Category: News
IPFW Crowns First-Ever Homecoming “Top Don”
IPFW is following the lead of universities across the country who aim to be more inclusive.
So for the first time in university history, IPFW did not crown a homecoming king and queen. Instead, students competed to win the title of “Top Don”.
The Homecoming Committee Chair, Audrey Donat, said the decision was made to even the playing field for students who do not identify as either male or female.
“We had someone last year that was thinking about running, but they were born male and wanted to run as the queen,” Donat said, “so that topic got brought up and we decided this would be the ideal thing.”
Donat said the decision was made after last year’s homecoming, because the university was already going through a lot of changes, so it made sense to implement the shift.
Donat said the new homecoming model was based on the University of Nebraska at Omaha, one of the first universities to replace homecoming king and queen with homecoming “royalty” in 2016.
“I just think it makes it more even, it makes it more open, and we are going for a more welcoming environment across the board on this campus, not just homecoming,” Donat said, “and so I think that is a big benefit to the switch.”
Despite the change, there were no gender-neutral members on the homecoming court. Out of the five members of the 2018 court, three were male and two female.
Unlike other schools who have done away with homecoming king and queen in exchange for two winners of any gender identity, IPFW only had one winner. Donat said the decision was made so students would not feel pressure to campaign with someone.
However, some students had been looking forward to campaigning together.
Kurt Unger, a senior computer engineering major from Churubuscho, Indiana, said he initially chose to run for homecoming court so he could campaign with his friend.
“It’s kind of sad because we wanted to run together, and we wanted to campaign together and have a fun thing to do together, but now it’s kind of more lonely,” Kurt laughed. “I don’t know.”
As a member of OUTspoken, a campus organization which focuses on providing a safe atmosphere for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and allies, Kurt said he can see why the decision was made.
But since there is only one winner, his friend chose not to run, though she still helped him campaign by handing out candy at voting booths.
Other members of OUTspoken were also supportive of the change.
Janelle Hall, a junior psychology and women’s studies major from Fort Wayne said she thinks any effort to make IPFW more inclusive is a good thing.
Janelle said it is very important for people to respect pronouns in a university setting where professors and advisers are supposed to be there on behalf of the students.
However, Janelle said she has heard a mixed bag of responses from other students regarding the change.
“From other people on campus who I’ve talked to its kind of half a joke like, ‘Oh man, there they go, what are they doing?’ and half like, ‘Well that makes sense because we want to be more inclusive,’” Janelle said.
Janelle said respecting gender pronouns is important to her because she recognizes her own privilege. She said she grew up feeling as comfortable about her body as a woman in America can feel.
“I’ve never had to confront that part of my identity in a way that would go against everything our culture says is right,” Janelle said. “So for me, respecting people’s pronouns is respecting that people have gone through different experiences than me.”
Janelle said for some of her friends who are transgender or gender-neutral, being addressed as their chosen pronoun is an important part of being accepted for who they really are.
However, she said she has noticed a generational gap in those who are accepting. Her friends have experienced older people purposefully using the wrong pronoun, something she considers a form of violence.
When this happens, Janelle said her friends often end up crying and feeling really bad about their bodies. She said it leaves them feeling disrespected or like they cannot connect with people.
While the majority of schools still crown a traditional homecoming king and queen, Donat said she expects to see more schools making the change to gender-neutral homecoming titles in the future.
IPFW crowned Emily Day, a junior biology major from North Manchester, Indiana, as the first-ever Top Don on Saturday during half-time at the IPFW men’s basketball game vs. South Dakota State.
Oldest Indiana High School Basketball Tournament Concludes
The Allen County Athletic Conference Tournament wrapped up on Jan. 13 at South Adams High School.
The tournament is the longest running high school basketball tournament in Indiana.
Athletic Director James Arnold of South Adams said this conference is interesting for a couple of reasons.
“First of all, just the history and tradition of this conference and the conference tournament itself,” Arnold said. “For the girls, it’s the 44th-straight tournament, and the boys have had 95 years of a conference tournament.”
The tournament started for the boys back in 1924. It added the girls in 1975.
The tournament ran at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum till 2014. With the conference adding Jay County and most of the schools not in Allen County, the tournament finals were moved to South Adams.
“I think if you look at the history and the longevity as conferences come and conferences go and memberships change,” Athletic Director Arnold said. “For us to be able to run the tournament that many consecutive years, it’s pretty neat.”
The girl’s championship tipped-off first, with South Adams seeking their first ever. Their opponent was Jay County, who won it the past three years.
The game was tightly contested throughout. The largest lead of the game was 13 in favor of South Adams. Madi Wurster led all scorers with 19 points.
