Ethos Spring 2015

SPRING 2015

Recognizing the most under-reported crime on campus

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TOC THOUGHTS

5 | Editor’s Letter: It’s time to wake up 6 | Behind the Badge: Getting pulled over—from the perspective of the police 32 | The F Word: A Brit’s take on feminism 34 | Where are they now?: Stories of successful Iowa State grads

ON CAMPUS

13 | Fan-addicts: A look into die-hard sports fans’ love of the game - or team 26 | America 101: International students’ first step into going to school in America 36 | Bad Teachers: There are some people who just shouldn’t teach 37 | WDYTYA: Vonnie: Insight into an entomology enthusiast

AROUND AMES LIFESTYLE

10 | The Ames Beat: How to join the local music scene 7 | Watch your mouth: Some words aren’t always what they appear to be 8 | Roadtrip!: Helpful tips before you hit the highway 14 | Turning the Tassle: The reality of post-grad life 16 | Obsessed: When being “so OCD”is more than a misused expression 24 | He said, Ze said: Why gender pronouns matter 30 | The Odd one Out: Personal account of being Atheist in a religious town

PASSION

20 | Sexual Assault: What this campus crime looks like at Iowa State 28 | Broken Promises: The realities of marrying young

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EXECUTIVE BOARD

SPRING

Editors-in-Chief: Kelly Schiro & Traer Schon Managing Editor: Elaine Godfrey Articles Editor: Andreas Haffar Managing Online Editor: Rachel Vipond Online Editor: Kelsey Rindfleisch

2015

Copy Editor: Jessica Van Wyk Visuals Director: Tomhas Huhnke Assistant Visuals Director: Meredith Kestel Creative Directors: Emerald Klauer & Alixandria Collins

STAFF

Junior Creative Director: Mikayla Larsen Social Media & Public Relations Director: Kristen DeCosta Advertising Director: Kaitlin Little

WRITERS

Alex Ivanisevic Zachary Neuendorf Varad Diwate Celeste Welshhons Coreen Robinson Jessica Tull Sam Chantarasak Lewis Moar Emily Eppens

PHOTOGRAPHERS

McClane Gill Charlie Coffey Julie Doyle Isaac Biehl Korrie Bysted Jonathan Laczniak Kyle Kephart Sam Greene

DESIGNERS

Renae Meines Amber Klootwyk Nailah Fitzgerald Mackenzie Geary Ryan Eiffert Mitchell Yoon Stephanie Breen Kaley Lempke

SOCIAL MEDIA & PUBLIC RELATIONS 4

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Sammie Pearsall Tyler Ford

LETTER FROM THE

EDITORS

We’ve all been there—stumbling out of bed and slowly trudging through campus, half-asleep, trying to make it to that dreaded 8 a.m. class. We’d skip it, but the professor takes attendance, and we’ve already used up all three of our allotted absences. On our way to class, we can be pretty oblivious. Jesus himself could be cartwheeling across Lake Laverne (or rollerblading through campus) and we wouldn’t notice in our early morning dreariness.

But being tired isn’t the only reason we miss things. Sometimes, we can get so comfortable in our own routines, we lose sight of the bigger picture—just because everything is cozy and familiar in our Netflix-watching blanket fort doesn’t mean it’s the same everywhere else.

As college students, we can get so wrapped up in our own busy lives that we inadvertently tune out important things happening right here on campus. Social issues, mental health problems and even our own futures can seem like far away topics that don’t affect us in our safe, Iowa State community.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Iowa State is a diverse place, and it’s important for students to open their eyes to things happening around them—both good and bad. As students, we tend to underestimate the positive change we can affect if we just “wake up” by learning about and getting involved with issues that affect us every day.

If we can educate ourselves and learn what sexual assault actually looks like—that it is often committed by a friend or acquaintance— we may be able to recognize it and help prevent it. If we learn more about mental health issues and anxiety, maybe we would be more considerate of what others are going through, and think twice before we describe ourselves as being “So OCD.” If we start planning for and thinking about our professional futures now, we may have a better chance to find a job we enjoy that’s actually in our field of study.

If you’ve ever watched a PSA, you know that “together we can make a difference.” It’s a cheesy, cliché and overused line, sure—but it’s true.

There are now almost 35,000 students at Iowa State. That’s a lot of people who can do a lot of good—even if most of them are probably in line at Panda right now. If we take the time to learn about the issues and problems affecting our peers, we can make our campus a better, safer and more compassionate place.

In this issue of Ethos, we tried to highlight the issues often overlooked by Iowa State students. We hope you find these stories interesting and informative—if they inspire you to take action, that’s even better. Consider reading this issue of Ethos your “attendance point.” You’ll have the information, but it’s up to you to decide what to do with it.

It’s not easy to heal society’s many ills, but waking up is half the battle.

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QUICKIES

BY ETHOS STAFF DESIGN RENAE MEINES

Behind the Badge Getting pulled over is a two-sided experience

BY WILL DODDS

PHOTO KORRIE BYSTED

You’re driving down the street, and flashing red and blue lights appear in your rear view mirror. Time to get pulled over, or as the police call it a “traffic stop.”

You were probably speeding or forgot to put your headlights on. Thank your personal deity that you haven't had a drink. You sink in your seat—the night just went from great to horrible.

Meanwhile—in the car behind you— someone like ISU Police Officer Anthony Greiter puts on his brights to make sure you’re the only one in the car. He turns his tires to the left in case you drive off and he needs to make a getaway.

Then he gets out of his car, uncertain of whether he will survive the encounter.

“We’re approaching an unknown vehicle,” Greiter says. “We don't know what's inside, we don't know who’s inside. It's actually one of the more dangerous things we do in our job.”

Being pulled over is a two-person experience, and while most people know what it’s like to be pulled over, it’s hard for many to understand what police have to go through.

“My goal at the end of every day is to go home—my goal is to go home alive and well,” says Greiter.

As fellow ISU Police Officer Keith Varner says, “every traffic stop is different.”

Sometimes he just pulls someone over and they talk. Other times, he has to chase drivers into the woods. Once, Officer Varner had to chase down someone who ran into the wooded area by the Memorial Union and down into the brook.

“He tries to crawl out of the creek and comes right at me. I pull my taser out, point it at him, and I told him to get the ground,” Varner explains. “At first he didn't want to listen to me. Luckily, I was able to talk him out of the creek, up on to some level ground and get him handcuffed.”

“Once when a person failed the breathalyzer test, his excuse was he ate an entire bottle of Jack Daniel’s BBQ Sauce.”

There are areas where there are more accidents than others; police call them “target areas.” When a target area is identified, more policemen will be placed there. These places include several intersections on Duff and Lincoln Way. The Ames Police Department often posts on social media ahead of time as to where police will be. They try to pull people over in a safe and well-lit area so both you and the officer feel comfortable.

When the police approach a car, they look for suspicious actions called “furtive movement” before they reach the car. Things The Ames Police Department allows citizens to go on ride-alongs. During this ride-along an officer pulled over a vehicle for a problem with their taillight.

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like looking underneath the seat, going through the glovebox or reaching into the back seat signals to an officer that you may be looking for a gun or hiding drugs.

Other times, it’s more innocent.

“The driver was speeding and his wife was pregnant—in labor—and they were were making their way to the hospital,” says Greiter. He immediately called an ambulance that made it in time to take them to the hospital, letting them off the hook.

Luckily, Ames isn’t a big city with crime running rampant, which allows Ames police to be more personal during a traffic stop.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions—it’s best to understand what is going on.

“It’s like when you go to the doctor and don’t ask what your symptoms mean,” says Varner.

However, don't try and make what Greiter calls “entertaining excuses.” Once when a person failed the breathalyzer test, his excuse was he ate an entire bottle of Jack Daniel’s BBQ Sauce.

If you do think the police officer is harassing you because of your gender or race, Ames police has a very thorough system of accountability. All traffic stops are video recorded and officers in Ames wear audio recorders as well. It’s all archived, and if someone complains to the Ames Police Department, four different high-ranked officers review the audio and video.

Now comes the bad part: getting the ticket or warning citation. A warning citation is just that—a warning. No fines, and your record stays clean. Ames Police gave out a combined 4,761 citations and warning citations in 2014—about 37 percent of them were warning citations.

“My goal when I make a traffic stop is to alter behavior. When I think a behavior is going to be changed with a warning, that’s all I need to do,” says Greiter.

So you get a verbal warning, the officer says goodnight, and you both drive away safe and sound. You may even want to thank the officer when all is said and done.

Watch Your Mouth Navigating the English language

BY ANDREAS HAFFAR Interesting words with different meanings that you may have been unaware of from around the world.

Dog: We all know what a dog is. Man’s best friend. The loyal, Frisbee-fetching canine companion. Pot-smoking rapper who spells it with two g’s. Even “dawgs” are meant as your buddies. This is in America, however.

In places like Egypt, China, India and many others, this is meant as an insult and a derogatory term. In Egypt, calling someone a “dog” (or kelb in Arabic) is calling them “dirty” or “filthy”, as they were considered this before domestication.

However, this is a country that still holds cats in a higher regard.

Thongs:

When you think of thongs, you may picture lacy, sexy underwear with a g-string passing through the buttocks, typically worn by women (and men). Down Under, however, thongs aren’t as arousing. In Australia, “thongs” are sandals or what we and the New Zealanders would call “flip-flops”—with the thong part splitting the first and second toe.

Bae:

Today in America, “bae” is used as a term of endearment by puberty-stricken teens and in songs by Pharrell Williams, meaning “sweetheart” or “baby.” The sad—yet humorous—reality is that the Danes don’t use this word in a sweet and loving way.

In fact, people in Denmark use it for the opposite. In Danish “bæ” means “poop”—or a more explicit way of saying the equivalent to “shit” here in America.

Pissed:

This one can have a few different meanings.

In America, to be “pissed off” is to be mildly annoyed or frustrated about something. The verb “to piss” or that you “pissed” is to pee.

For example, “Husbands don’t leave the seat up after they piss; otherwise their wives will be pissed.” Glad we covered that. Across the pond though, this isn’t what it means. In the U.K. “pissed” is a term for being “drunk” or “intoxicated.” Another way it’s used is for teasing and making jokes, called “taking the piss.” For example, “The guys were so pissed after a night out at the bar, and a lot of them were taking the piss out of George that night.”

Heffer/Heifer:

The term “heifer” comes from Old English but still lingers in parts of the American Midwest and in other countries such as New Zealand and Canada. In environments such as certain farms or in the country, “heifer” is used as a noun for a young baby calf under the age of three, or it can be used as an adjective, meaning “full of health” and “a young cow.” But if you find yourself in somewhere such as New Jersey, you’ll be on the wrong end of a whip-like slap to the face or a devastating uppercut. “Heffer” here is used as an insult and means “hefty” or “large.” It’s similar to calling a woman a cow—just don’t do it.

Knocked Up:

This also differs in meaning depending on whether you find yourself in the United States or the United Kingdom. While it is widely accepted by Americans as “to impregnate” or “get pregnant,” The British refer to this term as “woken up” although it’s commonly used as a term for “banging on someone’s door” and “doing what you can with what you have.” For example, “I was pretty low on food but I knocked up a few condiments and some noodles to make a somewhat edible dinner.”

DON’T BE THE PERSON

WHO

Thinks working for their parents is an “internship” Is “so changed” by their experience abroad

Tells people about their workout Takes credit for someone else’s joke

Buys a pet and then gives it back

Eats Panda Express in class Is a loud typer

Spoils a TV show on purpose Brags about how little sleep they got

Uses “bikini” and “body” in the same sentence

Wears a cut-off bro tank (no one needs to see your nipple hair) Is gluten-free by choice

Assigns homework during dead week

Doesn’t use a turning signal

Is an employee of ISU Parking Puts an apostrophe on all plural word’s

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ROAD TRIP! A guide to four-wheeled fun

BY ALEKS IVANISEVIC

DESIGN STEPHANIE BREEN

1 Grab the Squad Sure, taking a long drive alone can be relaxing, but being alone on a full-length road trip can push you to insanity. When planning a road trip, it’s a good idea to go with your friends. Be selective in who you choose to travel with. Make sure you get along with everyone for the most part because you will be in a confined space for an extended amount of time. Road tripping with friends makes for better company and better memories. So, gather your squad, and get your show on the road!

2 Plan Ahead!

This is by far the most important part of a road trip. After you have chosen your destination, get some maps and a GPS and start planning which routes you will be taking. Nothing would ruin the excitement of driving to an awesome vacation destination like getting lost along the way… unless, of course, that is the type of adventure you are looking for—then by all means, go and let your wanderlust consume you!

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4 Watch the clock 3 Check yourself before you wreck yourself Another important thing to do before setting off on your journey is to get your car checked. Getting lost while on your road trip is one thing, but having your car break down is another crappy problem altogether. Take the extra time to have a mechanic look at your car—you don’t want to be sitting on the side of the road thinking to yourself, “Coulda, shoulda, woulda, but I didn’t.”

It would be a good idea to know how long the entire road trip will take you and when you will have time to take rest stops. Arriving fashionably late to a party is cool, but shortening your vacation time because you couldn’t keep track of it is just dumb.

