by Ashley Robbins

December 1^st and 2^nd, 2011 the Athletic Training Club and Major students attended the Hawkeye Sports Medicine Symposium in Iowa City.  The symposium allowed for the athletic training students to interact and learn from well-known doctors of sports medicine through a variety of presentations they presented.  The topics ranged from concussions, shoulder instability, ACL injury prevention and rehabilitation as well as conditions such as Rhabdomyolysis.  From attending this conference the students gained a knowledge and perspective that they can now implement in helping prevent, rehab and care for the athletes of Loras College as well as all our off campus rotations including: the Dubuque Fighting Saints, area high schools and a local chiropractor.  Conferences such as this one are ways for Certified Athletic Trainers to keep up to date on the latest advancements with in the field and now the Athletic Training Students are involved as well.  It is part of their future careers and it is best to experience what applicable knowledge they can use today.  While in Iowa City the students went on a tour of Carver Hawkeye Arena to see a NCAA Division I athletic facility.  The students were able to interact with a few athletes and most importantly athletic training students.  Attendance to this conference was greatly sponsored by the Student Union; we appreciate their help in allowing our students to attend such a knowledge gaining experience.

by Daniel McDermott

Did you know that we have a Student Union? If you did, do you have any idea what the Student Union does? This year, one of the main goals of the Student Union is to make students more aware of what we are doing for you. We have nine committees that are working on several different student issues.

The first committee is the Marketing and Communications committee. They have been using Facebook, Twitter, OrgSync, and eventually YouTube to give the students updates. In addition, the committee will be helping to publicize student organization events. If you are interested in this service, please contact the head of this committee, Kinsey Campbell.

The second committee is the Aesthetics Committee. They started out by looking into the possibility of getting a bonfire pit somewhere on campus. Due to current fire codes, this is unfortunately an impossibility. They are now assessing what the student body’s priority list is for improvements on campus. Make sure you look for the survey in the future to make sure that your opinion is heard.

The third committee is the Bus Route Committee. The purpose of this committee was to work with the city of Dubuque, Clarke and University of Dubuque to establish a bus route targeting college students. This bus route will take students to movie theatres, grocery stores, and the mall during the day and at night will shuttle students downtown. The city of Dubuque has passed a grant to fund the project and it is expected to be implemented during this semester.

The next committee is the Student Entertainment Center Committee (SEC).  Created by Chris Higgins last year, the SEC would be a place centrally located on campus, where students can gather to socialize. It is intended to have big screens, arcade games, billiards, comfortable furniture, and many other possibilities. The preliminary plans have been handed over to the Aesthetics Committee to see if this is actually a student priority.

The fifth committee is the Wider Selection in the Pub Committee.  So far they have worked with Loras College Campus Dining to get chicken wraps back into the pub and offered other suggestions that will help improve Campus Dining as a whole. Also they are going to start a conversation about bringing alcohol into the Pub—no promises.

Our sixth committee is the Campus Pride Committee. This committee will strive to improve school spirit by encouraging attendance at sporting events, theatrical productions, band concerts, choir concerts, and many other activities. They are responsible for the new “This Week at Loras” email that students have received and will be selling Duhawk Nation shirts outside the Café this week.

The seventh committee is the Sustainability Committee, which is dedicated to reducing Loras’ carbon footprint. One way they are doing this is the new UCarShare program, making it possible to rent a car by the hour to run errands. Hopefully students will begin to leave their car at home and utilize this program. It has a very easy website to use and is affordable. Please make sure to test drive our new Prius and Cube that we have on campus.

The final committee is the Mission and Identity Committee. The members of this committee serve as our student representatives, and will also be in charge of organizing our Student Union service project and keeping track of service hours.
As you can see the Student Union is hard at work for its students. As committees accomplish their goals, they are rolled over into new committees. Most importantly, we are constantly looking for student input. Feel free to contact your class representatives or email us at student.union@loras.edu. We would love to hear your suggestions. Make sure you like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @LCStudentUnion.

| My Duhawk

I am sure that if you have been to a sporting event on campus in the last year you have heard about Duhawk Nation. But many of us still aren’t even sure what this fabled land is. So, I went to the man with the plan to make our campus more unified: Derek Snitker. Snitker, a senior (and former Homecoming court participant), told me the story of Duhawk Nation, where it came from, what it means, and what it’s been up to lately.

