The Alestle, Vol. 76, No. 20

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insidE:

STEM grad student brings violin music to the quad

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Relationship building panel bring Native educators and students together

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Women’s basketball beats undefeated Eastern Illinois

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THE

mental health takes center stage

Flo, who eventually learns to thrive after her schizophrenia diagnosis, struggles at the start of “Flora Circular” to grasp her new reality.

| Thea Weltzin / The Alestle

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‘Flora Circular’s portrayal of mental illnesses is ‘darkly humorous’
the student voice since 1960
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Thursday, February 23, 2023 Vol. 76 No. 20
alestle

The Alestle wins 10 state college media awards in more competitive division

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — The Alestle won 10 awards at the recent Illinois College Press Association’s Convention and Awards. The publication is still in the ranking of top student news orgs in the state despite moving into a more competitive division.

The state college media organization reorganized its contest divisions this year to better reflect the smaller number of daily student newspapers. Some of those very large programs still publish, but not as frequently. In the reorganization based on enrollment numbers reported to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, SIUE was moved into the top competitive category with those news organizations that are, or used to be, daily newspapers – Northwestern University, DePaul University, Loyola University Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois State University and Northern Illinois University.

“We were up against some tough competition. So, I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished in the last year and the awards we won,” Alestle Editor-in-Chief Emily Sterzinger said.

In their new division, The Alestle staff received honorable mention in General Excellence for its print edition – the top 3 being The Northern Star, The Loyola Phoenix and The DePaulia.

“When I knew the divisions were changing, I was a little nervous but believed in The Alestle staff’s ability to hold its own in a much tougher division,” Student Publications Program Director Tammy Merrett said. “I am so happy with the results and extremely proud of the staff members in 2022 who never stopped working hard to continuously improve and raise the bar for themselves.”

The Alestle won three first place awards – two in the open division in which

NEWS IN BRIEF

Student Government senate vote to pass constitutional revisions

Revisions to the Student Government constitution, which were introduced have finally been passed by the senate. The revisions, which will introduce new, non-academic related senators to the senate, passed with a unanimous vote of 17-0 on Feb. 20.

02.07.23

A parking hangtag was stolen from a vehicle in Parking Lot 1.

02.08.23

An SIUE drone from the Engineering Building was lost.

02.10.23

A wallet was found in the MUC.

02.11.23

An egg was smashed on a vehicle in the Woodland Hall Parking Lot. There was no further damage to the vehicle reported.

02.13.23

A wallet was found in the MUC. A vehicle in the Prairie Hall Parking Lot was reportedly speeding and driving in loops. The vehicle was gone when the officer arrived.

02.15.23

A car reportedly drove by a student by Prairie Hall. The student thought the driver was yelling offensive things at them. After an officer arrived, it was revealed that the driver was a friend of the student, and it was a misunderstanding. A hit and run was reported in Parking Lot 9.

02.16.23

An offensive message was left on a desk in the Engineering Building. The message was removed and BIRT was notified.

New law allows Illinoisans to change sex on birth certificate without doctor’s affirmation

all universities and colleges compete. There were 21 competing schools this year. The staff won first place for Front Page Layout. Former Editor in Chief Alex Aultman won first place in the open division’s Headline Writing category for their headline “White tears were prioritized over Black pain” for a story about the handling of a racist and homophobic hazing incident on campus in 2021.

Managing Editor Gabriel Brady and former Sports Editor Brandon Wells won first place in the large school division’s new Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Coverage category.

“We don’t do it for the awards. I haven’t won any ICPA awards specifically in my name before. So, it’s nice on my way out that my work is recognized,” Managing Editor Gabe Brady said, adding that he is graduating in May.

Many of the staff’s collaborative efforts in 2022 were recognized. The staff won second place in the large school Opinion Pages category, third place in the Entertainment Supplement category for its Spring 2022 Metro East Eats: Donut edition and honorable mention in Feature Page Design for its Metro East Eats: Soup edition. The regular feature often does well in the entertainment supplement and design categories in state and national competitions.

The staff received an honorable mention in the large school division’s Entertainment and Culture Podcast category. Former Alestle Photographer Clair Sollenberger won third place in General News Photo in the large school division for a photo of campus protests about racial inequity.

Alestle Graduate Assistant Graphics Manager Kirsten O’Loughlin received honorable mention for Best Print Ad.

