Indiana Statesman For ISU students. About ISU students. By ISU students.
Monday, April 11, 2016
Volume 123, Issue 74
indianastatesman.com
Former ISU employee arrested, charged Stephanie Burns Reporter
Jason Hiddle, a former Indiana State University employee, was arrested on March 31 and charged with computer trespassing. Hiddle is from Carbon, Indiana, and has previously worked as a web content developer for the university. The website he was allegedly attempting to interrupt was the Indiana State University Police website. The main purpose of the site is to alert the campus to any emergencies that could be happening and to keep people updated on things that are going on with Public Safety.
This was one of the websites that Hiddle was already familiar with, said Joe Newport, chief of University Police. “I think he was trying to disable the system in hopes that we may not be able to get it back working,” Newport said. If the website had been compromised, it may have resulted in a minor interruption to the emergency notification system on campus. There is a multi-layered system put into place to notify everyone on campus if an emergency were to occur. This system includes sirens, text messaging and emails, along with a notice on the ISU University Police website. If Hiddle had compromised the website,
this would only mean that updates and alerts to emergencies could not be added to the site, Within hours of the incident, Public Safety was able to discover that the website had been tampered with. The assistant to the chief, Tammy Hurst, attempted to add to the ISU University Police website shortly after Hiddle’s alleged attempt to shut it down. She discovered that something was wrong and immediately contacted web support. An investigation began, leading to a search warrant and Hiddle’s arrest. The ISU University Police website has not been put in jeopardy due to these events and the notification system set in
place for emergencies is working just as it should. The website will now be checked more frequently in order to monitor for any issues. “We don’t foresee any more problems and we don’t have a history of issues. We will continue to check for them,” Newport said. Jason Hiddle made his first court appearance on April 1. He was scheduled for a second appearance on April 6. He was brought up against charges of Computer Trespass and offense against intellectual property. More information regarding his trial and official charges will be released at a later date.
Transgender woman files lawsuit against a Michigan university David Jesse
Detroit Free Press (TNS)
DETROIT — A lawsuit filed Friday claims Saginaw Valley State University fired Charin Davenport after she underwent gender transition from male to female, including changing her name and starting to dress like a woman. The suit, filed in federal court, says the university discriminated against Davenport based on her gender. “Discrimination against people who don’t conform to traditional gender stereotypes is a form of sex discrimination under the law,” her attorney, Jennifer Salvatore, said in a press release. “No human being should be vilified and denigrated the way Char was by her supervisor, let alone lose their job because of who they are. She is a wonderful person with a lot of courage to speak out about what happened to her.” The university could not immediately be reached for a comment. Charles Davenport began working for the university in 2007 as an adjunct professor in the English department, the suit says. From August 2011 to July 2012, he worked as the coordinator of academic tutoring services. In July 2012, he became the assistant to the director of academic programs support. The suit says he received positive reviews for his work. Then, in October 2013, he informed SVSU he was undergoing gender transition. He said he intended to dress as a female. That’s when the problems began, the suit says. The suit claims Davenport’s supervisor, Ann Coburn-Collins, told her, “It’s my fault. I should have given you that fulltime job so you wouldn’t have had so much free time.” Then, in December 2013, Davenport was told her position was being eliminated for budgetary reasons. A couple of months later, the suit says, Coburn-Collins got into a yelling match with Davenport and allegedly said, “You disgust me. I can’t even stand to look at you.” The suit seeks a jury trial and asks for unspecified compensation.
ISU Communications and Marketing
“Company” comes to a close on campus Rileigh Roberson Reporter
“Company,” a musical put on by Indiana State University students, premiered last week in the Dreiser Hall theater. This Sondheim production first debuted in April 1970 and was written as a comedy by George Furth. The musical was nominated for 14 Tony Awards, winning six. “Company” is about a 35-year-old man who has yet to marry, but is friends with many different sets of married couples. He goes on, attempting to convince himself that married life is the life he wants to live, but finds out that this may not be the case. The musical was originally written as 11 different one-act plays, but after being critiqued by different people, it was decided that a select number of the acts should be combined, with Robert as the constant moving in and out of each scenario.
