A perfect match: UI student’s life made easier with help of service dog PAGE 6A WEDNESDAY December 9, 2015
THE DAILY ILLINI The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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Transfers seek more resources Students discuss opportunities
versity from a community college early, leading them to transfer in the spring. The University also sees transfer students who stayed at community colleges longer than two years, also possibly leading them to transfer in the spring. Smigielski also said some students must transfer during the fall because some colleges and majors at the University aren’t open for spring entry. Another reason could be that students choose to attend somewhere else for the fall semester, such as an out-of-state school, but then these students might decide they want to be closer to their home in Illinois and transfer to the University for the spring semester. Alexis Shotton, junior in Engineering, transferred to the University in spring 2015 from Kishwaukee College, an Illinois community college. Shotton said transferring in the spring made it harder for her to explore the campus because of the cold weather. She said it also might have been easier to meet people had she transferred in the fall because she noticed most of the people on her floor at Hopkins Hall had transferred during the previous semester. She does not regret her decisions, though, and she said she’s happy she transferred in the spring because it gave her more time to spend at the Uni-
BY ALI BRABOY STAFF WRITER
MARCUS YAM TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
Sara Neff, center, participates with other attendees at the morning yoga session held at the camp site during Week 2 of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Saturday, April 18, 2015, in Indio, Calif.
Origins of yoga are ignored Students discuss opportunities
lier this year when the University of Ottawa in Ontario canceled a yoga class after students mentioned the course could be seen as a form of cultural appropriation. The University offered to rebrand the class as a “mindful stretching” class, but the idea of yoga using the rituals of a different culture without the backstory or beliefs behind them has sparked controversies on university campuses nationwide. “Personally, I think that the mainstream view of yoga is sometimes disrespectful to the culture and the lack of awareness and understanding of where yoga and yoga philosophy comes from,” Zhou said. While training to become
BY DAN CORRY STAFF WRITER
Alisa Zhou, student in LAS and Business, has been doing yoga for almost nine years. She began practicing yoga with her mom, using a DVD at home. Today, Zhou works at Amara Yoga and Arts in Urbana. She said the city’s community inspired her to teach yoga and educate others on the specific types she practices, known as Ashtanga yoga. The widely popular exercise became an issue ear-
a yoga teacher, she learned about the tradition and history of the exercise, which focuses on “respecting the lineage” of the different positions and lifestyle. “It’s quite upsetting to me and the people around me when we see people around us who are not of southern Indian background or do not practice Hindu wearing of a bindi or mesh [two separate cultures] together,” Zhou said. The same philosophy applies to some of the chants used while doing yoga. She said if someone doesn’t understand the background of the chant, it makes a big difference. Similarly, she said tying religion to yoga can also be perceived as offensive.
Zhou said it is helpful to know how people define yoga. For example, she said, viewing yoga as simple physical meditation could be used in any context. “Cultural appropriation comes into play when you make statements about deities that you don’t understand or clothing that you don’t understand, where you’re trying to perceive a culture or religion that you’re not a part of,” Zhou said. “Its one thing to admire, it’s a whole other thing to identify yourself as a culture that’s not your own.” However, Zhou said there are still ways to respectful-
SEE YOGA | 3A
Study examines distracted dining Purdue University, Barbara Fiese, professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University, and Jessica Jarick, graduate student in ACES at the University looked at how mealtimes with distracted parents could lead to a negative effect in their children’s eating patterns.
