152 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(07/15/13 12:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bringing a dream into reality was one of many goals Chabane Maidi hoped to accomplish at his camp last week.In an effort to develop and open up the idea of working in the gaming world, Maidi helped start the Game Development Camp. The Camp just ended its first session this past Friday. Maidi, who graduated from IU in 2009 with a degree in computer science and game design, said he doesn’t believe area high schools offer enough tutelage in the area of video game development and one of the goals of the camp was to offer the opportunity to learn and develop a video game to teens.The camp was sponsored by the IU Department of Telecommunications and welcomed high school and college students ages 13 and up. It was aimed at teenagers and above interested in pursuing a career in game development. The camp allowed students to make their own video games from scratch using the program Construct 2. “The aim of the camp is to provide this game development resource to area teenagers,” Chris Roberts, PR/Marketing director for the camp, said. “Kids these days are surrounded by all this technology and along with that comes a love of video games.”The idea for the camp originated from a conversation between Maidi and Professor Edward Castronova in the Department of Telecommunications.“I had a flashback of how I never considered that game development was a realistic and respectable goal because we were never exposed to it in the high school setting, so we always went on to the fields that we considered to be realistic fields,” Maidi said. “So I decided if I’m gonna be able to foster the youth development scene in Bloomington, that I need to provide the opportunity I never had.”After receiving the support of the Department of Telecommunications, Maidi and others involved with the idea moved forward in their efforts to pull a camp together in time for this summer.Several speakers came to the camp, including Professors Edward Castronova of Telecommunications and Sean Duncan of School of Education, IU Game Development student group Hoosier Games and Academy award-winning visual effects producer Hoyt Yeatman.“The student group talked about what it’s like to make an indie game as a student and the challenges that they face,” Maidi said.Yeatman brought unreleased virtual reality simulation technology called Oculus Rift to the camp Wednesday and allowed students to demo the new game immersion device. “He brought in this virtual reality device and the students were able to try it on for a few minutes each and I think that was kind of a blast,” Maidi said. “They were waiting in line, anxious to get this thing on their head.”Nick Root, a senior at Bloomington High School South, said the theme of the game he was developing was music and rhythm. “Music is the life-blood of the planet,” Root said. “Literally keeps the world going, keeps the rhythm alive and healthy. Something’s destroying it and causing it to play terrible music and such and it’s your job to try and stop whatever it is.”Root said though he has really enjoyed the camp and has learned a lot, he doesn’t think implementing a similar program in high schools would be effective. The cost to attend this camp for one week averaged at $450. “I think the idea is nice, but there’s problems with getting all the stuff for it, getting it set up and convincing people that it would actually be a good thing, because even if we got people to do it, they need to actually be working and it needs to be profitable for the school,” Root said. Michael Tosti, a sophomore at Bloomington South, was working on making a game similar to the original version of Grand Theft Auto. Tosti was working on the animation for the game and said though it’s a “pretty fun job,” he learned the industry is not quite so open-armed. “It’s kind of harder to get into the industry than it seems,” Tosti said. Maidi was impressed with the way the students picked up on the concepts and logic of game development he presented them with. After two trial runs Maidi conducted of the project tutorials he had put together with college-aged students, Maidi assumed the high schoolers wouldn’t get through all the material. His perception changed after the first day the students were introduced to the material. “Many of the students went out on their own exploring halfway through the first tutorial,” Maidi said. “They were able to pick up the material very quickly. I think this is testament to this idea that we have demand and that we’ve got students who are brilliant.”
(07/11/13 12:30am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU alumnus Eric T. Bruder was recently selected as IU executive associate vice president and chief marketing officer, according to a release issued July 8. Bruder is a veteran consumer goods marketing executive.“We are pleased to welcome Eric to Indiana University and look forward to drawing upon his experiences in business and industry, as well as in international affairs, to help lead and guide the ways in which IU is represented to audiences at home, across the country and around the world,” William Stephan, IU’s vice president for engagement, said in the release.Bruder earned his bachelor’s degree from the IU School of Journalism in 1990. He earned a master’s degree in international affairs from American University and his MBA in marketing from Columbia University, according to the release.He has had a 22-year career in marketing and international trade at places such as Unilever, Bestfoods and Kraft/Nabisco, according to the release, and has spent the last five years as a marketing and business development leader at The Hershey Company.Since late 2010, he has served as vice president and general manager of Hershey’s Global Innovation Incubator.“It is an honor and a privilege to come back home to Indiana University as the new chief marketing officer,” Bruder said in the release. “IU is already an extremely powerful higher education brand, and I am excited to be working with all our outstanding campuses, schools and units to further drive IU’s reputation as a world-class academic institution.”Bruder spent four years as an international trade specialist for the U.S. Department of Commerce, aiding opportunity development for American business in Eastern Europe, Russia and central Asia, according to the release.
(07/01/13 12:18am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Effective July 1, interest rates on many new federal student loans are set to double. In 2007, Congress passed a law that kept the interest rate for federal Direct Stafford Loans at 3.4 percent. The 2007 law was set to expire last year and if Congress and policymakers had not reached a temporary deal, the rate would have doubled. The doubled rate would have affected more than 7.4 million students who would have faced, on average, an additional $1,000 in debt. The one-year extension enacted by Congress last year is set to expire this year. In early June of this year, lawmakers seemed to be working out another agreement to postpone or figure out a solution for interest rates but the process failed on June 6. Currently, there is no plan of action to stop the student loan interest rates from increasing July 1. Interest rates for federal student loans for students going to college in the fall will rise from 3.4 to 6.8 percent.Senate action related to student loan interest rates is expected July 10, but it remains unclear if action will be taken or not. In May, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a statement regarding preventing student loan interest rates from doubling on July 1. “Now is not the time to double interest rates on student loans, and we remain committed to working with Congress on a bipartisan approach to a long-term, fiscally sustainable solution that will help students and families afford higher education now and in the future,” Duncan’s statement said. “Given the impending July 1 deadline, an extension that protects students against higher rates while Congress develops an alternative solution is another reasonable option.”Members of the Senate hope to return to the issue after the July 4th holiday and pass a one-year extension of the status quo, another temporary solution to the issue. “Both the President and I firmly believe college should not be reserved only for the wealthy,” Duncan’s statement said. “All of us share responsibility for making college affordable and keeping the middle-class dream alive. There is no excuse if Congress fails to come to an agreement that prevents rates from rising suddenly in July, and we look forward to working with members of both parties to reach a solution.”
