Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013 | Volume 209 | Number 23 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890. | A 2010-11 ACP Pacemaker Award winner
Jake Miller/Iowa State Daily
ISU engineering students flock out of Hoover Hall after class. U.S. News & World Report’s placing put the engineering program 35th overall when compared to all national universities.
Engineering ranked 20th among public universities By Katie.Grunewald @iowastatedaily.com Iowa State’s College of Engineering has been ranked 20th among public universities. U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 “America’s Best Colleges” ranking have been announced, and the College of Engineering moved up from 22nd to 20th among other public universities who offer a doctorate degree in the highest level. “There are a ton of rankings published, and there are two different rankings that we really pay attention to,” said Ann Wilson, director of engineering college relations. “The undergraduate rankings that come out in September, and the graduate rankings that come out in March.” When compared to all of the national universities, U.S. News ranks Iowa State’s undergraduate engineering program 35th overall — an eight-way tie — an improvement from 39th last year. Wilson explained the process of getting these rankings together and published consists of other deans and college leaders voting.
U.S. News takes all of the numbers and rankings and puts them together to establish the rankings “Some people will say these rankings don’t really matter, and some people say it’s great,” Wilson said. “Look at our numbers this year. We hit a record. Anytime there is a ranking, you obviously want to be ranked high.” In biological and agricultural engineering, Iowa State is ranked fourth among all national universities and fourth among public universities. In materials engineering, Iowa State is ranked ninth among public universities and 15th among all national universities. Gary Mirka, associate dean of undergraduate and graduate educations for the used when recruiting prospective students. “We will boast that we have a high quality undergraduate program that is just not from the state of Iowa, but a regional school that also has a high international student population,” Mirka said. “When we have a publication like U.S. News that’s able to publicize to the world the quality of our college to the
world, its an important recruiting tool.” Wilson agreed, but thinks there are several other tools the college can use when it comes to recruiting new students. “We do a lot of recruiting, and we have this information on our college website, we put that up right away,” Wilson said. “Sometimes, we quote these ranking in our recruitment materials. It’s always something that we’re proud of, but it’s not something that we rely on to promote our college.” When asked what the other deans and other college leaders saw in Iowa State’s engineering program, Wilson described what the college itself was most proud. “We’re really proud of our international reputation, the academics that we offer our students and the 95 percent career placement rate that we have when students when they graduate,” Wilson said. The College of Engineering is not the only ISU college ranked by U.S. News, and the university as a whole has been ranked in the top 50. “This is a really nice recog-
Bleyer puts spin on Constitution Emmy winner talks politics
■■ Iowa State’s College of Engineering is ranked 20th. ■■ The biological and agricultural engineering program is ranked fourth among public universities and fourth among all national universities. ■■ The materials engineering program is ranked ninth among public universities and 15th among all national universities. In March, U.S. News and World Report will release their graduate program rankings.
nition of a culmination of hard work by faculty and students,” Mirka said. “This was also demonstrated in the fantastic career fair that just ended [Tuesday] where there was a record number of companies and a record number of students who participated; it shows that it all goes full circle.”
Harry Potter lives on through students, sports, academics By Lissandra.Villa @iowastatedaily.com
By Devon.Jefferson @iowastatedaily.com Satire reporting, especially political reporting are OK to infuse together now. Kevin Bleyer former writer of political shows “Politically Incorrect,” “Dennis Miller” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” has been bringing the satirical approach to political news shows for more than a decade and, more recently, shedding light on some of the most controversial topics in America, the Constitution. A multiple Emmy award-winning writer, Kevin Bleyer, will be giving a lecture about the Constitution on Thursday, in celebration of his book’s success, “Me The People: One Man’s Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of The United States of America” in the Great Hall in the Memorial Union. When reminiscing on his days in college, Kevin was an engineering major
Engineering program rankings
Photo courtesy of Pat Miller
Winner of multiple Emmys, satire reporter Kevin Bleyer is promoting his book “Me, the People.” Bleyer spoke of how he set out to become a “real journalist” instead of an engineer.
at Stanford University, trying, but struggling, to fit in with his fellow engineering peers as well as trying to fit the career of an engineer into his life. He was very much into the arts,
specifically musical theater and creative writing, vastly different from the life of engineering. Around this time, his
BLEYER p10 >>
The Boy Who Lived. Hogwarts. Platform 9 3/4. All of these are terms familiar to people who have read the Harry Potter books, which first appeared in the late ‘90s and became a seven book series that has in many ways influenced the generation of students at Iowa State. “Not everybody has read them. Not everybody cares to read them. But, it is surprising what a kind of common denominator the books are,” said Susan Yager, associate professor of English. Yager teaches an Honors seminar on Harry Potter that in the past has been filled in under a minute when registration opens. The series has been challenged several times from many different places, in-
cluding even a challenge in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. According to the American Library Association website, the series ranked in the top-10 challenged book lists in 2001, 2002 and 2003. “Most of the challenges to the Harry Potter series were made when the first several books came out,” Yager said. “Some of those challenges were from people who were culturally, usually religiously, conservative who have a literal reading of some Old Testament passages.” The Harry Potter movies first started coming out in 2001, when most traditional age college students were in elementary school. A total of eight movies were made. “I wanted to learn how to read, so I could learn to read Harry
BOOKS p10 >>
Cyclone Spotlight
Chris Biagini, intern for MAMF By Maggie.McGinity @iowastatedaily.com Chris Biagini, senior in journalism and mass communication, will help run the Maximum Ames Music Festival as an intern for Maximum Ames Records. The 130-band, 20-venue celebration of music happening this Thursday through Sunday. Biagini will graduate in December and is interning at Maximum Ames for his required journalism-based internship. How did you get your internship with Maximum Ames Records? I feel like a big part of it for me this time was just being persistent. I know sometimes students are worried about contacting somebody too much. Just being persistent and then like loving music and being passionate about it and about what they do just helped out a ton. That’s what they do, they’re hugely creative guys. What do you do at Maximum Ames? So far, I’ve had to do all kinds of different stuff. We have the festival starting in a few days, so a lot of it has been geared towards that. But things are going to be changing a little bit postfestival. Stuff that I have done and will continue to do is social media things and when people buy stuff off our site, get it out. If people buy stuff in Ames, we actually hand-deliver it. I co-wrote our newsletter, and I’ve done a couple of blog posts and news releases and stuff. A lot of it has also just been street team kind of stuff, going around with posters and handbills
SPOTLIGHT p10>>
MAMF Profiles Read these MAMF bands’ profiles online: ■■ The Pines ■■ BeJae Fleming ■■ Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey ■■ Lipstick Homicide ■■ The Meat Puppets ■■ Eros and the Eschaton ■■ The Hood Internet ■■ MAMF Variety Show ■■ Plus 100 more bands throughout Ames