BY LILLY MASHAYEK STAFF WRITER
A year-long study done on family eating habits found that it’s not always the quantity of meals spent together that is important, but the quality of them as well. Blake Jones, assistant professor of Human Development and Family Studies at
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY TYLER COURTNEY
“For the longest time with mealtime studies, we’ve just looked at the amount of times per week that you eat together, but we really weren’t looking at what happens during the meal,” Jones said. The researchers found that when a distracting element was present, more active and less positive communication occurred within the family. Jarick said that this positive communication includes time families spent talking with each other, such as about how their day went. “If you look at the entire percentage of time that people spend during the meal when they are in the distracted situation, they spent more of their time up and away from the table,” Jones said. “And so it led to less time interacting together, so there’s less communication in general.” About 60 volunteer fami-
lies with children ages five to twelve – ranging from single-parent households to a family with five children and two parents – each ate one meal at a house. Participants were placed inside a “research home,” equipped with cameras, where half of the families ate a family meal in a distracting environment – the sound of running a loud vacuum – while the other half ate their meals without a distraction. “It’s basically designed to look like a family’s home,” Jones said. “We would have all the food there, ready to go and as soon as they [the families] were ready they would come in and eat. The research home, known as the Beschloss Family Media Design Center, is located on Lincoln and Nevada in Urbana. A hallway leads from the home to
SEE STANDING | 3A
Alex Sawyer had a plan in mind when she started at Joliet Junior College, an Illinois community college, to get to the University as early as possible. “I always knew I wanted to come here, so I took a lot of classes during the summer and winter breaks,” Sawyer said. Sawyer, junior in the School of Social Work, transferred to the University in spring 2015. Between fall 2010 and spring 2015, an average of 350 undergraduate students transferred during spring semesters, based on information from the Division of Management Information. The University expects to receive about the same amount this coming spring, said Thomas Skottene, director of enrollment management, data analysis and systems for Undergraduate Admissions. Skottene said through an email that the final spring enrollment numbers will be available after the 10th day of classes. Kristin Smigielski, associate director of Undergraduate Admissions, said all transfer students start their college paths differently. She said in an email that the University sometimes has transfers who want to come to the Uni-
SEE TRANSFER | 3A
Number of spring transfers compared to fall transfers Between fall 2010 and spring 2015, an average of 350 undergraduate students transferred during spring semesters. 2000
Spring 2012 1500
1000
Spring 2011
Fall 2011
Spring 2013
Spring 2014
Spring 2015
Fall 2012
Fall 2013
Fall 2014
Fall 2010
500
0
Number of transfer students
SOURCE: Division of Management Information KELSIE TRAVERS THE DAILY ILLINI
Standing with heR organization urges inclusion at UI
Students discuss opportunities
believes the demands given to administration by the group early Monday morning are both measurable and reasonable. “ We’re not asking extremely hard things,” Trotter said. “I think in some instances people think it’s hard to meet the needs of black women. But in reality, we’ve made these things pretty simple.” Trotter was one of six members of Standing with heR to meet with Barbara Wilson, interim chancellor, Ed Feser, interim provost, Renee Romano, vice chancellor for student affairs and Menah Pratt-Clarke, associ-
BY CHARLOTTE COLLINS AND DIXITA LIMBACHIN DAYTIME EDITOR AND STAFF WRITER
Standing with heR is a group of women on campus that has pushed for more diversity and inclusion at the University. The group organized demands Tuesday for University administration in relation to the racism on campus. Member and student Pasha Trotter said she
ate provost for diversity at the Swanlund Administration building. The University made national headlines with the formation of an Illini White Student Union in response to the Black Students for Solidarity rally and University administration has faced criticism for its handling of the group’s formation; additionally its response to both specific instances and a climate on campus some students have voiced makes them feel targeted, unsafe and unhappy. “We want to speak out against what we read as violence and terror that the
Illini White Student Union group was doing by using a black undergraduate student’s profile picture as a way to surveil her,” Trotter said. “Our work looks at and engages and addresses attacks on black women and it seemed organic and necessary that we would speak on it.” Trotter said Standing with heR has made attempts within the past year to speak with University administration on conflicts facing black members of the campus community and black women in general, but has been routinely redirected away from meeting with the chancellor.
Recently, the group requested a meeting with the chancellor to discuss their strategy to target racism on campus and heard back before the Dec. 2 deadline they gave. Trotter said she believes the demands and goals presented to the University are tangible and that the University is capable of following through. “We seek to have a situation in which the University actively recruits, retains and economically supports black women faculty who do a particular type of research because we believe that these women play a critical
role in dismantling systems of privilege and oppression, so that’s actionable that’s something they can do,” Trotter said. “We asked them to take particular actions on reinstating a black woman faculty member in the college of Education; that’s something that they can do.” Standing with heR works through the specific intersection on black women to discuss issues of racism and sexism. Trotter said that by addressing and working to alleviate issues that affect black women, campus as a whole will be uplifted.
SEE STANDING | 3A
OPINIONS
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Reflecting on time
Illini of the Week
Illini await Bulldogs
Senior ponders memories and friends during the past few years
Guard Kyley Simmons sets State Farm Center 3-point record in weekend win
Men’s basketball hosts dangerous Yale team Wednesday
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