Indiana Daily Student - Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024

IDS

IU students share their visions for America

By Madeline Slepski, Ellie Adam, Samantha Camire, Jasmine Wright and Jackson Powers news@idsnews.com

Editor’s note: This story includes mention of potentially triggering situations including abortion, sexual abuse and gun violence.

Leading up to Election Day, the Indiana Daily Student spoke with multiple IU students as they cast their votes and learned of the results of the election. More than one week removed from Nov. 5, here are their stories.

Landon Yockey was ready to make America great again.

The IU sophomore drove more than an hour away from campus Nov. 1 to the early voting station in Hendricks County, a county that traditionally goes red.

As soon he walked in the door, he saw the line stretching down the halls, twisting around corners.

The poll worker strolling down the hall told voters that lines had been up to two hours for the last week.

The 19-year-old didn’t mind waiting.

“I was ready to lock in,” he said. Landon is a criminal

By Mia Hilkowitz mhilkowi@iu.edu | @MiaHilkowitz

Indiana Lieutenant Governor-elect Micah Beckwith threatened the Indiana Daily Student and IU in an X post Nov. 12 over the IDS’ Nov. 7 front cover, which featured a photo illustration of President-elect Donald Trump accompanied by quotes from his former political allies. In the post, Beckwith labeled the page “elitist leftist propaganda” and said it “needs to stop or we will be happy to stop it for them.” Indiana voters elected

Mike Braun, a U.S. Senator, and Beckwith as the next governor and lieutenant governor Nov. 5. Beckwith is a Noblesville pastor and describes himself as a “Christian nationalist.”

The state GOP selected Beckwith as its nominee for lieutenant governor over Julie McGuire, a State House representative who Braun endorsed for the role.

A representative for Braun acknowledged an IDS request for a statement and said he will reach back out if he has any additional comment. A representative

justice major with an eye on becoming a school resource officer.

He doesn’t like Joe Biden and considers Kamala Harris to be a continuation of the current president’s administration. He admires Donald Trump’s business acumen, how the man came from outside politics, the way he tells things like they really are, his commitment to

securing the border.

Landon thinks the economy was better when Trump was president. He also believes the former president is against war and would promote world peace.

“Under Trump, no new wars,” he said. “With Biden? War starts in Ukraine. War starts in Israel.”

Landon’s Christian faith guides his vote, too. He

believes God created people as either a man or a woman. And he’s strongly opposed to abortion.

Landon’s grandmother gave birth to his father when she was a young teen. She aborted at least one pregnancy before she decided to keep the baby that would become Landon’s father. Now, he is grateful for his grandmother’s decision to keep her second pregnancy.

“If a very brave young woman who was 13 or 14 years old at the time had made a decision to get another abortion,” he said, “I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you today.”

He stood in line for an hour and 15 minutes before he finally entered the voting booth. Unsure of what he was doing, he called over poll workers a few times to double-check that he was filling his ballot out correctly.

SEE VOTERS, PAGE 6

Indiana loses against Butler

By Dalton

jamesdm@iu.edu

Looking

After the Bulldogs won the opening tipoff,

for Beckwith's transition team did not respond to request for comment for this story by time of publication, but Beckwith participated in an interview with the IDS for a follow up story Nov. 13.

In an October interview with Indiana Public Media, Beckwith said he thinks the state should monitor and control what is taught at IU and other public universities and that students and faculty feel they cannot express conservative perspectives at IU.

SEE BECKWITH, PAGE 4

Why did Trump win? Local politicos weigh

By Andrew Miller ami3@iu.edu | @andrew_mmiller

Donald Trump won the presidential election by much more than most experts thought he would. The results were apparent the night of Election Day and called the morning after. Many expected it would take days to know. The national results seeped into local and state politics. Trump won Indiana by 19%, improving the 16% margin he won by in 2020. That hurt state Democrats who had to deal with a much redder environment than they were hoping for and bolstered state Republicans via turnout. Where the country lands as a society is still up in the air. But local politicos have some ideas about why the results shaped up the way they did.

Economic woes

IU political science

professor Steven Webster said the results could be partly explained through the economy and the simple fact that most Americans feel poorly about it.

He said most people will recognize the economy’s health via their costlier grocery receipts, not the health of the stock market or figures regarding gross domestic product. That meant Democratic messaging highlighting positive numbers, Webster said, felt intangible.

“Donald Trump was able to, in many ways, appeal to voters’ frustrations over the rise in prices,” he said.

John Gregg, a former Democratic speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, said in a later interview with the Indiana Daily Student that Democrats likely focused too little on economic issues in favor of social issues.

the economy have stayed negative among Americans.

In NBC exit polls, about a third of voters rated the economy as “poor.” Trump won those voters by 77%.

Among the 35% of voters who said the economy was “not so good,” Trump won by 10%.

Gregg said Democrats simply weren’t able to reach the people hurt by higher prices. Harris’ “opportunity economy” just didn’t stick.

Trump’s messaging felt the working class’s pain, Gregg said — and results show gains across the board with that demographic.

Campaign blues

Gregg, who is also an adjunct professor at IU, said much of his own success as a Democrat in Indiana was due to focusing on these kitchen table issues and

“I think the Democrats truly thought what was going to deliver it this time was women and abortion,” Gregg said. “And that turned out not to be the case.”

Bloomington's 7 Day Forecast

recognizing where people were hurting.

The U.S. economy is doing better than most of the world, by most indicators. Inflation trended lower and improved faster, unemployment recovered quicker and GDP growth has been solid.

However, perceptions of

It’s important to note most local politicos have said it wasn’t Harris’ fault she lost.

Inflation hurt incumbent parties worldwide, including in elections in Botswana, India, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Paul Helmke, former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne and current IU professor, said Biden should have dropped out much, much sooner. And he said the process for the party’s nomination should have been open, rather than handpicked. If she was competing with other Democrats, she would have gained more headlines and more recognition.

“People would have a sense of who she was, what they liked or didn’t like about her,” Helmke said. Because she ran a campaign of only a few months against a man who has been in the political zeitgeist for nearly a decade, he said, it was much easier for Republicans to paint her however they wanted to.

SEE TRUMP, PAGE 4

“You can look back and say, ‘would have, could have, should have,’” Gregg said. “But I think she was, in the circumstances, a very good candidate.”

Indiana Innocence Project fights wrongful convictions

By Riya Malik rimali@iu.edu

Editor’s note: This story includes mention of sexual violence or assault.

The Indiana Innocence Project is in the process of becoming an official chapter of the national Innocence Project organization and aims to fight wrongful convictions for Hoosiers across the state.

INIP serves to provide legal representation for innocent prisoners who have been wrongfully incarcerated in court. Its goal is to advocate for freedom while being part of a larger criminal justice movement.

Marla Sandys is an associate professor in the IU Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a founding board member of INIP.

“It’s hard to hear the stories of people who have spent decades of their lives behind bars for crimes they did not commit,” Sandys said. “So when there’s a wrong like that, you want to do what you can to right it and to prevent others from having to experience that same injustice.”

Sandys works alongside Valena Beety, the Robert H. McKinney Professor of Law at IU’s Maurer School of Law, on the INIP board, which has seven members.

As of 2023, 47 people have been wrongfully convicted in Indiana, 47% of whom are Black.

“One of (our board members) is an exonerated person who is a Black man from Northwest Indiana and who knows deeply about those issues in that part of our state,” Beety said.

INIP board member Roosevelt Glenn was wrongfully convicted of rape in 1993 and served 17 years in prison before he was released on parole. Frances Watson, a former IU McKinney School of Law professor and president and founder of INIP, took on Glenn’s case in 2000 and continued to fight for him until his charges were dismissed in 2017, eight years after he was released.

After his exoneration, Glenn began advocating for other wrongfully convicted people in order for them to get the same support he received with Watson’s help.

“I became an advocate

for justice, and in the process of becoming an advocate for justice, I also feel like I became a voice for the voiceless,” Glenn said.

Glenn shared his story and joined the movement to help Indiana become the 34th state to compensate wrongfully convicted people in 2019.

Glenn said Watson reached out to him to become a board member because of his experience and background.

“I was already out advocating and doing everything I could to spread the word, and I (had) even been with her on different occasions to speak to her students when she was teaching at IU Indianapolis,” Glenn said.

Glenn said he is motivated to sustain INIP because he hopes it can support people who are wrongfully convicted and do not have any support.

“I can give a perspective from being locked in a cage for all (that time) for nothing, and how it affects a person,” Glenn said. “I met several law students that came out and questioned me and visited me, and that gave me new life, and so the Innocence Project itself brings new life to a person that’s in that suffering situation. And I believe the Innocence Project is going to be so great for Indiana because now help is on the way, so to speak.”

To take on wrongful convictions cases and provide support to people wrongfully incarcerated , the INIP team is first working to establish an efficient case screening process. Beety said INIP has set up a database to track applications from prisoners to be able to respond appropriately and promptly.

“This is particularly important because there are timelines for when people can file for post-conviction relief,” Beety said. “The last thing we want is someone to write us asking for help, and they’re waiting on a response from us, and they tick through their own clock and run out of time to be able to file for relief.”

By setting up this system, INIP aims to be diligent when evaluating applications, so that their reviews are thorough, efficient and effective.

Beety said this process is the first step on INIP’s

path of representing and litigating on behalf of those wrongfully convicted.

With many applications to review already, an obstacle the team at INIP has encountered is some in the justice system denying the possibility of wrongful convictions occurring at all, despite historical precedent.

“Our system is run by humans. It’s not surprising to make mistakes. What needs to happen is to learn from those mistakes, so that we don’t continue to perpetuate patterns of behavior that wrongfully convict people,” Beety said. “There are all these important changes in our system that can come from knowing that someone has been wrongfully convicted. But, we still continue to have a number of prosecutors and also judges who are innocence deniers.”

Glenn added that outdated scientific methods, witness identification and jailhouse informants contribute strongly to wrongful convictions, as they did in his trial.

