PAGE 4 | MONDAY, JULY 14, 2014 | THE BALL STATE DAILY NEWS | BALLSTATEDAILY.COM
NEWS
Freedom Bus to teach about civil rights Ball State students to create, build ideas in immersive course
FREEDOM BUS
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CHRISTOPHER STEPHENS CHIEF REPORTER castephens@bsu.edu
Almost 60 years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus, a group of students are using that same tool, a decommissioned public bus, to tell the story of Muncie’s contributions to end racial inequality. The Freedom Bus, created from a donated MITS bus, will bring together students from several majors, including theatre, telecommunications, architecture and education, to create exhibits for a mobile museum. Beth Messner, an associate professor working to recruit students, said the goal is to teach central Indiana residents about the local heroes who shaped the movement for racial equality in Indiana. Most people, she said, believe the fight only happened in the south where Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks fought for equality. “It is kind of [a misconception] to think that simply because we live in a place that is north of [the] Mason-Dixon [line] there wasn’t segregation,” she said.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY BETH MESSNER
The Freedom Bus project began in 2005 when MITS donated a retired bus to the MLK Dream Team for the mobile museum to teach about the civil rights movement. Students will create designs for the exhibit through Ball State immersive learning courses, highlighting civil rights leaders and the local heroes in Muncie.
She said the Freedom Bus will teach children in area schools about central Indiana’s heroes like Ray Armstrong, the first black man elected to public office in Muncie in 1951, and Robert Foster, who in 1956 became the first black principal in of a desegregated school in Muncie. “[Children should] know there were people that were like King and Parks who lived in their own community, whose stories are equally important and whose work made possible the lives they currently live,” she said. The project began in 2005 when MITS donated a retired bus to the MLK Dream Team. The team worked with Minnetrista to garner a $10,000 grant from the Community
Foundation of Muncie. The project is supported by other donations from local residents, churches and school children, according to the project’s website. Ball State students who work on the project will spend a semester creating designs and exhibits that will eventually be placed on the bus. Messner said these types of projects, ones that provide 15 credits, are the largest in terms of scope for immersive learning projects at Ball State. The hardest part, she said, is finding 15 credits worth of classes for students coming from many different areas of study and levels of completion toward their degree. She said the worst part of her job is find-
DN FILE PHOTO CHRISTOPHER STEPHENS
ACLU ASKS HOLDER ABOUT MARRIAGES
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Attorneys on Friday asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to step in on behalf of hundreds of same-sex couples who were wed before a federal appeals court stay. The letter by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana asks Holder to issue a statement that the federal government will recognize the marriages as he did in Utah and Michigan, which would make Indiana’s couples eligible for federal benefits for married couples. The ACLU’s move comes the same week that Gov. Mike Pence’s office said the state wouldn’t recognize the same marriages. Separately Friday, the 7th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago combined Indiana and Wisconsin’s gay marriage cases and set them on an expedited schedule. –
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
brings a special knowledge and a special skill set,” Messner said. “So it is about everyone stepping forward when it is their time to shine and following along when they need to. It’s magic when it works.” What is most important to her, she said, is teaching students to learn for themselves, something that immersive learning does best. “[Immersive learning] is not just about learning real world experience — that is a part of it — but learning how to do the kind of self-reflection that is a part of that process,” she said. She jokingly said her idea behind immersive learning may even be considered heresy by fellow professors — allowing students to teach themselves.
SPONSORS
•M artin Luther King Jr. Dream Team (Susan Fisher, chairperson) •M uncie Human Rights Commission (Yvonne Thompson, executive director) •C ity of Muncie (Dennis Tyler, mayor) •C enter for Peace and Conflict Studies, Ball State University (Larry Gerstein, director) Source: MLK Dream Team
“Sometimes, the things that they discover are even more powerful when they learn them on their own,” she said. “I think that also sets a person up to be a self-directed learner in the future and that is the ticket to life success, right there.”