SPRINGFIELD – Illinoisans seeking to legally change the gender on their birth certificate will have an easier time under a new law signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker last week.

“Here in Illinois, we recognize that gender transition is a personal journey that doesn’t always follow a prescriptive medical path, but still deserves to be honored legally,” Pritzker said in a statement. “In a time of increasing violence and hateful rhetoric against the trans, nonbinary and gender non-conforming community, it is more important than ever to reaffirm our state’s commitment to recognizing the rights and dignity of LGBTQ+ Illinoisans.”

Under House Bill 9, which will take effect July 1, individuals will no longer need a medical professional to affirm they have undergone gender reassignment surgery or other clinical treatment in order to change their gender on their birth certificate. Once the change takes effect, they simply have to submit a statement expressing their intention to change their gender classification. Mike Ziri, director of public policy at Equality Illinois, said the policy change was important because individuals often do not have access to a provider and because providers sometimes refuse to consent to providing such a statement.

“The old requirement, it was a barrier to equality,” Ziri, whose organization worked on the bill with other advocacy groups, said. “Someone may not be able to afford a visit to a doctor, or there may not be an affirming provider.”

By removing the need of a health care professional to reaffirm an individual’s gender change status, the law makes it easier for a person’s documents to be consistent, according to a statement from state Sen. Laura Fine, D-Glenview, a lead sponsor on the bill.

The measure passed with only Democratic support in both chambers of the General Assembly. The law also waives the costs associated with acquiring a new birth certificate for previously incarcerated individuals, homeless people, youths under care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, individuals under 27 who were previously in care and individuals living in domestic violence shelters.

“Access to your birth certificate will become a less onerous process for many Illinoisans, removing barriers for people who already face so many,” Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, D-Glenview, another lead sponsor on the bill, said in a statement.

A new birth certificate request usually costs $15, plus $2 for each additional copy. The law is the latest passed in Illinois that expands protections for transgender individuals, following protections for gender-affirming care and a measure allowing people previously convicted of felonies to change their name “due to marriage, religious beliefs, status as a victim of trafficking or gender-related identity.”

With the new law, Illinois joins 11 other states in allowing self-attestation of gender on birth certificates, according to Equality Illinois.

“We’re really excited that Illinois is moving on this issue on the topic of birth certificates into those ranks of those affirming states,” Ziri said.

alestlelive.com PAGE 2 Thursday, 02.23.23
NIKA SCHOONOVER Capitol News Illinois

WOLFE photographer

Many people visit the campus Quad weekly. Occasionally the sound of a fiddle can be heard across campus. But where is the music coming from?

James Trevarthan is a computer science graduate student and he began fiddling when he was only 9-years-old.

“There was this guy on PBS called André Rieu, and he was playing the violin,” Trevarthan said. “He played this tune called ‘Irish Washerwoman’ and I was like, that’s really cool, I want to play that. And I didn’t realize at the time that it took a lot of work to get to that point.”

Trevarthan began classes as soon as he could. He described pestering his teacher to teach him “Irish Washerwoman” but was told he “had to learn the notes first.”

Now, Trevarthan can play both the fiddle and the violin. Which are the same instrument, just played differently. He said that the way you move your wrists while playing makes all the difference. Notes are played differently as well.

Now, Trevarthan can play multiple types of music.

“So I started classical,” Trevarthan said. “I still occasionally play it. I play Irish, oldtime or bluegrass some people call it. I was part of an orchestra and we would do stuff from Harry Potter, Star Wars and all sorts of things.”

Before going to college, Trevarthan struggled with what he wanted to study.

“It was either physics or music,” Trevarthan said, “It’s been so long. I think I might have just chosen physics because I was afraid I wasn’t gonna be able to sustain myself on music.”

While he chose science over music, he still believes that music plays a big role in his work, as well as all of STEM.

“It’s strange,” Trevarthan said. “A lot of engineers turn out to be musicians. I don’t know if music rewires your brain-like music is all beats and counting

At one time, Trevarthan hoped to start a “jam session” where different musicians would bring music to play so that others could learn the songs along with them.

“I think it’s important to play an instrument or even enjoy music, because it just brings joy and you know, having more music around is never a bad thing,” Trevarthan said.

Trevarthan first began fiddling on the Quad in the spring of 2022 as a way to gain more confidence.