Depending on how long the road trip is, decide when you will rotate driving with your friends—especially in the evening, because driving can get dangerous, and having a sleepy driver won’t make it any safer.

5 Don’t break the piggy bank Manage your money wisely. Try to not overspend on food—yes, fast food can be unhealthy, but it will be cheaper than the cost of a sit-down restaurant. Also, try to save money on lodging if your trip will take longer than a day. A five-star hotel is probably not necessary. Perhaps you can even check if you know anyone who lives nearby that you could stay with. You may not have been the biggest fan of your Aunt Betty growing up, but suddenly you’ll be thankful for her and the fact that she lives in the middle of bumble-fuck Wyoming and is offering you her guest bedroom.

7 “Are we there yet?”

6 Trunk Tetris Pack wisely. Remember, don’t go overboard with how much you pack for your trip because it’s all going into a very crowded car with many other bags and people. Limit how much you and your squad can bring, or you’ll find yourselves playing tetris in the trunk.

Boredom. The true enemy of any road-tripper.

Avoid being bored on your next road trip with a few creative activities. While traveling across a few states, chances are you’ll drive by some local monuments. For example—as you can imagine— people flock to see the Iowa 80 Truck Stop (the largest truck stop in the world), off of I-80 Exit 284. Places like this are all across America, so do your research. Websites like Roadtrippers.com (there’s an app for that!) can help with planning the ultimate map for your road trip, complete with attractions you must see. So stop on by, take some pictures, and make some memories!

Don’t underestimate the power of a great playlist.

Listening to some upbeat music during your long drive can make time roll by faster. Also, play some good old-fashioned road trip games like I Spy or 21 Questions.

Whatever you do, make the most out of the time you spend with your squad out on the open road!

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The Ames

BEAT

Entering the local music scene.

BY CELESTE WELSHONS DESIGN RYAN EIFFERT PHOTO JONATHAN LACZNIAK AND MEREDITH KESTEL

Echosmith Echosmithperforms performsininthe the Great GreatHall Hallat atthe theMemorial Memorial Union UnionininWinter Winter2015.

2015.

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Becoming Becominginvolved involvedwith withthe theAmes Amesmusic music scene scenemight mightsound soundaabit bitdifficult difficultat atfirst, first,but but ififyou yousimply simplygo goto toaafew fewshows showsaround aroundtown, town, you youmay maystart startnetworking networkingand andmaybe maybeeven even picking pickingup upband bandmembers membersbefore beforeyou youknow knowit. it.

Nate NateLogsdon Logsdonisisthe thePresident Presidentof ofMaximum Maximum Ames AmesRecords, Records,the theco-founder co-founderof ofthe the Maximum MaximumAmes AmesMusic MusicFestival Festivaland andone oneof of the theco-owners co-ownersof ofthe theIowa IowaMusic MusicStore.

Store.One One of ofthe theother otherco-owners co-ownersof ofthe theIowa IowaMusic Music Store StoreisisBryon BryonDudley, Dudley,who whoisisalso alsoone oneof of the thepeople peoplein incharge chargeof ofNova NovaLabs, Labs,another another Ames Amesrecord recordlabel. label.

Both BothLogsdon Logsdonand andDudley Dudleyhave havebeen been involved involvedin inthe theAmes Amesmusic musicscene scenefor formany many years yearsas asboth bothmusicians musiciansand andbusinessmen. businessmen.

They Theyhave haveaagreat greatdeal dealof ofknowledge knowledgeon onhow how to tobecome becomeinvolved involvedin inAmes’ Ames’music musicscene scene from fromboth bothaabusiness businessand andaaperformer’s performer’s perspective. perspective.

According Accordingto toLogsdon Logsdonand andDudley, Dudley,the the main mainway wayto tostart startgetting gettingacquainted acquaintedwith with the theAmes Amesscene sceneisisto togo goto toaashow showand and experience experienceit. it.

“I “Iwould wouldrecommend recommendgoing goingto toshows—that shows—that would wouldbe bethe thetop topthing thingIIwould wouldrecommend. recommend.

That’s That’swhere whereyou’re you’regoing goingto tomeet meetother other musicians musiciansand andpeople peoplewho whoset setup upshows,” shows,” Logsdon Logsdonsays. says.“Those “Thoseare arethe thefolks folksthat thatare are going goingto tobe beyour yourcontacts contactsfor forsetting settingup upyour your own ownshows.” shows.”

Local Localshows showsare areaagreat greatplace placeto tonetwork networkor or even evenfind findpotential potentialband bandmembers. members.Another Another great greatplace placeto tolook lookfor forlike-minded like-mindedpeople people isisat atan anopen openmic micnight. night.There Thereare areopen-mic open-mic nights nightsevery everySunday Sundayat atthe theIowa IowaMusic MusicStore Store and andon onvarious variousTuesday Tuesdaynights nightsthroughout throughout the thesemester semesterat atthe theMaintenance MaintenanceShop Shopin inthe the Memorial MemorialUnion.

Union.

“I “Iknow knowyou youcan cando dothings thingslike likeCraigslist Craigslist or orsome someonline onlinead ador orthrow throwititout outthere thereon on social socialmedia mediaififyou’re you’relooking lookingfor forpeople,” people,” Dudley Dudleysays. says.“The “Thebetter betterway wayto tonarrow narrowitit down downto topeople peoplein inyour yourarea areaisisjust justfinding findingan an open openmic micto togo goto.” to.”

“A “Alot lotof ofthose thosepeople peoplearen’t aren’tplaying playingin in bands, bands,so sothey theyreally reallyaren’t aren’tattached attachedto toother other musicians. musicians.Outside Outsideof ofthat, that,[you [youcould] could] maybe maybeput putup upaaflier flierat ataamusic musicstore, store,””he hesays. says.

Once Onceyou youhave haveyour yourband bandmembers members gathered—or gathered—oryou’ve you’vedecided decidedto togo gosolo— solo— the thenext nextstep stepto togetting gettinginvolved involvedisisbooking booking some someshows showsaround aroundtown. town.Some Someestablished established venues venuesaround aroundAmes Amesthat thatroutinely routinelybook book shows showsare areDG’s DG’sTap TapHouse, House,Zeke’s Zeke’sand andthe the Iowa IowaMusic MusicStore.

Store.

“I’d “I’dsay saypretty prettymuch muchany anyvenue venuehas has somewhere somewhereeither eitheron ontheir theirwebsite website or orFacebook Facebookpage pagethat thatlists listscontact contact information,” information,”Logsdon Logsdonsays. says.“Trading “Tradingshows shows isisaagood goodway wayto toget getin inat atnew newvenues.” venues.”He He

recommends recommendshaving havingaafriend friendset setup upaashow showfor for you youat ataavenue venuethat thatthey theyusually usuallyplay, play,and andin in return returnset setone oneup upfor forthem themat atyour yourusual usualvenue. venue.

in inAmes Amesalone—Maximum alone—MaximumAmes AmesRecords, Records, Nova NovaLabs Labsand andWorker WorkerBee BeeRecords.

Records.They Theyare are all alldifferent differentin inwhat whatexactly exactlythey theyoffer. offer.

IfIfyou youdon’t don’tfeel feelthat thatyou youare areready readyto toplay playat at an anestablished establishedvenue venueyet, yet,anywhere anywherecan canbe be transformed transformedinto intoaavenue. venue.Logsdon Logsdonmentions mentions that thatyou youcould coulduse useyour yourgarage garageor orliving living room, room,too. too.

“If “Ifyou youfeel feellike likeyour youralbum albumneeds needssome somekind kind of ofsupport supportlike likefrom fromaalabel labelor orsomething something like likethat, that,the thelabels labelshere herein intown townare arevery very independent. independent.They Theydon’t don’tprovide provideaalot lotof of resources resourcestypically, typically,other otherthan thanassisting assistingin in the theprocess processof ofmarketing marketingand anddistributing distributingthe the album. album.It’s It’smore moreof ofaavehicle vehicleto tomarket marketititand and distribute distributeititmore moreheavily,” heavily,”Logsdon Logsdonsays. says.

One Oneof ofthe thebig bigmistakes mistakesnew newbands bandsmake make when whenplaying playingtheir theirfirst firstfew fewshows showsisis overestimating overestimatingwhat whatequipment equipmentwill willbe be provided providedat atthe thevenue. venue.

“When “Whenyou youshow showup upfor foraashow, show,be be prepared preparedfor foranything anythingas asmuch muchas asyou you possibly possiblycan. can.Most Mostvenues venueswill willhave havethe thePA PA (public (publicaddress) address)system systemand andstuff stufflike likethat that figured figuredout, out,but butififyou youhave haveany anyspecialized specialized equipment, equipment,[make [makesure sureyou youhave haveit],” it],”Dudley Dudley says. says.“If “Ifyou youhave haveunique uniquegear, gear,you youneed needto to have havethe thecables cablesto toconnect connectititup.” up.”

“If you want to work with bands, you just need to go to shows.”

Now Nowthat thatyou youhave haveplayed playedsome someshows shows and andwritten writtenaafew fewsongs, songs,releasing releasingaademo demo wouldn’t wouldn’tbe beaabad badidea. idea.Many Manybeginning beginning musicians musiciansmistakenly mistakenlythink thinkthat thatin inorder order to toget gettheir theirsongs songscirculating circulatingthey theyshould should release releaseeverything everythingthrough throughaalabel labelor or record recordititin inan anactual actualrecording recordingstudio. studio.But But according accordingto totwo twoguys guysthat thatrun runlabels, labels,this this isn’t isn’tthe thebest bestfirst firstoption. option.

“There “Thereare areprofessional professionalstudios studiosthat thatare are really reallygood goodand andreally reallyaffordable affordablein inAmes Ames like likeThe TheSpacement.

Spacement.There’s There’salso alsoAlexander Alexander Recording RecordingKompany,” Kompany,”Logsdon Logsdonsays. says.“It’s “It’s not notvery veryexpensive, expensive,and andthey theyhave haveaalot lotof of good goodresources resourcesthere. there.On Ontop topof ofthat, that,aalot lot of ofpeople peoplerecord recordtheir theirown ownstuff stuffat athome home because becauserecording recordingequipment equipmenthas hasactually actually become becomeaalot lotmore moreaccessible.” accessible.”

IfIfyou’re you’relooking lookingto torelease releaseaademo, demo,ititmight might be beaagood goodidea ideato tomake makehand handcopies—copies copies—copies that thatyou youdo dowithout withouthelp helpfrom fromsomeone someone with withprofessional professionalexperience. experience.IfIfyou youwant want to torelease releaseaademo demobut butdon’t don’twant wantthe thehassle hassle of ofmaking makingphysical physicalcopies, copies,the theonline onlinesite, site, Band BandCamp, Camp,isisworth worthchecking checkingout. out.The The website websiteisisfree, free,and andyou youcan canchoose chooseto toeither either charge chargemoney moneyor orgive giveaway awayyour yourdemo demofor for free. free.IfIfyou’re you’relooking lookingto torelease releaseaafull fullalbum, album, Dudley Dudleysays saysthat thattalking talkingto toaalocal locallabel labelmight might not notbe beaabad badidea. idea.

“Part “Partof ofwhat what[Nova [NovaLabs] Labs]prides pridesourselves ourselves on onisishelping helpingpeople peoplethrough throughthat thatwhole whole process. process.Some Somepeople peoplewill willshow showup upand andtalk talk to tous, us,and andall allthey theyhave haveisissongs,” songs,”Dudley Dudley says. says.“They “Theydon’t don’tknow knowanything anythingabout about recording recordingor orany anyof ofthe thesteps stepsfrom fromthere there on. on.There Thereare arealso alsopeople peoplewho whoalready alreadyhave have ititrecorded, recorded,mixed mixedand andmastered masteredand andthe the artwork artworkdone. done.We Wejust justwalk walkthem themthrough throughaa release releaseschedule.” schedule.”

That Thatpretty prettywell wellcovers coversentering enteringthe thescene scene from fromaamusician’s musician’sperspective, perspective,but butwhat what about aboutfrom fromaabusiness businessperspective? perspective?

Bands Bandsneed needmanagers managersand andpeople peopleto tohelp help them themorganize organizeand andbook bookshows. shows.IfIfthis this sounds soundsinteresting interestingto toyou, you,once onceagain, again,the the first firststep stepisisgetting gettinginvolved. involved.

“If “Ifyou youwant wantto towork workwith withbands, bands,you youjust just need needto togo goto toshows. shows.There’s There’snot notreally reallyaatrick trick to tobecoming becominginvolved involvedwith withit,” it,”Logsdon Logsdonsays. says.

“Or, “Or,ififyou youhave haveaafriend friendthat thatisisinvolved involvedin inaa band, band,and andyou youwant wantto tomanage managethem themor orhelp help them, them,just justgo gofor forit. it.Talk Talkto tothem, them,ask askififthey they want wantthat thatkind kindof ofsupport supportand andthen, then,just justtry try your yourhand handat atit.” it.”

