2015 commencement to be in Memorial Stadium
Commencement for undergraduates in spring 2015 and spring 2016 will take place in Memorial Stadium as a result of renovations to Assembly Hall.
60 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Commencement for undergraduates in spring 2015 and spring 2016 will take place in Memorial Stadium as a result of renovations to Assembly Hall.
Details have surfaced in this year’s first Patten Lectures, a tradition that has brought more than 150 scholars to IU since 1937, according to the William T. Patten Foundation’s website.
With a freshman class of 7,708 and nearly 2,000 acres of campus at IU, the first day of classes can leave a lot of students turned around.
Doug Bauder, coordinator at IU’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Student Support Services, said IU has always been a leader in GLBT rights despite its location in a traditionally conservative state.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU’s 11 residence halls will empty this weekend, and Resident Assistants will begin work to prepare for the summer. Most residence halls are requiring students to move out by 10 a.m. Saturday, unless a student has special exceptions such as assisting with graduation ceremonies or moving into summer housing.After the move-out, RAs check all residents’ rooms for damages.Kirsten Fulton is an RA in Rose Avenue Residence Hall and will help Rose close for the first time. This is Rose’s first year in operation, but Fulton said they had to go through checks before opening after the conclusion of summer programming.“During the transition from summer to opening there weren’t many problems,” she said. IU is host to many summer programs each year, including camps for journalism, business and various athletic programs. The only problems Fulton has seen have been with the check-in and check-out processes, she said.“Sometimes something gets overlooked, but I don’t think there’s a lot of problems that go on,” she said. “The only thing we really have problems with is the computer system when we check people in and out.”RAs in other established residence halls have had time to get a full picture of check out.“I only went through closing once last year and we didn’t have many problems,” said Grace Todd, a second-year RA in Collins Living Learning Center.Todd said checks took about two and a half hours last year, but she’s not sure how long the cleaning and restoring processes take to prepare the residence hall for summer.RAs in Collins work in teams of at least three and check every floor of the building they work in, Todd said.Todd said the biggest problem RAs run into is residents who forget they have to be out by 10, but most residents are out by noon.Fulton said there’s no deadline for the closing procedures.“I think it really only takes a week, maybe a week and a half just to clean everything up,” she said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The American Academy of Arts and Sciences boasts members such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King Jr. and Georgia O’Keefe. This year, two IU professors are joining their ranks.Susan Gubar, feminist literary critic and professor of English and gender studies, and Ellen Ketterson, professor of biology and gender studies, have earned spots in the academy, one of the oldest honorary societies in the country.“I was very honored and very humbled, especially when I got the letter and saw some of the names that were listed of people who are and were members,” Gubar said.The members inducted into the academy this year include people who have received Nobel Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, Oscars, Grammys, Tonys and Emmys.Gubar said she and Ketterson are not the first from IU to be inducted. Previous inductions include former U.S. senator and School of Global and International Studies Professor Richard Lugar in 2012.“It’s good to see a new field being recognized,” Gubar said. She said female membership in the academy is relatively new and being honored as a woman and a feminist is an honor itself.She pointed out that, in addition to having a department of gender studies, IU also has feminists in all of its departments.“I think it’s one of the great strengths of this institution, and we’ve been there since the beginning,” she said.Gubar also said a majority of the living membership are from the Ivy League, and she thinks it’s great to be inducted from a public institution.“A distinguishing characteristic of any world-class university is its faculty, and today the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has recognized two women who represent that guiding principle,” IU President Michael McRobbie said in a press release. “For decades, Susan Gubar and Ellen Ketterson have worked tirelessly to the benefit of their students, this University and to society, in turn making their election to the academy most deserved.”Gubar said she is not sure she’ll be able to attend the induction ceremony, as she continues to battle cancer, but she is very pleased to receive such an honor.“I think it’s a great recognition of the field,” she said. “I think it’s a great recognition of the importance of the humanities and in particular the importance of feminist criticism.