IDS Freshman Edition 2023

IDS

TTAL ECLIPSE

Bloomington prepares for 2024 solar eclipse visitors

By Luke Price lwprice@iu.edu

Congratulations on becoming a Hoosier! Beginning your college experience at IU-Bloomington is an incredible achievement and I wish you all the best during your freshman year.

This is the Freshman Edition of the Indiana Daily Student, the student-run, independent newspaper here at IU. This issue compiles some of our best stories from the past academic year.

The IDS has been a part of Bloomington since its founding in 1867 and is a vital resource for the community. Everything you see in this paper is pro-

File photo by Sarah Verschoor

Hotels in Bloomington

are already sold out for a total solar eclipse more than a year away. The city is an optimal viewing location for the phenomenon on April 8, 2024, which is expected to draw many visitors to Bloomington. Hotels including the Biddle Hotel at IU, Cascades Inn, Graduate Bloomington and Travel Lodge by Windham have no available rooms April 5-9.

BPD Capt. Ryan Pedigo said the department began discussing how to handle the large amount of people coming to Bloomington for this event and the precautions they will take for the eclipse but did not list any specifics.

According to the ECLIPSE IU website, the path of the eclipse will begin in Mexico and travel through the U.S. directly over central Indiana. Bloomington and IU will be in the center of the eclipse’s predicted path, so residents will be able to see the total solar eclipse. The solar eclipse is expected to last four minutes and two seconds and is estimated to begin at 3:04 p.m.

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon moves directly in front of the sun, blocking out sunlight for a brief period. The phenomenon occurs around once every 18 months but is not always visible at the same location.

IU and Bloomington will be partaking in festivities such as live performances, art, poetry, special guests and trivia competitions,

duced by students — stories, photos and even the layout of the pages..

The IDS covers a variety of topics including local and regional news, IU sports and arts events. Stories are published daily on our website, idsnews. com, and in our free weekly print edition that can be found all around campus and in the city.

Students working at the IDS have the opportunity to write about all the topics in this issue and much more. The IDS is also home to photographers, graphic designers and web develop-

according to IU’s ECLIPSE IU website. More details for these festivities will be released in the coming months.

Catherine Pilachowski, astronomy professor at IU, said communities along the path of the 2017 partial solar eclipse in Indiana had triple the population during the event due to large amounts of tourists. Pilachowski said this put strain on public resources such as public safety, communications, food services and emergency management.

“The eclipse in August of 2017 was only partial here in Bloomington,” Pilachowski said. “This is a total eclipse; it will be like multiple football games at once.”

Pilachowski is part of a group of Bloomington and IU representatives that was put together to prepare Bloomington for the eclipse. She said the group works with several departments on campus, including astronomy and optometry departments, in addition to community representatives from the city who deal with community needs. The group is working to plan special events and to make sure the appropriate public resources are available in Bloomington on the day of the eclipse.

Pilachowski said there will only be around four minutes of total darkness from the eclipse, but the moon will begin to cross in front of the sun an hour before the eclipse. She said there will be about an hour after totality before the moon moves completely out of the way of the sun.

This story was originally published March 1, 2023.

ers. If you are interested in joining our team, please feel free to reach out me at editor@idsnews.com and keep an eye out for us at student involvement fairs this fall.

Please enjoy the stories we’ve put together for you and good luck with your first year at IU!

Cailin O’Malley Editor-in-Chief

Kerry Thomson wins Democratic nomination for mayor

By Marissa Meador marnmead@iu.edu | @Marissa_Meador

Kerry Thomson emerged victorious in the three-way Democratic primary race for Bloomington mayor May 2. Thomson is currently unopposed and will take office in January if no challenger files to run against her by this summer.

Thomson won with 43% of the vote, beating out Don Griffin with 24% and Susan Sandberg with 33%.

Thomson garnered more donations than her competitors and lauded her experience as CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County as an example of how she would approach the affordable housing crisis. Thomson is currently the executive director of the IU Center for Rural Engagement.

TAt the Ivy, a downtown event venue where Thomson’s watch party occurred, former mayors Mark Kruzan, John Fernandez and Tomi Allison introduced Thomson.

As she approached the podium, the crowd started chanting: “Kerry! Kerry!”

Dealing with issues with the microphone, Thomson asked “Can I turn this off?”

“You can do whatever you want, you’re the mayor!”

someone shouted. Thomson expressed gratitude for her large crowd of supporters and said her campaign had knocked on almost 13,000 doors.

Thomson said everyone’s voice was important in the city, regardless of what they believed in or how much money they had. She said she hoped Bloomington could set an example for the rest of the country.

“This is a new leaf for Bloomington,” she said.

During her speech, Thomson also thanked Griffin and Sandberg for running a great race, saying they made her a better candidate.

This story was originally published May 2, 2023

IGNITE pushes forward in journey for representation

By Mackenzie Lionberger mlionber@iu.edu | @Mackenzie_L42

When current IU Student Body President Aaliyah Raji first began her campaign under the IGNITE campaign, she knew exactly who she wanted by her side.

“Let me ask a wonderful black woman,” Raji said in an interview with the Indiana Daily Student about the new Vice President Marsha Koda.

Raji said originally, she was advised by some to run with a man as her vice president, but Raji wanted to support black women in power and wanted IGNITE to push for representation within IUSG.

Raji and Koda have become the first Black women to be elected for either of their positions in IU Student Government. Raji and Koda were inaugurated at the 76th inauguration on April 14 and are planning for their historic term.

“This campaign meant a lot just because I knew when we were doing it that if we

were elected, we were going to be the first,” Raji said. The new executive leadership said during their campaign, they purposely did not publicize they would be the first Black women to fill this position if they were elected, because they wanted students to focus on their policies.

Raji and Koda hope this moment for IUSG inspires students from all backgrounds to believe they can make a difference.

“Us being the first starts that precedent, allows students who look like us who've never had role models to take a step forward,” Koda said.

Raji said IGNITE wants to inspire people to apply for cabinet positions to create a diverse and representative executive branch. Applications for cabinet positions are due April 29 and they are looking for students interested in helping to uplift the IU community.

Koda says this achievement can inspire little girls to see it’s possible for two Black

women to win an executive position and become the voice for students at IU. Koda said it was moving to follow in the footsteps of many other alumni of her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, who have gone onto historic positions, such as Vice President Kamala Harris.

IGNITE officially started campaigning after Raji asked Koda to join her as her running mate for the 2023 executive IUSG election. The two had previously known each other from being a part of the Kelley School of Business and student government. Raji was a co-director of the first-year internship program at IUSG and Koda served as vice president of Alpha Kappa Alpha and outreach Kelley Student Government. Alpha Kappa Alpha is a historic African American sorority that has 1,061 chapters at many universities all over the country and 11 nations, according to their website.

During the campaign trail, IGNITE said they had

a smooth campaign and felt that their social media presence established recognition with students. They plan to use their Instagram to reach out to students and be transparent once they officially take over IUSG’s Instagram account.

“Since we’re both African American, the Black IU side will be more involved and I know a lot of them who didn’t know what IUSG was before, know because it was me and Marsha running,” said Raji.

Raji and Koda are preparing to meet with the IU dean of students and IU President Whitten to discuss potential initiatives, as well as plan permanent recurring meeting dates between the executive branch and IU administration. IGNITE is currently taking applications for positions in their cabinet for the 2023-2024 school year, which is linked in their Instagram bio and on the student government's website. Raji said agenda setting and planning for next year will begin this

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summer to prepare for the following semester.

The ticket plans to reach out to multicultural organizations, students and other groups on campus to listen to their needs. This will be done by initiating events to collaborate with multicultural originations instead of just donating to them, Koda said.

A few initiatives Raji and Koda want to accomplish include launching a student bus-driver program, investing in the IUSG Plan B budget and expanding the interfaith prayer space. The student bus driver program would propose a system to combat the driver shortage, as well as offer students jobs. Raji and Koda would also like to expand the Plan B budget to continue the accessibility of Plan B on campus for students.

Raji and Koda want to expand interfaith prayer spaces for students by creating accessible offices and spaces for students of all religions on campus to practice their faith.

Koda said the interfaith prayer space in the IMU is not a big enough room for people from all religions to practice their faith.

“IGNITE is not just me and Marsha it is a team of wonderful people who will help change IU for the better,” Raji said.

Raji said she wants to collaborate with their cabinet and all the branches of IUSG to ensure transparency between all the branches.

IGNITE is excited to be the first Black women in these positions but have emphasized they will not be the last. They said they are excited to begin this position and continue to meet with students and organizations to advocate their needs.

“All these different minorities, I just hope this inspires them and tells them that it's really possible because if we can do it, they definitely can,” Raji said.

This story was originally published April 27, 2023.

COURTESY PHOTO

Kerry Thomson, the executive director of the IU Center for Rural Engagement, is pictured. Thomson emerged victorious in the three-way Democratic primary race for Bloomington mayor May 2, 2023.

LETTER

Jacobs School launches semester in LA program

By Kathleen Tran trankat@iu.edu

The Jacobs School of Music, with help from The Media School, will launch their Jacobs in LA study program in spring 2024. The eightweek program is for master’s students in the music scoring for visual media program. Students will reside in Los Angeles, California and take a three-credit hour course, continue their capstone project and network with professionals in the industry.

“The music world in LA is enormous and that landing spot will provide our students with incredible opportunities that they may not be able to have here in Indiana,” Abra Bush, the David Henry Jacobs Bicentennial Dean,

said. “For us, it seemed like a great opportunity just waiting for us to agree to do. The Media School has been very helpful in their partnership, so it seemed like now is our hour.”

According to Larry Groupé, the director of music scoring for visual media program, many graduates from the program move to LA to develop their composition for the media they are working on such as a film or television.

“It’s where you need to go to meet the right people, to get involved and get jobs that’ll begin your career path,” Groupé said. “We should be going to LA probably more than any other entity right now at Jacobs, so that’s why we’re the pilot group.”

Related: [Jacobs School of Music Ballet Theater gives students the lead in the Choreography Project]

The Jacobs in LA program will work with film and TV composer Rick Marvin, who will be the adjunct professor for the required course students must take while in LA called “Music Scoring for Episodic Television.” Marvin graduated from the Jacobs School of Music in 1978 and serves on the Jacobs School of Music’s Dean’s Advisory Council.

“(The course) is the bulk of the work I’ve done the past 20 years and will be how to compose music for a television on a very tight schedule of one episode a week,” Marvin said. “I’ll be getting into how to work quick, how to set up your computer and

IU graduate student creates sounds from the periodic table

By Andrew Miller ami3@iu.edu

IU researcher Walker

Smith has developed a new technique to conceptualize the elements of the periodic table as sounds. He is currently working on creating an interactive tool to hear each element.

Smith, who majored in both chemistry and music composition, said he found it hard to combine his passions for each subject until learning about spectroscopy.

He said spectroscopy involves hitting an atom with radio waves, causing electrons to jump to higher energy states. When the electrons jump back down to their natural state, they release energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic radiation, which is usually seen as light, shows up visually as colored bands across the spectrum of visible light, Smith said.

Because light exhibits characteristics of a wave, the waveforms of these light bands can be converted into audible sound waves, Smith said. Bands closer to the red end of the spectrum create lowerpitched sounds, and bands closer to blue and purple end create higher sounds.

Smith said he has used these sound waves to create compositions, which have been played at the Jacobs School of Music and the American Chemical

Society’s spring 2023 conference.

He has performed several concerts involving the sound of elements for university students, professors and for children at the WonderLab science museum. Smith said he is highly interested in using the sonification of elements as a tool to spread excitement about science among young people.

“Students at that point are forming their understanding of science and other disciplines,” Smith said. “Encouraging this multimodal and interdisciplinary learning at a young age can be really beneficial.”

Laura Brown, IU chemistry professor, and mentor to Smith, said she sees potential in the project to inspire future scientists.

“If you can get to students at an early age where they grow up being excited about science, then I think they won’t limit themselves when they get to college,” Brown said.

Brown also said she hopes Smith’s efforts will result in more accessibility to visually impaired people in chemistry.

“Chemistry is a very visual science,” Brown said. “What Walker’s doing is audiolizing data, which could be a route to making chemistry more accessible to students who can’t see.”

Smith said he hopes that sonifying the elements will help make learning about the periodic table more accessible to visually impaired people. However, he emphasized that this is still a work in progress.

Chi Wang, assistant professor of music at IU and another mentor to Smith, said creatively combining disciplines are both useful as an educational tool and a form of expression.

“It’s a new way to create musical expression and a new form of art,” Wang said. “No matter what the result will be, it will help push boundaries in both areas.”

This story was originally published April 19, 2023.

how to set up all your audio equipment.”

Additionally, Groupé plans to take students on weekly field trips to companies like Sony Corporation, 20th Century Studios and Disney Publishing, as well as recording sessions featuring a 90-piece orchestra, film festivals and screenings.

Related: [Jacobs School of Music receives grant from National Endowment for the Humanities]

“The center point of this (program) is that in the entertainment business in particular, your contacts and your networks are paramount to you getting started out here,” Marvin said. “Hopefully, this will provide a path for students if they choose to move to Los Angeles and they will have not

only me as a resource, but other people they all meet when they do this program.”

Groupé considers Marvin a friend of the music scoring for visual media program because of his work in advocating and getting support for the program.

“He’s helped us so much in getting connected to certain things that are happening including what we do in the summer called Project Involved,” Groupé said.

Project Involved is a summer program with Film Independent, a nonprofit arts organization encouraging independent creativity in visual storytelling, where six IU scoring composer students are chosen to go to LA and compose original scores for six student-produced films.

The first phase of the program will be limited to students in the music scoring for visual media program, but the Jacobs School of Music plans to expand Jacobs in LA to other departments in the school and ultimately create classrooms, meeting spaces and a 40-person dormitory in LA.

“The long-term goal is to include all of Jacobs and have every music student have the opportunity to come to Los Angeles for a semester and continue their studies, be in the hub of not only the entertainment center that it is, but classical musicians, music educators, dance, opera — everything that Jacobs has,” Marvin said.

This story was originally published April 25, 2023

A beaver found a home on IU’s Campus River

By Carter DeJong cadejong@iu.edu | @dejong_carter

A beaver has made itself a home on IU’s Campus River.

The beaver’s dam is in a lightly wooded area far enough away from footpaths that students should not typically encounter the animal. The beaver presents no risk to students, IU paleontologist P. David Polly said.

“The main conceivable risk is that one could fell a tree,” Polly said, “The chances of one hitting a student are almost zero.” Beaver dams on the Campus River could reduce the risk of flooding. The Campus River flows into a culvert on Indiana Avenue near Franklin Hall. It was this culvert that overflowed during a thunderstorm in June 2021, causing one death and property damage on Kirkwood Avenue.

“Allegedly, the sound of running water annoys

them, so they build dams to make pools,” Polly said. “This slows down the water flow,” The beaver is not a risk to IU property, unless the pool created by the dam becomes so large that it could put nearby areas or buildings at risk of flooding or if the beaver cuts down too many trees, Polly said.

According to Purdue’s guide to common Indiana mammals, American beavers weigh between 28 and 70 pounds and can live up to 20 years old in the wild. They eat plants, twigs and tree bark. Beavers create dams by cutting down trees with their teeth and packing them with mud. The dam creates a pool that promotes the growth of plants that the beaver eats, according to the guide.

In the Midwest, beavers were nearly hunted to extinction due to the North American Fur Trade that began in the 1600s. They were easily hunted since

they live around rivers and streams. According to the Bonner County Historical Society in Idaho, beaver pelts were in high demand from the 1600s to the mid1800s due to the popularity of beaver top hats across Europe. Beavers were reintroduced in 1935 at the JasperPulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Beavers have made such a comeback in Indiana that around 3,000 of them are trapped by licensed trappers each year to keep populations healthy.

During the last ice age, Indiana was home to a species known as the Giant Beaver. At 6 to 7 feet in length and up to 275 pounds, the species roamed North America up until about 10,000 years ago.

This

The Los Angeles skyline is seen on December 25, 2018, in Los Angeles, California. The Jacobs School of Music, with help from The Media School, will launch their Jacobs in LA study program in spring 2024.

KATHLEEN TRAN | IDS IU researcher Walker Smith stands outside of Jacobs School of Music East Studio Building on April 18, 2023. Of the periodic table of elements, Smith has created sounds of helium, oxygen, zinc, calcium and iron.

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to open fall 2023

By Andrew Miller ami3@iu.edu

The IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is now set to open in October 2023. It will contain over five million artifacts in five exhibits, ranging from collections of jewelry and textiles from around the world to underwater archaeology.

Combining collections from the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology and the now-closed Mathers Museum of World Cultures, the IUMAA will be located at 416 N. Indiana Ave.

The museum’s flagship exhibit will be an in-depth look at the Angel Mounds site in southern Indiana from approximately 1250 C.E., which will feature a virtual reality experience, transporting visitors into what life at Angel Mounds would have looked like.

IUMAA plans to host

classes with physical workshops and open up as many artifacts as it can to the public. The museum has converted many office and storage rooms into audience spaces and an auditorium focused on education, interaction and engagement, Judith Kirk, assistant director of the museum said.

The lower floor will feature large racks of artifacts in storage that are being cataloged in the museum’s archaeology lab, IU graduate and former member of IUMAA’s student advisory council, Karrigan Perkins said. Showcasing student and staff research will be a crucial part of the museum experience.

“Many people don’t realize the extent that IU takes part in archaeological research,” Perkins said. “I think the museum will be interesting to students because of its large involvement with IU and IU research.”

There will also be glass cases throughout the museum that highlight specific themes and topics from IU classes, Sarah Hatcher, interim director of the museum, said. For example, one case will contain instruments from the silk road, and another will contain woven objects and tools to make said objects, Hatcher said.

The museum will have two exhibits featuring the stories of how the museum acquired its artifacts and how it studies them, Hatcher said. The museum will host programs for students of all ages, as well as events for the Bloomington community.

“Museums aren’t just about things, they're about the people that made and used them, and they're about the people who have come to interact with them,” Hatcher said.

This story was originally published Feb. 2, 2023.

By Colin Cunningham cunnicol@iu.edu

The IU Asian Culture Center hosted a reception to mark the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month at the Gayle Cook Center for Arts and Humanities on March 30. The reception included a presentation from an IU alumna and chai sampling for eventgoers.

Yumin Kim, a graduate assistant at the center, said while Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is in May, the Asian Culture Center is celebrating it in April since the semester is ending and students will be graduating in May.

Kim said this year’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is especially important after the racially motivated stabbing of an 18-year-old Asian IU student on a Bloomington transit bus in January.

“With the incident that happened in January, we really just want to focus on Asian Americans because we have a long history and we celebrate this every year,” Kim said. “We want to appreciate all the history and the Asian Americans that contributed to where we are today.”

Kim said she is looking forward to the other events the center is holding in April.

Ruchi Shah, IU alumna and owner of Indianapolisbased chai brand Afternoon Chai, presented the history of masala chai at the event. She was involved with the center during her time at IU from 2005 to 2009. She now works as a speech pathologist at an Indianapolis hospital and runs her company on the side. She spoke about the importance of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

“It’s a great opportunity to show pride and learn more about our history and learn more about each other,” Shah said. “It also brings

awareness to some of the ways that we’re hurting as a community.”

Shah started Afternoon

Chai in 2019 with the help of her family. The brand currently has several chai products that it sells at farmers markets across Indianapolis and on its Etsy shop. The brand also offers chai brewing classes.

“I grew up around masala chai, and then I drank it as I got older,” Shah said. “I’ve always been really interested in hosting themed parties which involved me studying more about tea.”

James Wimbush, vice president for diversity, equity and multicultural affairs, said culture centers establish communities within the

IU community.

“It’s all about being part of a fantastic community, a community of people who help us all be better people and to be able to work so lovingly together,” Wimbush said.

Wimbush thanked everyone involved with the Asian Culture Center.

“They are able to bring us together, not just to celebrate, but in times of crisis and in time of trouble, they work so diligently on a moment’s notice to bring us all together to help us make sense of what we are seeing and what we are experiencing,” Wimbush said.

This story was originally published March 31, 2023

PHOTO BY SARAH PARRISH | IDS

The new IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is seen Jan. 14, 2023 The IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, located at 416 N. Indiana Ave., is set to open in October 2023 and will contain

OLIVIA BIANCO | IDS

Ruchi Shah looks at her notes during her presentation on the history of chai tea March 30, 2023, at the Gayle Cook Center for Arts and Humanities located inside Maxwell Hall in Bloomington. Shah is one of the owners of Afternoon Chai, an Indianapolis-based company that sells chai tea sets along with tea brewing classes.

First Thursdays showcase student businesses

By Ruth Cronin rmcronin@iu.edu | @RuthCronin6

In 2021, IU’s First Thursdays festivals added a new component to the festival called Artists Row. Artists Row is a section of the festival where student and community artists can showcase and sell their artwork.

Holiday events happening around Bloomington

By Sophie Goldstein sngoldst@iu.edu | @sophie_gold3

Staying in town during break? Bloomington is hosting several holiday events this December.

Pajamborie Fundraiser

Party with Santa & Mrs. Claus

This fundraiser includes decorating Christmas crafts while listening to Christmas music, partaking in a friendly plush snowball fight, and listening to Santa and Mrs. Claus share Christmas stories from 6-8 p.m. Dec. 8 at 101 W. Kirkwood Ave. Those who attend will also receive a special Christmas bell from Santa’s workshop that will be used to sing along to Christmas carols. Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at 320 W. 8th St., Suite 200 at the front desk.