The final was 55 to 45 in favor of South Adams.
Senior Guard Alexis Dellinger said she loved that they were able to pull through and finally win the championship.
“It feels amazing,” Dellinger said. “I wouldn’t want to do it with any other girls.”
Alexis was named the Hilliard Gates MVP for the girls.
South Adams has never won the tournament in its 44-year history.
“I knew that stat,” Athletic Director Arnold said, chuckling about it. “I forgot that stat until you just reminded me.”
He said being an athletic director at a school getting its first title is a good feeling.
The boy’s championship hosted Heritage and Jay County.
Heritage looked to avenge last year’s championship loss Woodlan, while Jay County looked to win their second championship in three years.
At the half, Heritage led Jay County 14 to 13. Jay County won the third quarter 16 to 12.
But it wasn’t enough.
Heritage outscored Jay County 19 to 7 in the fourth quarter. Heritage won 45 to 36.
The Hilliard Gates MVP for the boys was Abram Beard.
“I was surprised. I’m honored and all thanks to God,” senior forward for Heritage Beard said. “I couldn’t do anything without him watching over me.”
Beard said the loss a year ago hit them hard. He said it gave them the encouragement to work over the summer to make sure they got here again, to win it.
Barry Singrey, head coach for Heritage, said he is really happy to see his team’s hard work pay off.
“To win a tournament requires toughness,” Singrey said. “I think our kids have that.”
He said his team lacked it in the first half, but thought they came out in the second half, and found a way to finish it.
This was their first championship since 2007.
Students showcase their talents at Dons on the Mic
The Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs hosted an event titled Dons on the Mic on Jan. 25, where students had the opportunity to perform in the Walb Classic Ballroom.
Students and faculty were encouraged to showcase their singing, dancing, poetry, comedy, and rapping skills.
The program assistant for ODMA, Diana Mejia Bonilla, a senior health-care administration major from San Salvador, El Salvador, said the event aligned with the goals of ODMA: to celebrate diversity and promote inclusiveness.
“One of our biggest goals is to provide students with a platform where they feel comfortable,” Mejia Bonilla said, “and I think this is a good way of doing that.”
Mejia Bonilla said ODMA tries to be inclusive by reaching out to all students, faculty and staff, and creating relationships.
Justin Beckstedt, a sophomore music performance major from Fort Wayne, was the first to take the stage. He said he enjoyed the positive atmosphere as people were not afraid to be themselves.
Justin described himself as a natural performer and performed multiple acts at the event, including song covers and an original dance.
Justin said he loves all crowds, even small ones.
“I feel like it is more intimate, and people get to know each other in smaller crowds,” Justin said. “It just makes everything a little bit more exciting.”
Maggie Blackwell, a senior Spanish major from Fort Wayne, also performed. She taught the audience how to dance the merengue, a skill she said she learned while studying abroad in Mexico.
Maggie said she made a lot of friends at the event and plans on going again in the future. Like Justin, she said she liked how people could be themselves.
“They can get up there and do whatever they want and know that it is a safe space and know that people will clap anyway if it is really horrible,” Maggie said. “Or if it is really good, it’s like discovering talent you didn’t know you had.”
The night ended with a game of “Heads Up,” where around 18 audience members sat in a circle and tried to get each other to guess the word on their phone.
Both Maggie and Justin said they hope the event is advertised more in the future. Maggie said so many people do not know about the events on campus and thought if more people knew, they would come.
“It is like a bonding event for sure,” Maggie said, “especially if you are new on campus or you don’t have a place where you feel comfortable yet, this is definitely an event to come to.”
Mejia Bonilla said ODMA plans to reach out to professors and advisors who have connections with students to perform at or host the event in order to draw in a bigger crowd.
Dons on the Mic will be held again on Feb. 15 and March 29 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Walb Classic Ballroom.
Being First teams up with the Honors Center to offer new scholarship
Being First and the Honors Center are collaborating to offer a potential new scholarship, exclusively for honors students who are the first in their families to attend a four-year college.
The director of the IPFW Honors Center, Farah Combs, announced the possibility for the new scholarship at her talk “Are You Honors Program Material?” on Sept 21 in Walb Student Union.
Combs said the application for the first-generation scholarship will hopefully be available soon, following more discussions with HPC members to finalize the decision. Once students are accepted into the honors program, they must complete three credits in an honors or H-option course to apply for scholarships, which can reach $1,000, Combs said.
Aside from scholarship opportunities, Combs said benefits to joining the honors program include early registration for freshmen and sophomores, access to the Honors Center, and making students more marketable after graduation.
