The University of Idaho has recently been scrutinized for our handling of incidents in 2013. At that time, students made reports to our Athletics department that were not handled according to university policy. While the situations were resolved through the university’s investigative processes, our initial missteps added to a difficult experience for the students involved. Looking at what we’ve done since then, I want to explain how we foster a safe living and learning environment for all students, and how we plan to continue that progress. Coming to U of I in 2014, I wanted a comprehensive approach to safety. I insisted upon mandatory employee training for Title IX issues such as harassment. In addition, all first-year undergraduates in Moscow were (and are) required to complete orientation that examines relationships, substance abuse and violence. The “Green Dot” program and “I Got Your Back” campaign offer bystander intervention training and encourage people to speak up, get involved and look out for one another. Last year the Women's Center was awarded a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice for a multi-year Campus Violence Prevention Project. These programs provide valuable resources in a multi-layered culture of prevention and action. In other progress, our Counseling and Testing Center has been enhanced with substance use expertise. Our student organizations are playing a role – last fall student leadership in our Greek system self-imposed an alcohol moratorium, establishing certain conduct standards, and, having met them, several chapters have since been able to lift the moratorium. I congratulate that self-directed control and accountability. I am participating in a working group for the NIH’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to address harmful and underage student drinking. Universities are multifaceted places, and safety is a complex issue, so we have to approach it university-wide. When news breaks about U of I, you may get the sense that the university is not sharing a lot of information. Higher education law tightly constrains how we can communicate about incidents involving students. The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects student records as confidential and, as such, significantly limits the information we can share about our students with the public, the media and sometimes even other students involved in an investigation. We strive to be as transparent as we can while complying with the law. Respecting student confidentiality is part of respecting our students. I understand that bureaucratic explanations for why we can’t answer direct questions about incidents involving our students often feel inadequate. I’ve sent two sons and a daughter to college. As a parent or a student, you don’t want a lesson in the intricacies of federal or institutional policy. You want to know that the school is safe. You want to know that students are protected from harm, and that if something does happen they will be heard and respected, with straightforward processes for a solution. We work every day at U of I to meet expectations of safety and student welfare. To keep improving, I am putting together a task force co-chaired by Dean of Students Blaine Eckles to focus on mental health, student concerns for campus safety, and our approaches to interpersonal violence. We will draw from inside and outside our U of I community to gain perspective, study practices and policies, and make recommendations. I look forward to seeing where and how we can improve. At U of I, we often say we are “big enough to matter, and small enough to care.” To live up to that ethos demands constant, sustained improvement and responsiveness. We are committed to providing our students the best possible learning and living environment. | | Go Vandals! Chuck Staben President | | | Longtime Vandals Give to ICCU Arena Project Dick and Barbara Bull can usually be found in their seats behind the basket at the Cowan Spectrum for both the men’s and women’s games. Since their arrival in Moscow, when Dick took a position in the Animal and Veterinary Science Department, they have been dedicated Vandal sports fans. The Bulls have been active for decades in the Latah County Vandal Boosters and the President’s Athletic Advisory Council, among other volunteer roles. Dick even ran the scoreboard at Vandal basketball games for 34 years. When the university moved ahead with the Arena project, Dick and Barbara decided to support it. “We could see all the opportunities such a facility could bring to the university and to the Moscow community,” Barbara said. “We wanted to be a part of it. We can’t wait to find our new seats behind the basket, near the Vandal bench.” Visit the ICCU Arena website to learn more about giving opportunities, or contact Mike Perry at mperry@uidaho.edu or 208-885-1029. | | Vandals Win National Awards for Theater Hanah Toyoda, a Master of Fine Arts candidate in the Department of Theatre Arts, was joined by an ensemble of University of Idaho theater students and alumni in earning national recognition from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Toyoda of Hayward, California, earned the Barbizon National Award for Excellence in Scenic Design for her research and creative activity on “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” In addition, the show “Sleepy, A Musical,” created by students in U of I’s College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, earned the National Outstanding Production of a Devised or Company-Generated Work (shared with Hope College). The “Sleepy” ensemble includes U of I students Maiya Carrol, Whitney Holland, Gail Harder, Paige Erbele, Gina Workman and Dan Cassilagio, and recent U of I graduates Dan Poppen, Tyler Iiams, Hunter Price and Sean Hendrickson. The ensemble performed “Sleepy” to an enthusiastic full house at the KCACTF Region 7 conference in Spokane, Washington, in February. “Sleepy, A Musical” also earned several other national KCACTF honors including: Distinguished Performance and Production Ensemble, Distinguished Production of a New Work, Distinguished Production of a Musical, Distinguished Performance by an Actor in a Musical (Dan Poppen), Distinguished Director of a Musical (Maiya Corral), and Distinguished Director of a New Work (Maiya Corral). | | Research Provides Insight into Tectonic Plate Formation A new study by University of Idaho researchers provides insight into Earth’s early tectonic activity and could be a stepping stone to help researchers better understand not only tectonic plates, but also earthquakes, volcanoes and mineral deposits that arise as the plates move and form. The way oceanic tectonic plates separate, either by snapping or stretching apart, controls the shape of mid-ocean ridges, the underwater location where plates drift apart, according to a the study, which was published in the journal Nature Geoscience. U of I Assistant Professor Eric Mittelstaedt in the College of Science’s Department of Geological Sciences, and Aurore Sibrant, a postdoctoral researcher at the European Institute for Marine Studies in Brest, France, who worked on this study as a post-doctoral researcher at U of I, were able to simulate the creation of mid-ocean ridges in the laboratory. Their study, which included scientists with Laboratoire FAST in Paris, France, is titled “Accretion Mode of Oceanic Ridges Governed by Axial Mechanical Strength.” | | | | |