the daily iowan · groups contrast greatly; glaspy brought julian lage with her to perform an...
TRANSCRIPT
BY MARISSA [email protected]
Interim Chief Diversity Officer Lena Hill will soon make a return to the academic side of uni-versity work — but when she does so, she will no longer be at the University of Iowa.
Hill has been appointed as dean of the College at Washington and Lee Univer-sity in Lexington, Virginia. Her final day at the UI will be May 25.
“[My husband and I] feel re-ally fortunate to be in a position where leaving this job is as diffi-cult as it will be because we have been so connected to the univer-sity and to the community,” she
told The Daily Iowan. Since then-Chief Diversity Officer Georgina
Dodge left the UI in July 2017 to become associ-ate provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Bucknell University, Hill has filled the role on an interim basis.
“Lena has worked tirelessly over the past year, urging us to survey our campus and truly reflect on our weaknesses and bringing the campus to-
BY JULIA [email protected]
For members of University of Iowa Muslim Stu-dent Association, the upcoming week is dedicated to educating others on the basic beliefs and traditions of their religion.
Islam Awareness Week is marked by events in-tended to increase general student understanding of the faith.
Walking across campus Monday afternoon, Muslim Association members presented passersby with colorful flowers. They gifted “flowers of faith”
attached with quotes about Islam or verses from the Quran.
A play titled Muslims in Iowa will run at Hanch-er at 7 p.m. Tuesday, focusing on the experiences of Muslims. It will be free and open to the public.
On Wednesday, the Muslim Association will set up a booth from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the T. Anne Cleary Walkway for its annual “Hijab It Up.” Women are encouraged to try on a hijab to learn more about its meaning.
Association member Ebteehal Ismail said many
10 days untilspring footballIowa football has some issues it needs to address. With incon-sistency at punter and a lack of depth at defensive tackle, the two positions have emerged as keys with the spring game rap-idly approaching. Special teams continue to be a theme with the Hawkeyes, as Riley McCarron is serving as inspiration for those who have not found a role with the team yet. Sports, 8
Despite inclusive efforts, 5 UISG seats remain unfilledOnly two of the seven indepen-dent Senate seats on the UI Student Government were filled in the election, leaving five vacant until next fall. Despite efforts to increase independent representation on UISG, only two candidates secured at least 10 percent of the vote to earn seats. News, 2
Hawks look for another Big Ten sweepAfter its first Big Ten series sweep since last season, Iowa softball will travel to Lincoln for a battle with Nebraska. Coincidentally, the Hawkeyes’ previous series sweep against a conference foe came against the Huskers in Iowa City last season. If Iowa plays as it did against Wisconsin, it’ll have a realistic shot at keeping the brooms moving. Sports, 8
Column: Let’s make baseball warm againSnow is all fun and games until it falls in April during a baseball game. While it’s rare to get snow this time of the year (even with Iowa’s wild weather), it’s an ex-ample of why the NCAA should at least consider pushing back the start of the season till late spring — baseball and snow do not mix. Sports, 8
A Quiet Place screen-writers come back to alma materUI alumni Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, screenwriters of a new horror movie directed by John Krasinski, visit the UI and speak about the development of their careers and the process in which they write and produce their films. News, 3
Column: Turn on a sad songMusic is a tool that can be used to improve one’s mood, and oddly, sad music particularly helps. So with a month left of the semester, try listening to a sad tune to tolerate impending assignments and propel through the coming weeks. Opinions, 4
SEE ISLAM, 2
Spreading the word about Islam at UIMuslim Student Association will host a variety of educational events for Islam Awareness Week on campus, including a ‘fastathon,’ a chance to try on a hijab, and a play.
Diversity officer leaves UIAfter more than a decade as a Hawkeye, Lena Hill will leave the UI to serve as dean of the College at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.
SEE HILL, 2
WEATHER
HIGH48
Foggy at first, then mostly sunny, windy.
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OPINIONS DAILY BREAKCLASSIFIEDSSPORTS
LOW34
4678
NewsTo Know
Katie Goodale/The Daily IowanMembers of the UI Muslim Student Association mingle and exchange impressions after passing out flowers for Islam Appreciation Week on the T. Anne Cleary Walkway on Monday.
BY TROY [email protected]
Mission Creek festival calls the Englert its primary home, and the 106-year-old building continuallyaccepts diverse acts embodying thefestival itself in an attempt to spreadtaste in music and literature throughthe community.
The six-day festival brought in lo-cal, national, and international acts to perform music and readings. This year’s festival continued growth in terms of diversity and popularity.
Popularity is a relative term, but 2018’s music headliners raised the bar, with artists including Julien Bak-er, Margaret Glaspy, Jamila Woods, the Weepies, and Dessa. Iowa City as a whole has built a music scene of local artists while bringing national touring artists to the table.
“We are here to serve the commu-nity with national artists, while feed-ing interest with what’s happening locally,” said Andre Perry, the talent buyer for the Englert and Mission Creek, in a previous interview with The Daily Iowan.
This idea was visible during the 2018 edition of the festival, as local act Karen Meat opened for Julien Baker, Elizabeth Moen opened for the Weepies, and Ancient Posse opened for Psalm One and Woods.
“We pair artists together that might not normally play together rather than pairing artists that would flow together,” said Jessica Egli, a Mission Creek staff member, said about the Weepies show at the Englert.
Events at the Englert and afar featured primarily triple-bill per-formances. This allowed the festival to book a wider range of acts in one evening, further broadening viewers exposure to a wider range of acts.
For the April 5 set, the Englert hosted co-headliners in Glaspy and Wye Oak. The two groups contrast greatly; Glaspy brought Julian Lage with her to perform an intimate singer/songwriter duo.
Following the duo’s seated performance,
Wye Oak came out in full force, displaying a wide range of instrumentation and use of technology. The folk-inspired group brought together hard-hitting beats with soaring vocals performed by Jenn Wasner.