Maybe Maybeyou youwant wantto tobe beinvolved involvedwithin withinthe the scene, scene,but butperforming performingmusic musicisn’t isn’tyour your thing thingand andneither neitherisisbusiness. business.Volunteering Volunteering isisaagreat greatalternative. alternative.One Oneof ofthe thebigger bigger shows showsthat thatwill willbe bein inneed needof ofvolunteers volunteersisis the theMaximum MaximumAmes AmesMusic MusicFestival, Festival,which which will willbe beback backnext nextfall. fall.In Inprevious previousyears, years, volunteers volunteershave havewalked walkedaway awaywith withfree free t-shirts, t-shirts,access accessto tosome someof ofthe theshows showsand and some someother otherperks perksas aswell. well.

Becoming Becominginvolved involvedin inthe theAmes Amesmusic music scene sceneisiseasy. easy.IfIfyou’re you’reinterested interestedin inplaying playing shows showsin inAmes, Ames,or orfinding findingother otherlike likeminded minded musicians, musicians,try trygoing goingto tosome someshows showsor or an anopen openmic micnight. night.There Thereare areabundant abundant resources resourcesfor forAmes Amesmusicians musicianswhether whether they theybe berecording recordingstudios, studios,record recordlabels labelsor or venues. venues.Hop Hopon onyour yourlaptop laptopand andstart startlooking looking and andbooking! booking!

To To beat beat continued... continued...

So Soyou’ve you’vedecided decidedthat thatyou youactually actuallyhave have enough enoughmaterial materialto torelease releaseyour yourfirst firstfull full album. album.There Thereare arethree threedifferent differentrecord recordlabels labels

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BEAT continued...

1

4

2

5

3

6 1. Gardens & Villa at the M-Shop in Fall 2014.

2. SKATERS at the M-Shop in Fall 2014.

3. Stick Figure at the M-Shop in Fall 2014.

4. Jake Kemble of Kick at the Iowa Music Store in Winter 2015 5. Ursa Bones at the Iowa Music Store in Fall 2014 during Maximum Ames Music Festival.

6. Minneapolis band Kick at the Iowa Music Store in Winter 2015.

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FAN-ADDICTS

BY ZACHARY NEUENDORF PHOTO SAM GREENE

DESIGN KALEY LEMPKE

When It’s More Than Just A Game

Imagine the entire world wakes up tomorrow, and the idea of sports—the memories of wins and losses and the tossing balls—has vanished. Besides viewing the massive stadiums planted everywhere as playpens inserted by extraterrestrial forces, what would change?

For starters, located all around your house would be sports paraphernalia of humanized animals striking warrior poses, looking vicious and unforgiving. Feeling uneasy, you would move them into an empty closet, lay a blanket over them or completely dispose of them, fearful of what they represent.

Next, you would cruise through your recent texts and notice something—you recognize the names, but how the hell do you know these people, since most of your relationships hitherto have been formed thanks to the bonding nature of sporting events?

Beginning in elementary school, sports play a central role in the development of kids’ and their parents’ social lives. And the professional games are running nonstop in the household, because in the words of Tyler Gilbreath, a sophomore in agricultural biochemistry and microbiology, “Sports are important because they give the average person something to root for.”

This is the root of fandom that is ingrained in our culture—so much so in Gilbreath’s case that out of the roughly 200 games hosted at ISU since Gilbreath was in second grade, he has attended 179 of them.

The way he defines fandom—for himself at least—is “going to games and sticking through with them. It’s sticking with the programs and cheering through the Chizik era, may he never win another game, and McDermott years and then going crazy in the Hoiberg and Rhoads era,” Gilbreath says referring to past Iowa State coaches.

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Is the degree to which sports has overcome people’s lives—for example, when Iowa State students waited outside to purchase tickets for the Kansas game this season three nights ahead of time—necessary, and does it even make sense? Basically, fans are rooting for a jersey, what that represents and an institution more than the actual human beings on the field because the humans are dispensable, in the eyes of the fan. And the objective for each team is to win the championship—but there can only be one team that wins. It’s likely that it will not be yours, and you’ll be ending the season with disappointment.

The small wins along the way must be enough to satisfy the fan’s thirst to return season after season. And even if you lose, you lose together. So, in a way, despite the crushing blow of a loss, it is ultimately therapeutic that the disappointment with the fandom, a team or a family in itself.

However, when a team loses, can a fan take their dissatisfaction too far? Jamie Highland, a sophomore in agriculture and society, believes that when it comes to sports “a person [probably] never takes their love too far.”

But Gilbreath remembers an instance where maybe an opponent’s particular fan took his love and used it to act out when his team lost.

“The Kansas State basketball fan bumping into the Kansas basketball player after

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Magic. during

Kansas State beat Kansas [this past season] was too far,” he says.

But he sympathizes with the passion.

“Many fans, including myself, would like to do that to a player we hate—I was and still am so invested that I still read everything and anything I can on ISU basketball.

Because of all this, I take all losses personally, and after each loss I do get upset, sad and angry for a couple hours after the game,” he says.

Both Highland and Tyler unabashedly place their quality of life in the context of sports.

“Being a fan for me has had its up and downs, with good seasons and bad seasons,” Highland says.

Gilbreath can pinpoint specific periods and how his attitude fluctuated accordingly.

“Being a fan can either boost a good mood or a horrible mood. The McDermott years were not that good to my wellbeing, but in the era of The Mayor, life has been good,” he says.

All the bad years taken into account, Gilbreath cannot imagine sports subtracted from his world.

“They have played a central role in my life.

Without them I do not know what my life would look like—I probably could be on a second Ph.D. in some biochemistry field,” he says.

For both Gilbreath and Highland, imagining life without sports—all its burdens but mostly all its treasures—would simply be unimaginable, unrecognizable and not worth getting out of bed for. No regrets.

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Turning the TASSEL WHEN THE ADVENTURE ENDS AND THE REAL WORLD BEGINS

BY TRAER SCHON

DESIGN MACKENZIE GEARY

We go to college with the hopes of earning a degree that will one day get us a job.

Although for most of our four (or more) years here, that seems like a distant and far-off achievement, but in our last year we eventually succumb to the unavoidable and begin the search. After the endless preaching from advisors, the non-stop flood of emails from Career Services and the relentless pimping of successful alumni in our department, we may start to get the idea that our dream career is just one great cover letter away. It can feel like getting hired is inevitable—if everyone is talking about it, surely it can’t be that hard to find a job?

But what if it is? What if we walk off the commencement stage with a piece of paper worth four years and $30,000 in student loans and are still uncertain about our professional future? For some recent Iowa State graduates, that is exactly the reality they faced.

One of these graduates is Kara Landhuis, who graduated in May 2014 with a degree in advertising. After beginning her job search in January, she was unemployed until she received a part-time job with the Riverside Bible Camp in August. Landhuis says she was surprised by how long the process took.

“It was kind of hard,” she says. “I was just like, ‘How long is this gonna take?’”

When Landhuis was looking for employment, she found that hearing back from companies she applied to wasn’t always a guarantee.

“Waiting to hear from employers was really hard,” she says. “If it’s an online application or something, you sometimes won’t even hear anything at all—even if they [don’t want to hire you], they just don’t say anything.”

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Mark Hamilton, a May 2014 graduate who majored in technical communications, found the process of job searching equally frustrating.

“I had no idea it was going to be quite this difficult to get a ‘regular’ job,” he says.

Although Hamilton recently got what he calls his “dream job” as an Instructional Media Specialist at the University of Iowa, he spent a lot of time after graduation doing several other jobs, including work for his father, freelance videography and substitute teaching. He says that he also had the additional challenge of seeking employment with his relatively uncommon technical communication major and unique interests, which include videography and E-learning (developing electronic educational technology for use in classrooms).

“If you have a unique major you may have more of a problem,” he explains. “I would [look at] jobs, and I would be qualified for them in every respect but I didn’t have the right major or degree title.”

He also mentioned that, as a general rule, most companies don’t want to consider relocating you, and opt for local hires— most of the roughly 100 out-of-state jobs he applied for didn’t even call him back.

Hamilton says that the employment gap that appeared in his resume, which was due partly to the wording he used, was brought up in some interviews as “concerning” to his potential employers.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” he says. “You can’t get a job because you haven’t had a job, and so you can’t get a job to make it look like you have had a job.”

In the months after graduation, both Hamilton and Landhuis became accustomed to the tedious, often unrewarding process of job hunting.

According to Landhuis, finding employment can be a job in itself.

“For those three months it was just endless amounts of time on the computer, Google searching, looking at the newspaper, Craigslist, everything,” she recalls.

Hamilton went through a similar process, although he got more and more dedicated as time went on.

“I started out being pretty chill,” he says, recalling that he felt confident knowing he had some video gigs lined up. “I would go online every couple of days and find 10 or so jobs I might be interested in or capable of doing.”

As the weeks went by, his search started to become more organized and intense.

“By the end of the summer, I was doing Excel spreadsheets and splitting up my job search into five different categories of jobs that I might meet the qualifications for,” he remembers.

He says he got to the point where he would do a job search everyday in which he would type out the location, application date, job description, company and a link to the job in his spreadsheet, which he had broken up into four different categorical tabs: writing, instructional design, video and photography. Hamilton says he still has the spreadsheet, which is filled with almost 2,000 jobs for which he applied or planned on applying. He says this is a good habit to get into regardless as it helps to show you’ve been searching for jobs in the event that you need to declare forbearance on your loans.

While the process was frustrating and at times they considered giving up, both Hamilton and Landhuis decided they didn’t want to pursue jobs out of their field after spending tens of thousands of dollars for education.

Landhuis considered doing other jobs to fill her time, but opted instead to focus on her career search, fearing that an irrelevant part-time job would distract her from finding a better job.

“I knew that if I took work in a coffee shop or retail it would be harder or maybe take longer to get work in my field,” says Landhuis.

Now employed with jobs in their field of study, Landhuis and Hamilton are, shockingly, in the minority. According to a study done by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in 2010 just 27 percent of college graduates had jobs that were closely related to the degree they had earned.

Hailey Gross is a December 2014 graduate of Iowa State who currently exists in that other, discouragingly large 73 percent.

After graduating with an English literature major, she now has a job at international avionics and information technology systems giant Rockwell-Collins as an Engineering Project Assistant. Gross graduated a semester early and sees this 6-month job, which she took with no prior engineering or coding experience, as a chance to figure out what she’s doing—while earning a paycheck. The job is in her hometown of Cedar Rapids, and she says it was the “easy choice.”

“When you’re so busy with school, that feels like it matters more,” she says. “I didn’t really think about what was going to happen after I graduated, which was dumb.”

Gross also questions the usefulness of her education at Iowa State.

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As the job-hunting process goes on, Hamilton admits that you eventually may have to lower your standards.

“You have to eat, and you have to pay off your student loans at a certain point,” he says.

Gross also offers a more optimistic view—sort of.

“You can’t expect to get your dream job right out of college—it’s not going to happen,” she says. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to get that job, but you’re not going to get a job with no experience.

You have to earn your way up.”

Both Landhuis and Gross are currently living with their parents as they try to maneuver into full-time careers. Landhuis doesn’t seem to mind the situation, however Gross acknowledges it isn’t ideal.

“It’s terrible,” she says with a laugh. “Honestly, living with my parents isn’t that bad, but the social life in Cedar Rapids is nil.”

When she was looking for jobs, Landhuis says she experienced a lot of pressure from friends and family—and not always intentionally. She says she often had similar conversations with people who would consistently ask the same questions about her job search when she had nothing new to report. This combined with seeing the “really cool jobs” her peers were getting made her feel the increasing weight of other people’s expectations.

“With Facebook, everybody posts about when they get their first job, or their dream job right out of college,” she says.

“People aren’t posting about the other things, like ‘I’m working part time,’ or ‘I’m doing another internship.”

All of these graduates enjoyed their time at Iowa State, but some were still unhappy about a few things they experienced— or didn’t experience—while here.

Gross says that she didn’t feel like she had many people in the English department who were telling her about potential job opportunities, which she thinks may be a result of the limited options available in her major for those not wanting to teach.

“It is different as an English major,” she admits. “Either you’re smart and you go to grad school, or you give up and become a Starbucks barista.”

Hamilton felt that Iowa State left him unprepared for a career, and found that some of the career information they supplied was misleading.

“They [posted information] about technical communicators making $60,000 a year,” he says. “A lot of jobs I found [in that pay range] required significant experience and skills that weren’t necessarily taught at Iowa State.”

He says that in his experience, the proper way to go about searching for jobs, writing cover letters and interviewing was not properly addressed. He also suggested that each major offer a version of its freshmen introductory or orientation class to seniors to refresh their minds of positions available in their field.

“It feels like a lot of [college] is learning knowledge that you’re not going to need instead of skills you’re going to use,” she says. “And then you’re just stuck out there with a huge f--king debt.”

Looking back on their time at Iowa State, these graduates have some advice on how to avoid an unemployment situation like theirs after graduation. They recommend getting involved in clubs or societies, building relationships with professors (who may have connections in the industry you don’t know about) and starting to job search early on in your senior year.

