WOMEN’S BASKETBALL ranks 25th in the nation for the first time since 2001. Read more on page 12.
PHOTO BY JAKE BULLINGTON | DIGITAL EDITOR
THE TIMES-DELPHIC The weekly student newspaper of Drake University
Vol. 136 | No. 15 | Wed. Feb. 15, 2017 timesdelphic.com
STUDENT SENATE
CAMPUS NEWS
Senate shuts down consolidated election proposal Event raises awareness to change ‘outdated’ law
Jake Bullington Digital Editor jacob.bullington@drake.edu @jakebullington
In its 31 year history, Student Senate has always had separate general and executive elections. A proposal was brought to Senate to combine the two elections into one, but that proposal was rejected. Heads of the Election Commission, Josh Hughes and Erin Griffin, brought this proposal to the table this past
Thursday. The proposal called for conducting all of the elections at once and shifted the timeline of campaigning to a less-than-14 day process. The proposal reads that the “Election Commission believes this change will lead to a(n) easier and more substantive campaign cycle.” Hughes and Griffin believed that moving from a bifurcated election to a unified one would help improve overall voter turnout and prevent students from becoming “burned out”
JOSH HUGHES, member of the Election Commission, proposed changes last Thursday. PHOTO BY JAKE BULLINGTON | DIGITAL EDITOR
from weeks of campaigning. “(This) is a significant departure from what we’ve done in the past,” Hughes said. This sparked immediate concern from most senators. “My big concern with switching to this calendar is that people who run for (executive) positions wouldn’t then be able to run for at-large positions if they were to lose their election…” said Sen. Grace Rogers. Several other senators voiced similar concerns about not being able to run for a lower-level position if someone were to lose an executive election. “That’s one of the unintended consequences of moving to the unitary election,” Hughes said. “I guess the reasoning behind that and the rationale is that we feel this is a better change for everyone involved in the Drake community. We feel that there are still a lot of ways to get involved in senate without necessarily being a senator.” Another concern brought to the debate was from Treasurer JD Stehwien. In regards to the potential change, Stehwien cited dropping numbers in sign-ups in campus leadership positions, like orientation leaders and resident assistants, as reason to be concerned about how this unitary election would affect students’ willingness to run for senate. “With the numbers already down for on-campus involvement this year, how do you think this is going to impact … having one chance to sign up?” Stehwien said. Griffin said that many people consider running for senate. Last year, there were more candidates
than senate positions. “I think our goal here is to find people who are really devoted to senate and really want to run for it,” Griffin said. “Hopefully the numbers won’t be low, and if they are we’ll go from there. Hughes and Griffin also emphasized the commission’s plan to heavily emphasize social media tools to inform students about the elections as well as candidates’ platforms. This proposal follows a motion from last semester, where the Election Commission’s bylaws were updated. That was approved because senate felt it would improve the election process. This new proposal, however, was voted down by a large margin. Fifteen senators, including Stehwien and Rogers, voted against it. Only two senators, AJ Treiber and Joe Herba, voted in favor of the motion. Three senators abstained, including two who were present, Alex Maciejewski and Elizabeth Fisher. Neither gave a reason for why they abstained. In addition to the failed election proposal, Griffin and Hughes offered a potential change to the election rules, clarifying the rules surrounding the use of Snapchat. Candidates now cannot send mass Snapchats while campaigning, but can utilize the story feature to promote their candidacy. This motion is likely to pass but was tabled until this week’s upcoming meeting since it is a change in bylaws.
Katherine Bauer News Editor katherine.bauer@drake.edu @bauer_katherine On any given night, music rings out at Lefty’s Live Music in Dogtown. However, once 9 p.m. strikes, there is often a noticeable difference. When 9 p.m. comes along, everyone who is not 21 or older has to leave. A Des Moines city ordinance holds that 20-yearolds and younger are not allowed in bars after 9 p.m., including music venues that have a liquor license. The Des Moines Music Coalition (DMMC) and Lefty’s are trying to change that. Last Thursday, an event called Lights out at Nine attempted to draw attention to the “archaic ordinance,” according to Lefty’s co-owner and book manager Erik Brown. “I’ve never been to another city that has something that feels like 1950s America,” Brown said. “We’re talking about arts. We’re not talking about night life scenes. I think when you limit people seeing art or experiencing art, it’s just a very old America we see, and that’s not what we are.” Advocates through the years have taken on the ordinance but have never succeeded in changing the law.
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CAMPUS NEWS
Students discuss the importance of Black History Month Lórien MacEnulty Staff Writer lorien.macenulty@drake.edu @lorienmacenulty What started in 1926 as Negro History Week, a local commemoration adopted by a few cities at the time, morphed into the nationally observed Black History Month by the late 1960s. Despite widespread observance of the dedication to AfricanAmerican identity, the history of Black History Month has deep roots in university life across the U.S. In mutual celebration, The Times-Delphic has assembled a profile of these cultural proceedings tied to the month of February, both at Drake and elsewhere. The Origins of Black History Month Historian and Harvard alumnus Dr. Carter G. Woodson established the Association for
the Study of Negro Life and History in September 1915 as a means of uncovering and recognizing the contributions of African-Americans in various fields and endeavors. “While attending Harvard, Carter G. Woodson was a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity,” said Maleigha Williams, the chief marketing officer for the Coalition of Black Students (CBS). “Being passionate about black history education, Woodson suggested in a fraternity meeting that they should give more attention to African-American life and history.” The organization is responsible for the association of black history with February, as Negro History week intentionally coincided with the birthday celebrations of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The group now identifies as the Association for the Study of African-American
Life and History. Their values have remained the same, “An organization comprised of people of all walks of life and professions we are the nexus between the Ivory Tower and the global public,” according to its website. The interest in black history increased during the Civil Rights Movement. “It’s been a part of identity building for African-Americans, and of course the recovery of history is a very important component in that,” said Dr. Glenn McKnight, chair of Drake’s Department of History. “One of the reasons that that’s been so important is that black history has really been marginalized historically. So Black History Month has been a way of bringing African-American History more into the mainstream.” Every president since Gerald Ford has prioritized the rededication of the month of February to the history of the
country’s black identity and the discovery of their subsequent culture. Morgan Freeman on Black History Month Unlike U.S. presidents, not all public figures adopted the commemorative month so willingly. In a 2005 interview with 60 Minutes, Morgan Freeman said that he found Black History Month “ridiculous.” “What? You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” Freeman said. “I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.” Some Drake University students have similar thoughts on the subject. “I think it is a time to recognize (black people),” said sophomore Christina Sigir. “But I also think it is a little bit praised more than it should be because, as people, they should be recognized throughout any month and not just dedicated
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to a certain month.” Perspectives like Sigir’s and Freeman’s sparked controversy on a national level, inciting hundreds of conversations about the intentional differentiation of history by color and its effects on racism. “Of course I think that black history should be celebrated all the time, but I think that Black History Month is the one time of the year where everyone is almost forced to realize that black people are great, black people are amazing, black people are very empowering,” said Deshauna Carter, Co-Senator of Equity and Inclusion on Student Senate. “We affect American history a lot, and this is the one time where people learn little things, like there wouldn’t be peanut butter if it weren’t for a black man.”
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