Pedestrian Safety Is A Top Priority

This article was originally published in ZU News.

The Department of Campus Safety sent out a campus wide email today with 22 pedestrian safety tips for students walking, cycling or skateboarding on and around APU’s campus.

“We don’t get a lot of opportunity to provide information about pedestrian safety on our campus,” said Campus Safety Chief Tim Finneran. “We do a lot of traffic safety for drivers. We do a lot of parking enforcement at the request of the university. We thought it would be a good idea to send out some pedestrian, skateboard and bicycle safety tips.”

This list of safety tips includes basic information such as looking both ways before stepping out onto the street. It also includes more detailed information including four tips on how to be seen when crossing streets and while walking at night.

“We do notice a lot of people are not using the cross walks, stepping off the curbs in the middle of the roadways, looking down at their phones, or have both their headphones in so they don’t hear traffic behind them,” Finneran said. “Lieutenant Hollowell and I see a lot of that going on when we walk the parking lots almost every day.”

This is one of the biggest issues according to the email. People are on their phones while walking, cycling, or skateboarding.

“It goes back to the same thing, with everybody on their phone with headphones in, and a skateboarder coming up behind them. Should they step to the right or the left, there’s a chance of a collision there. We’re trying to avoid all that,” said Operations Lieutenant Lee Hollowell.

Many students have experienced this hazard whilst walking from East Campus to West Campus or vice versa between classes. Among these students is junior English major Emily Benedetta.

“I feel as though bikers are a safety hazard to walkers,” Benedetta said. “They are moving at a much faster pace than walkers and expect them to either move out of their way or stick to one area of the sidewalk. This is especially troublesome during busy times of the day.”

One of the tips in the email reads: “Per the APU Vehicle Code, bicyclists and skateboarders must yield to pedestrians.”

Finneran said that this has been a big issue on campus. He also said that bicyclists should be following the same rules as vehicles. This means that they should be riding on the street and not the pedestrian-filled sidewalk.

“We see a lot of skateboarders shoot through the intersections and through the parking lot, moving around pretty quickly,” Finneran said. “We understand that’s their mode of transportation, but we just want them to be more cognizant of pedestrians on the roadway and the sidewalk that may not be anticipating their quick arrival.”

To view the whole list of tips, check your APU email.

“We think about the safety of everybody here at the university, whether you’re walking around, on a skateboard, on a bike, on a scooter, or in a car,” Finneran said. “It’s preventative.”

Dedicated Faculty Lead APU Nursing To Be Nationally Ranked

This article was originally published in ZU News.

Azusa Pacific’s School of Nursing was recently ranked in the top nine nursing programs in the country by USA Today. APU is one of only two schools on the west coast to earn this ranking, the other being UCLA. This ranking came as no surprise to Cheryl Boyd, a nursing professor.

“I think it’s the dedication of the faculty who teach in this program,” Boyd said. “Our faculty have such a strong desire to grow these students. We are dedicated and committed to our students being excellent nurses. We are not striving for mediocrity at all. We are striving for excellence.”

Boyd currently teaches men’s surgery, pathophysiology and advanced pharmacology. She has taught several other classes in her 10 years at APU. This includes the clinicals that she leads each week at different hospitals throughout Southern California.

“Nursing is a practicing profession,” Boyd said. “That means we do hands-on care of our patients in a clinical environment. We take our students into the hospital and supplement everything that they’ve learned on campus so they can do hands-on learning. They have to for this profession.”

Katie Hill, also a nursing professor, seconded the significance of hands on work. She has taught at APU for over 25 years.

Hill is currently teaching the culminating class for nursing students, which they take in their final semester. In this class they work in critical care, emergency departments, cardiac catheterization labs and other acute areas caring for critically ill patients and their families.

“It’s been really exciting for me, because as I go to different hospitals throughout Southern California, I run into so many of my former students, now working as professional nurses,” Hill said. “APU has an excellent reputation with the community with our graduates from all of our programs including generic RN, LVN to BSN, RN to BSN, MSN, NP and Ph.D..”

Nursing students can be seen walking around campus in their scrubs after class. They work 12-hour shifts in their clinicals at times, giving them the a reputation for being perpetually busy.

“Nursing requires a significant commitment of time, energy and discipline. Nursing students are known to be some of the hardest working students on campus,” Hill said. “The knowledge and skill required to be a professional nurse is almost mind-boggling, how much there is to learn in a complex healthcare environment.”

Hill cited the amount of different types of cases and patients that nursing students deal with.

