March 2019
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist to headline Career Ideas Festival SCOTT LINDELL Staff Writer
What can I do with a liberal arts degree? That’s a common question students ask Bill Baldus, director of Metro State’s Career Center. For those students concerned about the marketability of their major, he has a recommendation: go to the Career Ideas Festival on Friday, March 29. The event will be held in the Founders Hall auditorium from 8:30-11:30 a.m. Baldus booked keynote speaker George Anders to address those apprehensions. Anders is a senior editor-at-large for LinkedIn, a popular professional networking site. He is the author of five books and an award-winning journalist. His team at the Wall Street Journal won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. He is coming to Metro State to discuss the lessons of his 2017 book, “You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Education.” “If you’re a long-term thinker, the case for college as one of life’s best investments remains strong, no matter what major you choose,” Anders writes in his book. “Over time, in fact, some liberal arts majors can take you further than even the seemingly hot ticket of a computer science degree.” Baldus believes the event will debunk many myths and misperceptions about the value of a liberal arts education. Students will hear why employers gravitate
to job candidates with broadbased bachelor’s degrees, he said. Although the event is co-sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, Baldus thinks students in any major or college—from accounting to theater, from the College of Community Studies and Public Affairs to the College of Sciences—should attend. “Everyone should embrace that they have a liberal arts degree,” he said. Baldus was referring to the General Education and Liberal Studies (GELS) courses that are required of every undergraduate. These courses emphasize writing, speaking, problem-solving, critical thinking and curiosity. All skills that George Anders says are highly-sought by today’s employers. In “You Can Do Anything,” Anders notes that career paths are not as rigid and predictable as they once were. “The opportunities to improvise are greater,” he writes. “As much as we may think the boundaries of gainful work are well fixed, they aren’t. New types of jobs keep coming into existence in ways that catch us by surprise.” “You Can Do Anything” gives tips for finding employment in this new job environment. Anders also describes tactics for securing pay raises and promotions at work. Prior to the keynote speech, students can network at a reception with employers, faculty and staff. An employer panel discussion will include Metro State graduates from the College of Liberal Arts. They will share how their education has shaped their career paths.
Courtesy of George Anders / georgeandersbooks.com
George Anders, author and editor-at-large at LinkedIn, is the keynote speaker for Metro State’s Career Ideas Festival on March 29, 2019. The first 100 people to register and attend the event will receive a free copy of his most recent book “You Can Do Anything.” It was published in 2017 by Little, Brown and Company. But back to the original question: What can I do with a liberal arts degree? Baldus said students always want specific examples. But he contends there are thousands of answers, thousands of ways to make a living from a liberal arts education.
Too many students approach this question intellectually or by Googling, he said. To find their future occupation (or occupations), Baldus said students need exposure. Through new experiences and meeting people, students will “find clues for what
‘Where I’ve always wanted to be’ Student finds calling as jack-of-alltrades at East Side Freedom Library
KATHRYN GANFIELD Staff Writer
David McAllister surveilled his handiwork in the basement of the East Side Freedom Library. On the yellow cinder block walls was the library’s current photography exhibition, “The Fruits of My Mother’s Labor” by Pao Houa Her. As part-time staff at the library, it was McAllister’s job to install the show. On full display was his physical work, precision and pride in the still-developing art gallery. The East Side Freedom Library is a nonprofit organization housed in the former Arlington Hills branch, one of St. Paul’s three Carnegie libraries. It is located just off Payne
See ANDERS on page 2 Metro State individualized studies major David McAllister holds a chisel used by his great-grandfather, a stone mason who worked on the Minnesota State Capitol at the turn of the century. McAllister loaned the chisel for display at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, where he works as a parttime staff person.
Avenue, a mile and a half north of Metro State’s St. Paul campus. Exhibitions here come together quickly, and McAllister only had a few weeks’ notice before installation. He worked with the photographer to hang her work just in time for the Feb. 22 opening. Her reproduced the photographs on thin, fragile newsprint and folded them into quarters. The photos—a mix of candid and posed shots—were taken in and around the artist’s parents’ home near Lake Phalen in St. Paul. They depict her Hmong family and their interpretation of the American dream. The artist determined the rhythm and flow of the exhibition. McAllister was there to weigh in on the spacing. He gently affixed the prints to a track on the basement walls, fine-tuning and troubleshooting as he went. On a wintry March morning, two weeks after installation, some
See LIBRARY on page 2
is next for them.” He recommends that students volunteer in the community and get out to events— like the Career Ideas Festival. “[This is the] biggest event of the year where we try to add
Kathryn Ganfield / The Metropolitan
2 THE METROPOLITAN The student newspaper of Metropolitan State University since 1992 690 East 7th Street Student Center 204.5 St. Paul, MN 55106 (651) 793-1553
TheMetropolitan@metrostate.edu
Editor
Kathryn Ganfield
ul5097yl@metrostate.edu
Copy Editor
Scott Lindell
rv1817nn@metrostate.edu
Design Editor
Dominique Hlavac
ho2644te@metrostate.edu
Web Editor
Sandip Rai
sa6662px@metrostate.edu
Photo Editor
Eli Bartz
yt7563ne@metrostate.edu
Opinion Editor
April Carlson
ka4332ur@metrostate.edu Find us on Facebook! @ TheMetropolitanMN Online edition at themetropolitan.metrostate.edu
Advertise with us! Contact us for ad rates at:
TheMetropolitan@metrostate.edu The Metropolitan is published 10 times yearly. It is printed by Lillie Suburban Newspapers in North St. Paul, Minn.