(07/01/13 12:08am)
Robert and Charlene Spierer, parents of missing IU student Lauren Spierer, filed a civil negligence lawsuit against Corey Rossman, Jason Rosenbaum and Michael Beth on June 26 citing “negligence resulting in the disappearance, death or injury of an adult child.”
(06/30/13 10:32pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Foundation recently signed a deal with Phi Gamma Delta to trade properties, allowing the Foundation to take Fiji’s property between the Maurer School of Law and the Department of Physics and give Fiji space at the corner of Eighth Street and Woodlawn Avenue. The switch will not take effect for at least another three years. “The deal won’t actually be consummated until the Fijis have the money to start building a house,” said Mark Land, associate vice president, public affairs and government relations at IU communications.Though the Fijis were given three years, Land said this length of time is not exact. “They were given about three and a half years to raise the money,” Land said. “There’s no assumption that they won’t, but we had to put something out there, some kind of a time frame, in case they couldn’t get the money together for the new house, then at some point the deal would be voided. We’d just go back to where we were, where we are now.”Land said the designated time frame is to ensure there is some ending time on the land swap deal. “The goal here is for the University, ultimately, to get control of that piece of property, the Fiji house, on the corner of campus, and use it for whatever purpose we deem fit,” Land said. “On Fiji’s side, their goal is to get a new house.”Land said one of the aspects of the agreement is the University will retain control over the architectural standards of the house that would be built for the fraternity, ensuring the house remains in character with other buildings in the neighborhood.“It’s in the University’s interest to make it look as much a part of that neighborhood, both for the community and our University neighborhood, as possible,” Land said. “There’s not going to be something built there that is out of character with what people already see.”According to a press release, some of the structures around Eighth Street and Woodlawn Avenue date back to the 1920s and ’30s. Bloomington’s Historic Preservation Commission met June 27 to discuss six properties in the University Courts district. However, the commission does not know yet what may happen to the houses and has nothing to act on currently, according to Nancy Hiestand, Housing and Neighborhood Development Department program director.The property swap would put Phi Gamma Delta right next to Kappa Alpha Theta sorority on Woodlawn Avenue. The Collins Living-Learning Center and the Hutton Honors College are other buildings in the area with which the new Fiji house would have to keep the character if it is to be built there.
(06/27/13 9:21pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Robert and Charlene Spierer, parents of missing IU student Lauren Spierer, have filed a civil negligence lawsuit against Corey Rossman, Jason Rosenbaum and Michael Beth with “negligence resulting in the disappearance, death or injury of an adult child.”The Spierers filed additional charges against Rossman and Rosenbaum, seeking damages for providing alcohol to Lauren Spierer, who was already intoxicated at the time.“Rob and Charlene Spierer authorized the filing of this lawsuit with great reluctance and only after we counseled them that they would lose certain legal rights if not exercised by the two-year anniversary of Lauren’s disappearance,” a statement by Jason R. Barclay, attorney for the Spierers, said. Barclay and his team said they hoped no one would misinterpret this action, as “any parent in search of information about a missing child would use every resource available to them.”Lauren Spierer has been missing since June 3, 2011. After a night of drinking at fellow students’ apartments and Kilroy’s Sports Bar on North Walnut Street, Spierer was last seen around 4:30 a.m. by Rosenbaum. Beth reports that he tried to persuade Spierer to stay on his couch and that Rosenbaum tried to get mutual friends to take her home. After acknowledging that he let Spierer leave, Rosenbaum said he saw her walk away and is the last known person to see her.Spierer’s boyfriend, Jesse Wolff, reported Spierer missing on the afternoon of June 3, 2011. The statement from Barclay and his team said they intend to use the rights afforded to them by the civil justice system to obtain answers that have gone unanswered for too long.“We fully expect that those with relevant information will cooperate with this process,” the statement said.
(06/26/13 11:28pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This past spring, IU students participating in the Campus MovieFest, the world’s largest student film festival, had one week to make a 5-minute long film. A film that, if they won at IU, would take them to Los Angeles where they would compete with students from college campuses around the world to earn world-wide recognition. Of 43 movies submitted to the Campus MovieFest at IU, three movies written and directed by IU students made it to the Hollywood Campus MovieFest.Campus Best Picture “Under Euclid’s Watch,” Campus Best Comedy “SheetWOW,” and Campus Best Drama “Pilgrimage” were the three films representing IU at the 2013 Campus MovieFest in Los Angeles. “SheetWOW,” won Best Comedy at the Hollywood competition. “I didn’t think I was going to win anything, it just sort of happened,” Ben Tamir Rothenberg, director of the short film, said. “SheetWOW” is an infomercial parody making light of the specific ShamWow ad. “Does toilet paper confuse you,” the short film starts out. It has the initial, traditional black and white cinematic quality of an infomercial and features a person easily confused with every day objects, as presented in infomercials. Taylor Crousore, who recently graduated in May, wrote the short film and starred as the main character, Richard Scheisse. He said the inspiration for the short came to him one day as he was studying in the library. “I always think of contradictions, those are always the funniest things to me,” Crousore said. “So I was thinking to myself, ‘what are things you can’t reuse,’ I remember. So I thought, ‘toilet paper,’ but that’s disgusting.”Crousore said he felt pretty good about the short, but was in total shock when he found out Saturday that “SheetWOW” had won overall in the comedy category.“I felt good about it,” Crousore said. “I was hoping something would come of it, but I guess I wasn’t really expecting to win overall. I couldn’t be more thrilled.”Music for the short film was created by Shawn McGowan and Marshall Robbins. McGowan and Robbins are both members of the local Bloomington band the “Phunk Nasty’s.” “Under Euclid’s Watch,” made it to the top 25 in the Hollywood MovieFest. Brendan Elmore, director of “Under Euclid’s Watch,” was nominated for Best Director.“Pilgrimage,” did not win or make it to the top 25; however, director Elijah Willis won $1,000 for a short 3D film he created. Aside from the trophy and recognition he and his team received for winning Best Comedy in Hollywood, Rothenberg won an additional $3,000 to make “Art Heals,” a documentary pitch he gave to ShortsHD, a cable and satellite television channel dedicated to short film. Rothenberg said the Hollywood experience was “incredible” and he appreciated the considerable amount of networking opportunities.Celebrities, directors and several affluent members of the film society present at the event, offered advice to Rothenberg and other students in attendance.“They weren’t trying to scare us or anything, they would just tell us the way it is, and if you want to succeed, how to succeed,” Rothenberg said. “Film is an industry that, if you’re not pushing yourself really hard, you’re just not gonna make it because there are so many other people who are trying to do what you do.”
