LIFE CENTRAL MICHIGAN
ON GUARD TOGETHER
WEDNESday, OCT. 1, 2014 | MOUNT PLEASANT, MICH. | ISSUE NO. 17 VOL. 96
Life in brief HOMECOMING
SGA
Raising a question about inclusiveness By Rachael Schuit Staff Reporter
Medallion Hunt heats up Across Central Michigan University, the search is on.
Best friends since high school, Phillips, Ahmeti making most of experience as offensive linemen »PAGE 1B
Despite an announcement made Monday during Central Michigan University’s Student Government Association meeting, the addition of a question about LGBTQ student living preferences will not be implemented by Residence Life. “The incoming student residence hall questionnaire is not
being changed,” reads a statement released Tuesday by Shaun Holtgreive, executive director of Campus Life. “The Student Government Association had asked the Office of Residence Life to add a question about an applicant’s comfort with sharing a living space with a student who identifies as or is lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, intersex, asexual or queer.
“We had assured the SGA representative that we would review the request as it pertains to next fall’s residence hall questionnaire. However, we did not say it was approved.” Holtgreive added that the university has some specific concerns about the ramifications of the proposal – issues that would prevent them from approving the measure altogether. “We will be scheduling a meeting with SGA to review this decision,”
he said. “We regret any misunderstanding that led SGA members to erroneously announce that the question would be added. It will not.” The legislation regarding LGBTQ student housing passed last year was used as the impetus to try and have it implemented for the 2015-16 academic year. w LGBTQ | 2A
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A-Senate Senators tackle changes to classes on discrimination Academic Senate abruptly voted to adjourn its meeting on Tuesday after discussing changing the University Program Group IV-C guideline language. The motion to change the language is still active. Some senators felt the decisions were moving too fast, and they were afraid they would make a mistake. “This is huge,” said Joe Finck, a physics faculty member. “Making a decision right now, we may make a decision that we regret later.” UP Group IV-C covers “Studies in Racism and Cultural Diversity in the United States.” Classes included in this course must focus on “one or more of the major groups which experience both racism and invidious discrimination in the United States.” Group IV-C classes could also include courses that focus on groups that are discriminated against because of gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation. ASL 100, an introduction to the deaf community, the cultural aspects of deafness and the deaf community, was added to the group at Tuesday’s meeting. Currently, classes focus more on racism in the United States. Tracy Brown, director of the General Education Committee, said the group is meant to study the ethnic and racial diversity in the world and the U.S. Senators were quick to make a motion to change the language of Group IV-C course guidelines to include more classes like ASL 100. Some, like Nancy Eddy, a communications and dramatic arts faculty member, said the language of the course guidelines could limit classes that discuss other forms of discrimination. “I would say if I was going to offer a class on LGBT (discrimination,) this would be the category,” Eddy said. “It’s discrimination. If it doesn’t go into cultural diversity, where does it go?” Katrina Piatek-Jimenez, a math faculty member, said racial discrimination is important to study, but other forms are just as important. “While I do agree that discrimination due to race has been a huge problem, our country is changing,” she said. “Some of these other discriminations have been hidden or not spoken about.” David Smith, a philosophy and religion faculty member, said that he was shocked the discussion was going so quickly. “Not to disparage other forms of discrimination as worthy studies, but I believe it needs to be more than a discussion in the General Education Committee,” he said. “We need to have a discussion university wide.” Academic Senators will discuss sending the language changes back to their departments. It is still unclear if there will be action on the motion at the Oct. 14 meeting. Katherine Ranzenberger, News Editor
LIFE INSIDE EDITORIAL: This month, our community comes together in support of the cure »PAGE 4A
Month to remember
Katy Kildee | Staff Photographer Mount Pleasant sophomore Maddi Klause keeps the pink hat her mother wore during chemotherapy with a photo of her mom. Klause lost her mom to breast cancer. She plans on pinning a small square of the fabric to the inside of her graduation gown in remembrance of her mother.
Students share stories of support, loss in the fight against breast cancer By Sydney Smith Assistant Student Life Editor
When she was 11 years old, Maddi Klause began an exhausting journey of watching someone she loves fight for her life. “My mom was diagnosed when she was 37,” Klause said. “They told her they caught it early enough, but they did not.” October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a time to show solidarity with those who are fighting breast cancer. Pink, the official color of breast cancer awareness ribbons, serves as a reminder to show support for others and to get checked for signs of breast cancer. Klause’s mother, Sheryllin, was diagnosed with breast cancer, an illness that one in eight women will develop in her lifetime. She went through a double mastectomy, the removal of both of her
breasts. After the procedure and a few months of chemotherapy and radiation, the doctors told her she was cancer-free. About a year later, the cancer cells returned. This time, the cancer spread through her mother’s bones, which affected her ability to walk. Klause’s mother required a walker by the age of 39. Although the cancer had returned, she decided not to endure the pain of chemotherapy, and instead took a different route of treatment, traveling to Mexico for herbal treatments and following a very restrictive diet. “The breast cancer cells took over and attacked her brain by the time she was 41,” Klause said. “Two months after getting a brain tumor and refusing chemotherapy because of how it destroyed her body, she lost her battle.”
Showing our support
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ore than 3 million people living in the United States are survivors of breast cancer. Today – the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month- we celebrate those who have persevered through the disease and we extend an empathetic hand to those enduring it. For the second year in a row, Central Michigan Life has "gone pink," like so many other organizations around the nation, to raise awareness for breast cancer research, prevention and care. We encourage our students, faculty and staff members to learn more about breast cancer, its causes and ways to protect themselves and their loved ones from a disease that claims so many each year. We encourage them to visit University Health Services for information, or to visit the American Cancer Society website for tips on how to stay healthy. Most of all, we hope that our community can chip in whatever donations they can to the Susan G. Komen Foundation to help find a cure.
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My mom is much more than just a cancer survivor My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was in middle school. Some may say I was too young at the time to fully grasp what was happening, and I would have to agree with them. But I would also say it was something that has left an impact on my family. I was always optimistic about it. It never once occurred to me that my mom wasn’t going to be OK. But I was always very reserved about it, too. I think I felt if I kept my distance from the situation, I could handle and cope with it better. Everybody handles sickness in their own way, and if I could offer any advice to anyone in a similar situation I
Andrea Peck Senior Reporter would say the most important thing is to just offer companionship, offer friendship and offer love. Sometimes that’s all you can do. I don’t remember everything about what happened during that time, but I can say with certainty that some small details stand out with startling clarity. Crying and hugging my mom after she first told me, walking into the kitchen one
night to find my dad shaving my mom’s head because she was sick of her hair falling out; my mom asking me to put together a playlist of happy songs for her to listen to during chemo, the first Race for the Cure we walked after my mom was in remission. When it’s all said and done, I think my mom’s diagnosis was just a chapter in her life. She always emphasized to me and my sister that this was something that wasn’t going to bring us down, and it hasn’t. It will always be something none of us will ever forget, but it’s in the past. My mom, the complexities of her personality and her being, can hardly be summed up by
the two words “cancer survivor” and I don’t think she’s ever let it encapsulate who she is. She’s always been so much more than it. When someone in your family gets cancer, I’ve come to the realization that it’s either going to break the family apart or its going to bring them closer together. And my family was fortunate, because my mom is doing great today and so are we. As a daughter it is so indescribably painful to have to watch your mother go through something like that, but I now see my mom is a fighter and a survivor. Her diagnosis didn’t and still doesn’t define her. And she constantly amazes me.