The Metropolitan follows Associated Press (AP) style Member of the Associated Collegiate Press
Reporters Wanted! Join our team as a reporter covering campus issues and events. Commit to writing to one article per month for the 2018-2019 school year. No experience necessary; training provided. Students from all majors are welcome. Opinionated? Submit an opinion piece or commentary. Focus on campus matters or connect a local/ state/national/world issue to Metro State. Or share your student experience in a personal essay. What brought you to Metro State? Student writers are paid $50/ article upon publication. To inquire about these opportunities—or to share story tips and ideas—contact Editor Kathryn Ganfield at TheMetropolitan@metrostate. edu. Attention: Student clubs and organizations Would you like to be profiled in the student newspaper? Contact Associate Editor Scott Lindell at rv1817nn@ metrostate.edu.
Speaker to focus on liberal arts ed ANDERS from page 1 new thinking in career development,’ Baldus said of the festival. “Coming to events like this is a good habit for people.” The first 100 people who register and attend the festival will receive a free copy of Anders’s book. The author will sign books at the close of the event. Students can sign up for the Career Ideas Festival at metrostate. joinhandshake.com using their StarID and password. Faculty, staff and guests can register at eventbrite.com or bit.ly/2Tbs4Ru. Metro State’s Career Center also organizes resume workshops and job fairs throughout the year. In April, it will host the 28th annual Law Enforcement Opportunities Career Fair at the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Education Center (LECJEC) in Brooklyn Park. For more information about any Career Center event or service, email career.center@metrostate.edu. Individuals who need disability-related accommodations, including parking, can contact the Center for Accessibility Resources at 651-793-1549 or email accessibility.resources@metrostate.edu.
News
March 2019
MEET THE SPEAKER: GEORGE ANDERS ►George Anders is a senior editor-at-large for LinkedIn, a professional networking site with more than 500 million members. ►He visits many campuses to talk to students about the transition from college to career. He has spoken at Harvard, Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the University of Central Florida. ►Anders is the author of five books. His 2003 book “Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett Packard” was a New York Times bestseller. ►His writing often tackles the topic of careers. His 2011 book “The Rare Find: How Great Talent Stands Out” describes how employers can look beyond education and experience for high-potential candidates. His advice to hiring managers and recruiters? Look at job-seekers’ hobbies, awards and special projects too. ►His most recent book is “You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Degree.” The book discusses how liberal arts graduates can embrace their education and benefit from growing job opportunities in the tech sector. Although they may lack technical expertise, Anders uses case studies to illustrate how these liberal arts majors bring a “human touch” to any workplace. ►Anders covered business, health care, and tech companies as a feature writer and investigative journalist. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Forbes, Bloomberg, and Harvard Business Review. In 1997, his Wall Street Journal team won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. ►He graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University.
Behind-the-scenes work suits Metro student LIBRARY from page 1 of Her’s prints were curling due to basement humidity. McAllister said that delicate, ephemeral quality was part of the artist’s vision. Her is a native of St. Paul and is represented by the Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis. She previously exhibited at the Gordon Parks Gallery at Metro State. Her 2012 show, entitled “Somebody,” was curated by photographer Wing Young Huie. McAllister said in working on exhibitions, he has a simple philosophy. He aims to support the art—literally and figuratively— and not get in the artist’s way. He put that guiding philosophy into practice this spring as an intern in the Gordon Parks Gallery. McAllister is a senior at Metro State and will graduate in spring 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in individualized studies. After spending five hours installing Her’s exhibition on a Friday, he spent the next morning in the Gordon Parks Gallery dismantling “In the Company of Others,” a solo show by photographer Den-Zell Gilliard. “This is where I’ve always wanted to be,” he said of working in gallery spaces. McAllister brims over with ideas for improving the library’s gallery space—dependent on the nonprofit’s budget, of course. He has already estimated the supply list for freestanding display cases. They’ll move on casters and can be rearranged to suit each exhibition. In his work and college coursework, McAllister draws on a deep well of experience in the visual and practical arts. In the 1980s, he studied at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). Next door at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, he prepped museum walls by sheetrocking, taping and painting. He staged popup, punk (read: unauthorized) art shows in MCAD’s stairwells.
McAllister said he has always been drawn to the hard work that happens backstage and out of sight. He studied horticulture at Century College and got his hands dirty working in garden centers and greenhouses. In theaters and performance spaces, he stayed behind the scenes too, managing props and lighting. “I wanted the audience to walk in and feel the magic of theater,” McAllister said. “It’s the same with museums and galleries.” He is comfortable behind a camera lens too. While he has not been a producing artist for some time, McAllister said he plans to pick up photography again after graduation. “I always liked taking photos of architectural details, but I always waited for people to clear out of the frame,” he said. “Now I want to take the same photos but with people in them.” With all these interests, it’s no surprise McAllister ended up as an individualized studies major. His degree at Metro State is owed in part to a little nudge from Peter Rachleff, co-executive director of the East Side Freedom Library. McAllister had been a volunteer for the library for several years when Rachleff asked where he had left off in his education. Then, a gentle suggestion: Why don’t you go down to Metro State? McAllister said he was enrolled for his first class “within minutes.” McAllister has no formal title for his library work, but he covers four key areas. He shelves and sorts books, does AV support for events, supervises high school student workers, and installs exhibitions. “My effort here is to support the bigger picture,” he said. “I know I can help. And there’s always something to do.” In the library’s stacks, he pointed out chairs set up in a story circle. “It’s about creating community conversation,” he
said. “This place is about making learning more democratic.” Soon he would rearrange the chairs to prepare for visit from Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. They would be talking about how their “One Minnesota” plan will impact people of color and Indigenous people. “This is a library and then it transforms,” he said. McAllister said he has transformed too. He grew up without much money in the Hayden Heights neighborhood—what he calls the “extreme East Side.” “But I’ve gone from hourly wager to college graduate,” he said. In his final semester, McAllister heads to his capstone class every Wednesday night on the third floor of the Library and Learning Center. From the window of his classroom, he can see the white Georgia marble and St. Cloud granite exterior of the Minnesota State Capitol in the distance. That’s where his great-grandfather plied his trade as a skilled stonemason. Looking down, McAllister can see the winter-bare trees of Swede Hollow, where there were once homes for immigrants—his great-grandparents among them. And, walking down the library stairs after class, he is in full view of St. John’s Hall just across East Seventh Street. That’s the site of the former St. John’s Hospital, where McAllister was born. “I was always here,” he said. In Swede Hollow, on Dayton’s Bluff, in the capital city, McAllister knows his history. Now he sees his future—in lifelong learning, in art galleries, in the East Side Freedom Library.