“I used to be really scared of playing in public,” Trevarthan said. “So the only way to get over that fear was playing in public. And so I keep doing it because I still always have a little bit of nervousness.”

As he kept playing in the Quad, Trevarthan noticed that people liked it.

“I’m just glad that I can bring a little bit of joy, that makes me happy,” Trevarthan said. “It’s always cool when suddenly somebody just starts clapping. I’m like, ‘Oh, I didn’t even realize that they sat down.’”

To reach more people Trevarthan prefers to play mid-day in between classes.

“I try to play when people are going to be crossing through because then they can hear it as they’re walking to the next class,” Trevarthan said.

Trevarthan usually plays his favorite styles, old-time and Irish, while out in the Quad, but he plans to start playing jazz and swing.

He also described playing the violin as a way for him to decompress, which was another reason he was worried about majoring in music for college.

and that’s math.”

For his undergraduate, Trevarthan attended Eastern Illinois University where he studied physics with a specificity in aerospace engineering. After graduating, Trevarthan began working as a librarian, until parts of his job became automated.

“I was kind of like, ‘Oh,

work within libraries as the Grad Assistant at Lovejoy Library.

Despite his interest in music, Trevarthan is attending SIUE to receive a master’s degree in computer science. | Chloe Wolfe / The Alestle cool. Where do I go from here?’” Trevarthan said. “Then I was like, ‘Go to computer science because there’s a lot of jobs in there and there’s less likelihood that it will get automated away again.’”

Trevarthan ended up at SIUE where he is currently working on his master’s in computer science. He also continued his

Although he is not involved with the music department on campus, he combined his job and passion last semester when he organized a concert in the library during finals week, which he hopes to be able to do again this semester.

“I was worried that if I did it all the time, I would start hating it. I don’t want to hate playing music,” Trevarthan said.

As the weather gets warmer, Trevarthan hopes to continue playing in the Quad until he graduates in the fall semester of 2023.

“Whenever I feel sad or anything, music has just carried me through my life. It’s like a foundation,” Trevarthan said.

alestlelive.com PAGE 3 Thursday, 02.23.23
CHLOE

Theater shines spotlight on schizophrenia, bipolar disorder

Content Trigger Warning: This story contains discussion of mental health.

A newer play to grace the stage, “Flora Circular ‘’ by Thom May deals with heavy, hard topics, but through dark humor and the humanization of stigmatized mental health struggles bring a show of hope and healing.

The show follows the life of Flora, known as Flo throughout the show, after a psychotic break during her freshman year of college, and how she and her family navigate her new diagnosis.

Adjunct Instructor Jennifer Wintzer said an important element to remember is the fact this show is likely the only time it will exist in this form. This is both because it is such a new work, and the fact that the playwright is living, will be attending the show and may have things to think about after watching the show.

“I think that’s really special about new work, that this particular group of people in this moment in time are creating this, and hopefully bringing his story to light and then the way that honors his work,” Wintzer said.

Senior Jack Gulley, a theater education major from Harrisburg, Illinois, is the stage manager for the show. He said that his role is to keep everything running like clockwork, and that the chance to work with Wintzer, who is coming from a professional setting, has been a big deal.

“[Wintzer] is a guest artist and she’s working as someone who’s not an SIUE faculty, to come in with a different lens, that is really important and that’s really awesome for the student,” Gulley said.

Wintzer said that even though she is coming in as a guest director, it is not uncommon for directors to step in from the outside, and she believes the collaborative nature of theater allows for many disciplines to work together and ask the right kind of questions to bring a story to life.

“The thing about theater— it’s a collaborative art form. In this particular production, we have an intimacy director, we have a stage combat director, because of the different elements in the

play,” Wintzer said.

Gulley said being able to work on this play has been exciting for him beyond being able to work with Wintzer, but because he is able to see the cast members, his peers and friends, explore these roles that so few actors have been able to explore before.

“They’re creating these roles. They don’t have other influences like you would have in a more mainstream-produced show,” Gulley said. “It has been a really, really cool opportunity to see the students that we’ve been working with get to come into this show, as well as [Wintzer] and as well as the designers and conceptualize this thing that hadn’t been done before.”

Wintzer said because the play has the ability to shift the environment of the stage through the use of set pieces and the revolve, a circular platform that can be rotated, which allows for the transition of the stage to help maintain the cinematic quality of the show.

