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The two, the proud, the Iowa state Female Marines One ISU female midshipman from NROTC has been commissioned into the Marine Corps. This semester, Leah Vander Boon will be the second.

By Kelly.McGowan @iowastatedaily.com

hen he ran up behind her on a track three years ago, the first thing Capt. Ricks Polk noticed about Leah Vander Boon was her form. “She ran awkwardly,” he said. “I thought, ‘I gotta help her.’ She’s wasting a lot of energy running awkwardly.” What the commanding officer of Iowa State Navy ROTC now notices about her is the determination that got her through the program, the leadership that she developed and the Marine that she became. Vander Boon, senior in communication studies and Marine option NROTC midshipman, will commission as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps on May 9. She will be the second female midshipman from Iowa State to commission as a Marine. Capt. Reinalyn Golino became the first in 2009. Golino currently serves as an officer selection officer in Bloomington, Ind. “I’ve watched [Vander Boon] mature into a very strong Marine,” Polk said. “She’s gotten stronger, she’s gotten faster, she’s gotten better.” They had their doubts… It was not an easy road for Vander Boon. She did not know what she

Courtesy of Leah Vander Boon

Setting an example for women across campus, Leah Vander Boon has become the second female midshipman from Iowa State to be commissioned as a Marine.

wanted to do before college. She talked to a recruiting officer, found the ROTC scholarship online and applied. She did not come from a military background and didn’t expect to get the scholarship. Months later, she found out she did receive the scholarship. “Freshman year was a complete wake-up call,” she said. “I thought, ‘I am getting up at 5 a.m. every morning, I am tired, people are yelling at me, what is this?’” She planned to finish the first year and then drop the program. “I was going to quit,” she said. “I was going to go back to

Lecture discusses trends in young adults’ spiritual lives By John.Kruse @iowastatedaily.com Students ventured out to hear about the patterns of their generation’s spirituality and religious devotion Monday in the Memorial Union. Christian Smith, professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, spoke on the findings of his 16-year-old research project, which examined the changing patterns that emerging adults, ages 19 to 23, experience in their spiritual lives. “It’s a time of freedom and exploring opportunities,” Smith said, speaking on the characteristics of the age group he studied. “It’s also a time of fear and anxiety.” For his research, Smith surveyed 3,370 parent and teen pairs throughout the 16 years. During these two- to four-hour discussions, Smith and his team would ask the young adults questions related to their spiritual beliefs and outlooks on life. “This generation of emerging adulthood is a script, and the script says two things: one, you’re having fun, and two, you’re building future materials for success,” Smith said. From this research, Smith said he discovered a multitude of patterns and characteristics that separate this generation from all others. “Things have changed in the last decades. My dad ran away from home when he was 16. He got married when he was 19,” Smith said. “Young people are waiting longer and longer to get married and they’re waiting longer and longer to have babies.”

Whitney Lynn/Iowa State Daily

Christian Smith, author, professor and director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Notre Dame, gave a lecture Monday in the Memorial Union about religion for college-age Americans.

This, Smith said, along with birth control pills, cultural saturation of entertainment, postmodern-relativism and several other factors have created a generation that is actively given more time to explore their personal beliefs and ideals. “You are one of the first generations to have so many options to explore,” Smith said. However, this sort of mentality and lifestyle has led to an avoidance of exploring beliefs, and an overall fear of challenging others’ beliefs, Smith said. “Trying to talk to an emerging adult about faith is like talking to a 14 year old about life insurance,” Smith said. According to Smith’s study, this avoidance of examining one’s faith during these emerging adult years leads to a mentality of waiting to think about one’s beliefs

until he or she reaches an older age. However, most young people surveyed said they looked at religion favorably, seeing it as a basis for learning morality. “Emerging adults would consider religious congregates like elementary schools of morals,” Smith said. This mentality toward religious institutions could explain the declining attendance of many religious institutions over the past years, Smith said. “There’s really no rationale for an 18 year old to go to church,” Smith said. “Once you pass fifth grade, you don’t go back to elementary school.” Many students said they agreed with Smith’s evaluation of their generation, saying that some of the generalizations he made described them perfectly. “He said a lot of things that I completely agreed and felt at one time, especially with that mentality of having fun,” said Sara Brinkman, junior in agricultural biochemistry. The Rev. Jon Seda of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church said he feels this sort of mentality has been prevalent for the long duration that he was a priest. “I have seen people in their 40s and 50s with that same mentality,” Seda said. “I have spoken at funerals for people with sports team logos instead of crosses on their tombstones.” In the end, Smith said, these young adults will have their own children and take them to church the same way they take them to elementary school, diligently attending every appointment but trailing off when the lesson is learned.

Michigan and pretend it never happened.” Midshipmen participate in Career Orientation and Training for Midshipmen — Cortramid — after their first year to learn about what they could do after commissioning. She completed submarine, ship, aviation and marine weeks. Marine week refreshed her desire to complete the program. She said she put her heart into it after her sophomore year and began to improve and enjoy the

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Marco Rubio announces presidential campaign By Alex.Hanson @iowastatedaily.com Add U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to the growing list of Republicans who are running for president in 2016. Rubio officially became the third Republican to announce his intention to run on Monday while he was speaking to group of his biggest donors and supporters on a conference call. The announcement came hours before he will formally announce his intentions in his home state of Florida. Rubio is set to speak to a crowd at the Freedom Tower in Miami on Monday evening. Rubio, 43, is the junior senator from Florida, serving his first term since 2011. Rubio, a Cuban American, worked as a city commissioner in West Miami in the 1990s before being elected to the Florida House of Representatives where he would eventually become Speaker. His announcement may have been overshadowed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign announcement on Sunday, but Mack Shelley, professor of political science, said he is not surprised by the timing of Rubio’s announcement because several of his Senate colleagues have already jumped in. Rubio’s name began to float around as a potential presidential candidate in 2013 when he gave the official Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. He was also a member of the Senate “gang of eight” which crafted immigration reform legislation in 2013. The legislation provided a pathway to

Rubio

citizenship for a group of illegal immigrants. It passed the Senate, but Rubio later shifted his position on the legislation, which he helped write. “I think he sort of got the memo that being opposed to immigration reform is a better strategy for most Republican candidates [in the primary],” Shelley said. “At the same time, he’s pretty well positioned to appeal to Hispanics with his ancestral background connected to Cuba.” Rubio joins what will likely become a crowded field of Republican candidates. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are the only two Republicans to join the race as of now. Clinton is the only Democrat to declare their candidacy so far, but more Democrats and Republicans are expected to join in the coming months.