Indiana Statesman For ISU students. About ISU students. By ISU students.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Volume 123, Issue 67
indianastatesman.com
Disability Advisory Board aims to increase student success Tyler Davis Reporter
Indiana State University looks to improve student success by implementing a disability services advisory board. The board will look to not only include students interested in discussing changes, but also faculty with expertise and certain organizations relating to the mission. Joshua Powers, associate vice president for academic affairs, described the board’s objectives as “aiming to raise
Kansas governor signs bill allowing campus religious groups to restrict membership
awareness of the various forms of learning challenges and shed light on the importance of meeting students’ needs.” The board will assemble regularly in order to encourage consistent dialogue regarding adjustments to enhance the education of students with disabilities. “Meetings will occur approximately once per month during the academic year although as the new advisory launches, it may meet twice per month in the Feb./March 2016 time frame,” as stated by
the ISU newsroom. Conversations will center on the desire to provide the right services for students with disabilities, analyze current policy and procedure and include the possibility of creating a website in order to improve communications. Self-nominations and invites were submitted to Administrative Assistant Miranda Barton last month, and “persons invited to serve will be appointed through Dec. 2016,” according to the Indiana State press release.
Students will serve as the majority on the advisory board and provide ideas for future programs/how to better engage students with disabilities through organizational involvement. Powers said the board meets with others around campus to increase accessibility. “We regularly convene with facilities management and public safety in order to increase accessibility to all structures on campus for those who require it,” Powers said.
“… we often initiate walks around campus to assess problems such as access to bathrooms and structures that have doors needing to be reconfigured. Deep conversations have taken place to make sure that the campus master plan accommodates all students at Indiana State.” Attention to detail can be crucial when surveying the campus for current problems, while also actively searching for potential hazards needing to be addressed due to safety issues. The student
support services program also aims to “to ensure the ISU environment is free of both physical barriers and barriers of attitude,” while “(providing) information and consultation about specific disabilities to the entire ISU community.” Although students are not required to inform Indiana State University should they have a disability, accommodations can be arranged for those who seek assistance. The advisory board will monitor how well these kinds of processes are working.
Fundraising at the fountain
Bryan Lowry
The Wichita Eagle (TNS)
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed legislation Tuesday that will enable campus religious groups to restrict their membership to students that adhere to a religion’s tenets. Opponents say SB 175, which the governor signed at a ceremony Tuesday afternoon, will enable discrimination to take place on publicly funded college campuses, but supporters say it offers religious groups needed protections at universities. “Religious liberty is a part of the essence of who we are as a nation and state,” said Brownback, who was joined in his office by lawmakers and lobbyists for the Kansas Catholic Conference and the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas. “Critics of the bill believe that it makes it easier for student organizations to discriminate, but that is inaccurate,” Brownback said. “The bill only allows religious organizations to establish religious beliefs as qualification for membership. It does not cover all organizations for any and all membership requirements.” The bill prohibits public universities from taking punitive actions against campus religious groups that require members or leaders to adhere to the group’s religious beliefs or “comply with the association’s sincere religious standards of conduct.” The American Civil Liberties Union said last week that this language “encourages discrimination against Kansans — based on race, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or any other category one can imagine, as long as it’s framed as a religious issue.” The Human Rights Campaign, a national gayrights organization, called the bill “reckless and irresponsible” and said it would allow for discrimination of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students on Kansas campuses. Supporters, however, point to cases in states around the country where student religious groups lost official recognition on university campuses for refusing to adopt an “all comers” policy and say the bill is needed to ensure that doesn’t happen in Kansas. GOP state Rep. Craig McPherson, who carried the bill on the House floor
SEE KANSAS, PAGE 3
Marissa Schmitter | Indiana Statesman
Isaiah Carson, sophomore information technology major, got a face full of pie during FIJI’s fundraiser out by fountain on Wednesday for their chapter on campus, $1 per pie of shaving cream in the face. Students had fun jamming to music and having a good time.
Brussels bomber had been wanted in connection with Paris attacks Alexandra Mayer-Hoh-
dahl and Jessica Camille
Aguirre
dpa, Hamburg, Germany (TNS)
One of the men who carried out the Brussels suicide bombings had been wanted by police in connection with the terrorist attacks in Paris last November, Belgian prosecutors said Thursday. An international arrest warrant had been issued for Khalid El Bakraoui on Dec.11, amid suspicions that he had used a false identity to rent a hideout allegedly used by the Paris terrorists in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi. El Bakraoui, 27, died on Tuesday while helping carry out a suicide bombing at a central Brussels subway station. His brother, 29-year-old Ibrahim El Bakraoui, was one of two suicide bombers who died in an earlier attack at Brussels Airport. Belgian federal prosecutors said on Wednesday that the brothers both had “a loaded criminal record, not linked to terrorism.” But Belgian authorities have since come under pressure over revelations that Turkey had warned Belgium last year about Ibrahim El Bakraoui being — in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s words — a “foreign terrorist warrior.” Interior Minister Jan
Aurore Belot | Belga | Zuma Press | TNS
People gather to pay tribute to the victims of the Brussels attacks on March 23, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium.
Jambon and Justice Minister Koen Geens both offered to resign, but Prime Minister Charles Michel did not accept. Jambon told the VTM broadcaster on Thursday that there were a lot of “big questions” and that he only accepted to stay in his post because of the current “war”-like situation. Geens, meanwhile, pointed in an interview with the VRT broadcaster to the possibility that information was circulated
too slowly from Turkey to Belgium, as well as within Belgium. Tuesday’s attacks left at least 31 people dead and 300 injured, while the airport and Maelbeek subway station sustained heavy damage. Investigators are trying to track down one airport bomber who is believed to still be on the run. They have also been working to piece together how far the network of attackers reached.
The RTBF broadcaster reported on Thursday that a second man likely took part in the attack on the Maelbeek station. RTBF said it was unclear whether the unidentified man, who was captured on surveillance camera carrying a large bag, was still alive. The newspaper La Derniere Heure released what it said was a sketch of the suspect, but prosecutors said in a statement that the image has “no relevance” in their investiga-
tion. The statement also said that police had searched the Brussels homes of the El Bakraoui brothers on Wednesday, but found nothing. According to some media reports, the brothers had hidden a surveillance camera outside the house of Belgium’s nuclear director, indicating other potential plans that may have been cut short.
SEE BRUSSELS, PAGE 2 Page designed by Hannah Boyd