a sorority at IU back in the early 1900s, but the chapter left in 1946 due to lack of interest in sorority life, Dajani said.Amarmath said DPhiE wants to expand options for women who want to join a sorority by bringing back their chapter to IU.“The competitive spirit is unnecessary, especially in something like greek life where everyone should feel included, and everyone should feel like they have a home,” Amarmath said.DPhiE’s motto is “Esse Quam Videri — To Be Rather Than to Seem to Be,” and the founding sisters are trying to live up to the motto.“We don’t play around,” Dajani said. “Everyone is really real with each other.”Every sister is making an effort to reach out to everyone and get to know her fellow sister, Lexi King, sophomore and founding sister, said. For Amarmath, part of being in a sorority was about finding a place to call home.“I’ve never lived in one place my whole life,” Amarmath said. “I don’t really have a home, per se, so for me that was a huge thing, and I honestly feel that way now.”The girls of DPhiE are ready to make their mark as a different kind of sorority on campus, staging elections for student leaders next week and working towards setting up philanthropy and other sisterhood events.“We don’t have a reputation yet,” Amarmath said. “It feels good that we get to make what we want to make of it.”The founding sisters said they want to create a sorority more accepting to all women. “I feel like we have a better chance at creating a better environment,” Miskus said. “A more accepting environment than another sorority since we’re founders, and we can set the stones of how we want it to be for future classes.”The DPhiE mascot is a unicorn, which Amarmath said she thinks is fitting because a unicorn can be anything you want it to be, just like their sorority. “We have a chance to make a big impact, if we want,” Haley Corne, freshman and founding sister, said. Right now, the founding sisters of DPhiE are working towards becoming a tight-knit group.“I think that’s something we can take pride in,” Corne said. “We are going to know each and every sister, and no one’s going to be left out. We really are going to be like one big family.”Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(02/05/14 5:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Bloomington Faculty Council passed a resolution to allow ROTC students the same priority registration as student athletes at its meeting Tuesday.Beginning in March, ROTC students will have priority registration to sign up for the fall semester. Professor Jim Sherman, faculty president elect and chair of the Educational Policies Committee, brought the resolution to the council.“This meeting is not about priority registration for student athletes,” Sherman said. “It does raise the point that if there’s another group on campus that is desirous of priority registration, their credentials, their situation if you will, really should be compared to student athletes and OK’d to have such priority registration.” ROTC students have certain time restraints in which they aren’t able to sign up for classes due to ROTC obligations.The IU Student Association Student Body Congress, according to the resolution, first brought the resolution to the IU Office of Enrollment Management. Currently, ROTC students sign up for classes with the rest of the student body, and cannot always sign up for required classes at times that they are able to attend class. This can sometimes hinder ROTC students ability to graduate on time.“It’s definitely the case that there will be a few more students who will be getting priority over students like myself who don’t have those extra restraints of an ROTC student,” Scott Borer, vice president of Congress said. However, he said it is important to realize that having already looked at athletes, which is a group of students, adding ROTC students to priority registration would hardly affect students who sign up for classes at the normal time.“The registrar’s office can do this easily with very little trouble and very little impact with other students and their registration on campus,” Sherman said. The council also discussed potential improvements to IU’s emergency preparedness plan, including fixing glitches with the IU Notify system.IU currently uses a commercial program to send out IU Notify notifications, said Mark Bruhn, associate vice president for public safety and institutional assurance.“For what it’s supposed to do, it does OK,” Bruhn said.Two major issues with the current system are that there is no way to be selective in who receives notifications in terms of weather or not most people are on vacation, and that there is no way to determine where you might go in an emergency situation, Bruhn said. IU Notify will soon also have a way to change an individual’s preferences in the way they receive messages. That way, a person may not have to be notified by text, phone and email, Bruhn said. “What we have to consider is how we’re going to get to the largest percentage of people,” Bruhn said.Debbie Fletcher is the IU-Bloomington director of emergency management and continuity.“We’re always trying new ways to make it as effective as possible,” Fletcher said.Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter at @KathrineSchulze.
