By 
By: STEPHEN SALISBURY
SGA President
This week I’d like to talk to you about how proud I am to see so many students serve our local community and beyond.
October is Intimate Partner Violence Awareness Month and it is likely that you have seen the evidence of that fact on the Greenlawn mall this week in the form of The Clothesline Project.
“The Clothesline Project (CLP) is a program started in Cape Cod, Mass., in 1990 to address the issue of violence against women. It is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women,” according to The Clothesline Project’s website.
Many students from our campus along with a number of our Student Government Association (SGA) senators have been working with our neighbors at the YWCA to create the many T-shirts you’ve seen hanging this week.
I want to encourage you to take some time to look at the many empowering statements and sobering facts hanging out on Greenlawn this week.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, “On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men. One in three women and one in four men have been victims of [some form of] physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime.”
This means that if you have not been a victim yourself, it is very likely that someone you are in class with every day has been. I had the chance to participate in a women’s and gender studies (WGS) lecture and workshop on how to help those you know who may be in an unsafe relationship, and I’d be glad to forward the information along to you if you contact me at the SGA e-mail address listed below.
Last Friday night, we had a great crowd of students and community members here for the Joe vs. Joe basketball fundraiser featuring former Indiana Governor and South Bend Mayor Joe Kernan and the current U.S. senator from Indiana Joe Donnelly playing some ball with many of our Student Veterans Organization members, raising money for Kernan’s Homeless Heroes Veterans Program.
This past Saturday, my wife and I had the opportunity to take our one-year-old, Stevie, to two events involving engaged IU South Bend students. The first was the Michiana Down Syndrome Walk at Bethel College. Many of our Honors Program students walked and the funds raised from this walk will benefit the Down Syndrome Family Support and Advocacy Group, which helps make possible medical, developmental, recreational and research grants as well as educational scholarships to qualified recipients.
After that event, we popped over to Putt-Putt Golf to support student members of the new MEDLIFE Club that were raising money to go on an overseas trip next spring. MEDLIFE is a secular, volunteer-run global health organization whose mission is to help families achieve greater freedom from the constraints of poverty, empowering them to live healthier lives. Did I mention how proud I am to serve as president of a student body who is doing this kind of work?
To me, this is what IU South Bend Spirit looks like, and coming up in a couple of weeks, we’ll all get to work together to bring that spirit to our campus in the form of our Spirit Week #IUSBSpirit16.
We’ll kick things off with the RHA Halloween dance from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 27. From 6 to 9 p.m. on Halloween night, Boo-to-You will supply a fun, safe, clown-free environment for local children to get candy, play fun carnival-like games and take a chance in our haunted maze and freaky funhouse in Fireside.
Titan Pro will be putting on a new, interactive, murder-mystery event on Tuesday night, Nov. 1. Wednesday, the second, will feature Banner Making in Fireside all day, a student versus faculty volleyball game in the Student Activities Center at 5 PM and Wish with the Chancellor at 6 p.m. on “the bridge” followed by a bonfire in housing.
We’ll cap things off with our Nearly Naked Mile to collect clothing for the homeless in our area, SGA Tailgate Party and Pep Rally on Greenlawn and the final home volleyball game and Senior Night in the SAC. This all kicks of Thursday, Nov. 3, at 5 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 4, our men’s basketball team will have its home opener at 7 p.m., followed by the women on Saturday at 1 p.m.
For more information about any of these events please visit titanatlas.iusb.edu or contact us in the SGA office at stugov@iusb.edu. And to all of you serving our community and our campus, I say, “Keep up the great work!”
