5/19/23: An open letter to Anthony Guterres UN Secretary-General from Project NatureConnect’s founder, Michael J. Cohen Ed.D, Ph.D., gives everybody a critical green switch remedy and training article that Guterres has for years requested and deserves.

Guterres says,

“Humanity is waging a ‘suicidal war’ on Nature.

We are facing new heights of global heating, new lows of ecological degradation, new setbacks in mental health and our goal for more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable development.

To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken. Nature needs a bailout —it’s time to flick the green switch.”

The green switch remedy Guterres seeks is Cohen’s multiple-sensory tool called, Natureness. It registers directly in our awareness the self-correcting essence of Nature that flows around, in and as us. It’s the critical woke for any individual who has ever been abused.

Cohen says “The daily growth of our war with Nature demonstrates that, by holding an undue prejudice against Nature, all the knowledge in the world to date has not applied the available Natureness antidote for the source of the war.”

“Being scientifically hands-on, Natureness reduces ‘Earth Misery.’ That’s my name for today’s increasingly broken life that we suffer. This horror results from our war’s lies about Nature. It includes our increasing climate change and mental illness dilemmas as well as our abuse and deteriorated personal, social and environmental well-being.”

Cohen is the maverick genius who, in 1965, determined that wordless Nature had to be alive. To demonstrate this fact, in his letter to the Secretary General, he gives him the power of Natureness:

“It’s an absolute fact that you exist and are alive as you breathe, grow, and read these words this instant.”

It’s a self-evident, 54-sense truth that you experience. If you don’t trust what you experience what can you trust without getting injured by the war?

Note that this indisputable fact is a green switch tool that can be added to any “thing” or relationship and increase well-being. You simply make contact with a natural “something,” like appreciating a cloud or our thoughts, senses and feeling as ‘things.’ As Albert Einstein said, “When the solution is simple, God is answering.”

Our words here, right now let us experience this Natureness moment as our heartfelt, whole truth of our bankrupt world.  When our words and acts include Natureness, we help stop the war and happily recover from its wounds. When our words mislead us about Nature, we increase our Earth Misery pain.

Cohen says that 99% of our time is out of tune with Nature and we suffer our broken lives because they are grounded in our destructive war propaganda, not the Natureness of our planet’s balanced and beautiful natural world.

“The absolute truth antidote for our war’s Earth Misery is to learn Natureness, free, at the Natureness website or via its Natureness gift,” Cohen said. “Natureness is fun, easy and profound. You learn how and why to add the “ness” of Natureness to everything, including yourself. That grows happiness in balance with wilderness in our consciousness because ‘ness’ is Nature’s reasonable love ‘to be, exist or live.’ We can’t afford to start a day without it.”

Contact: Mikeness, Michael J. Cohen, Ed.D., Ph.D.
360-378-6313   nature@interisland.net   www.ecopsych.com/mjcohen.html

Natureness Website: https://www.projectnatureconnect.com/

Natureness Article https://www.projectnatureconnect.com/keyarticle/

###

Below is the full content of the letter to Secrretary-General Guterres.  It is also online at www.ProjectNatureConnect.com/openletter/

Dear UN Secretary-General Guterres,

Thank you for, at last, accurately identifying the war we wage against nature and its effects. You’ve made it possible for Project NatureConnect to create the peace-with- Nature green switch we desperately need to increase well-being.

Scientifically, the switch is a  unique social technology but it only works if we strive to be precise. Otherwise the war’s propaganda distortions we addict to and endure continue to warp our reality. That voids the green switch and its Climate Therapy values.

To be authentic here, I let the evidence-based Natureness of the green switch teach itself to you in this narrative. That helps you learn and believe it directly from its source as it demonstrates how it grows itself. This enables you to share that great missing truth with the world and increase our ability to continually expand well-being by 850%. I have attached our professional training article to help you accomplish this.

Adding Natureness to everything is critical because it is the self-correcting essence of Nature that can transform our war against Nature into sufficiently loving the natural world. This is important since the war is the root of every conflict that excessively stresses us.

Here’s Natureness in action

“It’s an absolute fact that you exist and are alive as you breathe, grow, and read these words this instant.”

We are engaged in this indisputable science fact right now. Do you trust this experience? In these troubled times if you don’t trust what you experience what can you trust without getting injured by the war?

The undeniable Natureness truth, above, can be applied as a green switch tool, anytime, anywhere in conjunction with natural things.  This instant, it is the part of me that is attracted to writing this letter to you as well as the attracted part of you or whoever is reading these words right now.

