Tuesday, September 20th, 201 6 | TechNews

Staff Spotlight:

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Khaleela Zarnan
TECH N EWS WRITER

Passing by the Office of Campus
Life (OCL) in the MTCC, the more seasoned
students probably have noticed the different
office set—up and different person behind the
desk that used to be Ryan Miller’s. Please
do not be alarmed! Ryan Miller has simply
moved to an office closer to the International
Center, and this new person is super nice and
welcoming, ready to help with anything you
may need OCL—wise. Currently in her fourth
month as the OCL Administrative Associate,
Stephanie Glover is now “the front face of
OCL.” Stephanie mostly handles the purchase
requests and finances for all the student
organizations on campus. For all the treasurers
out there, Glover is the one in OCL who
reviews and takes care of all those Hakaink
purchase requests that are submitted. She also
acts as an assistant to Miller, which basically
equates to her being involved with “a little bit
of everything for Campus Life.”

While previously working at Purdue
University, Glover conveniently came across
this job opportunity with Illinois Tech on
HigherEd]obs.com, and “it was a very smooth
transition here.” She is definitely happy taking
on this new position, and she has been loving
all the interaction with students as well as
the fast—paced environment. Her favorite

part about her new position is hands—down
the “heavy contact with students”—getting to
know them as they get to know her, allowing
students to realize they can rely on her, and the
fulfillment of knowing she has helped student
organizations create successful events.

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Photo by Khaleela Zaman

Surprisingly, Glover has yet to run
into too many challenges, although she is
sure she will with more time in her position—
not that there have been no challenges so far.
The one thing she has run into are problems
involving pizzas and receipts: “Getting receipts

Stephanie Glover, OCL

from pizza orders is the biggest challenge
I’ve had so far.” So, if a student organization
happens to order some pizza, Glover would
really, really appreciate the receipt being given
to her.

As far as Illinois Tech in general,
Glover absolutely loves “how Illinois Tech
involves their staff into the culture.” For
example, during Homecoming this past week,
the staff was invited and so were their families,
allowing staff to “feel like [they’re] truly a part
of the campus community.”

If Stephanie Glover could give
Illinois Tech students a bit of advice, she
encourages every student to “really take
advantage of everything.” By attending classes
students will develop their education, and
combining that with involvement in student
organizations provides opportunities for
developing social skills among other things.
Glover is the one in OCL who is given a credit
card to purchase the various items requested
by student organizations on campus, so she
knows the Student Activities Fund (SAF) is
truly given back to the students through all
the student organizations. She also believes
that experiences have an impact like no other,
and it is “so great to have an experience outside
your normal.” Therefore, consider joining
“things outside your normal life,” and those
experiences more than anything “will stay with
you forever.”

International Students Feature: China

Alexandra Detweiler
TECH N EWS WRITER

If you aren’t an international
student, you most definitely know one. Take
any route through campus and you’ll overhear
a conversation in another language, turn your
head at a phone call you don’t understand,
or fail to read a poster full of characters you
don’t recognize. In an effort to more deeply
understand this large population at Illinois
Tech, this International Students Feature will
act as a chance for readers to understand how
life in other countries differs from life here at
Illinois Tech.

This week, three international
students from the Chinese Students and
Scholars Association (CSSA) were asked what
they thought were the biggest differences
between life in the US and in China. Siyu
Wang, a graduate student studying marketing,
immediately answered, “Lots of things. The
food, of course. China is really about food.”
While American food consists of, in her words,
“burgers and hot dogs,” Chinese food is much
more diverse and has a longer, richer history.
However, Wang wasn’t too bitter about the
drastic diet change. “For me, it’s okay.” Wang

continued. “I try lots of different kinds of food.
I’m not so typically focused on Chinese food.
I like Indian food, actually.” In contrast, Lei
Yan, a graduate student studying electrical
engineering, doesn’t like the food here as
much. “I think Chinese food is better,” Yan
confessed. “I can’t adapt to [American food].
It’s very different. Chinese food has so many
spices and we can [eat] different food every
day Chinese food has so many kinds.”
Yisu Yuan, a graduate student also studying
electrical engineering, agreed with Yan,
mentioning that he also did not like the food in
America as much. Yuan commented, “America
has a lot of food from different cultures. But as
for American food, I think it’s only burgers and
sandwiches. And also they’re only serving very
large sizes.” Yuan continued, saying, “In my
family, every time we had a meal, we must have
rice. But here, it’s like a lot of meat.” However,
Yuan did go on to say that he feels lucky to
live so close to Chinatown. Every time he feels
homesick, he can easily travel there and enjoy
a meal that tastes more like home.

