Prison is rarely seen as a place of higher education. Instead it’s often thought of as a place of struggle and violence. Yet at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center (ERDCC), a prison situated an hour south of St. Louis on the outskirts of Bonne Terre Missouri, a community has formed that aims to light an intellectual fire and change a damaged system.

“I enrolled in [SLU’s] Associate’s degree program because I did not want my incarceration to be a waste of time,” Richard Scott, a student and inmate at Bonne Terre, wrote. “While prison offers a few productive opportunities, it does little to help prepare one for a career upon release,”

Scott is joined by 15 other inmates and 12 Bonne Terre employees entering their last year in SLU’s only Associate’s degree program. The Prison program is the only one in the country to offer degrees to staff members at a prison facility. The curriculum for both groups is identical to the core requirements for an Arts & Sciences degree.

Scott Berman, an associate professor of philosophy, taught Ethics at Bonne Terre last January. He found that the discussions he had in that class gave him new and valuable perspectives on issues he’s been thinking about for years.

“It was a powerful experience for me both as a human and a professor,” Berman said.

It seems everyone who talks about the program has shared in a sense of personal growth.

“The biggest reason [I enrolled] was I wanted to show my son… if I can go to college [he] can go to college,” Sergeant David Ezersky said. Ezersky moved to a different facility during his classes but has been able to stay enrolled at SLU. “I want to say it’s changed me, and I know it has. I just think I’m a better person for taking these classes.”

Kenneth Parker, program director and associate professor of theology, first thought of developing a prison education initiative when he saw a 60 Minutes segment about the Bard Prison Initiative, which currently has 275 incarcerated men and women enrolled in both Bachelor’s and Associate’s degree programs. Six months and many meetings later Parker was teaching Theological Foundations at Bonne Terre as the beginning of a certificate in theology.  His experience was more positive than he could have ever imagined.

For Scott, the certificate was more than five theological studies courses

“The self-affirmation that comes with hard work and accomplishments is something that everyone needs,” Scott said. “If we never do anything positive, if we see ourselves in a negative light, then how are we to be better people?’”

Scholars and prison reform activists have put forth post-secondary education as a means of cutting down on the cost of the United States’ correctional system for years, and statistics show that the current system isn’t working. Nationwide roughly two-thirds of released prisoners were arrested for a new crime within three years, and three-quarters were arrested within five years according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. SLU’s program hopes to make prison a place of real rehabilitation.

Of course higher education is not an individual affair, and the academic culture among SLU’s Bonne Terre students has naturally spread to the wider community. A partial source of the wider opportunity for learning is the Arts and Educations program, which invites academics and artists working in various disciplines to visit ERDCC to give lectures and host creative workshops.

Mary Gould, an associate professor of communications and co-director of the Arts program, taught a Small Group Communications class that’s been particularly influential on campus. Her students created a community service organization called the Inside Out Alliance. The group created G.E.D. tutoring sessions, and inmates are working on a proposal to bring at-risk youth into the facility to hear about how education has changed their lives. According to student and inmate Eric Webb SLU’s presence has changed the atmosphere at Bonne Terre for the better.

“Although there are those who still maintain a belief that felons are incorrigible and do not deserve such an opportunity, the pessimistic tide is slowly shifting,” Webb wrote.

The Prison Program hopes to keep growing, and organizers are working to develop a Baccalaureate degree offer. The Missouri Department of Corrections has also joined with a collection of professionals and organizations in the St. Louis community are coming together under the lead of Professor Emeritus Karen Barney to develop more effective re-entry programming. Having worked as an occupational therapist for all of her life, Barney hopes to bring a measured and personalized approach the reentry curriculum for incarcerated persons.

The proposed program focuses on having attentive interaction with inmates to get an accurate sense of what the person needs to succeed and then helping them develop necessary skills for success outside. It would focus on basic life skills, such as time management, finding and holding employment and maintaining a balanced life. Barney hopes the re-entry curriculum can eventually become a national model with the help of ongoing evaluation and research.

