This map displays crime activity in cities across the United States. The large red tags indicates a city with a total crime rate in the top 20 locations. Cities in the western United States are represented by green dots, those in the midwest by yellow dots, southwest by red dots, northeast by blue dots and the southeast by purple dots. St. Louis is indicated by a large yellow tag.
BURLINGTON, N.C. – On Monday, Sept 30, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against North Carolina, stating that its new package of voting laws was “highly restrictive.”
The suit is geared toward four pieces of Bill 589, passed in August – including the requirement of photo ID, cuts to early voting, elimination of same-day registration in the early voting period, and the exclusion of counting provisional ballots by voters who voted in the wrong prescient. The lawsuit would also seek to place North Carolina back on a federal “pre-clearance” list.
But North Carolina is not the only state the Justice Department filed against. In August, it sued Texas because of the state’s new laws surrounding redistricting and its photo ID provisions.
So when did all of this disagreement over voting laws begin? Possibly in June, when the majority-Republican Supreme Court voted to remove a provision in the Voting Right’s Act that required eight states to get permission before changing election procedures – North Carolina and Texas were on that list.
While some support the DOJ’s suit against North Carolina and other states, Director of the Elon Poll, Dr. Kenneth Fernandez, said the new changes are just a result of a power shift.
“For the first time you have a Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature, and not just a small majority, but a super majority, in both houses,” Fernandez said. “That’s when republicans said, ‘We can do a lot of things that we’ve wanted to do for a very long time, but we haven’t been in power.’”
In fact, according to the most recent Elon Poll, most voters supported the new photo ID laws because it doesn’t seem like much of a burden. But does requiring a picture ID at the voting booth actually prevent voter fraud like legislators said it will? Most say no. In a report, it turns out that voter fraud is actually very low during elections.
“Who’s going to do that,” Fernandez said. “You’d have to know Kenneth Fernandez is registered at this precinct and he hasn’t voted yet, and I’m going to go and vote for him and vote for my candidate, well that would be easily caught.”
He said it’s not really the voter ID laws that will have the most impact on turnout, it’ll be the provisions that reduced early voting and same day-registration.
According to George McCue from the North Carolina Board of Elections, the early voting period will be reduced from almost two-and-a-half weeks, to only one-and-a-half weeks. But the number of hours will stay the same – voter locations will stay open for longer, just for fewer days.
Although there will be cuts to the early voting period, Director of the Alamance County Board of Elections Kathy Holland said people should not worry.
“Our hope is to be as proactive as we possibly can to make sure our voters know what’s going to be required of them,” Holland 
said.
She said that shortening the early voting period may be inconvenient now, but people will just have to be patient with the new changes.
“Anytime you have changes and you’re going through the process with as many people we’re involved with,” Holland said, “there’s going to be complications.”
“I think this is one of the best things that has actually happened about voting rights in NC,” Fernandez said. “It makes us think about things, it makes us appreciate, it makes us fight for our right to vote, and that’s good for politics.”
Five major points you need to know about for the new NC voter laws
- Voter ID
- Early Voting Cuts
- No more Same Day Registration during Early Voting
- Tying dates of Primaries to SC
- Changes to voting Machines
Abridged interview with Director of Elon Poll, Kenneth Fernandez
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When Elon University Professor Sirena Hargrove-Leak got her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of South Carolina in 2003, she didn’t know that she would become a sort of poster-child for women’s success in STEM careers.
Nonetheless, she did make her mark by becoming the first black-female to get an advance degree in chemical engineering from the University of South Carolina.
While this is certainly a milestone worth celebrating, the number of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, fields is still very low.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported the number of women in STEM careers, areas that are projected to have major growth, was only 24 percent.
But Hargrove-Leak thinks that even with that low number, there has been small progress in involving young women in STEM classes in schools.
“I remember teaching my first introduction to engineering class at Elon and I only had one female student,” she said.
Last spring, when Hargrove-Leak taught a freshman engineering class, there were eight females in the class.
“It’s interesting because here, it’s completely against the Elon ratio in the engineering classes,” Hargrove-Leak said. “Here, there are more males than females.”
