Right to repair, B1
Student musician profile, C1
Poets read in Stewart Hall, D1
Marsteller sets two records, E1
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Reporting truth. Serving our community.
Volume 65 No. 20
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
PASSHE chancellor visits SU in person, hosts open forum Noel Miller
Editor-in-Chief
Dan Greenstein, chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, hosted an open forum at Shippensburg University in person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in spring 2020. About 35 people met in the Ceddia Union Building multipurpose room last Thursday, March 31, for the forum. Students, faculty and staff, attended the open forum including SU Interim President Charles Patterson and SU first lady Colleen Patterson. Conversations largely focused on the PASSHE budget and use of money among the several universities. Greenstein opened by speaking on the state of the system redesign saying, “There was sort of an inflection point around summer, fall, where you can see the trajectory of the broader system redesign really beginning to shift in a good way.” Since 2018, two major focuses of PASSHE were reaching financial stabilization and position universities to continue serving the Pennsylvania population as student body and workforce needs change, he said. Currently, schools statewide are facing enrollment challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic that are impacting fi-
nancial stabilization and the ability to serve student bodies. The system is currently focused on finding better ways to retain students and stop enrollment decline, he said. Coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, issues of diversity, equity and accessibility contribute to enrollment issues. Addressing declining enrollment, Manuel Ruiz, the SU director of diversity, equity and inclusion, asked Greenstein if any future university integrations are being planned. Future integrations are not in the works as of now, Greenstein said. The initial integrations of six PASSHE universities last year were in response to the intense financial crisis the system has been facing, he said. The six integrations were done to prevent further loss of enrollment and programs for students. As many universities kept downsizing programs, their enrollments declined as well, Greenstein explained. Instead of taking money that could be used for other universities, integration was the preferred option, he said. In terms of local budgets at Shippensburg University, Aaron Dobbs, an SU professor, and library department chair, asked Greenstein about money used to pay professors to teach overloads instead of hiring adjuncts in
the last year. “So this year in numbers, Shippensburg spent about a quarter million dollars more on instructional credit delivery than it could have had it been able to hire adjuncts instead of providing overloads to cover new courses for our students,” Dobbs said. Because of budget constraints, SU has held off on hiring adjunct professors in past years. This has resulted in tenured and ten-
ured-track professors being paid to teach overloads which are more classes than they are contracted to teach. A consequence of this has been a decline in the number of classes SU is able to provide for students, something that faculty and students complained about in the fall 2021 semester when it came time to schedule for the spring 2022 semester. Read the full story at theslateonline.com.
Noel Miller/The Slate
Chancellor Greenstein met with members of the SU community last week.
President announces masks no longer required in SU classrooms
Piper Kull
Managing Editor
Shippensburg University Interim President Charles Patterson sent out an update to campus masking policies on March 31. As of Friday, April 1, SU will no longer require students and faculty to wear masks inside campus class-
rooms upon recommendations of the university COVID Team. This change follows a March 1 decision to no longer require masking in select indoor locations on campus in accordance with new Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines. This is the second time masks have become option-
al for classrooms. Over the summer in 2021, the SU campus was briefly mask free until COVID-19 cases began to rise in the community. Masking is still required at select locations such as Etter Health Center, a COVID-19 testing center and public transportation. Masks are also required as requested when entering a faculty office
and at a student’s own discretion. “As members of the campus community, please respect the masking preferences of your fellow Raiders,” Patterson said, and also urged individuals who are sick to get tested and wear a mask. Symptomatic and asymptomatic testing is available
to SU students through the Etter Health Center. If the community level or COVID risk on campus changes, mask requirements may change including the reinstatement of mandatory indoor masking. For more information about campus COVID-19 case numbers and regulations, visit the Raider Re-
spect web page at raiderrespect.ship.edu or email the COVID Office at covid19@ ship.edu or call at 717-4771007. For nationwide COVID-19 statistics, vaccination information, public masking guidance and travel information visit the CDC website at www.cdc.gov.
Guest speaker addresses mass incarceration of women and girls Allyson Ritchey Asst. PR Director
Allyson Ritchey/The Slate
Jill McCorkel, a sociology and criminology professor at Villanova University speaks to SU students.
Every seat in Old Main Chapel was occupied on Wednesday, March 30, as Jill McCorkel, sociology and criminology professor at Villanova University, presented her lecture titled “It’s not Prison Reform if We Leave Women and Girls Behind.” The event began with introductions by Allison Carey, SU sociology department chair, and Theresa Ward, sociology senior and department tutor. In her first public speaking appearance since before the onset of COVID-19, McCorkel told the story of Cynthia Alvarado, a Philadelphia women sentenced to life in prison with no parole for a robbery homicide despite being wrongfully convicted and abused by the criminal justice system. McCorkel, with the help of Villanova students, worked tirelessly to research Alvarado’s case. After over 11 years in prison, Alvarado was released from prison, now a grandmother, her own daughters grown up. Alvarado’s experience is the reality of many women in the United States which incarcerates more woman than any other country, with the exception of Thailand. Additionally, women in the U.S. criminal justice system often experience abuse and violent retaliation. The growth of women’s incarceration increased after the 1980s and has stayed steady unlike men’s incarceration which
sees peaks and valleys. In fact, 2010 was the first year the general prison population in the U.S. dropped, but that number has continued to grow for women, McCorkel said. “We can’t figure out the problems of mass incarceration without social science,” McCorkel said of the role of sociology in prison reform. The lecture concluded with a question-and-answer session in which McCorkel advised those who want a start in prison reform to volunteer and intern with public defenders and attorneys. She also suggested donating to and advocating for The Innocence Project, an organization that assists prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted. Kennedy Holt, freshman, posed a question and statement to McCorkel about the role “adultification” of young black girls has in improper imprisonment to which McCorkel responded, “Mic drop!” McCorkel wrapped up by telling the audience to pay attention to the case of India Spellman, a woman framed for second-degree murder and robbery, whose exoneration is upcoming in June. McCorkel is the founder and executive director of the Philadelphia Justice project for Women and Girls, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization dedicated to the ending of mass incarceration and gender violence. This event was hosted by the Departments of Sociology/ Anthropology, Criminal Justice, Psychology, Social Work and Gerontology and the Interdisciplinary Minor in Women and Gender Studies.