“I know we will only be successful if we start small and build it in a way that works,” Barney said.

And just as the Prison Program started small, thanks to a community of dedicated people it seems to be making a positive impact.

“The program and the people running it have not only changed the lives of the men in the program, but also the lives of those around us,” Scott wrote. “It has done more than just give us the tools to be successful. The program has taught us to teach others, to go out and make a difference in an environment that is less than conducive to social change.”

Details concerning the voluntary enhanced retirement program (VERP) were announced by Interim President Bill Kauffman in an April 2 letter addressed to faculty and staff. The letter was followed by direct emails to all eligible employees confirming their eligibility, and personalized packets containing more information, including financial details, will be mailed to the homes of employees by the end of the month.

Eligibility for participation in the VERP is based on one of two qualifications: those who are 60 years of age with seven or more qualified continuous years of service at SLU or those whose age plus continuous years of service sum to at least 75. The offer has also been extended to those who are currently in phased retirement or those whose last official day was Dec. 31, 2013 or later. The program offers a one-time lump-sum payment equal to a year’s salary with “an additional two weeks pay for every year worked beyond 25 years of qualified service,” according to Kauffman’s letter.  A June 1, 2014 deadline has been set for accepting the enhanced retirement plan and most who do accept will officially retire on July 1.

Attempts were made by the committee to avoid a lump-sum payment due to heavier tax rates, but tax codes made other options impossible. Government laws also put a restriction on the amount of time eligible retirees were allowed to deliberate over the offer.

Greg Marks, an associate professor of mathematics and member of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, said the FSEC’s initial response to the VERP announcement was “cautiously positive.” Concerns have been raised by faculty, staff, students and administrators alike concerning the impact of the VERP on various academic departments. Chris Sebelski, an associate professor of Physical Therapy and the chair of the FS Compensation and Benefits Committee, noted the narrow window of operation as a particular concern, especially when considering the impact the program will have on students.

“I would say the academic community as a whole is and remains extraordinarily concerned about the impact this will have on the delivery of information to the students,” Sebelski said. “There are a lot of advantages to taking the VERP program for those who have been loyal to the institution… [but] someone has now until June 10 to make that decision and by that point there’s a lot of planning already in place for summer courses and also for the fall courses.”

According to Ellen Harshman, Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs, contingency plans have been in development since the VERP was first announced in order to handle such issues.

“Although we won’t know the impact until people decide for themselves whether or not to accept the offer, we are committed to providing our students an outstanding educational experience and we are confident we will continue to be able to do that going forward,” Harshman said.           She also made the point that retirements occur every year. Seventeen faculty and 25 staff members retired in the last academic year.

Participation in the program includes continued coverage for those under 65  who are enrolled in the University Health Plan, including coverage for eligible dependents, for a duration of five years or until the retiree turns 65, whichever comes first.  It also offers a $2,000 reimbursement for financial planning.

Qualified employees are expected receive the full financial details of their retirement offers by the end of teh month, making interest in the program hard to gauge.  According to Sebelski, estimates as to what number of faculty and staff might accept the offer and how many would have to accept for the program to be a considered success were provided by Towers Watson, the consulting firm hired to help in preparing the VERP. The estimates were based on the results of similar programs at other universities and the unique circumstances at SLU. Chief Financial Officer David Heimburger said that while it’s impossible to predict the amount of employees that might accept the offer with a high level of certainty, similar programs have provided “significant savings for other organizations.”

Marks stated that interest in the retirement offer may vary, as different departments are dominated by different mind sets.

