CMYK
THE OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS
VOL.
95
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NOVEMBER 9, 2016
reflector.uindy.edu
Students help with clean energy plan Former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard calls on UIndy and IUPUI students to participate in internship program to implement Advanced Energy Plan in Indiana By Erik Cliburn EDITORIAL ASSISTANT As the issues of air pollution and climate change have become prevalent topics of discussion in the political and social spheres, so, too, has the issue of clean, renewable energy. While some see these issues as national or global problems, they hit closer to home than may be recognized. A recent article in USA Today claimed that Evansville, Ind., is one of the worst cities in the country in terms of air pollution because of a large coal-fired power plant nearby. Former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard used this article and other examples to encourage college students from the University of Indianapolis and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis to join his internship program, the Indiana Advanced Energy Plan. Ballard called upon students of all majors to join the Indiana Advanced Energy Plan to bring a more realistic and varied voice to the way students view clean energy. The internship program consists of 10 UIndy students and two IUPUI students, with fields of study varying from environmental science to art. “We have students from an unbelievable number of disciplines,” Ballard said. “Not just science students, we have an art student in there; we have business students.They’re bringing kind of a different angle, too, which is great, and which is real life. That way I think the [internship] students will get a lot out of it and maybe see themselves as somebody who can be an agent of change into the future.” Ballard said the Advanced Energy Plan is his attempt to portray the opinions of the younger generation to Indiana state legislators, in hopes that they will begin gradually to implement a clean energy plan that encompasses all of Indiana.
“The intention is to put a policy or a plan together and then make sure some way that the legislature knows how these students are feeling,” Ballard said. “We had the utilities committee chair talk to them [the internship students] a couple [of ] days ago. The legislature, people making these policies and the regulatory commission need to know how the current generation growing up feels about this. I think that is extremely important.” According to Ballard, the state of Indiana has an opportunity to bring itself into the future by embracing the possibilities and opportunities brought by clean energy. “The country is moving in that direction [toward using clean energy], and certainly the younger generation wants to move in that direction,” Ballard said. “I think the adjective itself ‘clean’ says something.” As an analogy, Ballard compared modern cars to those of the 1970s to point out how far the development of clean energy has come and where it can go in the future. “If you’re riding a bike behind a car that was driven in the 1970s and smell that, then you ride behind a car that was built in the 2010s, which car do you think is cleaner? It’s not even a close call,” Ballard said. “For those who say, ‘We shouldn’t do this because it’s too expensive.…’ Well, we did do it. We did a lot of it already, and it got better. We all lived, and we all survived. Now there’s another level to get better, and we need to go to that level without causing undue stress.There’s always some disruption, but [we need to do this] with causing as little disruption as possible.” According to myenergygateway.org, solar and wind power, biomass, geothermal energy and hydroelectric power are some examples of clean energy. However, Ballard said that clean energy has many more layers to it than just dealing with sources of power. He claimed that energy
Graphic by Andy Carr
efficiency and infrastructure are key when it comes to truly “clean energy.” “It [clean energy] is more than just the fuels,” Ballard said. “We can do a lot of good in this country if we can get better at interactivity, building better envelopes, transmission efficiency and more resilience with distributed energy. There are just so many ways of looking at this [other] than just the fuel. That’s really what we are trying to get across to the legislature and the public.” Although clean energy may improve the state in many ways, Ballard said it undoubtedly brings along the side-effect of lost jobs for those working in conventional energy industries. He said that the probability of lost jobs is not something that
he takes lightly in regard to the Advanced Energy Plan. “There are always vested interests. There are people trying to hang on, and I get that,” Ballard said. “People’s livelihoods are at stake here. There’s just a lot to this. If there are people who are going to be disrupted, then we have to make sure we take care of them along the way, and I emphasize that to the students. Those industries, and the people who work there, are going to be affected, and we need to do the best we can by them—retraining, whatever it might be. We can’t just leave them out to dry and say, ‘I’m sorry you’re on the short end of the stick.’” UIndy art education major and Indiana Advanced Energy Plan intern Liv
Reuter said that most of those in the younger generations are in favor of clean energy, and that expanding clean energy in Indiana is just a matter of convincing legislators and older generations to see the benefits. “I think people of our age are all for clean energy,” Reuter said. “For the most part, college students are saying, ‘Yeah, that’s great. We should do things that are good for the planet.’ But the generation and [a] couple before us are not so quick to think that way. I think one of our biggest points of opposition is the generation gap. For a lot of people, it’s not even so much that they are against clean energy, it’s just that they are not informed about it.”
