With Cedar Valley hospitals, health clinics and nursing homes still in critical need of personal protective equipment, the University of Northern Iowa continues to be part of the supply effort.
A deadly outbreak without a cure. Local governments urging residents to stay inside and avoid other people. Medical professionals on the frontlines trying to halt the rapid spread of an infectious disease.
It’s not COVID-19, but the 1924 outbreak of the Black Plague in Los Angeles.
Her story almost sounds like a made-for-TV movie — a young girl from small-town Iowa is hand-picked by an instructor from the famed Juilliard School of Music to pursue a career in New York City under her guidance. It might sound too good to be true, but that’s actually what happened to UNI alumna Sheri Greenawald ‘68.
Paige Mathews always knew she wanted to help others. She was pursuing a nursing degree when she unexpectedly discovered her true calling while taking a prerequisite athletic training class.
“I went in and I thought, ‘I’m just gonna’ go and tape some ankles and watch people on the sidelines. It’s gonna’ be so boring,’” said Mathews, now in her second year of graduate studies in UNI’s athletic training program. “Now, I’m still surprised every day of what athletic trainers can do.”
Karen Mitchell had just experienced a series of unthinkable tragedies — including the death of her partner of almost 20 years — and felt herself in a fugue state. Then she tried an increasingly popular form of yoga developed to help people recover from trauma. The class helped her start a path towards healing.
“I think it has a lot to do with listening to your body. Your body will tell you the truth,” she said.
Robert Sales arrived at UNI knowing he wanted to be an entrepreneur.
The Pella native’s business instincts had been apparent since he was a first-grader who won a contract mowing vacant lots in his neighborhood. At UNI, Sales focused on the food industry, launching a food truck business and then, with help from professors and mentors, narrowed his focus to selling mini doughnuts.
It started as a pilot project to provide about 50 University of Northern Iowa students with remote access to specialized software.
But with the dawn of the coronavirus and the wave of campus closures and remote learning that followed, demand for the small pilot project surged to serve more than 1,000 students in just two weeks.
Welcome to the new normal for UNI’s IT Department.
Is social distancing testing your boredom? You've completed your to-do list, did your homework, finished your chores, and got tired of social media. You've got seemingly endless time to kill and don't really want to browse Instagram for the next couple of hours. So, what can you do? You don't want to feel like you've just wasted away the day and do nothing productive.
