Stolen car slams into bus carrying students

By ELLA YORK Staff Writer

On Jan. 28, while travelling on I-480, a stolen Kia Forte collided into a bus filled with members of the BW swim and dive team en route to their swim meet at Notre Dame College in South Euclid. The occupants of the stolen car were a 15-year-old Olmsted Falls female and a 16-year-old Cleveland male. Reports say that the female was trying to escape her pretrial home detention when she contacted the male who picked her up in the stolen car.

According to Laura WolffDemaline, head coach of the swim and dive team who was driving behind the bus at the time of the accident, the stolen car was swerving in and out of traffic before spiraling out of control and sliding in between her car and the bus. The Kia then drove into the guardrail before colliding with the bus.

“The two individuals – when their car came to a stop – they got out of their car and started running down the highway,” Wolff-Demaline said. “We saw the passenger and the driver jump over the median and start to run up the hill.”

After the individuals attempted to flee, a North Olmsted officer and a Fairview Park officer began pursuing them with the help of the bus driver, Wolff-Demaline said, while she made sure everyone on the bus was alright.

Mason Kooyman, a junior sport management major and member of the swim and dive team who was on the bus at the time of the collision, said that students became immediately aware of what was happening after feeling the impact of the crash.

“It pretty much just felt like a tire popped, and then all you hear is that screeching noise, and then you hear the car slam,” Kooyman said.

Kooyman said that the students on the bus immediately pulled out their phones to document what had happened. Kooyman said this allowed news of the collision to spread swiftly after the incident occurred, and that students were quick to speak with their family and friends and let them know they were safe.

“Everybody got up and started taking pictures and videos like it was a freak accident, I don’t know,” Kooyman said. “I would say after the initial event occurred, and we knew what happened,

Student Senate passes resolution on asynchronous election days

By CHRIS MORAN Staff Writer

With a nearly full audience in attendance at the Quarry Room on Tuesday, Feb. 3, the BW Student Senate voted on a resolution of opinion as part of an ongoing attempt to change classes on federal election days to be fully asynchronous, with the exception of labs and oncea-week classes.

Sophomore neuroscience major Hannah Dodson, a Brain Fellow and co-director of the on-campus civic engagement group Jackets Engaged, brought the issue to Student Government and appeared over video during Tuesday’s session to make her case for the resolution which, while non-binding, would serve as a recomendation to the University administration.

election days “when students are already busy.”

Dodson argued that asynchronous classes would give students time to vote, or potentially be involved even further in the democratic process, such as volunteering as a poll worker.

A survey, also made by Dodson, asked a series of questions to students in an attempt to gauge how having asynchronous classes on election day would help. Dodson reported those results in her video presentation to Student Government.

The survey found that 85 percent of student respondents reported that they would be “affected positively” by holding classes asynchronously.

… [the team] didn’t know how to feel.” While another bus was eventually brought out to take

“My work with Jackets Engaged and with the Brain Center through programs such as Brain Fellows has allowed me to see a major hindrance in getting students to be active in our country’s democratic process,” Dodson said.

The hindrance, Dodson said, is classes being held on

“I have gathered many personal stories from students who could not vote in the last election cycle because of their classes,” Dodson said. After Dodson’s video concluded, the Student Senate conducted a roll call vote in which the resolution was passed with the Senate voting unanimously in favor.

While the resolution has