LH Feature Magazine April 2014

LH

The Little Hawk Feature Magazine April 11, 2014

FEATURE

AIR ANGELO ONE STUDENT'S HOOP DREAM

BY ANTON BURI

The Little Hawk Feature Magazine

April 11, 2014

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NOT FAR FROM THE TREE

FACING FACTS: SEXUAL ASSAULT

ON THE COVER: AIR ANGELO

By Caroline Brown

By Daniela Perret and Olivia Parrott

Austin Berry ‘14 and Jacob Buatti ‘14 are both following in their father’s footsteps next year as they pursue careers in music and medicine.

Rising awarness of sexual assaults has forced high schools and colleges to reexamine their policies regarding victims and perpetrators.

By Anton Buri In the winter spirit assembly, Angelo Jackson ‘16 had his moment in the spotlight when he dunked in front of the school. Here’s the story you may not have heard.

Senior Edgar Thornton is spending six months in Monrovia. He recalls a small revelation mid-SAT test.

WWW.THELITTLEHAWK.COM

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OUR MAN IN LIBERIA: AN ESSAY

photos by Kierra Zapf/THELITTLEHAWK

A Teacher Profile:

Casey Wilmesmeier

“

I wish more students would give languages a try and not limit themselves to just one. Try another one out!

From the time the scared seventh grader walks into their first German class at Southeast Junior High, to when they’re an AP German student going on the Germany trip, Casey Wilmesmeyer, known as “Frau W.” to her students, is there teaching and guiding them the whole way.

“I teach the beginning level to the advanced level and I see kids come in knowing no German, and by the time they graduate I see how fluent they’ve become,” Wilmesmeyer said.

Learning languages has always been an important part of Wilmesmeyer’s life, always coming easily to her. From taking Spanish in high school to double majoring in Spanish and German with a minor in Portuguese during her career at the University of Iowa, Wilmesmeyer has always immersed herself in languages.

German, her third language, is her favorite and is the language most important to her because of her German background, and her fascination with the culture. However, her passion does not stop at German.

“I wish I had more time, I would learn a lot more languages,” Wilmesmeyer said.

If given the opportunity, Wilmesmeyer admitted she would learn Turkish, French, and Swedish because of how fascinating all of their cultures are to her.

“

By Lilly Reitz

For Wilmesmeyer, the connection between a culture and it’s language is the most important part of language learning.

“You can come to understand a culture so much better if you know their language,” Wilmesmeyer said. “And people tend to open up to you more when you know their language.”

For Wilmesmeyer, communicating with others using their language is a hugely important part of global relations and showing compassion to those in other cultures.

“We live in a global world,” Wilmesmeyer said. “To keep global relations going around the world, it’s important for us to reach out to other countries using language.”

Almost as important to Wilmesmeyer as the culture of a language is the cognitive perspective that learning a language has to offer. Learning languages is a great skill to have for Wilmesmeyer, and she believes that learning languages is a great way to make connections in your brain where there weren’t connections before.

“It just really opens you up to a whole new aspect of learning, culture and brain use and everything that you wouldn’t see otherwise,” Wilmesmeyer said.

This language-cognition connection is part of what inspired Wilmesmeyer to start teaching German, to light that language-cognition fire inside a student’s brain. Although her initial plans

were different, Wilmesmeyer is glad she chose teaching.

“I originally wanted to be a translator, but translation is a very lonely job,” Wilmesmeyer said.

Considering herself a very social individual, the social aspect of teaching is part of what drew Wilmesmeyer in after deciding the loneliness of translating was not for her.

“I found that teaching is a very social thing, and I’m able to spend my time communicating with people instead of isolating myself,” Wilmesmeyer said.

Wilmesmeyer loves the impact that teaching makes, although she wishes she could get one message across to students more effectively.

“I wish more students would give languages a try and not limit themselves to just one. Trying another one out,” Wilmesmeyer said. “I feel like a lot of other times, German isn’t on a students radar because in the United States, we don’t focus on language learning as much.”

As she teaches, Wilmesmeyer hopes that she can influence students to love language learning as much as she does, because of how greatly important they are to her and the world, and the impact they make on your life.

“Languages are something you can carry with you through your life forever.”

April 11, 2014 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE

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by Daniela Perret, Dominic Balestrieri-Fox and Marco Barenghi

4 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE

April 11, 2014

Though it has taken its place as “the most important meal of the day,� breakfast is a meal that is often given little attention.

The food items that pass for breakfast vary from setting to setting, but among American teenagers, who often have little time in the morning to eat a larger meal, breakfast is usually stark, and consists of easy/toastable foods. In other parts of the world, such as Europe, breakfast is an earlier and longer affair, with many more elements. We present ways to improve your breakfast when you have a little extra time with three relatively quick and worthwhile recipes.