The evening was introduced by a band from
Rock Island whose guitar-drum duo provided a fresh take on West Coast rock.
Sister Wife is no stranger to eastern Iowa, but the large stage and balcony at the Englert
SEE FESTIVAL, 3
The Mission Creek Festival once again lives up to its name in a stream of music and literature that engages the spirit and mind.
Nick Rohlman/The Daily IowanJamila Woods performs at the Englert on Sunday. The performance was part of the Mission Creek Festival.
Tune in for LIVE updatesCampus and city news, weather, and Hawkeye sports coverage every day at 8:30 a.m. at daily-iowan.com.
Diversity, growth shine in Mission Creek
Megan Nagorzinski/The Daily IowanRoxane Gay, Amber Tamblyn, and Jessica Hopper take their seats before beginning a disucussion at the Englert on April 4 during Mission Creek. The proceeds from ticket sales will benefit Girls Rock Iowa City.
James Year/The Daily IowanFans react to Closet Witch during its show at Gabe’s as part of Mission Creek’s Underground Showcase on April 7.
50¢DAILY-IOWAN.COMTUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018 THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA COMMUNITY SINCE 1868
The Daily IowanARTS & CULTURE
Hill
BY ELIANNA [email protected]
While the student govern-ment has worked to create more independent Senate seats in recent years to keep the orga-nization accessible, in the most recent election cycle, only two of those seats were filled.
Thirty-seven senatorial seats were up for grabs this election, seven of which were reserved for independent senators. Six can-didates ran as independents, but only two met the 10 percent threshold of votes required to get a seat in University of Io-wa Student Government. Five reserved seats now remain un-filled until the fall.
“I think there are a number of different things that Senate should consider next year to change the system of how inde-pendent senators are elected,” UISG President Jacob Simpson said. “One thing we saw this year different from other years is that when we have so many ticketed senators running, our system wasn’t set up in a way that en-sured independent senators were elected for the seats that we had reserved.”
In order to be elected, sena-torial candidates have to receive 10 percent of the votes. Simp-son said the goal of setting the threshold was to ensure the peo-ple being elected to the reserved seats had a legitimate numbers of support from students.
Simpson said the remaining
seats will be treated as at-large seats. Interested individuals will fill out an application and apply, and then the Internal Affairs Committee, made up of elected UISG senators, will interview and select people to fill the seats.
“It’s really important that those seats stay seats that we’re able to fill through at-large posi-tions and applications in the fall rather than letting in five more people that were running as tick-eted senators … to keep the ac-cessibility of the organization,” Student Elections Commission-er Johanna Hetherington said.
Individuals interested should consider applying, she said, es-pecially those who ran as inde-pendents this election.
“It was really great to see a lot of interest, and I hope that people apply for those positions and even the people who ran and maybe didn’t reach that thresh-old apply for those positions, because they had a lot of really great ideas,” Hetherington said.
Under the Simpson-Sánchez administration, three indepen-dent seats were added.
“I think it’s important for UISG to have independent senator seats in order to create access to the organization and really to get diverse viewpoints,” Simpson said.
The two candidates elect-ed as independent senators were Lindsey Meyer and No-ah Wick. Meyer received 12.2 percent of the total votes, and Wick received 10.2 percent.
Both said they were honored to have been elected.
“Running as an independent is an incredible experience during the election season, but an even more powerful position to be in in Senate, because I can think independently and truly think about what’s right for the peo-ple I’m representing and not being tied to any specific views of anyone that I might have run with,” Meyer said.
Wick said he didn’t know he needed 10 percent of the vote to get a seat until about half-way through the election and said UISG could communicate that more to candidates run-ning in the future.
“There could be more work
done to promote the indepen-dent senators or more work done to put information out on their platforms, because stu-dents do get 37 votes when they cast a ballot,” Wick said.
UISG will continue to work to make the election process more accessible and fair, Simpson said.
“We were really happy to see all the interest we had this year in UISG elections, and it was a priority of ours to make sure that more people could get involved and have the opportunity to run, and I hope that we can just con-tinue that trend in future years,” Simpson said. “We are continu-ally looking at how the elections code can be changed to offer a fair and engaging election.”
people don’t know what a hijab really is (the scarf some Muslim women wear for modesty and religious purposes).
“The reason we don’t consid-er this cultural appropriation is because we want people whose intentions are pure to come,” Is-mail said. “If people are coming with intentions purely to learn about the religion, then we don’t have any issue with that.”
On Thursday, the association invites participants to its “fasta-thon,” to abstain from food and
water from sunrise to sunset, before breaking fast together in the evening at India Café, 227 E. Washington St.
“The reason we have this on Thursday is to show people that you can fast, too. A lot of peo-ple get so surprised when I tell them that I fast from sunrise to sunset,” Ismail said. “But it’s just something to show if you put your mind to it and you’re real-ly passionate about something, you’re able to do it regardless of the struggles you may face with it.”
The fasting reflects the fast-ing during the month of Rama-dan, which Ismail said is in or-der to strengthen one’s religion.
“The true beauty of Rama-dan is that we all come together and we’re all going through the struggle together,” Ismail said.
Association member Seema Kotob said she has met a lot of people that get a bad impression of Muslim people based on the news. She thinks it’s crucial to spread awareness on Islam and come together as a school so “we don’t feel like outsiders in our own university.”
“I know a lot of people get nervous to ask questions. Some people think that we will get in-sulted by them asking,” Kotob said. “I want to answer ques-tions. I love when people ask questions. I think this is the
perfect chance for them to ask anything that they want without feeling uncomfortable.”
On Friday, the association will engage in community ser-vice by putting together bags of food for a free lunch.
