UMD theater students present a lesbian love story B4
THE STATESMAN UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA DULUTH
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Students receive funding for diversity projects BY SHANNON KINLEY News Editor
Each year, students are given the opportunity to receive thousands of dollars in order to improve the campus climate by spreading diversity. According to the Office of Equal Opportunity’s website, the Diversity Funding Program was established in order to “educate the campus and Duluth communities in the areas of discrimination, social justice, sexual harassment prevention, equal opportunity, affirmative action and inclusivity.” “It is everybody’s job to make campus a good place to be,” said Joie Acheson Lee, the associate director for leadership development. Lee said this program is meant to align with goal two of UMD’s strategic plan: making a more inclusive campus for all. The plan was created in 2010 when Chancellor Lendley Black came to UMD. see DIVERSITY, A3
Linebacker takes a knee for love BY KIM HYATT Staff Reporter
Over the weekend, Bulldog fans got a priceless pregame show as senior linebacker Colby Ring got down on one knee to win the heart of senior Nadine Abu Azzam during the last home game of the season. “It hasn’t hit me yet,” Azzam said. “I don’t think it will until we start planning.” Ring and Azzam were still beaming the following Monday after the picture-perfect marriage proposal and the 57-3 victory over Minnesota, Crookston on Nov. 2. The linebacker managed to keep the ring and proposal plan a secret by only letting his roommate and parents know. He coordinated with the people in charge of the scoreboard and asked his coach if it would be okay to propose before the game. “I was definitely really nervous,” said Ring, who has been dating Azzam for three and a half years.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2013
Senior manages multiple Facebook groups BY PAIGE WALTER Volunteer Writer
Senior linebacker Colby Ring takes a knee during the final home game of the season to propose to his girlfriend of three and a half years, Nadine Abu Azzam. BRETT GROEHLER/UMD see PROPOSAL, A3
Overheard at UMD is a Facebook group that now has more than 7,300 members and, as of last spring, has a new administrator. The original creators of the group, Jake DiSanto and Brian Miller, started the group in 2009, but handed over the reigns when they graduated. Daniel Wilczek, the new administrator, is a fifth-year senior at UMD studying business marketing and is a close friend of DiSanto. Wilczek is also the co-administrator of the Facebook group UMD Hockey Ticket Swap and the creator of the UMD Duluth Longboard Crew group. “I had been a member of Overheard for about a year,” Wilczek said. “I knew Jake was graduating in the spring, and I offered to take over.” The group encourages students to post quotes or things they hear or see around campus that may see OVERHEARD, A3
Professor shocks the gossip world with new show
BY ALOYSIA POWER Outdoors Reporter
Explaining UMD professor Rob Wittig’s SpeidiShow is like trying to explain hip-hop to Mozart or genetically modified organisms to the American settlers — it’s an emerging, bizarre idea. Essentially, the
SpeidiShow is a netprov — an online improv that uses Twitter as a forum for followers to make up stories about the adventures of the reality TV stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag from The Hills. “It truly is an experiment,” Wittig said. “The amount of unknowns about it is really thrill-
ing, because that’s the most exciting moment in art … when you’re really doing something new that nobody’s done before.” Wittig and his friend Mark Marino teamed up with Montag and Pratt, Marino’s former student at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, to create
their most popular netprov yet. Since the first episode was released on Sept. 19, the show has received national attention in popular gossip magazines like In Touch Weekly and Us Magazine. Every Thursday at 10 p.m., SpeidiShow followers from New Zealand to Canada and America
log on to Twitter and improvise given a specific storyline for an hour at #SpeidiShow. “It’s like jazz,” Wittig said. “You’re in the moment and you have a couple ideas about where things might go, but then if someone else takes you somewhere else, you go with them.” At first, original Spei-
di reality TV fans were confused about the netprov, not sure if there was a televised show or not. Us Magazine dubbed it a prank. “It kind of goes over some people’s heads, like they don’t get that it’s a game,” Wittig said.
BY ALOYSIA POWER Outdoors Reporter
OK, what’s left? Drive. This will be faster and smoother, but the $3 it takes to park means one less beer at the bar, and there’s no luck in finding open spots. Plus, you don’t want to be that person on Facebook’s Overheard at UMD who gets photographed for parking in the woods near Bagley. So, what do you do? This story is left untold. You decide what happens. In the next few years, however, biking might just become your
see SPEIDISHOW, A3
Trail could connect UMD and Duluth neighborhoods
The proposed Lowell to Lakewalk bike route would start near Campus Park on Rice Lake Road and run through the campuses of The College of St. Scholastica and UMD. SUBMITTED/STATESMAN
INDEX:
News: A1 - A4 |
Opinion: A5 - A6 | Sports: B1 - B2
| Student Life: B3 - B5
It’s early morning and there’s little time left to hustle to class. The bus beat you to the corner, and now you have to choose your method of transportation. Walk? Well, that’ll take too long. You’ll be late, now. Bike? Maybe the drivers are finally in a good mood and their horns won’t scare you off the road. Maybe the graveyards of cracks and potholes are even a bit softer … but this probably isn’t the case.
see BIKE TRAIL, A3