Crepes Ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour 2 eggs ½ cup milk ½ cup water ¼ teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons butter (melted) Toppings and fillings: -Nutella -Powdered sugar -Strawberries -Whipped Cream Directions: 1. In large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, eggs, milk, water, salt and butter.

2. Heat a greased frying pan over a medium-high heat.

3. Pour about ¼ cup of batter into pan or enough to cover pan and tilt pan in circular motion so batter

spreads into large thin circle.

4. Cook for about two minutes on each side.

Yogurt Cake Ingredients: 1 cup of white yogurt 3 cups of flour 2 cups of white sugar ¾ cup of seed oil 3 eggs ½ cup of milf 1 bag of yeast ¼ cup of chocolate drops 1tsp of salt 1tsp of oil Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix with an electric mixer egg yolks with sugar, until it changes color.

3. Add, keeping mixing,

yogurt, oil and salt.

4. Mount to froth the egg whites.

5. Add in the first bowl milk and yeast. Then add the mounted white part of the egg. put in the oven for 40 minutes.

very strong coffee. This will taste best when added to the sweetened condensed milk.

Add the milk to taste, and stir.

The coffee can also be chilled, over ice. When using a stainless steel filter, follow the filter instructions outlined by the manufacturer, but follow the same process.

Vietnamese Coffee Ingredients: 2 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk 2 Tbsp ‘Cafe Du Monde coffee with chicory’ Coffee Filter OR *BETTER* Stainless Steel filter Directions: Boil approximately 1 cup of water and add ever so slowly to the coffee. You should produce a small amount of April 11, 2014 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE

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Dirtying the

W

Waters

ith over 20 million pigs in Iowa there are over five billion of gallons of manure produced per year. (David Goodner, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.) The rain washes it through the corn fields, picking up extra pesticides and fertilizers along the way. Eventually all of these pollutants end up in the drinking water, where people fish and swim.

“I know the Iowa River is one of the dirtiest in the US,” said Eli Shepherd, ‘14. “And when fertilizer run-off gets into the Mississippi it goes down stream to the Gulf of Mexico, contributing to the dead zone.”

The dead zone is over 6,000 square miles near the Gulf of Mexico and is caused by all the pollutants that have run-off into the Mississippi River. All these chemicals end up in the gulf, causing the water to have little oxygen in it.

Without enough oxygen the fish and shrimp can’t live there, and end up dying.

Iowa is a main contributor to this dead zone.

However, Iowa is not the only contributor. Other midwest states such as Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota have also polluted runoff into the Mississippi.

“If Iowa does nothing to combat runoff pollution, why should Minnesota or Wisconsin?” Michelle Hesterberg of Environment Iowa said. “But if Iowa creates strict standards to clean up its rivers, other states will be quick to adopt the same policies.”

Iowa itself has over 470 polluted rivers and streams in Iowa that aren’t safe for fishing,

By Hailey Verdick

swimming, or boating, according to Environment Iowa.

Recently, Governor Terry Branstad passed the The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy. The bill aims to reduce the toxins in our water. The plan requires only voluntary efforts, still leaving many rivers open to pollutants. Hesterberg says that big companies who fight for less environmental regulations influence Branstad to have less water requirements in Iowa.

“The result of their influence is a plan that relies on voluntary practices,” Hesterberg said. “It doesn’t come close to providing our rivers the protection they need.”

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is responsible for keeping the water sources in Iowa in check. The DNR has certain levels of pollutants the water is required to meet and are expected to test the waters for these regularly.

“The Iowa DNR is made up of a lot of people who either have invested monetary interest or are actually part of industrial agriculture,” Shepherd said. “There’s not a lot of movement there because they’ve got it where they want it.”

Most of the chemicals in Iowa’s water aren’t toxic, such as nitrogen and phosphorous. However, they do create a problem because they growth in algae. This is a problem for the aquatic life and makes the lakes and river unsafe for swimming.

“Without a doubt,’ said John Olson, Iowa DNR. “Iowa has some serious issues regarding the quality of its streams, rivers, and lakes.”

April 11, 2014 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE

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BREAKING OUT OF THE MOLD: Feminism in the 21st Century

By Lilly Reitz

art by Neil Harte

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LH FEATURE MAGAZINE April 11, 2014

As the third wave of feminsm takes over, feminsim is changing and becoming more and more crucial and helpful for the female population.

A

fter more than 100 years of women fighting for equality, the world finds itself in the midst of the third wave of feminism.

Although feminists have been fighting for more than a century, the stereotypes of feminists being anti-male, anti-religion, man-hating, bra-burning, militant, women extremists are still prominent in the minds of many. However, these stereotypes do not accurately represent third wave feminists.

“I wish people understood that, on the baseline, it’s just equality,” says feminist student Natasha Finnegan-Kennel ‘15. “There’s a line that gets blurred between equality and trying to put down one gender.”

Finnegan-Kennel is a strong feminist here at City High, embracing the third wave of feminism and trying to make a difference.

