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(09/12/12 4:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Protesters wound around campus shouting, banging drums and blocking traffic Tuesday afternoon in a noise demonstration against the privatization of public education.Originally announced as activism against Gov. Mitch Daniels’ appointment as president of Purdue University, demonstrators spoke in solidarity with a Chicago Teachers Union strike and against increasing student tuition in the IU system and student loan debt.“Everyone knows they’re personally in debt, but no one talks about it,” said senior Aidan Crane, one of the more outspoken voices during the protest and a former Indiana Daily Student opinion columnist. “We need to force everybody, shock them out of complacency.”The march took protestors from the clock outside Woodburn Hall to the Sample Gates and back to Woodburn, traveling down Indiana Avenue and Seventh Street. Though the demonstrators shouted and made loud noise with instruments as they marched, the protest remained nonviolent until one participant smashed a drum into a car window.While walking down North Forrest Avenue between Woodburn and the Indiana Memorial Union parking lot, a man collided with a black Jeep Wrangler that had stopped due to the protest. The protestor hit his drum against the side of the car and on the rear passenger-side window, breaking part of it, the car’s owner senior Ethan Spiers said.The glass from the broken window cut senior Daniel Block’s shoulder. He was sitting in the back seat.IU police on the scene looked through a backpack Spiers said the man who hit his window dropped before running away.Block’s injuries were patched up at the scene, and no hospital visit was required. Before police and ambulances necessitated an end to the march, protesters played instruments and chanted.“Fuck debt,” the protestors said repeatedly.Before leaving the Woodburn clock area, statements were read in support of Chicago teachers and a group of Purdue students and faculty opposed to Daniels taking charge of Purdue.“People at Purdue and across Indiana committed to academic excellence, public integrity and social equality should demand that the Purdue Board of Trustees rethink their decision,” Crane read from a statement written by Purdue professors Tithi Bhattacharya and Bill Mullen.The assembled crowd of about 30 people responded with cheers, calling Daniels “corrupt” for being appointed by a board that includes eight members he appointed. The crowd said Daniels’ political beliefs about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered rights were “bullshit” and out of touch with the Purdue community.Ben Robinson, an IU professor of Germanic studies, read a statement on behalf of the Progressive Faculty and Staff Caucus in solidarity with Chicago teachers, who are on a strike that the Chicago Tribune reported is keeping 350,000 children from going to school.“The struggle is important because it’s very tied to what Mitch Daniels is trying to do,” Robinson said. “We learn and we become a public by educating ourselves.”Along with Robinson, other faculty members marched in the back of the group, which largely consisted of students, banging on their pots and pans.“What we endorsed was a resolution concerning the strikers,” Robinson said. “Our concern was to oppose the privatization of education.”When the group started to walk, Crane said into a megaphone, “When education is under attack, what do we do?”“Stand up, fight back,” the group responded.The protest included people without direct connections to IU. Gina Weir, a Bloomington resident and mother of a fourth-grade child came to the march.“I know first-hand as a mother how bad education is moving for our kids,” she said.Weir said the state Department of Education told her that her son could no longer attend public schools after she refused for him to take a state-mandated standardized test administered to third graders last year.“I got to the end of my rope,” Weir said.One of the protest’s central themes was that tuition shouldn’t rise while administrators and the Board of Trustees receive pay raises. Tuition increased 3.7 percent for in-state students this year. At the same time, IU President Michael McRobbie’s salary rose 2.2 percent. The University’s trustees do not take a salary.During the march, bystanders stared and took pictures on their camera phones as the demonstrators chanted statements like “Cream and crimson, occupy everything” and “The students united will never be defeated.”Drivers angry at protestors for taking up the entire width of Seventh Street honked their horns, and interested students poked their heads out of Ballantine Hall’s windows.Generating public attention and creating a spectacle were among the primary goals of the noise demonstration, Crane said.“There can be momentary victories combined with long-term action,” he said. “If somebody saw this or heard about it and is sympathetic, the thing to do is to join us.”
(08/24/12 3:11pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Before Herman B Wells took charge of IU, the University was just a small Midwestern college with 11,000 students.By the time he died in 2000, it had become a world-renowned institution with more than 90,000 students on eight campuses.“He put Indiana University on the map,” said James Capshew, associate professor of history and philosophy of science and author of a Wells biography. “Not just in the Big Ten, but nationally and internationally.”Wells served as the 11th president of IU from 1938 to 1962 and as chancellor from 1962 until he passed away in 2000.He came here as a student in 1921 and fell in love with the campus, Capshew said.“When he became president, he was determined to offer students a similar experience to what he had,” Capshew said.Wells is known for making some of the most substantial changes to the University that helped make it what it is today.“He created, I think, a very extraordinary culture in Bloomington,” said Chancellor Ken Gros Louis, a man who knew Wells. “The most recently hired custodian was as important to him as the most distinguished professor.”There are many stories about Wells’ successful desegregation efforts in Bloomington and on campus.“He didn’t rustle feathers,” Capshew said. “He found a way to remove barriers.”During the early part of his presidency, a restaurant originally located on Indiana Avenue, The Gables, did not serve black students. Wells called the owner of the restaurant and asked him to serve blacks. The owner refused.“Wells said, ‘I understand, but I hope you will understand if I make The Gables off-limits to all students,’” Gros Louis said. “The owner started serving black students.”Wells was also the driving force behind IU recruiting the first black basketball player in the Big Ten.He stood up against powerful figures in defense of Alfred Kinsey, whose research into human sexuality drew criticism.As president and chancellor, Wells kept in mind the future growth of the University and realized that because the institution would far outlive him, he ought to provide for its future.The Board of Trustees criticized Wells when he bought the land upon which Assembly Hall now rests, Gros Louis said.“That’s the kind of vision he had,” Gros Louis said. “And it’s why IU’s campus is so centralized.”The first building Wells constructed as president was the IU Auditorium.“He said he built it because he wanted to tell students, especially students from rural Indiana, that the world was available to them,” Gros Louis said.That same spirit of global education was what led Wells to find instructors who could come from other countries and teach at IU.“Indiana University built the strongest foreign language program of any university in the nation,” Capshew said. “That really got started with Wells after World War II.”Wells genuinely cared about the University’s students, Capshew said.Wells developed a reputation for remembering people’s names, even if they had only met once, and he frequently took strolls around campus to meet students. In his old age, his assistants helped him.“He really led through that empathy, that fellow feeling that he had for students and faculty,” Capshew said.Today, Wells is remembered on campus. The main library is named in his honor, and a bronze statue of him sits on a bench in the Old Crescent looking over Dunn’s Woods, an area he banned the University from developing.“He’s the one that made what I think is a very special culture,” Gros Louis said. “The time will come when nobody living will remember him, but he’ll still be remembered because of what he did for this University.”