FRAUD: Daniels to look over university’s internal review
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Jennifer and Joyce Smith say their vows June 26 in Muncie. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to step in after Gov. Mike Pence’s office said the state won’t recognize any of the same-sex marriages.
ing a perfect candidate, only to learn there is no way to fit the project into their degree. Matt Bailey, project manager for the Building Better Communities Fellows Programs, works with Ball State professors and community members to create immersive learning projects. He said projects that are 15 credit hours are rare because they magnify the hurdles faced by creating small projects. However, the scope of what can be accomplished by a semester-long class is often worth the struggle, he said. Another hurdle faced by the Freedom Bus project is getting students from many different backgrounds to work together. “That is the magic of it, though, because everyone
As an immersive learning course, students will create the mobile museum. Fall 2014: Students will research and design prototypes. Spring 2015: The group will test exhibits and seek grants to pay for professionals. Fall 2015: Students will create and install exhibits. January and February 2016: The bus will debut for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and at Muncie’s Black History Month kickoff event.
She will review the case and look for changes that can be made to better strengthen internal controls and prevent any kinds of fraud in the future. “There are no absolute safeguards, but there are best practices,” Taylor said. “The external folks the board will bring in will really [see if] those are the best approaches.” After uncovering the fraud cases, the university put in place new checks and balances, said Randy Howard, vice president for business affairs and treasurer, in an interview with The Daily News in June. An example is that the investment office cannot purchase a security from brokers unless they are on a university preapproved list. Taylor said the new review will look through the university’s past investments, to double check what he is confident was a thorough first internal review.
The U.S. Attorneys’ Office contacted Ball State in September 2011 about the university being a potential fraud victim, prompting an internal review. Ball State’s review uncovered two cases from 2008 and 2010 that involved investments made by Gale Prizevoits, former director of cash and investments. “She signed contracts that the university didn’t even know existed,” Howard told The Daily News in June. In addition to hiding these contracts from the university, he said Prizevoits had misrepresented what was in the contracts, going in and changing “the nature of some of the investments in the investment records.” After the review, Ball State handed the information over to the U.S. Attorneys’ Office to investigate the potential fraud cases. These ongoing investigations lead to the arrests and sen-
tencing of what Taylor called “two of the major players.” George Montolio, 48, of New York was sentenced March 7, 2013, to three years in prison for defrauding the university after receiving some of the money from Prizevoits’ $5 million investment with a company called Blackhawk. Recently on June 5, 38-yearold Seth Beoku Betts of Florida received a sentence of four years and three months in prison for separate fraudulent investment contracts he made with Prizevoits, totaling $8.165 million. Montolio and Betts were ordered to repay the university for $3 million and $8.165 million, respectively. “What happened was really awful,” Taylor said. “Everyone involved — the university and the board — is sick that it happened. Unfortunately, these things do happen. ... There are unscrupulous people who commit criminal activity.”
FRAUD CASES 2008
$8.165 million Gale Prizevoits, representing the university as director of cash and investments, entered into three putative contracts with Seth Beoku Betts of Betts and Gambles. The contracts, dated July 3, July 24 and Dec. 9, totaled $8.165 million for buying collateralized mortgage obligations and selling them to make a profit. Betts received a sentence of four years and three months for defrauding the university. APRIL 27, 2010
$5 million Once again, Prizevoits created a putative contract — this time with Blackhawk Wealth Solutions Inc. for $5 million. The contract states the company would get federal Treasury STRIPS, with Ball State receiving 25 percent of the net profits. However, $3 million of this money found its way to George Montolio of New York. He received three years in prison for defrauding Ball State.
SIBLINGS: Astronaut brings piece of Ball State to International Space Station | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Space Station, flying up in a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan, where he got to talk with a man who indirectly set him on a course 200 miles above the Earth. That man himself had traveled 238,855 miles from Earth in 1969. “I did make a request to have a phone call with Mike Collins because he wrote that book,” he said. “So I was able to get his phone number and call him in his home, and we just chatted.” Kevin said getting to be miles over his planet made him ask himself daily, “How did I get here?” “You can see the city lights, the lightning and the clouds down below and the sea of stars above you,” he said. “You can see it change so fast, just the way the sky is moving around you. It really makes the Earth look small. It looks and feels like a quarter-mile track.”