I was surprised to learn that Duhawk Nation is not, in fact, the homeland of Dewey, the Duhawk, but rather is a concept that comes from our Campus Pride Committee (CPC), a branch of Student Union, with which Snitker is involved. He and sophomore Molly Moerer have been charged with chairing the committee by Loras Student Union Executive Board.

The idea started about a year ago when the committee was discussing the issue of a student’s section at Loras sporting events. The committee realized that there wasn’t really a designated student cheer-section of the stands at events, and they saw this as a problem.  The name “Duhawk Nation” began simply as a clever name for a unified student’s section at sporting events.  If you were in the student section, you were a part of the Duhawk Nation, but since then the concept has taken on a life of its own.

Since last school year the CPC has held events such as t-shirt give-aways, free pizza at basketball games, and helping with Yell Nights in the name of strengthening campus pride and the Duhawk Nation.

Snitker said, “Really the concept of the Duhawk Nation is meant to encourage people to be leaders in the student section and on campus by showing their Loras pride … like by wearing purple and gold and painting their faces.  It’s just being loud and being supportive!”  Right now the committee is focused on selling T-shirts (which are purple and gold and read “Duhawk Nation,” of course, designed by senior Kristi Olberding) to raise money so they can tackle larger projects. If you need a Duhawk Nation t-shirt, look for CPC members at sports events and in the ACC concourse throughout the year.  Snitker also mentioned that the Campus Pride Committee is always looking for new members who are excited about campus pride or who have new ideas that will help to strengthen our Duhawk Nation.

So what is the Duhawk Nation?  In short: if you’re a Duhawk and you go out to support, representing the Purple and Gold, loud and proud, you’re in the Duhawk Nation.

Almost every person wants to put in their input on events that are happening in their area to improve their experience. During common time last week Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to about 12:45 p.m. the student union with leader Kevin O’Brien, in conjunction with Campus Pride with co-leaders Derek Snitker and Molly Moerer gave Loras students that opportunity by having discussions on various issues at Loras.
The first discussion was on campus pride; a big issue due to the fact that only 78% of Loras first years decide to stay for the next year, with only half of that number due to flunking. A big reason was that freshmen felt that the campus was too small and though they came expecting lots of activities, they didn’t end up getting that many.
The group felt that the activities needed to be more bonding, to bring the students together, as well as interactive such as the karaoke night. One suggestion by Campus Pride was to have a LED sign advertising upcoming Loras events in the ACC. Other ways to send info to other students on events that were suggested included sending e-mails such as the soccer e-mails received last year, updating the stall-street journal, and mention the events on the loudspeakers during common time.
As for the big events, students felt that there should be one big event with a huge act, rather than several little small-time acts. In order to accomplish this it was suggested that the student union should work more with the college activities board (CAB). The big concerns though were when the events should be and how much the big event should cost. One example of a big act flopping was the low reception of Joel McHale’s appearance in Dubuque last year.
The next discussion was on parking. The chief concerns were the price of the tickets and the low range of where parking was allowed. One suggestion the student union put up was to have the ticket price raised from the current price of 75 dollars to 125 dollars; in exchange the students would be allowed to park in a wider range. This would cover costs for the school and give the students more room.
The other suggestion was to have different kinds of tickets. The cheapest tickets would allow students access to Keane Hall, while more expensive tickets would allow students to residential areas such as Beckman and Binz.
One concern with this plan though was how safe the students would be when traveling from Keane to where they live. Though those students are happy now that Cox Street is closed off, they mentioned that lights could be added to keep predators away.
For homecoming it was suggested that there should be only one central event for homecoming community wide, rather than smaller events around only the campus.  If there had to be several homecoming events, the competitions should be between classes rather than residential halls.
For cluster classes the problems were that students had to put in cluster classes throughout the schedule in order to graduate within four years, and even repeat some so that they have enough credits. The students were in agreement that students should be allowed to save one semester for cluster classes.
Finally for majors students suggested having mandatory major meetings like the English majors do so that they know how to fit in their classes and graduate within four years. One final problem that was not solved with the time given was the new rule given to education majors that they cannot walk with their class until they finish their student teaching. Education majors tend to save their student teaching till after they are done with their classes, but those who do that now will most likely end up having to walk with next year’s class, ruining their big day.
Though many issues were discussed, only time will tell if these actions will be taken, and if so, will they pay off?