(07/26/12 12:57am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When Leslee Orndorff pled guilty to driving without a license in 2004, she was supposed to face a 10-year prohibition on having an Indiana driver’s license.But due to a computer error, the 10-year suspension will start now, eight years after her last conviction and four years after the Bureau of Motor Vehicles granted the Bloomington resident a license.After Orndorff found out in April she could lose her license for crimes she committed nearly a decade ago, she filed a lawsuit against the BMV with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.“I did break the law, but I think the one thing that I do have going is the eight years,” Orndorff said. “It’s irrational.”The BMV’s hands are tied, though, said Dennis Rosebrough, deputy commissioner for external affairs.According to Indiana law, drivers who commit a certain number of severe infractions, including driving without a license, must be classified as “habitual traffic violators.”“The overarching philosophy of the law is that people who demonstrate dangerous driving habits go into this HTV status,” Rosebrough said. “They are then subject to having their license suspended.”After Orndorff’s third encounter with police in 2004, she should have been placed on this list. She wasn’t, though, so there were no barriers to her obtaining a license in 2008.But the BMV is obligated to move people who have slipped through the cracks onto the HTV list and suspend their licenses for 10 years, no matter how long ago the infractions took place.If Orndorff loses the case and her license is revoked, she’ll likely lose her job as a home caregiver for senior citizens, and she’ll have no means of taking her 7- and 11-year-old daughters to their school, which does not provide transportation.“I’m a single mom with two kids. I’m trying to better myself and my life. I was young and stupid when this happened,” she said. “Dragging kids on a bus, that’s not really a type of life I want.”Orndorff isn’t the only Indiana resident facing a license suspension years after the last conviction. Her record was found in a BMV audit that uncovered 400 other names that should have been on the HTV list and weren’t.In addition to Orndorff’s case, the ACLU of Indiana is providing counsel for a class-action lawsuit on behalf of other residents caught in the same audit.“It’s that database they’ve come up with at the BMV and how it’s getting people in its grasp that would not have normally been targeted,” ACLU Director of Communications and Education Kelly Jones Sharp said.It isn’t only people driving without a license who are supposed to be put on the list, though. It also includes anyone whose driving has caused injury or death twice in 10 years and those who have been caught driving with a blood alcohol content of more than .08 twice in 10 years, Rosebrough said.“This status is not applied to someone who gets a speeding ticket every seven years,” he said. “These are people who have done dangerous or severe major offenses with their vehicle.”However, Orndorff said she has tried to turn her life around since moving to Bloomington in 2008. She’s raising her children without child support, and she expects to graduate from Ivy Tech Community College in December with a degree in criminal justice.“Basically, I kind of blame it on being stupid,” she said. “I started driving without having a license. If I would’ve had a license, I would’ve been fine.”
(06/17/12 10:57pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The shop is nearly silent.It’s Friday afternoon, and people walk up and down the sidewalk outside, popping in and out of other businesses on the Courthouse Square. Inside the bookstore, Janis Starcs is alone. He crouches near the bottom shelf of the political science section at the back of the shop.Starcs, 69, is the co-owner of Caveat Emptor, one of three booksellers on the Square, but the only store in Bloomington that specializes in rare and used books. It’s been open since the early 1970s. He rises, carrying a stack of four books he’s going to re-price through the maze of tall, wooden shelves. He makes his way back to the front of the store where an old Macintosh laptop sits open at a counter amid stacks of dusty books, CDs and discarded copies of The New York Times.Caveat Emptor started selling books online last fall, but both the store and its owner continue to exist in a remarkably non-digital world.But for better or worse, from between the bookshelves of what he calls his “little corner of Western civilization,” Starcs is simultaneously immersed in and resistant to the digital revolution. He, like booksellers across the country, has seen a drop in the number of people browsing the volumes in his shop, yet he has only slowly and minimally given in to the attractions of a modern, digitally connected society.“There are fewer and fewer places like this, because the Internet is really killing their business,” Starcs said. “We’re really the only full-line used bookstore in town now.”There used to be two local stores with which Caveat Emptor competed, he said, but they both closed at about the same time more than 10 years ago.“It’s really hard to compete against people operating out of garages, attics, basements,” he said. “People like that are hard to compete against.”STARCS’ CREATIONSales at Caveat Emptor revolve around books and CDs, but the place itself is like a window into Starcs’ head. Editorial cartoons and newspaper clippings are taped to the ends of the bookshelves, reflecting Starcs’ personal opinions. He’s a Republican precinct committeeman for Perry 30 on the south side.He follows politics every day in The New York Times and Real Clear Politics.“That’s my only spectator sport, as it happens,” he said. “You have to keep up with what people are reading and thinking.”Throughout the store Starcs’ preferences shine through.Because Caveat Emptor only sells books that are both rare and used, Starcs and his employees have room to be selective in what they choose to buy and sell.The books that fill his store’s shelves are the kind of books that can’t be found anywhere else. He has first editions, complete collections of authors’ works and historical commentary on topics ranging from politics to science.He said he’s long had a passion for books.They helped him understand the American culture he was thrown into after his family fled World War II-torn Eastern Europe in 1944.Today, a faded, red-and-white Latvian flag hangs vertically above the front door to Caveat Emptor. It’s a symbol of his heritage and what his family left behind when he was 7 years old.Both of Starcs’ parents had been scientists in Latvia before they moved to the United States, and they passed on their scientific curiosity to their son.“I was just generally trying to understand the world I was thrown into,” Starcs said. “I learned an awful lot in library stacks.”Starcs even credits books for why he never finished his undergraduate history degree from IU.“One of the reasons for those incompletes was I was chasing things around in the stacks.”CHANGING CLIENTELEUsually, people roam the aisles of Caveat Emptor, looking at titles, but many don’t buy anything.“We get quite a few browsers,” Starcs said. “They’re looking for a specific book or some certain kind of book, and we don’t happen to be well-stocked in that area that day.” On a normal day, there could be anywhere from 10 to 25 paying customers, Starcs said. On a busy Saturday, that number can hit 30 or 40. He’s even seen 50-customer days. But there are weekday mornings when, in the first hour of business, only one person enters the shop.“We’re kind of hard-pressed to keep it in the black,” he said.As the owner of a more than 40-year-old independent bookstore, Starcs has watched the number of customers diminish and his industry change. Even in college towns like Bloomington, books’ desirability has dipped dramatically in the past 20 to 30 years, he said.There was a time when students worked to build personal libraries in their academic fields, poring over shelves of volumes in stores like Caveat Emptor, but that’s all changed.“Students kept getting less and less interested in owning books. Undergraduates became less and less interested in building academic libraries,” Starcs said. “Books are becoming less sources of information and more objects to collect or for some talismanic value for the owner.”Caveat Emptor’s business didn’t disappear overnight.“It’s been a very gradual process, almost imperceptible, really,” Starcs said. “These long-term trends take a while to manifest themselves and get noticed.”Starcs also said he has seen a reluctance to study the history of academic disciplines.But now, he said, many students — undergraduates especially — disregard historical texts. There are exceptions. Caveat Emptor still stocks and sells copies of the Federalist Papers and Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations,” works that are more often used in undergraduate courses.