ALEX FREEMAN looks to pass to a teammate in Drake’s 1-0 loss to Evansville on Sunday at Cownie Soccer Complex JOEL VENZKE| PHOTO EDITOR
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Wednesday Oct. 01, 2014
Campus Calendar Wednesday The Sussman Lecture Series: A Conversation with Céline Cousteau: From the Amazon to the Oceans to Iowa 7-8:30 p.m. Sussman Theater
Thursday Drake Theatre presents “Square One” by Steve Tesich 7:30-9:30 p.m. Studio 55, Harmon Fine Arts Center
Friday Lorentzen Hatchery Presentations 9-11 a.m. Sussman Theater Natural History Mobile Museum 12-3:30 p.m. Fine Arts Parking Lot
Saturday Women’s Tennis hosts the MVC Individuals All day Roger Knapp Tennis Center
Sunday Sussman Fall Leadership Conference 12-5:30 p.m. Olmsted Center
Inside
Senate
Campus News
A closer look at crime around campus Political Review approved Austin Cannon
Managing Editor austin.cannon@drake.edu
Grant Haase had just returned to his apartment on the night of Sept. 15. He lives in the Drake Court complex on 25th Street, across from Drake Diner. About 10 minutes after he got back, Haase, a senior musical theatre major at Drake University, heard what he thought was four gunshots. “At first I was like, ‘Oh, fireworks. OK, whatever’ … Then I heard the two more,” Haase said. Haase is the son of a firearms instructor, so he’s been around guns for a significant part of his life. He was nearly positive that the sounds he heard were not fireworks or a car backfiring. “I know what a gun sounds like,” Haase said. A short time later, a friend who also lives at Drake Court warned Haase not to go out because shots had been fired. That erased what little doubt Haase still had, and he started to spread the word, warning his friends that were still on campus. The Des Moines Police Department arrived at the scene almost immediately, supported by Drake Public Safety. That marked the beginning of a busy week for both departments. On Sept. 17, a man was shot outside of the Platinum Kutz barbershop two blocks east of Drake’s campus on University Ave. Then, in the early morning of Sept. 20, another man was shot in the parking lot of the McDonald’s on Forest Ave., directly across the
street from campus. Neither shooting was deadly, and neither of the victims Drake students, but three incidents in one week caused concern from students, parents and staff about how safe Drake really is.
Notification
Back on Sept. 15, Haase acted under the impression there wouldn’t be a Bulldog Alert from Drake Public Safety, so he posted about the incident on Facebook. As it turns out, there wasn’t a Bulldog Alert, so some people relied on his status update as one of the few sources of information about the apparent gunshots. Director of Drake Public Safety Scott Law had his reasons for not releasing an alert. DMPD canvassed the area but didn’t find any slugs, shell casings or bullet holes. There was no physical proof that someone fired a gun. “We don’t want to put out information that we can’t verify as being true,” Law said. “By no means am I saying that students or the individuals didn’t hear what they heard, simply that we couldn’t verify it at the time that it had occurred.” Haase was perturbed that there was not a warning of some sort after, so he had multiple people confirm they too heard the shots. “Even if that facts are saying otherwise, we heard it,” Haase said. “We can say this happened.” Even if the facts weren’t verified, Haase, who also said he has nothing but respect for DPS, would have still appreciated some sort of notification.
News Take a look at this year’s candidates for Iowa elections PAGE 2
Opinions Check out this week’s installment of Bulldogs without Borders PAGE 5
Features Learn about what it’s like to go to school with a sibling PAGE 9
Sports Drake announces role in Iowa Coaches’ Mentor Challenge PAGE 11
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER FOR DRAKE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1884
How safe is Drake?
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Police and Campus Crime Statistics Act mandates that universities release Timely Warnings. Universities also have to submit “Clery reports” to the federal government that document the instances of crime that occurred in and around their campuses over the past year. The 2013 reports came out yesterday. DPS reported 16 burglaries, two robberies, one aggravated assault, five motor vehicle thefts and three sex offenses on and near campus. When compared to two similar sized universities in Midwest cities — Creighton and Butler university — Drake’s statistics match up closely. Burglary was the biggest problem for Drake, but not so for the other schools. Butler reported four and Creighton only cited two. Butler reported zero robberies while Drake had two and Creighton reported four. Numbers were relatively low for sex offenses, Butler and Creighton reported four compared to Drake’s three. Drake and Creighton each had one case of aggravated assault. Butler reported zero such cases.
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“Not even an alert, not even a warning,” Haase said. “Just a heads up.” Law is of the opposite opinion. He worried that too many alerts would cause students to stop reading them and miss important safety warnings. “That’s a huge concern to me,” Law said. “We want to make sure that our students know that we’re not wasting their time or we’re not sending them things that we don’t know to be factual.” DPS sends out two types of notifications, Bulldogs Alerts and Timely Warnings. Bulldog Alerts, or Emergency Notifications, are sent out when there is an immediate danger on or near campus. In both the Sept. 17 and Sept. 20 shootings, Bulldog Alerts were sent out to tell students to stay away from both crime scenes. Bri Varela, a junior elementary education major, has seen improvement in the frequency of the Bulldog Alerts. “I didn’t feel like we got enough alerts last year,” she said. “This year I feel like they’re trying to handle it a lot better.” Timely Warnings are sent out when there is no immediate danger to the campus community. So far this semester, three Timely Warnings have been sent out regarding a robbery on Aug. 31, a sexual assault on Sept. 8 and two car arsons near campus on Sept. 12. Simply put, Timely Warnings are deigned to notify the Drake community so it can take the necessary precautions.
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Cole Norum
Staff Writer cole.norum@drake.edu
On Thursday, Sept. 26, the Drake University Student Senate voted to allocate funding for the girl’s dance club, men’s soccer club and the Drake tennis club. Senate also approved two new student organizations, including an LGBTQ advocacy group. Five candidates for first-year senator also attended the meeting, each speaking briefly about their qualifications and what they’d like to accomplish if elected. “As first-year senator, you take your goals and responsibilities as they come,” said candidate Trevor Matusik. “My number one goal and my number one priority is to always have my first-year peers in mind.” The candidates discussed their platforms, each based on continuing their active engagement with organizations and fellow students as well as tangible goals. Each candidate touched upon the lack of coin dispensers in residence hall laundry rooms, alluding to local businesses growing upset with students asking for handfuls of quarters. President Joey Gale welcomed the candidates’ input. “It’s always inspiring to hear from fresh minds,” Gale said. The Senate unanimously approved One Voice and the Drake Political Review, two new organizations created by students to cater to needs of the student body they felt have not yet been met. Both groups sought approval by the senators to move forward in their goals of promoting advocacy and awareness. The Drake Political Review will communicate an eclectic representation of student voices on non-partisan political issues, according to an official statement. The group aims to host events and forums on a wide array of issues directly affecting students. One of the issues mentioned was rising tuition costs and general college affordability, topics any student can discuss regardless of political knowledge or party affiliation. “We can discuss both sides of the issue while remaining nonpartisan,” said review member Susanna Hayward to the senators. In addition to approving the Drake Political Review, senators voted to approve Drake University’s first LGBTQ advocacy group, working alongside the support group Rainbow Union to promote an environment of increased inclusion.
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Drake University, Des Moines Vol. 135 | No. 5 | Oct. 1, 2014