Daily Egyptian TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2016
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Painting rainbows
SEMO students indicted
VOL. 100 ISSUE 75
BILL LUKITSCH | @Bill_LukitschDE
A Jackson County grand jury decided Monday to indict three Southeast Missouri State University students on multiple firearm charges related to a Carbondale shooting incident that killed one and injured another last month. Co-defendants Travis Tyler, 21, of Hazelwood, Mo., and John Ingram, 21, of Webster Groves, Mo., were each indicted on two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm and one count of aggravated battery with a firearm. Both men face a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison if convicted on all counts. The third suspect in the case, Dwayne Dunn Jr., 21, of St. Louis, was indicted on two felony counts for allegedly firing a Smith & Wesson handgun in the air and illegal possession of a firearm under state statutes. Police responded to reports of shots fired about 2 a.m. March 27 in the 400 block of West Walnut Street. Investigating officers learned an altercation at a party led to the shooting. Shots were fired inside and outside the house at 402 W. Walnut St., police said. Tim Beaty, 41, was killed by a stray bullet in his home next door, police said during a press conference March 28. A second victim, Nehemiah Greenlee, was taken to Carbondale Memorial Hospital for a nonlife-threatening injury and later transferred to a St. Louis-area hospital where he was treated, police said. Police are still searching for Daniel D. Holmes, 21, of Carbondale, as a fourth suspect/ He is wanted on felony gun charges for alleged involvement in the shooting. Holmes is also suspected to have participated in a separate incident at Evolve Apartments at SIU, 710 S. Illinois Ave., an apartment complex near campus, where a 19-year-old male victim sustained a gunshot wound to his lower back. Police consider Holmes armed and dangerous. Anyone with information about these incidents is encouraged to contact the Carbondale Police Department at 618-457-3200 or Crime Stoppers at 618-549-COPS (2677). Bill Lukitsch can be reached at blukitsch@dailyegyptian.com or 618-536-3329.
Morgan Timms | @Morgan_TImms Philip Lessar, 9, paints an apple tree under a rainbow Saturday during the Paint the Town event in the parking lot across from Anna Arts Center. “That’s the rainbow from Noah’s Ark,” Lessar said. “I don’t get to do art much, but I’m pretty good at it.” This is the arts center’s fifth year hosting the event. “To me this is a win-win situation,” said Lee Hackney, the director of Anna Arts Center. “There’s no rules as to what the kids do in their artwork. It’s a time for kids to take color and put it on the concrete and just have fun.”
How changing to a plus-minus grading system affects students TIERRA CARPENTER | @Tierramc_
The Faculty Senate will vote Tuesday on a proposal to implement a plus-minus grading system at SIUC. If the senate passes the proposal, the campus will join the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign, the University of Chicago, Western Illinois University and Northern Illinois University in having the grading scale. The proposal, which would be implemented in summer 2018, will move to the administration if passed Tuesday. Stacey Sloboda, co-chair of Faculty Senate’s Undergraduate Education Policy committee, said the proposal — which was presented to the senate and the Graduate Council three years ago — would be a good change for the university. “Not only would it put us more in keeping with what most other schools do and what graduate
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schools and employers expect to see when they look at a university transcript, it would also really help with communication,” Sloboda said. “Grades are really about communication between the faculty member and the students.” Sloboda said the change would minimally affect the institution’s GPA as a whole, and the current grading system does little to separate higher achieving students from lower ones. “There’s a pretty big difference between a student who got an 80 percent and a student who got a 89 percent, and right now our system has no way of reflecting that kind of nuance,” she said. “Right now it doesn’t really matter how you do on a final exam. Depending on how the course is structured, you’re going to get a B [in the class] no matter what. This system would encourage people to really do their best work.” The university surveyed 306
faculty on SurveyMonkey from March 7 to April 8, Sloboda said. Of those who answered, more than 69 percent said they would use the new grading system if implemented. More than 23 percent said they would not, and about 6 percent said only for certain courses. The survey then asked why those who answered no responded the way they did. Some wrote, “too complicated, extra work, doesn’t make much difference to GPA,” and “I see no value in making this change for the students in the job selection process.” For those who said they would use the scale, some wrote, “I can evaluate students’ work in a more accurate way,” and “it might give students a better view of how they really did or it could give room to try to weddle a better grade.” You can view the entire survey and responses here. Howard Davis, a junior from Chicago studying recreation, said
the change would make it easier to understand how he’s doing in class. “It will be a better indication of where we stand in class,” he said. “For example if I had a 73 in my course and that was a C-, it would give me a better understanding of how far I need to go to get up to a B or to a C+.” Still, Davis think students should get a voice in the process. “It’s our grades that’s going to be determined at the end of the day,” he said. “We should at least be able to have a say so in how we should be graded on our performance in class. I feel like it’s reasonable, but it’s unfair to decide it without at least a fair student vote.” The Faculty Senate got an informal vote by a show of hands at an Undergraduate Student Government meeting, where about two-thirds of students were not in favor of the proposal. Please see GRADING | 2