“All this stuff has a history behind it,” he said. “There are still people around who want all this stuff. I’m here for those people.”Increasingly, though, these people are not the students that once supported Caveat Emptor and its predecessor — an academic and pop culture store Starcs owned and operated with friends shortly after he left the University. Every customer is different.Some are visiting academics and speakers, like New York Times columnist David Brooks, who spent $100 at the store when he came to town to speak in November 2011.Others are an older clientele, like Brandt Steele, a retired Depauw University faculty member who makes the trip to Caveat Emptor whenever he drives in from Greencastle, Ind., to visit his daughter in Bloomington.There are still T-shirt-and-shorts-wearing college students who often search the shelves and leave with one or two paperback books that pique their interest.But students can now find information they’re looking for in new ways that were not available even two decades ago.Twenty years ago, the concept of an e-book would’ve been impossible to execute on a large scale, yet in 2010, 114 million e-books were sold, according to the Association of American Publishers.But Caveat Emptor still has an audience. Starcs said he thinks most people would prefer to hold a book in their hands, and some of those people have started to find him.“I’ve been noticing more customers who have discovered used bookstores for the first time,” Starcs said.Independent stores with their owners’ personal flair have broader, more constant collections of books as compared to big chain bookstores, Starcs said. At Barnes and Noble, if a book isn’t selling well, it’s taken off the shelf, whereas Starcs can build a collection on one topic throughout a long period of time and then sell all related books to one buyer when someone finds out the store has what he or she is looking for.“This is darn near the last survivor. There used to be four or five stores of this kind around Bloomington,” Steele said. “I don’t understand why.”EMBRACING A DIGITAL FUTUREThe computer in Caveat Emptor is an old, white Mac laptop. It sits on the desk near the front door. Starcs and employee John McGuigan use it to help them determine a book’s worth by researching how much it costs elsewhere and how many copies are in circulation. Databases detail what’s in stock and credit for those who’ve sold to the store.Until recently, Caveat Emptor decidedly did not sell online.“Browsing is a different experience,” Starcs said. “You can tell a lot more about what you’re buying in the store than online, when you can look in books and not just at an ISBN or a picture of the cover, if you’re lucky.”But necessity prompted Starcs to build an online used bookstore on Alibris.com, a website that allows independent booksellers to move to the Web.Starcs said the Web store has helped diminish a problem rare and used bookstores often have: “knowing you have a great collection in some field and just waiting for people to come along who are also interested.” It expanded the store’s potential customers from those in Bloomington who are interested in used books to the global market.“Maybe no one in Bloomington wants it, but maybe someone else wants it,” he said. “We were building up a collection of good books. People weren’t buying locally. You put a list online and suddenly everyone in the world can see it.”Thus far, the online store has proven successful for the business, Starcs said.On average, Caveat Emptor makes a sale online once per day. Some days there are four or five orders, but there are three- or four-day stretches when no one buys online.“It’s not a primary source of income, but it’s a nice supplement to the normal flow of business,” Starcs said. “Walk-in is still the primary source of income. Walk-in sales are probably 90 to 95 percent.”UNCERTAIN NEXT STEPSPeople pass by outside in the bustle of Walnut Street mid-Friday afternoon. They have their smartphones out, and most won’t look at the used bookstore they pass.Inside, Starcs goes about his business as usual. He carries books to and from the desk, verifying what they’re really worth. He said there are usually more people in the store on Friday afternoons.He’s not sure how much longer his store will be around, but that’s not because of financial difficulties. He’s 69, and at some point he’ll retire from the bookstore business.Starcs reconsiders Caveat Emptor’s long-term viability every year, and he’s confident it will at least survive the next few. But he has no interest in changing what he does.“It’ll depend upon how many people are interested in what we’re doing,” he said. “Most people, I think, are still used to holding a book in their hands.”
(06/07/12 5:42pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Before Herman B Wells took charge of IU, the University was just a small midwestern college with 11,000 students. By the time he died in 2000, it had become a world-renowned institution with more than 90,000 students on eight campuses.“He put Indiana University on the map,” James Capshew, associate professor of history and philosophy of science and author of a Wells biography, said. “Not just in the Big Ten, but nationally and internationally.” Wells served as the 11th president of IU from 1938 to 1962 and as chancellor from 1962 until he passed away in 2000.He came here as a student in 1921 and fell in love with the campus, Capshew said.“When he became president, he was determined to offer students a similar experience to what he had,” Capshew said.Wells is known for making some of the most substantial changes to the University that helped make it what it is today.“He created, I think, a very extraordinary culture in Bloomington,” Chancellor Ken Gros Louis, a man who knew Wells, said. “The most recently hired custodian was as important to him as the most distinguished professor.”There are many stories about Wells’ successful desegregation efforts in Bloomington and on campus, and they were all done in a similar, nontraditional fashion.“He didn’t rustle feathers,” Capshew said. “He found a way to remove barriers.”During the early part of his presidency, a restaurant originally located on Indiana Avenue, The Gables, did not serve black students. Wells called the owner of the restaurant and asked him to serve blacks. The owner refused.“Wells said, ‘I understand, but I hope you will understand if I make The Gables off-limits to all students,’” Gros Louis said. “The owner started serving black students.”Wells was also the driving force behind IU recruiting the first black basketball player in the Big Ten. He stood up against powerful figures, such as the governor, in defense of Alfred Kinsey, whose controversial research into human sexuality drew criticism from big name leaders locally and internationally. As president and chancellor, Wells kept in mind the future growth of the University and realized that because the institution would far outlive him, he ought to provide for its future.The board of trustees criticized Wells when he bought the land upon which Assembly Hall now rests, Gros Louis said.“That’s the kind of vision he had,” Gros Louis said, “And it’s why IU’s campus is so centralized.”The first building Wells had constructed as president was the IU Auditorium.“He said he built it because he wanted to tell students, especially students from rural Indiana, that the world was available to them,” Gros Louis said.That same spirit of global education was what led Wells to find instructors who could come from other countries and teach at IU.“Indiana University built the strongest foreign language program of any university in the nation,” Capshew said. “That really got started with Wells after World War II.”But beyond providing for its future, Wells genuinely cared about the University’s students, Capshew said.Wells developed a reputation for remembering people’s names, even if they had only met once, and he frequently took strolls around campus to meet students.In his old age, when he was not able to do that anymore, his assistants helped him.“He really led through that empathy, that fellow feeling that he had for students and faculty,” Capshew said.Today, Wells is still remembered on campus. The main library is named in his honor, and a bronze statue of him sits on a bench in the Old Crescent looking over Dunn Woods, an area he banned the University from developing.“He’s the one that made what I think is a very special culture,” Gros Louis said. “The time will come when nobody living will remember him, but he’ll still be remembered because of what he did for this University.”