(06/23/13 11:07pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On Friday, several autonomous robots were sent to Mars, most of which successfully completed their missions as friends and family of the group of boys who programmed the bots looked on.Though the bots weren’t actually sent to the red planet, this year’s theme for the summer workshop “Ready, Set, Robots!” was sending an autonomous robot to a re-created Mars location. The “Mars” in Bloomington consisted of a white and red arena, located in the University Gym, in which the preassembled robots located “minerals,” different color pads on the floor, and returned to the base ship in the middle of the arena. The time limit for each bot was five minutes. The teams had two days to complete their robots. The Lego Mindstorm bots, a series of kits containing software and hardware to create small, customizable and programmable robots, were preassembled, allowing the kids coming from grades 7-12 to focus on the programming aspect of the bots instead of the engineering.“The robots are preassembled because really what we’re trying to solve is the programming solution and not the engineering solution of the device,” said Nitocris Perez, logistic operations specialist at IU and one of the team leaders for the workshop. The bots had a series of sensors, such as a touch sensor, infrared sensor, sound sensor and color sensor, which helped them locate the minerals and return to the base ship in the middle of the arena.The color sensors were located on the bottom of the robots, so as they drove over the color pad on the floor of the arena, it registered the color, the “mineral,” and avoided going over it again. “There are a lot of different challenges involved with that because you’ve already programmed your robot to avoid things, so you have to figure out, ‘Okay so now how do I go get something, avoid things, how do I keep track of the tape,’ all of those things,” Perez said. “They have two days to figure it out and on top of that the software itself is a little bit glitchy. In the case of my group they lost a day and a half of work and weren’t able to get it all salvaged because it got corrupt.”Perez said on the first day, once kids arrived for the workshop, she sat and talked with her team for a couple of hours and discussed what the goal of the workshop was and what they were going to be doing. “After that they really take over and they work together and you can kind of see the natural leaders emerge,” Perez said. Robert Ping, education and outreach manager for IU’s UITS Research Technologies division, which supports the workshops, said the kids were able to use a drag-and-drop mechanism, where each code was already embedded in an icon the kids see on their laptop screen, which helped the kids learn the ropes quickly and proficiently, as the workshop only lasted two days.“It’s good for the kids to write things down and use a lot of problem solving up front to figure out what it is that they want their robot to do rather than just randomly dragging and dropping and seeing what their robot can do,” Ping said.The workshop culminated in the “Mission Challenge,” in which numerous bots competed to locate all the minerals and dock at the base ship in the allotted 5 minutes of time. Students from each team faced the crowd and discussed their individualized robot before Ping took the bot and set it down in the arena.“They vary a lot because the Mindstorm program really lets them be individualized and come up with their own solutions for how they want to complete the mission,” Ping said. Kristy Kallback-Rose, research technologies principal systems administrator at IU’s Pervasive Technology Institute, said some robots were programmed so that once it found three or four minerals it would stop looking. Others were programmed to use a certain period of time to locate minerals and the rest of the time to return to the base ship. For the first time since its creation 6 years ago, the workshop had no girl team members. However, the workshop taking place next week has a few girls signed up to participate, Kallback-Rose and Ping said. “It’s sort of disappointing that that was the case,” Kallback-Rose said. “We’ve been really trying to encourage the parents and students to share the word with girls so that we can get some more girls to come in the future.”Aside from trying to bring more girls to the workshop, Kallback-Rose said one of the main things she hopes the workshop does is help break the stereotype of what it means to work in information technology.“I think there’s sort of a stereotype of it being solitary work, that you’re just sitting in front of a computer by yourself, but none of us can say that’s what we do on a daily basis,” Kallback-Rose said. “You’re always interacting with people, having to come to a group consensus, sharing ideas with people, so it’s actually a job that requires a lot of communication.”Though the teams only had two days to complete the robots, Ping and Kallback-Rose hoped the students learned about both programming and teamwork. “Part of the reason we take two days is because we want to spend some time with the kids,” Ping said. “If we wanted them to do programming from scratch, like actually writing code and everything like a computer programmer really does in real life, you know you would never be able to learn that and be able to do it in two days.”Ping also expressed the importance of working together as a team and learning what it means to make decisions together as a group. Ben James, one of the team members working on the robot “Spirit II,” said although his group had multiple computer crashes and weren’t able to complete the program he will most likely attend the workshop again next year. James said the thing he likes most about the workshop is “learning more about things I haven’t learned yet and things I’ve tried to figure out on my own and haven’t succeeded in.”The workshop will have one more session this week and the “Mission Challenge” will be seeing more individualized bots in its arena.
