Guest Writer: Alexis Martinez Out of the 7.4 billion people on the third planet from the sun, you are only one. What makes your life more valuable than any other?  Humans are slowly killing the Earth.  The United States uses around 500 million straws daily, which equals 14 billion every month, or 168 billion every year. That’s around 4.4 billion pounds of straws that could end up in the oceans, and that’s just from the United States.  Non-biodegradable plastics that are casually … [Read more...]

Guest Writer: Elijah Neal “Welcome back / Your dreams were your ticket out / Welcome back / to that same old place that you laughed about,” John Sebastian writes in his number one 1987 Blues Rock Hit, “Welcome Back.”  It is a great road trip song for the eight-hour journey back to Georgia. It creates a nostalgic longing for my family, my friends and the well-kept roads of The South. I just want to be welcomed back to the place I know best.  When I was a freshman, I wanted to go home a … [Read more...]

Guest Writer: Jordan Baker Are you a Pacers fan? If you’re an AU student, your answer should unequivocally be yes.  Now, I’m not saying that you have to only be a Pacers fan, but you should carve out a small place in your heart for them at the very least. Whether you are from Indiana originally or not, you are living in Indiana while attending AU.  Why does this matter? Indiana is known around the world for its love of basketball. Fourteen of the 15 largest high school basketball … [Read more...]

This fall, Nike released an ad campaign featuring prominent African American athletes. One ad in particular celebrates Colin Kaepernick, former San Francisco 49er quarterback, for his controversial National Anthem protests two years ago. "Believe in something," reads the black and white poster, "even if it means sacrificing everything." Kaepernick came under heavy fire in 2016 for kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem before several games with the goal of raising awareness for … [Read more...]

Guest Writer: Olivia Winslow The average person spends five years of their life on social media. That adds up to the average person spending over 100 minutes a day on social media.  In those 100 minutes a day, you are bound to post at least one thing on one of your profiles. A lot of times, people think “no one important is going to see this” or “no one is going to care that I post this.”  But the reality is the things you post now will follow you around forever.  A study shows that 51 … [Read more...]

Guest Writer: Josh Senft Why is it that we as human beings fail to offer each other the courtesy of being honest? Of being frank. Of telling hard truths.  Many of us walk on eggshells, cowardly, as though every critical word we utter will render deep, negative consequences or “trigger” someone.  Now don’t misunderstand me — mental health is a serious concern. I’m not saying we need to be callous. But our subjective definitions of callousness, of “hate" and being “offensive” are limiting … [Read more...]

Guest Writer: Zach Van Duyn To some, this opinion will be frustratingly insufficient and anodyne.  To others, some of my statements may provoke and breed resentment.  Overall, I’m taking an admittedly scatterbrained approach to describing where I believe humanism and Christian faith intersect, as well as the insufficiency of the former to lead us to eternal life. I’ll start with what I consider one of the most transformational and inescapably pervasive quotes ever uttered about my faith:  … [Read more...]

Guest Writer: Jake Mills Reaching back to freshman year is a stretch for some.  Time seems to fly by so quickly, but when you look back, much of it is seems so far away.  There are those pieces of memory, those priceless moments, however, that have or will shape who you will become as a student and person.  As a senior looking back, those moments are all too clear. When I first arrived on campus as a freshman back in 2014, I could not have felt more out of place. Taking some liberty on a … [Read more...]