(03/28/12 2:31am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The volume rises, music filling the living room of an eastside Bloomington house. Three dancers’ hips shake back and forth, rhythmically, in time with the music.Margaret Lion, the director, wants to get up and dance, but her foot prevents her from joining her troupe members as they spin and twirl, rolling up and down onto the balls of their feet. She’s a belly dancer at heart, but her left foot, broken since November, blocks her way.Margaret tries, though. While the rest of the troupe members dance on their feet, she watches their rhythmic actions. Margaret moves her arms, allows her torso to sway back and forth.Today, her belly dance costume is out of place in comparison to those of the rest of the troupe. Instead of bracelets and a beaded skirt, she wears a white IU women’s basketball T-shirt and two bright flowers, one pink and one yellow, in her brown hair.The music Margaret plays from her spot on a chair in the corner of the sunlit living room is not traditional, cabaret-style dance music. The troupe puts on a video of a dance choreographed to the theme of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” The rest of the troupe members mimic the figures on the TV screen while Margaret tries to verbally direct.She laughs and cheers for the other members of her troupe even as she longs to join them. But Margaret is usually laughing. The other members of her troupe say she’s up-front about what she thinks and how she feels, and she almost always feels happy. The laughs and smiles are real, they say.***Margaret founded Different Drummer Belly Dancers. When she’s not dancing, she teaches a course about computers in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. She has a husband but no kids and no intention of having them. She’s a Bloomington native who only ever left the town for a four-year stint in Philadelphia, but she came running back. She didn’t want to turn 30 in Philly because she belongs in the Midwest, she says. She says she’s a fan girl, and her vices are Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, expert belly dancers and IU women’s basketball.She was at a basketball game when she broke her left foot.On her way down to the court at Assembly Hall to help with halftime during a women’s game, Margaret didn’t notice a missing metal step, so she fell, breaking her fifth metatarsal.“I went down,” she says. “There just wasn’t a step there.”Her injury has intruded into her daily life more than she anticipated. She has come to rely more heavily on the support of her husband and friends. She couldn’t feed herself or even get a glass of water without help.Getting up to help the dancers in her troupe was an ordeal. She had to pick up the crutches leaning against the wall next to her chair, hoist herself into a standing position and slowly move forward, leaning to stay upright and using her hands to demonstrate suggestions to improve the dance.But since the troupe began, Margaret has experienced more than her share of injury, which became a joke with the original members of the troupe. She says when she was injured, no one else was allowed to be hurt.First it was a broken wrist just a few months after the troupe was founded. Then, in 2005, she threw out her back and was stuck in a brace for months. In the past, she’s suffered from tendonitis, which has gone away because she’s been mostly off her feet since November. It’s the good thing about breaking her foot, she says.But her broken foot has challenged her more than either of her previous injuries did.“Back surgery recovery was a no-brainer,” she says. “I could walk around and do anything, and they didn’t want me to move a whole lot. It was just easier to get around than it is now.”More importantly for Margaret, after brief downtime, she was able to return to dancing. Belly dancing helped to make her back stronger, and when her wrist was broken, she just wore a purple cast audience members often confused for a glove, she says.This time, it’s harder.“Not being able to dance is just really weird,” she says. “It sucks. It really does.”***When Margaret founded Different Drummer, she wanted to marry the dancing she’d come to love in the previous 10 years of intensive practice with the music she grew up with.“I wanted to show that the dancing is what it is,” she says. “It’s not just this folkloric thing or this cabaret thing. The whole point of the troupe for me was to get this group that was willing to dance to rock and roll.”She and her troupe primarily use the American Tribal Style of dancing. ATS was developed in the 1980s by Carolena Nericcio, leader of a San Francisco troupe that had little time to rehearse. It comprises a set of about 80 moves and allows for improvisation through simple communication between lead and following dancers.Margaret says people don’t expect to find belly dancers outside of Greek and Turkish restaurants where they might seem to fit into the atmosphere.Margaret has no interest in dancing in restaurants, though.The group’s biggest performance of the year is at Gen Con in Indianapolis, one of the country’s largest gaming conventions. The group has done steampunk shows, roller derbies and county fairs.“There’s just sort of that concept of belly dance that’s just one step up from strippers,” she says. “It’s not. You say that, I’ll probably hit you.”That’s part of what Margaret is out to prove: Belly dance is dance.Other than Margaret, the original Different Drummer Belly Dancers have moved on, but there’s a new cast of characters: Irina Shishova, who joined the troupe in 2005, and Liby Ball and Britt Jones, who both joined last fall after Margaret asked some of her students to join the team.Because of Margaret’s injury and the search for new members, the group started practicing again fewer than two months before a visit from Nericcio in March.Liby and Britt might be new to the troupe, but Margaret treats them like family nonetheless.She calls the troupe members “sweetie” and “honey” and “dear.” She sees them as peers.They don’t critique each other because it’s as much about having fun as it is about putting on a show. When one member starts to feel superior, it’s time for her to move on.“That’s what I call the flow of the creativity,” she says. “There comes a time when you do need to be off on your own or you do need to form your own troupe. It’s just natural. The troupe is not a solid, fixed thing. It’s going to constantly evolve.”***The healing is a slow process, but it’s a process that’s underway.During the first months after the injury, Margaret moved from sterile, silver metal crutches to a bright pink cane decorated with flowers. The boot that was on her left foot is gone, and she bought new shoes. On Tuesday, she wore sneakers for the first time in five months.“It’s pretty cool,” she says. “I’m wearing real shoes.”But she says she doesn’t want to push it. The last thing she wants is more surgery, and her foot is still healing. She knows because she can still feel the head of the screw the doctors put in to help fix her foot.“That’s where the healing is happening,” she says. “So I can feel it. I feel it less and less each day, so that’s good.”She started physical therapy, two sessions a week, and started swimming again in February.She had been off her leg since November and originally didn’t plan on dancing again until the summer. She’s found that she can do some easier dance moves already, but she won’t be fully recovered until June, she says.From her corner in the eastside Bloomington living room, she smiles while Irina, Liby and Britt dance. She claps when the song ends and cheers for them.The happiness is genuine — Irina says Margaret doesn’t hide her true feelings — but she longs to be next to them, to be able to perform onstage. She’ll continue to try, moving her arms the same way the rest of the troupe does and following their movements with her eyes. But when her troupe was part of a hafla, a belly dance party, in March, she watched from the crowd.She says she was going to be too busy organizing the event to join in anyway and that she planned to clap and cheer from the audience, but being onstage is why she loves to dance.“I have performance needs,” she says. “I want to perform.”
(03/21/12 3:39am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The last time the Hoosiers faced the Kentucky Wildcats in a men’s basketball game, Bloomington erupted.After junior forward Christian Watford secured a 73-72 win with a final 3-pointer Dec. 10, 2011, in Assembly Hall, fans poured onto Kirkwood Avenue in celebration. Music blared from the windows of the Rubicon apartments as fans crowded near the intersection of Kirkwood Avenue and Dunn Street to rejoice about what many called the revival of IU basketball.On Friday, the two teams will meet yet again in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, and Bloomington bars and restaurants are preparing for the influx of Hoosier fans that Nick’s English Hut co-owner Susan Bright said always accompanies a game of this magnitude.“We’ve been fortunate enough with a big season this year,” Bright said. “Even for away games, we fill to capacity.”But Bright said she anticipates that Nick’s will reach its 500-person capacity much earlier in the day Friday.“We expect it to be a repeat of the last Kentucky game in December,” she said. “The difference is the amount of people downtown are going to grow.”Fans will not only head to Nick’s, but other local businesses also expect to see an increase in customers as a result of the game.“People are going to come in a lot earlier than they normally would,” said Joana Glasscott, general manager and co-owner of Yogi’s Grill and Bar.For the first time, Yogi’s is allowing people to reserve tables until tip-off so they don’t have to show up before 5 p.m., when Glasscott said she expects the place to fill up. Yogi’s is charging $30 to reserve a four-person table or $40 for a six-person table.“We’re actually losing money,” Glasscott said. “It’s helping people.”Across town, bars and restaurants will load up on extra staff, extra food and extra caution.“We’re expecting more people, staffing more people, bringing in more product,” BuffaLouie’s General Manager Janel Fifer said.Nick’s is investing in additional security at the door to combat the expected increase of intoxicated and excited fans this Friday evening, Bright said.“If people start coming to the game five to six hours before the game, and if they start drinking five to six hours before the game, they’ll be pretty toasty,” she said.The staff at Nick’s might also start cutting people off and asking them to stop drinking earlier than they usually would.But despite any hassles, the surge in business that accompanies a winning basketball season is good for downtown Bloomington bars and restaurants.Nick’s, Yogi’s and BuffaLouie’s all expect full crowds hours before the game begins at 9:45 p.m. in Atlanta, and the Sweet 16 game isn’t an anomaly in this respect. They’ve seen full houses for other big basketball away games, such as those against Purdue and Ohio State.“They’re so used to coming here before a game,” Glasscott said. “Tables are such a hot commodity.”Nick’s has even seen business grow by more than 10 percent during the season, Bright said.“We haven’t had a team for 10 years,” she said. “There’s a lot of basketball momentum from the previous generations who came to IU.”That momentum has brought Kirkwood and surrounding areas closer together, and Bright said this closeness is going to allow businesses — from giants such as Nick’s and Kilroy’s on Kirkwood to smaller venues — to see collective improvement.“I think we’ll just see a lot of camaraderie downtown,” she said. “If we win, I think we’ll have like we did at the Kentucky game. It was like we won the NCAA Tournament.”
