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Antoni Porowski of Netflix’s “Queer Eye” came to SU on Saturday night for a cooking demonstration, moderated discussion and student Q&A. Page 7
Syracuse University plans to hire 100 additional tenure-track faculty in its schools and colleges as part of its $100 million Invest Syracuse initiative. Page 3
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The SUNY-ESF Woodsmen team competes in timber sports, participating in events that require chopping wood with axes and cutting it with various saws. Page 12
state
Katko and Balter discuss education, taxes at NAACP forum
REP. JOHN KATKO (LEFT) AND DANA BALTER answer questions from the audience at a public forum Sunday held at the Living Water Church of God. Question subjects included poverty, support of President Donald Trump and whether the candidates have staff members of color. max freund asst. photo editor
By Casey Darnell asst. news editor
Congressional candidates Dana Balter and Rep. John Katko (R-Camillus) on Sunday took the podium inside the Living Water Church of God on Syracuse’s South Side to share their views on crime, education, taxes and poverty. Balter, a Democrat and political newcomer, is challenging incumbent Katko for New York state’s 24th Congressional District. At a forum hosted by the NAACP on Sunday night, Katko and Balter each
gave statements and took questions from the audience. The two candidates answered questions on poverty and crime in the city, education, the future of I-81, prison reform and President Donald Trump’s rhetoric. Keith Alford, director of Syracuse University’s School of Social Work, moderated the forum, asking questions that were submitted online and from an audience of about 30 people. When asked what she would do to combat poverty, Balter said she would focus on three areas: improving educational
opportunities, supporting affordable housing and expanding healthcare. “The quality of your education is tied to the zip code in which you live,” Balter said. “That means we are not setting up our kids for the best chance of success, for the best job opportunities, for the best economic future.” Balter said, if elected, she would work to expand federal funding for schools and affordable housing, make public colleges and universities tuition-free and raise the federal minimum wage to $15. She would do these by voting to
repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the tax reform bill signed into law last year, she said. Like Balter, Katko said he supports subsidized housing for Syracuse residents, and added that he will never vote to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. He voted against the Republican-backed repeal of the Affordable Care Act because the Republican Party didn’t have an alternative plan ready, he said. Katko, who called himself a “moderate, independent Republican,” has been see forum page 4
student association
SA promotes recognition of American Sign Language at SU By Gabe Stern staff writer
A long-standing push to recognize American Sign Language across all schools and colleges at Syracuse University could soon be put before the University Senate, pending signatures on a student interest petition launched by SU’s Student Association. If SA’s petition gets 250 signatures, ASL could be discussed by the Senate. A 250-signature petition is the “unofficial standard” for something to get talked about
at the Senate, said SA president Ghufran Salih, in a text message to The Daily Orange. SA is currently working on a report comparing the ASL policy at SU to policies implemented at peer institutions. SA leadership and Disability Cultural Center officials said they supported expanding ASL’s reach at SU. ASL is its own language, largely used in the Deaf community, in which people use hand gestures to communicate. It comes with its own culture and is one of many dialects of sign language across the globe, said
Kate Corbett, the Disability Cultural Center’s coordinator, in a newsletter. The School of Education is the only college at SU in which ASL courses count as language credits. The School of Education has historically been “progressive with disability issues,” Corbett said. When Corbett, who is Deaf, was a student at City University of New York Hunter College, she was not allowed to use her ASL credits to fulfill her language requirements because of the curriculum structure, she said. Instead, Corbett had to make up language requirements
with culture-based classes — which she said was part of the reason it took her seven years to get an undergraduate degree. “Some hearing person had decided what ‘culture’ entailed, and disability and Deafness were not a part of it,” she wrote in a 2017 newsletter. Disability Cultural Center Director Diane Wiener has long been an advocate for ASL to become an official language at SU. As the co-chair of the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Diversity and Inclusion, she said she’s seen support for the idea grow among administrators, including
Chancellor Kent Syverud. In 2016, the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Diversity and Inclusion recommended that ASL be eligible to fulfill language requirements in all schools and colleges at SU. Syverud approved the recommendation soon after. Wiener said that the task force originally wanted ASL to fulfill language requirements. In October 2018, Salih stood in front of the SA assembly and announced her support for making ASL an acknowledged language. After years of working with see asl page 4