Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015 | Volume 211 | Number 16 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
Obama pushes for affordable education By Shannon.McCarty @iowastatedaily.com President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan met in Des Moines at North High School on Monday to ask questions about education access and affordability. The stop is part of President Obama’s continuous efforts to make college more affordable. The Obama administration has doubled investments in scholarships and made student loans affordable by cutting interest rates. Students are now also able to cap student loan payments at 10 percent of their income.
“I think that our colleges should be focusing on affordability and serving students,” Obama said. Obama and his administration have made efforts to “simplify” the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA. The online form received alterations allowing applicants to skip questions that are not relevant to them. Part of Obama’s education initiative that was introduced Monday will allow students to apply for the FAFSA as early as Oct. 1, as opposed to Jan. 1. Student applicants will also be able to electronically receive
tax information filed for an earlier year. “All these steps ... should help hundred of thousands more students pay for college,” Obama said. The change aims to allow students to apply for funding without having to wait until tax season. It is the president’s hope that if students know their aid eligibility sooner, it will allow students and families to better calculate the true cost of college. “No young person should be priced out of college,” Obama said. The College Scorecard website is also part of the initiative.
S t u dents and families can search different schools’ graduation rates, debt and student loan payback rates on the website. “Right now families don’t have all the information to Courtesy of the White House c h o o s e t h e President Obama’s initiative to expand opportunities for higher right school,” education starts with making the FAFSA easier for students. Obama said. Many groups are involved in Obama p4
Max Goldberg/Iowa State Daily
Valeria Silva shares her experience of a peaceful protest against political bigotry.
Protestors discuss weekend events By Adam.Sodders @iowastatedaily.com
Iowa State Daily
Associate professor James Colbert teaches a full Bio 211 lecture class in Design 0101. Many lecture halls around campus are full to the brim with students this semester mainly because of record enrollment of 36,001 students at Iowa State.
36,001 students creates new burdens for campus By Mitch.Anderson @iowastatedaily.com
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ecord enrollment means a record amount of strain not only on human resources, but also on Iowa State’s facilities. The 36,001 students on campus this fall is more than Iowa State has ever seen at the beginning of a semester. It’s the seventh straight year of record-breaking enrollment, and the ninth straight year the university has seen an increase from the previous year. With such a dramatic increase in the number of students on campus, students and faculty are seeing changes in a number of ways. Challenges are facility maintenance, classroom availability and scheduling. “The growth in enrollment has certainly presented some challenges as we accommodate more people on campus, and we’ve been making changes to deal with that,” said Warren Madden, senior vice president of business and finance at Iowa State. One change the university has had to make is increased custodial support in many buildings. Madden said that since so many students are going in and out of buildings for classes, restrooms can’t make it a full day without being serviced. “As a university, we’re consuming 30 percent more toilet paper than we were before,” Madden said. “I think that’s a combination of two things — one being more people, and also we’re finding that people are spending more of their day on campus. Things like that aren’t really a problem, it’s just a practical cost increase that comes with accommodating more people.” The university is trying to deal with the flow of students outside of the buildings as well. “We made some changes that we think are helping traffic patterns,” Madden said. “We’ve eliminated parking on Osborne Drive and that seems to have really improved the flow of people, bicycles, skateboards, et cetera. We’re trying it as a pilot project, but it appears to me that it’s successful.” Katie Baumgarn, coordinator for instructional facilities, added that a main cause for students to stay on campus longer could be that the university’s peak hours are beginning
to spread. “What we call ‘primetime’ hours on campus are classes that begin at 9 a.m. and classes that end at 3 p.m. and all classes in between,” Baumgarn said. “We are now starting to notice that more classes are being scheduled at 8 a.m. and after 3 p.m. as well.” A total of 214 general university classrooms exist at Iowa State, which only make up 4 percent of the total space on campus. Buildings like Snedecor Hall, Catt Hall and Beardshear Hall don’t have any classrooms, and many buildings have only a few classrooms or rooms that are used for classes unique to certain departments. “There have been conversations about adding classrooms with the Student Innovation Center when it is built,” Baumgarn said.
“The biosciences project and the addition to Bessey Hall will also create classrooms.” Another project coming next summer is the renovation of classrooms on the second floor of Pearson Hall, Baumgarn said, so those will be unavailable from the summer of 2016 to the fall of 2017. Baumgarn said with the frequent and extended use of classrooms, it’s important that they remain organized to make the transition to the next class as easy as possible. She laid out a few things students and instructors can do to keep the rooms organized: Keep the rooms the way they are and leave the furniture arranged the way it was before class.
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Emotions ran high in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union on Monday during a meeting of protesters who demonstrated against Republican presidential candidates during Saturday’s Cy-Hawk tailgate. The demonstration took place in the parking lot outside of Jack Trice Stadium early Saturday afternoon. It was aimed at U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, as well as Gov. Scott Walker and especially Donald Trump for remarks made about immigration issues. “The best way for us to show our presence was in a peaceful way,” said Maria Alcivar, ISU graduate student in human development and family studies. She was pivotal in planning the protest. “After I heard Trump was coming to the game … I decided to reach out and start a demonstration,” Alcivar said. The protesters held signs and stood in a group several feet away from where the presidential candidates were to make their visits, she said. The protest was completely silent, except for some commands for onlookers to not touch protesters or their signs. “It was hostile as soon as we arrived,” Alcivar said. “A woman physically grabbed my face.” Kenyatta Shamburger, director of Multicultural Student Affairs and assistant dean of students, claims his pride for the protestors. “I want to commend those persons that were [at the protest], and stood their ground,” Shamberger said. The Sun Room was almost full throughout the meeting, even though participants came and went throughout the discussion. The meeting had two main formats — a small-group discussion among the crowd members and a larger discussion among individual speakers and the room at large. “I was a victim of a defacing of my poster,” said Jovani Rubio, senior in mechanical engineering and a co-leader of the demonstration. The defacing was caught on a phone video. “I knew this video had gone viral,” Rubio said. “I honestly didn’t feel safe walking to class
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