Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014 | Volume 210 | Number 17 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
ISU gets renewal of grant for web security By Elizabeth.Slaughter @iowastatedaily.com
Tiffany Herring/Iowa State Daily
Eric Adjetey Anang is a Ghanaian carpenter and coffin artist who will be with the College of Design until Friday to work with integrated studio arts students. Together they will be creating a coffin shaped like an ear of corn. Students are working on the coffin and the paint designs.
‘Going out in style’ Ghanaian artist brings expressive coffin art to College of Design By Sarah.Muller @iowastatedaily.com
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itting around a shop in the basement of the College of Design, Eric Adjetey Anang and Chris Martin, associate professor of integrated studio arts, joke about which kind of coffin Anang will be buried in. While the subject might seem morbid to many, it is a daily topic for Anang as he is a Ghanaian fantasy coffin artist. Kicking off his visit, Anang gave his presentation, “Going Out in Style” at the Memorial Union where he spoke on the history and purpose of his art. Throughout the week, he will be working on constructing a coffin in the shape of an ear of corn, which will be auctioned off at an event for ISU Engineers Without Borders project. The project is creating a water retention system for a village in northern Ghana. Students can view Anang working on the coffin from 8 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays and Fridays and 9:30 to 11 a.m. Thursdays on the lower level patio behind the College of Design. “I feel [the culture] should be shared all over the world because this is so special,” Anang said. “This is a way to celebrate the deceased.” Starting in the early 1950s, Anang’s grandfather, Seth Kane Kwei, created a unique figurative palanquin — the platform that carries a coffin — after the death of a Ghanaian tribal chief. Not long after, Kwei’s grandmother — a woman who dreamed of one day flying in an airplane but never did — died. To mimic her curiosity, Kwei created a coffin modeled after an airplane. The coffins began representing the deceased’s profession or something her or she valued in life. Kwei’s creations became something at which to marvel, admirers said. Because of his grandfather’s talents, Anang’s interest in creating coffins started at a young age. While he was only 8 years old when Kwei
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Tiffany Herring/Iowa State Daily
The integrated studio arts furniture design class worked with Eric Adjetey Anang on Sept. 16 to create a fantasy coffin. Anang will work with students to create a coffin shaped like an ear of corn.
GSB Senators encourage early voting among students By Makayla.Tendall @iowastatedaily.com ISU students — both those heavily involved in political processes and those who are unfamiliar with elections — will have a chance to register early. In an effort to engage students in voting processes, members of Government of the Student Body and the Ames League of Women Voters will be registering students 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. outside of Parks Library. Another event Tuesday will allow students to register early. “The lines on election day get kind of long because of same-day registration,” said Justin Bahr, director of governmental relations for GSB. “I guess a couple
of people had to wait a couple of hours last year to vote, which can kind of disincentive you to vote. That’s too bad if you don’t have time to vote ... [when] you can’t always do that in the rest of the world.” Bahr said the purpose of Wednesday’s event is to keep voting lines short in November and to encourage students to take part in the voting process. Bahr said the early registration event is a bipartisan effort, and brochures with backgrounds on candidates for the gubernatorial and senate races will be available. The brochures will not feature information on where each candidate stands on particular issues so as not to influ-
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Courtesy of Justin Bahr
Students are being targeted to register early to vote in the elections in November. Because the voting lines can get long, it can discourage students from casting their votes. GSB Senators and the Ames League of Women Voters stress the importance of college votes.
The National Science Foundation awarded more than $2.38 million to Iowa State in a grant renewal to help combat cybersecurity attacks. The university plans to direct the funds toward educating its students in the Scholarship for Service graduate program, commonly called CyberCorps, said Jan Wiersema, senior lecturer of natural resource ecology and management and co-principal investigator for the grant. As a leadership development and interdisciplinary graduate program, CyberCorps couples a leadership curriculum with cybersecurity courses to focus on addressing the shortage of cybersecurity professionals in the government. Wiersema works with Barbara Licklider, university professor of education and another co-principal investigator on the grant, on the two-year interdisciplinary graduate program that began back in 2000. She expressed the need for students to challenge themselves and their peers in the CyberCorps program to be leaders here at Iowa State and later in their careers in governmental cybersecurity. “Students in the CyberCorps program challenge and encourage each other to step outside their comfort zones,” Wiersema said. In offering these unique leadership skills to students, the program not only gives ISU CyberCorps alumni a distinct advantage in the job market but also allows them to best serve and help the public. A second-year graduate student in the program, Christopher Farrington expressed how the leadership component of the program opened up opportunities for him in the cybersecurity field. “This program put me out of my comfort zone and has made me a better leader and productive member of the field,” Farrington said. Iowa State has been offering courses in cybersecurity since 1995 and the rise of the Internet as we know it and now has one of the largest programs in the country. The program sees its students graduate to work with governmental agencies at the local, state and federal levels. Also a second-year graduate student, Eric Rodine had the opportunity to intern with the FBI this past summer. He said that his internship got his foot in the door in the government and prepared him for the work to come when he graduates in the spring. Iowa State was actually the first university to offer such a program that provided students with the leadership skills when it began and has since led the initiative for cybersecurity and online safety. Doug Jacobson, university professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-principal investigator of the grant, further emphasized the need for these students to lead the field. He also said that everybody needs to be educated on online safety — professionals, students and the public alike — which is the ultimate goal of the program. “Individuals need to take ownership and be literate [about cybersecurity],” Jacobson said.