(06/20/13 5:09am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Standing and talking outside IU Police Department Headquarters or moving among blue cloth-covered tables under a white tent Tuesday afternoon were several affluent members of the IU and Bloomington communities.President Michael A. McRobbie, Mayor Mark Kruzan, IU Trustees MaryEllen Bishop and Philip Eskew and multiple uniformed officers were only a few members of the diverse crowd attending “A Tribute to Keith Cash.”A 29-year veteran of IUPD, Cash died unexpectedly March 20. “All of us who worked with Keith Cash, knew him as a tireless and dedicated public servant,” McRobbie said at the beginning of the ceremony.Cash became chief of police in October 2010 after serving as an operations captain on the force for nine years. He oversaw a force of 100 officers and staff responsible for serving and protecting the Bloomington campus during his time. Those who spoke at the ceremony praised Cash’s character, professionalism, spirit and numerous other qualities he embodied. “Keith Cash is one of those people, even from my time here as an IU undergraduate, who when you saw you were simply happy to see,” Mayor Mark Kruzan said. Kruzan expressed his condolences to Cash’s mother, Judy Cash, and brother, Steve Cash, who were in attendance at the ceremony.“Thank you for sharing your son and your brother with all of us,” Kruzan said.Not only did Cash serve as IUPD Chief of Police, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice at IU. He graduated from the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy in 2004 and was honored in 2011 by IU student media with the Trever R. Brown Award. The annual award is given to a staff member who demonstrates or has demonstrated respect and support for the First Amendment and student media. McRobbie said Cash possessed a quiet strength and a willingness to sacrifice for others.“Keith Cash served IU with honor and professionalism for nearly three decades,” McRobbie said. “We are forever in his debt ... he will truly be greatly missed.”John S. Applegate, executive vice president for university regional affairs, planning and policy at IU, elaborated on the five C’s, five qualities he shared with cadets in his speech at the IU Police Academy graduation ceremony: camaraderie, compassion, communication, courage and character.“Keith Cash exemplified those qualities,” Applegate said. “I will remember him as the sixth and seventh C’s. Chief Cash.”Applegate said some of the best ways to honor Cash are to help each other in times of need, to be reliable and trustworthy, to foster a sense of camaraderie with colleagues and to make integrity the hallmark of character. Associate Vice President, Pubic Safety and Institutional Assurance Mark S. Bruhn said Cash was his “boots on the ground,” and his source of “understanding on what should be done on campus rather than what can be.”“Somehow, Keith managed to do it all,” Bruhn said. “He is greatly missed.”Director of Public Safety at IU Jerry Minger and Acting Chief of Police Laury Flint also spoke.“Not a day goes by that I don’t wish he were here,” Flint said. “Keith was a mentor. He had a vision and worked diligently toward its realization.”After McRobbie said a few more words, both Judy and Steve Cash thanked everyone for being at the ceremony.“We always knew why you guys liked him,” Judy Cash said. “Now we know why he had such a love for IU and everyone he worked with.”McRobbie awarded Keith Cash the Distinguished Service Medal posthumously and unveiled plans for a memorial patio at IUPD Headquarters in honor of Cash and other fallen officers. Following the unveiling of the patio and awarding of the Distinguished Service Medal, those in attendance were invited to a barbecue, the most “fitting way to pay tribute,” Steve Cash said, to IU’s fallen hero. “He earned the respect of the officers,” Flint said. “The IUPD will continue down the path he forged for us. Keith will never be forgotten.”
(06/17/13 12:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On Dec. 14, 2012, Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where he then proceeded to massacre 20 children and six adult staff members before taking his own life. Before he even went to the school, he shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza. This is not the first time the U.S. has seen gun violence in schools. This most recent event has merited much discussion in the past months. IU Professor Bernice Pescosolido said two issues that are always raised whenever these types of depersonalized mass shootings occur are gun control and mental illness.Bernice Pescosolido is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at IU and director of the Indiana Consortium for Mental Health Services Research. Much of her research revolves around negative stigmas surrounding those who suffer from mental illness.“The problem is that people believe that these things are always perpetrated by people with mental illness,” Pescosolido said. “There’s been some very good research on this by the National Academy of Sciences. They studied 27 different high school shootings and found, of the 27 kids that were involved, only 11 had mental health issues.”On June 3, the Obama administration welcomed a National Conference on Mental Health to the White House. Pescosolido said she believed part of the conference was to correct the misinformed image that people involved in mass shootings suffer from mental illness.“The main goal of this conference is not to start a conversation,” Obama said in his speech at the conference. “So many of you have spent decades waging long and lonely battles to be heard. Instead, it’s about elevating that conversation to a national level and bringing mental illness out of the shadows.”In attendance were those who suffered from mental illness and their families, educators, faith leaders, veterans and many others, including Pescosolido.“The way that we tend to attack it is at a grassroots level,” Pescosolido said. “Different groups have different ideas, and they try to either do local activities or they try to produce PSAs, and so I think the idea behind the White House Mental Health Conference was really to sort of, again, put the national spotlight on everything that’s being done at many levels.”Pescosolido said about a month after the Sandy Hook tragedy, conversations were started between organizations, researchers and others, and Vice President Joe Biden’s staffers about ideas to try to eliminate, or at least reduce, stigma in the U.S. The idea for the conference originated from these conversations.“They decided that they wanted to do this conference and to do a new website and to really bring to the conference, I was one of the few researchers there, but to bring to the conference a lot of heads of these grassroots organizations, like the Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA, National Association of Broadcasters, Active Minds, which is a college group for mental health issues, and to try to get them all kind of on the same page and appreciating what they’re doing through this website,” Pescosolido said. The Obama administration launched a website, mentalhealth.gov, that has tabs offering readers answers regarding myths and facts surrounding mental illness and how to get help. The website lists several of the grassroots organizations that attended the conference that can help create community events to keep people informed on mental health.“For people who work in this area, even being recognized for the work that these people do in the grassroots is really a shot in the arm, like somebody’s listening, somebody cares,” Pescosolido said. “To have the White House care is really, really important.”In 2011, one in five Americans experienced a mental health issue, according to the website. Pescosolido has been working for years on eliminating the stigmas surrounding mental health problems which often keeps people from seeking help. “It seems that the big debate used to be that, is it the behavior of people with mental illness that causes people to reject them, or is it the label, like when you hear somebody has depression or mental illness you have this automatic recoil behavior. The label itself is very powerful,” Pescosolido said. “Our research has shown that actually both of those things matter. If people have certain behaviors people are likely to express prejudice and if they also have been labeled as having a mental illness then there’s an extra hint towards stigma.”Pescosolido has worked with other researchers to find the root causes of stigma and how they can go about eliminating it from society. “The original campaign, since World War II, has really been focused on this idea of mental illness as a disease like any other,” Pescosolido said. “So if we could convince people that mental illness has genetic and biological roots, like diabetes or cancer, the stigma would go away. Our research shows that Americans understand that now. They understand that mental illness is a disease, that it has roots and disorders in the brain.”Pescosolido said though Americans do have more of an understanding now, it hasn’t really reduced stigma. She said what their research has done, to date, is to try and shift the way that most organizations have been trying to reduce stigma.