Despite these benefits, Julie Creek, director of the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, said Being First events about the Honors Center have significantly lower attendance than their other workshops. She said the first time they did the workshop over a year ago, nobody showed up.
“I think a lot of what we are dealing with is that whole impostor syndrome thing that first-gen students frequently deal with,” Creek said. “They can’t conceive of themselves as possibly being honors students, so, you know, why would I bother to go to something that doesn’t apply to me?”
Combs said she thought the talk went well but wished more students came. She said the Honors Center definitely needs to reach out to first-generation students more to make them aware of what the university can offer them.
Many first-generation students who attended the event said they would have considered joining the honors program if they had known more about it sooner. Thaigo Amaral, a junior mechanical engineering major from Piracicaba, Brazil, was one of them.
“If I knew all this information from the beginning I could have considered joining, but now I’m a junior so it’s too late probably,” Amaral said.
Creek said Being First will have to figure out better ways to get people to show up to these workshops. She said she considered having outdoor programs where people walking by can just join in.
“I think the feeling sometimes is that if I walk in that door they’ve got my soul and we don’t,” Creek said. “I mean, we don’t want anyone’s soul. We just want to help them get through school and have the absolute best experience possible. But they ultimately have to be the ones that step up and say, ‘Yes, I want to do this.’”
Being First will hold more workshops throughout the semester on topics such as the library, Facebook, studying abroad and impostor syndrome. Dates for these events can be found on the IPFW website.
Fort Wayne Athletics Raises Money for Scholarships
The IPFW split has resulted in a series of changes to its campus, one of the most notable being the rebranding of IPFW Athletics into Fort Wayne Athletics.
Fort Wayne Athletics held their third-annual Mastodon Run 4 Scholarships Sept. 10 at the IPFW Gates Sports Center to raise funds for its 14 NCAA Division I teams.
IPFW athletics budget laid out. @IPFWnews @IPFW @GoMastodons @JGfortwayne https://t.co/CY1fyRgAxo
— IPFW News (@IPFWnews) August 29, 2017
JW Kieckhefer, assistant coach for Fort Wayne Men’s Volleyball, said that it is important to raise money for athletics scholarships, considering the national trend of rising tuition. Funding student athletes helps the teams stay competitive while costs increase little by little, he said.
As reported by Forbes, in the last two decades tuition costs have risen to double their starting amount. According to the US department of Education, by 2030, the annual cost of public tuition will average $44,047, putting the total cost for a four-year degree at over $205,000.
“The teams that we are competing with in the Division I world,” said Kieckhefer. “They are all fully funded in the scholarship aspect, so if we want to keep competing at the highest level nationwide, nationally, we gotta make sure that we raise money and get the best student athletes we can in this institution.”
The event started at 2:30 p.m. between Rhinehart Music Center and Gates Athletics Center with opening remarks and the national anthem. Meanwhile, final sign-ups were being processed inside the Gates Fieldhouse.
The 2017 event consisted of four separate races within the IPFW campus. In past years there were only two main events: the 5K Run/Walk and the 1-Mile Family Walk.
Lisette Pierce, a Spanish teacher at Concordia High School and wife of the Fort Wayne baseball coach, has run the 5K Run/Walk every year since the event began. This year she decided to make the extra effort, Pierce said, branding a Wonder Woman costume under a Concordia T-shirt
“I was like, what can I do? So I just kind of put a superhero team, just to, kind of, pump people up to come out and run,” Pierce said. “I invited some friends, first of all, I invited my Concordia family, so I said, ‘Let’s go all out with Concordia.’ I also wanted the best dressed team award, so ‘Let’s go with superheroes.’ So I kind of combined superheroes with Concordia.”
This year, a 100-meter Kids Dash and 400-meter Kids Stomp were added, in order to make the event open for all ages.
Unlike the 1 Mile Walk and the 5K Run, the 400m Kids Stomp is taking place in the Gates Field house, as did the Kid's 100m Dash. #HCS pic.twitter.com/h8kVjReGul
— IPFW MoJo (@ipfwmojo) September 10, 2017
The event was mainly staffed by student athletes, who manned the sign-up tables and did most of the setup and tear-down of the event. The students were also tasked with cheering on the participants of the events around the course of the races.
Lauren Hoffman, a senior majoring in psychology from Monroeville, plays volleyball for Fort Wayne Athletics. In her first time helping in the event, she said she was enthused to participate and help with the first events for children in the Mastodon Run 4 Scholarships.
Furthermore, Hoffman said she recognized the importance of the event as a way for Fort Wayne Athletics to stand on its own two feet.
“So this is kind of our way to be self-sufficient and funding ourselves and not having to worry about budget cuts in the future,” Hoffman said.