The three waves of feminism are broken up by three separate time periods. The first, a 1920s suffragette fighting for the right to vote, all the way up to the 1950s housewife fighting against her patriarchal implemented gender roles. The second wave, from hippie women at Woodstock to 1980s feminists fighting for equal pay and reproductive rights.

Now, we are in the midst of the third wave of feminism, where feminism is more socially acceptable, with men starting to jump on the bandwagon. In this third wave, women are fighting against sexualization of themselves in the media, the fight against rape culture, and recovering from the failures of the second wave.

“We’re a lot better off,” FinneganKennel said. “But we still have a long

ways to go as a gender and a race.

In the third wave of feminism, a lot has changed since the last two waves.

Women have significantly more rights than when they started fighting more than 100 years ago. Much of what women have been fighting for in recent years is less for political rights, and more for being treated equally.

Despite this, as Finnegan-Kennel said, women still have a long way to go.

We’re a lot better off. But we sill have a long ways to go as a gender and a race.

– Natasha FinneganKennel “Feminism is an active and ongoing process,” said Rekha Basu, feminist journalist for the Des Moines Register.

Since the beginning of the third wave of feminism, Basu has been working toward women obtaining equal rights. However, Basu has noticed a bit of negative progress since the beginning of the third wave.

“I’ve seen some sliding back since the early days in the ‘70s, in the fashions that are marketed to women,” Basu said. “Like high high heels that kill your feet, ultra short skirts even for girls in middle school.”

This over-sexualization of women is one of the main issues that women have been fighting for in the third

wave. This over-sexualization stems from many things, the main being women being used as sexual objects to sell products or make money, where everyone can see women being displayed not as people, but as objects.

“Women need to be encouraged to stand up for themselves and value themselves, and society to value women,” Basu said.

Women being portrayed as objects as opposed to people is not only the reason for the over-sexualization that feminists are dealing with, but it also leads to the rape culture that many feminists have been fighting against.

Rape culture includes blaming victims for being assaulted, not taking allegations seriously, not believing victims and not prosecuting rapists.

“A young rape survivor contacted me and said my column standing up for her was the one thing that had kept her from committing suicide for many years,” Basu said.

“Because someone believed her.”

Many victims are put into the same situation as the young woman Basu was contacted by, and many feminists are working toward trying to make this rape culture nonexistent.

Despite all of these setbacks; oversexualization of women, rape culture, and a general disrespect toward women that many have noticed in this day and age, feminists have made a lot of progress and will continue to fight until men and women are equal and the patriarchy has been gotten rid of.

“If we’re not actively working to safeguard the progress, empower women and attack inequality and sexism wherever it crops up, we’re at risk of sliding back,” Basu said.

February 14, 2014 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE

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LIKE FATHER LIKE SON

By Caroline Brown

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LH FEATURE MAGAZINE November 2, 2012

Two City High students are leaving for college to take on the same careers as their fathers.

T

hree years ago, Austin Berry ‘14 stood in the bass section of Dr. Grove’s Mannerchor, surrounded by the school’s most talented male singers, and fell in love.

“We were incredible. I just remember thinking, I like this. I like music. I want to teach,” Austin said. “That’s the best Mannerchor I’ve ever been in, my freshman year.”

After singing since he was a toddler and playing trombone since age nine, Austin is headed to the University of Iowa to study music education, following the same career path as his father.

“Growing up and hearing all about it helped. Both of my parents went to Iowa. Just living here, I really like Iowa City,” Austin said.

Jim Berry decided to return to his alma mater and direct choir at the beginning of this school year. Coming in to teach as Dr. Grove’s replacement was not an easy start for either of the Berrys.

“The first half of school was really hard for me. I would hear people talking, comparing my dad to Dr. Grove. I didn’t have him as a teacher, since I wasn’t in his class I couldn’t defend him. That was hard,” Austin said.

#1 The Berrys

Though he has been a director at many other schools, after working at Bettendorf for four years Jim Berry confirmed that City High was the place he always wanted to come back to.

“He is the replacement. He lives and breathes City High,” Austin said. “It was always awkward at show choir competitions.

My dad would end up leaving his Bettendorf students and come over to Fourth Ave, and forget that he was teaching somewhere else.”

Though he was admiring Fourth Ave from afar, there were also perks to his previous job.

Jim Berry thought it was important to let his son figure things out on his own.

“One of the nice things about teaching at Bettendorf was that I wasn’t hovering over him. He got to spread his wings and do what he wanted to do. He made drum major, he made All-State, he did all those things without me,” Jim said.

Though he was inspired by his father, Austin was able to make his decision to teach music on his own.

“I think by the end of his sophomore year he kind of knew,” Jim said.

Though he is sure about music education,

Austin has yet to decide exactly what kind of music he wants to teach.

“He’s had great musical experiences as well as great vocal experiences. So he’s still kind of up in the air as to whether to do band or choir,” Jim said.

