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Combatting sexual assault on campus

An uttered slur, an inappropriate touch or a flirtation taken too far. It can happen to anyone, anywhere.

Project ROSE aims to change lives, traumatizes sex workers instead, critics say

Monica Jones, an activist and senior studying social work at ASU, poses at the Downtown campus. (Photo by Carly Traxler)

ASU engineering student co-founds initiative to combat poverty in Kosovo

Global technology and entrepreneurship graduate student Mentor Dida has channeled his sense of humility and his passion for helping others through projects at ASU, and he is now working on one of his most important projects yet: helping to eliminate poverty in his homeland.

ASU President Michael Crow answers student sexual safety questions at town hall

President Crow answered student questions in his address, Oct. 3. He was prompted to talk about ASU's future where he shares about new improvements and growth in graduates. (Photo by Tynin Fries) ASU President Michael Crow addressed student's concerns and answered questions during a University town hall this afternoon at ASU's downtown campus. Questions from students varied, but the overall issue students wanted addressed involved on campus safety and sexual safety. The issue of sexual safety was brought up by Nick Wicksman, chief of staff for Undergraduate Student Government Downtown, and Crow addressed how the University is looking to respond situations that may arise. "An all-University task force is being put together to reshape our policies and come up with better tools and better mechanisms as well as hold people accountable, and hope that the law will catch up with what we are doing as a university," Crow said. Crow said what students need is education on sexual assault and how to stay safe. "How about if people took responsibility for others," he said. "If they help protect other people who they see may be being taken advantage of. We are trying to get everyone educated and everyone involved to cut down on these situations." When the University becomes aware of these incidents there is a student judicial justice process involved, Crow said. "Students have been and are expelled from the institution and suspended from the institution for their behaviors and that is not uncommon," he said. "It is also the case that we hold everyone accountable for their actions and we want to greatly reduce these incidents of very traumatic events." Informing students on who to contact and how to address sexual safety issues was brought up by Masai Hunter a freshman communications major who was concerned about sexual safety. Hunter said she wanted to know how the University is informing students on who to contact if a sexual safety issue arises. Crow gave Hunter a list of different contacts who would be best for students who have safety issues to contact in order to receive immediate responses. "There is anyone in the ASU counseling services, the police, and faculty members, the dean and a person you can always call is Jennifer Hightower who is the dean of students on the downtown campus," Crow said. "The dean of students is the perfect person to contact because they have access to all of the other services, and they can speak to the police for you, they can speak to your professors for you and whatever you need they can work with." Further information regarding safety concerns and who to contact will be sent out through a mass email, Crow said. After the meeting Hunter said she really liked what she heard from Crow. "I feel that if this conversation keeps coming up and people's minds keep getting sparked with being interested in this I feel that there will be action taken," Hunter said. "It's going to take a lot of collaboration and critical thinking into coming up with solutions for this since it isn't an easy topic to solve right away." After the town hall, Crow said safety concerns are being looked into as quickly as possible. "Everything is happening in real time and we are already implementing different ideas to address these problems," he said. USGD President Frank Smith III said he agreed with Crow's statements from the town hall. "Dr. Crow showed that the University isn't about who you exclude, but who you include," Smith said. Along with the University efforts to combat sexual assault on all campuses, Smith said an initiative has been started to connect all Pac-12 schools together to fight sexual assault. "The Pac-12 initiative has just started and UA is now on board and we will start to reach out soon to other universities," Smith said. Reach the reporter at jshanco2@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @joey_hancock Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.

With Daryl Washington, Arizona Cardinals' front office shows hypocritical side

When Cardinals running back Jonathan Dwyer was arrested on charges of aggravated assault, head coach Bruce Arians immediately cut him from the team.

Acupuncture study hopes to reduce student stress

A student will enter into a quiet and dimly lit room.

As classes pick up, students should try to deal with stress in a healthy way

September is National Suicide Prevention Month, a time dedicated to spreading awareness of diseases like depression and helpful coping methods. For students, these methods can help maintain a person’s mental health, during a time in their lives that is notoriously stressful.

The ASU Counseling Services, located on every campus, is equipped to deal with any problems students are dealing with. Student have access to their services in-person from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every business day and by phone after hours. (Photo by Tynin Fries)

7 best places to cry on ASU's Tempe campus

First few weeks of the semester got you stressed? Same. We've scoured the Tempe campus for the best places to cry. We may not have actually cried at some of these places, but sob assured, existential crises were had. Here are our top seven places to cry on campus.

