THE SPECTATORTHE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EAU CLAIRE’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1923

VOL. 91, NO. 16 SPRING 2013Thursday, Jan. 31

NEWS SPORTS CURRENTS OP / ED STUDENT LIFEPAGES 1-5 PAGES 7-9 PAGES 10-12 PAGES 13-15 PAGE 16

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PROFESSOR HONORED THE “WAIT” IS OVER ALL WRONG A BLUGOLD BALLOTBEATING THE BESTDucksworth-Lawton receives Girl Scouts

award

Managing Editor Taylor Kuether says ending women’s

rights law is shameful

Two UW-Eau Claire students are running for city

council this spring

Men’s hockey shuts out No. 1-ranked St. Norbert

Trampled By Turtles returning to Eau Claire

>> page 16

ALEX ZANK / The Spectator Student Body President Corydon Fish stands at the podium Monday night during the Student Senate meeting while those in the gallery watch. The Senate voted 24-3 to no longer recognize United Council at UW-Eau Claire.

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UNITED AGAINST COUNCILStudent Senate votes to no longer recognize United Council

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2NEWS EDITORS: David Heiling & Alex Zank

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Thursday, January 31

UW-Eau Claire history professor Selika Ducksworth-Lawton one of three 19th annual Girl Scout Women of Courage, Confidence and Character

Professor hailed as role model

The Girl Scouts of America try to empower girls in different ways, including community ser-vice projects. The annual Wom-en of Courage, Confidence and Character award honors women who are role models for girls in their community.

UW-Eau Claire Associate Professor of History Selika Ducksworth-Lawton was one of the three annual Women of Courage, Confidence and Char-acter honorees from the Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes chapter.

Ducksworth-Lawton is not only involved in many Eau Claire organizations and programs, in-cluding the Chancellor’s Diver-sity Council and adviser to the Black Student Alliance. She is also coordinator for the ClearVi-sion Empowerment Summit and is responsible for creating sup-plemental education plans for the Chippewa Valley Museum.

Ducksworth-Lawton be-lieves in building bridges be-tween not only the communi-

ty, but within the university as an adviser to the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

“I’m trying to build bridges not just out in the communi-ty between groups,” she said. “Here at the university bridging academic and the backside, the student services side, is really important to me.”

Along with her work as a coordinator in the community and at the university, Duck-sworth-Lawton often delivers lectures, ranging in topic from the Vietnam War to lynching, at local schools.

She is often drawn into many of her community engagements through connections with local teachers and with her church. She also tends to bring some of the public history students she advises with her when speaking out in the community.

Kate Lang, chair of the histo-ry department, described Duck-sworth-Lawton ss an engaging lecturer.

“She’s very exciting,” Lang said. “Dr. Ducksworth-Lawton is one of the very best lecturers I have ever seen. Since before I came to UW-Eau Claire in the late 90s, she had been inspiring

many, many students to get ex-cited about African-American history.”

D u c k -sworth-Law-ton says she is a lec-turer when it comes to her teaching style. She will give her students the facts and let them make up their mind on what the facts mean.

“I do not feel it’s my job to indoctrinate,” she said. “I’m someone who will give you the content and let you make up your mind.”

Ducksworth-Lawton also said it is okay to disagree with her interpretation of history, but it is not okay to disagree with the facts.

Josh Thomas, a senior broad-field social studies education ma-jor, took African-American histo-ry with Ducksworth-Lawton his junior year.

“(Ducksworth-Lawton was the) best history professor I’ve

ever had at this university,” Thomas said. “(She was) very, very interesting to listen to. I was almost never bored.”

Thomas said Duck-sworth-Lawton wasn’t afraid to discuss controversial issues in class.

Ducksworth-Lawton said, while half of the students that come to Eau Claire will be Re-publicans and the other half will be Democrats, by the end of a student’s stay at Eau Claire, that fact will probably not change.

“What I give them in the classroom is probably not go-ing to change that,” Duck-sworth-Lawton said. “But it will make them more informed when somebody lies to them.”

Duckworth-Lawton is the co-author of the book Minority and Gender Differences in Offi-cer Career Progression, as well as many other papers and was named the Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity fellow from 2010-12.

Ducksworth-Lawton and the two other honorees from the Eau Claire area will receive their awards at an awards banquet Apr. 1 at the Florian Gardens in Eau Claire.

DUCKSWORTH-LAWTON

Elizabeth JacksonPHOTO EDITOR

The countdown has begun for many seniors as they start their final semester before gradu-ation. This year’s class has an extra task to check off on the road to commencement.

A new $25 senior fee is being charged to every graduating senior.

After the 2011 budget cuts, employees charged with the task of organiz-ing the commencement ceremony left their posts. Suddenly, the university was without a plan for graduation.

In April of 2012, then-chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich trans-ferred the duty to the chancellor’s office. That’s

when Events and Spe-cial Projects Coordinator Debra Lang took over.

“We wanted to pro-vide a top notch grad-uating experience for the students leaving UWEC,” Lang said. “It’s not an event that one person can organize though. It became ap-parent that a part-time commencement organiz-er was needed.”

The only remaining question was who would pay the new employ-ee’s salary. Lang said it was not a decision made lightly.

“We looked at what our sister institutions were doing, given the trend for state funding was on the decline,” Lang said. “Lots of our peer schools were struggling the same way.”

She put together a

team that spend the next year looking for any al-ternative to requesting student funding.

However, the group couldn’t come up with any other viable options. They went before then Student Senate Presi-dent Phil Rynish to pro-pose the fee.

An email was sent out to any students that would be immediately affected by the fee, marking the first time students were alerted to the new cost. Senior public history major Blake Sykora said the news came as a rude awakening.

“They could have up-dated me beforehand,” Sykora said. “I thought it was tricky and backhand-ed. Here I am, all pumped to graduate, then all of a sudden I get an email

saying I have to pay extra money.”

Lang insists that’s the opposite effect they were aiming for.

“We want to include students in the process more,” Lang said. “We are working to pool a committee together made up of employees and students from both the graduating and future graduating classes.”

Senior elementary and special education major Emily Dillner also had a problem with the way Lang broke the news about the new charge.

“I don’t really know what it is,” Dillner said. “I just have a fee. It wasn’t communicated well at all. It was just one quick email.”

The fee is here to stay. Lang remains com-mitted to keeping its

impact on students low. Eau Claire’s fee is the lowest out of all the peer schools she studied.

The fee does more than just pay a new em-ployee’s salary, too. Some of the money is going to-wards a “Senior Count-down” that will make a student’s job easier when organizing their graduation.

“Folks will be able to come together to get most of their services accomplished in one fell swoop,” Lang said. “They’ll be able to get their cap and gown, tick-ets, have career services look at their resume and meet with the alumni as-sociation.”

Lang said she hopes the “Senior Countdown” will help ease the back-lash from students re-garding the new $25 fee.

Andy HildebrandSPORTS EDITOR

Senior fee introduced to graduating classNew charge to pay organizer’s salary; “Senior Countdown” now included to ease process for students

NEWS3NEWS EDITORS: David Heiling & Alex Zank Thursday, January 31

CAMPUS CALENDAR

NOTABLE EVENTS HAPPENING ALL OVER CAMPUS

• 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. -- Children’s Planetarium Show, Phillips Science Hall

• 7 p.m. -- IFS Films: “Elite Squad,” Woodland The-ater, Davies Center

• 3 - 5 p.m. -- Black History Month Reception, Dakota Ballroom, Davies Center

• 7 p.m. -- IFS Films: “Elite Squad,” Woodland Theater, Davies Center

UAC Film:

“Moulin Rouge”

This film follows a young English poet named Christian as he falls in love with the terminally ill star of the Moulin Rouge,

Satine.

7 p.m. Fri.-Sat.2 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

Woodland Theater, Davies Center

Foster Gallery

THURSDAY, JAN. 31

FRIDAY, FEB. 1

SATURDAY, FEB. 2

SUNDAY, FEB. 3

MONDAY, FEB. 4

TUESDAY, FEB. 5

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 6

“Design with Intent: 5 decades of Design for

Communication”

Runs through Feb. 1410 a.m. - 4 p.m. Mon.-Fri.

1 - 4 p.m. Sat.-Sun.

• 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. -- Community Action Fair, Davies Center

• 4 - 5 p.m. -- Biological Sciences Seminar Series, Phil-lips Hall 319

• 3:40 - 4:40 p.m. -- Log Rolling, Chippewa Valley YMCA

• 12 - 1 p.m. -- Student Panel “Why did I go to Eau Claire”, Ho-Chunk Room, Davies Center

• 7 - 8 p.m. -- Planetarium Presentation, Phillips Science Hall

• 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. -- Internship Mania, Davies Center • 7:30 p.m. -- The Forum: Michael Shermer, Schofield

Auditorium

Veterans returning from service to school can look to UW-Eau Claire as a top college for service members.

Military Advanced Education named Eau Claire in its 2013 guide to military-friendly col-leges and universities. This is the third award naming Eau Claire as a top school for veterans since September.

“The support staff here is phenomenal, they do everything they can for you,” Veterans Club President Nick Bures said.

In September, Eau Claire was named a

military-friendly school by G.I. Jobs magazine and in November Eau Claire made Military Times’ “Best for Vets” list.

The Military Advanced Education award was based on a variety of criteria including online learning options, veteran assistance and veteran family support and counseling, amongst others.

Military Benefits Coordinator Miranda Cross-Schindler said there are still plans in the future to further Eau Claire’s support to veterans.

“We’re going to connect with veteran alum-ni and we’re going to establish a scholarship for veterans’ spouses and children,” she said.

“We have about 100 students who are children of veterans ... that’s a population that gets overlooked, they are serving right along with veterans and they need to be recognized as well.”

Although Eau Claire ranked high for vets, there are things Cross-Schindler hopes to improve in the future, including making it easier for vets to receive college credit for military service.

“We don’t really grant a lot of credit right off the bat; we grant one credit for physical activity but people who have 20 years in the military have to go and petition to get credit,” Cross-Schindler said.