“By the end of four years of nursing school, students have cared for all types of patients,” Hill said. “Our students care for patients with hematologic malignancies such as leukemia. They also care for adult patients in the ICU following brain injuries, multiple trauma, cardiac events and psychiatric patients facing issues of depression, attempted suicide, drug overdose, etc.”

Hill said at the end of four years, APU nursing students are thoroughly prepared to be a nurse. Boyd agreed and said that is why the students have a high hire rate immediately after graduating.

“All of the faculty here have been practicing nurses. A lot of us have been in managerial roles where we hire nurses. We know the difference that a solid education makes. That’s what we’re working for,” Boyd said. “There is a huge difference between APU students and students from other universities. We hear about it all the time from nurses in hospitals, nurse managers and directors. They say they want to hire APU graduates.”

On the list of top nursing schools by USA Today, only one other school was on the West Coast—UCLA. Boyd said that UCLA also has a great nursing program, just one without faith integration.

“Nursing is a wholistic profession. At APU we allow you to have wholistic conversations about your faith. Programs that are very secular tend not to have conversations about the wholistic nature of nursing,” Boyd said. “It’s uncomfortable territory for them to talk about God, or faith, or the death and dying process. Those are not easy or encouraged conversations at other institutions. At APU they are. That to me is essential.”

According to Boyd, another thing that differentiates APU from other schools is the relationship between professors and students. She pointed to her number written on the whiteboard in her class, saying she encouraged students to text her when needed.

“We know each one of our students by name. We encourage them to stop in our office and develop relationships both in the classroom and in clinicals,” Boyd said.

These kinds of relationships have helped senior nursing major Erica Dennis make it through the program so far. Dennis said nursing often seems overbearing.

“It seems to fall together during the semester, throughout the nursing program. You reach this point where you ask yourself if you’re going to make it, but then you realize that you have made it and you’ll be fine,” Dennis said.

Dennis did not have any background in nursing before coming to APU. She said this was an advantage for her.

“Every semester there is something new. Each comes with its own challenges and rewards. It’s really neat how they set the program up to work like that,” Dennis said. “It stretches you. It challenges you. It provides opportunities that I don’t necessarily think other schools have to offer such as cultural experiences or theory based learning.”

According to Dennis, all the work in and out of the classroom was worth it immediately after she started working with patients. Hill agreed wholeheartedly with this.

“It’s kind of inexplicable. Once you have been touched by a patient and know that in some small way you have made a difference in their lives, there’s no turning back,” Hill said. “Your motivation is for your patients. It’s not to impress your instructor or your family but rather know that you can provide the best care possible.”

Boyd emphasized this point as well: It’s all about the patients. She referenced the shooting at the concert in Las Vegas last week, where many nurses turned into first responders as bullets were flying.

“Nursing is a life way. It’s a part of you 24/7,” Boyd said. “It’s not something you turn on and turn off. You don’t walk away from nursing. It’s who you are.”

25 Years Of Honors

This article was originally published in ZU News.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of an honors program/college at Azusa Pacific University. The program began in 1992 and the Honors College began in 2014, meaning its first class will graduate this year.

The honors program was started in 1992 by Carole Lambert. Lambert was an English professor at the time.

“In January of 1992, the provost at that time, AJ Anglin, approached me and said that he wanted an honors program for the students and he wanted it up and running by September [of 1992],” Lambert said.

Lambert created and chaired a task force that designed an honors program. She researched honors programs at several other universities across the country. The five other professors on the task force designed general education classes specially for honors students.

Lambert presented their program in May of 1992 and it was approved unanimously.

“Everybody I talked to wanted an honors program for the students,” Lambert said. “They felt that our gifted students needed something beyond the usual courses. We were doing them a disservice if we didn’t have something special for them.”

Lambert said that since she had a minimal budget, she essentially begged department leaders to let her borrow professors to teach honors classes.

The program started that fall and admitted 20 students in the first class. By the time Lambert left in 1995 to teach at Boston University, the program had reached 25 students per class and they were having to turn some students away.

In 1995, the program was taken over by a member of the original task force, Mel Shoemaker, who led it until 2005. Under Shoemaker, the program grew to admitting about 40 students a year.

Then in the fall of 2005, Vicky Bowden, who currently serves as the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Programs, took over as director of the honors program.

Bowden taught in the School of Nursing half the time and worked in the honors program the other half of the time. She helped the program grow from admitting 44 freshmen in 2005 to admitting 79 freshmen in 2012.

Bowden noted the success she had during her time as director, but she also encountered challenges.

“The biggest challenge when I started in 2005 was that students were almost embarrassed to say they were part of the honors program,” Bowden said. “It was not because of the program. It was because they were embarrassed to draw attention to their academic excellence.”