ASU researchers find pros, cons of health-tracking apps

A group of researchers at ASU’s School of Nutrition and Health Promotion has come to the conclusion that popular smartphone health-tracking apps like Lose It! may not be quite as helpful as they initially seem. The researchers, including ASU School of Nutrition and Health Promotion faculty and students, discovered that among the dieters they observed throughout their study, those who used a paper and pencil to catalog their dietary habits lost just as much weight as those who used the smartphone app Lose It! or their smartphone’s digital notepad. Carol Johnston, a professor at the ASU School of Nutrition and Health Promotion who co-authored the research, said she found it odd that her efforts to investigate the true effectiveness of smartphone health-tracking technology were the first of their kind. “I was surprised five years ago when we started this trial, and am still perplexed, that there are no other trials in the research literature examining the efficacy of smart phone apps for diet and weight management,” Johnston said. “There are hundreds of apps but no research demonstrating their worth.” The use of smartphone apps that assist in personal diet- and fitness-tracking has increased since the advent of the smartphone, but interest in this technology has seen particularly rapid growth in recent years with the rollout of products like the Nike+ Fuelband and related apps, and more recently, Apple’s iOS 8. With Apple’s September 9 announcement of its new fitness-tracking feature, available on the recently released iPhone 6 and downloadable to previous iPhone models through iOS 8, interest in health-tracking technology is greater than ever. “People love to play games on their phones,” Johnston said. “It seems such a logical transition to use phone 'games' to help individuals develop more healthful diet plans and become healthier individuals.” The app does have certain advantages over pen-and-paper methods of diet tracking, Johnston said. Social work sophomore J.J. Williamson, who was not involved in the new research, said the Lose It! app is fun and easy to use, and he found its features comprehensive. “The Lose It! app is so visually inviting and user-friendly,” Williamson said. “It has everything I need to meet my goals.” But while its user-friendly features did stimulate subjects of the study to record their eating habits more consistently than did their digital notepads or pencil-and-paper logbooks, it did not motivate them to actually improve their eating habits. Nutrition professor Christopher Wharton said the dietary quality of app-users showed a “downward curve” throughout the study. “A lot of these apps tend to have calorie information, because that’s what people look for first and foremost and understand the best, but when they have other types of feedback, it’s often in terms of the ‘numbers of nutrition,’ like milligrams of sodium or grams of fat and protein, and that’s not actually very useful for a lot of people,” he said. Wharton attributed the “downward curve” in dietary quality to the fact that subjects who used a pen and paper to track their eating habits were given in-person dietary counseling, which probably put the nutritional value of their food in more understandable terms. “Not very many people are expert enough at nutrition to be able to interpret a compilation of numbers to understand how much quality they have in their diet,” Wharton said. He said he thought it would be much more useful to have a “food-based feedback system” through which servings of fruits, vegetables and grains could be tracked in addition to caloric intake. Johnston said she agreed and that she planned to investigate this idea in the future. Johnston also had some advice to give those trying to lose weight that didn’t have anything to do with whether or not to use a health-tracking app. “Eat out less and take the time to prepare most of the food you eat from fresh sources,” she said.Johnston also had other suggestions to maintain a healthy diet. “Eat smaller portions, eat slower, focus on conversation with others at meals,” she said. “Do not drink calories — reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages (from your diet).” Contact the reporter at megann.phillips@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @megannphillips

The credit trap of higher education

The topic of steadily rising tuition rates is always a concern for any college student, especially since the U.S. has one of the most expensive educational systems in the world.

Book Group gives exposure to ASU authors

The ASU English Department-sponsored Book Group is set to start its fourth year on Sept. 24.

It came from Bandcamp: TV Girl's sunny-side-up pop

Bandcamp can be compared to a sprawling antique mall — you stumble in, seduced by the possibility of finding that rad McDonald’s collectors’ edition glass cup with the Hamburglar that no one else has — but wind up lost on an aisle of vintage blenders that don’t work anymore. Perhaps you leave empty-handed or as the proud owner of a baby-blue blender that you didn’t actually want at all and are a little confused as to how you were tricked into buying it. This metaphor could go on, but the point is that going on Bandcamp can be a risky, time-consuming affair.

Students seek clarity, closure in student-professor relationship investigations

Recent allegations of sexual misconduct involving professors and students at Barrett, the Honors College, have left students dissatisfied with ASU’s sexual assault and harassment reporting and disciplinary processes.

To the left, to the left: Ginsburg remains Supreme Court's finest mind

Despite ever-increasing number of people calling on her to resign, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg remains one of the U.S. Supreme Court's best jurists and one of the country's finest legal minds.

New low-income apartment homes near ASU bring hope to families

The 2008 recession was a period of struggle and great financial loss for many families in this country. My family was especially hit hard when my stepdad lost his job in 2009. Luckily, we we were not among the many families who lost their homes.

ASU student dies after falling from 922 Place balcony

An ASU student died Sunday morning after falling from the 10th floor balcony of 922 Place near the Tempe campus, according to Tempe Police.

Student raised by her grandparents strives to create a community

It’s not hard for Brittany Avent to take a candid laughing photo around her grandmother Loretta.

Out of the Darkness Walk touches crowd at Tempe campus

Students and those affected by suicide gather at the Hayden Lawn for an Out of Darkness walk hosted by AFSP on Sunday March 23. (Photo by Mario Mendez)

Meet your student government presidential candidates

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