Here and now, our words help us bond to the beautiful, self-correcting essence of Nature that is alive everywhere. It is our shared inborn love with the essence of each thing in our universe, including each other and our inner child. In today’s space-time Universe science, that’s how everything grows in unity as one single life, moment-by-moment.  That’s how and why the existential fact, above, is absolute.

Natureness is happening right now unless one of us stops it simply by not believing it.  That sounds like a miracle because we seldom confirm the obvious: our Universe is wordlessly growing until it doesn’t. Galaxies expanding from each other show this. That’s universal life’s growth, just like the Big Bang, or before, was its birth.

Scientifically, Nature is alive, not Newton’s mechanical and decaying relationship. You know from experience this is true because, as above, and again here and now,  you exist and are alive as you breathe, grow, and read these words this instant while all things are connected and their essence identically growing around, in and as you.  Can you sense or believe Nature’s time and space loves to survive by beginning its and your life this very moment, that we’re all part of the same  universal tree of life?

The above is no different than how our toes, head and heart wordlessly are, by Nature, attracted to live together by growing in unity, as above. That’s the magnificent, self-perpetuating, Natureness green switch that loves our life into being and that society excessively pays use to conquer and grind into money.

No wonder we are broken and can’t stop the war. We are indoctrinated to incredibly believe that we are not wounded victims of this excessive conquest of Nature as it rages around, in and as us. 

The Natureness green switch works because it’s the pure life essence that unifies our physical and emotional conflicts as it composts and recycles them into Nature’s love to begin and grow all of life harmoniously attached including our body organs, mind and spirit.

In Natureness relationships, Nature’s wordless intention to love life into being fulfills our excessive wants that arise because they are excessively nature-disconnected. That loss makes us greedily seek artificial satisfactions accompanied by their destructive side effects that make us want more of everything for fulfillment.  This short circuit aggravates our  situation. It defines addiction, that we try in vain to remedy with competitive new technologies that additionally increase our stress.

Mr. Secretary-General, doesn’t your Natureness experience, here, or in a natural area, cry for you to trust its felt-sense wisdom and stop our madness?  Natureness can help you and us because it is  Nature’s fountainhead of authority in how its perfection works.

Natureness eco-arts and science expand and continue the healing bliss that Nature grows in natural areas. Its 54-sense, words and acts reverse our broken world agony. Children easily add it to their lives while my 57 years of living and researching it has substantiated its effectiveness.

Here’s the best part of the Natureness green switch. It is easily achieved by knowledgeably adding “ness” to our name and what we name so, for example,  Jody becomes Jodyness, you become Antonioness a tree becomes treeness, music becomes musicness  and I’m Mikeness. This makes all thing’s essence, since the beginning of time, become the Natureness of any instant’s  happiness. “Ess” means “to be, to exist.” This pure truth phenomenon only occurs moment-by-moment in space-time, including this instant.  Do you recognize and appreciate its total honesty? It’s wilderness

Secretary-General Guterres, to globally green switch, simply lead the world by joining with us and become Antonioness Guterres this Earth Day and whenever else it will be helpful.  It will always expand and strengthen your good intentions by 850%, because it activates today’s known 54-senses instead of limit us to Aristotle’s five senses from 300 B.C. As a world leader, you can simply add ness to yourself and any other situation and bring the missing wisdom of Natureness into play.  Our increasing climate change, mental illness, species extinction, violence, ad nauseam, demonstrate the painful Earth Misery that results from us omitting Natureness.

With justice for all, here’s what we need to do. Wherever our media,

education, counseling or livelihood dismiss Natureness, simply green switch into your personal ness, Antonioness. Learn and invoke Natureness so its benefits can help us help others learn Natureness and reduce our horrible Earth Misery.

The Natureness process creates pure moments that let  Earth’s love and wisdom use our words to teach us what we need to know. Otherwise, we suffer the trauma of our war stories keeping us out of tune with Natureness for over 99% of our lifetime.

In contact with Nature, (For example, appreciating a cloud), our Natureness truth counteracts lies, unifies all things and it can be added everywhere as we learn it with friends on the internet or with our pet and community.

As you well know, since 1974, our conquered personal and planet life has been natural resource (read Nature’s metabolism) bankrupt. Today it is in 45-75% deficit and counting. This means that whenever we don’t invoke Natureness as a remedy for the person/planet abuse we inflict, our global debt, ecocide, polarity, anxiety and depression increase. It’s not a conspiracy, its a consequence of Natureness deprivation.

Natureness works because it therapeutically interlaces our 54-senses with their source and growth in any natural area’s wordless eons of cooperative life experiences. In these Earth-bankrupt times there is no substitute for this that does not intensify Earth Misery.