“[The cinematic quality] is one of the things I latched on to when reading, making sure that we had an ensemble of actors that no matter what role they were playing, they would help create the different environments because [the play] has many locations,” Wintzer said.

Senior Brooke Holzem, a theater performance major from Washington, Missouri, plays the lead character Flo, which is short for Flora, the play’s title.

Holzem said the dynamic stage, allows the audience to see the flow of someone’s mind, while the background shows the harsh edges of mental illness. She said the lighting and costumes bring a new level to the show.

“[The stage is a] representation of Flo’s mind and the mind of someone with schizophrenia and so the constant moving and the jagged edges of the stage all represent that,” Holzem said.

Junior Brandon Baxter, a theater performance and theater tech major from Louisville, Kentucky, plays Ira, one of the lead characters who struggles with bipolar disorder. Baxter said he spent a lot of time researching, reading firsthand accounts, memoirs and online forums about people’s experiences with bipolar disorder, educating himself to prevent his portrayal from

becoming harmful.

“You can see people’s people talk about their struggles, their ups, their downs. They celebrate their wins. It’s really cool. As an outsider, reading things like that, and just going through and trying to figure out as much as I can portray it as accurately as I could, because I don’t want it to be a caricature,” Baxter said.

Holzem described the show as a chance to showcase mental health struggles and the impact of them on families.

“Representation of mental illness and families, in families? Both. Because family really is everything,” Holzem said.

Baxter said watching the show with an open mind is key, understanding that there is still stigma around mental health struggles, but this show allows for the portrayal of the whole story, rather than just the hard times.

“There’s too much media revolving around mental health that focuses on the struggle and the trauma, and not enough that humanizes and uplifts those communities,” Baxter said.

Gulley said the play employs a decent amount of atmospheric sounds, from a running washing machine to background noise in the hospital, or ferry, which are important to building an environment that is both physical and metaphorical.

“Those more atmospheric sounds are important to build a world that we’re living in, and then take it to the metaphor sphere,” Gulley said. “We’re going into a

world sometimes that is surreal or that is expressionistic and not realistic. There are sounds like ringing, sounds that are actually captured in the minds of our characters or in the moods of the scenes.”

Baxter said because the show deals with such heavy and complex topics, he and the rest of the cast have created ‘roll in, roll out’ methods where they can come into the character and come out of character with the support of other cast members. Baxter said one particularly vulnerable scene with his character, when the character is particularly broken, weighs heavily on him.

“It’s as vulnerable as a person can get and feeling that every night, it definitely weighs because you feel broken. So whenever I come off stage, I have to get to a mirror and look at me and look myself in the eyes. It’s like, ‘Oh, you’re still there Brandon,’” Baxter said.

Troy Alexander, a fourth-year theater performance major from Detroit, portrays Colin, a support group facilitator. He said the show has taught him to be kind to everyone. Even though it is an emotional rollercoaster, he is glad it is portraying mental health struggles.

“I really feel the message [is] just being kinder to people who struggle with their mental health,” Alexander said.

“Flora Circular” will be shown Feb. 22-26 in Dunham Hall. For more information and tickets, visit the SIUE Theater website.

contact the editor: lifestyles@alestlelive.com 650-3527 NEXT WEEK: AFRICA NIGHT CLOSES OUT BLACK HERITAGE MONTH lifestyles alestlelive.com PAGE 4 Thursday, 02.23.23
Brandon Baxter (Ira), Emily Beach (Harriet) and Edwin Navarrete (Matthew) deal with the aftermath of Flo’s diagnosis. Ira holds his medication after Harriet confronts him about his hidden mental health struggles. | Francesca Boston / The Alestle Brooke Holzem, who plays Flo, ends up in her mother’s shed after she is sent home from the hospital, grappling with her new life with as her uncle Ira, played by Brandon Baxter, tries to offer support. | Francesca Boston / The Alestle

Native American panelists speak about fractured identity, hope for future

Members of the St. Louis area Native American community gathered at the Center for Spirituality and Sustainability to discuss the mistreatment of Indigenous people by the United States and relationship building between these two groups, both in the past and present.

