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Laker family mourns loss GV student killed in car accident on Monday
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n Monday morning, Grand Valley State University student Alexander Aninos was killed in a car accident. Aninos was a fifth-year music education major, who hoped to become a music teacher and a lacrosse coach. The 22-year-old was very involved with life at GVSU. He was a founding member of the GVSU indoor box lacrosse club and a member of Phi Mu Alpha, a music fraternity. Aninos was also a part of a saxophone quartet and other various music groups in the School of Music. “Alex was a hard worker, he was very dedicated,” said Carol Aninos, his mother. “He couldn’t wait to be a teacher. He always strived, he always wanted to be better.” According to his mother, playing music was the most important thing to Aninos. “He was a great musician,” said Brett Ortiz, president of Phi Mu Alpha. “Everyone in the Performing Arts Center is like a family, we were hit really hard by (his death). The day we found out, several people showed up, and we had a little memorial and bonded over that.” Outside of his music, Aninos was very active. He was a lacrosse coach at Hudsonville High School and was an officer and captain on GVSU’s indoor box lacrosse team. “He was our program’s first goalie,” said Kevin Scheiber, president of the club. “Without him, our team would have never started. His love for the game was unbeatable, and his compassion toward helping others was undeniable.” Teammates, fellow musicians and fraternity members all remarked on how hard Aninos worked. “Alex always pushed us to be the best we could even when we had nothing left to give,” Scheiber
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BY AUDRA GAMBLE NEWS@LANTHORN.COM
COURTESY
GV STUDENTS PREP FOR FALL CAREER FAIR ON OCT. 21
IN MEMORIAM: GV fifth-year senior Alex Aninos was very involved in the campus community.
Aninos was a member of the lacrosse club and a saxophone quartet, among other groups.
said. “Alex never gave up; whether we were losing a game or conditioning at practice, he led by example and was our primary motivation to succeed.” Aninos went to Walled Lake Northern High School, but adjusted well to life at GVSU. “He has a lot of memories (at GVSU),” said Carol Aninos. “People welcomed him there; the music department, I can’t say enough. He grew up to be a wonderful person, he was a great kid.” “The world will always be a little bit darker without his smile,” Scheiber said. “I’ll never understand, but he’s still doing what he wanted, teaching, wherever he is,” said his mother.
Aninos was killed in a crash that occurred at 8:17 a.m. when he attempted to make a U-turn and was hit by a semi-tractor trailer on Belding Road in Cannon Township, Mich. Aninos was on his way to his teaching assistant job at Lakes Elementary School, near Rockford. For those wishing to attend the memorial service, it will be held this Friday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Elton Black and Son funeral home. The funeral home is located at 1233 Union Lake Rd. in White Lake, Mich. The funeral will be Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. Patrick Parish of White Lake, located at 9086 Hutchins Rd., also in White Lake, Mich.
College of Ed kicks off lecture series rand Valley State University’s College of Education began its 50th year anniversary “Golden” Lecture Series with a lecture by Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies’ Director Gleaves Whitney. Whitney’s lecture entitled, “The Great Thresholds of Education,” was a seminar-style lecture which explored the history of education. “We wanted to celebrate our 50 years, and a better way to do that would be to bring the community, because we have always been so closely connected to partnerships and programs and people. That is what education is about,” said Linda McCrea, director of teacher education at GVSU and chair of the 50th anniversary committee for the college. Whitney has prior experience working for the state government and
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he was part of a task force that helped bring major education and school finance reforms to Michigan. His training as a historian has allowed him to consider the big picture. “I am always on the lookout for the big moments or the wild moments of history that have true significance to the way our civilization has evolved, our culture has evolved,” he said. Whitney said the thresholds are what have brought us to our current systems of education. He spoke about the important thresholds within history, starting with evolutionary psychology and how homo sapiens developed the ability to survive. He said homo sapiens developed three things that would help them: the ability to develop a complex language, emotional intelligence and the formation of cooperative communities. Whitney went on to talk about how the further development of civilization itself led to the formation of writing systems and the phonetic alphabet. “Historians have said that the
greatest boost to democracy and to equality actually started 5,000 years ago with the Phoenician alphabet and Hebraic alphabet,” Whitney said. “The increasing numbers of people that can share in communication is going to lay the groundwork for common ground.” Whitney linked education to finding common ground and forming a democracy. To illustrate his point, he read a passage about the role of education in America. “The primacy of education in America is striking,” he said. “Americans believe that education is central to the realization of a truly democratic, egalitarian society. It is through education that the skills necessary to exercise citizenship and to benefit from the opportunities of the economy will be imparted no matter how recently arrived or previously disadvantaged.” Whitney added that this idealism about American education is different than how much of the world views education. Whitney said that in recent years,
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BY GABRIELLA PATTI GPATTI@LANTHORN.COM
| KEVIN SIELAFF
Golden Lectures begin with Hauenstein Center’s Gleaves Whitney
EDUCATION HISTORY: Hauenstein Center Director Gleaves Whitney
speaks at the Golden Lecture Series at the Loosemore Auditorium.