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Indiana economy is still weighed down by winter’s recession-grade levels, despite positive growth in most sectors.The Leading Index for Indiana, a measure produced by the Indiana Business Research Center in the Kelley School of Business to provide insight into the direction of the Indiana economy, did not change in April from its reading of 101.1.There were gains in parts of the index, including manufacturing and transportation, but these gains couldn’t move the index given that other components were stagnant or especially low.Small businesses and established businesses seem to be gaining confidence, said Timothy Slaper, research director of the Indiana Business Research Center, in a press release Thursday.Industrial production is also on the rise, up 0.7 percent in March and 1.2 percent in February.Manufacturing saw continued gains marking 10 consecutive months of improvement. More vehicles and more homes are being sold. Though most sectors show positive data, the number of people unemployed and the number of people employed part-time for economic reasons, known as the U3 and U6 gaps, are still above the level measured before the recession.The Indiana economy seems to be continuing to bounce back from the recession, but there is still work to be done, Slaper said.“Economic slack is disappearing based on three labor market indicators of temporary help services hiring, firms unable to fill job openings and a four-week moving average of initial unemployment claims,” he said. “But then again, another measure of economic slack — the U6 and U3 gap — remains well above levels experienced before the recession.”Anna Hyzy
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Not much is known about the way particles behaved in the primordial soup that occupied the universe in the moments following the Big Bang, but a physicist at IU has been looking for answers.Now, he has received recognition for his work.IU theoretical nuclear physicist Jinfeng Liao will receive an award of $440,000 from the National Science Foundation.The CAREER Award is the NSF’s most prestigious award for junior faculty. Liao’s funding will go toward continuing his research about new states of matter in extreme conditions.Liao creates these extremes through ion collisions that produce temperatures as high as 4 trillion degrees Celsius, which is 250,000 times hotter than the sun.These collisions provide, to some extent, a miniature recreation of the Big Bang.“You could say I study little bangs,” Liao said in a press release Tuesday. Liao came to IU in 2011 after working as a research associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.Today, he is also a RIKEN physicist at Brookhaven.Liao said the interactions of quark-gluon matter, a state described in quantum chromodynamics theory in which the universe is thought to have existed after the Big Bang, are relatively unexplored and lack deep understanding.He said he aims to create valuable descriptions of this matter both in and out of equilibrium. This research could have a profound affect on many areas of physics, including condensed matter physics, string theories, supersymmetric theories, compact stars, supernova and cosmology, Liao said. Anna Hyzy
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The small, blonde sophomore leveled the foundation for her beehives, moving dirt from higher ground to lower ground until it was even.A wooden box sat on top of landscaping paper. She turned it over and over, telling her mother she was measuring.Her mother, an engineer, joked about her daughter’s unscientific measuring technique.Under a pine tree in a corner of the Hilltop Garden that faces an open field, she shoveled gravel from the IU physical plant onto the paper and began building two small towers, stacking two wooden boxes on top of a cinder block base.She stood back from her work.“We’re thinking of enlisting some artists. Just some art students to paint them up,” she said.In conjunction with Spring Into Gardening, an event at the Hilltop Garden that was a part of this year’s SustainIU week, sophomore environmental management major Ellie Symes built the physical structure of her long-awaited beehives.“It’s exciting, I feel like I’m known as the bee girl on campus,” she said.Symes fell in love with beekeeping after a summer internship she found by typing “environmental volunteering” into Google, and has worked since September to bring it to campus. Her hives will support IU’s first beekeeping program for students.Symes said she sees beekeeping as a necessary pursuit and a way to educate people around her about the importance of bees, especially given the recent decline in worldwide bee populations.“I learn something every time I talk to her about these things,” said her father, Greg Symes.Ellie Symes is a member of GardenCorp, a program through the IU Office of Sustainability that requires students to spend four to six hours a week at the campus garden and to complete an independent project.Symes’ project has been the bees, which will arrive to their new home at the Hilltop Garden in mid-May.“I’m really excited about the educational opportunities that come from it,” said Audrey Brinkers, IU senior and campus garden coordinator. “It brings so much more than just a hive.”With bee populations falling as a combined result of pesticide use, a lack of biodiversity and increased susceptibility to disease and parasites, the insects now face dire prospects.The massive die-off has become known as colony collapse disorder.In a 2013 study published in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists reported that exposure to certain pesticides was increasing honeybees’ susceptibility to fungal infection.Since the bee population plays a key role in the pollination of commercial crops, this could become an agricultural crisis.According to the American Beekeeping Federation’s website, approximately one third of all food consumed by Americans is directly dependent on pollination by honeybees.This concerns Symes.