Hamilton suggests looking for companies you are interested in and keeping an eye on them because a lot of times they won’t advertise outside of their website or Facebook page. He also advised sitting down at least six months to a year before graduation and trying to figure out what you want to do and what the job titles are as well as the necessary skills, so you can work on developing them.

“That was problem I had—trying to find jobs I wanted to do, but I didn’t know what the job title was,” he explains.

“Especially because different companies may use a different title for something.”

During college we are constantly slapped in the face with career placement statistics and stories about outstanding alumni who have solved some global crisis, or inundated with calls from well-meaning relatives inquiring about our future. Sometimes finding a career is easy, but sometimes it requires months of searching after graduation. Landhuis offers one more piece of advice for anyone worried about their professional future.

“There isn’t one certain way you have to go about finding a job,” she says. “I felt some amount of pressure to get the right kind of job, in the right place, get a car and do all of these things—and now I know that that’s not necessarily how it needs to go for everyone.”

She stresses that the job-hunting process is unique for every person, and things usually work out—eventually.

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BY SAM CHANTARASAK DESIGN MIKAYLA LARSEN PHOTO TOMHAS HUHNKE AND KELLY SCHIRO

OBSESSED The realities of living with OCD University life can be stressful—with seemingly endless assignments, readings, homework, social dilemmas and finding the balance between clubs and schoolwork, it might seem to the average student that college is the hardest challenge they have had to face so far in their lives.

Consider then, going about your university life with the added pressure of knowing you have repeated rituals you have to complete. There is no other option, you cannot hand in your essay, you can’t meet your friends, your life can’t continue until you have completed them. This is life for a student with obsessivecompulsive disorder.

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Every day, Joiner must complete sets of compulsions in order to have a productive day. Her disorder is not obvious upon meeting her, but she describes how her compulsions affect her private life.

“When I get out of bed I have a little ritual, I have to roll a certain way and do that twelve times—because twelve is a good number— before I get out of bed,” she explains. “I used to be worse, it would take me two to three hours to get out of bed because everything had to be done the correct way—and I still count twelve.”

She was first diagnosed between the ages of nine and ten. Although the exact trigger is unclear, she traces the start of her anxious thought to a moment when a childhood game went wrong in Mexico.

Joiner and her brothers were playing jumping from roof to roof in the village they were staying in when she failed to make one of the leaps. Falling from around two stories high, she inevitably was injured, breaking her collarbone. However, the fall had more than just a physical impact—it had a mental one also. Ever since the fall, Joiner has become obsessed with bad things happening—having daily obsessive thoughts where her mind convinces itself with horrifying ideas such as her mother developing cancer. For a person afflicted with OCD, these ideas will become reality if they do not complete certain compulsions.

She explains her relationship with the disorder and the obsessive thoughts that were triggered from the Mexico incident.

"I hate the color yellow," Joiner says, "We have a yellow glaze in there [for ceramics] but I've never touched it."

The closest color yellow Joiner deals with is the slip splash in ceramics class. traypan in ceramics class.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a frequently misunderstood mental health condition. OCD is a form of anxiety that results in the need to complete compulsions or obsessions allowing for temporary relief from that anxiety. It is a disorder that can vary from person to person and has the very real potential of hindering a sufferer to the point where they cannot lead a normal life.

She also helps teach an Honors seminar on the Socratic method, is a community advisor in Martin Hall and a teaching assistant for the Introduction to Beer, Wine and Spirits class. She describes herself as someone who loves to travel and has already lived abroad several times. Even though she is still in college, her range of experiences already rivals those of a much older person.

Anndrea Joiner is a busy student. In her fifth year at Iowa State, she is majoring in architecture with minors in design studies, entrepreneurial studies and religious studies.

Joiner also has clinically diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette’s syndrome.

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“The thing with OCD is you know it’s irrational—most people do. I know it is an irrational fear, but why would your brain create something that doesn’t exist? It’s like a ‘what-if’ kind of thing, and that’s where the compulsions come in. You obsess over something and then, in order to stop that anxiety, you do a compulsion,” Joiner says.

“It’s different from people who just like to keep their room tidy because you’re just a tidy person. It’s different when you miss things in your day or you spend hours at a time every day fixing something because then you’re not living your life. You have to do these certain things in order to do something else,” she says.

Joiner reveals the more crippling aspects of the disorder, and the very real effect it can have on afflicted person’s life.

“When you’re doing a compulsion, if it’s not done right it’s screwed up and you have to do it correctly. It would just take me a long time

to do correctly. When I was a lot younger I would wet the bed because I couldn’t get out of bed because I hadn’t done it correctly,” she says.

“I ordered an omelet, and they gave me a yellow plate, and I was like, ‘No I can’t,” she says with a laugh. “I just left it up there—I didn’t even want to touch it.”

What would happen if Anndrea had fixed plans?

Treatment for OCD can range from medicine to therapy. Joiner speaks about her own experiences with the particular treatment she received—Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). At 14, she spent two three-week long stints as an inpatient in a Californian treatment center and partook in intensive treatment in order to combat her OCD.

“I would just miss things. If I was supposed to be somewhere or had to do something I would just miss it,” she says. “There’s no good explanation [for missing things] because it is misunderstood as to what’s going on.”

Fortunately from a young age, Joiner’s parents supported her and understood her anxiety as something that may have needed outside help and a clear diagnosis.

“My parents are very much ‘if you need help, get help’ kind of people.

But at the same time, we don’t have to talk about it. My dad would never say ‘you have a problem,’” she says.

However, even after her diagnosis, Joiner’s parents were not always able to help her as much as they wanted to.

“My mom for a while was an enabler, but not purposefully. When we would have large family meals I couldn’t pick out my own food, so I would ask her to fix my plate.

But if she fixed it wrong, she would keep doing it until she did it right.

Technically that was enabling me but she was just trying to be helpful,” she says.

“There is this misconception that if you have OCD everything needs to be tidy and neat, but that’s only true for some people.

The most publicized is this idea of overcleaning, but I live in an organized mess. My room is a mess—I keep it messy because I think if I tidy too much it will revert back.

Everything is really clean but messy. I’m not big on germs. The idea of shaking hands and pumping gas really bothers me,” Joiner says.

Potentially even more damaging to the understanding of the disorder is the attitude that non-sufferers have towards OCD. Our culture can trivialize the disorder to the point where it is almost a “figureof-speech” for many people. Joiner herself addresses this trend.

“The thing with OCD is you know it’s irrational—most people do.

I know it is an irrational fear, but why would your brain create something that doesn’t exist?”

OCD is a fairly uncommon disorder.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, OCD affects around 2.2 million adults in the USA—less than one percent of the US population. Most afflicted persons tend to fall into one of five categories of the disorder: washing, checking, counting and arranging, hoarding, and doubting and sinning.

Joiner does not speak about all her compulsions, but she alludes that she used to have a lot more than she does today.

“I still shower more than I should. I shower three times a day, as it makes me feel better,” she says.

She says she also hates the color yellow, to the extent that she will not eat off of the yellow plates in the dining center—she usually opts for only blue dishes. She said she recently was going to try to confront this compulsion, but the anxiety from the brightly colored plates was too overpowering.

The treatment worked by letting Joiner only complete certain parts of her compulsions— or not allow them at all—in order to show her that her fears were indeed irrational and that the compulsions did not affect what she feared. She would also attend group therapy meetings with the other patients. She looks back on her treatment with mixed feelings.

“I couldn’t shower for three days. They force you into doing things to help show you and train your brain that it’s OK, but it’s really quite terrible,” she says. “It was only three weeks, but it felt so much longer. You can still see your family though. It was the worst and kind of best experience.”

On a whole, OCD is often shrouded with the wrong information or preconceived notions that lack the complexity to fully portray the disorder. There are numerous variables that affect the symptoms and the behavior of those diagnosed with the disorder.

“It’s a disorder, it’s minimizing the actual situation and that’s upsetting.

It used to bother me a lot more, because ‘obsessed’ is overused I think. ‘I’m obsessed with this song,’ or ‘I’m obsessed with his jacket,’ but are you really? It’s used so lightly that it’s really irritating,” she says.

“It’s really shitty when someone is like, ‘Oh yeah I have OCD.’ People have self-diagnosed themselves, but it’s a disorder—it’s not something you want to have!”

Joiner wishes people understood that OCD is called OCD because it actually is a disorder—something triggered in a person’s brain.

“If I don’t get out of bed right, my mom’s going to have cancer. You say to yourself, ‘OK that shouldn’t be plausible,’ but then the whole time your brain’s saying ‘what-if’ so you have to do a compulsion,” she says. “It’s a constant cycle.

It’s like that idea of believing in God. It’s better to believe when there isn’t a God than not to believe and there is a God.” Joiner’s difficult story is hard to hear, and even harder for a non-sufferer to fully understand. She checks in with one of her counselors every few months just to be sure that everything is all right, but her current outlook is bright.

“I’m lucky. A lot of people don’t get to where I am—at least judging from the people I’ve met. I’d like to think I have things under control. I think your ability to cope can be really strong, but I don’t think you can ever be cured. I call my mom every day to make sure she’s OK, but that’s a small price to pay,” she says.

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SEXUAL ASSAULT Defining, reporting and seeing it clearly at Iowa State

BY ELAINE GODFREY DESIGN ALIXANDRIA COLLINS ILLUSTRATION AMBER KLOOTWYK *Names changed to protect identity “I remember being at a house party. I remember someone biting me....and I definitely remember saying no.”

Emily Williams* is a graduate student in agronomy at Iowa State University. Less than a year ago, Williams woke up to a man kissing her shoulder. She leapt out of bed, demanding to know who he was and she watched as the man’s expression became panicked.

He left without explanation, and Williams spent two days feeling like “the shittiest person alive.” The side of her head felt bruised and sore, and she couldn’t remember why. Williams says she never had random hookups—she had never done this before.

“This was someone I would never, ever find attractive,” Williams says.

She had a boyfriend. She was also on her period—and wearing a tampon. She went back to his house to find out what happened.

“You were at our party, and I took you home,” the man explained. “We had sex.”

Williams asked if he remembered what she had said.

“Nothing really,” the man responded. “You couldn’t really talk.”

He explained that Williams couldn’t walk either, so he had figured out where she lived and carried her home. When he put her down, she stumbled, hitting her head against the door. Then they had sex, he explained.

“I started getting angry,” she says. “It was at that point that I realized what had happened.”

Williams called Thielen Student Health Center on campus and requested a rape kit.

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Defining sexual assault At Iowa State University, sexual assault is defined as “an extreme form of sexual misconduct” which includes all unwanted sexual activity, from groping to rape.

Actually, here, the term “rape” isn’t used at all, because officials want all forms of sexual misconduct to be treated as equally serious.

In the state of Iowa, sexual assault falls under the category of “Sexual Abuse.” Iowa Code chapter 709.1 says sexual abuse occurs when a person is forced to perform a sex act under threat or violence. It says sexual abuse victims are also people with “a mental defect or incapacity which precludes giving consent.” The key word here is “incapacity,” and understanding it matters.

The vast majority of sexual assaults in college involved female victims, but males can be victims, too. There were roughly 6,544 sexual assaults against males per year between 1995 and 2013.

Perhaps most interestingly, the study found that about 80 percent of female collegeage victims know their attacker. But maybe “attacker” isn’t the right word.

Sexual assault doesn’t necessarily feel like an attack. Crime shows and movies portray sexual assault as a dark alley kind of offense—one where a strange man preys upon a woman walking home from work.

This is unquestionably sexual assault. But most of the time, that’s not what it looks like.

Brett Sokolow, president and CEO of National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, has done extensive research on the subject. In his 2005 report “The Typology of Campus Sexual Misconduct Complaints,” Sokolow advised universities across the country on how to define incapacitation.

It tends to look more like this:

Sokolow says there is a clear difference between someone who is drinking and someone who is incapacitated. A person who is unable to “make a rational, reasonable judgment or appreciate the consequences” because of alcohol or drug use is not just drunk, they are incapacitated.

“I chatted with him for a bit, and he bought me a drink,” Smith says. “At this point, I should have told him I didn’t want another drink—but I was not in the right state of mind.”

It’s common sense, he says. In a sexual situation, incapacitated people don’t have the ability to “understand who, what, when, where, why and how with respect to that sexual activity.”

Sokolow explains that two people can get drunk and have sex, but two incapacitated people likely don’t have the physical coordination or consciousness to engage in sexual activity. One person is always more in control than the other, he says.

Even if a person is “stark naked, demanding sex,” if they are clearly unable to make rational decisions, sexual activity should not happen.

The bottom line is, if sex happens under these conditions, it’s assault. And collegeage women tend to be victims of this crime more than anyone else.

According to a Dec. 2014 special report from the U.S. Dept. of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, females between 18 and 24 are victims of sexual assault more than women in any other age group. The study estimated that 31,302 female college students were sexually assaulted every year between 1995 and 2013.

Natalie Smith* and her friends were making their way down Welch Ave. on mug night last fall, hopping from bar to bar. At one of the bars, the 21-year-old Iowa State student noticed a guy she had run into before.

