Monthly Archives: February 2016

Campus, Events, News, Panels, Winona State University

WSU Hosts All Male Panel on Gender Based Violence

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Winona State University hosted the latest in its monthly panel series on gender-based violence this past Monday, Feb. 15. As a joint effort between the Minnesota State University Student Association (MSUSA) and Winona State’s RE Initiative Club, a panel is held each month focusing on gender-based violence in the community. Monday’s panel focused on how gender-based violence specifically affects males.

According to a prepared statement from the club, Winona State University’s RE Initiative supports survivors of gender-based violence, and works to create a culture of respect and responsibility within the community. According to Kathreen Smith, President of the RE Initiative on campus, these panels begin a dialog about gender-based violence on campus. Smith said the panels are Q-and-A format, but often delve into more intricate discussions.

“Normally one question turns into a really great educational discussion,” Smith said.

According to her, they’ve been averaging around 30 attendees at each event. Numbers for Monday’s panel were in line with previous events.

Monday’s panel consisted of six men: two faculty members and four students.

Hunter Beckstrom, a junior who works in the RE Initiative as a peer advocate, served as moderator for the panel.

Before the Q-and-A began panelist Jacob Stock, a Women and Gender Studies (WAGS) minor, began by defining gender-based violence. Stock said it’s used as an umbrella term to refer to any type of violence in which gender plays a role. This can include sexual assault, harassment, stalking, domestic violence, and partner violence. Stock explained that typically this violence is perpetrated by males.

“As our training goes, it is most often the male figure perpetrating these crimes against a female figure, but of course there are exceptions to that as well,” Stock said.

Much of the panel’s discussion revolved around redefining masculinity, and the difficulties that brings. Ben Strand, a panelist and Senior Journalism major, said men often feel restricted by traditional definitions of masculinity and are pressured to conform to those guidelines.

“If males don’t fit into this spectrum of what is defined as masculinity in our society, then they feel like because they don’t fit in they don’t belong,” Strand said.

Stock explained males are typically socialized to be more violent and domineering throughout their lives, which contributes to this stereotypical idea of masculinity.

Alexander Hines, WSU’s Director of Inclusion and Diversity, was also on the panel. He gave an example of male socialization with an activity he frequently does with young men. He asks them to come up with 20 words that come to mind when they think about what it means to be a man. In this activity, Hines said the word that doesn’t come up is the most disconcerting.

“They talk about power, control and respect,” Hines said.

According to Hines, the word they don’t use is love.

“If you don’t love yourself, how are you going to love the body of that female?” Hines said.

WSU Student Senate President and panelist Joshua Hanson explained how society tells males they are supposed to act a certain way. Men are raised to believe they’re entitled to the privileges they’ve grown accustomed to, even though that’s not the case.

“It starts from boyhood and how you are told about masculinity,” Hanson said.

As an example, Beckstrom said walking home late at night in Winona, is radically different for males and females.

“Girls walking home at night have to have a whole game plan,” Beckstrom said, “I just walk home, it doesn’t matter where I go or what I do.”

A portion of the discussion revolved around portrayals of men in the media and how that contributes to societal ideals of masculinity and assumptions based on gender. The panelists emphasized critical analysis of the media along with the importance of continually questioning the messages it sends. Strand said people should ask themselves why certain characters or people are portrayed in a certain way.

To emphasize the importance of events like this, Beckstrom cited a statistic. Although Winona State is regarded as a safe campus, according to the most recent campus climate survey, it’s at the national average of one in five women being sexually assaulted during their lifetime. Hanson emphasized that having a conversation about these issues isn’t always easy.

“The conversations that you have to have aren’t always comfortable,” Hanson said. “You can’t be comfortable always in this work.”

As the panel neared its end, the focus shifted to advice on how attendees could prevent future gender-based violence.

“The conversation that we are having here tonight shouldn’t be ended when the last question is asked and the final answer is given,” Strand said. “It needs to extend beyond this room here,” Strand said.

After the panel concluded, Alexander Hines stressed the importance of greater faculty and administration attendance at these events. Hines said that getting figures of the university to participate in these types of events would help to spread this message.

The next panel in this series will take place March 25 in Stark 103 at 7 p.m. and will focus on how gender-based violence affects people of color.

