THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018
LATE WEEK
MNDAILY.COM
POLITICS
STUDENT LIFE
Surge in U activity for midterms
The University’s Overwatch team is nationally ranked in its preseason.
Many on campus are door knocking, phone banking and working on elections this year. BY ISABELLA MURRAY imurray@mndaily.com
Ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, organizations around the University of Minnesota have tracked an uptick in student political involvement. Enthusiasm for voting and political involvement has increased, evidenced by door knocking numbers, voter registration and conversations between political groups and students around campus. Republican, Democratic and nonpartisan student groups have made efforts to mobilize the student voting base this election cycle. “This year, I’ve seen more students become involved than any other year previous year I’ve been in politics,” said Rep. Jennifer Schultz, DFL-Duluth, a University of Minnesota-Duluth economics professor. “I’ve seen more students want to actually engage, with door knocking, phone banking, volunteering on campaigns.” College Republicans at the University estimate they’ve knocked on about 12,000 doors since the start of the fall semester and have made about 25,000 calls on behalf of their endorsed candidates. This data is pooled together from individual College Republicans’ accounts on two different door-knocking apps and a phone-banking app, including members of the club who also work with groups like the Congressional Leadership Fund and House Republican Campaign Committee.
JACK RODGERS, DAILY
Siouxsie Steengrafe plays a game of Overwatch with the University esports team, which is nationally ranked in its preseason, on Sunday, Oct. 28. Steengrafe uses the computer game as a creative outlet for her competitive nature.
Esports finds footing at UMN
u See MIDTERMS Page 4
CAMPUS
U members left out of St. Paul campus revamp
JACK RODGERS, DAILY
Left: Noah Wrolson plays a game of Overwatch with the University esports team on Sunday, Oct. 28. The team engages in competitive play once a week against schools across the country. Right: James Han poses at his desk before a game of Overwatch with the UMN team. Each game takes 45 minutes to an hour, and the team usually plays two during their weekly tournaments. BY JORDAN WILLAUER • jwillauer@mndaily.com u See ESPORTS Page 4
UMN faculty and students say they were not given enough say in the long-term plan. BY AUSTEN MACALUS amacalus@mndaily.com
During listening sessions about the future of the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus, many members expressed support for the University’s plans. However, some faculty and staff said they’ve felt left out of the planning process. Last week, the University hosted two community listening sessions for the St. Paul Campus Strategic Facilities Plan, a long-term development plan that started last spring to revamp the campus over the next 30 years. The last session is planned for this Thursday. “For a long time people have been talking about, ‘How do we give St. Paul campus some juice?’” said Monique MacKenzie, the University’s director of space management, at a session last week. “It’s always the poor cousin, it’s always in the shadow of Minneapolis.” MacKenzie said the listening sessions were one of the first engagements on the topic with the community at large. She said the University has worked with individual colleges — including the College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences, the only college housed entirely on the St. Paul campus — to receive feedback on the plan. Forty percent of University staff, students and community members on the St. Paul campus are affiliated with CFANS, according to University survey of the campus last spring. Members at the listening session brought up a variety of issues to be addressed, including improving campus life and community engagement in St. Paul, expanding dining options on campus and preserving affordable housing options like the Commonwealth Terrace Cooperative. Sally Lightner, a lab coordinator with the College of Veterinary Medicine, said recent outreach efforts targeted at faculty were helpful. Lightner attended the meeting last Wednesday, but she said she would have liked to be more involved in the process, a concern echoed by other faculty and staff on the St. Paul campus. “Aside from the surveys, there really hasn’t been any more opportunities that I know of,” she said. One of Lightner’s main concerns is the outdated classrooms on campus, which she called “not conducive for learning.” u See ST. PAUL Page 4
NEIGHBORHOODS
Student government advocates for street lighting in Dinkytown MSA aims to add lighting for streets in the greaterDinkytown area to increase BY MICHELLE GRIFFITH mgriffith@mndaily.com
University of Minnesota students are advocating for more lighting in the Dinkytown area in an effort to increase a sense of safety for pedestrians. The Minnesota Student Association
has an ongoing initiative to add lighting to neighborhood streets that are mostly in the dark — an effort that aims to help people feel safer and deter offenders from committing a crime. MSA is petitioning to add lighting to Fifth Street Southeast near Dinkytown, an area where a student was assaulted and robbed last month. MSA is currently gathering support from local landowners, who will ultimately decide whether to add more lights. “Right now, we are kind of focused on the main walking paths and the … foot-traffic
streets in the Dinkytown area,” said Grant Simons, an MSA committee coordinator and leader of the project. Simons said MSA’s advocacy efforts were not in response to the assault and robbery last month. Some of the other streets MSA plans to add lighting to are Eighth Street Southeast and Sixth Street Southeast. Its goal is to add pedestrian lighting to every street in the greater-Dinkytown area, Simons said. u See LIGHTING Page 7
CITY
On the other side of Hiawatha Avenue, life in a tent city Some University students are trying to reach out to the encampment near campus. BY TIFFANY BUI tbui@mndaily.com
Two miles from the University of Minnesota campus, a homeless community has taken refuge within rows of tents alongside a highway wall. The makeshift homes line Franklin and Hiawatha avenues outside the CedarRiverside neighborhood and have collectively been dubbed the “Wall of Forgotten Natives” for the encampment’s large population of American Indians. Many have a myriad of reasons for how they ended up at the Wall, but all residents face significant barriers to stable housing. On Sunday morning, camp was beginning to awaken. Residents, including families and children, milled about. When University graduate student Kristina Tester arrived carrying an armful of chicken, they greeted her with a smile. Ellen Eagle Tail, a Natives Against Heroin volunteer, looked on as residents lined up for breakfast. Although the line seems fairly long, there are many more in the camp, said Eagle Tail. According to the camp blog’s last count, there are 207 tents
TONY SAUNDERS, DAILY
Kristina Tester, right, Marley Molcjan and Kara Lillehaug hand out food to people on Sunday, Oct. 28 at the homeless encampment in Minneapolis. A large group of homeless individuals has set up tents alongside Hiawatha Avenue.
at the site. After about 15 minutes, the food was gone. Eagle Tail and her husband are at the Wall nearly every day, distributing food and supplies and patrolling the camp at night.
“It’s like a big family,” she said. “The first time I drove out here, I cried.” Tester, who is studying for her law u See HIAWATHA Page 7
VOLUME 119 ISSUE 18