“This bee passion comes from my passion for food security,” Symes said.Symes said her biggest mission is creating a sustainable food system. She said her dream is to help with urban farming programs in inner cities to combat food deserts.“Part of that will be beekeeping, because you know bees are important for the pollination of plants,” she said. “Honey’s just delicious, and it’s something I always want to do.” Symes said a big part of her motivation to bring beekeeping to campus was to get more people her age aware of how important bees are. Brinkers said Symes approached her in September with the idea of starting a beekeeping program at IU.Garnering support for something like beekeeping can be challenging, Brinkers said. Particularly, she was concerned about how to handle stings and how to maintain a hive in the long term. Symes already had answers to all of these questions prepared.As part of her preparation, she wrote a 20-page manual detailing the importance of bees, such as where to place bees in the garden, beekeeping equipment, the method for smoking bees, which bees are good to get and what things to look for to maintain a healthy hive.While Symes’ hives will be the first to provide a beekeeping program open to student participation, her hives are not the first on campus. Retired IU biology professor George Hegeman’s surviving hive at the Hilltop has been relatively successful.“The bees come and go, but the box in which they live has been here since the 1970s,” Hegeman said as he pried apart two of the 10 frames inside the wooden box, which the bees had glued together with resin from trees. He worked carefully and calmly as countless bees, some with bright yellow pollen coating their legs, buzzed around the hive. In the middle of the summer, when the hive is at full strength, it can house as many as 60,000 bees, Hegeman said.He explained that beekeeping is a tradition thousands of years old, and it’s really not that hard of a job once you know what you’re doing. Hegeman, 75, keeps more than five hives himself.“Oh, you’re getting a little nasty. Calm down, girls,” he said to the bees.To make dealing with his hive safer, he pumps smoke through the entrance. European honeybees like the ones in Hegman’s hive evolved to live in hollow trees and are thus evolved to be sensitive to smoke. The bees, thinking their hive is on fire, fill their stomachs with honey, which makes them unable to sting.Symes’ hive will rely on volunteers who will receive brief training before working with the bees. Symes said she has already seen some people express an interest in working with her hive. All gear and equipment will be provided, as Symes has purchased four veils and two full suits.She also said there has been some discussion of including beekeeping in garden workdays.The honey produced by the hive will be mostly given away to people who have helped get the hive going.Symes said it will be spring 2015 before she can start collecting honey. Until then, the bees will not be producing enough excess honey, and the bees will need what little they do have to sustain through the winter.“There’s nothing better than sticking your finger in the hive and tasting the fresh honey,” she said.Hegeman explained the products created in honeybee hives, beeswax and honey, are incredibly useful, and that a single hive can produce as much as 150 pounds of excess honey.“It’s no small gift that they give,” he said.Symes’ parents said they have been impressed and surprised by their daughter’s interest in beekeeping.“It wasn’t what I expected a freshman college girl to get into, but I think it’s cool and it’s something she could do really all her life,” her mother said.The City of Bloomington has been an outlet for Symes’ passion for bees, and she has been taking beekeeping classes with the city.Symes said she believes bees are the building block to everything else, and keeping them is an absolute necessity.She has never been stung, but she knows it will happen eventually once she has her own hives, Symes said. All fear aside, Symes said there’s nothing better than feeling close to bees, which she said she feels are the most amazing creatures.“There’s an adrenaline rush that comes to it,” she said. “There’s a zen-ness that comes to it. It’s amazing to have the bees crawling on your arms and not being stung.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Throughout 2013 and what has passed of 2014, more than 20 IU faculty members have received grants through the Indiana Clinical and Translational Science Institute as seed funding for their research.Professor Kenneth Nephew in the medical sciences program and professor Yves Brun in the department of biology are two IU faculty members who received grants last fall.“It’s a really good way to get some seed money to do research,” said Yvonne Lai, the Indiana CTSI navigator in Bloomington of the grant program.Lai also said the grants are rather competitive.Brun received a grant to pursue research on how bacteria create microfilms, or layers of bacteria stuck to surfaces, such as the layer of slime that clings to the rocks in a creek bed.He works with Arezzo Ardekani of the University of Notre Dame, whose expertise lies in physics and engineering. Brun said he and Ardekani are looking to see how the creation of a microfilm starts by looking at how bacteria know to stick and the mechanism for sticking.