 

Strand on his personal commitment to stopping GBV:

Stock on things students must be more aware of:

Hanson explaining the statistics:

 

History, News, Uncategorized

Racing Runs Deep with Rushford’s Tuff

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This weekend marked the 58th annual running of the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s most prestigious race. Since its inception in 1959, Daytona has served as one of the most iconic tracks NASCAR visits. A lot has changed since then; the cars have changed, the rules have changed, and the drivers have changed since the infant stages of NASCAR.

Yet one thing remains the same; go faster than the rest.

Rushford, Minnesota’s, Ernie Tuff, 85, knows how to go fast, especially at Daytona International Speedway. He was dubbed “The World’s Fastest Man” after building an engine for Edward Glenn “Fireball” Roberts for the 1964 NASCAR Modified Sportsman Division race at Daytona International Speedway.

“Fireball was the greatest racecar driver in the world,” said Tuff in a recent interview. Roberts, a 2014 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee collected 33 NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) wins, but he often preferred to dabble in the Modified Sportsman Division, where the cars were faster than the Grand National cars.

Back in the ’60s, there were two NASCAR divisions; the top-tier division was the NASCAR Grand National Series.

This series featured names like Richard Petty and David Pearson. There was a strict set of rules that every team, car and driver had to follow.

The second-tier series was the NASCAR Modified Sportsman Division. There were virtually no rules in this division, except that the car had to be at least three years older than the current model year. It was a proving ground where drivers tried to make a name for themselves and garner the attention of high-profile teams to get a shot at racing at the Grand National level.

Generally, the Grand National Series ran on Sundays, with the companion Modified Sportsman Division racing on Saturdays.

Compared to today’s NASCAR, the Modified Sportsman Division parallels the NASCAR Xfinty Series, the “AAA” of NASCAR.

Tuff is “a self-made man,” said local racing historian Dale Danielski.

Tuff said he looks up to people like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, and it is evident with the historic photos hanging on the walls of his property. He said one of the reasons he was attracted to Ford and Edison was because they liked to tinker around and build things with their hands. So did Tuff. And he still works on project cars to this day.

Tuff never finished high school, quitting after eighth grade because he felt the stuffiness of a classroom didn’t let his creativity flow. “I would be sitting in the classroom, thinking about how to make a motor work,” said Tuff. “Not thinking about the math problems.”

Studying the life and career of Henry Ford closely, his allegiance was to the Ford Motor Company. “I didn’t like Chevys,” he said with a straight face. “Anyone who knew anything was racing a Ford.”

After a successful career as an engine builder at the local level, building engines for Jerry Richert and Scratch Daniels, among others, Tuff decided to give NASCAR a shot.

In 1964, Tuff built a 427 cubic inch Ford V8 engine and put in in a 1961 Ford Starliner, emblazoned with the No. 99 on the door. He brought it to Daytona, and Fireball Roberts was slated as the driver.

“I put in a half-inch longer stroke with fuel injection, and that’s when I got the greatest driver in the world, Fireball Roberts,” Tuff said.

During qualifying on the Wednesday prior to the race on Saturday, Roberts posted the fastest time out of the 50 drivers, reaching an average lap speed of 170.470 mph over the 2.5-mile track.

“They must’ve calculated it three or four times. It didn’t seem quite right,” he said.

The second-place qualifier, Junior Johnson, was nearly five mph slower in his 1959 Chevy, with a speed of 165.822 mph.

“It’s pretty easy to attract good talent when you have the fastest car in the world,” Tuff said.

As for the race, an ignition issue prevented Roberts and Tuff from reaching victory lane, completing just 37 of the 80 laps for the 200-mile race. The race was delayed because of rain, and was shortened because of darkness. Originally, the race was scheduled to be 250 miles. Roberts finished 44th.

Not only did Fireball Roberts drive for Tuff, but Cale Yarborough, LeeRoy Yarbrough, and Larry Frank also piloted the No. 99 Ford Starliner.

From 1964 to 1967, Tuff brought the same car to Daytona for the race, but in ’67 he visited Lee Petty in the Grand National garage area. Tuff acquired a stroked 426 cubic inch hemi Plymouth V8, swapping the Ford out for the Plymouth power.

LeeRoy Yarbrough drove the car in ’67 and he set a new speed record at Daytona. He became the first to average more than 180 mph for a single lap in a stock car.

In 1968, NASCAR president Bill France outlawed Tuff’s car in an effort to keep the competition equal, to Tuff’s chagrin.