(02/08/12 4:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A court ruling Tuesday made California the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage. This decision came almost one year after Indiana legislators took the first step in approving a constitutional amendment prohibiting the practice.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that California’s voter-approved Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages despite an earlier California state Supreme Court decision allowing them, was unconstitutional. The 2-1 decision marked another milestone in the Proposition 8 saga that began with the 2008 election.The court said in its decision that Proposition 8 served no purpose “other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.”The decision has also sparked discussion about what could happen next for similar debates in Indiana, where courts could be influenced by the 9th Circuit’s decision, and for other states outside the court’s jurisdiction.Proposition 8 supporters now have the option to appeal the decision to the full 9th Circuit or to the U.S. Supreme Court, the ruling of which would be the law of the land and binding throughout the country. But the effects of Tuesday’s decision may not be as far-reaching as some think, sociology professor Brian Powell said.“It’s not saying same-sex marriage is unconstitutional,” he said. “A court could rule that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. That doesn’t mean courts are going to overturn same-sex marriage throughout the country.”This is because this decision was tailored to California’s situation, Powell said. “The first thing to realize is that the experiences in Indiana are very different from what’s going on in California,” Powell said. “In Indiana right now, the state legislature has voted to allow a referendum that will provide a prohibition against same-sex marriage in the state constitution.”Last February, the Indiana House of Representatives approved a resolution authored by Reps. Eric Turner, R-Marion, and Dave Cheatham, D-North Vernon, to create a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman and preventing the state from creating “a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage.” These provisions are already enacted through Indiana law.In contrast, California had already allowed same-sex couples to marry after the state’s supreme court ruled that not allowing same-sex couples to marry was unconstitutional earlier in 2008. “The majority ruling says that its decision is limited to the situation where, in California, same-sex marriage was lawful for a limited period of time, and then Proposition 8 effectively took it away,” said Daniel Conkle, a professor in the Maurer School of Law. “Basically, the court is saying that it is more problematic to take away an existing right to same-sex marriage because there is that preexisting right.”This logic might not be applicable to Indiana, he said, because Indiana has no history of allowing same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples in Indiana do not domestic partnerships rights, either, like they do in many states without same-sex marriage.“Right now, Hoosiers are sort of battling over the question of same-sex rights, period,” Powell said.For now, in Indiana, two steps remain for the same-sex marriage ban to become part of the state constitution. First, the 2013-14 General Assembly must pass the joint resolution. Second, voters must approve it.Conkle said that although Indiana is on its way toward implementing a same-sex marriage ban to the constitution, some other states are moving in an opposite direction.“Whenever a state recognizes, or in this case is forced to recognize, same-sex marriage, that creates one more state,” he said. “There is this sense of momentum.”Powell said that in Indiana, public opinion generally opposes same-sex marriage, but throughout the country, a slim majority support it. Additionally, he said same-sex marriage legalization in larger states such as California and New York may affect others, including Indiana.“I’m cautiously optimistic in the long run,” he said. “My sense is that, in the long haul, there’s going to be very strong carryover effects from the states.”
(02/06/12 4:06am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Thousands of fans filled Indianapolis’ Monument Circle beginning in the early morning hours Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday in anticipation of receiving tickets for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”Fallon brought his Late Night operations to Indianapolis for the shows leading up to the Super Bowl, as well as a live post-game special Sunday night. The shows were filmed in the Hilbert Circle Theater to an audience of about 1,800 people, which is considerably larger than his usual studio audience in New York.“I’ll probably never get to do this again,” said Tyler Halcomb, a Ball State University junior who came to Indianapolis with friends to watch Friday’s taping.Fallon took advantage of the celebrity draw that accompanied Sunday’s Super Bowl to attract high-profile guests throughout the week, including Taylor Lautner, Drew Brees and Super Bowl MVP and Giants quarterback Eli Manning.Friday’s show featured Snoop Dogg and Shaquille O’Neal.After losing a bet to Fallon on a 2011 show, O’Neal appeared on Friday’s show briefly, marching into the theater from Monument Circle wearing a pink bikini that had Fallon’s name printed on it.Snoop Dogg kept the crowd entertained with his advice that Giants and Patriots players should “fly the friendly skies” during Sunday’s game.“When the game gets real tight, you know, a lot of people get nervous and panic,” he said. “But if you’re flying like I’m flying, you’re going to be real calm.”Snoop Dogg had performed Thursday night with Fallon’s in-house band, the Roots, which also performed an opening show for the audience in the theater before Fallon came onstage Friday. Fitz and the Tantrums closed Friday’s taped show with their song “Don’t Gotta Work it Out.” The crowd rose to its feet and danced to the song, which echoed around the Hilbert Circle Theater.After the show, Fallon showed a parody video he made of celebrities auditioning for the Super Bowl halftime show who thought they would be better picks than Madonna. Dressed as Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, Fallon sang Super Bowl-themed songs about popular snacks and throwing footballs.Fallon also used Indianapolis’ close proximity to large universities to his advantage. The over-booked tapings were advertised early in January to college students who had the first crack at tickets.Halcomb and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis junior Tyler Robinson had front-row seats for Friday’s taping. They were selected to take part in an on-screen game, “Models and Buckets.” The game was a knock-off of game show “Deal or No Deal,” in which contestants choose numbered buckets held by models — the Indianapolis Colts cheerleaders during Friday’s show. The bucket’s contents were dumped on the player’s head. Most contained food such as nacho cheese, but one contained $100 and two tickets to a party at the Bud Light Hotel.“It was just suspenseful sitting there,” Halcomb said.Halcomb said he didn’t know whether to expect the confetti signaling the grand prize or chicken wings with barbecue sauce.“We just enjoyed it,” Robinson said. “It was a blast.”Fallon said filming in Indiana was a good experience.“Thank you, Indianapolis, for being such a kick-ass host this week and for making all of us here at ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ feel like we’re at home,” Fallon said during his weekly Thank You Notes segment in Friday’s show.The shows’ attendees seemed pleased, as well. They lined up early to get good seats and laughed and cheered through the tapings.A Late Night employee entertained the crowd before the cameras started rolling at Friday’s taping. He called audience members to the stage to dance and told jokes, preparing the crowd for Fallon and his guests’ arrival.He also assured the audience that venturing outside New York City for taping had been fun.“When we get back to New York, we’re going to be so pissed,” he said. “It’s no Indiana.”
