December 3, 2014

Page 1

SUNNY HIGH 18° LOW 7°

U OF M

MINNEAPOLIS

ST PAUL

WEDNESDAY

invisible

DECEMBER 3, 2014

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES AT MNDAILY.COM

on

Campus

Adrian Martinez rides the Green Line light rail in Minneapolis on his way to a day job on the early morning of Nov. 22. Martinez said he carries his belongings with him almost everywhere so he doesn’t have to pay $7 a day to secure them in a locker at a shelter. Photo by Bridget Bennett, Daily.

SCHOOLS STATEWIDE have very little data on homeless college students.This makes it HARD to helP them. -- bY bLAIR eMERSON

A

fter a full day of studying or working, Adrian Mar tinez leaves school at about 5 p.m. each night to secure a space at a local homeless shelter. When Mar tinez migrated to Minnesota from New Mexico in 2004, he came fr om a family with a histor y of substance abuse. Now he’s going to Minneapolis Community and Technical

College so he can be a social worker and help youth and families dealing with addictions. He has lacked stable housing for three years. Mar tinez is not alone. Many lowincome and homeless students face extreme barriers to accessing and achieving success in college. But post-secondar y institutions statewide, including the University of Minnesota, don’t keep

data on how many students are homeless — a problem that many state and school of ficials say needs to be addressed if the schools are to help. A recent upward trend in homelessness has led to an increased focus on how policymakers, school leaders and youth shelters can identify and suppor t more homeless students.

SCIENCE

TECHNOLOGY

“We could do better at training faculty and staf f on how to tackle student issues,” said Amelious Whyte, the University’s senior associate vice provost for advocacy and suppor t. “Homelessness is something we need to look at more centrally.”

See homeless on page 6

CAMPUS

U reacting Out of Iraq, research flourishes Wanted: equality of to online bathrooms attacks

Some students say the U needs more gender-neutral restrooms to make all people comfortable.

Data breaches at the school last year lost nearly 4,000 records, prompting new security efforts.

BY SARAH CONNOR sconnor@mndaily.com

reprieve from the violence plaguing his home countr y, where Matny said deteriorating security conditions impede the work of scientists. “Baghdad now is not secure,” he said. “When I contact my father, ever y time he tells me, ‘The security is not good. If you can, stay there [in Minnesota].’” Matny, an assistant plant protection professor at the University of Baghdad since 2006, said he is working to turn his Twin Cities visit into an extended stay to avoid such violence, and he hopes his family will eventually join him from Iraq. Currently,

Sarah Klyman searched the University of Minnesota campus to find bathrooms that weren’t designated for men or women. As a social experiment, the individualized studies junior limited herself to only using the University’s gender-neutral bathrooms for one day. But the task was more challenging than she expected. “It was exhausting,” Klyman said. “I had to plan my schedule around how I was going to be able to use the bathroom, which is a huge inconvenience that you don’t think about.” Though the University has some nongender-specific bathrooms sprinkled across campus, some students and faculty say the school needs to add more to make trans and non-gender-conforming people feel more comfortable on campus. Lars Mackenzie, who identifies as transgender, was part of an effort by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally Programs Office’s Transgender Commission to create a map of all gender-neutral bathrooms on campus. The map includes more than 130 gender-neutral bathrooms on the Twin Cities campus. Though the map is a step in the right

u See MATNY Page 3

u See GENDER Page 12

BY BLAIR EMERSON bemerson@mndaily.com

Incidents of cybercrime and data breaches have jumped in recent years — and higher education institutions like the University of Minnesota are responding. High-profile data breaches have hit several college campuses in recent years. And although they aren’t hackers’ top targets, some institutions, including the University, are evaluating their information security programs and determining how to minimize future breaches. The University’s information technology employees have presented to the Board of Regents for months, describing the network and efforts to protect the school’s information. For example, current policies require computers connected to the University network to have virus and malware protection software. Also, University community members can store the institution’s private data only on school networks unless they get prior approval to store it elsewhere. Despite these measures, the University faced 29 data breaches last year that resulted u See CYBERCRIME Page 4

LIAM JAMES DOYLE, DAILY

Assistant professor Oadi Matny stands inside the greenhouse where he works on the St. Paul campus on Tuesday.

A visiting researcher finds a better workplace at the University. BY PARKER LEMKE plemke@mndaily.com

During his six months at the University of Minnesota, plant pathologist Oadi Matny has had access to equipment, chemicals and facilities that, he said, far outstrip the laboratory resources available to him in his native country, Iraq. By using them, Matny has harnessed molecular tools and DNA sequencing techniques to study the genetic diversity of the soil-borne fungal pathogen Fusarium sp, a cause of crown rot disease that can attack the roots and seed spikes of wheat. His six-month visit has also meant a

VOLUME 116 ISSUE 53


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