The Volante W E D N E S D AY, O C T O B E R 1 7 , 2 0 1 8
THE STUDENTS’ VOICE SINCE 1887
911 services temporarily down in Vermillion
Lexi Kerzman
Lexi.Kerzman@coyotes.usd.edu
At 6:48 a.m. Tuesday, an emergency alert was sent to local residents stating the 911 area emergency system in the county was down. There was a second alert sent clarifying that the 911 services are only down temporarily. At 11:18 a.m. 911 services were restored.
“Vermillion and Clay County are currently experiencing a 911 system outage. Officials are working to repair the issue, and we will update you once it has been fixed. In the meantime, routine lines are functioning normally,” a tweet from the Vermillion Police Department said. According to the second tweet by VPD, people can contact their
office in the case of emergency while 911 is unavailable. “Because of the prolonged 911 service outage and an uncertain timetable for repair, we utilized a service to alert our area of the emergency,” the tweet said. Thomas Sepulveda, a sophomore acting major, said he was shocked to find out 911 was down. “I think this will impact the
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student body because in any emergency situation (students need) the immediacy of calling 911,” Sepulveda said. “All of Clay County can’t reach 911? That’s crazy. I mean especially in Vermillion where, unfortunately, as far as campus culture goes, rape culture is a thing. I just feel like any aid like that is frustrating that it’s just down.”
Brookman hall now requires card access at front doors 24/7 Kelli Susemihl
Kelli.Susemihl@coyotes.usd.edu
HARD LIQUOR BANNED
FROM FRATERNITIES Lexi Kerzman & Rachel Newville
Lexi.Kerzman@coyotes.usd.edu Rachel.Newville@coyotes.usd.edu
The North-American Interfraternity Council (NIC) will be implementing stricter guidelines on drinking at fraternity social events. These new rules banning hard liquor from fraternity facilities will start being enforced nationwide and at USD in the fall of 2019. Policy changes follow the death of a fraternity member of Beta Theta Pi at Pennsylvania State University. USD currently has eight fraternities on campus. Five are members of the NIC. Laura Anderton, director of sorority and fraternity life and leadership, said that chapters opt into being apart of the NIC. The fraternities currently not under the NIC at USD are Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Delta Theta and Tau Kappa Epsilon. Anderton said only the NIC member fraternities will be obligated to follow the new hard liquor policies and the remaining three will follow whatever new policy IFC implements.
“The NIC is the umbrella organizations for fraternities across the nation, they can opt into that umbrella organization,” she said. “On this campus, we have eight fraternities and five of those fraternities are opted into the NIC. So for those five fraternities, they will be under this new policy without question.” Josh Anderson, Tau Kappa Epsilon president, said although their chapter is not under the NIC, they have a similar policy. “Even though we’re not apart of the NIC, you’re looking at seeing a lot of fraternities and other organizations going this way, whether it’s on their own or they are apart of the larger organization,” Anderson said. “I think it’s a good thing everyone is trying to be not only reactive but proactive with what can happen when hard alcohol is put into the equation at a college setting.” Riley Ackerman, president of USD’s Interfraternity Council, said they already started changing their bylaws last year, which leaves them in a good position for new changes to be implemented on campus.
“We were preemptive, and we started last year when we started changing our bylaws, and we’ve put ourselves in a good position to be able to follow NIC’s new rules,” Ackerman said. The council will be developing new bylaws that will mimic the NIC changes. Ackerman said by implementing these new bylaws it will show that safety is a big priority to the council regardless of NIC’s regulations. “(This will) show the university that regardless of NIC we’re ready to take this on,” Ackerman said. “ I think the whole part of it is that this is just a big conversation on how can we improve safety and culture in Greek life especially at USD. It is fine to have fun, but personal safety and responsibility are important.”
