As a Waterloo West High School graduate turned University of Northern Iowa football player, Blake Thomas has been a Cedar Valley native his entire life. Thomas wanted to make an impact in the classroom as well as on the field, and he initially decided to pursue a major in biology and pre-med. His intention was to go on to medical school, but that all changed when he took public health courses with Disa Cornish, an associate professor in the health, recreation and community services department.
The dots bounced and collided across the computer screen. Their movement was random, but University of Northern Iowa physics major Madelyn Johnson saw a purpose in the chaos.
The dots were part of a software program that generated random walker simulations, which are often used to represent the interactions of people in the world. And now Johnson and Ali Tabei, an associate professor of physics, are using this software to create a model of how infections spread. It could then be applied to simulate the spread of COVID within a community.
University of Northern Iowa officials traveled to Des Moines Area Community College on Thursday to tour a new $24 million downtown campus that will host the UNI@DMACC program that launched this fall.
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.
A joint art project by students at the University of Northern Iowa and Holmes Junior High School persevered through a global pandemic to convey a message of inclusivity and creativity.
Although COVID-19 has forced students to keep the residence hall doors of Lawther Hall closed, there are still signs of life taped to hallways in the form of small, origami creations of Baby Yoda.
The characters, from the television series “The Mandalorian,” were created during an origami-folding grab-and-go event, one of several efforts of the dorm’s nine resident assistants to bring students together during a global pandemic that is forcing everyone to stay apart.
With early polling locations in the November general election opening next week, college students across the country are preparing to vote, some of them for the first time.
Issues including the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare, the environment and racial justice have made this an election that some are describing as perhaps the most important in a generation. And with an ongoing pandemic, voting will look much different this year.
They may not be marching this year, but the Panther Marching Band will play on.
Like just about every other aspect of life on campus, COVID-19 has drastically altered marching band. This wasn’t the 120th season the nearly 300 members anticipated, but the group is pressing on, finding creative ways to stay safe, socialize and continue doing what they love even during a pandemic that has delayed the fall football season. They have performances scheduled throughout the semester, beginning on September 11th.
When the student leadership team of the Campus Activities Board was planning events for this fall, they knew it was going to be unlike anything they’d ever done.
With restrictions from COVID-19 limiting the size of in-person events, everything needed to be re-imagined in a virtual format. There was no telling how students would respond to this new platform, so senior elementary education major Alyssa Anderson, who serves as CAB’s social change and community director, was shocked and excited when she saw nearly 200 students had signed up for the first event.
