Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
IU looks ahead to Big Ten tourney By Ben Portnoy bmportno@iu.edu | @bportnoy15
IDS Student voices
ALEXA CHRYSSOVERGIS | IDS
Students and advisers came to the Statehouse from all around Indiana on Tuesday to support House Bill 1130, which protects student press freedoms. Many wore blue shirts that said “#BeHeard” on them.
Committee hears testimony on student press freedom protection bill By Alexa Chryssovergis aachryss@indiana.edu | @achryssovergis
Students from all around Indiana gathered at the Statehouse early morning Valentine’s Day to celebrate a mutual love — journalism. The students came in blue shirts with star-and-stripe speech bubbles and #BeHeard splayed on the front. They hailed from places such as Evansville, Indiana, and Carmel, Indiana, and they brought pins and colorful candy hearts with tiny words engraved into them: “I heart HB 1130.” They got there before 8:30 a.m. and they waited patiently for hours to testify in support of their press freedoms. “I believe we cannot fear the youth,” said Paris Garnier, a student journalist at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, during testimony. “We are the future, and this bill will protect our future.” House Bill 1130 has bipartisan support from its author and co-author, Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, and Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis. It’s part of a movement sweeping the nation that would provide protection for student journalists primarily at the high school and college levels, though Indiana’s bill includes kindergarten and grade school, too.
According to the bill, educational institutions would not be able to suppress school-sponsored media unless it’s libelous or slanderous. The bill also has strong support from both the Indiana High School and Indiana Collegiate Press Associations. Similar bills, promoted by New Voices USA, have passed or are currently being considered in states across the country. Lydia Gerike, an IU freshman studying journalism and a reporter for the Indiana Daily Student, was the first to testify in support of HB 1130. Gerike said she chose IU in part because the student newspaper is independent from the University. Because she had a comprehensive journalism education in high school, she was able to jump into covering complex issues as an elections reporter for the IDS during her first semester as a freshman. “As often as we disagree, journalists and politicians are the same at our cores,” Gerike said. “We are civil servants.” Others who testified provided examples of some of the nuanced and controversial issues they’ve had the opportunity to cover and write about through high school and college journalism programs.
Garnier said during her time as a student journalist at Warren Central High School in Indianapolis, she had the freedom to write editorials about contentious topics such as vaccines, violence in poverty and the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Students have to be given the chance to practice and perfect the skills needed to be good at their job, Garnier said. Learning to be a good journalist is a very vocational practice, she said. “The best way to learn if journalism is right for us is to be in an environment that mimics the real world as closely as possible,” Garnier said. Selena Qian, editor-in-chief of the quarterly publication Acumen at Carmel High School, also testified to her fortune at coming from a high school with a good administrationjournalism program relationship. As it stands, with no law like the New Voices legislation in place in Indiana, it’s up to the discretion of a school administration to decide whether to enact prior review or prior restraint, which is when an administrator looks over a piece before it is published and decides whether or not it can see the light of day. Qian comes from a high school
By Noelle Snider nmsnider@indiana.edu | @snider_noelle
REBECCA MEHLING | IDS
Originally from England, Tonia Matthew reads her poem "Love Letter to my Cat" Tuesday evening at the Venue Fine Arts and Gifts. The Venue was host to a "Words of Love" poetry-writing event for Valentine's Day.
Bob Selvaggi, a Bloomington resident, found inspiration for poetry when he moved to Bloomington from an old farm. He said he had always wanted to write but didn’t have the inspiration to write much at the farm. “There is something going on here, this creative vortex I’ll call it,” Selvaggi said. “It was fate that got me here. Otherwise I would not have written probably, or at least not like I’m doing now.” Selvaggi read three of his poems, including one for his love of a brewery.