Glenn was convicted based on biological evidence and testimony that the head hair found in evidence was similar to Glenn’s, but DNA technology at that time was new and inconclusive in linking him to the crime. Glenn said jailhouse informants contributed to his conviction by alleging he confessed to them while in county jail.

During re-investigation in 2000, secondary DNA testing on the hair concluded it did not belong to Glenn and in 2015, testing on the biological evidence confirmed it did not link to Glenn either.

With DNA identification technology advancements and projects like INIP underway today, Glenn said he believes this initiative has the power to help prevent these flaws in the criminal justice system.

“[INIP is] getting the word out, that’s first and foremost, and going out and educating people is what we all try to do,” Glenn said. “That’s a part of this innocence movement.”

Over a year ago, the INIP board members received a grant from the Herbert Simon Family Foundation to start the INIP. According to a Maurer School of Law blog post, as a statewide

foundation, INIP also has partnerships with the State Public Defender’s Office, the University of Notre Dame Law School, the IU McKinney Law School and the Maurer School of Law, with the IU campus law schools leading the initiative.

The board also features exoneree Krissy Bunch who served 17 years for her wrongful conviction, as well as Indiana attorneys Scott Montross and James H. Voyles Jr.

Together, they launched INIP officially in August and are now working to keep the project growing by meeting with volunteers and students interested in supporting the organization.

Additionally, they have worked to hire full-time litigators and an executive director, as Beety and Sandys have a full-time obligation as professors. They also plan to collaborate with students who can actively support and work on their future docket of cases while receiving course credit for their work.

Promoting education in the community is also an integral aspect of INIP. In honor of National Wrongful Convictions Day, which takes place annually Oct. 2, INIP and Maurer School hosted Glenn to talk about his experience and spread awareness about wrongful convictions. In December, they plan to host a training course for lawyers to raise more awareness about the causes of wrongful convictions.

“From my perspective, we’re always trying to provide students with meaningful, engaged opportunities to give back

and to learn,” Sandys said. “[INIP is] another opportunity, initiative and way in which students can get involved, whether it’s volunteering their time or working in a research project or helping with other aspects of it.”

Glenn hopes educating law students about these wrongful convictions is also a way for them to be the ones creating change in the future.

“I met so many students (who are) getting this education now, they’re being made aware, and they’re going into fields to have that type of power now, like prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges,” Glenn said. “And these are the young people coming up now, and that’s what’s going to make a big difference, because the old ways are still going to be the old ways, but they’re fading.” Beety also said she hopes INIP can reform the justice system both through education and by demonstrating how to learn from past wrongful convictions.

“How can we change how trials proceed? How can we change how plea bargains happen? Right now, roughly 95% of people nationally plead guilty. They don’t get a trial. And yet, prosecutors don’t have to disclose exculpatory information until the time of trial,” Beety said. “So often, people are sadly coerced into taking pleas because even though they say, ‘I didn’t do this.’” According to Beety, one solution to this is requiring prosecutors to disclose exculpatory evidence preplea, which is evidence

favorable to the defendant provided before their trial. This was something Beety was able to accomplish when she previously founded and directed the West Virginia chapter of the Innocence Project. Similarly, Glenn hopes to see changes in legislation because of INIP.

“The Innocence Project is playing a big role in getting legislation done as well, and they’re being listened to,” Glenn said. “When I went down and spoke at the Senate committee with Professor Watson a policy advocate from New York was down there and they heard us out.”

He hopes new legislation and changes to the criminal justice system can help prevent the issues that kept him incarcerated despite countless appeals.

Loopholes in Indiana’s DNA statute regarding post-conviction DNA testing prevented Glenn from having his appeals approved when fighting his case. Glenn said in 2007, DNA evidence that had previously led to his incarceration was proven false, but due to it not being presented in a timely manner, he was not exonerated. Because of this, he continues to be a public voice for change with INIP.

“So with the Innocence [Network] spreading this word like it is and actually helping people, it’s all over the country now, well really all over the world. You see people get freed every day, just about, for wrongful convictions,” Glenn said. “There’s so much attention on it now, it’s like the new hope.”

Monroe County Council approves site for new jail

By Chloe Oden

chloden@iu.edu | @chloeoden0

After over two years of delays, the Monroe County Council on Nov. 12 approved the $11.375 million purchase of property for a new justice complex, including a new county jail and court space. The council approved the purchase in a 5-1 vote. According to the agenda from the Nov. 12 meeting, the 52-acre property is between Ellettsville and Bloomington in North Park, at the northwest corner of I‐69 and State Road 46, and will sit up against Hunter Valley Road.

County Attorney Jeff Cockerill said Nov. 12 the court space will sit closest to the road and “the jail would be more tucked away.”

The Monroe County Commissioners approved the purchase agreement Oct. 23.

The 400-bed jail will require between $400,000 and $800,000 for shared costs of a roadway and between $2.5 million and $3 million

for the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant needed to support the jail.

A study conducted by the RQAW Corporation in April projected the new jail will cost taxpayers between $90 million and $106 million.

The hard construction costs for the new jail are estimated to cost about $80.9 million. According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the justice center, which will be about 50% bigger than the old one, is estimated to have hard construction costs of about $78.7 million.

The justice center will include courtrooms, the county’s public defender office, the part of the clerk’s office that relates to the courts, the county’s prosecutor’s office and other related offices.

After construction of this facility is completed, Cockerill said, the intention is to move all previous justice related facilities to the new property. At this time,

Cockerill said, no decisions have been made about what will happen to the buildings currently being used for the county jail, courts and other related facilities.

In 2020, Monroe County released a “Criminal Justice & Incarceration Study” that stated the jail residing at 301 N. College Ave. was “incapable” of providing adequate inmate care and had “far exceeded its structural and functional life cycle, despite all its renovations.”

Some local advocates, including Care Not Cages,

an anti-incarceration group advocating against construction of a new jail, want to use the money that would be used for the justice complex to fund supportive housing that is available to people with low income, transportation and substance abuse treatment.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a lawsuit against Monroe County in 2008 due to the conditions for inmates in the jail. Much of the issue was due to overcrowding, which caused fights over sleeping spaces to break out and

forced inmates to sleep on the floor.

Monroe County Sherriff Ruben Marté said in a presentation to the Monroe County Council and Commissioners on July 11 he is worried overcrowding will lead to violence.

“The potential is there,” he said. “When you have overcrowding and you have no space, tempers flare up.”

The RQAW Corporation study stated the jail has an operational capacity of 258 beds and made the recommendation for the county to provide between 450 and 500 beds to adequately provide for the number of inmates.

At the meeting, several residents expressed opposition to the new facility.

Bloomington resident Joe Davis, representing a group of taxpayer petitioners, said they “strongly dissuade the purchase of this property,” suggesting the city utilize property that it already owns. Davis said purchasing the

North Park property opens a “pandora’s box of spending taxpayer’s money.” Council Member Marty Hawk was the one opposing vote to the decision due to the impact the jail will have on the people of Ellettsville. According to the Ellettsville Chamber of Commerce, there are concerns about how the new jail will influence the future economic development of the town, because they think the North Park location has potential to be “incredibly valuable.”

According to Cockerill, there is

Black IU students receive racist texts, part of nationwide trend

By Tyler Spence Benjamin LeGrand and Chloe Oden news@idsnews.com

Editor’s note: This story includes mention of potentially triggering situations, including hateful language and racism.

Multiple Black IU students reported receiving racist messages telling them they had been “selected as a slave” from unknown numbers Nov. 6-7. It is not immediately clear who sent the messages, but Black people across the country have received them, including students at the University of Alabama, Clemson University and in Indianapolis, Ohio and Virginia.

The messages vary in detail but contain the same general script, saying the receiver had been selected to “pick cotton at the nearest plantation.”

IU Communications

Manager Mary Keck told the Indiana Daily Student in an email that the IU Police Department received a “report of harassment” from a student at IU concerning a text message with “raciallybiased content” sent to them and others.

“The FBI is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter,” FBI Indianapolis Public Affairs Specialist Chris Bavender wrote in a message to the IDS. She also wrote people

can report “threats of physical violence to local law enforcement authorities.”

The IU Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion did not immediately respond for comment.

One IU student received a message addressing him by name. He requested anonymity because he did not want an online search of his name to associate him “with something as hateful as this,” he wrote in an Instagram message to the IDS.

“When I received the message I was very confused and thought it had to have been a joke from my friends,” he wrote in an Instagram message to the IDS.

The student wrote he thought the message’s proximity to the election and its basis on his race

made it not random and not a coincidence.

At least one message in another state said it was signed by a “Trump supporter,” and one sent to someone in Washington D.C. said it was signed by “the Trump Administration.”

Many people who received the messages are speculating online that the timing of the texts with President-elect Donald Trump’s victory is not a coincidence. Trump previously failed to disavow white nationalists and other extremist groups who have endorsed him, including a notable exchange during a debate with Joe Biden in 2020 and hosting a dinner with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.

Co-director of IU’s Cybersecurity and Global

Policy Program, Isak Nti

Asare, who also serves on the Bloomington City Council, said in an email to the IDS it’s important to not overlook how easily victims’ phone numbers were procured. Asare wrote perpetrators could have accessed people’s information through data brokers and sent messages through third-party apps, which would all be legal.

“No one should endure this kind of psychological and racist attack,” Asare wrote. “Yet, until we establish real, comprehensive protections for our personal data — protections that currently do not exist in the U.S. — citizens remain vulnerable to these invasions of privacy and attacks on dignity.”

Nicole Blevins contributed to this reporting.

Sigma Chi Fraternity placed on cease and desist

By Benjamin LeGrand benlegra@iu.edu | @ ’benlegrandIDS

The IU chapter of fraternity Sigma Chi was put on cease and desist Nov. 5 for hazing. All organizational activities are suspended until further notice.

