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THURSDAY, APRIL 5
VOLUME 114, ISSUE 42
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14 VOLUME 115, ISSUE 35 Political Polarization 3 Professors’ Love Story 4-5 Doc Halverson Classic 6
CAB concert sparks controversy SYDNEY HAUER
Executive Editor
An inability to be transparent led some UNI student groups to believe the University administration was exhibiting racial bias. It started when the UNI Campus Activities Board (CAB)’s Waka Flocka Flame concert was moved to Nielsen Field House. While it has since been moved back to Maucker Union, it remains closed to the public due to perceived security threats. Public tickets already sold have been reimbursed. Student tickets had been reduced to one per student, but now students can purchase two tickets. Students who purchase a ticket for a guest must accompany them to the concert. The event will take place at 8 p.m. this Saturday, Feb. 16. According to UNI President Mark Nook, after the concert was initially announced, the administration and surrounding police departments were notified by UNI Public Safety of a significant safety threat and told to keep the information confidential, which led the administration to make the changes in the way that they did. “Some area law enforcement got some pretty solid evidence that gang members from different groups in our community were planning to attend the
Tribune News Service
Rap artist Waka Flocka Flame will be performing in the Maucker Union Ballroom on Feb. 16 at 8 p.m.
event and it raised a significant safety concern,” said Nook. “We have a responsibility as administrative leadership to our students to make sure that the events are safe, and when a concern of this nature comes to us, we have to take that really seriously and act to make sure that this event is safe.” Before any of the information was made public, many students speculated that racial bias was involved in the University’s decision making and that the administration was intentionally keeping students in the dark about why the decisions were being made. According to Northern Iowa Student Government (NISG) Senators Ryan Frank and Mahlia Brown, NISG as a
whole first caught wind of the changes made to the concert at their regular Senate meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 6. It was initially brought to the attention of Frank and Brown individually that previous Monday. NISG called for an emergency Senate meeting the next day, in which Brown wrote and proposed a solution for the University to consider, she said. NISG voted on it unanimously. The proposal involved the concert being moved back to Maucker Union and ticket sales being reopened to the public. Sashay Carroll, a junior communication major and member of Black Student Union (BSU) said that students in the Center for Multicultural Education
ing restrooms with others can also increase the risk of catching an illness. Improper sleeping habits or a lack of a healthy diet can also make one more vulnerable to sickness. Various illnesses are more common during the winter season, including colds, influenza and stomach viruses. Another threat is hypothermia, or as defined by Nick Wright on theprepared. com, the phenomenon “when your body’s core temperature drops below 95 degrees F, which causes your vital systems to shut down. This happens when your body loses heat faster than it’s produced.” The United States saw an average of about 1,300 hypothermia-related deaths from 1999 to 2011, according
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wright explains that frequent shivering, mental confusion, a sense of tiredness and irritability are signs of hypothermia. If someone is not near a medical professional, several steps can be followed in order to treat it. These include taking off wet articles of clothing and escaping wind and water. Warming the chest and neck are also useful tactics for combating the condition. People should also try to avoid movement, because once hypothermia sets in, it is detrimental to let heat escape from the limbs. As for the cold and flu, there are several tips students can use to lessen their risk of becoming infected. “A big one is hand-wash-
found out about the changes when a student had mentioned them in conversation. “There were a few of us here in the CME talking and someone mentioned that the Waka Flocka concert had actually been moved and closed off to the public,” said Carroll. “We all got together and started organizing, asking all the right questions, trying to figure out what exactly led up to this decision and who initially made the decision.” The students who organized in the CME decided to contact KWWL to release a public statement about what was happening “so that the community could be aware of it,” according to Carroll. She was a student who was interviewed. “I told them I felt as if the institution was trying to keep a group of people out and it’s imperative that we pay attention to who is being kept out,” Carroll said. Carroll said that initially when these changes were made, she took it personally as a black student. It caused her to become stressed physically, mentally and emotionally. “I’m taking a different view now, but I was taking it personally and I was very stressed out about it. The fact that I’ve been putting thousands of dollars into this university and to be here and to
not feel like my voice is being heard or not even considered.” In response to the students calling KWWL, according to Carroll, the University also called KWWL and released their own statement, which included that the Campus Activities Board (CAB) had requested the changes, even though CAB was uninvolved. Accordi ng to Co-Executive’s for CAB Live Isaiah Finan and Mackenzie Meisenheimer, they were first notified of the increase in security back in January, that six public safety officers were requested by the University to be at the event instead of the usual two. They expressed concern about how having the additional security there might appear to black students. They emphasized that Waka Flocka Flame’s contract involves its own security precautions, which involve wanded metal detection in addition to security officers. CAB was notified of the venue change on Monday, Feb. 4, and instructed to staple white slips of paper with the new information on the bottom of the posters. “All of these were not requests; they were not decisions; they were, this is happening,” said Meisenheimer. See WAKA FLOCKA, page 2
Winter weather survival: health COLBY WEBER Staff Writer
Winter is upon us again, and its arrival brings cold temperatures, snow and sickness. While it may seem like common knowledge, reminders on how to remain safe during this chilly time can be useful. In order to stay in good shape, there are several strategies students can use to survive the winter season. Students are more susceptible to illnesses during the winter, according to Salem Fauser, resource nurse at UNI’s Student Health Clinic. “A lot of the time it’s because they’re in close-quarters, especially if they live in the dorms,” Fauser said. While living in such close proximity to others plays a role, aspects such as shar-
SOFIA LEGASPI/Northern Iowan
ing, especially before eating, touching your face and after you use the restroom,” Fauser said. “Make sure that you get plenty of sleep and rest well. Have a healthy diet with not a lot of junk food and drink plenty of water to keep yourself hydrated.” Fauser also mentioned
the importance of exercise and disinfecting commonly-touched surfaces if a roommate is sick. If you do become sick, she recommended covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze and staying home. See WINTER, page 4