Down the wire

The project is really starting to wrap up. I have all the components almost completed. I did run into a problem with my photo slide show. I was planning on attending the ROTC workout last Wednesday, but did not attend because campus was closed due to the snow storm. I figured they would continue this week, but found out Monday that they did not actually do these three times a week during finals week. So I had to improvise with some materials I had collected throughout the semester in ROTC related events. 

Story - UNI administration's response to discrimination and bias related incident claims

Video - Students, staff and faculty protest racial discrimination

Slide show - An unknown bias against the ROTC

Data Visualization - Reported crimes at UNI 

Map - locations of bias related incidents in Iowa

Getting close!

So far I've gathered or completed several different aspects for my overall project. I have run into a few bumps on the way however. I have tried to set up an interview with the Office of Compliance and Equity management for a quick run through of what happens when a person reports an incident of discrimination. The administrative assistant penciled me in for an appointment a, but I received a call today (the day of the scheduled interview) informing me that it had been a mistake and that I in fact could do not an interview today. I would regard this as a common office mistake, but the exact same thing actually happened to me with this same office and these same employees a year ago when I was working on a big story about UNI's slow progress to update their polices to match Iowa law. At this point, I'm not sure whether I will be able to get an interview with them for my main story, but I will try to find a way. If that doesn't happen I have interviews from Dave Zarifis and the Provost, so the story will still be fine. 

Change in direction

Due to some technical difficulties and running into a wall with my investigation I decided to change my course. In many of the stories I was interested in working on, many things were coming up dealing with different types of blatant and almost hidden types of discrimination on campus. I found that while one of the most basic types of discrimination still occurs here at UNI, there are also many different forms that people may not often think about.

Additionally, how these incidents were dealt with continued to gather my interest. Before I knew it I even became involved in some of the controversy when I was removed from a forum to discuss discrimination on campus and reprimanded by a member of administration for publishing my experience. I found my story, and Jewelette's interesting because it was almost like certain people were putting a lot of time and effort into keeping the truth of these kinds of incidents on the down low.

I have reorganized my project to investigate these types of discrimination on campus, and how the administration deals with each of these separate incidents. I think it will be very interesting to take a closer look at the different types of actions they take.

I have already done a considerable amount of work for this project. Last night I completed my video, which includes the Silent Protest by Maucker Union before Thanksgiving break and interviews with both the student that was assaulted and another student who attended the rally.

I have conducted an interview with Kate Klocke, a personal wellness student who was a victim of agriculture discrimination when her professor taught her class that all large farms practiced animal cruelty and were negative ways to get food.

I have also conducted an interview with the director of the ROTC who informed me about the discrimination many veterans experience when returning from war. He said often people will treat them as a loose cannon, especially in the aftermath of the Fort Hood incident. I will be attending one of their early morning training and possibly a class to get pictures and make this story into a slide show.

For my article I will interview members of the administration about how they deal with incidents of this nature, and how they would respond to allegations that they have attempted to sweep recent incidents under the rug.

More progress

Tomorrow I am taking a tour of the construction in Sabin Hall. I will be talking with Steve Pavelec, the Owner Construction Representative who oversees construction activities on campus. I have also talked with Cortney Schiappa, the Green AmeriCorps Program Director who works at the Center for Energy and Environmental Education at UNI.

She is currently out of town on a business trip until the 17th, however she said she would be available for a phone interview. I attempted to set something up for this evening on Monday, but she isn't has responded or gotten back to me. Hopefully I will be able to get to her soon!

For my article my plan of action to to visit the CEEE and question random students I see about their feelings about the efficiency of the CEEE. Ultimately I would love to compare energy costs of the CEEE compared to the typical buildings on campus as well.

Slide show: Audio with Cortney Schiappa about LEED ratings and photos of green technology and LEED buildings in Cedar Falls.

Video: Construction at Sabin and interview with Steve Pavelec.

Article: Investigation and comparing energy costs with all of the sources I have contacted, plus some students.