The Annual Polish Holiday Party

The Polish Study Center is hosting their annual holiday party from 6-8 p.m. Dec. 8 in the Global and International Studies Building room 1060. There will be ac-

tivities and Polish food and drinks available for free.

Winter Wonderland to Banneker

The City of Bloomington invites children, together with their families, to a Winter Wonderland celebration from noon to 3 p.m. Dec. 10 at the Banneker Community Center, 930 W. Seventh St. The free event will feature seasonal activities including arts and crafts, cookie decoration, holiday carols, free photos with Santa, and a toy giveaway.

Beth Shalom Holiday Bazaar & Art Fair

From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 11, the Congregation Beth Shalom will host the 15th annual holiday bazaar at 3750 E. Third St. The event will include photography, clothing, art, ceramics, body products, jewelry and more. Along with that will be home-baked sweets, challah bread, and other breads for sale.

This story was originally published Dec. 6, 2022

The festival takes place on the first Thursday of September, October, November and April. It includes food trucks, arts and humanities activities groups, experts demonstrating their work and stage performances.

When Artists Row began in 2021, Gerard Pannekoek, a programming coordinator for the IU Arts and Humanities Council, had to do a lot of the artist outreach.

This year, he said has seen student artist participation almost double.

“Artists have talked to their friends and people have come out to the festival and seen Artists Row, and heard really good things about it,” Pannekoek said. “I have a lot more students now reaching out to me and asking to be a part of it.”

Sophomore Anna Prager is a student artist who became involved in First Thursdays last Spring.

Since then, she has participated in every festival with her business, Art Wurmz.

Prager started her business selling prints, but now she sells more stickers and buttons since they have become her most popular products.

“I’m used to more serious artwork, but I think what people really like is just the more goofy stuff that I make,” Prager said.

“I make a lot of little funny animal drawings.”

Both student and community artists are represented on Artist Row. Pannekoek said Artists Row provides a space for artists

to interact.

“I’ve made pretty good friends with the other artists who are typically on Artists Row,” Prager said. “There’s a great community around the whole thing.”

While bigger art festivals can be intimidating to beginner art vendors and include fees, Pannekoek said First Thursdays is a way for artists to develop professionally as an artist for free.

“Out of all of the different things I’ve done with my art, First Thursdays has given me the most exposure out of anything,” Prager said.

First year graduate student Eric Agyemang-Dua is another student on Art-

ists Row. His art business, Ea.J’s Studios, focuses on connecting and inspiring others through storytelling in his art.

Agyemang-Dua was born and raised in Gana before moving to Virginia where he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019. He was recently accepted into IU’s master’s program for mental health counseling and has been in Bloomington for just two months. Agyemang-Dua got involved with First Thursdays as soon as he heard about it.

Agyemang-Dua started art as a kid, making sculptures out of aluminum foil or anything he could get

his hands on. In 2018 he got into painting because it was easier to display, and now he sells minimalistic acrylic paintings that show individuals or groups of people. His art emphasizes hand placement and connections.

“I got some sales, but I think for me, being able to tell my story and get people captivated by the stories behind the paintings, that’s been my biggest result,” Agyemang-Dua said.

The next First Thursday festival will take place from 4-7 p.m. Nov 3 in the Indiana Arts Plaza around Showalter Fountain.

This story was originally published Oct. 18, 2022

WITH A GLOBAL MAJOR

Pair any major at IU with a major at the Hamilton Lugar School to add a valuable global component to your education. Global fluency can give you a competitive edge in many fields, including business, political science, and public affairs.

The IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies is a leading language and area studies school, teaching more languages (80) than any university in the U.S. Students develop specialized knowledge of world regions and are prepared for careers in foreign affairs, government, private industry, and global institutions.

Sample Career Pathways

Non-Profit: United Nations, Atlantic Council, AmeriCorps, Council on Foreign Relations, Peace Corps

Government: U.S. Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Commerce, Institute for Defense Analyses

For-Profit: Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Eli Lilly, Tesla Graduate School: Harvard Law, Stanford, George Washington, University College London, University of Oxford Fellowships: Fulbright, Boren, Schwartzman, Marshall Scholarship, Rhodes Scholarship, Truman Scholarship

Amna Ahmed triple majored in International Studies, Economics, and Political Science and customized her education to reach her career goals. Amna recently started her career at LEK Consulting, a global strategy consulting firm.

Amna Ahmed ‘22, International Studies, Economics, Political Science

IDS FILE PHOTO BY ANDREW WILLIAMS

WFIU employee Kayte Young composes her sketch of Showalter Fountain as the sun sets during the First Thursdays festival Sept. 7, 2017, in the Fine Arts Plaza. First Thursdays’ artist row is a way for students and community members to show their work and sell it to attendees.

Elizabeth Valadez (she/her)

is a sophomore studying English and political science with a minor in Spanish.

As a child, I hated the word “fat.” It made me feel ugly and gross. It made me feel like a failure – the word acted as a catch-all for the descriptors meant to shame me.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful,” in response to a statement I made about my fatness, I think I’d be rich. At least, a couple of $100 richer than I currently am.

I’ve been taught — we've been taught — that fat and beautiful are mutually exclusive.

But the reality is that fat is

just another descriptor that has a horrible, societally held connotation. Fat does not have to signify bad or disgusting or lazy or immoral. Fat can be just fat.

Unfortunately, even Google holds the same, outlandish connotation of the word. Its example of the usage of fat as an adjective is “the driver was a fat, wheezing man,” which equates fatness to a lack of health. Fatness does not always indicate cardiovascular disease or high blood pressure. It just indicates a state of being that is not skinny, that is not the socially acceptable form.

For my entire life, my doctors have tested me for diabetes, high blood pressure and

high cholesterol. Not because I actually exhibited symptoms of such conditions — just because of the arbitrary number of my body mass index.

A high BMI is consistently linked to fatness and consequently linked to fatphobia.

A 2020 study shows this: the higher a girl’s BMI, the less likely she is to get into a relationship. Why are fat people always put on the back burner?

A recent TikTok trend further illustrates this point. Different content creators have taken to college campuses and to the general public to ask men if they would date a plus-size woman. In one of the most appalling responses

I’ve heard so far, a man says, “If I’m taking care of myself, I expect her to be taking care of herself.”

But, as I will beat over your head again, fatness does not inherently indicate laziness or illness. I, as a fat person, take care of myself as much as I can. I like to go on walks. I like to drink water. I take my vitamins every morning.

Though a fat person should not have to be productive or healthy to be worthy of mutual respect, it is beyond mind-boggling that people still cannot humanize them even when they are “taking care” of themselves.

In some cultures, being called fat can be humanizing and can be a term of endear-

ment. Travel to a Spanishspeaking country and they will likely call a fat woman “gordita.” Accepting the term for what it is is possible — we just have to be willing to let go of our harmful misconceptions.

It is so incredibly normalized in our culture to hear “fat” and to want to run from it. But I promise it does not have to be this way. Fat is just fat. I have more fat than others, therefore, I characterize myself as fat.

When skinny people have less fat, they characterize themselves as skinny. And that is OK. But for some reason, “fat” should never be said out loud.

I am so tired of hearing

DANNY’S DIATRIBES OPINION

The weird, wonderful world of ASMR

Danny William (they/them) is a freshman studying media.

A dorm is a hard place to sleep in. There are people down the hallway having a loud party. There’s the uncomfortable mattress that barely fits your body. There’s probably someone also trying to sleep about five feet away from you, too. And they probably snore. There have been a few nights in college when I can’t get to sleep no matter what I do. There’s one thing, however, that relaxes my mind and gets me ready for a long winter’s nap: ASMR videos. ASMR, which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, is not a scientific term. It works for some people, and it doesn’t work for others. Which is okay – a lot of these videos are really, really weird. But once you look past the weirdness, there are so many wonderful and even artistic elements of the ASMR world.

You’ve probably seen an ASMR video in the wild before. They usually feature a person with a microphone whispering into your ear and making a noise with some prop.

You’ve probably even experienced the effect of ASMR, otherwise known as “tingles” to many fans. It’s often described as a warm feeling that spreads from the top of the spine and base of the skull to other parts of the body. It’s that pleasant sensation you get when someone draws on your hand or plays with your hair.

The experience can be really relaxing. Take it from me, someone who has nearly fallen asleep to ASMR videos in the past. If you’re someone who suffers from the ever-present anxiety that comes with college life – meaning pretty much every student – ASMR can be a lovely way

to decompress.

The key to truly enjoying ASMR is finding creators you enjoy. Just looking into the wild can have you running across content that doesn’t necessarily soothe you. I usually only watch videos from a handful of creators, though I sometimes branch out to others.

My all-time favorite ASMR creator is Mia ASMR. Her videos range from fairly normal — like her recent video where she says her followers’ names — to genuinely bizarre, like her video where the girl sitting behind you in class basically preens you and eats the bugs out of your hair.

Fair warning: Mia ASMR specializes in mouth sounds, which are, understandably, the sounds your mouth makes, like chewing and lip smacking. While these usually drive me insane in everyday life, somehow she makes them super relaxing. I cannot explain the psychology behind that.

What I admire most about her videos are the characters she plays. In a video where she paints your portrait while incredibly tired, she creates a whole personality. This could have just been a simple video with some nice brush noises, but instead she plays a character that is way too confident in their painting ability, to the point that they compare themselves to Picasso.

My favorite part of

ASMR is the creativity of so many of these content creators. It’s pretty simple to make a simple ASMR video – just plop yourself in front of a microphone and camera and make noises. But so many creators bring a new level of creativity that makes the whole experience so fun.

Slight Sounds ASMR made a video where she beats you up — softly, of course. Jocie B ASMR acts as your sleep paralysis demon, who just wants you to fall asleep. And, of course, there’s Angelica, who creates ASMR videos so bizarre they border on parody. A cursory glance through her channel showcases this — from Henry VIII’s wives confiding in you to the cast of South Park turning you into a walrus (shoutout Kevin Smith).

ASMR isn’t a monolith. There is so much creativity and love that goes into these videos. Every creator has a different voice and style. Especially now, our world needs a relaxing, imaginative way to express ourselves. Though, if you find the right creator, you might not be able to appreciate their creativity. You might fall asleep too quickly. dw85@iu.edu

girls – even my closest of friends – moan and groan when they “feel fat” on certain days. How a person feels fat, I am not entirely sure. Rather, I think they mean they might feel unattractive or unworthy.

Fat people are not inherently unattractive or unworthy because of this singular adjective used to describe them. Being fat is not some moral failure. That word does not have to imply anything other than what it means at its core — to have an excess of body fat.

elivalad@iu.edu

This story was originally published May 1, 2023.

Dear Ernie Pyle

Ellie Albin (she/her) is a junior majoring in journalism with a minor in environmental and sustainability studies and a certificate in rock ‘n’ roll history. She is a real-life princess.

Ernie Pyle (1900-1945) was raised in Dana, Indiana, and attended IU, where he left school a semester short of graduating. He went on to become an aviation columnist, travel columnist, WWII correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner. He was killed by machine gun fire on Iejima, an island northwest of Okinawa, Japan. I wrote a letter to him because I took a class in the Media School — Footsteps of Ernie Pyle — this past semester, which took me through Paris, Normandy and London. He went many places in the world, but I was lucky enough to see a few.

So. I guess I just wanted to thank him. It’s also easier to talk to people who aren’t here than people who are, sometimes.

Dear Ernie, Another school year has basically come and gone. I usually take time to reflect on the school year, and — well. I guess the time to do that is here and now. I’m booked for the next many months, so I need to do this — like I said — now.

Well. OK!

I learned a lot about you this semester, Ernie. I took a class called Footsteps of Ernie Pyle, and I went to Paris, Normandy and London. I think it’s borderline ironic that we have a class dedicated to someone who dropped out of IU to go write and see the world — it doesn’t seem totally in line with what our professors want for us, but, hey, I think that was very cool and brave of you. Sometimes — yeah, I won’t lie — I wish I could do that.

Just go, you know? Just go. You went and saw the world, Ernie. And part of me wishes I could’ve grabbed your shoulders and stared you straight in the eye and

told you, “Look at you. Look at everything you do. Look at how you make people feel. Look at how you make people think. Look at what you show people — people who have never and may never see this part of the planet. Look at the mark you are leaving on the world.”

But then again, maybe I should shake my own shoulders. Did you leave school because you didn’t think you were good at it? Or were you just ready to move on? I don’t think I know your reasoning.

If I ever left school, I think it’d be because I’ve just never felt very smart, never felt very worthy of attention and praise, never felt like I stacked up.

I wish I knew what you would say in this moment. I wish I knew if you’d tell me a lie in some elegant, quotable prose, or if you’d look me in the eye and tell me the truth: I may never feel like I stack up.

Ugh. Ernie! It sucks when the only person you want to talk to about all of this is not only dead, but someone you never met. It doesn’t make much sense, does it? A 20-year-old girl wants to talk to a long-gone war correspondent?

I don’t always get myself either. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, by the way. I think you probably just close your eyes one last time and you go in the ground and call it a life. But if there exists some parallel universe that allows you to read this letter, Ernie — well. That wouldn’t be so bad. Because, after a really long semester of learning about you, I guess it actually does make sense that I’d want to talk to you.

I just hope you had moments where you understood the gravity of your writing and the weight of your existence and the value of your presence. That’s all, Ernie. Because I understood it — your writing and your existence and your presence. And life isn’t worth it if you don’t realize that at some point.

One day, I hope I realize that about myself, too.

One day, I’ll see where you died. I’ll go to Iejima and take the trek you were told not to take. And, before that, I’ll go to North Africa and Italy and all 50 states, and I’ll go back to Paris and London and Normandy, and I will see you and wonder about you and be in awe of the fact that you did so much.

One day, I’ll finally come say hi to you. I know where you are — you’re in Hawaii. You’re in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. You won’t say anything, but you won’t need to. When two people really get each other, there isn’t much to say, anyway. And you would’ve gotten me, Ernie. And I would’ve gotten you. We grew up Hoosiers and went to IU and worked for the IDS and adored the Indianapolis 500 and wanted to see the world and probably wondered constantly if we were doing enough — or if we were enough, period.

You once said, “I’ve contributed a little and received a great deal.” And I’m not exactly sure how to define “being enough,” Ernie, but you have to know you were more than that. You contributed more than “a little.” And I hope, one day — when I’m long gone — someone will be able to look at my life and say, “She was more than enough.”

And maybe they’ll write me a really cool letter that I’ll somehow be able to see when I’m in the ground or in the stars or amongst the clouds in the sky. I don’t know where we go when we die, Ernie. But I know that some people’s spirits seem to linger on Earth just a little bit longer than others. Yours did. Yours does.

Love, Ellie, That Girl who found you and your writing when she needed it most ealbin@iu.edu

Fat is not a bad word

ILLUSTRATION BY LAWREN ELDERKIN | IDS

ILLUSTRATION BY JULIETTE ALBERT | IDS

5 books every leftist should read this summer (and a few others)

Jared Quigg (he/him)

is a junior studying journalism and political science.

I started this semester with a column recommending six books I think every leftist should read, especially for those who are new to the left. It’s very important for every leftist to fully grasp the history and ideas of our movements, so I’m finishing this semester the way I started: with five more books every leftist should read, plus a few others.

So, take some time off from your classes, enjoy the summer, but be sure to make some time to do some reading. Maybe at the beach — some of these books will be sure to raise eyebrows there.

“Revolutionary Suicide”

by Huey P. Newton

This is Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton’s 1973 autobiography, and it’s a blend of the personal and political. I wrote a column in January about the Panthers, largely informed by my reading of Newton’s autobiography. Newton and Bobby Seale were just college students when they founded the Party, and their first recruit was a high school student.

The Panthers largely consisted of young people just like us. They saw the problems in their community, the suffering Black Americans had endured from the hands of the capitalists and the government, and they organized. Every leftist should know their story, beautifully told here by their co-founder.

It’s important for leftists to know the stories of our great predecessors. In addition to “Revolutionary Suicide,” see also former Black Panther Assata Shakur’s book, “Assata: An Autobiography,” and “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life,” Jon Lee Anderson’s biography of the great revolutionary.

“Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?”

by Mark Fisher

I’ve been very open about my political views in the pages of the IDS, which has in turn led to many discussions with fellow students about capitalism. Many of them admit the system isn’t great. It produces mass amounts of inequality and is constantly falling into crises. Regardless, an alternative seems unimaginable to many of them. Sure, the system is bad, but it’s the best we can do. Right? This is the essence of “Capitalist Realism,” a concept which Fisher sums up nicely in his book like this: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” It is in many ways a book about despair; despair that a better future is just impossible. “Capitalist Realism” is one of the

best books about modern life — it both explains our collective inertia and seeks to overcome it.

“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” by Andreas Malm

Now a major motion picture!

I wrote a column in March discussing some of the ideas in this book. Malm essentially argues that property damage should be considered a valid tactic in the fight against climate change. It’s a controversial claim, but it is compelling. Climate change threatens our future, and our leaders are not taking it seriously. As I argued in the March column, people like Joe Biden ostensibly believe in climate change, but their actions — see the Willow Project — suggest that they don’t.

But remember, all I’m recommending is that you

read the book! Read it and reconsider if we’re doing enough to combat climate change.

“October: The Story of the Russian Revolution” by China Mieville Reading books about history is important for leftists, because many reactionaries are going to accuse us of not knowing history. So, we must know it better than them. The Russian Revolution of 1917 produced the world’s first socialist state, and it’s imperative we learn from both the triumphs and failures of the past. Emulate what worked, avoid what didn’t.

Mieville’s book is riveting — you won’t know you’re reading history. It’s an inspiring story of workers who shook the world, changing it forever. For a leftist, the story of the Russian Revolution will be

quite inspiring. For others, “October” will just be an enjoyable read.

For more historical works, see Ellen Meiksins Wood’s “The Origin of Capitalism,” and Marx’s contemporary history of the Paris Commune, “The Civil War in France.”

“On Practice and Contradiction” by Mao Tse-Tung

“Why should we read Mao,” the liberals in my walls ask. Wasn’t he awful? He did make some serious mistakes that should never be repeated, true. But the founder of the People’s Republic of China is still admired by millions of people, including young people in China today. Condemn him if you want — but shouldn’t we try to understand him, if only to understand them?

The work I recommend here is the 2017 collection of Mao’s essays published

by Verso. Many of them are quite inspiring, written before Mao and the communists had come to power. I often think about Mao’s assertion that the mighty U.S. was just a paper tiger – something that seems scary but is as flimsy as a piece of paper. Those of us on the left often feel like our opponents are too strong, impossible to overcome. That we are small, and they are big: surrender, then, to capitalist realism. But to read Mao’s words is to understand why millions still adore him, despite his errors. “Bigness is nothing to be afraid of,” Mao wrote. “The big will be overthrown by the small. The small will become big.” jaquigg@iu.edu

This story was originally published April 30, 2023.

A shelf of books sits on the first floor of the Fine Arts Library in 2016.

Editor-in-Chief, Helen Rum-

mel: PBS Kids is better than any other kids’ channel. Dis-

of the most freeing power moves on the planet. Just the other day, I was at an event taking place inside one of

admit — technically grammatically correct comma placed after the penultimate item in a list. I know I am in

and intentional decision to use it only when it is necessary? Although, for the sake of honesty, I must admit that

and a liar and pathetic and alone in life and mean. She’s our Lenin.

Arts Editor, Sophie Goldstein:

This is such a hot take — and hopefully no one sends me hate mail — but I am not a Taylor Swift fan. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I just do not like her music. Never have, never will — if it comes on the radio, I do have to switch stations...

Opinion Editor, Elizabeth Valadez:

Listening to songs on repeat is the superior form of listening. I can’t begin to count the number of times

I’ve put Delaney Bailey’s “Finish Line” on repeat for hours on end. If you don’t like listening to songs on repeat, maybe you just don’t like the song enough.

News Editor, Natalie

for the summer, and then the true friends you made and yourself come back together again. College is funny like that.

News Editor, Carter De-

Jong: SpongeBob SquarePants premiered 24 years ago this week, the same week I drew my first breath on Earth. I must disagree with Iranian cleric Shahab Moradi in saying that SpongeBob is solely a fictional hero. He is my generation’s Mickey Mouse, as synonymous with America as McDonald’s or the StarSpangled Banner. What is more American than that?

Arts Editor, Erin Stafford: In the Larry David universe, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is a much better show than “Seinfeld.” Its home at HBO enables David to explore the same kind of comedy already established in

ILLUSTRATION BY ALAYNA WILKENING | IDS

IU experts recommend professors use ChatGPT as learning tool

By Isabella Vesperini isvesp@iu.edu

ChatGPT is a new, innovative AI chatbot created by OpenAI that can interact in a conversational manner. It can take a prompt and produce unique written responses, solve math and science problems and produce computer code. Some IU professors say ChatGPT should not be banned but instead embraced as a way to supplement their teaching.

Even though ChatGPT poses a threat to all disciplines, universities are beginning to brainstorm ways to welcome and incorporate the tool, such as using it to create quizzes, make lesson plans and provide sentences with grammar structures that students can correct and analyze.

