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Monday, May 4, 2020 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
McRobbie announces scenarios for fall
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By Luzane Draughon luzdraug@iu.edu | @luzdraughon
IU has planned five scenarios for the 2020-21 academic year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Thursday email from President Michael McRobbie. “It would not be realistic or even responsible to promise a full resumption of in-person activity in the fall,” McRobbie said. “This, of course, is the scenario all of us would most prefer, but it is also highly unlikely.” In order to resume university operations, there must be a combination of continued social distancing, virus and antibody testing, therapeutics, temperature monitoring and contact tracing, McRobbie said in the email. He stressed the importance of social distancing until a COVID-19 vaccine is developed. The five scenarios The first scenario would require reconfiguring courses and activities involving a large amount of people or close physical contact, according to the email. Laboratory classes and studio practices would also need to be modified to ensure proper distancing, numbers of people in gatherings and cleaning. McRobbie said the second scenario, a combination of inperson instruction and virtual teaching, is most likely, but that could change with new developments. This scenario has several variations, and IU officials will take into consideration students and faculty who are unable to attend class in-person, whether due to illness, self-isolation, special vulnerability to COVID-19 or travel restrictions. This scenario could involve classes offered both in person and virtually, according to the email. Some classes may be priSEE MCROBBIE, PAGE 3
Seniors had graduation in Animal Crossing By Joey Bowling jobowl@iu.edu | @joeybowling
IU graduate Brian Funk spent a week building furniture, creating decorations and designing the layout of the virtual island for a commencement ceremony in "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" to replace the celebration his friends couldn’t have. About 15 people attended the ceremony Tuesday. The game only allows eight people on an island, so some livestreamed the event on the group messaging app Discord. “It started out as a silly thing,” said Funk, who graduated from IU in December. “It's making the most out of a bad situation for a lot of people.” "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" is a portable game on the Nintendo Switch console, according to the Nintendo website. It’s a life simulation video game, where players have avatars to interact with their personal island, planting flowers, fishing and inviting game-created characters to live with them. Funk worked at University Information Technology Services in the Technology Consulting Center until he graduated in December. He and his coworkers became close, and he started playing Animal Crossing with many of them during quarantine. So when he heard they wouldn’t get a traditional commencement ceremony honoring their years of work, he decided to do something about it. “With everything being online, your semester’s just over,” Funk said. “There's no moment where it's like ‘I'm now done.’ I wanted to provide that moment SEE GRADUATION, PAGE 3
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Erik Stolterman Bergqvist, senior executive associate dean of the Luddy School of Informatics, holds a sign out of a car Thursday. Bergqvist participated in surprise parade for retiring professor Marty Siegel.
Surprise parade! IU community gathers to show their support for retiring professor Marty Siegel By Shelby Anderson anderssk@iu.edu | @Shelby_Andy_
Former students, coworkers and IU faculty celebrated IU professor Marty Siegel's retirement with a surprise parade of decorated cars, congratulations and music Friday, the day after his final online class. Siegel has worked as a professor and administrator at IU since 1991, and went on to serve as the first chair of the Informatics Department. He was the founding director of Human-Computer Interaction Design master’s program. “I know that for many of his students, he’s more than just a professor,” Doug Bauder, Siegel’s husband and former director of IU’s LGBTQ+ Culture Center, said. People dropped off presents and cards into a laundry basket, held by a person in a mask, to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Michael Dunn, former dean of the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, was driving one of the dozen cars that came out to celebrate Siegel. The parade was organized by one of Siegel’s former students, Susan Coleman, and some of her friends from informatics who still
work with Siegel. Siegel was still in his home office after his class when he heard the doorbell ring. His husband, Bauder, told him he better come and take a look outside. “I was totally shocked,” Siegel said. The two of them watched from their driveway as the cars drove past them and looped around to pass them again. Many of the neighbors in their cul-de-sac came out to wave as well, Siegel said. “We’re just so hungry for something good to happen,” Siegel said. Siegel said he considered teaching to be an amazing gift. It was very important to him that he saw his students as people who have struggles and responsibilities outside of his class, though he still held them accountable for their work. He planned rituals for his different programs to celebrate his students. The day after orientation for first year graduate students in the Human-Computer Interaction Design Master's program, they would follow a bagpipe player through campus until they arrived at the Herman B Wells statue. At the end of their first year, the ritual was recreated with a “rite
