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Volume 104 | Issue 8
March 6, 2020
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More tornado coverage see page 3
like the washer, dryer and television. The couch may be a total loss. Wet insulation squished beneath their feet as they went room to room. Insulation, pieces of drywall, broken glass, twisted metal and shards of wood covered everything.
Sonʼs cry warns students IRENE SULLIVAN
Reporter Three-year old Kellan Brown heard a storm early Tuesday morning and ran to wake his mom, Tech student, Emily Hendrixson. The heavy rainstorm masked the sound of a tornado. “We were asleep. Kellan woke us up. It just sounded like heavy rain,” Bryce Watts, said. “We heard no sirens, we had no alerts.” Seconds later most of the roof on their West Broad Street house flew
off except the part covering a bedroom where Kellan huddled with his mom and Watts, her boyfriend. “It all happened so fast,” Watts said. “There was no time to think, we just reacted.” An early morning tornado traveled across middle Tennessee on Tuesday destroying property and at last count, killing 22 people. Watts, Hendrixson and her son had all survived with only minor cuts and abrasions from the flying broken glass. The windows and doors
photo by Irene Sullivan
Despite losing her home, flowers picked for Emily Hendrixon by her son remained untouched.
blew in when the roof flew off. Rain, wind and bits of soggy insulation pelted the three as they ran to escape the nightmare their home had become. Neighbors from across the street came running to help. The rest of the
night the three and other displaced neighbors huddled together in an undamaged home, he said. Hendrixson and Kellan moved in a month ago and furnished the two-bedroom home with new furniture. Their first
real look at the devastation came at dawn, as they began trying to sort through what could be salvaged. w Even then it was still dangerous. The remaining roof collapsed as they hurriedly removed the few items worth saving
Every room in the home was touched. Couches and chairs weighted down underneath the wet soggy mess. Clothes hung abandoned in closets without doors, dripping water onto the already saturated carpet. The bathroom where Hendrixson bathed her son was almost unrecognizable. His bathtub toys miraculously still clung to the side of the bathtub surrounded by fallen drywall and debris. Kellan’s room, bed, his see SAFE page 3
Tech joins campus rape conversation SPECIAL REPORT Only Tennessee Tech students Jane and Joe know what really happened in Room 508 of Pinkerton Hall on Aug. 30, 2018. She says Joe, a 19-year-old she met at band camp, picked her up, kissed her, stripped off their clothes, laid her on the bed and raped her. He said it never happened. Jane, a 17-year-old freshman at the time, admittedly lived in denial for months until the friends she confided in encouraged her to report the assault to campus police. She said university officials’ handling of her rape complaint only frustrated her. Although officials followed protocol, the process at times appeared confusing, ineffective and contradictory. In the end, her nine-month struggle to seek justice landed her on the wrong side of the law. Her frustrations escalated into anger and fear which led to her own two-year suspension from school and an assault charge. Her alleged attacker faced few repercussions. In fact, officials in the Office of Student Affairs ruled that August encoun-
was nonconsensual,” according to documents obtained through an open records request. When asked how a determination of consensual sex is made when one party says it occurs and the other said there was no physical contact, a Title IX Coordinator replied that an investigator looks for evidence to corroborate and in some cases no evidence is found and no conclusion can be drawn.
