The arts ‘creek’ into C-U Weekend festival delights crowds with cultural art booths and entertainment in buzz
Thursday April 19, 2012
The Daily Illini
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Vol. 141 Issue 136
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Derby success inspires, empowers females
Twin City Derby Girls enter the fast lane in Champaign
BY MICHAEL KOZUCHOWSKI DAYTIME ASSIGNMENT EDITOR
The Twin City Derby Girls, or TCDG, Champaign-Urbana’s flat-track roller derby league, kicked off its 2012 season Saturday against Evansville’s Demolition City Roller Derby. Each roller derby game, also known as a bout, consists of two 30-minute periods and a halftime. Each period is made up of a series of two-minute jams. In each jam, five skaters from each team — one jammer and four blockers — take to the floor to compete. All 10 players then begin to skate around the circular track. A team scores when their jammer passes members of the opposing team. The role of the blockers is to prevent jammers from passing by using any official check. The TCDG traveling squad, known as the Twin City Travelers, plays against competing leagues at the David S. Palmer Arena in Danville. The local games, against three Champaign-Urbana teams — The Boneyard Bombshells, The ’Paign, and The Damagin’ Dames — are held at Skateland Savoy. In its first year, TCDG membership shot up from 7 to more than 80 members, making it one of the fastest-growing leagues in the country. “Being a grown woman, it’s hard to find a way to work out and be competitive. This is kind of the answer for a lot of women,” said Chelsea Norton, TCDG public relations and community outreach chair, also know by her skater name Chiquita Bandita. Part of the attraction to derby is that skaters frequently take on fictitious “derby names” – such as local skaters “Delta Badhand” and “Terror Misu.” Skaters also commonly don unusual attire like fishnet stockings and colorful knee socks. “In just two years, TCDG has exploded onto the C-U sports scene,” said TCDG president Tina Davis in a press release. “We are well on our way to becoming one of the most competitive leagues in the region.” Tina Davis, president of the league, also known as Terror Misu, said roller derby will be popular for a long time. “(For our own league,) the trick is finding a balance between being competitive nationally and locally,” Davis said. “We are cognizant that the league meets different needs for our members, and I think our success will be in providing the platforms for our league members to meet their own goals in the sport.” Norton said the league was founded on the belief that roller derby is not just about winning games. “By empowering and inspiring women and girls, we can
See ROLLER DERBY, Page 3A
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHELSEA NORTON
INSIDE
CLAIRE EVERETT THE DAILY ILLINI
Micki Palchick, left, graduate student, and Sara Kammlade, Illinois alumna, plant cauliflower at the Student Sustainable Farm on Lincoln Avenue and Windsor Road. On Wednesday, the machine, a water wheel transplant, dug holes in the ground, in which volunteers planted cauliflower.
Calling all green-thumbed students
For Earth Day, Sustainable Student Farm hopes to get campus more involved in food production BY CLAIRE EVERETT STAFF WRITER
Southward on Lincoln Avenue, past the cows and through the gate with the clothespins that hang in the shape of a tomato, sits the Sustainable Student Farm. The farm, which was created in 2009, aims to create a more sustainable campus by producing locally grown food and supplying it to the University. As one of its newest projects, Zachary Grant, farm manager, is currently working with a graduate-level architecture
class to build a new high-tunnel greenhouse, which will protect crops from harsh weather conditions. The plants grown in the high tunnels, such as lettuce and carrots, will be distributed to dining halls, University catering and farmers markets, which will be held on Thursdays on the Quad. In celebration of Earth Day, which is Sunday, the farm will host a mini-high tunnel workshop Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the University Arboretum’s Idea Garden, where students will get the
opportunity to help build a small-scale high tunnel. “We’re trying to get students involved in any way possible,” Grant said. “Some of the money that we get to do this project actually comes from student fees anyway, so we’re trying to get students to take ownership regardless if they’re in crop science or not.” In addition to using the high tunnels, the farm rents three rooms at the Plant Sciences Laboratory greenhouses to ensure that the plants germinate before they are put in the ground. Once the ground has thawed, they are transported back to the farm during planting season. After driving back and forth between
greenhouses and the farm to water the plants, Grant said he would prefer if everything were in one spot, as there is not enough space in the research greenhouses. Back at the farm, Tim Smith, a University alumnus and two-year farm volunteer, said the farm exemplifies the positives of sustainable farming. “There’s some lower-tech ways of doing things out here that apply to how people subsist in less industrialized places,” Smith said. “Working at a place like this, you’re standing at the intersection of efficient and sustainable food production with economic forces.”
See FARMING, Page 3A
Leader’s departure delays military minor be retiring as a member of the MEC at the end of the academic The Military Education year for personal reasons. “I’m retired, and I fi nd that Council, or MEC, began discussing the idea of adding a I’m not able to devote the time military science minor to the to this project that it really campus and has remained in needs,” Friedman said. “Also, the primary discussion stages I think that someone who is an active faculty member would for over a year. Despite the council’s hopes be better able to lead this to begin finalizing details subcommittee.” Scheeline said he immediatethis year, George Friedman, MEC member, has ly began talking to stepped down as other members and decided to appoint chair of the subcommittee working Murphy, professor on implementing of animal sciences, as chair. He added the minor, postponing further disthat Murphy has a cussion until next long record of parsemester. ticipating in various “I believe that committees on the the military minor campus and is highGEORGE FRIEDMAN, is an excellent idea, ly qualified to take former MEC member and I’m hoping that over the project. others can see it to Murphy said he approval over the has agreed to connext year or so,” Friedman said. tinue with Friedman’s work on Michael Murphy, MEC mem- the minor proposal but had no ber, has been appointed to take further comment. Friedman’s place as chair of The next step is figuring the Committee on Course and out which courses would be Program Approval, which is in required for students to take charge of developing the poten- in order to receive a military tial minor. science minor, Scheeline said. MEC chairman Alexan- Because students can minor in der Scheeline said Friedman anything, regardless of their spoke to him about stepping college, these courses could be down from the position over a from any department as long month ago. Friedman has been as the departments agree to a retired professor of computer science since 1999 and will also See MILITARY, Page 3A BY LAUREN ROHR STAFF WRITER
“I believe that the military minor is an excellent idea.”
WILLIAM SHI THE DAILY ILLINI
Yvette Mayorga's untitled drawing is laid out for auction as Victoria Briones, senior in LAS and member of La Colectiva, left, organizes the art before a fundraising event, which was held at the YMCA on Wednesday.
La Colectiva promotes access to education Students raise funds for undocumented immigrant scholarships BY ZACH BASS STAFF WRITER
La Colectiva, a student social justice organization that focuses primarily on immigration reform, held a fundraiser Wednesday regarding a scholarship that would be given to undocumented students on campus. The scholarship initiative is occurring while other legislation that seeks to aid undocumented students await approv-
al, including the DREAM Act, which would help undocumented students gain citizenship. The idea for the scholarship originally arose after a member of La Colectiva, Andrea Rosales, was arrested last year because she protested legislation that would prohibit school registration for undocumented individuals in Georgia. An online donation program began and quickly raised enough funds within two days to bail her out.
“After the online initiative worked, our focus shifted to an annual scholarship benefitting this group (undocumented students),” said Fernando Vazquez, president of La Colectiva and senior in LAS. “These students that we’re aiding came to the United States when they were very young. This is their home and they’re Americans in every sense in the way ... it’s beneficial
See LA COLECTIVA, Page 3A
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