![Adding a tray of canned corn to the pile, junior Michael Collop assists in transporting donations for the Holiday Food Drive. The event, hosted schoolwide from Dec. 10-17, raised over 5,000 food items to deliver to the Parkway Food Pantry, helping several families in need. [The drive] is a great thing for us to do because you're giving to those who are less fortunate, and it helps provide for people who can't provide for themselves. [The] competition is always fun, too. It was fun to be in [social studies teacher Jess] Chazen’s class, because he always gets worked up over [the competition]. He made it exciting, and was always convincing us to turn in cans for the drive,” Collop said.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/feature-photo-unsung-2.png)
![NEW CHALLENGE, NEW TEAM MEMBERS: Every season, VEX creates a new game that robotics team members are faced with and have to build a robot to compete in. This year’s game forces students to create a robot that is able to stack rings onto mobile goals in order to score points. The change in games each season is something that robotics teacher Audrea Moyers appreciates.
“One of the things that I like about VEX is that they have a new problem to solve every year,” she said. ¨Even though the equipment’s the same, they have to analyze the game, and they have to come up with solutions that are unique that year. They are using their knowledge from prior years, but they have to kind of redesign a problem.”
As returning teams were faced a new game, some new teams and members had to adapt to a uncommon playing field and game.
“Three of our four teams were competing for the first time this year, and they had very different experiences match to match, so I think they learned a lot,¨ she said. ¨It’s hard just watching a video online to know how it’s actually going to be in person, so they all learned a lot about what gameplay is like, how to work with an alliance partner [and] how to adapt during the day to changes.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_9283-1-1200x800.jpg)
In a video posted to the Students for a Democratic Society’s (SDS) Instagram account on Oct. 31, the group defended themselves from accusations that they held faculty members hostage during their occupation of Morrill Hall.
After SDS’s occupation of Morrill Hall on Oct. 21, administrators from the University of Minnesota claimed the group held staff in the building wrongfully. In the post, SDS showed protesters offering to guide staff out of the building. Some faculty in Morrill Hall said they felt unsafe during the occupation.
In the video, one unidentified staff member asked if SDS was kidnapping them, to which protesters said no.
“University of Minnesota administration has been lying, saying that staff inside Halimy (Morrill) Hall were not allowed to leave, which is being used as a justification for placing students on interim suspension, barring them from attending class and evicting them from student housing,” the caption read. “A second video has been brought forward by an anonymous source proving that this is a lie.”
SDS member Rowan Lange said they were disappointed with the administration’s response to the occupation.
“We are upset that Cunningham continues to say that her staff were held hostage, while we have video evidence of that being false and the staff were free to leave,” Lange said. “The fact that she has yet to make an official statement rescinding the lies she has said is frustrating.”
While Cunningham has not said the Morrill Hall staff were held hostage by protestors, many staff members felt unsafe during the occupation, a University spokesperson said.
When asked about the video, a University spokesperson said the video does not portray the full picture of the occupation.
“It’s important to recognize that a single video does not tell the whole story,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Minnesota Daily. “Many staff members present at Morrill Hall last Monday had different experiences with masked protesters who forcibly entered their office spaces. Most reported that they could not move through the building freely, and some felt trapped or were unable to immediately leave for a variety of reasons.”
The spokesperson added they were not aware of any official statements referring to the staff members involved as hostages. They added that they were inside Morrill Hall when protesters entered the building.
“I was working in my office last Monday when masked people smashed an interior window to gain access to the locked office suite I work in,” the spokesperson said in the statement. “I heard the sound of shattered glass raining down onto the floor and watched as people ran into our offices. I quickly went the opposite direction to leave the building, but when I tried to exit the nearest exterior doors, I was told I couldn’t leave the way I was trying to leave. Only later was I told there was a single available exit.”
This story was originally published on Minnesota Daily on November 6, 2024.