The car then sat idle for 47 years on Tuff’s property, and didn’t run until a few years ago. Tuff keeps it in his garage with his other project cars, and he enjoys bringing it to vintage car shows in the summer.

“It wasn’t too great just being built in Rushford, Minnesota, but at least it was the best in the world.”

 

 

 

 

 

News, Outdoors, Saint Mary's University

SMU Ski trails are joint effort for community benefit

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The room where skiers wax their skis and bundle up to face the cold will fill with Nordic ski enthusiasts at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 3 in Brother Leopold Hall to honor a man that put Saint Mary’s University on the map as having one of the best cross-country ski trails in southeastern Minnesota.

Brother Jerome Rademacher, an SMU physics professor, made the trails in the 1970s. However when his health declined in 2006, Rademacher put the Winona Nordic Ski Club in charge of maintenance, said Bruce Johnson, WNSC member. Since then, he said, the club’s volunteer trail maintenance has groomed the trails nearly every day during winter.

“We’ve created a monster. We groom the trails so well that people expect them to be perfect all the time,” Johnson said with a proud smile.

The SMU ski trails, located in SMU’s backyard Yonn Valley, are groomed and maintained through the joint effort of SMU staff and WNSC volunteers. Cross-country skiers travel from neighboring states to train and ski on these trails, Johnson said. The trails are also open every day for public use.

The trails are groomed for two purposes: skate skiing and classical cross-country skiing.

Similar to ice skating, skate skiing is done by alternating skis away from each other at an angle. Classical skiing is done by putting skis in two parallel tracks cut into the snow and shuffling the legs in a striding motion.

Rademacher, the trail’s first solo caretaker, used a machine known as a piston boy to groom the snow, said Johnson. Luckily, when Rademacher gave up this passion, Johnson said he was able to continue that legacy.

“When I retired, I said ‘I can help. I can volunteer’,” Johnson said. “He said ‘here’s the key to the piston boy.’”

Since then, the community has shown massive enthusiasm to help make the trails what they are today, Johnson said.

“All hell broke loose—in a positive way,” said Johnson of Winona’s ski community grabbing this chance to maintain and improve the SMU trails. “There’s a hardcore group here.”

WNSC raised funds for two specialized snowmobiles called ginzus and state of the art equipment for trail grooming to replace Rademacher’s “stone age” equipment, Johnson said.

Today the WNSC and SMU staff maintains the trails using three primary pieces of equipment, said SMU Associate Vice President of Student Services, Chris Kendall.

“It’s not just like cutting the grass with a lawn mower,” Kendall said. “There’s more of an art to it.”

The trails need maintenance for a variety of reasons: fresh snow or change in temperatures, humidity or sun, Kendall said. Weather depending, the WNSC members may work every day or not for a week, he said.

After a fresh snowfall, Kendall said WNSC groomers renew the trail’s solid surface by knocking air out of fluffy snow with the Snowcat. Next they’ll use the ginzus to soften icy snow and further pack it, making a consistent base. Kendall said proper timing is critical in this process.

If Mother Nature decides snow isn’t in the forecast, then their two snowmaking machines come in handy, Kendall said. Furthermore, parts of the trail that get more sunlight are prone to melting, so maintenance makes snow and moves it to those spots.

“That’s kind of the art of it—managing what you have to make it as nice as possible,” said Kendall.

According to Kendall, cross-country ski enthusiasts travel from Northern edges of Minnesota for SMU’s advanced trails. Although these trails are unnamed, regulars give them names of affection, such as “rattlesnake,” a name given to an advanced trail.

“I think we’re a god on the map,” he said, due to the WNSC’s ability to fine-tune the trails, make them versatile and do the proper upkeep.

Since they’re well-maintained, the trails are used by a variety of local groups including physical education classes at SMU, the WNSC, the Minnesota Youth Ski League and the Winona Senior High School Ski team, who use the trails as their home court.

Jason Mork, WSHS Ski team coach, said his team practices six days per week on the trails. They’re maintained really well, he said. In particular, the ability to practice after dusk gives his team an edge.

“With the lit trails, we don’t have to rush,” Mork said, while other teams may hurry to cram practice in before nightfall.

Although they’re well maintained, Mork said the SMU trails could improve their outreach of adult programs, since there are several nights each week devoted to Nordic ski programs for children. Mork also wishes pedestrians would be more conscientious of skiers as well as keeping off the ski trails.