Send us your story ideas! We'd love to hear from you. Email:
TheMetropolitan@metrostate.edu
Opinion What’s in a name? University legacy
3
March 2019
Ready new major?
Why Metro State should level up on game studies CARLYN CROUSE
Workshop offers training in sandplay therapy for trauma The Metro State community is invited to learn more about sandplay therapy at a workshop on Saturday, March 23, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Midway 107. Sandplay is a nonverbal, therapeutic tool that lets people create miniature scenes to reflect their thoughts, concerns or traumatic experiences. The training is cosponsored by the School of Urban Education and the Urban Education Student Club. Presenters include social worker Joseph Meyer, a certified sandplay therapist, and Dr. Yvonne RBBanks, professor in Metro State’s School of Urban Education. This event is free and open to students, faculty, community members, teachers, social workers, therapists and law enforcement personnel. RSVP by March 20 to yvonne. rb-banks@metrostate.edu. Free student tickets for Challenging Islamophobia conference Metro State will host the Challenging Islamophobia conference, a program of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIRMN). The event will be held on Thursday, March 28, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the St. Paul campus. The Student Activity Fees Allocation Committee (SAFAC) is offering complimentary tickets for up to 25 students to attend the conference, including all sessions and lunch. Tickets are available on a on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information or to reserve a spot, contact Phil Fuehrer at philip.fuehrer@metrostate.edu. Students to read at Open Book on March 30 Haute Dish, the student arts and literary magazine of Metropolitan State University, will present its sixth annual spring reading at Open Book in Minneapolis on Saturday, March 30. The reading will be held in the Target Performance Hall, 6-8 p.m. Student writers and artists who have had their poetry, prose, illustrations and photographs published in Haute Dish during the past five years may read and present their work. Open Book, located at 1011 S. Washington Ave., houses the Loft Literary Center, Milkweed Editions and the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. The event is free and open to the public. University scholarship applications due March 31 The application process for Metropolitan State University Foundation 2019-2020 scholarships has opened. The deadline to apply is March 31. Available scholarships include the university’s Academic Achievement Scholarship. It offers $2,000 per year ($1,000 per term) for students enrolled full time. The award is prorated for students enrolled in 6-11 credits. Funds will be disbursed beginning in August 2019. Scholarships are made possible through donations from alumni, faculty, staff and community members. For more information, visit metrostate.edu/finances/aid/scholarships, email foundation@metrostate.edu or call 651-793-1801.
Opinion Writer
The gaming industry is booming, and we at Metro State have a chance to get on board. Gaming can be more than a hobby to pursue in our free time. Students should have the opportunity to turn their passion into a profession. For students interested in the gaming industry, Metro State currently offers a game studies minor — but no major. Pushing to create the first game studies major in Minnesota is Dr. Alex Layne, associate professor in the School of Communication, Writing and the Arts. Layne has laid the groundwork for this exciting new program. But the effort to get a game studies major in the undergraduate catalog will be a multiplayer one. What exactly is game studies? According to Layne, game studies is “the critical study of video games as a rhetorical cultural artifact.” Just as with film studies—or any other major with a critical, analytical emphasis— there is a heavy focus on the interaction between the gaming industry and society. “We’re looking at the impact games have on our culture and we’re looking at the way our culture influences games,” explains Layne.
Mitchell Hirsch / Flickr Creative Commons
The East Bank of the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis on Feb. 2, 2019. Coffman Memorial Union is the columned building just upper-right of center.
APRIL CARLSON
Opinion Writer
In February, a 125-page report from a University of Minnesota task force recommended renaming four buildings on campus, including the Coffman Memorial Union. In fall 2017, an exhibit at the Elmer Andersen Library, entitled “A Campus Divided,” explored the university’s history of discriminatory leaders and policies. The exhibit spurred a petition and a resolution from the student government to rename some of the buildings on campus. That student action, in turn, led to the creation of “The Task Force on Building Names and Institutional History.” On Feb. 20, they released their recommendation that four building names should be changed: Coffman, Coffey, Middlebrook and Nicholson. Why? Coffman was a supporter of eugenics. Coffey believed in segregation. Middlebrook refused to end racist university practices, even after they were flagged by African American students and the NAACP. And Nicholson profiled Jewish students and organizations, spying on them and recording their activities both on and off campus. Although such actions and beliefs are abhorrent, it is not particularly surprising that these skeletons were uncovered. Th U of M is hardly the first higher ed institution to reckon with the names displayed on its bricks and ivy. Following the call in 2016 to take down Confederate monuments, universities have been under pressure to look at who they’ve dedicated “monuments” to. Brown, Yale, the University of Pittsburgh and University of Maryland have all faced this issue.