Greg Siering, director of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at IU, said imposing policies that would discourage students from using ChatGPT could weaken relationships between the students and professors, possibly making it easier for them to cheat.

Siering said one of the most productive ways to prevent students from using ChatGPT is to talk to them about the implications of relying on AI, stressing that the more students use ChatGPT, the deeper the hole they dig for themselves.

ChatGPT presents some major limitations: it overuses certain phrases, makes up responses and does not ask clarifying questions when confused by the input.

“We can help those students figure out those ways of making their projects more meaningful to them through how we design assignments,” Siering said.

Siering said teachers need to understand ChatGPT’s potential to properly redesign their class to be AI-friendly. He recommends holding class discussions about the limitations of ChatGPT and when it is appropriate to use it.

Critiquing writing generated by ChatGPT, using it as a brainstorming tool for papers and introducing assignments that require students to make a video or poster are also ways to use to the tool, he said. Recognizing its flaws can encourage students to build their critical thinking skills and learn how to work with AI.

Siering discourages banning ChatGPT because it will only become more relevant and popular within the academic realm.

“(ChatGPT) probably won’t serve us very well in the long run because that ignores the subtleties that an instructor can put in place,” he said.

“I don’t want to handcuff instructors from using it very creatively.”

IU School of Social Work professor Carol Hostetter said

she would not suggest banning ChatGPT on the university level because students are well-versed with technology and can easily find ways to get around any barriers.

“We get scared about change and the pace of change is so rapid these days,” Hostetter said. “But if we can embrace change, we can see it as actually an improvement in our productivity.”

While ChatGPT is free now, it is still challenging to use because of how complicated the system is, Hostetter said. As more AI tools become available, it will be easier to access them. Since people will soon be charged to use ChatGPT, wealthier students will be favored and be more able to afford it.

“You’re not going to have something like this be free forever,” Hostetter said. “The fact that some can afford it and some can’t is going to be a major problem.”

As for catching students using ChatGPT, Chase McCoy — lecturer in the IU Department of Informatics and the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering — said there is no tool that can reliably detect an AI-written paper. Even though GPTZero was created by a Princeton student to combat AI plagiarism, it is not 100% foolproof.

McCoy said GPTZero is not reliable enough since it is only making an informed assumption based on its limited database; it has access to information only through September 2021. Efforts are being made to improve Turnitin’s ability to identify AI-generated text but it currently is not 100% reliable.

“I don’t think we should be trying to police students,” he said. “There are other pedagogical approaches that are better for addressing ChatGPT.”

McCoy said he is required to report ChatGPT as academic misconduct; however — outside of university regulations — he said if someone may confess to using ChatGPT to him, he would not reprimand them. Instead, he said he would suggest having an open conversation with the student and helping them understand when and how the AI went off course in their assignment. This can include catching grammar errors and noticing a lack of personal details.

McCoy said he believes that letting his students know personally through comments after class and emails about how well they are doing can help reduce their reliance on ChatGPT because they are more confident in their abilities.

“There’s a lot more than just acknowledging the tool,” he said. “We have to be supportive teachers.”

This story was originally published Feb. 6, 2023.

IU Student wins competition for naloxone keychain device

By Colin Cunningham cunnicol@iu.edu | @colincunninghm

Charlie Brizz, an IU student studying marketing, sales and entrepreneurship at the Kelley School of Business, won the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation’s 2023 Vernon Clapp IDEA Competition held on April 7 for a business venture he co-founded called Nove. Brizz said Nove is a naloxone nasal spray device that is portable through a keychain feature.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, naloxone, also known by its brand name Narcan, is a medicine that reverses an opioid overdose. It attaches to opioid receptors and blocks the effects of other opioids. It can be administered as a nasal spray or injection. Naloxone will not harm someone if they are not overdosing on an opioid and are administered the medication.

Brizz said Brendan Mudd, co-founder and industrial design student at Western Washington University, came up with the idea and design of Nove. Brizz said he focuses on the supply chain, marketing and funding aspects of the venture, while Mudd focuses on the product side of the venture.

Brizz said the current offerings of nasal spray devices are not intuitive to use, not portable and carry a stigma. He said the current

offerings come in a blister pack that is thick and cannot be administered until the pack is unwrapped.

“The thing about the current offerings is that it just screams medications,” Brizz said. “If people are carrying Narcan or naloxone nasal spray, people already assume that you’re using drugs which is typically not the case.”

He said Nove looks to provide a solution to that stigma and increase the number of naloxone devices being carried.

“We set out to fix those things and created Nove which is a portable, discreet and intuitive one-use Naloxone administration device that’s aimed at democratizing and increasing the carry rate of Naloxone on all individuals,” Brizz said.

When the safety button of the Nove device is pushed, the orange plunger pops up and the top covering comes off. The naloxone can then be administered through the nasal passageways of an individual.

Brizz said the device has a patent pending and once the engineering of the device is completely refined, they will look to progress through the Food and Drug Administration’s 510(k) pathway. This pathway requires manufacturers to demonstrate that their medical device is equivalent to a previously approved device. The manufacturer must also demonstrate that the new

device is safe and effective. One naloxone device that has already been approved is the over-the-counter nasal spray Narcan. Brizz said the device is geared toward everyone, including regular opioid users, college students, festivalgoers, police officers, blue-collar workers and parents.

He said he wants the device to be priced around $20 so that it can be carried by a greater number of people. However, he said the price of the device will be dependent on the cost of the naloxone medication.

Brizz said the earliest the device will be available to the general public is in a year and a half due to the patent and FDA processes that still need to take place.

Sarah Robertson, IU substance use prevention coordinator, said a naloxone keychain device is a great idea.

“Right now, if you carry naloxone with you, you’d have to carry a bag or a purse so having it on a keychain would make it way more readily available,” Robertson said.

She said she carries naloxone but if she were to need it, she would need to go to her car because she does not carry a bag or a purse, but she always has her keys, so having a naloxone keychain device would make the device more accessible.

Alain Barker, director

of music entrepreneurship and career development at the Jacobs School of Music, has been a judge for the Clapp IDEA competition for nine years. He said the device has the potential to make an impact on the opioid epidemic.

“Naloxone is packaged in medical systems that are clumsy and visually look like what they are which is an emergency treatment which you’d see coming out of an emergency vehicle of some kind,” Barker said. “It’s not packaged, and it’s not presented in a way that makes it usable and creates a stigma on those individuals who are carrying it with them because people think they may be a drug addict.”

He said Nove is the solution to this problem and offers the opportunity for everyday people to be a part of the solution and save lives. Barker said Brizz is an outstanding presenter of ideas which will be an advantage as Nove develops and enters the testing phase.

“Not only does he have a really great product in his hands, but he is also the type of person to inspire major funders to support his work,” Barker said. “This might be the beginning of a set of applications that he develops in a way that completely changes the marketplace.”

This story was originally published April 27, 2023.

IU Bridges: Children, Languages, World program continues

By Kathleen Tran trankat@iu.edu

The Bridges: Children, Languages, World program, hosted through The Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, will continue teaching children less-commonly-taught languages in schools and organizations located in Monroe County.

Lead coordinator for Bridges: Children, Languages, World Wes Steele said the program aims to expand children's awareness, curiosity and understanding of world cultures through interactive lessons such as games, activities, songs and videos.

“Bridges offers local children, schools, and community centers a unique opportunity to gain exposure to languages and cultures rarely taught in the United States, especially at the elementary school level,” Steele said.

During the spring semester, the program will be partnering with nine schools and organizations in Bloomington. The program will offer Mandarin, Greek, Hindi, Kiswahili,

Persian, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish. “(The program) builds a bridge between many countries and their cultures” IU Ph.D student Yasemin Kole said. “The program is tremendously beneficial for the students because encountering another world through language and culture at early ages will help children have a more diverse understanding and respectful, peaceful acceptance of others.”

Steele coaches undergraduate and graduate student volunteers specializing in language and area studies. After receiving $16.3 million from the U.S. Department of Education, The Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies collaborated with the School of Education to create six national resource centers that teaches culture, languages and international education. Steele said the program offers student instructors key fundamentals of language and cultural curriculum design and development.

“For the IU students teaching in the program, it is an excellent opportunity

to not only practice their language skills, but also to share invaluable cultural knowledge from other countries with young and curious American elementary school students,” IU junior and program volunteer Erol Algan said.

Algan, who studies folklore and central Eurasian studies with a minor in Russian, has taught Turkish in the Bridges program for the past three semesters.

“In the U.S., unfortunately, our teaching of geography and cultures

outside our own is insufficient,” Algan said.

“Through this program, students gain access to a wealth of knowledge about other countries and the languages spoken there.”

Steele said the program will run from February to

April. A mandatory volunteer orientation meeting will be held on Jan.

COURTESY PHOTO

A 3-D render of a Nove device, packaging and instructions is shown. The device has a patent pending.

Family moves into Habitat for Humanity home

By Taylor Satoski tsatoski@iu.edu

Editor’s Note: The interview was conducted through an interpreter.

Angela and Crispin Cortez began to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County in hopes to have their home built in 2019. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the process was halted.

After three and a half years, they started to move into their new home in Osage Place, a neighborhood built by Habitat for Humanity, on March 30. Crispin works at Uptown Cafe and Angela is a stayat-home parent. The couple immigrated from Toluca and Michoacán, Mexico, 12 years ago, and said they love to live in the tranquil town of Bloomington. The couple moved because Crispin wanted an opportunity to live a better life, and Angela was the last in her family to be living in Mexico, so she moved to be closer to her sisters and parents in Illinois and Indiana.

In order to gain ownership of a home built by Habitat for Humanity, the homeowners needed to volunteer for 250 hours either on a construction site or the discount home im-

provement store, ReStore, and take homeowner readiness classes. These classes include neighbor etiquette, tax information and saving tips.

Families who apply for a Habitat for Humanity home must meet three criteria, Habitat for Humanity Development Director Lindsey Boswell said. They must need housing, be able to pay the mortgage and are willing to partner with Habitat for Humanity. To apply, families must attend an informational meeting and make 25%-80% of the county’s median income, and their income and family size determine their monthly mortgage payment rate.

The couple said it was nice to spend more time with their children, but it was stressful to try to keep the kids occupied during the pandemic.

During the pandemic, Crispin could not work, so the family was struggling to pay their bills. They said the only reason they could make their payments was because of their savings. They were also uncertain about renewing their lease on their townhome they were living in while waiting for their house to be built by Habitat for Humanity.

The townhouse they rented with three bedrooms and

one bathroom cost $1400 a month. They expect to pay $1100 on their mortgage for their new home with four bedrooms and two bathrooms.

Crispin said he felt very enthusiastic to be building their own home on the construction site. Angela said she’s excited to have an extra bedroom in the house and finally own a home. They said they enjoyed putting together the framework of the house and putting drywall in.

Angela said she’s looking forward to owning a home that she can make decisions about, such as rearranging furniture and hanging decorations on the walls. This house has been a dream come true and they enjoyed being a part of building their home, not only buying it, they said.

Crispin and Angela have three sons, Bairon, 10, Milan, 8, and Chris, 5, who attend Summit Elementary School. They had been asking for photos of the house every day during construction since they were too young to work on the construction site. The boys took yoga classes in the Monroe County Public Library as a part of Habitat for Humanity.

Boswell said the ideal timeline from applying to

moving into a home is 18 months. Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County usually builds eight to 10 houses a year but only built four during 2020. Crispin and Angela are the last family to receive their home from that year.

“It’s definitely a testament to their perseverance that they stay encouraged and motivated and interested in everything throughout that whole time,” Boswell said. She said Habitat for Humanity makes the large community of Bloomington feel very connected. The housing market in Bloomington has high barriers of entry, she said.

“We are consistently one of the least affordable places to live in the state, so Habitat helps to provide increased housing supply and opportunity,” she said.

The organization had about 800 volunteers last year. She said 85% of them worked on the construction site and 15% worked at the ReStore, in the office, on committees and on the board of directors.

Boswell said Habitat for Humanity usually has one or two homes under construction at a time. They build homes in Bloomington on random plots of land, if affordable, but often buy a large plot of land and build an en-

tire neighborhood. They are currently building their third neighborhood, Osage Place, on the southwest side of Bloomington. She said they’re currently building the sixth and seventh homes in that neighborhood and have built 220 total in Monroe County.

“I certainly love working with our families,” Boswell said. “Especially whenever you get to see a family go from the beginning to the end of the program and get to see the impact that it can have on them and their families.”

This story was originally published Jan. 22, 2023.

People find second chances through city partnership with Centerstone

By Marissa Meador marnmead@iu.edu | @Marissa_Meador

From the brick buildings of Centerstone to the busy streets of Kirkwood Avenue, a city jobs program is transforming the lives of people struggling with addiction and mental health.

In 2017, the city’s parks and recreation department began a partnership with Centerstone, a mental health and rehabilitation facility, to provide supportive employment for those in need while also cleaning up parks. Two years later, the program expanded to include the public works department, which focuses

on keeping downtown areas clean.

Adam Wason, director of public works, said participants work around six to seven hours a day painting curbs, picking up litter and removing weeds. He said the program is flexible, letting participants work around therapy schedules, and pays the living wage calculated for Bloomington, which is $15.29 an hour for 2023.

The program, which just received $350,000 in funding for this year — a $150,000 increase from the previous year — has had several success stories, Wason said.

One success story is Harold Grubb, who now works as a full-time Peer Recovery Specialist at Centerstone after working for the partnership with the parks department.

Grubb says that when he started at Centerstone, he was experiencing homelessness. He didn’t have a job, driver’s license or car.

“I didn’t know any other way to live,” he said.

In addition to his job at Centerstone, Grubb now has a home. He also said that the program can be motivating to other people who are experiencing homelessness or addiction.

“They want what you

have,” Grubb said.

Christina Murphy, who works at Centerstone and oversees the Peer Run Recovery Center, said she is most proud of the fact that individuals experiencing homelessness can receive housing through employment with the program. Even for those who aren’t clients, the Peer Run Recovery Center provides shower services, laundry, meals and coffee for those who need it, she said.

“Nobody’s turned away here,” Murphy said.

Ian Matthews, a client of Centerstone currently working with the city jobs partnership, thinks the

housing and employment aspects of the program are critical for recovery.

“I don’t think you can address mental health and addiction until you address basic material needs,” he said.

Many of the job partnership’s participants went to Centerstone as a result of problem-solving court. Problem solving court is a program that offers the option of treatment for addiction or mental health as an alternative to prison time for offenders who struggle with those issues.

This was the case for Centerstone client Carmon Vincent, who grew up in Pi-

geon Hill with an alcoholic father who encouraged fighting. Mental health issues and trauma stemming from youth projected itself as criminal behavior, Vincent said.

Describing himself as “hard-headed,” Vincent didn’t start out envisioning himself getting better. Once he started putting in effort, he said, Centerstone helped him turn his life around. After a life of addiction, Vincent has been sober for three years.

“I am a totally different person now,” he said.

This story was originally published April 3, 2023.

By Isabella Vesperini isvesp@iu.edu Osmaniye, Turkey

It was exactly 4:17 a.m. and 19-year-old Ezgi Kübra was sleeping in her room. Urgent voices from the living room woke her up. As she got up, she noticed the ground shaking beneath her. She was somewhat used to earthquakes hitting, she said. Ezgi knows they’re not uncommon in Turkey.

Formerly an exchange student at Bloomington High School North, Ezgi has been back at home for nearly 10 months after a year away from her family. The comfort she felt was interrupted by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that night in Osmaniye.

“I felt the hit,” Ezgi said. “It was horrible.”

That early morning, she ran into the living room to reach her family, even though she was at risk of being hit by falling objects.

Ezgi and her 15-year-old sister were in their father’s arms and her 7-year-old sister with her mom. She said she could feel her mom’s fear — even as she tried her best to hide it for her children’s sake. All five of them hid behind their couches, hands covering their heads. They waited 65 seconds for the trembling to stop.

“I thought we were going to die,” Ezgi said. “It was too much time. ‘We’re going to die. We’re going to die.’”

They said they could hear the walls cracking all around them. The TV fell over, shattering on the floor. The dishes on the rack splintered into a million pieces.

After the shaking stopped, the family and their neighbors went into the garden outside their home to assess the damage. It was dark, and rain was pouring down. Ezgi remembers her 7-year-old sister could not stop shaking.

The 15-year-old wanted to call their grandparents to see if they were alright, but Ezgi was too scared to make the

call herself.

Ezgi’s sisters learned later their grandparents made it through the earthquake alright.

Later, the family became concerned for their neighbors that had not fled their homes. They made their way to the doorstep of an elderly couple. They waited 10 seconds after knocking on the door.

They had slept through the entire thing.

Ezgi’s garage was cracked and in pieces, leaving the car useless. Instead, one of her neighbors offered to drive them wherever they needed. They first stopped at their grandparents’ house to pick them up, and then they all went to their aunt’s house, where they are all currently living.

One singular apartment houses her uncles, aunts, grandparents, sisters and parents. Her uncle sleeps in his car with one of his friends. Everyone else sleeps in the main room where the heating is

located. Only her grandfather sleeps in the bedroom with no heating.

“He doesn’t care about the cold,” Ezgi said. “He’s just sleeping there.”

As a high school physics teacher, her mom is left to do her job from home with school buildings closed. Since exams were not canceled in Turkey, Ezgi and her younger sister have a room where they will continue studying. They will continue to live in this temporary apartment until it is safe to return home. She said her family was able to return to their apartment twice to collect necessities such as clothes, books and food.

She said her dad wants to wait until a professional can come to check their house because he does not trust the government officials that originally came. She said her dad does not think the government is taking the situation very seriously. It will probably take four or five months to get their apartment fixed.

“I’m so upset about it— they couldn’t manage all the things that happened,” Ezgi said. “They were not enough. Nothing was enough. It was so bad.”

After a few days, the army came and started to search through the rubble for survivors. There was also international help from the United Nations, which is appealing $1 billion to aid Turkey. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has filed two emergency appeals, sending health teams and initiating fundraisers to help Turkey and Syria.

Ezgi said she has struggled with her mental health since the earthquake. One of her schoolmates was killed and an acquaintance she knows from her dad is coping with their entire family being killed. She limits the time she watches the news to combat her negative thoughts.

“I don’t know what to think about it because I didn’t really have time to manage

my feelings," Ezgi said. “I'm not sorry about my physical health or my house because it’s fixable...There are still people out there and when I think about them, I think ‘How can I drink this water if they don’t have water?’”

She said some of her international friends she made last year as an exchange student at Bloomington High School North did not reach out to see how she was.

“If they knew and didn’t text me...It just breaks my heart,” Ezgi said.

St. Augustine, Florida

Ezgi sent a text message at 1 a.m. to her former host sister, Ava Mantha, explaining what had happened. Mantha’s family hosted Ezgi during her exchange year in Bloomington. During this time, they had built a strong friendship and connection with each other.

“There's been a terrible earthquake. Our house is breaking. We have to go. We have to leave. I’m in the car

right now.”

However, Mantha did not see the message until 3 p.m. the next day because she was busy with classes at a small college in Florida. She had also received messages from other people asking how Ezgi was. The more news and social media posts she saw, the more she started to panic. She did not receive any other word from Ezgi until two days later saying she was at her aunt’s house.

“I immediately started freaking out. … I hadn’t gotten any messages since one in the morning,” Mantha said. “One of the most stressful things was the role social media played.”

She said she saw Ezgi’s friends posting about many being dead or in the hospital. It felt strange experiencing the aftershock of the earthquake from the outside, unsettling not knowing what was really going on. Mantha also knew how much emotional damage such an experience can inflict, and wished she could be there to comfort Ezgi.

“It can put your life on hold… You don’t know when things are going to go back to normal,” Mantha said. “Life being put on hold at such a formative time is an aspect that should be taken into account.”

Mantha said she has continued to stay in touch with Ezgi as she continues to navigate the situation. While it may be hard for her to visit the U.S. due to visa complications, Mantha hopes to visit her in Turkey in the following years.

“Knowing someone and not knowing if they’re okay and not knowing how their life is going to play out after these events definitely changes the way you might see the people around you,” Mantha said. “Everyone is in a certain bubble, but you’re connected in more ways than you realize.”

This story was originally published Feb. 24, 2023.

Victims need to be heard without consequences

By Maria McComish mwoodmcc@iu.edu | @mccomish_maria

She lays out a situation where she was assaulted by an aspiring novelist named Ty on their second date.

“I felt a twinge of warning in my gut, but I ignored it— he didn’t look threatening or shady in any way, and if you had been there, you would have agreed,” Wu wrote in reference to being invited to his place. When Wu asked Ty to stop forcing himself on her, he did not.

“Some people say that I should have fought back against Ty,” Wu wrote. “If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change how I react-

ed that night. Because when I think about the girl I was back then, I understand what she was going through.”

Many will resonate with this feeling all too well. Most of the women in my life have a similar story to tell, and I have yet to meet a single woman who has not heard someone else’s story.

The hours I have spent reliving incidents where I could have been a different person — a stronger person — are countless. I should have told someone, or I should have run away screaming and crying. I should have done something.

Despite the girl I was, despite the red flags I ignored, despite the way my caution

never grew, nothing would have stopped those men from crossing every boundary. This is the most difficult truth to come to. Some people are just vile.