Bures also said the credit system could use some revamping.

“Humanities credits don’t transfer like they do at other colleges,” Bures said. “I know Oshkosh gives vets cultural diversity credits, and Eau Claire doesn’t.”

Some veterans served in Baghdad, others

barely left a ship during a tour. Currently, it is difficult to prove a connection between re-quired classes and military service experience.

What the university wants vets to learn is judged on an individual basis, Bures said.

Junior Jake Nutt was stationed in Iraq during a transitional period. He was exposed to Iraqi culture and was responsible for work-ing with Iraqis.

“I also got to work with foreign nationals who were in Iraq, people from India, Nepal and all those small little countries that I don’t know the name of,” he said.

Student veterans come to college and face a break in the rigor of military life. A college experience has unique challenges, which cam-pus counselors along with the campus veterans club try to ease, Cross-Schindler said.

“By default, veterans are going to have the same struggles as any non-traditional stu-dent, a break in training, maybe a family at home, veterans come from a very structured environment … that’s a big difference from the university,” she said.

Steve Dalsky, a junior non-traditional stu-dent and army vet who served from 1980 to 1988, picked Eau Claire because UW-La Crosse had met a quota for non-traditional students.

“We’ve helped revive the veterans club, which is a nice social outlet for us,” Dalsky said.

Eau Claire has improved its veterans ser-vices drastically in the last few years, Bures said. The Veterans club holds benefits for mil-itary-related causes on a regular basis. The Veterans club will hold a benefit dinner at the American Legion in early march.

Nate Beck STAFF WRITER

Serving those who have servedPublication listing marks third such recognition in under six months for UW-Eau Claire

Because university email is meant to be predominantly pro-fessional, it seems unusual to think something “phishy” could be happening around campus.

In recent weeks, however, a number of students and faculty members have been reporting a strange email with the subject “+*Suspencion of your Email.”

Learning and Technology Services has appropriated this message as spam from a source attempting to phish information from university accounts.

LTS student lead Michael Ab-bott said the email probably gained popularity because of a student giving his or her email informa-tion to an outside source posing as a website.

“This usually happens when students choose a password like ‘password’,” Abbott said. “Once somebody gets into your email account, they have access to the

entire university directory and begin sending emails from the ‘A’s’ down.”

A number of flaws exist in the email, which Abbott said should tip off anyone who gives it a quick read. With spelling errors and an inauthen-tic address, the majority of recipients identified it as fake without giving away information.

Senior Lisa Marco said al-though she’s never received an email like this before, she rec-ognized the message was spam immediately.

“I knew it was spam because I had taken my computer to LTS once before and they told me

that typically if we get an email asking us to fill out our password and information for UW accounts it’s not real.”

A b b o t t said avoiding spam comes down to com-mon sense — by minimizing the number of times a per-son gives out their email, they lower the risk of person-ally receiving these unwant-ed messages.

Although receiving spam is common, there are ways to identi-fy spam or other malicious forms of email:

1. Misspelled words or faulty grammar — Often times, spam-mers who seem stupid because of misspelled words are smarter than they appear. LTS runs a search for

dangerous key-words that could in-dicate a malicious source. By spell-ing words wrong, the spammers are attempting to fly under the radar.

2. Do they ask for your pass-word? LTS services never require students to release password in-formation directly. If the universi-ty has a problem with your pass-word, they will take you through a PIN process.

3. What technology is being used? The spam email included a shortcut to a Google Docs spread-sheet in order to enter information. This is a sign of fraud because UW campuses are not Google-based. If this email were sent out to a school such as University of Minnesota, which uses Gmail, it would be a different story.

4. Is the email sender a legit-imate source? If a real email were to be sent out by LTS regarding your account information, you would receive it from “LTS News”, not “University of Wisconsin Colleges” as the spam suggested.

Zack Katz COPY EDITOR

Flawed email identified as spamMay have begun with weak passwords; LTS encourages students to be aware of “phishing”

“ ...Once somebody gets into your email account, they have access to the entire

university directory.”MICHAEL ABBOTT

LTS Student Lead

ELIZABETH JACKSON/ The Spectator SAFE PLACE: The Veteran’s Center in Schofield Hall gives veterans a place to relax. UW-Eau Claire has been recognized as a military-friendly campus.

4NEWS EDITORS: David Heiling & Alex Zank Thursday, January 31NEWS

United no moreStudent Senate goes against 2011 student referendum, votes to no longer recognize United Council

as a representative body of the university

Alex Zank & Nate Beck NEWS EDITOR & STAFF WRITER

Student Senate voted to no longer recognize United Council as an offi-cial representative body of UW-Eau Claire in a 24-3 vote Monday.

After a half-hour open forum, a presentation from Vice President Patrick Martin about the issue and a debate lasting until nearly 10 p.m., senators finally cast their vote.

Bills are normally voted a week after being introduced, but the rules were suspended as is done on occasion with time-sensitive bills.

This bill's passage marks the first time since 2009 Student Sen-ate has gone against a student-wide referendum. In 2011, students de-cided through a referendum vote to remain in UC.

“We have been staring down the barrel of this discussion for a long time,” Sen. Stephen Kahlow said. “This legislation is a round in the chamber and we have to decide whether or not to pull the trigger.”

141 Days

The White Pa-per was a formal list of complaints that The Senate filed in September. Martin said during his presentation it took 141 days for a response.

Gathering a re-sponse from the 19 other United Coun-

cil member campuses is a tall order, UC President Geoff Murray said.

“(UC) prides itself on being a stu-dent-run, student-led organization,” Murray said. “So, while we could have staff simply read through it and type up a response … we took an in-tentional view that it needed to be students driving the whole process.”

There was a discussion and eval-uation of the White Paper at a De-cember UC convention, Murray said, and a draft response had recently been drafted and distributed.

The final White Paper response was planned to be hammered out at the UC winter retreat in Decem-ber, but Murray said the retreat was pushed back to late January because of logistical issues.

Seth Hoffmeister, UW-Stevens Point Student Body President said he read through the White Paper and, as the student government leader of a campus that is also a member of UC, he sees the merits in its suggestions but also some problems.

“I think (the White Paper’s sug-gestions) are all great,” Hoffmeister said. “The things they’re calling for in and of themselves are not bad things … but I feel like the way in which they are trying to go about im-plementing these changes are a little bit contradictory to how things work.”

Hoffmeister said grievances with an organization like this should be worked out at spaces provid-ed for discussions, such as the UC conventions held.

“When (you are) in a member-ship organization … you go in, you dig into the meeting, and you talk about that stuff and you try to work with the people that are also in the organization,” he said. “This White Paper seems to usurp the entire process of that.”

Hoffmeister served as the previ-ous president of UC before Murray.

Question of bill'svalidity

United Council dues are paid through Mandatory Refundable Fees, these fees are rolled into tuition and are refundable upon individual student request.

Another big question that arose during discussion was whether Stu-dent Senate had the authority to overturn the referendum and pull Eau Claire's funding of UC.

Eau Claire students pay UC through Mandatory Refundable Fees, which are rolled into tuition. MRFs are not part of student segregated fees, which Senate handles.

“(The) student body voted to be members through a Regents poli-

cy-based referendum, so the student government doesn't actually have the capability of (overturning it),” Murray said.

The policy in question is Regent Policy 30-4, which Murray cited as showing the student body, not the Senate, has ultimate authority over what happens with MRF.

Martin claimed Wisconsin State Statute 36.09(5) gives Senate legal authority to determine what happens with this money.

Other senators thought regard-less of who has the legal right on their side, the bill was still ignoring student opinion.

“We are here to serve students,”

Student Services Commission Di-rector Brianna Burke said. “The last referendum that we had … ob-viously showed students wanted to be in United Council, so why are we doing this?”

Supporters of the bill argued a referendum is an inaccurate way of judging student opinion. Eau Claire students, supporters argued, are un-aware of what UC is or does.

1,912 students voted in the last UC referendum. 470 students voted in the last senate president race.

Past complaints ofunprofessionalism

United Council caught flack for showing a partisan bias over the last several years. Zombie protests, sit-in arrests and UC members posing for website photos with Democratic pol-iticians were deemed unprofessional by bill-supporting senators.

UC website photos were removed and similar problems were resolved well before Monday, Murray said.

Student Senate received a con-ference call from previous Vice Pres-ident Mark Morgan about the struc-

tural and professional problems of United Council.

Morgan said he served on the board for United Council in 2011, and he resigned because of “ridiculous” behavior by members of the board during the budget protests.

“After my resignation… it only spiraled out of control, from being arrested in Washington D.C. very publicly while protesting Sallie Mae, which was done on student dollars,” Morgan said.

Eau Claire joins six other col-leges in the UW system that have chosen not to be represented by United Council. Eau Claire is the largest campus not represented by organization.

“We have everything to lose, this is a lobbying organization that works for us specifically,” sophomore Paul Savides said. “United Council is a team of organizers and leaders who try and work with organizations on this campus.”

Martin said the bill’s legalities will be determined by the UW Board of Regents. Students may still be ob-ligated to pay United Council dues, despite the senate decision.

MARTIN

NATE BECK/ The Spectator DEEP INTO THE NIGHT: Student Senators, including Zach Ahola (left), debated for nearly four hours Monday a bill that called for UW-Eau Claire to no longer recognize United Council as a representative body for campus. Several students voiced their disapproval from the gallery, but the bill ultimately passed by a 24-3 vote. The legality of the bill must still be considered by the UW Board of Regents.

“We are here to serve students. The last ref-erendum that we had ... obviously showed

students wanted to be in United Council, so why are we doing this?”

BRIANNA BURKEStudent Services Commission Director

5NEWS EDITORS: David Heiling & Alex Zank Thursday, January 31

NEWS

With the help of any PC, Mac, iPad or Android tablet on a high speed Internet connection, UW-Eau Claire students can ac-cess their documents and use programs as if they were in a computer lab on campus. Lab Anywhere allows access to software ti-tles from the general access computers from almost anywhere.