After talking, Smith and her friend decided to go to a different bar—the guy and his friends joined them. Over the course of the evening, Smith watched him drink only one or two drinks, though he bought her several mixed drinks and a shot. He offered to drive her home, saying he was sober, and Smith accepted, not wanting to walk home in the cold.

“When we got to my place, I thanked him for the ride and got out of the car, and he followed me,” Smith says.

Smith remembers telling him repeatedly that he didn’t need to escort her inside, but he said he wanted to make sure she “got inside safe.”

“The next thing I knew,” Smith says, “I was waking up with my clothes on the floor and him telling me that I had to go with him to get Plan B.” Smith was in shock. She had never gone home with a guy she barely knew.

She drove with him to the store and took the morning-after pill. He told her to let him know if she didn’t get her period—and left. For a while she wasn’t sure what had happened, but a while later, when reading an

article about acquaintance rape, Smith put it together.

“The article mentioned a bunch of different situations, and one of them fit what actually happened to me,” Smith says. “It also said that if the person assaulted was intoxicated, they cannot actually give consent.”

“Rape” is a strange word, Smith says, because it’s used in so many different situations.

“Some people use it casually to describe a difficult test, ‘that test raped me,’” she says. “And the media also makes it seem so dramatic that I didn’t think what had happened was actually rape.”

But Smith felt dramatically affected by the assault. She still feels embarrassed and thinks of it constantly, even though she still can’t remember the exact details of what happened.

“And when I see the guy around, it makes me feel sick,” she says.

Smith did not report the assault, nor did she seek help from Student Assistance at Iowa State.

Recognizing assault More than 80 percent of sexual assaults against female students aren’t reported, according to the Dept. of Justice study. About one-quarter of these young women believe that the assault was “a personal matter” and one in five are afraid that if they report, they will face retaliation from the perpetrator.

Twelve percent said their assault was “not important enough” to share with authorities.

“I think there are definitely other women on campus who have experienced this but didn’t want to say anything to anyone,” Smith says. “Or they might not even realize what happened to them.”

Williams reported her experience but says she was still confused by the violent sexual assaults she saw in T.V. shows and movies.

“They are painting the picture that rape is brutal, silver screen-worthy,” Williams says.

“That’s part of the reason I don’t report [the perpetrator]. I feel like there are worse rapes.”

Williams didn’t talk about her assault to friends. She didn’t even tell her mom until a few months later. Why? Partly because of the guilt, she says.

“I could not reconcile being part of that category of people,” she says. “[I thought] this is what happens to stupid girls - this is not something I do.”

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Williams placed blame on herself initially, she says, because she didn’t recognize right away that her experience was an assault.

“A lot of girls are so scared. I think a lot of them know their rapists, but they can’t bring themselves to think of their rapists as rapists,” she says.

If victims don’t recognize assault, they won’t seek help, she says. Williams chose not to disclose the perpetrator’s name, but she did report her assault, in order to receive the medical attention and counseling she needed.

“I think there’s a misconception that you have to name a name if you go to any authority,” she says. Williams advises all victims to report their assaults because “it should be about taking care of yourself.”

Reporting assault at Iowa State Students have several options for reporting sexual assault. They can seek support or report misconduct at the Dean of Students Office (DSO) in the Student Services Building on campus, where staff provide support and resources to victims. It doesn’t matter whether a student wants to disclose the name of their assaulter or not.

At any time of day, a student can also inform the Ames Police Dept. or ISU Police of their assault, and it doesn’t mean they have to file criminal charges. Officers can help a victim understand his or her options as well as hold on to evidence for future use. Students are also able to contact Mary Greeley Medical Center or ACCESS, a Story County organization that provides free and confidential support to victims of sexual abuse.

Reporting to any of these agencies activates SART, or the Story County Sexual Assault Response Team. This means that a student will be given support from a coordinated group of health care professionals, law enforcement officials and trained victim advocates—as quickly as possible.

What happens when you report sexual assault?

Williams arrived at Thielen Student Health 20 minutes after she called to request a rape kit, and there were already four people in the exam room—a nurse practitioner, two representatives from ACCESS and a police officer. The examination process took approximately three hours.

“You have to say what happened to you,” Williams explains. “Before each phase they tell you exactly what’s going to happen.”

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Williams remembers being able to choose which parts of the exam she was comfortable with and which shots she wanted (for STD prevention). The nurse gave her a gynecological exam and swabbed the inside of her vagina. She turned in her underwear for inspection.

Williams says the officer and ACCESS workers were talking to her the entire time, telling her she did the right thing.

“You hear all these horror stories about people trying to report rapes, but not my case at all,” she says. “At no point is your story doubted. At no point is anything belittled.”

When a student informs the Dean of Students Office of their assault, Dean Pamela Anthony says she takes it seriously.

“If a student comes to us, we absolutely believe them,” Anthony says. “Then we tell them all of their resources, and they have to make decisions about how to move forward.”

Again, a sexual assault victim doesn’t have to disclose the name of the perpetrator, if they don’t want to.

“I don’t want to go back to that night any more than I have to,” Williams explains, “and to do that while a lawyer is trying to assassinate my character…I don’t want that right now.”

“There’s criminal court and there’s the student conduct code,” Anthony explains.

“We don’t have the same standard of proof that a criminal case has to build. [Police] do their own investigation from a criminal perspective.”

If a violation of the student conduct code has occurred, the alleged perpetrator is given three options for a judicial process: • an administrative hearing, where they can present their case to an administrator in the Office of Judicial Affairs • a university judiciary hearing, where a panel of individuals meets with the alleged perpetrator, and other students may offer testimony, or • a hearing with an administrative law judge, which takes much longer than any other process.

Nine students have been found in violation of Iowa State’s Sexual Misconduct, Assault and Harassment policy since 2010, according to the office of Judicial Affairs.

Most have been suspended, not expelled, Anthony says.

Sexual assault reports are increasing— and maybe it’s a good thing

Anthony says that’s understandable, because these kinds of cases take a long time and require a great deal of commitment.

Iowa State will be conducting its first climate survey during the month of April, in an effort to understand university students’ experiences with sexual assault. Without surveys like these, it’s hard to know how many students have been assaulted, because so few victims ever make an official report.

“Some people just don’t want to endure the trauma of this kind of case because they have to tell their story over and over,” she says, “and the other piece is guilt. They feel that they put themselves in the situation.”

But in the past three years, there has been visible growth in the number of sexual assaults reported to campus officials, which likely means students are more comfortable reporting the offense.

But what if a student chooses to name their assaulter?

The Dean of Students Office, along with the Office of Equal Opportunity, will begin a “fact-finding” investigation, meeting with both the victim and alleged perpetrator of the assault. Sometimes friends and witnesses are also involved.

Under the Clery Act, all colleges and universities are required to publish an Annual Security Report, called an ASR, disclosing crime statistics and security procedures for the last three years. Iowa State’s ASR is called “Safety and You,” and lists crimes including forcible sex offenses occurring on or near campus.

The information gathered by the two offices is shared with Judicial Affairs staff, to determine if there is enough information to show that the student code of conduct was violated.

“Forcible sex offenses” include both rape and any other unwanted sexual contact, according to the 2014 Safety and You report.

At Iowa State, “forcible sex offense” and “sexual assault” are interchangeable.

Meanwhile, if the victim also reported the crime to the Ames Police Dept., a criminal investigation would begin. The two procedures are completely separate.

In 2011, there were a total of seven forcible sex offenses reported—the next year there were 12, and in 2013, 20 sexual assault reports were made. That’s a total of 39 reported sexual assaults made at Iowa State between 2011 and 2013.

Despite what seems like a steady increase in sexual assault on campus, sexual abuse advocate Natasha Oren said increasing numbers mean that victims are reporting more often. Oren works for ACCESS, a Story County organization offering support to victims of sexual and domestic abuse.

“I think and I hope that [victims] are more comfortable reporting,” Oren says. “I think we are doing a better job, although [still] not a good enough job.”

Oren said programs like Prevention Services at Thielen Student Health Center are teaching students what sexual assault looks like. Both the ISU Police and the Dean of Students Office have increased student outreach through presentations and social media as well.

“I think we can all do a better job of education and prevention,” Anthony says. “It’s about having concentrated programming.”

Most sexual assault education programs are targeted toward athletes, Greek students and community advisors in residence halls, the Dean explains. But Iowa State needs to figure out how to better reach the general student population.

A federal mandate requires that all students at Iowa State take an online Title IX training through the university, covering things like sexual discrimination, harassment, assault and misconduct. The training teaches them about specific university policies and how to seek help. But even the Dean of Students isn’t sure that’s effective.

“We do Title IX, but let’s be real,” Anthony says, “most people take that test and just click through.”

Let’s be real In a 2014 study conducted by researchers at the University of North Dakota, almost one in three college males said they would try to “force a woman to sexual intercourse,” if they could get away with it. However, when asked if they would “rape” a woman, very few participants agreed.

“That in itself is a reason we need to talk about this more,” says Michael Goebel, lecturer in women and gender studies at Iowa State. Goebel suggests that since men are the perpetrators in the vast majority of sexual assaults, men need to be better at identifying and understanding it.

“Men need to understand their role and their complacency in the situation,” he says.

Ignorance does not give anyone a “get out of jail free” card.

Sure, Title IX training teaches students things about sexual assault that they need to hear—but students might not be listening.

Having sex with a person who is unconscious or unable to speak is clearly sexual assault, but based on Williams’ experience—and the experiences of countless other victims— “clearly, not everyone knows that.”

“People need to know the gray area isn’t so gray,” Williams says.

“The only thing we have to visualize are the most terrifying [rape situations]. There need to be some awkward PSA videos made to explicitly show what rape is.”

Goebel and Williams suggest that we should demand more from our university—and from the media—to portray sexual assault accurately and to empower victims to speak up.

“The problem with rape is that no one knows it’s rape,” Williams says. “The problem isn’t that there are rapists, it’s that people don’t own up to what it is.”

Resources •

ACCESS (Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support) provides a confidential advocate — 800-203-3488

•

Mary Greeley Medical Center provides confidential health examinations — 515-239-2011

•

ISU Police to report or investigate a sexual assault — 911 or 515-294-4428

•

Ames Police to report or investigate a sexual assault — 911 or 515-239-5133

•

Dean of Students Office for academic support— 515-294-1020

•

Student Counseling Services for emotional help and support — 515-294-5056

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Like Hayden Moffit, this student expresses her frustration with the default use of binary gender pronouns.

He said, Ze said

You know what they say about people who assume…

BY RACHEL VIPOND

DESIGN NAILAH FITZGERALD

T

hrust into the chaos of freshman orientation, you met more people than you could remember. You tried to remember their name, major, hometown…and preferred personal pronoun? Chances are, probably not.

Preferred pronouns aren’t the sexiest topic, but they’re an important one. Katy Jaekel, a professor of queer studies at Iowa State who prefers the pronouns she/her/hers, explains that while sex is based on science, gender is “socially constructed—it’s not real.”

Whether a person chooses to go by binary—that is, “he” or “she”—pronouns or something less traditional, preferred pronouns can be a crucial part of their identity. Though it may be an abstract concept for some, learning and using the pronouns a person feels best represents them comes down to respect.

Because sex is biological and gender is a social construct, it cannot always be

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PHOTO ISAAC BIEHL

assumed that someone would like to be addressed with traditionally assumed pronouns. In a society obsessed with being politically correct, this may seem like yet another nit-picky thing to keep in mind.

What sets personal pronouns apart is their intimate connection with personal identity.

“I don’t think that there’s necessarily anything political in calling people what they want to be called,” Jaekel explains.

Hayden Moffit, a junior in architecture, prefers to be referred to using the genderneutral pronouns they/their/theirs but has used others over the years.

“Growing up, I was never the most comfortable with pronouns, but I didn’t know anything else really existed,” they explain.

Experimenting with personal pronouns has given Moffit the means to better understand themself as well as more options in their gender identity.

“I identify as trans, so going by a different name and changing my pronouns was a long process,” they say. “My pronouns still kinda fluctuate […], so the option of neutral pronouns are really cool.”

So, what has kept gender-neutral pronouns from catching on? Jaekel explains that a number of factors seem to have slowed their widespread use.

Important to note is that there is not just one gender-neutral pronoun. Some choose to go by “they” where others might prefer “ze” or “hu” (pronounced “huh”), says Jaekel. The issue then becomes integrating them into everyday conversation. Because schools teach children “he” or she” as singular pronouns and “they” as plural, there will likely be those Jaekel refers to as the “knowers,” who have a grasp on grammar and use it to aggressively correct others.

“It’s sort of an act of linguistic violence to strip them of their gender,” says Jaekel.

Adding that the enforcement of gender-binary pronouns will always leave some people excluded and on the fringes.

“There’s no reason to make them feel bad about it,” they say. “I feel like that’s the wrong way to go about things.”

“Linguistically, we’ve been operating under this gender binary: You are either male or female,” she explains. Gender has been traditionally considered “either/or,” but she says that it’s actually very fluid.

But, what about when people are malicious, or won’t acknowledge gender-neutral pronouns as legitimate?

Traditional ideas of gender in themselves have slowed the widespread use of gender-neutral pronouns, Jaekel explains.