Obviously, the omission of Natureness violates our legal and moral right to life as it deteriorates life. Our inequality, injustice and disorders are rooted in our tragic Nature holocaust as it flows through us and our planet. Our lives are grounded in war and falsehoods, not the absolute truth of Nature’s essence.

Natureness is available, free, to the public. Hands-on, it creates justice, peace and sustainability because in authentic Nature everything is attractive, wanted and belongs. That’s why Nature doesn’t produce garbage or undue abuse. It’s unconditional love in action.

Help “ness” help you introduce the green switch benefits of Natureness everywhere for personal and global sanity.  Again, simply be publicly known as Antonioness for Earth Day and whenever else possible and help others do the same.  Gain the power you need and deserve. As Albert Einstein noted, “When the solution is simple, God is answering.”

On behalf of Natureness, I thank you for considering this  proposal to stop our madness.  I’d be happy to explore it further with you. Once you experience it in a natural area, you will recognize it’s a major breakthrough that can quickly be taught and applied globally via the internet. It should be required, UN accredited education everywhere including the University for Peace. Without it, education, counseling and the media are not credible and, sadly, most other remedies are just band-aids for the symptoms of how we wound Nature around and in us.

Without Natureness, folks don’t scientifically know or address the core of what’s breaking the world so the core continues to grow. Why would you think today’s Natureness-absent efforts will suddenly stem the tide? Would it be because you are not immune, that your thinking omits Natureness as a green switch?

If  the GreenSwitch Institute or I can be of service in an absolute truth UN Natureness endeavor, please let us know.

With Great Appreciation for Your Dedication,

Mikeness

Michael J. Cohen, Ed.D, Ph.D.  360-378-6313 Pacific Time. Email nature@interisland.net

Green Switch Website   https://www.projectnatureconnect.com/

Book Preview www.ecopsych.com/NATILLUSTRATED.pdf
Online at https://www.projectnatureconnect.com/keyarticle/

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The University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents Chair Ken Powell announced Monday afternoon he resigned from his position as the board’s chair.

Powell will continue to serve as a regent through the end of his term, which ends this spring, according to a systemwide email from the now board Chair Janie Mayeron.

“He [Powell] has communicated to the full board that his decision will allow us to establish a leadership team that will guide us throughout the transitions before us and beyond,” Mayeron, who was serving as the board’s vice chair, said in the email. 

This leadership change comes two weeks after University President Joan Gabel announced her departure from the institution to serve as the chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. 

Mayeron announced a special board meeting slated for Thursday at 9 a.m., where the regents will elect a new vice chair and act on next steps for electing an interim president to fill Gabel’s position.

This is also the third out-of-the-ordinary board change in the past year. 

In June, former regent David McMillan resigned from the board before assuming the University of Minnesota-Duluth (UMD) interim chancellor role. Then in October, former vice chair and Regent Steve Sviggum resigned from his position as vice chair following comments he made about the University of Minnesota-Morris’ student population diversity. 

Powell was elected to the board in 2017 and became the chair in 2019 after a unanimous vote by the rest of the board. He is about a month away from finishing his six-year term. 

Prior to serving on the board, Powell held various corporate leadership positions, including serving as the CEO of General Mills for nearly a decade. He currently sits on the boards of Medtronic and the Carlson Companies.  

Concerns on campus and at the Capitol 

Powell faced barriers during his bid for reelection to his at-large seat, which is currently up for election. The Regent Candidate Advisory Council (RCAC), the state Legislature’s group of members responsible for screening board candidates, excluded Powell from their recommendations to the regent nomination joint committee in January. 

Several lawmakers shared their concerns over his reelection during the RCAC’s candidate interviews, citing the board’s year of continued controversies and the public’s growing distrust of University leadership. 

Since Powell assumed his leadership position, the board has faced backlash over multiple decisions involving administrative ethics. These include McMillian’s UMD appointment and the approval of President Joan Gabel’s position on Securian Financial’s Board of Directors.  

Powell also received criticism over his handling of Sviggum’s comments at an October board meeting, where Sviggum criticized the diversity of the student body at the University of Minnesota-Morris. 

The future of board leadership 

Former board vice chair, Mayeron, will assume the chair’s role for the rest of the term.

In December, the regents elected Mayeron as the board’s vice chair in a 9-3 vote, following Sviggum’s resignation from the position. 

When a chair vacancy occurs, the board’s vice chair steps into the role and serves out the rest of the term, according to the board’s bylines.  

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. 

On April 7, Larry Lorenzo Taylor Jr., a 25 -year-old local man, was sentenced to five years in prison for a hit-and-run that ended with serious injuries for Nicola Vidal, an Italian-raised Old Dominion tennis player. With poor behavior, Taylor could serve a total of seven years and six months. 

