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r i a f f a ’ e v i t i s o p ‘A Jake Miller/Iowa State Daily

Blood drive collects many donations to aid Ames community By Lissandra.Villa @iowastatedaily.com Alexandra Peterson, a recent high school graduate, was driving the same route to work as she would any other day. She drove over a hill where a waiting line of cars caught her by surprise. She swerved left, nicked the last of the waiting cars and spun into the other lane where another vehicle collided with her car. She was pronounced dead at the scene. A few minutes later, however, the civilian watching over her noticed movement. “I was trying to breathe,” Peterson, now a sophomore in agricultural business, said. Peterson was immediately taken to the hospital, where she said she underwent emergency surgery that would save her life but cost her 14 units of blood. Emergencies like Peterson’s are the reason behind hosting blood drives. The ISU Blood Drive puts on two drives a year — once in the fall and once in the spring. The spring blood drive ended Thursday. Kenny Wade, one of the co-directors for the blood drive, said 1,824 units of blood were collected throughout the week. “Now I know how important it is,” Peterson said about donating blood, although she herself has been unable to donate. “Since [the accident], my family has been involved with the Red Cross.” The ISU Blood Drive, which began Monday, had a slow start, according to volunteers. Wade said the blood drive managed to collect more donations than the rest of the Big 12 schools.

“I think it went pretty well. We started off a little slow,” said Mark Vormezeele, the executive in charge of volunteers. “We came back strong on Wednesday and Thursday.” The number of units collected Thursday was 564, Wade said. The spring blood drive is historically slower than the fall blood drive. This year, due to changes to Greek Week, there were concerns the blood drive would see a decline in a number of donations. “I think the blood drive was a smashing success, compared to what we projected,” Wade said. “We thought we were going to take a much larger hit due to the new Greek Week rules, but we turned out to actually meet our goal I believe.” Wade said the goal was about 1,800 units of blood. Students — which Vormezeele said spent an average of half an hour to an hour and a half donating, depending on how much traffic there was — had different reasons for donating. “We have Greek Week, so [I was] trying to support my fraternity,” said Patrick Holstad, freshman in pre-architecture. Kevin Cheng, sophomore in psychology, said he donated blood for extra credit in one of his classes. Vormezeele said that in addition to the donors, the blood drive saw approximately 600 people who contributed by way of volunteering. “This is one of the only organizations where you can actually save lives,” Vormezeele said. The greek blood drive competition winners — a contest hosted exclusively by the ISU Blood Drive — will be announced this weekend. The ISU Blood Drive is run by students in association with the American Red Cross, Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center and LifeServe Blood Center.

Amy Cappel, junior in business management and member of Sigma Kappa, donates blood during the blood drive Tuesday. Her donation was a part of other Greek Week donations.

Noah Cary/Iowa State Daily

Donors snack on crackers, cookies, water and juice after donating blood at the blood drive Thursday. Donors made up only part of the effort — 600 people also signed up to volunteer.

Yanhua Huang/Iowa State Daily

The blood drive is set up in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union every fall and spring. This year, more than 1,800 pints of blood were donated by students in the course of the week.

Greenlee’s new major breaks enrollment record By Dominic.Spizzirri @iowastatedaily.com

Iowa State Daily

The greek community conducts a fundraising event, Polar Bear Plunge for the Special Olympics, on April 6, 2013. The greek community successfully raised about $133,000 last year.

Polar Bear Plunge moves to State Gym due to ice By Makayla.Tendal @iowastatedaily.com Every year, members of the greek community dive into icy Lake LaVerne as part of the Greek Week Polar Bear Plunge event to support the Special Olympics. Breaking the usual tradition, the 18th Polar Bear Plunge has been moved to the State Gym pool this year. It will take place from 3 to 6 p.m. today. “Basically what happened is we went to look at Lake LaVerne to get it ready for the plunge,” said Maggie Gehrls, general co-chairwoman of Greek Week and senior in interior design. After the Story County swimming and diving team inspected the lake, the decision was made that the low water temperatures would pose as a safety issue for the

rescue team who must stay in the water the entire three hours while participants take the plunge. “The swimming and diving team didn’t feel the lake was safe for jumping into and said that it would be too cold for their divers to be in for that long,” Gehrls said. The ice was initially broken for the plunge, but the weather has caused the water to refreeze, forcing the event to move. “We made the executive decision to move it inside, just because we didn’t have all the right resources on such short notice,” Gehrls said. “We were obviously expecting [Lake LaVerne] to be thawed out.” The Polar Bear Plunge is Greek Week’s premier philanthropic event. Gehrls said she and the other general co-chairman of Greek Week, Brent Sexton,

are both very eager for the event. “I’m excited to see everyone participate and [have] fun,” Sexton, senior in animal science, said. Sexton also said the event is still supporting a great cause. It’ll be different, but he feels it won’t change the overall event. Both Gehrls and Sexton are happy to help raise money for Special Olympics Iowa. “Special Olympics Iowa is such a great cause, and we love seeing the athletes come out and how happy it makes them,” Gehrls said. Last year, the event raised $131,000, and the goal for this year is $142,000. They are $10,000 away and believe that they will reach their goal by Saturday.

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The Greenlee School of Journalism has had a 15 percent increase in students since last year, due largely to the recently added public relations major and the school’s focus on avoiding student debt. Both journalism and mass communication and advertising have had two years of near record-breaking enrollment with 721 students currently in the school. About 120 of those make up the new public relations major. So far, Greenlee has 91 incoming students for next year. This number is only surpassed by the School of Computer Science at 135 and psychology at 100 incoming students. That is an increase in students compared to fall 2013, which had a total of 605 students — 409 in journalism and 196 in advertising. Originally approved in fall 2013, the public relations major became popular quickly but did not affect the other two majors within the school. “People who are coming into the

school to take public relations are coming into that degree. Our journalism numbers are as strong as ever; our advertising numbers are as strong as ever,” said Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School. The major was brought in because of the interest in public relations as a career and the Greenlee School having all the required courses to have the major. “We have always taught public relations in the school,” Bugeja said. “[It] only seemed natural to go for a degree so that students who want that profession can have a degree showing it.” Erin Wilgenbusch, senior lecturer and the Public Relations Student Society of America adviser, explained how advertising the major was easy since the school already offered all the courses and how it got a lot of attraction from current and incoming students. “We’re putting a name to something we’re already doing,” Wilgenbusch said. “That’s a lot easier to market.”

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Veishea Service Day sets high goals for 2014 event By Tanner.Judd @iowastatedaily.com Veishea at Iowa State is one of the ten best college festivals in the nation, according to collegemagazine.com. Before Veishea week even starts, students have the chance to begin the celebration and help their community in a variety of ways. Veishea Service Day is Saturday and takes place all over Ames. The event includes a wide range of service projects for ISU students to do to help the Ames community. “Veishea Service Day is a great way for students to give back to the community and university,” said Karl KernsCQ, Veishea president and senior in animal science.

Some of this year’s events include picking up trash, building trails, volunteering at an animal shelter and helping preschoolers at Ames Community Preschool learn to read. “This year, we really worked on getting as many projects as we could. This year, I think we have 15 or 16 different projects,” said Addison KistlerCQ, campus community involvement co-chairwoman with Veishea and senior in accounting. “Last year, there were under 10 [projects], so that was our main goal … to have that variety and attract a wider range of people.” Kistler said that she believes having more events makes this year’s event more unique than last year. Both Kistler

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