of passage” where Marty and his students would listen to bagpipe music while they sat in the forest together around a fire sharing their favorite memories of their first year. Siegel said he did this to prepare them to be mentors to the incoming graduate students for this two-year program. Siegel said he enjoyed preparing all of his students for their next steps, whatever they may be, through these sentimental rituals. “I wanted to both encourage and inspire them at the same time,” Siegel said. Bauder said they only began planning the parade on Monday. Originally he and Siegel were planning on going to Indianapolis to pick up a chocolate cake from Shapiro’s Delicatessen, one of Siegel’s favorite restaurants. Bauder said he sat in on Siegel’s last class and noticed that at the end of the class at least six students said “I love you, Marty.” Coleman first met Siegel in 2006 when he was the executive associate dean and hired her as his administrative assistant. She said they would often talk about user experience and the role of design
in everyday life. One day Siegel asked her when she was going to apply to the Human-Computer Interaction Design master's program. She did apply and completed the program after he encouraged her to do it. Coleman said at first she laughed, but ended up applying and would not have her dream job today as a program manager at a cyber security company if Siegel had not encouraged her to go back to school. When she was working as his administrative assistant, she would see students with doubts who were ready to quit school go to Siegel, and after talking with Siegel, they would have hope for their futures. “He asked if I would like to join him in changing lives,” Coleman said. When planning the parade, Coleman said she would get bagpipe music there even if it was just her holding a boombox to usher Siegel into the next phase of his life the way he did for her and so many of his other students in the HCI/d graduate program. “I just want him to know he is so appreciated,” Coleman said.
IU professor’s mask design to be manufactured By Lauren McLauglin lrmclaug@iu.edu | @LaurenM30831042
Jiangmei Wu, an IU assistant professor of interior design, started to design a better-fitting face mask using origami in January after a suggestion from her brother. Now, the improved design will be used by three business partners to manufacture masks for the general public. Tyson Rugenstein, senior technology commercialization manager in the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office, said Wu approached the office in late March so she could get a provisional patent and find commercial partners. The three partners so far have verbally agreed to use Wu’s design to manufacture masks, he said. Wu said her brother, who lives in China, gave her the idea. He called her in January to ask her to buy masks for him because there was a mask shortage in China. “He thought that I lived in a small town and that I would have no problem finding a mask,” she said. Wu said she could not find any online or in the stores. Her brother proposed that she instead use her origami skills to create masks using a design that was better fitting because typical three-pleat masks did not fit him well. Wu said she was hesitant about the idea because she rarely wore masks before the pandemic. However, after a friend lent her a mask, she decided to try to create her own. It only took her a few hours to come up with the first
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A mask design made by Jiangmei Wu, an IU assistant professor of interior design, is pictured. The design of the photo was made by M.A. student Christine Wang.
designs she thought worked, she said. Rugenstein said the difference between Wu’s design and others is that hers is that it has a rigid form, unlike masks with soft materials. Wu was able to obtain a provisional patent for that reason. The design is constantly improving, Wu said. She is researching materials to find something more effective than paper, which is what she used for the first design. She has been using items that have filtration qualities, such as
vacuum bags. “It’s an ongoing project,” she said. “It’s not done or finished in any sort of way.” She said she has been in contact with Meltblown Technologies, a company that manufactures and distributes spill control products. She said the company uses filtration technology that can be used for masks. The company has enough to fill large orders, so it is a potential material, Wu said. “I want something that is effective,” she said. “I don’t want to have something that is the equiva-
lent of a regular kind of mask.” Wu said she is also looking into custom masks for an individual's facial features using computer algorithms. Samaritan Biologics, a medical products creation and distribution company in South Carolina, used Wu’s design to create about 20,000 masks. Most have been given to the surrounding community. Jerry Chang, a managing partner at Samaritan Biologics, said he was interested in a mask for everySEE MASKS, PAGE 3