During their introductions, the panelists provided background on themselves and the Native American peoples as a whole. Saundi Kloeckener, a panelist and Cherokee and Ojibwe descendant, described her place of residence not as St. Louis, but as Cahokia.

“I live in the old trading town, and when I say that, I mean Cahokia, and I don’t mean right there at that avenue and at that museum, I mean the region,” Kloeckener said. “They didn’t have state lines, there was no Illinois, there was no Missouri, there was no Iowa. This was a Mecca of trading.”

Galen Gritts, another panelist and enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, reflected on insensitive remarks and stereotypes he has encountered throughout his life. Gritts said he has heard everything from, ‘We should have killed you all when we had the chance,’ to ‘You’re still here? I didn’t think there were any of you left.’

Gritts said people tend to forget that Native Americans are not solely a people of the past.

“There are more ideas about who we are than there are Native Americans,” Gritts said. “We’re not frozen in time in John Wayne movies.”

Tina Sparks, a Diné and Hopi descendant, spoke about some of the present effects of the discrimination Native Americans faced, as well as how they tried to avoid such discrimination.

“Sadly, I think that there is some kind of legitimizing that

happens when you find the documentation for what you already feel on the inside and what you already know on the inside,” Sparks said. “Because of all the splintering that happened during colonization, it has caused a lot of skepticism … Part of the fallout for that is that a lot of mixedblood people have a hard time finding their way home if their paperwork was destroyed.”

Sparks also gave examples of some of this fallout, including her own ancestors’ experiences in the New Mexico area.

“[My ancestors’] paperwork was stored in church basements,” Sparks said. “A lot of times, those buildings caught fire and there is no paper trail, and so you can go to some census bureaus, but a lot of times people were lying about who they were, if they could pass for Mexican or Spanish, to avoid the discrimination against indigeneity. It’s very challenging when you don’t have a road to go home.”

Kloeckener said Native Americans, though not a monolithic group, have had to deal with a fractured identity because of colonization and discrimination.

“One of the highest prices that we’ve all paid as Indigenous people is the fracture to our identity,” Kloeckener said. “When you look at it through that lens, that encompasses every aspect of colonization that they encountered, whether it was displacements from our lands, which displaced us from our food, which displaced us from our absolute knowing of who we are, because each tribe did not just live on the land, they lived with the land.”

Sparks also works as a therapist and said she incorporates some Indigenous ideas into her practice.

“I think the more that a therapist knows themselves, the more they have to offer to their clients,” Sparks said. “Everybody has intuition, and our society cul-

tivates it out of us from the time we’re little kids.”

Sparks said she emphasizes intuition in her patients, as well as for herself.

“Intuition is active and natural. The more we tell them, ‘There’s nothing there,’ we dismiss what they know, and we teach them not to trust what they know,” Sparks said. “So they start to shut it down, because they can’t rely on it … and then we grow up and we don’t know how to trust ourselves, so we wind up relying on education, doctors, priests, religious leaders [and] political leaders for them to tell us what’s real and right.”

Sparks said regaining that intuition can be a very lengthy process because of some of the current structures in place in the psychological field.

“We have to retrain ourselves to trust that we have knowing inside that’s valid and valuable, and that it is there for us, not against us, and while mental illness is real, there are times when the Western medical model pathologizes that natural knowing,” Sparks said.

Sparks said children are often considered sacred in Native American traditions due to their intuition and connections with the spirit world.

“We believe we come from the spirit world, and we’re born into this world and live, and then we go back to the spirit world,” Sparks said. “So when we’re born into this world, we’re still very much intact and connected to all the elements of that [spirit] world. So kids, we believe, are sacred, they’re still sacred because they’re still very much connected to all the threads of the spirit world.”

Mary Weber, a student in contemporary Native American studies class at SIUE, attended the panel with hopes of hearing the points of view textbooks cannot offer.

“I’m looking forward to

a personal perspective, not a perceived one — what’s actually happening for them,” Weber said.

Weber, whose minor is in anthropology, said she took the class in part because Indigenous history is often glossed over in standard history classes.

“It really touches on the contentious history that I think was pushed under the rug for a really long time,” Weber said. “Our focus is on our own issues.” For more information on events at the Center for Spirituality and Sustainability, visit its website online.

Study Abroad brings immersive, world-spanning educational experiences

EMILY STERZINGER

editor-in-chief

Study abroad programs at SIUE allow students to further their learning by taking various kinds of trips around the world.