Systems Administrator Thomas Pember-ton said any active student or faculty mem-ber can access the virtual lab and use it.

Microsoft Suite is available on Lab Anywhere as well as most other programs available in general access labs. However, Pemberton said the Adobe Creative suite could not go into the virtual lab because of licensing issues.

“Certain companies have different li-censing rules where you can install it in a physical lab, but they won’t let you virtualize it and put it on a server,” Pemberton said.

Although some software is not available through the virtual lab, Pemberton said if students think a piece of software would be useful and it is not available through the virtual lab they should send a request to the Learning and Technology Services Help Desk.

“It’s not always going to be possible, but we can certainly try it,” Pemberton said.

Scotty Lange, a senior finance major, said he used the virtual lab in his IS 240 class when he had to use Microsoft Excel.

“The Excel on windows is different than

on Mac. I have a Mac so that is pretty much what I used (the virtual lab) for,” Lange said.

He said he was able to sit at home, do his homework and the program was easy to access. The first time he used the virtual lab, he said he had to set it up on his computer and after that it was on his desktop so he could just click on it.

Lange said one benefit of using Lab Anywhere is being able to stay out of the cold weather.

“You sit at home in the warmth and don’t have to enter the tundra all the time,” Lange said.

Pemberton said the technology is con-venient for students and they can access software from home they might not have installed on their own computers. For ex-ample, Pemberton said a chemistry major could access a piece of chemistry software from home.

Paige Skeie, a senior public relations major and web design minor, said she uses Lab Anywhere for her web design classes.

“I’ve used lab anywhere for a lot of my web design classes just because I don’t have Visio and MySQL and other programs like that,” she said.

She said it is beneficial to use the virtu-al lab because she can use the software that she doesn’t have installed on her computer from home.

“It’s so convenient and easy to use. I re-ally wish a lot more people knew about it.”

Editor’s note: Currents Editor Martha Landry contributed reporting to this article.

Anywhere you want itStudents can use campus software at home, on tablets

Michelle EngerCHIEF COPY EDITOR

African American history will be honored throughout the semes-ter, highlighted in presentations, panels and receptions through-out February and ending in an exhibit dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement in the month of April.

Associate Professor of His-tory Selika Ducksworth-Law-ton said the events will work hand-in-hand with initiatives UW-Eau Claire has in place.

“Our focus for African Amer-ican History Month is student success,” she said. “So by really focusing, as a theme, on student success, we want to align Afri-can American History Month with the university’s inclusive excellence focus, which is increasing graduation rates.”

The events, which include stu-dent panels like, “Why did I choose Eau Claire?” made up of alumni who will share their college experi-ences, as well as one on interracial dating, will be hosted through Feb-ruary but will also run further into the semester.

There will also be speakers ,including Civil Rights activist Joanne Bland, and a tone poem, an activity students will conduct themselves.

Jarrel Montgomery, public

relations manager for the Black Student Alliance, is one of the stu-dents conducting the readings of African American literature.

He said letting go of past expe-riences would be a mistake for the growth of the country.

“History is really what shapes our future and it really is what shapes who we are and re-ally shapes our culture,” Mont-gomery said. “It’s really important to stay in touch with where you came from.”

This year, the Black Student Alliance is highlighting the strug-gles of African Americans from the days of the slavery to the obstacles they still face today.

Events promise to be artis-tic in nature, Montgomery said, with choreographed performances and African drumming planned. The poems he and fellow BSA members will read will highlight the culture of African Ameri-cans and to share with a campus occupied mostly by white students.

“We are definitely one of the minority races here at the uni-versity,” Montgomery said. “We really just want to share who we are and where we come from with everyone.”

The events are made possible through the efforts of BSA and its advisor Ducksworth-Lawton and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

A Feb. 1 reception will focus on mod-ern black art-ists and will connect inter-ested students with faculty dedicated to multicultural initiatives at Eau Claire.

D i r e c -tor of Multicultural Affairs Jes-se Dixon said these events are there primarily as a learning experience, especially due to the skewed version of history Ameri-cans are taught in schools.

“It is an opportunity for us as a nation to reflect on the fact that we are a community,” he said. “And that the contrib-utors to the betterment of the community is not unique to one par-ticular group of people, i.e. people of European descent.”

Montgomery said time spent immersed in black culture is im-portant to identity for all students and stressed that the month of remembrance is vital to everyone on campus.

“People fought for us to get here,” he said. “History is what got you here to this day and it’s really important to celebrate that.”

Focusing on the journeyAfrican-American History Month events set to begin, include panels, readings

Bridget Cooke STAFF WRITER

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SPORTS7SPORTS EDITOR: Andy Hildebrand Thursday, January 31

The sound of the foghorn welcomed the Blu-gold men’s hockey team onto the ice to a full house of cheering fans Friday night against St. Norbert College. UW-Eau Claire didn’t disappoint, win-ning 3-0 and holding the Green Knights scoreless for the first time since 1994.

Facing off at Hobbs Arena, the two teams

fought over which team would be No. 1 in the National Collegiate Hockey Association. It was a fast-paced game with the puck flying back and forth.

In a quick and aggressive opening, both teams made attempts on the goal, but the puck did not make it into a net until senior forward Devin Mantha hit one in with just five minutes left in the first period.

Senior goalie Brandon Stephenson had a busy

night, blocking four fast breaks within a minute and catching several pucks in the body through-out the night to contribute to St. Norbert’s score-less game.

“Games where I’m seeing a lot of action, I feel like I’m always better in just because it’s keeping me active, it’s keeping me in the game,” Stephenson said. “We were able to just shut them down.”

Pushing for points, the Green Knights played hard and kept pressure at the net against Eau Claire’s defense.

However, Eau Claire’s defense held strong and the score remained 1-0 Blu-golds at the first period intermission.

Kurt Weston scored the third and final goal, taking advantage of the Green Knights’ empty net after they pulled their goalie with just a few minutes left in the game.

Head coach Matt Loen said he was im-pressed with Stephenson’s performance against the Knights.

“He’s been consistent for three years,” Loen said. “He hasn’t really stolen games, but he’s been consistent and he stole the game tonight. Hope-fully that focus can stay there.”

The Blugolds top scorer, senior Jordan Singer

landed the second goal just 45 seconds into the second period with cheering from the full crowd in the arena.

“It was really exciting doing it right in front of the student section and get them going,” Singer said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Though the Knights outshot the Blugolds 40-31, Stephenson blocked all of the attempts by St. Norbert to bring the Blugolds to an overall record of 15-3-2.

They are now ranked No. 1 in the NCHA, which was maintained from their recent win against the Pointers. Loen said the winning out-come could be the mark of a change for the Blu-golds, mainly that the scoring and systems were well executed by his players.

“We have a very similar system, very similar players,” he said. “I think beating St. Norbert was the turning point for us, now we can play even more aggressive.”

The packed crowd enjoyed themselves through-out the game, chanting out cheers and singing along to “Sweet Caroline” during intermission.

Jordan Burnett, a senior attending the game, said she enjoyed the passion of the play-ers and thought it was exciting to see the fights breakout between the two teams.

“It was just a really great game, a really fun game to watch,” she said. “You could just feel the energy from the boys and the crowd, and it was a game you should not have missed.”

Blugolds skate to upset in front of home crowd Three goals help men’s hockey blank St. Norbert; Eau Claire now looking down on rest of conference with four games to go

Bridget Cooke STAFF WRITER

ELIZABETH JACKSON / The Spectator ON THE OFFENSIVE: Senior forward Jordan Singer cuts to the net moments before scoring. The goal was the Blugolds’ second of the night and pushed Singer’s season total to 13.

Out of the roughly 440 Div. III schools in the nation, UW-Eau Claire ranks number 17 in the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup Standings for the school’s athletic accomplishments in the fall sports season.

By measure of points earned in NCAA play, Director of Athletics Scott Kilgallon said the university is do-ing well on the athletic front, and it’s something to be proud of.

“The Fall Cup focuses on how com-petitive your athletic programs are,” Kilgallon said. “These are the positive results we aim for – it’s definitely the front porch of the university.”

Cumulative scores are pro-rat-ed based on how many teams a university has.

Kilgallon said because Eau Claire averages numbers as high as twelve to fifteen teams entering the post season. per year, the school places

extremely well.Freshman volley-

ball player Kelly Re-isgraf said while she wasn’t aware the ath-letic program received this award, she’s excit-ed to hear the univer-sity scores highly.

“For me as an athlete, it means a

lot that all our pro-

grams were so successful,” Reisgraf said. “As a whole, I think it’s every team’s goal to be the best we can be.”

Considering her volleyball team’s success, Reisgraf said joining the ath-letic program was a determinant in choosing Eau Claire.

Kilgallon said this relationship between academics and the athletic program is a reason for both sections of the university’s success - in terms of both sports promoting academics and the coaches’ willingness to facilitate professors.

“Our coaches and our staff really believe in the student before athlete,” Kilgallon said. “It’s the core foundation of our athletic staff here.”

Although it hasn’t always been the

case, students in athletics have shown statistically higher grades, which Kil-gallon said is a result of the university athletic program’s concentration on ac-ademic welfare.

“If we can get our students to take care of their academics, it’s going to stand to reason that they’ll be able to focus more on their athletics.”

Sophomore volleyball player Alex-is Wong said she agrees coaches at the university are conscious of their play-ers and it’s something to be proud of.

“The coaches are dedicated to the university, the program and the stu-dents they’re coaching,” Wong said. “Without the hard work of the coach-es and administration, I don’t think we’d be ranked 17 in the nation.”

Unlike many Div. I athletic pro-grams, the university raises $150,000 per year in order to pay for basic op-erations, which makes the achieve-ment considerably more valuable for those involved.

“At the end of the day, we put a lot of what I call sweat equity in order to make this happen,” Kilgallon said. “Everybody’s proud of it and every-body’s committed to bringing that ex-perience to our student athletes.”

Moving through the winter sea-son and into the spring, Kilgallon said the athletics program will strive to continue placing so many teams into NCAA tournament play, and maintain their rank in the Director’s Cup standings.