“To stick or not to stick, that is the question,” he said.Brun said much of the value of CTSI is that it brings together disciplines, as it has with him and Ardekani.Ardekani developed a computational way of looking at the creation of microfilms from which she can construct models. This can lead to more testing, which leads to more models.There are practical applications to Brun’s work as well. Microfilms are more resistant to antibiotics and can build up on medical implants such as catheters.Increased knowledge could also lead to the creation of adhesives that can hold to wet surfaces.“Bacteria solved that problem a long time ago,” he said.Brun said he hopes his research can lead to a larger grant from the National Institutes of Health.Nephew’s research has received exactly that. He has looked into the same question for about 14 years.“There’s no FDA-approved, second-line therapy for ovarian cancer, but unfortunately most women develop resistance to the currently used therapies,” he said.Nephew works alongside Jean-Cristophe Rochet from Purdue University.The survival rate for ovarian cancer has not changed much in the past three decades, Nephew said, and the fact it has the ability to become drug resistant has a lot to do with this.“We’re working with a sense of urgency,” he said.Nephew said the results thus far have been promising and have been well received.While the CTSI grant is a two-year program, he said he hopes to have their continued support. His NIH grant will last for five years.He said seed-funding grants like CTSI’s are critically important to continuing necessary research. “It’s very important,” he said. “I can’t say enough how important it is.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For the fifth year in a row, the IU Kelley School of Business has risen in the rankings of undergraduate programs in Bloomberg Businessweek, according to a press release Friday from the IU-Bloomington newsroom.Kelley now ranks eighth overall and, for the second consecutive year, it was ranked first by companies that recruit its graduates, according to the release. “These rankings attest to the quality of Kelley’s undergraduate education, its exceptional teaching and research facilities, and its continually growing reputation as a destination of choice for the nation’s next business leaders,” said Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel in the release. “They are also a tribute to Kelley’s faculty and staff, who dedicate themselves on a daily basis to ensuring our students leave IU with the skills, experience and business acumen necessary to make a real impact in their communities.” Kelley was awarded an “A” for teaching quality and an A-plus for job placement activities and facilities and services, according to the release.The school has ranked in the top 20 for the eight years that Businessweek has surveyed schools, climbing 12 positions in the last five years. “We are thrilled with the strong climb in the rankings,” said Idalene Kesner, dean of the Kelley School, in the release. “This is especially impressive given that we’re in the midst of a major construction project for a new undergraduate building. The Hodge Hall Undergraduate Center will open in the fall, and we anticipate this state-of-the-art facility will have an even more positive impact on our students’ experience at Kelley.”The renovation and expansion of Hodge Hall is a $60 million project funded entirely through alumni gifts, strategic partners and a Lilly Endowment grant of $33 million, the release said.The new space will include not only more classrooms and group work space, but it will also be home to the Indiana Business Research Center — a behavioral research lab, a stock-trading room and a 3M sales and business communications lab, according to the release. Kelley is the largest undergraduate school in terms of enrollment in Bloomberg Businessweek’s Top 10, with approximately 5,000 undergraduates. However, it is also one of the cheapest business schools ranked, with a yearly resident tuition of $8,919 — one-fourth of most others in the top 10, the release said. “It’s wonderful to have this positive momentum as we approach the final phase of our building project,” Kesner said in the release. “We’re even more proud of the continued No. 1 ranking in career services. This shows that our students know the quality of their education is most important.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>SustainIU week, a completely student-run series of events designed to engage the student body in sustainability initiatives, began Saturday and will continue during the week.Events this weekend included tabling for non-GMO produce and a garden workday at the Middle Way House garden, according to the Student Sustainability Council’s website.“I think there’s a growing traction in the IU community for sustainability,” said Faith Liveoak, IU sophomore and director of projects and events for the SSC.Liveoak said that a primary goal of the week’s events is to engage as much of the student body as possible, but the SSC doesn’t set any numerical or quantitative goals. Emilie Rex, assistant director of the IU Office of Sustainability, serves as adviser to the SSC and said SustainIU week helps to bring different sustainability organizations on campus together.“I think it’s really great because it just brings us together and community is important,” she said.Regardless of whether or not students consider themselves part of the sustainability community on campus, everyone is a part of creating a sustainable community because everyone’s actions impact the environment, Rex said.