“For a lot of faculty in areas close to mine we just love teaching and love research and really have no desire to stop,” Marks said. While he is unaware of any faculty in his department interested in the program, Sebelski has heard of multiple staff members in her department that are strongly considering the plan. University plans in terms of hiring new staff and faculty have not been set. Kauffman stated the university will attempt to develop guidelines as to the best way to address vacated positions with an emphasis on SLU’s long-term organizational needs. An email from Heimburger requested that members of the VERP committee remain available as the guidelines are prepared. She stated that Harshman said, “she would like [the hiring] procedures to be explicit and also to make sure the academic stakeholders were actively involved in the development of those procedures.”

Sunflower Project: Rick Reilly responds to an audience member’s question.
John Schuler / Photo Editor

OneWorld paid tribute to St. Louis-area organizations taking a different, community-centric approach to education Tuesday April 1. Titled “Innovative Education Outside the Classroom” and held as part of Atlas Week, the event invited leaders and students from various after-school programs to talk about their work. The event featured presentations by the Jonesville Youth and Family Center, Sunflower Project STL, Readers 2 Leaders, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Angel Baked Cookies and Sweet Sensations.

Carla Jones the work of Angel Baked Cookies, a business that employs high school students at a bakery. ABC is a part of North Grand Neighborhood Services, a community outreach organization. During a neighborhood meeting, teenaged residents told the group that in order to succeed they needed jobs where transportation wasn’t an issue and that didn’t require that they drop out of high school. The solution was ABC. According to Jones, the most valuable part of the program is that it gives an opportunity for reflection and discussion everyday.

“It’s a time for teens to really be teens. It’s a time to talk about what’s bothering them, what’s on their mind… and sort of get it out and talk about ways to fix those problems,” Carla Jones said.

In an effort to connect communities with vastly different residents, the Readers 2 Leaders program invited eighth graders from the 100 percent black De La Salle Middle School in north St. Louis to teach black history to third graders at the 97 percent Caucasian St. Gabriel Elementary School in South City. The program was started by Bryan Sokol, the director of the Center for Service and Community Engagement, and was put on for the first time this year. Each De La Salle student read stories about Black History Month to students from St. Gabriel. Students said the experience was positive.

“They moved from what Dr. Cornell West has sometimes described as being color blind to being color embracing,” Sokol said.

Another north St. Louis community project, Sunflower Project STL began with the intention of taking an abandoned urban lot and planting sunflowers and wheat there in order to increase the health of the soil and turn the land into an asset. The group bought a block of land in the Old North neighborhood, home to Crown Candy, and started to plant crops. In the winter after the first planting, Sunflower Project collaborated with Ames and Mason schools to create flags inscribed with African symbols that embody things like diversity, earth and energy. They then put the flags up all around the lot in a statement of art and culture.

“It became this great bright spot in Old North neighborhood,” Reilly said of the scene the following spring when all of the sunflowers had bloomed. The group worked with the students and other members of the surrounding community again that spring/summer to till the land. The project is still at work in the neighborhood.

Junoon: Pakistan’s most successful rock band will play next Friday as part of Atlas Week.
Photo Courtesy of Atlas Planning Committee

The fourteenth annual Atlas Week will turn its attention to education and South Asia, welcoming keynote speaker Shabana Basij-Rasikh and Pakistani rock band Junoon as its headlining guests. The 2014 program will offer 130 events over the course of seven days, with topics spanning the globe and over 50 percent of the programming hosted by students. This year marks the first time Atlas Week will host a musical performance, in addition to a kick-off event and a culinary special with guest Samina Ahmad.

Atlas Week will run from March 31 to April 4, and this year’s theme is “Education: Igniting the Flames of Change,” focusing on the work of Basij-Rasikh in Afghanistan. Basij-Rasikh is originally from Kabul, and she founded School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA) while she was attending school in the U.S.. SOLA is both a non-profit aimed at helping Afghan women gain access to education and jobs and the first girls’ boarding school in Afghanistan. In her keynote symposium, titled “Dare to Educate Afghan Girls”, Basij-Rasikh is expected to talk about her work in Afghanistan and the belief that educating young Afghan women is the most effective way to affect change for women in Afghan society.