Because gender has been socially constructed as very rigid, it can be troubling to feel your gender is being questioned.

“A lot of people have a lot of fear that [asking for a person’s pronouns] will be an insult,” Jaekel says. When in reality, “we’re asking a question a lot like names.”

Another fear people often have, Jaekel explains, is not knowing how to use the pronouns someone has provided them and ultimately looking foolish. How do you conjugate “ze?” If you don’t know, it may follow that you avoid using it altogether.

Savanna Falter, a freshman in pre-industrial design who prefers the pronouns she/her/hers, had not encountered the use of preferred pronouns before college. In a queer studies class, she found herself exposed to a concept of gender and accompanying etiquette she hadn’t before encountered. She made mistakes, especially at first, she explains, but found that “you have to just keep training yourself to get it right.”

Do people get upset when she makes mistakes? Not really, she says. It all comes down to a person’s intent in their language, Falter explains, noting that people should “keep in mind that you should stay positive, [the person making the mistake was] probably not trying to offend anyone.”

Moffit emphasizes that if a person has good intent, they won’t give them trouble for their mistakes.

Conjugations of a Few Gender-Neutral Pronouns: Hu Hum Hus Hus Humself

They Them Their Theirs Themself

Ze Zim Zir Zirs Zirself

“People are going to think what they think,” Moffit says.

In the case of adamant refusal to consider the ideal of genderneutral pronouns, Moffit feels it is best to evaluate whether or not an argument is worth it. Take a radical religious speaker outside Parks Library, for example.

“He can’t convince me that I’m wrong, and I’m not going to be able to convince him [of what I believe],” says Moffit.

While this concept may be discouraging to some, Moffit says that in their experience, change is very incremental. In situations with people skeptical of their gender-neutral pronouns, Moffit has found it effective to “wait for them to want to know on their own time.”

Though people may not remember their preferred pronouns all the time, Moffit says they are happy that people even second-guess and correct themselves when it comes up.

It may seem that the concept of preferred pronouns has only gained traction in the more liberal segments of campus, but Falter has found more people than she expected to have some knowledge of them.

“I’ve never had anyone that I work with [ask for my pronouns], but I think they might know [if I were to bring it up],” she says.

But what if someone questions the validity of preferred pronouns altogether? In unexposed communities, it may take longer for a full understanding of preferred pronouns because people have less of an emotional connection to their use, Moffit notes.

So, if you’re new to the idea of preferred pronouns and don’t know how to go about using them, what’s the best way to start? Jaekel offers her preferred pronouns to strangers with her name in introductions.

She explains that this makes bringing it up a little less weird.

“I would like to see anyone in any situation where you need to know names do it,” she says.

“Personally, I’ve tried to back away from assuming people’s pronouns,” Moffit explains, and they choose to use gender-neutral pronouns until someone offers up their preference.

Regardless of personal views, learning about preferred pronouns is important, explains Jaekel.

“It would be foolish for us to assume that somebody in this world will not encounter someone who identifies in this community,” she says. She adds that understanding the concept of preferred pronouns could be useful in professional relationships as well.

Pronouns have little to do with the opinion of the speaker and a lot to do with respecting another’s personal expression.

“Don’t get hung up with labels. Pronouns are about expressing who you feel yourself to be,” says Falter.

For more information and answers to questions, Jaekel recommends checking out the LGBTSS Center and visiting its page on the Dean of Students Office website. Also available is an “Out to Lunch” series that features “90-minute programs focusing on specific topics aimed at expanding knowledge covered in Safe Zone 101,” which teaches interested students about LGBTIQA issues.

Jaekel encourages learning more about these topics, saying “for me, knowing is better than not knowing.”

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AMERICA 101

Dotting i’s and crossing borders

BY VARAD DIMATE DESIGN RYAN EIFFERT

PHOTO CHARLIE COFFEY

A class of international students dedicated to learning English give presentations about why they declared their specific major.

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“These things are not as simple as they seem to be.

Every person, every locality has its own cultural nuance,” About 12 students are gathered in a small room in the old Landscape Architecture building. One of the students steps up to make a presentation on his intended major and resulting opportunities. Others take notes and make comments about the presenter on a rubric sheet. This might seem like any other English class one is required to take before graduation.

However, these students haven’t yet started with for-credit classes.

They are enrolled in the Intensive English and Orientation Program (IEOP) to prepare themselves for university-level classes.

International students have to pass an English proficiency test before starting with their degree program at Iowa State.

At the beginning of the program, students are divided into levels based on their English proficiency. They typically stay anywhere from six months to a year in the program before enrolling in a degree program at Iowa State or elsewhere. They are allowed to take one regular university class while participating in IEOP. The program also serves as a bridge to American academic and social culture.

“Orientation is part of our mission. Students in IEOP are enrolled in a cultural class that meets six to eight times in a semester to assist with the matriculation in American culture,” says Susan Burkett, a lecturer in the program. “Also, teachers include cultural information and materials in their classes.”

In a class dedicated to American academic and social culture, students learn how to interact in different social settings. This includes topics like how to interact with your professors or how to respond to police when you get a ticket.

“These things are not as simple as they seem to be. Every person, every locality has its own cultural nuance,” says Gulbahar Beckett, director of the program.

Full-time students in the program take several pass-fail classes to prepare themselves to efficiently communicate with

others in an academic setting. Whenever they feel prepared, they can take the Test of English as a Foreign Language.

“The teachers are very patient. We had other activities outside the classroom such as going to a park, having a potluck and going to a coffee shop. All these were helpful,” says Fugang Sheng, a masters student in civil engineering from China. As a transfer student, he was in the program before he started with classes in his major.

He agrees that the language barrier could have been a bigger challenge. However, his roommate and involvement with a local church helped him overcome this barrier.

“There was not as much pressure in the program. It was a high point of my time in the US.” One of the biggest adjustments for him was using email for everyday communication as opposed to texting. He remembers missing a class presentation at a location that was emailed to him.

“There was not as much pressure in the program. It was a high point of my time in the US. I spent a lot of time going to church, concerts, movies and hanging out with friends,” Sheng adds.

The instructors who teach in this program need to have at least a Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL). Many lecturers have prior experience teaching English abroad as well. Last fall, the program hosted about 140 students, and there are half as many enrolled in the spring semester. There are just between 15 to 25 students in each class to allow for individual attention.

“That actually is our biggest challenge. It is required that they attend classes to keep up with their visa status,” Beckett says. “By being late for class, they miss the attendance grade.

We are still brainstorming strategies to deal with this challenge.”

In skills-based classes, the program focuses on four aspects of the English language: grammar, reading, writing and listening/speaking. A number of interactive activities including presentations, group activities and games encourage students to practice these skills.

With the content-based approach, students take classes like business that aim to increase knowledge of specific topics along with practicing English. In a few other classes, students go to content-based classes with their language teacher.

“By being in an exit class, students can also get to know authentic academic culture.

They get to know what it is like to be in a real non-ESL university course. After passing this class, students do not need to take the standard TOEFL test,” Beckett says.

She added that for students who aren’t strong test-takers, this option allows them to showcase their skills and get used to learning in an authentic, academic setting.

English language teachers from other countries also come to Iowa State to learn effective teaching skills. Fulbright scholars and graduate students have also been part of the program.

“I have not visited other countries to teach, but teaching in IEOP has given me a worldview that I would not otherwise have,” Burkett says. “Students share their experiences and culture readily, and I appreciate every minute of it. I learn as much as they do!”

The challenges faced by students in this program are not any different than those in for-credit classes. Attendance in early morning classes is part of it.

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PERSPECTIVE OF BEING DIVORCED AT 21 YEARS

BY EMILY EPPENS DESIGN MITCHELL YOON PHOTO McCLANE GILL

*names have been changed

I only very recently have become confident in myself. It took me a while to find my footing, to discover who I was and what I am capable of. To get to where I am now, full of potential and excitement for the future, I had to go through a lot of dark spots.

I think my story is one that should be told. I am not writing to brag about myself or make me out to be this heroic, strong figure—I’m writing because I want students that find themselves in similar situations to know that they are not alone.

Not very many 20-year-old college students can say that they’ve been married and divorced. I married Timothy* two weeks after I graduated high school. He was my high school sweetheart—I thought he was everything. Everyone believed, including us, that we would be together forever.

From the time we can walk, little girls have it deeply instilled in themselves the concept of marriage. It seems like a fantasy to many—falling in love with a handsome Prince Charming who sweeps them off their feet and living happily ever after with a couple kids, a nice home with a dishwasher and a passionate and fulfilling love life. I find it extremely common for girls to have their entire wedding celebration planned out by the time they are twelve, complete with a dinner menu for their guests.

I was one of those little girls with my entire wedding planned out. I spent my junior high years dreaming about my first kiss (which for the record, I received my freshman year of high school) and then about my first boyfriend. I was always deeply committed to whatever current relationship I was in, and I have always been a person to plan ahead for the future. That being said, my relationships always tended to last longer than my friends, but when they would end, I would crash. Hard.

Her first time taking off her wedding ring. Her ring symbolizes her passion for love and knows she will find it again someday.

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Fast forwarding through my high school years, we get to Timothy. Timothy was the quiet kid in high school—I didn’t know much about him, except he was dating one of my close friends. He was pretty religious, and I was friends with his older brother. When Timothy started to show an interest in me my sophomore year, soon we were texting all the time. He was sweet, funny and kind to those around him. I was in love. Dating Timothy through high school was the magic I thought I needed, the few red flags I saw in him were easily pushed aside by his charming and sweet nature.

I dated Timothy through the rest of high school. He was a year older than me, so my senior year he started attending a Bible college. Both of us, especially Timothy, were very religious at that point in our lives, so as we thought about our lives moving forward together, the obvious choice to us seemed to get married to do things the “right way” in regard to our religion.

Yes, I did wait until my wedding night. Yes, I did tell my parents. They told me that I should wait, but I was very young, naïve and in love. I couldn’t picture myself without him, so all the doubts that came to my mind about marrying young transformed into arguments on why young marriage was the right thing to do. I got engaged December 2011, graduated high school in May 2012 and was married two weeks later.

You learn a lot about yourself after high school. Beliefs you grew up with suddenly are in question, and you realize that there is so much more of life outside of school walls. There is also a lot you learn about a person after you live with them.

They no longer are the same person you occasionally, regularly or frequently hang out with. Living with another person means learning about their flaws and learning how to work together to make the relationship work for both people. This is true for a roommate, a family member or a lover.

It means everything you overlooked before in your relationship often makes itself wellknown. It didn’t happen right away, but slowly all of the red flags I had overlooked during my long-term relationship with Timothy bubbled up to the surface.

Abuse is an ugly word. When you picture abuse you think about bruises, cuts and wounds. You think about threats and hopelessness. Physical abuse is often at the forefront of a person’s mind when they hear the word. My personal definition of abuse I figured out a ring, a vow and a wedding license too late. It was not physical—I had

no bruises on my body. But words can cut deep and leave painful scars no one can see.

If a person hears they are worthless enough times, they will eventually start to believe it.

I was constantly manipulated into believing I was a horrible and ungodly wife if I did not complete all the chores before he came home from work. I had no say in financial matters—if I bought something from the store without my husband’s permission I would be reprimanded for being careless. I could only talk to people he approved of— which, for the record, were only people of the female gender.

I had always dreamed of reporting and writing for a big magazine or newspaper out of state, maybe eventually out of country. But now I was tired. My role was to keep the house clean, maintain a quiet and submissive spirit and not argue. On the outside, I was a smiling and bubbly wife, but in reality, I was living in my own personalized version of hell. We spent many late nights screaming at each other just because he believed I was hiding something from him on my phone—I wasn’t.

Finally, I broke. Timothy had warped my viewpoint of religion—something I once believed to be beautiful and hopeful I now saw as dark and manipulative. I wanted nothing to do with it. I was sick of not speaking up and always being told that I was wrong—that I was inferior. I was completely broken.

Everything I thought I was shattered at my feet and the only thing I knew to do was run. I wanted out—I needed out. I started spending every night at a different friend’s house and purposefully started “hiding” things on my phone so Timothy would find it in hopes of an escape. Timothy had never physically hurt me up to that point—but near the end of our relationship, I learned not to come home.

It’s now been a year since my divorce has been finalized, and I can honestly say that it was hardest and most painful thing that has ever happened to me. In retrospect, we both were too young to get married.

Neither of us knew who we were or what we wanted from life. To anyone who is in a serious relationship and reading this, I do not mean to scare you away. There are relationships that turn into wonderful and fulfilling marriages.

But long before you pursue a lifetime commitment—which is what marriage is supposed to be—make sure you take the time to pursue yourself.

But long before you pursue a lifetime commitment—which is what marriage is supposed to be—make sure you take the time to pursue yourself.

Learning to love yourself is the greatest adventure of all—taking the time to learn who you are and everything you are capable of. And then, I promise, if you are lucky enough to find someone who loves you unconditionally for who you are, for all your flaws, someone who respects who you will someday become, never ever let that person go.

And to the students who find themselves in a circumstance similar to mine, whether you are in or out of marriage—you are not alone.