we have seen examples of how thresholds can lead to common ground, citing examples such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and the changes they made in technology. “As Steve Jobs said, ‘I want a kid in his dorm room at Stanford to be able to cure cancer,’” Whitney said.
Whitney said this goal was lofty but has changed the world. “I thought of the threshold,” Whitney said. “They set the bar so high and that’s a threshold we are never going to let go of. All of this leads to the greater possibilities toward common ground.”
GVPD releases 2014 security and fire safety report Updates to Clery Act report offers new definitions, more resources BY STEPHANIE BRZEZINSKI ASSISTANTNEWS@LANTHORN.COM
he Clery Act is a 1992 federal law that requires colleges and universities to publish reported crimes. At Grand Valley State University, the police department is one of the groups responsible for updating the annual security and fire safety report. Capt. Brandon DeHaan, the GVSU Clery compliance officer, said the biggest updates to the report this year are the new definitions of sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence and stalking. These are the four crimes of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which President Barack Obama reauthorized in March 2013.
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“The federal government has said universities need to do better with what they’re doing to address those areas,” DeHaan said. “I think it’s important for students to understand those definitions.” DeHaan said this year’s report provides victims of sexual assault with specific resources and information about where to go for medical care, who to contact for help both on and off campus and how to report the crime if they want to have it investigated. “The university encourages students to report to the police or the Women’s Center,” DeHaan said. The updated report includes campus programs that are offered for GVSU students, faculty and staff. These programs include Transitions week, ReACT performances, Take Back the
Night, the Clothesline Project and Walk a Mile in Her Shoes. DeHaan said these focus on risk reduction and intervention. “We offer seminars to make students aware of what these crimes are and what to do if they are a victim,” he said. “The educational programs are built to identify these problems. We want to make sure this information is presented on an ongoing basis.” In addition to the new sexual assault information, the report provides campus crime statistics from 2011 to 2013. The VAWA crimes were not required to be reported until 2013. Although it is not required to list larceny statistics, DeHaan said GVSU includes it because it is the number one reported crime. Liquor law violations
and drug arrests are the next highest reported crimes. Reported sexual assault crimes have decreased in recent years. “We’ve tried to make it easier to compare statistics,” DeHaan said. “We want to be very transparent to make sure the policies, what we have in writing, are what we say we do. I would expect to see additional updates as time goes on.” Trevor Wuori, president of Eyes Wide Open and Rock Against Rape at GVSU, said he thinks it was necessary to update the Clery Act and VAWA because sexual assault is an important topic that needs to be addressed on college campuses. “I’m glad that universities are going to be held accountable to report these crimes,” he said. “It’s important for students to know because they can educate
their peers and raise more awareness about the issue.” Wuori added that he thinks of GVSU as a safe campus, but no system is perfect. “Some people might think that a lower number of reports means that there are less instances and therefore that university is safer,” he said. “Some universities may see a jump in reporting, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that more assaults are occurring, but that people are more comfortable with coming forward with their crime.” Eyes Wide Open is a student organization that works to raise awareness of sexual assault and other related issues through events and presentations to the SEE CLERY ON A2
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