The hit and run occurred on Oct. 25, 2021, in a 7/11 parking lot where the ODU tennis team was celebrating their victories from a tournament hosted on campus the same day. 

“Out of nowhere, I heard a car turn on and wheels screeching. I turned my head and saw [it] was headed towards me,” Vidal said. 

Taylor’s car rammed Vidal’s leg into a stone trash can, leaving ligaments torn, bones broken, and his femoral artery severed. As Vidal rapidly bled out, shock killed any pain that he might have suffered. 

“When it first happened, I didn’t really know what was going on. I saw blood going everywhere so I knew I was severely injured. But I had so much adrenaline, the pain was secondary.” 

Paralyzed with fear, his teammates were uncertain of how to help. Luckily, a bystander named Perrin Priest came to Vidal’s side and administered life-saving first aid.

“A Norfolk jury has convicted Mr. Taylor of a crime that, but for the heroic efforts of a Good Samaritan, would have killed the victim. I am grateful to that bystander for his quick help, and I am thankful that Mr. Vidal, who came to Norfolk to grow as a student and athlete, is alive and thriving.

“We work every day to offer a safe environment to our local college students and to hold accountable the individuals who harm our neighbors,” said Ramin Fatehi, the Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney, in a statement issued with Taylor’s sentence. 

With the opportunity to move up in the season standings, the Rocky Mountain Showdown loomed large with some big implications between the Colorado State University Rams and University of Colorado Boulder Buffaloes lacrosse showdown. The Rams weren’t able to answer the call at home in Canvas Stadium, losing 16-12.

The Rams started off the scoring immediately, making two goals early in the game. Despite their explosion in the beginning, the Buffs stormed back, scoring four straight, looking to leave the Rams behind.

However, Rams attacker Carson Malinowski had different plans when he scored his third goal. Malinowski and Riley Flores were a dynamic duo in the first period, with Malinowski scoring all three of the Rams’ goals and Flores assisting on two of them. 

The second period wasn’t as kind to the Rams. Goalie Charlie Bibaud struggled, giving up six goals to the Buffs in the period, including one goal where he had an error catching the ball and it rolled into the net. CSU was able to score three points, but the Buffs couldn’t be tamed on the offensive side of the field. 

“This team is always a family, and we’re together, and we can do something special in the (Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) tournament.” -CSU lacrosse head coach Ryan MacDonald

The rest of the game followed suit, and Bibaud continued to struggle throughout the game and was eventually benched for Davis Wheeler following the third quarter, in which Bibaud gave up four goals. What looked to be a dynamic attack for the Rams went quiet as the Buffs were able to contain Malinowski, not allowing him to score again after the first period. 

CSU had a good fourth quarter, but it didn’t amount to anything other than a moral victory. They scored three goals in the quarter and held CU to just one. 

“We came out with the heart,” head coach Ryan MacDonald said. “The will and the heart was 100% there. … This team is always a family, and we’re together, and we can do something special in the (Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) tournament.”

Although the Rams started to gain some mojo back in the fourth quarter, the physicality of the Rocky Mountain Showdown saw the Rams lose a couple of crucial players to injury. Flores, who was coming off of a six-goal game against the University of Utah, injured his arm and wasn’t able to get back into the game. The Rams also lost face-off specialist Dylan Hauff, who had to be helped off the field and didn’t return. 

“Injuries are going to give opportunity to new players,” MacDonald said. “You know, players that might not have seen the field this year, players that have been working really hard in practice. … Just dig deeper into our family, and bring new guys out onto the field and keep grinding and get wins.”

The Rams will travel for their final two games before the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament. The Rams will take on the first-seeded Utah Valley University Wolverines April 20 in Orem, Utah, before traveling to Provo, Utah, to take on the third-seeded Brigham Young University Cougars on April 22.

Reach Damon Cook at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @dwcook2001.

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The University of Minnesota saw an increase in rape cases on and near campus prior to the 2022-23 academic year.

There were 22 rape cases on the University campus in 2019, which slightly decreased to 20 in 2020. In 2021, cases more than doubled, reaching 42, according to public records the Minnesota Daily requested from the University.

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Rape is included under the umbrella of sexual assault. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), sexual assault also includes attempted rape, fondling or unwanted sexual touching, and forcing an individual to perform sexual acts.

According to RAINN, most sexual assault cases, including rape, are not reported. RAINN estimates only about 20% of female college students specifically report sexual assault.

Sexual assault statistics at UMN from 2019-2021

Nearly 55% of the rapes from 2019 through 2021 happened at University residence halls. These incidents increased to 63% when apartments, specifically Radius and Yudof, were included.