“It’s important for people to learn about Islam, because there are a lot of misconceptions around it, and I feel like [this week] is a way to spread infor-mation about us, show that we care about everyone and that we’re just like everyone else,” association member Salma AshShareef said. “We also want to teach others about our reli-gion and the part that’s beauti-ful, not what you see on media.”
2 NEWS
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THE DAILY IOWAN | DAILY-IOWAN.COM | TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018
Sid Peterson/The Daily IowanPassengers cram into a Cambus on Monday as it heads up the hill on Jefferson Street. Half the passengers disembarked after arriving at the Pentacrest stop near Macbride.
CRAM BUS
Some UISG Senate seats left unfilled until next fallOnly two out of seven seats reserved for independent senators were filled this UISG election season.
ISLAMCONTINUED FROM FRONT
Olivia Sun/The Daily IowanStudent candidates speak at the Independent Senator Forum in the IMU on March 26. Five Senate seats remain to be filled this fall.
HILLCONTINUED FROM FRONT
gether to engage in conversa-tions in order to improve,” UI President Bruce Harreld said in a press release.
Hill said she was not look-ing to be lured away from the UI, but she is eager to be closer to her family in Geor-gia and to focus on the uni-versity’s academic work. She hopes to eventually return to the classroom as a professor once she becomes more ac-customed to her new role.
Undergraduate enrollment is around 1,800 at Washing-ton and Lee, a small liber-al-arts institution. Hill said the bar is set high, but she is
excited about the new oppor-tunity. Particularly, she looks forward to reimagining the university’s general-educa-tion curriculum and mento-ring faculty through the en-tirety of their careers.
“I saw the opportunities that they had and how I could imagine serving there,” she said. “I think when you start to think about fit, you think about what would I bring to a place like that that would improve it, that would add to it, not how I would change it to be something different. I think you have to fundamentally respect what an institution is. The identity of Washington and Lee is one that I respect.”
Hill and her husband, Mi-chael Hill, UI associate pro-
fessor of English, co-edited Invisible Hawkeyes: African Americans at the University of Iowa During the Long Civil Rights Era during their time at the UI. He will also work at Washington and Lee, serving as a full professor in Africana studies with an appointment in English.
“That’s a story we should tell about the University of Iowa,” she said. “It’s not a perfect story. It’s not a story without its complexities and nuances, but that’s life; that’s the human story. It does have some things that are worth celebrating. We will always cherish the opportunity to have done that work.”
Vice President for Stu-dent Life Melissa Shivers will retain her current role
while serving as interim chief diversity officer. The UI will launch a national search later this semester or early summer.
Shivers said in the release that she is excited to partner with Harreld and other mem-bers of the UI community to identify strong candidates for the position and select a person who will move the UI forward in the role.
“I have been grateful for the support I’ve received during my first year and for the work Lena and her team have done to put us on a path toward success,” she said. “I am eager to work with the Chief Diversity Office staff and our campus community to continue advancing ‘excel-lence through diversity.’ ”
BY PAUL [email protected]
University of Iowa alum-ni and Hollywood screen-writers Scott Beck and Bry-an Woods visited the UI on April 9 to discuss their pro-fessional careers and their cowritten, just released film, A Quiet Place, directed by John Krasinski.
Beck and Woods took the opportunity to talk about their careers from the ground up, as well as the in-fluence the UI has had.
The beginnings of the duo’s career took place in a middle-school lunchroom in Bettendorf. Woods ap-proached Beck’s lunch table, and they bonded over Wood’s interest in making short films with his Star Wars ac-tion figures.
“You would have changed the course of history if you sat somewhere else,” said cinematic-arts Associate Pro-fessor Christopher Harris, a moderator of the discussion.
Their friendship con-tinued, and they ended up attending the UI, making various connections that proved valuable in their up-coming careers.
“Coming from Iowa, that’s a leg up; it’s something we find very special to this very day,” Beck said. “Anytime we run into somebody from Io-wa, there is a kinship there but also a creativity that’s shared, a unique perspective that you don’t necessarily get if you come from some-where else.”
Beck and Woods have worked on most of each other’s major projects col-laboratively, something they attribute the quality of their writing to.
“What makes having a writing partner nice is that you are never precious with your work; it always feels like someone else’s work, so we never fall in the trap of think-ing that it’s better than it is,” Woods said.
After some time in Hol-lywood, Woods and Beck
developed a relationship with MTV films, where they would frequently send pitches, one of which being a TV pilot called “Spread.” It did not get picked up by the network but proved helpful in developing their shared philosophy of filmmaking.
“If we want to write some-thing, and nobody wants to make it, that we are still passionate about, we would come back to the UI and film it,” Woods said.
The two did return to the UI and film “Spread,” tap-ping into their connections to get aid in the produc-tion. It was a difficult task, Woods said, because the UI did not exactly want them filming on campus.
Following “Spread,” Beck and Woods also wrote and directed another film, titled Nightlight, in 2015. After
that, their next major project was A Quiet Place, released on April 6.
They wrote the film based on a simple premise: If you make any noise, you die. Drawing on silent filmmak-ers such as Charlie Chaplin for inspiration, they pro-duced an initial 67-page script including only three lines of dialogue.
Fortunately, everything fell into place for them, and not only was the proj-ect picked up by Paramount Pictures, they also got their first choice of actors on board. They also were able to remain involved on the pro-duction side as well as exec-utive producers.
Such as with the case of “Spread,” they had plans to produce A Quiet Place here in Iowa on a lower budget if nobody picked it up.
was foreign territory as the members spoke little to the audience and remained hid-den behind ball caps during the entirety of their set.
The contrast in musi-cianship, confidence, and genre, from opener to headliner, gave the Mission Creek fans a wide selection of new and familiar music to take home.
During the April 6 show at the theater, Karen Meat’s provocative opening per-formance left viewers ques-tioning their place of view-ership, preceding more traditional acts native to the Englert.
However, the not-so-sub-
tle opener was well-received by a traditional Englert au-dience, primed for Baker’s intimate show.