Sondheim also decided that it should be performed as a musical rather than a play. The ISU theater performance featured junior music education student Daniel Delgado as the leading role, Robert. “I went into the audition knowing I was going to do great,” Delgado said. “We had to prepare a monologue and a song, and it was definitely nerve-wracking.” This was Delgado’s first experience with a leading role. “Being Robert has been the greatest experience so far,” Delgado said. “I can definitely relate to Robert.” Once the audition process was over, the cast began rehearsing in late February in order to be ready for last weeks’ shows. The musical contained 13 other cast members total, five couples and three of Robert’s girlfriends. There were four evening performances, Wednesday through Satur-
day, and one matinee performance Sunday afternoon, and it was free for students with their student IDs. “I was not expecting what I got,” choral director for the music department Scott Buchanan said. “It was definitely an experience — a good one.” The production was a two-act musical, with the first act containing six scenes, and the seconding containing five. “Absolutely hysterical — I could not stop laughing,” freshman music business student Zene Colson said. “It left me wanting more.” The running time for the musical, including the intermission, was a little over two and a half hours. “I’ve learned that company, they come and go but they will always be there, even when they are not there,” Delgado said. The work is not over, however. The cast will be performing this musical in Vietnam over the summer.
©2016 Detroit Free Press. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A look at a campus constant: grade inflation Scott Canon
The Kansas City Star (TNS)
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Want an easy A? Steer clear of R. Lee Lyman’s Fundamentals of Archaeology. He’s flunked students at the University of Missouri for decades. In a sophomore class of 25 students in 2014, fewer than half earned an A. Two got D’s and two flunked. Last fall, only two people in the course scored an A. Four failed. In 2012, half of the dozen students in his archaeology class tanked. What gives? “I’ve used the same grading scale for the 30-odd years,” said Lyman, an anthropologist and now professor emeritus. That makes him an academic oddity. Across the country at places like MU, at less selective schools and on the elite campus-
es of the Ivy League, grades keep going up. Professors such as Lyman take an ever lonelier stand to hold steady on the value of an A or a B. Some analysts say grade inflation may be topping out simply because there’s nowhere higher to go. Some schools have begun experimenting with the A-plus, hoping to create room atop the crowded scale. Experts say we’ll sort the great from the good by running GPAs out farther beyond the decimal point. In national surveys, faculty say they feel pressured more to boost grades than to keep them constant. Some of their colleagues urge them to resist inflation, but students, parents and campus higher-ups can subtly or bluntly lean on them for grading generosity. A respondent in one national survey — voicing what faculty
say privately — suspected his academic department lost out on university teaching awards that rely heavily on student evaluations. Strict grading doesn’t win much love from the student body. Studies have shown that the higher the grades students expect they’ll get in a course, the stronger the evaluation they’ll give an instructor. College teaching careers hardly turn on those marks from students alone — evaluations from other faculty, published research, the ability to win grants can trump them — but they matter. Students also tend to shop for courses that produce the most A’s and the fewest F’s. “Everybody looks to find where they can get easy grades,” said Kurt Diable, an MU student from Liberty. Professors who find too few
students taking their classes risk their status at a school and their ability to stay on the faculty. A 2000 study found that adjuncts gave higher grades than their peers. Those short-term or part-time instructors shoulder a growing portion of the teaching load. In 1971, they represented about 1 in 5 instructors. Forty years later, they made up more than half. “In most cases, (adjunct instructors are) evaluated solely on student evaluations,” New York University education professor Jonathan Zimmerman wrote in an essay last month. “Who can blame them for trying to gin up their scores? After all, their livelihoods are at stake.” Grade inflation — yesterday’s B student becomes today’s A-minus scholar — reflects a change in campus culture, said Stuart Rojstaczer. He taught environ-
mental science, geophysics and civil engineering at Duke University before leaving to write a novel and study how grades have risen. His recently updated research shows them rising 0.1 points per decade without pause for 30 years. His findings conclude A’s are now three times as common as in 1960. MU, in a way that few universities reveal, lists all the grades given in its courses from 1997 on. An analysis of those numbers reveals the average grade rose from about a B (slightly below 3.1) to B-plus (just shy of 3.3) over the last 18 years. (MU notes that the figures could exaggerate grade inflation because they include graduate classes — a growing part of the university and a level where A’s have long been the default score.)
SEE GRADE, PAGE 3