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at I owa State is m

Fem

in

BY LEWIS MOAR DESIGN NAILAH FITZGERALD PHOTO McCLANE GILL

An across-the-pond perspective on feminism at ISU

A

s a British exchange student here at Iowa State, I frequently tackle the question, “What’s most different about your home university, compared to us?” Often falling upon surprised ears, my answer is feminism—or rather, the lack of it here in Ames.

Am I looking nostalgically back across the Atlantic with rose-tinted glasses while criticising the students of ISU more than deserved?

Almost certainly—we exchangers love doing that.

Living By Numbers

However, I can’t remember living in a time or place where the F-word was more of a taboo than it is right here, right now.

So I took to the floors of the Memorial Union and terrorized 200 innocent people with two questions—“What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘feminism’?” and “Are you a feminist?”

What’s so ominous about this word which so succinctly describes the theory that both genders are equal? I believe answers can be found by prodding the unenthusiastic majority while studying the passionate minority. In any argument, it is vital to know your opponent's case as well—if not better—than your own.

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When I drop the F-bomb on a fellow guy, he most commonly retaliates by looking as though I’ve just disclosed the details of a forthcoming jihadist plot. After being confronted by such extremism, most female friends of mine look a little less grave, but equally puzzled.

Less than a quarter of men and just over a third of women identified with the word. Of those who answered that first question, 40 percent of men and 20 percent of women immediately equated feminism with very extreme, undesirable views.

“I support women’s rights, not bitterness,” remarked one man. “Chicks with hairy armpits,” suggested another.

Similar wisdom was imparted by their female peers—“No, I don’t favor women; I’m equal both ways,” one student told me. “I believe in equal rights, but some people go too far.”

A similar survey, conducted by OnePoll in the U.K., can offer some transatlantic perspective.

Of 1,000 British adults questioned, 25 percent of men and 47 percent of women considered themselves feminists. Importantly, this poll was conducted on city streets—not inside a university building.

While it would be difficult to find an ISU student who would not advocate equality, it seems that feminism currently carries a trunk full of baggage. However, abstaining from taking the driving seat with regard to feminist issues is going to get us nowhere, and I believe equality is further along the road than most people realize.

Man-Haters

Men vs Women On this campus, female superiority is another of the most popular— and dangerous—misconceptions of feminism. One survey participant informed me that feminism was “the negative belief that women are better than men.” There is no faster way to stir a young American man into opposition than to step on his competitive nerve.

Feminists need to tread carefully, so as not to peddle an “us against them” mentality.

Again, if there is a female feminist who intends to do this, I certainly have never met her. Nevertheless, when it comes to the method and attitude with which arguments are pursued, lighter footsteps are often necessary in order for both sexes to move forward as one.

Competition with other countries ought to supersede any competition between the sexes. In order to maintain its status as a powerful economy, the U.S. needs to empower its women.

According to the study “Women on U.S. Boards,” conducted by Ernst and Young, America has considerably more CEOs named “John” than female CEOs. An increased talent pool awaits any company willing to take the plunge. When a nation’s best prospective engineers and nurses actually become engineers and nurses respectively, regardless of their gender, an economic boom is inevitable.

"The negative stigma carried by feminism needs to be jettisoned...”

Women here have every right to be angry about an oppressive social climate where “slutty” is as common an adjective as they’re ever likely to hear. But confronting perpetrators in a rage will do more harm than good. My introductory question—“What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘feminism’?”—was more than once met by a sharp, monosyllabic response—“Hate.”

The negative stigma carried by feminism needs to be jettisoned. To achieve this, relating with the reluctant—rather than vilifying them—is crucial. Though at times this may be a steep request, it is essential that feminists continue to invite others up to their high moral ground.

I have never met a female feminist who desires to deter men from association with the word. However, I have met many who— through tone of speech and the targets they choose—do. Usually the ferocity with which a feminist point is argued is the deterrent, not the point itself.

Feminists’ anger is of course reactive, not proactive. But the sad truth is that we young, white, straight, English-speaking males—who have never once been subjected to discrimination of any kind—are slow to empathize with such indignance. I can only speculate that if we were stood next to a third gender (30 pounds heavier on average, with an irritating habit of rape), we’d be a little more sympathetic.

Even still, unity between the sexes is crucial. As Emma Watson stated in her 2014 United Nations speech: “How can we affect change in the world, when only half of it are invited, or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?”

The majority of ISU students regard feminism as associating with a group of people rather than supporting an idea. As realized by HeForShe, this must change—feminism is not a members-only club, and “misandry” is not the password.

Gender may not be as critical in influencing how we think—or the professions we excel in—as previous generations have believed.

Indeed, the comprehensive and recently published paper “Gender Similarities,” co-authored by Iowa State’s own Zlatan Krizan, states: “People may assume that males and females differ psychologically to a similar extent that they differ physically. (...) across most topic areas in psychological science, the difference between males and females is small or very small.”

Lurking inside each and every one of our engineering buildings is a male/female ratio capable of killing any party. Six to one, to be exact. Rather than being accepted as an unavoidable and natural occurrence, this imbalance could more insightfully be viewed as a product of subtle—but sustained—sexism.

The Feminist and the Sexist I’m sexist. I sometimes still feel a pang of competition whenever women around me outperform men. However, I don’t feel this admission should compromise my stance as a feminist. I believe this unusual statement can be justified by relativity. By 2015’s standards, I am not sexist. But relative to how things ought to be, I am. My future children and grandchildren will regard me as more and more sexist in turn—indeed I hope they do, as this would signify social change.

Embracing this elusive “F-word” is an unskippable stepping stone towards equality. It can only benefit men—our economy would improve, not subjugating half of earth’s population would be great for our reputation amongst future generations, and no longer would the wasteland to the west of Parks Library be such a sausage fest.

I questioned one man whose words struck me—“I’m not on either side.”

There is no merit in turning your head the other way, no maturity to be displayed by refusing to take sides. Nothing harms equality more than the belief that only bad people cause inequality. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

I’m a feminist. Are you?

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THE ODD ONE OUT ATHEISM: FROM THE BIBLE BELT TO IOWA STATE

BY JESSICA TULL DESIGN MITCHELL YOON PHOTO ISAAC BIEHL

“SAY YOU BELIEVE IN GOD.”

I looked in disbelief at the kid who’d just snatched my backpack. I’d known him since first grade, and he’d earned his reputation as a cocky prankster. We were 13 now. But we were friends, classmates… Scholars’ Bowl teammates, for Pete’s sake. This was a joke, surely.

“Say it! Or your backpack’s going in the highway.” He mock-threw it toward the 5 p.m. traffic in front of our high school, and I lunged for it, grabbing a strap. We wrestled over the $10 Wal-Mart bag for a few moments before he begrudgingly released it.

“You’re going to hell,” he said, turning away.

My public life as an atheist began like that, a petty brawl over my backpack and my soul. Until earlier that week, I had kept my views quiet, and when you’re raised atheist in small-town Alabama, that’s generally a smart move. Long before I reached the broad-minded halls of Iowa State, before I’d seen an Ask-an-Atheist booth or dared to believe atheists had their own student groups, I waged a solitary war with fundamentalists in my public school. Lines were drawn and factions formed, and my formative years were defined by the conflict. I’ll tell you my story, with one caveat.

This is not a condemnation of Christianity or the South. This might be a condemnation of high school bullies, though that doesn’t ring true, either. I gave as good as I got. What I can say is that I dove into the battle by choice—I could have stayed underground indefinitely if I’d wanted. By 8th grade, I’d mastered the art of throwing evangelists off my trail. I’d grown my hair long, past-the-butt long, and a two-foot braid on a Southern girl is a pretty good indicator she goes to church somewhere. It was Pentecostal camouflage.

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BY 8TH GRADE, I’D MASTERED THE ART OF THROWING EVANGELISTS OFF MY TRAIL. I’D GROWN MY HAIR LONG, PAST-THE-BUTT LONG, AND A TWOFOOT BRAID ON A SOUTHERN GIRL IS A PRETTY GOOD INDICATOR SHE GOES When pressed, I told the First Baptist kids I belonged to Bonny Brook Baptist (or vice versa), and as those were the predominating churches, neither side batted an eye. But I grew tired of evading invitations to lockins and youth groups, and I’d almost bitten my tongue through in science courses. So when asked one day why I never showed up to before-school prayer rallies, I answered honestly.

Curious classmates peppered me with questions about my beliefs, and in my initial giddy openness, I typed and distributed a paper outlining evolution. It quickly earned me the rather-witty nickname “Campbell’s” for a reference to primordial soup. The paper also earned a condemnation and private fireplace-burning by a local pastor, whose daughter had handed him a copy.

Independent study periods were transformed into impromptu debates, which I didn’t mind, one-sided though they were. I spoke openly (and rashly) about faith as mass delusion. I chopped off my hair at the shoulders. I felt finally, gloriously free.

It was short-lived. After the novelty of debate wore off and their conversion arguments failed, the intimidation efforts began. Trailer-park kids took a

direct approach, chucking fistfuls of acorns and gravel in parking lots or taunting me in locker rooms. Upper-crust students were subtler. They preferred ostracism and stare-downs, although they weren’t above ambushing me between classes for an informal exorcism.

I’d walked into a trap one day while leaving gym class with my best friend—one moment, we were chatting and walking, and the next a flurry of arms had encircled me. A group of my most-vocal persecutors had linked hands and were sending up prayers as I pivoted, searching for a break in the human fence.

banded together and slid past with minimal witnessing. As the lone atheist in my school, I was an unknown entity. And nothing is feared and hated like an unknown.

Not all fundamentalists agreed with my treatment, I should add. There was internal dissent. Two sisters stand out in my memory: One was a ringleader in the conversion effort who organized students to pointedly bow their heads in prayer for me during lulls in class. The other was disgusted by this and quietly approached me to apologize.

“Lord Jesus, release the demons of disbelief from her soul…”

Those who pursued me throughout high school were a small, vocal subset. I responded by being insufferably snarky—we battled it out through smugness.

“Save her, Lord! Free her to receive your love and grace…”

Student A: “You’d better repent now, before there’s a horrible car accident.”

“Leave her alone!” Lauren screamed from outside the circle. Students were stopping nearby to watch the demented game of Red Rover, but the area was strangely devoid of authority figures. I ducked underneath their arms and ran, the group still shouting behind us about hellfire and damnation. We hurried to our next class together, watching over our shoulders.

“Got it. It’s on my to-do list.”

“They like to call themselves Christian, but they’re not,” Lauren said consolingly. “If you ever want to see what else Christianity can be, I’ll take you to St. Luke’s.”

“Wow, great motto. Are you making T-shirts?”

She was Episcopalian, so she knew a little of my situation. Non-majority denominations – Catholics, Episcopalians, Mormons – weren’t generally recognized as Christian, but they

Student B: “Who here believes in God? Raise your hand… yep, that’s everybody. Guess you’re wrong.”

“Everybody used to believe the world was flat.

Try again.”

Student C: “Guess what? God still believes in you!”

I brought a lot of it on myself. We cycled viciously: They tormented me, and I antagonized them, until eventually we settled into a long haul of mutual coldshouldering. I got the hell out when I could. My high school days were

compartmentalized, stuffed in a box with my other musty nostalgia. I don’t often think about them.

But when the weather warms and the Ask an Atheist booth appears outside Parks Library, I can’t help but remember. I watch believers stop for a sparring match, Pascal’s wager rolling off their tongues, and I see easy smiles from students manning the booth as they formulate their responses. Debates are spirited but civilized.

I’ve watched these exchanges for three years now, wondering silently. What are their stories? Is it easier here? Harder? I spied on them from a Caribou bench, but couldn’t bring myself to approach. It would have been almost traitorous. I’d caught religion after leaving the South, you see. I felt like a reverse-Judas, betraying my own people for faith. After doing that, what right did I have to ask them anything?

No right at all, probably. But I’ve never been one for unanswered questions. This year, my last year… I’ll ask.

ISU ATHEIST & AGNOSTIC SOCIETY Meetings: Monday nights at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Union Campanile Room Club email: isuaas@gmail.com Ask an Atheist booth: Wednesdays outside Parks Library in fall and spring; in the MU West Stairwell during cold weather

Jessica Tull shares her stories at the Ask an Athiest stand in the Free Speech Zone.

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Where are Catching up with Iowa State Alumni

BY COREEN ROBINSON DESIGN MIKAYLA LARSEN PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED CHARLIE COFFEY

Graduation is just around the corner at Iowa State this spring, but for many students the adventure doesn’t end once they become alumni. Iowa State boasts alumni living in every state and several countries around the world. We caught up with a few of them to see where they are now.

IZAAK MOODY

Camille Santerre

Izaak Moody got his money’s worth and then some during his time at Iowa State. The Des Moines native came to ISU on a scholarship and was determined to do something he enjoyed.

A year ago, Camille Santerre was finishing up her senior year as a member of the gymnastics team at Iowa State, and it was her best season yet. Today, she is gearing up for a tour with the company of her dreams, world famous circus Cirque Du Soleil.