Wu also opened up about her experience on the ABC sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat” when a producer sexually harassed her. He demanded she wear short skirts, have long hair and send him selfies late at night.

“I also felt guilty because I felt like I was playing into it. I’ve got to pretend I’m part of the boys’ club,” Wu said in an interview on “Red Table Talk.”

As a teenager, I loved it when boys would call me

Olympian Ellia Green comes out as a trans man

By Maria McComish mwoodmcc@iu.edu @mccomish_ maria

Australian rugby player Ellia Green became the first Olympian to come out as a transgender man after delivering a touching speech in the Bingham Cup Summit opening video Aug. 16.

“Being open about my gender identity is a really difficult thing to do these days. All you have to do is turn on the TV, look on social media platforms, and you can see the amount of bullying, harm, and discrimination that goes on about gender identities,” Green said. “For someone to be open and honest about their identity to the public eye is absolutely daunting.”

Green was a member of the Australia rugby sevens team that won the gold medal at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. He announced his retirement at the end of 2016, and today he has a daughter with his partner Vanessa.

He was featured in the video to discuss transphobia and homophobia in sports, and he spoke about his relationship with his identity.

“One promise that I made to myself (was) that when my rugby career ended, I would continue to live the rest of my life in the identity, in the body, that I should have,” Green said in the video.

Changing laws and opinions have put a spotlight on trans athletes participating in any level of sport. Green said in the video it is “disgraceful” and “hurtful” to have laws regulating trans individuals participating in sports reflecting their gender identity.

World Rugby banned trans women from competing in the elite women’s international rugby union in 2020, while the International

Rugby League blocked players who have transitioned to female from international competition. Such regulations can have detrimental repercussions.

Research from the Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health suggests 50% of LGBTQ teenagers ages 13-17 seriously considered suicide in the past year. Eighty-two percent wanted mental health care, but most were unable to find any, according to the survey. A study on suicide rates in trans youth related to race or ethnicity was done by the same organization. The study found that across all racial and ethnic identities, transr and/or non-binary youth were at highest risk for suicide attempts in 2019. Additionally, sucide attempts were higher among youth of color than white non-Hispanic youth.

“Imagine not being able to do what you love because of how you identify,” Green said in the video. “I think that the alarmingly high rates of suicide and the mental health challenges which trans and gender di-

verse youth experience will get even worse.”

After not being selected for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Green felt like a “complete failure” and went into a dark place. He said the positive spark in it all was a top surgery he had planned, and he knew it would make him feel liberated.

Reactions such as prying questions and narrow minded statements make Green wish people would understand the difficulty of the process, but he maintains an uplifting attitude.

“People are going to have something to say, whether that be positive or negative, and I’ve learned that in 10 years of being a professional rugby player,” Green said in the video. “So why not just live the rest of your life exactly as you want to be?”

Despite any worry he may have, Green said he wants his message to resonate with trans youth as a reminder that it can and will get better, especially in a time where it seems like the world is against them.

This story was originally published Aug. 29, 2022

“cool” or “different,” and I would force myself to shut down when my guy friends would ask personal questions about my body or the way I spent my free time. I was often the punchline in sexual jokes, and was made fun of if I had a negative reaction.

I remember one incident when I was slapped on my lower back by a close friend because I was “sitting like a slut.” Another time, a friend I trusted implicitly touched my thigh and asked me where I shaved.

I was sexualized for my ethnicity, my history, my sexual orientation, for things I did not even know could be sexualized. I felt useless

without validation because my body was my only worth.

The worst part about it is, I’m not even sure those people remember doing this to me. I’m not sure they have ever thought twice about it, but I carry it with me wherever I go. It feels like a tattoo I never asked for, but everyone else can see.

Looking back, I do not feel shame for the girl I was then.

I feel sympathy. She thought if she smiled through the harassment, assault and disgusting comments, if she laughed it off, men would start to respect her.

She thought maybe she would be viewed as a person. Maybe she would feel like a person.

“In a strange way I didn’t want to fight back and make a scene,” Wu wrote. “It was a quiet experience.”

Victims coming forward in unity can make these experiences less quiet. They can push for complete disruption of comfortability in the life of an abuser. The years have taught me to be vocal about what happened to me, to recognize that I am not at fault and I did not deserve any of it.

I only hope people continue to share their stories and are met with solidarity and love for themselves. It is what every victim deserves.

This story was originally published Oct. 12, 2022

Teacher shortages hit students of color where it hurts

By Sade Ajishegiri fosajish@iu.edu

Schools in the Monroe County Community School Corporation were forced to move classes online April 13 due to teacher shortages.

The Indiana State Teachers Association held a “Pack the Statehouse” event that Thursday, where hundreds of teachers from across the state gathered to chant their disapproval over education bills introduced in the 2023 session.

Indiana Senate Bill 486 and House Bill 1608 were especially condemned.

According to the IndyStar, the non-specific language of SB 486 actually means the bill would allow school administrators to skip discussing topics such as curriculum, class size and safety with union representatives.

HB 1608 prohibits instruction on human sexuality through the third grade, prompting the argument from educators and LGBTQ activists that it silences the LGBTQ community by ignoring the group’s history and importance.

HB 1608 also states that minors who request to be called by a different name or pronoun must be reported to at least one parent, which potentially puts transgender or nonbinary students at risk to non-accepting parents.

In addition to these heavily contested bills, teachers rallied to demand lawmakers to address the lack of public school funding as well as historic teacher shortages. The shortage of substitutes made it impossible for MCCSC teachers to rally without worrying about who would be left to conduct class.

According to an article from Indiana Public Media, MCCSC Superintendent Jeff Hauswald reported more than half the corporation’s teachers requested a substitute in order to attend the rally.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools have been forced to streamline their online resources and methods of online class. Asynchronous modules, recorded lectures and online quizzes have become part of the common vocabulary.

But studies show this switch to online learning is having a distressing effect on some students — especially students of color.

Nidhee Patel, an IU junior majoring in neuroscience and journalism, said that for students like her and her younger brother, there are often complications to e-learning that white students don’t usually face.

“I know it’s really different from white kids,” she said. “Doing school through home, especially when COVID happened, was kind of difficult because I feel like peoples’ background and where they come from can really affect their ability to concentrate on the material that they’re learning.”

Research from the Urban Institute found household factors that can impede learning to be more common in households of people of color. Factors including linguistic isolation, living in crowded conditions, poverty and living without access to a computer were much more common among students of color, with Black, Hispanic and Native American students more than twice as likely to live in poverty. 19 percent of white students were found to live

in household with no internet or computer, while Native American households were more than twice as likely to. Black and Hispanic households were 16 percent more likely to.

Patel said that, on the other side of the screen, there’s often a host of other issues students are dealing with.

“Especially if you’re POC, you may be having to help around the house in a different way than other people might have to,” she said. “I know sometimes you just have other responsibilities, and you can’t fully concentrate on the education portion of your e-learning day.”

Julia Molina, an IU freshman studying neuroscience, said the teacher shortage is likely to adversely affect students of color especially.

“If you can’t find any teachers, you’re not going to go out and look for teachers more qualified to teach your population,” she said. “So it’s going to be tougher to find anybody that’s willing to put in the work to learn, really, how to treat people of color they’ve never really interacted with.”

As e-learning days are continually relied on as an alternate means of education, it will become more important than ever to monitor educational disparities in the U.S., especially when it comes to low-income students and students of color. This

ILLUSTRATION BY JACK DONNELLY | IDS

ILLUSTRATION BY JULIETTE ALBERT

FILE PHOTO Fireworks in the shape of the Olympic rings go off Feb. 4, 2022, over the National Stadium during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Ellia Green, now the first Olympian to come out as a transgender man, appeared in the opening video shown at the Bingham Cup Summit addressing what it’s like to be a transgender athlete.

Highlighting Black women who have made history in 2023

By Thursday Currence tcurrenc@iu.edu

As 2023 wraps up its first quarter, Black women are on a roll, setting record after record this year. Black women were "given their flowers" all throughout Black History Month and Women’s History Month, with record-breaking accomplishments.

Grammy-nominated singer SZA released her sophomore album in December 2022. By January 2023, her album had gained impressive momentum and was being streamed globally. Just nine weeks after “SOS” had been released it had broken the seven year Billboard record when it consecutively ranked first on the charts throughout the top of the year. In the R&B genre, SZA’s album had broken Janet Jackson’s 1993 record. SZA’s “SOS” was the first R&B album in nearly 30 years to spend four weeks at no. 1 on the Billboard charts. Following SZA’s impressive run was Beyonce’s ground breaking record.

In February 2023, Beyonce set an incredible record of winning the most Grammy awards ever won by a single person. At the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, she was the most nominated artist, with a

total of nine nominations for the night. She took home four of those Grammy’s. Beyonce now has a total of 88 nominations, making her tied for most Grammy nominations with her husband Jay-Z. Then came Rihanna with her iconic, headlining Super Bowl performance. The singer took a hiatus from her music career to focus on her other interests, like make up and fashion, but in February 2023 she decided to reemerge herself onto the music scene with a noteworthy performance. This was Rihanna’s first public performance in five years. She played many of her most popular no. 1 songs over the past 18 years.

Although Rihanna did not invite any other performers to share the stage with her, she did have a crew of talented back up dancers and a baby bump that stole the show. Rihanna used her Superbowl performance to announce she was expecting her second child with rapper ASAP Rocky. This exciting news made Rihanna’s halftime performance the most viewed halftime performance ever.

Finally, throughout Women's History Month, also known as March Madness in the basketball world, Louisiana State University Wom-

Artist George McCalman writes new Black history book

By Maria McComish mwoodmcc@iu.edu | @mccomish_ maria

en’s basketball team dominated the court. This landed the team as finalists in the National College Athletic Association National Championship. The final game took place on April 2, and LSU’s starting lineup consisted of all Black female student athletes.

Angel Reese, starting forward of LSU, was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four this year. Reese scored 15 points and 10 rebounds during the championship game. The LSU Tigers beat Iowa, 102-85. This was LSU’s first national championship win.

So far, 2023 is off to a great start with record after record being topped by Black women. This year hasn’t even reached its halfway mark, which means there’s a lot more time for Black women to amaze us as they achieve their 2023 New Year Resolutions.

This story was originally published April 16, 2023

Jackson, Mississippi has a poorly designed water system

By Amani Gates amagates@iu.edu | @amani_gates

In late August of this year, Jackson, Mississippi, was hit with heavy rains which led to flooding across the Pearl River. The flooding left 150,000 residents in Jackson without water for days.

Last week, the city was finally able to get water flowing from the faucet. However, Jackson is still lacking safe drinking water. A video surfaced on the internet of brown water coming from the faucets and the city is now in its sixth week of a boil-water advisory from the state health department.

This has been no surprise for Mississippi’s capital city. Jackson has been dealing with its aging water system for years. The Environmental Protection Agency informed city leaders that its water system violated the federal Safe Drinking Water Act months ago and is investigating the issue.

Just like many other cities, Jackson can’t afford to fix its water supply. Its water plants suffer from old, leaking pipes and low staffing. It needs over a billion dollars to fully fix its water system, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said in an interview with WLBT.

We have seen a similar type of problem before in Flint, Michigan. A predominantly Black city with an ongoing water issue, they have been without clean water since 2014 when they discovered there were lead and Legionella bacteria in the water.

Jackson has an 80% Black population with a quarter of that population living in poverty. It surely won’t be the last city to experience a faulty water system.

Places like Las Vegas, Honolulu, Baltimore, and the Rio Grande Valley are also experiencing blatant environmental prejudices in their cities. Similar to Jackson, the infrastructure is outdated, there is a lack of funds being

allocated to help fix the pipes, and environmental issues such as extreme heat resulted in forest fires that have tainted reservoirs.

When cities begin to shift from predominantly white neighborhoods to predominantly Black neighborhoods, the funds also shift with them. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, cities experiencing poor water access or having poor water systems are in predominantly Black or Hispanic communities.

Infrastructure issues today stem from the lack of investment in the water systems over the last few decades. Instead of trying to take on the issue when it was present, officials waited until the damage was irreversible, and now the human right to something as simple as running and clean water has been stripped from these communities.

This story was originally published Sept. 7, 2022

George McCalman, artist, illustrator and graphic designer, wrote a new book “Illustrated Black History.” It features illustrations, stories and accomplishments of 145 integral figures in Black American history from James Baldwin to Colin Kaepernick.

McCalman spoke with Entertainment Weekly (EW) about the urgency behind the book, as well as the passion that went into this project. It all started when McCalman’s friends suggested he compile his paintings of Black history pioneers into a book. When McCalman investigated the collection of books around the topic of Black history, he was appalled.

“I discovered that there was no book outside of children’s books and academic tomes, which is evidence of the value placed on the subject matter,” he said in the interview with EW. “I felt a deep sense of agency and urgency. I had to do it.”

McCalman credits his Caribbean background for his unique abilities. He was raised in Brooklyn, New York, and studied fine arts at St. John’s University. He said he left with a desire to be an artist and a focus on making a living.

When he began painting portraits of Black History pioneers, he said he felt both free and comfortable within his field.

“What I learned all those years later is that I don’t have one singular style. I apply the context of what I’m doing to the art that I’m making,” he told EW. “It’s the opposite of how I was trained, and I’m glad I divorced myself from feeling pressure to conform to one way of being an artist.”

When creating “Illustrated Black History,” McCalman said he relied on both his instincts and curiosity to choose which Black pioneers to include.

He decided on those pioneers who were less seen rather than choosing iconic names. He said it is important to focus on educating people about historical figures they may know nothing

about. McCalman has a clear message he wants readers to take away from the book.

“That this is American history. Period and full stop,” he told EW. “There is a narrative that is as divided as everything else in our current culture, where Black history is a separate thing.”

He says this book is for every single person. It is an accessible “Bible” to celebrate Black pioneers and educate all age groups on important American history.

The book is in stores now and can be bought directly from Harper Collins Publishers.

This story was originally published Dec. 7, 2022

Black Film Archive creator Maya Cade concludes IU Cinema project

By Maria McComish mwoodmcc@iu.edu | @mccomish_ maria

Indiana University Cinema welcomed Maya Cade, the creator and curator of the Black Film Archive, as part of the Jorgenson Guest Filmmaker Lecture Series on Friday, Sept. 30. Cade discussed her inspiration behind the project as well as the movies that caused her to fall in love with motion picture media. The Black Film Archive is a living register of Black films. It includes films made from 1898 to 1989. Cade began building it in June 2020 and launched it in August 2021. Every description is researched and written by her.

Along with being the creator of the Black Film Archive, Cade curated five programs for IU Cinema as an introduction to her project “Home Is Where the Heart Is: Black Cinema’s Exploration of Home.” It took place throughout the month of September and focused on films made since 1979 that expressed the idea of “home.”

She sat down with past Jorgenson guest and filmmaker Isabel Sandoval on Friday to discuss the creation of the Black Film Archive, along with other passions.

Cade said often, she would hear about the scarcity of Black film collections when asked about her initial motivations.

“I don’t blame people for not knowing something,” Cade said, referencing the limited knowledge the general public may have on Black media. “I think that’s a vicious way to look at the world.”

She said it was that optimism which helped her curate the archive. Cade said she wanted to be able to supply people with the resources to consume Black films. She has done just that as the site now offers hundreds of movies.

Cade's definition of Black film has admittedly expanded since the launch of the site, her technical term now being any movie which has something to say about the Black experience.

She discussed how Black filmmakers and actors have

been able to define themselves in more expansive ways, which leads to a wider range of what classifies as a film that would belong in the Black Film Archive. To her, this is something both fascinating and monumental to witness. Cade said every reaction came as a surprise following the release of the archive. She did not consider how it would be received and was just happy to see it reach her desired audience.

“We all have to do our part,” Cade said, in reference to people’s rediscovery of decades-old Black films. “Black film’s future requires us all to care.”

This story was originally published Oct. 9, 2022

COURTESY PHOTO Black Film Archive Creator and Curator Maya Cade is seen in a theater. IU welcomed Cade as a guest programmer for IU Cinema in the fall semester.

What’s really behind the Black Ariel backlash?

By Sade Ajishegiri fosajish@iu.edu

In July 2019, Disney announced it had chosen actress Halle Bailey to play the leading role of Princess Ariel in the upcoming live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid.”

Some Disney fans were delighted at the idea of a fresh take on the beloved childhood story, not least of all because of the diversity Bailey’s casting would add.

People commented and tweeted their excitement for the film and their hopes for diversity in Disney’s future productions.

However, not everyone shared the same excitement for a more progressive remake. Many fans, claiming they wanted to protect the integrity of the original animated film — which stars a red-headed, blue-eyed, white mermaid — expressed their outrage online.

One Twitter user commented, “Bummer. Ariel is a white redhead.”

Another user said they were sick of attempts at inclusivity.

They threatened to boycott the film’s release, arguing they weren’t racist, but that they simply couldn’t accept an actress who looked so different from the original 1989 Ariel.

Now that the filming has finally wrapped up, after setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the popular excuse for the backlash against the movie is still “white nostalgia” — fans remember Ariel looking a certain way and expect her liveaction counterpart to look as similar as possible.

While most comments and critiques are relatively tame — though arguably poorly masking deep-rooted prejudices — some fans’ reactions go beyond borderline racism.

One person even went so far as to edit the movie trailer’s thumbnail, lightening her skin and changing her hair from Bailey’s locs to straighter hair. The locs are

something the actress was especially excited to include in the film.

“My hair, for example — incorporating my locs into the red hair was something that was really special to me,” Bailey said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

Bailey’s locs are a typically Black hairstyle — yet another visual difference that would-be Disney purists simply cannot abide.

Jekylah Smith, treasurer of Black sorority Delta Sigma Theta’s Gamma Nu Chapter, said those angered over the

let’s go have an adven-

eurocentric beauty.

casting choice simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a young person of color growing up on mostly-white television.

“It can be an ignorance thing because they don’t understand how it feels to be a little girl watching Disney movies…and not being represented in that light,” she said. “People who aren't minorities are always highly represented. … they always have somebody that looks like them.”

The uproar over the new Little Mermaid’s look has nothing to do with who the

character of Ariel is at her core. In fact, Rob Marshall, director of the film, was astounded by how much of the princess he could see in Bailey from the beginning.

"It was abundantly clear that Halle possesses that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence, and substance — plus a glorious singing voice — all intrinsic qualities necessary to play this iconic role,” Marshall said in an official statement from July 2019. What the backlash does illuminate, however, is society’s intolerance of non-

It seems the most anger comes when other, nonwhite standards of beauty are held up as equally or more beautiful than their white counterparts.

Smith questioned the excuses critics gave for their hatred of the movie.

“I feel like they don’t really have valid arguments besides ‘It’s my childhood. It’s nostalgic,’ when the actual issue is because the actress in the movie is not surrounded around European skin colors (and) facial features,” she said, also prais-

ing Bailey for being an icon non-white kids can look to so they feel beautiful. She said it’s a struggle to feel good about yourself when you’re underrepresented and ignored in the media.

“If you have super curly hair, it’s a bad thing, if your hair is thick, it’s a bad thing,” Smith said. If you have a big nose, if you have big lips, it’s a whole ordeal. “It makes minority girls feel like they're not beautiful enough.”

This story was originally published Sept. 28, 2022

MOVIE STILLS DATABASE Halle Bailey will star as Ariel in Disney's forthcoming live-action remake of its classic animated movie "The Little Mermaid."

Pieper Lewis sentenced for stabbing her alleged rapist

By Sade Ajishegiri fosajish@iu.edu

On Sept.13 2022, 17-yearold Pieper Lewis was ordered to pay $150,000 to the family of the man she said raped her. She was also sentenced to five years in a correctional facility, along with 1,200 hours of community service.

Lewis has already spent two years locked up waiting for her hearing and subsequent sentencing.

Lewis was only 15 years old when she found herself on the run from what she says was an abusive home life. According to The New York Times, her witness

statement said she had been bouncing from living situation to living situation, trying to find some kind of stability.

Her witness statement also described two men offering her a place to stay during a period when she was sleeping in an apartment building hallway. She left the first man when he turned out to be violent and abusive.

The second man was Christopher Brown, a 28-year-old whom she said she thought of as her boyfriend. When he began to show the same violent, sexually abusive behavior, she stayed.

Homelessness dispropor-

tionately affects people of color, making up about 40% of America’s homeless population despite only being around 13% of the general population. Being young, Black and without a place to live is a combination of circumstances that put Lewis in danger. A combination that no doubt made her pause and weigh her options when she decided to stay with Brown.

According to the same Times article, Lewis’ statement said Brown began listing her on dating sites, forcing her to have sex with men for money.

Zachary Brooks, a

37-year-old man with children of his own, was one such alleged customer. Lewis said she was raped by him on several occasions before the night she finally killed him — all of which she was under nonconsensual intoxication, she says in her statement according to the Times.

On May 31, 2022, Brown tried to coerce her, as she said was common, to go to Brooks’ apartment. When she resisted, she said Brown pressed a knife to her throat, threatening until she agreed to go.

That night, after waking from another drug-induced haze, she saw Brooks sleep-

ing and said she realized she’d been raped yet again.

According to the Des Moines Register, Lewis’ plea agreement states she took a knife from the nightstand and stabbed him 30 times.

Lewis isn’t the only sex trafficking victim who killed her abuser and was treated just as a criminal.