According to Michelle Lorenzini, assistant professor of Political Science and the head of Atlas Week, the decision to invite Basij-Rasikh was informed by the hopes of hosting a South Asian-themed program.

Junoon, Pakistan’s most commercially successful rock band. will perform with his full band on April 4 in an event that looks to explore the work of poet and theologian Jalaluddin Rumi.

Salman Ahmad, Junoon’s front man, and Samina Ahmad, a medical doctor, activist, television personality and Salman’s wife, will host a collection of formal events during the week: Samina will discuss holistic approaches to wellness and Salman will give a talk on civic education and women in politics Pakistan. In another event the husband and wife will talk about their work with the Salman and Samina Ahmad Global Wellness Initiative (SSGWI), a non-profit organization based in New York which works to facilitate interfaith and cross-cultural dialogue, health and wellness and music education across the world.

Atlas Week has also expanded its Coffee and Conversation programming following the success of last year’s event.

In addition to the discussion held with Basij-Rasikh, Atlas welcomed nominations for members of the SLU community to host their own talks.

According to Nebu Kolenchery, a senior in the College of Public Health and an Atlas intern, the idea for the series was inspired by a conversation between members of SLU’s Political Round Table. Some students found that, while they can attend social justice talks and hear from influential individuals, there was little opportunity for an actual discussion.

“You never get to… react to what you’re hearing about,” Kolenchery said.

This year’s series will feature Shannon Potter, a resident physician at the SLU School of Medicine, Luke Yarborough, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern History, and Sara Rahim, a senior in the both the College of Public Health. Each event will provide an opportunity for students to have a more personal conversation about the host’s experiences and ideas.

As institutions nationwide continue to seek ways to adapt to mounting fiscal challenges in higher education, Saint Louis University is in the process of creating and implementing a number of new programs that aim to cut university expenses while increasing fundraising, enrollment and retention, according to Interim President Bill Kauffman’s March 7 letter to the University community. Included among these initiatives are the Voluntary Enhanced Retirement Program (VERP), the introduction of an accelerated undergraduate-to-law degree program and an online giving challenge aimed at younger university graduates.

The VERP, which was first announced in Kauffman’s Jan. 23 letter, is an early retirement initiative which is being developed in an attempt to combat rising compensation and general expenses while facing a decrease in the rate of enrollment. The Faculty Senate and Staff Advisory Committee have been working with the University on the VERP in addition to a human resources consulting firm. An announcement with details about the program is expected in the first week of April. Compensation and benefits account for approximately 72 percent of the University’s expenses, and the University employs roughly 2,200 faculty and 6,000 staff members.

Kauffman pointed to Fairfield, Holy Cross, University of Loyola New Orleans and Marquette as examples of Jesuit universities that have offered similar programs in the past. The University of Indiana also presented its employees with early retirement packages in 2011.

Holy Cross, which currently employs 279 full-time and 44 part-time faculty, had 35 out of 52 employees

accept the early retirement offer, generating approximately $1 million in annual savings, according to the institution’s 2009 President’s Report.  At IU 495 of 2,566 eligible individuals applied for and received an early separation incentive in 2011, which was expected to save the university $6 million annually according to a university media release in June of that year.

In conjunction with cutting costs, SLU is making efforts to reverse the downtrend in student enrollment through various new programs. Of note is an accelerated program in which students can obtain a law degree within six years. The program is the result of collaboration between the John Cook School of Business and School of Law and aims to provide further incentive for those considering law school to attend SLU.

In an additional effort to increase enrollment, SLU has added admission counselors in Colorado, California and along the East Coast, which has already increased the amount of applications in those locations, according to Kauffman’s letter.

The University has also announced the creation of a team of “student success coaches” with the goal of increasing student enrollment by identifying “at-risk” first-year students and providing support and guidance to help those students succeed. “At-risk” students are identified through a platform called MAP-Works, which collects data from first-year student concerning academic, socio-emotional and financial status. Success coaches are expected to meet with students, develop a year-long plan for success and provide the students with information in the form of resources and contacts that will help them succeed. The program aims to generate $960,000 in revenue by increasing retention by 3 percent, or 48 students, annually.

