/ The Sunflower
WICHITA STATE’S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1896
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THURSDAY Nov. 11, 2021 Volume 126 Issue 15
www.thesunflower.com
SHINING AT SONGFEST
Advocate for the artist: Poetry student wanting more opportunities for creative minds BY JULIA NIGHTENGALE news@thesunflower.com
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PHOTOS BY KHANH NGUYEN / THE SUNFLOWER
Top: Paeten Howard of Delta Gamma sorority performs during Songfest on Nov 7 at the Orpheum Theatre. Bottom: Payton Dill of Gamma Phi Beta sorority performs during Songfest on Nov 7 at the Orpheum Theatre. For more coverage of the event, turn to page 3.
ouquin Fox, the new president of the Fairmount College Student Advisory Committee, nominated himself for the position in order to create a bigger emphasis on creativity and ideas. His goal is to hopefully provide more creative outlets for students at WSU as well as job opportunities for students in the Fairmount college at places like NIAR after they graduate. “I thought it would be good for an artist to be on the committee,” Fox said. Fox is a junior double majoring in creative writing and English language and literature, and said that the committee will be making steps this year to get recognized student organization status from SGA. “We created the committee so that we could have better communication,” Fox said. “So we’re trying to just get a committee set up with some students who really care about the college and want to have a communication with the bigger caucus and students in general. Hearing their problems and seeing if we can do anything about them.” Jouquin is the former undergraduate poetry editor of Mikrokosmos, the literary journal of Wichita State’s MFA program, as well as currently serving as a liberal arts and science senator on SGA. “As much as it’s romantic for a writer to just kind of sit in a hole and write all the time, it’s good to explore and figure out stuff, so I wanted to see the smoke and mirrors of it all, see like how stuff actually gets done,” Fox said. Fox said he would like more creative writing outlets available to students beside Mikrokosmos and The Sunflower. He said is working on publishing an independent poetry magazine made up of WSU students. If interested in contributing, you can reach out to him at spectrumofwordz@gmail.com. At previous committee meetings, Fox said that they have discussed working with bigger companies on campus to figure out a way for the Fairmount college to be more adequately represented in
“I feel like there’s a lot of open job opportunities and a lot of information about engineering students specifically, and not so much about writers and stuff.” JOAQUIN FOX President of Fairmount College Student Advisory Committee
the job market. “I feel like there’s a lot of open job opportunities and a lot of information about engineering students specifically, and not so much about writers and stuff,” Fox said. “That might be a larger issue with the full job market, I think we are trying to figure out a way for writers and philosophers and people to be hired by a place like NIAR, which is kinda like, ‘why?’ More to generate ideas and help with their writing so they can focus on the engineering, you know.” Fox said that he hopes to help voices be heard as well as make some sort of change on campus in his position on the committee. “Just the economy of the United States and the world in general where we produce like the material goods, there needs to be an emphasis on the idea creation and making the human more full,” Fox said. “America has largely been more a transfusion of cultures around the world, and I think with the more emphasis on creating more ideas, making humans more full there would be a more American culture besides just the ideals that are falling apart.” Fox said he is going to get his master’s in poetics, and hopes to one day be a professor and writer. He also writes rap music and has performed at Kirby’s four times this year. “I have a couple different avenues, I’ve been like doing music for a while so during my college career I’ve specifically tried to use my sort of hip-hop stuff with actual poetry because they do go together,” Fox said. “Rap is a form of poetry, poetry is very musical so I’ve been trying to fuse those two together.”
Proposal to add an A+ to grading scale recieves first read at Faculty Senate LINDSAY SMITH editor@thesunflower.com / @Lindsay_KSmith
A proposal to add an A+ to WSU’s grading scale received first read at the Faculty Senate meeting on Monday. Currently, WSU uses a plus minus grading system, with the exception of an A+. They offer an A-, but do not offer anything above an A. The proposal first came to light from the Student Government Association and was then passed on to the academic affairs committee. “The academic affairs committee agreed that this should be an option that faculty should have the opportunity to award an A plus if
they chose,” Raina Rutti said. Option 1 would make the A+ equal to a 4.33 gpa. The second option would make the A+ an “honorary” grade, and keep the grade to a 4.0. “This can be beneficial to students going into professional schools like law school or medical school,” Rutti said. The proposal cites that having an A- can put extra pressure on high-achieving students and makes it harder for maintaining a higher gpa. The proposal argues that when a 4.0 student earned an A-, that student has no way to raise their gpa back to a 4.0. Sociology professor Chase Billingham argued that an A+ may be used to “cheat” a students’ way
to a 4.0. “The fact of the matter is that students earn grades for reasons and if they don’t have A’s in all of your courses, then you shouldn’t be able to earn a 4.0,” Billingham said. “At least for this first option, where we have the 4.3 option available, I just think it’s sort of cheating a system that I think is really unfair to the students who do earn a 4.0.” Earlier this semester, SGA passed a resolution asking the faculty senate to accept the proposal. The resolution also cited that the non existence of an A+ in the scale put an uneeded burden on students to make up their gpa. “I personally don’t agree with the plus minus system at all, but
this is what the student government wants to go to,” Rutti said. “We don’t take orders from the student government,” Billingham said. The proposal will receive a vote at the next faculty senate meeting. If accepted, the proposal will then move on to the general faculty for a vote.
ILLUSTRATION BY THY VO / THE SUNFLOWER