“As far as I’m concerned, they’ve just made things even harder on me, and want me gone I feel hopeless and helpless,” Jane said. ter was consensual even though Joe told campus police they never had sex, according to a Tech report from the investigation into the encounter. “As far as I’m concerned, they’ve just made things even harder on me, and want me gone,” Jane said. “I feel hopeless and helpless.” Jane’s hesitation to recognize her encounter as rape and then to report it, is not uncommon. More than 90 percent of assaults on college campuses are not reported at all, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Records show Tennessee Tech University police received six reported rapes from 2016-2018 – only a fraction of what some officials believe actually occurred. According to a 2014 campus survey, 25 percent of respondents have experienced an attempted or completed rape. On June 24, officials ruled Joe did not violate the school’s sexual misconduct policy. “While the preponderance is suffi
Clear and Convincing graphic by Valerie Hubert
TTU students Abby Dykes, Emma Holmes, Miranda Maynard, and Marissa Vazquez worked in conjunction with Ben Wheeler at the Cookeville Herald- Citizen. The aim of this article is to draw attention to a national issue that is becoming alarmingly prevalent on college campuses. The names of the accused and accuser are annonymous to protect their privacy. cient to conclude that Complainant and respondent engaged in sexual intercourse, the evidence does not support the conclusion the intercourse
“Can you imagine being a 19-year-old college freshman and everyone saying, ‘That’s the girl?’ A lot of victims don’t report out of embarrassment or the shame that they feel.” Thirteenth Judicial District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway said sexual misconduct cases are underreported nationwide and he has yet to prosecute a sexual assault case from Tech since he was elected in 2014. “One of my big frustrations is there are 12,000 people (at Tech) … and I would prosecute any crime that happened on that campus, and I can’t think of a single sexual assault or rape case that came from Tennessee Tech,” Dunaway said. “I’ve had many conversations with see Rape, page 4
Debate team sponsering SGA supports national tournament here Oldhamʼs raise, bonus VICTORY MURRAY Reporter Tech’s Speech and Debate Team members are racking up numerous individual and team awards with to tournaments left this season. So far, members have won 51 individual awards and eight team awards. The team also had two members, Jay Norsworthy and Mik Davis, be named state champions at their most recent tournament on Feb. 22-23 at Volunteer State Community College. Although members of the Speech and Debate Team make it look easy with all the success they are having, it is just as difficult as any sport. “Believe it or not, it’s both physically and mentally challenging. From waking up at 5:30am to competing till 10pm, it’s a physically daunting event. Not to mention the walking and running from room to room. It’s
“A national championship has been a dream of mine since I began this journey years ago,” Johnson said mentally challenging because you have to argue a variety of topics, doing tons of research in such a short amount of time. Also, like sports, you have to be sharp and avoid mistakes,” said Tyler Johnson, senior political science major. The Speech and Debate Team is also scheduled to host the International Public Debate Association National Tournament Mar. 14-17. This will be the first time the team has hosted a national event. The 11-member team won 225 individual and 15 team awards last year making the 2018-2019 season their most successful yet. Aside from winning numerous awards, the team does not plan on stopping there. They still
have individual and team goals they want to reach, including breaking last year’s record, before they wrap up their season. “For the team we have two tournaments left this year, the IPDA National Debate Tournament (which is being hosted by us), and the NFA Individual Events and Debate Tournament. In terms of team goals, we hope to perform well at the National level. Personally, I’m still chasing a national championship to end my “career” with. I have a state championship on persuasive speaking from 2019, almost a repeat in 2020, but a National Championship has been a dream of mine since I began this journey years ago. It would be one heck of a send off,” said Johnson.
KITTY PORTERFIELD Reporter SGA members expressed mostly positive opinions on the proposed 1.012% salary increase for President Phil Oldham, but raised concerns about the pay disparity between Oldham and professors. If approved by the board of trustees in March, the increase would bring Oldham’s salary to slightly more than $350,000. “He does a lot for the university so I know he’s earned it,” Rachel Johnson, SGA’s Residence Hall Association representative, said. “He always supports us in whatever we decide and he’s just really looking for the good of the university. He pushes us to keep moving forward.” Members of the executive cabinet said they are pleased with his performance and support the
proposed raise, as it puts him on the same level as other university presidents. “Chairman Trudy of the board of trustees, I think she recommended the raise because it’s on par with what high level executives would get for such high level performance,” Daniel Hines, SGA’s chief of staff, said. “I don’t necessarily have an issue with it, but I can see why others, for a number of reasons, may.” Aaron Lay, SGA’s secretary of state, emphasized the importance of paying Oldham a competitive salary because of all he has done for Tech. “I feel like this bonus and raise get him on an equal playing field with other university presidents. That’s very much the salary range that others get paid,” he said. “His goals and plans are fantastic. I know one of his big things is increas-
ing our research dollarfrom $20 million to $40 million in the next five years, which is a big feat. I think this is the administration that would get that done.” Rachel Baker, SGA’s executive legislative advisor, expressed her concern about the salary difference between Tech’s professors and Oldham. “The biggest thing is pay disparity. If we have a finite pool, then yes, we should make sure we keep him in a competitive rank because we don’t want to lose him. He’s doing a great job,” she said. “But we also need to look at maybe being able to distribute that. Administration can only get accomplished what your faculty is wanting to accomplish with you.”