“I’m not saying that that didn’t work, but I’m saying right now, at this point and time in the United States, that tagline, or that message, has taken us as far as it’s gonna take us in terms of reducing stigma,” Pescosolido said. “I mean, Americans get that there are really these underlying biological roots to it, so however far that message has taken us, it’s taken us. It hasn’t really reduced the amount of rejection people are willing to express towards people with mental health issues.”Pescosolido said they need to change the dialogue and the messages in the public service announcements. She said the image that people with mental illness have no chance at leading normal lives or recovering needs to be dispelled. “Thinking about Sandy Hook and those kinds of situations, you know you’ve really set up a situation where people are so isolated that they just don’t have much of a stake in their own lives or in the lives of their communities,” Pescosolido said. “So it really is focusing on the fact that people with mental illness can live full lives. They can recover. But it’s just like cancer, not everybody recovers. We used to think that nobody recovered from mental illness. That’s just not true. A lot of people recover from mental illness and can live really great lives, full lives.”As moves continue to be made to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health issues, here at IU, the number of students who attend Counseling and Psychological Services sessions increases every year. “I used to say that the single most common thing that brought students in was some kind of depression or mood disorder,” Nancy Stockton, director of CAPS, said. Now, more students are attending CAPS sessions for stress or anxiety related issues. “There are increasing numbers of students trying to use CAPS, our numbers go up a little bit each year,” Stockton said. “In that sense it’s always a struggle to have enough resources to meet the needs of all the students, in terms of staffing. We try to be as creative in using our resources as we can.”Crimson CORPS, a group of carefully selected undergraduate students who have been trained by the professional staff at CAPS, have been working to reduce stigma surrounding mental health since it was founded in January 2012. While also trying to reduce stigma, the small group of students work to promote awareness of mental health issues and help fellow students struggling with mental illness get the help they need.“I would say that it is more prevalent than we think,” IU senior Rebecca Dreher founding member of Crimson CORPS, said about stigma. “By educating and supporting our peers, we hope to reduce the stigma of our generation.”Dreher and the Crimson CORPS have participated in programs such as Culture of Care week, depression screenings and Celebrate Your Body Week to remove stigma.“Our mission is to provide caring, open-minded, respectful peer support, which is what CORPS stands for,” Dreher said. “So, in conjunction with CAPS, we participate in programs such as Culture of Care week and we also recently created a PSA about recognizing the signs of mental health issues. We also do classroom presentations on these topics. We’re trained to deal with these issues, but we’re also familiarized with other resources, if it goes beyond our training.”Stacey Kim, a staff therapist at CAPS and Crimson CORPS coordinator, said as people become more comfortable coming into counseling, which is evidenced by numbers across the board at college campuses, CAPS works to keep up with the continuous increase through a variety of resources. “The purpose of Crimson CORPS is to kind of be an extension of the counseling center,” Kim said. “There are a lot of barriers to coming in for help, stigma, not knowing enough about it, thinking you have to be crazy to talk to a counselor, feel like your problem isn’t big enough, and what the research shows is someone whose having a tough time is much more likely to turn around and talk to somebody their age, a peer, than come over and get some professional assistance.”Kim said one of the goals of Crimson CORPS and CAPS goals is to normalize the conversation around having emotional and mental distress, as stigma remains one of the barriers to suffering students.In the annual survey conducted by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors, the percentage of students seeking counseling at four-year public universities was 7.7 percent from the year 2008 to 2009. 752 college and university counseling center directors were invited to participate in the survey. 424 directors completed the 2009-2010 survey and it was reported that 8.7 percent of students were counseled at institutions with more than 35,001 students.“Our real hope is that we are contributing to a change on campus where we’re all willing to step in,” Kim said. “We’re not making miracles, but I think we’re chipping away at that for sure.”Pescosolido discussed different levels of stigma, including self-stigma and courtesy stigma. Self-stigma is the first thing a person has to address, Pescosolido said. Courtesy stigma is the idea that people who hang out with people who are known to suffer from mental illness are going to be looked at differently by others.While there is still a lot of work to be done in erasing stigma surrounding mental illness, Pescosolido said, if stigma is hit at every level, personal, family, friend, public and legal, then there is a greater chance of it being reduced. “We need to have people understand that people who don’t abandon people when they have trouble, whether it’s a broken leg or cancer or depression, are really great people,” Pescosolido said. “Those are the people that we should be like.”
(06/13/13 12:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU President Michael A. McRobbie sent an email to friends of the University on Monday outlining tuition and fee increases recently approved by the IU Board of Trustees, state funding IU will be receiving, when the new rates will come into effect and who will be affected.“As we prepare for what I am confident will be another exciting academic year across all our campuses,” McRobbie said in the email. “I want to take a moment to thank all our employees — faculty and staff — whose hard work, creativity, talent and passion serve as a regular source of inspiration for me, and who continue to serve the needs of our students exceedingly well. And, as always, the invaluable support of our alumni and friends around the world is very much appreciated.”IncreasesTuition and fees for Indiana resident undergraduates will increase an average of 1.75 percent each of the next two years. Tuition and fees for Indiana non-resident undergraduates will increase an average of 1.75 across all campuses, except for IU Bloomington where tuition and fees will increase 2.75 percent each of these next two years.Putting it in perspectiveThe average cost of a typical 3-credit course for Indiana resident students will increase by less than $20 in absolute terms.More than 9,000 students will see no increase in tuition and fees for the 2013-14 academic year under the “Finish in Four” program, which debuts this fall.The “Finish in Four” program provides a credit equal to any increase in tuition and fees to all students entering their third or fourth year on an IU campus who are on track to graduate in four years.FundingIU Bloomington will receive $184.8 million in state funding in the coming year, a 2.5 percent increase from this year.IUPUI, not including the schools of medicine and dentistry, will receive $96 million, a 6.5 percent increase from this year.The IU School of Dentistry and the IU School of Medicine, which are exempt from the performance funding formula because of their specialized missions, will receive a combined $109.4 million in state funding next year, a 3.5 percent increase from current levels.Other informationIU had 11 line-item requests, all of which received funding, most at current levels.IU will receive $2.5 million from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation to support research activities that specifically benefit the state of Indiana and another $1.45 million from the state to fund dual credit courses offered by Indiana high schools.— Makenzie Holland
(06/09/13 11:18pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Currently in its eighth year of business, BtownMenus, a digital food court that highlights restaurants all over Bloomington and allows visitors to order from those restaurants, has found a way to give back to the community. Corey Arenson, site director of BtownMenus.com, said the company wants to give back to the community through donations to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank.“I came back to B-town this May and decided we need to give back and support our community that helped us grow,” Arenson said in an e-mail. “We are all about the one for one cause, get one and we give one. Everyone needs to eat and if they can feed people in the process all the better.”Employees of BtownMenus will also be volunteering at the food bank as part of the program.BtownMenus was started by IU students Peter Margulies and Michael Rolland in the fall of 2005 and Arenson quickly joined the team. Rolland and Arenson are currently in Denver, Colorado where they started MileHighMenus.com. They formed a similar partnership with the Food Bank of the Rockies, Arenson said.“We do a one for one program kind of like Toms shoes,” Arenson said. “Every time someone places an order on our site, we donate a free meal to one in need.”The Hoosier Hills Food Bank, “collects, stores and distributes food to non-profit agencies that feed the hungry in Brown, Lawrence, Orange, Owen, Martin and Monroe counties in Indiana,” according to its website.The food bank, which opened in 1982, has distributed over 30 million pounds of food.“Every time someone gets online and orders through BtownMenus, a portion of the proceeds will come to us,” said Jake Bruner, director of development at the Hoosier Hills Food Bank. Though the donation percentage remains unfixed, Bruner said the partnership between MileHighMenus and the Food Bank of the Rockies has been very successful and he looks forward to the partnership between BtownMenus and Hoosier Hills.“It sounds like a really great thing,” Bruner said. “I’m really happy to help them promote it and do anything that we can to make this partnership work because when people are ordering food, and it’s probably predominately professors, students and people around campus, it’s good for them to think about how hunger affects people in different parts of the state, especially in Monroe County.”The start date for the BtownMenus and Hoosier Hills program has been moved from Aug. 20 to Sept. 1.“Every time someone places an order on Btownmenus starting Sept. 1, they will be helping feed someone in need right here in Bloomington through the food bank and Btownmenus,” Arenson said. “We would love to share this with all of Bloomington so together we can fight hunger.”The partnership will be a unique experience for Hoosier Hills, Bruner said. Aside from setting up events to bring in donations, Hoosier Hills rarely has an ongoing source such as this partnership, which Bruner said is a huge help. “It’s gonna be so crucial,” Bruner said. “When we get a partnership like this it’s really helpful because that means we can count on this partner to help meet the need in our community. It’s really great that it’s going to be this kind of consistent partnership.”