In 1995, the then-teenage Sarah Kruzan was sentenced to life in prison for shooting and killing her trafficker, serving almost 20 years in prison before she was released under California Governor Gavin Newsom.

She said the American justice system isn’t properly

able to handle the “complex and compounded trauma” marking so many who pass through it.

But how many stories like Pieper Lewis’ end not with the victim prevailing over their trafficker, but instead with their own death?

So many women of color caught up in human trafficking go missing, are murdered and end up as another unnamed statistic. But should a victim who ended their abuse through a crime be treated the same as any other criminal?

This story was originally published Oct. 6, 2022

ILLUSTRATION BY JACK DONNELLY | IDS

IU film expert discovered lost Black film from 1916

By Jay Upshaw jnupshaw@iu.edu

During the beginning of the pandemic, Cara Caddoo was doing research. She had recently watched 1921 film, "By Right of Birth” and noticed strange clues within the film. So, she began digging, and it was this specific research on the film that led to her discovering a previously overlooked detail in a historical Black film.

“I was just trying to do research on the things I had available to me,” Caddoo said.

Caddoo is a historian at IU who specializes in film, mass media, race and Black history. In 2014, she also published the book, “Envisioning Freedom: Cinema and the Building of Modern Black Life,” which chronicles the history of early Black cinema.

“Cara knew this particular film she was watching and noticed this funny little fifteen second blip,” said Rachel Stoeltje, Interim Director of the Black Film Archive Center at IU.

Caddoo was viewing a 1921 film produced by Lincoln Motion Picture Company film, one of the first race film producers in the U.S. The film “By Right of Birth” fea-

tures only four minutes of surviving footage. Upon viewing the film, she realized pieces of the film seemed out of place.

“Her ability to catch that little moment really speaks to her knowing the film,” Stoeltje said.

When watching “By Right of Birth,” Caddoo noticed discrepancies in small parts. Evidence that she was watching an entirely different production came from the title card including a misplaced image of a cactus references to a soldier and someone named Joe, and two actors appearing who did not have credited parts.

After doing some independent research, Caddoo realized the mismatched pieces of media fit the description of “The Trooper of Troop K.”

“The Trooper of Troop K” was an important race film that she had discovered when searching through the George P. Johnson Collection at the University of California.

Allyson Nadia Field, a professor at UCLA and scholar of Black cinema, was the first person Caddoo called when she made her discovery. Caddoo reached out to Field for help with this project.

After seeking her expert opinion about the film’s origin, both Caddoo and Field

agreed they were dealing with a separate film altogether.

“It’s so remarkable and such a fantastic example of bringing someone like Cara with her knowledge, passion and commitment,” Stoeltje said.

While Caddoo had the Library of Congress verify this discovery, a big contributor to the project has been the IU Black Film Center Archive. The Black Film Center Archive holds archived films and projects made by Black creators from around the world made at many different points in history.

“They’ve always been incredibly supportive,” Caddoo said. “And they’re a great resource for Black cinema.”

When she’s not working as a professor for the university, she’s preparing to publish her second book about Noble Johnson, a Black actor and producer of the silent era. She hopes to release this book either next year or the following year.

“What we have is very minimal recordings of our early silent heritage,” Stoeltje said. “That's amplified for black cinema in particular.”

This story was originally published Nov. 2, 2022

ARMY ROTC S CHOLARSHIPS

A person opens the Spotify app on a phone Dec. 5, 2021. Spotify first released “Spotify

in 2016, but the updated version of the design was stolen from an intern from Howard

‘Spotify Wrapped’ is a stolen idea

By Maria McComish mwoodmcc@iu.edu | @mccomish_ maria

In 2016, Spotify released a feature that allowed users to see their listening habits throughout the year. At the time, the feature sent out an email link to a microsite. Now, a user’s listening data is presented on the app in a video format shareable to Instagram stories and other social media platforms.

The feature is called “Spotify Wrapped,” and the updated version of the design was stolen from an intern.

Jewel Ham worked as a Spotify design intern for three months in 2019. She was 21 years old and about to enter her senior year at Howard University.

She developed an elaborate concept and presented it to people at the company. It was received well.

“I was a person that had Spotify and loved Wrapped, but it was just a link they would send at the end of the year,” she said in an interview with Refinery. She envisioned a more interactive presentation which flowed well into the social media ecosystem.

“They liked the idea. That was my last day,” she continued.

The three-month internship was over, but the idea

was just beginning. When the new and improved Spotify Wrapped was first released in 2019, Ham kept silent about the striking similarities. As the new design gained popularity, she felt it necessary to step forward. On Dec. 2, 2020, she took to Twitter to voice her frustration, admitting she invented the story concept and Spotify has not looked back since stealing it. She told Refinery she was not surprised about the development of her idea going uncredited. “This was not my first corporate position, so I know that’s not really the practice,” Ham said in the interview. “Because the reality is, at the end of the day, they legally have the right to. That’s the reason it’s such an issue.”

Corporations like Spotify own all their intern content, and those interns are often unpaid or receive a measly stipend, according to the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions.

A stipend is not nearly enough for someone like Ham, who had to work independently throughout the internship. She told Refinery their broad assignment was to make Spotify Wrapped appeal more to younger generations.

She said she enjoyed the internship because of the people and the benefits, but there is much to consider outside of that.

“I feel like I have to distance myself a bit from all those benefits because that doesn’t translate into any type of compensation for such a large idea,” Ham said in the interview.

The original concept can be viewed on Ham’s website, where she is described as a multidisciplinary visual artist, curator and educator. She uses her practice as a means of reparation and resistance.

She has had four solo exhibitions throughout her career, all taking place in historical spaces within the Black community. She does not wish to speak on Spotify anymore but encourages audiences to follow her art through socials and her website.

If you are looking to switch to a separate listening platform, there are helpful links to transfer playlists and your library.

Additionally, if you want to continue to track your listens and view your stats throughout the year without supporting Spotify, Last.fm is a site that is both accurate and free.

This story was originally published Dec. 15, 2022

IDS FILE PHOTO BY ASHLYN JOHNSON

Wrapped”

University.

Associate Professor Cara Caddoo poses for a portrait. Caddoo was working with IU's Black Film Archive when the 1916 film was rediscovered.

While you gain invaluable leadership skills in Army ROTC, you can continue your c ollege education at the same time—with financial support from the Army.

How to burn a couch: A look into the making of Burning Couch festival

By Charlotte Jones cmj35@iu.edu

Sunday afternoon was wondrously warm. I sat down with my hot chocolate to meet Ahmed Al-awadi, the outgoing president of Music Industry Creatives and one of the minds behind Bloomington’s Burning Couch festival. He brought his peach ginger green tea to the table, adding just a bit of honey.

“That’s the tea,” Al-awadi joked. “Oh shoot, I forgot to get it iced.”

Al-awadi, an IU student studying arts management concentrating on music, saw potential in the club. MIC, formerly known as IU’s Music Industry Networking Club, used to bring in leaders in the music industry to aid IU creatives with building their network. In 2021, the club switched their focus from networking to building the network — and getting the industry’s attention by putting on events, Al-awadi

said. “Let’s get attention,” he said. “D.I.Y. or die pretty much.”

The Burning Couch festival is the perfect example of Al-awadi’s vision: a space for artists to thrive as well as a networking opportunity for local acts. Instead of relying on Instagram messages, artists can talk in real life to those they would like to collaborate with.

Burning Couch started in 2022 as a musical response to Little 500, the iconic annual Bloomington bicycle race that became the focus of the 1979 film “Breaking Away.” Instead of watching the race, Al-awadi said he would rather spend his time at an all-day music festival. He decided to name it after the iconic Burning Man festival, changing “man” to “couch” to fit a more college rock aesthetic.

With around two years of experience working at events for the Buskirk-Chumley

Theater, Al-awadi knew he could bring his vision to life with the help of his club. Last year’s show took place in a backyard; this year, MIC is taking the leap to Switchyard Park, offering a more accessible venue for the Bloomington public. The festival will take place on Sunday starting at noon.

Last year’s festival was much more spur of the moment, Al-awadi said. “It was beautiful I guess, but it was just disorganized.”

This year, Al-awadi aims for a more intentional experience. He’s aiming to create a space that fuses both art and music with 26 individual art vendors slotted to peddle their wares in the air-conditioned pavilion at Switchyard Park. Vendors will be selling a variety of items from upcycled clothing to stickers.

“(For) a lot of them, it’s literally their first time doing a pop-up as well,” he said. “That’s kind of the space we want to facilitate. We’re

more music focused, obviously, but our mission is a lot broader than that.”

As for the bands, MIC aims to include a wide variety of music to showcase at the festival. Al-awadi said he is very into the jazz-hip-hop fusion sound of Ed Winn & the Atomic Misfits as well as the psychedelic rock feel of Tree To Stone. I asked him which band he was most excited to see, and he couldn’t choose one. He hates that question.

“(We) made a bill that was very diverse in genre, representation of artists that we see in the community that are really coming up and have a lot of great potential,” Al-awadi said. “There’s something for everybody. That’s really what we’re trying to do.”

He couldn’t help but mention the genre-bending creativity seen in the Bloomington music sphere. Alawadi mentioned that Citruses, a three-piece lofi-rap

group, will bring a 14-piece jazz ensemble to accompany their performances. They’ve been sitting on a new project for almost a year now, he said. Al-awadi is also excited to see Westhead perform their recently released album live for the first time.

“We wanted to focus on showcasing as much of Bloomington’s talent in one day,” he said. “And the greater area as well.”

There are bands coming from all over the Midwest, about a hundred-mile radius from Bloomington, Al-awadi said.

The festival is slotted for the same weekend as Bloomington Delta Music Club’s BDMC Presents and WIUX’s Culture Shock music festival, providing three days of music for the community.

“It’s gonna drive a lot of hype for the community to just directly support the artists,” he said.

Al-awadi does admit that the Burning Couch format

offers something different, as each event inevitably will. BMDC offers more educational jam-based music, Culture Shock will be more hardcore and Burning Couch showcases artists of all kinds, from electric sets to acoustic jams to colorful sketches, he said.

At the end of the day, Burning Couch is Al-awadi’s baby. The festival is just in its infancy. He is sure that MIC will put on incredible versions of this festival in the future, as he will be graduating from IU in May. It’s a bittersweet goodbye, but don’t worry — Al-awadi will linger around Bloomington for a little while longer.

Pre-sale tickets to Burning Couch are available now, with $12 tickets available until noon on Wednesday. Tickets will also be available on the day of the festival for $20.

This story was originally published April 11, 2023.

Local house venues collaborate to help unhoused community

By Taylor Satoski tsatoski@iu.edu

Multiple Bloomington house venue owners worked together to present the Bloomington Care Package Concert, a benefit show organized to supply items to the unhoused community on Dec. 11. Brennan Wrin, resident of house venue Blackhouse, was the main organizer of the event.

Local venues Blackhouse, Pussy Palace, The Reef, Yeti Gamble and The BMV (Bureau of Musical Violations) organized the free show that took place at Showalter Fountain from 3-5 p.m. Dec 11. All donations will be organized into care packages and handed out to people experiencing homelessness in Bloomington.

Attendees donated soaps, clothes, hygiene products, canned food and more.

“I saw this man who had a sign and all it said was ‘please help me’ and for whatever reason that hit my heart really hard to see

By Leila Faraday lfaraday@iu.edu

Sandwiches are a crosscultural and widely loved lunch food — and yet, I find them to be vastly underappreciated these days. Here are the components that I believe create a great sandwich guaranteed to have you hooked for your next lunchtime.

Bread Pick out a quality bread that speaks to you. I love sourdough, ciabatta or a baguette, but if you want something grainy, soft or anything in between, that’s your prerogative. I find that artisan style breads are much more delicious than soft, mass produced sandwich bread — but sometimes you need to use what you have. Next, you have to decide whether to toast it or not. I prefer toast-

that,” Wrin said. “This guy was asking me for help, and I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t have anything to give him.

Wrin, an IU dropout, works with different businesses and said he felt the need to do something for Bloomington’s homeless community, so he began organizing this event for the past week.

“I’ve seen that a lot of the homeless community here comes from the rehab facilities, so they actually bring people in by the busload, and they’re not allowed to bring anything with them,” Wrin said. “They don’t have phones, they don’t have wallets, they don’t have their social security, birth certificates, any of that stuff. And then when their time is up at these rehab facilities, they just put them back out onto the streets.”

Since the weather has turned cold and the homeless shelters are reaching capacity, Wrin said he wants to supply people living on the

streets with care packages. He hopes the care package show becomes an annual event.

“It’s a bunch of venues coming together, creating a community event that will carry on even after we’re gone,” Wrin said. “We’re hoping that the next generation of venues and fans and musicians will come together and repeat the same process and same idea of helping people out.”

The event underwent multiple hardships, but the bands persevered. Wrin had to acquire a generator after a long drive to supply a power source for the bands. One band dropped out of the event due to a COVID-19 illness and another due to time conflicts.

The first band, Tree to Stone, performed original songs “Rabbit Hole,” “Out in the Country” and “Vamp Kids” with a drum set resting on a rug. Staggering spectators withstood the cold and were asking bystanders what the event was about, along

with fans of the band.

Bassist Michael Gundolf played a black guitar with neon green strings. Everyone was dressed in their warmest attire while listening to the psych funk rock trio comprised of bassist Gundolf, guitarist and Ivy Tech graduate Lucas Bird and drummer and IUPUI senior Ethan Smith.

“The homeless people aren’t the problem,” Bird said. “It’s homelessness that’s the issue. In the end, those are just people in our community that could make some use of any amount of help and so that’s why we think this is a good event to champion.” Bird said as a band, they feel this is the least they could do.

“It’s events like these that we want to normalize, that we want to be proponents of as a band,” he said.

Dose Rose, an alternative rock band, persevered through technical difficulties and performed an acoustic version of its set list

which vocalist, bassist and IU graduate Riley Huffman labeled “Dose Rose Lite Edition.”

Since Huffman lost her voice, guitarist, vocalist and IU senior Vinny Greene heartily sang their original songs along with covers of “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Lithium” by Nirvana and “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet with a slow, raspy tone.

Greene said the passion that the organizers had for this project was contagious.

As someone who studies public policy, he said if he knew a solution to homelessness, he would be working on it instead of playing music.

Perfect 10, a Bloomington metal punk band made up of IU students, performed originals and covers in front of the fountain. It covered “In Bloom” by Nirvana, “Zero” by The Smashing Pumpkins,” “My Own Summer (Shove It) by Deftones and its original “Rest

COLUMN: The formula to a perfect sandwich

ed, but sometimes a cold sandwich fits the day better.

Sauce This is your time to get creative. Based on the other ingredients you plan to use, you could go for a spicy mayo, garlic aioli, mustard, barbecue sauce, hummus or anything else that comes to mind. You want something that will give some moisture to the sandwich as well as an extra boost of flavor. For those with sophisticated taste, try also adding a jam to compliment the other flavors of the sandwich. If sauce isn’t really your thing, you can go back to the basics with a little drizzle of olive oil and some vinegar.

Meat/protein

There’s nothing wrong with some simple sliced turkey, ham, chicken or roast beef that is prepackaged from the grocery store. But

if you want to try something different, try slicing pieces of a rotisserie chicken or using freshly cut deli slices from a butcher. Another option is to add some freshly cooked bacon on top of the other meat you are using to bring in a delicious salty flavor. I like going heavy on the meat in sandwiches — it should make up around two-thirds of the total filling.

Cheese

My go to cheese for almost any sandwich is sliced pepper jack. Swiss, colby jack, gouda and provolone are delicious, milder cheese options as well. If you want to spice things up, try slices of soft brie or fresh mozzarella. These will add extra softness, moisture and meltiness to your sandwich. The only cheese I stay away from on traditional sandwiches is American — it pairs much

better with burgers or inside of a classic grilled cheese. Otherwise, it won’t add much flavor to a sandwich.

Vegetables

Freshly sliced tomatoes are a classic on any sandwich and can be elevated with a small sprinkle of salt and black pepper on top. Greens are a nonnegotiable addition to the perfect sandwich, but it’s up to you which one works best. Romaine and iceberg lettuces add a satisfying crunch, arugula or spinach can bring in extra flavor and nutrients, while sprouts are another fun option to try for a different texture. To add another layer of complexity to your sandwich, try throwing in a few leaves of fresh basil as well.

Combination ideas

Create a delicious caprese-inspired sandwich using

a toasted ciabatta roll with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, topped with tomato slices, fresh mozzarella slices and fresh basil leaves.

For an easy sandwich with complex flavors sure to please anyone who can’t stop talking about their study abroad experience in Europe, try toasting some sourdough and spreading

in Peace with Me.”

Vocalist and IU junior AJ Slowey sang with a raspy voice and started the band’s original song off by screaming. She said this was the first live performance of its recently recorded song. Drummer and IU sophomore Bonnibel Luna shook her head, curly hair flying everywhere.

IU sophomore and guitarist Ian Marion said he works near Seminary Park and often interacts with the homeless community.

“The idea of doing the care package thing, I think it’s a really great way to show some love and try to at least do something,” he said.

During the last set of the night, an Indiana University cop parked and exited his vehicle. As the crowd looked at each other with worried faces, the police officer held his hand up in a rock and roll salute and walked the other way.

This story was originally published Dec. 12, 2022.

a thin layer of fig or apricot jam. Top with turkey, melted brie cheese and arugula. Combine sliced turkey, pepper jack cheese, spicy mayo and romaine lettuce on toasted sourdough to make my favorite simple sandwich that hits the spot every time. This

COURTESY PHOTO

Illustration of a burning couch created by Forest Steele. The Burning Couch Festival 2023 will take place on Sunday, April 16 at Switchyard Park.

ILLUSTRATION BY ALAYNA WILKENING

Lotus Festival brings Bloomington together

By Tory Basile vlbasile@iu.edu | @torybasilee

“You might be standing still right now, but you won’t be for long.”

A Lotus World Music and Arts Festival volunteer introduced Forgotten Tribe, an Indianapolis-based hip-hop, soul and reggae band to an eager audience on Saturday.

On the third day of the 29th annual Lotus Festival, bands from all around the world gathered in Bloomington to share music and culture with the community.

At the Lotus Local Stage on the corner of Kirkwood Avenue and Lincoln Street, listeners gathered in the intersection to hear from Indiana bands. Forgotten Tribe — who performed at the Local Stage — was met with cheers from Bloomington natives, IU students and families as they crowded into the blocked intersection. Some sat on curbs and on the edges of flowerbeds, while others stood around and danced.

Cathy Rountree swayed and bobbed her head to the beat. Rountree lived in Bloomington between the ‘60s and the ‘80s, but now she lives in Nashville, Indiana. Still, Rountree said she returns every year to visit the Lotus Festival — and plans to come back for as long as she can.

“It's just so awesome to see so many different kinds of people,” Rountree said. “Dif-

ferent nationalities, different ages. I mean, look at this age range.”

Older couples danced along to the reggae and ran into friends. Nearby, a young mother tried to keep up with her 3-year-old daughter as she weaved through the audience. For Rountree, it’s this diversity that makes Lotus Festival beautiful.

“I feel like if we could all just listen to each other's music, that all the problems of the world would go away,” Rountree said.

Nearby, families gathered on Sixth Street at the Lotus Arts Village. Visitors were able to walk through the Archaeopteryx, an arch sculpture with lights that debuted at the Burning Man Festival in 2019. Hula hoops and sidewalk chalk were scattered around the pavement for kids. Women Writing for (a) Change led a crafting and writing activity in one tent. In another tent, the Bloomington Piano Project invited guests to decorate a white piano with markers and stencils.

IU graduate student Tom

Agger volunteered with the piano project, which places decorated, donated pianos around public spaces in Bloomington to make musical instruments accessible to everyone. Agger explained the project to visitors and helped decorate the piano with them.

“It's an awesome project,”

Agger said. “I love being in a train station or something when there’s a piano there and just hearing a random person playing it. I hope to see more of that in Bloomington.”

On Saturday, 20 different performers took the stage at venues across Bloomington. Musical styles spanned from Champeta and Highlife to nu-folk and Afropop. Artists performed traditional Columbian, Indian, Romani, Balkan, Venezuelan, Viet-

namese and Arabic music, among several others. The Lemon Bucket Orkestra, the Toronto-based folk-punk ensemble, led this year’s Lotus Festival parade Saturday night starting in the Lotus Arts Village.

The festival closed out on Sunday afternoon with performances by Feddersen, Gourley and Miller along with Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash at the BuskirkChumley Theater. Traditional Celtic musicians Fedderson, Gourley and Miller took the stage first. Laura Feddersen, a Bloomington native, is based out of Boston today, where she and Nathan Gourley perform as a fiddling duo.

On Sunday, the band played traditional Irish and Scottish tunes and bantered with the audience about the song’s histories. Brian Miller, the group’s guitarist, joked that the protagonist of traditional Celtic song “Lovely Annie” is more antisocial than romantic, despite the song’s reputation. Throughout its performance, the trio stomped its feet in unison with the upbeat, high-spirited music.

Next, Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash performed classical Indian sarod. The brothers are part of the seventh generation of musical lineage from the Senia Bangash School. On Sunday, the pair performed with percussionist Avirodh Sharma.

The musicians explained that classical Indian music doesn’t follow a written score but is rather built on improvisation. Throughout the evening, the performers looked at each other to sense the rhythm, or closed their eyes to focus on the sound of the music.