Bowden said this changed when the honors program turned into the Honors College, there was a different perception.

“That transition from honors program to Honors College represents honoring excellence in academic endeavors,” Bowden said.

Bowden served her last year as director of the honors program in the 2012-13 school year. One of her last jobs for honors was to put together a new task force.

“I was one of the members of the task force,” said David Weeks, the Dean of Honors College. “Our charge was to see what the future of honors might look like. Through that process, the recommendation was made that the university move from an honors program to an honors college.”

The distinction between a program and a college is made by the National Collegiate Honors Council, which is made up from honors programs from over 800 schools across the country.

“There are different ramifications to that. The simplest is that an honors college is a much greater institutional investment,” Weeks said. “It was really Jon Wallace and Mark Stanton [the president and the provost] that made the decision to make the change. Jon and Mark asked me if I would be interested in leading the new program.”

At the time, Weeks served as the dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS), a position he held for 17 years. He said that both he and the CLAS were ready for a change.

Weeks travelled to several other universities and talked to people from their honors colleges, including Baylor University, the University of Notre Dame, Indiana Wesleyan University, and Calvin College.

“I tried to find out what they did, why they did it that way, what worked well, and what didn’t work,” Weeks said. “It was my hope that we could develop a program that would be attractive to high achieving students. We created the great books program that focuses on themes of leadership, virtue, and faith.”

The first class of the Honors College came in the fall of 2014, with 91 new freshmen.

“It was about a 10% growth over the previous year of students in the honors program,” Weeks said. “We’ve continued to grow at about the same pace and want to get to the point where we’re admitting about 140 new freshmen each year.”

This year’s freshman class is the largest yet with 118 students representing 17 different states and five countries.

“It’s an incredibly diverse group of students,” said Frank Clement, the Director of Strategic Initiatives for Honors College. “Our goal is eventually to be 10% of the undergraduate population. Somewhere between 500-550 students in the honors college.”

Clement is part of the reason why this is the biggest class yet. He travelled to the east coast last year and recruited students to come to APU.

“We want students who are on the fence between Stanford or UCLA and APU’s Honors College. We’re trying to raise our academic profile,” Clement said.

Clement has worked at the Honors College for a year now. Besides him, there are now five full-time faculty in the Honors College. This is vast growth from when Carole Lambert was the only part-time faculty for the honors program.

“I could never have predicted it. I’ve been in higher education for over 50 years now. I’ve seen programs come and go,” Lambert said. “I marvel that it is not only still around after 25 years but that it is thriving and flourishing and has grown into an honors college.”

Parking Change Favors Campus Residents, Frustrates Commuters

This article was originally published in ZU News.

A recent change in parking assignments which allows residential students to park in Lot A, formerly known as the commuter lot, has caused uproar among commuters.

This change was put in place at the beginning of this school year to protect the safety of residential students.

“The parking assignments were made because the Department of Campus Safety hired consultants to do a safety inspection of our campus,” James Whitfield, the president of the Student Government Association (SGA) said.

“They found 52 areas of suggestion to be in refinement of Campus Safety policies in order to increase safety for our students,” he continued. “One of those changes was to allow residential students to park nearer to where they lived in order to reduce any potential threats or incidents that may have happened on campus. That review was done over the course of last year. This is as a result of that review.”

Since there are not enough parking spaces in any upperclassman living areas for students with parking permits, Lot A is now the overflow lot for residential students to avoid an unsafe situation by walking to Lot H on west campus late at night.

Whitfield received several statistics from Campus Safety Chief Tim Finneran concerning the overselling of spots, or selling more parking permits than there were parking spots available, last year.

There were 111 spots oversold in the Shire Mods and 214 spots oversold in University Village. Freshmen who live in the residence halls are also now allowed to park in Lot A during the day. There were 282 freshmen passes sold last year.

If consistent with last year’s total, potentially 607 overflow residential drivers can now park in Lot A, which is 101 more than than the lot can hold, not including commuters.

However, commuters are not to be forgotten.

SGA held a meeting Wednesday, Aug. 30 where students voiced their concerns about the new parking situation. Julie Poladian, a senior liberal studies major, has commuted since her freshman year at APU.

“I’ve never had the luxury of living on campus. Living on campus, you have easy access to everything on campus—your classes, your jobs, whatever it may be,” Poladian said.

