USF Vessel Volume 8 Issue 6

volume 8 issue 5

April 2021

university of sioux falls student media

able of tcontents writers.....................................................................................................4 editors..........................................................................................................5 cool classes for fall...........................................................................................6-7 usf sees a much different spring break this year..............................................8-9 hot classes for summer.................................................................................10-11 streaming spotlight......................................................................................12-13 usf track perseveres.........................................................................................14 muse......................................................................................................15

on the cover:

Brenda Wipf and Devin Wolthuizen star in Brenda Wipf’s senior show: Proof by David Auburn. The play is one of five senior shows this spring and runs Thursday through Saturday, April 11-14, at 7:00 P.M. in Meredith Auditorium. All shows will be masked and socially distant.

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cover photo courtesy of Apolonia Davalos

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what’s inside

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writ

ers olivia valdez austin ludens brooke norgaard

kylin mckean kelsey sutton jaymeson wolkow

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editors

greta smith mataya lines

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ean

S tory

ck

Cool Classes For Fall

K yl i n M y b

The University of Sioux Falls offers a range of classes for many majors, however there are some classes that students may want to take no matter their major. Professors around campus are looking for ways to make required classes more intriguing as well as offering classes that are just for fun. From English classes to Media classes, here are some classes that one might consider for an upcoming semester!

ENG366 Evolving Canons Evolving Canons is a three credit class offered by Professor Jenny Bangsund. Because this is an upper-level class, there is a prerequisite of a 200-level English class. Professor Bangsund shares with us her mission for this class: “Evolving Canons is an upper-level literature class that addresses how literature and our society are continually changing; we read and discuss contemporary literature (usually literature published within the past decade) from a range of cultural perspectives. Each time I teach the course, I select a new set of readings around a common theme. Past themes have included Contemporary Native American Literature, History and Intertextuality, African American Literature, Family Histories, and The Jazz Novel.

This coming fall (2021), I am planning for the theme to be Complicated Histories, Complicated Forms, with texts chosen from ultra-contemporary works (published since 2017, with most published within the past year) from Native American and African American writers. We’ll read fiction, poetry, and memoir in order to engage issues of history, violence, identity, family, economics, and sexuality.”

ART281 Digital Photography II Digital photography II is a three credit class offered by Professor Nick Poppens.

Professor Poppens describes the class as such: “Students with a passion for photography will continue their exploration of the art form while working in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. Projects include a focus on convergence of photography and video, as well as mobile photography applications. The semester culminates in the production of a student art show where they are able to display their work in a gallery locally or on campus.”

There is a prerequisite for this class and that is ART181 Digital Photography.

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ENG200: Literature and the Critical Imagination While ENG200 is a class in the liberal arts core, it has recently undergone a name change that makes it stand out. The course has changed from Introduction to Literature to Literature and the Critical Imagination. This is a three credit course offered by Professor Kevin Cole. The English department has been finding many ways to make the attainment of an English credit more fun. Professor Bangsund shares what courses they are offering as well as why they decided to change the name of ENG200: “The English Department has been exploring new ways of approaching the literature requirement in the liberal arts core for a few years, including the development of coursework such as ENG236: Up, Up, and Away! The Superhero in Literature with Dr. Dyer and Dr. Cole’s outdoor sections of ENG200. The name change allows us to call attention more clearly to what we believe the course is doing, in helping to cultivate curiosity, critical thinking, and imagination as fundamental skills for all students.”

Peterson Wildlife Management Area in Lyon County, IA

Students hike through the tall grasses

photos courtesy of Breena Fox

A gate at Gitchie Manitou State Preserve

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USF sees a much different

spring break

this year

story by Brooke Norgaard The University of Sioux Falls experienced a much different spring break than what 2020 had to offer. Through the midst of a pandemic, USF’s 2020 spring break was the spring break that never ended. Now, in 2021, spring break has had a change just one year later.

Sioux Falls, SD— Spring break this year at the University of Sioux Falls may look a little different, but it was no doubt a memorable one. Some traveled south opting for summer sun and sand on the beaches of Florida. Others traveled much further north for hikes to glaciers in the cold winds of Alaska. Many of the rest decided to stay home or go to work over the shortened break.

