The Shield Issue 9/13/12

Page 1

In this Issue Vol. 43 Issue 5

USI students study abroad pgs. 4 and 5

Volleyball recap pg. 7

Thursday, September 13, 2012

THE

THERE ARE

SHIELD www.usishield.com

USI to play UE in exhibition game BY JIMMY PYLES Staff writer The University of Southern Indiana and the University of Evansville (UE) men’s basketball teams will share the court for the Vectren Community Classic at the Ford Center on Oct. 27. Tickets for the general public go on sale Oct. 1 “I’m going on my fourth season with the team, and I’ve been wanting to play them since I got here,” USI guard Lawrence Thomas said. “They’re on the east side and we’re on the west side. It’s not just any exhibition game - it’s something important to us.” The exhibition match will be the fourth meeting between the two teams since 2004, the most recent being in 2008. UE has won all three of the previous matchups against USI. The closest game was in 2006 when the Aces won 77-75 as the Eagles missed a three-point shot with time running out. “We’re playing for bragging rights. We don’t play each other all the time, so when we do play 2004: each other, you have to take advantage of it,’ Thomas said. “A 88-75 Evansville lot of people say we won’t hanAttendance: 12,441people dle this game differently, but I think because it’s UE, we will.” 2006: The past three games between 77-75 Evansville USI and UE were played at RobAttendance: 11,597 people ert’s Stadium where the capacity was over 12,000 for basketball 2008: games. In 2008, the attendance 71-67 Evansville for the game was over 9,000 Attendance: 9,648 people people. “We should see a lot of red in the stands and probably have the same amount of fans as they Tickets for the Vectern do, if not more,” Thomas said. “We’re not going to let (our Community Classic at the fans) down. We’re going to play Ford Center go on sale hard and try and come out with Oct. 1 a win.” It’s a going to be a sad day for UE, Andy Hines, marketing major and member of Phi Delta Theta, said. “I’m going to have front row tickets,” Hines said. “I’ll be there in body paint with some of my fraternity brothers.” He said seeing USI play in the Ford Center is going be ridiculous. The game will be the first time USI head coach Rodney Watson will get to coach in the Vectren Community Classic since becoming head coach in 2009. “I talked to Coach Simmons early in the spring and asked him what he thought, but I never really asked for the game,” Watson said. “One thing lead to another, and in August everyone thought it would be a good idea.” He said even though it is just an exhibition game, the teams are going to be competitive. “Two teams from the same community - it’s not going to take a whole lot for either one of us to get competitive,” Watson said. “Anybody that plays with a scoreboard and time, your competitiveness kicks in and you want to score the most points.”

USI vs. UE history

Tickets

18.26

WHITE STUDENTS FOR EVERY

BLACK STUDENT Enrollment numbers show USI’s diversity struggle By JESSIE HELLMANN News editor

Nobody wants to talk about racial issues. We don’t have anybody going against the grain and fighting for these people.

Sophomore Marquita Fears is the only African American student in all of her classes. “Every class I’m in, I’m the only black person,” said the exercise science, pre-physical therapy major. Fears is one of 496 African American students who attend USI - 4.7 percent of the student population. The number of African American students at USI de-Kegan Walker creased 22 percent for this school year, according to the 2012 fall enrollment numbers released by the Office of Senior criminal justice major Planning and Research. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t even know how (USI) became like that,” Fears said. The percentages of every ethnic group on campus Comparison of dropped this year except for the “Asian” category, which percentage of minorities increased by 18 students. in GLVC schools in 2012 Lack of diversity is a problem USI has struggled with for many years. Northern Kentucky University 9% According to accreditation reports going back to 2002, the university has been scorned for its low diversity levels. “USI is becoming recognized as much more than USI 10.8% a city college; it needs to aspire to a campus society more representative of a broad Ball State University 15% region of mid-America,” reads the DIVERSITY on Pg. 3

Western Kentucky University 17%

Indiana University 25% Indiana State University 27% Data from respective schools

Anthropology major waiting for state approval By JAMES VAUGHN Staff writer Jillian Utter may graduate with an anthropology degree from USI if the Indiana Commission for Higher Education adds the proposal to its agenda before May. If the state approves it, it will become a major. Utter, a senior in the history department, has completed all of the requirements for the tentative major, which was approved by the Board of Trustees Thursday. “Fingers crossed, it’ll be available by the time I graduate,” Utter said. She came to USI with an undecided major and took a variety of courses. One of those courses was anthropology. From then on, she knew she wanted to pursue it, but the university didn’t offer it.

She decided to major in history instead, and later picked up a minor in anthropology. Utter now plans to attend graduate school for southeast archeology. She said having a degree in anthropology would be great, but she’ll be fine if it’s not approved by the time she walks across the stage. “I am definitely not worried about graduating with only a minor’s worth of knowledge,” Utter said. She said she owes everything to the anthropology faculty. “They have gone above and beyond to advise and offer great learning opportunities to me,” Utter said. Ronda Priest, chair of the department of sociology, anthropology and criminal justice and Michael Strezewski, assistant professor of anthropology, have

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been planning the major for five years. It was developed over the past two years, and it has gone through a number of committees at the university level. Strezewski said the commission should notify him when the major is scheduled to be discussed, and he and Priest will be there to answer any questions it may have. The department has a tentative outline for the major. Strezewski said there are a number of students working to complete the requirements even though it is not official. “I’m hoping that the major will be 100 percent approved sometime this spring,” Strezewski said. “We’ve jumped through a lot of hoops over the past couple of years and now it’s at that final step.” www.usishield.com

He said the department currently has three full-time faculty, and they don’t plan to hire anyone else. “What we’re doing right now is covering all of the bases with what we’ve got,” Strezewski said. “If you propose a major that has to do hires, it’s not going to go well.” He said he doesn’t fear the proposal being shot down at the state level because of the amount of research he and Priest have conducted. “We made sure we put the things that they want to see in the proposal,” Strezewski said. Strezewski said one of the important aspects they want to see is what kind of jobs graduates can get, and he and Priest did research to find out where graduates are being employed. Strezewski said the univer-

sity hasn’t had an anthropology major because the university grew so quickly in such a short amount of time, leaving some majors behind. He said he realized not having it was a problem when students started coming to him and asking about a major and when he told them that there wasn’t one, students would settle for a similar major or transfer to another school. Assistant Professor of Anthropology Daniel Bauer said he’s excited the major is at its last hurdle. “Having a major means that I’m going to have more students who are much more interested in diving in and tackling the big questions related to anthropology,” Bauer said. He said he’s also excited about ANTHROPOLOGY on Pg. 3

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