Yet the University of Minnesota has been more reluctant than its peers to move forward with the name changes. The taskforce spent well over a year deliberating this issue, and the process is still not resolved. President Eric Kaler has voiced support for renaming. However, the Board of Regents has to sign off on the proposal and has expressed concerns about it. The final decision should be made sometime before President-designate Joan Gabel assumes her position this summer. Campus reaction to the namechange movement has been mixed. Around 40 percent fall on either side of the issue; 20 percent have no opinion whatsoever. But the numbers are vastly different for university faculty and staff: an overwhelming 80 percent support renaming the buildings. Why this discrepancy? From my vantage point, it all comes down to a single word: legacy. OK, maybe two words: legacy redemption. Faculty, administrators and prominent alumni are invested in ensuring a university will be judged favorably by future generations. Students? Maybe not so much. But there is a paradox
here. Students are ultimately responsible for shaping that future judgment. After all, it was the library and student organizers who initiated this conversation. But how are names connected to the legacy of a sprawling enterprise, like a university? It’s complicated. At a basic level, though, buildings are legacy symbols. Ideally, these names are meant to remind students that they are in this place because someone laid the foundation. As Isaac Newton prefaced the Principia Mathematica: “[We] stand on the shoulders of giants.” Students are expected to think, this visionary person thought of you, without even knowing who you are—so take a moment, look at the name, and think about this person. But I have a confession to make. I’ve walked into many university buildings and never thought much about the people memorialized on their facades. Once I left a campus behind, such names were quickly filed in the inaccessible part of my brain. Unfortunately for Coffman, Coffey, Middlebrook and Nicholson, some students did take time to think about them. What they discovered was more nuanced than the ideal: This person didn’t think about people like me. This person profiled
“I believe
the days are numbered when the generosity of lone individuals is enough to ensure that their names will be on the tongues of generations of future students. ”
students, used shady means to gain political ends, abided prejudice, or was otherwise not what this university should condone. Such is the peril of placing the weight of legacy on a dead man’s (or woman’s) shoulders. The closer you look at the life of giants, the smaller and meaner and more human they become. In an age where the tectonic plates of history are continually shifting, how confident can we be in the moral strength of the shoulders we stand on? Perhaps such philosophical questions will soon become moot, anyway. Putting names to academic buildings is also a matter of dollars and cents. After all, buildings do not erect and fund themselves. I believe the days are numbered when the generosity of lone individuals is enough to ensure that their names will be on the tongues of generations of future students. Just look at the names on newly constructed or remodeled sporting venues at the U of M, like TCF Bank Stadium. These are clearly corporate enterprises now. Will libraries, research labs and dormitories soon follow suit? Wouldn’t surprise me at all. So what will those four U of M buildings become should the name changes get finalized? At least for now, they will become what they already were: Student Union, Agricultural Administration Building, West Bank Residence Hall. Kind of boring, right? Sort of like having a Student Center or a Library and Learning Center or a Midway Center (okay, so we don’t technically “have” that one). But Metro State’s history and building names must wait for the second installment of “What’s in a name?” I’ll look at our legacy in next month’s newspaper.
What do students gain with the game studies minor? The minor consists of four courses and 16 credits. Core curriculum is three courses: Children, Adolescents, and the Media; Video Game Culture; and Writing for Video Games. For the fourth course, students pick an elective from an approved list. Layne says the core courses explore games as a creative medium and investigate their impact on users. “Games are worthy of attention and investigation at a higher level and the minor provides the setting to do that,” says Layne. Why make game studies a major? Gaming is steadily increasing in popularity and expanding into other markets. “Everyone wants to gamify everything and make everything like a game,” Layne explains. “The Mayo Clinic is wanting to gamify their patient portal.” For the major to come together, additional courses must be added. Programming, coding and game development classes will be key to powering up students’ skills. Graduates of the game studies major would be primed to become video game developers for top companies like Nintendo, Electronic Arts, Sony and Sega. “You could also go and make your own indie studio and make your own games,” says Layne. “Making online interactive environments is our future.” Layne hopes to have the game studies major on the books within five years—though fall 2020 would be even better. “No one else has done it yet,” she says. “We have the first minor in the books, so we have a foothold in the door.” Layne finds things happen way faster at our university when there’s broad support. Metro State has the opportunity to take the top spot on the leaderboard in this emerging academic field. So, students, let's work together to level up to a game studies major.
Opinion
4
March 2019 LEFT: Duck Washington, seated, did double duty in “Periphery” at the Howard Conn Fine Arts Center in February 2019. On stage, he played the role of Billy. Behind the scenes, he directed the Youth Performance Company production. Kyle Dekker, standing, is the character Red. TOP RIGHT: Sophie Prock, left, plays Debbie in “Periphery” at the Howard Conn Fine Arts Center in February 2019. Andy Gamble shares the stage as Mike. The play was produced by Youth Performance Company, a Twin Cities-based theatre. BOTTOM RIGHT: Michael Seye, left, is Eugene and Arianna Richardson is Deidre in “Periphery.”