With all events concluded, attendees and staff stand by waiting for the results to be announced. #HCS pic.twitter.com/pN24yNZIvp
— IPFW MoJo (@ipfwmojo) September 10, 2017
By the end, all runners won participation medals, in addition to awards for specific categories, such as best-dressed team.
Kirsten Crow, an IPFW mom who ran the 5K with her husband and her three dogs, praised the event after the awards.
“It was beautiful, fun, everyone was very encouraging,” Crow said, “then they clapped and said good job, keep going… Nice weather, people are friendly. Definitely doing it next year.”
If you’d like to read a more detailed account of the event, click here.
IPFW Color Stomp Postponed
The Color Stomp was to take place on Tuesday, but has been postponed to a later, unknown date.
IPFW Intramural Sports and Student Life will host the Color Stomp sometime this semester, taking place near the IPFW baseball and softball fields.
It costs participants five dollars to run in the event. Runners will also receive a free t-shirt at check-in, complimentary dinner, and a color stomp towel. All the money from the run goes to Erin’s House for Grieving Children in Fort Wayne.
The run’s route will take place throughout campus with multiple “color stations”, where volunteers will blast the runners with a color-dye as they run through.
Andrew Kreager senator for IPSGA, who has sponsored the event in the past, said with budget cuts affecting their sponsorship of the event, they could not co-fund it this year.
“Student Life didn’t necessarily need us to help fund it this year,” Kreager said. “I know there was a conversation between Student Life and Student Government asking if they really needed our funding this year, and they said they had leftovers from years past that they could fund it with.”
Kreager said IPSGA will still be showing their support because it is a special event with proceeds going to a good cause.
Andrew Meyers, graduate assistant for Intramural Sports, said their biggest goal is to increase participant numbers.
Meyers said that with participant numbers going down in the past couple years, they plan on increasing the numbers through promotions on social media prior to the run.
According to Meyers, last year’s color stomp had approximately 50 participants. Meyers said if they see any increase at all, they will be satisfied. But, to put on the event, they desperately need people’s help.
“So right now, we really need volunteers,” Meyers said. “We’ve only had a few people contact us, and we need about thirty to forty people to help.”
Meyers said it’s important for volunteers and participants to come out because the run is a great way to get students to come together and interact in a positive way.
“I think that’s the biggest draw for me to help make it a good event,” Meyers said. “It gets the university some exposure and it just helps students have a better experience here at IPFW.”
Purdue Library Working Group to Propose New Plan to Provost
The Dean of Helmke Library will introduce to Purdue University’s provost a three-year plan-of-action of how IPFWs library will stand alone with its own catalog, policies and contract amid separating from Indiana University.
Helmke’s Dean Alexis Macklin said the split creates an opportunity for Purdue to construct a library system that is more personal for each campus’ needs, while also focusing on sharing among their individual library collections.
“We’re putting our efforts on other ways we could be working together to provide more resources, more efficiently,” Macklin said.
The meeting takes place on Oct. 17 in Macklin’s office, who is also head to the Purdue System Library Working Group. It comprises representatives from the Office of the Treasurer, the provost’s office, and from each Purdue campus: West Lafayette, Northwest, and soon to be Fort Wayne.
Macklin said the meeting will deliver a proposal of library systems and vendor contracts, how the campuses will share collections, and suggest working groups that look to improve the library system throughout the future.
According to the provost’s website, the new system will be running by July 1, 2018, which is also when IPFW will officially be Purdue Fort Wayne.
Macklin said IPFW could not sign the same contract as the West Lafayette and Northwest campuses because it is not solely affiliated with Purdue yet. Therefore, IPFW had to produce their own strategy for which library management system to commit to.
Also, Macklin said with West Lafayette’s interim library administration, it causes some difficulties because they may not want to make huge, system-wide decisions without a permanent team on board.
Macklin said these challenges give IPFW a chance to show how it can be independent so no student or faculty member on campus will feel pain from actions on the administration’s part
Overall, Macklin said the only differences in the library’s system will be how its pages look because it will not be from IUs vendors, but resources will remain the same.
“I’m confident that it’s going to be less hairy than what people were afraid it was going to be,” Macklin said.
Cancer Services of Northeast Indiana Hosts Tribute Dinner
The 13th-annual Cancer Services Tribute Dinner started at 6 p.m. in the Mirro Center for Research and Innovation at Parkview Sept. 6.
Cancer Services of Northeast Indiana is a non-profit organization established in 1944. Its mission is to enhance the quality of life of those affected by cancer by providing resources, information and assistance.
Robin Hixson, a client at Cancer Services, said she attended the event with her family because she wanted to bring them all to celebrate with her.
