The Vista Oct. 11, 2011

Page 1

Fundraisers

Soccer

Last week, UCO’s Alpha Gamma Delta hosted a spaghetti dinner as part of their fall philanthropy. Page 3

UCO Women’s Soccer picked up their eighth straight win after beating SWOSU. Page 8

OCT. 11, 2011 uco360.com twitter.com/uco360

THE VISTA

UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL OKLAHOMA’S student voice since 1903.

SHACKING UP FOR AWARENESS

By Trevor Hultner / Staff Writer This week, UCO students will highlight and combat poverty via Shack-a-Thon, a weeklong event that has participants taking up residence in makeshift cardboard abodes and panhandling for charity. Shack-a-Thon’s impoverished condition may be staged, with students “living” in the shacks in shifts, and seen using their laptops and iPhones. For young people, however, poverty sits close to home. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in September the national unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent, despite a small uptick in new hires. However, youth and student unemployment reached 52 percent in July, the highest youth unemployment rate since the BLS began recording in 1948. “I think that young people are really having a hard time recalibrating their lives and expectations to the new American economy,” Kate Tay-

lor, a financial blogger living in New York City, said via Skype interview. “The middle class was encouraged to live beyond its means for so long that most everyone has debt; the debt load among young people, via student loans and credit cards, is higher than it’s ever been, and due to the economy our earning potential is less, for now.” Taylor, who graduated from the New School for Social Research with a MA in political science in 2009, has been documenting her struggle with credit card and student loan debt, as well as offering tips for readers to avoid financial insolvency, since late August under the moniker of “Broke Gal in NYC.” “I specifically used the term broke and not poor because poverty implies that I was born into marginalized economic circumstances, which I wasn’t,” Taylor said. “I am middle class and very privileged, but I’m broke because of my debt

load.” The UCO Institute of Hope, a new class program running out of the department of Sociology and facilitated by Dr. Amanda Miller, set up a booth near the student-made shacks. Known among its participants as “iHope,” the organization provided information on poverty and welfare to participants and passersby. “We set up right next to Shacka-Thon to have kind of a statisticsbased point of view on what poverty is, and what it means to students.” Sam Wargin, a sociology and human services senior involved with iHope, said. “There are a lot of stereotypes that surround poverty, public assistance and things of that nature, so we have a couple of informative pamphlets based off of the Census Bureau’s Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage report from 2010 that came out in the middle of September.”

According to that report, the 2010 national poverty rate was 15.1 percent, and the poverty rate for people aged 18-64, considered to be of working age, rose by 0.8 percentage points from 12.9 percent. The Institute of Hope also handed out information which separates poverty and welfare truths from fiction, and “free money” with facts on taxes. According to the former, “In Oklahoma, only a minority of welfare recipients receive any cash aid at all. Those who do receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) payments were paid a maximum of $292 for a family of three.” Some participants in Shack-aThon had personal reasons for taking part in the event.

Continued on page 4 Photo: Students walk past shacks during Shack-a-Thon, Monday, Oct. 10, 2011. Photo by Garett Fisbeck, The Vista

Poverty in Oklahoma • 616,610 Oklahomans, one out of every six (16.9 percent), lived in poverty in 2010. • The poverty rate for children (24.5 percent) is higher than that of working-age adults (15.5 percent) or seniors (9.3 percent). • Among Oklahoma families with children, families headed by single mothers are four and a half times more likely to be in poverty than families headed by married couples. Source: OKPolicy.org

Campus Events

MEDIA PROFESSIONALS COMING FOR ETHICS CONFERENCE

By Courtney Landsberger / Contributing Writer by Margaret Holt, a standards editor at The Chicago Tribune, who works closely with reOn Wednesday and Thursday, UCO will be porters and editors about issues of accuracy, hosting “Media Ethics: the Ethics of Coverfairness and ethics. ing News” in the Nigh University Center. The Other speakers include Joe Hight of The conference, led by E.K. Gaylord Ethics Chair Oklahoman and NewsOK.com; AP Special Yvette Walker, is carrying on a tradition of Correspondent and Chief Congressional Corethics conferences not seen in recent years. respondent David Espo; and Jacqui Banaszyn“The media ethics conference is a way to ski, a newspaper reporter and editor with talk about what really should happen,” Walker over 30 years of experience and winner of the said. “It’s a joke that media doesn’t use ethics 1998 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. when they cover stories, but of course we’re “We have so many other people coming. supposed to and we do. Just what does that Alex Cameron of News 9 is coming, we have mean, though, and what does that look like a lot of great speakers coming from The Oklawhen you’re talking about a particular story?” homan and from the Tulsa World,” Walker The two-day event will feature a keynote said. “It’s going to be a really great conferluncheon on Wednesday with a presentation ence.”

WEATHER

David Espo (left), Kelly Ogle (center), Margaret Holt (right) and more will be coming to UCO’s campus for the media ethics conference. Photos provided

Walker has not been planning the conference all on her own; the 14 students in her Ethics Conference Planning class have been working this semester to coordinate and prepare for the event. The class has participated in teams doing various tasks such as creating a logo, working on promotions and advertising, tracking registration and making sure the speakers will be comfortable and have what they need. “When you come to the conference and you see how wonderful it is, it’s really up to [the students] as much as it is up to me,” Walker said. The conference will also feature a special reception for UCO Alumni on Wednesday evening. “Its going to be a great way for alumni to come back and mingle a little bit and also mingle with the speakers and be able to talk a little bit more one on one,” Walker said. While the conference and luncheon are free to UCO students, faculty and staff, the event is also open to the whole community and to students from any school for a $25 fee.

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“We’ve been getting a lot of good and positive buzz around the community,” Walker said. “We’ve got people registering for the conference from all over, we’ve got professionals coming from different news organizations, students coming from other schools.” Those interested in attending the conference can register online to ensure a place in the breakout sessions as well as a plate at the luncheon. Also on the site is more information about each speaker, sponsor information and the full schedule of events.

For information, registration and the schedule, scan this barcode:

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uco.edu/ethics DID YOU KNOW? The word Taser is an acronym. It stands for “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle.”

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