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VOLUME 114, ISSUE 42
VOLUME 116, ISSUE 32
THE GOOD PLACE
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
MEN’S BBALL
Opinion PAGE 3
CAMPUS LIFE PAGE 4
SPORTS PAGE 6
Opinion Columnist Taylor Lien pays homage to the NBC sitcom.
BSU plans Black History Month events.
UNI wins against Missouri State and Evansville.
NISG engages students at open house LAUREN MCGUILL Staff Writer
On Wednesday, Jan. 29, Northern Iowa Student Government (NISG) hosted their first open house event to inform students about what they do and how others can be involved and provide information about upcoming NISG elections. The open house marked the midpoint of “Engage with NISG Week,” Jan. 27-31, which also featured events such as the UNI Mock Caucus, Maucker Union Live with Senator Ryan Frank and the You’re Next! Political Conference. Wednesday’s open house took place in Maucker Union Ballroom from 6:30-8:00 p.m. Visitors were provided food and drinks and for the first 30 minutes had time to mingle with NISG members, followed by a ‘speed dating’ event from 7:00-8:00 p.m. Visitors were placed at a table with multiple NISG members from a certain
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position. Every seven minutes, the groups would switch. Bekah Bass, a junior sociology major with minors in Spanish and women’s and gender studies, is NISG’s Chief Justice and has been a part of NISG since her freshman year. Bass expressed her excitement at the opportunity to participate in the first NISG open house. “NISG does a lot of different things for the stu-
dent body. Even though we all may have separate goals, we’re all working together to make the student body and UNI better,” she said. “I think having this open house is a great opportunity for students to see more of what we do for the school and have a chance to get involved.” Bass also said students are welcome to sit in on NISG meetings to get a
“develop collaboration among faculty, staff, and students who are engaged in research and educational activities pertaining to the Arctic, remote, and cold regions,” according to its website. On Sept. 20, 2019, UNI’s ARCTICenter was elected a member of the UArctic, a network of nearly 200 universities, research institutes and other organizations dedicated to research and education in and about the North. “We have an opportunity to start a tradition that I hope in the future will be picked up across the world,” said ARCTICenter Director Andrey Petrov. “Arctic Day in January will be something we all celebrate together.” Friday’s morning session featured multiple speakers discussing the Arctic, UArctic opportunities for research and education and indigenous tribes in the United States. Petrov began the session
by giving a brief summary of the Arctic. He discussed the rapid environmental and social changes, the eight countries in the Arctic and the 30 that are interested in being part of the Arctic Council and the importance it has in developing solutions to combat climate change. “Some people think of the Arctic as the last chance to understand and deal with dramatic climate and social changes,” Petrov said. “I think, for science, the Arctic represents a critical area of inquiry where we could focus on the most important challenges and the most diverse knowledge systems and find solutions that can be applicable to the rest of the world.” UArctic President Lars Kullerud spoke at the session via Skype to give a summary of the organization, the state of their Arctic research and the multitude of thematic networks that foster issues-based
glimpse of what being a part of NISG is like. While NISG is always busy, this is a crucial time of the year for them because of the upcoming elections. Chase Collins, a senior economics major with an ethics minor, is an associate justice for NISG. Collins and his fellow justices have been looking forward to elections, one of their main responsibilities, for months.
“We’re always working, even if you can’t see us,” he said. “Part of our job is to enforce the rules and regulations of the elections and make sure everything runs smoothly. We’re also the ones who hand out punishments in case things go wrong. We would love to have more people involved and have more students share their voice about what is important to them.” See OPEN HOUSE, page 2
UNI observes inaugural ‘Arctic Day’ ANTHONY WITHEROW Staff Writer
Friday, Jan. 31 marked the inaugural “Arctic Day” on UNI’s campus as declared by the UNI ARCTICenter. In honor of the inauguration of Arctic Day, as well as the launch of University of the Arctic (UArctic) on campus, the ARCTICenter held a launch and information session in Rod Library at 11 a.m., followed by a presentation titled “The Peoples of Frozen II: the Saami Culture in the Arctic” held in the Innovative Teaching and Technology Center (ITTC) at 3 p.m. The second session was presented by Tatiana Egorova, a Saami scholar and director of the Indigenous Peoples Office at the Barents Secretariat in Murmansk, Russia. UNI’s ARCTICenter grew out of the Arctic Lab in 2011 and was established in 2015 by the Iowa Board of Regents. The center’s mission is to
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cooperation with networks focused on responding to topical issues in the area. “They cover all sorts of ideas,” Kullerud said. “They exist because researchers somewhere had the idea to create [a network]. If the members accept that idea to be worth becoming a group, then people from a few universities work together around it.”
The UArctic has various types of programs that facilitate student experiences, including their “north2north” mobility program, which provides opportunities to study in different parts of the North. Students can improve their knowledge on about Arctic people and issues by taking courses at another circumpolar institution. See ARCTIC DAY, page 5