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DISSOLVED UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA CEDAR FALLS, IA THURSDAY, APRIL 5 VOLUME 114, ISSUE 42
CEDAR FALLS, IA
VOLUME 120, ISSUE 30
WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 2024
UNI to eliminate Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice Office, reorganize Division of Student Life to comply with DEI directives
NOAH HACKBART Staff Writer
The nine-member Board of Regents, Iowa’s governing body for its three public universities, convened at the Alumni Center on Iowa State University’s campus last week. The meeting comes on the heels of the Iowa Legislature passing SF 2435, an education bill which includes funding numbers for K-12 schools and regent universities. This bill also includes similar language from the 10 DEI directives passed by the Board of Regents at their November 2023 meeting, which pushed universities to restructure and eliminate DEI positions not necessary for accreditation or required by state or federal law – as well as a number of other instructions related to civic education, communications and curriculum. See DEI CHANGES, page 2
COURTESY/STEPHEN MATTHEW MILLIGAN, PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MALLORY SCHMITZ
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
OPINION
Opinion Columnist Kellie Stiles calls out lack of decorum at live concerts. SEE PAGE 5
SPORTS
UNI’s Khristian Boyd drafted by New Orleans Saints. SEE PAGE 9
Scoreboards and struggles How UNI student-athletes balance their mental health MALLORY SCHMITZ News Editor
Senior Issa Sullivan wears many hats: captain of the UNI women’s tennis team, movement and exercise science major on the pre-physician’s assistant track, member of the StudentAthlete Advisory Committee. Though “forever grateful” for the many roles she fulfills as a student-athlete, in reflection on her four years at UNI, one word seems to come up: exhausting. “I think when you do recruiting and you say you want to do a Division 1 sport, you know it’s going to be mentally challenging and physically challenging, but you push yourself to a point that you didn’t ever know you could go to in the past,” she said.
COURTESY/UNI ATHLETICS
Senior Issa Sullivan experienced the highs and lows of being a college athlete during her time at UNI. As suicide rates among student-athletes rise nationwide, UNI and other colleges are exploring ways to best support student-athletes.
Tennis competes in both the spring and fall, but Sullivan says that it’s really a year-round sport for players looking to get the best results. When she’s in season, she often spends her weekends competing in five to six-hour-long meets and tournaments that can last up to 12 hours. When she’s not in season, she still keeps a strict training regiment. As she progressed through
her college career, Sullivan found that constantly striving to compete on the court and in the classroom can come at a cost. “I didn’t know if I could do it,” she said. “Some days I woke up at 5 a.m. every morning for practice and I didn’t get home until 10:30 at night from the library, and then you wake up and you do it over and over again.” Sullivan isn’t alone in her
experience. According to the NCAA Student-Athlete Health and Wellness Study conducted between September 2022 and June 2023, 44% of women’s sports participants reported feeling overwhelmed. 35% reported feeling mentally exhausted. “It’s exhausting, but I think it’s just keeping the end goal in mind and always reminding yourself that it’s a privilege to be where you are. I worked so hard in high school and beyond that to have the privilege of being a student athlete and loving that grind,” she said. “I just tell myself to love the pressure and love the busy schedule, because I’m never going to have the same exact experience,” she said. “And even though it was really tiring, I’ll forever be grateful for it.” While Sullivan adapted to the demanding lifestyle of a college athlete, the exhaustion she experienced points to very real mental health struggles for college athletes around the nation. See MENTAL HEALTH, page 3