(02/04/14 4:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Student Event Planning Organization, a club in the School of Public Health, had its first callout meeting last Thursday to welcome potential new members.SEPA is a national professional organization that offers opportunities to students who are interested in the event planning field.Haley Sorenson, a junior majoring in tourism, hospitality and event management, is the vice president of IU’s chapter of SEPA.“My main goal is to serve as the point of contact for all of our guest speakers,” Sorenson said. “I work with our chapter officers and our members to select speaking topics and develop specific points for our guests to touch on.”Nationally, SEPA’s mission is to prepare students for success in the event planning and hospitality industries, Sorenson said.“In addition to the national mission, we’d like to ease students’ transition into the professional field by bringing networking opportunities directly to our members,” Sorenson said.“We really want members to be involved and engaged in discovering what is in their future.”The chapter was started after the Board of Directors reached out to Sorenson and other organization leaders through social media, Sorenson said.“The School of Public Health has opportunities for students in our major, but we thought this would bring something new and different into the mix,” Sorenson said.Students have dues of $50 for their first year and pay $35 per year after while they are still in college. Dues include local and national dues as well as a t-shirt.David Smiley is the adviser for the club and a lecturer in recreation, park and tourism studies. Smiley worked in the hospitality industry for 25 years and said he managed facilities from golf courses to hotels.“It was a natural fit when they started the organization to be the adviser, because I teach all of the event planning classes here,” Smiley said.Students will be able to talk to people in the industry who come in as guest speakers, and SEPA has already developed some internship positions that will be available to members of the organization, Smiley said.“So far we have scheduled membership meetings twice a month,” Sorenson said. “In addition, we are working on planning optional social events for members. For our members, we will be announcing volunteer, job and internship opportunities throughout the semester at our meetings.“The club will look at all types of event management and hospitality, Sorenson said.“We really want members to be involved and engaged in discovering what is in their future,” Sorenson said.SEPA is open to all students and can be beneficial to those outside of the tourism, hospitality and event management major and minor, Smiley said, especially to those in the Kelley School of Business who will still be involved in planning events throughout their careers.“It’s a great opportunity to learn some of the ins and outs of the industry,” Smiley said.SEPA’s next meeting is Feb. 13.“We want our new members to learn about the industry,” Sorenson said. “We really want to bridge the gap from student to professional.” Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(02/04/14 4:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Student Event Planning Organization, a club in the School of Public Health, had its first callout meeting last Thursday to welcome potential new members.SEPA is a national professional organization that offers opportunities to students who are interested in the event planning field.Haley Sorenson, a junior majoring in tourism, hospitality and event management, is the vice president of IU’s chapter of SEPA.“My main goal is to serve as the point of contact for all of our guest speakers,” Sorenson said. “I work with our chapter officers and our members to select speaking topics and develop specific points for our guests to touch on.”Nationally, SEPA’s mission is to prepare students for success in the event planning and hospitality industries, Sorenson said.“In addition to the national mission, we’d like to ease students’ transition into the professional field by bringing networking opportunities directly to our members,” Sorenson said.“We really want members to be involved and engaged in discovering what is in their future.”The chapter was started after the Board of Directors reached out to Sorenson and other organization leaders through social media, Sorenson said.“The School of Public Health has opportunities for students in our major, but we thought this would bring something new and different into the mix,” Sorenson said.Students have dues of $50 for their first year and pay $35 per year after while they are still in college. Dues include local and national dues as well as a t-shirt.David Smiley is the adviser for the club and a lecturer in recreation, park and tourism studies. Smiley worked in the hospitality industry for 25 years and said he managed facilities from golf courses to hotels.“It was a natural fit when they started the organization to be the adviser, because I teach all of the event planning classes here,” Smiley said.Students will be able to talk to people in the industry who come in as guest speakers, and SEPA has already developed some internship positions that will be available to members of the organization, Smiley said.“So far we have scheduled membership meetings twice a month,” Sorenson said. “In addition, we are working on planning optional social events for members. For our members, we will be announcing volunteer, job and internship opportunities throughout the semester at our meetings.