Issue 15, October 12th, 2017 - Grand Valley Lanthorn

Page 1

ST U D E N T- R U N P U B L I C A T I O N S // P R I N T · O N L I N E · M O B I L E // L A N T H O R N . C O M

GRAND VALLEY

A L L E N D A L E & G R A N D R A P I DS , M I C H I G A N

SEE A6–A7

SEE A9

T H U R S D A Y, O C TO B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 7 // VO L . 52 N O. 1 5

CAMPAIGN

Michigan possibly targeted by Facebook ads linked to Russia during 2016 presidential election BY ANNE MARIE SMIT NEWS@LANTHORN.COM

STRETCHING IT OUT: Students walk on GVSU’s campus Wednesday, Oct. 11. Frederick Antczak, dean of GVSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been pushing for some type of fall break for the last few years and calls upon CLAS faculty to give students a ‘breather’ the weekend of Oct. 21-22. GVL | EMILY FRYE

Burnout BY JENNA FRACASSI ASSOCIATE@LANTHORN.COM

I

t’s that time of the year again— midterm week. For many students, this is when sleep becomes a luxury and coffee becomes an ultimate necessity. The end of October is often a time when students start to feel burned out. At Grand Valley State University, students go 77 days straight from Labor Day break to Thanksgiving break. In an effort to make this long stretch easier to endure, Frederick Antczak, dean of GVSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS), has spent the last few years pushing for some type of fall breather. “In the absence of a formal fall break, and in light of the fact

GV community pushes for a fall break to fight student fatigue

that students face an unbroken 11-week trudge from Labor Day to the next break at Thanksgiving, fall breather is an invitation to faculty to shift homework away from the weekend before the last date to drop with a ‘W’—so, this year, Oct. 21-22,” Antczak said via email. “Fall breather does not call for faculty to reduce work; it only invites those faculty who find it possible to shift work away from this particular weekend.” The fall breather is not mandatory but rather a suggestion for CLAS faculty. Those who choose to participate are simply encouraged to give students a break from assignments for a weekend, but for now, the effort is only implemented within CLAS. The dates of the 2017

breather were announced in May to give faculty appropriate time to add it to their class schedules. Eric Harvey, assistant professor in the School of Communications at GVSU, said building in a fall break is “totally necessary.” “That run through September, October and most of November is pretty intense, and other schools have it where they give students a longer weekend, and I think students appreciate it, and faculty can easily work that into their schedule,” he said. Harvey said during the time of late October/early November, faculty frequently discuss the fact that they see different behaviors from students. “When you make a syllabus, you think about these things,” he

said. “You think not only about when are assignments due and how much work are you giving students during the average week, but then you also think, ‘So all right, once it hits November, there’s going to be a little bit of burnout there, and it’s completely understandable.’” To accommodate for this, Harvey said he allows “workshop days” for larger projects where no other assignments are due. “As a professor, you can definitely tell (that students are worn down),” he said. “People will miss class, or they will just appear tired, and so yeah, you definitely notice it.” When asked about the complication of fitting the break into the academic calendar, Harvey said the SEE BREAK | A2

POLICIES

GV updates lecture-recording guidelines to share with faculty BY KARINA LLOYD NEWS@LANTHORN.COM

Grand Valley State University policy states that students do not have a right to record in lectures without permission from the professors. While not all students may know this, GVSU maintains that recording lectures without consent is prohibited.

Edward Aboufadel, assistant vice president for academic affairs at GVSU, has been working on updating language pertaining to this policy and others on the Division of Inclusion and Equity’s “Expressive Activities & Grounds and Facility Use” webpage to share with faculty. According to a section addressed to faculty on this page, “Students do not have the right to record class-

room lectures and discussions without securing prior permission from you, but do have the right to take written notes (or typed notes on a computing device).” The issue the university faces when recordings are taken during lectures is the lack of consent from the professor and other students in the classroom or lecture hall. When a recording is made, it is out of the

ASK FIRST: Christina Platt records a lecture Tuesday, Oct. 10. According to GVSU policy, students do not have the right to record lectures in the classroom without getting permission from their professors beforehand. GVL | HANNAH ZAJAC

speaker’s control what the individual with the recording does with the information. While many students use their recordings to go back and take notes, there is the concern that the video or recording could be released online and the speaker will be taken out of context. “If you have a situation where there is sort of unfettered recording in courses, one problem you have is they are recording all the other students in the class, too,” Aboufadel said. “Perhaps the student will be quoted out of context; perhaps the professor will be quoted out of context. The faculty can get permission to do this, but the default is no.” As far as on-campus enforcement of this rule, it really comes down to the professor and students. There is no way for a professor to constantly monitor what students are doing and if they are recording. “Enforcement is through education,” Aboufadel said. “Faculty has some guidance now on what to say to students about this. ... Some faculty will choose to say, ‘It doesn’t matter to me. I’m going to tell students they can record; they should just go ahead.’ Others might just remind everybody of the default policy.” The student should ask for the professor’s consent before they begin recording, and the professor should make their answer clear to the class. If the professor does not give consent but the student needs to record because of a learning disability or for SEE LECTURES | A2

Michigan and Wisconsin, two swing states in the 2016 presidential election, were allegedly targeted by Facebook ads linked to the Russian government, according to reports released last week. Michigan, in particular, was a pivotal state in the election, with President Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both having visited Grand Rapids Nov. 7, right before Election Day. According to CNN reports, Facebook ads were purchased by Russia with the intent to sway public opinion in favor of Trump. These ads were said to have opposed many of Clinton’s campaign objectives, such as gun control and immigration, and to have contained anti-Muslim commentary. While Michigan and Wisconsin were suspected to have been targeted by Facebook ads, there still is no conclusive evidence that those were the only two states affected or whether they were deliberately targeted. Polly Diven, professor of political science and director of the international relations program at Grand Valley State University, said a broader investigation is being carried out by special counsel Robert Mueller and that the possibility for fake news campaigns to pervade social media sites should raise some red flags for students. “Whether or not Russia specifically planted fake news stories on social media during the 2016 presidential election, the potential for this is a growing concern,” she said via email. “We all need to be aware of the growing incentives for organizations to infiltrate social and other media with fake news.” According to Politico, out of the 4.8 million votes cast in Michigan, Trump beat Clinton by a mere 11,612 votes, and the results in Wisconsin were not far behind at 27,257 votes. In both states, Trump won by less than one percent. Whether the Facebook ads influenced the outcome in Michigan and Wisconsin cannot be definitively determined, but it opens the discussion on discerning the reliability of sources. According to the Pew Research Center’s “Digital News Factsheet,” 93 percent of Americans get their news from online sources. Diven’s advice for Grand Valley State University students is to stay informed but remain skeptical of ads and links shown on their social media sites, cautioning them against taking an article, photo or other digital media at face value. “My advice for how to combat (misinformation) is, first of all, to look carefully at the story to see if it is a ‘sponsored link,’” she said. “You can also test to see if the story appears to have an altered photograph, and you can check with Snopes (an online fact-checking resource) to see if it passes that level of scrutiny.” Diven suggested that students also check other sources and compare what they find, not relying solely on the information in one given source. She also encouraged students not to depend exclusively on social media for their news. “Overall, the best way to discern fake news sources is to diversify your news sources,” she said. “Look at a variety of reliable sources every day. Don’t rely on Twitter or Facebook as your only source of news. If a story seems suspicious, then don’t repeat it or pass it on without investigating thoroughly.”

www.lanthorn.com


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
Issue 15, October 12th, 2017 - Grand Valley Lanthorn by Grand Valley Lanthorn - Issuu