For student Greta Smith, her spring break brought her to Alaska. “My friend is going into education…and she wanted to see what the schools were like in Alaska. So we went there for her to kind of just get acclimated to the area but it was really fun for all of us really just to go hiking and go shopping and to see all the things in Alaska.” Persevering through the cold, Smith and her friends took a two and a half-mile hike to go and see a glacier and shared, “...it was this bright blue kind of textured ice surface; it was beautiful surrounded by all those mountains and the sun was high in the sky, it was noon and it was just so sparkly and just beautiful.” Smith shared her love for Alaska’s beauty and landscape and said, “There’s so many beautiful things in Alaska.”

hiking at Chugach State Park

Those who traveled south to experience the sun on the beach, like student Mataya Lines, explained why Miami Florida was her choice for a destination. “We really wanted to go somewhere warm and so we originally thought about going to the Bahamas. But, because of Covid and travel restrictions we decided to stay in the U.S. and Miami just came to mind,” said Lines. Her favorite part of Miami were the beaches and swimming in the ocean: “My favorite part was definitely going to the ocean and that’s what we did most of the time.”

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the view of Portage Glacier

photos courtesy of Greta Smith

students Clara Leverich and Greta Smith do handstands on a a frozen lake.

Lines’ hotel view in Miami

Mid Beach in Miami Beach, FL

Downtown Miami Views

For other students at USF, spring break was not as eventful as traveling across the country. Student Ben Wollmuth described his spring break as such: “I did a lot of sitting around in my basement because it was nice out and I went outside for a little bit but ultimately I chose to be lazy.” Wollmuth explained his reasoning behind his choice for spring break, saying, “I haven’t had a break in a while and I just didn’t want to do homework so I did the opposite of that.”

Another student, Lexi Gryniewski, shared a similar experience. “I went home, relaxed for a little bit, and then I came back for the weekend to work a little.” Gryniewski also explained her choice to stay at home for the majority of the break: “I didn’t really have much else to do and I kind of forgot to take it off (of work) so I was already scheduled.” Madison Roushar was another student that decided to work and stay home over the shortened spring break. “I pretty much worked the entire spring break. Friday I went out to eat and got pizza and the rest of my time I was either watching Netflix or Youtube.” Roushar shared the same sentiments as Gryniewski as to why she decided to work. “I didn’t really have anything else to do and I needed the money too, so that’s why I worked.”

In comparison to 2020’s spring break, this spring break looks quite different. In 2020, USF students went on spring break and ended up not returning to campus due to the severity of the pandemic. “I didn’t mind when it came to this year’s spring break mainly because that I knew we were actually able to come back and that’s what I was looking forward to because I didn’t really want to be stuck at home again for however long it was…last year,” Wollmuth shared. Gryniewski shared her feelings from last year in comparison to 2021’s spring break as well. “Definitely had a lot longer of a spring break last year because we didn’t come back…it’s obviously different but I think it’s a good different.” Roushar shared similar feelings with Gryniewski and Wollmuth in their appreciation that this year’s spring break is quite different than last year’s in a positive way, and said, “I’m glad we came back this year. I was kind of nervous because I remember I was having flashbacks to last year and how we never came back. So, I like this years outcome better than last years.”

photos courtesy of Mataya Lines

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Story by Kelsey Sutton

hot classes for summer Think summer school is not cool? Think again! The University of Sioux Falls is offering a wide variety of unique and interesting courses this summer in many different content areas. MED335: Email Marketing, ART101, Drawing 1, and EDU390, Special Topics in Education are just a few that will be offered during this upcoming summer.

ART 101: Drawing I ART101, Drawing I, is taught by an associate art professor, Ceca Cooper. Cooper has been at USF for 17 years and has been teaching this course every semester, and several summers since then. According to Cooper, ART101 “is an intro-level course that offers a variety of approaches to drawing designed to sharpen perceptual skills, stimulate imagination and increase students’ ability to see and interpret.” This three-credit introductory level course has no prerequisites and satisfies the Liberal Arts Core creative arts credit. Cooper loves teaching this class because “everyone, no matter what level of drawing skill they come in with, will see a huge improvement in drawing skill at the end of the course.”