IU defines cease and desist as an interim measure enacted when there is an immediate threat or ongoing investigation into the chapter’s activities. Further violations can lead to suspension or expulsion of the organization from campus. IU defines hazing as “any conduct that subjects another person, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or psychologically, to anything that may endanger, abuse, degrade, or intimidate the person as a condition of association with a group or organization, regardless of the person’s consent or lack of consent.” This is the third organization currently on cease and desist, and the second given this designation this semester. The Indian Student Association was suspended Oct. 1. Sigma Chi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nine organizations are currently on suspension. Four more are on disciplinary status, and one is on a voluntary resolution agreement.

IU club reintroduces native plants to fight climate change

By Ella Curlin elcurlin@iu.edu

A century ago, sugar maple trees were everywhere on IU Bloomington’s campus, with their vibrant red fall foliage making them a statewide staple. They even earned a callout during former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1918 commencement address, University Landscape Architect Mia Williams said.

But recently, sugar maples have been struggling to thrive due to climate change.

“They’re just not surviving,” Williams said.

Ethan Iversen, president of the Rewild Club at IU, said the maples are struggling with drought and herbal soil conditions — factors that have been aggravated by the increased heat and precipitation brought by climate change.

The loss of the sugar maples is just one example of a wave of ecological deterioration facing Bloomington.

This heat and precipitation also contributed to flooding and an increased frequency of extreme weather events, causing a ripple of damage for ecosystems across the state.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “plant hardiness zones” identify the plants most likely to survive in a given location based on climate factors. Indiana has already experienced a shift, and experts in Indiana

expect another by midcentury.

“I’ve been working about 29 years and we’ve moved a whole zone,” Williams said. “So that’s a whole different group of plants that’s going to thrive.”

Flooding, another consequence of climate change, threatens the infrastructure of the campus’s natural areas. In 2022, Capital Planning and Facilities undertook a twophase restoration project to fix and prevent damage to the Campus River.

Williams said those repairs were linked to upticks in severe weather.

“We started to realize that the Campus River was getting more frequent storm events, larger volume storm events, faster time of concentration events, and it was just blowing up,” Williams said. “The banks were getting eroded. We were losing infrastructure, so bridges and abutments were really to the point where they weren’t saved.”

Iversen, who is earning a master’s degree in environmental science, worked as a service corps intern with Landscape Services. He said he’s seen the increase in storms cause a greater workload for university personnel.

“We’re getting more and more severe storms,” Iversen said. “The arborists, oh my gosh, they’re always busy clearing trees that have come down.”

Indiana’s long-term climate outlook indicates

these symptoms are just the start. Rising temperatures, increased precipitation and more frequent severe weather are all predicted to worsen over the next decade. This progression will have dire consequences for plants and wildlife.

For IU Bloomington, those consequences cut to the core of the university’s identity.

“Often, the real reason people choose to come to IU is the trees, you know, the fall colors,” Iversen said. “It’s more the natural aspects of campus.”

IU Bloomington’s moniker as the “Woodland Campus” dates back to at least 1966 and is critical to the university’s reputation today.

Williams said she considers campus landscaping an inextricable part of student life. She called this connection an “academic ecosystem” and said it has deep-rooted impacts on the student experience.

“People who get exposure to nature have a better ability to pay direct attention,” Williams said, referring to research showing a positive connection between exposure to nature and mental wellbeing. “I think that is something that IU has that many other universities don’t have.”

Williams said this kind of mutualism is made possible by intentional care and stewardship of natural spaces.

“(Campus) looks natural,

and many aspects of it are natural, but if we just turned 40,000 people loose on the campus without taking care of those assets, it wouldn’t look like that,” Williams said.

With the effects of climate change rippling through Indiana’s ecosystems, stewardship needs to evolve with its circumstances. Hotter weather, flooding rains and worsening storms are creating new demands of campus landscaping.

Through Rewild Club at IU, students are trying to help the Bloomington campus meet those demands.

“We function almost like a mini land trust, if you will, for campus,” Iversen said. Rewild Club at IU evolved

from a set of class projects into a club that works with Landscaping Services to help restore undeveloped natural areas on campus, such as woodlots and reconstructed marshlands.

The club seeks to promote native plant life in the areas that landscaping doesn’t have the resources to reach.

Iversen said by focusing on these undeveloped locations, Rewild’s student organizers can focus on plant diversity and healthy ecology without concerns about branding and advertising appeal.

“The administration has to worry about, you know, traditional views on what is beautiful,” Iversen said. Instead, Rewild

prioritizes environmental resilience in the face of climate change by planting trees like the Bald Cypress, which can withstand varied conditions, or the Bur Oak, which can live for hundreds of years.

Williams said these kinds of choices have to do with long-term sustainability and the goal of building a healthy legacy for a future that remains ecologically uncertain.

“What we’re trying to figure out is what’s it going to be like 100 years from now,” Williams said. “That’s what I want to plant. I want to plant the trees that, I know I’m not going to see those trees mature, but I want them to be there for people who will.”

IU receives grant to support K-12 mental health study

By Kamellia Tredway

miltredw@iu.edu

Editor’s Note: This story includes mention of suicide.

The Humana Foundation gave IU a $300,000 grant in August to fund a study aiming to improve emotional connectedness between teachers and students in K-12 schools. The study focuses on marginalized communities and suicide prevention.

Anna Mueller, an IU sociology professor and expert in youth suicide prevention, is heading this study. Mueller said young people from different backgrounds often don’t receive equitable access to suicide prevention care, which has an impact on emotional connectedness between students and teachers. Emotional connectedness is the connection that students and teachers have emotionally. When emotional connectedness is low, students do not feel vulnerable enough to speak with staff at their school about such taboo topics like suicide. This has led to disparities for LGBTQ+ students, language minority students and students who are from rural areas — groups that will be the focus of this study.

Mueller has spent the past few years of her career at IU working on youth suicide prevention in Colorado. She explained that research groups developed naturally from her research there.

“Those three populations just emerged as incredibly important, and they emerged as groups who were not being fully served by existing mental health support strategies in school,” she said.

“We don’t really have effective prevention strategies for schools, and we’re also lacking a consideration of equity,” Mueller said.

Mueller and her team plan to receive a National Institutes of Health funded grant so they can continue the study after the 18-month Humana Foundation grant ends. Mueller said this initial funding will be crucial in gathering early data to show the study’s importance and

build a case for ongoing support.

Assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences Natasha Chaku is also teaming up with Mueller. She said weaving their models together creates a more comprehensive study that can help more students. She added that their study is extremely unique because they can use different perspectives from different researchers, as they plan to study how often students reach out for help and teachers’ emotional connectedness to those students. Studying these variables helps prevention efforts, Chaku said.

“Suicide is the second leading cause of death among

adolescents and young people between the ages of 10 to 25,” Chaku said. “So, it’s a leading public health concern, and a big problem requires big teams.”

As the study progresses, the team said they hope their findings will resonate beyond Indiana and Colorado, providing a model that schools across the country can adopt. With its focus on emotional connectedness and targeted prevention for underserved groups, the research aims to acknowledge the mental health needs in diverse communities.

The Humana Foundation has been providing grants for nonprofit organizations that support community health for 43 years. According to the

portfolio strategy principal for Humana’s research grant division, Soojin Conover, the foundation awarded its first research grant in 2023. “The research grants program is a pretty new program that we are very excited about,” Conover said. Conover said she hopes the funding will lead to research with important implications for students in Bloomington and across the country.

“The research findings are expected to benefit broader communities where high school students are living, but I hope this research will also positively impact students in Bloomington as well by enhancing suicide prevention,” she said.

ANNABEL PROKOPY | IDS

A sign about native plants is pictured Oct. 26, 2024 at Olcott Park in Bloomington. Rewild at IU evolved from a set of classes into a club that works to help restore undeveloped natural areas on campus.

JACK FORREST | IDS

The Sigma Chi house is pictured Nov. 7, 2024, at 601 E. Seventh St. in Bloomington. The IU chapter of fraternity Sigma Chi was put on cease and desist Nov.5 for hazing.

ILLUSTRATION BY EVELYN STRAUSS

He also said he thinks

“indoctrination reigns supreme” at higher education institutions — a message he reiterated in his X post Nov. 12.

“This is WOKE propaganda at its finest and why most of America looks at higher education indoctrination centers like IU as a complete joke and waste of money,”

Also impacting the outcome was the fact that not as many people voted for Harris as they did for President Joe Biden in 2020. Total votes are not yet tabulated, but her turnout bled across the board from Biden’s numbers.

Webster said he was unsure about the Harris campaign’s emphasis on luring over Republican voters.

“The decision to cam-

Beckwith wrote in the post. The Indiana Daily Student is editorially independent from the university. As an auxiliary organization, the IDS generates all of its revenue through advertisements and events. While the IDS is not directly funded by IU, the Media School committed to allowing the IDS to operate in a deficit for three years in 2021, and the university covered the IDS’ nearly $1 million debt

paign with Liz Cheney as much as she did and trying to win over Republican voters was probably not the best use of her time,” he said. That hurt her efforts to turn out the Democratic base, Webster said. Combined with Biden’s unpopular incumbency, he said, turnout for Harris suffered. He said Republicans were able to successfully message to working class voters and people of color who were frustrated with the incumbent government. Especially on economic issues, the par-

during the summer. The IDS operates out of Franklin Hall, an IU property, and pays a tax to IU.

When asked if IU had any comment on Beckwith’s claims about IU and his potential action toward the IDS, IU spokesperson Mark Bode, said “The Indiana Daily Student is editorially independent from Indiana University.”

“Your tax dollars at work,” Beckwith wrote in the X post.

ty’s strategy worked. That manifested in rightward swings across the country, especially in working-class areas that bore the brunt of inflation. Lake County, bordering Chicago, shifted 9.4% more Republican. Industryheavy areas across the state swung right, too. Most other counties in Indiana shifted right, apart from the wealthier suburbs of Indianapolis. Those swung left.

That followed a trend nationwide. Virtually every

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“They called him a ‘moron,’ a ‘fascist,’ and a ‘threat to democracy’ (even though we aren’t a democracy, but I don’t expect students at IU to know that.)”