“My boss likes to say it’s a team sport,” she said.Liveoak said out of all of the planned events, she is most excited for this year’s keynote speaker, Will Allen.She said Allen is currently the face of urban agriculture and diversity involvement in sustainability.Rex also said she is excited for Allen, citing in particular the interdisciplinary approach he takes to sustainability issues, incorporating economics and social justice into the conversation.Allen is speaking at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Whittenberger Auditorium, and the event is open to the public.There will also be plenty of hands-on opportunities for students as the week goes on.Liveoak said she got involved in sustainability initiatives through her role as the Oxfam liason to the SSC her freshman year. It was then that she became educated in sustainability issues and felt a pull to become involved.“Coming into college, I didn’t really know anything about sustainability,” she said. “I thought it was something that people just said to scare you into recycling.”Liveoak said the education she received is what motivates her to put so much time into SSC. Five months of planning went into just this week. If members of the sustainability community hadn’t been working hard to spread the word when she was a freshman, Liveoak said she never would have learned about sustainability. She wants to provide that opportunity to other students.“Unless we educate college students now so that they can start shifting their habits, it may be too late,” she said.Follow reporter Anna Hyzy on Twitter @annakhyzy.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Bloomington Faculty Council is seeking ways to increase faculty voice in University procedures and decisions.In a meeting Thursday to present the goals of the slate that will run in upcoming BFC elections, faculty discussed the lack of faculty governance at IU and how they might go about becoming more involved.“I find it a rather frustrating service that I do because the faculty no longer believes in the BFC, and the BFC no longer believes in itself,” Karma Lochrie, professor in the Department of English, said. She is the arts and humanities representative of the council. She said she was excited to see the new slate and that she hopes she can be a part of something bigger through the BFC.Lochrie pointed out that while the BFC has been very active in the past, it has been far too long since it has been active. Sara Friedman, associate professor of anthropology, said in addition to a more active BFC, there must also be improved communication between BFC and other governing bodies across campus and within the different schools. Council members said they agreed.“We in the BFC are kind of stranded in the BFC,” Lochrie said. Members at the meeting also expressed a concern that administrators are not involving faculty in decisions, but are only coming to them after the fact. “I’d love to not comply, but I don’t know how, given the fact that they’ve intentionally taken that away from us,” Friedman said of administrative demands.Purnima Bose, associate professor of English, said the bureaucratic demands administrators put on faculty conflict with the research mission of IU. IU is a Research I university, a classification based on giving high priority to research, commitment to graduate and doctoral programs and other criteria. “I find myself really anxious now that it’s not clear to me how we’re going to service this new demand to be a full-service undergraduate institution and an R1,” she said.Friedman said IU has a very top-down president, which makes faculty involvement difficult.Michael Martin, professor in the Department of Communication and Culture pointed out that the cross-school nature of the Media School would have given the BFC jurisdiction, no involvement from the BFC occurred.“It just seems to me that these are legitimate points of intervention that the BFC should’ve been involved in,” he said.Ben Robinson, associate professor of Germanic studies, said the effort has to lie in building faith in the BFC and encouraging faculty to speak up.“I think we do need to insist on more authority as is granted by the BFC constitution,” Robinson said. “It really has to be a cultural fight.”Follow reporter Anna Hyzy on Twitter @annakhyzy.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After years of declining population growth rates in Indiana, 2013 data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows a turn around.A report by the Indiana Business Research Center in the IU Kelley School of Business reveals Indiana’s population growth rate is increasing, inching toward where that number was prior to 2008’s recession.“When you have major shocks, whether it’s great booms or great busts, things kind of reroute back to the mean,” said Matt Kinhorn, an economic analyst at the Indiana Business Research Center.After the recession, growth rates fell dramatically and are now working their way to levels that would be considered normal.“If you look at the state, we grew just about half a percent in 2013,” Kinghorn said. “And that’s an improvement over 2012 where we grew about three tenths of a percent.”The report shows that 45 of the 92 counties in Indiana experienced a population decline in 2013. This was largely caused by a net out-migration of residents and, in 16 of these counties, a natural decline, rooting from more deaths than births, according to the report.“There’s really a handful of metropolitan areas that are kind of the engine for population growth in Indiana,” Kinghorn said.He said he thinks trends in metropolitan areas will be most interesting to track going forward.