“The club will look at all types of event management and hospitality, Sorenson said.“We really want members to be involved and engaged in discovering what is in their future,” Sorenson said.SEPA is open to all students and can be beneficial to those outside of the tourism, hospitality and event management major and minor, Smiley said, especially to those in the Kelley School of Business who will still be involved in planning events throughout their careers.“It’s a great opportunity to learn some of the ins and outs of the industry,” Smiley said.SEPA’s next meeting is Feb. 13.“We want our new members to learn about the industry,” Sorenson said. “We really want to bridge the gap from student to professional.” Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(01/30/14 5:11am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s still not too late to get a flu shot from the IU Health Center, but it’s getting close.The Health Center receives about 6,000 flu vaccines a year, and they’ve used most of them already, said Dr. Diana Ebling, medical director at IU Health Center.This year, the dominant strain is an influenza A strain H1N1, which first appeared 2009 when there was a flu pandemic. It’s more harmful to young adults than anyone else.“It seems that children and young adults who don’t get vaccinated have less immunity built up to protect themselves against this strain,” Ebling said.She said it’s hard to predict which strains will dominate the season.“The strains of the flu that circulate every year can vary,” Ebling said.Dr. Michael Hamilton, a primary care physician with IU Health, said getting vaccinated does two things.“One, it decreases the risk of the person transmitting it to another individual, some people may not have the flu but they may just be a carrier,” he said. “It also reduces the risk of a person developing the flu, which is a terrible thing and can ruin one or two weeks of your life by being sick in bed all the time.”The common symptoms of the flu are coughing, a sore throat and a fever. It lasts four to seven days.The vaccine costs $20 for health fee students and $24 for non-health fee students, faculty and staff, Ruellen Fessenbeck, immunization charge nurse with the Health Center, said.“The flu shot takes 10 days to two weeks to work,” Fessenbeck said, which is why they usually recommend that students get vaccinated in the fall.A report released by the Center for Disease Control in December estimated that about 79,000 hospitalizations and 6.6 million illnesses were prevented with the flu vaccine last season. But despite the benefits of the vaccine, fewer than half of Americans have gotten vaccinated so far this season.“The single most important thing a person can do is to get vaccinated,” Ebling said.Ebling said to avoid the flu, in addition to getting a vaccination, students should stay away from people with a fever or a cough, if possible. Students should also wash hands frequently and keep them away from their face.For those who already have the flu, Ebling said to stay away from class until they haven’t had a fever for 24 hours.“If the fever is not controlled by medicines like Advil and Tylenol, or if you are really having trouble dealing with the symptoms, then you could come to the Health Center and ask to see a doctor,” Fessenbeck said.Students can come to the Health Center for a vaccination between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.“Every year we see many cases of flu,” Fessenbeck said. “Once in a while it can be pretty serious and lead to hospitalization, so it is worth it to get the flu shot.”
(01/29/14 4:37am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Kelley School of Business professor Richard Schrimper is working to build a network for artists and musicians alike.Schrimper is creating CultureU.org, an interactive cultural network for students to promote their work and celebrate different forms of art.“The whole idea, for me, is that if we could get students together collectively to share their experiences through cultural creations — their content, their blogs, their chatrooms — all that kind of thing and give them a community to explore that, that can be monetized,” Schrimper said.Sam Herwitz manages much of the technical and Web side of CultureU.“There’s not really a lot like it,” Herwitz said. “It’s going to be giving back to students. It’s a pretty cool organization.”Originally, CultureU was meant to be a not-for-profit organization, Schrimper said. Schrimper and an investor temporarily shifted his plan for the project into a for-profit enterprise.“I had a partner that just kind of went the wrong direction on building it, and wanted to keep too much of the money,” Schrimper said. “So, I said ‘Screw that. I’m done with that. We’re going to do this totally not for profit.’” Schrimper said he had an epiphany when he had a conversation with a student in class. The student explained to him some of the religious beliefs behind the idea of anonymous donations.