(06/05/13 11:33pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Tuition and fee rate increases for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years have been approved by the IU Board of Trustees after a public forum held at IUPUI yesterday.IU President Michael McRobbie said a key question facing IU has been, and will continue to be, “how do we balance the financial needs of students and their families against the need to maintain the affordability and accessibility that is expected of a leading public institution such as IU.”Resident tuition and fee rates will increase by 1.75 percent for residents and 2.75 percent for non-residents each of the next two years at IU Bloomington and IUPUI. Though the increases for resident undergraduate students are below the non-binding target of two percent recently recommended by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the lowest at the university since the late 1970s, they are still increases.“As we developed our budget for the coming biennium, we considered every option that would allow us to recommend to our trustees the lowest possible tuition increase over the next two years to ensure the continuing affordability of an IU education,” McRobbie said. McRobbie continued, saying “we believe this modest increase — when coupled with the increase in funding from the state, for which we are extremely grateful, and the generosity of our donors — will allow us to meet our goals of affordability, while continuing to provide world-class educational opportunities for our students.”McRobbie also mentioned the Finish in Four On-Time Completion Award, which will cover all increases in tuition and fees during students junior and senior years if they graduate in four years. Students will not have to pay more than they paid during the 2012-2013 academic year, provided they achieve junior status (60 hours after two years) or senior status (90 hours after three years) by Fall 2013 and stay on track to graduate in time. Tuition and fees for resident students at IU Bloomington will increase from $10,033 in 2012-2013 to $10,209 in 2013-2014, according to a press release. Resident tuition and fees will increase from $8,605 to $8,756 at IUPUI. Resident graduate students will see a tuition increase from zero to three percent over the next two years and non-resident graduate students will see an increase from zero to six percent. Another cost discussed during the public forum was rising health costs. An estimated guess put the costs around $15.2 million, which was a low estimate. Health costs are likely to be much higher.
(06/03/13 4:25am)
This past spring, as graduation caps flew into the air following the 2013 Undergraduate Commencement Ceremonies, one particular cap was never thrown.Today marks the two-year anniversary of the disappearance of then-20 year old IU sophomore Lauren Spierer, who vanished on June 3, 2011. It is a night that remains a mystery to this day. In his commencement speech at the Undergraduate Ceremonies, President Michael A. McRobbie asked the IU community to keep Spierer and her family and friends in their thoughts. McRobbie noted that Spierer is a member of the community who will never be forgotten. “This is something that is on our minds every day,” Dean of Students Pete Goldsmith said. “We constantly think about her family, friends, and people that knew her and the fact that she was supposed to graduate this year. We hope there is a resolution for her family as well as the IU campus who remembers her daily.”The details of Spierer’s last known whereabouts are no more clear two years later than they were the very day she was reported missing.According to police reports, Spierer left her Smallwood apartment complex with then-IU student Corey Rossman and walked to Kilroy’s Sports Bar at 1:46 a.m. Spierer and Rossman entered the bar, the outside area of which had been filled with sand to simulate a beach area, and walked around barefoot. At 2:27 a.m., Spierer was seen on camera leaving the bar barefoot and without her cell phone.Rossman accompanied Spierer back to her apartment complex, arriving at 2:30 a.m., where he was involved in an altercation with another resident. Rossman was reportedly punched in the face and fell to the ground, but he claims he does not recall this incident.The two exited the Smallwood complex at 2:42 a.m. after a brief 12-minute stop, which the apartment security footage confirmed. Street cameras between Smallwood and the apartments she visited at 11th and Morton streets captured additional footage of Spierer, which shows her walking with another person through the camera fields. The sequence of events that followed after she left her apartment building remain inconclusive.Mike Beth, Rossman’s roommate, said he helped Rossman to his bed and then accompanied Spierer down the hall to the apartment of Jay Rosenbaum, an acquaintance. Rosenbaum claims he tried to persuade Spierer to stay on his couch that night and that she refused.He said he stood on his balcony as he watched Spierer walk home alone back to her apartment complex around 4:30 a.m. Rosenbaum was the last person to see Spierer.Police reported Spierer’s keys and purse were found along a route between the two apartment complexes. Spierer’s boyfriend, Jesse Wolff, reported Spierer missing on the afternoon of June 3 when she didn’t return his phone calls or text messages. The Bloomington Police Department issued a statement noting that as of May 24, 2013, a total of 3,060 tips have been received by the Department, 166 in 2013. “Since the time of Lauren’s disappearance on June 3, 2011, the Bloomington Police Department has continued its ongoing effort to provide answers to Lauren’s family and the Bloomington community,” the statement read. “Despite being nearly two years into this investigation, information continues to come in regarding Lauren’s case and investigators diligently pursue the information with the same level of commitment as in the beginning. No amount of time passing will deter us from our responsibility and we remain dedicated to Lauren’s case.”IUPD Deputy Chief Laury Flint reiterated the Department’s diligence in continuing their service by doing extra patrols in areas that aren’t well-lit, as well as areas that are frequented by intoxicated people, being proactive in regards to keeping people safe and looking for people who need help.“We are always vigilant and trying to look for people who need help,” Flint said. “We aren’t only looking for people who are doing something wrong. We want to protect people and sometimes that even means from themselves.”Flint said the majority of the campus population are young adults ages 18-22 years old who will inevitably experiment with alcohol. Though they can’t always stop this activity, Flint cited educational programs provided to students as the key to learning to be more responsible when drinking alcohol. “People have to be willing to pay attention and listen when these programs are presented to them,” Flint said. “They have to be willing to take advice.”Melanie Payne, senior associate director of the Office of First Year Experience Programs and director of New Student Orientation, said safety is one of FYE’s biggest concerns, due to orientation being a major transition time. Following Lauren’s disappearance, Payne said the program has added safety sessions with IUPD and have placed a bigger focus on the importance of making the right choices. Payne said in the very first session with parents and students after Lauren disappeared, the Office laid out what information they had to those concerned.