For Austin, it’s just the idea of being in music that has his interest.

“Marching band was really cool and jazz band competitions were fun. Everyone loves winning a Grand Champion show choir trophy.” Austin said.

It was being in mannerchor with Dr. Grove that finalized his decision to pursue music education.

“It’d be really cool to come back and teach here,” Austin said. “It’s just a possibility, but I’m assuming by the time I have my teaching degree some people will have left.”

Jim Berry jokes that Austin will be fighting Dr. Grove’s son for the job. Austin shares how he made the final decision to attend the University of Iowa.

“Pick somewhere that makes you feel like it’s a second home,” Austin said.

#2 The Buattis H

eaded to college at Creighton to get a degree in medicine, Jacob Buatti ‘14 is also following in his father’s (and grandfather’s) footsteps.

Jacob’s dad, John Buatti, is a Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Out of several schools that they visited together, Creighton was at the top of the list.

“It was a good fit,” John said. “They had a nicely structured program for pre-med and science. We both really liked it. It reminded me of Georgetown, where I went to college.”

Jacob was also pleasantly surprised.

“It just kind of happened. I’d never even heard of Creighton, but when I visited I really liked it,” Buatti said. “I can just jump right in. Most colleges make you major in chemistry or biology first, but at Creighton you don’t have to.”

In contrast to Austin’s advice, Jacob’s process for choosing his college was slightly different.

“I never think it’s a good idea to go to college or choose a career because of someone else. Remember to put yourself first.

That’s part of why I chose to go out of state. I thought it would be nice to get a fresh start,” Jacob said.

John’s father (Jacob’s grandfather) was also a physician, and a general practitioner.

“It’s kind of funny, my dad actually got into medicine after watching his dad work in hospitals,” Jacob said.

With so many family members working in the medical field, John thinks his son was naturally influenced in what he wanted to do. He recalls being influenced by his own father.

“I think Jacob knew by the end of his sophomore year.” John said. “Watching my father, I realized he worked hard, I saw that it was rewarding, and he got to help people. I really liked science. It wasn’t too hard of a choice.”

Jacob agrees that his family made his choice a little easier.

“My dad talks about work a lot. I kind of got a feel for how the hospital runs and what his work atmosphere is like. I’ve learned a lot about medicine and surgery,” Jacob said.

He also knows what a time commitment medical school can be. Though he is graduating high school with twelve years of education, Jacob is only halfway done.

“He has about fifteen years of training left,” John said. “College requires four years, and medical school another four. After that he has to pace himself through residency which usually lasts seven years.”

Once he is through with school, Jacob is looking forward to interacting with his peers, “I want to be working with patients, definitely. The people who work in labs are geniuses. I’m more of a people person,” Jacob said.

“I would love to do surgery some day,” Jacob said. “It’s pressure, it’s interesting. I would love that.”

Though it is a long road ahead, Jacob is looking forward to his future career.

“Science and medicine are always advancing. I’m excited to be able to do something that is always moving forward.”

U OF IOWA RESPONDS TO CALLS FOR STRICTER ASSAULT RESPONSE.

By Olivia Parrott

I

n the last few months, the sexual assault debate has hit the Iowa City community after the University of Iowa police reported eight sexual abuse warnings on or near campus. Up from two during the same time the previous years.

The issue became even more heated

when University of Iowa President Sally Mason made controversial comments regarding whether completely stopping sexual assault was a “realistic goal”.

In response, protesters have been speaking up.

“We are referring to [Mason’s] quote as

the catalyst, but it’s important to know that the organizing of the movement had started prior to that...we thought the comment was reflective of how the University hasn’t reacted historically and presently to sexual assault on our campus,” Stacia Scott, protest coordinator, said.

A RISE IN THE AWARENESS OF SEXUAL ASSAULTS HAS SPARKED A CHANGE IN HOW INSTITUTIONS ARE RESPONDING, BOTH AT THE HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE LEVEL

By Daniela Perret and Olivia Parrott Elizabeth Rook, founder of www. notinmynature.com, and Scott work with students and community members, such as County Attorney candidate John Zimmerman, to host meetings, rallies, and protests to gain student support and to keep pressure on the UI administration to handle sexual assault more effectively.

The University of Iowa did respond in March with changes to their sexual assault policies and handling strategies.

Mason has now established her Six Point plan which includes: crack down on offenders, increase support for survivors, improve prevention and education, improve communication, add funding, and listen more and report back.

The three primary goals of the plan are to prevent sexual assault from happening, to ensure that victim survivors have the support and the accommodations that they need so they know their resources, and to hold those who are accused accountable through a fair process.

“With [Mason’s] Six-Point plan, I think it’s great there will be more funding, resources and support for victims and more

punishment for the perpetrator, but I think it’s unrealistic for people in the community to think that the University can ever take measures to stop it completely,” future University of Iowa student Emma Greimann said. “That’s not within their power.”

