dec. 3, 2012
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The Horizon — Issue 12TRANSCRIPT
Volume 67 | Issue 12www.iushorizon.com
the horizon
Ethiopia | See page 8
NEW ALBANY, INDIANA Indiana University Southeast
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News............................................................ 1, 2Sports ...............................................................3Events ..............................................................4Opinions .........................................................5Profiles .............................................................6Diversions .......................................................7Features...........................................................8
By KIM [email protected]
Earlier this year, IU Southeast received the Gold Award in the Pride of CASE V Awards for Excel-lence in Specials Events, Series of Events. CASE stands for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and this award honored the many 70th Anniversary celebrations that were held both on and off campus last year. Brady Miller, special projects manager, complet-ed the award application for IU Southeast and was also in charge of many of the major events on cam-pus. Miller said he is proud of IU Southeast for re-ceiving this award because it shows the university’s level of engagement with the community. “I think [this award] speaks to how well so many people can work together to put on events like this,” Miller said. “I can easily think of more than 30 peo-ple who had some kind of critical role in executing these events.” Chancellor Sandra Patterson-Ran-
dles said she agrees students should be proud of IU Southeast for all the hard work put into the 70th Anniver-sary celebration. “For IU Southeast to receive a top-notch award like this, students should be reassured that they have chosen an academic home that is serious about quality,” Patterson-Randles said. “I hope all our stu-dents, faculty and staff share my pride in this achievement, since their efforts and support contrib-
uted significantly to its success.” Miller focused primarily on four 70th Anniversary events held during the 2011-12 school year — the time-line and kick-off celebration for the
first week of classes, Chancellor’s Me-dallion Dinner, Thing-A-Ma-Dig and a concert in Warder Park. The theme for the 70th Anniversary celebration was Celebrating the Past, Shaping the Future. Miller said all of the events were chosen because they showed the past, present and future of the university.
Timeline
One important event Miller included in the appli-cation was a project that had been worked on during
summer 2011. Miller said the timeline between Uni-versity Centers North and South had been installed a couple weeks before classes started for the fall term. “We wanted to have an event to celebrate the official reveal of the timeline and to encourage people to go see it, read it and learn more about the history of the university,” Miller said. “We also just wanted to let the student body know the importance of the year right from the start during the first week of classes.”
Chancellor’s Medallion Dinner
The Chancellor’s Medallion Dinner was on Oct. 27 and is an annual fund-raising event the university holds to support students’ scholarships. Miller said it is a large community event with several business leaders and community members in at-tendance. Miller said normally guests are in attendance to recognize one or two community members with the Chancellor’s Medallion, which is the highest award pre-
sented by the university. The chancellor also recog-nizes a handful of students who have received the
Chancellor’s Medallion Leadership Scholar-ship. Miller said instead of having new honor-ees, 37 people who had been honored with the Chancellor’s Medallion since 1997 will be part of this year of retrospection.
In addition, Miller said the university al-most reached its goal of a comprehensive
fundraising campaign for the school. Miller said the goal was to raise $11 million for the university. Currently, the university has raised $10.9 mil-lion and the campaign is supposed to continue into 2014.
Thing-A-Ma-Dig
The 70th Anniversary Thing-A-Ma-Dig was an event where 70 different groups of people — from the university and the community — came to plant 70 trees in seven hours.
IUS Timeline
Physical Plant workers and Wanda Borrego, director of the Children’s Center, help children from the Children’s Center roll a tree into its designated place during the Thing-A-Ma-Dig event on April 4. In recognition of its 70th Anniversary events, IU Southeast earned the Gold Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Courtesy photo
A 4-foot tall, 6-layer cake was created by Adrienne and Co. Bakery Café in Jefferson-ville to celebrate the end of IU Southeast’s 70th Anniversary.
By TAYLOR FERGUSON [email protected]
The recent changes in state elections could have a large impact on the IUS campus, as well as the state of Indiana for future years.
New Superintendent of Public Instruction
While Nov. 6 marked re-election for President Barack Obama, local Indiana elections also re-sulted in Democrat Glenda Ritz beating out Tony Bennett, Republican incumbent, in the race for superintendent of public instruction by captur-ing 52 percent of the vote. Gloria Murray, dean of the School of Educa-tion, said she believes this change is something that could revitalize the interest in pursuing a teaching career among students at IU Southeast. “So many potential teacher candidates were concerned about the changes that were occur-ring in the teaching field, such as the high stakes
By SAMANTHA [email protected]
Grade inflation — the trend of colleges re-warding students with higher grades than in the past — is a phenom-enon affecting many of the nation’s institutes of higher education. However, as for IU Southeast, it is hard to tell whether or not this event is occurring on campus. “I don’t know if there is any evidence that [grade inflation] exists here at IUS,” said Joe Wert, dean of the School of Social Sciences. “It may, but I haven’t seen anything that makes me think that yes, there defi-
nitely is.” Wert said he has not seen anything because there are no records of grade inflation on file for IU Southeast. Patrick Fawcett, Reg-istrar, said a representa-tive from the University Institutional Research told him no data con-cerning the average GPAs and percentage of letter grades given at IU Southeast over time had been compiled because it has never before been asked for. “It doesn’t appear to be on anyone’s radar,” Fawcett said. Likewise, grade in-flation is not the most talked about subject be-tween faculty members. “I have heard some discussion of the sub-
ject among faculty but not much — more on a national level than a lo-cal one,” Michael Aber-nethy, senior lecturer in communication, said. While this may not be a problem for IU South-east, the issue is a topic of discussion for IU Bloomington. A 2011 grade infla-tion study conducted
by Stuart Rojstaczer, re-tired professor at Duke University, found that, on average, 43 percent of all letter grades given in U.S. colleges are As, a 28 percent increase from 1960. His data showed IU Bloomington had an average GPA of 3.16 in 2008, as opposed to an average of 2.83 in 1976. Though IU Southeast does not have similar data or that amount of discussion, it does not mean the school is im-mune to all aspects of the nation-wide issue. Abernethy said he did not know of any specific instances of grade infla-tion at IU Southeast, but it is possible it occurs. Sam Parsons, criminal
Grade inflation questioned at IUS Local elections result in education changes
See LOCAL ELECTIONS, page 2
See GOLD AWARD, page 2
See GRADES, page 2
It doesn’t appear to be on anyone’s radar.
Patrick FawcettRegistrar