(02/01/12 5:15am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Indiana public schools might be allowed to teach creationism and other origin of life theories if the Indiana House of Representatives approves a bill that passed in the Senate on Tuesday.Senate Bill 89 would give school boards the option to teach “various theories of the origin of life” if the school corporation’s board chooses to opt in.The bill, which passed the Senate by a 28-22 vote and will now head to the House, was authored by Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn. He said he developed the bill so that beliefs held by many people can be taught in schools.“Most Indiana Hoosiers and most American citizens still believe in creation by God,” Kruse said.Kruse’s original bill provided for the teaching of “creation science” alongside other theories, including evolution.The bill was changed, however, to include origin of life theories from additional religious traditions by an amendment proposed by Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington.“It’s no longer creation science,” Simpson said. “That’s an oxymoron.”The amended bill will allow school boards to teach the theories — including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Scientology — in classes other than science, such as world literature or social studies.Kruse said the amendment will make the bill stronger if a lawsuit is brought against it because school districts would be required to teach from a variety of religions.“It’s still up to the school board to make the determination as to if they want to include origin of life teaching,” Simpson said. “If a school board chooses to walk down this path, they’ll have to include other religions, not just Christianity.”Jim Muehling, president of the Monroe County School Corporation board, said he expects the law to be struck down by courts if it passes and is signed by Gov. Mitch Daniels. He said similar laws have been overturned by state courts before.“There’s a clear division of church and state,” he said.If it does pass, though, the MCCSC board will be faced with a decision: It will have the option to approve a curriculum to teach origin of life theories other than evolution.“I hesitate to speculate as to what our decision would be as a board because I’m just one member,” Muehling said.Although Simpson offered the amendment, which made drastic changes to the wording of the bill, she did not vote in favor of the complete, amended piece of legislation.“I was very disappointed,” Kruse said. “She didn’t even vote for her own amendment.”Kruse said Simpson should have voted for the amended bill because of the sweeping changes her amendment made.But despite the changes she was able to make, Simpson remained dissatisfied when a vote was called on the floor.“It was not significant enough to justify voting for it,” Simpson said.
(12/12/11 2:49am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Students and faculty are continuing to voice disappointment about the Board of Trustees’ closure of a top administrator’s office, a decision which bypassed several established processes.Last spring, the trustees closed and removed funding for University Chancellor Ken Gros Louis. Normally, other top administrators would be consulted before closing an office, and the original letter of appointment from then-President Adam Herbert in 2006 said a review would be conducted after five years. No review was conducted before the trustees’ decision.The Bloomington Faculty Council, which had planned to send a letter expressing its concerns and asking for more details about the steps the trustees took, received a memorandum from board chairman Bill Cast detailing the board’s reasoning. The memorandum was also sent to Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson.In the memo, Cast listed eight reasons for the closure. However, Gros Louis said several of these points were not relevant to the issue.The memo cites a five-year contract between the University and Gros Louis. No such contract exists.Gros Louis was appointed to the position by Herbert and approved by the board at the time. The original agreement was Gros Louis and other administrators, including the president, would be involved in a review of the office’s effectiveness after five years.“I sometimes wonder if he ever saw Herbert’s letter,” Gros Louis said.Cast was unavailable for comment.Cast also said the chancellor’s position was discontinued when the provost’s position was created in 2006. However, according to IDS reports from January 2006, the role of Bloomington chancellor was discontinued, not that of University chancellor. In fact, Gros Louis was appointed after the trustee decision to end the Bloomington chancellorship.The BFC received this memo before it was able to send a letter of its own. Early drafts of the BFC letter — co-authored by two members of faculty and approved to be forwarded to the trustees by the council — requested information about who was consulted in the decision and expressed concern that the campus would lose valuable leadership and a student resource.“We would like better to understand why there was no form of formal consultation with the faculty about the termination of this office and the summary dismissal of the University’s most experienced administrator, and why faculty were never notified that this step was contemplated or that it had occurred,” the drafted letter to the trustees read.BFC President and communication and culture professor Carolyn Calloway-Thomas said the faculty council’s executive committee is continuing to consider the nature of its response.“Many faculty continue to express some discontent with the process and outcome,” Calloway-Thomas said. “We’re baffled, upset, bewildered.”In addition to a formal admonition and request for information from the governing faculty body, the IU Student Association Congress plans to respond to the board.IUSA President Justin Kingsolver said a resolution was supposed to be brought before Congress in its Dec. 6 meeting that would reprimand the board for ending the University chancellorship, a resource many IUSA executives have used for guidance. Because Congress did not have enough members present to vote, the resolution will be brought before the general assembly at the first meeting of the semester Jan. 17.Kingsolver said the resolution will censure the trustees, a form of formal disapproval.“We don’t really have a constitutional procedure for censure,” Kingsolver said. “The Board of Trustees acted inappropriately. They fired him without giving him what they promised to give him.”The resolution was written because of requests from inside Congress and outside groups, Kingsolver said.The general outcry from students and faculty alike expresses a desire to be informed and consulted.“They eliminated a student service without consulting students,” Kingsolver said.
(12/09/11 2:30am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A 10-bill package of legislation intended to reform the federal budget process, including three bills co-authored by Rep. Todd Young, R-9th District, was announced by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday.The bills are part of a series of legislation being introduced in the aftermath of this summer’s debt ceiling crisis, which brought up questions for many about the process Congress uses to apportion the federal budget to government departments.“Anyone who has watched the government spending debates over the last year knows there is a better way for Washington to fund our federal government,” Young said in a press release announcing the bills.The three bills — H.R. 3575, H.R. 3578 and H.R. 3583 — will target passage of a budget, automatic budget increases for inflation and the possibility of government shutdown, respectively. Young worked on the bills as a member of the budget committee in the Republican-controlled House.The Legally Binding Budget Act, H.R. 3575, would change the federal budget process to require joint resolutions and stricter approval by both houses of Congress and the president with the goal of creating more discussion and collaboration within government, according to the release.“We just sort of go on auto pilot from the year before,” Young’s Communication Director Trevor Foughty said. “With this, you can’t leave the appropriations process, and ... it engages the executive branch and gives them a stake in it.”The Baseline Reform Act, H.R. 3578, would end the policy of automatically increasing department budgets based on inflation rates. Instead, increases would be based on the previous fiscal year’s department spending.The Government Shutdown Prevention Act, H.R. 3583, is supposed to avoid a federal government shutdown in the event that the House and Senate cannot agree on a budget proposal. Appropriations would decrease over time until the problem is resolved.However, Lee Hamilton, a former representative for the 9th District and the director of IU’s Center on Congress, said process bills such as these do not productively solve the budget problems facing the country.“The problem is substantive,” Lee, a Democrat, said. “Members must make hard choices on tough questions.”He said simply passing legislation to require Congress to act wastes time that could be used for action.“It’s a very easy thing to say, but when you come down to it, very hard to enforce,” Lee said of the more than 150 process laws he said are working their way through the system. “You set up a supercommittee. That’s a process that in this case did not work.”For his part, Foughty said he and Young hope this legislation will create the necessity for the tough decisions to be made in Congress.“The country is headed toward fiscal meltdown,” Hamilton said. “Hard choices have to be made.”