Ryan Donald, SIUE’s study abroad specialist in the Office of International Affairs, said there are two main types of study abroad programs. There are faculty-led programs and programs run through partners of the university.

“The ones that most of our students use are what will be referred to as either ‘travel study’ or ‘faculty-led programs,’” Donald said. “That’s where a faculty member here at SIUE, or a couple of faculty members are putting together a program, usually taught within their discipline, and those range anywhere from eight days to a full month.”

The other type of program

is run through partners of the university. They can run up to a semester long, and sometimes occur in the summer.

“Students are able to go to over 300 locations around the world where they can take a whole range of courses, internships, field research, all sorts of unique things like that,” Donald said.

Keena Johnson, a junior business administration major from Peoria, Illinois, has been in the second kind of program, spending four months in Granada, a small city in southern Spain. She said her choice of taking this trip was influenced by her minor in Spanish.

“The whole reason why I wanted to come [to Spain] was to become closer to fluency because I knew there’s only a certain amount I can learn from Spanish classes in the United States,” Johnson said. “My ulti-

mate goal for coming here was to learn the language and to be as close to fluency as I possibly could be.”

John Pendergast, a professor in the English department, has teamed up with Johanna Schmitz, a professor in the theater department, to create a program that will allow students to visit England and learn more about William Shakespeare.

“[Schmitz] is currently living in London, so she’s doing research at the Rose Theatre which is a Renaissance theater just across the street from the Globe Theatre,” Pendergast said. “It is a complicated process, especially finding good housing for students, but she’s very good at it, so she’s handling that side.”

The trip will be roughly four weeks, from June 17 to July 15.

“Students will probably

take six credit hours. We’re going to be offering an [Interdisciplinary Studies] course, a theater course and an upper-division open topic English course. But I want to stress this, it doesn’t have to be English majors,” Pendergast said.

The trip will include tours of the tower of London, the British Library, the British Museum and Westminster Abbey. Alongside this, students will attend several show- ings of

Shakespeare’s plays, including at the Globe Theatre, and visit Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace.

Johnson said that if a student is considering studying abroad, they should definitely do it. She faced difficulties in planning, but recommended it despite that.

“It’s only been a little bit that I’ve been here, and I feel like it’s completely worth it. I feel like SIUE doesn’t emphasize the power of study abroad, and I feel like it’s not really given enough credit,” Johnson said.

alestlelive.com PAGE 5 Thursday, 02.23.23
DYLAN HEMBROUGH reporter Saundi Kloeckener asked the audience questions about Native American cultures, including if they had ever been to a pow wow or danced at one. | Chloe Wolfe / The Alestle

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Cougar Controversies

EMILY STERZINGER Editor-in-Chief

GABRIEL BRADY Managing Editor

Do you like the deer on campus?

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Online/Opinion Editor

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Sometimes our teachers seem like those boring people you have to listen to for a couple of hours a week, but they do not just teach us; they do research and projects on the side that students don’t often recognize.

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Professors spend hours teaching different courses all week while making time to grade our work, answer our emails and set hours to help us if we are having trouble with anything. They do all this while maintaining personal lives and completing other job requirements.

Many professors spend almost a decade getting a degree in whatever field they want to teach. They spend so many years learn-

ing all that they can, just to give us their knowledge.

Other professors may also spend years working industry jobs in various fields.

Theresa Pauli, who now teaches in the Mass Communications department, worked in the St. Louis television industry for 30 years. She covered many events, including the Ferguson protests in 2014. Now she works as a broadcast engineer helping manage equipment and teaching students. She also uses her connections in the industry to help students find jobs after graduation.

Besides teaching, many professors are required to do research. They spend time developing studies and writing scholarly

papers or books in order to receive tenure. They put hours of work into these projects while continuing all of their other work.

Some professors take different routes. Candace Hall, who is an Assistant Professor of the School of Education, Health and Human Behavior, recently produced an award-winning documentary. Instead of going along with what is considered normal in academia, she used video production to talk about what she wanted to in a more accessible way.

Lots of professors also spend their time giving students real-world experiences. Across the different departments, professors will spend their time planning trips for their students to get more hands-on learning. These

programs range from learning about the criminal justice system in Ireland and Northern Ireland to surgical missions to Ghana or Honduras.