Convention co-hosted by UIndy and Ball State By Sophie Watson SPORTS EDITOR
Photos contributed by Katie Ronzio
UIndy and Ball State students pose for group photos during the PRSSA National Convention Oct. 21-25.
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The University of Indianapolis and Ball State University came together to host the Public Relations Student Society of America National Convention Oct. 21-25 at the Marriott in downtown Indianapolis. A participant from Ball State said this event gave students across the nation the opportunity to network in the public relations field as well as gain job opportunities and learn skills to help them further their careers and education. Each year, the conference takes place in a different city, and students in the state can place a bid to host the event.This year, Ball State University contacted UIndy to partner up and place their 52-page bid together. Once they were appointed as hosts, the two schools planned the event over the course of a year and a half. Students had to find speakers, sponsors and locations and plan the events that would occur throughout the conference. UIndy graduate communication student Natalie Wichern was the logistics director of the event. She is also president of the university’s PRSSA chapter. Wichern did not start in the applied public relations program until she was a junior but said that the late start actually helped her. “I was a little late in terms of entry compared to most students,” Wichern said. “I felt that it helped me actually
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because I had brought more leadership and knowledge and networking to the table. Most students that enter their freshman or sophomore year get engaged right away, so I was kind of a late bloomer in that sense.” As the logistics director, Wichern had to handle many different tasks such as coordinating speakers and sponsors and planning programs and events. She also assisted in managing volunteers who helped her with a variety of tasks throughout the conference. One of the largest events Wichern assisted in planning was the opening night social. “On the first night, we had an opening night social. So we had to plan the food, the decorations and the theme, which was the Indy 500,” Wichern said. “Which was a lot of fun because we had a lot of race car stuff. We reached out to the IMS [Indianapolis Motor Speedway] to try to get some of their extra materials, and that worked out well. Overall, it was great for the students to engage with professionals and get a deeper understanding of the public relations area and different areas within that.” Wichern also had help from her UIndy partner Reagan VanCleave who served as the program director. VanCleave did much of the planning of the themes and food choices for the events. She directed and planned most of the opening night social, the farewell breakfast and the awards ceremony dinner. Ball State senior communication major
Day of the Dead Festivities
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Katie Ronzio also worked directly with the conference after gaining experience from her time on BSU’s public relations firm, Cardinal Communication. For this event, Ronzio served as the communication coordinator, working to help everyone engage in the conference and providing information to those involved. Approximately 1,000 students attended the conference and participated in its many events. One of those was the career tours, running throughout the days of the convention, during which students visited different agencies in Indianapolis. Professionals also offered resume critiques and a career development exhibition, where agencies brought in human resource professionals to talk to students about prospective job opportunities. Ronzio said she felt that the conference boosted her professional relationships and gave her more connections and job opportunities going forward. “The PRSSA convention was taking place [at] the same time the PRSA National Conference was, so the professional society was there at the same time,”Ronzio said. “We got a chance to interact with them at different mixers. You could talk to the professionals that were critiquing after the session, so I followed up with several professionals that I met and hope to continue those professional relationships.” Both Wichern and Ronzio agreed that the event boosted their professional knowledge and their networking for future employment opportunities.
Evening of Song
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