Community policing was the main focus of the first “The Purple Couch Courageous Conversations,” a series of public discussions about equity and social justice on UNI’s campus. The series, which launched last week, was organized and moderated by Jamie Butler Chidozie, Director for Diversity, Inclusion & Social Justice.
UNI President Mark Nook and Police Chief Helen Haire took part. Highlights from the conversation have been edited for length and clarity.
2020 hasn’t been easy. A global pandemic, national reckoning on racial inequality and economic crisis have led up to a contentious election season. Psychology professor and department head Adam Butler and family services assistant professor Heather Kennedy are here to help with some ways to cope with stress and anxiety this election season.
The election of 2020 is shaping up to be one unlike any other. With record early voting turnout and increases in absentee ballots due to the pandemic, it’s uncertain whether Americans will know who their next president will be when they wake up on Nov. 4. University of Northern Iowa political science professors Donna Hoffman and Christopher Larimer have been studying elections for years and are frequently sought out by the media for their expertise.
Witches have long been part of popular culture, from “Bewitched” to “Charmed” to the countless children knocking on people’s doors dressed as a witch this Halloween. But those modern myths have dark origins of persecution, prosecution and execution. University of Northern Iowa history professor and department head Jennifer McNabb has studied the causes and consequences of witch hunts for years, publishing articles in journals and writing material for textbooks on Western civilization and European history.
As if 2020 hasn’t been strange enough, this Halloween will feature an unusual celestial treat - the first worldwide blue moon in 76 years.
While a Halloween blue moon comes once about every 19 years to specific time zones (the Midwest last saw one in 2000), the last truly global blue moon was in 1944, according to the Farmer’s Almanac.
Last week, a panel discussion on the intersection of race, policing and social justice was held virtually as part of UNI’s “Cultivating Justice: A 6-Week Quest Toward Racial Equity” series. The series, now in its fourth year, was launched in 2015 in the wake of demonstrations after the police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Growing up in a home where her mother struggled with drug addiction, Yolanda Williams was determined to take a different path. She wanted to be like the teachers and counselors who helped her survive.
Now, in her new role as director of UNI’s Classic Upward Bound program, which helps support marginalized students to successfully complete high school and succeed in college, she’s able to use that life experience and empathy to help others.
While Panthers have done a great job of working together to slow the spread of COVID-19, case levels nationally are expected to begin rising as we enter the fall and winter months. Having a frank conversation about safety precautions is a good way to ensure that everyone in your residence, whether on or off campus, stays safe.
We reached out to some UNI public health students to ask how they’ve handled it.
Growing up just outside the Meskwaki Settlement in Tama, Iowa as the oldest of four siblings, Alma Pesina knew she wanted to go to college. But as the first member of her family to take that step, Pesina sometimes felt like she was on her own.
Born to a Meskwaki mother and a Mexican father, Pesina struggled to reconcile her two identities when she enrolled at the University of Northern Iowa in 2017. Without a role model to guide her, Pesina initially turned away from her Indigenous roots.
Growing up poor as one of nine children in Indianapolis’ 64th Street neighborhood, Jamie Chidozie learned young the blunt, destructive force of institutionalized racism. Her father, part of the first generation of Blacks in the U.S. to attend college en masse, earned an accounting degree only to be one of dozens of African-Americans who lost their state jobs soon after in a discriminatory purge, she said.