As a public university, IU receives funding from the state budget. These funds are used for capital and maintenance projects, renovations, state financial aid, and other scholarships, grants and cost exemptions.

other demographic but white voters with college degrees swung right. Rural counties continued their dash rightward.

That impacts state elections in Indiana especially. When state Democrats can’t crack more than 25% of the vote in most of Indiana’s counties, Gregg said, winning becomes near impossible. He said focusing on progressive social issues puts Democrats in a quagmire while talking other policy.

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about LGBTQ issues if you can’t put food on the table,” Gregg said. “I mean, it’s just a fact, and I’m not saying those aren’t important issues I support.”

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brought Indiana three points redder and helped sink the state Democrats surprisingly contentious campaigns for attorney general and governor. Gregg would know about that sort of environment — he lost by 6% in the governor’s race in 2016, as Trump swept Indiana by 19%. Gregg still feels McCormick should have run less on social issues but said the national environment would have sunk her campaign regardless. She lost by 13%.

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United States and India, places I call home, are becoming unrecognizable to me

Jiya Shah (she/her)

is a senior studying finance, international business and business analytics.

I never thought the place I have come to call home could make me feel so unwelcome.

Despite the belief — the hope? — that American democracy had evolved, the 2024 election results revealed otherwise. I had no vote, no direct voice in deciding the fate of the country I have called home for nearly four years, yet the news of Donald Trump’s victory left me feeling as defeated as if I had cast my ballot in vain. As an international student from India, I may lack the legal right to participate in U.S. elections, but I have spent enough time here to feel deeply connected to this place. Today, it’s hard not to feel that connection slipping away.

The result hit particularly hard as I watched Kamala Harris lose, once again reinforcing the notion that a woman, even one as accomplished as Kamala Harris, might never be “enough” to lead this nation.

It forced me to confront the unsettling reality of my own existence as a woman, to ask whether we’ll ever be fully trusted to hold the reins of power in places. This isn’t merely

a disappointment, it’s a reckoning with a society that appears to continually affirm male dominance over female capability. And this is a society I’d once aspired to join fully — first through education, then through work and perhaps one day by contributing to its growth. Now, I can’t help but question that decision. Wednesday morning, I woke up not just anxious,

but truly fearful — for my future, for the future of women’s rights and for the safety of marginalized communities. What kind of world will we be living in over the next four years? It’s not just the U.S. that unsettles me, it’s the troubling parallels I see between my two homes. Just last month, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) began

discussions on restricting access to emergency contraceptives and other hormonal birth control by requiring a physician’s prescription. In a country where healthcare access is already limited, this shift could have profound consequences for countless women who rely on these medications to control their reproductive health. I am disturbed by the irony

LEILA’S LENS

My dream since beginning college has been to pursue a career in federal public service. The summer after my freshman year, I interned with the Executive Office of the President of the United States, getting to know the most interesting, driven, diverse group of students through the experience.

We all came from different schools, studied different things, lived in different states, were at different points in our education and careers, and yet all shared a similar belief in public service and supporting political, social and economic progress. Last summer, I interned with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, getting to witness experts using their subject-matter knowledge to protect the health and wellbeing of the American public through diligent rulemaking and enforcement.

After the election results, I am unsure if a career with either of these entities

Jack Davis (he/him) is a sophomore studying journalism.

IU Athletics is no stranger to media attention and bringing economic opportunity to Bloomington. Every year, IU basketball brings major broadcasting networks to Bloomington — and ticket sales, regardless of the team’s success, are high. The highlight of the IU sports year is historically the basketball season, and for the rest of the year we’re just waiting for the next one. That’s no longer the case now that our football team has become one of the most closely watched stories in the college football world. For 19 years, I’ve watched Indiana football struggle to win games — but the thing it seemed to struggle the most with was captivating fans, alumni and B-town. When I was young, I attended many IU football games, and hardly anyone was in the stands. As a freshman last year, I found the story wasn’t much different. This year is different: This iteration of Indiana football has played

Moving forward after difficult election results

or similar ones would be possible. I am unsure if they will be recognizable in two years. With Republicans in power across many state governments and likely both chambers of Congress, in addition to conservatives controlling the Supreme Court, I anticipate more legislation and legal decisions that roll back the personal and institutional protections and liberties I assumed were untouchable growing up.

I no longer feel clear on whether I would be comfortable choosing to get pregnant. If I am in a state like Texas, which many more states may follow the suit of, I can be denied life saving care in the case of a pregnancy complication.

We may very well be living in a country in which the highest government entities deny the existence of climate change, refuse to protect the safety of workers and ignore public health recommendations.

I need not wonder what the Trump administration may do. They have shown us already. During his first term, Trump was impeached twice, eliminated over 100

environmental regulations, executed the largest corporate tax cuts in U.S. history, withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement and blocked entry into the country for people traveling from seven countries with predominantly Muslim populations. He has since referred to these territories, including Gaza, as “infested” when justifying barring entry of refugees or travelers into the U.S. In the face of these devastating truths however, I have not lost hope in my fellow Americans. We can support and protect each other on a personal and even institutional level by preparing for the next rounds of elections and becoming involved with community organizations that operate past politics.

Community organization

Volunteering with local nonprofits or initiatives is an excellent way to contribute to your community and improve the conditions of people’s lives, no matter who holds public office. The Boys & Girls Clubs of Bloomington, Monroe Community Kitchen and Planned

Parenthood are just a few local organizations you can donate your time to. If you are short on time, many of these organizations also accept monetary or material donations as well.

Additionally, we can practice being good friends, peers and neighbors. Lend a helping hand to those around you, show up for your loved ones and make time to connect with the people who are important to you. In a society only seeming to become more individualistic, caring for each other is one of the easiest, most impactful forms of protest.

Civic engagement

Though our most recent election has passed, it is never too early to help register more voters and plan to work the polls at the next election date. Certain party organizations and programs like Political and Civic Engagement at IU organize voter registration events and initiatives. Indiana will be having the

The future seems grim. But as dark as this moment feels, I know we cannot afford to give up. We are stronger together, and we must hold onto that strength — especially now. We must continue fighting for human rights, for dignity and for true freedom.

Four years from now, I hope to look back and see we did not surrender to despair, but we instead held on to hope and resilience. The fight for hope feels heavier today, but it’s one we can’t afford to abandon.

that the two nations I hold dear, the two places I call home, are moving toward a shared agenda of restricting women’s rights and bodily autonomy. Here in the U.S., abortion access and birth control are already under threat. In India, similar battles are beginning to unfold, and I fear for the freedom of all women, in both places, to make choices about their bodies. I’m also terrified for my friends in the LGBTQ+ community. Trump’s administration has repeatedly hinted at rolling back protections for these groups, creating an environment where their very existence is under question. As someone who came here looking for a society that celebrates diversity and inclusion, I feel crushed by this reality. America, a place of freedom and opportunity, seems to be closing its doors on the very values that brought so many, including myself, here. How can a nation promise liberty and dignity to immigrants while, at the same time, denying basic human rights to its own people?

jiyashah@iu.edu

ILLUSTRATION BY THEO HAWKINS

next general election on Nov. 4, 2025.

Engage with local media sources, like the IDS, The Herald-Times, WTIU and WFIU to stay up to date with current affairs and support reporting at the local level, which is essential for keeping communities informed.

Bloomington residents, including students, may also apply for one of the city boards or commissions which are active players in local policymaking,

JACK’S JAMS IU may be a football school now

with passion, won games and brought fans back to the stands.

The extra attention and fan support brought a flurry of extra opportunities for the Bloomington community, such as hosting ESPN College GameDay, CBS’ B1G TIME game and Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff show. Like most college towns with good football programs, this helps to boost the local economy. Take Duke University for example: when it hosted GameDay against Notre Dame on Sept. 30, 2023, its hometown of Durham, North Carolina, took in over four million dollars. According to ABC 11 in Durham, “that’s based off the nearly 10,000 hotel room nights booked, and the money those thousands of visitors brought to different areas and businesses in the Bull City.” While the dollar amounts aren’t as significant, Bloomington will experience similar economic benefits. Ann Bastianelli, a marketing professor at IU’s Kelley School of Business,

estimated a local economic impact of $260,000 dollars for routine home games and $580,000 for the homecoming game against Nebraska. When TV crews come to town, like College GameDay, Bastianelli forecasts “maybe 25% in higher sales receipts.”

College towns explode when the football team is playing well and winning. The atmosphere, combined with sunny fall days, is electric. Kirkwood Avenue has been abuzz the past few weeks. Places like the Village Deli are tracking the team’s record on its front windows. The street is packed with students, families and visitors every home game. You can see how the town has embraced the football team this year and how businesses in Bloomington have leaned into its success. This type of college town atmosphere can excite alumni, donors and high school students who are considering their college options. Last year, there was minimal excitement in

their reelection depends on your vote, and they often have systems to log and track the issues that constituents are bringing up. By being active participants in our community and civic processes, we can exert some control over our experiences, freedoms and opportunities rather than sitting idly by as politicians implement and roll back policy in harmful ways.

lfaraday@iu.edu

watching football. It was always just something to do on a long trek to basketball season. This year, the whole town seems to be celebrating the season. Memorial Stadium has already been sold out for multiple

games and will be sold out for the final home games. That just hasn’t happened in my lifetime living in Bloomington

downtown area within walking distance of the stadium, space for tailgating and a beautiful campus. This year, Bloomington and the university have reaped

first

history.

ILLUSTRATION BY JULIETTE ALBERT

Leila Faraday (she/her)

a junior studying policy analysis with minors in geography and urban planning.

He chose a straight Republican ticket and then walked back outside. His ticket, he said, will likely remain red for every election for the rest of his life.

Three weeks before the election, Kaylee sat at her desk in her Bloomington apartment. She was on the phone with her younger sister Ella in Charleston, South Carolina. Both were filling in the oval next to Kamala Harris’ name on Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballot. This was their first time voting in a U.S. presidential election.

