The Troubadourette 

UN Winter Youth Summit addresses topics that disappoint attendees

March 30, 2016

Kathryn Carnell

“You are the tomorrow, today!” Moderator Ravi declared at a rallying session during the 2016 United Nations Winter Youth Summit, in praise of the UN’s recently released Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“While we cannot always build our future for our youth, we can build our youth for the future!” The hall thundered as approximately 500 youth from around the world stood to chant in unison with the prompter: “We can end gender inequality!”

When the shouting had died down, Clarissa Traub, Franciscan University Student and youth delegate, looked at me skeptically. She said, “That’s good, but…what about world hunger?”

After two days of the UN Winter Youth Summit not one word had been uttered about the listed UN goal to end world hunger, she said.

The UN Winter Youth Summit is a recent attempt on the part of policy makers to incorporate youth, defined as young adults ages 15 – 30 by the United Nations, into public policy making.

During the two-day conference, approximately 20 Nongovernmental Organization leaders and UN employees presented their vision for youth involvement in public policy and what they themselves are doing to meet the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

One such presentation was by Mike Kelleher, Lead International Affairs Officer at World Bank. Kelleher presented on a sugar-saline solution his company had pioneered and distributed to developing nations.

The solution is intended for use in emergency situations, such as stabilizing the blood-sugar of a malnourished baby until it can be treated by medical professionals, Kelleher said, in pursuit of the Global Goals.

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) are a set of benchmarks that when accomplished will, according to the United Nations Sustainable Development Website, improve the world.

These goals are to have no poverty, no hunger, good health, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, renewable energy, good jobs and economic growth, innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace and justice, and partnership for the accomplishment of these goals by 2030.

However, very few of these presentations were on any goal other than gender inequality. Traub said the UN conference had repeatedly declared the UN’s commitment to ending gender divides and inequalities, but never mentioned their plans for solving world hunger, which is listed under their Sustainable Development Goals.

She said it was odd that most of the presentations had been on gender inequality when other grave issues were also listed under the global goals, such as poverty and sanitation.

Her colleague, Paige Heinen, also a Franciscan University student and youth delegate, shared Traub’s concern for the lack of substance during the Summit.

“Repeated over and over was the idea that the youth are an enormous force with incredible ability to be harnessed,” Heinen said. “There are over 1.8 billion young people in the world, and the United Nations is clearly striving to engage us, but more importantly, they said they wanted to empower us.”

Which is good, she said. But after leaving the conference, Heinen said she struggled to remember any definitive instructions or plans for actually moving to solve the issues listed in the global goals.

They both said they were grateful for the experience but agreed that after traveling 14 hours overnight both ways to sit at the feet of some very influential men and women it would have been nice to receive a little more actual qualification in the area of humanitarian aid. 

The Troubadour introduces their new smart phone app

March 16, 2016

Erin Madden

The Associated Press' mobile application wasn't developed as a result of a class project. Neither was The New York Times' app nor USA Today's. Lucky for The Troubadour that Paul Norton, Blaise Lamatrice, Connor Gaede and Henry Hudson all took Cory Maloney's Structured Systems Analysis class for the fall 2015 semester.

Otherwise, the student newspaper serving Franciscan University of Steubenville might never have had a mobile app. "Dr. Maloney asked us to basically plan a project or an app or something like that," said Norton, the leader of the group.

"One of the guys in our group, Blaise, loves The Troubadour. He reads it all the time so he asked if we could make an app for that. We all thought it was a good idea. It was simple enough that it would be not too hard to make but it would be really fun and something that could actually be useful. It was Blaise's idea and we just kind of ran with it."

A year before the group project even existed, junior journalism major and then Assistant Editor Lauren Ramseyer had been toying around with the idea of making an app for The Troubadour.

"As I've progressed through different classes here, it's come into my head as to why an app is becoming more and more of an important thing," said Ramseyer. "We talk about reaching your audience and reaching the people that you need to reach where they are."

"It grew from an idea in the back of your head, sitting in class going, 'Ooh we could do that, maybe' to 'Oh, other people want to do it too and there's a way we could do it also,’" said Ramseyer. The transition from idea to reality was a tough process, however.

Both Ramseyer and Web Editor Melissa Solano lacked the coding knowledge necessary to build the app from scratch. More and more, it was looking like an app would never hit the Apple Store. At least, not for the time being. Ramseyer had just about given up hope when she checked The Troubadour’s email one day.

"Out of the blue, halfway through the semester, we got an email to our account from Paul and his group," said Ramseyer. "I read that and, of course, I just started to laugh because we had been praying about this and, voilà, out of nowhere. That was definitely an answer to prayer."

With Ramseyer's blessing, the group of four computer information science majors set off to create the app, TroubadourFUS. "Originally, we were going to do the whole thing ourselves, start to finish," said Norton.

"We'd program it and then somehow produce it and then give it to The Troubadour to put it on the app store and all that. That was going to be a ton of work.” Norton and Ramseyer remained in contact for the entire creation process to ensure that The Troubadour was getting what it wanted in terms of look and functionality but the group essentially had free reign.

After all, TroubadourFUS was their project too. "Really, his group, the four of them, did it from start to finish," said Ramseyer. "They wrote up the whole programming list of what it would do, how it would work, different contacts and different add­ons. They were in contact with Worona the whole time and they just handed over the keys to me. Paul contacted me off and on but he really took our guidelines of what we wanted and put the artistic touches on it and just went with it."

The final product hit the Apple and Android stores in mid­December while the newspaper officially launched the app in late January at the start of the spring semester. Prior to the official launch, TroubadourFUS had approximately 30 downloads across the two stores­mostly from Norton, his group, The Troubadour's staff, family and friends.

Total downloads now stand at 50 users as of February 2. Initial reviews have been mostly positive with a few five­star ratings on the different app stores. All involved in the project are pleased with how the app turned out. "I love using it," said Norton.

"There's a couple things that I would possibly change about it but that's really problems with the service that we used. I think it works really well for version one of the app." Ramseyer agreed, saying, "I love where it is right now and I love the fact that we'll have opportunities to make it better as technology changes, people's interests change, people's needs change, Franciscan changes.

It will be nice to know that we at least put in the groundwork for another stepping stone that will be able to help The Troubadour keep up with what's going on on campus." No plans are in the works for a version two of the app yet."

This semester, there is probably not going to be any huge changes to it," said Ramseyer. "It's just going to be some troubleshooting this semester as well as writing out different packages and word documents of how to use it."

Keeping her audience in mind, Ramseyer encourages the campus community to get involved and see what they think about the app. "Contact us with any suggestions or opinions," said Ramseyer. "Go ahead and rate us on the app store. Give us your feedback. Let us know if there's any other easier ways for us to serve you and for you to get the information you need."