The local band was fol-lowed by Squirrel Flower, a Grinnell, Iowa, band that gave a more deserving pas-sage to the main act, Baker. Led by Ella Williams, the group performed simple rock tunes that featured William’s voice above in-strumentation.
The transition to Bak-er’s set proved seamless, as the young singer/song-writer came out with vo-cals that needed no intro-duction. Baker performed tracks from her critically acclaimed album Turn Out the Lights.
The Mission Creek staff have also continued to bring in artists that support their
mission. This year’s edition of this overwhelmingly be-longed to Jamila Woods.
The rapper, writer, poet, you-name-it, brought read-ings and rhymes to the En-glert during the last day of the festival.
“Poetry was always a big part of my imagination, and my music [and poet-ry] feed into each other,” Woods said.
The artist read original poems including “Blk Girl Act” over her band’s subtle beats. This was in contrast to covers of Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” and “Say My Name,” by Destiny’s Child.
This type of creativity in a music- and literature-based platform gave Woods the headlining spot to display the diversity in her entire body of work.
THE DAILY IOWAN | DAILY-IOWAN.COM | TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018 NEWS 3
Olivia Sun/The Daily IowanScott Beck and Bryan Woods, UI alumni and cowriters of A Quiet Place, speak in the Pappajohn Business Building on Monday. A Quiet Place stars John Krasinski and Emily Blunt and topped the box office during its opening weekend.
A Quiet Place writers visit UIUI alumni Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, screenwriters of a new hit movie, visit the UI and speak about the development of their careers and the process by which they write and produce their films.
FESTIVALCONTINUED FROM FRONT
@DAILY_IOWAN
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James Year/The Daily IowanDoug Martsch of Built to Spill speaks to a cheering crowd at Gabe’s on April 7.
So in today’s thrilling ep-isode of Life and Where to Stick It: The Story of the Iowa Legislature … um, yeah.
You’re right. When we think of the Iowa Legis-lature, the first word that leaps to mind is not “thrill-ing.” In fact, among the first 12,000 or so words that leap to mind (which is more leap-ing than a kangaroo con-vention), “thrilling” is not among them.
I’m not sure what the Leg-islature can do about this, short of electing Sarah Palin as permanent speaker of the House. That would have few-er than few practical impli-cations, but there’d be thrills and chills galore. Probably some other things galore, too.
Failing that, I suppose the Legislature could bring back the clown car. That’s where the Legislature sees how ma-ny legislators it can stuff in a VW Bug, and then it turns out somebody forgot to fill the Bug with gas. That’s always good for a few laughs, lots of legislators and no gas.
Because, in the immortal words of the great Donald Kaul, in legislative debate, pure drivel tends to drive out ordinary drivel.
Yes, I know; I’ve quoted Mr.
Kaul before. But some phras-es are timeless; they bear re-peating. Such as, Don’t poke a grizzly bear with a sharp stick. Unless the sharp stick is two miles long.
(If you have a DadBod, say, along the lines of the Trump-ster’s, don’t poke a grizzly with a sharp stick unless you’re already in the helicop-ter.) (And the helicopter is al-ready 20 feet off the ground.)
And that pretty much sums up what the Legislature is good for. It basically exists so legislators can cut taxes and then discover a shortfall in the budget. That’s discover in the sense of, Hey, look what we found. A shortfall.
They almost sound delight-ed. Because then they can cut more funding for higher ed-ucation. And then cut some
more taxes. And discover yet another budget shortfall.
Don’t you just hate it when shortfalls become longer shortfalls? Me, too. Especially because it’s always so hard to tell exactly when the longer shortfall becomes a longfall.
We’re probably in long-fall territory, at least as far as public-university funding goes. Hint: It doesn’t go very far, unless you’re talking about going away. Then it goes a long way.
A longer way than you might otherwise think. Let’s say the Legislature funded the UI to the tune of $200 million in 2001, then, in 2018, funds the UI to the same tune of $200 million. (Who knew legislators could carry a tune?)
That $200 million in 2001
is actually $283 million-plus in 2018. So the budget ax falls, and you didn’t even see it. Unless you were counting at home, and that’s never recommended. It upsets some landlords.
But, you know, legislators cut taxes. Find shorfalls. And cut taxes. Who needs a clown car?
That’s because conserva-tives, which the Legislature is chock-full of, believe that cut-ting taxes is the answer to ev-erything, in addition to being the path to Nirvana. (I’m not certain why this is. Nirvana was a garage band, so the path to Nirvana was a driveway.)
So it goes like this: A great recession has hit, and unemployment is go-ing stratospheric like a North Korean missile. What
should we do? Cut taxes.The economy is going
great guns (though we’re not supposed to use that phrase anymore); in fact, such great guns that it’s overheating, and inflation is threatening to hit the boiling point of tungsten (which is somehow still not the inflation rate in Venezuela). What should we do? Cut taxes.
Turns out famed prognos-ticator Douglas Adams was right, and the Interstellar Planning & Zoning Commis-sion is going to bulldoze Earth to make room for an Interstel-lar Nursing Home for Aging Black Holes. What should we do? Cut taxes. Quickly.
Next week on Life and Where to Stick It: Garbage Collection. (Oh, wait. That was this week.)
I write to respond to “State auditor candidate sells cam-paign by highlighting polit-ical views and inexperience” by Marina Jaimes.
I have known Rob Sand since before I decided to attend the University of Io-wa. He helped me through parts of my college applica-tion and selection process, and we have kept in touch over the years. He has also visited the University of Io-wa Phi Alpha Delta pre-law chapter to talk about his
work in Iowa’s courtrooms.I know from our relation-
ship, and also from his work as a financial-crimes prosecu-tor in the Attorney General’s Office, that there is no better nor more qualified candidate to serve as state auditor.