In the way of fundraising efforts, SLU’s Go Further scholarship matching program has raised over $1.6 million in donations, which will be matched by the University by means of its endowment. SLU has also attempted to generate increased donations from alumni from 2003 to 2013 by creating the Battle of the BOLD (Billikens of the Last Decade) Giving Challenge. Initiated in late January, the challenge counts donations by class in a competition to become the class that gives the most over the course of a year. The challenge is expected to continue annually, and the classes of 2014, 2015 and 2016 have already raised $19,847, $11,392 and $11,928 in donations, respectively.

The new programs come at financially challenging times for institutions of higher education. Tuition prices at private nonprofit four-year institutions have increased 2.3 percent annually in the last decade after adjusting for inflation according to The College Board’s 2014 survey, while U.S. median household income in December was $52,318 according to a 2013 trend report by Sentier Research: this marks a 5 percent decrease in median income over the past 10 years and a 6.4 percent decrease since December 2007, the first month of the recession. A 2014 study of trends in higher education performed by The Lawlor Group indicated that college enrollments are expected to increase only 10 percent over the next eight years, a stark contrast to the 38 percent growth in enrollment over the last eight years.

Update (03/05/2014): Kevin Lynch was elected to the College of Arts and Sciences seat in the runoff elections.

The 2014 SGA election season was a quiet one. The Connect ticket, led by President-elect Ann Knezetic, swept the vote as the only ticket to run for office. 480 students submitted ballots in the election, the lowest voter turnout seen in recent history, and the issue of vacancies in senate continues to plague the Association with six seats left unfilled in the public vote.

Next year’s executive board will comprise President-elect Knezetic, Drew Roznowski as the Vice President of Internal Affairs, Jaisel Patel as VP of Finance, Tommy English as VP of Academic Affairs, Nicole Kim as VP of Student Organizations, Mika Romo as VP of Diversity and Social Justice and Dorien Villafranco as VP of International Affairs.

With many important transitions expected for SLU next year, Knezetic said she was prepared for the upcoming workload.

“I’m ready to start the transition period and get things going,” Knezetic said. “Whenever that new president is announced… I want to contact them right away… to start building that relationship.”

Knezetic said she expects her current relationships with administrators will help her in building rapport with the new president.

In senatorial elections, the final position for the College of Arts and Sciences seats ended in a tie between Kat Carroll and Kevin Lynch. There will be a runoff election for Arts and Sciences students, but the details of the second election have yet to be announced. The Doisy College of Health Sciences, the College of Education and Public Service, the College of Philosophy and Letters, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing and Commuter students currently lack representation in next year’s Senate.

The issue of filling senate seats is not new, but this year marks the lowest participation rate in years. The low vote count has come in the wake of a senate reform bill passed at the beginning of the semester, which reduced the total number of available seats by 20 and reorganized the election process for many positions. The reform may have contributed to the decrease in student participation, as numerous seats that were originally open to broader constituencies have become internal elections.

The most notable among these positions are Residential position, i.e., senators representing Reinert Hall, Griesedeck Hall, etc. Sixteen of these seats were collapsed into two positions reserved for members of the Residence Hall Association. RHA will then internally elect two students to those positions, who will later be confirmed by senate.

“We’re definitely going to have our work cut out for us next year, even now, trying to recruit people,” Knezetic said.

Roznowski stated that he has already begun work to build interest and find students to fill the empty seats within this academic year if not the beginning of next year.

According to Knezetic, next year’s executive board will have a focus on active recruiting and communication, not only in order to fill seats but throughout their entire tenure.

