UNO Driftwood @unodriftwood
Driftwood The community newspaper of the University of New Orleans
@unodriftwood
Volume: 58 Issue: 24 What’s Inside:
INTERESTED IN WORK-STUDY/INTERNSHIPS THIS FALL? VISIT UNO.DRIFTWOOD.EDU FOR MORE INFORMATION
April 22, 2015
driftwood.uno.edu
NO FUNDS NO FUTURE
Former UNO professor currently President and CEO of National WWII Museum Gordon “Nick” Mueller to receive honorary doctorate degree page 3
Find out students’ opinions on the proposed $384/semester fee Students express thoughts on whether SSAFs are the answer to budget cuts page 5
photo by Veronica Mansell
NicZXZxZXz
UNO students travel to Capitol to support higher education
SG President David Teagle spoke to the Board of Legislation page 7
Student Spotlight: Freshman English major is an artist in every sense of the word
Ben Aleshire shares his journey that led him to UNO and the streets of the French Quarter page 9
Men and Women’s tennis play last games before Southland Conference Championship page 10
Christy Lorio, Aviayna Thomas and Anna Gowin Driftwood Editors Around 150 college students gathered on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol on Wednesday, April 15 for a student organized protest during the legislature’s third day of the 2015 session. Higher education funding will be whittled down from $1 billion to a mere $123 million to be divided amongst all of Louisiana’s public institutions. The protest was hosted by Southeastern Louisiana University (SLU) Student Government President Stephanie Travis. She said, “Something needed to be done to bring our demands to the attention of our legislators. With the budget shortfall, due to the decreased oil prices, we knew that this year would be a critical one.” The demonstration brought together student government presidents from schools across Louisiana including Baton Rouge Community College, Grambling State University, Nicholls State University, McNeese, Louisiana State University at Alexandria and the University of New Orleans. The Advocate reported that UNO “appeared to make up a large portion of the crowd” in an April 19 article. UNO students heard about the protest from their teachers, flyers handed out on campus by the Drift-
wood staff, email blasts and Yik Yak. The majority of students wore their school colors and held signs. Travis encouraged students to expand the conversation to social media with the hashtag #NoFundsNoFuture. Protesters were allowed to speak at an Appropriations Committee in order to share their stories with state legislatures. So many students, alumni and supporters flooded the rooms that an overflow room was opened up to accommodate the crowd. Each protester who wished to speak was asked to write their name on a card. When it was their turn, students and faculty were called upon in groups of two and three to come to the stand and share their stories. Several legislators were observed on their cellphones while a steady stream of students made their case for the budget cuts to end. Representative Edward C. “Ted” James II (D) appeared to be napping. UNO SG President David Teagle challenged state representatives to address the current budget situation and to recognize the promise that college students have made to the state. Teagle said, “The fact is that so many times that when there’s a budget shortfall in this state, you are putting the burden literally on the people that are in this room. The burden falls on the students behind me, and the issue is that we feel when we signed up for these institu-
tions, we made a promise. We made a promise with the institution and with the leadership of the state that we would become great Louisiana citizens. And we feel the state made a promise to us that you would educate us and give us those tools to become great Louisiana citizens. And I can tell you, we are doing our best to keep our end of this promise, but we feel that it’s not being met halfway on the other side. We feel that the current environment, the budget cuts previously, and the budget cuts being currently proposed, are a failure on behalf of the state to us. We find that fairly unacceptable.” Ben Aleshire, a UNO freshman English major, said that students did not go to Baton Rouge just to discuss the budget cuts. Aleshire said “We’re basically talking about the destruction of an institution’s ability to function in the way that it should, which is, I think, really humiliating for Louisiana, and I think what we should be here talking about is how much we’re going to raise the budget of higher education of Louisiana, and I know that money doesn’t grow on trees, but I think the answer is to tax the rich.” Adam LeFort, outgoing SG President for NSU and a representative for the Board of University of Louisiana System said, “We are the future leaders of Louisiana, and I know from dealing with the UL system that people have to take classes out of state because classes are being cut and they’re not able to graduate or their graduation has been
pushed back to six years instead of four years...When ya’ll keep cutting after we raise tuition, it’s hurting those programs, not helping them. Just remember that we are the future and to invest in our education.” GSU’s SG President Erik Johnson said, “The state is asking us to do more with less, and by all means we’ve done just that. But now they’re asking us to do more with nothing.” Johnson noted that GSU’s library is severely understaffed- four librarians serve 4,000 students. Johnson said, “When I go into the library, I struggle to find a librarian. You know, sometimes you stay in the library two or three hours when I only had to be in there 30 or 45 minutes because I don’t have the help of a library technician.” Travis stressed that it’s important for students to participate despite the inconvenience of missing class. She said, “It’s critical that students understand the larger picture. Yes, you might miss that one class to attend a protest at the capitol. However, you might not have a university next year. We need to continue to stay on the minds of our representatives, to ensure that they vote in our favor.” She encouraged students to write, call and email legislators if they were unable to attend No Funds No Future. Travis said, “ It takes three minutes, but if everyone gives three minutes, then that’s enough for them hear us all day.”