Iowans from all walks of life have served as state au-ditor. We have had teachers, farmers, Realtors, business-men, and accountants. Rob’s background is particularly well-suited to the job, how-ever, because as Iowa’s top
public-corruption prosecutor he has worked closely with the public-corruption inves-tigations from the State Au-ditor’s Office. He knows how the office needs a prosecutor involved every step of the way to make sure those investi-gations can hold up in court. His background will provide Iowans with much more val-ue than just adding another accountant to an office that already has dozens of them.
In addition, I can tell you that he is honest and leads
with integrity. These are sig-nificant qualifiers for the state auditor. He regularly praises former Republican State Auditor Richard John-son’s stump speech for John-son’s independence. Rob has prosecuted both Democrats and Republicans. Although he is a Democrat and doesn’t shy away from that, he absolute-ly prioritizes public interest over his personal politics.
That is more than what the current state auditor can say, who called last year’s budget
“stable, balanced, and re-sponsible” even though ev-ery three months the budget was cut and the state had to borrow more than $100 mil-lion to get through the end of the fiscal year. If those adjectives do not make sense to describe that budget, it makes more sense when you realize that the state auditor belongs to the same political party as the governor and the legislative majority that made the budget.
Rob also understands the
State Auditor’s Office has a bul-ly pulpit on the state’s financial issues. He knows that standing up for important investments such as higher education is a priority in any responsible budget. When he names the budget’s failure to take care of those priorities, and names the political party responsible for them, that is not partisanship. It is the truth. And it is time that we have more political candidates who stand up for it.
— Lilián Sánchez
THE DAILY IOWAN | DAILY-IOWAN.COM | TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 20184
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EDITORIAL POLICYSTAFF
Some misguided souls believe the Iowa Legislature is boring. Hah. Boring like a jigsaw, and your fingers are on the board.
GRACE PATERAS Editor-in-Chief
ISABELLA ROSARIO Opinions Editor
Elijah Helton, Marina Jaimes, Constance Judd, Michelle Kumar, Lucee Laursen, Jacob Prall, Alexandria Smith, Wylliam Smith, Ella Lee Columnists
James Geneser, CartoonistEDITORIALS reflect the majority opinion of the DI Editorial Board and not the opinion of the Publisher, Student
Publications Inc., or the University of Iowa. OPINIONS, COMMENTARIES, COLUMNS, and EDITORIAL CARTOONS reflect the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board, The Daily Iowan, or other organizations in which the author
may be involved.
Life & Where to Stick It: the Legislature
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
‘The music we listen to has the power to reinforce us in mood as well as move us forward in daily, or not-so-daily, experiences with positive momentum.’
Listening to sad music can improve mood
Iowa City is host to many talented musicians, but few have experienced the popu-larity that Pieta Brown has during her career. Brown has released eight full-length albums following her début self-titled album in 2002. The recording style she demon-strated on the first album set the tone for the rest.
In a culture riddled with many art forms, music man-ages to hold the attention of millions. The vibrations stemming from its sound, lyrics conveying a multi-tude of meanings, and the many keys and instruments weaving rhythms catches the attention of a number of audiences — and has a much greater effect on our brains than we, as the audience,
could anticipate.Psychologists are eager-
ly seeking better clarity and understanding when study-ing the mystery of the human mind — and music allows a unique gateway into the brain. The feelings we expe-rience are equal parts com-prehensive as they are rich in curious disposition. And when encountering emo-tion, we are prone to seeking reinforcement in our mood through different outlets of media, including music.
This phenomenon is re-ferred to as selective expo-sure. The idea is that me-dia we choose to consume are driven by what we feel. More often than not, we ache to be reinforced in what we feel and how we are feeling it, and music is an easy way to do that.
While one may assume that listening to sad music makes the listener even more sad, research considers a rep-resentation of the opposite effect. Listening to sad music can be comforting to certain individuals and shouldn’t be completely discounted.
A 2016 study conducted by researchers at Durham Uni-versity and the University of Jyväskylä found that music can be therapeutic to dif-ferent individuals. In some cases, sad music prompted feelings of pleasure and en-joyment — and in doing so, regulated people’s moods. For others, sad music of-fered comfort by evoking memories and offering a positive experience that way. Because of these ther-apeutic implications, peo-ple shouldn’t feel obligated to listen to upbeat or happy music when they are feel-ing otherwise. Listening to music that falls in step with people’s mood can have a way of pulling them through their period of sadness.
The music we listen to has the power to reinforce us in mood as well as move us forward in daily, or not-so-daily, experiences with pos-itive momentum. And this is because of the intimate communication between ar-eas of our brain with sound. The regions of our brain that are designated for every day
planning, movement, atten-tion, and even memory, are actively at work when de-picting and discerning the sounds we are hearing in the various kinds of music we are exposed to.
Along with such influence in our minds, there is also a unifying force in experienc-ing music. Whether it be for
enjoyment or reinforcement, music holds the attention of millions. It’s often used as a way of celebrating faith, the intricate beauty of culture, and even the interesting cor-ners of life within community.
There is power in people, and such power is on full dis-play within the production and unification of music.
And at a time like this, when the mid-semester slump has proven survivable and we are weeks away from the swift wrap up of another year of school, music can be used as not only a tool to tol-erate these upcoming exams and writing assignments, but also an instrument that propels us forward.
COLUMN
State-auditor candidate Rob Sand ‘prioritizes public interest over his personal politics.’
In defense of state auditor candidate
COLUMN
BEAU ELLIOT [email protected]
TAYLOR NEWBY [email protected]
James Year/The Daily IowanIowa City resident Emma Garwood searches for some new CDs at the Record Collector on July 11, 2017. Garwood had listened to a lot of sludge-metal and was hoping to find something new.
BY ANNA [email protected]
Iowa softball’s sweep over Wisconsin was a big step forward for the program, and it had to do with trust-ing the process in making adjustments at the plate.