“I think that’s going to be a culture change for us, telling the student body what SGA can actually do for them and going out to them rather than them coming to us,” Knezetic said. Leading in to a year filled with changes, Knezetic hopes that SGA’s status on campus can be part of the transition.

As the end of the 2014 Winter Olympics drew near, professors and students gathered in the Center for Global Citizenship for a discussion about various aspects of the games. Entitled “The Sochi Olympics: Promise and Perils,” the Feb. 21 roundtable consisted of multiple professors presenting different perspectives on the games, from the intercultural promise shown in the Olympics to their inherently political nature.

The roundtable opened with a talk given by Michal Rozbicki, a professor in the Center for Intercultural Studies and History in which he aimed to connect the Olympics with interculturality. He argued that the games provide a rare opportunity for global communication in the form of sport.

“Once we realize that we are not tourists in a foreign land but also foreigners in someone’s homeland…[it] opens a door to understanding other people,” he said. “Everyone speaks the same language: it is the language of the game.”

Though he admitted that the Olympics are necessarily a form of conflict, he stated it was a conflict of agreement which expressed a symbolic global interaction.

“It’s a vision of the world that is capable of successfully promoting and advancing the intercultural,” Rozbicki said.

Elizabeth Blake, a professor of Modern and Classical Languages, discussed the unusual placement of the Olympics in Sochi, an area rife with conflict. She pointed first to Sochi’s bloody past, when Russia conquered the area in the mid-19th century and expelled the Circassians living there at the time. She also noted the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict, stating that Putin has presented the Olympics as an opportunity “to bridge the diplomatic divide resulting from [Russia’s] 2008 invasion.”

She then turned to the extreme level of security enforcement present at the games, inspired by concerns surrounding attacks by Chechen rebels and Islamist terrorist groups. According to Blake, 70,000 security forces were in place at Sochi and police and security personnel constantly searched public spaces for Islamist militants. She cited U.S. figure skater Ashley Wagner, who claimed that living in Sochi was like living in “a tight bubble in complete isolation from the outside world.”

Yelena Belyaeva-Standen, another professor in the Modern and Classical Languages department, commented on the living conditions of the average citizen of Sochi. She stated that many of the residents of Sochi traditionally rent out apartments at a discounted rate for visitors. According to Belyaeva-Standen, the multitude of hotel spaces that were created in preparation for the games has caused residents to anticipate a loss of income due to an overabundance of living areas at rates much lower than the high-end resorts.

“The common people always are bearing the burden…for the government, which continues splurging without second thoughts into excessively overdone Olympic preparations,” Belyaeva-Standen said, closing her presentation.

Daniel Schlafly, a professor of History, next touched on Russian President Vladmir Putin’s aim to demonstrate a united and powerful Russia through the games. He examined the opening ceremony, stating that it was a demonstration of Putin’s tailored trajectory of Russian history as a united nation. He noted the absence of Ivan the Terrible, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, in addition to a lack of attention paid to the religious aspects of Russian history. Schlafly made the point that the ceremony’s concentration on great Russian figures in the history of art and science were brought in to support the message of talent and community.

Ellen Carnaghan, a professor in the Political Science department, closed the roundtable with a discussion of the obviously political nature of the Olympics. She focused on the aspects of the winter games that demonstrated Russia’s autocratic tendencies.

Carnaghan first brought attention to the corruption in Russia that helped to make Sochi the most expensive Olympics in history, stating that estimates claim only four percent of the widely-reported $50 billion cost of the Olympics was provided by private funding. In her final remarks, Carnaghan turned her attention to what she called a systematic tactic to silence opposition by “making protests appear pointless.”

This tactic was at play in the Olympics in the form of a “protest zone,” a small park, limited to 100 people in which protest was permitted.

Recent surge of interest leaves some short seats

Wolf Howard / News Editor
Long Lines: One of the first students in line picking up his ticket Wed. morning.

