THE TIMES-DELPHIC The weekly student newspaper of Drake University
Vol. 134 | No. 19 | Mar. 25, 2015 timesdelphic.com
FEATURES
OPINIONS ¿Puedes hablar dos idiomas? Sophomore Shaeffer Smith explains her top five reasons for learning a different language and the pros of practicing abroad as she broadens her Spanish skills in Salamanca, Spain this semester. | Read more on page 2.
SPORTS
Dogtown After Hours will take place this Friday from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. The free event is full of activites including entertainment, free food, massages, bubble soccer and the ability to participate in breaking a world record for the largest Nerf gun fight. | Read more on page 3.
Despite being the number one team in the MVC for much of the season, the Women’s Basketball team played its final games of the 2014-2015 season over spring break, losing in the first round of both the MVC and the WNIT Tournaments. | Read more on page 4.
CAMPUS EVENTS
DATA ANALYTICS is a new major for the fall 2015 to be offered in the College of Business and Public Administration, located in Aliber Hall, and in the College of Arts and Sciences. PHOTO BY JOEL VENZKE
New data analytics major coming during fall 2015 semester Combination of statistics, computer science and information systems to be offered
Madison Gildersleeve Staff Writer madison.gildersleeve@drake.edu @M_gildersleeve Numbers and statistics definitely are not everyone’s thing, but to those of you who “geek out” when it comes to information systems, you are in luck. A data analytics major will be introduced to both the College of Business and Public Administration (CBPA) and the College of Arts and Sciences in the fall of 2015. What exactly is data analytics you ask? “The difficulty of defining data analytics is that it is used in a number of ways and contexts,” said Professor Bradley Meyer, operations management professor. “It is using data to make decisions and a combination of statistics of computer science or information systems.” Meyer along with a few other professors from fields such as computer science and
information systems have been collaborating since last summer to create this program and are now ironing out the final details. Credit hours may vary depending on the specialty, but the major will consist of 30 core hours and a specialty area that is nine to 17 credits. “I can’t say at this point how much tweaking will be done and to which courses,” Meyer said. “Many of the classes may have to be tweaked to shift the focus from actuarial applications to a broader range of application of the techniques taught in the class.” To pair up with the new courses, the major will also be hiring two new professors: one in computer science and one in the business college. There are also some additional financial needs. “There are some technology costs, such as for servers, access to databases, perhaps hardware for work stations, and then software cost,” Meyer said. Students will be able to start taking data analytics classes next fall with the hope that a student who is a current first-year or
sophomore could jump into the program and finish it in two years. “But we’re hoping it will bring in a new set of students that maybe in the past wouldn’t have chosen to come to Drake University,” Meyer said. The students in both the CBPA and College of Arts and Sciences in the data analytics program will need to have certain distinct qualities. “They need to have strong mathematical skills,” Meyer said. “And think analytically, almost like a natural curiosity.” Splitting the major between two colleges was a deliberate choice. “Data analytics can apply to people working with health care or marketing data,” Meyer said. As Meyer pointed out, this major may even draw in students already pursuing other majors. Erin Sawasky, a firstyear actuarial science major, explained she might be interested in analytics as a career. “I’ve always liked math and thought about doing something in business and in math,” Sawasky said. “Actuarial science was a good way to mix the two.”