“I was diagnosed in December of last year, right before the holidays, and I probably made my first trip there in February when I started chemo,” Hixson said. “When I started losing my hair, that’s when I made my first trip to Cancer Services.”
Hixson said she went to Cancer Services seeking as recommended by a friend, but she was nervous to go and didn’t know what to expect.
She said getting diagnosed with cancer is a roller coaster ride full of mixed emotions. Yet, through Cancer Services, she made many new friends going through the same things and found support to get her through.
Ed Souers, chairman of Cancer Services, said the concept of this event is to get people together to pay tribute to those affected by cancer. This includes not only cancer survivors, but also their families and doctors who have treated them.
Souers said his organization is completely supported by the community. They have about 600 volunteers, and do not charge their patients a dime.
Souers calls what they do “the softer side” of cancer. They provide things like emotional support, practical resources, wigs, transportation, information, and much more. He said this allows patients and their families to help deal with what they are going through.
Part of the show they put on for the night included keynote speaker Mayor Suzanne Handshoe.
Handshoe is a retired marine corps veteran, the first female mayor of Kendalville, and a cancer survivor.
To end the night, Handshoe spoke for approximately 23 minutes in a powerful speech discussing her life and her battle with cancer.
“I was notified a few years ago that in 1979 at my first duty station of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, I drank contaminated water for over 14 months, and multiple myeloma is one of the presumed diseases from contamination,” Handshoe said. “I never dreamed the career that I loved so much serving this great country would make me so ill. However, I have absolutely no regrets.”
Mayor Handshoe https://t.co/tIsXavRZAQ
— IPFW MoJo (@ipfwmojo) September 6, 2017
Mayor Handshoe was recommended to Cancer Services by Dr. Chitneni of Parkview. Like Robin Hixson, Mayor Handshoe said the organization made her experience with cancer a little easier.
Hixson said she respects everything Cancer Services does because they have a really big heart.
“I just want to applaud everybody involved in Cancer Services. This is my first event here and I will be back for many more,” Hixson said. “They put on a great show and I am very happy to be a part of it.”
Online Learning Continues to Grow at IPFW
More college students are choosing laptops over lecture halls.
According to the Online Learning Consortium, a continuous growth and enrollment in distance education, in spite of decreased overall enrollment, marks a substantial transition in contemporary learning.
The newest study from Babson Survey Research Group indicates the growing trend, with 5.8 million college students or 28 percent of the college population currently enrolled in online courses.
At IPFW, distance education is experiencing proportionate growth.
“Overall enrollment has gone down a little bit,” said Assistant Director of Continuing Studies James Cashdollar, “while online enrollment has continued to expand.”
According to the Distance Learning website, IPFW provides 220 distance courses per semester, with four bachelor and three graduate degrees offered exclusively online.
Still, the Online Learning Consortium reports despite growth and expanded online programs, overall confidence among faculty members in distance education effectiveness is down.
Cashdollar doesn’t see it that way. Behind his standing desk he admits online learning has been stigmatized in some academic communities as less effective than face-to-face courses, but insists confidence among faculty at IPFW has only progressed.
Professor Adam Dircksen is the online course director for the department of communication. Before teaching online, he devised a thesis surrounding the ineffectiveness of distance courses. His experience teaching shifted that perception.
“If I were to have written my master’s thesis later, it wouldn’t have been an argument based on courses being ineffective due to a lack of interpersonal communication,” said Dircksen, “it would be online courses are more challenging to build connections.”
Dircksen said his present goal is to activate a sense of community in his online courses through strategic design and personal engagement.
“Building community in online courses is a lot of little things,” Dircksen said. “Video updates, smaller discussion groups, and weekly emails allow students to sense that someone is actually there.”
To compliment her busy work schedule, Jenna Fritz, a senior OLS major, said she has taken a third of her classes online.
Based on her experience with distance courses, Fritz considers certain subjects more effective when taught online than others. She said when it comes to online courses, small discussion forums and instructor input are key.
“I took some type of Photoshop class and I had no idea what was going on the whole semester. I had to email other students for questions,” Fritz said. “She wasn’t there for us.”
Fritz and Dircksen both suggest the importance of engaging students online through contact extending beyond basic correspondence.
“Online learning can encourage an instructor to find more creative ways not only to engage students,” Dircksen said, “but to distribute materials and design assignments.”
Dircksen said it will be the willingness of faculty to embrace and transition into the online format that will define course effectiveness. IPFW, he feels, is on board.
“We’ve grown tremendously in our online course offerings,” said Dircksen. “Faculty development of online courses is well supported here.”