Student tickets to the next men’s basketball home game sold out for a second time in two weeks yesterday, as student support has continued to grow with the Billikens’ rising profile. The process for this week’s offering was adjusted in response to dissatisfaction with ticket availability for last week’s game against VCU: tickets were made available earlier and in more locations, and further steps are being considered in improving the student ticket allocation process.

Tickets were made available at 7:30 a.m. and had sold out by 9:50 a.m. according to Billiken Athletics’ twitter feed. By 7:25 a.m., the line at the Busch Student Center ticket location ran from the front desk, through the second floor of the building and out to the doors of Ritter Hall. Chaifetz saw similar traffic, and the Arena’s box office was out of its allotment of tickets by 7:52 a.m.

Tickets for the student section during SLU’s Feb. 15 basketball game against Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) sold out within 90 minutes. This unprecedented event was complimented by setting a record attendance level for Chaifetz Arena of 10,639 the following Saturday. The Billikens would go on to achieve their 17th straight win. However, the unprecedented support for SLU basketball brought with it new criticisms of the student ticket disbursement process.

Many students expressed anger at the fact that they were unable to attend the game due to conflicts with class during the time when tickets were handed out, and some students skipped class in order to gain admission the game. Students with morning classes on the medical campus found the locations of the ticket offering limited: tickets were available in the BSC and in the Chaifetz box office, both of which are more easily accessible to students that spend their mornings on the Frost campus. There were also reports of students reselling tickets on the website StubHub, and multiple students offered to pay for other’s tickets on SLU’s Free and For Sale Facebook community.

In response to the general dissatisfaction with the ticket dispensation process prior to last week’s VCU game, SGA and SLU’s athletic department worked together to improve yesterday’s offering. The Education Union Café on the medical campus was added as a ticket location in order to increase availability for students on the medical campus. Additionally, the offering was moved from 9:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. in order to avoid scheduling conflicts with the majority of classes offered at SLU.

Wolf Howard / News Editor
Sellout: The line for student tickets stretched outside the BSC.

“The fixes implemented this week are meant to be immediate and focused,” SGA President Vidur Sharma said. “By no means is this the end of the discussion, as there is clearly more that needs to be done.”

As a specific point, Sharma stated that a mechanism ought to exist that prevents the sale of student tickets. He also supported the idea of reserving additional seats for students in the case of high demand games.

According to Kent Porterfield, Vice President of Student Development, his department has received reports of students scalping tickets and intends to investigate the situation. Porterfield also said the possibility of reserving more seats for students remains open.

Afghan and American students came together through Skype on the morning of Feb. 6 in a unique international debate. Competitors tackled the question of whether or not the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ought to adopt affirmative action policies similar to the United States’ in order to help promote gender equality in Afghanistan.

Two teams represented the government side, which argued that affirmative action ought to be implemented, and another two took on the opposing side, standing against the measure. Both the opposing and government sides touched on the cultural issues of Afghanistan’s position existing in a male-dominated society and families not allowing women in the family to attend schools.

Sadia Syed of the opening government side referred to numerous issues women face in obtaining equality, stating that 55 percent of Afghan women are not allowed by their families to go to school and that the literacy rate for women in Afghanistan is the lowest in the world. Her teammate, Abdul Khaliq Sherzai, also argued that affirmative action would be helpful in empowering women and motivating their families to allow them an education by developing more schools in rural areas and providing separate schools for women. In this way, issues of coeducation and distance to schools can be minimized.

“The problem in Afghanistan is not the problem of motivation,” Mohammad Dawood Safi responded. “Women are already motivated. But their families are not allowing them to go to the jobs, to go to the schools or to attend the universities, so the affirmative action policies are not really doing anything to motivate the families. The problem in Afghanistan is the problem of a 5,000-years-old culture, which cannot be solved by the affirmative action policies.”

His teammate, Abdul Wahab Qurishi, argued that affirmative action was itself a discriminatory policy, which his side stood against.