“I have to travel from Arcadia. That’s about a 20 minute commute and a big variable in that is traffic. Now that I have to park on west campus, that’s an extra 15 minutes I have to add on to my commute. Some professors don’t pardon tardiness. If that happens too many times, your grade is docked. I’m working very hard to maintain my grades and to maintain good rapport with my teachers and my bosses. That is now in jeopardy.”

Poladian said she arrived an hour before her shift for work on Monday at 7:30 a.m. and still couldn’t find a spot, so she called Campus Safety. She said that the officer she spoke to was terse and unhelpful when she asked why the lot was already full.

“That is disrespectful and I know that is not what this university stands for. I do not deserve to be treated like that when I am paying thousands of dollars to get an education here,” Poladian said. “What that communicates to me is that people who live on campus are a higher priority, that their safety is more important than the commuters’ safety.”

Poladian was not the only commuter who was outraged at the parking assignment. Eric Hanson, a senior communication studies major, has also commuted every year without experiencing any real problems until now.

“I have morning classes every morning. I’ve already been late twice,” Hanson said. “I showed up early, there’s no spots (in Lot A), so I had to drive all the way to west and the trolley wasn’t there. So I had to walk a sweaty mess into class, 20 minutes late, because somebody else who lives across the street needs to be safe. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

SGA will be collecting commuter comments and communicating them with Campus Safety in attempt to resolve the situation.

Update: Campus Safety sent out an email Sept. 5 with updated parking information. The new parking assignments were effective immediately and reverted back to previous arrangements–disallowing overflow of students to park in Lot A.

“The new parking assignments were met with concern from the Student Government Association and several APU departments, due to the impact and lack of East Campus parking for commuter students and faculty/staff members,” the email read.

Commuters will again have access 24 hours a day, 7 days per week to all parking spaces.

President Wallace Leads By Example

This article was originally published in ZU News.

Azusa Pacific President Jon Wallace wants students on campus to be engaged politically. This is not an empty statement, he has taken initiative to set an example for students of how to be politically active.

On Feb. 2, Wallace teamed up with the presidents of Point Loma Nazarene University and Life Pacific College to write another president, Donald Trump. They sent President Trump a letter concerning the Executive Order that attempted to suspend immigration from several countries in the Middle East, from a Christian perspective.

“Many in our diverse communities come to our campuses on the shoulders of immigrants. Indeed, we all share pages in that American heritage of welcoming the vulnerable, extending hospitality, and inviting participation in the great experiment of these United States,” Wallace wrote in the letter.

“Scripture calls us to care for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the refugee. It also urges us that we work with respect for the authorities of our nation with fidelity to our Christian identity. We contend that every person bears the image of God and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Wallace said that he felt it was important to share his concern for impacted students with Trump.

“It’s really important to remember that this comes from our Wesleyan Holiness tradition,” Wallace said. “We want to be in the conversations where there may be difference of opinion. We want to stand in those spaces in a God honoring way.”

Wallace said that this wasn’t the first time, that there were areas of disagreement with former President Obama’s administration.

“These are our responsibilities to speak on behalf of our students,” Wallace said.

The letter is not the only way Wallace has been politically active this year. He was vocal when Senate Bill 1146 passed in California, which dealt with the treatment of LGBTQ students at religious universities.

“We, working with a number of other college presidents in California and state agencies, helped to reframe the wording of SB 1146,” Wallace said. “It became a transparency bill, meaning that colleges and universities are required to be as transparent as possible with any standards of conduct or expectations that are directly related to their religious beliefs, or directly related to Title IX.”

The bill was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown and will take effect during next school year.

“We saw that as an opportunity to really tell our story,” Wallace said. “It’s not fully in place yet. It’s required of us to have the wording appear in writing on our website. We’ll make it available so that any person who seeks out information about the university will be able to find this information as we head into the fall semester.”

When asked about how he felt about President Trump’s first few months in office, Wallace responded that he had a unique leadership style, especially when it came to his use of social media.

“His leadership style has been unique to what we have seen previously,” Wallace said. “The Bible tells us to pray for our leaders. The leadership at APU and I regularly pray for President Trump and his administration.”

Wallace noted that historically, college students and young adults are the least politically active age groups. He encouraged students at APU to be more engaged politically.

“What we’re trying to do is train up men and women who engage culture and society, who are the kind of neighbors you want to live next to. We want our students to be that kind of a citizen,” Wallace said. “In terms of engagement, there’s all kinds of stuff like the elections or the political engagement on campus for student clubs and organizations. I think students need to express their voice and encourage conversation with their friends around issues that matter.”

He continued to say how students could be engaged beyond APU.