And it’s true across the nation. Surveys from the Higher Education Research Institute found that number of freshman males planning to declare a major in a STEM field was 29 percent. For their female peers, the number was almost half that, at 19 percent.
But for Junior Danielle Cooke, who is majoring in biomedical engineering, the male to female ratio in the engineering school doesn’t bother her anymore.
“At first, I was super intimidated because I expected it to be all girls,” Cooke said. “But in my engineering classes, I’ve had the same group of guys for the three years, so we all know each other.”
While she is the only girl, or the minority, in most of her classes, Cooke said she’s never felt pressure to go out of her way to prove herself because she’s a girl. In fact, Cooke thinks being a woman in this field is actually advantageous.
“I think women offer a different perspective, and that makes the work environment a better place,” she said.
And senior Bio-Statistics major Kimi Peterson said that it makes sense for women to be in STEM classes because they’ve already got the skills.
“Girls are suited to work in science fields, because the field requires people who are organized and more prepared,” Peterson said. “Women usually have those traits.”
According to an article Paul Blundin from EduGuide, girl’s brains tend to be wired to do many things differently from boys when it comes to drawing conclusions, being productive, even handling boredom.
But if girls tend to have traits that would help them be successful in STEM careers, then why aren’t there more females in those fields?
Some argue that it just comes down to lower interests when girls are starting to decide on their fields of study in college.
And Professor of Statistics at Elon Ayesha Delpish says that that’s OK.
“I am a big proponent of women doing whatever they want to do,” Delpish said. “I think that women should do whatever they want to. What I am against is the saying that ‘Oh, you’re a girl and you can’t do that.’”
Initially, Delpish said she was not interested in math and hadn’t thought of a career in math.
“My interest growing up was English,” she said. “English anything. I never paid attention to math, until I didn’t do well on a quiz in math and my teacher said, ‘That’s OK, don’t worry. You have English.’”
It wasn’t until Delpish’s teacher brushed off her low score that she felt challenged to prove that she could be good at math.
“He said it was OK that I didn’t do well, and I wasn’t OK with that, ” she said.
While Delpish felt the push to succeed from that encounter with her teacher, for some girls, the subtle discouragement is often enough to change girls minds from pursuing STEM careers.
Hargrove-Leak thinks this is where being pro-active can be most effective.
“We have to make sure we’re getting the message out [that girls are good at math] as often and as early as possible,” she said. “Most of the work has to be done well before they get to the university.”
That’s why Hargrove-Leak said she includes a service-learning component in her class where her Elon students go to local elementary schools to perform hands-on projects with the kids.
In this setting, where kids perform small experiments and design challenges, Hargrove-Leak said that there are just as many girls in these classes as boys.
And that is true for most classrooms in the country, even well into high school.
65 percent of boys took Algebra 1 in their ninth or tenth grade year.
A study by the Civil Rights Data Collection showed that in 2012, the number of boys and girls taking Algebra 1 courses in ninth and tenth grade in high school was about equal – 65 and 64 percent, respectively.
But that number eventually drops off once students step onto campus.
In order to offer solutions to the gap between males and females in STEM fields, strides have been taken to close the numbers.
In May 2013, the White House announced a fiver-year STEM Education Strategic Plan, which would make STEM classes a priority in education and address how to get more women involved in STEM careers.
But even with this assistance, Hargrove-Leak said it is going to take more effort to get women involved in STEM and that’s where she said mentors could help.
“Women understand that there are so few of us,” she said. “They understand that it takes a certain personality and a certain drive. So that’s where mentors and role models in the field can help.”
Hargrove-Leak said if there were more women succeeding in these fields, they would serve as an inspiration to young girls that having a career in STEM is worth it. She points to herself as an example.
“Look at me,” she said. “I did it, so why can’t these ladies?”
Ultimately, there is no right way to increase the number of women interested in STEM, but with small steps, it could propel women into success in the future.
Social Conversations about STEM statistics:
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged careers, education, Engineering, Math, Science, STEM, technology, women issues | Leave a Comment »
BURLINGTON, N.C. – A new North Carolina bill that will require people to provide acceptable forms of government-issued forms of identification to vote is raising concerns across the state, especially for students.