Devin Martin
While many students use Quizlet, an online study interface, to succeed in their classes, they may be committing academic dishonesty. Quizlet is a user-interface that allows students and faculty members to create study sets to share online, however, through the university’s eyes, this can be seen as academic dishonesty, as students often use the service to be dishonest in online tests and quizzes. Deborah Dodge, assistant dean of students said that an academic dishonesty case depends on how a student uses Quizlet. “Depending upon the particulars of a student’s use of the app, it may constitute unauthorized assistance, or the use of sources beyond those authorized by faculty, or acquiring materials without the instructor’s permission,” Dodge said. “All three examples are defined as cheating… the provision of unauthorized resources and/or the impermissible use of academic material.” In an article by The Daily Toreador, Lisa Low, assistant professor of practice in public relations at Texas Tech said that Quizlet is used to prepare for online tests and then cheating can ensue. “Websites like Quizlet are commonly used when taking online tests. Students simply copy the answer and paste it into
While all fraternities are enforcing the no hard liquor policy, Beta Theta Pi will have a nationwide transition to dry facilities where there will be no alcohol allowed in any part of See FRATERNITY, Page A3
the search engine of the browser,” Low said. “Most of the time, an answer on Quizlet will pop up. Professors are aware of this though, which is why some might choose to use software to catch cheating.” Dodge said that once academic dishonesty is established, the student will be met with certain consequences. “Faculty discretion means that consequences will vary. They may opt to award zero credit on a quiz or paper; require a retake or rewrite for learning purposes for no or reduced credit; reduce the course grade by a stated percentage, point penalty, or letter; administratively drop a student from a course; or implement course failure,” Dodge said. The Daily Toreador article hints at the bigger picture that faculty just want students to succeed, Dodge said. “Faculty want students to succeed,” Dodge said. “When students are in a time crunch, by and large, faculty would rather consider whether or not they can be flexible about a deadline – and when they cannot – a student is better served by a zero than by engaging in academic misconduct.” Meredith Jenkins, senior music education and history double major, said USD has an appropriate academic dishonesty policy. “I just haven’t had many classes where there would be quizzes up (on Quizlet),” Jenkins said. “I think USD has a good policy See QUIZLET, Page A1
See BROOKMAN, Page A3
Dry fraternities
Use of Quizlet may cause students to commit academic dishonesty Devin.Martin@coyotes.usd.edu
Brookman residence hall has seen new security changes to the building’s front door, beginning the Thursday prior to Dakota Days weekend. The front doors of Brookman will now be locked 24/7. All exterior entrances and exits to the hall will now require residents to use their key cards to enter. Prior to the change, the front doors were unlocked daily from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m., while there was a front desk worker on duty. The two side doors of the building required key card access at all times. Ashley Hartnett, director of university housing, said these changes usually take place during the Dakota Days weekend, however this year, university housing decided to extend this period. “We make the change traditionally for Dakota Days, because we have so many guests on campus, and we notify students that we’re going to lock those front doors for the entirety of the three-day weekend,” Hartnett said. “(This year) we just decided that we weren’t going to unlock them after that.” Hartnett said this security change will be permanent. “We’re also looking at other ways in future years that we can do to renovate different areas to enhance the security, but I would say this specific change is
SDBOR POLICIES 2:33 AND 3:4 ON CHEATING AND PLAGARISM The term “Cheating” includes, but is not limited to, the following: 1. Using any unauthorized assistance in, or having unauthorized materials while, taking quizzes, tests, examinations or other assignments, including copying from another’s quiz, test, examination, or other assignment or allowing another to copy from one’s own quiz, test, examination, or other assignment; 2. Using sources beyond those authorized by the instructor in writing papers, preparing reports, solving problems, or carrying out other assignments; 3. Acquiring, without permission, tests or other academic material belonging to the instructor or another member of the Institutional faculty or staff; 4. Engaging in any behavior prohibited by the instructor in the course syllabus or in class discussion; 5. Falsifying or misrepresenting data or results from a laboratory or experiment; or 6. Engaging in other behavior that a reasonable person would consider to be cheating.
The term “Plagiarism” includes, but is not limited to, the following: 1. Using, by paraphrase or direct quotation, the published or unpublished work of another person without full and clear acknowledgment; 2. Using materials prepared by another person or agency engaged in the selling of term papers or other academic materials without prior authorization by the instructor; or 3. Engaging in other behavior that a reasonable person would consider plagiarism.
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Rap artist Vince Staples performs in the Sanford Coyote Sports Center on Tuesday Oct. 16.
Vince Staples visits USD, performs concert Kelli Susemihl
Kelli.Susemihl@coyotes.usd.edu
Rap music artist Vince Staples performed for students in the Sanford Coyotes Sports Center Tuesday night. The Campus Activities Board (CAB) invited Staples for this performance as their annual concert. Lauren Lavin, a sophomore psychology major and the special events director for CAB, helped with the security team throughout night. She said attendance for the event was enough to fill seats. “The turnout was really good, we had a pretty full floor and enough to fill up the seats. I think there was probably 1,200 people there,” Lavin said. Although the turnout of the concert was noticeably less than the previous CAB concert, Macklemore, the energy remained high, Lavin said. “I think there was probably less students there and I think that happens when you pick a genre of music that maybe not everyone is as inclined to like,” she said. “However, I don’t think it changed the energy; I think the energy was very similar to Macklemore.” Lavin said name recognition also played a part in the difficulty to sell tickets for the Staples concert. “We think that the lack of name recognition around Vince Staples made it a little bit harder to get people excited about the concert,” she said. “But once we started promoting a lot better, it went faster and then as it got close to the date, the ticket sales definitely picked up.”