Student Felicity Tee sketches her own hand in drawing class. photo courtesy of Ceca Cooper

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The education department is offering a new course for the first time this summer called Special Topics in Education, taught by Rose Philbrick and Constance Krueger.

This course is for students aspiring to take the PRAXIS “CASE” (Core Academic Skills for Educators) exam which consists of reading, writing, and mathematics. There are three separate one-credit-hour classes with no prerequisites, and students can choose to take one, two, or all three of these courses offered this summer.

EDU390 EDU390A is PRAXIS Boot Camp-Writing, taught by Krueger, and helps students to better understand the PRAXIS exam, writing prompts, and utilize the writing skills needed to successfully pass the exam. Krueger, a USF alumna and a supervisor of teacher residents has 42 years of experience as a writing teacher.

Rose Philbrick, USF alumna and supervisor of teacher residents is a former Math coach and Interventionist and also taught EDU314 (K-8 Math Methods) in the fall semester of 2019. Philbrink will be teaching EDU390B and EDU390C. EDU 390B- PRAXIS Boot Camp-Mathematics will help future educators to better understand “the test and test-taking strategies, square roots and exponents, ratio and proportions, algebraic expressions, equations and inequalities, functions, congruence and similarity, trigonometry, geometric measurement, statistics and probability, categorical and quantitative data.” EDU 390C - PRAXIS Boot Camp-Reading, will teach the student “the test and test-taking strategies, comprehension, text themes, and main ideas, evaluating arguments and reasoning, word choice, figurative language, structure and organization, and point of view.” Each of these classes is designed to help students planning on taking the PRAXIS.

MED335: Email Marketing MED335 Email Marketing, is taught by Nancy Sutton, who started teaching at USF in the fall of 2018. Sutton helped to design and create new social media courses offered at USF. Though the program started as a degree completion program, it has evolved from five classes to a certificate, to a Social Media Minor. Sutton taught the class last summer for the first time and successfully created a curriculum that teaches students to utilize and “build an email marketing strategy, create and manage email campaigns and subscription lists, explore design options using web development tools, measure the campaign results with analytics, and understand how email marketing fits into an overall business strategy.”

Having personally taken this three-credit degree completion program class without any prerequisites, this reporter learned so many valuable skills about managing campaigns and the strategies you can utilize to make email marketing as effective as possible.

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The Streaming SpotlighT MOVIES Nomadland Rating: 8/10 Where to watch: Hulu Nomadland may be a hard watch if you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, but it’s a beautiful look into the soul of a true sojourner. Frances McDormand brings out one of the best performances of the year while Chloé Zhao shows her masterful skill behind the camera. Some may think this movie drags at times, but if you can be in the mindset to watch a slowburn, I really recommend this one.

photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

Kong vs. Godzilla Rating: 8.5/10 Where to watch: HBO Max or in theatres It’s awesome. That’s really all there is to it. This movie delivers in every way emotional to visual. What more could you want from a movie of this title, besides epic giant monster fight scenes? Director Adam Windgard knows exactly what his movie is, and doesn’t spend time on human characters when it’s not necessary. The VFX in this movie are legitimately breathtaking. I had a giant smile on my face almost the entire time.

What a fun ride.

photo courtesy of Legendary Pictures

Minari Rating: 9/10 In Theatres or Rent online I was expecting a lot from this movie, especially since I saw that it was nominated for a few Oscars. But, I ended up being surprised at how entertaining it was. This movie is funny! I expected a somber, heartfelt drama, and instead got a funny, heartfelt drama. Young actor Alan S. Kim stole every scene he was in, and his relationship with his grandma was the heart of this movie. This is one of the more accessible “indie” movies that I have seen.

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photo courtesy of A24

column by Austin Ludens

Tv shows The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Rating: 8.5/10 Where to watch: Disney + Marvel Studios is back at it again with another hit tv show. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is the second crack at TV shows for Disney Plus, and delivers just as much as the movies do.