Our professors do all this work while maintaining their personal lives. Many teachers have families that they need to take care of or other jobs to which they dedicate their time.

So, the next time you are cursing your teacher for assigning you an essay or you start falling asleep in their class, remember they are not just the people you are forced to listen to every week. They have spent so much of their lives learning what they are teaching you right now and they have dedicated their lives to teaching it.

The future will be socialist or it will be sorrow

BRUCE DARNELL sports editor

The modern world we live in is filled with struggle and strife that is directly caused by oppressive forces who are focused more on profit than human life, and the only solution is socialism.

Just recently there has been the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. A train derailment caused harmful chemicals to leak into the water and spread into the air. The ramifications of this disaster are unknown for now, but the area will likely be contaminated long after the initial derailment.

treated, then these disasters will happen more often and cause more damage. How long must we wait until a pilot falls asleep in the cabin because they’ve been given no breaks or a building collapses because workers were rushed to completion?

The only way to prevent future disasters, as well as the impending climate catastrophe caused by terrible mismanagement of environmental protection is to strive towards a socialist society.

The name Alestle is an acronym derived from the names of the three campus locations of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville: Alton, East St. Louis and Edwardsville.

The Alestle is published on Thursdays in print and on Tuesdays online during the fall and spring semesters. A print edition is available every other Wednesday during summer semesters.

For more information, call 618-650-3528. For advertising, email advertising@alestlelive.com.

The cause of this disaster could have been prevented entirely. Railroad workers almost went on strike last November in an attempt to fix the conditions in their workplaces. Congress stopped it, and we are now dealing with their decision. Had their demands been met, it’s likely the situation could have been avoided.

This disaster is just one of many to come. As conditions worsen and workers remain mis-

Socialism is not, as some have put it, capitalism with BandAids. It is not just better welfare programs and higher taxation on the rich. That is social democracy, and it can be just as malignant as regular capitalism — as it still relies on exploitation to function — and will eventually result in the same outcome.

Socialism is the development of a classless society where the workers are the majority ruling force of the society. Right now, society is controlled by a small group of people that own and control the labor of workers and

the places in which they work. These same people are the reason we face impending doom, as their endless pursuit of wealth accumulation and power have put the world on the course for destruction.

To develop a classless society, the ruling group must be oppressed out by the workers. This oppression may sound threatening, but it only really means phasing out the owning class and making them into workers (their biggest fear).

Society becomes classless once the owners are assimilated into the working class, which then becomes the only group in society. After this, the workers of the world will be free to produce whatever is necessary for the furthering of society and for the safety of the people. With no need for profits, useless products won’t be created, nor the waste of thousands of tons of food each year.

People will also no longer view work as something that is merely done for money, which is the way it is now. If you can

imagine a world where you are allowed to pursue your passion without the fear of hunger or homelessness, then you can imagine a socialist society.

Socialism is not your enemy. In reality, it is the only way forward that does not spell out destruction and misery for all. Those that say socialism is your enemy only stand to gain from misleading you.

Anti-socialist ideas allow the owning class to stay in power and continue to exploit not only you, but also the people that you cannot see; the workers in the foreign land that created the product you use in your daily life.

People all over the world are beginning to realize that the enemy is not socialism and that it never has been. The enemy has always been them that have exploited us to no end and have driven the resources out of nearly every mapped part of the world. When everyone starts to realize the reality we live in, then true progress can be made, and there will be no more attempts to bandage a deadly, cancerous growth.

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02.23.23
alestlelive.com PAGE 7 Thursday, 02.23.23

Women’s Basketball ends undefeated EIU’s hot streak

SIUE ended Eastern Illinois University’s 13-game win streak on Saturday.

The game opened with a strong showing from Eastern. They scored 9 points in the first five minutes, with SIUE scoring none. Despite the speed of this buildup, the next minute of the game almost foreshadowed what was to come. It took Eastern 5 minutes to score 9 points, but SIUE scored 7 in less than 90 seconds. The score was 7-9, with four minutes remaining in the first quarter.

As the clock wound down, Eastern doubled their score and then some, with SIUE scoring no more points until senior forward Ajulu Thatha scored a 3-pointer at :11, assisted by freshman guard Macy Silvey.

