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LABOR DAY AT THE LAKE PG. 5
SHIELD T h u r s d a y, s e p t e m b e r 8 , 2 0 1 6 | U s i s h i e l d . c o m | v o l . 4 6 i s s u e 4
‘Expect more than just a tour’ University breaks ground on new welcome center
University awaits officer contract approval by gabi wy features@usishield.com @GabiCWy
Photo by jordan aucker | The Shield
Linda Bennett, donors and student ambassadors break ground on the Fuquay Welcome Çenter last Friday. There will be an official ribbon cutting ceremony for the center in 2018.
by taylor o’neil hall tohall@eagles.usi.edu
Last Thursday, the university broke ground on the Fuquay Welcome Center. The groundbreaking ceremony started off with Jeffrey Knight, chair of the board of trustees, talking about how lively the university is right now. He told a story of almost being ran over by a student on a skateboard, and then he gave the microphone off to President Linda Bennett. Bennett introduced the notion of how necessary it is to have the welcome center. The university sees nearly 200,000 people annually, and many of them for more than just academic purposes, Bennett said.
Bennett said “prospective students expect more than just a tour,” and she alluded to the “unique and innovative features,” the Fuquay Welcome Center will have. The Fuquay Welcome Center will also function as a “designated space to show what makes USI special,” said Danielle Wire, the president of the Student Ambassadors. The Welcome Center will serve as the starting point of campus tours as soon as it is built, said Evan Stieler, the co-vice president of the Student Ambassadors. Aaron Costlow, co-vice president of the Student Ambassadors said the building will be able to seat around 200 people, and will have hours similar to many of the other buildings on campus. The groundbreaking ceremony was also a
way for the university to pay homage to the donors. Dan and Janet Fuquay donated $1.5 million out of the $2 million that was needed before the university could begin construction on the building named after their family. The other $500,000 was donated by Old National Bank, mainly by their CEO Bob Jones. The ceremony concluded with the actual ground breaking. Bennett, the donors and their families and several other administrators and students picked up shovels and broke ground. The ribbon cutting ceremony officially opening the Fuquay Welcome Center is scheduled for 2018.
While the university approved a budget plan for 2017-2019 including contracts for permanent law enforcement officers on campus, Vanderburgh County Sheriff Dave Wedding said his office and administration are “still hammering out the details” of said contracts. President Linda Bennett will present the budget plan, approved by the university Board of Trustees last week, to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education Thursday. John Farless, director of University Communications, said Tuesday the university is not “giving out any more interviews” until it has reached a “memorandum of understanding” with the sheriff’s office. “(Vice President for Finance and Administration Steve Bridges) and I have had multiple discussions about ways to protect campus,” Wedding said. “He has to make sure everything’s good with the university and the money’s good, and on my side, I have to go to county commissioners to investigate the legality of the contract.” The three members of the Board of Commissioners acts as the executive and legislative body for Vanderburgh, according to evansville.in.gov. Wedding said without their approval, the sheriff’s office can’t go through with a contract like the one the university approved. “(Bridges and I) haven’t reached out yet to figure out the gameplan,” Wedding said. “He’s waiting to clear a few hurdles, but we both agree in this day and age, it’s probably good to have police officers on campus.”