“It’s a cool feeling,” Ella said. “Knowing we’ve only ever voted for a woman.”

Kaylee felt a chill go down her spine.

Growing up, IU senior Kaylee Werner understood all too well that politics could be a matter of life and death. She knew one of the students killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting. Kaylee was upset that there was nothing being done when it came to gun control policies.

In the weeks following, she decided to put together a team of students, teachers and parents and collected 1,000 handwritten letters arguing for gun control. They traveled to Washington, D.C., to hand deliver them to Republican Congressman Keith Rothfus, representing Pittsburgh at the time. He neglected to read them right in front of her, throwing the letters to his staff and saying, “put them with the others.”

“If anyone dies by an AR15 in my community,” she told him, “It’s going to be your fault.”

Several months later, 11 Jewish worshipers were killed by a gunman at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Kaylee’s grandmother belonged to the synagogue but had decided to sleep in that day. When no one could reach her for the couple of hours afterward, the family feared the worst. Kaylee remembers it as one of the scariest moments of her life.

These experiences taught her how important it is to vote and advocate for those you want in office. This past summer, when Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, Kaylee knew she wanted to support her. In August, she represented Pennsylvania as a delegate at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. She was on the convention floor cheering as the Obamas and the Clintons took their turns at the lectern and as Harris accepted the nomination.

Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton were stars in her eyes, but seeing Harris made Kaylee’s jaw drop.

She had never seen a candidate match her values as much as Harris. She appreciated Harris’ support of reproductive rights and her ability to consider both sides and make decisions with a bipartisan mindset. When Harris talks, Kaylee feels safe.

Kaylee’s opposition to Trump only grew in the final days before the election. His insistence that he would protect women “whether they liked it or not” confirmed all her worst assumptions about the decisions he’d make if he returns to the White House. His rally at Madison Square Garden, filled with demeaning jokes and comments about Jewish people, Puerto Rico and the sex lives of Hispanic people, left her disgusted.

“It makes me uncomfortable to see a future where the people he surrounds himself with are back in power and get to make decisions,” she said.

“We cannot put that man back into office.”

Two visions kept finding their way into her sleep. She dreamed of Harris with her hand on the Bible getting sworn into office, saw the sea of confetti falling and balloons floating at the celebrations. On other nights, she had nightmares of Trump speaking at another rally, spewing hatred and lies, defending white supremacists and heard balloons popping.

IU senior Aidan Diresta was standing at the corner of Walnut Street and 17th Street, waiting for a driver to pull up to the traffic light. He was shooting another video for his Instagram page called the “Stoplight Podcast.”

A young woman stopped at the light and Aidan hurried over to her open window.

“You’re at the ‘Stoplight One-minute Podcast,’” he said while leaning into the car.

“What’s on your mind?”

She played along and smiled at Aidan.

“The weather,” she said. “It’s beautiful.” Aidan bobbed back and forth, up and down, eager to get something memorable before the light changed.

“What else goes on?” he said. “Come on, who do we love?”

The woman said she loved her mom and dad.

“Who do we hate?” Aidan asked.

“Donald Trump.”

“And why do we hate Donald Trump?”

The woman’s smile faded.

“Because, you know, you know,” she paused. “Just everything.”

Then the light went green, and the woman had to go and drove away. Aidan knew he had another episode of “Spotlight Podcast” ready to post on Instagram for his over 1,000 followers. This episode was different, though, because it had veered without warning into the loaded subject of former President Donald Trump.

Aidan’s questions on the show are typically lighthearted. The 21-year-old student, who’s majoring in film and production, sees himself as an entertainer. He never asks his guests about politics or the election.

“I just don’t care about politics,” Aidan said. “I don’t think I am ever going to vote in my life, I mean, that could change one day maybe. But I’m just not into it.”

Aidan is from Demarest, New Jersey. His dad works in cybersecurity, his mom works in the mental health field. They’re not interested in politics either, he said.

When asked about the election, Aidan had neutral feelings for the two major candidates. He finds Trump to be funny, and he thinks Harris is cool. But he doesn’t care which of them comes out on top. To him, regardless of who wins, he said, the election won’t end up mattering. He doesn’t expect it to change his life in any significant way.

“It’ll be the topic of discussion for a couple of days, and then it’ll be gone,” he said. “It’ll just be what it is, just like the way it always has been.”

IU junior Paige Fowler has become used to answering questions about who she is voting for every time she walks into a party. She belongs to a select group of women on campus, as she isn’t afraid to elaborate on why she voted for Trump. Her political beliefs have played a big role in deciding how people choose to treat her on campus.

She’s never understood why they were making such a big deal of her choice, even if they had voted the same. She doesn’t like calling

attention to her conservative beliefs. Inside the blue dot of Bloomington, she has learned to keep her mouth shut when the election comes up in conversation.

“It’s not because I love Trump,” the 20-year-old explains over and over to anyone who asks. “Please don’t make me seem like I’m some crazy MAGA lady, cause I’m not.”

When people learn that she voted for Trump, they look at Paige like she’s crazy. Sometimes their initial reaction is to yell because of how unusual it seems. Isn’t she afraid Trump will sign a national ban on abortion? She doesn’t think he’ll take it that far. She respects that he wants to leave these questions up to the states. She believes abortion should be legal for women who’ve endured rape or incest. If she got pregnant right now, she said she’d keep the baby.

“My parents would be disappointed,” she said. “But they would be even more disappointed if I had an abortion.”

Paige agrees with Trump’s positions on the economy and immigration. If Harris is elected, she worries that people of her generation won’t be able to afford groceries in the future.

“It’ll be the topic of discussion for a couple of days, and then it’ll be gone.”

Aidan Diresta

A political science and journalism major, Paige avoids sharing these views in class. If she speaks up, she fears she might anger one of her professors and tank her GPA.

“When you want to respectfully disagree with a professor’s opinion, you can’t,” she said. “Because it looks like you resemble everything Trump stands for.”

It can be hard for Paige to resist the urge to speak up sometimes, especially since the media she perceives as biased toward the left often surrounds her at Franklin Hall. Every year, Paige has at least one professor who expresses their distaste toward certain beliefs or news outlets that the Republican Party engages with.

Her family lives outside Seattle, where she’s still registered to vote. One morning a couple weeks ago, she sat down at her kitchen counter and filled in her mail-in ballot. One of her best friends was sitting beside her, filling out her own ballot. Both of them were sipping Diet Cokes and quietly accepting their political differences. Her friend, an Indiana resident, was voting for Kamala Harris. Paige scribbled her mark beside the name of the other guy.

Alex Myers’ political awakening began at age 4, the day the gunman opened fire at his church.

Now a 21-year-old junior at IU, Alex still remembers the chaos of that day at New Life Church in Colorado Springs in 2007, where the shooter killed two members

of the congregation and injured three others before killing himself. Alex was at that Sunday service with his mother. He remembers people running and hiding with his mother in the church basement as the gunshots echoed upstairs. To him, it sounded like a popping sound, repeated over and over.

“I kind of blocked it out for most of my childhood,” Alex said.

As he grew older, he understood mass shootings were an all-too-common part of American life. But he avoided connecting the headlines to his own experience. Then he came home one afternoon and saw the breaking coverage from Parkland, Florida, where another gunman had shot and killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.

Alex froze. Suddenly, the memories of the trauma he and his mother survived came flooding back. Until that moment, he had never thought of himself as a survivor of a mass shooting. But it had happened to him, and now it was happening to others.

The realization fueled his belief in common sense gun laws.

Alex had grown up in a conservative household. To this day, his father remains a registered Republican who has voted repeatedly for Trump. On the day of the church shooting, his father, an Army colonel deployed in Iraq, was away fighting in the war. His father’s service in the U.S. Army influenced his childhood, as well. Alex became accustomed to the presence of guns at home and learned the importance of gun safety. But today, when Alex looks back on the trauma he and his mother endured at New Life Church, he struggles to understand how his father can remain an avid gun rights supporter.

“I lost my dad politically to Trump,” he said. “I feel like my dad fell into the MAGA cult. I just don’t know how he can still support that man.”

His mother is a Libertarian who believes in women’s reproductive rights. Her stance on abortion is deeply personal. Before she gave birth to him, Alex said his mother survived a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, where a fertilized egg grows outside of the uterus. Today, living in Indiana, she may not have had access to the life-saving reproductive care that made Alex’s birth possible.

Alex’s disagreements with the Republican Party go beyond guns and abortion. Growing up in Colorado, he saw wildfires rage through forests. Pikes Peak was on fire every summer.

Climate change is real, he said, and the Republicans aren’t doing anything to fight it.

Alex, a finance major at IU, is the development director for the College Democrats of America. After graduating, he wants to fight the influence of lobbyists in the nation’s capital. He is disturbed, he said, by the toxic effects of money on the American political system, all of which cements his position in the current election.

“When it comes to Donald Trump, he is someone I can never get behind,” he said.

“That man is the most unAmerican, undemocratic person the Republicans have ever put on a ticket.”

Rain poured the whole way to Eastview Church of Nazarene on Nov. 5, and Alex was feeling eager to vote in his first presidential election. Alex wasn’t nervous because he had heard voter turnout was high and that made him happy. He still felt nervous and knew he was going to feel that until the election was called.

The thought of going to the bars crossed his mind, but he figured he would stay home and have a glass of wine, probably the whole bottle, he said. Alex was ready to join IUSTV for a panel discussion later that night. He knew he was a good debater and planned to keep topics simple.

“Obviously, keep it simple, but I may throw in a few punches,” he said.

Alex was greeted at the side door of the church and led to a table of poll workers. At 3:46 p.m., Alex doublechecked his bubbles were all filled on his ballot, pushed the cap on his pen and slid his ballot into the ballot box. He smiled as he was handed a voting sticker.

“I hopefully just voted for the first woman president in the United States,” Alex said.