UW-Eau Claire fall athletes among best in nationBlugolds near the top of all Div. III schools, chase for cup continues

Zack Katz COPY EDITOR

REISGRAF

STEPHENSON

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SPORTSSPORTS EDITOR: Andy Hildebrand Thursday, January 31

I planned on starting this week’s column by talking about how much I hated watching the Pro Bowl. I was going to rant about how little effort the players put in and how it’s by far the worst major all-star game in professional sports.

Then something happened. Game day rolled around, and I completely forgot about it. I didn’t even watch.

In many ways, that’s fitting for an all-star game that’s become more of a chore than a showcase of the league’s talent. How can the country’s most popular league have such a lackluster all-star weekend while the MLB’s and NBA’s games are such a success?

Part of it comes down to timing. Unlike the NFL, these two all-star games split their respective seasons in half. Fans are still buying into their teams, and the players are still fresh and focused.

In the NFL, the offseason has already begun and fans are really only looking toward the Super Bowl.

Because football is much more violent though, it would be hard to justify playing an actual football game be-cause of the threat of injury. That’s why the commissioner’s office needs to get creative with the game.

There’s already been talk about lengthening the schedule to 18 games. If that happens, it would be the perfect time to move the Pro Bowl to mid-season.

Let it take place after week nine, giving teams an extra bye week in a more grueling season.

Coaches and players alike won’t want to risk injury in an actual foot-ball game though. That’s why we need to cut out the hitting completely.

Instead, let’s feature a passing based flag football game. I can al-ready hear you all barking in pro-test. How can we possibly make that worth watching? Settle down and hear me out.

First, let’s do a draft. Every Mad-den player ever knows how unbeliev-ably captivating a fantasy draft is. The NHL and NBA have both done it with incredible success, and it can

work in football. Let each of the quarterbacks cap-

tain a team. Then, pool all the skill position players (wide receivers, run-ning backs, tight ends, corner backs, safeties, and linebackers) and let each quarterback pick his team one player at a time, starting with the quarter-back that received the least amount of votes and ending with the quarterback who garnered the most.

I’d love to see Aaron Rodgers draft Calvin Johnson with his first pick and proceed to dissect any defense that crosses their path. It would be wildly entertaining and you know it.

This would happen Friday night of all-star weekend. Then on Saturday, the tournament starts.

Split the teams by AFC quarter-backs and NFC quarterbacks and play the first two rounds. The champion-ship round would take place Sunday night as the main event.

Hitting is already blindingly ab-

sent from the Pro Bowl, so you might as well take it out completely. People won’t be disappointed because they won’t be expecting to see it anymore. Plus, this would make moving the game to mid-season feasible.

Let’s showcase the league’s incred-ible speed. Just think of all the trick plays they could draw up in the dirt. Add in some high scoring and you’ve got a pretty entertaining event.

So how do we recognize the pro bowlers who don’t happen to be skill players? This is a little trickier.

The most overwhelming quality about NFL linemen is their strength. Why not find out who’s the strongest man in the league?

Let’s reboot the World’s Strongest Man contest and put an NFL spin on it. Football themed strength tests could be incredibly entertaining if done right. The finals would fit snugly after Saturday’s flag football semifinals.

Another fantastic event for the

linemen would be an eating contest. Maybe it would be pie, maybe hot dogs, but certainly something they could eat an awful lot of.

What makes the most sense is to pick a traditional dish from the host city of the Super Bowl. For example, if the game was in Dallas, the linemen would see who could eat the most steak. Tell me you wouldn’t love to see how much steak Josh Sitton can eat. It may be sil-ly, but it would be a pretty fun event.

We don’t want to leave out the kickers though. They’ve earned their spot too. I propose gathering the kick-ers and randomly drawing an order. Then, they play a game of H-O-R-S-E. They can kick the ball from anywhere in the stadium, with any technique they want. The last kicker standing is named the league’s best. That could get pretty interesting if you ask me.

So there you have it. I’ve fixed the Pro Bowl. Somebody get Roger Goodell on the phone.

Andy Hildebrand SPORTS EDITOR

Let’s fix the Pro BowlIt’s time to change everything about the current game

8

SPORTS9SPORTS EDITOR: Andy Hildebrand Thursday, January 31

In a week where the UW-Eau Claire women’s basketball team played against the top two teams in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, they had to do so with-out starting freshman point guard Cady Roedl.

Coming out strong and play-ing error-free basketball was pivot-al. The Blugolds did just the oppo-site though, as first half turnovers proved to be too much to overcome in losses to conference co-leaders UW-Superior and UW-Whitewater last week in Zorn Arena.

On Jan. 23, Superior used a full court press to come away with a 56-53 victory over the Blugolds.

The Yellowjackets dominated the first half, opening the game with an 8-0 run while forcing 13 of the Blugolds 18 total turnovers en route to a 30-19 half-time lead.

Head Coach Tonja Englund was disappointed in how lackluster her team played in the first half.

“Some of it, I thought, we just came out nervous,” Englund said. “But it just isn’t the way we play.”

Englund decided to try a veteran lineup to right the ship in the second half, and despite trailing 36-21 with 16:54 left to play, the Blugolds came all the way back to tie it at 51 with 1:08 remaining in the game.

Superior’s Deandra Vavra spoiled that comeback attempt, however. She hit a jumper with 35 seconds left to put

the Yellowjackets back on top for good. Blugold senior guard Casteele

Miller was one of the veterans that En-glund turned to in the second half, and she thought the lineup change keyed the comeback.

“As upperclassmen, we’ve been in those situations before,” Miller said. “We know what we should be doing in those critical times.”

Despite falling short, sophomore Courtney Lewis fell out of her recent of-fensive struggles to score 20 points, all in the second half.

“I’m looking for my shots more,” Lewis said. “I just need to take more and be more confident in myself.”

During Saturday’s 57-43 loss to Whitewater, the Blugolds found out that Lewis’ confidence will play an even more vital role down the stretch as they fight for a berth in the Wisconsin Intercolle-giate Athletic Conference tournament.

Senior forward Sarah Bingea, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, left the game at the 1:18 mark of the first half with an apparent ankle injury.

With Bingea out, Englund emp-tied her bench, as all 12 Blugolds saw playing time.

It was once again Lewis that an-swered the call, scoring nine points to lead the Blugolds in scoring for the sec-ond straight game. She said that she wishes Bingea was out there, but in her absence, is willing to take over the go-to role.

“She does a lot for us,” Lewis said of Bingea. “But when she did go out, I real-ized that I had to step up.”

The Blugolds once again struggled

out of the gates. After leading 5-2 early, Whitewater applied a pressure defense of their own and went on a 12-0 run to take command of the game.

They forced 10 of the Blugolds 18 turnovers in the first half and went into halftime leading 29-20.

Senior guard Leah Rempert, who scored six points in the game to help Lewis carry the scoring load, was frus-trated by coming out slowly again.

“We were really hoping for a

quicker start than what we got today,” Rempert said.

The Blugolds battled in the second half, cutting the lead to four early in the half until Whitewater’s guard play of junior Mary Merg and senior Megan Theune took over the game and the Blu-golds never got within 10 after the 10:29 mark of the second half.

The Blugolds remain in sixth place with an overall record of 9-11 (4-7) and will play the rest of their

season in survival mode, trying to hold onto that last eligible seed for the WIAC tournament. If they do and get healthy, Englund said she thinks that a run at the conference championship is attainable.

“On any given night, I think we’ve proved we can beat anybody,” Englund said.

The Blugolds travel to UW-Osh-kosh Thursday to make up Wednes-day night’s weather delayed contest.

Nick Erickson STAFF WRITER

Losing streak continuesBlugolds compete shorthanded as Cady Roedl sits,

Sarah Bingea injured

ELIZABETH JACKSON / The Spectator NEXT WOMAN UP: Sophomore forward Courtney Lewis turned in 20 points in last Wednesday’s loss to UW-Superior. The Blugolds will play this Thursday in a makeup game against UW-Oshkosh.

As soon as his sons could stand on skates, Dave McCabe got them out on the ice rink in their backyard.

“I used to play hockey, so that’s how they got introduced to it,” he said. “I just hoped they’d like it.”

And they did.So much in fact that hock-

ey continues to be a huge part of the lives of both Andrew, a senior captain for the UW-Eau Claire Blugolds, and Jake McCabe, a sophomore defen-seman for the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

“I coached both of them growing up, so I’ve gotten to watch their development real-ly closely,” Dave McCabe said. “Hockey’s just been a part of our

lives from the get go.”Andrew McCabe, an ac-

counting major at Eau Claire and the older of the two at 24, played hockey at Memorial High School and was the team captain there. While he was a four-time letterwinner in hock-ey, he also played both football and soccer.

But hockey was what stuck.“Hockey was one option,”

he said. “But I played every sport imaginable growing up. I just enjoyed (hockey) more and put more time and effort into it. It’s an all-encompass-ing sport. It’s really more of a lifestyle.”

Growing up, most of the McCabe family friends were involved with and interested in hockey, Andrew McCabe said.

Growing up in Eau Claire allowed him to really grow in

the sport, as the hockey commu-nity here is very close-knit. He also played three years of ju-nior hockey for the Fairbanks Ice Dogs in Fairbanks, Alaska.

After high school, he be-gan his college career at the University of Nebraska-Oma-ha, playing hockey there for a year before transferring to Eau Claire.

His brother was always in-terested in the sport, too, he said.

“Jake’s almost six years younger than me, so we haven’t played organized hockey to-gether,” Andrew McCabe said. “But growing up, he spent a lot of time around me and my friends playing hockey. He was always super competitive and could keep up with us on the ice.”

Jake McCabe joined the USA National Team Develop-

ment Program in 2009 after skating for Eau Claire’s Memo-rial High School.

He was drafted in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft by the Buffa-lo Sabres in the second round with the 44th overall pick. Pri-or to the draft, he was ranked 47th amongst North American skaters in Central Scouting's final rankings.