“All politics are really local” is a famous quote. Engagement in the city of Azusa in the political process would be great,” Wallace said. “I know that the mayor and the city council currently in office and those who will be running for office would love to see student engagement. At the state and national level, I think that students need to inform themselves on what the issues are and follow those issues to some conclusion.”

Wallace was also part of the committee that chose the university passage for next year. He said that he was encouraged by the conversations the university passage created this year and looks forward to next year.

“Micah 6:8 gives core values for how we are to know and be known. Acts 2:42-47 is really a picture of what vibrant and robust Christ centered community looks like,” Wallace said. “I’m really excited to think that we’ll spend a whole year looking at both passages.”

CRIS Marijuana Panel Attracts Crowd

This article originally appeared in ZU News.

One of the more controversial topics at a Christian school is marijuana use. Its legalization for recreational use in California as of last year caused concern for Louise Huang, the director of the Center for Research in Science (CRIS).

Huang decided to do something to educate the APU community by organizing a panel discussion that took place on April 6 in Segerstrom 162. More than 100 students and guests attended to listen to the advice and expertise of three panel members.

“When the proposition passed, I was very concerned. I feel like APU can do more than just be on the sideline,” Huang said. “I feel like as a Center for Research and Science, we can truly be an asset to the community. Offering talks like this, we can bring awareness, [shed light] and maybe even [bring] understanding [to] a very difficult topic.”

The panel members were: Nancy Buckley, Ph.D., a professor and cannabinoid researcher at Cal Poly Pomona, Jay Kiel, the senior deputy district attorney in Riverside county and Rico Vitz, Ph.D., the chair of the Department of Philosophy and a philosophy professor at Azusa Pacific.

Buckley spoke on the science and history of marijuana. She talked about how it was made illegal in the U.S. in 1937, how research on medical marijuana began in 1981 and how to understand the effects it has on people. She shared some of her research and answered questions from the crowd.

“It’s controversial whether marijuana is addictive at all. But it may encourage use of other drugs,” Buckley said. “However, if somebody is a chronic smoker, they will develop a tolerance to it.”

Buckley said that using marijuana in the early teen years can affect cognitive development and cause a lower IQ compared to those who did not use the drug. She said it is much less of a problem in adults.

“I personally voted no on Proposition 64 because I feel there has not been enough research done on it [marijuana],” Buckley said.

The second panel member, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jay Kiel, talked about the legality of marijuana. He said that it started in 1996 with the Compassion Use Act (CUA), which was the bill that started to allow use of medical marijuana with permission from a practicing physician in California only.

Then, seven years later in 2003, California Senate Bill 420 passed, which allowed medical marijuana sales through a person’s primary caregiver or a collective. Kiel said this was basically what started all the dispensaries around Los Angeles.

This was followed by Proposition 64, which passed on Nov. 8, 2016, with an approval vote of 57.13 percent to 42.87 percent. With this, marijuana became legal to use recreationally in California as of 12:01 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2016. It will start being legal for sale on Jan. 1, 2018, although this is not set in stone.

Kiel talked about how this would affect the medical marijuana industry. He said that recreational marijuana will be taxed in Los Angeles at 10 percent while the medical marijuana tax will be lower. According to Kiel, it will be much harder for people to get medical marijuana licenses now; they will have to go to their primary physician.

As a district attorney, Kiel spoke about some of the crimes he has seen in Riverside county. He cited one instance where a dispensary was robbed, the workers were tied up and “pistol whipped,” $250,000 in cash was stolen and several pounds of marijuana were taken. He said that there are many crimes that happen at dispensaries since it is a cash-only business.

However, these were not the crimes Kiel was most worried about. He said that the biggest concern was people driving under the influence (DUI) of the drug.

“Right now there is a lot of testing going on to find what we can do [for DUI situations]. It’s got a long way to go,” Kiel said. “It seems that we put the cart before the horse. We didn’t lay the framework for this situation.”

The last panel member, philosophy professor Rico Vitz, spoke about the ethics of marijuana use. He focused in on the point that just because it’s no longer illegal, it can still be considered immoral. He was adamant that legality and morality were not always hand-in-hand.

Vitz made sure to talk about what some people in the crowd had asked. He said that it’s true, nowhere in the Bible does it directly mention marijuana. Instead he said to think about what Christian tradition and heritage would suggest you do.

This question on marijuana in the Bible was one of many anonymous questions that students submitted online. Huang noted the significance of these.

“The questions that were submitted were very thoughtful. It reflects the concerns in the crowd,” Huang said. “There are real concerns going on and I think they are legitimate. Even though I may disagree with why they ask, I think it is good that they get a chance to ask experts.”