“We want them to shy away from walking,” on the trails Mork said. As these trails are used for hiking in the summer, pedestrians walk them in the winter as well. However, sometimes they walk directly down the middle, he said. “We just want to say, come on, you know, get a pair of skis and go fast.”

Pedestrians aside, Mork credits the growth of WSHS’s Nordic ski team to the trail’s youth programs. Since area children begin skiing earlier, more experienced skiers join the WSHS team each year.

As for Johnson, the SMU cross-country ski trails are not only a continuation of Rademacher’s work, but also an asset that encourages community health, he said.

“This is a lifestyle,” he said. “It’s the whole idea of get off your butt and go do something. Do you really want to stare at a computer screen your whole life?”

Outdoors, Uncategorized

Winona bat condos, saving the residents under the bridge

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With construction well on its way on the interstate 90 bridges, The Minnesota Department of Transportation is taking on an unexpected construction project. “Bat Condos” or bat hibernacula, have been installed alongside the Mississippi river due to the significant number of bats living under the interstate 90 bridge that is due to come down next year.

Heather Kaarakka, a conservation biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said the bats have lived under the bridge for years and are used to the noise from cars.

Kaarakka estimated that roughly 2-3 thousand Little Brown Bats were living under the bridge.

“When we first discovered the colony, we found them roosting in the expansion joint between the east and the west bound lanes of the bridge.” Kaarakka said.

Although the bats in the colony are acclimated to some level of noise, construction will likely disturb them, Kaarakka said, and potentially cause them to leave the area completely.

Since construction started, The Department of Transportation from Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as the DNR’s from both states, have worked closely to help mitigate the loss of the bats’ habitat.

“Building and installing the bat condo and bat houses will help keep the colony around by providing alternate habitat.” Kaarakka said. Installing the bat houses before the roost is removed, will allow bats to find a new habitat and stay in the area.

MDOT has been the lead on the bridge project and have been more than willing to provide alternate habitat for the bats and take steps to help the bats move out of the bridge, Kaarakka said.

Robin Richardson, a biology professor at Winona State University, said she has seen success in bat condos located in the Winona community. In 2010, Richardson and some of her students put up a bat condo behind the Tau Center on WSU’s west campus.

According to Richardson, it could take years to see whether bats are using the bat condos near the bridge but says the bat condos near the Tau Center appear to be active.

“There are a lot of signs that they are using it. A lot of guano. It took about a year to see whether the bats where using it or not.” Richardson said.

Richardson advised community members who want to build a bat condo that bat condos should be located near water and should be in a warm location.

“The counterintuitive thing about bats is that they like it hot. People try to put them in a shady place but they like their houses 100 degrees and they need to be by water so they can fly into the house from the water.” Richardson said.

She also said that bat condos should be placed where other animals, such as squirrels, can not bother their habitat.

Kaarakka explained why Winona residents should want bats to remain in the area.

“A single bat can consume up to 1,000 mosquito-sized insects in one hour and a pregnant bat can eat her weight in insects each night.” Kaarakka explained.

Because bats can eat so much, it makes them important pest control not only for human pests but also agricultural pests.

Bats have become increasingly important in the southern Minnesota ecosystem since White-nose syndrome (WNS), a fungal bat disease was discovered in 2007. According to Kaarakka, it is not uncommon to see 90-100% of the bats infected with this disease die. WNS has a high mortality rate and it is not specific to one species, so multiple hibernating bat species are at risk in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“If WNS continues on its present course, Wisconsin and Minnesota could soon see empty evening skies as bats disappear from the disease. “ Kaarakka said.

Building a bat condo is something anyone can do, Kaarakka said, and directions and instructions can be found on the Wisconsin Bat Program website.

Uncategorized

Plant Food, Bath Salts, and Turbo: Winona’s Deadliest Drugs

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In Florida, they call it flakka.

It has received innocent nicknames like plant food, bath salts and meow meow.

Around Winona, they call it turbo, and it’s the deadliest drug in town.

Investigators from the Winona County Sheriff’s department said the drug turbo, or known by its clinical name Alpha-PVP, can cause side effects including blood pressure and heart rate increase. Even more worrying, is the paranoia according to law enforcement officials.

“Fits of anger, violence,” Investigators said. “They often have fits of rage towards shadowy figures and animals, believing to be possessed by demons.”

2009

Plant food, or mephedrone, begins to show up in Winona. It’s sold on the streets, unlike in Duluth where it was commercially sold.

