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UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA CEDAR FALLS, IA THURSDAY, APRIL 5 VOLUME 114, ISSUE 42
CEDAR FALLS, IA
VOLUME 118, ISSUE 44
MONDAY, MARCH 28, 2022
OPINION
CAMPUS LIFE
SPORTS
OPINION PAGE 3
CAMPUS LIFE PAGE 4
SPORTS PAGE 6
Guest columnist Kristin Woods argues UNI is the most affordable, highest value university in Iowa.
Panther softball travels to Evansville and takes two of three games.
Check out the NI archives on the Old Administrative building from 1894.
Professor receives Yessenia Rodriguez: appointment at Yale Latina and proud NI Women’s History Month Coverage
History professor Reinier Hesselink has been invited to teach graduate classes at Yale for the 2022-23 school year GRACE TOUNEY Staff Writer
As students have returned to campus to complete the second half of spring semester, professors are gearing down as summer closes in. Many new classes and degree paths are set for the next fall semester, but for one professor a change of scenery is on the horizon. Long time history professor, Reinier Hesselink, Ph.D, has been invited to teach graduate classes at Yale in the 2022-23 school year. He will be leaving COURTESY/Yale for a new setting after teaching Professor Reiner Hesselink was invited to Yale by the Whitney and Betty at University of Northern Iowa Macmillan Center of International and Regional Studies. twenty-seven years. “I was invited by the est level across the humanities Whitney and Betty MacMillan and social sciences, and to facilCenter of International and itate deeper understanding of Regional Studies at Yale, the region at Yale and beyond.” because the faculty members Hesselink explained the creof its Council for East Asian dentials of his appearance at Studies, which is among the Yale, “The invitation specifies three or four most advanced that I will teach two graduate institutions for the study of seminars, one in the Fall of Japan in the world, had voted 2022 and one in the Spring of last December [2021] to invite 2023. Further, I am also to do me for one year,” Hesselink research in my specialty, i.e. commented on his upcoming the history of the Japanese city engangemet at Yale. of Nagasaki’s relationship with COURTESY/CSBS Yale’s Council for East Asian the outside world since the 16th Reiner Hesselink, pictured above, Studies mission “has been to century.” has been a professor at UNI for 27 support scholarship of the highyears. See YALE, page 2
BAILEY KLINKHAMMER Staff Writer
Yessenia Rodriguez is a junior Philosophy and Spanish major with minors in Legal Studies and Spanish English translation. She is from West Liberty, Iowa. At UNI, Rodregiuez is involved in a number of things. She works as an RA in Noehren Hall, and she is a part of Summer Orientation Staff, Student Admissions Ambassadors (SA A), Ethnic Student Promoters (ESP), International Student Promoters (ISP), Connecting Alumni to Students (CATS), National Residence Honorary, UNIDos’s Director of Administration and Campus Activities Board (CAB). This week, Rodriguez gave the Northern Iowan insight as to how UNI has impacted her, why Women’s History Month is so important to her and her role as a leader on campus. Question: What made you decide to become an RA? As a first generation Latina, I didn’t have a great support system or someone to go to, and I wanted to make a difference for first year students so that they received that support that I didn’t get.
COURTESY/Yessenia Rodregiuez
Yessenia Rodriguez is heavily involved on UNI’s campus, and hopes to help students and women of color feel confident and represented.
Question: Why choose the organizations that you did? UNIDos was the first organization that I joined my first year because it was a Latinx organization. I became vice president my sophomore year. I can’t let go of it because it’s a part of who I am. It was my only organization for a few years because of COVID, but I joined because my friends motivated me to and saw potential in me, and now I get to help prospective students beyond my job as an RA. I love working with others and making an impact that way. See YESSENIA, page 2
Jane Mertesdorf: Founder of UNI Softball NI Women’s History Month Coverage CAROLINE CHRISTENSEN News Editor
Two years before Title IX was passed prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools, UNI Athletics Hall of Famer Jane Mertesdorf created UNI’s first softball program. She proceeded to lead the Panthers to numerous state championships and a national championship in 1978 despite lack of funding or resources. “We started with very humble beginnings… without a budget,” Mertesdorf said. “My social life was
pretty much done. We did everything. We had no field, so we went where it was dry enough, had grass, open space and we weren’t going to take out windows of buildings. We didn’t complain. We just did it.” The team used equipment from intramural sports, and drove station wagons to and from games since team buses and drivers were not supplied. “Those drives we had in the station wagons were some of the most eye opening and wonderful times because that’s when you start to know
people,” Mertesdorf said. Mertesdorf remembered the students and their passion for athletics fondly. “Students were the ones who created the interest in women’s intercollegiate athletics. Female students who had participated in high school sports were beginning to say ‘we need more than intramural sports on campus.’” Sh e continued, “Everything about how things developed was the students. The students were all highly motivated and highly talented. I was just the team’s facilitator. As a coach
We started from humble beginnings...we didn’t complain. We just did it
I loved the practices, I loved the games, and I loved working with the students.” In addition to initial low funding, the early softball program faced other obstacles. According to Mertesdorf, the female athletes did not have an athletic training room and the women were not welcomed in the existing training facilities.
COURTESY/UNI Athletics
Jane Mertesdorf founded UNI’s first softball program in 1970. Her teams went on to win numerous state titles and a national title in 1977.
See MERTESDORF, page 2