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TWENTY-FIVE students spent their J-Term in Washington D.C. learning about what a career in the nation’s capital would look like. A part of their trip was seeing the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Read more on page 3.
timesdelphic.com
Wednesday, Feb. 01, 2017
PHOTO COURTESY OF GRACE DUNN
CAMPUS NEWS
ADMINISTRATIVE NEWS
Plus/minus: Preferred name policy ready for implementation minus for students Katherine Bauer News Editor katherine.bauer@drake.edu @bauer_katherine
Lórien MacEnulty Staff Writer lorien.macenulty@drake.edu @lorienmacenulty
Peeking at their transcripts, students observed the effects of Drake University’s first semester under the recently implemented plus/minus grading system. The average GPA of Drake student in 2016 fell from 3.25 in the spring to 3.22 in the fall, according to statistics compiled by the Office of Student Records. Drake University switched from the traditional system of whole-letter grades in August last year. However, the power of the plus/minus implementation lay on the instructors of each course. Individual departments and schools, for consistency and equity, responded according to the needs of their students. Responses from faculty and students were positive and negative. “I’m really not happy with my A- grade, because my score was 91 percent, supposedly an A,” senior Chu Jie Siaw said. “It did affect my GPA. But I think it’s a good thing for a student if they really want to motivate themselves to study and put more effort in the class.”
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Students will soon be able to change the first name that appears on a number of Drake platforms, from their email address to their student ID card. The student preferred name policy is expected to be implemented in the coming weeks, says DIrector of Student Engagement, Equity and Inclusion Tony Tyler. The policy has been a long time coming. “When I came here (over five years ago), it was already being discussed as a theme that should be happening,” Tyler said. “There have been discussions here about it for years.” The new policy, which ended its public review period last week, will allow all students to submit the first name they would like to appear on non-legal documents and other platforms. This includes ID cards, residence hall rosters, Blackboard, MyDUSIS, class and advisor lists and email addresses. While any student can take advantage of it, the policy takes a step to make Drake more inclusive for students in the LGBT community, more specifically transgender students. “When you hear that name you were given at birth, a lot of people
can really feel alienated or feel really uncomfortable correcting their name in front of the class,” Rainbow Union President Ann Radtke said. “My name feels neutral enough that I don’t feel the need to change it,” said Paxton Gillespie, One Voice President. Gillespie is a transgender woman, identifying as a woman but assigned a male identity at birth. “But for a lot of people (for example) who identify as men but have traditionally feminine birth names, by someone calling you by that birth name, it can have all of the gendered stereotypes about that name attached to you. You’re not being seen for who you are and how you identify, which… causes a lot of anxiety.” Radkte said that for those being called by their legal name instead of the name they now identify with, it can lead to a lack of understanding and inclusion in the classroom. The student preferred name policy avoids this by showing teachers only the preferred name on the roster. “(A legal name is) very alienating because it’s everywhere,” Radkte said. “Do people really accept you for who you are?” Difference in gender identity and names can lead to gender dysphoria for some transgender people. “For me, dysphoria is the feeling that you’re not being
perceived in the way that you want to be perceived,” Gillespie said. “I wanted to be perceived as a woman, and a lot of times people don’t perceive me as a woman or don’t treat me the way they would treat a woman. So that causes a lot of anxiety within me because I know I’m a woman. When someone says this name that has a gender that you don’t identify with at all... it brings all that pain back up.” Tyler said the idea of a preferred name policy floated around campus even before he began working at the university. However, the project really started moving forward after the 2014 campus pride index assessment, a national assessment tool administered by the national organization Campus Pride. The index gauged LGBT inclusion on college campuses. Drake received two stars out of five for LGBT inclusion. Tyler then met with students to address how to move forward to improve. About a year ago, a working group came together with members from IT and student records to finally make the student preferred name a reality. “(We) said okay, let’s do this,” Tyler said. “Let’s really do this. What would it take to make this happen? We’ve been working on this really diligently since last January through the spring semester.” Tyler presented the policy
drafts and ideas to members of Drake’s LGBT support group Rainbow Union and LGBT advocacy group One Voice for feedback and improvement. “There were a lot of people who were excited,” Radtke said. “I even had people who aren’t LGBT involved (say) they were excited for it to because it can be easier for them as well.” The final, reassuring push for the project came in May of last year. A “dear colleague” letter arrived at Drake from the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education. The letter clarified that trasngender students fall under Title IX protection. “Essentially the Title IX policy outlines all the ways in which schools must protect trans students,” Gillepsie said. “If those guidelines are violated, it would be a violation of Title IX, just as if a sexual assault case were mishandled or if the school were discriminating against disabled or other marginalized groups.” Drake’s Title IX coordinator Katie Overberg explained that lacking a student preferred name policy did not put Drake in danger of violating Title IX. Iowa code already includes transgender people under the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Drake’s own nondiscrimination statement already includes students of all gender identities.
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ADMINISTRATIVE NEWS
Search continues for associate provost for equity and inclusion Drake Rhone Staff Writer drake.rhone@drake.edu @drakerhone
This week, several interviews with the finalists for the first Associate Provost for Equity and Inclusion will take place. Two sessions allow Drake students to attend and provide feedback on the candidates. “Anyone can come to that at all. They’ll do a short 20 minute presentation and the rest of the time will be question and answer from the audience,” said Tony Tyler, the director of student engagement, equity and inclusion in student life. Darcie Vandegrift was interviewed on Tuesday. At 4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 2 it will be Erin Lain’s turn in Sussman Theater.
A committee of several students and staff has narrowed down the internal application pool to these two candidates. The candidates are then subjected to a full day of interviews with various strategic groups and the provost, Sue Mattison, as well as the special session open to students at 4 p.m. Tyler said that the open interviews have been planned to get the campus’ input on each candidate. At each interview session, students will be able to give feedback by filling out an online survey. The surveys will be open over the weekend and closed for review on Monday. That data will then be used to make a recommendation to the provost. “I think these will be two hours that students could invest
in something that will have an immediate effect on them both in curricular and co-curricular ways,” said Jill Allen, a member of the committee and Assistant Professor of Psychology. “If they were to come to one or both of these sessions, they could expect, in the first part of the session, to really hear the candidate’s mission, top priorities and goals.” Many members of the committee stressed how important they believe this position is to the Drake campus. “(This associate provost could) really be, in some regard, the point person who is able to know exactly which group, which resource on campus, which office to help to coordinate some of these efforts because right now we have individual level and interpersonal change,” Allen said. “If we really want institutional
change, long lasting policy change, we need someone in a position where that’s what they’re focused on.” As Allen mentioned, another popular reason for supporting the position so strongly was the current lack of an administrative level position whose job is to promote institutional level change. “Right now on Drake’s campus, everyone who is working to make it more diverse and... more inclusive are doing it outside of their (primary) job,” said sophomore Deshauna Carter, another member of the committee and the student equity and inclusion senator. “I think that giving this to someone whose sole purpose on Drake’s campus is to work towards that will make it go so much faster than people like Tony Tyler or Jennifer
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Harvey who are doing these things outside of what they are already supposed to be doing.” Several committee members said that they were looking for members of the Drake community who were already making change on campus so that they could start work immediately. Carter had a few ideas as to what kinds of projects the new associate provost position could deal with. “I definitely would hope that one thing they would do is start making a scholarship fund for marginalized identities because a lot of other universities do offer that and Drake doesn’t,” Carter said. “Having them work towards that would be amazing. I think that working towards Drake’s curriculum having more classes in it that will help students learn about marginalized identities.”