Sawasky sees the new major as providing opportunities for all students at Drake, not just students with an interest in numbers. “Data analytics is interesting and a good step for the business school and not just for actuarial science,” Sawasky said. “It’s beneficial to have additional background in data analytics,” Sawasky said. “ It would make resumes more competitive for jobs or internships.” Sawasky’s observation summarizes the reason the faculty chose to introduce the new major now. “ Employers in Des Moines were saying we have lots and lots of data,” Meyer said. “We need people who can look at it and make sense of it. There’s not enough of them who have been trained in that area.” Chuck Hinkle, a training developer at Shell Exploration and Production Company and a 1982 Drake University alumnus, could not agree more. After 33 years of experience in the working world he is an expert in business intelligence with years of background knowledge in data
analytics. “I’m glad to see a curriculum develop around data analytics and for universities to be paying attention to it,” Hinkle said. “It means that companies can hire people who already know the tools and techniques.” Hinkle is cautious because data analytics is still an emerging field. “It’s an idea that lots of people are just getting introduced to,” Hinkle said. “Lots of companies will kick off projects so that they don’t get left behind. Lots of those projects will be rushed and will fail.” However, it is not all bad. “I see good prospects for this major,” Hinkle said in his email. “More graduates with this major mean more successful projects, which leads to more companies implementing analytics which leads to more demand in the field.” The CBPA and the College of Arts and Sciences look forward to enrolling students in the data analytics courses this coming fall. For more information about the major visit http://www.drake. edu/analytics/.
FACULTY NEWS
Termination of theater professor angers students, fuels tuition debate Molly Dixon Staff Writer molly.dixon@drake.edu
The termination of visiting professor Jason Bohon leaves students in the theater department questioning the recent tuition increase. On the morning of January 27, Drake student’s received an email from President David Maxwell stating that tuition for full-time undergraduate students will increase by $1,775, or 4.28 percent next fall. The email said one of the reasons for the hike in education fees is to “ensure that our compensation is competitive so that (Drake) continue(s) to attract and retain the very best.” While the news of more money out of students’ pockets was not welcomed by most, it infuriated students in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Honestly it pissed me off,” Henry Fisher, a first year
BFA musical theater major said. “Tuition is going up by almost $2,000 and now they are thinking about cutting one of my favorite professors.” Many Drake students see his departure as unacceptable and objectionable. “I can see a gap in my profession without him around,” Fisher said. “Every student theater major who has taken a class from him has been positively impacted as a performer. How can you still expect students to be inspired to pursue their art if you take away one of the most important tools to their education?” Meghan Walters, a first-year theater and public relations major, sees the impact that these elements have brought upon the department as a whole. “You’re walking the hallways and you hear that people are pissed off,” Walters said. “We made the decision to come to a four-year university to further our education and learn from our professors about
our art, and we feel cheated.” The departure of Professor Bohon has led an active movement to keep the well loved professor teaching Drake students the modern world of the performance arts. Maddie Ripperger is a first year BFA musical theater major and the first year representative for Drake Theater People. She organized a letter campaign consisting of gathering 35 emotionally charged letters to try and persuade the department to keep Bohon on board and to stress the necessity of a fourth professor in the theater department. “We are all extremely passionate about Bohon and we love him, he's the best professor we’ve ever had and furthermore, we need a fourth professor,” Ripperger said. Hannah Stibbe, a first year English education and BFA acting major, wrote one of the letters to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
and to the Provost at Old Main. “He has done nothing but amazing things for this department and with the increase in tuition there is no excuse,” Stibbe said. “It would be rude and unjust for them to ignore us.” The letters have yet to be responded to by adminstration. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dean Joseph Lenz, stated that he relates to the discouragement students felt from Bohon’s termination. “In this particular case, much to my disappointment, the theater department didn’t receive the funding asked for,” Lenz said. “The theater program is a strong magnet in attracting prospective students to Drake, I am committed to making sure the department has the faculty support we need,” Lenz said. “We will be losing professor Bohon and hopefully we will find another talented person,” Lenz said. Ripperger said that although the sympathy from the dean and
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the student population is great, “sympathy isn’t going to advance us in this situation.” “We came here because we want to learn, for them to take away valuable resources isn’t helping us, and with the way this department is growing it’s not appropriate for us to be citing valuable assets to the department,” Ripperger said. But despite the passion of the students behind this movement, and the planning of other forms of protests such as sit-ins and petitions underway, an air of depreciation can still be felt by students. “What saddens me the most is that I can say all sorts of things, talk to whoever I can, but at the end of the day one person or a board of people get to decide the fate of a professor and ultimately the path of a lot of students,” Fisher said. “I want to feel inspired at Drake but I feel outed, hurt, cheated and unenthusiastic.”