Brandon General / The Metropolitan
Connecting past to present at the ‘Periphery’ BRANDON GENERAL Opinion Writer
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been intrigued by stories of underdogs overcoming tremendous obstacles to achieve something significant. Now, I have had the privilege of being a character in one such story playing out on a stage in Minneapolis. Feb. 24, 2019 was the final day of “Periphery” at the Howard Conn Fine Arts Center on Nicollet Avenue. Produced by the Youth Performance Company (YPC), the play was originally scheduled for 20 shows during a 15-day run. But due to February’s freezing temps and record snowfalls, I am sorry to say that two shows were cancelled. The play is based on the true story of four black students attending North Carolina A&T State University in 1960. The students protested Jim Crow laws by boldly taking seats at segregated lunch counters. They outraged supporters of the oppressive laws. In doing so, they sparked a movement that would change the law of the land altogether. “Periphery” is a powerful story—but it hit even closer to home for me. My grandparents were students at that same school in Greensboro. The two lovebirds met on the A&T campus in spring 1952. At first glance my grandmother, Betty, said she thought my grandfather, Leroy, was “quite a handsome rascal.” Leroy was a confident Army veteran who had returned to college after serving in the Korean War. Betty was an accounting major who worked hard to maintain her place on the honor roll. The duo quickly became inseparable. They once even attended a homecoming game in matching sweaters. Both had graduated by the time the lunch counter sit-ins began, but they always kept
up with the developing news at their beloved alma mater. They were extremely proud of how those students conducted themselves throughout that difficult period. Despite everything they endured, they kept their “Aggie Pride” alive. That pride in the A&T mascot sprang from a faith that the school, through the perseverance of its students, could overcome oppressive Jim Crow laws. As a college student myself, acting in “Periphery” became a delicate balancing act. Long school days ended with even longer nights of rehearsal—but it was all worth it. The cast was not only very talented, but extremely dedicated and supportive of one another. We became like family. I found myself assisting whenever possible. For example, I took headshots for a castmate with an upcoming audition. I’d never taken a headshot before. But when someone gives me the opportunity to do something new, it makes me work that much harder to do it right. This photo essay—my first—is the result. True growth comes through trial and error, and mistakes often take us to where we’re meant to be in the first place. The creative arts—whether through acting, writing or generating media—enable me to thrive. I stumbled upon theater by accident. By attempting to act like someone I’m not, I discovered who I really am. Not someone who stands at the periphery, but an active participant, a risk taker.
Opinion: Socialism is not a dirty word DOMINIQUE HLAVAC Staff Writer
To older generations, it’s a dirty word synonymous with communism, Marxism and the elimination of personal property. Socialism: it’s scary, it’s an epithet, it’s anti-American. Only it’s not any of those things. To my generation, socialism means something completely different. To us, it is not merely a political ideology, but a way of living. I’m currently employed as a dispatcher for a local plumbing company. During the subzero cold snap back in late January, we received a barrage of panicked phone calls about burst or frozen pipes. Our plumbers worked quite a bit of overtime during those few days, braving the cold to help our neighbors. Of course, our plumbers get paid to be on the clock and the homeowners paid to have their pipes fixed. People helping people is the only way to pull through Minnesota winters—or survive any trying time. My point is that coming to the aid of one another in the most dire circumstances is a prime example of what socialism means to millennials. If we are to move forward as a healthy, progressive society, taking care of one another is imperative. Socialism does not have to mean a dramatic overhaul of legislation or public policy. At its very core, socialism means looking out for each other. It can mean helping your neighbor mow their lawn or carry their groceries inside. It can mean bailing out your parents’ basement when it floods. It can mean helping a stranger change a tire on the side of the freeway. I bet you volunteer, donate
goods or funds, and help others in thousands of small ways. Relying on the people around us for guidance and assistance, regardless of whether or not we know them personally, is socialism. The word “social” indicates a sense of collaboration and seeking input from those around us. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are all examples of socialist policies. Federal health care insurance ensures that we are able to receive the medical care we need as we age. Social Security sets up a financial safety net for us as we age and are no longer able to work. Socialist policies seek to take care of not only ourselves as individuals, but ourselves as a society. As I see it, socialism is not compatible with a society based on rugged individualism. We’re so isolated these days. We stick to our own schedules, stay out of other people’s business (some of us more than others) and believe that success is only dependant upon how hard we are willing to work as individuals. The self-made man is a myth and a dangerous mentality. In striving only for individual success, we lose sight of how much more we can achieve as a community. We can and should lean on each other. In crafting public policy, a group of people working together is so much more effective. Together, we can draw out more diverse, creative solutions to our most intractable problems: climate change, poverty, racial disparities, health care inequalities. No person is an island; no one person can do it all. We need to embrace socialism for its true definition: collective solutions to community problems. Socialism means we all contribute—and we are all better for it.
Student Life
Glad to be grads
5
Margot Barry / The Metropolitan
Ya-Hsin Hsueh, left, Chin-Yu Yu and Huei-Cin Chen take selfies in their caps and gowns outside New Main on the St. Paul campus on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019. The three business administration majors graduate at the end of spring semester and will walk in the commencement exercises at the Minneapolis Convention Center on April 27. They attended the Grad Expo in the Great Hall to purchase their regalia.
Newspaper staff attends journalism conference ABOVE RIGHT: Jana Shortal, KARE 11 broadcast journalist, delivers the keynote address at the Associated Collegiate Press Best of the Midwest College Journalism Convention in Minneapolis on Feb. 16, 2019. She talked about the sexism and genderism she faces as a television anchor and queer woman. “You hear a lot that journalists should be unbiased, but journalists are human beings in the world,” she said. “When you try to be someone else, turns out your work sucks.”
Brandon General / The Metropolitan
ABOVE LEFT: The Metropolitan’s fourthplace Best of Show Award presented at the Associate Collegiate Press Best of the Midwest awards ceremony on Feb. 17, 2019. All photos: Margot Barry / The Metropolitan
General is an individualized studies major at Metro State. He is a portrait photographer and a student in ARTS 115 Introduction to Photography this semester.
Send us your story ideas! We'd love to hear from you. Email:
TheMetropolitan@metrostate.edu
March 2019
Brandon General / The Metropolitan
BOTTOM LEFT: Design editor Dominique Hlavac, left, and editor-in-chief Kathryn Ganfield accept The Metropolitan’s fourth-place win at the Associated Collegiate Press Best of the Midwest awards ceremony on Feb. 17, 2019. BOTTOM RIGHT: Professor James Densley, second from left, speaks on a panel on de-escalation practices for journalists at the Associated Collegiate Press Best of the Midwest College Journalism Convention in Minneapolis on Feb. 16, 2019. Densley is associate professor of criminal justice at Metropolitan State University. His suggestion to journalists faced with chaos and crisis on the job? “First piece of advice: do not take it personally,” he said. “A crisis is not logical, and you are not going to rationalize your way out of it.” The panel was moderated by Chris Ison of the University of Minnesota, and included Sgt. Mike Ernster, St. Paul Police, and Mark Vancleave, Star Tribune visual journalist.