“Whatever happens, happens right here, right now,” Ayaan Ali Bangash said.

He began by dedicating the performance to Gandhi and his message of nonviolence and peace, which the musician said is needed in the world today.

“Bloomington always feels like homecoming,” Ayaan Ali Bangash said, “It's always wonderful to be back in this beautiful town and this wonderful festival.”

Yaël Ksander, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design communications

language requirement?

director welcomed the audience to the performance, saying it was a pleasure to have the Lotus Festival at its fullest capacity after the pandemic put a damper on recent years’ events. “It's such a high to be gathered here together in person again, for that irreplaceable experience of live music,” Ksander said to the audience. “I hope you leave with wonderful memories and great music in your heart, as well as on your Spotify playlist.”

Ksander asked the audience to raise their hands if they’d been to all 29 years of the festival – five audience members held their hands high and were met with roars of encouragement from the crowd. Many of the audience members raised their hand to show they had been going to the festival for at least a decade.

“It’s special to bring the world to Bloomington,” Ksander said. “And to bring our special Bloomington to the world.”

This story was originally published Sept. 26, 2022.

Akan

American Sign Language (ASL)

Arabic

Bamana

Bengali

Bosnian/ Croatian/ Serbian

Catalan

Chinese

Czech

Dutch

Egyptian (Demotic)

Egyptian (Hieroglyphic)

Egyptian (Middle)

Estonian

Finnish

French

German

Greek (Classical)

Greek (Modern)

Haitian Creole

Hebrew (Biblical)

Hebrew (Modern)

Hindi

Hungarian

Indonesian

Italian

Japanese

Kazakh

Kinyarwanda

Korean

Sorani Kurdish

Latin

Maya

Mongolian

Norwegian

Persian

Polish

Portuguese

Quechua

Russian

Sanskrit

Spanish

Swahili

Thai

Tibetan

Turkish

Ukrainian

Urdu

Uyghur

Uzbek

Yiddish

Yoruba

Zulu

skullznbunniez: ballet, bras and business

By Gino Diminich and Leila Faraday gdiminic@iu.edu | @GinoDiminichII lfaraday@iu.edu

While working at her vintage clothing store, skullznbunniez, Indiana Coté has been told how much her storefront does not look like a traditional second-hand store. The eye-catching window with twinkling lights and a painted skull with bunny ears gives way to crisp white clothing racks accentuated by the variety of colored lingerie and denim decorating them.

“You walk in, and it looks like a Victoria’s Secret,” Coté said.

The storefront Coté now has on Kirkwood Avenue is a far cry from the place where she thought up the business back in 2016 — her backyard.

In 2014 — two years before the creation of skullznbunniez — Coté had just started dancing professionally with the Sarasota Ballet. To save money for leotards and tights, she found herself thrifting clothing more often and selling her old clothes. While rotating items out of her closet through online reselling apps, a trend began to emerge.

“I listed a few things on Poshmark and started noticing that some things sold,” Coté said. “So when I would go thrifting for myself, I would pick up a few things here and there.”

After selling clothing through websites like Poshmark, Ebay and Depop for two years, over Easter weekend in 2016 while in the backyard with her friend, Coté had an idea to create custom designs on vintage jeans. Together they began distressing vintage denim with sandpaper in the backyard for a more modern look to sell on an Etsy shop.

“I realized people really wanted the plain denim before they wanted the patches and the fun stuff,” Coté said.

“So I just started doing custom vintage Levis on Etsy.”

Coté set herself apart by getting customers’ measurements and their preference of denim wash to find them the perfect pair of custom jeans. Realizing the growing shop needed a name to keep building a dedicated customer base, Coté turned to what she and her friend were already interested in.

“I was really into skulls and Native American designs at the time, so I was wearing these little skull earrings,” Coté said. “My friend was into vintage Playboy bunnies and that era with the lingerie, so we just combined the two.”

Inspired by her mother’s involvement in the fashion world — having worked for different fashion merchandising companies like Ralph Lauren and Warnaco Group — Coté began to expand her shop’s inventory with vintage lingerie, continuing to oper-

ate her online store while dancing with a company.

After four years with the Sarasota Ballet, Coté was offered a three-year contract with the Indianapolis Ballet before auditioning for the Jacobs School of Music Ballet Theater program at IU around 2021.

“I took a leave of absence [from ballet] and really focused on my business,” Coté said. “That really changed my view on what I wanted to do after I was dancing. I knew I needed some sort of college degree, and if I could get that and dance at this prestigious program at the same time, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

Coté’s physical skullznbunniez storefront has been operating as a traditional store for roughly a year now. While balancing owning a business and being a current sophomore with the ballet theater department is no easy

feat, it seems to be second nature for Coté, as she rotates between prioritizing ballet or the store based on what requires more attention at that moment.

“I think there’s a real push and pull,” Coté said.

Navigating the logistics of operating a business often requires owners to possess a diverse array of skills and knowledge, and Coté juggles various logistical aspects — from managing payroll to learning how to code her own website.

“If I want to do this, then I’m going to have to just learn to do this myself,” Coté said about her attitude toward managing a business independently.

Her hard work appears to have paid off, as skullznbunniez has a wide-reaching community presence.

Coté feels that she has become recognizable around the area — even making

friends with people who began as customers and feeling supported by a tight-knit customer community and other small businesses in the area.

“I’ll run into people who just bought the items in the store and are wearing them out that night,” Coté said.

Coté has taken her community impact even further by reselling clothing in collaboration with organizations on campus, as well as raising money for causes that are important to her.

After the passing of Jacobs School of Music Ballet Theater freshman Mary Elizabeth Manville from a rare illness earlier this month, Coté organized a fundraiser through skullznbunniez to support Manville’s family during their difficult time by utilizing donations from the ballet theater community.

“We raised over $2,000 for Mary Elizabeth’s family,” Coté said. “I would be so stupid if

I let those opportunities (to help others) be passed up.”

Though resellers sometimes face pushback for what they do — with many users online claiming it reduces the accessibility of clothing — Coté feels this criticism is misinformed.

“People do not understand the level of waste that is happening with clothing,” Coté said.

She hopes that she can help more members of the community understand how accessible and beneficial it can be to shop secondhand for quality pieces, especially in a place like Bloomington.

“When I think about the amount of clothing we have been able to rehome and keep out of landfills, that alone is just a huge win for the planet,” Coté said. Through making sizing and styles as inclusive as possible by gathering direct feedback from customers of larger sizes, Coté hopes to spread this accessibility further.

“There’s definitely a stigma in our society that people who are larger sizes can’t dress the same as (a) size small or medium,” Cote said.

Coté said it feels especially good to see the wide range of people who come into her store, as she mentioned how it will be packed with customers of all generations when it is a mom’s weekend at IU.

“It’s great that everyone can find something in my store,” she said.

After graduation, Coté shows no desire to stop her growth — specifically hoping to bring skullznbunniez to college towns across the country, like Ann Arbor, MI or Boulder, CO.

“(Young people) are really where all of the change happens” Coté said. “I think that reflects on fashion. I think that reflects on style.”

This story was originally published April 24, 2023.

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GINO DIMINICH| IDS skullzbunniez owner Indiana Coté organizes her store’s inventory on April 20, 2023. The storefront has been open on Kirkwood for almost a year — originally open strictly by appointment for a few months prior.

Windy Woundedeye is seen participating in intertribal during the IU Powwow on April 1, 2023. Everyone was encouraged to participate in intertribal.

First Nations Educational and Cultural Center holds Powwow

By Gentry Keener gekeener@iu.edu

The First Nations Educational and Cultural Center held the 11th annual IU Powwow on April 1 in Wilkinson Hall.

First Nations Educational and Cultural Center is a central part of the diversity initiatives at IU and aims to build a safe, supportive and inclusive Native community within IU. The annual Powwow is hosted, organized and set up by FNECC and Native American Student Association volunteers and committee members.

There have been two variations of the powwows at IU over the years, according to previous FNECC director, Dr. Nicky Belle.

According to First Nations IU, in 2002, Dr. Wesley Thomas — then director of First Nations at IU — hosted the first rendition of the IU Powwow, which took place in the Bill Garrett Field House at

IU for several years. This version was a competition Powwow, which often attracts more dancers and singers, and prizes are given out at the end. In 2011, the first director of FNECC, Dr. Brian Gilley, brought the first annual Traditional Powwow to IU, which has no competition but is focused on bringing in community.

Each year since 2011, the Traditional Powwow has continued to outgrow its space, Belle said. The first year it was held in the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Grand Hall but moved to Cedar Hall the next year.

This year, Belle said the IU Powwow brought in nationally recognized singers and dancers such as Lonny and Verna Street.

Verna Street is a descendant of the Cherokee, Tuscarora and Meherrin Nations of North Carolina. She married Lonny Street of the Meskwaki tribe, who was Champion Men’s Traditional Dancer.

They have continued their journey of powwows together for 20 years now.

Belle said along with the traditional dance circle at a powwow, there is also food provided and vendors who sell a wide variety of handmade items from arts and crafts to Native items.

One of the vendors at this year's Powwow was Shannon Turner of Navajo Nation. Turner sells southwest inspired pieces with her husband and four children. She said she makes pieces that are important to her culture such as jewelry with sacred stones.

She also sells bead work and other jewelry she makes within a two-week time frame. Turner said that she spends all day, every day for two weeks during her spring break making stuff for the event.

“I spend every moment during those two weeks making stuff,” Turner said. “It takes a lot of days and nights.”

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However, in recent years, Turner said she is not alone in the jewelry making process. Her children have begun to pick up certain aspects, as well. Her daughter, Michelle Watson, has begun to help with the sales and vending process. Benjamin, Turner’s oldest son, has begun doing some bead work, such as with earrings. Her youngest has gotten into drawing and painting.

The vendors sell anything from a range of candles to jewelry and even maple syrup.

After the vendors opened at 10 a.m., the day continued with a Potawatomi Hand Games demonstration, Grand Entry and dance sessions throughout the afternoon and evening.

IU sophomore Kain Eller of the Lummi, Upper Skagit and Nooksack tribes, said this annual event is important for the Native community to have in Bloomington because there are no communities for

Native students at IU.

Eller found the need for community and recognition on campus. He said there is little representation in Indiana as the lands are ethnically cleansed in this nation.

“It provides representation for our community,” said Eller. “It’s a place where we don’t have to be a minority in the room.”

Laurel Bills, of the Oglala Lakota tribe, said she has been attending powwows since she was born. She said she watched as the IU Powwow grew over the years and witnessed first-hand the change of venues and how spread out the event was able to be this year.

Bills said that, for her, the powwow is a way to connect with her Indigenous ancestry that is deeply rooted on her mom’s side and that powwows have always been a way to connect with people in the community.

“It’s a way to show that we are still here,” Bills said.

When asked her favorite part of the powwows, Autumn Brunelleschi, of the Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe tribe, said it’s the people. Brunelleschi said she grew up going to powwows and described them as a ceremony of getting community together. Since she is far away from her community back home, she likes that IU does a powwow because she gets to feel at home.

From seeing friends and familiar faces from previous powwows to watching the first Grand Entry while everyone is gathered around and listening intently to the music and drums, the IU Powwow has created a community for many Bloomington residents.

“I love listening to the music and hearing people's laughter as they socialize and enjoy the powwow,” Turner said. “It makes us feel like we’re home.”

This story was originally published April 4, 2023.

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SAMANTHA SMITH | IDS

Mellencamp reflects on his career at IU symposium

By Gino Diminich gdiminic@iu.edu | @GinoDiminichII

Musician and Indiana native John Mellencamp spoke about his life and career on March 3 in Franklin Hall during a symposium discussing the social and cultural impact of his music.

After the interview between IU alumnus and Rolling Stone journalist, Anthony DeCurtis and Mellencamp, IU President Pamela Whitten announced that Mellencamp would be donating archived collections of his work to Indiana University.

Mellencamp discussed a wide range of topics about his music, art and life. Mellencamp’s music frequently tackles the idea of the American dream, something Mellencamp said he himself believed to be purely fantasy.

“I have — since I was a kid — reexamined the American dream and decided it looks a lot different on paper than it does in reality,” Mellencamp said. “The American dream is

just that, but you have to be asleep to believe it.”

While his poignant lyrics have been praised for reflecting everyday life and struggles, Mellencamp spoke about his own uncertainty over embodying values of perseverance and strength properly in song when starting out in the music industry.

“I didn’t see my ideas of anything worthy of writing down and making into a song,” Mellencamp said. “I felt anything I could say could be said better or has been said better by someone else.”

Mellencamp said there was no singular way to go about nurturing the songwriting process, believing the best way write a song was to step out of the way entirely.

“You have to let the song create itself,” Mellencamp said. “True art is when the artist is surprised. If the artist is surprised, you can imagine how surprised the listener is going to be.”

Mellencamp stressed his love of music in its purest

form. Talking with DeCurtis about how he never entered the music industry with the intention of making it big and being rich, but rather Mellencamp said that he was in it for the power of songs and the way they make people feel.

“Songs are the only thing I know that can transform all of us in this room right back to where we were when we were 16 years old, 25 years old or to an important part of your life,” Mellencamp said. “You can hear a song and go ‘I remember what I was doing the first time I heard this song., I remember who I was with, whose hand I was holding;’ music does that.”

This impactful music is something Mellencamp achieved by getting out of his own way, acknowledging how less important he was in comparison to the song, which could do so much more than he could.

“I had a song called ‘Hurt so Good,’ and when I sang it live for the first time, I looked at the audience and I knew

that I had connected with everybody,” Mellencamp said. “I saw that look on the audiences faces, and they were back to when they were 25 — when they were kids.”

Throughout his career, Mellencamp said he has written songs that reflect his mentality at a certain point in his life, citing the famous verse in “Jack and Diane”: “life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”

Mellencamp compared that to his song “Longest Days,” which was inspired by a conversation with his grandmother that opened his eyes to the beauty of a moment. “My grandmother said to me, ‘Buddy you’re going to find out real soon that life is short even in its longest days,’” Mellencamp said. “That was coming from a hundred-yearold woman who has learned something that I don’t know.”

Closing out the interview, Mellencamp reflected on his life overall and the experiences he has had, still surprised by how far he has come

and who he has met along the way. Mellencamp looked at his origins as a self-labeled “bar -room singer” and where he is know: genuinely seeing his success as a matter of incredible luck.

“You’re looking at the luckiest guy in the world, and my luck can rub off on you because all you have to do is

believe you have angels,” Mellencamp said. “If you believe you have angels, you have them, whether you really do or you don’t. I know I’ve got angels, and they’re around me. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2023.

COLUMN: Why local bands love the Bloomington music scene

By Charlotte Jones cmj35@iu.edu

Bloomington is home to every genre of music you can think of. Hardcore, power pop, queercore, indie rock, funk, shoegaze and acoustic folk all have a space in this college town. I’ve never met a person who plays music here and hates it. What makes Bloomington so special?

I talked to three older musicians who still play in and around the Bloomington music scene, as well as three younger yet established bands well-versed in the college rock scene. I sat down at my desk last Wednesday, preparing for my interviews with a notebook at the ready. With a pen in my hand, I started my interviews.

Tadas Paegle, now an employee at IU, originally transferred here from Wisconsin

in 1985. There was always music here, he reminisced, from bands playing in Dunn Meadow to show posters lining the streets.

“At the time, Bloomington was sort of this small music mecca,” Paegle said. “People compared (the music scene) to Austin, Texas.”

Once he started classes again, Paegle joined a funk band called Flattus. Their singers wore the classic candy-striped pants, often pictured dancing and crowdsurfing. At the height of their local popularity, they decided to enter Conan O’Brien’s College Search Band Contest in 1997 and won second place.

There’s no shortage of wild stories from past decades of Bloomington music. Jeff Day, a former college musician in the band Stone Carnival and current acoustic performer, recalls

Bloomington’s years during a transitional phase that music venues experienced in the late ‘90s.

“A lot of the clubs were kind of going away from having... live music and (instead) having a DJ night,” Day said. “There was also this retro (moment) where ‘80s rock was coming back... I think we were the last hurrah of the... rock and roll scene in Bloomington that was lucrative and still popular.”

The big difference now is that live music is still popular, just not quite as lucrative as it once was. Opportunities to play at fraternity and sorority houses have declined in recent years. House show venues are not quite as plentiful as they used to be, as Paegle recalls walking the streets of Bloomington and finding them based on sound alone.

Milligan, a local indie funk band, loves their time

playing local house shows.

“When the weather is hot, they can be one of the coolest places to be. When the weather is cold, prepare to get cozy in a crowded basement,” Isaac Taylor, their guitarist, said. “House shows are a fun place for musicians specifically, because jamming and ‘sitting in’ are more accepted.”

That doesn’t mean that local music doesn’t have the same star power as it used to.

Local all-femme indie rock band The Matriarch seems to have a cult following behind them. With dozens of shows and a recently-released EP under their belt, there’s nothing that can stop them.

“Not everything is perfect, but a great thing about being in the Bloomington music scene is... the amount of opportunities to play,” Jo Hockemeyer, their bassist, said.

It’s not just house shows

that they play, either. The Bloomington scene has endless places to play, from galleries to bars to, well — house shows.

“When I was in undergrad at IU, I kind of thought the... music scene was just house shows or The Bluebird,” Mal Babcock, one of their guitarists, said. “Once we started playing live shows and making those connections, we kind of realized that was not the case at all.”

Indifferent Society, another local indie rock group, hasn’t had a bad experience so far, according to their keyboardist Lee Dawson. The band plays countless shows, not affected by the decline in house show venues.

“Bloomington has such a unique scene... and the festivals we’ve been a part of have had [a] great turnout,” Emery Vickers, their guitarist, said. Hardcore in particular

has the hearts of college students, especially with local grunge metal band Fox Body. From their vocal distortion to their shredding guitar solos, they have made a name for themselves in such a short span of time.

“Our most recent show at the Arcadia was probably the most fun,” the band said. “We like house shows where the audience wants to jump around and dance as much as we do.”

No matter what the genre of music is, there are sure to be people in Bloomington who enjoy it. The essence of being a “music mecca” won’t go away. As long as there are musicians who love what they do, there will be an undeniably incredible local music scene surrounding IU’s campus.

This story was originally published April 4, 2023.

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John Mellencamp answers Anthony DeCurtis’ questions during the Mellencamp Symposium March 3, 2023, inside Franklin Hall. IU President Pamela Whitten announced that Mellencamp will donate an archived collection of his works to IU.

Students celebrate Latin American culture at LatinXpo

By Isabella Vesperini isvesp@iu.edu

Latiné music was blasting, people were laughing, colorful flags and balloons were scattered around the lobby of the Global and International Studies Building as students paired up to dance to the music.

After months of preparation, the IU dance team Paso a Paso hosted the sixth annual LatinXpo to celebrate Latiné culture on Saturday. IU students performed 13 different dances from clubs Paso a Paso, Ballroom IU, Mariachi Perla del Medio Oeste, Ritmos Latinos and more.

Paso a Paso aims to educate the Bloomington community on Latinx culture through dance; they hold dance workshops, performances and the annual LatinXpo. Lukas Adams, president of Paso a Paso, said in an email the LatinXpo is meant to highlight the voices of a growing Latiné student body. He said through this celebration, IU aims to recognize many talented groups and communities.

“We wanted to highlight the resources that Indiana University offers students of different races, ethnicities, sexualities, gender identities and other titles that “Latiné” can encapsulate,” Adams said in an email.

Originally from Costa Rica, IU student Sofia Crespo was invited to perform at the event and did two Flamenco-style dances, which is an art form that originated in Spain. Crespo said she has been dancing for 12 years, and she honors her grandparents and culture through dancing.

“I think it’s important for people to know about various cultures and be open to learn about new dances and styles,” Crespo said. “There’s a lot of diversity here.”

Paulo Ventura, a Brazilian guitarist and computation epidemiologist at IU,

was also invited to perform the Spanish version of the song “Everything.” Ventura said he was happy to represent his culture and talk to people about his performance. “I like to play. It’s a hobby,” Ventura said. “It’s always important to show our culture to people.”

IU student Malique Blythe said he joined Paso a Paso this year because many of his friends encouraged him to. Blythe said he was both excited and ner-

vous to perform a group dance with Paso a Paso. During practices, Blythe said club members take 5-10 minutes to socialize and get to know each other before learning and rehearsing different dances.

“I love it a lot. It’s a great way to make friends,” Blythe said. “If they like dancing and want to learn about Latin culture, they should join.”

This story was originally published April 16, 2023.

'Out and proud':

Bloomington Pridefest celebrates the LGBTQ community

By Charlotte Jones cmj35@iu.edu

Bloomington PRIDE’s ninth annual Pridefest celebrated the LGBTQ community with vendors, performances and community from 2-11:45 p.m. Saturday all along Kirkwood Avenue.

Supported by local businesses such as Rainbow Bakery and Hopscotch Coffee, the festival was flooded with patrons. Booths sold graphic tees, handmade jewelry and coloring books featuring designs from LGBTQ artists. Pride flags also lined the streets.

“The environment was so wonderfully accepting and affirming,” IU sophomore Bryan Wade said. “It’s my first Pride and I felt such an overwhelmingly deep connection to queer culture.”

For physical and spiritual nourishment, local food trucks took over almost an entire block. Pizza X gave away condoms and special edition cups that are sure to line dorm shelves for the rest of the semester.