“He also enlightened me that if I create all this cash, don’t just give a kid a scholarship,” Schrimper said. “Give a kid an internship, because that’s the stepping stone that they need.”Last semester, Schrimper said, was when his relationship with his investor fell apart. They split up and went their separate ways. Halle Hill, Schrimper’s former student, is now in charge of student involvement with CultureU.Hill was initially taken with Schrimper’s idea during her A200 accounting class. “Professor Schrimper is one of those rare individuals who is 100 percent dedicated to helping others without expecting anything in return,” Hill said. “He is passionate about giving all students the equal opportunity to succeed, which is what drew me to CultureU.”Schrimper needed both legal and software help to rework CultureU. “We’re trying to create a new business model that uses the same old stuff everyone is using: networking and all of that sort of stuff, but monetize it for a different purpose,” Schrimper said. Hill was able to connect Schrimper with her father Curtis Hill, who is a prosecutor in Elkhart.“I asked him if he would be able to just meet with Professor Schrimper to advise us on our plan of action, but when I told him more about CultureU, my dad said that he had a good friend who owned a software company in India that was constantly taking on projects like ours,” Halle Hill said.If all goes well with her father’s friend, CultureU should be able to partner with his software company and expand its reach, Hill said.“The purpose of CultureU isn’t to make money, but to give money, which is a difficult concept to grasp in the business world,” Hill said.Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(01/27/14 9:57pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Although studies on the stroke belt have been conducted before, few consider elements in the soil as a cause for stroke.Dr. Ka He, a nutritional epidemiologist in the School of Public Health, is conducting a study that assumes trace elements of magnesium in the soil in the “stroke belt” is different than in other regions of the country.The stroke belt includes Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.More people in these states have strokes than in other states in America.“It’s different in terms of its impact,” said Dr. Virginia Howard, a professor of epidemiology at University of Alabama Birmingham and collaborator of the study. “It’s not the same all over the country, and it’s not the same between the races.”Stroke is a leading cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is responsible for 1 out of every 19 deaths in America each year.But the risk of having a first stroke is nearly twice as high for black people than for white people, and black people are more likely to die following a stroke.He received a $2.3 million grant in 2012 from the National Institute of Health to conduct a study on the stroke epidemic.“I don’t think many studies have already focused on trace elements, and secondly, some studies only look at a single one, and we look at five or six together,” He said. “They all interact with each other, I believe.”His study compares the amount of magnesium in the soil in the stroke belt compared to other regions.There are more than 600 participants in the study from across the country, and He will analyze why they have or haven’t had a stroke.“For example, we have some studies that suggest that magnesium is protective or, in other words, can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease including stroke,” He said. The researchers will also look for trace elements of selenium and the poisonous heavy metals mercury, cadmium and arsenic.He said that if the research shows a connection between the trace elements’ patterns, or even a single trace element with stroke risk, he hopes they can suggest public health policy.Suggesting at-risk persons take certain supplements is one policy recommendation, He said.Still, if proven, trace elements are only one factor for a person having a stroke.“I believe there are multiple mechanisms,” He said. “Trace elements is just one of the reasons. We still have to think about socioeconomic status and lifestyle differences between people who live in the stroke belt and the non-stroke belt.” Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(01/24/14 4:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Faculty from the departments of Communications and Culture, Telecommunications and the School of Journalism have been working since last October to combine as a new Media School in 2014. “In a sense we’re starting from scratch,” Walter Gantz, department chair of telecommunications, said.The new Media School will be housed in Franklin Hall.Five task forces have been formed to focus on the different aspects of forming the new school, Joshua Malitsky, associate professor in the department of Communications and Culture and chair of the faculty government task force, said.The task forces are composed of faculty government, curriculum, faculty and graduate research, staffing, space and an umbrella committee which is the faculty advisory board. Each task force has representatives from the three different departments. “When the board of trustees approved it they basically said, ‘Fine, now go work with the faculty and create the school,’” Gantz said. “Even though there was a document that described it, it was more of an architectural plan rather than all of the bricks and mortar.”Some professors currently working in the individual departments will not make the transition to the new Media School. Professors have a deadline for sometime during the spring, Gantz said, to decide whether they will continue to work in the Media School or will transfer to a different department within IU.