Women’s team preps for a week away Pg. 8
Thursday, February 6, 2014 ■ Vol. 44 Issue 20
THE
SHIELD www.usishield.com
USI students attend Grammy Awards Pg. 4
Campus closes abruptly
Students, faculty get stuck in traffic as storm approaches Photo by JESSICA STALLINGS/The Shield
By JAMES VAUGHN News editor Students and faculty struggled to reach their destinations Tuesday after university officials closed campus due to hazardous weather conditions. An accident at the intersection of the Lloyd Expressway and Schutte Road created chaos as the USI community attempted to make their way off campus.
USI issued a RAVE alert just before 3 p.m., which stated only essential staff should report in. Minutes later, the university sent out a second RAVE alert, which stated that the Vanderburgh County Dispatch requested motorists avoid eastbound Lloyd Expressway until 4:30 p.m. Traffic remained at a near stand-still along University Boulevard for close to an hour.
Jasmon Dickson was shocked the university waited so long to notify people to leave campus. “I mean, they probably should have told us a little bit earlier maybe even canceled class or canceled school or something,” he said. “The Rave alert was issued as soon as the decision was made,” said Kindra Strupp, assistant vice president for marketing and communications in a statement
Wednesday morning. “Certainly there is a significant consideration for night classes and weather conditions worsening as night falls. It was unfortunate timing that the semi jack-knifed nearby about that same time.” Dickson, a Spanish and anthropology major, is a commuter from Henderson, Ky., but he didn’t drive to campus Tuesday. He waited for the bus for almost an hour, he said. The bus would
take him downtown, where his grandmother would pick him up. Dickson waited in the Orr Center for awhile, but decided to make his way outside. “It’s freakin’ cold,” he said. Junior Marketing Major Bailey Hall waited in traffic. “I would say I’ve been sitting in this spot for about 15 minutes,” Bailey said. Freshman Social Work Major Clint Hoffman thought it would CLOSING on Pg. 3
USI community challenges feral cat procedure By JESSIE HELLMANN Staff writer Junior Audrey Maxwell received a call from a friend this year saying she found four kittens outside of her on-campus apartment. Not wanting to break campus policy prohibiting pets, she left the kittens outside. Two froze to death overnight. “I drove and picked up the remaining kittens and had to rush them to the vet,” Maxwell said. “They were very sick. I bottle fed them and gave them medicine for weeks until I adopted them out.” Two weeks later, there were more kittens found on campus, Maxwell said. This is when she decided something had to be done. Maxwell is asking the univer-
sity to adopt a TNR (trap, neuter, return) policy through a change. org petition called “Trap, Neuter, Return USI Feral Cat Population.” The petition gained 422 signatures as of Tuesday. TNR is a method of trapping feral cats, spaying or neutering them and returning them to the
environment from which they were collected. Maxwell believes TNR would keep the stray cat population under control by stopping reproduction. “I was just so frustrated with the way these cats were living,” she said. The physical plant shot down her TNR proposal describing it as “inhumane,” she said. “At first, I was upset. Then I went home and looked at my kitten that was found on the side of the road,” she said. “That was when I got angry. I decided I would do anything in my power to petition the university to change their minds.” She said research led her to the TNR method, and many universities like Stanford, Texas A&M and DePauw do it.
Photo courtesy of AUDREY MAXWELL
Feral cat at USI. It’s clipped ear signifies it’s been spayed and returned to the wild.
She plans to meet with Associate Provost for Student Affairs Marcia Kiessling and Housing and Residence Life Director Laurie Berry next week. Stephen Helfrich, facility operations and planning director, is in charge of the feral cat issue and said he likely won’t consider a TNR policy. He said while the university doesn’t have a formal policy, it has carried the same practice for 15 years.
About twice a year, grounds workers set up box traps to catch and send the cats to animal control. The most the university has ever caught at once was 29, he said. “I’m not convinced (TNR) is the best thing for the cats,” he said. “When the cats are turned into the wild, they can catch disease, get and spread rabies and they just have to fend more for themselves in the weather like this. It’s hard on them.” CATS on Pg. 3
University offers students free Office access By CALEB RILEY Staff writer Students who logged into their myUSI accounts recently may have noticed the announcement that Microsoft Office is available to all students for free download. Microsoft announced in October it would give away copies of certain software to all colleges that use Office 365 Outlook for campus email. USI applied for licensing of the software in December and received it Jan. 14. After the university received the licenses, Information Technology had to apply them to each student’s account individually. Information Technology finished applying the licenses Friday. The software being given to students
includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, as well as the instant messaging client, Lync, and the cloud-style storage program, SkyDrive Pro. It is available for both PC and Mac users and has also been made available to both Android and iOS users. “The idea is to give USI students access to the tools they need 24/7,” said Richard Toeniskoetter, executive director of the Department of Information Technology. Toeniskoetter said there are several benefits to students having these programs on their own devices. One benefit is saving money - Microsoft Office can be quite expensive and giving it to students for free gives them one less thing to worry about. Another advantage is that it makes students more mobile. They do not have to OFFICE on Pg. 3
Resource fair, dinner to ease Veterans’ transition to college By RACHEL CHRISTIAN Staff writer Joel Matherly doesn’t think veterans at USI are getting all the help and resources available to them. He would know Matherly, a USI alumnus who now works in the Veterans’ Support Services Office, was once a student vet himself. “Student veterans are non-traditional students,” he said. “A lot of them haven’t quite found their niche on campus.” That’s why Matherly made it a priority to organize USI’s Military and Veteran Appreciation and Resource Fair and Dinner. The fair will feature booths and information on the three subjects that impact student vets the most: jobs, education and
behavioral health. “It really takes the guess work out of it,” he said. A common problem with vets going back to school is that they don’t have big campus social lives, Matherly said. They’re busy taking care of kids or trying to pay the bills, so they often go straight home after class. He wanted to create an event where veterans could come with their friends and families to get answers about what is available to them, while also connecting with other former soldiers. The event isn’t just for veterans, though. Matherly encourages spouses, dependents or anyone with connections to the military to attend. VETERANS on Pg. 3
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