Of the nine undergraduate residence halls, Comstock was the only one with no reported rapes from 2019-2021.

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Centennial Hall had the most rapes of University residence halls during those three years, representing about one-fifth of all cases that took place in University housing. Pioneer Hall increased from one case in 2019 to six cases in 2021.

St. Paul’s residence hall, Bailey, and Middlebrook on West Bank each had two instances of rape during the three-year period.

Ten cases of rape are not assigned to a specific hall but are generally classified as a Minneapolis residence hall. Including these 10 cases, there were a total of 53 cases in University housing from 2019-2021.

From 2019-2021, nearly 12% of rapes occurred at fraternities. Six of the ten rapes that happened at a fraternity took place in 2021, four of which were generally classified as “Minneapolis Fraternity for the location.”

There were three cases of rapes at parking ramps or lots on and near campus and three cases of rapes in sporting complexes on campus from 2019-2021.

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UMN has several sexual assault resources on campus 

Housing and Residential Life (HRL) Interim Director Susan Stubblefied said in an email to the Minnesota Daily that HRL is one piece of the much larger, University-wide work to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct.

HRL sponsors two Safety Weeks each year to increase student awareness about safety issues, including sexual assault, Stubblefield said. Students engage in activities, like quizzes, that direct them to resources on campus.

“In the past, we’ve collaborated with the Aurora Center to offer Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) events in April,” Stubblefield said.

Recently, HRL staff members met with the Aurora Center to discuss a new prevention model and how it could be used within various campus spaces, Stubblefield said.

The Aurora Center was founded in 1986 to serve all victims of sexual assault and violence at the University. The Center accepts walk-in clients and has a 24-hour helpline that volunteer advocates answer, according to the center’s website.

For SAAM this year, the Aurora Center is holding a button-making event to raise awareness about sexual assault prevention at Coffman Union on Friday.

Over the three-year period the Daily analyzed, 83% of the rape cases were reported to the Aurora Center, nearly 12% were reported to the University of Minnesota Police Department and less than 5% were reported to the Minneapolis Police Department or another entity.

The state requires all Aurora Center advocates to complete 40 hours of sexual assault crisis counselor training, the Associate Director for the Aurora Center Chloe Vraney said in an email to the Daily.

“Additionally, we hold meetings six times a year with our volunteers for ongoing training, including workshop facilitation practice for our prevention educators,” Vraney said.

The Aurora Center, per requests, provided 52 workshops to 1,552 total participants from July 1, 2021, to June 20, 2022, according to Vraney. Workshops provided by the Aurora Center are open to anyone by request and cover a range of topics, such as toxic masculinity, intersectionalities between race, rape culture and gender and sexual assault.

An HRL staff member also serves on the President’s Initiative to Prevent Sexual Misconduct’s (PIPSM) Student Engagement subcommittee.

In an email to the Minnesota Daily, University Public Relations Director Jake Ricker said PIPSM was launched in 2017 to prevent sexual misconduct on campus.

PIPSM has developed partnerships with stakeholders to coordinate prevention efforts, conducted climate campus surveys and organized and expanded data collection of sexual misconduct reports.

President Joan Gabel’s office announced in March that PIPSM will be transitioning into the Sexual Misconduct Prevention Program within the Office of Equity and Diversity. The University is currently hiring a director for the program.

The Sexual Misconduct Prevention Program will build on the PIPSM’s foundational work to provide evidence-based prevention initiatives and activities systemwide, Ricker said.

“Awareness, education, outreach and enhanced security are all critical to creating a community of … common action,” Ricker said.

Students aim to amplify victim-survivors’ voices

Sameen Faisal, chair of the Sexual Assault Task Force (STAF) for University Student Government (USG), has worked with several organizations on campus, including the Aurora Center.

STAF was established in 2017 to amplify voices of victim-survivors of sexual assault, build a campus with zero tolerance and serve as a contact between students and administrations. The task force has now developed a centralized page on USG’s website where students can find resources on and off campus for sexual assault and mental health, Faisal said.

During SAAM this year, STAF is hosting a self-defense workshop on Tuesday at Recwell. In 2022, for Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which is April, STAF set up drives to collect new bedsheets and other materials that are common triggers for victims of sexual assault.

Within the task force, there is a team dedicated to evaluating sexual assault rates in Greek life and other Big Ten schools.

Faisal said STAF has had some difficulty collecting data on sexual assault cases that happen at fraternities due to the inaccessibility of this information. To obtain this data from the University, they were told they would need to pay out of pocket for a public data request, Faisal said.

