Ladies with Aspirations strives to be inclusive to all

Aspiration is described as the desire to achieve — and that's exactly what senior Logyn Maul had in mind when starting her own club on campus.

The fashion merchandising major and president of Ladies with Aspirations (LWA) said the inspiration for the organization formed after she realized there wasn't an organization that encompassed students of all races and ethnic backgrounds, and she made her goal to try and change that.

"I got the idea of Ladies with Aspirations in 2015. I wanted to do something where a lot of organizations that are named with a race in their name or something," Maul said. "And it's hard for girls on campus to feel like they can fit in because they're not black, they're not white, they're not Hispanic or something like that – I wanted a place where girls could actually feel like they could fit in and they could come and talk and confide in other girls on campus."

Although LWA provides students with an all-inclusive environment to share with one another, the purpose of the organization was to help students deal with everyday life while in college.

"Ladies with Aspirations is based on talking about the problems that we face in real life while dealing with college life," Maul said.

On Oct. 5, LWA hosted, "A Change Will Come" – a discussion about police brutality – in hopes of educating students on the issue, while keeping a neutral, respectful conversation going.   

"It's important to educate students neutrally about it because nobody wants to go through their life or live their life as if they feel hated by people just because of the way that they were born," Maul said.

In light of recent events associated with racism and police brutality, freshman rhetoric and writing major Jonah Beemer found himself in search of an organization that tackled these issues, but found that the discussions he attended before didn't focus on these pressing topics the way he was hoping they would.

"Nothing really addressed specifically the issues of racism and police brutality," Beemer said. "I just really want to see more involvement on campus, especially from myself. I feel like people need to be aware of everything that's happening and this is such a prevalent issue that we should talk about it."

Beemer, who said he stays up-to-date on current events in the news, found that the program hosted by LWA was more intimate and presented the topics in ways that reaffirmed his beliefs and allowed others to share their own with each other, as well. 

"I think this was maybe more just an affirmation of what I already knew, but it was good to see other people talking about it and to see just sort of the discourse that went on between different people that maybe had different, varying levels of information, but were still able to talk about this very sensitive issue," Beemer said.

The student group anticipates hosting similar events in the future, and Maul said students interested in joining can visit the LWA Benny Link page for more information.

Read More

Ball State women’s basketball runs out of gas against Columbia in the Battle 4 Atlantis

By Elijah Poe / 3 hours ago

“As hard as we played, we literally were running on fumes,” Ball State women's basketball head coach Brady Sallee said about the 69-62 loss to Columbia in the Battle 4 Atlantis. 

---

Ball State defeats Eastern Kentucky in opening game of Gulf Coast Showcase

By Zach Carter / 8 hours ago

Ball State defeated Eastern Kentucky 63-61 for the Cardinals' second win of the season.

---

Therapy dogs help relieve students' stress

By Dylan Chesnut / 12 hours ago

With finals coming up, Ball State students got the chance to hang with these furry friends.