(12/06/11 4:56pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Lauren Robel, dean of the Maurer School of Law, was today named interim provost of the Bloomington Campus beginning Feb. 1, after Karen Hanson, provost and executive vice president, leaves the University.Robel is an IU School of Law graduate and has been on faculty since 1985. She has been the dean of Maurer since 2003.The Board of Trustees will vote on her appointment by IU President Michael McRobbie during the board's meetings Thursday and Friday.Hanson will leave IU to become senior vice president and provost at the University of Minnesota, her alma mater, in February.Appointing an interim provost was the first step in the process of finding a permanent replacement for Hanson, although a University press release said there is no timetable on hiring a new executive vice president and provost.
(12/05/11 2:22am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Front to Back is a news podcast from the Indiana Daily Student. In this week's episode, we talked to reporter Mark Keierleber, who responded to the scene of the protest against JPMorgan-Chase at the Kelley School of Business.Every Friday we will discuss top stories from the week, talking with the writers, editors and sources to gain additional knowledge and insight. A new episode will be released every Sunday.The podcast anchors are Mary Kenney, managing editor, and Michael Auslen, campus editor. New guests are invited every week.
(11/10/11 3:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Bloomington Faculty Council has requested further information from the Board of Trustees about the process it took in deciding to close the University chancellor’s office last spring.The BFC voted Nov. 1 to send a letter to the trustees after several faculty members and former council presidents expressed their concerns about the office’s closure to BFC President Carolyn Calloway-Thomas and Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson, Calloway-Thomas said.“We’re interested in learning how a decision was reached,” Calloway-Thomas said. “We’re just seeking answers.”In spring 2011, a letter from Board of Trustees Chair Bill Cast informed then-University Chancellor Ken Gros Louis that his office would stop receiving University support beginning July 1 and that his title would be changed to University chancellor emeritus.It is unclear who was involved in the decision other than members of the Board of Trustees. Hanson was not informed of the trustees’ action until after it had been completed, according to the Nov. 1 BFC meeting minutes. Mark Land, associate vice president for University communications, has previously said IU President Michael McRobbie was not involved in making the decision.“It speaks to the importance of faculty governance,” Calloway-Thomas said, expressing her concern that members of faculty were not involved in the process.The faculty council has power in the appointment, promotion and discipline of faculty on the Bloomington campus, but it does not hold this power over administrators. However, many faculty were concerned the board acted independently in closing the University chancellor’s office, Calloway-Thomas said.Calloway-Thomas said the University was continuing to benefit from Gros Louis in his role as University chancellor, but the letter will request more information about the specific process undertaken.The BFC will also explain its concerns to the Board of Trustees in the letter, according to the Nov. 1 minutes. The council will decide if it will take further action after it receives a response from the board.“I can’t help but be pleased that people are unhappy about how I was treated,” Gros Louis said.
(11/01/11 4:30am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For the second time, IU has been passed up as a host for a U.S. presidential debate.The Commission on Presidential Debates announced the sites for the three presidential and one vice presidential debates, and IU did not make the cut.“It’s kind of, as you can assume, pretty devastating news,” said Riley Voss, Union Board director of debates and issues and one of the initiative’s leaders. “There was a lot of work that went into this, 12-plus months.”IU’s bid for a debate was coordinated by a coalition of campus organizations, including Union Board, the IU Student Association, the Political and Civic Engagement Program and Residence Halls Association. The Student Debate Coalition officially submitted the bid in April after months of preparation the began in fall 2010.The commission contacted IU President Michael McRobbie on Monday to inform him IU was not selected. McRobbie contacted the student leaders of the initiative.“A lot of us were shocked because we all kind of thought this would be our year,” IUSA President Justin Kingsolver said. “We heavily invested in the proposal.”He said the bid cost about $7,500 to campus organizations and offices.“This is something a lot of people have thrown themselves into,” he said. “I can’t see another school having such a strong application.”The schools selected by the commission to host presidential debates next fall were Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., and the University of Denver. The vice presidential debate will be at the Centre College in Danville, Ky. Washington University in St. Louis is the backup site.Janet Brown, executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates, said selecting the host schools requires balancing the logistics and schedules involved with each site. “The reason they were chosen is not quite the reason the other schools weren’t,” Brown said. She said the commission looks for “four sites that are not only sound, but they work well together.”Kim DeVigil, director of news and public affairs for the University of Denver, said the campus is starting to prepare programs to pair with the debate, which is scheduled for Oct. 3, 2012.“It’s not just a one-day event but a full year of programs,” DeVigil said. “It’s really an exciting day for DU, but it’s also a great day for the city and county of Denver. Colorado has never hosted a presidential debate.”One of the requirements to be selected by the commission was to create additional academic programming around the debate. Voss said the Student Debate Coalition at IU worked with academic schools and departments on campus as well as other student groups to prepare for a full year of debate-centered courses and programs.These programs, which potentially would have included eight-week courses and special speakers, would focus on understanding presidential debates and the role they play in the larger presidential campaign, Political and Civic Engagement Program Director Michael Grossberg said. “For us, it was an opportunity to think creatively about how we might contribute to this larger project,” he said. “It’s still going to be a very consequential election, and we hope students get involved in it, since that’s a goal of the program.”Voss and Grossberg both said many of the programs will likely continue, even though IU lost the bid.“I think with the youth vote being so important, a lot of these programs should be in effect,” Voss said. “I don’t think we need to scrap this idea of turning IU into a politically active university.”He said decisions about the continuation of specific debate-themed programs negotiated with different offices and divisions on campus should begin coming out in the next week. He also said even without the debate, the University should try to get candidates on campus.“My goal in the last nine months has been getting this set so we can motivate and activate students politically,” Voss said. “Just because we don’t have a debate doesn’t mean we can’t have presidential candidates on campus and have programs.”IU first applied for a presidential debate in 2008. The initiative began with Jeff Fraser, then an IUSA freshman intern, and then-IUSA Vice President Andrew Lauck. While the University didn’t receive a debate, it was a finalist, which helped pave the way to being a finalist for the 2012 debate.“Luckily we had the bid from ’08, and a lot of the changes that were made were made in the four years since,” Voss said.From the get-go, the Student Debate Coalition has been a student-run group. The University worked with students and supported their efforts to become a host site, but the proposal and preparations were all made by students.“We would have been honored to host one of the presidential debates, and we congratulate the schools that were awarded a debate,” Mark Land, associate vice president for University communications, said in an email. “The IU team, led by the Student Debate Coalition, worked hard to put together a competitive proposal, and IU would have been an outstanding host, but sometimes things just don’t break your way.”Voss said he hopes to see IU apply for a 2016 debate and that he will leave documentation of the best way to go about doing so with the next committee.“I think we’re going to be more prepared for it next time than were this time,” Voss said. “I don’t think IU is going to stop applying until we get one.”
(10/16/11 8:46pm)
This week we discussed accusations of voter fraud against former Indiana
Senator Evan Bayh and the closing of the IU chancellor's office.