***

Alex was surrounded by his friends as they watched the votes begin to flood in. He didn’t have class until the afternoon, so he planned to stay up most of the night. For hours, even when early returns leaned red, Alex wasn’t nervous. At least not until all the swing states’ big cities were accounted for.

“It won’t be a blowout though which is upsetting, but expected,” Alex said at the time.

But before he went to sleep that night, Alex had a gut feeling the election was already over. He noticed the remaining uncounted votes in urban areas and knew they would not add up to differentiate the lead Trump already had over Harris, so he went to sleep.

At around 2:30 a.m., Alex woke up and reached for his phone.

Once he saw that Pennsylvania had been called, it was confirmed in his mind that Trump would be the 47th President of the United States. Alex said he is going to treat this as a breakup, cry for a week then get back to work.

*** Paige Fowler bought herself a coffee the morning of Nov. 6 to celebrate the election results.

“I took a melatonin, but it didn’t even work because I couldn’t sleep for more than two hours at a time,” she said. Paige said she planned on being reserved post-election day to respect the feelings of those around her.

Paige has two other roommates who both voted for Harris. The three roommates collectively decided not to talk Nov. 6 to respect each other’s beliefs.

“Some things are just better left unsaid, so there’s no reason to cause anymore turmoil,” she said.

***

While millions of Americans were glued to their screens waiting for the outcome of the election the night of Nov. 6, Aidan worked on a group project with little discussion of the election. Later that night, Aidan went to Kilroy’s on Kirkwood to get a drink and hang out with his friends. Despite election results being on every TV in the bar, Aidan still did not care about the outcome.

***

On election night, Kaylee and eight of her friends went to Kilroy’s on Kirkwood where they had heard the election was being broadcast. Kaylee walked into the bar and was surprised to see every single screen showing poll results and updates. Just as many women as men donned MAGA hats and Trump merch with the IU logo replacing the “U.” With every state taken by Trump, an outroar of cheers shook the bar. Kaylee and her friend’s eyes were glued to the TV directly above their portion of the bar. Iowa was called for Trump and her friend turned to her, “Is this it?” Kaylee felt a pit in her stomach.

She left Kilroy’s on Kirkwood at 11:23 p.m. and tried to go to bed at midnight, but her mind was active. It kept pulling her from sleep until a little after 3 a.m. when she decided to turn on the television. She saw who had won and was devastated. In the morning, she received a flood of messages from close friends and family from all over the world.

“I am so sorry,” a friend in Europe sent.

“I am so scared for you,” a relative from Canada wrote. Her mother sent her advice: “Take a day, grieve it, and tomorrow we will get back up and fight again.”

***

On election night, Landon was in his apartment, dressed in Nutcrackerprinted pajama pants paired with a Colts sweatshirt. The computer screen on his desk showed the Fox election broadcast, with Harris at 117 electoral votes and Trump at 195.

“Kamala seems to be underperforming in a lot of areas,” he commented. Even as he watched the results roll in, Landon was calm. When he commented on polls showing Harris would likely do worse in certain states than in 2020, he was not gleeful or even excited. Just matter–of-fact.

“This could be slightly alarming for her,” he said.

As Pennsylvania was close to being called, Landon knew Trump would be the next president. Even after he felt certain, he waited up, wanting to see the moment when Trump officially crossed the 270 electoral vote mark.

Then, Fox called Wisconsin to bring Trump’s total to 277 electoral votes. It was official. Landon’s vote was one of more than 72 million to propel the expresident back into office. Landon knows many Democrats are saying Trump is a racist, a Nazi.

“But if Trump was the things that everyone says he is,” he said, “he wouldn’t have won.”

ANNABEL PROKOPY | IDS

IU sophomore Landon Yockey sits and watches election coverage Nov.

5, 2024, at his apartment in Bloomington. Yockey voted for Trump during early voting Nov. 1.

COURTESY PHOTO

IU senior Kaylee Werner is pictured next to a sign at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Werner represented Pennsylvania as a delegate at the convention.

EMERSON ELLEDGE| IDS

IU junior Alex Myers is pictured speaking on a panel for IUSTV’s election coverage Nov. 5, 2024, at the Ken and Audrey Beckley Studio in Bloomington. Myers appeared as a representative of College Democrats of America.

Guide to sustainable fashion in Bloomington

Season Magazine

This

By Lowrie McGeary lmcgeary@iu.edu

Everyone deserves to dress how they please. Fashion is fun. It provides a creative outlet to express ourselves and often shapes our personal identity. But with a quick look behind the curtain of popular brands, including Urban Outfitters, H&M and Shein, you will discover the industry’s staggering impact on the environment, mistreatment of workers and unethical business practices.

While slow-fashion and sustainable-practicing clothing companies do exist, they are often far outside of college students’ budgets. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to make sustainable style choices right here in Bloomington.

Low consumption

Non-profit thrift stores are a great choice to find fun pieces at a fair price while supporting the community. Goodwill, although reliable and still better than buying something new, is not the only thrift store option.

Opportunity House is a local non-profit, volunteer-run thrift shop in Bloomington. Located on 11th Street, proceeds from sales benefit Monroe County United Ministries, which provides community resources including schooling and food assistance.

Bloomington Thrift Shop Inc. is another non-profit

thrift store in Bloomington, located on South Madison Street, and provides fundraising for Psi lota Xi, a national philanthropic sorority focused on art and literature.

BYOB, or bring your own business, is an organization dedicated to providing a selling-market for student businesses and sellers at IU. Typically clothing, jewelry or art is sold, and anyone from the community can shop. These events happen bimonthly, and the next event is at 12 p.m. Nov. 17 at Showalter Fountain.

important to be mindful of the quality of clothes you thrift to ensure items’ longevity so you don’t have to buy replacements. Often fast fashion garments are made of polyester, nylon or acrylic, synthetic fabrics that

contribute to microplastic pollution.

COLUMN: What Thanksgiving-based films to watch this holiday

By Ursula Stickelmaier ustickel@iu.edu

Every year when the holidays roll around we are bombarded with an onslaught of films centered around these festivities. New romantic comedies keep love in the air for Valentine’s Day. Horror movies come out just in time to frighten you before Halloween. Christmas and other holiday films arrive to keep you cozy throughout the winter. But what about Thanksgiving? Here’s how the film industry helps you prepare for when the leaves fall and the turkey comes out.

“A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (1973) When it comes to classic Thanksgiving films, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” is at the top of the list. Like any “Peanuts” special, there is a certain nostalgia that comes when Charlie Brown and his friends like Snoopy, Linus and even Lucy all get

together to celebrate the holidays. In this holiday special, despite Charlie Brown going to celebrate Thanksgiving with his grandmother, Peppermint Patty invites everyone to his house for the holidays. With no one to cook the dinner, Snoopy steps up as chef and makes his own Thanksgiving meal for everyone to enjoy.

Snoopy has become a popular character in social media recently with brands such as Target and American Eagle doing collaborations with “Peanuts” to feature the cartoon dog in their clothing.

“Peanuts” theme parks such as Camp Snoopy, which is located at Knott’s Berry Farm in California, have recently gained a lot of attention on TikTok. So, if you’re looking to add a little more Snoopy into your life, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” available to stream on Apple TV or rent on Amazon Prime, is a great place to start.

“Free Birds” (2013) What if there were no

Thanksgiving turkey? “Free Birds,” the 2013 animated film directed by Jimmy Hayward, tackles the concept with a pair of time traveling turkeys. After being the lucky turkey picked to be pardoned by the president, Reggie (Owen Wilson) is enjoying a carefree life, not worrying about Thanksgiving. That is until fellow turkey Jake (Woody Harrelson) convinces him to go back in time and stop the pilgrims from ever eating that first turkey, consequently saving all turkeys from

their Thanksgiving fate. While strange in concept, Harrelson and Wilson are a hilarious duo for this funloving film. Available to stream on Tubi, Amazon Prime or Paramount+, this movie is great if you are looking for something the whole family can watch.

“Thanksgiving” (2023) If you are one of those people still missing Halloween, “Thanksgiving” is the film for you. This horror movie directed by Eli Roth became popular around the

Church of Christ

time of its release mainly because of the cast, which features popular actors such as Milo Manheim, Patrick Dempsy and Addison Rae. The film itself gives a much darker spin to the American holiday when a masked killer comes after the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, a year after the town’s Black Friday riot ended in tragedy. As Plymouth residents are picked off one-by-one, Jessica (Nell Verlaque) and her friends must find the killer before it’s too late.

Warning, this film is not for the faint of heart. It’s a great slasher to binge around the holiday if you’re a fan of the horror genre, but some of the killings can be so gruesome it might have you rethinking Thanksgiving dinner. If you are looking to take that risk, the movie is available to stream on Netflix.

“Turkey Drop” (2019)

Who says holiday rom coms can only be set in the wintertime? “Turkey Drop” tells the story of

825 W. Second St. 812-332-0501 facebook.com/w2coc

Sunday: 9:30 a.m., Bible Study

10:30 a.m. & 5 p.m., Worship Wednesday: 7 p.m., Bible Study

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Bloomington Young Single Adult Branch

2411 E. Second St.

To Contact: Send message from website maps.churchofjesuschrist.org/ wards/237973

Sunday: 12:30 p.m.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has four congregations in Bloomington—Three family wards and our young single adult branch for college students. This info is for the YSA Branch. Weekday religious classes at 333 S. Highland Ave, Bloomington IN 47401, next to campus. More info at churchofjesuschrist.org.

Lutheran - Missouri Synod

University Lutheran Church and LCMS U Student Center

607 E. Seventh St. 812-336-5387 indianalutheran.com facebook.com/ULutheranIU instagram.com/uluindiana

Sunday: 9:15 a.m.: Sunday Bible Class

10:30 a.m.: Sunday Divine Service

Wednesday: 7 p.m.: Wednesday Evening Service

Student Center open daily:

9 a.m. - 10 p.m.

The LCMS home of campus ministry at IU, our mission is to serve all college students with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, located across from Dunn Meadow and the IMU. The Student Center is open daily for study, recreation, and prayer. For full schedule, visit our website.