“Some people think that we’re going to see a ‘back to the city’ trend,” he said.He said that he’s skeptical of this idea, but looks forward to an end result.Kinghorn said while this is a positive thing, the rates are not yet back to normal. “It’s just another indicator pointed in the right direction,” he said.The growth is a positive sign for Indiana’s economy.Kinghorn said it’s something he’s been waiting for, because he never expected the slow growth to continue for as long as it did. The population growth remained slow after the recession, which began in 2008.“Our population growth rate really goes hand in hand with our economic fortunes,” he said. “When things are going well in Indiana, then we’re attracting residents to the state.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Physical Plant Bloomington is releasing an app through IU mobile that will allow students to view and track the energy consumption in every IU building.The app, Energy Matters, will be released at about noon today.“The goal was to release it during the spring energy challenge,” said Peggy Maschino, associate director at Physical Plant Bloomington.The energy challenge, a four-week competition between all IU residence halls to reduce energy consumption, began March 24, putting the release of the app at the one-week mark.Maschino said she hopes the app can help drive some of the collective efforts that go into the energy challenge.“I’d like to see further decline,” she said. “It’s good for the environment, it’s good for student affordability, it’s good all around.”Maschino sought the help of IU sophomore and Financial Director of the Student Sustainability Council Ellie Symes to get the word out to the student body.“I’m basically her platform for this,” Symes said.Work on the Energy Matters app began in the fall, and Maschino contacted Symes about a month ago asking if she could help spread the word. Symes said they plan to station volunteers around campus to demo the app, and that anyone interested should contact Maschino.“Students really are the drivers of the University,” she said.Symes said she hopes the app makes people more aware of their consumption in terms of electricity usage, and that it generates change. She also said she hopes it encourages builders at IU to build more energy-efficient buildings. Sometime within the next six months, the app can also include water usage, Symes said.She said her goals for the app are to build awareness and concern.Prior to the creation of Energy Matters, data was sent to the building managers of residence halls, but not directly to students.“Students use a lot of electricity, and students make up a large percentage of energy use on campus,” Symes said.But still, Symes said she thinks the environment is something that really matters to students on IU’s campus.“I see a huge passion with the people I work with in the sustainability world on campus,” she said.The current generation has to be the one to make change, she said, and she hopes that the app can make more people think twice about how much electricity they use.“Students need to be aware, and when students demand energy-efficient buildings and facilities, the University listens,” Symes said.Follow reporter Anna Hyzy on Twitter @annakhyzy.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IUSA presidential candidate Andy Braden told students at the IUSA town hall meeting Tuesday that something about IUSA needs to change.Despite PLUS for IUSA running unopposed this election season, voting will still take place and PLUS is still required to run a campaign, which included the town hall meeting in the Whittenberger Auditorium.“It’s not healthy for IUSA to have just one ticket running,” he said.The town hall served as an opportunity for the candidates to clarify their platform and address questions from the student body.Braden said PLUS hopes to increase interaction with the general student body.“We’re your student government and if students aren’t becoming involved in student government, what is student government?” he said.PLUS plans on increasing involvement by, in addition to standard office hours, making trips to different locations across campus once every two weeks to show students its government is willing to come to them.Michelle Chung, candidate for vice president of administration, said safety will also be a large part of PLUS’s efforts when it takes office.“We have found that the blue light system is inefficient,” she said.Chung said PLUS has plans to develop a safety app students can turn on during their walks home.In addition, there are plans to increase recycling programs on campus.She said a representative from IU Sustainability said adding individual recycling bins to all dorms would greatly improve recycling.Chung said only Briscoe Quad, Rose Hall and the newly renovated areas in Union Street have individual recycling bins in dorms.“One of the things we try to do with our platforms is directly acknowledge problems,” Braden said.Will Wartenberg, candidate for vice president of congress, said he plans to work with IUSA Congress more when PLUS takes office.“They are just as powerful as the executive branch just like the United States of America,” he said.PLUS ended the town hall by encouraging students to reach out if they have questions or concerns. “IUSA can be a great thing,” Braden said. “IUSA has been a great thing in the past.