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Game day changes Students react to new temporary tailgate restrictions
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Dustin VanHunnik
Dustin.VanHunnik@coyotes.usd.edu
n the days following the Dakota Days football game, USD students faced rule changes to the pregame tailgates as a result of several injuries and damaged vehicles. In an email from the USD Involved on Oct. 12, the updated rules for the Oct. 17 home game were listed. They included: vehicles and glass are no longer allowed, all bags and coolers are subject to search and anyone throwing beer in the tailgate will be arrested. Doug Wagner, director of programming and activities, said in an email the changes were made because of safety concerns. See CHANGES, Page A3
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Graduate assistants balance work, classes Lauren Soulek
Lauren.Soulek@coyotes.usd.edu
Devin Martin I The Volante
Tim Bjorkman, a former county judge, is one of the five candidates running for Congress in the 2018 midterm election. He hosted his fifth town hall on Oct. 9 in Vermillion.
Students get involved with South Dakota campaigns for US Congress Devin Martin
Devin.Martin@coyotes.usd.edu
With the U.S. presidential election ending almost a year ago, preparations are already underway for the 2018 midterm election. In South Dakota, there are six local candidates running for U.S. Congress. Democratic candidates are Chris Martian and Tim Bjorkman. Republican candidates include Dusty Johnson, Shantel Krebs and Eric Terrell. Lastly, George Hendrickson is running as an independent candidate. All candidates have different viewpoints, experiences and stances on issues that affect South Dakotans. Voting will take place on June 5, 2018. The general election will begin on Nov. 6, 2018. Not only are congressional candidates preparing for the midterm election primary date that’s soon to come, but so are USD students.
Getting involved
College Democrats hosted a town hall with Bjorkman on Oct. 9. The town hall marked the fifth for Bjorkman since he announced his candidacy in July. Brett Ries, the College Democrats president, said other political figures such as Billy Sutton, the Democratic candidate for governor, will be coming to campus Nov. 1, among other candi-
dates. Ries said College Democrats is also working with Clay County Democrats and expressed the difficulty in getting people motivated during an off election year. “There’s always room to get involved with a campaign,” he said. College Republicans are doing similar events as well. Jaedon Foreman, vice president of College Republicans, said College Republicans have had a few events to get congressional candidates to campus. “We had Dusty Johnson (Oct. 12), he had an event at REDS that we had some members go to,” Foreman said. “Shantel (Krebs), we are working with her (and) members of her campaign to get her to campus. She is pretty busy with her schedule as secretary of state.” Foreman said College Republicans is trying to form a debate with College Democrats and working on reaching out to Republican governor candidates Kristi Noem and Marty Jackley. College Republicans is also reaching out to different student organizations to plan events for the midterm election. “One of our big things this year is working with student orgs,” Foreman said. “So we are trying to work with College Democrats of course, trying to work with Yotes for Life, the pro-life group on campus, we’re reaching out to Spectrum (and) CREW is
another one we’re trying to work with.” A way to keep discussion moving is to talk about various topics effecting South Dakota, Ries said. “One of our first meetings we talked about DACA… and we talked about Betsy DeVos’ Title IX comments,” he said. “We’re doing an LGBT meeting here pretty soon because it’s LGBT Heritage Month here in October and then in November we are having a Planned Parenthood spokesperson come and working with Students for Reproductive Rights to have a joint meeting for that and show people what the laws are here in South Dakota.” Foreman said students should get involved in the political process. “I think it’s pretty crucial, because we have a lot of things coming up,” Foreman said. “I think that affects people here in South Dakota. It affects our students, it affects people in Clay County, health care especially with students (because) some of them have to pay the mandatory fee.”
Returning to traditional Democratic values
Personal responsibility, diligence and perseverance are fundamental to what the Bjorkman campaign believes in, he said. Bjorkman announced his candidacy for the U.S Congress in July. Since then, his campaign See ELECTION, Page A3
There are about 450 graduate assistants currently teaching on campus. Learning to balance their student and assistant responsibilities helps them prepare for post-graduation. Ranjit Koodali, the dean of graduate education, said there are four types of GAs.
Benefits
Koodali said the biggest benefit students receive from being a graduate assistant is the stipend. “The South Dakota Board of Regents, they set a minimum standard that all public institutions have to comply,” he said. “It is up to the departments or schools or colleges to give a higher stipend.” The minimum stipend set by SDBOR in this fiscal year is $3,763 per semester, but some grants allow for students to receive higher stipends, Koodali said. “For example, typically in a doctoral program, Ph.D., and materials chemistry, students receive $24,000 annually for 12 months,” he said. “There are grants in which students receive as high as $34,000. So the stipends vary from the minimum to as high as $34,000 annually.” Another benefit of being a graduate assistant, Koodali said, is the reduced tuition. They still have to pay the full fees, however. “If one is a resident of South Dakota, you pay 53 percent of the resident tuition fees, if one is a non-resident, you pay 63 percent of the resident tuition fees,” Koodali said. Koodali said graduate assistants also have the benefit of getting hands-on teaching experience, conducting research with faculty and learning new knowledge or skills in their disciplines. “So collectively, the stipend, the reduced tuition and that work experience be it in a teaching setting, research, clinical or administrative setting, are the three benefits that I think graduate students have during their studies,” he said. Magen Chan, a first-year graduate student instructor of record (IOR), is studying communication studies. She said in addition
to the tuition reduction and stipend, she’s enjoyed the teaching experience. “It’s great, of course, since I’m an international student, I think teaching speech classes will help my communication skills especially,” Chan said. Chan teaches two speech 101 courses. “I’m learning a lot because speech 101 is a really basic course that we took in freshman (year)… so it’s like refreshing memories and communication skills for sure,” Chan said.
Types of assistantships
The first type is graduate teaching assistants, GTAs. Koodali said there are roughly 50 of them across multiple departments on campus. A subclass of those are the IORs. Koodali said they’re given full freedom to develop a course under the mentorship of faculty. The next type of assistants are graduate clinical assistants. Koodali said the two largest groups of assistants are the graduate research assistants, GRAs, and the graduate administrative assistants, GAAs. “We do have a breakdown of the graduate assistantships in each department, and it varies depending on the size of the graduate programs,” Koodali said. “Some have certificates and masters, some have master specialists and doctoral programs, some have only masters program, and so the number of students vary depending on the size of the graduate programs.”
A balancing act
Graduate assistants are also full-time students. Mominul Islam, a second-year graduate student GAA studying computer science, said it’s tough to balance it all, but “doable.” “Sometimes when I have more homework assignments and midterms, quizzes and all this stuff, in that time probably I have some work, but they’ll be flexible to work with them,” Islam said. “I just tell them, ‘Hey I have a exam, I have a quiz or I have an online test, so can I just reschedule my schedule’ and they give us those flexibilities. See GRAD, Page A6