Karina Bhargava, a holistic healer, provided free tarot readings and Alex Moffitt, a local hair stylist, offered free hair glitter. Many local churches, including St. Thomas Lutheran and St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, supported the festival by giving out handmade pins and popsicles.

Many children also came to the festival, sitting on top of their parents’ shoulders to watch the performances.

“One of my favorite parts about Pridefest was seeing all the younger kids who were there — out and proud,” IU sophomore Nithin Krishnan said. “It was inspiring and heart-warming to see a new generation getting to experience being a part of this amazing community.”

The performances were at the heart of the festival, with local celebrity drag queens

and kings performing for the crowds. Pat Yo Weave and Desiree Bouvier, local drag queens, provided comforting commentary throughout the performances, emphasizing that they love everyone no matter what.

Notable acts included Lady Dumpster pouring candle wax all over herself, Lyna Koke lip-belting and Oriana Perón’s hormone monster mashup. Drag shows graced the mainstage at different intervals through the night, offering both family-friendly and risqué performances.

Drenched in sweat, the crowd cheered each other on at any given opportunity, dancing with the drag queens and skateboarding

on church lawns. The crowd cloaked themselves in flags and doused themselves in glitter.

“The queer community has the best fashion, hands down,” Krishnan said.

Pridefest created a welcoming atmosphere for everyone in attendance, IU sophomore Sym Cloyd said.

“Bloomington PRIDE is my favorite pride I’ve been to because it feels very safe and secure,” Cloyd said. “As a Black queer person, it is so important for me to feel seen in all my intersections, and I feel that way at Bloomington Pride.”

This story was originally published Aug. 28, 2022.

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Performers dance on stage at the end of one of Pridefest’s drag shows Aug. 27, 2022, on Kirkwood Avenue. This was the ninth Pridefest organized by Bloomington PRIDE.

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Indiana is reaching heights it has been building for years

By Will Foley wtfoley@iu.edu | @foles24

Indiana women’s basket-

ball is no powerhouse historically. Yet in head coach Teri Moren’s tenure, the program has steadily built to achieve new heights never before reached, or for heights that have been reached, the first time in a long time. The Hoosiers clinched a share of the Big Ten regular season title with an 83-60 win over Purdue on Sunday, the culmination of what Moren has built.

“A lot of credit goes to Coach Moren, Grace (Berger) and Mack (Holmes) — they built this program,” junior guard Sydney Parrish said after the game. “They built it from the bottom. The staff, Grace, Mackenzie, the Tyra Busses and Ali Patbergs, they’re the ones who did it. We just kept chugging away.”

Graduate guard Grace

Berger is the embodiment of the program’s rise to the top. In Berger’s freshman season, Indiana finished 8-10 in Big Ten play. That team lost in the second round of both the Big Ten tournament and the NCAA tournament, but it was just the beginning for what was to come. The next season in 201920 saw improvement, a 13-5 Big Ten record and 24-8 overall. However, it again lost in the second round of the Big Ten tournament to a Maryland program which continuously dominated Indiana. Due to COVID-19, there was no NCAA tournament to be held. 2020-21 was the season Indiana had dreamed of and been capable of. It went 16-2 in Big Ten play and 21-6 overall, but the alluring Big Ten championship was still unattainable. Maryland bested Indiana by going 17-1 in the

Big Ten, and a shocking loss to a mediocre Michigan State team sent the Hoosiers home early from the Big Ten tournament. However, Indiana made a run to its first ever NCAA Elite Eight and the program’s successes continued to build.

Last season was plagued with injuries which produced a record regression — 11-5 in the Big Ten. Nonetheless, Indiana achieved a 3-seed in the NCAA tournament, its highest ever, and made a Sweet Sixteen appearance. Another good season but no hardware to show for it.

Finally, everything has come together for Berger and Indiana this season. Sunday’s win marked win number 16 in Big Ten play to just one loss, and a share of the Big Ten title — a feat Indiana has failed to accomplish since 1982-83 in the Big Ten’s inaugural women’s basketball

season. For Berger to achieve it on Senior Day, it was a moment in the making.

“Just slowly building every single year and the new teams,” Berger said after the game. “The new people that came in this year have been the hardest working team in the Big Ten and in the country. You have to credit obviously the staff, but those players who came before us, too.”

It started earlier for Moren. She inherited a team that had gone 5-11 in Big Ten play and 21-13 overall, mostly due to a weaker schedule. In her first season in 2014-15, Moren’s team regressed — 4-14 in conference play and 15-16 overall, even losing to Moren’s prior team, Indiana State University, at home. But Moren continued to build the program. Since her first season, all but one of her teams have owned a

FOOTBALL

winning conference record — Berger’s freshman season. Every single team has won 20 or more games. And now, finally, Moren has coached a regular season Big Ten champion.

“Just really proud of this group,” Moren said. “I’m really, really happy for not just this program, but for those kids in the locker room.”

Reflecting on Berger, Moren choked up emotionally speaking on what Berger has endured in her career to get to the championship moment.

“The work that it takes to accomplish something like this is not easy,” Moren said while holding back tears. “You have to have belief, and six years ago she believed in this program. She believed in me and the vision. And for that, I’ll always be grateful, because that’s what it takes.”

At 26-1 and ranked No. 2,

Indiana isn’t just a Big Ten powerhouse, but rather it is becoming a national powerhouse. For Moren’s Hoosiers, the Big Ten regular season may be only the start of both a special season and a special future.

Business picks right back up in a week. In order to clinch the Big Ten title outright, Indiana will need Iowa to lose one more game. If it does not do so at No. 9 Maryland on Tuesday, then a matchup in Iowa City between the Hoosiers and Hawkeyes will determine whether or not the title is split. “As Grace said, we’ll celebrate tonight and then tomorrow we’ll turn our attention to a really good Iowa team,” Moren said. “That’s just what we do.”

This story was originally published Feb. 19, 2023.

The one sided history between Indiana and Michigan

By Jacob Spudich jaspudi@iu.edu | @spudichjacob

On Oct. 8, Indiana football faces off against Michigan for the 71st time in program history. While both teams come into this game with winning records, the history between the two programs pits a college football juggernaut against a college football jester.

Michigan leads all of college football — regardless of level — in all-time wins with 980 wins. Indiana is on the other end of the spectrum with 698 losses, the most of any program all-time. Indiana is also last in the Big Ten with 502 all-time wins. The Wolverines have 11 national championships to the Hoosiers’ zero and 43 conference championships to Indiana’s two.

Of the two teams’ previous 70 meetings, 60 of them concluded with Michigan on the winning end, with their first meeting coming over 100 years ago.

To set the scene, the year is 1900. President William McKinley is up for a reelection bid that he will eventually win, Hawaii has just become a U.S. territory, the Wright Brothers just started experimenting with manned glider flights and on Nov. 3, Indiana officially faced off against Michigan for the first time in football program history.

Michigan won the first matchup, 12-0 and would go on to win the next three matchups in the next three years without allowing Indiana to score a single point. All four of those games would also be hosted by the Wolverines in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The two teams wouldn’t play each other for 22 years before meeting again in Ann Arbor in 1925. Michigan’s win over Indiana in 1925 would end up sticking as the largest margin of victory for either team, 63-0.

Through five matchups between the teams, the Wolver-

ines had outscored the Hoosiers, 219-0.

In 1928, behind Indiana head coach Harlan Page, the Hoosiers captured their first win against Michigan with a resounding 6-0 victory.

For the next 24 matchups — spanning 37 years— Michigan rolled over Indiana. Although the Hoosiers got a couple jabs in throughout the years, they were only able to win eight out of 24 matchups from 1931to 1968.

29 games into the series, Michigan led in wins, 21-8 .

In terms of this matchup, the 1970s and 1980s belonged to the Wolverines.

Going into the 1987 matchup, the Wolverines had won 15 consecutive matches between the two and Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler was 14-0 against the Hoosiers. Enter Bill Mallory.

The Indiana head coach would go on to be the winningest coach in program history, but going into 1987 he

was 0-3 against Schembechler and the Wolverines. The 1987 season’s start was promising for the Hoosiers as prior to the matchup with No. 20 Michigan, No. 15 Indiana had already gone to Columbus and dismantled No. 9 Ohio State, 31-10.

The conditions for the game were ferocious, not only was it raining but the Hoosier’s fans were sought to make it tough for the opposing Michigan team.

“Our crowd was so loud,'' Indiana broadcaster Don Fischer said in a 2005 Indiana athletics interview. “The official never made a loud-speaker announcement. He just stood back there waiting for the crowd to quiet. Our crowd didn't shut up.”

Although Michigan out gaining Indiana in terms of total yardage — the Wolverines had 300 total yards with 152 rushing yards while the Hoosiers had just 190 total yards — Indiana was able to make

stops when it needed to

“Every big play the defense had to make, they made,” Fischer said.

With the crowd cheering them on, Indiana prevailed and took down Michigan 1410, beating Ohio State and Michigan in the same year for the first and only time in school history.

“Bo Schembechler, after this game, criticized our crowd for being too loud,” Fischer said. “He was rankled because they got beat. He criticized our crowd for being too loud in a 50,000-seat stadium and he has had a 104,000 stadium in Ann Arbor.”

That ended up being as good as it got for Indiana’s luck against Michigan. It was their own win against Michigan from 1968 to2019. For the next 32 years the Wolverines had the Hoosiers’ number winning 24 consecutive games against the Hoosiers, spanning seven Indiana head football coaches.

The Hoosiers got close a couple times, including a double overtime loss in 2015 where Indiana running back Jordan Howard ran for 238 yards and two touchdowns. As well in 2017, when Indiana suffered another overtime loss, losing 27-20, both games happening in Bloomington.

The streak inevitably ended in 2019, to the relief of Hoosier fans, when Indiana cruised past Michigan 38-21 behind 342 yards and three touchdown passes from thenIndiana quarterback Michael Penix Jr.

Since then, Michigan returned to form, winning last year’s contest 29-7 in Ann Arbor. Although just like the previous three meetings in Bloomington, The Hoosiers looks to challenge the Wolverines no matter the record of both teams nor the trajectory they’re on.

This story was originally published Oct. 7, 2022

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

IDS FILE PHOTO BY ETHAN LEVY

Then-junior forward Mackenzie Holmes attempts a shot during Indiana's Big Ten Tournament game vs Maryland on March 4, 2022, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, IN.

A tale of Cutters

By Leo Paes lpaes@iu.edu

It’s "The Tortoise and The Hare" all over again. Cutters held the pole position to start the race and hoisted the trophy at the end, keeping its pace while others ran through their reserves.

Full of lead changes, crashes and excitement, the 72nd running of the men’s Little 500 April 22 was decided by just 0.133 seconds.

Melanzana Cycling repeats as women’s Little 500 champion

By Austin Platt auplatt@iu.edu | @AustinPlatter

For the second straight year, 13 was the lucky number in the 35th running of the women’s Little 500, as the team that qualified 13th won the race. For the second straight year, that team was Melanzana Cycling.

“It’s amazing, I can’t believe it,” all four riders said simultaneously after the race.

The hour long plus rain delay was worth the wait for the last year’s champions to successfully defend their title.

The weather all week was spotty heading into Friday’s race and the “World’s Greatest College Weekend,” and there definitely was a doubt that Melazana would hoist the Borg-Warner Trophy after 100 laps around the cinder track at Bill Armstrong Stadium.

Teter, the team that qualified second and wore the white jerseys after winning the Spring Series, held as much as a 17 second lead in the second half of the race but were eventually caught by the team wearing the yellow jerseys.

The assemblance of seniors Abby Green, Grace Washburn, Lauren Etnyre and

freshman Nora Abdelkader won the team’s second Little 500 in as many years, finishing the race in 1:12:23, over three minutes faster than the time they had after 25 miles last year. Green was the only returning rider that won last year’s race, and now has been a part of both Melenazana teams that have ever won the Little 500

A race that didn’t see any cautions did see a fair number of crashes, with the first one coming within the first ten laps. Kappa Kappa Gamma and Theta Phi Alpha went down around turn one, putting them both nearly a full lap down. Kappa Kappa Gamma and Theta Phi Alpha qualified eighth and tenth, respectively. Kappa Kappa Gamma got back to the front of the pack by lap 35 as the pace significantly slowed down but ultimately finished ninth.

It didn’t take until lap 25 for Melanzana and Teter to complete their first exchanges. Each team had to exchange at least five times during the course of the 100 lap race.

By the halfway point of the race, only nine teams remained on the lead lap, with Teter pushing ahead to give itself a double-digit second

lead. Teter used short sets with its riders to get a commanding lead as the second half of the race started.

The lead was as much as 17 seconds, but the chasing pack led by Melanzana slowly dwindled the deficit as the race got the three-quarter point. After 75 laps, Teter exchanged, and the lead was just two seconds with Delta Gamma, Melanzana and Alpha Chi Omega all within touching distance.

The Melanzana riders were unsure if Teter would hold onto the lead, but even after exchanging on lap 98, it had a lead it would for sure hold onto.

Delta Gamma took the lead with 15 laps to go after miscommunication on an exchange from Alpha Chi Omega cost them nearly ten seconds, a deficit they were unable to make up. Delta Gamma planned on exchanging late on, but CSF Cycling, the team two pits ahead of them, were exchanging as well, and the angle wasn’t there for DG, so the rider who planned on exchanging had to go another lap.

Before that, an Alpha Chi Omega rider slowed down on the way to the pit box, but the coach waved her around

for another lap. It was able to snag the final spot on the podium, finishing third less than two-tenths of a seconds ahead of Delta Gamma. Both those teams finished about half a minute behind Melanzana. Melanzana again played it safe during qualifications, finishing 18 seconds behind Alpha Chi Omega, but that didn’t end up playing any real significance in the race, as they made that deficit up within the first ten laps. In the end, Washburn crossed the finish line after hopping on the bike with two laps to go. Washburn was part of Melanzana last year, but she was deemed ineligible to race after transferring from Phi Mu, which she raced for two years ago. The fans created plenty of noise after waiting through the rain, many in panchos and raincoats, to witness the first repeat champion since 2018, when Kappa Alpha Theta successfully repeated.

“This is my family,” Green said after the race. That family will be able to call themselves champions for the next 364 days.

This story was originally publsihed April 21, 2023

The first quarter of the race saw two big crashes to start off, including a yellow flag on lap 53 after a wipe-out on Turn 2. Cutters, Sigma Phi Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Epsilon used the crashes to create some separation from the rest of the pack. Sigma Phi Epsilon opted for a sprint strategy, and second place Cutters saw Sig Ep 21 seconds ahead by lap 83. But Cutters have tradition and, most importantly, experience.

Cutters was created in 1984 after the fictional "Cutters" featured in the 1979 Academy Award-winning movie “Breaking Away.” The film shows the story of a group of Bloomington teens who joined the Little 500 and named themselves after the stone-cutting industry in Southern Indiana.

After its creation, the team went on to win 14 titles, including five in a row between 2007 and 2011. Besides that, they have been on the podium in 21 of its 38 races and in four of its last five races.

The winningest team in Little 500’s history stuck to its strategy, playing the long game from the beginning. Keeping their pace, Cutters’ Torin Kray-Mawhorr, Peyton Gaskill, Jacob Koone and Judah Thompson let Sigma Phi Epsilon tire themselves out and slowly cut the lead. By lap 119, the lead was down to only nine seconds. For the first half of the race, Cutters kept their pace at about 40 seconds per lap. Sig Ep was recording 38-seconds laps but eventually

grew tired. On the second half of the race, their pace was at about 42 seconds per lap. That was when Cutters saw its chance and took it.

“You go in with a strategy, but after lap 10 it gets thrown out the window” Sigma Phi Epsilon’s cyclist Max Martin said. On lap 147, Cutters retook the lead. The leading pack was composed of five teams separated by just 0.5 seconds.

“It was just being patient in the end,” Kray-Mawhorr said.

With a neck-to-neck race, the leading pack was dismantled as Delta Tau Delta crashed on the main straight on lap 163. Now, it was down to Cutters and Sigma Phi Epsilon.

With perfectly timed exchanges, Cutters was able to keep its pace and follow its strategy. Even with a change during lap 183, which dropped them two seconds behind the leader, Cutters did not flinch.

Then, another obstacle came in their way. On lap 188, Beta Theta Pi’s Tokelo Makape collided with the boards in the pit just out of turn two during a change and the yellow flag waved. The runners-up now had time to catch up with Cutters.

With a five-team leading pack separated by just half a second, the green flag appeared for the last 10 laps.

With their steady pace throughout the whole race, Cutters was more rested than the other teams and managed to hold on to the lead and take the title home for the first time since 2019.

“It feels great,” Thompson said. “I just can’t process this.”

Cutters has won their 15th title in the team’s history, almost double the number of titles than Delta Chi, the second in the roster with eight titles.

“We were confident that we were the fastest team,” Kray-Mawhorr said.

This story was originally published April 22, 2023.

MICHAEL CLAYCAMP | IDS

Seniors Abby Green, Grace Washburn, Luren Etnyre and freshman Nora Abdelkader of Melanzana Cycling hold up the 35th women’s Little 500

Trophy April 21, 2023. Melanzana received first place followed by Teter in second.

BILL GARRETT FIELDHOUSE (GF) STUDENT RECREATIONAL SPORTS CENTER (SRSC)

By Matt Press mtpress@iu.edu | @MatthewPress23

You may not know it because the games were broadcast behind a pricey paywall, but I’m here to confirm that Indiana women’s basketball did, in fact, compete in the Las Vegas Invitational Nov. 26 and 27. But if you’re expecting an in-depth analysis of the Hoosiers’ pair of wins, I’m afraid you’ll find none of that here.

As much as I would love to talk about senior forward Mackenzie Holmes’ dazzling back-to-back scoring outbursts, freshman guard Yarden Garzon’s continued emergence or senior guard Sara Scalia’s flamethrowing 3-point explosion, there’s a much more pressing issue at hand. If you have yet to stumble across the abhorrent setting of the tourna-

COLUMN: Las Vegas Invitational fiasco disappoints participants, overshadows Hoosiers’ sweep

ment, here’s a visual. Let that sink in. A top-10 team in the country playing against legit national competition in a converted ballroom in the basement of a hotel.

Before the inevitable whataboutisms arise in attempt to rationalize the blatant disrespect to the teams involved, context is key.

In the lovely image above, we see fans seated in folding chairs, the bulk of which are craning their necks to grab a peek at the action. We have the cheap, seemingly recreational level scoreboard which coach Teri Moren admitted caused problems throughout the game. And the cherry on top, we have the utterly vomitous carpet that encapsulates the oddity of the venue.

The Battle 4 Atlantis, a men’s basketball tourna-

ment that also is housed in a hotel ballroom, at the very least provides bleachers for spectators. If we absolutely must hold basketball games where drunken couples normally dance away their bad luck on the slot machines, can we at least provide some decent viewing areas?

Joking aside, the Las Vegas Invitational was a slap in the face to every team that signed up. According to Stadium basketball analyst Jeff Goodman, and confirmed by Moren, no one actually knew what they were getting into. Bryce McKey, the organizer of the tournament, allegedly promised a starkly different environment for the games.

Huh, maybe there’s a reason the games were virtually hidden from the public. I’m sure I could go on for hours about the bizarre na-

ture of the tournament, but the central theme is that Indiana and other participating teams deserved so much better.

These are programs that put in an unfathomable amount of work on a daily basis, both physically and mentally. Frankly, I find forcing them to be relegated to the depths of the Mirage hotel pretty pathetic.

Auburn University received the brunt of the complete organizational disaster. In the Tigers’ win over Colorado State Saturday night, Auburn freshman forward Kharyssa Richardson went down late in the game with an upper body injury.

Richardson, who thankfully maintained consciousness throughout the ordeal according to Auburn Rivals reporter Caleb Jones, lied helplessly on the court for 45 minutes. Nearly one hour

MEN’S BASKETBALL

passed before paramedics arrived. It took so long for Richardson to receive medical attention that both teams were sent into their respective locker rooms.

I truly cannot emphasize enough how much of a failure this operation was for those in charge, and how much more grave this could have been.

And in the cruel world we live in, when it rains it pours. As much as the Hoosiers would have liked to quietly handle business and return home to Bloomington, Moren and the team now have to deal with the absence of graduate guard Grace Berger, who suffered a knee injury early in Friday’s game.

Her timeline to return is murky at the moment, but judging from Moren’s somber and tear-filled postgame presser, the outlook feels

bleak. Her teammates were able to pick up the pieces and rally for victories over Auburn and the University of Memphis, but the loss is obviously monumental for a team that has high aspirations for March. It’s a shame that the embarrassment overshadowed the tournament’s actual play because Indiana put together two spectacular outings without its captain and offensive engine.

Whether the NCAA played a major hand in the operation or not, there needs to be accountability. Despite the rapid growth of women’s athletics around the country, the “Las Vegas Invitational” served as yet another blemish in a long line of disrespect toward female athletes.