Student Life Students see social psych conference 6
March 2019
Library offers open invite to Game Night
Tech Graduating? You don’t get to keep your .edu email
MARGOT BARRY Reporter
Courtesy of Rachel Hagen
Metro State psychology student Camille Smith, presents her research poster at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology convention in February 2019. Smith is a student of Dr. Kerry Kleyman. Metropolitan State University psychology students attended the annual convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in Portland, Oregon, February 7–9. The annual convention of the SPSP is an international event that draws more than 3,800 social and personality psychologists. Attendees from academia,
government, and the nonprofit and private sector present and discuss the latest research. It’s an opportunity to network, collaborate on projects and pursue professional development. SPSP is unique from other psychology conferences in that it allows college students to delve into a multitude of social psychology sessions as part of the main
Intersectionality of international law and social psychology RACHEL HAGEN Reporter
I attended the international law preconference at SPSP 2019. As the title indicates, speakers came from around the world, including the Netherlands and Australia. Dr. Evelyn Maeder’s presentation on disproportionate minority representation in the Canadian criminal justice system to be extremely compelling. She is faculty member of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University in Canada. Maeder began by addressing Canada’s history of cultural genocide and violence towards Indigenous communities
and discussed how this oppressive past still resonates in 2019. Historical trauma refers to the harm experienced by an individual and the intergenerational impacts. Survivors of crimes against humanity, like the Holocaust or Japanese internment camps, have recently been studied through a cumulative trauma perspective. Maeder provided disturbing statistics that demonstrate the overrepresentation of Indigenous persons in Canadian prisons. Her research is designed to assess jurors’ perceptions of Indigenous defendants. She designed the experimental study to manipulate the salience of race during a mock trial to observe whether it increased or
conference, but also to attend one-day preconference sessions. These sessions dive deeper into specific areas of social psychology, like emotion, gender, sexuality, and parenting and family dynamics. Students can engage with leading researchers and be introduced to data not yet published. Five Metro State psychology students attended the 2019
decreased prejudicial attitudes towards Indigenous defendants. Interestingly, the results were not as predicted and increased salience in race resulted in increased prejudice towards the defendant, which is the opposite finding of similar studies conducted in the United States. Having data collection refute—or at least not support your hypothesis— is extremely common in experimental science and requires researchers to eliminate their own biases and explore alternative variables. I think Maeder’s work addressing prejudice is extremely important considering the current political climate. I appreciated her inclusion of historical context and discussion of how colonialism and white supremacy permeate our modern institutions and perpetuate oppression of Indigenous communities.
conference with funding from the Student Activity Fees Allocation Committee (SAFAC). Gem Carr, Danielle Elia, Rachel Hagen, Eric Muchow and Camille Smith prepared for the conference months in advance, submitting their funding request to SAFAC in December 2018. Here are some of their reflections on the conference.
What is social psychology? “The study of the
manner in which the personality, attitudes, motivations, and behavior of the individual influence and are influenced by social groups.”
Source: Merriam-Webster
Talking technology, surveying social media and digging into big data DANIELLE ELIA Guest Writer
As cell phones and social media become more pertinent and permanent in our lives, psychologists investigate how to use these technologies to our advantage and their influence on human behavior. At a preconference session on the psychology of media and technology, I first heard from Dr. Juliana Schroeder, a behavioral scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. She described the dehumanizing consequences of communication technology, and the differences between how people talk versus text message. People talk using semantic, paralinguistic and visual cues. She contrasted that with how people write and read. How does reading a text differ from hearing it? When people hear or see the speaker, they get paralinguistic cues that im-
prove mental content and capacity. They get a sense of the speaker’s thoughts and feelings. But texting does not have offer what linguists call “backchanneling”—words like “uh huh” and “yeah.” Texting produces less content too; just 5080 words per minute in texting versus 130-200 words per minute when speaking. Schroeder said text interactions are more removed and asynchronous. On the other, she said texting can allow for conflict and confrontation because there isn’t the fear of seeing the person Sometimes people get to know each other better by text because they feel less anxious about asking questions. Speaking is spontaneous— less polished and inhibited— while texting is more methodic. Speaking is more humanizing than writing, she said. The second speaker was Dr. Bradley Okdie, an associate professor at Ohio State University. He talked about burdensome
Facebook friends and his research on whether Facebook friends can cause people pain. Burdensome Facebook friends are those who post overbearing messages, post frequently or spark negative emotion. People tend to socially exclude such contacts by unfriending, blocking or hiding them in their timeline. Okdie said social interactions can cause pain, whether physical or psychological. Burdensome friends have a negative and ostracizing effect. People retreat from such online friends, like they would in real life, but instead of walking away, they exclude. People who have a higher tolerance are less likely to exclude, said Okdie. Dr. Tara Behrend, an associate professor at George Washington University, discussed surveillance and the ethics of “big data.” According to research on the use of surveillance in the workplace, most people think it improves performance and feedback—but it also makes workers feel they are
giving up privacy and freedom. She said the word surveillance has a negative connotation, while monitoring is more positively connotated. Most people support surveillance if it results in punishment for coworkers who don’t do their jobs. But people are more concerned about looking productive themselves when under workplace surveillance. Monitoring and surveillance brings forth the ethical issue of autonomy. If companies want to use monitoring systems, they need to use it for good—giving feedback, reminding coworkers of tasks—and there needs to be transparency. This session on media and technology gave me new insights into a changing, evolving field of psychology. Research in this area can be conducted and utilized by many disciplines, among them organizational, industrial and behavioral psychology. I learned the importance of understanding social media and the positive and negative effects on its users.