House Bill 589, passed Aug. 12, will require voters to show picture IDs like driver’s licenses, passports and tribal cards starting in the next major election – the 2016 presidential race. Student IDs will not be accepted.
Lawyer Press Millen, Partner of Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice, said this sort of law could limit the number of students that vote in the next election. He is currently filing suit against the state.
“There are only seven forms of ID that are accepted to vote,” Millen said, “and a student ID from a private or public university doesn’t work.”
Gabriela Alvarez, an out of state freshman from Virginia said that she didn’t know about the new law and wanted to vote in the next election. Because she does not have a North Carolina license, she said she probably won’t – it would be easier to register absentee for Virginia.
But Alvarez still thinks the student vote is valuable.
“We’re still citizens,” she said. “It’s our right to vote. It’s part of our civic responsibility.”
But Carolynn Whitley, program assistant of political science, religious studies and philosophy at Elon University in North Carolina, says that the law is OK with her, but with one condition.
“As long as North Carolina makes it possible for people without the proper ID to get it,” Whitley said, “then I am for the bill.”
North Carolina will provide free IDs through the state’s Department of Motor Vehicle offices, but it will be a large task as an estimated 318,000 voters are not registered to properly vote.
Twitter has been active in the few days since the bill was announced via YouTube. Several people have come out against the legislation, including big North Carolina schools Duke University and the University of North Carolina.
Duke & UNC student governments release joint statement denouncing NC voter ID law on @DukeStudentGov‘s blog here: http://t.co/MNwlsi9X0N
— Duke University (@DukeU) August 14, 2013
A representation of the number of alleged voter fraud cases in North Carolina
But it’s not just universities and students that are unhappy with the bill. Some, like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, argue that the voter fraud the bill is meant to protect against is so minimal that it doesn’t even have an impact.
According to the data collected by WNCN of Raleigh from the State Board of Elections, in 2012, of the almost 7 million votes cast, only less than 150 alleged cases of voter fraud were reported.
Nationally, the number of actual cases of proven voter fraud is also low. According to a News21 analysis of a sample of just over 2000 cases of reported voter fraud, only 10 cases of in-person voter fraud within the past 13 years.
Only 2 cases of voter impersonation in North Carolina in 10 yrs; 300k NC voters have no photo ID. http://t.co/TEa5yzayTG
— Chicago Appleseed (@ChiAppleseed) August 20, 2013
But supporters of the bill ask what the harm in requiring photo IDs is.
Regardless, the new laws are indeed stricter and reduce the early voting period by a week, eliminate same-day registration, end pre-registration for 16 and 17-year-olds and other things.
The United States’ Department of Justice has already looked into similar bills in Texas and Florida, but North Carolina could be the next step in a long battle with U.S. voting laws that have sometimes disenfranchised minorities, and now in North Carolina, have the possibility to do the same to students.
To read an interactive timeline of highlights of the voter changes, visit this storify link.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Duke University, North Carolina, UNC, Voter ID | 1 Comment »
Here’s the second video project that I completed for my TV Production class. For this project, we could only use natural sound to sell our product, which in my case was Bounce dryer sheets. But to make it more challenging for us, we were also restricted in our camera work; we could only use static shots. Pans, tilts and zooms were strictly forbidden. Here is the finished product.
Although I thought this was going to be an added challenge, I actually found that the restricted camera movements really helped me think about my shot composition more and made the whole editing process easier because I didn’t have to hunt for shots that weren’t shaky or unusable because I had jerked the camera. Overall, shooting the project was a breeze and I was happy with the final product. I hope you are, too.
Posted in Entertainment, Movies, TV Production | Tagged Bounce, TV Production | Leave a Comment »
Here is a music video that I made for my class to Alicia Keys’ song “Prelude to a Kiss” from her album “As I Am.” It was taken on a Nikon D90 DSLR – my first time ever using it (hope you can’t tell too bad! lol) This was also the first video project that I completed for my TV Production class I’m taking this semester.