“When it comes to things like [sexual assault prevention], there is always more work to be done,” Faisal said.

Maia Irvin contributed to this report.

The 2024 race for President of the United States looks to be contentious, unpredictable and ultimately very strange. As of now, there are many hopefuls who have declared candidacy. At the same time, there are others who have danced around the notion of running without officially declaring that they’re running. So who is running? Who isn’t? Who will win? 

The candidates are an eclectic group of familiar faces and surprising newcomers. On the Republican side, former President Donald Trump is officially running despite the barrage of legal troubles he is dealing with at the moment. Trump is the person to beat for the Republican nomination, but there are others who could give him a run for his money. 

Former South Carolina Governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is also officially running, but her chances are quite slim. Other prospective candidates have not announced anything yet despite being sure–fire options, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence and current South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. 

There has been a good deal of tiptoeing around in the Republican Party, where politicians have been afraid to declare candidacy in fear of Trumpian retribution. Nobody has done more heavy-footed tiptoeing than Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Unlike the other candidates that were mentioned, DeSantis has a very good chance of winning the nomination in 2024. 

According to a RealClearPolitics poll conducted on Republican voters, 52% wanted Trump in 2024, 24.9% wanted DeSantis, 4.9% wanted Pence, 3.9% wanted Haley and a meager 1.1% wanted Pompeo. Clearly, Trump is the favored candidate while DeSantis is the only other Republican with a fighting chance.

Due to recent legal troubles and his indictment in New York, Trump has received a bump in the polls. His supporters seem to respond well to his issues, casting him as a martyr who is being attacked by a corrupt and biased legal system. While that may temporarily help Trump, in prior weeks DeSantis caught up to Trump significantly and even surpassed him at times. 

The safest bet would be to guess that DeSantis will be the Republican nominee in 2024. He offers fewer controversies and scandals, more self-control, a better chance at wooing swing voters, is quite young in comparison to his peers and is currently leading one of the most prosperous states in the country

On the Democratic side, things are a bit more complicated. You can feel many politicians are itching for a run at the presidency, but they are waiting on a specific decision: President Joe Biden’s choice of running or not running. If he runs, it is unlikely that many people will oppose him, especially if he is running against a MAGA candidate. Only Robert Kennedy Jr. has been brave enough to do so, and his chances of beating Biden are slim to none. If Biden chooses not to run, then things will get interesting. There are a number of people within his own cabinet and outside of it who are willing to step up to the challenge, in the instance that he decides not to run.

Kamala Harris is a given choice, considering she is Vice President of the U.S. and would give the party a female candidate in hopes of electing the first-ever female president. Transportation Secretary and 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg would also certainly try, as would California Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (even though she’s technically ruled it out) and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. 

Of these Democrats, Harris would be the most likely candidate. In all likelihood though, Biden is going to run. He has waited his whole life to become president, and he truly believes that he is mentally and physically fit enough to run the nation for another four years. 

So, if Biden was the Democratic nominee, and Desantis was the Republican nominee, who would win in that election? Considering age, polling, economic performance and the ability to get people to vote, DeSantis has the upper hand. Therefore, Biden is probably hoping that Trump will be his opponent rather than DeSantis. Either way, the American people do not seem to have many good options. Yet again, they will be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Before the University of Utah had a Center for Disability & Access, it had a Center for Handicapped Students that was lacking in resources. In 1977, some changes were made.

An article from the Salt Lake Tribune that year shows the U got a grant from the Utah Division of Rehabilitation Services to detect architectural barriers on campus. They hired four students with disabilities as consultants to find those barriers. In the end, one student of the four, Ila Marie Goodey, said “Life for a handicapped person at the U is a comparative piece of cake — and promises to get even better.” The question to ask nearly 50 years later is this: did the U keep its promise?

CDA Today

Today, the University of Utah’s CDA is housed on the first level of the U’s student union. It’s a small office and shares a wall with the Learning Abroad and UCard Services offices. 

The director of the CDA, Christine Anderson, started in early 2023 and has been hard at work ever since. She said the CDA is comprised of a lot of moving parts that work together to provide individual students with the accommodations they need. The center offers captioning, note-takers and test accommodations, among other things, for students with disabilities. But in order to receive these services, a student has to meet with a disability advisor. These meetings are supposed to give insight into that specific student’s experience and life in an effort to better assist them.

Right now, the center has seven advisors that work individually with the 2,400 students the CDA serves. That means that each advisor is working with at least 340 students at a time.

“We definitely need more advisors, and we’re looking at the staffing and having more because, at this point, students who register with our office have dedicated advisors who care, but there’s just a lot of students and so I need more staff,” Anderson said.