However, Monique DiCarlo, UofI’s Sexual Misconduct Response Coordinator, believes changes found in the Six-Point plan have made advances.

“I think in the president’s Six-Point plan, she made a commitment to update the community, including the regents, on the Six-Point plan. And she [communicates] now by providing progress updates to her website - http://president.uiowa. edu,” DiCarlo said.

Regents had professed a concern of a lack of communication between Mason and the Regents after Mason’s controversial comments.

Rook created a student coalition partially through her website at notinmynature.com to raise student awareness and support of combating sexual assault. There are resources for victim support, statistics, and preventing and helping the cause.

Scott has created a Facebook page that includes over 550 community members, alumni, and students as they discuss rape culture at the U of Iowa. She also began a message conversation about the topic, initially inviting only 20 people. By the end of the conversation, almost 80 people had joined.

“This just shows how many people are interested in organizing and making changes on our campus to eradicate sexual assault,” Scott said.

To integrate the plan into campus, a student advisory group that would meet regularly with the President and Senior Staff is being assembled as part of the listening more and reporting back step.

“There’s a committee that met to review the 175 applications [for the committee],” DiCarlo said. “The plan is to have that group meet at least once before the end of the academic year.”

Also included within the Six-Point plan is a new online product, Every Choice, that uses specific methods and techniques for education by introducing situations of social norming, and scenario-based skill

building, with its primary focus on bystander intervention. In November of 2013, a committee reviewed four new online products on the market, and on December 20th of the same year, the committee recommended that the UI transition to Every Choice.

Every Choice will be installed in the fall of 2014, and it will replace Nformd, the UI’s current online training tool. “[Every Choice] also helps [the University] meet compliance requirements for prevention education that are in place with the federal government, and aligns with our priorities for campus education,” DiCarlo said. “I think it’s especially helpful because it uses real life scenarios and storytelling.”

Scott and Rook advocate for a plan that takes the crime through all its stages, a plan the UI has recently adopted through this SixPoint plan. Though they are pleased with the utilization of a second Nite Ride, Scott and Rook believe only teaching the victims on how to avoid sexual assault is part of the problem.

“We’ve found that a lot of organizations that take on a multi-tiered approach for both assault prevention education, and having harsh consequences for perpetrators and strong support for survivors are more effective at countering rape culture than if they were to only provide information on how to avoid sexual assault,” Scott said.

It is also unclear if there is a large increase of sexual assaults at the University of Iowa, or just an increase in reported sexual violations.

Sexual assault statistics are often inaccurate because of the lack of reported assaults to the ICPD, however UI sexual assaults are required to be reported to RVAP, which characteristically shows more cases of sexual assault.

The Jeanne Clery Act, which took effect in 1991, requires colleges and universities to communicate their security policies, keep a public crime log, publish an annual crime report, and provide timely warnings to students and campus employees about a crime posing any threat to students and campus employees.

Scott and Rook took issue with the timely warning section of the act, citing the language, now changed through the Six-Point plan.

“The way in which they were worded was focused solely on the victim and what the victim could do to avoid being raped in the future,” Scott said. “There was a lack of information about support services, sanctions for perpetrators, and prevention education opportunities.”

Students at the UI campus in midFebruary 2014, received two of these emails in one week, inspiring outrage.

Georgina Dodge, the UI Title Nine Coordinator and Chief Diversity Officer, worked specifically on reconstructing the wording of the Timely Warning emails.

“Timely warnings have changed significantly due to the

feedback from the Listening Session [held on February 27th]...if you look at an earlier timely warning and compare it to one that’s been sent out recently, you’ll be able to see those changes,” Dodge said.

To continue to give the University input, Rook also advertises Moral Mondays on her site, an educational rally which meets in the Pentacrest and drops letters at UI administrators’ offices every two minutes during the lunch hour to commemorate the span of time between each sexual assault in America. In the blog portion of the site, a “Story Project”, an event that may be hosted at the end of the year, invites UI students to share their story of sexual violation.

“Students can write anything they feel helps to take rape culture out of the extreme and bring it down to everyday experiences of people on our campus,” Scott said.

Contributing to the multifaceted approach, the University and surrounding areas have organizations which deal with victim survivors of sexual assault, and the entire recovery process. These organizations include WRAC (Women’s Resource and Action Center), RVAP (Rape Victim Advocacy Program), Office of the Ombudsperson, University Counseling Service, OSMRC (Office of the Sexual Misconduct Response Coordinator) and DVIP (Domestic Violence Intervention Program).

“We do think this is an effective measure at prevention on especially gender constructs, gender norms, and the existence of rape culture,” Scott said. “We really want to see [prevention education] increase, we want to see that be apart of the classroom experience, the campus experience, and to really see our students exposed to bystander intervention training.”

The main objective in implementing new and advanced ways of dealing with sexual assault is not out of sight at the University of Iowa.

