Daily Egyptian

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Daily Egyptian WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2015

DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM

SINCE 1916

Creepy critters come back to Marion Carnegie Library

VOL. 99 ISSUE 76

New program will promote alcohol moderation Chase Myers | @chasemyers_DE

of Children and Family Services. Plus, he told the Journal-Register, his own situation with the state government isn’t completely resolved: Scheina retired three years ago after a 25year career in state government. Most of that time he worked at DCFS. He said that during his career he’s held positions that were both union and non-union. “I think it’s important that the retirees also understand that these negotiations have an impact on their future also,” Scheina added. “Our medical and dental and vision care benefits could still be on the table.”

Four out of five college students drink alcohol and of those who do, half consume alcohol through binge drinking, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. With the help of a $30,000 NCAA Choices Alcohol Education grant, the new SalukiChoices program, a collaboration between the Student Health Services, Saluki Athletics and the Department of Health Education and Recreation, plans on informing the student body of the dangers of alcohol abuse. The grant will fund a number of videos, social media usage and other outlets for getting the message across, Dawn Null, wellness coordinator for Student Health Services, said. “The purpose of the SalukiChoices program is to create positive change on campus by fostering harmreduction behavior,” Null said in an email. “We hope to reduce the number of SIU students who misuse alcohol, thus enabling students to flourish academically, personally and professionally.” While discouraging alcohol consumption altogether seems unpractical, SalukiChoices focuses on moderate use of alcohol against binge consumption, she said. “Abstinence from alcohol is simply not realistic on a college campus,” Null said. “Wellness takes a harm reduction approach. Harm reduction simply means that we try and meet a student where they are in terms of alcohol use or misuse and educate and encourage that student to move toward safer behaviors.” Although the grant is not one of the larger sums the university has received, it is still sizable and will ensure harm reduction programs without using student dollars, she said. The Student Health Center worked in tangent with Saluki Athletics when constructing a grant proposal for the grant, Kathy Jones, senior associate athletic director, said. “We sat down and looked at the best practices in terms of grant proposals that had been approved,” Jones said. “We then brainstormed ideas about what we thought would work on this campus. It has to be a whole campus effort, but it has to include student athletes as a component.” She said the amount of drinking, drunk driving and negative outcomes of drinking are large issues on SIU’s campus, as well as other campuses. “Data shows students tend to think that everybody else is drinking more than they really are and they sort of drink to keep up, so part of it is to get out the message that there are a lot of people that aren’t drinking,” she said. “There are other ways to have fun.”

Please see RAUNER | 2

Please see ALCOHOL | 2

Above: Serengeti Steve pulls an anaconda out of its box during his show Monday at Marion Carnegie Library. The anaconda was the smaller of the anacondas owned by Serengeti Steve, who said only the girls get big. “I feed the big one bacon … whole bacon” he said. Anacondas, the largest snakes in the world, can grow up to be about 20 feet long and 550 pounds. Other animals were put on display such as a tarantula, an alligator, a few types of lizards and a scorpion. D anyelle G reen @ DGreene _De Right: Catherine Frick, 6, holds an Albino Nelson’s Kingsnake during Serengeti Steve’s show Monday at the Marion Carnegie Library. The nonvenomous snake was the first critter introduced at the show. Audience members were allowed to hold and pet the snake after answering some questions about it. There are about 3,100 species of snakes in the world, and “five out of the ten deadliest snakes live in Australia,” said Serengeti Steve. D anyelle G reen @ DGreene _De

Rauner administration could call in National Guard, retired workers to fill positions in possible worker strike Caitlin Wilson | Reboot Illinois Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and his aides are eyeing the end of the month-long American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees contract extension with caution. If a new contract agreement isn’t reached by July 31, the union could choose to strike and leave state government, already operating with no budget, with considerably fewer employees. As a final stopgap, the governor’s office has been calling retired state workers to ask if they would be willing to return to their old jobs if the current workers strike, the State

Journal-Register reports. And the Illinois National Guard could be called in to fill in empty positions, says Statehouse Bureau Chief Kurt Erickson of Lee Enterprises. Both measures are seen as crisis-averting by the Rauner administration, but are receiving some push back from the very people asked to help. The Journal-Register reports that calls from government offices, asking former state workers to resume their old posts, have received mixed reactions. One man, David Scheina, said that he was “appalled” to be asked to “cross a potential picket line” and go back to his job at the Department


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