Rev. Timothy Winterstein - Campus Pastor

United Methodist

Jubilee

219 E. Fourth St. 812-332-6396 jubileebloomington.org

Facebook: First United Methodist Church of Bloomington, IN

Instagram: @jubileebloomington

Sunday: 9:30 a.m., Classic Worship

11:45 a.m., Contemporary Worship

Wednesday: 7:30 p.m., College & Young Adult Dinner

Jubilee is a Christ-centered community open and affirming to all. We gather on Wednesdays at First United Methodist (219 E. 4th St.) for free food, honest discussion, worship, and hanging out. Small groups, service projects, social events (bonfires, game nights, book clubs, etc.), outreach retreats, and leadership opportunities all play a significant role in our rhythm of doing life together.

Markus Dickinson - jubilee@fumcb.org

Inter-Denominational

Redeemer Community Church

111 S. Kimble Dr. 812-269-8975 redeemerbloomington.org facebook.com/RedeemerBtown

Instagram & Twitter: @RedeemerBtown

Sunday: 9 a.m., 11 a.m.

Redeemer is a gospel-centered community on mission. Our vision is to see the gospel of Jesus Christ transform everything: our lives, our church, our city, and our world. We want to be instruments of gospel change in Bloomington and beyond.

Chris Jones - Lead Pastor

We use no book, but the Bible. We have no creed but His Word within its sacred pages. God is love and as such we wish to share this joy with you. The comprehensive teaching of God’s Word can change you forever.

John Myers - Preacher

American Restoration Movement

North Central Church of Christ

2121 N. Dunn St. 812-332-2248 nc3family.org Facebook.com/nc3family

Sunday: 10 a.m., Worship 11 a.m., College Class

Come learn about historic Christian teaching on theology, ethics, and culture. We offer an alternative to the post-modern ideologies and teachings you often see in your lives today.

Shane Himes, PHD - Senior Minister

Christian Science

Christian Science Church

2425 E. Third St. 812-332-0536 bloomingtonchristianscience.com facebook.com/e3rdStreet

Sunday Church Service: 10 - 11 a.m. Wednesday Testimony Meeting: 7 - 8 p.m.

- Fri.

its integrity, fairness and compassion. (Christian Science Monitor) csmonitor.com

Lucy Jacobs (Olivia Holt) who returns home for Thanksgiving and, after suspecting her hometown boyfriend Jordan (Tyler Perez) is about to dump her, decides to step out of her comfort zone and prove she is more adventurous and outgoing than he thought. But when things begin to heat up with Dean (Ben Levin), her brother’s longtime friend and the boy that used to tease her when they were kids, Lucy begins to realize she may deserve more than what Jordan has been giving her. This fun and romantic film is great to play in the background as you’re preparing for Thanksgiving festivities or if you are looking for something light to sit down and watch. It’s an enemies-to-lovers trope set to a Thanksgiving backdrop that makes me believe that maybe Thanksgiving can be added to the list of romantic holidays. You can currently watch “Turkey Drop” on FuboTV or Sling TV.

Orthodox All Saints Orthodox Christian Church

6004 S. Fairfax Rd. 812-824-3600 allsaintsbloomington.org webbrk1@gmail.com Youtube video of services on website

Sunday: 9 a.m.: Sunday Matins 10

Father Peter Jon Gillquist Thomas Przybyla - Pastoral Assistant

Bahá'í Faith

Bloomington Bahá'í Community and Bahá’í IU Association

424 S. College Mall Rd. 812-331-1863

facebook.com/Baháí-Community-of-

The Bahá'í Association of IU works to share the Teachings and Principles of the Founder, Bahá'u'lláh, that promote the "Oneness of Mankind" and the Peace and Harmony of the Planet through advancing the "security, prosperity, wealth and tranquility of all peoples."

Karen Pollock Dan Enslow

COLUMN: Second half performance signals Indiana is a different team

By Mateo Fuentes-Rohwer matfuent@iu.edu | @mateo_frohwer

For a moment, Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall was stunned.

Redshirt sophomore guard Myles Rice’s turnover led to a fastbreak layup for Eastern Illinois University, extending its lead over No. 17 Indiana men’s basketball to 35-32 with exactly two minutes to go in the first half.

Head coach Mike Woodson emerged from the bench, calling a timeout while the Hoosiers slowly trudged back to their bench.

Little noise came from Hoosier fans, with the exception of a sprinkle of boos. Palpable worry appeared to plague most of them. But when the final buzzer sounded over an hour later,

the scoreboard read a 90-55 victory for Indiana on Nov. 10, marking its first victory of 20 or more points since Dec. 20, 2022. Eastern Illinois entered the Nov. 10 matchup 341st out of 364 Division I teams in the KenPom rankings. Indiana was a projected 26.5-point favorite, according to ESPN. A close matchup is not what Woodson would have expected — or wanted —for his squad.

“I thought we were still home in the bed (asleep),” Woodson said postgame. “It was awful. You got to give Eastern Illinois credit because they played hard and made shots.”

But his team’s response is what ultimately gave him the most satisfaction.

“Couldn’t ask for a better

second half,” Woodson said. “I mean, it’s a good thing when you can hold teams to 18 points in a half. That doesn’t happen very often in college basketball.”

Indiana struggled to finish off its early nonconference contests last season, as was clear in its 69-63 victory over Florida Gulf Coast University and 72-64 win over Army West Point. However, the Hoosiers had no trouble dispatching Eastern Illinois, outscoring the Panthers 54-18 in the second half.

The ultimate result was expected, but its response to adversity was what distanced Indiana from its woes last year.

It was unlikely Eastern Illinois was going to continue its first half clips of 16 for 27 from the field and

5 for 10 from the perimeter. And the Panthers did not, scoring only 18 points on 16.7% shooting in the second half.

The drastic change wasn’t simply a product of Eastern Illinois missing shots; it was an increased defensive effort from every Hoosier.

“We just changed our mindset going into the second half,” junior forward Malik Reneau said. “But we got to have that for all 40 minutes, and I think that’s why they had a great half in the first half.”

For the second game of the season in the middle of November, Indiana still has time to establish itself as the leader of the Big Ten many predictions believed it to be.

The Nov. 10 game featured six faces who were not on the roster last season, three

Check the IDS every Thursday for your directory of local religious services,

Society of Friends (Quaker)

Bloomington Friends Meeting

3820 E. Moores Pike

812-336-4581 bloomingtonfriendsmeeting.org

Facebook: Bloomington Friends Meeting

Sunday (in person & Zoom) :

9:45 a.m., Hymn singing

10:30 a.m., Meeting for Worship

10:45 a.m., Sunday School

(Children join worship 10:30-10:45)

11:30 a.m., Refreshments and Fellowship

12:30 p.m., Events (see website)

Wednesday (Zoom Only) :

7 p.m., Meeting for worship for Peace

Friday (Zoom Only) :

9 a.m., Meeting for worship

We practice traditional Quaker worship, gathering in silence with occasional Spirit-led vocal ministry by fellow worshipers. We are an inclusive community with a rich variety of belief and no prescribed creed. We are actively involved in peace action, social justice causes, and environmental concerns.

Peter Burkholder - Clerk burkhold@indiana.edu

Non-Denominational

Christ Community Church

503 S. High St. 812-332-0502 cccbloomington.org

facebook.com/christcommunitybtown

Instagram: @christcommunitybtown

Sunday: 9:15 a.m., Educational Hour

10:30 a.m., Worship Service

We are a diverse community of Christ-followers, including many IU students, faculty and staff. Together we are committed to sharing the redeeming grace and transforming truth of Jesus Christ in this college town.

Bob Whitaker - Senior Pastor Adam deWeber - Worship Pastor Dan Waugh - Adult Ministry Pastor

Christian Student Fellowship

1968 N. David Baker Ave. 812-332-8972 csfindiana.org

Instagram: @csfindiana

Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Christian Student Fellowship (CSF) exists as a Christ-centered community focused on helping students truly know Jesus Christ. Our ministry operates from an on-campus house where students can live. Reach out to schedule a tour of the house or a visit to our Thursday night worship service!

Ben Geiger - Lead Campus Minister

Stephanie Michael - Campus Minister

Joe Durnil - Associate Campus Minister

Hailee Lutz - Office Manager

Church of Christ

825 W. Second St. 812-332-0501 facebook.com/w2coc

Sunday: 9:30 a.m., Bible Study

10:30 a.m. & 5 p.m., Worship

Wednesday: 7 p.m., Bible Study

We use no book, but the Bible. We have no creed but His Word within its sacred pages. God is love and as such we wish to share this joy with you. The comprehensive teaching of God’s Word can change you forever.

John Myers - Preacher

City Church 1200 N. Russell Rd.

812-336-5958

citychurchbloomington.org

tiktok: @citychurchbtown

Instagram: @citychurchbtown

Sunday Service: 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 11:45 a.m.

City Church is a multicultural church on the east side of Bloomington. We provide transportation from campus. Our college and young adult ministry meets on Tuesday nights.

David Norris - Pastor

Sacred Heart Church

615 N. Fairview St. 812-345-5239 sacredheartbloomington.org facebook.com/sacredheartbloomington

Sunday: 10:30 a.m.: Refreshments and Fellowship 10:45 a.m.: Worship Service Tue., Wed., Thu.: Midweek Meals (Check Facebook)

Sacred Heart is a nondenominational church that seeks to follow Jesus by acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God. We strive to be a safe, inclusive community where you can bring your doubts, questions, struggles, and joys before a loving God and find true belonging. All are welcome! Dan Caldwell

Episcopal (Anglican)

Canterbury Mission

719 E. Seventh St. 812-822-1335 IUCanterbury.org facebook.com/ECMatIU

Instagram & Twitter: @ECMatIU

Youtube: @canterburyhouseatiu9094

Sunday: 3 p.m. - 7 p.m.