The Hawkeye offense
began a cold stretch on March 28, when the Hawkeyes suffered a 3-1 loss to Drake at home.
Following an unsuccess-ful series at Maryland in which Iowa scored only 3 runs, there was a need for a change. The April 4 match-up against Northern Iowa
was postponed, and the bats had a full week to work in practice.
April 7 against Wiscon-sin proved that the current lineup is buying into the process that the coach-ing staff has preached the whole season.
“It’s a fresh new start,”
right fielder McKenzie Schneider said. “Every day’s a new beginning, and we just got a clean slate, so [we] just came out there swinging and believing in ourselves.”
To jump-start the of-fense, head coach Marla Looper preaches one thing
over and over.“The biggest thing is
just making adjustments, making big adjustments so then we can narrow it down to smaller adjustments,” Looper says.
One big adjustment that the lineup has learned to make over the season is moving to the front or the back of the box.
By moving closer or far-ther away from the pitcher, it gives the batter a better chance to see the ball either before or after it breaks in any pitch.
“I think Schneider did a nice job in her at bat of let-ting the ball get deep and squaring it up,” Looper said. “That leadoff home run re-ally gave us a little bit of a spark. After Schneider, then we just continued to roll and the rally. We had some great at bats and great op-portunities, and fortunately we came away with the W.”
Hitting inspires hitting, and buying into the process is all about trusting what you need to do for your team.
Using the energy from a potential comeback is im-portant to not falling short.
“Coming out of the dugout going into that last half in-ning, just put all that energy out there,” Looper said. “No sense in having any when the
day’s over, because there’s not another game, so let’s leave it all on the field, and I think our team did that.”
For the weekend se-ries, the field and how the weather affected it created an advantage.
Ground balls reacted dif-ferently from normal, help-ing the slappers to get on base.
“We got some timely hits in individual innings, and it was nice to be able to use Pearl in a positive way, which we did today with the nice big choppers,” Looper said. “We had the slappers on base, the speed, and it was fun to kind of manufacture some things then, too. It was nice to see some certain people step up that haven’t had that opportunity yet.”
THE DAILY IOWAN | DAILY-IOWAN.COM | TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018 SPORTS 5
POINT/COUNTERPOINT
Which Hawkeye football player will be the most improved?Iowa football has a young team, leaving the doors wide open for major player growth.
Brandon Smith
Last season at this time, the entire Hawkeye wide re-ceiver corps was one giant question mark.
Outside of Matt Van-deBerg, no receiver had caught a pass at the Divi-sion-1 level. This year is different.
Iowa returns the bulk of its receiving corps (mi-nus VandeBerg and his 295 receiving yards), but one name in particular has come up often from the players during spring ball: Brandon Smith.
Smith, a 6-3, 219-pound pass catcher from Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, snagged only 2 passes last season, totaling 13 yards.
Quarterback Nate Stan-ley and receiver Nick Easley both noted Smith’s name as far as players they’ve seen growth from in the offsea-son.
Smith is built like a No. 1 receiver, and he has the speed to go along with that. Stanley noted that Smith has shown a “great attitude” and has seen him become “more physical” on the play-ing field and especially in the weight room.
With VandeBerg gone, that opens the door (or, forces, if you will) for an-other receiver to step up. Both Smith and Ihmir Smith-Marsette will be names to look for next sea-son in year No. 2 of Brian Ferentz’s offense, but Smith will be the most improved Hawkeye.
Expect his catches and yards to skyrocket, and with his build, he could be a big-threat in the red zone as well.
Ihmir Smith-Marsette
Last year’s wide receiver depth chart was essentially wide open, and one freshman receiv-er rose above the rest to estab-lish consistent playing time: Ihmir Smith-Marsette.
Smith-Marsette is an electric playmaker with enough speed to change the game (Remember his game-winning touchdown against Iowa State in over-time?), and he will definitely have the opportunity to do so this season.
The Iowa coaching staff continually tried to get the ball
in Smith-Marsette’s hands last year, as evidenced by his 7 rush-ing attempts as a wide receiver that he cashed in for 41 yards.
An honorable mention for the Big Ten All-Freshman team, he also made an impact in the return game, averaging 33.5 yards per kick return, the most of any Hawkeye during the 2017 season.
The Newark, New Jersey, na-tive will do it all again this year. Special-team coordinator LeVar Woods said Smith-Marsette was one of three players to po-sition themselves as a returner, demonstrating the coaching staff’s faith in the sophomore.
Despite having some issues catching the ball and being un-dersized, Smith-Marsette pos-sesses the important athletic qualities that Division-1 wide receivers must have.
With VandeBerg depar-ture, Smith-Marsette is the second-most productive wideout returning to the
Hawkeyes behind Nick Eas-ley, who led the team in recep-tions and yards.
Because of the number of times the ball is going to be in Smith-Marsette’s hands, he will be the player to step up for Iowa.
Adjustments bring in runsThe Hawkeye offense has finally found its groove, proven in three games over the weekend.
PETE [email protected]
ADAM [email protected]
Lily Smith /The Daily IowanIowa’s Lea Thompson kneels next to the base during the Iowa/Wisconsin softball game at Pearl Field on Sunday. The Hawkeyes defeated the Badgers, 5-3.
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enth but rallied with 3 runs to win, 5-3.
“I’m excited that we were able to get that done [on Sun-day],” Looper said. “We hav-en’t swept teams in a while. To do that against a good Wis-consin program is not easy to do. They came out ready to fight and battle today, and we knew we’d have a battle on our hands. We stepped up, and we took a couple blows. But we punched back, got the knockout punch.”
Iowa’s hitting has been on-and-off all season, and the team is battling a mere .235. Against Wisconsin, though, the team’s average spiked to .320.
“The girls were doing a good job at times letting the
ball get deep and hitting balls they’re supposed to, instead of swinging at bad pitches [and] letting the pitcher fool us,” Looper said.
