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.