It is the student’s responsibility to schedule meetings with their individual advisors. One student might want to meet with their advisor once a week, whereas others only wish to see their advisors once a semester. Anderson said another reason that time with advisors varies can be attributed to the fact that for many students, college is the first time they have had to navigate advocating for themselves as adults.

“Some students need a little bit more assistance in transitioning to adult life and in new legislation and new laws,” Anderson said. “So, they might meet with an advisor weekly. Other students have learned after a couple of years on campus, how to advocate, what resources are available, and accessing those.”

But even so, more advisors are needed. According to Anderson, hiring advisors is not a problem of finding advisors but finding the budget to pay them. She said the university administration is aware of this deficit in staffing and is working to find the budget to remedy it. 

Amid the lack of funding, Anderson said the office seeks out grants for potential hires and has been somewhat successful in that pursuit. But even with the help of grants, the CDA needs more funding so that advisors will be able to work closely with individual students.

“Having an opportunity to develop even more of a therapeutic relationship with students on campus is not available as much because the advisors are working with a lot of different students in a lot of different populations,” Anderson said. “That would be my primary focus, … to hire additional advisors and have the funding to do so.”

The one question a student who prefers to remain anonymous had for the CDA was: “Why aren’t they hiring more people? Because clearly, they’re understaffed.”

When the student asked for a new advisor because their current one wasn’t able to adequately support them, they were told that was not an option. Since then, the student limits the time they spend with their disability advisor.

“In the past, I’ve tried to meet with them like once a month, and it just wasn’t really beneficial,” the student said. “So now, I pretty much only go to them when I’m having an issue. And usually, I just send them an email or a quick phone call. If that isn’t getting the job done, then I’ll go in person.”

That same student struggled to get their needed accommodations when they transitioned from high school to the U in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. That transition was made easier with Zoom and its closed captioning feature. But things became complicated when classes moved to in-person.

“Once everything was in person, I was having an even harder time,” they said. 

Eventually, the student got the accommodation they needed: a device that transcribed their professor’s lectures so that the student would be able to go back and listen again when they needed to. This was extraordinarily helpful as the student has a processing disorder, but the social setbacks of the device proved to counteract the progress that was being made.

“People like aren’t wanting to like sit by me or talk to me or anything like that, because I’m, in their eyes, this person with all these extra things, and they just don’t know what to do with it,” the student said. “And I don’t know how to handle that because I’ve never had to before.”

While the student has been fortunate to find a group of friends that support them through their college years, those aren’t the people that they spend the majority of their day with.

“I feel like my close friends understand it, but they also aren’t the people that I’m like going to class with or anything,” they said. “So they aren’t seeing a lot of that. I think they get it. But I still think a lot of my classmates don’t get it at all. I still get questions a lot in class. I was really hoping CDA would help me find that community.”

When the student started at the U, they were told the CDA was in the process of developing an autism mentorship program through the office. The program would be a space for students with autism at the U to meet and discuss different challenges on campus. The student asked why the program never came to fruition, but wasn’t given an answer. 

Instead, they were told that they could start the program instead, which the student had no interest in.

“A student organization is very different than an organization being sponsored and started by a student success advocate working with CDA who has a lot of knowledge about autism,” the student said.

When talking about potential student groups through the CDA, Anderson said, “I think it ebbs and flows, depending on what’s happening.”

The student said they think they’re one of the luckier students with a disability on campus.

“I think a lot of the reason why I’ve been successful and able to get my accommodations and all of that is because I stand up for myself and I’m privileged enough that my parents helped me stand up for myself — they’ll hop in on Zoom calls with me … beyond email chains, and help fight for what I need,” they said. “But I think if I wasn’t constantly sending emails, and like, really being like, ‘No, I’m not going to take no for an answer,’ then I wouldn’t receive a lot of my accommodations, and I wouldn’t get a lot of help that I have right now.”

Campus Today

In a survey conducted by the Chronicle, 20 respondents shared the access issues they have seen on campus today, and if they’ve seen a response from the U in their time at the school.

Three students said they have not noticed any access issues on campus.

Five students mentioned a lack of parking in their responses. One student said, “Parking is my biggest struggle. Over Christmas break, I had to have hip surgery so my mobility has been extremely limited and will be limited for the remainder of the semester. I have been disappointed to see others without handicap parking passes parking in the handicap spots, which then forces me to crutch from long distances.”

Two responses mentioned campus shuttles, including that they don’t run frequently enough and that they become “too much of a hassle for people with disabilities that they choose to avoid them,” Arden Cook said.