Nebraska presents anoth-er opportunity for Iowa to showcase its newly found hitting. Husker ace pitcher Kaylan Jablonski has a 2.77 ERA and allows her oppo-nents a .266 batting aver-age. If Iowa sees the second pitcher, Olivia Farrell, they will have an even greater chance to hit the ball. Far-rell has a 3.58 ERA and al-lows a .314 batting average.
The real challenge will be pitching for Iowa. After her performances against Wiscon-sin, sophomore ace Allison Do-ocy earned her second Big Ten Pitcher of the Week award. As a team, Nebraska is hitting .272, fourth best in the Big Ten.
“Nebraska’s got a real-
ly good offensive ballclub, and they swing a good bat,” Looper said. “But I think we can fool them a little bit. We need to be able to go in, and play our game, and not be too consumed with them. But we need to know how to adjust and attack when the opportu-nity presents itself.”
With Doocy in the circle, and Iowa’s process starting to click, the team feels prepared to take on Nebraska in the midweek doubleheader.
“Doocy continues to step on the field and give our team the best opportunity to win,” Looper said. “Even though the challenge was greater this weekend, she was able to get out of jams. She’s got more confidence this year than ever, and when she’s rolling, the team feels confident playing be-hind her.”
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“We’re looking for guys to step forward at that defensive tackle spot. When Iowa’s defense has been really good, we’ve had a
couple really good guys in there, but I think this year, it’s going to be more by committee, which is not a bad thing because there are a lot of guys that want to get an opportunity to play.”
Riley the role model
These days, Riley McCarron is a practice-squad wide receiver for the AFC Champion New En-gland Patriots in the NFL.
His 42 receptions for 517 yards and 4 touchdowns in his senior season certainly helped prepare him to play at the next level, but he wasn’t a star
receiver for the majority of his time at Iowa.
In his first three seasons, McCarron snagged a total of 8 passes for 67 yards and a touchdown. His role on spe-cial teams as a returner and gunner put him on the field consistently and prepared
him for his future as a play-maker on offense.
Now seeing the success Mc-Carron is having, Woods uses the 5-9 speedster to motivate his squad of special-teamers.
“One of the guys that I’ve been trying to hammer home with our players right now is
a guy named Riley McCarron, and I have a lot of reverence for Riley McCarron,” Woods said. “I think Riley bought into special teams at that time. He bought into coverage, bought into being a returner, trying to find a way to get into the game. He took it to heart every day in practice.”
FOOTBALLCONTINUED FROM FRONT
BASEBALLCONTINUED FROM FRONT
SOFTBALLCONTINUED FROM FRONT
amond 9 Sunshine State Classic Series on Feb. 16.
The farther south teams play, the weather tends to be warmer, at least warmer than the freez-ing temperatures that plague areas such as Iowa City until mid-late March or later.
But it’s an advantage for the teams located in states all over the South. Their seasons can start in Febru-ary, and they don’t need to travel to play, unless they desire to.
Meanwhile, teams such as Iowa have no option but to hit the road and head south in order to play live-action baseball.
Heller made an excellent point after Iowa’s 2-1 win
over Ohio State.“I would like at some time
in my career to be able to start the season in May and play through the summer, and we’d have 5, 6, 7,000 people here for [the Ohio State games],” he said. “It would be a different world, but until that chang-es, we’re going to have to deal with days like [Sunday].”
The biggest issue is get-ting everybody on board for the change.
Why not start the baseball season in April and conclude in August? It wouldn’t conflict with college football’s regu-lar season, plus there would be warmer temperatures. As Heller said, Iowa could easily boast a crowd of 6,000, if not more, for a weekend series against a Big Ten foe.
But the teams in the South aren’t likely to budge.
“When you have advantag-
es, it’s tough to give them up,” Heller said.
He said he still “holds hope” that at some point during his coaching career, he’ll see the day when college baseball picks up in late spring instead of late winter.
He noted that he heard ru-mors that the Big 12 held a straw vote on whether the teams felt as though the season should start later in the year, and ac-cording to him, only one team in the conference was against it.
Conferences such as the SEC and Pac 12 likely won’t be the ones pushing for a change, but those such as the Big 12 or Big Ten could be.
“We being in a Power Five [conference], we have to probably lead the charge and, hopefully someday, that’ll happen, where we could get some others on board,” Heller said.
Baseball game post-poned, game added to schedule
Iowa’s midweek game against Bradley, originally scheduled for today in Peoria, Illinois, has been postponed because of cold temperatures in the area.
Instead, Iowa announced on Monday that because the tem-peratures in the Iowa City area are forecast to be around 65 on Wednesday, the Hawkeyes will host Coe College instead of traveling to Illinois.
First pitch for the game is scheduled for 6:05 p.m.
Soccer’s Tanaskovic enters North Georgia Hall of Fame
Iowa soccer assistant coach Rade Tanaskovic was induct-ed into the North Georgia Athletics Hall of Fame over the weekend.
He is the first Nighthawk from the men’s soccer program to be inducted after earning three PBC All-Conference se-lections as a goalkeeper during his time in college.
“I am thankful for the opportunity to be inducted in to the University of North Georgia Athletics Hall of Fame,” he said in a release. “I can’t say thank-you enough to all my teammates, coaches, trainers, administrators, friends, and family who have had helped me along the way.
“I will never be able to give back even close to what the University of North Geor-gia and people around the university have given to me. I am humbled and honored to be part of the 2018 UNG Hall of Fame class.”
A pinch of punting key for Iowa football
BY PETE RUDEN [email protected]
Snow isn’t exactly a sign of spring, but nevertheless, Iowa football’s spring game will take place in 10 days.
With the season inching closer, there is no question Iowa could improve on the special-team front — espe-cially in the punting realm.
