Opinion

Correction at 2:14 p.m.: The United States is involved in the military intervention against ISIL, which is part of The War on Terror. Last weekend the Student Veterans Resource Center (SVRC) hosted its first Remember Everyone Deployed (RED) 5K Run  to support USD students and faculty on deployment. While there was good turnout for the first-time event, the USD […]

After taking two years of French – three semesters in the States and one in Canada – I would’ve expected myself to be at least familiar with the language. However, when people say it’s harder for adults than kids to learn a new language, they weren’t “kidding.” With more than two years of a foreign language, I’ve […]

I’m not a journalist, I haven’t taken a journalism class since I was in high school and my only real qualification to talk about journalistic ethics is that I read the news a lot. However, this means I’m roughly as qualified to comment on the firing of Bill O’Reilly from Fox News as he was to be […]

Studying abroad is a valuable experience and an enriching opportunity for college students to gain cultural awareness. With all of the personal and professional benefits, one might expect the number of students studying abroad to skyrocket, according to the Huffington Post. However, only about five percent of undergraduate students actually follow through with their plans. Many students often become […]

Yesterday, USD released a statement via email announcing they would no longer hold a winter commencement ceremony, which means students set to graduate in December now must wait to walk at graduation until May. In their email, USD cited the reason for this change as, “…improv[ing] the commencement experience for students and their families.” While […]

Complaining – we all do it. We all have ideas of how things could be improved and done differently. There are 300 million people in the United States, and each and every person has a unique viewpoint, so it’s no surprise that social media is cluttered with complaints and arguments. While everyone is certainly entitled to their own […]

South Dakota activist groups are organizing efforts to legalize medical and recreational use of marijuana. This effort doesn’t come without opposition. Governor Dennis Daugaard has said multiple times he won’t back any initiatives legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana. While legalization is an ideal goal, a more realistic one is decriminalization. South Dakota has some of the […]

Anyone who’s turned on the news or logged onto Twitter in the last week probably knows about United Airlines’ most recent controversy. Passengers on a United flight from Chicago to Louisville, KY watched as an older Asian man was violently removed from his seat to clear a spot for airline staff because the flight had been overbooked. Though it’s […]

War is a terrible thing. As Robert E. Lee said, “It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it.” What a sad, yet honest statement of humanity. We must avoid war when we can. One of the few things I supported former President Obama on was the […]

I am a straight, white, Lutheran man who grew up in a small South Dakota town where the population of 800 was almost entirely white Protestants. In Whitewood, diversity meant having French ancestry instead of only German and Norwegian. This reflects a fundamental issue in my life’s education leading to my time in college: I had […]