Candy Land. Dixit. Dominion. Playstation. NES. SNES. Switch! This is just a small sample of what students can find at Game Night, held on the third Tuesday of the month in the first-floor lounge of the Library and Learning Center. Games and snacks are free for Metro State and East Side community members from 4-7 p.m. For four years, the Metro State Library has co-hosted the event with the Dayton’s Bluff branch of the St. Paul Public Library. Most months, 20-30 people show up to try out the libraries’ collections of video games and 80-plus board games. Kids face off with parents. Students against faculty. Hardbound book borrowers versus nimble digital downloaders. And the host librarians? Not mere observers—they’re gamers too. Metro State librarians Zorian Sasyk and Jennifer DeJonghe serve as point people for the monthly gathering. For them, Game Night is about living the library’s mission to collaborate, engage and be inclusive. They work with faculty and organizations on campus to get the word out about the event—and bring fun and games into classrooms. DeJonghe said the library worked with community faculty member Debra Ricci to offer a noncompetitive game on the last day of her class. They are talking with Lavender Bridge, Metro State’s LGBTQ+ student organization, about hosting a “GAYme” event this semester. When Metro State hosted the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs annual meeting in October 2018, library staff brought games from Asia to the Great Hall. On Game Nights, every tabletop in the lounge is covered in colorful cards, playing pieces and pawns. Every screen is ablaze with avatars. Every seat is taken. “It’s nice to have a place to come to,” said one dice-rolling community member. “I was looking for more social things to do, and the people who run it are great,” said Samara Garrett, a computer science major attending a recent Game Night. Now she’s a regular. Students can use their Metro State ID to borrow from the library’s extensive collection of board games. Visit the help desk on the first floor of the Library to view the list of available games. For more information on Game Night, see metrostate.edu/calendar/gamen i g ht- at- t h e - l i b ra r y - 1 8 9 9 1 . The next Game Night is Tuesday, April 16. A spin-off event focusing on board games will be held Wednesday, March 27, 4-7 p.m. in the Student Center, room 201.
Got a story? Share it with us at:
themetropolitan@metrostate.edu
7
March 2019
SANDIP RAI Staff Writer
A student email account means perks and deals. A free 6-month Amazon Prime membership. Fifty-percent discounts on Spotify, Hulu and Apple Music. One terabyte of Microsoft OneDrive storage. Free GitHub for student software developers. A .edu email address is certainly a doorway to savings. The university gives us Outlook to access our student email account. With its clean interface on the web and mobile apps, Outlook stands alongside
Want to save your emails?
Gmail as the top email services. But as our college days come to a close, so do our student email accounts. Unlike free email services like Gmail and Yahoo, students only get access to the university-provided Microsoft Outlook email and its services for a certain period after graduation. A lot of students use their student email as their primary email for communication and other services throughout their college years. Losing access to your metrostate.edu account means losing all those years of valuable emails and conversations. That’s a difficult reality. University policy 1050 governs email use, including how long student email accounts remain active. According to Sara Solland, director of IT Services, that policy is currently under review. As it stands now, new students can access their email ac-
count for one year after being admitted to Metro State—even if they don’t enroll in a class. Students who have taken a class can access email for three years after their last semester. “The best thing students can do to prepare for moving away from their Metropolitan State email account is to make sure to do so prior to the three-year mark after their last active semester,” Solland said in an email. She said the university will alert students if the email policy is updated or changed. Metro State’s policy is in the middle ground compared to other universities. St. Cloud State University deactivates student email starting nine months after graduation and deletes them after a year. But the University of Minnesota? It offers students access to their email account forever. Wouldn’t that be nice for Metro State?
►Using the Outlook app on your computer, go to File > Open & Export > Import/Export > Export to a file > Outlook Data File (.pst) / CSV.
►You can export your emails exported in either a .pst or CSV (comma separated values) format. The .pst format is the better option as it is simpler to import into another Outlook app or other email service.
►Have you used your student email as your login on any websites? Be sure to change your preferred login email ID to a different email on those sites and services. You don’t want to get locked out after you lose access to your student email.
March 2019 Arts & Entertainment Alumnus Raymond Strom lets first novel fly
8
Debut novelist returns to Minnesota to share “Northern Lights” with receptive crowd MARGOT BARRY Reporter
To promote his first novel, Metro State alumnus Raymond Strom returned to familiar ground: Minnesota. He once called small towns in the North Star state home, and they provided the inspiration for the coming-ofage story in “Northern Lights.” The story is told through the voice of Shane Stephenson, a teenager kicked out of his Grand Marais home on the day of his 1997 high school graduation. That launches Shane into a search for his mother in the economically depressed, meth-filled, identity-challenged small town of Holm, Minnesota. All these adjectives describe Shane too. As dark and bleak as this may sound, “Northern Lights” also offers happiness, self-realization and hope. The novel rides fine lines, paralleling drug abuse with friendship, and expectations with realities. Shane’s story shows the subtleties we all must manage in life. Before and during a reading on Feb. 27 at Subtext Books, an independent bookstore in downtown St. Paul, Strom shared the evolution of the novel. Strom was a high school student in Cambridge in central Minnesota in 1997. A fellow student drove around town with a Confederate flag flying from his truck. That image stuck with Strom. The author was born in Hibbing, on the Iron Range of Minnesota. He moved a lot as a child. His father, a Pamida store manager, relocated the family to small towns across North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Strom saw factories shutting down, trains stop running, Main Street stores closing. With growing competition from Walmart, work opportunities dwindled, and his family landed in Cambridge. In his novel, Strom writes “Holm wasn’t quite a ghost town but given half the stores were now abandoned it was clear something was eating away at it.” Holm is a fictional composite, but as Strom said at the reading, “those were the towns that I knew.” Strom attended Minneapolis Community and Technical College, earning an associate degree in liberal arts in 2003. He transferred to Metro State, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and English in 2008. He moved to New York City to pursue an MFA in creative writing at City College of New York. During those years, he took a trip to Texas with his MFA classmates. In a store full of cowboy boots, Strom said he found himself in the corner, “looking all sour.” His friends asked him what was wrong. “I hate this place,” he said. “I don’t buy boots, and this is why…” Strom told his friends about witnessing a Confederate flag revival back in Cambridge. Years later, one of these friends started a literary journal and Strom made a Kickstarter contribution to it. The grateful friend asked him to contribute a story, but Strom, deep into foreign language studies, had stopped writing. The friend persisted. He reminded Strom about that story from their Texas trip. So, Strom
Photo by Rhe De Ville
Raymond Strom’s author photo.