This winter, he played at Ufa Arena in Ufa, Russia for Team USA. The team claimed a 3-1 victory over defend-ing-champion Sweden to earn Team USA its second gold med-al. Jake McCabe was captain of the team.

“To have him named cap-tain was just a treat,” Dave Mc-Cabe said. “To have the team go on and win, that was the icing on the cake.”

While he’s been to Eu-

rope a few times in the past and enjoyed experiencing new culture and cuisine, be-ing able to get the gold medal for Team USA was something entirely different.

“It was a really high-paced game,” he said. “It’s really cool to be out there with the best players in the world to see how you match up. And it’s a lit-tle crazy to skate by someone and recognize their face from the NHL.”

Their dad was able to go to Russia with Jake McCabe, but Andrew McCabe and oth-er hockey fans in Eau Claire had to get up pretty early, as there’s an exact 12 hour time difference between Eau Claire and Russia.

Dooley’s Pub on Water Street would open its doors early for hockey fans, McCabe

said, so he and his friends would watch the Team USA games there at 8 a.m.

“It was just really cool to be able to experience that,” Andrew McCabe said. “I mean, this game isn’t a mainstream game, but there were so many people from the Eau Claire community there watching.”

As a senior soon to be grad-uating, Andrew McCabe said he wants to coach hockey some-day, and is looking forward to making good use of his account-ing degree.

“It’s bittersweet to know it’s coming to an end soon,” he said, laughing after a beat. “But I’ll be able to finally have the chance to go down to Mad-ison and enjoy watching my brother play, so I’ll be able to live vicariously through him for a while.”

Haley Zblewski CHIEF COPY EDITOR

Eau Claire brothers make name for themselves on iceAndrew McCabe captains Blugolds, brother Jake captains Team USA

CURRENTS10CURRENTS EDITOR: Martha Landry Thursday, January 31

The white walls of the Foster Gal-lery are covered once again. Not cov-ered by watercolor paintings or pho-tography, but by the graphic designs of John Rieben, a Wisconsin native.

The exhibit, named “Design with Intent: 5 Decades of Design for Com-munication,” features promotional posters, such as a red, yellow and black design advertising the seventh Clas-sical Film Festival in Keystone, Col-orado. Logos, like the one for Summit Films, are also on display.

Rieben’s designs span a period be-ginning in the late 1960s to the pres-ent, said Tom Wagener, Foster Gallery director. Wagener said this is a key element to the exhibit.

“I think it’s kind of neat to see some of the history of graphic design,” Wagener said. “You can really see where some of the modern graphic design came from.”

In the center of the Foster Gallery is a stand explaining Rieben’s career. It mentions his Master of Fine Arts in graphic design from Indiana Uni-versity. It also explains Rieben is an emeritus professor from University of Wisconsin-Madison. It says he was the director of design for UNIMARK International between 1968 and 1972 and that he designed for Howe Communications.

Also on the stand is a statement from the designer. He explains that to be an effective designer, one must be a “social scientist” and understand a society’s “taste, opinions, styles, and characteristics.” Elevated above this

“effective designer” is what Rieben writes as a “Great Designer.”

“The Great Designer possesses in-spired imagination. The Great Design-er creates unique and fresh concepts,” the statement explains. “This unique talent is both intuitive and, with a lot of hard work, learned.”

Sandra Leggitt, a senior graphic design student, said this art show is different from many shows the Fos-ter Gallery hosts. The very nature of graphic design makes it different from the fine arts, she said. A graphic designer needs to be intuitive to the needs of a viewer. They need to com-bine the message their client wants to portray with the wants of the audience, Leggitt said.

“A lot of the time the fine arts are based off the artist’s feeling and desires and wants,” Leggitt said. “Design is what the client wants.”

Zack Scheppa, a senior graph-ic design major, said being a graphic designer takes patience and observa-tion of the audience you are serving. A good graphic design contains many elements from line to composition and from shape to color. Most important-ly, an effective design will be simple, he said.

“People’s attention spans are so short now so you have to be able to grab their attention and hold it within two seconds,” Scheppa said. “If you have anything longer than a sentence, they won’t read it.”

Rieben’s work reflects this sim-plicity. Many of his designs consist of just three colors. The same font is used for many of the posters, and many ads feature shapes that are simple

and repetitive.Amy Schleichert, a senior graph-

ic design student, said the show tied in with many of the things she has learned in her design classes. The show

drew parallels between what is being taught and what is considered successful work.

“For me it was really cool seeing graphic design portrayed in this way and seeing ad-vertisements that have an artistic quality to them,”

Schleichert said. “It’s cool seeing the things I’ve been learning about and the things that have been drilled into my head for the past three years.”

It is not just students studying graphic design that should go see the exhibit, said Chris Theo, art and design department chair. A student studying in any field, whether it be nursing or business, benefits from the art, he said.

“If (the students) want to get a well-rounded education ... you need to tap into the humanities and the cre-ative side,” Theo said. “You don’t have to totally understand it you can simply feel it and it’s ok to not get it. But at least expose yourself.”

The exhibit will be at the Foster Gallery for students, and anyone else, to “expose” themselves until Feb. 14. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, with extended hours 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays. The gallery is open 1 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Brittni Straseske STAFF WRITER

Graphic design featured at FosterDesigner John Rieben’s work from ‘60s to present exhibited until Feb. 14

The bluegrass twang of Trampled By Turtles will soon be making its way to downtown Eau Claire, a homecom-ing for the band’s fiddler and bass play-er, past UW-Eau Claire students Ryan Young and Tim Saxhaug.

On Feb. 7, Trampled By Turtles will be making their State Theater de-but with the show starting at 8 p.m.

Back in the day, Young met now-bandmate Saxhaug at UW-Eau Claire as an ac-quaintance but didn’t form a friendship with Saxhaug until they met again in Duluth, where Trampled By Tur-tles was formed in 2003. Young said guitar play-er Dave Simon-ett and mandolin player Erik Berry started playing together, and along with Sax-haug and banjo player Dave Car-roll they formed the band.

A l t h o u g h Trampled By Turtles has been making headlines lately with their current tour, mak-ing it mainstream is not the defini-tion of success for the band. For fid-dle player Ryan Young, simply playing in a band, touring a few venues and making a bit of money to help pay the bills is enough success for him.

“Everything that happened on top of that, as far as touring and playing on TV and meeting all these great people — everything is just icing on the cake,” Young said.

Modest about their success, Young said he is just like any audience mem-ber, he just happens to be the one on stage. Even with their rise in success — performances on “Conan,” “David Letterman” and their song “Wait So Long” becoming a YouTube hit — the band isn’t losing focus of what is important.

“Just feeling everybody’s excite-ment and enthusiasm and trying to put on a good show for them to listen to, that is what’s good,” Young said. “We try to put on a little bit of a show — not KISS style — but we try to make it somewhat interesting.”

After starting by playing in coffee shops and moving up to a crowd of nearly 60,000 at Lollapalooza in 2012, Young is excited by the band’s growth but sees the understated path as the better route for the band.

“I wouldn’t ever want us to have a huge hit and a year or two later, break up. Even though I’m sure they are en-joying the hell out of their place right now, I wouldn’t want to be in Mumford and Son’s place,” Young said. “Unless you are super lucky, the only direction

after that is down.” Right now,

Trampled By Tur-tles is still on their way up. Senior Tara Nichols said she was introduced to the band by her brother about a year and a half ago and was hooked right away.

“They are very individual,” Nich-ols said. “It’s some-thing I can listen to and like and my parents can listen to and like. Ev-eryone can appre-ciate good music like this.”

Young said he has been in bands where only certain types of people show up for the performances and Trampled By Turtles is not that kind of band.

“We have a wide variety of fans,” Young said. “Young kids all the way up to really old grandmas and grandpas. We don’t have just one certain demo-graphic that we shoot for. Everybody goes and everybody potentially could like it.”

Nichols said that Mumford and Sons and the Avett Brothers are some of her favorite bands but Trampled By Turtles’ more local feel makes them relatable.

Jamie Kane, marketing and spe-cial events coordinator said the lobby opens an hour before the show. Tickets cost $25 and Kane doesn’t yet know if it will be a sold out show or not.

“It depends on how strong the walk up that night is, too, but we are getting pretty close to being sold out,” Kane said.

Young said the band doesn’t mind being compared to other Bluegrass bands so if the banjo, fiddle, folk scene is your thing, stop by the State Theatre on Feb. 7 to check them out!

BRITTNI STRASESKE / The Spectator VIEW WITH INTENT: Senior Zack Scheppa, graphic design major observes the gallery, titled “Design with Intent: 5 Decades of Design for Communication.” Scheppa said simple designs are most effective when trying to capture an audience’s attention.

“ I wouldn’t ever want us to have a

huge hit and a year or two later, break up. Even though I’m sure they are

enjoying the hell out of their place right

now, I wouldn’t want to be in

Mumford and Son’s place.”

RYAN YOUNGFIddler

SCHLEICHERT

Trampled By Turtles to perform in Eau Claire

Martha Landry CURRENTS EDITOR

Duluth-based folk band not focusing on success

CURRENTS11CURRENTS EDITOR: Martha Landry Thursday, January 31

Andy Hildebrand SPORTS EDITOR

Cabaret performers take audience back to school Variety show raises scholarship money for

music and theatre programs

Nov. 22, 1963. One of those days that stand apart from others in American his-tory. If you were alive on that day it is likely you also know exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard that President John F. Kennedy had been killed.

Gary Schwartzhoff, pro-fessor of Music and director of Choral Activities at UW-Eau Claire, is one of those people who remembers that infamous day clearly. He was twelve years old when Kennedy was assassinated, and loves to tell his students about the days of Camelot.

The weekend of Feb. 2, Schwartzhoff will not simply reminisce about the days of our nation’s 35th president. Instead Schwartzhoff, along with the 69 members of Eau Claire’s concert choir and 35 members from local communi-ty ensemble The Master Sing-ers will load buses to embark on a 19-hour trip whose desti-nation is the nation’s capital.