Colten Rastetter and Ryan Gersonde were both in-consistent in their chances last year, leaving a notice-able void after Ron Coluzzi graduated in 2017.
The Hawkeyes also have four players vying for the long snapper spot with Tyler Kluver graduating and hoping to make an NFL roster.
Without a serious punting threat and long snapper receiving consistent reps, Iowa has
some issues to work through.Special-team coordinator LeVar Woods said Ras-
tetter showed some bright moments as a rugby-style punter last season and can be a traditional punter when consistent, while Gersonde is trying to find the style that best suits him.
“It is very critical we improve in that area,” Woods said. “I think both of the guys have the potential to do the job. It’s just a matter of buckling down, and doing it, and see where we shake out.”
Tackling depth at defensive tackleIowa returns its top four defensive ends this
season, and while most of the defensive line is back for another go-around, there is one notice-
able exception: Nathan Bazata.Bazata played in every game since 2014, so his
presence will be missed by the Hawkeyes. With Matt Nelson — who played some tackle last season — recov-ering from surgery, Iowa currently has Cedrick Latti-more and Brady Reiff slotted as its starters.
Behind those two are Dalles Jacobus and Garret Jan-sen. Without much experience behind the first string-ers, there is room to provide more depth.
Assistant defensive-line coach Kelvin Bell said Io-wa’s scrimmage on April 6 was important in deter-mining a defensive-tackle rotation. The available spots could also be filled by more than one player.
“Right now, it’s open for everybody,” Bell said.
BY JAMES [email protected]
Two weeks ago, Iowa softball dropped three-straight games to a below-average Maryland team. Then, Iowa bats were slow, and errors prevalent.
This past weekend, Iowa looked like a com-pletely different team. Head coach Marla Looper and her squad took three games from a 16-13 Wisconsin team, the first sweep for the Hawkeyes since last year’s series sweep of Ne-braska.
This season, Iowa will have another opportu-nity to sweep the Huskers, who are currently 27-13. Nebraska will host the 18-17 Hawkeyes today in a doubleheader starting at 4 p.m.
“Last time we met Nebraska here, it was su-per exciting,” senior Angela Schmiederer said. “We’re just hoping to carry that over. It’s a pret-ty big rivalry between our two schools, so we’re just hoping to stick to the process. Stick to the plan. Hit good pitches, and do what we can on the field. If we do that, we’re going to get some wins.”
That process finally showed against Wiscon-sin.
Iowa mounted comebacks against the Bad-gers in Games 2 and 3. In the second, Iowa was trailing by 3 runs in the bottom of the seventh when the squad collected 4 runs to win, 4-3. Game 3, Iowa trailed, 3-2, in the top of the sev-
SEE SOFTBALL, 7
Process works, time to repeatIowa softball is coming off its Big Ten first sweep of the year and plans to repeat that with Nebraska today.
Make baseball warm againBaseball and snow doesn’t make sense, and neither does starting the season in February.
Much to everyone’s delight, it snowed on Sunday in Iowa City.
No, it wasn’t just a dusting. I’m talking big ol’ snow-flakes.
Yet somewhere in this winter wonderland was a baseball game at Banks Field. Whoever was running the sound system began playing Christmas music when the snow began to fall — that was actually very funny, and I as well as others in the press box laughed.
But I think there’s a lesson to be learned here.Baseball isn’t a winter sport, and while it’s rare (de-
spite the bi-polar Iowa weather) for us to get snow in April, it still happened.
Head coach Rick Heller wasn’t ecstatic about play-ing in the snow, and rightfully so. After the game, he expressed his belief that the NCAA should push back the baseball schedule, and he’s right.
“You don’t make excuses because it is what it is,” Heller said. “At my age, at 31 years of playing in it, just to me, why are we playing in it? We should be playing in the summer. At this point in time, three-quarters of the country is dealing with it.”
As of now, the College World Series goes from June 16-28. Most teams begin their seasons in February, just as Iowa did when it traveled to Florida for the Di-
SEE BASEBALL, 7
Lily Smith/The Daily IowanIowa’s Allison Doocy pitches during the Iowa/Wisconsin softball game at Pearl Field on Sunday. The Hawkeyes defeated the Badgers and completed the sweep of the series, 5-3.
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TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2018
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HAWKEYE UPDATES
STAT OF THE DAY
2-15
Softball is 2-15 this season when scoring 2 or fewer runs.
“I feel like everyone as a whole is in that right mindset, and the results are speaking for themselves.
— Iowa pitcher Cole McDonald on Iowa finding its rhythm
QUOTE OF THE DAY
”
Iowa has some work to do on special teams and at defensive tackle if it wants to reach its full potential.
Ben Allan Smith/The Daily IowanIowa’s Colten Rastetter punts the ball during the season-opener against Wyoming on Sept. 2, 2017. The Hawkeyes defeated the Cowboys and their highly rated NFL Draft quarterback, 24-3.
ADAM [email protected]
COLUMN
BIG TEN BASEBALL AWARDS
Player of the WeekScott Schreiber, Nebraska• Two games with at least 2 hits, finished 6-for-8 against Michigan State• 2 RBIs, 6 hits, batted .750 for the week Pitcher and Freshman of the WeekPatrick Fredrickson, Minnesota• Had a no-hitter going into the eighth inning in a win over Penn State• 7 strikeouts (career-high)
BIG TEN SOFTBALL AWARDS
Player of the WeekLillu Piper, Ohio State• .667 batting average, 3 home runs, 9 RBIs in three games against Rutgers• 2 home runs in final game against the Scarlet Knights Pitcher of the WeekAllison Doocy, Iowa• 1.50 ERA, 18 strikeouts in 14 innings against Wisconsin- In opener against badgers, threw 12 strikeouts, allowed 1 hit
Freshman of the WeekLou Allen, Michigan• .429 batting average, 2 home runs, 4 RBIs in three games against Penn State