Map: Map of LEED/energy efficient things/places in Cedar Falls

Data Visualization: Graphic comparing energy usage. If i can't get the real numbers I will make a graphic with how much energy they say the building will produce.

My story progress

In my investigation of the "green" bulidings on campus I am well into the progress of setting up interviews with a variety of people on campus. 

I contacted Morris Mikkelsen, who directed me to John Mirchich, the Assoc. Director overseeing the construction at UNI, Steve Pavelec, the Owner Construction Representative who is overseeing the Sabin construction activities, and Glenn Swanson, a LEED certified architect who was involved in the design phase of the project and is familiar with the LEED certification for Sabin. Pavelec is currently setting up a time for us to meet where we will then discuss the possibility of getting video/photos of the construction process in Sabin. 

I also followed your advice about contacting Kamyar Enshaya. He send me to Cortney Schiappa, a staff member who directs our Green Iowa AmeriCorps.  She knows about green buildings, LEED, etc. Kamyar told me that the CEEE was built before LEED guidelines and it uses 33% less energy than buildings of this size.  

I should be able to set something up with each of these people in the next week! 

The story I have chosen...

Branching off from my second story idea, I have generated a topic that would allow me to capture great audio,video and photography for my project. 

Earlier this semester we were asked to read a story on the New York Times website that caught our attention. I read a story about how the LEED Certified buildings sometimes don't live up to their "green" label and actually use more energy then normal buildings. As I mentioned in my discussion, this topic snagged my interest because UNI is currently in the process of constructing a LEED silver level building, Sabin Hall. 

To investigate this story however I wouldn't just investigate Sabin Hall, but other buildings on campus and in the Cedar Valley that call themselves "green." I saw in the news today that a new building has just been unveiled in Cedar Falls that already is being called the "greenest building in the Cedar Valley." Its PFGBest Headquarters and it has achieved the highest level in LEED certification. I will also continue to search attentional "green" buildings in area. 

There are a few people I know I should talk to at this point. The first place I will go is to talk to some of the environmental professors at UNI. Through stories I've done in the past I've come to find they usually tell it how it really is, no matter what the rest of the university says about its "green" state. I'll also search for other environmentalists in the area. I'll be talking to the school administers to get their side of the story too.  

I'll be asking questions about how the buildings save energy, how comparable they are to the other campus buildings energy usage, if the renovation construction process of Sabin Hall is "green" as well, how much more these LEED buildings cost, and how UNI/the companies plan to continue to pay that cost in this economy. 

I think this project definitely calls for plenty of mapping, and visualization of all of the "energy efficient" details. I also plan to make charts demonstrating the difference in costs for creating and maintaining a LEED certified building. 

Story Ideas

So far, I've thought of a few different ideas that I would like to investigate and develop into a multimedia project. 

Last year, Professor Bradley Barrett was placed on paid leave pending an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse to a former high school student. Some information came out that Professor Barrett had actually been placed in similar situations before being employed at UNI and was actually discharged from his former high school teaching job for this reason. This year, a new choir professor has taken over Barrett's classes. I would like to develop a story on UNI's policies for hiring individuals with a possible criminal/other record, and how they investigate these types of allegations. Also, I want to find out what happened to Professor Barrett, where he is now, and if he's still being paid for his absence. 

A former student employee of the Recycling and Reuse Technology Transfer Center has told me in the past that in their experience, departments of UNI have been reluctant to move towards more sustainable practices. With UNI's "Go Green" slogan appearing all over campus, I think it would be interesting to investigate just how far UNI will go to actually make this slogan a reality. In conjunction with this, I would like to look into why some professors are against paperless classes.

The economy has caused budget cuts all over the university. These budget cuts have caused a reduction in student employment as well as adjunct and other professors on campus. I would like to see more information on how the school decides to make these cuts. In my experience there are several non-faculty staff here at UNI that do not live up to the "students first" philosophy. Are student jobs, professors, and sports teams getting axe before these staff employees? Also, I would like to investigate what the highest payed individuals actually do at UNI and how they are working to keep "students first." 

In the next week I would like to determine who would be good sources to initially approach and possibly set up an interview with them.