Dave Colman, a lawyer and Gabe Colman’s father, read an anthology. He began by speaking of high school love with the repeating phrase “sways with a wiggle when she walks.” Dave continued with a poem about his college years. He said it had dazzled women in college. “This captures what I was about and what most of us were about in the ‘60s,” Dave said. Dave looked at his valentine, Michelle Martin-Colman, while reading a poem that he said represented his love now and in the
SEE SWIMMING, PAGE 10
Alumni panel to talk about IU, careers By Jesse Naranjo
SEE SPEECH, PAGE 10
Poets share Valentine’s Day ‘Words of Love’ Greeted with a table of wine, cookies and a cake, guests filed into the Venue Fine Arts & Gifts. Gabe Colman, curator of the Venue, and his parents welcomed everyone by talking about family traditions of how Valentine’s Day was special to them, continued through the crafting of hand-made Valentines at the gallery. “Valentines would come around, and that was the go-overthe-top thing with boxes and 3-D things and doilies and lace and amazing things,” said Michelle Martin-Colman, mother of Gabe Colman and co-proprietor of the Venue. The Venue Fine Arts & Gifts welcomed locals, newcomers, couples and friends Tuesday evening to share their poetry and love letters in honor of Valentine’s Day at an event called “Words of Love.” The atmosphere was comfortable for the audience members, who all seemed to know one another. While some of the poets read pieces they wrote, others sang songs. With everyone at ease by the end of the event, the attendees began casually talking to one another about how their days had been. One man had said he had a colonoscopy that day while another said it was a day of mourning. Tonia Matthew, a regular at Venue Fine Arts & Gifts, began by reading a prose poem about cats. “I’ve never been terribly good at romance, so I have decided to read some poems about love but not strictly about love,” Matthew said.
Championship seasons can erase a lot of things, both good and bad, but the IU women’s swim and dive team’s goal is to finish on a high note, IU Coach Ray Looze said. This week the No. 15-ranked Hoosiers will take their show on the road to West Lafayette, Indiana, for the 2017 Big Ten Championships. The meet, featuring five nationally ranked teams, will begin Wednesday and conclude Sunday. Looze said the team expects a battle. “You know Michigan’s clear and away the favorite,” Looze said. “Nobody’s going to touch them, and then it’s really going to be a battle for the two, three, four, five spots. So you’re really going to have to swim and dive well.” For the Hoosiers, this week will be an important point in an up-anddown year. Not only does this week mark the beginning of championship season, but IU is coming off a three-game stretch that saw a win against Purdue sandwiched between humbling losses to Michigan and Louisville to end the season. “Our mindset going into Big Tens is the same every year, and it’s just to have the most fun possible,” senior swimmer Gia Dalesandro said. “We do a really great job of just keeping things light.” This time of year also marks the tapering phase of the Hoosiers’ schedule. In practice, swimmers have dialed down how far they swim so they are fully rested and prepared for championship season. The team is ready for a “real meet,” sophomore Lilly King said. “For us, dual meets are kind of hard ‘cause we typically train through our dual meets,” King said. “We don’t really taper in season very much, so
future. After Dave spoke, Michelle Martin-Colman went next. She first began describing her love for old poetry and compared it to her feelings toward current poems. She said they are too hard to understand now. In between reading poems, Martin-Colman handed Dave a lace-filled, crafty and detailed valentine. For the past 34 years the two have kept up a tradition. “We make Valentines for each other each year for each other,” Martin-Colman said. “Thirty-four years. ”
jlnaranj@indiana.edu | @jesselnaranjo
IU alumni will discuss their educational and professional careers Wednesday evening at the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center in a Black Excellence Alumni Panel. The event is part of a series of Black History Month events by the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs. It will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Neal-Marshall Bridgwaters Lounge. Three alumni will be at the event: Crystal Taliefero, professional musician and director of IU Soul Revue; Muhammad Saahir, a counselor at IU Health Center’s Counseling and Psychological Services; and William Shrewsberry, president and CEO of Shrewsberry & Associates, an Indianapolis engineering firm. Redgina Hill, director of diversity and inclusion at Bethel College, will send a video to be shown because there were unexpected familial complications that will prevent her from attending. The alumni will discuss their experiences and triumphs they overcame throughout their careers, said Aggrey Sam, the media contact for the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs. “Obviously, they’ll also be talking about their time at IU,” Sam said. This is the first Black History Month at the Neal-Marshall Center under the direction of Monica Johnson, who accepted the director position last March, who said this will be the first Black Excellence Alumni Panel to be held at the center. Johnson said having four people with very different careers provides a variety of experiences for people to learn from. “The intention behind it is that we wanted to bring real people to talk about real experiences,” Johnson said. She said the alumni will discuss their years at IU and the first years after they graduated. The panelists will describe what influenced them and caused them to choose their SEE ALUMNI, PAGE 10