“[Our side] stands for equality, stands for a world which gives the rights of people based on their individual competence…[and] based on their personal abilities, not based on their gender, sex or any kind of preferential selections,” Qurishi said.

The closing government side disputed the claim that affirmative action is itself discriminatory.

“Affirmative action is an equalizer, it’s not a discriminatory policy,” Paulina Menichiello, a member of the second government team, countered. “The principle of equality sometimes requires that states partake in affirmative action in order to diminish or eliminate conditions of discrimination. It doesn’t give minorities just the option to be successful but the means to be successful.”

The opening opposition agreed with the intentions of affirmative action, but disagreed with its effectiveness.

“The goal of affirmative action is to help the historically marginalized, but the way it was set up, through quotas and preferences, it ignores the real issues today,” Jonathan Giebfried of the opening opposing team said.  “Socio-economic status is not taken into account.”

As an example he made the point that President Obama’s daughters don’t need a helping hand to have access to better opportunities in life.

He argued that fixing fundamental issues in education has proved more effective than affirmative action policies historically.

In the discussion sessions that followed the competition, participants on both sides of the debate stated that the experience was unique and positive.

“What you just witnessed is not an ordinary event. What happened in the past hour or so is extraordinary by any standards,” Shoaib Rahim, a debate coach at American University of Afghanistan and adjudicator for the competition from Kabul, said after the competition. “A thing as simple as debate and exchanging ideas can be very powerful and meaningful to a society, which unfortunately has not had the exposure it needs to.”

A new student success and retention initiative is expected to take form this summer, with Student Development hiring “student success coaches.” The goal is to increase student retention and provide further resources for students identified as “at-risk” to  leave the university within their first year. Lisa Israel, the Director of Academic Advising and Support,  and Leanna Fenneberg, Assistant Vice President of Student Development, announced the planned initiative to SGA during their Feb. 12 meeting. The primary goal of the program is to increase annual first-year retention rates at SLU from 87 percent to 90 percent, which amounts to an addition 48 students annually.

“What we’re proposing… is to provide individual outreach to first-time full-time freshmen that are identified as at-risk via MAP-Works,” Israel said.

The university currently uses the MAP-Works platform to collect data from first-year students concerning academic, socio-emotional and financial status. Using various metrics, MAP-Works has consistently identified a quarter of first year students as “at-risk,” indicating that those students have a higher probability of leaving the university by the end of their first year. Data collected by Student Development and others correlates with the MAP-Works metrics, showing that a greater percentage of at-risk students leave SLU than those that are considered not at-risk.

The six coaches will be overseen by a program director, and while details on how the program will be implemented are not yet fully defined, Fenneberg and Israel stated that the coaches would function primarily as a communication and referral resource for students.

A coach would first meet with an at-risk student and identify specific areas of concern and personalized goals. Coaches would then follow up by providing resources and tracking the progress of students throughout their first year. At the start of their sophomore year the student could look at what he spoke to his coach about on their first meeting and see how far he had progressed.

“[The coaches] are going to provide individual student outreach, connect [students] to relevant resources, monitor and track progress and maintain communication with faculty and staff,” Israel said.

Fenneberg stated that the development of a more specific job position will occur as more input is gathered from the broader student community.

“We’re in conversation with our academic partners to define the specifics: when will we outreach to students, what will that communication look like,” Fenneberg said. “Every time we have a presentation people bring new perspectives and we’ll continue to involve that in the specifics.”

While the initiative will be entirely new to SLU, Israel stated that those involved in developing the initiative spent most of the fall semester researching literature on retention as well as looking at retention programs at other universities.

According to Israel, the goal is to have all seven new position filled by June 9 so that the program can be prepared and marketed during the summer SLU 101 sessions.

Based on the $20,000 students pay annually on average in tuition and fees, retention of an additional 48 students amounts to $960,000 in revenue.

“That amount is worth three times the cost of the initiative,” Israel said. She also stated that the funding for the program is coming from realigned dollars as opposed to new budgetary proposals.