The format allows us time to see the background and emotional depth of the two main characters, while also mentioning social issues in a way that feels natural and flows with the story. An obvious must watch for any Marvel fan, but also anyone who just likes good TV.

photo courtesy of Marvel Studios

Invincible Rating: 9/10 Where to watch: Amazon Prime This one may be the least well known, but I can’t recommend it enough. Invincible takes a more realistic approach to superheroes, while also keeping the show light hearted and charming like Marvel Studios. The animation reminds me of cartoons I would watch as a kid...but with more blood. The story and the visuals add so much depth to this show. So while it is animated, this is no kids show and I can’t recommend it enough to readers who are looking for a different approach to superhero shows .

photo courtesy of Amazon Studios

Mighty Ducks: Game Changers Rating: 7.5/10 Where to watch: Disney + The Original Mighty Ducks movie was one of my favorites as a kid. So when I heard a show was coming, I was cautiously optimistic. This show has the same charm and love that the original trilogy of movies did. While some may think it’s a bit cheesy and campy, I think that’s what makes it so great. It remembers the heart of the first movie and returns to it in a new creative way. Also Emilio Estevez returns as the iconic Gordon Bombay...what more could you ask for?

photo courtesy of ABC Signature

USF Track Perseveres story by Jaymeson Wolkow

Sophomore Cassidy Noelder long jumping at USD meet

Freshman Emily Swanson pole vaulting at the Wayne State meet

Cassidy Noelder triple jumping at USD meet

After months of training and competing indoors, the University of Sioux Falls Track and Field team is finally back outside for their first outdoor season since 2019. The Cougars officially kicked off the spring season on March 26th and 27th in Wayne Nebraska and will compete in meets every week until May. Even though the team is moving outdoors, coaches and athletes are still working hard to stay safe and healthy by continuing to follow COVID protocols while at practice and meets. “Part of the NCAA Covid protocol, is our athletes are getting tested on a weekly basis,” says Doug Peterson, the Head Coach of the Cougars Track and Field team. “Event group coaches are splitting up and making their practice groups smaller, masks are required at practices, and just social distancing.”

Even though this season is sure to be a season full of unique challenges, the team’s morale is still at an all-time high. Freshman thrower Dawson Davito captured that enthusiasm, saying “It’s always just fun to hang out with the guys and even better just throwing every day. We’re lucky to even have this, honestly, and we just kind of thank God that we’re doing it.”

The Cougar’s championship season begins in May with the NSIC conference meet at The University of Minnesota Duluth on the 13th-15th with hopes of sending a few individuals on to the NCAA Division II National Meet in Allendale Michigan on the 27th-29th. You can keep up to date with all things Cougar Track and Field by following their social media pages, @USFTFCC on Twitter and @usf_tfxc on Instagram. photos courtesy of Clara Leverich

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@USFTFCC

@usf_tfxc

muse

usf student poetry

free Today freedom feels like fresh air Hand on door, heart skipping Wrangling songs in my head A hum escapes I don’t care, I’m free r.a.f

Who are you?

That put up my hair Said I was the kindest person in the world Helped with my spelling words Who are you?

That protected me from boys Said I was a great singer Helped me tie my shoes Who are you?

That told me I eat like a pig Said I half ass everything Made me cry when ever I made a mistake Who are you?

That calls my ideas dumb Said I didn’t understand my own religion Made me scared to speak Who are you?

I am unsure, I am fearful Who are you?

Dad b.b.

the planner 23rd, Tuesday cross-off the easy things first read slave narrative for ENG490 research funfacts about Fargo for Crime in Film write a poem for Greta

--and Abby ride bike text Sister about you-know-what draft an explanation/defense imagine what They will say imagine a different version imagine that version again make sure They know it’s not their fault breathing exercises reading for HIS220 write a poem read graphic novel for ENG300 acne medication L-Theanin supplement tell bestfriend I love her which one? any one of them all of them just in case count blessings dye hair pink make another appointment with Dr. DK research mermaid lore for the novel conference w/ professor @2 let him know about— add name to grad school mailing lists text Sister back meet with Them count blessings breathing exercises sarah smith

to be featured, email greta.smith@usiouxfalls.edu

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Shows will be masked and socially distanced.