DIVERGING PATHS
As Nancy and Kevin grew up, they ended up pursuing different interests, drawing inspiration for their lives from their family. Nancy, who went back to school after raising five children, received her degree in English education at Ball State, while Kevin pursued a career in aviation. “I was really drawn to aviation from a pretty young age and that was because my older brothers were both interested in it,” Kevin said. However, a book he took from David’s room changed his life forever. To this day, Kevin can still remember the opening paragraph of “Carrying the Fire” by Michael Collins, a story about the Apollo 11 moon landing. “It was the first book I read to the end and turned right back to the first page,” he said. “There are [not] too many books I have read twice in my whole life.” It wasn’t the fact Collins was part of Apollo 11 that attracted Kevin, but rather his career as a fighter pilot and a test pilot. When David took Kevin on his first flight when he was 13, it solidified Kevin’s desire to fly. Less than four years later, Kevin earned his pilot’s license. He graduated from Blackford High School in Hartford City, Ind., earned an engineering degree at Notre Dame, enlisted in the Air Force and eventually became a test pilot, which led to applying for the astronaut program. He was turned down three times before he was accepted. “I was 40 years old already by the time I became an astronaut,” Kevin said. “It’s not one of those things that you can race towards after college.” In 2000, he got accepted for candidacy. “I lucked out,” he said.
ROCKET MAN
In 2002, Nancy went to Florida to visit Kevin at his new job as an official astronaut. She had the chance to meet John Young, the ninth person to walk on the moon, and Rick Husband. Husband would later command the Space Shuttle Columbia when the shuttle’s heat resistant tiles failed and the shuttle disintegrated, killing the crew in 2003.
NO DISTANCE TOO GREAT PHOTO PROVIDED BY NANCY RICHARDSON
Siblings Nancy Richardson and Kevin Ford pose for a photo at a presentation in November 2013 in Montpelier, Ind. Ford became an astronaut at 40 years old.
« Yclouds ou can see the city lights, the lightning and the down below and the sea of stars above you.
You can see it change so fast, just the way the sky is moving around you. It really makes the Earth look small. It looks and feels like a quarter-mile track.
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KEVIN FORD, a Hoosier astronaut “That was really personal ... [because] Kevin had spent a lot of time with all them,” Nancy said. “He had to do the flyovers and take the families to the funerals. It was just really difficult for us.” It wasn’t until 2009 that Kevin was finally able to pilot a space shuttle and go into space for the first time. The liftoff gathered all of his friends and family but for one — “Kevin’s biggest fan,” David. A year earlier, David died from pancreatic cancer. Nancy said David, the man who inspired Kevin and was the first person to place him in a cockpit, shared many similarities with Kevin. “They were so much alike,” she said. “On the phone, I couldn’t tell them apart and their
writing was almost identical.” In his first wakeup call in space, Kevin honored his brother and his state by playing the IU fight song.
UP ABOVE
Kevin has been up in orbit one more time since the 2009 mission, his family always nearby for his launches and returns. “They really like to know the details,” Kevin said. “If I mention something like, ‘Hey we are going to have a really high beta angle with the space station,’ my sister, Nancy, can tell you what that means. I think it kind of rubs off on them.” His most recent mission was from late October 2012 until March 2013 on the International
Sitting in her office, Nancy thumbed a pendant around her neck and pointed to a framed Ball State T-shirt with four patches pinned to the bottom of it. “That’s the Ball State shirt Kevin took with him into space,” she said. Kevin said before a mission, he had visited Nancy and their father, who died recently in June, at the university for lunch when he mentioned that he needed a Ball State T-shirt. He had a specific type in mind, a 100-percent cotton red T-shirt with a Cardinal head on it. “We were having a hard time finding it, and so we finally ask the guy at the store and explain it to him and he goes, ‘Well how picky are you, man?’” Kevin said. When the Fords were checking out, Kevin told the employee why he had been so specific about the shirt. “I said, ‘Maybe, you’ll see it in the magazines someday,’” he said. “I’m not sure he believed it.” Upon his return after the space trip, he gave the shirt to his sister. Nancy then pinned all the patches from his missions to it. The last one is seen dangling, about to fall. “He designed the last patch,” she said. “I say I help him, but I was just there with him. Since he was commander, he got to design it.” Kevin took the design to a jeweler to craft a pendant based off it, Nancy said. After it went up with him on his mission miles above the Earth, he returned to hand it to her. “He’ll always be my little brother,” Nancy said, thumbing the pendant.