“Our primary goal in our response to sexual assault is to help prevent an incident from occurring and to ensure that victim survivors are safe and supported,” DiCarlo said.

“This just shows how many people are interested in organizing and asking for changes on our campus to eradciate sexual assault.

– Stacia Scott

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notinmynature.com

A LOOK AT HOW ADMINISTRATORS ARE HANDLING ASSAULT.

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By Daniela Perret

lthough it seems that sexual assault is more prominent in the college level rather than high school, there have been countless cases of minors being assaulted, including students at City High.

“I think it would be, without question, one of the most serious possible offenses that could ever occur, it would be treated with the utmost care,” John Bacon, Principal, said of sexual assault happening at City High. “We would thoroughly investigate, make sure that we’ve provided every possible support that would be needed around a victim in a case like this. Any investigation like that would be taken very seriously.”

Although there has not been a case of sexual assault that happened on school grounds or at a school event, there have been cases in which students enrolled at City High had been sexually assaulted outside of school where the administration was involved.

“I have had students come to me who have been sexually assaulted, but not by other members from the building,” Wendy Jacobsen, Dean of Underclassmen, said. “The most recent was last year.”

In that case, a female student had been sexually assaulted by a member of the community and had reported the crime to Jacobsen.

“In that situation, we called the parents of the student, we called DHS because we’re mandatory reporters,” Jacobsen said. “And then we called the police.”

Because the perpetrator was not a City High student, most of the case was handled outside of school.

“School was kind of the place where the police interviewed the girl and it wasn’t handled here,” Jacobsen said. “Pieces of it were handled here, but that was mainly dealt with by the police.”

Sexual assault is considered a statutory offense in various jurisdictions.

“It’s a very serious issue, it’s not something that we as a school handle alone,” Jacobsen said. “The thing is, if a girl or a boy comes to us and reports that something happened, we have to report it. If a teacher were to hear something they typically would pass that along to myself, Mr. Bacon, Mrs. Dvorak or Mr. Jespersen.”

All high school faculty members are considered mandatory reporters. This means that if they know of a student that is being harmed in any way, they must report it to either the Department of Human Services, the police, and/ or parents.

“If a student comes to me and says ‘I wanna tell you something’ a lot of times I will say, ‘If you tell me that someone has hurt you, or that you are hurting yourself, I have to report it,” Jacobsen said. “There’s no secret keeping between staff and students.”

In a case where the perpetrator attends City High, consequences would include suspension up to expulsion. Law enforcement would be involved as well.

“I would say that if something had occurred outside of school, that the legal system would be involved and consequences would be such for a perpetrator that would not have the option of returning to school because of whether they’d be incarcerated or in a juvenile detention center,” Bacon said. “Those consequences are obviously most severe.”

Bacon feels that sexual assault awareness has improved in the past few years.

“I think awareness about this issue is positive, I know that there were recent demonstrations and much discussion at the University of Iowa along these lines,” Bacon said. “And that any case of sexual assault or sexual abuse, the victims I hope would always feel comfortable with coming forward and speaking up.”

U of I and IC victims share their stories from “Sophomore Year” ...I blamed myself, because I had a feeling he might have had some feelings for me even though he knew I was seeing someone and that I'm gay and don't even like guys romantically. I felt like I had led him on, and that's why he thought it was ok to do that.

It took me several months to understand that it wasn't my fault, it was his entirely.

I think the worst part though, is that he knows what he did and he couldn't even respect me enough to apologize... from “Not Unusual” ...Last Spring, I was walking my two small dogs and was standing on the corner of Market and Governor St. waiting for the light to change. It was the middle of the day. A car with three men in it pulls up to wait at the red light and one man in the back seat leaned out of the window and started barking at me. His buddies in the front seat laughed and egged him on. I was too shocked to react; the light turned green and they were gone before I realized that a grown man was barking at me because I was walking my dogs enjoying the nice weather. I turned around and took them home. I didn't walk them again without my partner for a month... from “As a Brother” ...I have a sister that attends the University as well and she has been raped twice since she started here...twice. Let that sink in.

As a brother, this makes me outraged. She feels she cannot come to anybody else, but me. That is the atmosphere the other students, the administration, and the community have created. It breaks my heart to think of all the people that must go through this experience and remain silent…

AIR

City’s Own ANGELOO00 Airness

By Anton Buri

M

ichael Jordan was cut from his school’s basketball team during his sophomore year, but he did not stop there. That 5’11” sophomore turned himself into the six-time 6’ 6” NBA champion whose silhouette is one of the world’s most recognizable symbols. Within the halls of City High struts a figure equally recognizable to his classmates; City High’s own “Airness”.

Angelo Jackson – or as many may know him, Air Angelo – is a student who participates in the functional skills program at City High, and was a favorite contestant at the annual dunk con-

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test during the winter spirit assembly.

Although he wasn’t crowned champion, his slam dunk elicited a powerful reaction from the crowd.