Shortly after plant food came to Winona, it died out, but a new hybrid called bath salts or MDPV emerged in April 2009.

Investigators said the names are now interchangeable and the drugs are relatively similar.

“Mephedrone went away, MDPV came out in 2009,” investigators said. “By the end of 2009, we were seeing it a lot.”

Investigators said these aren’t close to household products and can’t be bought at any store.

“They called it bath salts or plant food and say not for human consumption, and put little labels on that say that, so they could sell it,” Investigators said. “We’ve talked to a few users and they’ve put stuff on their plants and they killed their plants.”

Since the drugs were legal, the investigators said they would receive calls frequently. One of the investigators worked as a dispatcher during the height of the plant food crisis and said they couldn’t go an eight-hour shift without getting a call about plant food.

“Every single day when you came to work, when it was legal, there’s a call about a guy running naked down the street or taking someone to the hospital because they’re high,” the Investigator said.

One of the earliest calls they received was from a man who called about an intruder in their home. The investigators said they rushed to the man’s house only to find no one there.

“We think there is an intruder in the house and when we got there, he said the tricky little guy went into the TV,” investigators said. “You realize after speaking with him for two or three minutes, this guy is high on something.”

After interviewing many drug users, the investigators said the drug is so potent and addicting that the paranoia and violent side effects come from when they are beginning to become sober.

With the drug becoming more and more popular, many police departments around Minnesota were sought help of the Winona County Sheriff’s department.

“When it first started, we had task force guys coming over from Rochester, Olmsted County, Goodhue County, Dodge County, Houston County and they didn’t know what this stuff was,” investigators said. “They got educated through us.”

With plant food and bath salts becoming more prevalent, Senator Jeremy Miller, a Winona resident, proposed a bill in legislature in 2010 to make it a schedule one controlled substance.

The bill passed in July 2011.

“Luckily enough, Senator Miller is from Winona, so he could see this stuff and hear about it,” Investigators said. “So we had a representative from Winona kinda push this. When you get up to the state, it pops up a little bit in some places, but they don’t seem to see it as regularly as we did.”

2012

With plant food and bath salts now illegal, calls plummeted significantly, with people being afraid to seek help due to legal repercussions.

Even worse, a new hybrid emerged, turbo or Alpha-PVP, giving its users an even more intense high.

The Minnesota legislature was able to add language to the bill, giving officers the ability to arrest people for Alpha-PVP in July 2012, a year after the initial bill passed.

The investigators wanted to express how Winona isn’t necessarily a drug-ridden town, but rather is primarily dealing with turbo more than any other city.

Around the country, heroin has quadrupled in deaths according to Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2002 to 2013 with 8,200 deaths. In Winona, the investigators said they rarely ever see heroin.

“We don’t see very much of heroin in Winona,” Investigators said. “Last year, I think we seized heroin on two separate occasions. The rest of the time we’re having the synthetic drugs.”

One of the biggest issues facing the Winona County Sheriff’s department is the small penalty facing turbo offenders.

“If I arrest someone with a tenth of gram of plant food or two kilograms of plant food, it’s the same charge,” investigators said. “That’s where we’d like to see some change.”

The investigators said they want to go after the dealers, the people who are moving it. They have found evidence that the drugs are being shipped from China into the United States, where it’s distributed throughout the country.

The penalty

If caught with turbo in the state of Minnesota, a person could face five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. For a second offense, it’s six months in a prison with fines increasing to 10 years and $10,000.

While this penalty seems harsh, in reality, it’s not, according to the investigators. The drug charge is a felony fifth-degree drug charge, which is the lowest possible charge someone can receive.

According to the investigators, any kind of change doesn’t look any closer than it did when the first law passed in 2011.

“I don’t know if it’s any closer,” Investigators said. “The efforts been local and pushing it locally, but I think the thing that kind of hampers us here, whenever someone hears about this at the state level, they keep referring to Duluth.”

Student Outreach

Winona County does have the D.A.R.E program for students. The investigators make routine stops in schools in the county to talk about drugs, including Alpha-PVP.

“They have us in a health class every semester or quarter,” investigators said. “We talk about the danger of methamphetamine and marijuana. We do a drug education.”

Why Winona?

In 2015, the Southeast Violent Crime Enforcement Team seized 2,162 grams of synthetic drugs, including turbo.