“I think a lot of that is still to be decided,” Malitsky said. “What’s interesting is that in part, that depends upon how the school ends up being structured, and what the make up of these individual units are.” Because of the nature of the Media School — the fact that it’s not going to be three separate entities under one roof, but a whole new school — Malitsky said some professors may be dispersed into different departments.“We’re going to be the department that loses probably the most amount of faculty, in terms of coming into the new school,” Malitsky said of the Communications and Culture department.The next phase in the planning of the new school will come after the committees have written up individual reports, Brownlee said. “The committee reports will circulate to the extent that we want them to circulate before the FAB (Faculty Advisory Board) takes hold of them,” Bonnie Brownlee, senior associate dean of the School of Journalism, said. “Then the FAB is going to, as representatives of all three units, will prepare a plan that encompasses all of the elements that the task forces are looking at.” Although Franklin Hall may not be open in time due to renovations, the new Media School is set to begin classes for fall 2014. “We’re not taking the programs and just saying, ‘Here, we’re just doing what you did, but we’re calling it a school,’” Gantz said. “We’re not doing that. It’s so much bigger, and that’s what makes it so exciting.”Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(01/22/14 3:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Bloomington Faculty Council met at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the tenure and promotion process and restructuring of prerequisites in the University.The BFC charged the faculty affairs committee with revising the guidelines to the promotion and tenure policy of IU. Claude Clegg, who leads the faculty affairs committee, pushed for the revision of the guidelines to the policy. There are gray areas and moderate conflicts between University policy and Bloomington campus policy, Clegg said. The revision will include new guidelines in case of mergers and consolidations within IU.“Tenure and promotion appointments determine who the faculty are,” said Tom Gieryn, vice provost for faculty and academic affairs. “The school tries to make sure that the teachers who get promotions and tenure are not just good teachers, but really good teachers.” The BFC also discussed streamlining the process students must follow to earn a degree.The Indiana General Assembly passed a law last year stating Indiana’s publicly assisted higher education systems must provide incoming students with maps to achievement the systems’ objectives, BFC president Herb Terry said. “Basically, if a student wants to major in X, we need to give that student a map to show them how to do that in four years,” Terry said.Some departments, however, put different prerequisites in the schedule of classes than the college or school bulletin.This potentially makes it confusing for students to understand their major requirements.“What we have discovered is that there are many ways in which departments currently notify students of prerequisites, and sometimes they’re contradictory or they’re not the same,” Terry said. The BFC is currently in the process of making sure the prerequisites for each department’s programs are correct. “The maps should reflect our curriculum choices, rather than letting the map affect our curriculum,” Terry said. Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(01/17/14 4:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>During a time when many schools are cutting back on their liberal arts programs, IU’s theater department is expanding to include a new masters program that teaches professional costume making design technology. The theater department will be offering a new MFA program beginning in the 2014-15 school year, and will welcome two students in August to be the first MFA Costume Technology Design students at IU.These students will work closely with the master students in the costume design program. “It was a missing component, and there is a real demand for technologists that are really well-trained tailors, and period pattern makers and corset makers,” Linda Pisano, associate professor of costume design, said. Heather Milam is a professor of practice in the theater department and was brought in by the department to launch the new MFA program. She is a specialist in the field as a fine dressmaker and tailor. Milam has worked on many Broadway shows, including “The Lion King” and “Mamma Mia.”“I have spent a lot of time in New York working in costume shops, and getting appropriately trained people who are masters of their crafts is essential to making good costumes,” Milam said. The new MFA program is one of a handful in the United States. However, the program differs from most in that it separates costume design and costume design technology as two different programs.Dual programs that combine design and technology makes a student good at both, but might not make students an expert at both, Milam said.