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On March 23, 1924, the board of trustees approved the creation of a political science department at IU.Russell Hanson, the current chair of IU’s department of political science, said the department was ahead of its time; one of the first in the country to use the title of “political science” when many like it were going by names such as “department of government.” One hundred years later, Hanson said the department has 560 to 600 students majoring in political science.“The prospects are bright to us and we expect to continue on for another hundred years,” Hanson said.The department has organized a week-long celebration of its centennial, including two lectures, a roundtable on women in politics and career-based sessions.IU’s department of political science was founded under the leadership of Amos Shartle Hershey.According to a history of political science at IU written by Edward H. Buehrig in 1983, Hershey joined IU’s faculty in the department of American history and politics.“While the close connection of political science with history on the one side and with political economy and sociology on the other side is generally recognized, it is also generally felt and believed that political science has a distinct character of its own, and that it differs from Historical Science in scope, purpose, and method,” Hershey said to the board of trustees in 1906.It took eight years after Hershey submitted his proposal, but the department of political science was formed.Celebrations of the centennial began Monday with a lecture by distinguished political scientist, Larry Bartels, a professor at Vanderbilt University.Bartels presented some work by himself and Christopher H. Achen at Princeton University.The lecture was titled, “Democracy for Realists” and focused primarily on the problems that come with retrospective voting.“Most people just aren’t paying that much attention to politics,” Bartels said.The lecture, in Woodburn Hall, drew a large number of political science faculty members and graduate students. Bartels left the audience with a singular closing thought.“Political progress seems to hinge on political culture, political institutions and political economy, not on public opinion, electoral politics or Fourth of July rhetoric,” he said.He admitted he came to this conclusion reluctantly, as he spent much of his life studying public opinion and electoral politics.The second lecture will take place at 3 p.m. March 28 in Woodburn Hall 200, where Terrence Ball of Arizona State University will speak on “Lincoln’s Deadly Hermeneutics.”Hanson said the study of political science is valuable and has multiple applications.“I think many of the problems that we face as a society have political solutions to them,” he said.He also said a significant number of political science majors go on to study law or obtain jobs in politically influential corporations.Hanson said that, in light of the centennial, he hopes to improve the curriculum, including the addition of a careers course.“We’re very proud of what we’ve done,” he said, “We’re ambitious, so we hope to do better.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Across the country, about 40 percent of students planning to major in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines change their major before graduating.That’s according to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and IU is not far off the trend. The Strategic Plan is looking to improve STIM education: education in science, technology, informatics and mathematics. Without an engineering school, IU has adopted the acronym STIM to refer to its initiatives that parallel national STEM efforts, according to Robert Sherwood, associate dean for research in the IU School of Education.Sherwood is the chair of the STIM interdisciplinary initiatives committee. “There is so much concern in the country that we get a lot of people started interested in a STIM career, but then they change majors,” he said.Sherwood said he hopes IU will be more able to recruit and retain students for thesemajors in the future. “We’re not getting nearly enough underrepresented minorities into STIM majors,” he said.According to the strategic plan, a big part of this initiative is a push for more research opportunities.Sherwood said he hopes, by improving the way some of these courses are taught, retention rates will rise.“That is sort of focused more on making sure that the science teaching we do on campus is more evidence based,” Sarita Soni, vice provost for research, said.Soni also said she hopes the initiative will work to make students more aware of opportunities around them, and put an increased emphasis on practice.But Sherwood said he’s not just concerned for STIM students. He said he wants all students, not just STIM majors, to leave IU with an understanding of STIM concepts, like basic physics and biology.“Everyone is facing some of these grand challenges,” he said. “Global warming, enough water, energy concerns.” The initiative will also create a STIM center, which Sherwood described as a “campus center.”Sherwood said this project will not involve any new buildings, just a center with enough space for directors, faculty and perhaps some graduate students who might work out of the office.“We’re very hopeful that the center might be established within the next year or two,” he said.There has been no discussion on where this office might be located yet.Though there are efforts being made to improve STIM education, Sherwood said it doesn’t mean IU is not in bad shape.“Since we don’t have an engineering school, that hurts our numbers a little bit, but informatics is growing rather quickly,” he said.Sherwood said he hopes the substantial drop off with STIM majors will level out after the Strategic Plan is implemented.