Zaira Ortiz TECHNEWS WRITER On Tuesday, November 4, 2014, you may have noticed that between 5 pm. to 6:30 pm, campus was a bit quieter than usually it is. You may have thought that the quietness was due to the weather, students hiding in their dorms, or even professors letting students out of class a few minutes early. The truth is that all the cool kids on campus were at the Net- working Do’s and Don’ts Workshop organized by the Latinos Involved in Further Education (LIFE) and Hispanic Alliance for Career En- hancement (HACE). As the event began, students imme— diately filled all the seats in Wishnick 116. As the student traffic increased, LIFE and HACE members served free Chipotle to all attendees. The atmosphere in Wishnick 116 serenaded students with the soft musical sound of chips crunching in the background. In a profession- al setting with a talented speaker and Chipotle food, there was no better place to be on cam- pus. Once the food was served, it was show time! Guest speaker Bruce Mueller took the spotlight at 5:30 pm. Forty-six students attended the workshop, ranging from first years students all the way to graduate level students. The di— Student newspaper of the Illinois Institute of Technology since 1928 LIFE, HACE present networking workshop versity was immense, but even in a room that could not hold a more diverse bunch of people, Mueller was able to deliver valuable informa- tion that catered to the professional needs of everyone there, To list a few examples of the diversity, the room was filled with business stu— dents, engineering students, architecture stu- dents, humanities students, first years, second years, third years, fourth years, graduate stu- dents, and so on. In an engaging environment, students of all backgrounds found themselves participating actively in the workshop. Some Photo by Zatm Ortiz students took notes, others were actively en— gaged in conversation with the guest speaker, and others had a lot of fun while learning. The energy in the room was incredible. technewsiit.com OP‘INION 2 CAMPUS 2-5 SGA 5 SLIPSTICK 7 SPORTS 7 Before attendees left, they were re- quired to take a brief survey describing their satisfaction with the workshop. The first ques- tion on the survey asked whether or not stu- dents liked the workshop. With yes or no as the only two options, everyone who attended the networking event unanimously responded with, “Yes.” In addition, the yes was such a strong yes that students felt inclined to leave comments of appreciation, enjoyment, and love for the event on the comments line. The Networking Do’s and Don’ts Workshop is symbolic in many ways. First of all, it is a symbolic representation of the diversity within IIT, and how that diversity is nurtured, encouraged, and valued. Second, this workshop represented professional unity within the IIT community, and how within IIT we already have a network surrounding us. Fi- nally, it represented how successful and fun an event can be, when students become involved. The Networking Do’s and Don’ts Workshop held by LIFE and HACE was the perfect stu— dent output to IIT’s professor input. If you want to know what profes— sional tips were given at the Networking Do’s and Don’ts Workshop follow LIFE and HACE at UT on Facebook. Also, if you missed this workshop don’t worry. LIFE and HACE are planning more! TechNews application demonstrates unprecedented administrative overreach Kyle Stanevich BUSINESS MANAGER “This is ridiculous,” said Kori Bowns, current Editor-in—Chief of TechNews, when discuss- ing the application process for WIIT Station Manager and the TechNews Editor-in-Chief. For the first time ever, the selection process for these positions are being held by the Office of Campus Life (OCL) instead of the student organization. Within TechNews, many are fu- rious by this most recent staff overreach. I am not involved with WIIT, so this article will not focus on it, and instead will tell the story of TechNews. However, the WIIT Station Manager, Kevin Zheng, did not seem to have any trouble with the change, saying “Organizations like WIIT, TechNews, Union Board, Student Government Association (SGA), Greek Council, etc. get a yearly op- erating budget for their student organization and in exchange the school gets some say in how the organization is run” For many years. the TechNews Ed- itor-in-Chief has retained their position until they graduated o'r determined» it was a good time to step down from‘the position. The prec- edent for the process indicates that the current Editor-in—Chief reaches out to TechNews ad- visors and key stafl‘ and students to org ' ' a small panel to interview possible can TechNews is IIT’s student-run newspaper,an just like my other student organization, the Organization“ 15 internally responsible for their .'