This story was originally published Nov. 27, 2022

No. 17 Indiana completes season sweep over No. 5 Purdue

By Emma Pawlitz epawlitz@iu.edu | @emmapawlitz

No. 17 Indiana men’s basketball entered Feb. 25’s contest at No. 5 Purdue in hopes of completing a regular season sweep of its instate rival. The Hoosiers ultimately defeated the Boilermakers 79-71 despite a cold offensive showing from its star player. Indiana began the contest riding a jarring abnormality: senior forward Trayce Jackson-Davis did not attempt a shot until the 10:08 mark of the first half. The Hoosier offense remained fairly stagnant during the opening minutes of the game without JacksonDavis in the mix, but the preseason All-American still made good use of his presence, pushing the ball in transition and getting his teammates open looks across the court.

“They threw the doubleteam at me, so I tried to get my teammates the ball, especially when I wasn’t scoring that much,” Jackson-Davis said. “Just trying to impact the game on different levels.”

Freshman guard Jalen Hood-Schifino, who had 16 points and four assists in the first meeting between the teams, notched 10 points in the first nine minutes of play. Graduate forward Miller Kopp also helped spark an Indiana run in the middle of the first half with a crafty layup in traffic and a 3-pointer off a Jackson-Davis assist.

Still, Purdue junior center Zach Edey proved why he’s Jackson-Davis' biggest competition for multiple player of the year awards. Edey had

a dominant 13 points and eight rebounds in his first 18 minutes of play, sizing up his Hoosier counterparts in the post for seemingly effortless spin moves and hook shots.

Indiana kept the game close all half, though, tying it at 30 after a Kopp 3-pointer with just under five minutes to play. Kopp’s 8 points in the first half and junior guard Trey Galloway’s 3 points came as the only scoring production outside of Hood-Schifino.

The freshman guard put on an offensive masterclass, recording 23 points on 60% shooting while carrying Indiana all 20 minutes of the first half.

“It just shows his maturity,” Jackson-Davis said. “He plays the game at his own pace. Tonight, he just did an excellent job. He’s a freshman, but coming into a hostile environment like this, doing this just shows what kind of kid he is.”

The biggest surprise came with Indiana finding itself in just a four-point deficit heading into the locker room after Jackson-Davis had a passive 0-3 outing on offense. He grabbed four rebounds to go along with one block and one assist, but his overall impact on the game was scarce.

“Hell, to be on the road, be down four, you should be pretty happy, but you can't be satisfied,” Woodson said.

“I told them the first four, five minutes to start the half was going to be critical.”

Indiana took its first lead of the game — 41-40 — at the 17:16 mark of the second half. The Hoosiers rode a momentum-swinging 10-0 run spanning just over three

minutes, fueled by 8 points and aggressive defense from Galloway.

“He’s been solid,” Indiana head coach Mike Woodson said. “He plays hard — that’s what I like about him. He’s does a lot of nice things — dirty things — that most players don’t like to do, and that’s play defense and get into people.”

Jackson-Davis notched his much-anticipated first points of the game with a pair of free throws at the 11:36 mark, placing him in sole possession of fourth place on the Indiana alltime leaderboard. Immediately looking vastly more comfortable than before, he executed a perfect pick-and-

roll with Galloway to give the Hoosiers their largest lead thus far. [Related: Trayce Jackson-Davis continues breaking records, moves into fourth in Indiana scoring]

Jackson-Davis went on an offensive spurt resulting in 6 quick points but picked up his fourth foul guarding Edey shortly thereafter. Woodson sent his senior standout to the bench, but the Hoosiers gained and maintained a 13-point lead in Jackson-Davis' absence. Indiana held onto its lead for the remainder of the game, only allowing Purdue to come within 8 points at the very end of the second half. Hood-Schifino

and graduate forward Race Thompson iced the game with free throws, and Jackson-Davis scored four more to enter double digits.

Edey — by way of statistics and the eye test — bested Jackson-Davis in the battle of the bigs. The Boilermaker’s 26-point, 16-rebound outing overshadowed the Hoosier’s stat line of 10 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. But Indiana’s starting backcourt, who has struggled on the road recently, rose to the occasion, combining for 61 points. HoodSchifino notched a new career-high of 35 points, Galloway added five assists and Kopp made three 3-pointers

in a 47% team outing from beyond the arc.

“I’m happy with everybody,” Woodson said. “This was a total team effort. We beat a great team tonight that was well coached.”

In a conference where road wins, especially against a top-5 team in the country, are so difficult to come by, the Hoosiers had a tall task ahead of them leading up to Saturday’s game. Instead, resilience was the story in a massive rivalry victory, boosting Indiana to some crucial momentum approaching the end of the regular season.

This story was originally published Feb. 25, 2023.

IDS FILE PHOTO BY COLIN KULPA

The IU women's basketball team huddles before the start of its game against Wisconsin Jan. 10, 2021, in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

ALEX PAUL | IDS

Junior guard Trey Galloway drives to the basket Feb. 25, 2023, at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette.

Taylor’s home run homecoming steers Indiana past Cincinnati

By Matthew Byrne matbyrne@iu.edu

April 18 marked Devin Taylor's homecoming. The Indiana baseball freshman only went 1-for4 in the team's 11-9 win at the University of Cincinnati, though Taylor crushed his lone hit 422 feet over the right field wall — clinking off Fifth Third Arena next door — home to Cincinnati's men's basketball team.

The sharp ping from Taylor's bat for his team-best, ninth home run this year was just out of ear-shot of his former high school — located 15-20 minutes away. Taylor postgame assumed 50 family members, high school friends and coaches sat in attendance.

"As soon as he touched it, I was hollering," Indiana head coach Jeff Mercer said postgame. "I wrote down home run right center as soon as he touched it. I've heard that sound enough times to know what it sounds like off of his bat. It's just a totally different sound."

Mercer joked the bricks encasing the basketball arena, which were struck by the ball traveling 109 mph off-the-bat, likely have to be replaced. Taylor received an ovation from his home crowd, who offered a curtain call when he later exited the dugout to play the right field.

"It was mostly family that was doing that so yeah, it was great," Taylor said postgame. Last season, while Taylor wasn't at the collegiate level yet, the high school senior watched Indiana's 11-4 victory over Cincinnati on April 20, 2022. Almost one year later, Taylor's home run served as the game-winning hit — though it initially didn't seem needed.

Indiana freshman righthander Brayden Risedorph

tossed four shutout innings to begin Wednesday's game, striking out a career-high seven batters. Meanwhile, Indiana's five-run second inning, highlighted by freshman Tyler Cerny's 2-run home run, put the team up 6-0.

On Tuesday, fellow Indiana freshman Ethan Phillips similarly hurled 4⅔ innings without allowing an earned in the team's 7-3 victory over No. 12 Louisville. The Hoosiers used a five-run third inning to route the Cardinals. That wouldn't work twice in two consecutive days.

Immediately after Risedorph's exit, the Bearcats shattered the shutout and scored four runs in the fifth inning. Cincinnati redshirt sophomore Kerrington Cross, who doubled off Risedorph in the fourth, identically hit a 3-run bases-clearing double, pulling Cincinnati within three runs.

Following Cerny's RBIdouble to put Indiana up 8-4 in the top of the seventh inning, the Hoosiers subsequently loaded the bases. Cincinnati mid-inning handed the ball to redshirt junior right-hander Zach Zegal. Cerny was caught lingering off third base for the second out.

Taylor quickly fell behind 0-2 in the count. The freshman surprisingly said he was fooled by Segal’s stutter step and threw his bat at the pitch that resulted in the 3-run home run. It seemed like Taylor was being modest. In the offseason, Taylor has trained with Zegal.

“I know a bunch of guys on their team and this is more than just a personal game for me, like I wanted to win,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s homer gave Indiana an 11-4 lead by the ninth inning. That home run appeared as the dagger, but ul-

Indiana takes home two Big Ten weekly awards

By Nick Rodecap nrodecap@iu.edu | @nickrodecap

timately served as the cushioning required for Indiana to survive Wednesday's victory narrowly. Cincinnati’s five-run ninth-inning rally closed the scoreline to just 11-9. Taylor and Cerny combined for six of Indiana’s 11 runs Wednesday. Indiana’s freshman class is largely assisting the team in winning games as of late — from Phillips’ outing Tuesday to Risedorph, Taylor and Cerny Wednesday at Cincinnati in the team’s fourth straight win.

Indiana improves to 2711 following the 11-9 victory at Cincinnati. The team’s schedule continues this weekend at home in their three-game series against nonconference foe Ohio University. Friday’s first pitch is set for 6 p.m.

This story was originally published April 20, 2023.

Indiana freshman righthanded pitcher Ethan Phillips and freshman second baseman Tyler Cerny were named the Big Ten Pitcher of the Week and Player of the Week, respectively, the conference announced April 24. These honors are the first of both players’ careers.

Phillips is the first Indiana pitcher to be named Pitcher of the Week this season. He dominated on the mound this week, stringing together 8.1 innings of onehit ball across two appearances and earning the win in both. Against the No. 12 University of Louisville last Tuesday, Phillips hurled 4.2 innings in relief, retiring seven batters in a row and giving up just one unearned run. In the series finale versus the University of Ohio on Sunday, Phillips pitched 3.2 innings without allowing a hit and striking out five Bobcat hitters.

Cerny is the second Indiana freshman to be named

Freshman of the Week this season, with outfielder Devin Taylor earning the honor three times so far. Cerny posted a .444 batting average in Indiana’s five games last week along with a slugging percentage over 1.000 and an on-base plus slugging of 1.601. Three of his five extra-base hits were home runs, including a pair in Indiana's 17-2 rout of Ohio on April 22.

The Hoosiers will look to extend their winning streak to eight games when they visit Ball State University on April 25. The midweek tilt is slated for a 3 p.m. first pitch. The Maryland Terrapins, who are currently second in the Big Ten, come to town for a weekend series that runs from April 28 through 30. The series opener starts at 6 p.m. April 28, continues at 1 p.m. April 29 and concludes at noon April 30. The games versus the Terrapins will be available to stream on B1G+.

This story was originally published April 24, 2023.

OLIVIA BIANCO | IDS

Freshman rightfielder Devin Taylor watches a hit ball against Lousiville April 18, 2023, at Bart Kaufman Field in Bloomington.

OLIVIA BIANCO | IDS

Freshman right-handed pitcher Ethan Phillips prepares to pitch the ball March 21, 2023, at Bart Kaufman Field in Bloomington.

By Matt Press mtpress@iu.edu | @MatthewPress23

CARY, NC — Maou-

loune Goumballe couldn’t move. With eyes transfixed on the goal that stood over 50 yards away from him, efforts to console the Indiana men’s soccer attacker were futile.

As the roaring celebration of Syracuse University grew by the second, the senior forward appeared unaware, maybe unwilling to acknowledge the reality setting in. An almost magical season — one that saw the Hoosiers defy the odds and coast through the NCAA Tournament into the College Cup Final — came to a bitter conclusion: a 7-6 loss in penalties.

Redshirt senior defender Daniel Munie surely heard his name announced as a College-Cup All-Tournament Team member after the match. But he couldn’t think about that. He stood motionless around midfield. This was his final career match as a Hoosier.

“Speechless. There are no words,” junior goalkeeper JT Harms said after the defeat. “It’s going to take some time to regroup.

I thought we deserved better.

‘Speechless’: Indiana falls in heartbreaking fashion to Syracuse in NCAA title

The grounds crew blew away the confetti and the pitch was empty. An onlooker over WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina couldn’t have possibly conceived the events that had just transpired. It was a title match filled with fiery emotions and unfettered passion: a true heavyweight battle.

“That was a war. Those kids were grinding on every play,” Indiana head coach Todd Yeagley said. “There was a lot of fight. Syracuse is a tough team, and I commend them for that.

The Orange presented an intriguing, yet monumental challenge. An uberathletic, physically imposing side, the Hoosiers knew full well what the match would entail. Luckily for Yeagley, though, just about every member of his team was in top form.

Most importantly, the veteran backline and Harms were impenetrable throughout the NCAA Tournament, conceding zero goals until the championship. Still, the aura of the match was different. Prior performances, history of the programs — it was all irrelevant.

When the teams walked side by side from the tunnel onto the pitch — stand-

ing under the fireworks and glowing lights — the stage was set. In a season that saw two teams that many viewed unworthy of the crown, it felt apropos that a turbulent clash would occur.

With frantic pace and colliding bodies, Indiana and Syracuse made tireless attempts to impose their will on the match. In the 24th minute, though, it was the Orange, a newcomer to the peak of the proverbial mountain, who drew first blood.

Syracuse sophomore forward Nathan Opoku, who earned an All-American nod this season, had four Hoosier defenders keyed in on his presence. But it was useless. He weaved into a favorable position, fired a brilliant left-footed strike and awarded his team the advantage.

The railings of the tunnel, which sat along the midfield line, offered a sharp divide between the Hoosier and Orange faithful. After Opoku’s goal, the orange and blue clad fans rose in a raucous, joyous unison.

Less than 10 minutes later, it was the section donning cream and crimson who would celebrate. After redshirt senior for-

ward Ryan Wittenbrink lofted a cross into the Syracuse box, the ball took a deflection. Then another. One section exuded anticipatory excitement while the other dreaded the impending doom.

The former would win that fight. Sophomore midfielder Patrick McDonald struck a gorgeous volley into the bottom corner to level the match. Game on.

“He can do so much. He’s got a tremendous future ahead,” Yeagley said of McDonald. “He’s just getting started. I’m excited that we have more time with Patrick.

Not even two minutes after the equalizer, Syracuse stormed back. Again, Opoku was a Hoosier killer. He spun and dodged defenders with ease down the edge of the box and delivered a cross to the penalty spot. Sophomore midfielder Curt Calov poked it past Harms, and just like that, the Orange were back on top, 2-1. The next 50 or so minutes were quiet. There were spells of Syracuse possession where the stadium fell almost silent. As the match winded down, the Hoosiers’ fate appeared sealed. But in the 80th minute, senior forward Herbert Endeley had an answer.

A screaming, crossbody long shot again jolted one section into triumphant celebration and the other into despair.

Ten scoreless minutes passed and regulation concluded. The teams headed to their sidelines for a brief intermission before venturing into overtime.

The two 10-minute overtime periods, while seeing a few fruitful opportunities for both sides, ultimately grew stagnant. The emotion never wavered —the pace and physicality persisted — but after 110 minutes of grueling soccer, the teams would head to the penalty spot. Penalty shootouts, aside from stress-inducing, are intimate. A personal affair between a goalkeeper and a shooter. The other players await at midfield. Fans maintain complete silence until the ball hits either the nylon netting or the keeper’s gloves.

“Goalkeepers understand that this is your time to shine,” Harms said. “(Syracuse redshirt senior goalkeeper Russell Shealy) had kind words, so it’s complimentary of each other. It’s all respect out there.”

Wittenbrink converted Indiana’s first. Senior forward Karsen Henderlong

missed the second. Syracuse junior midfielder Lorenzo Boselli slammed home the Orange’s first, while Junior midfielder Jeorgio Kocevski missed their second.

Five makes from both sides later, the Hoosiers’ eighth penalty taker stepped up. It was Goumballe. He went low to Shealy’s right — which is exactly where Shealy dove. If Syracuse junior midfielder Amferny Sinclair found the back of the net, the Orange would be crowned national champions for the first time in program history.

Harms guessed right. But Sinclair’s strike was too powerful. Game over.

“These guys care so much. They invest a lot,” Yeagley said. “When you do that, it can hurt more.” The Hoosiers will lose crucial pieces this offseason. Right now, though, the sting of the defeat is overwhelming. But to Harms, there’s cause for optimism.

“It’s a tradition of excellence, as we say here, and the stars above our crest shows it,” Harms said. “We fell short, but it’s just going to fuel the fire.”

This story was originally published Dec. 13, 2023.

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Indiana concludes dual weekend with multiple season-bests

By Michael Livingston mbliving@iu.edu

The Indiana track and field team split up its weekend in both Chicago at the Windy City Invite and at its final home meet of the indoor season at the Hoosier Hills Invitational. The Hoosiers look to finish strong, as the Big Ten championships are right around the corner.

In Chicago, the Hoosiers started out strong with sophomore Sean Mockler in the weight throw with a personal best of 21.57 meters. Junior Noah Koch finished right behind Mockler, also throwing a personal best of 20.90 meters. In the women’s weight throw, sophomore Jayden Ulrich posted a personal best of 19.38 meters.

Senior Hope Purcell and graduate Serena Bolden cleared the 6-meter mark in the long jump, with jumps of 6.00 and 6.02 meters.

Following the field events in the Windy City, senior Antonio Laidler ran in 6.68

seconds in the 60-meter dash prelims, posting a personal best and the third-fastest time in school history. In the finals, Laidler cooled off a little and ran a time of 6.74 seconds, followed by graduate Christopher Grant with a time of 6.78 seconds to place fourth and fifth in the event.

Also in Chicago, graduate Jake Gebhardt the second fastest time in the Big Ten at 7:52.67 seconds in the 3,000 meters ran for a personal best. In the women’s race, graduate Sarah Schmitt posted the sixth-best time in the Big Ten running in 9:16.98 seconds.

To close out Laidler’s weekend in Chicago, he ran a personal best and a top three time in school history in the 200-meter dash with a time of 21.01 seconds. The last race of the Windy City Invitational was the men’s mile where two Hoosiers ran personal bests. Graduate Dustin Horter and senior Austin Haskett had times 4:02.77 and 4:04.01 seconds, respec-

SOFTBALL

tively In Bloomington, sophomore Emily Herndon had a personal best in the shot put with a throw of 13.59 meters.

Freshman Nico Colchico in the 600-meter dash ran a personal best at a pace of 1:19.64 seconds. To finish out the home invitational, sophomore Camden Marshall had a huge personal best, running a subfour-minute mile in a time of 3:57.56, placing him in the top three in school history.

Freshman Jaylen Grimes ran personal bests in the 200 and 400-meter dashes with times of 22.69 seconds and 49.56 seconds, respectively. The Hoosiers look to continue their climb up the rankings as they travel to University of Notre Dame for the South Bend Invitational, their final regular season indoor meet before the postseason begins.

This story was originally published Feb. 13, 2023.

Indiana snaps losing skid with sweep of Rutgers

By Austin Platt auplatt@iu.edu | @AustinPlatter

Just a week ago, it felt like the sky was falling for Indiana softball after getting swept by Nebraska at home, as its losing streak in the Big Ten had reached five games. Head coach Shonda Stanton wanted to see how the team would respond with a whole week off following the results against the Cornhuskers. Her team responded positively, sweeping Rutgers on the road to put themselves in prime position to receive a bye in the Big Ten Tournament. The Hoosiers won 7-3, 9-0, and 5-4 to extend the win streak over the Scarlet Knights to nine. Indiana has not lost to Rutgers since April 2019.

“We played clean D,” were the first words Stanton said when asked what she thought led to the successful weekend.

After committing five errors in the field last weekend against Nebraska, Team 50 cleaned it up this weekend in New Jersey, only making one error in the 19 innings it played.

Along with strong defense, the common theme throughout the weekend was Indiana leading. Indiana led in 16 innings, including the entirety of Friday and Saturday’s matchups. Indiana scored first in all three games, as they got out to a 6-1 lead in Friday’s contest, eventually winning 7-3 despite only tallying one more hit than the Scarlet Knights. Team 50 scored two in the second off the bat of sophomore utility player Sarah Stone, and added another four in the next inning. The insurance run provided in the fifth inning was the only home run in the game that came off the bat of freshman utility player Cassidy Kettleman, her first career home run. The second game was

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another wire-to-wire victory for the Hoosiers, who needed only five innings to run-rule the Scarlet Knights 9-0. Again, Indiana scored four runs early, this time all in the first, while adding three in the third and another two in the fourth, blanking Rutgers for its sixth shutout win of the season. Sophomore pitcher Heather Johnson pitched a complete game, allowing only three hits to the 18 batters she faced.

Indiana completed its fourth sweep of a conference opponent this year on Sunday with a nail-biting 5-4 win. Despite scoring again in the first inning and leading 3-0 after two and a half innings, Team 50 found itself behind Rutgers after giving up four runs in the bottom of the third.

However, the team did not fold under pressure, scoring single runs in the fifth and sixth to come from behind and win by one run.

Stone had a run-scoring groundout and freshman infielder Taryn Kern was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to give the Hoosiers a 5-4 lead they would not relinquish. Johnson pitched

over four stellar shutout innings in game three out of the bullpen to earn her 12th win of the season.

Stone had a total of eight RBI on the weekend, and Johnson threw 9.1 innings of scoreless ball to lead Indiana to win number 34 on the season, as the Hoosiers sit at 34-15 overall and 12-5 in Big Ten play. Indiana only won 10 conference games in the entirety of last season.

“We’re making a push, and we’re playing well right now,” Stanton said. “Gotta love it.”

Team 50 currently sits tied for second with Nebraska in the conference standings, three games behind Northwestern for the top spot, and three games ahead of Minnesota, Ohio State and Michigan. The top four teams receive a bye to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament, which takes place May 10-13 in Champaign, Illinois.

Indiana has not ended a season in the top four of the Big Ten since 2018, when the Hoosiers finished 17-6 in conference play.

This story was originally

JACLYN MORGANROTH | IDS

Graduate student Serena Bolden scores a 12.10m/39-8.5 in the women’s triple jump event on Jan. 28, 2023.

IDS FILE PHOTO BY MICHAEL CLAYCAMP

Freshman Avery Parker attempts to tag out a runner April 1, 2023, at Andy Mohr Field. This weekend, the Hoosiers swept Rutgers in New Jersey.

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