“Everytime he went up for a dunk, everybody’s mouth was open, waiting to see if he’d get the ball through,” Jamarty Hall ‘14, a member of the dunk contest and varsity basketball team, said. “When he got it through, the gym erupted.”

It took Angelo a few tries to complete the dunk, but that only strengthened the anticipation. The whole gym knew he could do it, and so did he.

“I just went up for the fourth try, and got it,” Jackson said. After each miss, he was encouraged more and more by

the crowd to complete the dunk.

J

ackson was born in Iowa City, but spent much of his life in Chicago, where he developed an interest in basketball. Jackson then moved back to Iowa City and attended South East Junior High. During this time his love for basketball grew along with an interest in anime. He likes to spend his time watching TV or on the internet exploring some of his favorite characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and Goku from Dragon Ball Z. In basketball, Jackson considers himself a center, and looks up to the Dallas Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitzki. Standing at about 6’6”, the same height as Michael Jordan, Jackson is hard to miss in the hallway.

B

ut something that many people may not know about Jackson is that not long before the assembly, Jackson had tried out for the sophomore basketball team, and did not make it. -- yet another parallel between him and Jordan.

“I was very upset,” Jackson said. “I was crying because I was cut from the team.”

The emotion evoked from the shortcoming caught the attention of basketball coaches Brennan Swayzer and Ryan Lee. Together, they had an idea.

“Angelo’s specialty is dunking the ball. He can dunk just as well as anybody else in the school can,” Swayzer said. “The spirit assembly came around, and we had the dunk contest, so I thought, ‘Let’s give Angelo a try’.”

Swayzer approached Jackson early on the day of the assembly and introduced him to the idea of dunking in the assembly.

“I was surprised, and a little scared,” Jackson said. “I thought, ‘what would Sonic the Hedgehog do?’ Sonic saves the world countless times. I knew sonic would do it, so I wanted to give it a shot.”

Even after agreeing to the idea, Jackson was having second thoughts.

“Right before the assembly I approached him again. He wasn’t so sure he would do it,” Swayzer said. “Then I told Mr. Bacon, ‘Just call him down out of the crowd.’ And that’s what he did.

Angelo came out, and he shined.”

After the event, Jackson was glad he did it.

“I felt great. I felt great, I felt great, I felt great,” Jackson said. “I learned about myself, and about taking risks.”

After the assembly, Swayzer and Lee decided to take the phenomenon a step further. They teamed up with Jacob Pajunen ‘15 to create t-shirts with a logo of Jackson mid flight, sporting his signature glasses, emulating the famed pose of MJ himself.

Jackson was as surprised to see these t-shirts as anyone else was.

“I was like ‘Oh my gosh! Oh whoa, whoa, whoa!’” Jackson said. “I was excited, and a little freaked out, like nightmare freaked out. It was unreal.”

The t-shirts were a success. They

are $11.00 with one dollar from each purchase going to Best Buddies. With over $80.00 raised for Best Buddies in the first round of sales, and more being produced, Jackson has become a school-wide symbol of accomplishment. Not only did he get his moment to shine amongst his peers, but he reminded everyone of what sports and these moments are really about - a vacation from any adversity or problems that one faces.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s home living situations or just a bad grade on a test, sports get you out of whatever you

were thinking about,” Hall said. “Just him (Angelo) getting out there and doing what he did, it not only shows his passion. From getting cut from the team to trying this in front of all these people, he has now shown that he can compete and do things that other basketball players can do.”

If interested in purchasing a t-shirt, talk to Swayzer or Jacob Pajunen by April 18th to place an order.

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THE LIBERIA CORRESPONDENT

A personal essay

by Edgar Thornton

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H

ow does someone look at the growing up in this developing nation and world? Are they shaped by how they compared to my own relatively where they are from? The people easy life. they meet? The experiences they have or She represents the most prosperous something else, something unknown? and highly educated group of Liberians, I have had the wonderful opportunity the Americo-Liberians. They were the to spend second and third trimesters in a class of freed slaves that settled Liberia.

West African country named Liberia. My I wondered about the tens of thoudad is a diplomat with the U.S. Embassy in sands of students that were not there. The the capital, Monrovia. It is a small coun- opportunities they have or don’t have and try with a population estimated to be 4.19 what their lives have been like. million people by the World Bank.

After that day while walking on the Liberia is a developing country that streets of Monrovia I started to notice faces many challenges ranging from pow- more and more of these missing teenagering the nation ers. They occupy to providing basic street corners and forms of health care. dark alleyways.

Just 11 years ago The Trading goods, I wondered about the Economist magaworking small jobs tens of thousands of zine rated it “the or just idling somestudents that were not world’s worst place where. there. The opportunito live.”