“Here’s what we as a community know, here’s what this campus is concerned about, lets talk about your students’ safety,” Payne said. “We put it in context of bad things can happen anywhere, lets talk about how to minimize that. You have a role in it and we have a role in it. Our role is to provide information, resources, access to those resources and the student’s role is to think and make good choices and the family’s role, again, is to guide and remind.” As IU continues to mourn the absence of Lauren, who should have been standing amongst the ranks of graduating seniors in May, her story has left a mark on the IU community, emphasizing the importance of making the right decisions and being safe.“No parent, sister, brother or friend should have to endure the prolonged ordeal that those closest to Lauren have faced over the last two years,” said Mark Land, associate vice president of IU Communications. “In particular, our hearts go out to Lauren’s family, which has displayed unwavering faith and uncommon grace under unspeakably trying circumstances. We also join them in urging anyone who may have information that could bring resolution to Lauren’s disappearance to the attention of the Bloomington Police.”
(06/02/13 10:35pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sixty hours of criminal law is part of the Indiana University Police Academy’s mandated curriculum. Now, the academy is looking at a new way of presenting the copious hours to cadets. “For years, our criminal law instructor was Herb Kilmer,” Captain Greg Butler of IUPD said. “He retired and was no longer available to teach criminal law, so we needed someone to teach it to our academy recruits.”The academy approached the Monroe County prosecutor’s office and asked if they would be willing to teach criminal law to the cadets. The prosecutor’s office agreed to take on the task.“Our office interacts with police officers from different law enforcement agencies on a daily basis,” Monroe County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Gaal said in a press release. “We see the benefits from the training and professionalism instilled by the academy, so we are glad to participate in this program.”Butler said the new approach is giving the academy a wider spectrum of experience to be presented to cadets.“It’s a different approach than what we had before,” Butler said. “Since there’s more than just the prosecutor in that office — he has his deputy prosecutors and staff — we’re getting a wide variety of expertise that’s available within the prosecutor’s office to help present the criminal law that is required for police officers to know in order to graduate the academy.”According to the release, the criminal law class will be taught by three instructors and include special presentations from others. First deputy prosecutor Jeff Kehr, senior trial deputy prosecutor Geoffrey Bradley and deputy juvenile prosecutor Rich Hansen will teach the class.Special presentations from sex crimes deputy prosecutor Darcie Fawcett, domestic violence deputy prosecutor Jackie Dakich and drug crimes deputy prosecutor Erika Oliphant will also be included. This week, the academy and prosecutor’s office will present cadets with practical application exercises during which the prosecutor will oversee how the cadets perform in a real situation, Butler said. “We actually set up a scenario and they have to try to remember what they’ve been taught and the rules of evidence, interrogation and all that with people, searches, and see if they can apply some of the principles they’ve learned in class to the real situation,” Butler said.Though the new vamped-up approach includes more instructors, it will come at no extra cost to cadets. The prosecutor’s office provides the instruction because it’s a good relationship to establish with law enforcement, Butler said. The partnership gives cadets the ability to learn from people with years of experience and apply what they learn to real-life situations.“It’s something we haven’t really done before in our criminal law package, so that should be a good experience for them,” Butler said.After graduating from the Academy, the newly certified officers, who are also full-time students, will work as police officers for the IU Police Department on seven IU campuses, according to the release. Butler said he hopes the new approach will give cadets the experience they need, both in the classroom and the field, for their future.“It seems that the students are very receptive to it,” Butler said. “I think they like this approach because they get a variety of people presenting the criminal law to them so they’re getting different perspectives, different levels of experience. It helps when you have that available to them when they ask questions.”
(05/31/13 8:41pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A 52 year old man has been arrested after allegedly attempting to strangle his live-in girlfriend, Bloomington Police Department Sgt. Joe Crider said.May 30 around 7:50 p.m., officers responded to the 700 block of West Dixie Street in reference to a disturbance. A 33-year-old womanreported she was in a verbal altercation with Wilfred Marquez, 52.The woman reported Marquez became upset when she began gathering items in preparation of moving out. She had lived with Marquez for several weeks.She would not speak to Marquez and when she moved to the bedroom area, Marquez grabbed her about the throat area forcibly. The woman reported she felt as if she could not breathe for several seconds. Marquez threw her onto the bed, which she rolled off of and through an open bedroom window. She complained of pain and officers observed redness about her throat and neck area.Police spoke with Marquez who reported he had asked the woman to leave his apartment. He said he began collecting her items and placing them on the door stoop. She became upset and began pushing him and grabbed Marquez about the neck area. Marquez reported sticking his arms out in front of him and using them as a shield. He said that at that point, the female yelled and called 911.After reviewing injuries on the victim, officers determined they were not consistent with Marquez’s reports of using his arms as a shield. There were scratch marks on Marquez where the woman reported having tried to defend herself. His injuries remained consistent with the female’s story that she had tried to fight him off. Marquez was arrested for felony strangulation.