The group will perform, as the featured choir, at the National President’s Day Choral Festival: A musical remembrance of the Life and Service of John F. Kennedy. Schwartzhoff will be the artis-tic director for the festival and will conduct a choir comprised of 300 musicians from five different states.

This event is presented by Music Celebrations Inter-national to take place at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washing-ton, D.C. on Feb 3.

Schwartzhoff often tells his students about being a child of the Kennedy era. Se-nior music education major and concert choir accompanist Andy Steffen said it is a time period in Schwartzhoff’s life that he is just so in love with.

“We do realize how big this is but I don’t think we will really realize it until we start this rehearsal process and there’s 300 people togeth-er total all working on the same music,” Steffen said.

However, this is not Schwartzhoff and the ensem-bles first time performing at the festival, but it is one that the well-respected director has been long awaiting.

“The first President’s Day festival was in February 2009.

That year was the sesquicen-tennial of Abraham Lincoln. I’ve been asked to conduct in 2010, 2011 and 2012, but I turned others down because I really wanted this one — I wanted it to stand out,” Schwartzhoff said.

On Feb. 2 the choir will perform at St. Matthew’s Ca-thedral, where JFK’s funeral service was held, before their performance on Feb. 3.

Senior Isaac Risseeuw is most looking forward to the Feb. 3 performance where he and 68 other Eau Claire singers will take center stage for a performance they “will never forget.”

Not only will members of Eau Claire’s concert choir have a personal connection to Schwartzhoff that the 200 other musicians don’t, they have another special connection to one of the compositions.

The show will be the world premier of a compo-sition by former Eau Claire professor Ethan Wickman, “Let The Word Go Forth.” As Wickman was completing the choral scores last spring he brought them into Eau Claire choir’s to help him hear how they sounded.

“Having had him as a teacher and being able

to work with him on this piece has been amazing,” Risseeuw said.

As the performers stand on the nation’s concert hall stage before the director they admire singing a composition of a former professor it is sure to be an emotional moment.

“I’ve had conversations with (Schwartzhoff) about how emotional he’s going to be when he conducts the con-cert and there’s a special con-nection with him and just one tear in his eye will make us all emotional,” Risseeuw said. “It will be a big part of that concert — the connection that we will have with him.”

It will be a special mo-ment that Schwartzhoff plans to enjoy fully, because he ac-knowledges that this is the type of performance all musi-cians aspire to do throughout their lives.

Schwartzhoff was just 12 years old on that infa-mous November day that he, along with so many oth-ers, will never forget. Now the time has come for him to honor President Kennedy through his lifelong passion for music.

Schwartzhoff said, “In terms of that center stage ex-perience, it’s not going to get better than this in my life.”

Courtney Kueppers COPY EDITOR

Concert choir takes stage at nation’s capital Sixty-nine students will

perform for National President’s Day

An entire calendar year’s preparation came to a close over the past two weekends when the UW-Eau Claire music and theate departments put on the 35th in-stallment of their annual Cabaret.

It’s more than just singing and dancing, though. Cabaret gives students the opportunity to step into leadership roles to design ev-ery aspect of the show. Ticket pric-es ranged from as high as $35 for

dinner and a show to as low as $14 for seniors and students who want-ed to skip the meal and simply en-joy the entertainment. According to Cabaret faculty advisor Gary Schwartzhoff, 2,250 tickets were sold over the eight shows.

Proceeds are funnelled back into the program so they can offer scholarships to prospective music and theatre students.

To read the rest, check out spectatornews.com

ELIZABETH JACKSON / The Spectator IT’S SHOWTIME: Sometimes we need a little “Help”, and juniors Carly Tebo and Will Berendsen are there for us. At Saturday’s Cabaret XXXV “School Days” the duo sang John Lennon’s and Paul McCartney’s “Help” as part of the “Tutors” act.

CURRENTS12CURRENTS EDITOR: Martha Landry Thursday, January 31

Nomz. Haggis.Before you make any judgments,

hear me out! I was a haggis hater at one point in time, too. When you break it down to the core of what this Scottish delicacy is ... sheep heart, liver and lungs mixed with onions and spices which are then cooked inside a sheep stom-ach ... yeah, actually don’t think of it like that!

Think of it as a delicious and ex-tremely well, efficient food choice. Served with some neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes ... who knows when it comes to the Scots!) it makes for a fantastically satisfying meal.

For some crazy reason, haggis is banned in the United States. I guess we are just a little too sensitive for cul-turally rich food choices. I mean serv-ing up burgers comprised of easy 100 different cows is completely socially ac-ceptable but oohhh we get all freaked out when lungs come into play.

I’m not hatin’ on you for being hes-itant. I lived in Scotland for a solid four months before I maned up and tried it and it was a FANTASTIC choice.

Haggis is one of the richest meats I’ve ever eaten. I don’t have a very well developed palate so I’m not going to even try to explain to you the flavor ... just rich with spices and definitely worth a taste if you ever find yourself across the pond.

I’m not a picky eater but I don’t love everything either. Baby octopus … not my first choice. I’ll save that story for a different time, though.

Listen to what some Blugolds had to say about their wildest food experiences!!

“The strangest food .. I think it was a pickled egg once. It was on a dare. It was pretty gross.”

-Stephanie Berkholtz, junior

“Venison. I had it up in North Dakota with my family and it was just for fun.”

-Amanda Panzer, sophomore

“The strangest food I’ve ever eaten is probably a cow tongue burrito. In El Paso Texas, they had some really au-thentic Mexican ... they served tons of strange things so I tried it. It was actually really good!”

-Gabe Stuntz, sophomore

The United States Department of Agriculture began to tighten the re-quirements for school lunch programs last January.

“The final rule” mandates school lunch programs to be in alignment with the dietary guidelines for Amer-icans. Such as lowering trans and sat-urated fat counts and providing a vari-ety of fruits and vegetables.

Such changes are lower caloric

counts for kindergarten through fifth grade (550-650 calories) and for ninth to twelfth grade (450-600 calories). Also the addition of whole-wheat products and low fat milk need to be available every day in a more diverse food rotation.

While these changes have hap-pened this school year for children all across the country, over 32 million stu-dents use school lunch programs. Uni-versities are not affected by these new changes but are still under the guide-lines of the USDA.

So the question is, what has Blu-gold Dining done about providing healthy options for UW-Eau Claire students?

Christian Wise, general manager and executive chef of Blugold Dining,

said healthy options are available as well as not so healthy options.

“Basically what we have to do is present a series of options that you can eat healthy,” Wise said. “If we took away hamburgers and french fries and we took away soft drinks and anything that even resembled anything that could be slightly bad for you, the stu-dents would hate us.”

Wise said the new restrictions for school children make sense but stu-dents at Eau Claire have the option to choose for themselves.

“We go ahead and let you make your own decisions,” Wise said. “(Stu-dent) thought is that you’re paying for it so you should be able to get what you want and that you’re adults and shouldn’t be restricted.”

Students recognize the need to eat healthy, as well. Jessica Tamblyn, freshmen vocal performance major, en-joys her soup and salad for lunch and notices a difference between upper and lower campus.

“On lower there are definite-ly healthy options, on upper there’s one salad bar and a sandwich place,” Tamblyn said.

Freshmen Mary Waterhouse, mu-sic education major, would also like more diversity of healthy options.

“More variety of fruits, good fruits,” Waterhouse said. “It’s always apples and bananas and it’s there everyday.”

Wise said Blugold Dining is con-tinuing to improve the dining experi-ence by adding more local products and doubling their local purchases from 10 to 20 percent.

“Blugold Dining makes 80 percent of the food from scratch,” Wise said. “We take our obligation to provide good

food seriously.”Even though students ask for more

healthy options on campus, Tamblyn thinks Blugold Dining is a success.

“Compared to other colleges for sure we have a really good dining pro-gram here,” Tamblyn said.

Susan Kueger, senior lecturer for the biology department and registered dietician, said that it is important for college students to eat whole-wheat foods and watch their sodium.

Part of the course Krueger teaches at Eau Claire shows students how to track their diet habits. She has noticed that most students are low on fiber and high in sodium. These kinds of eating habits can lead to a higher chance of type two diabetes, Krueger said.

“In the last few years, I have had a number of students, usually after the semester, come up to me and say that they have been tested and found that they have pre-type two diabetes,” Krueger said.

Krueger said that pre-diabetes is a condition that makes some people have a higher chance of getting type two di-abetes. She said through balancing a healthier diet and getting more exer-cise, you can delay the onset and even prevent getting diabetes.

Krueger and Wise are both in agreement that students at Eau Claire are adults and are capable of making their own dietary choices.

“They are adults,” Krueger said. “They have to make that decision themselves. You can’t have people dic-tating what they can and cannot eat.”

Blugold Dining provides all of their nutrition facts for their menu on the Eau Claire website at uwec.edu/Dining.

Food health is concern for students and Blugold DiningDining manager says

students can make their own decisions

David Burish STAFF WRITER

ELIZABETH JACONS/ The Spectator GOING HEALTHY: Blugold dining has made advances towards more local food, but when it comes to healthy choices they can’t force the students to make the better choice.

TYLER TRONSON / The Spectator

UW-Eau Claire currently has over 150 students study-ing abroad in the Spring 2013 semester.

The Center for International Education’s mission is to enhance student’s experiences at Eau Claire with inter-national academic programs to introduce students to new people, cultures, languages and systems abroad.

With options, such as Valladolid, Spain with 26 students or Graz, Austria with only one, traveling the world is at your fingertips!

Whether it be a chance to eat pizza in Italy, watch some football in England or see some authentic kangaroos in Australia, studying abroad can give you limitless options for adventure.

Scope out where your pals are for a not so cheap spring break trip or where you want to go! The world awaits!

Just don’t forget to send your pals at The Spectator a postcard. TYLER TRONSON / The Spectator

The only question remaining, where should you go?

OPINION / EDITORIAL13OP / ED EDITOR: Emily Albrent Thursday, January 31

I’m not one to besmirch a style of television revolution-ized by Lucille Ball, but recently the multiple-camera sitcoms have been lacking the laughs.