Hope you all like it! Feel free to leave thoughts, comments, constructive critiques!
Posted in Music | Tagged Alicia Keys, class, film, Music Video, Prelude to a Kiss, student work, TV Production | Leave a Comment »
Halloween wasn’t a very spook-tacular holiday around my house growing up, so I don’t really have a very memorable lighting moment that sticks out to me. However, drawing form another example, I will analyze Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” which was my favorite Halloween music video (slash all-time favorite video!!).
If I said I wasn’t scared the first time I watched “Thriller,” I’d be lying. Rumor has it that the first time my older sister saw it on MTV (circa the 80’s), it sent her running scared from the living room. From the special effects, to the costumes, to the lights…It was a scary thing to watch. At the same time, though, it was magical.
I’m sure the technical aspects, especially the lighting, for the music video is very different than it is for a stage production. However, I’m sure the same principles still apply.
If I were to try to reproduce the lighting from “Thriller” for the stage, I would try to replicate the long shadows and spooky lighting by using several Fresnel lights at long angles in ambers, reds, purples, and deep blues to give the stage an eerie look. Footlights would also add an extra “creep” factor. These used to be the main lights used in the early days of theatre and the light from the bottom would cast weird shadows. Throwing in a fog machine and a scrim (which would create a dimming effect across the whole stage) wouldn’t hurt either.
If all these things were in place, it would make for one spooky show…
Posted in design, Entertainment, Technical Theatre Production | Tagged Halloween, lighting, Michael Jackson, MTV, scrim, technical theatre production, theatre, Thriller | Leave a Comment »
College. What a…what? Experience? Joy? Challenge? A royal pain in the rear end? How about all of the above.
As the semester draws to a close and I tuck another semester under my belt, I think (slash, it’s sort of required for class) that it’s a good time to reflect on the things that I’ve been through over the past year and a half. As any other college student can vouch, there have been the fair share of all-nighters and mental breakdowns, but there have also been many, to borrow the term from wise ol’ Oprah, “A ha!” moments.
When I started Elon a very long (not really) year ago, I thought I was certain that I would be reporting as a broadcast journalist. I got involved right away with the student media organization that would allow me to pursue that path. However, sometimes I wonder whether I ruled out things to study too early.
There were many things that I was interested in and involved in, and still interested in, that would have possible careers for my future. For example, through taking this technical theatre production class, I found out that there are many more positions and people than just the actors and directors that make a show successful. Props people, for example (and this is not me sucking up to my professor, who happens to be a props gal herself, HONEST!), have to be creative, detail oriented and understand how to be resourceful and inventive when it comes to making props work in a particular way.
As I have said before, I LOVE to craft. I think it’s absolutely cool creating beautiful, new things out of ordinary objects you have lying around the house. And I can sit in one spot for HOURS trying to perfect whatever it is I’m making until I am happy with the outcome. I also have the tendency to rig things to serve a purpose for me. I always find myself saying “I wonder what would happen if I used this for that,” or “I bet this works like that, so I could use it for this.” Now if that doesn’t sound like a props master’s brain, I don’t know what does!
Then there is the case of astronomy. Last semester in the spring, I took a basic introduction to astronomy course that included a roof lab in which we used telescopes to find and identify galaxies and stars and clusters. I have always been fascinated with outer space and how it came into existence and I often caught myself wondering what it would be like to be an astronomer or an astrophysicist.
Enter my biggest frustration in college – WHERE DO I FIT IN?? It’s very obvious that making props and studying the heavens are polar opposites as far as interests go. One’s very heavy fine arts, the other, very science-y. With so many interests from every which way, how can I possibly know what I want to do with my life? It’s hard, as a college student and a young adult, to have to whittle away some of your favorite pass-times and extra-curriculars – for me it was acting – and focus solely on one field of study.
Right now, I am still trying to find the right place for me in the broad world of communications, and I know there will be some rough patches every now and then, but that’s expected. They will help me figure out my limits and give my guidance and direction. I know that eventually I’ll find the right place for me, because it’s like they saying goes “Success is a journey, not a destination.”
Posted in Technical Theatre Production | Leave a Comment »
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