Friday, Feb. 12, 2016 | Volume 211 | Number 97 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
Equality director forums advance Candidate Margo Foreman states qualifications Two ISU students share story of love that has overcome distance, sickness and adversity to build a better future together
By Carly.Reiser @iowastatedaily.com
J
ared Ramirez didn’t expect to meet the girl who would change his life when he logged into an online chat room and he didn’t expect cancer to be the reason they might never meet. Sharing the same type of cancer, papillary carcinoma, with the main character in the movie “The Fault in Our Stars” was the best way she could describe what she was going through to her friends, said Becca Furbeck, Ramirez’s current girlfriend. The movie was being advertised at the same time she was preparing for surgery. She became the real-life Hazel Grace Lancaster, battling cancer and falling in love with the man who was by her side through it all. “I was not so scared of ‘what if I die,’ said Furbeck, junior in food science. “It was what if I die and never get to meet him [Jared].” When the couple first met online four years ago, Ramirez, now a sophomore in elementary education at Iowa State, was weeks away from dropping out of high school and was overcoming depression.
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Emily Blobaum/Iowa State Daily
Jared Ramirez, sophomore in elementary education, and Becca Furbeck, junior in food science, have a photo taken together in the snow in front of the Campanile.
By Jake.Dalbey @iowastatedaily.com The third of four director of equal opportunity open forums took place Thursday at Hoover Hall. Margo Foreman, director of equal opportunity at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, spoke at 3 p.m. on campus about the issue of diversity and inclusion at colleges across the nation. Foreman also spoke about her qualities as a leader and a four-step strategic plan for Iowa State. Foreman began her speech by highlighting several aspects that equal opportunity workers and institutions should be following. “They should be initiating partners and collaborating with units across campus and creating measures to weave inclusion into the very fabric of this institution,” Foreman said. Systematic changes that would help students receive equal access to amenities and services, no matter the person’s race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc., was a large focus for Foreman. “The office should be implementing and monitoring employment decisions to make sure there is equitable treatment,” Foreman said. “That goes for the hiring process all the way to the retirement of an individual.” The difference between equity and equal was a talking point for Foreman as she explained her plan for diversifying staff and students. Foreman said equal means the same regardless of race, gender, etc., and equity is fairness to all, but not necessarily exactly equal. As part of her presentation, Foreman introduced her fourstep plan to create equal opportunities for the students and staff of Iowa State. Phase one begins with the phrase “first you then others,” as she said she believes equal opportunity professionals should lead the charge in change and be seen as leaders in the community. Foreman said she believes equal opportunity professionals should be “exemplary and commend-
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Academy teaches citizens Police Department to inform community on law enforcement By Alex.Connor @iowastatedaily.com Anthony Greiter, community outreach officer with ISU Police, remembers his first time answering a 911 call quite vividly. He was a dispatcher at the time, and a woman called to report that the toilet in her apartment was clogged and overflowing. He looked over at his trainer and said, “Are you kidding me?” His trainer’s response: “Welcome to Campus Law Enforcement.” The ISU Police Department, which consists of 35 certified police officers who commit to around-the-clock service on campus, does anything from getting into witty Twitter fights with the Iowa Campus Police, all the way to criminal investigations and threat assessments. “Especially as university police officers, we cover a variety of topics,” Greiter said. “We wear a
number of different hats.” On top of it all, the ISU Police Department annually offers an eight-week course in the spring known as the Citizen Police Academy (CPA). The first session of the CPA began 6 p.m. Thursday with about 12 participants total — a mixture of students, faculty and staff. “The ISU Citizen Police Academy is a great opportunity to learn more about law enforcement and the police department here at Iowa State,” the CPA website states. The academy seeks to inform participants about what life on the beat is like and offers a small glimpse on what law enforcement is all about. This includes driving in a police car, executing a search warrant, firearms training, use of force and more. “In order to give people a real idea of what we do as police officers and all the different aspects of our job, I try to bring in all the experts from all those differents areas,” Greiter said. For instance, when discussing firearms, the firearms instructor will come in and speak. When the academy goes over alcohol education, police officers who
patrol at night will come in. Greiter said that to decide on what to teach, he looks at what has been popular in past police academies and what people have most enjoyed and then compares that to some of the core things that they teach officers in training. As to why citizens join the academy to begin with, Greiter accredits the answer to two different sorts of groups: those who are seeking to go into law enforcement as a career and those who have a general curiosity. “There are kind of two camps — one group is the students that want to be involved in law enforcement and they want to see a more in-depth view of what we do,” Greiter said. “Then there’s also the group that doesn’t know what we do, or thinks they know what we do, but wants a better understanding.” Greiter said whether they’re curious in a positive sense or curious in a negative sense, it doesn’t matter to him. “I want people to know what we do,” he said. Lt. Elliot Florer, community outreach, has been leading the
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Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Scientists at Iowa State found a link between a gene in DNA and male infertility. This is one of the first big breakthroughs in more than 30 years in relation to male infertility. The discovery comes from a study of the survival motor neuron.
New discovery ISU researchers detect important link By Alex.Cory @iowastatedaily.com ISU researchers have discovered a link between a housekeeping gene and male infertility. The discovery was born from a study of the survival motor neuron (SMN), which is nicknamed the “housekeeping gene” because it’s needed for essential basic cellular function. Biomedical sciences professor Ravindra Singh’s
laboratory discovered that SMN was one of only a few genes directly linked to male infertility. “Our study is the first study in mammals where we can see that correlation,” Singh said. Singh added that since most studies on infertility were done more than 30 years ago, a new discovery was important. “Male infertility is a very big problem because it effects 5 per-
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