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Monday, Oct. 3, 2016
Students learn about prison Sam Malone Staff writer
DeKALB | Junior marketing major Alli Howland went to the Day in the Life of a Prisoner event Sept. 26 because she was required to, but left the event more informed and remembered prisoners are people too. The Common Reading and Student Experience Organization paired with First and Second Year Experience to put on the event so students could be involved with Common Reading Experience, a program that encourages new students to read the same story.
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Alli Howland Junior marketing major Xavier Ortega | Northern Star
Sophomore biology major Daniela Bravo (left) and sophomore nursing major Kayli Holden (right), write letters to inmates. This station at Day in the Life of a Prisoner asked students send hope to inmates in the form of letters.
informed attendees about the conditions prisoners face every day. A small square was marked on the ground with the dimensions of a solitary c on f i n e m e nt cell, which allows no human contact for prisoners aside of occa- Alexis Massman sional prison Common Reading and Student Expestaff, and a rience president table placed in the outline to represent the bed. “I thought the tape on the floor was really interesting and the facts about how quickly a person can get depressed or mentally ill [in those conditions], because I’m sure I would too,” Howland said. “These people are still human, and you can’t put people in that condition and keep them there all day and expect them to still be able to be rehabilitated.” The event featured Daniel McConkie, College of Law assistant professor, as a speaker on the topic
of solitary confinement. McConkie said while some of these prisoners are not sympathetic, they are still human, and the nation could handle them in better ways than solitary confinement. “I think prisons are fascinating, [because] when you go into prisons, you see the way a civilization treats its castaways,” McConkie said. “I think a lot of people deserve to be in prison, and for a very long time, but not all of the people in prison deserve to be there. Solitary confinement [in particular] needs to be reduced, because personally, I think it’s inhumane and unconstitutional.” McConkie talked about the effects of solitary confinement and debated with a few students in the crowd about how the nation could improve this epidemic but always concluded the solutions require money. He said people in the nation do not feel sympathy for those in prison, which is a problem, because they don’t want to fund
changes to better the living conditions of those in institutions. At the event’s final station, students were asked to write a note to a prisoner to provide hope and inspiration for them. Massman stressed the importance of this and said many prisoners don’t get visits from family or friends, and this could be the only contact with the outside world they have. “You get put into this system and you’re dehumanized,” Massman said. “You’re given a number; you’re given a cell, and you’re told what to do, where to go and when to do it. You’re just taken away from society completely, [and] writing a letter to prisoners kind of gives them a little hope, and we want to give them that hope. And that’s what this is about.”
Read more Go to bit.ly/2dCRDXh to read more about this year’s Common Reading Experience and the reason behind it.
SA Senate approves diversity bill Julia Martinez Staff writer
DeKALB | The Student Association Senate approved a bill that requires students to obtain one credit in a human diversity course Sunday, which aims to help students understand diversity. Chief Diversity Officer Vernese Edghill-Walden proposed the human diversity requirement bill during the SA Senate’s first meeting of the semester in the Holmes Student Center, Sky Room. “I think [the course requirement] will be a good idea, and I fully support this bill,” SA Senate Speaker Christine Wang said. “This is a great way to introduce diversity to students.” The bill will become active for undergraduate students next fall and will require them to complete a course or non-course based action, which allows students to receive credit for doing
New plans discussed for pantry Pantry | From Page 1
These people are still human, and you can’t put people in that condition and keep them there all day...”
This year’s common read is “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson and is about the injustices of the prison system and the environment prisoners often face. Alexis Massman, senior electrical engineering major and Common Reading and Student Experience Organization president, said it is important that students are aware of how prison systems are run because it could lead to empathy. “We noticed that a lot of students didn’t understand what the prison systems are like, and we kind of have a biased view that only bad people go to prison,” Massman said. “Really, some of these people go to prison because they made one mistake, or maybe they’re wrongly accused of something, but you are not your worst mistake. This event is about humanizing prisoners. It’s about awareness and making students more open-minded.” Attendees were ‘charged’ with a crime at the first station, such as illegally transmitting HIV, and then took a mug shot. The Holmes Student Center, Regency Room, was set up as a walk-through that
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Xavier Ortega | Northern Star
SA Senator Dylan Tosti comments on the human diversity bill proposed by Chief Diversity Officer Vernese Edghill-Walden during a 5 p.m. meeting Sunday in the Holmes Student Center, Sky Room.
an activity that does not require them to sit in a classroom, such as study abroad and rookie research. Students enrolled prior to the fall 2017 semester will not be required to fulfill the credit, Edghill-Walden said. This proposal is in compliance with an Illinois Public Act that states every public college
and university in Illinois must require that students complete a human diversity credit before they graduate, according to the Illinois General Assembly. “Our goal in completing this requirement is not to add courses or add credits or add financial burden to the student,” EdghillWalden said. “We are looking
at existing courses and existing programs, and we are asking faculty to look at their courses and to perhaps revise them so they can be for the requirement.” Edghill-Walden said with the support of the SA Senate, the bill will be able to move onto the next submission for approval from the University Council and the Faculty Senate. SA Senators rejected a bill that would require the SA Senate Speaker to attend every committee meeting, when according to the current bylaws, the Speaker is only required to attend one every semester. “I personally planned on attending anyway,” Wang said. “I like to be personally involved, and I think that [requiring the SA Senate Speaker to attend all committee meetings] would be a decent idea, but I just don’t know in the future if others will think the same.”
“We’ve done a lot of benchmarking with other pantries,” McKee said. “This year, [we’re going to] make sure we have food to provide to our students but also gather a lot of data to see how we can [run the pantry] better in the future, and I think we are being very successful in being able to feed our students, and I’m very proud and excited about that, but I think there are a lot of things we can do in the future.” For her pantry internship, Sam Wrzesinski, senior family and child studies major, completed a benchmark interview consisting of how the food pantry at the University of Nebraska Omaha worked and included the methods the university uses and what fundraising events it holds.
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Now that I have gotten a start through the Huskie Food Pantry, I definitely would love to stick around and continue helping out NIU and [the] DeKalb community.” Sam Wrzesinski Huskie Food Pantry intern
Her role includes fundraising, coming up with event ideas and updating the pantry’s Facebook page. “It’s just really nice getting to be a part of helping out the NIU student population, because I’ve never really had a job [on campus],” Wrzesinski said. “I feel that it kind of ties in with my major a little bit, at least like the population and demographic network serving.” The food pantry became a NIU-supported operation this summer and moved from the
Grace Place Campus ministry, 401 Normal Road, to the Chick-
en Evans Fieldhouse. The food pantry’s new location is rent free and includes renovations, such as electrical work and redoing the carpeted floors. The food insecurity rate in DeKalb County is 13.9 percent, according to the pantry’s website. The poverty rate for the county in 2014 was 14.7 percent, according to non-profit organization Heartland Alliance’s website. “Now that I have gotten a start through the Huskie Food Pantry, I definitely would love to stick around and continue helping out NIU and [the] DeKalb community,” Wrzesinski said. “I just think it’s really important to give back because I got such a great experience here at NIU.” A grand re-opening is being held Thursday at the food pantry.
Read more Go to bit.ly/2cMhA51 to read more about the Huskie Food Pantry’s move from the Grace Place Campus ministry, 401 Normal Road, to the Chick Evans Fieldhouse.