First, a little production lesson. In television and cine-ma, there are two main ways to film: single-camera or mul-tiple-camera. The names are self-explanatory. If a television show is filmed in a single-cam setup, only one camera is used. In multi-cam, between two and four cameras are used.

The differences between the filming formats go much deeper than that. The most obvious is that multi-cam shows historically get more viewers.

A popular multi-cam show, such as CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory” can garner an average of 12 million viewers over the course of its run, while a popular single-cam show, like NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” may average only four million viewers.

Don’t let the numbers fool you; the more innovative and creative television shows right now are these little-known sin-gle-cam sitcoms.

The competition can be simplified to CBS versus NBC. CBS and NBC both have five veteran sitcoms on their line-up. All of CBS’s are multi-cam (“Big Bang,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “2 Broke Girls,” “Two and a Half Men,” and “Mike and Molly”) and all of NBC’s are single-cam (“Parks,” “30 Rock,” “Community,” “The Office,” and “Up All Night”).

The ratings for NBC’s shows are abysmal and the current lineup is being phased out in an effort to incorporate broader television. In fact, it seems they’re trying to mimic CBS’s mod-el. Apparently, NBC doesn’t realize that their shows are of a much higher quality than anything currently on CBS.

When filming in the single-cam format, there is a lot more freedom. It allows the show to be quicker and have tightly edited scenes, as well as have several locations and vi-sual effects. NBC’s shows have taken advantage of this to make snappier, smarter shows.

This format allows the show to evolve naturally. If a new joke or line of dialogue is improvised on set, it’s easily incor-porated into the final cut.

This encourages creativity and attention from the actors and the writers at all times. Some of the most memorable lines from these shows were an improvisation from the actor or a last-minute replacement from the writer.

Because of the tighter editing, single-cam shows can pack in several more jokes and plot lines than multi-cam shows. It’s not about quantity, though. The quality of jokes in today’s sin-gle-cam shows is far superior to multi-cam shows. The jokes tend to be timelier and thought-provoking.

The best jokes are the ones that make you think. “30 Rock” is the master of crafting a smart joke. The jokes depend

on the viewers’ knowledge of current events and are usually so layered, that one can hear a joke several times and find new meaning in it each time.

The element that makes these shows so beloved by fans goes beyond how many cameras are used. Today’s single-cam shows have the laughs, but they also have the heart.

This goes back to the format somewhat; single-cam shows move much more quickly and are able to incorporate more than just jokes.

The writers and actors on these shows have created char-acters that people genuinely care about and root for. NBC’s Thursday night lineup is more likely to make me cry than any drama on TV, much less any other sitcoms.

The multi-cam format simply doesn’t allow this kind of independence. The scripts tend to be more rigid and simple. The scenes are filmed sequentially; it’s almost like the live stu-dio audience is watching a play being performed.

This makes it difficult for the actors to go off script and incorporate a better line. It fosters the idea of using what’s good enough as opposed to what’s best. It also limits the emo-tional range of any given plot, simply because the format relies on a less complex plot and less editing.

There are two ways for a television show to succeed: with ratings and with critics. Despite the low ratings, today’s sin-gle-cam shows have proven themselves with critics and fans alike as the best shows on television.

Katie Bast STAFF WRITTER

Bast is a junior journalism major and a Staff Writer at The Spectator.

“ Today’s single-cam-era shows have the

laughs, but they also have the heart.”

When it comes to sitcoms, not all are created equal Single-camera shows are the best when looking for fast-paced story lines

and quality jokes

Up in smoke Spotted. A 19-foot long, 3-foot wide enormous cigar worth $185,000. This is

serious business. I want to know why and when and how and then go and see if I can take a picture with it.

It was made with 6,000 wrapper leaves and weighs approximately 1,600 pounds which is the equivalent to 25,000 regular smokes.

The best part? This guy bought it thinking it was a joke. So imagine his sur-prise when this baby showed up on his doorstep. Actually there is no way this could be placed on a doorstep.

Who spends $185,000 as a joke? Actually buying something as a joke is totally something I would do, but yikes, not for $185,000. Give me that kind of money and I’ll do something crazy like go to grad school.

Another part that just makes me laugh is that it was delivered to him in a 900-pound wooden carrying case … carrying case? Okay. Sounds about right.

Albrent is a junior journalism major and Op/Ed Editor of The Spectator.

Ghosts go booDebbie Zamacona, 40-year-old woman from Winder, Ga., recently told police

that a ghost stole her resumé which she estimated was worth about $5,000. She also said that the ghost stole papers documenting her criminal history

and a black and blue blouse. Zamacona said that she could not pinpoint which ghost stole her things but

she is positive that a supernatural spirit was present. Out of the two ghosts, she thinks that the ghost of her mother was the one to

blame for this act of thievery. I’m more concerned over why she thinks her resumé is worth $5,000 than

this whole allegation of a ghost stealing her stuff. And honestly, I’m not freaked out over this whole ghost-stole-my-stuff-thing, because if this is true, her mom must have had an amazing sense of humor to steal her daughter’s resumé and a blouse.

Albrent’s BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Staff Editorial

Senator Dianne Feinstein of Cali-fornia announced last Thursday there could be legislation that would ban the sale and manufacturing of 157 types of semiautomatic weapons and any mag-azine holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

If the ban were to go through, it would exempt any firearms used for the purpose of hunting and would grandfather in specific guns and mag-azines. Feinstein said that the goal of this bill would be to eventually over time dry up the supply of these types of weapons.

The editorial board feels this law should go into place because there is no need for weapons of such caliber to be produced or used. One speaker said that it seems like an unneces-sary amount of ammunition for a gun and that if this law were to be put into place the world would be a safer environment.

Another speaker said that she has neighbors who have semiautomatic guns that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and that they only use them for purposes such as shooting them off on the Fourth of July.

A more compelling topic of de-bate came up over the grandfather-ing in of such weapons. The editorial board agreed that not only would grandfathering in not work but it would increase the likability of illegal gun sales.

Members of the editorial board said that passing this legislation would be hard if not impossible. They said that Feinstein and her team would have to step up and fight for this to be passed.

The editorial board also said that these guns have been used in mass shooting such as the Columbine and Newton. The board agreed that guns of such caliber should not be in the public’s hands.

Sadly, the editorial board said that this legislation is an uphill bat-tle and that it would take some time before the public is willing to accept such a law.

Overall, the editorial board agreed that weapons holding more than 10 round of ammunition should be out-lawed and that the legislation should be passed.

Topic: Proposed gun control measures

The Spectator editorial board is composed of Spec-tator staff only and opinions expressed reflect only those of the individual expressing them.

OPINION / EDITORIAL14OP/ED EDITOR: Emily Albrent Thursday, January 31

A woman is a woman. Being born an American, middle-class white woman does not make me any more of a woman than a wom-an who immigrated to the United States, a Native American wom-an, or a transgendered woman. This is an indisputable fact. But the Republican party disagrees, and because of that, the Violence Against Women Act was not reauthorized into law.

The VAWA was signed into law in 1994 and was drafted and proposed by none other than (then-Delaware senator) Vice Presi-dent Joe Biden (we love you, Joe!).

VAWA provided $1.6 billion toward investigation and pros-ecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave unprosecuted, established the Of-fice on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice and supported organizations that serve domestic violence victims.

And its benefits were tremendous. According to CNN, the act dramatically reduced death by domestic violence over the past two decades.

I struggle to see a downside to an act designed to protect wom-en from violence. Fortunately, our good ol’ Republican pals can find a downside to anything, and managed to find one in VAWA. Go figure.

VAWA was reauthorized by Congress in 2000 and again in 2005. But when time came for its 2012 renewal, it was suddenly

opposed by conservative Republicans bothered by the law’s extension to protect same-sex couples and immigrants.

Please excuse me while I get furious right now. The protec-tion of safety of women in the U.S. is in jeopardy because a few Republicans don’t want the law to protect a few groups of people that they’re not fond of? You have got to be kidding me. These are human lives that are being protected by an act that, to me, is a no-brainer. How anyone could want to compromise that is beyond me.

Let me put this in perspective for you: A woman reports a rape every six minutes in this country (keep in mind that number is only reported rapes – the actual number is about five times higher). A woman is beaten every nine seconds – yes I said SECONDS – in this country.

That means that while you were sitting in a 50 minute lecture, at least eight women were raped and about 300 women were beaten in the United States alone.

In Rebecca Solnit’s Jan. 25 Mother Jones article, she wrote, “So many men murder their partners and former partners that we have well over 1,000 homicides of that kind a year — meaning that every three years the death toll tops 9/11's casualties, though no one declares a war on this particular terror.”

I don’t know how I can make it any clearer that something needs to be done about violence against women, both in this coun-try and worldwide. In 1994, we did try to do something about it, and now that is under attack, too.

If our lawmakers can’t agree that it’s important to protect women from violence, I don’t believe there is hope for them to agree

on anything. Quite frankly, that disgusts me. We elected these people to make decisions on our behalf and

instead they tear apart whatever progress has been made all while bickering over topics as obvious as “guns kill people.” (Which, by the way, Solnit addressed in that same MoJo article: “Of 62 mass shootings in the U.S. in three decades, only one was by a woman, because when you say lone gunman, everyone talks about loners and guns but not about men.” Preach it, Solnit!)

I return to my first statement: a woman is a woman. She is a human being and deserves to be and feel safe. We live in a country – and in a world – where violence against women is rampant. It is so heartbreakingly common that often we don’t even think twice when we hear about it in the news. So if we created just one law aimed at lessening that violence, why would we ever want to get rid of it?

VAWA is a strong, sensible law, the benefits of which are impossible to dispute. It grants the same level of protection to a white woman as it would to a woman of any minority – and why shouldn’t it?

Every single woman in this country (and on this planet) has an inalienable right to protection from harm – and in 1994, we finally put that sentiment into law by creating VAWA.