(05/31/13 8:36pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On May 23, a report was submitted to the Bloomington Police Department by the Child Protective Services identifying a possible child molestation, Bloomington Police Department Sgt. Joe Crider said.A follow-up forensic interview conducted May 29 at Susie’s Place Child Advocacy Center led to statements made by the 10-year-old that were indicative of abuse, Crider said. The victim’s manner and demeanor were also indicative of abuse.The suspect, a 41-year-old male, was suspected of molesting the 10-year-old girl. The victim’s biological mother is believed to be married to the suspect but the suspect is not the girl’s biological father.The victim was removed from the mother’s residence in April due to an unrelated report received by the Child Protective Services.The case remains active as of Friday morning, Crider said.
(05/30/13 12:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On Friday, May 24, IU President Michael McRobbie recommended that the University’s Board of Trustees increase tuition and fee rates for Indiana resident undergraduate students by an average of 1.75 percent each of the next two academic years, according to a press release.Non-resident tuition and fees would increase 2.75 percent each of the next two academic years at IU.Tuition and fees will also increase at IU’s five regional campuses and will also average an increase of 1.75 percent each of the next two years. Individual campus increases will range from 1.3 to 2.2 percent as IU moves toward standardized tuition rates at its regional campuses, according to the release.Tuition and mandatory fees for Indiana residents at IU Bloomington will increase from $10,033 in 2012-13 to $10,209 in 2013-14.Under these recommendations, non-resident tuition and fees would increase 1.75 percent at IUPUI and from 1.5 to 2 percent at IU’s regional campuses. Resident tuition and fees would go from $8,605 to $8,756 at IUPUI. IU’s tuition recommendations also call for increases across most of IU’s graduate programs, according to the release. Depending on the program, tuition for Indiana resident graduate students will increase from 0 to 3 percent each of the next two years and 0 to 6 percent for non-resident graduate students.Though tuition and fees are increasing, IU’s recommended increases for resident undergraduate students fall below the non-binding target of 2 percent recommended by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education this month, according to the release. The increases recommended by McRobbie are the lowest rate increases since the late 1970s, according to the release. “Indiana University has consistently demonstrated in recent years its commitment to providing a world-class education to our students at as affordable a cost as possible,” McRobbie said in the release. “The modest increases recommended for the next two academic years, along with programs such as our on-time completion award and our summer tuition discount, will allow IU to remain one of the best educational values in the Big Ten and across the nation.”McRobbie expressed gratitude in the release to the Indiana General Assembly’s decision to appropriate additional funds to the University during the next two years, alumni and donors and to employees at IU. June 5 at the IUPUI Campus Center in Indianapolis, the IU Board of Trustees will hold a public meeting to hear comment on the University’s recommendations. The meeting will be streamed live online at broadcast.iu.edu.
(05/30/13 12:19am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Former Indiana Daily Student Editor-in-Chief Michael Auslen has been awarded the Robert D.G. Lewis First Amendment Award. The award honors a student Society of Professional Journalists member “who has demonstrated outstanding service to the first amendment through the field of journalism,” according to a press release.During his time as editor-in-chief, Auslen established an investigations team and demonstrated his commitment to educating fellow student journalists about the importance of First Amendment rights, according to the release. “The great value of SPJ for student journalists is that it provides a forum for us to learn what we aren’t being taught in the classroom,” Auslen wrote in his application essay. “I hope to seek out those skill sets that are missing from my toolbox, hopefully expanding at the same time my chops in investigative and political reporting.”In August, Auslen will be recognized at the Student Union held during the 2013 Excellence in Journalism Conference in Southern California.
(05/29/13 11:40pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This past spring, United Way of Monroe County and the Financial Stability Alliance for South Central Indiana helped area residents file a record number of tax returns. The Free Community Tax Service, a program that brought together nearly 200 IRS-certified volunteers in Monroe and Owen counties to help file federal tax returns for low- and moderate-income residents, saved individuals and families up to $850,000 in tax preparation fees, according to a press release. The program has taken place in the community for many years.“This is something that happened at a few different sites and in 2010, we came on to convene the program,” said Ashley Hall, United Way of Monroe County Community initiatives director.Hall said that although United Way convenes the program and is the lead partner, the program is community driven. Community partners include the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, the AARP Tax Counseling for the Elderly programs and many others.Volunteers that help with filing returns go through an intensive training program set up through Ivy Tech, which is the first of two levels of training they have to go through in order to help fill them out. At the second level, volunteers are trained by IRS-certified site coordinators. “As part of the training, at the end, they have to pass a certification to different levels and different levels indicate what kind of a return they’re able to do,” Hall said. “We require all of our volunteers to be trained to at least the intermediate level and many are trained to the advanced level or have additional certificates.”The program focuses on low and moderate-income residents of Monroe and Owen counties, defined as making $50,000 or less per year. “We use the number that’s federally decided from our government to dictate what that low and moderate income means,” Hall said. “So in our case we say around $50,000 or below. If folks fall under that we are happy to help them.”Hall said they were not able to file returns for complicated businesses or specific features.“During the intake process, the preparers will look to make sure that, not only are the income eligibility things there, but that it’s a type of return that they’re trying to do as well,” Hall said.This year, there was an online option that allowed returns to be filed for income up to $57,000.One of the most important aspects of the program, Hall said, is helping individuals and families claim valuable credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. According to the release, the EITC resulted in a refund of up to $5,891 for those who qualified. “It’s one of the reasons that we really are so involved and care so much about this program,” Hall said. “The EITC is a tremendous income boost for working families that aren’t making much money. It can really help pull folks out of poverty. Last year this credit itself brought over 3,000 people out of poverty, so that’s why we care about this program."Grant funding from the IRS, Walmart Foundation and AARP’s Tax Counseling for the Elderly made the Free Community Tax Service possible, according to the release. United Way received grants totaling $41,500 from the IRS and Walmart to implement the service.This year, community volunteers at the eight VITA sites completed 1,812 tax returns, which was a 29 percent increase from last year, according to the release. Ivy Tech, one of the largest sites, filed 744 returns. The IU Maurer School of Law filed 430. Hall said Maurer did a tremendous job and increased its number of returns from last year, as did all the sites. AARP Tax Counseling for the Elderly administered sites at Twin Lakes Recreation Center and the Monroe County Public Library and had similar success, filing 423 returns and 612 returns respectively.“It was a huge success,” Hall said. “We were so excited about our numbers. We filed 2,847 federal returns, plus another couple thousand state returns. So this was definitely a successful year. “We increased our goal that we had set for ourselves and we’re just excited because helping those families get ahead makes our whole community more financially stable.”For more information on the Free Community Tax Service, visit www.monroeunitedway.org/freetaxes.