“I think you really need to be an expert for the job,” Milam said. “You really need to be an expert to teach, and there’s no point in kind-a-sort-a teaching the things I’m not really good at.” Milan said she doesn’t want to spread the program too thin and is focusing on students who want to refine their skills as tailors and dressmakers. The program will also include training in animation tailoring to train students how to design costumes for animation films, Milam said. Applicants who have already worked in the field,and know that costume-making is what they would like to do will be shown preference over those just coming out of undergraduate education.Students in the costume technology program will be working closely with those in the costume design program, so it’s preferred that they work well together, Milam said.“It’s so important for the designer and the cutter/draper to be in communication throughout the process of the show and the costumes being made. Otherwise, things will absolutly go wrong,” Barbara Abbott, a masters student in costume design, said.The new program will also increase the quality of costumes seen on stage at IU, Abbott said.“I think it’s really important for costume technicians have foundation design classes so that they know how to talk to the designers, and it’s just as important for the designers to take costume technology classes so that they know how to talk to the costume technologists,” Abbott said.Pisano said she would like the IU program to stand out as the top program in the U.S. for educating costume technologists and dress makers for stage and film. “The costumes are already incredible, but it will increase the quality 10-fold,” she said.Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(01/15/14 3:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>During the past year, IU President McRobbie has spoken out about issues of inequality from education to gay marriage.Now, the Anti-Defamation League has given McRobbie the “Man of Achievement” award for his efforts.“IU strives to represent the best ideals of a free society,” Mark Land, associate vice president of public affairs and government relations, said. “As a leading institution in Indiana, we have a responsibility to...set an example by advocating for equality, fairness and diversity whenever possible.”McRobbie will receive the award April 24 alongside fellow honoree Robert McKinney, a former IU trustee and chair of the board.“We give it to people in the community, man or woman, who have given back professionally and philanthropically,” said Lonnie Nasatir, regional director for the Midwest for the ADL.Ideals of the ADL include achieving racial equality, fighting discrimination and hate and living in a pluralistic world, Nasatir said.“We have been taking notice of his stance on many issues that are near and dear to the ADL,” Nasatir said. “The fact that he has worked tirelessly to create a climate on campus that embraces difference, that embraces diversity, is fabulous.”McRobbie has also traveled extensively to other countries for diversity awareness, Michael Maurer, 1997 ADL “Man of Achievement” said.“The fact that he is always looking to bring in different communities and kids from different parts of the world to expose them to Indiana and vice versa shows his commitment to learning different cultures, different customs, different ethnicities, different practices, which is exactly what the ADL is all about,” Nasatir said. “McRobbie has done a terrific job of being a champion for those ideals.”Follow reporter Kathrine Schulze on Twitter @KathrineSchulze.
(01/10/14 5:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Maurer School of Law has named its new dean. Austen Parrish began his role as dean of law Jan. 1, replacing Provost Lauren Robel, who was dean of the law school starting in 2003 before becoming provost in 2012. Along with the appointment, Parrish has also been named a James H. Rudy Professor of Law.John Applegate, Walter W. Foskett professor of law and executive vice president for university academic affairs, chaired the search committee.“I think the committee did a fabulous job of looking broadly at a wide range of candidates, being very collegial and thoughtful about the various points in which you need to make choices and selections.” Applegate said. “And I think that the outcome was excellent.”Parrish received his B.A. in political science and economics from the University of Washington before going on to complete his J.D. degree at Columbia University.“I liked the problem solving aspect of law school,” Parrish said. “At the time I was somewhat idealistic and wanted to make a difference. I saw a law degree as a way to do that, and a way to help people in a variety of ways.”After graduating from Columbia University, Parrish went to practice complex business litigation at the global law firm O’Melveny & Myers. There he worked mainly in company-to-company litigation, but also did some civil rights work and policy litigation, Parrish said. “This is the time where you need someone who has a lot of energy, who is truly committed to the value of the legal profession and legal education,” Applegate said. “Someone who has a lot of creativity and ideas and really wants to go out there and be thoughtful about the future of the legal profession, and be very enthusiastic about the great opportunities that legal degrees provide to people.” After five years of legal experience, Parrish entered academia in 2002 as a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. In 2008 he became vice dean of academic affairs. Parrish said he thinks the strengths he brings to his job at IU is from all his past experience.