Mon., Wed., Thu.: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Tuesday: Noon - 8 p.m. Fri., Sat.: By Appointment

Canterbury: Assertively open & affirming; unapologetically Christian, we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ by promoting justice, equality, peace, love and striving to be the change God wants to see in our world.

Ed Bird - Chaplain/Priest

Independent Baptist Lifeway Baptist Church

7821 W. State Road 46 812-876-6072 lifewaybaptistchurch.org facebook.com/lifewayellettsville

Sunday: 9 a.m., Bible Study Classes 10 a.m., Morning Service

5 p.m., Evening Service

*Free transportation provided. Please call if you need a ride to church.

Student Ministry: Meeting for Bible study throughout the month. Contact Rosh Dhanawade at bluhenrosh@gmail.com for more information.

Steven VonBokern - Senior Pastor Rosh Dhanawade - IU Coordinator 302-561-0108 bluhenrosh@gmail.com

in the starting lineup, so growing pains for a Hoosier squad filled with newcomers is understandable. And yet, those newcomers have been the difference for Indiana.

Freshman forward Bryson Tucker shined with 12 points off the bench, securing the best plus/ minus in the game with 27.

His 20 minutes ranked sixth on the squad, a sign that the former four-star recruit has the trust of his head coach.

So far, he’s delivered. “I come in, I know what I’m in there for — to score, play defense,” Tucker said. “So, I just make the most of that and just stay focused.”

Sixth-year senior center Oumar Ballo also contributed to the bounce back effort, earning 17 points and securing nine

United Church of Christ and American Baptist Churches-USA First United Church

2420 E. Third St. 812-332-4439 firstuc.org facebook.com/firstuc

Sunday: 10:30 a.m., Worship

Monday: 10 a.m. via Zoom, Bible Study

We are an Open, Welcoming, and Affirming community of love and acceptance dedicated to welcoming the diversity of God’s beloved. We exist to empower, challenge, and encourage one another to live out Jesus’ ways (compassion, truth, and justice) authentically as human beings in community to create a better world.

Rev. Jessica Petersen-Mutai Senior Minister

Baptist Emmanuel Church

1503 W. That Rd. 812-824-2768 Emmanuelbloom.com

Instagram & Facebook: @EmmanuelBloomington

Sunday: 9:15 a.m., Fellowship

Sunday: 10 a.m., Worship Groups: Various times

Emmanuel is a multigenerational church of all types of people. Whether you are questioning faith or have followed Jesus for years, we exist to help fuel a passion for following Jesus as we gather together, grow in community, and go make disciples.

John Winders - Lead Pastor

Second Baptist Church

321 N. Rogers St. 812-327-1467 sbcbloomington.org facebook.com/2ndbaptistbloomington youtube.com/@secondbaptist churchbloomington

Sunday Service: 10 a.m., In house and on Facebook/YouTube Sunday School: 8:45 - 9:45 a.m. Bible Study: Available In House and on Zoom Wednesdays, 6:30 p.m., Thursdays, Noon

Please come and worship with us. We are in training for reigning with Christ! Need a ride? Call our Church bus at 812-3271467 before 8 a.m. on Sunday

Rev. Dr. Bruce R. Rose - Pastor Tallie Schroeder - Secretary

Unitarian Universalist

Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington 2120 N. Fee Ln. 812-332-3695 uubloomington.org facebook.com/uubloomington

Sunday: 10:15 a.m., via in person or livestream We’re a multi dynamic congregation actively working towards a more just and loving world. We draw inspiration from world religions and diverse spiritual traditions. Our vision is “Seeking the Spirit, Building Community, Changing the World.” A LGBTQA+, Dementia Friendly, Welcoming Congregation to all ages and groups and a Certified Green Sanctuary.

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

rebounds. Senior forward Luke Goode nailed two 3-pointers, adding to the positive production off the bench that Indiana failed to consistently have last year. The Illinois transfer’s five shots all came from the perimeter, something Woodson is perfectly fine with.

“I haven’t told anyone on this team not to take shots,” Woodson said. “Hell, Goode, you got shots, shoot the ball. I didn’t bring you here to not shoot it.” Bench production will need to continue for Indiana to have a real chance at reaching the heights it intends to reach, but making adjustments is also crucial. For the Hoosiers to succeed in doing that so early in the season only bodes well for the future.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Rose House LuMin & St. Thomas Lutheran Church

3800 E. Third St. 812-332-5252 Stlconline.org lcmiu.net

Instagram: @hoosierlumin facebook.com/LCMIU facebook.com/StThomasBloomington

Sunday: 8:30 a.m. & 11 a.m. @ St. Thomas Lutheran Church

3800 E. Third St. Tuesday: 6:30 p.m. Dinner & Devotions @ Rose House LuMin 314 S. Rose Ave. Rose House LuMin and St. Thomas Lutheran Church invite you to experience life together with us. We are an inclusive Christian community who values the faith, gifts, and ministry of all God’s people. We seek justice, serve our neighbors, and love boldly. Rev. Adrianne Meier Rev. Lecia Beck Rev. Amanda Ghaffarian - Campus Pastor

Unity Worldwide

Unity of Bloomington A Center for Spiritual Growth

4001 S. Rogers St. text/call: 812-333-2484 unityofbloomington.org

IG: @unityofbloomington facebook@UnityofBloomington

Sunday Celebration: 10:30 a.m.

Discover a vibrant, welcoming community at Unity of Bloomington – “a positive path for spiritual living”. Our center offers a space for spiritual growth; embracing all with open arms. We proudly affirm and welcome the LGBTQ+ community, fostering love, acceptance, and inclusion. Join our loving congregation, where everyone is valued and encouraged to explore their spiritual journey. At Unity of Bloomington, all are welcome and together we thrive!

Minnassa Gabon - Spiritual Leader Phyllis Wickliff - Music Director Reformed Protestant

Trinity Reformed Church

2401 S. Endwright Rd. 812-825-2684 trinityreformed.org lucas@trinityreformed.org facebook.com/trinitychurchbloom

Sunday: 10:30 a.m., Sunday Morning Services 7 p.m., Bible Study at the IMU

We are a Reformed Protestant church on the west side of Bloomington with lively worship on Sunday mornings and regular lunches for students after church. We love God and His Word. Please get in touch if you’d like a ride!

Jody Killingsworth - Senior Pastor Lucas Weeks - College Pastor

Indiana beats Michigan, Cignetti still ‘not happy’

By Daniel Flick danflick@iu.edu | @bydanielflick

Confetti rested on the turf of Indiana football’s north endzone, nearly an hour after the then-No. 8 Hoosiers made history.

But the two weren’t related.

Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti’s daughter, Natalie, was proposed to on the field following the Hoosiers’ 2015 victory over Michigan on Nov. 9 at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington.

One can assume the proposal pleased Cignetti. So, too, did Indiana’s win over the defending national champion Wolverines, which he said postgame showcased his team’s resolve and competitive character.

But the architect of the then-No. 8 Hoosiers’

first-ever 10-win season in program history was far from pleased with his team’s overall product Nov. 9.

“I’m glad we won. I don’t like the way we played,” Cignetti said. “I’m not happy with the way we played, particularly on offense in the second half. But it’s a win. None of us are going to give it back.”

In the second half, Indiana’s offense tallied only 18 yards and failed to score, a stark contrast to a unit that entered the day ranked amongst the nation’s best in total yards and points per game.

Cignetti touted the Hoosiers’ defense, which held Michigan to three field goals and only one touchdown while averaging just two yards per rush. Still, he said the unit was on the

field for too long, a byproduct of Michigan’s six conversions on third and fourth down and Indiana’s offensive woes.

As a result, after nine games of dominance — no margins of victory closer than 14 points — the Hoosiers found themselves teetering on the edge of disaster. Their 17-3 lead dwindled to 17-15 in the fourth quarter.

Indiana was tested on a level it hasn’t experienced this season. It still wasn’t fazed.

“When you perform how we perform all year, there’s never doubt,” fifth-year senior receiver Ke’Shawn Williams said postgame. “We’re never on the sideline like, ‘Damn, this might be it.’ Like, nah, we know when we get out there and we do our thing, we’ve got to make some stuff happen.”

The Hoosiers seemingly break more and more records each week. Their victory over Michigan is their first as a ranked team against an unranked Wolverines squad, an allusion to the current state of both programs.

Redshirt sophomore receiver Omar Cooper Jr., who caught three passes for 53 yards and a touchdown, said postgame there was more weight on the Nov. 9 game due to the Wolverines’ championship 10 months prior.

Indiana’s drastic oneyear turnaround is one of college football’s top stories. Regardless of how the Hoosiers’ fairytale season ends, they’ve already secured the most wins in program history. Still, there’s more to do.

“It’s something we knew we were capable of,” Williams said. “It’s a conclusion of all the hard work that’s been put in thus far. It’s a milestone until where we actually want to go. We’re happy, but we’re not satisfied.”

Cignetti noted each game counts as one, regardless of the final score or, as he phrased it, lack of style points. The Hoosiers won’t hear many external voices claiming for them to be ranked higher, Cignetti said, but they try not to hear outside opinions anyway.

Indiana is an experienced team, one littered not only with age but players who have winning backgrounds. The Hoosiers have found ways to compartmentalize each week, savoring victories for 24 hours before pivoting onward.

In some cases, high-level performances have followed. In others, they haven’t. However, championship teams, Cignetti claimed, find ways to win. The Hoosiers have done it more times this year than ever before. They’ll get a week off to rest their bodies and minds before playing perhaps the biggest regularseason game in program history against Ohio State on Nov. 23. Almost one year to the day, Indiana was eliminated from bowl eligibility. Now, with Cignetti at the helm, the Hoosiers are thinking College Football Playoffs. And even at 10-0, they’re still unsatisfied.

“No matter what we’ve done in the past,” Cooper said, “we’ve still got things to do in the future.”

MICHELLE REZSONYA | IDS

The Indiana football team waits to run onto the field before a game against Michigan on Nov. 9, 2024, at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington. The Hoosiers held an undefeated 9-0 record before the game against the Wolverines.