At the end of the quarter, Eastern had a 12-point lead over SIUE, which was more than double their score. In the first two minutes, Thatha and Eastern both scored a basket and two foul line shots each. A missed 3-pointer from sophomore guard Sofie Lowis gave junior forward Madison Webb the chance for a rebound and a layup in the paint. Eastern followed this with a three-pointer.

Junior forward Olivia Clayton made two shots from the foul line, but Eastern scored a layup shortly after, at 5:57.

SIUE continued to keep up with Eastern, with their lead wavering around 12 points over SIUE. However, things changed around 4:30. Sophomore guard Molly Sheehan assisted senior guard Mikayla Kinnard with a layup. Then, after a quick missed shot from Eastern, Silvey scored a 3-pointer in less than 20 seconds.

Eastern missed two shots at the foul line, but Thatha, who was given two shots immediately after, made both of hers. Across the entire game,

SIUE only missed two foul line shots.. Less than 15 seconds later, she assisted Kinnard with a layup. The score was now 27-35, the closest they had been throughout the game.

SIUE’s scoring run was broken by a single foul line shot from Eastern. However, keeping the pressure on, Silvey scored another 3-pointer at 2:42, with an assist from Lowis.

In the end of the second quarter, Eastern scored a few baskets in an attempt to regain control of the game, but senior guard KK Rodriguez and Kinnard got SIUE some points of their own.

Eastern’ lead had dwindled down to five points. With two quarters to go, the air in the crowd was tense. At 9:35, Eastern scored one bas ket at the foul line, but Thatha and Clayton both had layups roughly half a minute apart to shrink the Eastern lead even more.

At 8:27, Eastern again made one foul line shot, but again, SIUE kept up, with a jump shot from Silvey. The score was now 4443. The next three minutes of the game were a gridlock, with neither side making a basket, but both sides getting chances.

The gridlock culminated in a chaot ic series of multiple foul line shots and baskets from both sides. When the dust cleared, the score was tied at 48 points each, with four minutes remaining in the third quarter.

Eastern scored a foul line shot and a layup to keep their lead going, but Kinnard scored a jump shot. At 2:06, Eastern

scored two more foul shots, but Rodriguez scored two as well right after. Eastern had a 1-point lead, which was broken by a 3-pointer from Lowis, which gave SIUE the lead for the first time in the game.

The victory was brief, as Eastern scored a jump shot less than 30 seconds after, tying the scores again at 55. For the rest of the quarter, the teams were gridlocked once again.

this time, only made one. This let Thatha rebound the ball and open Clayton up for a layup.

The back-and-forth continued, as Eastern tied at 61, but Kinnard brought SIUE to 65 points with two layups. But, again, Eastern scored two baskets to tie it up yet again. There were roughlyfive minutes left, and either team could retake the game.

bounded off of a missed jump shot from Rodriguez and scored a layup. SIUE had a lead that they were determined to keep.

Two foul shots from Eastern tied the game again, but a layup from Kinnard again. Eastern got a third set of chances at the foul line, but

At the 5-minute mark, Eastern had a very strong scoring run, scoring five points in less than a minute. However two 3-pointers from Silvey less than one minute apart gave SIUE a 1-point lead. A jump shot from Thatha and one from Kinnard strengthened the lead. This game was a season-high for Kinnard in points scored. Despite a jump shot at 1:29 and a 3-pointer with less than 20 seconds on the clock, a smattering of foul shots from SIUE kept the lead up, and ended the game with 8277. Eastern’ undefeated conference Chancellor James Minor was present at the game, and once the final buzzer sounded, he stood up from the press table and turned around, motioning for the audience to get to their feet as well to celebratethe triumphant victory.

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After this match, Eastern continued to lose other games against Southeast Missouri State and Kansas City. This brought their conference score to 13-3.

The women’s basketball team’s next game is Thursday at 4 p.m. against University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

contact the editor: sports@alestlelive.com 650-3527 SPORTS alestlelive.com Thursday, 02.23.23 PAGE 8 NEXT WEEK: BASKETBALL SEASON COMES TO A CLOSE
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bas- chaot- Within the first minute of the fourth quarter, Kinnard rebounded off of a missed jump shot East scor Kin season-high Kin ended the 77. Eastern’ undefeated conference run was over. triumphant victory. The women’s team celebrates their 88-72 win against the Eastern Illinois University Panthers. | Chloe Wolfe / The Alestle

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