Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020
Quinceañera on Kirkwood, p. 7
IDS Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
“That’s a horrible dashboard. I mean, come on, they’re a big state university, why would they have such limited information? That’s disappointing.” Howard Forman, professor of public health at Yale University
New cases decline at IU By Matt Cohen mdc1@iu.edu | @Matt_Cohen_
IU’s COVID-19 dashboard reported a decrease in new cases and positivity rates for the third consecutive week in its Wednesday update. This week’s update included data from Sept. 2026. The overall mitigation testing positivity rate across all IU campuses was 1.3% last week. In Bloomington alone, that rate was 1.43%. Both are decreases compared to what the previous update reported. The highest single-week positivity rate in Bloomington was 7.26%, which PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CARSON TERBUSH | IDS
cterbush@iu.edu | @_carsonology
We Rate Covid Dashboards, a group of Yale University professors and medical students that evaluates university COVID-19 dashboards, assessed IU’s about a week ago. It got a C+. “That’s a horrible dashboard,” said Howard Forman, professor of public health and director of Yale's health care management program, immediately after pulling up IU’s COVID-19 tracking website on his computer. “I mean, come on, they’re a big state university, why would they have such limited information? That’s disappointing.” Forman, who founded We Rate Covid Dashboards with a colleague, said the site grades dashboards based on nine categories, including if they are easy to read, updated daily, provide separate student and faculty data, state how often people are tested and give a summary of how the campus is handling the coronavirus. IU scored only five out of 13 possible points. While easy to read, the dashboard is not updated daily, does not include city or county data, does not state how soon tests come back and
IU received the second-worst rating of schools in the Big Ten School
Rating
Indiana
C+
Illinois
B
Maryland
A
Michigan
B+
Michigan State
B
Ohio State
A
Penn State
B
Rutgers
B-
Nebraska
B
Minnesota
B
Iowa
B
Northwestern
C
Purdue
A-
Wisconsin
B+
SOURCE WE RATE COVID DASHBOARDS
does not give a summary of the campus status. Within the Big Ten, 11 of 14 schools scored a B — seven points — or higher, and IU had the worst score of all schools in the conference except Northwestern University. IU’s infrequent dash-
board updates aren’t due to a lack of COVID-19-related data points. The university just won’t release them to the public. Aaron Neal, associate vice president of enterprise systems at University Information Technology Services, oversees IU’s internal COVID-19 dashboards. Neal said his team built and maintains multiple internal dashboards to update public health experts on testing. This internal data, including multiple metrics not present on the publicfacing dashboard, flows into the internal ones as fast as Neal’s team can manage, often almost in real time as soon as COVID-19 test results are processed by Vault Health and other testing facilities. But IU’s public-facing dashboard is only updated once a week. While the dashboard was originally updated each Monday, IU announced Sept. 11 in an email it would move all future updates to Wednesdays to provide its public health experts more time to “analyze results and provide important context.” This means weekly data doesn’t reach public eyes until four days after the last day of testing included in it. Asked repeatedly by the
Indiana Daily Student, university officials have maintained a weekly COVID-19 update is the best way to present data to the public given IU’s mitigation testing of testing certain groups on a week-to-week basis. “We would like to really focus on giving a much more accurate and reliable picture with the context of a week-to-week, which is a better way of looking at this through the public eyes, but also as an institution,” IU spokesperson Chuck Carney said. Dr. Aaron Carroll, IU’s director of mitigation testing, agreed with Carney in a Sept. 16 webinar, adding daily data comes in “haphazardly,” not in regular batches. “We have almost all of them back by Monday evening, then we can look at them holistically, make analyses, discuss changes, we get everything together for Tuesday, it goes up Wednesday,” Carroll said in the webinar. “I know people want more, but more isn’t necessarily better.” Forman said IU’s claims that weekly updates are “more accurate” are untrue. “To say that I’m going to give you less information because you don’t know how to use it is to infantilize