Two students mentioned how walking on campus can be difficult, with one referring to a lack of lighting and the other discussing getting to class on time when the rooms are at opposite ends of campus. Cook acknowledged there have been alternative ADA paths for students who need to navigate areas under construction. One student said lack of snow removal is a hazard, with stairs often having ice and snow on them.

An anonymous student mentioned destruction in their building, and that they have seen some rebuilding, but not for every part.

One student, who said they have sensory issues, said it can be difficult to pay attention in classes with loud background noise or bright lights. They gave the example of classrooms in Gardner Commons, with pipes above them that frequently make noise.

“I’ve had a professor in that building who would not allow and even shamed people for the wear of headphones or earbuds in class, despite this being something that greatly helps me to focus,” the student said. “I was unsure how to approach this professor about this issue because I felt he wouldn’t care if headphones help me focus. I found myself struggling daily to pay attention in his class and ended up skipping it once or twice simply because I couldn’t bring myself to sit through that amount of pain again. I passed his class and hated every minute of it.”

One student, Greta Low, said the hills are too steep to push a manual wheelchair up.

“The CDA is difficult to work with and denies accommodations while refusing to provide a reason for the denial,” Low said. “The elevators are old and break down. The buttons to automatically open doors rarely work.”

Low said professors, however, have made sure their classes are accessible.

Four other students mentioned professors in their responses, with one student saying, “Professors who don’t understand disability (especially invisible disabilities and chronic illness) act as if I am faking and refuse to accommodate.”

Another student said, “Most professors don’t seem to be very knowledgeable on the workings of the Center for Disability & Access. While I haven’t had any conflicts in professors refusing accommodations for me, I do often have to meet with them after class to explain to them what needs to be done before I would be able to take an exam for their class. It would be nice if professors, once they are made aware of a student with disability accommodations in their class, would be informed by the CDA on what will be needed from them so the student themselves doesn’t have to do it.”

This same student said the CDA portal has improved for both students and instructors in just a year’s time.

“For professors who understand what they’re meant to do, the portal seems to have made things easier for them when uploading exam times,” the student said.

One student said student mental health is “brushed under the rug and ignored,” professors are rude and there is not enough variety in scheduling options for courses.

“Accessibility applies to more than just physical disabilities,” another student, Kayli Torres, said. “Some disabilities aren’t visible or noticed, and teachers here at the U need to understand that and be more kind with their students who need that understanding from them.”

According to Torres, “The accessibility clause in every syllabus was powerful when I first heard it but now I know that [the] majority of my teachers don’t actually know what it means, don’t care about it (it’s just another thing to check off the list), and they don’t know how to handle accessibility issues in their own classroom.”

t.soter@dailyutahchronicle.com

@SoterTheadora

Despite a slow start and a game one loss, the Rams pulled out a win against the Utah State University Aggies during the doubleheader hosted by Colorado State University softball at Ram Field Wednesday.

CSU game away 1-1 for the matchup, with a 6-0 loss and 7-2 win April 12. The Rams are now 20-14 on the season and sit at fifth in the Mountain West with a 6-7 conference record.

Game 1

The first three innings of game one went by in a flash, with both teams recording multiple strikeouts and no runs.

Despite a solid pitching performance from junior Jetta Nannen to begin the afternoon, the Rams lost control of the game in the fourth inning, allowing five runs on four hits.

Utah State infielder Claire Raley sparked the Aggies’ streak after hitting a single and then stealing second and third base in following plays. Raley rounded out her time on base by securing the first run of five in the inning off a single from freshman Jaden Colunga. Colunga also gave the Aggies their sixth run with a homer in the fifth inning.

CSU couldn’t find an answer to Utah’s hot streak and end the game with a 6-0 loss.

Aggies pitcher Hailey McLean recorded 12 strikeouts to CSU’s four.

Game 2

Game two started in a similar form for the Rams, as they weren’t able to find their batting groove until the fourth inning.

Another solid hit from Utah State’s Colunga far into the outfield gave the Aggies their only two runs of the game before CSU pitchers Julia Cabral and Sydney Hornbuckle were able to shut them down.

The Rams ran through their batting lineup nearly four times throughout the game, including a full rotation in a single inning. Ashley York led CSU with three hits and Hailey Smith batted in two runs for the Rams.

CSU recorded three runs in inning four and four runs in innining five to give them seven total runs off 12 hits for their 7-2 win over Utah State.

The Rams will head to The University of New Mexico this weekend for a two-game series against the Lobos and will travel to Ames, Iowa, for a non-conference series against Iowa State University April 21-22.

CSU’s final home series is April 28-30 against California State University, Fresno.

Reach Serena Bettis at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @serenaroseb.