“We’ll see how this all comes out,” he said, “You know, the reports still a draft, but I am hopeful that the STIM center of excellence will be in the final strategic plan.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Every morning, while traveling to her high school in Syria, Meera was not sure she would come home.At home, she struggled to study without electricity, huddled by a single candle.Every night, she sat awake, kept up by the sounds of gunfire.“It all started three years ago,” she said. “I was just a 10th grader being a slacker in school, just a normal life. And next thing I know, there were tanks outside my house. There was shooting all night.”Meera was lucky. After completing her high school education in Syria, her family was able to move to the United States and has been living in the country for six months.She shared her story via Skype with a group of IU students Wednesday in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana Memorial Union.The event, titled “3 years/10 million lives, Syria: The Human Side of the War” was organized by Oxfam at IU and co-sponsored by Union Board and the Department of International Studies. It featured a panel discussion with School of Public and Environmental Affairs Professor Rajendra Abhyankar, the former Indian ambassador to Syria, and Rahaf Safi, a Syrian-American IU senior.There were also Skype calls with Mulham al-Jundi, the youngest member of the Syrian National Council and Noah Gottschalk, a senior policy adviser for humanitarian response at Oxfam America.Oxfam IU is a student organization associated with the international humanitarian and development organization Oxfam America, which seeks solutions to hunger, poverty and social injustice.Emily Metallic, the president of Oxfam IU, is a junior majoring in journalism and international studies.She said she hoped the event would make students more aware of the humanitarian issues associated with the war, including the effect it has had on children.“Kids aren’t going to school, and that’s going to really affect the entire next generation of Syrians,” she said.The United Nations estimates more than 100,000 lives have been lost in the conflict. Syria has lost more than 35 years of development, with more than 50 percent of the population living in poverty.“This really is the humanitarian crisis of our time,” Metallic said.It was for this reason that Laura Schulte, sophomore and topics director for Union Board, chose to work with Oxfam on the event. She said she felt people have stopped paying due attention to the war in Syria.“As the conflict has continued and continued and continued, it has lost motivation in the media,” she said.Safi still has family in Syria.In October 2012, she said she received a call from her mother telling her that her aunt had picked up her cousin’s body. He was dead and had been tortured to death.“When you hear these numbers, think about the lives affected,” Safi said. “Think about my cousin.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>New majors and minors are likely in the near future for IU. The provost’s Strategic Plan is seeking to make interdisciplinary education more accessible with the creation of unique academic programs.Interim Vice Provost for Education Dennis Groth said students seek to enhance their undergraduate experience by pursuing second majors, minors and certificates.“I’m looking at ways that we can investigate the paths that our students have already taken,” he said.In the process of creating interdisciplinary majors and programs, Groth said he has begun to look at data that shows the most popular major and minor combinations.“I would hope that it would identify either the potential for new joint majors, or just the potential for new services and programs to help students be aware,” he said.Jonathan Elmer is a professor of English and chair of the committee for integrated programs in humanities and arts for the Strategic Plan.He said the model upon which the College of Arts and Sciences is founded is essentially a model of interdisciplinary learning. “The idea behind it is simple,” he said. “Learn a lot about a few things, but some about a lot of things.”The initiative Elmer is part of in the Strategic Plan seeks to incorporated this model to the entire campus, he said.Larry Singell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said he sees a demand for it.“Much of interesting and important problems and the skills to solve these problems sit at the border of disciplines,” he said.Singell said both the Media School and the School of Global and International Studies are examples of an effort to provide students with necessary skills by taking a more interdisciplinary approach.Currently, Groth is working to aggregate data he can send on to individual academic units.“Some programs already build a type of interdisciplinary thinking,” he said.He pointed out that units such as the School of Journalism require students to gain at least a concentration in something outside their major.Groth said he is hopeful that once the data is collected, the initiative can work to create intellectual diversity and make students more aware of interdisciplinary options.One way of doing this would be providing students in each major a list of the top five ranked second majors or minors, he said.Still, Groth said the initiative to create these new majors and programs is very much in the conversation stage.“Everybody would love it today,” he said. “I would too, but we know the reality on these is that we have to take and approach that helps up to be successful in the long-run.”