(10/14/11 3:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last spring, in an action that has drawn criticism from current and former student leaders, the IU Board of Trustees closed the office of University Chancellor Ken Gros Louis, a senior administrator whose primary role was working with student leaders.Members of the board said the decision was made because Gros Louis’ initial five-year appointment as chancellor, a position he occupied without pay, was set to expire.However, Gros Louis’ occupation of the University chancellor’s office would be reviewed and considered for renewal after five years, the letter of appointment signed by then-IU President Adam Herbert said in 2006.“The president and the Board of Trustees will review the role of the University chancellor in five years,” the letter said. “Your assessment of the effectiveness of the position and your willingness to continue to serve will be critical elements in this review.”No such review was conducted, Gros Louis said, and there was also no official record of the trustees conducting an evaluation or discussing the closure of the office.Bill Cast, chair of the Board of Trustees, said an informal review was undertaken, and he spoke with some of the other trustees and “chatted briefly” with IU President Michael McRobbie.Mark Land, associate vice president for University communications, said McRobbie’s office was not involved in the decision to close the chancellor’s office and it was entirely a trustee issue.According to the minutes of the board’s meetings, the only official action it took was to change Gros Louis’ title and end financial support of the office in the June 24 meeting. In the April 15 meeting, Cast briefly said, “The designation of professor Kenneth Gros Louis to the post of University Chancellor Emeritus.”Robin Gress, secretary of the board, said it is common to conduct personnel business when not in public session, which state law permits to protect public employees’ privacy.“It was treated as the University routinely treats personnel items,” Gress said. “There was nothing extraordinary about this.” Gros Louis received a letter from Cast in March detailing the change in his role in the University. The letter explained the office would close June 30 and his title would be changed to University chancellor emeritus.The letter said the office would be closed due to “pressures on budgets and the ever-present need for office space.” It also said, “A number of the matters previously focused on by you and your staff are now being handled by others.”Gros Louis said the trustees were largely unaware of the day-to-day workings of his office and that because they did not conduct a review, they had no way of knowing the specific work he was doing, let alone where it overlapped with other offices on campus.Gros Louis had been working without a salary since his appointment to the position in 2006. His office employed a secretary and an assistant whose combined annual salaries totaled $108,644 when the office closed, according to University records.The University chancellor’s office also had a budget for as-needed expenses that Gros Louis said he rarely used.Most of his expenses came from his own pocket or an account that was set up for him at the IU Foundation. These included meetings with student leaders during meals, travel in his role representing IU and some office expenses.Some student supporters, including former IU Student Association Speaker of Congress Steve Ross, said the University shouldn’t have cut these expenses from the budget in the same year McRobbie received a pay increase.As for the office space, Gros Louis occupied the office of former University Chancellor Herman B Wells in Owen Hall.As part of the trustees’ plan, Owen Hall and other administrative buildings are slated to be repurposed to create more student interaction.It is likely Owen Hall will become the new home of the College of Arts and Sciences administration, said Andy Bolling, facilities space programmer. He said Wells’ old office will not be renovated and will likely be a multipurpose room for the University. Cast also said this is the University’s plan for Owen Hall.Because he was not a part of any review conducted by the trustees or the president, Gros Louis wrote his own report detailing his office’s work, which was addressed to the board and McRobbie.The report said Gros Louis’ primary responsibilities were cultivating student leaders, teaching and representing the University on committees and at events.“I truly enjoy serving IU, and I cannot imagine a life without it,” Gros Louis said in the report. “I was honored when the Trustees named me University chancellor, and I feel the same way today.”After receiving Cast’s letter in March, Gros Louis told some faculty members and current and former student leaders about the change in his office.As the news started to spread through the leadership of IUSA, Union Board and other organizations, many people wrote letters to the board and McRobbie expressing their displeasure with the trustees’ action.Last year’s IUSA President Michael Coleman was among those to write to the board.“He can connect to so many student leaders,” Coleman said. “He was always just helpful whenever we needed.”Coleman also expressed concern the University would lose institutional memory if Gros Louis didn’t have a permanent position on campus.Although Gros Louis encouraged him not to write to the board, IUSA President Justin Kingsolver said he felt the trustees ignored the needs of students by closing the University chancellor’s office.“As often happens, student-focused programs is where they cut,” Kingsolver said. “He was somebody they thought would be a cut they wouldn’t feel.”Ross said student leaders would take the brunt force of losing Gros Louis as chancellor because he would have fewer resources available to him as chancellor emeritus.“The single most important thing he does is guide student leaders,” Ross said.Kingsolver also said the University would lose sight of some of its history.“Our University is starting to get away from some of the traditions of the past half century,” he said. “The trustees should not have made the decision unilaterally without giving him due process.”Cast said the trustees do not foresee losing anything vital by closing the office.“I see no loss unless he chooses not to work,” Cast said.The trustees told Gros Louis they hoped he would continue to work for the University as he has this semester.Although the University no longer supports him in Owen Hall, Gros Louis has moved to a small office on the third floor of Woodburn Hall. The old office was a large room in that housed artifacts owned by Wells, including a collection of his books and gifts he was given by dignitaries, as well as the globe he posed with in his famous portrait.Comparatively, the new office is a small one in a hallway of international studies and political science faculty offices. He still uses it to interact with student leaders and to recruit donors for the University in the role of University chancellor emeritus.“We thought that emeritus was an honor,” Cast said.Gros Louis’ supporters who wrote letters didn’t necessarily see it the same way.“Disrespectful would be an understatement in my opinion,” Ross said. “He does so much for the University and for the trustees, who basically are the University, to treat him like this is reprehensible.”
(10/10/11 3:27pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson was named the senior vice president and provost of the University of Minnesota today, according to a U of M press release.A University of Minnesota alumna, Hanson will begin her post Feb. 1. She will remain at IU until that time. She received bachelor’s degrees in philosophy in mathematics from U of M in 1970. She received her master’s and doctorate degrees in philosophy from Harvard University in 1980.Hanson has served in her as provost and executive vice president since 2007 and has worked as a professor of philosophy and dean of the Hutton Honors College.“Karen’s departure leaves a void both on the Bloomington campus and on the Indiana University leadership team,” IU President Michael McRobbie said in a press release. “I have every confidence that Karen will make the same type of positive difference at the University of Minnesota that she has made at Indiana University.”A search for IU’s new provost is pending and there are no specific deadlines for that search set at this time, McRobbie said in the release.
(09/30/11 4:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Almost a year after she took the post on an interim basis, Debora Shaw has been named dean of the School of Library and Information Science.“I think it is a very positive move,” SLIS Assistant Professor John Walsh said. “Dean Shaw is a leader in our field and will be a strong leader of the school.”Shaw first came to IU as a doctoral student in SLIS in 1983. In 2003 she returned to the school as a professor.“It was really coming back to IU that was the decision,” she said. “It was the hills and trees, as well as the University.”Shaw and Walsh said information technology is a rapidly changing field and SLIS has to continue to be a leader in it.“The school has a really strong reputation nationally,” Shaw said. “This is an exciting time to be involved in technology.”Usually, a change of leadership causes some anxiety, Walsh said, but he is confident in Shaw’s ability to lead the school even with the changes in the industry.“I’m very positive in having Dean Shaw as the new leader,” Walsh said. “The faculty, as far as I know, was unanimously supportive of her appointment.”Shaw said she has several goals she wants to achieve and programs to continue as she takes permanent hold of the school, such as the library’s digitalization project that will put some of IU’s collections online. She also said she wants to focus on teaching information visualization to students.She said information technology is interesting because of its ability to influence a variety of fields.“Students come with a wide variety of undergraduate degrees,” Shaw said. “We’re preparing people for careers that no one knows about yet.”