All three students also pointed
out differences between school here versus
school in China. Before saying anything else,
Wang lamented, “Books are really expensive

here.” Wang completed her Bachelor’s degree
in China and said she was used to buying
books for 20 RMB, or three US dollars.
Additionally, according to Wang, classes are
more lecture—based in China. In America,
they are more hands—on and collaborative.
“Here, you have more projects,” Wang says.
“You have to invite some partners to do it as a
team.” Lei Yan commented on the same topic,
saying, “Research here [is] different [it]
is interdisciplinary.” Yan’s major is electrical
engineering, yet he says he frequently works
with students of different disciplines like
computer science. Another difference between
schooling in the US and China, according to
all three international students, is that there
is more pressure on university students in
America. While many Americans believe in
the stereotype that Chinese students are placed
upon more pressure, this is not necessarily
true. According to Yuan, the belief that
Chinese schools are harder than American
ones holds true only for high school. It is very
important for Chinese high school students to
perform well due to a college entrance exam
after graduation that can only be taken once a
year. In Yuan’s words, “ [High School in China]
is hard. It’s really hard But once you enter

university, it’s a lot better. I think the university
here has more pressure than in China.”

The most obvious difference
between Chinese and American culture is the
language. Lei Yan thought that this change,
above all else, was the hardest to adjust to. In
fact, in Yan’s opinion, the transition between
cultures wouldn’t have been difficult if not for
the that barrier. According to him, there are
many aspects of life that are the same, but the
one thing that is most different is language. In
Yan’s own words, “Adapting to the life here is a
problem of language. If I could speak English
well, I could live here very well.”

China and the US are on opposite
sites of the globe, and for international
students, the differences in culture can be
overwhelming. In fact, according to Yuan,
“The first year I got here, I thought China
and America might be the most different
places in the world.” However, understanding
the difficulties that international students are
facing can make the transition easier, and
let others learn about what life is like in a
completely different culture.

Next week, look for a International Students
Feature on students from the Caribbean!

Election results revealed, new student organizations approved at SGA Senate meeting

Soren Spicknall
TECHNEWS WRITER

Illinois Tech’s Student Government
Association (SGA) cast aside its usual two—
week Senate meeting rotation on Wednesday,
September 14, holding a second such meeting
in as many weeks in order to reveal the results
of elections that had taken place the previous
three days for the incoming 2016—2017 Senate.
Since many Senate candidates were packed
into Stuart 113 to hear whether they would be
representing the students of their college this
coming academic year, Wednesday’s meeting
was also a chance for SGA’s current Senate
to run through the structure of its normal
business, giving incoming members a chance
to see how a typical meeting took place. Even
though most observers were present simply to
hear election results, those results were held
until the end of the meeting in order to put a
spotlight on how SGA generally functions.

To start off the meeting, current
SGA Executive Vice President Sonia Kamdar
introduced a revised set of rules for conduct

and speech. Dubbed “Sonia’s Rules” (after a
previous revision had been named “Mete’s
Rules” for the former Executive VP who
drafted them), changes included a strict limit
on discussion time per topic, a one—minute
limit on individual speaking terms, and other
items means to reduce circular discussion
and keep meeting length within a reasonable
time overall. These changes were based on
discussions held at the end of the previous
week’s Senate hearing about how Senate
meetings could be made more efficient and
accessible.

The next portion of the meeting,
as usual, was concerned with presentations
from prospective student organizations, which
must be approved by the Senate in order
to exist in an official capacity on campus.
The first two organizations, Chess Club and
Programming Club, were presented by the
same individual, a first—year Computer Science
student named Dan Rauch. Within their
individual disciplines, both clubs were very
similar in purpose, intended to focus on the
competitive facet of each topic. However, while

questions from Senators about Chess Club
were limited, the concept of a competition—
focused Programming Club brought much
more concern with it due to the ongoing
existence of an Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM) chapter on campus. Since
ACM serves as the professional development
organization for Computer Science students
and its national—level organization actually
hosts a number of the competitions that
Programming Club intended to participate
in, some Senators, as well as Finance Board
Chair Sung Min Choi Hong, were concerned
that creating a separate entity specifically for
competition programming might not make
sense, and might lead to an unnecessarily split
audience.

Rauch countered by claiming that
he had reached out to ACM prior to creating
his Programming Club proposal, and had
been rebuffed by ACM leadership who were
uninterested in forming a competitive group
or seeking funding for regional, national, and
international programming competitions. He
also pointed to strong online support for the

organization so far, citing 52 Facebook page
likes for a group that hadn’t even met yet. In
the end, the organization passed by a vote of
11 for, 4 against, and 1 abstaining; Chess Club
passed by a higher ratio of 13 for, 3 against,
and 0 abstaining. Many among the Senate,
though, including Communications VP Ielani
Canty, expressed concern about the Senate’s
willingness to vote through organizations
which were largely unstructured without
following up and aiding in their growth, and
proposed focusing on fostering a positive
relationship with new student organizations
this academic year to ensure they were
equipped with the tools and knowledge to
expand and continue to function over time.
The final proposed student
organization to present at the September 14
meeting was Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM),
a group that classifies itself as a religion, but
which originally rose from tongue—in—cheek

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