Huang began organizing the panel back in November. She said that CRIS plans on doing more panels instead of single-speaker lectures in the future. She is already brainstorming next year’s panel on cells and genetic engineering.

Students Want More Time To Add & Drop Classes

This article originally appeared in ZU News.

From the time the semester starts, students have a week and a half to amend their schedule if they would like to add or drop classes. Many students feel that this does not allow them an adequate amount of time to decide if their schedule is right for them. However, the university has set up the add/drop timeline this way for a reason.

“The feedback we were receiving from our academic partners was that doing adds into the second week of add/drop was becoming challenging for students to achieve progress and success,” One Stop Director Angie DiClaudio said. “So, we abbreviated that time by one week. Going into that second week of classes was detrimental to their success.”

This is the fourth semester under the current model with the add/drop date set up a week and a half in, according to DiClaudio. This semester, classes started on Jan. 9. The last day to add classes was Jan. 17, with the drop date a few days later on Jan. 20.

While this may seem like a short amount of time to pick and choose classes, DiClaudio said that in reality students had much longer to change their schedule.

“Technically, a student can impact their schedule from the time of registration or pre-registration all the way up to the add cycle,” DiClaudio said. “The week of add/drop is the last time you can impact your schedule, but you have months before that where you can actually work on a schedule that you want.”

However, not all students saw it this way.

“I understand the concept of them not wanting to get too far into the semester and people still switching, but I don’t feel what we are given is long enough to make decisions such as dropping a class or adding more units,” freshman psychology major Alyssa Mellor said. “I was thinking about adding a class but I didn’t because I wasn’t sure of what the workload for my other classes would be like. I recognize now I could have done it, but didn’t when it was so early in the semester.”

Mellor, a student in the Honors College, noted that she would have benefitted from a later add date. A fellow Honors College student, freshman math major Hannah Hinds, had a similar experience.

“The add/drop dates are too soon; you may end up stuck in a class you thought you could handle until a few weeks pass and the workload catches up to you,” Hinds said.

Another issue students face besides uncertainty about workload is conflict with professors.

Junior journalism major Hailey Gomez had a bad experience with a professor last semester. She, along with over half of her classmates, dropped or withdrew from the class because of challenges with the professor.

“I think it’s ridiculous that we only have a week and a half to decide on whether or not we want to add or drop the class,” Gomez said. “I mean, that’s only about three classes you have with the professor, and you really have no idea what the course is going to be like until about the third week.”

Gomez would have preferred more time to make her decision so she would not have had to withdraw.

“If you miss the date, you’re either stuck with a withdrawal or have to petition,” Gomez said. “And by that point, it’s already too late to add another class. It is neither helpful to the students’ time or education.”

Gomez is not the only one who has had this problem. DiClaudio noted that One Stop has seen many cases like this in the past where students want to drop a class because of a conflict with the professor. However, DiClaudio has a different perspective on the issue.

“One of the things we encourage students to consider is that sometimes they will be in a class where they might not love the faculty member, but that is in itself a learning opportunity for people, too,” DiClaudio said. “You might be in a workplace environment where it’s not ideal for you. How are you going to navigate that? Are you equipped to manage through a situation or scenario that isn’t always perfect for you?”

California Propositions Stir Campus Conversation

This article originally appeared in ZU News.

In the aftermath of conversations concerning the presidential election, the propositions on the ballot in California received less attention. On Nov. 8, a total of 17 propositions were voted on, 12 of which passed.

Proposition 62 would have repealed the death penalty and replaced it with a life sentence in jail without possibility of parole. It was defeated with 6,913,025 votes to 6,068,675 votes.

Freshman English major Reilly Fitzpatrick voted yes on Proposition 62.

“I think that the death penalty is putting the role of God into man’s hands, and I don’t agree with that. I think making capital punishment as part of human government is something that goes against my personal Christian beliefs,” Fitzpatrick said.

Helena Mayer, a freshmen music major, voted no on Proposition 62.

“I said no only because from the last research I had. The amount of money spent keeping someone in prison for lifetime means that taxpayers have to spend a significant amount of money further. I think the death penalty is not as barbaric as people make it sound; it’s quick and easy, as long as it’s humane,” Mayer said.

Mayer also voted yes on Proposition 66, which was designed to speed up the process of the death penalty and eliminate certain appeal trials that prolong the process by years and cost the state and taxpayers millions of dollars a year. It was approved by a margin of 6,340,488 votes to 6,058,853 votes.