The investigators said turbo is bought in “point” form or a tenth of a gram, valued usually at $30 a point.

With that number, the SVCET seized $64,860 worth of synthetic drugs alone last year.

The police of Winona County continue to deal with turbo, trying hard to locate exactly where the drugs are being made and who the distributors are.

“There’s no answer for it,” investigators said. “There’s a supply around here somewhere.”

The investigators have received calls from around the Midwest, with officers and even a concerned parent from Kansas City wondering what turbo is.

“I had one lady call from Kansas City once and said my daughter is on turbo, or I think it was plant food at the time,” investigators said. “She researched it and it came back to Winona and the issues we had here. The police officers out there had no idea what it was and had never heard of it.”

Campus, Diocese, News, Saint Mary's University, Uncategorized, Winona State University

Winona Diocese Braves Weather for March for Life

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A blizzard could not keep a busload of 46 local high school teens, college students, and staff members from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona from attending the national March for Life in Washington D.C. over the weekend of Jan. 22.

This year marked the 43rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, ones that extended women’s rights to have legalized abortions in all 50 states. The March for Life is a pro-life movement that opposes the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions with demonstrations held across the nation, with the national event held in Washington D.C. annually, according to Ben Frost, the Diocesan Director of the Office of Youth and Young Adults in Winona.

According to the March for Life website, the vision for the annual March for Life is to “bring together pro-life leaders and groups to organize and strategize around a common message, and to communicate this message to the government, the media, and the nation in a way that is powerful and life affirming.”

While an impending winter storm deterred some groups throughout the United States from making the trek, around 15,000 to 20,000 young people attended, said Frost.

The weekend consisted of attending the “Life is Very Good” conference on the eve of the march, followed by the Rally and Mass for Life the next morning, presided by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the Archdiocese of Washington.

“They gain a real sense of courage; a courage to be able to go into this world, that oftentimes diminishes the worth of human persons,” said Frost.

It was Frost’s third time attending the march in Washington. “This was a unique experience,” he said because the weather provided some challenges, and a blizzard was on the way. Frost said there was a special message from Pope Francis given by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.

Carly Radke, a senior at Saint Mary’s University double-majoring in theology and psychology, and is president of Students for Life. She organizes events at SMU that align with the values of the pro-life movement, and this is one of their biggest events of the year.

This was also Radke’s third time experiencing the March for Life weekend in Washington. She says “just going and being around like-minded people to be a witness was powerful.”

On the bus ride from Winona, Radke said Father Andrew Vogel encouraged students to practice talking with each other about the power of respecting life from the time of conception, so they could educate others.

With the pro-life movement being such a hot-button issue, Radke said “it’s really encouraging” to see young people coming together as a community to serve as witnesses to life.

One of the highlights she said was after leaving the Mass for Life at the Verizon Center prior to the start of the March. Radke said she saw people looking out their windows at the demonstration and watching the group start their march towards the nation’s capitol. She said it was powerful because maybe they were able to influence some people who were on the fence about the topic of being pro-life.

Ultimately, the snowstorm forced the group from Winona to cut the trip short. Instead of participating fully in the march, they made the decision to climb back aboard the bus and head for home, but not before saying a prayer for all those who would forge ahead until reaching the nation’s capital. The risk of getting stranded on the highway was simply too high, Frost expressed.

In addition to a bus going to Washington, a bus of Saint Mary’s University seminarians, who participated in a similar rally in St. Paul over the weekend.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona is comprised of more than 100 parish groups. Eight of those parish groups helped raise funds to cover the transportation, hotel, and food expenses, according to Frost.

Frost said the trip cost between $275 and $300 per person.

The Diocese makes an annual trip to either Washington D.C. or Saint Paul, it depends on what day of the week Jan. 22 lands. If it happens to land in the middle of the week, Frost says it’s challenging for students to miss at least two days of school.

Though the trip got cut short because of the snowstorm, Frost was adamant when he said, “it was a beautiful witness of faith…it was a very powerful trip.”

For more information on the March for Life, find them on the Web at www.marchforlife.org, or call 202-234-3300.

 

 

Campus, Digital Life and Learning, e-Warrior, laptop program, technology

Addressing The Costs of WSU’s Digital Life

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Since its inception 19 years ago, Winona State University’s e-Warrior Digital Life and Learning Program has become a key part of the university’s educational vision, earning Winona State the moniker of “Laptop University.”