RAYMOND STROM Adjunct lecturer of English, undergraduate advisor City College New York EDUCATION •A.A., Minneapolis •Community and Technical College •B.A., Metropolitan State University •M.F.A., City College of New York BOOKS “Northern Lights” (Simon & Schuster, 2019)
Margot Barry / The Metropolitan
Raymond Strom, right, signs copies of “Northern Lights” for customers at Subtext Books in St. Paul.
Strom’s reflections from his time at Metro State: “As someone who worked full-time while also being a fulltime student, I didn't take advantage of the opportunities available at the college at all. I showed up for class, turned in my papers, talked to my teachers, and went home. But college should be an immersive experience—a place to make friends and connections, to network for future work opportunities. Fortunately, I was able to have this experience when I went to grad school. But if my description of college reminds you of your own—and this is the academic advisor in me now—I'd suggest you slow down, look around, make some friends, and make the experiences that you want to have. Join a club or a PIRG [Public Interest Research Group] or go on a study abroad trip.”
Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
It appeared to be a traditional community get-together, like a swap meet or a rummage sale, until Svenson arrived with a Confederate flag mounted in the bed of his truck, cutting through the crowd like the fin of a great shark. - From “Northern Lights” wrote a short story based on that event, “Sisyphus and Lucifer.” Of his own accord, the editor-friend added a line to Strom’s bio, saying he was writing a novel. It wasn’t true. But an agent read the short story and called Strom to inquire about the novel. Strom found himself quickly writing what he referred to as, “the worst first draft ever.” Still, the agent saw something in Strom’s efforts. Through re-writes over three-plus years, Strom produced a draft that was ready to pitch in June 2017. Following the 2016 presidential election, his agent emailed him: “Unfortunately, your book has become much more relevant.” The work-in-progress accelerated. He fit plotting and writing around his full-time work. After receiving his MFA, Strom became an adjunct lecturer of English at City College, and currently serves the school as an undergraduate advisor in the humanities and arts.The author’s personal journey at times parallels his protagonist Shane Stephenson’s. During the audience Q&A, Strom
was candid about pulling from personal experience to write the book. An audience member asked what the biggest difference between him and the character of Shane. He responded that Shane is a lot nicer. “As a seventeen-year-old, he has a lot more integrity [than I did],” Strom said. He noted he was a lot more like the other characters in the book, selling everything he had to his hands on drugs. Strom described Shane as “almost more of a tourist. He showed up for a couple months. Where we [in real life] had been going through this for years.” “We do share an appearance,” he added with a laugh. “But that was mainly because I wanted to have him to suffer through the same thing I did, I guess.” The Subtext bookstore event was well-attended. The guests were old friends, professors, and an assortment of new-toStrom readers, all engaged. There was no shortage of questions during the Q&A, both personal and professional. The final question of the night: “Is there anything you want readers
to take away from the book?” “I really just wanted it to be a portrait of this time, the area, and these people, just so people can see what’s going on over here,” Strom said. “There’s a lot of talk, especially within New York,” he said. “People just don’t really understand what’s going on [in terms of the meth crisis]. They think it’s a random white trash problem. They write it off as these people don’t know any better, so they ended up that way.” “They think it doesn’t matter, but it does.” In an interview with The Metropolitan, Strom was asked to offer advice to student writers working on identity and theme. He suggested writing 3-4 pages every morning—and then don’t read them for a month. After that waiting period, go back through and pull out the good ideas, Strom said. “Out of 120 pages, you might keep 10.” He also recommended having a job to pay the bills, and preferably one that gives you time to write in the morning when the mind is fresh. “Jobs that deal with people are good for content,” he said. “But the
biggest thing is reading everything.” What about writer’s block? Strom said to “just go do something else entirely.” When he’s stuck, he often turns to “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,” a self-help book by Julia Cameron. And when asked if he intends to revisit the characters of “Northern Lights” in future works, Strom paused. He wondered if Metro State still offers a class in Scandinavian immigrant literature, which he took as mail correspondence course. (The answer is “no;” LIT 367 has not been offered since the 2010-11 academic year.) Strom fondly recalled two books from that Metro State course: O.E. Rølvaag’s “Giants of the Earth” and Vilhelm Morberg’s series “The Emigrants.” They center on Sweden’s 19th century stagnating social fabric which pushed many to emigrate to the U.S. He thinks that stagnation may not be much different than what occurs in his imagined town of Holm. So perhaps in Strom’s future books, readers may meet “Northern Lights” characters again.