B.F.A Integrated Studio Arts (Emphasis on Digital Art), 2009 Microsoft HoloLens Project Art Leader Seattle, Washington

His passion for video games led him to pursue a career in digital art, designing video games. Working in the Virtual Reality Application Center on campus gave Moody his first taste of working with programmers and developers to translate their work into an eyepleasing reality.

Moody stuck around Iowa for two years after graduation before making the move to Seattle, a place that he describes as “video game heaven.”

“I originally wanted to work on “Halo,” then I heard some negative things, like 70-hour work weeks,” Moody says. “It still might happen, but it crushed my dream a little bit.”

But in the meantime, Moody has landed an alternative dream job.

He’s a lead artist on a video game-related program for Microsoft’s futuristic HoloLens Project. And since the project is still being developed, that’s about all he can say about it.

For Moody, all the hard work is paying off. He says that’s what it really comes down to.

“I got to where I am currently because I didn’t stop working,” Moody says. “It’s hard to find the time to sit down and work on the projects and not go out and drink. I did that too, but be persistent. There were a lot of people who told me my dream was a waste of time, but here I am.”

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B.S. Animal Science, 2014 Cirque Du Soleil Flyer Bogotá, Colombia

A native of Canada, Santerre grew up near Cirque Du Soleil headquarters in Montreal, but she never dreamed she would be performing on one of their stages.

“I actually get paid to do what I love,” Santerre says. “As well as traveling around the world—many interesting places that I would never have gone on my own—if it wasn't for my job.”

Santerre sent video of her acrobatic skills to Cirque Du Soleil and earned an audition in Las Vegas during the summer. She was then sent to Peru for a month to see if she would be a good fit for the traveling show “Corteo.” Santerre passed the test and will soon be traveling to Bogotá, Columbia and then on a tour of Mexico with the show for six months as an acrobat.

“I cannot lie, I absolutely love my job right now. It is really a dream come true, like ISU was when I started,” Santerre explains. “But I am realistic and I know that my body will not be able to do this forever.

So I am preparing to go back to school back at home in Montreal. I would love to be able to work with Cirque artists and athletes as an orthopaedic surgeon, but that is another project.”

For the moment, Santerre is soaking in her dream, something she thinks all students should take a chance on.

“Never have a fear to dream big,” Santerre says. “You never know where life will take you. If you work hard and do what it takes, I believe that everything is possible.”

They Now ?

Erik Christian

B.S. Agronomy, 2004 M.S. Crop Production and Physiology, 2007 Ph.D. Crop Production and Physiology, 2012 Iowa State University Department of Agronomy Lecturer Ames, Iowa Erik Christian has traveled the world as a student and faculty member, but his heart stays in Story County.

The Story City native chose Iowa State as the only alternative he saw to community college. That choice landed him in a nationally prestigious agronomy program that he is still a part of more than a decade later. Christian, a 2009 graduate, continued his education at Iowa State, earning his master’s and doctorate degrees in crop production in physiology.

Christian says the changes in technology at Iowa State have been the most noticeable during his time here.

“In my first semester at Iowa State you could register for classes by phone. I did it, mostly just for fun, but that obviously wasn’t an ideal system,” he explains. “During my junior or senior year of college, my roommate got a thumb drive, and I thought that was odd. Now I can store so much more information on something just as small. It just shows how much things have progressed.”

The cliche´ saying that your college friends are your friends for life holds true for Christian.

“I went to school for 12 years with the same people, and I’m not friends with any of them anymore, but there’s a lot of people I’m still friends with from college,” Christian says. “We’re all like-minded—I met some really good people that I still talk to quite a bit.”

Tiffany Westrom

B.S. Journalism/Mass Communication (Public Relations) and Event Management, 2014 charity: water Growth Assistant New York, New York A tweet led to a dream job for Tiffany Westrom.

Westrom came to Iowa State with no idea what she wanted to major in, but career exploration classes led her toward a career in public relations. A month she spent studying abroad in Costa Rica drew her to nonprofit work.

“The dad of my host family in Costa Rica had to take an entire day off of work just to filter our water,” Westrom explains. “That really drove home for me how big the water crisis is, that it was an issue even in the middle of paradise.”

Soon, Westrom discovered charity: water in New York City and fell in love with the organization. Although charity: water was a fledgling charity, it was already making waves in the industry through its unique model for donations, which tracks every dollar donated and shows the community where it was put to use.

As a junior, Westrom’s dream seemed as though it were coming true when she interviewed for an internship with the organization, but it wasn’t meant to be.

“It can be a huge deterrent to not get your dream job, but don’t give up,” Westrom says. “I stepped out of the box, and it ended up leading to an internship and then a job.”

As for changes in the student body? Christian says those are not as big as we would like to think.

Determined to achieve her dream, Westrom crafted a tweet and a unique resume that drew the attention of charity: water and landed her an internship that later led to a job. Westrom now manages relationships with donors and helps campaigners meet their donation goals.

“Sure pop culture changes, and I’ve fallen behind there,” Christian says. “But the [Iowa State] Daily headlines are the same stuff as when I was here. I think it’s funny.”

“A midwest work ethic stands out,” Westrom says. “Move to where your heart is calling, and don’t be afraid to take risks. Sometimes, they really pay off.”

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BAD TEACHERS When TA stands for terrible attitude

BY KELSEY RINDFLEISCH

DESIGN ALIXANDRIA COLLINS

PHOTO MEREDITH KESTEL

Not every class can be a cakewalk. From three-hour labs to brutal exams, there are a number of factors that can take a class from an “easy A” to a nightmare in no time. But sometimes, the class matters less than who’s teaching it. We asked Iowa State students to tell us about some of their worst experiences with instructors—with any luck, your MWF 8 a.m. won’t seem so bad in comparison.

Mikayla and Alix Mikayla: “There were two TAs who would walk around just to make sure no one was talking or on their phone, but one TA was awful.

If there was someone in the middle of the row on their phone, he would literally squeeze past everyone—everyone had to move their bag and shift their bodies so the TA could get through.”

“One time a girl was texting in the row in front of me and the TA couldn’t get to her for some reason, so he came to me and asked me to get her attention just so he could yell at her. At that point, that whole class could have been texting, and I’d be less distracted than I was by the TA making a big scene just to get someone off their phone.

This happened every class.”

Alix: “On one of the review days right before we had a test the teacher was trying to tell us what would be on the test and he was yelling at people about their phones and we couldn't hear. I sat at the back of the class and the TA was standing behind me and yelling right over my shoulder. I turned around and asked him to please stop yelling at people right over my head because I couldn't hear the teacher and it was important that I knew what was on the test. He told me to ‘mind my own business’ and shot me a dirty look and kept doing it anyway.”

“At the end of class he waited at the end of my row and let everyone out, but when it was my turn, he stepped in front of me, got in my way and as he ‘let me pass’ he shoved me with his shoulder/arm/hip and I fell into two other students that were passing by. Everyone kind

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of gasped and stopped and stared at him. Someone reported it and I was called into the office and asked to tell them what happened. I did, and he was removed from the class.”

Libby “My TA is one of the people who knows he is smarter than everyone and likes to show off about it. He is a stand-up comedian, or so I’ve heard … His teaching styles are awful. He belittles his students with what he says. He loses a lot of papers and makes the students redo them. He also loves to give us feedback on how we did our lab ‘wrong’ the week after. He doesn’t give us any feedback on how we are doing the experiment during the time we are doing it. My usual grade on my post-labs is below half because I can’t even ask enough questions to understand how to do it. I have had to give several reviews for him and I have made many, many suggestions as to how he can improve teaching the class. Going to this lab is the worst part of my week.”

Lindsey “My friends in the dorm convinced me that Tinder was God’s gift to the world and that I needed to get one or else I wasn’t living. I made my profile and ended up having some shitty conversations with douchey guys and wasn’t convinced. I had always joked around with my friends that I’d just hook up with my TA in class like they do in movies.”

“A couple weeks later, I got bored in class and decided to swipe through Tinder, and to my surprise I came across my TA so I jokingly swiped right. That night, I was looking at my matches and he matched me. I then decided to delete my Tinder and never listen to my dorm friends again. This also made SI sessions extremely awkward from then on out.”

Who Do You Think You Are?

Vonnie

BY ANDREAS HAFFAR DESIGN AMBER KLOOTWYK PHOTOS JULIE DOYLE

Be a fly on the wall in this entomologist’s life.

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It all started with a SQUISH! Javon The beginning of then six-year-old Ja’Von Vonnie’s immense fascination “Vonnie” Latimore’s immense fascination with the insect world all started with the accidental squashing of her sister’s ladybug.

She couldn’t resist the temptation to take a stick from the yard, poke the bug apart and examine its parts.

“Oh my God, did you see what happened there?” she told her sister. “I swear up and down, I thought it was the coolest thing.”

While others may scream bloody murder at the sight of anything with more than four legs, Vonnie does the exact opposite, relishing every chance she gets to be around insects. Seven of her 12 tattoos are of arthropods (which comes from the Greek word, translating to “jointed leg”). It became clear to her mother, who tolerated the insect pets that her daughter kept in and out of the house, and her teachers who went out of their way to find books and resources for her, that this girl was destined for a bug’s life from the beginning.

Vonnie examines a specimen.

Welcome to the mind of Vonnie Vonnie, originally from the Minneapolis area, first came to Iowa in 2008. She is currently a senior in entomology (the study of insects which is a branch of anthropodology) at Iowa State, with one more year to go and admits that her decision to come here was one of the best choices she made academically. One of the things she loves most is the plethora of opportunities given to students to take advantage of here— some of which we may not be aware of.

A Compilation of Critters One such opportunity is the access to the Iowa State Insect Collection, located on the fourth floor in the Science II building, which contains thousands of preserved insect specimens from all over the world, some dating back as far as the mid 1800s, around the time Iowa State was founded. The collection has a vast amount of information to assist entomology students’ research.

Anyone is is allowed to visit the impressive collection so long as they are accompanied by a lab supervisor. In the lab (or collection),

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Vonnie works on incorporating new insects into the already comprehensive collection and digitizing, taking photos of all of the specimens with a new machine. While many of the bugs have already been digitized, Vonnie says that there are hundreds that have yet to be worked on. You can find her in the lab, or you may see her taking pictures of numerous arthropods such as insects, arachnids, centipedes and other closelyrelated creatures with the cameras available to ISU students. Not only does she take snapshots from the collection, but she also ventures outdoors during her free time to capture photos of live insects.

Vonnie admits that she’s taken a lot of photos of insects, “Of the ones I like, I’ve kept about 400. Ones that I’ve taken though, there’s thousands of them.”

Vonnie hopes her work with photography can also help her in making calendars and possibly putting the pictures on clothing items with the assistance of her older siblings, who are all in the fashion industry.

A much more interesting place to display her work, she mentions, would be National Geographic. At Iowa State, she primarily focuses on work with roaches, where in the

lab she dips them in jars of alcohol, letting them dry for preservation and integrating different ones into the collection. Along with her two dogs Bubba and Boss, and her three anoles (a type of iguanian lizard), she also owns roaches as pets.

Vonnie’s main goal: developing a list of all of the roaches found in Iowa. However, this has proven to be a difficult task.

“It’s challenging because there isn’t a lot of literature on Iowa roaches,” she says. “No one has put together a full list of them.”

But why roaches? Vonnie says there is research supporting the idea that roaches may play a part in curing HIV/AIDS. Roaches, she explains, aren’t “infectors” or spreaders of disease, unlike mosquitoes or ticks.

“Insects already rule the world.”

A World of Difference The words “tasty” and “bugs” are rarely used in the same sentence. For Vonnie, this shouldn’t be the case. She has recently become interested in “entomophagy,” the practice of eating bugs, and has already found websites that have insectrelated recipes and food for purchase. From dragonflies to giant water bugs, she says that there are over 1,000 different edible bug species.

To the average American, this seems repulsive or inconceivable. Perhaps the problem is precisely because we are Americans.

“It’s normal to eat insects—just not in the United States. I’m trying to get people to dabble in eating insects,” Vonnie says. “You can cook them, you can present them in a nicelooking way, and you can put them in food in a way that you’d never know it was there in the first place.”

Vonnie says there is a wide range of protein content found in insects; some have up to 10 times the amount of protein in food in the American diet, such as chicken or fish.

“That’s how other people survive in some places [of the world] because of the high protein in certain bugs,” she says. “I’d like to see the world’s view of this change.”

While her love for bugs is tremendous, her desire to help people may be just as great.

“Some countries are developing, and their education systems are, too,” Vonnie says. “If we could incorporate some sort of agriculture or some sort of microfarming but with insects instead, there may be less malnutrition and more opportunities for food.”

The Future is Fast Approaching Vonnie may be close to finishing up her time here at Iowa State, but she, like every other near-graduate, has to choose which path to follow next. She admits that she wants to leave her mark here at the university, and in a way, she’s already done so by helping reestablish the Entomology Club here on campus. Soon, she may even run to become its president.

Whether it be graduate school or working on her own personal projects, wherever she goes her life will always include bugs and tiny critters. Why? It’s simple. “Insects already rule the world.”

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