NEWS
THE TIMES-DELPHIC
SEPT. 03, 2014 | Page 2
News Drake Community
Campus News
Students welcome Hillel House Students rally in solidarity with Ferguson Sarah Fulton
Staff Writer sarah.fulton@drake.edu
Tacopocolypse Tacos and free T-shirts welcomed 46 students to their new home, the Hillel house, on Tuesday, Aug. 26. The inaugural event marked the first time the house was open to students. “It is great. It is an experience that Hillel has been waiting for a really long time,” said Hillel President, Max Laskso. “If we showed you what this was four years ago compared to what it is now, to see the growth of it, it is beyond words.” Hillel first had the desire to purchase a house four years ago. This past spring The Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines offered to purchase the house and renovated it for Hillel. “As long as we had programming, they would be willing to help us get it,” Lasko said. In the past, Hillel shared the Wesley House with several other organizations. Hillel had its own room, but the shared nature of the Wesley House created timing conflicts. Each organization that shared the house had one night of the week reserved. “So you could not have an event on a Tuesday,” Lasko said. “We had to weave our way through the schedule.” Senior Mallory Rasky, an environmental science and music double major, said that moving from a shared house to the new Hillel house provides a solid foundation for the organization. “I think my hope is that someone will always be here. If I come by, people will always be here to hang out,” Rasky said. “I think that would be the best
possible thing for Hillel to take off.” Owning the house also allows Hillel to decorate and create a personal atmosphere. A painting with the words “Drake Hillel” hangs over fireplace and another with Jewish stars adorns the dining room wall. “(Sharing is difficult) because you cannot personalize it. Here we can put up an Israel flag or Jewish Stars,” sophomore Becca Cohen, a marketing and finance major, said. “You have to be respectful when you are sharing a space with someone, but that doesn’t create as much of an atmosphere.” The atmosphere at the house includes free drinks, free laundry and cable. To gain access, students register and receive an entry code. They can use the house at any time to study, hang out or attend events like “Jewish Movie Night.” “I think it is important to have a house in order to be able to all group together somewhere safe and to have somewhere to call our own,” said First-year Samantha Weisbein, biochemistry, cell and molecular biology major. Now that Hillel has opened the house, the next step is to ensure its financial stability. The organization will host a fundraising brunch for parents and students on September 21. “We want this house to live on its own, essentially. We don’t want to be worried about budgeting,” Lasko said. “We want something to be going on at all times. This is just to make sure that things like utilities or the mortgage are taken care of.” He is excited for all the possibilities that the new house will provide Hillel at Drake. “This is our house, our identity,” Lasko said. “It is pretty neat.”
HANNAH MIKKALSON, BEN JOHNSON and OLIVIA O’HEA stand together on Aug. 25th at the rally to empathize with the shooting of Michael Brown and the city of Ferguson, Missouri. SARAH GROSSMAN | NEWS EDITOR Sarah Grossman
News Editor sarah.grossman@drake.edu
On August 25, Drake students stood on the corner of 25th and University Ave. to show solidarity in memory of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old, Ferguson, Missouri resident shot and killed by a local cop. The event, taking place on the day Brown was to enter college, had students and staff in attendance. Tony Tyler, Director of Olmsted Operations, was one of the faculty members in attendence. “I think, as staff and faculty, we want to support what students are doing,” Tyler said. “We want to support their concerns, especially around social issues.” The Drake community stood in solidarity because it is an issue students and staff believe needs to be discussed. “It’s important because this is not a local problem just in Ferguson, but it’s rather a national systemic problem, and it affects everybody,” said Josh Mascharka, junior rhetoric, media and social change major. “We’re all people. When one group of people is being oppressed, it affects all of us. It limits everybody’s freedom and ability to pursue life.
Speaker, Darriana Donegan, junior psychology and sociology major, has a personal connection to the incident. “I am originally from St. Louis, so my family lives about five minutes away from all the stuff that has been going on,” Donegan said. “Mike Brown was 18 and living in the same area as my brothers, that easily could have been them. It could have been my nephew. It could have been my dad. It could have been someone I know.” Jennifer Harvey, associate professor of religion and department chair, assisted in organizing the last-minute event. “It wasn’t a very pre-thought, organized event,” Harvey said. “We said, ‘Okay, we can do it. Let’s meet at noon.’ I pretty much just sent out the link.” This impromptu event gained a lot of attention from the Drake community. Students, such as Olivia O’Hea, junior law, politics and society and public relations double major, attended because they could empathize with a young student. “It’s really easy to distance yourself from these issues, but if you view Michael Brown as you view yourself, which is a teenage student going into his first year
of college, it puts things into perspective for you,” O’Hea said. Other students attended because they felt it was their civic duty. “I feel a tremendous amount of responsibility to be a voice for communities that aren’t being heard or treated fairly,” said Benjamin Verhasselt, junior politics major. While some students may believe Ferguson, Missouri is quite far away, others feel like this issue hits home. “It impacts Drake and specifically Drake’s students,” Donegan said. “We’re privileged enough to go to university, to have a voice and to be able to educate and inform the community around us.” Verhasselt believes a lot of effort must be put forth to bring about change. “Ultimately, it’s a daily effort. A daily effort to understand viewpoints other than your own and a daily effort to lend a helping hand to someone who hasn’t had the same opportunities we, as Drake students, have probably had,” Verhasselt said. “Fight the power.”
NEW HILLEL HOUSE holds first event on Aug. 26th. JOEL VENZKE | PHOTO EDITOR
SJMC Activities Fair September 10 4-7 p.m. Meredith 104 Representatives from SJMC student organizations will be available to talk about opportunities to get involved in student media and professional associations.
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