_ own executive board. There is. no flurd-party interfering with the way the executive board is elected, nor would any organization want this in the first place. The people who are most involved know how the organization open ates; therefore, they know what kind of people will guide the organization down a successful path. However, this time around, the Editor-in—Chief of TechNews is not being ap- pointed in the usual way. The Office of Cam— pus Life is heading up the process to find the next Editor-in-Chief. While OCL’s Ryan Miller has been on the TechNews selection panel in the past, the Editor-in-Chief leading the process invited him because of his involve- ment with the university and organization. Even though OCL has been partial- ly involved in the past, TechNews has always retained complete control of the selection pro- cess. This selection, however, TechNeWS staff were kept out of the loop. The Editor-in-Chief had no knowledge of the OCL-initiated pro- cess until a few weeks ago, nor did the rest of the staff till she organized a debriefing about what had happened. Unanimously, the TechNews stafl' , agreed that OCL was overstepping their bounds; What’s worse is that the application was made without involving any of the Tech- News stall". More importantly. the TechNews adviser Gregory Pulliam, was not aware of . the application until the Editor-in-Chief in~ formedhim. Whilehe doestakeahandseoff’ approach for advising, something that Tech» .__ ‘ .fl _ News appreciates, he still is kept in the Iohp' .. - about TechNews happenings. Especially given . » that he‘is a faculty advisor, he should have: . n tilled of.this.,- example, one of the questions asks, “How will 1' ",EvenifOCLwantedtorunthesew; lection process, they should have at least con-_ . tacted someone from TechNews todeter‘tnine . ' what should be asked on the application. For you attract new editors to TechNews?" How— ever, this is not what TechNews needs at the time, just the opposite. They have an excess of editors, just barely making enough ad revenue to pay them all. A more appropriate question would have replaced “editors” with “writers.” Another question asks about an applicant’s leadership experience, but. this is not the most important prerequisite for TechNews. Accord- ing to the Editor-in-Chief, her job is less about leadership than it is management and sticking to the weekly production schedule and mak- ing sure TechNews hits the newsstands on time every Tuesday morning. According to Ryan Miller, Associate Vice Provost for Campus Life, “The Editor-in- Chief gets to manage a budget of advertising dollars." This is not true. The Editor-in~Chief has very little to do with the finances of Tech- News, and instead is all done by the Business Manager, Kyle Stanevich, and the faculty fi- nancial advisor, Vickie Talbert. If some time was taken to ask exactly what the Editor-in- Chief of TechNews does, or just to visit the TechNews stall job. descriptions online, these problems could have been avoided, assum- ing TechNews was willing to have achange in leadership at this point. These problems might stem}; in Katherine Knight. According to: Ryan Miller ' “campus Life has taken a larger role in ad- vertis‘in'g the pusitions this finie around due .. .,-..;to Katherine Knight, a graduate assistant, Working in our oflice this year. Part of her ' responsibilities is to help student media orga- . , nizations in their work with the HT commu- I pity. It 18 great that there" is _a- person in charge "of assisting student media outreach the HT communitybut that does not mean that an unprecedented application process for the or- ganizations should be organized. If TechNews was having trouble reaching the student body, or had become separated from the needs of the IIT, then at least there is a designated per— son to get advice from. However, this is not a problem TechNews has at this time. Knight had previously tried to con- tact TechNews leadership to learn general information about TechNews by setting up meeting, but they were unable to get a meet- ing time set up. Maybe if she were to mention that OCL was considering selecting a new Editor-in-Chief on behalf of TechNews, this meeting would have been given a higher pri- ority. As it stands now, it is too late. For most students, their reading experience shouldnot be afi‘ected by this ap— plication process, assuming that an involved and capable member of TechNews is selected (ideally Downs), or OCL decides to cancel the TechNews application. But it does bring up. one question of where HT is willing to go. « If they are willing to stick their hands into the internal workings of TechNews and WIIT, what else are they willing to do? Appoint the SGA president? Make obscene re- quests of the Greek houses, and deny resourc- es for service-based IIT'Vor'ganizations? These are just Eavfew examples of what could happen if problems such as this‘are never dealt'with. Without student opposition, ' administration r will continue-lo weaseltheir warm: ofstickr situations by bullshitting‘i the suidents, instead of taking time to listen to concerns and at- tempt to correct any problems. ” (More opinions in Page '2)