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VOLUME 114, ISSUE 42
VOLUME 115, ISSUE 4 Football opener 6 ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ review 5
NISG cancels NYT subscription NICOLE BAXTER Staff Writer
Those who relied on the New York Times (NYT) to be available in the Maucker Union were met with an unfamiliar absence this year. As of the 2018 fall semester, the NYT newsstands were removed due to a reallocation of funding within Northern Iowa Student Government (NISG). NISG, who previously subscribed to the service with funds from the mandatory student fees, determined that the subscription was too costly and did not benefit enough students to continue on with the service, according to NISG executives. David Konfrst, director of public relations, reported that “over $16,000 per year” was spent on the NYT subscription. When asked by the Northern Iowan (NI) to confirm this number, Director of Finance Jacob Stites shared information indicating that the expense totaled $16,536.20.
As clarified in the budgetary records, the amount reported by the NISG director of public relations and the director of finance was in fact more than four times the actual cost of the service. According to the archival budgetary records for the fiscal year of 2018, $16,536.20 was the total amount requested by NISG for the service, but the total amount allocated was $8,000. The same report shows that less than half the allocated amount of $8,000 was spent on the service. The recorded expenditure totaled $3,771. According to Drew Stensland, president of NISG, there were roughly 53 copies available on weekday mornings in the Maucker Union. Vice President of NISG Kristen Ahart said due to decreased enrollment, a smaller operating budget and an increase in student organizations, the service was cut after due consideration. Ahart, who was on the
committee responsible for cutting the service under the previous administration said, “The Organization and Finance Committee decided to no longer pay for the subscription to the NYT after carefully evaluating how to distribute a smaller budget among a greater number of student organizations.” “One of the first lines the committee surveyed was our own NISG budget. Each item became a topic of discussion and the committee came to the conclusion to downsize on a handful of things [...] in order to provide adequate allocations to all organizations applying,” Ahart said. The NYT subscription was included in that “downsize.” Assistant professor of political science, Evan Renfro, does not approve of the choice to no longer provide students with a readily available and reliable news source. “Part of our mission as an institution of higher education is to prepare students to be civically engaged,” said Renfro. “Well, in order to have civically engaged
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The Northern Iowa Student Government (NISG) canceled their subscription to the New York Times, which made the newspaper accessible to students.
citizens, you have to have citizens that know what is going on in the world. The NYT frankly is one of the great sources for essential information.” As a professor who assigns a daily reading of the NYT for his classes, Renfro is now faced with a decision to either have his students pay for a subscription or to amend his syllabus to exclude the reading. Philip Hopper, assistant professor in the communications department, also relied
on the availability of paper copies of the NYT for his classes. “I frequently assigned NYT readings in my writing and photojournalism classes and think it is a real loss for the students to not have that resource available,” said Hopper. Both Hopper and Renfro believe that reading hard copies of the newspaper is vital for learning comprehension.
also able to pick some of the produce and flowers to take home. The Panther Plot has generated over 3,000 pounds of produce so far this year. Approximately half of that amount has been tomatoes, which—according to O’Brien—is no surprise because about one-sixth of the garden is dedicated to tomatoes each year. “So far this year we’ve had nearly 1,500 pounds of tomatoes alone that we are able to harvest and take to […] the local dining center here on campus or local businesses,” O’Brien said. Tomatoes are far from the only produce grown in the garden, which also provides several varieties of sweet corn, peas, green beans, tomatillos, strawberries, herbs and peppers of all colors. O’Brien explained that the most popular colors of peppers are Panther colors. “Any time we can do purple and yellow, we try to do purple and yellow,” O’Brien said.
“People love when we do that.” One of the student gardeners, Emily Nelson, was excited about the potatoes, carrots and onions that they planted this year. Nelson also liked being able to work with beets and radishes for the first time. O’Brien said students enjoy the opportunity to work with produce they might not usually have the opportunity to work with. This past summer there were about twenty volunteers who worked in the garden. It took approximately 60 hours to maintain the plot. “During the summer, we would come in everyday, in the morning, from about 7:30 until about one in the afternoon,” said Nelson. “Now we come in twice a week to harvest.” Nelson also mentioned that the Panther Plot composts the waste it generates. However, there wasn’t much waste this year because they donated some of their produce to the Northeast Iowa Food Bank.
See NYT, page 2
UNI hosts sixth annual Harvest Festival ADRIANA MIENE Staff Writer
MCKENZIE LUTZ/Northern Iowan
Despite the overcast sky, a crowd gathered from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, August 30 at the student-run Panther Plot for the sixth annual UNI Harvest Festival. University Sustainability Coordinator Eric O’Brien kicked off the festival with a few words about the garden before encouraging the students, faculty and community members to enjoy the free food and live music. Patches of sunflowers towered above the guests and the neat rows of vegetables were labeled with purple and yellow-painted rocks. The paths through the plot were filled with patrons tasting a variety of foods and drinks, such as Mexican street corn, mini vegetable tarts, homestyle potato chips, strawberry iced tea and basil lemonade. Most of the produce used in the food and beverages served was provided by the plot itself. Guests were
See HARVEST FEST, page 5