Each full-time student at Winona State is automatically enrolled in the program and given the choice between a Mac or PC laptop computer. Since 2014, students have also been issued an Apple or Android tablet device. Students are issued new laptops and tablets every two years they remain at the university.

According to current tuition rates, each full-time student pays $485 dollars per semester to participate in the laptop program as well as a “technology fee” of approximately $100 dollars. Given these kinds of costs, some students argue they could buy a laptop for the cost of a single semester in the program. Director of User Services Robin Honken explained that it’s difficult to get students to see the full value of what they pay.

“I think things that maybe are taken for granted here wouldn’t be had you had a different experience.” Honken said her daughter attends a college where they don’t have a laptop program. When her daughter spilled on her laptop, she had to go without a computer for a period of time. In this regard, Honken said students at Winona State are lucky because they can get their laptop replaced immediately.

Kenneth Janz, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Chief Information Officer at Winona State, oversees the program. Janz said it’s difficult to see why the program costs so much each semester if you only think about the program in terms of tangible items.

“There’s a lot of hidden costs that people don’t see but are there,” Janz said.

According to Winona State University’s 2013 Digital Life and Learning Board Report 65 percent of the program’s cost goes to hardware, which includes the laptops and tablets students receive every two years. 15 percent goes to paying the full-time professional staff and students who work in technical support and 10 percent goes towards maintenance of the machines, which includes warranties, repair, spare laptops, and other components. 5 percent goes towards purchasing software applications such as the Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud Suites, and 5 percent goes towards other miscellaneous costs of the program like the laptop buyout program for seniors, training or administration.

In addition, Janz explained the “technology fee” covers the cost of printing, printers on campus, wireless access points and certain software not covered by the e-Warrior fee.

Janz explained one of his department’s biggest costs is managing the sheer amount of internet traffic from every device on campus. Janz elaborated with a recent example.

“None of the other CIOs in MnSCU have the problems we have. There was a day last week where we had 15,000 leased IP addresses on campus.” Janz explained that each device whether it’s a cellphone, tablet or computer has its own unique IP address.

“Not all of the students are here at the same time taking classes, which gives you an idea of how many devices each student carries. We have way more devices than people actually on the network and we have to manage all of that.”

The fees students pay each semester go into paying for all that bandwidth and the hardware to manage it.

Despite the advantages it provides, some students would like to see changes in the program, particularly in the ability to choose different price points.

Jason Carpenter, a senior at Winona State, said more options for him would be beneficial.

“I’d love it if students could get reduced fees if they didn’t take tablets or additional electronics. Since I didn’t take one, I’m not a liability for the university leasing them out.

Nathaniel Nelson, a junior, said he prefers to use his own devices, even though he’s still required to participate in the program.

“The MacBook Airs and the PCs themselves, they’re not exactly up to snuff with most industry standards,” Nelson said.

Nelson said he built his own computer to ensure he has the most powerful hardware.

“I’m paying the fee but I just don’t use it as much,” Nelson said.

Since his personal computer can’t have university software on it, he also subscribes to the software he needs separately as well. Nelson said he’d like to see more options within the program.

“You can’t just have one laptop for every individual…everybody’s different…I’d rather see more choices.”

Like Carpenter, Nelson also said he’d be interested in seeing more variations in price. Despite his criticism of the program, Nelson commented on the value of the program as a whole saying each student having a computer is a good thing.

“When you have standardized hardware, it makes it easier to teach,” Janz said. Janz also acknowledged that not every major’s needs are met by the program. Janz said the Graphic Design department in particular is one major they’re working with faculty to improve, as they require devices with more computing power than many other majors.

Janz said his department brought up the idea of a “Bring Your Own Device” option for the program in 2013 based on student surveys, but it didn’t gain any traction. This would mean students would purchase their own devices and the cost of the program would drop to $200 or $300 dollars a semester. Janz said many students questioned why they would still have to pay that much if they brought their own devices. Janz cited the costs for bandwidth, campus technology like access points, projectors and printers. Janz said they will most likely float the idea to the board of trustees again in the year 2019 when their current leasing contract expires and the program must be renewed. Janz said they will keep proposing it in the hopes of offering more options for students.

“We’re constantly trying to find the middle ground to make the program as useful and as valuable to the students as possible,” Janz said.

 

*For more detailed info on the e-Warrior Program check out the most recent program assessment.*