CAmpus officers, PAGE 3
Radio undergoes ‘A clean bill of health’ changes SGA hears accreditation, Sodexo update
by sarah loesch
editor@usishield.com @seloesch
Faith Connell was one of the first people to know about the renaming of the USI radio station. Connell, the promotions director for The Spin, found out about the renaming over the summer soon after the station made its change from AM to FM. The FM change led to a lot of local press, which in turn led a company to reach out to inform the station that they already owned the trademark for The Edge as a radio station. John Morris, the general manager for the radio station, said he reached out to the university’s law firm and a representative there was able to confirm that The Edge was trademarked. “They offered to let us keep the name,” Morris said. “But it would cost us up to a couple thousand a year.” Morris said the price would continue to rise each year and as the GM he would much rather see the money go to the students who work for the station. Connell said not everyone was excited about the name change, but with the changes to FM and a focus
particularly on alternative music the staff adapted to the idea. “Everyone jumped on the opportunity to find our brand,” Connell said. Connell said the switch to FM has been amazing for the station. She has seen the social media grown even within the past month or so. “It’s quite insane actually,” she said. She said when the station does remote events they get feedback from their listeners and it’s cool to be able to reach out into the community. Connell said the opportunities to reach a larger audience have grown and in turn so have the opportunities for the staff. The group is still trying to get everything switched over and make sure the branding is consistent. “It’s a bigger process than we thought,” she said. Morris said the station has to focus on having everything switched over before the end of September. “I think things have gone well,” Morris said. “Certainly we hated to lose The Edge because we’ve had it for eight years and we built it up, but it’s been a good lesson in trademarks and copyright law which are very big in communications.”
by riley guerzini rguerzini@eagles.usi.edu
Katherine Draughon and Lamar Patterson visited Student Government Association last week to update the members on accreditation and the Sodexo. Representatives from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), one of the six national accrediting agencies recognized by the Department of Education, will visit USI from Sept. 11-13 for a reaffirmation of its accreditation. Sodexo, the food service company, rushes to make adjustment to the ChickFil-A and Steak ‘n Shake after a busy two weeks. Accreditation is the certification of an institution to meeting all formal requirements including academic excellence, curriculum and facilities among other criteria. “One of the reasons accreditation is important is our reputation,” said Executive Director of Planning, Research and Assessment Katherine Draughon. “It also makes your degree worth something, so it gives legitimacy to your degree.” Draughon said if the uni-
versity is not accredited it won’t be able to manage the over $50 million in financial aid that it handles every year. The University of Southern Indiana has been accredited with the HLC since 1974 and must complete a reaffirmation of its accreditation every 10 years. Administrators have submitted a comprehensive report of policies and procedures over the past decade to the HLC. Four faculty members from other schools representing the HLC will be on campus to confirm the report. The representatives are expected to conduct random student interviews during their time on campus. Throughout the review, the HLC will focus on a number of criteria: mission, integrity, teaching quality, resources, learning support, evaluation, improvement, planning and institutional effectiveness. “A lot of it is just making sure we are transparent about what we do and what happens when a student does something they are not supposed to do,” said Draughon. “(They also check to) make sure it is
clear to students how financial aid works, what you need to do to get a refund and if you have any grievances.” During HLC’s last reaffirmation of USI in 2006, they made a few recommendations regarding the assessment of student learning, which have been corrected by the university with the installment of an assessment day, but the university has not typically struggled with these criteria. The HLC will release their decision to approve or not approve to the university eight weeks after the review. “I’m counting on us getting a clean bill of health for another 10 years,” she said. The other talking point on last week’s agenda for SGA was on update on the new restaurants in the University Center. The two new restaurants, Steak ‘n Shake and ChickFil-A, have seen success in their first two weeks, more than doubling the average weekly revenue of the restaurants they replaced, Burger King and Archie’s Pizzeria. Steak ‘n’ Shake staffs
around 15 workers during the lunch rush compared to 5-6 at Burger King. Sodexo’s mission is to get customers through the lines as quickly as possible. Chick-Fil-A’s line speed averages to around a minute, while Steak ‘n Shake speed is 3-5 minutes because of its cook-to-order corporate policy. With the installment of Steak ‘n Shake, the former restaurant in that area, Archie’s Pizzeria, was removed, but it has not ceased to deliver. The pizzeria is now located in the Eagle Express Convenience store and students can place delivery orders during their hours of operation from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 3 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. “We want to make sure we get the word out to students to let them know that we still do have pizza delivery on campus and it will be offered at the C-store,” said Sodexo General Manager Lamar Patterson. Another point of emphasis for Sodexo has been their expansion both online and through apps such as the Bite app and Tapingo.
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