The death penalty was not the only controversial issue with two propositions. Propositions 67 and 65 dealt with the ban of single-use plastic bags. Proposition 67 banned plastic bags, which has made grocery stores charge 10 cents per reusable bag. It was approved by a margin of 6,893,455 votes to 6,082,718 votes.

Proposition 65 would have taken the 10 cents per bag and dedicated it to a wildlife conservation fund, giving grants for drought mitigation; clean drinking water supplies; recycling; litter removal; wildlife habitat restoration; beach cleanup; and state, regional and local parks. It was defeated by a margin of 6,987,497 votes to 5,919,018 votes.

Fitzpatrick, Mayer and sophomore communication studies major Lindsay Goodell all voted yes on the plastic bag ban propositions.

“Everyone will just get used to it. A lot of places in California are already doing that. To me, it’s not that big of a deal,” Goodell said.

Fitzpatrick shared Goodell’s view that it’s something people will get used to.

“It’s a first world problem,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think that paying 10 cents for a bag or bringing your own bag is not that big of a deal, and we should be able to deal with that.”

Fitzpatrick said that environmental issues weren’t as important to her as others, but they were still important because she wanted to keep the environment safe and clean.

Proposition 64 dealt with the legalization of recreational marijuana for people 21 and older. It was approved by a margin of 7,602,606 votes to 5,744,950 votes. Mayer was one of the more than 7 million that voted yes.

“You see a lot of teenagers start drinking because of rebellion. I feel like it’s the same thing. No matter what, it’s still being produced,” Mayer said.

Both Fitzpatrick and Goodell voted no on the proposition.

“I think it’s going to cause a lot more accidents—we already have enough accidents even with people that are drunk driving. I think it will cause a lot more problems than it will help,” Goodell said.

Proposition 58 was concerned with bilingual education. It suggested that students who speak English as their second language (ESL) shouldn’t have to take subjects like math or science in English, and can instead learn it in their native language. It was approved by the largest margin of 9,530,008 votes to 3,466,275 votes. Fitzpatrick voted yes on 58.

“I tutor kids at the library; a lot of them are ESL students, and they have a lot of trouble with a concept that they would easily grasp if it was in their native language. I think that’s really helpful for them academically,” Fitzpatrick said.

To view the rest of the propositions that did and did not pass in California, visit ballotpedia.org/California_2016_ballot_proposition.

Professors Learn To Incorporate Faith In Teaching

This article originally appeared in ZU News.

On Nov. 10, Executive Director of the Office of Faith Integration Paul Kaak and assistant professor of exercise science Doug Crowell led a seminar seeking to link faith integration to a concern about the development of good and godly character. They spoke to four other faculty members about how to integrate faith into their teaching.

“We want to clarify how character development can become meaningful and appropriate faith integration in our particular classes and professions,” Kaak said.

Kaak and Crowell used a hypothetical situation about teaching a class on athletic training and faith. They talked about the virtues that an athletic trainer would want to have in terms of faith and skill.

“I believe that those who came will walk away with both the inspiration and the understanding of how to connect the development of moral virtue to what their students have come there to learn,” Kaak said.

Crowell spoke about what he thought employers would look for in an APU graduate. He emphasized the significance of future employment in the presentation.

“Our exemplars are people out there who are saying, ‘This is what we’re looking for in a graduate from your university, from a Christian university,'” Crowell said.

Crowell talked about a conversation he had with a recruiter for Kindred Healthcare who oversees about 11 hospitals. When looking at the significant number of résumés given to him per week, the recruiter said that he briefly goes through their skills and references, but looks for something more when they are a graduate of APU.

“He called them the intangibles,” Crowell said. “He said, ‘I’m looking for team players, people who are service-oriented, people who have good listening skills, people who are compassionate and people who love God first.’ That’s what we do here.”

Crowell and Kaak built their presentation around the idea of helping professors learn how to teach with virtue.

“In addition to the great knowledge and skills and the ability to do research, we can do something a little bit different from a Christian perspective,” Crowell said. “That’s when we ask, ‘What does good character look like?'”

Crowell and Kaak laid out a series of steps and described the virtues people should seek in each profession. The main characteristic was integrity, which can be applied across all professions and classes.

Kaak circled back to the importance of faith integration in teaching and working with not only students, but professors as well.

“It is the commitment of the Office of Faith Integration to provide resources and encouragement to faculty to continue to better the job of faith integration in their classrooms,” Kaak said. “It is our job to support our faculty so they can do what they need to do for you and your friends.”

Crowell testified to what Kaak said. He has personally learned how to become a better teacher and an even better teacher of Christian virtues through the Office of Faith Integration.

