MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2017
VOLUME 80, ISSUE 1
/ www.deltacollegiate.com
Special Winter Issue Andy Rapp Retires Page 2
Things to do in the new year Page 4
Tri-City Hotspots Page 6&&
A majora misconception Page 10
2017 forecast Page 11
SVSU sophomore Samantha King visits the new Unwoven Light Exhibition at Marshall M Fredericks Sculpture Museum. Photo Credit | Jessica Sierocki Read the full article at www.deltacollegiate.com
Meet the editorinchief, josie norris
S
torytelling has always been a part of what made me, me. From playing pretend in the backyard of my childhood home, to scrawling incomprehensible narrative in a composition notebook, to documenting life and its stories with a camera, I was a born storyteller. However, I never knew how to turn that passion into a job. When I started at Delta, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I career path I wanted to follow. Then, two weeks into my first semester I joined the Delta Collegiate as a staff photographer and it clicked photojournalism was my way to continue telling stories. By the end of the year, I became photo editor, and since then I have been found snapping pictures all over at campus events, Delta Pioneers games, graduations, and local events and festivals. Meeting and photographing an array of members of the Delta community has been a highlight of my time here. In the fall of 2016, I took a semester off from Delta to work as a photo intern at MLive Media Group/ The Saginaw News and gained invaluable insight and experience, making me excited to come back to Delta and share what I’ve learned with my colleagues. Two and a half years after my first day at the Collegiate, I find myself at the helm of the talented staff as Editor-in-Chief, and I couldn’t be prouder of the work we do in bringing news and information to the Delta community. If you have story ideas or suggestions, send them our way! The Delta Collegiate is on Facebook, Twitter at @DeltaCollegiate and can be reached via email at deltacollegiate@gmail.com.
Division structure changes coming in May 2017 Ethan Moore
W
hen the current Vice President of Instruction and Learning ser vices, Reva Curr y, was hired in 2014, her priority was to examine the cost and the effectiveness of the current division chair model. Curry researched changes the college could make, and in the summer of 2016, Delta College administration decided it was time to implement changes to the academic divisions. “[The administration] felt like it was time to let the faculty be creative with how the academic divisions are set up. We really have just given them the directive and they’ve taken off with it,” says Curry. The changes include moving eight divisions down to five, which includes decreasing the number of division chairs to five and combining many existing divisions, such as math and science, into one. The divisions were discussed and agreed upon by faculty after committee meetings and meetings with the current division chairs. The Faculty Executive Committee started the discussion with administration and facilitating communication between them and faculty to arrive at the division model now in place. “We had meetings and a faculty forum to discuss the changes and talk with the chairs. We were given audiences with Goodnow and Curry where we talked about the new plans, while also making it clear there were certain aspects of this process that we didn’t like,” says FEC Chair Tim Allen. Nobody likes change, and the faculty here at Delta are no different. c “This new structure will take people out of their comfort zones a little bit.
The faculty will have to deal with the loss of friends in their divisions and the changes in culture, but we’re hopeful the new divisions can mesh and help facilitate through the change,” says current Social Science Chair Laura Dull. The Division changes have caused a bit of friction between administration and faculty. Certain faculty members have been critical of the administration’s timeline and communication throughout this process. “The first deadline for this change came way too late in the game. From not knowing during the summer if this was going to happen to ‘Oh by the way, we’re implementing this,’ on the day before classes start, many faculty were in shock to put it mildly,” says Allen. Dull had similar feelings. “The timeline throughout this process has been a little frustrating. There hasn’t been any sort of financial pressure like ‘We need to do this now to make payroll,’ and so the faculty feel like they should have more time to figure this all out, but you could also say the speed has made it less painful, almost like a band-aid,” says Dull. Dave Peruski, the former dean of teaching and learning, believes the speed with which the process has happened actually has helped the process along. “I think the velocity by which we’ve done this restructuring has allowed people to have to move quickly and not dwell on the negatives that come with this. We’re getting everything done that needs to get done, so it can’t be all that bad,” says Peruski. Continued on Page 3...
Perspective shifts on feminine hygIene products Phoebe Fries
E
fforts in making feminine hygiene products more accessible to women has been growing in popularity across the country. Last summer, the New York City Council decided to supply all of its public schools with free feminine hygiene products. Brown University recently launched a campus wide initiative to provide the school with free feminine hygiene products. Now Delta College is joining the movement to provide its female students with hygiene products. Nancy Kramer, an entrepreneur and the founder of freethetampons.org, spoke to the Collegiate about women’s hygiene products in public settings. “We did a pilot in New York, prior to the measure being approved, in regards to free hygiene products. This trial run actually increased attendance by 2.4 percent. That increase was made just by providing students with free tampons” says Kramer. “I honestly think that if men had periods then we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. It is a basic human need, tampons and pads are like toilet paper,”
Kramer says. “They are products that attend to normal bodily functions that we have no control over. But the people in charge of stocking public restrooms have historically been men and they have no experience with menstruation.” Kramer says the situation dealing with tampons in public restrooms hasn’t gotten better, but worse over the years. “I think that people try to squeeze out cost, the stocking of dispensers becomes problematic given the operational cost of them breaking. So people have just taken them out. Hopefully, by talking about this issue, we are turning the tide regarding tampons being seen as a necessity,” says Kramer. Delta Students Join the Conversation
Colin Dole, student at Delta College, thinks tampons should be provided because they are a sanitary need. “As a male, I am provided toilet paper in the restrooms at Delta. That product Continued on Page 9...