While the law’s renewal efforts failed last year, 2013 yields a new Congress. In a recent CNN interview, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D. – Calif.) said she hopes the law will be revived by the new Congress. I sincerely hope she’s right.

Taylor Kuether MANAGING EDITOR

Kuether is a senior journalism major and Managing Editor of The Spectator.

End VAWA? Over my dead body

Conservative Republicans oppose updates to Violence Against Women Act, jeopardizing safety of every woman in U.S.

OPINION / EDITORIAL15OP/ED EDITOR: Emily Albrent Thursday, January 31

As many recent events such as the protests fueled by the 40th anni-versary of the Roe v. Wade decision and the scrutiny surrounding Pres-ident Obama’s masculine Cabinet suggest, the United States may not be as progressive in terms of gender equality as it would seem.

These examples are why I was thrilled to see that the Department of Defense has started the process of formally lifting bans that keep wom-en from serving in the infantry, ar-tillery, special operations, and other combat roles.

Most importantly, lifting of this ban will allow more career advance-ment opportunities for women. In any field of work, experience generally ac-companies promotions. According to The Washington Post, women are of-ten passed up for promotions because they lack the experience that only active combat offers.

It is a vicious cycle to be denied a promotion because one is denied the experience that makes that promo-tion justifiable. An equivalent would be to say that a woman could go no further in the medical field than a nursing position because they aren’t allowed to go to school to become a surgeon. If a person were to suggest that, they would be called crazy. Why should it be different for the military?

As for the women who have managed to make it into leader-ship roles, how can they be ex-pected to successfully lead with-out vital combat experience? According to the Rutgers Institute for Women’s Leadership, as of 2009, women made up 7 percent of officers at an Admiral ranking.

If a military official has not had the experience of being at the front line, I’m not sure it is a responsible decision to make them a leader of troops that might end up there.

I believe that bosses of any kind and in any given field need to know the job of those they are leading. I have experience working as a

nurse’s aid. It was always clear which of the nurses had started their ca-reers at this level and which ones had come straight out of nursing school never having had actual contact with a resident.

Frankly, bosses need to under-stand what those below them are go-ing through. They need to know the struggles, the impossibilities of the job and frustrations. If they don’t, it is far easier to mess up. I can’t be alone in thinking that “messing up” in the military is not at all desirable.

The most common opposition from what I’ve seen to women in these roles, is that they physically can’t han-dle some of the things they would be required to do while functioning in these roles.

Granted, I guarantee that my weak, muscle-free arms would col-lapse far before reaching the 100 push-ups that make an aspiring Navy S.E.A.L. a competitive candidate. But, if some woman out there can, she should be rewarded for that.

Many of the roles that will be of-ficially open to women require little more than being physically fit and having a functioning finger that can pull a trigger. My one experience in trying to learn how to shoot a gun was a disaster.

It did not consist of me aiming at an actual target, but rather me des-perately trying not to shoot my fam-ily’s spastic dog. My younger brother was laughing manically behind me the whole time.

Does this mean that I, and women like me, are incapable of be-ing in a situation which requires us to fire a gun? No. I firmly believe that

if I had a functioning learning envi-ronment, I could master a variety of weapons. Our military is superior to any other in the world. It is strong. It trains its soldiers effectively enough that it does not matter who plays what role after boot camp. They will get the job done at the best of their ability.

The Washington Post reported that 152 women soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. This number affirms the importance of women in the military.

Those 152 women and others who are still serving chose to do so out of a sense of loyalty, patriotism and a deep respect for their coun-try. Those qualities trump bulging biceps. Those qualities come out on top in a conflict. Those qualities are best suited to serve the country in whatever way the possessor of them wants.

Straseske is a senior journalism major and a staff writer at The Spectator.

“It is a vicious cycle to be

denied a promotion because

one is denied the experience

that makes that promotion

justifiable.”

Brittni Straseske STAFF WRITER

Gender equality in military becomes reality

Military lifts ban, women should have always had the same rights as men

on the battlefield

In the average lifetime, a person will walk the equivalent of 5 times

around the equator

Fun Fact:

SUBMITTED PHOTO

STUDENT LIFE16STUDENT LIFE EDITOR: Taylor Kuether Thursday, January 31

Two UW-Eau Claire students are running for city council seats in the April 2 election. Spectator managing editor Taylor Kuether interviewed each candidate on their views and goals for the position.

Michael Turner, 33, has lived in Eau Claire his whole life and enrolled at UW-Eau Claire in 1997. Now a nontraditional student, he is finishing up his last six credits this semester while working full-time for the Eau Claire Area School District as a delivery driver. He will graduate in May with a degree in economics.

Taylor Kuether: What first interested you about local politics?

Michael Turner: I’m a union leader, I’m the elected president of Local AFSCME 560 Eau Claire School District Buildings and Grounds Workers. I’m also from Eau Claire origi-nally, born and raised here, as were my parents. I have three children and it is my fondest de-sire that they choose to raise their kids here, too. I love this city and want to leave it a better place.

TK: Are there any disadvantages to running for office as a young person?

MT: If you’re younger you don’t have the same sorts of connections to the community and to individ-uals who are the power players and people who have established themselves here. That comes with time and age.

TK: What do you want to see changed through our city council?

MT: I’ve noticed it’s been getting harder and harder for working class families to make ends meet. I don’t think that’s specific to Eau Claire, but I don’t think the city council has made that a priority so far.

TK: Aside from your union work, do you have any other political history?

MT: In 2006 I ran for 68th state assembly. I ran against Republican incumbent Terry Moulton. I got 49 percent of the vote, I lost by 500 votes. Then in 2010, I ran for county sheriff. I believe that all elections should be contested. People should have a choice.

TK: If elected, what do you hope to bring to the city council?

MT: As a local union leader, dealing with man-agement and local labor disputes has given me the ability to forge consensus and find common ground when it comes to workplace issues and workplace disputes. Working in administration at the school district has given me the same sort of collaborative view on problem-solving.

TK: What have you been working on to prepare for the election?

MT: I’ve really been kicking it up into high gear recently. All weekend I was campaigning. It’s only going to get more intense as we get closer. The elec-tion is April 2, and I have an absolutely obnoxious amount of things left to do before then. I’ll be knock-ing on doors, making fundraising phone calls, and just talking to people in the community.

TK: What would you like to see change in Eau Claire?

MT: Our local city council needs to start making some steps toward addressing climate change locally. We can’t wait for global or national change because it’s just not happening. We need to build that move-ment from the ground up. I’m also interested in social justice issues. It’s flu season and I’m very concerned for Chippewa Valley workers who have to choose be-tween going to work sick or paying their utility bill. I’d be interested in sponsoring an earned sick leave ordinance. I think it benefits the community in terms of public health especially.

TK: What political party do you identify with? MT: I am a registered Democrat, but city council

is a non-partisan position and I intend to work with everyone on the council.

TK: Do you see yourself in politics in the future?

MT: Right now I’m just focused on Eau Claire. Maybe at one time I wanted to run for something higher, but I’m not sure I want to end up in Washing-ton, D.C. I’d like to try to leave my community, where I was born and raised, in a better place.

Luke Hoppe, 22, from Madison, currently works full-time at Erbert and Gerbert’s on Water Street while campaigning for a city council position. He was a UW-Eau Claire student through last year and plans to return to campus in fall to finish up his double major in political science and creative writing.

Taylor Kuether: What first interested you about politics, specifically local politics?

Luke Hoppe: I’ve wanted to work on political campaigns my whole life. I want to write the speech-es. My grandfather told me when I was really young that I’d make a good politician. He said I had the charisma. With local politics, I like that you can di-rectly impact the community you live in. I’m interest-ed in self-sustainability, meaning Eau Claire and the surrounding communities would come together to support themselves.

TK: What advantages or disadvantages do you think your young age gives you?

LH: I think there can be a major advantage with the stu-dent population because candi-dates generally don’t go for the student vote. The disadvantage would be the age and inexperi-ence. People are going to look at me and think, ‘What could you possibly do at your age?’

TK: Do you have any prior political experience?

LH: I did canvassing in the 2008 election. It wasn’t affiliat-ed with a specific political party, I just wanted to get the word out to vote. The grassroots movement was a huge part of that election.

TK: What made you decide to run in this election?

LH: I had been planning on running for city council for the past couple years. The number of open seats available this time made me want to run. And with it being an at-large election, where I don’t have a specific candidate to run against, it allows me to focus on my campaign and what I want to do.

TK: What sort of efforts have you been making as we get closer to the April election?

LH: I’ve been talking with graphic design majors to make flyers to send in the mail and hand out while canvassing. I’ve also been attending a lot of meetings. It’s taken a lot of time and effort; it’s been a good thing to not be in school during this time. I’ve been going to city hall meetings and making sure I really know the issues in terms of what people want to do and don’t want to do. I’m making sure I’m keeping up to date on what needs to be done in the city.

TK: What do you hope to do if elected? LH: My main thing, with the confluence proj-

ect being a very heavy topic in 2013, I want to work closely with that. I want to make sure we can limit the destruction of the historical areas. I like the retro feel of our downtown area and I want to make sure that it stays.

TK: How has your political science background helped you?

LH: I took a state and local politics class and that just helped me understand the way the hierar-chy and organizational structure of our local govern-ment works.

TK: How have your friends and peers responded to you running for a spot on city council?

LH: My friends have been really supportive. When I found out I was going to be on the ballot, they shared in that euphoria.

TK: Do you hope to have a future in politics? LH: It’s not necessarily that I plan to hold public

office for the rest of my career, I would like to work on campaigns if the actual candidacy doesn’t pan out. Even if I don’t win this election, I can be on commit-tees in the city to still affect policy. That’s something that I’ll look into to gain more experience if this doesn’t pan out.

TK: Which political party do you identify with? LH: I try to not associate myself with the two

major political parties. I consider myself progressive. My ideas look toward the future rather than the here and now with a quick fix. I want to make sure my policies benefit people 15, 20 years down the road, not just here and now.

GRAPHIC BY TYLER TRONSON / The Spectator

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