The event I decided to cover was Chancellor’s chat led by interim Chancellor Greg Cook.

Cook led off the meeting by stating “It has been very gratifying walking around campus and see so many students and so many faculty and staff observing the safety measures.” Cook stated a couple of times that the goal is to reach November 20, (this is the target date before Whitewater goes remote for the rest of the fall semester.)

Cook then took questions from students.

Cook on how should a faculty member respond if a student tests positive for COVID: Cook said the following “The important thing is to show your support for the student, they test positive doesn’t necessarily mean they are seriously ill…

Most younger people have minor symptoms or are asymptomatic it is important to encourage them to call the COVID hotline because we want to make sure we get that positive result recorded onto the dashboard so we have an accurate spread of the virus.”

Since campus shut down in March UW-Whitewater has 370 total cases according to the recent reports in the week of September, 20 to September, 26 Whitewater has 46 new cases. In the previous week Whitewater had 121 new cases. This information comes from the new Covid-19 dashboard that was unveiled earlier this month.

Last semester when UW-Whitewater went remote, spring commencement was cancelled and COVID not going away soon there is supposed to be a graduation in December but according to Cook no decision has been made on that but has been in contact with the commencement committee for him to see an outline of what a ceremony would look like.

COVID has been tough on students who live in residence halls because of the small rooms and close captivity to other people. If a student tests positive in the residence hall they move the student to Clem Hall and encouraged to stay there then move back home.

Over the summer there was a meeting regarding spring break between Cook, and the governance group and at the time the consensus was to leave the spring calendar the way it was but, now they are re discussing what to do about spring break and an survey was sent out by Wisconsin Student Government (WSG) to everyone on campus in regards to what they prefer to do for spring break.

Winter sports has been postponed until January 1. This is what interim athletic director Ryan Callahan had to say about the postponement:

“We just had a call with fellow athletic directors and we are looking at what the schedule would look like for the respective sports…

I can provide this much if we do have competition in the spring it will be conference competition to make sure we return minimums but we are still investigating what that will look like and figuring the testing components the NCAA will put out and I expect in the next couple of weeks we’ll have some finalized decisions on that as well.”

That was the last item on the agenda, to summarize the goal is to make it to November, 20 before we go remote, COVID positive students in residence halls are being transferred to another hall to quarantine. At the moment there is no plan for spring break and winter sports are cancelled until January 1. This situation at Whitewater is fluid but, if anyone has a plan for getting us through this pandemic its the leaders at UW-Whitewater

https://streaming.uww.edu/#/videos/7b32ce95-9536-475b-8ee5-55c3012ba7be

https://announcements.uww.edu/Announcement/Details/16784

http://blogs.uww.edu/webhawknews/2020/09/

https://blogs.uww.edu/moen/wp-admin/post.php?post=5&action=edit

Growing up I loved talking sports, no matter who it was whether it was my family or my OT teacher. The news that peaked my interest was sports news. From an early age I would read newspaper articles about the local teams in Wisconsin (Packers, Badgers Bucks Brewers.) But I have been keeping up with what is going on in Wisconsin on a political level as well. The story I am monitoring right now is MilwaukeeBucks have a star player named Giannis Antetokounmpo and in 2022 he can enter free agency which means he can go to any team he wants or he can sign the super-max extension. Which is a contract that could keep Giannis in Milwaukee for six more seasons.

I do follow news from my hometown, Fitchburg, WI. is a small town so not much scandal or exciting news happens in that area. I live ten minutes outside of Madison, WI. If you want a story, news is going to come out of Madison. This summer there were a lot stories that were written about Madison whether it was the month long protests of the aftermath of the George Floyd’s death (Floyd was a black man who was the victim of police brutality in Minnesota.) The second was the looting that went on as small businesses recovering from Covid-19, who dealt with their businesses being destroyed and trying to recover the damages their business has suffered.

The sites I visit on a regular basis are ESPN, Hoops Rumors MLBTradeRumors Youtube Google and Twitter. My favorite site is ESPN.com because I find a lot of news on that site and over the summer I subscribed to the ESPN+ account so it is the premium content that I would not see if I had a regular ESPN account. Furthermore, I play Fantasy Football and I pick sports games each day called Streak For The Cash where I could win $1,000 if I pick enough games correctly. Over the summer I watched sports documentaries so that was why I was excited to have the premium account.

I use Google to look someone up, I do not use Google for news sources but more so, if a person was famous I look them up to see what they are doing now. In addition, I will use search engines to see if news has happened and will read the articles connected to the news. When I consume news I read text and watch videos because news media is more opinionated now. I want to see what that person’s opinion is and if it matches with my opinion. I do watch videos but it depends how long the video is, if it is a seven-minute video I am unlikely to watch the whole video, if the video is 3-5 minutes I will watch the video. My favorite way to get news is by reading text because my attention span is short and I jump from website to website, so if an article piques my interest I will read the article.

When I look at the news I look at the comment sections but I do not interact with the audience because comment sections can be a dangerous place. Especially if you write an opinion that a person does not agree with. Furthermore, internet users care a lot about what strangers think and you won’t get someone to subscribe to your point of view and getting into fights with a stranger on the internet is a waste of time, so accept that not everyone will share your opinion.

Social media is the first place I go to get news because I can read the news I want in seconds and the websites are free. The stories I read are sports stories, I follow different reporter’s social media pages who are connect to that league. Twitter is the best source to find news because it is accurate most of the time and groundbreaking news is shared over Twitter. I follow my local sports teams to keep in the loop on what is happening in the sports world. In addition, their posts lead to articles written by writers who cover the team, I am interested to see what their take is on how the team is doing and what they need to improve.

I do read blogs my favorite website is Barstool Sports because they write good stories and the writers say whatever is on their mind which I find cool. To make sure the news is accurate I look at the source who is reporting the news. If a reporter has been wrong five times before then you cannot trust him anymore, or look at the information critically, question everything that was being written. Look at the text with a critical eye and critical mind.

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