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Fellas musical group performs in T-Bocks Upstairs
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Four education majors student-teach abroad in Singapore and Australia
Women's basketball team earns bid to IIAC Championship, falls to Wartburg
LUTHER COLLEGE
“Let the chips fall where they may.”
CHIPS
MARCH 2, 2017
VOLUME 139, NO. 14
Luther alum harassed in Edina incident SHASA SARTIN STAFF WRITER Two Somali Muslim women, one of whom is a Luther alum, were verbally harassed at a Twin Cities-area restaurant on Jan. 28. The incident has raised concern as the victims consider the harassment to be an act of racial and religious prejudice. Kadra Abdi (‘08) and her friend Sadia Warfa were denied service at a Smashburger restaurant in Edina, MN, after spending the day shopping. Warfa’s three-year-old daughter was with the two women. According to Abdi, she and Warfa were verbally harassed by two Smashburger employees, including an assistant manager and a customer, and were denied their orders despite having already paid. Abdi drafted a complaint which she sent into the Minnesota Department of Human Rights on Feb. 23. She included her account of the experience in that document. “The assistant manager, Antonio, Christina [an
Serving the Luther College community since 1884.
APC announces plans to cut fields of study BEN SELCKE STAFF WRITER
Kadra Abdi (‘08). employee], and their customer friend started to verbally attack us and told us ‘welcome to America’ and to ‘go back to your country’ if we were unhappy with the service,” Abdi wrote in her complaint. “We insisted we
Photo courtesy of Kadra Abdi were waiting for a service that we paid for; [we] continued to be verbally assaulted, belittled, and berated, in front of [Warfa’s] three-year-old child.”
ABDI | PAGE 4
Responding to decreased enrollment and a low student to faculty ratio, the Academic Planning Committee (APC) released its proposal to fully cut three areas of study and remove four majors and four minors. The Dean’s Office released an email to the Luther student body on Feb. 21 containing the details of the APC’s proposal, which resulted from a faculty meeting on Feb. 21. In a separate faculty meeting held on Feb. 23, the APC discussed alternatives to address underenrolled classes. The APC proposed to remove the following departments: Intersections — with the exception of the first-year Scholars Colloquium class — Chinese and Russian. The athletic training, dance, German, and Russian studies majors are being considered
for removal, along with minors in Asian studies, K-12 health and physical education, K-12 world languages education, and Russian studies. The proposal comes in light of the objective that President Paula Carlson and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Kevin Kraus set in the spring of 2016 to return to a 13:1 student-to-faculty ratio, a major shift from the current 11:1 ratio. Additionally, the proposal comes after the APC’s approximately seven-month evaluation of all academic departments. Vice President of Communications and Marketing Rob Larson framed the reductions in the context of Luther’s enrollment history. Larson said that the Luther student body increased in the 1990s but has since declined.
CUTS | PAGE 4
College gathers survey responses, considers adjustments to sexual misconduct policy ANA LÓPEZ STAFF WRITER As part of a national trend at colleges and universities, the Luther College entities responsible for sexual assault policies have conducted the Sexual Assault Climate Survey. The results of the survey will be used to assess, and possibly alter, the current sexual assault and sexual misconduct policies at Luther. Vice President and Dean for Student Life Corey Landstrom has been in charge of conducting the voluntary and anonymous survey over the past month. The survey asks for respondents’ viewpoints on sexual assault on campus, the overall climate of the institution, the effectiveness of Luther staff ’s response when dealing with a crisis, and the college’s overall demographics.
The survey accommodated all students regardless of whether they have experienced any type of unwanted sexual contact. Luther has been working with the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium (HEDS), a group of “private colleges and universities that collaboratively share, analyze, and use data of all kinds to advance their institutional missions,” according to the HEDS webpage. Associate Director of Human Resources and Title IX Coordinator Matthew Bills said that Luther is currently analyzing survey responses, which it will use to shape Luther’s sexual assault and misconduct policies. “We didn’t go in with specific goals or areas we are targeting, but we think it is a good idea to periodically take a step back,” Bills said. “[We want to] look at our policies and ask our
students how the policies are serving them.” According to Landstrom, Luther’s Institutional Assessment and Research — a department that gathers, interprets, and shares data — will analyze the survey responses and then relay them to Bills and the Student Life Office for review. Landstrom said that Student Senate, the Diversity Council, the Campus Life Committee, and the College Assessment Committee will also receive the results. As stated in the student handbook, the current sexual misconduct policy is zerotolerance. According to Bills, the Student Life Office designs and frequently drafts the sexual misconduct policies, which it will modify based on the survey results. Bills added that the policies are constantly subject
to minor changes based on feedback. “Every number of years we have done a complete and thorough rewrite of the policies,” Bills said. “[This most recently occurred in] 2012 or 2013 under the leadership of Landstrom.” The United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) ensures that these laws are enforced and have created a list of “best practices” for colleges to follow, in which the sexual assault policy survey is included for colleges and universities nationwide. Under the supervision of Landstrom and Bills, the Student Life Office will incorporate any approved changes to these policies, which Bills said will most likely occur during the summer of 2017. Norse Against Sexual Assault (NASA) member Brigid Burke (‘18) said that it is difficult
to standardize conceptions of sexual misconduct. “I think it is hard because people define sexual assault differently,” Burke said. “It is really hard to get genuine answers because we are not laying out a groundwork of how we are defining each thing.” Burke also explained that NASA and the administration often work together to address the needs of the student body regarding sexual misconduct on campus and will continue to do so after the survey results are collected. Bills emphasized the importance of student engagement and input in these processes. “If students have questions or concerns, [they should] come talk to us,” Bills said. “We love to hear from students any time — my door is always open.”