“I think the Office of Faith Integration has really given me the opportunity to develop myself as a Christian educator,” Crowell said. “That’s why I came here to APU, to become a better Christian educator and professional.”

One of the professors in attendance, Tim Heumier of the mathematics and physics department, said the seminar helped him gain an appreciation for other ways of thinking about faith and physics.

“We’ve got a nice handle on how to do some aspects of faith integration, but this gives me some new ideas on how we might enrich what we already do,” Heumier said. “We already do some dwelling on the characteristics of a good scientist and draw parallels between that and Christians. This represents a more focused way on drawing those connections.”

The Office of Faith Integration’s next discussion will be on Monday, Nov. 21 in the Ronald Board Room from 3-4:30 p.m. The session will discuss how learning outside of the classroom can incorporate meaning in faith integration reflection. For more information, visit their office on West Campus in the Duke Academic Complex.

Minority Faculty Talk Higher Education

This article originally appeared in ZU News.

On Oct. 26, the Center for Diversity, Equity and Inclusive Excellence held a panel with four APU scholars who represent diversity on campus. The speakers shared their strategies for career success to a group of about 30 faculty and staff members.

The panelists each shared their background in academia and the lessons they have learned from their careers about overcoming racial boundaries and succeeding.

The first panelist was Christopher Bassey, Ph.D. Bassey is an African American professor in the department of mathematics and physics, and has worked at APU for the past nine years. He started a program at APU called DRIVE: Developing Real Interest Very Early for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). DRIVE workers of different races go to elementary schools to demonstrate science experiments for students.

According to Bassey, if a student learns from a teacher of the same race, they will be inspired and believe they can succeed in the subject because they see someone who resembles them thriving in the field.

“If students see them doing a thing like them, they can do it,” Bassey said.

The goal of DRIVE is to get students, especially minorities, interested in science at a young age. Bassey said it is important to help students understand the importance of science and planning.

“I always tell my students if you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” Bassey said.

Alexander Jun, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Higher Education, a diversity ambassador and a qualitative research methods consultant also served as a panelist. Over the course of his nine years at APU, he has encountered several struggles in his career as an Asian minority.

“In a predominantly white institution it is hard to find mentors. It is hard to find people. Where am I going to find my voice?” Jun said. “I couldn’t find people who looked like me.”

Jun overcame many of the challenges he faced as a minority and joked with his colleagues on the panel about the lack of Asian college presidents. He is publishing a book with another colleague next year on white domination and delved into this process and what it was like to write a dissertation. Jun made it clear that to succeed in higher education, especially as a minority, a person needs passion.

“If you’re going to stay up late at night reading and writing about something, it better matter to you. It’s not trending or popular, it might get published. That should matter less,” Jun said.

Another panelist, Chong Ho Yu, Ph.D. also noted the challenges minorities face in higher education. When he started teaching higher-ed he noticed that only a couple of minority students were in his classes. Yu took a similar approach to Bassey in his teaching.

“I tell my students: if they can do it, you can do it,” Yu said.

Yu is an associate professor in the department of psychology and has been at APU for the past four years. Like Jun, Yu is also a quantitative research methods consultant for APU. Using his background, Yu noted a strategy for success.

“I don’t want to do what everybody else is doing,” Yu said.

The last panelist was Yvette Latunde, Ed.D., a professor in the department of teacher education and a diversity ambassador. Latunde in particular noticed the difference in performance of white students from minorities in elementary education.

“When I came to higher-ed, I kept hearing conversations about this deficit between African Americans and Latinos in schools. I kept hearing about all the issues but I couldn’t see any solutions and no one in my department was addressing it,” Latunde said.

Latunde decided to go into higher education after having a daughter. She studies the relationships between students and parents in education while taking a closer look at the role that parents play.

“For me it wasn’t a choice. It kind of chose me,” Latunde said.

The panel was hosted by Susan Warren, Ph.D. and Richard Martinez, Ph.D. from the Center for Diversity.

Warren is the director of the diversity programs for the Center for Diversity. She worked with Martinez to get the panelists and together they administered the questions for the audience.

“I think that it was very successful in that we had a variety of fields represented,” Warren said. “We had them sharing their strategies and they each did it in a different unique way but they gave specific ideas that I think faculty and staff were able to really think about.”

Martinez is the executive director for the Center for Diversity. He said he believes the center is being proactive in professional development.

“The more we’re having these intentional conversations at a session like this, then it stands to reason the more we will then see each other in new ways,” Martinez said.

The Center for Diversity holds several events and workshops for faculty and staff throughout the year to promote diversity. There will be a similar panel held in the spring concerning diversity among faculty and staff.