They were not ties they have or don’t Last fall I signed taking the test not up to take the SAT by choice but by have and what their subject tests college necessity. They did lives have been like. admissions exams not have the quality in Liberia. Going of education taken into the test I felt for granted in the the usual feelings of states. Many did not stress and unpreparedness. But instead I start, much less finish high school. Their was taking it in a foreign country that I experiences and issues are completely difbarely knew. ferent than my own. Their lives are fundaThere was one other student taking the mentally different than my own. exam. We sat in small desks in an open With that comes the humbling realizaair classroom with no lights, much less air tion that I will never truly be able to fully conditioning, and took the test. This was understand that girl taking the test with one of the best colleges in the country. me.

Afterwards, I thought about the othI may not be able to understand but er student there and the students that I’m now able to open up my perspective weren’t. She was there presumably to and see what that girl and many other Litry to gain admittance to a college in the berian teenagers and teenagers of many United States. Unlike her peers in the more different nationalities face everyday United States hoping to study abroad she that I don’t face just because I was born in was most likely looking elsewhere for ed- a western country. ucation because the resources in her own My perspective has been changed by country had failed her. I thought about this experience. What is your perspecwhat her perspective on life is. What her tive? experiences and difficulties have been

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Jason Schumann

L

ast spring I sat down with Mr. Schumann, who had been hired only a month earlier to teach at City. Over the noises of his five-month old daughter, he talked about why he left the law to become a teacher, the perils of teaching to the test, and more.

Last week, he caught me up on the first year. By Jacob Potash Which classes did you end up teaching this year? Three World History classes, one American Studies, and one Success Center.

You talked last time about liking to have your students do composition work – creating stories, creating songs, using conventional methods.

Have you continued to do that?

I can remember in one World History class, the students composed raps. One of them was about who I call the original gangster, Shi Huangdi. Just getting kids engaged and interested and utilizing different forms to express their learning in different ways. So I gave kids rhyming patterns of words related to Shi Huangdi, and using their understanding of who he was, they composed a rap. We did one in American Studies where they created a modern-day propaganda poster. It’s taking the history that they're learning and putting a modern spin on it, and saying, How is this relevant in my world today?

Is there a certain era or event in history that you’ve really enjoyed teaching, or that people have really felt a connection to? For me, with American Studies, I’m always going to go back to the Civil Rights era. Just because I think it’s one that all the kids can relate to, in terms of the issues relating to school integration, gay rights, Chicano movements, women’s rights. There’s all sorts of issues that at least a number of students can really latch onto and say ‘The advancements that were made during this era were ones that really have made a difference for me in my life.’

With World History, it’s a little bit more challenging to find those connections, because you're dealing with a more distant past. So just teaching them the ways in which changes evolved over history, and how these changes explain why their world is the way it is today – to the extent that I've been able to do that, that’s what I always try and point out.

So have you found this year that you've had to adjust your teaching style in certain ways when kids haven't responded to certain methods? Absolutely. You go in as a first-year teacher and you’re trying to formulate an identity as a teacher. As a teacher, you have a choice.

I always think about this. In order to get people to

Q&A learn from you and follow you, you have to make a decision: would I rather be loved as a teacher and be respected and have people do stuff for me out of respect for me, or do I want people to do stuff for me because they fear the potential repercussions if they don't do what I’m telling them?

I think you do have to have a blend of both. You do have to have kids understand the consequences of not following the expectations you’ve set out for the class, but also having this level of respect and “I’m willing to do this for you because you’ve shown me respect and I’m gonna reciprocate.”

Off the top of your head, can you think of an especially rewarding moment from the year, and then an especially challenging moment? There’s always rewarding moments in my class. The two that sort of stand out to me actually took place outside of class. Going on the leadership retreat with the freshman and sophomores – I thought that was a really unique experience because some students had never spent a night outside.

And then another one was getting involved in mock trial. It was a learning experience, [laughing] definitely for myself, and my wife, who’s involved, and then working with Chip was a lot of fun. We had a good group and that’s a program that Chip and I would really like to build and grow.

Let’s see, most challenging experience... [laughing] all the time! Just dealing with students who are not meeting the expectations, and trying to figure out why are they failing. Is it just that they're not engaged with the material or is there something going on at home, or are they coming to school hungry? There’s any number of explanations for failure.

We’ve missed a ton of school this year between the heat wave and the cold spell. Has that thrown a wrench in things? How does a teacher react to that?

As a first-year teacher, the days off were helpful, because it actually slowed things down for me and allowed me to do all the things that you have to do as first-year teacher that really keep you up late at night, that with a second- or third-year teacher you start to have that material built up. So, for me it’s been alright.

One perk of being a teacher is that you have the summers off. Are you planning anything special for this summer? Just relaxing! Spending time with my daughter. Right now my daughter goes to daycare, which has been fantastic, but I’m just really looking forward to spending some quality time with her. She’s just starting to learn to talk, so we’ll spend some time working on some of those skills. When you’re a teacher, you can never shut it off. My wife tells me all the time, ‘You’ve got to stop teaching her!’ I’m constantly peppering her with questions.

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