people,” Forman said. “I think everybody has a right to be able to see the information.” Forman said daily fluctuations in data are evident in nearly every COVID-19 dashboard, including state and national ones. He said releasing seven-day rolling averages each day can compensate for day-to-day discrepancies while still providing more frequent updates. Carney said IU does not plan to release daily updates incorporating a seven-day rolling average. “To just simply throw numbers up every day is not necessarily going to be helpful,” Carney said. Despite IU’s C+ dashboard rating, Forman said the university’s mitigation testing strategy is a good public health approach. Forman co-authored a medical paper published in May with recommendations for communities like universities on how to monitor COVID-19, and he said IU’s response closely follows processes laid out in that paper. “From what I can glean, IU has a strategy that is based in good public health science, but the lack of SEE DASHBOARD, PAGE 4
Students share job experience at art bookstore By Haley Ryan haryan@iu.edu | @haley__ryan
A typical day at the Friends of Art bookstore used to start at 9 a.m. with set up, bagels and coffee before the first rush of students came in for their morning classes. But even with the coronavirus pandemic altering every aspect of student life, three students are still showing up to work. The Friends of Art Bookshop is described as a welcoming environment and a cornerstone to the fine arts community at IU by student employees. The Friends of Art Bookstore is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and is located on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building. Grace O'Brien, a junior studying theater, drama and East Asian languages and cultures, has been working at the Friends of Art Bookstore since she was a freshman. “I had never been there,” O’Brien said. “I never heard anything about it, but I just applied because, again, I loved art.” After stepping out of her first interview, O’Brien said she knew it was the place
COURTESY PHOTO
The COVID-19 pandemic has made a typical day in the Friends of Art Bookshop less busy than in previous years. The shop must operate at limited customer capacity, and there are fewer people on campus this year.
she wanted to work throughout college. Before the COVID-19 pandemic , her work days typically involved assisting customers with products and working behind the register. “A huge thing is making everyone feel welcomed,” O’Brien said. “So usually
when it's super busy, it's really just talking with people and helping them find stuff they need or, you know, pointing in the right direction of different books they may want.” Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic has made a typical day in the bookshop less busy than in previous years.
The shop must operate at limited customer capacity, and there are less people on campus this year. This has made shifts look much different for the student workers because there are fewer customer interactions and a larger focus on menial tasks and cleaning. “Not much has changed
Negative tests Positive tests Aug. 30 Aug. 23
By Carson TerBush
The proportion of positive mitigation tests has decreased for the past three weeks at IU-B
7,862
274
9,374
Sept. 20 Sept. 13 Sept. 6
IU COVID-19 dashboard rated as C+
SEE COVID-19, PAGE 4
7,225
734
345
10,190
9,360
2,000
226
140
6,000 10,000
SOURCE FALL2020.IU.EDU GRAPHIC BY CARSON TERBUSH | IDS
IU to remove Jordan name By Avraham Forrest ahforres@iu.edu | @Avraham_Forrest
in terms of what we do,” O’Brien said. “It's just the amount of people that we see that has changed a lot.” O’Brien has been a staff member since her freshman year due to the supportive and flexible work environment at the bookshop. She said during inperson classes, having the shop on campus made it convenient for her to run from classes to work. She also said management was willing to work around her class schedule which made balancing school and work easy. “I'd say that the people really make the environment of the bookstore one that I wanted to keep being involved with, because I mean I've met so many cool people just from working there,” O’Brien said. “I don't think I would have ever run into them if I hadn't been in that spot.” Daria Johnson, a sophomore studying comprehensive design and sociology, also has experienced the strong community and supportive environment of the Friends of Art Bookshop while working there. Before
IU President Michael McRobbie is recommending the removal of former IU President David Starr Jordan’s name from Jordan Hall, the Jordan Avenue parking garage and Bloomington’s Jordan River at the upcoming Board of Trustees meeting on Oct. 1 and 2, IU spokesperson Chuck Carney said. McRobbie will recommend the buildings and river be given placeholder names until new names are selected. Jordan Hall would be temporarily renamed the Biology Building, the Jordan Avenue parking garage would be temporarily renamed the East parking garage and the Jordan River would be temporarily renamed the Campus River, Carney said. Many people have objected to Jordan’s name on some of these buildings due to the former president’s involvement with eugenics, a movement encouraging the selective breeding of humans, Carney said. “It runs counter to the longstanding values and the core visions of IU,” Carney said.
SEE BOOKSTORE, PAGE 4
SEE JORDAN, PAGE 4