“A lot of the things I was doing at Southwestern, which was curricular innovation and working with faculty and trying to expand the school’s reputation, are similar things I’ll be doing at IU,” Parrish said.As vice dean of Southwestern Law, Parrish said he oversaw both full time and adjunct faculty and was heavily involved with students in academic support classes and bar exam support. From July 2012 until November 2013 he served as CEO and interim dean at Southwestern.“We thought it was really important to provide opportunities for our students to learn how to be a lawyer, to direct career paths into local communities,” Parrish said.Applegate said Parrish exemplified those characteristics the committee was looking for in a new dean.“I am absolutely thrilled with the Provost’s choice, and I think that Dean Parrish is going to do great things for Maurer,” Applegate said.Parrish said Southwestern Law School and Maurer are very different from each other, but he thinks the traits of being a good dean translate from school to school.He said he has both short and long-term visions for the law school.In the short term, Parrish said, the focus is on attacking more aggressively things that the law school has done well in the past and addressing the school’s major challenge of helping students find employment after graduation.“We will have a number of initiatives in the first six months to better help our students to get employment after school as quickly as possible,” Parrish said. In the long term he wants to continue the law school’s global focus, he said. “We need to continue what we have been doing well in the past,” he said. “We just need to put it on steroids and move aggressively to continue the momentum of the prior dean,” Parrish said.Robel said Parrish should fit right in at IU.“I am delighted to welcome Austen Parrish to Indiana University and to our law school community,” Provost Robel said in a press release. “Austen is an exciting leader, and I am confident that he will inspire our faculty, students, staff and alumni to continue raising the national and global profile of Maurer.”But Parrish said he’s not the only one that deserves the credit.“I’m looking forward to celebrate, maybe even more loudly, the accomplishments of the faculty and the students and the school generally,” Parrish said.
(12/10/13 3:15am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Program Liaisons aims to boost participation in campus events and centralize information for students to get a full college experience. Program Liaisons is a group within Academic Initiatives, through Residential Programs and Services. The group works to provide information to students about events in and around campus, said Emily Hensley, graduate supervisor for academic initiatives.“The mission of the Program Liaisons program is to find the best events and opportunities on campus and in Bloomington for the students, so they don’t have to,” Hensley said. The Program Liaisons started at least five years ago, said Denise Gowin, associate director of residential life for academic initiatives.“We perceived that there was a need to find a way to communicate to students, particularly to those in the residence halls, about residence hall and campus and Bloomington programming,” Gowin said. Program Liaisons partners with many organizations, including Office of First Year Experience and the Office of International Studies, to gather as many different types of events as possible. “I think the goal is for the program to be a place where students know they can get information,” said Hensley.The group consists of 16 students and one graduate advisor, all of whom are hired through RPS.“You get that peer-to-peer interaction, which will hopefully make it easier to talk to rather than from a student-faculty perspective,” Hensley said.Inside of the Program Liaisons there are four teams: social media, web, outreach and the print and digital committee.Freshman Sam Hendershot works as a part of the outreach team inside Program Liaisons. “As a whole, we all work to find events around campus,” Hendershot said. “But individually in our group we work to outreach to different groups across campus to make partnerships with them and help them to promote their events.”Currently, the Program Liaisons gets information out to students on a variety of social media, and is working on its own website. The program also tries to place a Program Liaisons member in each residence hall, Hensley said. “We try to do that strategically so we can deliver information to each center specifically based on what kinds of things they want to do,” Hensley said. If students reach out to Program Liaisons on any format, it will try to give them information for events specially tailored to their interests, Hensley said.In addition to promoting official campus and city events, Program Liaisons works to promote the events of student organizations as well.With 889 followers on Facebook and 444 followers on Twitter, the Program Liaisons is still growing, Hensley said. One of the projects the outreach team is currently working on is market research on the amount of students that the Program Liaisons reaches, Hendershot said.The Program Liaisons is currently working to gain recognition as a resource for students, Gowin said.“I think it’s a really unique program, and as it continues to grow it will be a really effective and important tool for students to use,” Gowin said.