GRAND VALLEY
A L L E N D A L E & G R A N D R A P I DS , M I C H I G A N ST U D E N T- R U N P U B L I C A T I O N S // P R I N T · O N L I N E · M O B I L E // L A N T H O R N . C O M
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 24 // VO L . 5 3 N O. 6
ENVIRONMENT
GVSU professor turns attention to Great Lakes plastic pollution BY JAMES KILBORN JKILBORN@LANTHORN.COM
Spanning 94,000 square miles, the Great Lakes are one of North America’s most impressive topological features. The five lakes contain 21 percent of Earth’s total freshwater and act as an invaluable resource for the millions of people who live in close proximity to their shores. As many people enjoy swimming, boating and fishing on the lakes, a new threat has emerged, endangering the long-term health and prosperity of the expansive bodies of water. Man-made micro-plastics, created from the degradation of plastic waste in water, is becoming a major concern within the Great Lakes. Fish and other organisms consume the plastics, which then makes its way into the food chain, endangering other organisms and disrupting the existing ecosystems. Alan Steinman, professor and director of the Annis Water Research Institute (AWRI) is conducting research on which organisms are attracted to in micro-plastics. Doing so will provide a better understanding of how these plastics interact with the base of the food chain, illustrating their negative effects within the Great Lakes. The research will be conducted on Muskegon Lake due to the Research Institute’s familiarity with the site as well as the extensive data collected on the lake in the past. “AWRI is located on Muskegon Lake, so it was a natural choice for our logistics,” Steinman said. “In addition, we have been studying Muskegon Lake for the past 15 years and have a robust long-term data set, so we will be able to put our results into context. We did want to have one set of micro-plastics in Lake Michigan to compare a very low-nutrient lake vs a moderate-nutrient lake but could not arrange for a buoy in Lake Michigan from which to deploy our frames.” Alexandra Locher, professor within the Natural Resources Department, SEE PLASTIC | A2
PARTICIPATION: Grand Valley State University is hosting several events across campus to kick off national voter registration week. The Michigan Mobile Secretary of State will be visiting the Allendale campus on Tuesday, Sept. 25 to bridge the gap between student engagement and voting. GVL | DAN PACHECO
registration week at GVSU BY MCKENNA PEARISO ASSOCIATE@LANTHORN.COM
National voter registration week is Monday, Sept. 24 to Friday, Sept. 28 and Grand Valley State University will be hosting several events to help students register to vote and learn more about democratic engagement. GVSU was designated a Voter Friendly Campus by the Campus Vote Project thanks to its dedication to registration encouragement in the 2016 General Election. The week of civic events kicks off with the Open Student Debate Night on Sept. 24 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Mary Idema Pew Library Multipurpose Room. This event is hosted by Student Senate to spark discussion between students about current affairs in the United States. Senate will also be hosting a panel again in the
library’s Multipurpose Room on Sept. 27 from 6 to 8 p.m. following their weekly General Assembly. This panel will discuss who represents students at GVSU and allow for open questions from attendees about civil engagement on campus. National voter registration day is Tuesday, Sept. 25 and the Michigan Mobile Secretary of State will be on the Allendale campus next to the Cook-Carillon Clock Tower from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to register students to vote. There will also be food, light refreshments and a DJ during the registration event. The Mobile Secretary of State will also offer other services including license, tabs and registration renewals as well as an organ donor registry. All events scheduled for national voter registration week were organized in part by the
community service learning center and the Campus Democratic Engagement Coalition. This group is compiled of GVSU faculty, staff and students whose goal is to increase student voter engagement on and off campus. “Our goal is to prepare students to become active engaged citizens,” said Associate Director of Student Life Melissa Baker-Boosamra. Although GVSU was one of only three Michigan universities to be named a voter friendly campus, only 56 percent of GV students were registered to vote during the 2016 election. Only 68 percent of those registered actually voted in the 2016 General Election. While these numbers may seem low, the percentage of registered voters on campus has continued to rise as Grand Valley continues
to push for voter engagement each election season. 16 voter registration drives were held in the fall of 2016 alone, all hosted by various student organizations. These registration drives helped register thousands of students to vote in the election. GVSU currently holds the record for the highest number of voter registration applications submitted in a day to the Michigan Mobile Secretary of State. Beyond voter registration, Grand Valley regularly hosts panels and discussions to promote civil engagement and open dialogues about the issues that impact the GVSU community. Aside from the Student Senate panel and debate night, there will also be a Democracy 101 event that will look further into the SEE VOTE | A2
GOVERNANCE
Hauenstein Center hosts Dean of Yale Law School BY DEVIN DELY DDELY@LANTHORN.COM
DISCUSSING: Dean of Yale Law School Heather Gerken visited GVSU as part of the Hauenstein Center’s Common Ground Initiative. Gerken touched on federalism and its impact on current government affairs and dialogue. GVL | KATHERINE VASILE
Last week, Grand Valley State University’s Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies hosted guest speaker Heather Gerken, Dean of the Yale Law School. Gerken spoke in the Loosemore Auditorium on GVSU’s Pew Campus on Sept. 18 as a part of the center’s Common Ground Initiative. Program Director Scott St. Louis said that the Hauenstein Center was pleased to host her. “She’s one of the foremost eminent legal minds working in the country today,” St. Louis said. “We had everybody in that audience from high school students to former attorneys to political theorists, so it’s a real challenge to be able to speak to all those different parts of an audience, but she did that and tailored her talk to speak to an audience that was politically mixed.” Gerken’s talk focused primarily on federalism in the 21st century and how those principles are being applied today, discussing how federalism affects relationships between states. Much of her academic work has focused on this topic. “Her argument is that the tightly
integrated systems of commerce and technology that bind states together mean that federalism works in ways the founding fathers could not have intended,” St. Louis said, summarizing the main points of Gerken’s discussion Tuesday night. “But this is actually a good thing, because it forces Americans in red and blue parts of the country to work across the divide. It actually sort of brings people into dialogue rather than encouraging them to separate.” Gerken’s work has been published in numerous academic journals and media outlets, including The New York Times, Democracy Journal, NPR, and The Atlantic, among others. She has a long career in academia, but only became Dean of Yale Law School in 2017. The Common Ground Initiative prepares new generations of leaders to work constructively with people from with diverse backgrounds and different worldviews. These goals seem to fit with the overall values and ideology of the center, first established by its namesake Ralph W. Hauenstein at its inception
Readers are Leaders C a m p u s l e a d e r s re a d t h e L a n t h o rn a n d v i s i t l a n t h o rn . c o m t o l e a d t h e w ay
SEE YALE | A2