By Katherine Hill for the Ball State Daily News .
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Ball State Daily News-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.

The walls of Maplewood Guest House are etched with history. Photos of Ball State’s original first family hang on the walls — carefully dusted and fawned over by inquisitive visitors — serve as a reminder to residents who reap the benefit of the family’s generosity to do good by the community.

The house, with its still fully-functioning original fireplace, now serves as a residential hub for third and fourth-year students — a collaboration between Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine and Ball State for students earning a medical degree or working on a clerkship in East Central Indiana, according to the Guest House’s information page.

Guest House manager David Martin was at the forefront of the collaboration project when he took on the residential community’s first-ever management role. 

Although Martin stepped into the position in August 2017, there were discussions between Ball Brothers Foundation, Ball State University, Indiana University and IU School of Medicine about the collaborative housing effort in the year prior.

“The discussions were to find out whether they could use the space, which had been vacated by Ardahl Corporation,” Martin said. “They wanted to find use for this building that would help the community.”

The solution was to make the housing complex a so-called “epicenter” for medical students and provide immersive learning opportunities.

Martin came to Maplewood Guest House having worked as an adjunct professor and in Ball State’s Housing and Dining departments for 15 years prior.

When it came time to manage the Maplewood property, he applied policies and procedures from the university’s housing models because he didn’t “need to reinvent the wheel.”

He also worked with Ball State property management and hospitality students to figure out how to best maintain the building's antiquarian structure and honor the Ball Brothers' legacy.

Beyond the general upkeep of the Guest House, such as through inventory monitoring and spreadsheet bookkeeping, there is a responsibility to make sure students know about the opportunities the property offers. Martin and his team of Ball State immersive learning students knew this.

“We created basically everything here in 2017, everything you can think of to successfully run a business, including social media. I found it really exciting to start the building from the ground up, so to speak,” Martin said, noting that the house itself was built in 1898.

Martin remembered a February 2020 phone call, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, from the IU School of Medicine, urging all students to go home. Despite the closure of surrounding universities, the housing complex remained open and maintained “almost the majority of the time that COVID was here,” he said. 

Even so, the building was vacant for several months before students returned to their medical practice rotations — a discouraging and stark reminder of how young and exciting the collaboration project had been at that time.

Muncie was the ideal localized space for the undertaking that was Maplewood Guest House. 

According to Optimus Primary, which partners with the Ball Brothers Foundation, “Muncie has something no other city in Indiana has: an array of healthcare anchor institutions located in close proximity to one another, making it one of the leading physician training centers in the state.” 

This is a pipeline program for medical professionals, in partnership with the Ball Brothers Foundation.

The city has a reputation of consistently being within the top five best destinations to study medicine in the state, largely because of IU Ball Memorial Hospital, which is three minutes from Ball State and IU School of Medicine.

“Muncie was number nine in a location, as in terms of locations that students wanted to come to to serve their rotation at the hospital. [By 2017], the city became number two in the state outside of Indianapolis. We are number two in the location of destination students want to come to [when they] do their clerkship,” Martin said.

To help drive those numbers, Martin enforced the residential community to foster a welcoming environment for all students who pass through its doors, which is especially important because students are only actively living in the community for only three to four weeks at a time while in rotation.

“One of the things that we've developed is programming and events for medical students. Every week, on a Wednesday or Thursday, we have a welcome event or some type of event that brings them all together,” he said.

These events feature popcorn, pizza and “provide a chance for students to connect,” something particularly important to Martin. For Martin, his favorite part of the job is connecting with students and talking with them about their future goals.

The bonding opportunities between IU and Ball State students simultaneously debunk a common misconception, the rivalry between Ball State and Indiana University.

“IU School of Medicine isn't a competitor of Ball State. Indiana University may be, but IU School of Medicine isn't,” Martin said. “The partnership has provided several opportunities for research between me and other faculty members. We were given the Housing Impact Award from the Housing Education and Research Association. That was for some of our work with immersive learning with Ball State students.”


Katherine Hill wrote this article for the Ball State Daily News.


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Indiana is rolling out a series of new education laws aimed at helping students succeed in and beyond the classroom.

The changes affect everything from attendance and academics to teacher pay and cybersecurity.

Tami Silverman, president and CEO of the nonprofit Indiana Youth Institute, said lawmakers responded to schools' concerns about chronic absenteeism.

"It was exciting to see that the legislature was really listening to the schools," Silverman explained. "Because we've heard, and schools have said repeatedly, that chronic absenteeism continues to be an issue."

New laws require schools to clearly define excused absences, publish attendance policies and offer better student support. High schoolers can now earn an Enrollment Honors Plus seal, combining academics, life skills and work experience. Students who earn it will be guaranteed admission to Indiana's public colleges.

Some educators said the new requirements may strain already limited school resources, especially in smaller districts that face staffing or funding challenges.

Silverman noted the changes are designed to help more students succeed, by doing such things as streamlining applications for college admission, military financial aid and paid internship programs.

"This is really exciting because we do know that sometimes those application processes can be a barrier," Silverman observed. "We want to remove those by setting kids up for success in high school."

Other laws raise the minimum teacher salary to $45,000 dollars, expand access to paid internships and require math screenings in early grades. Cybersecurity upgrades will be phased in by 2027.


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Many Texas students lose nearly 40% of what they learned during the year on summer break.

A new program in Arlington is helping kids avoid the "summer slide" by engaging them with creative projects which extend into the new school year.

Monroe Farbes, a 16-year-old International Baccalaureate participant, recently landed at the top of Amazon's list of young adult poetry with her new book "All I Know." She said the goal she set for herself last summer was to learn how to publish a book.

"Choosing to learn something and creating a product based off of what I learned, it helped me to learn critical thinking skills, research skills, time management skills, communications skills that were really, really useful," Farbes explained.

The International Baccalaureate program aims to prepare students for the future with real-world skills, global awareness and a love for learning, not just memorizing facts. After writing her first 20 poems last summer, the program gave Farbes time during the school day to write 35 more and then complete the formatting, marketing and other challenges involved with self-publishing.

There are many ways parents can help students avoid learning losses over the summer, and the Texas School for the Deaf offered tips. They recommended kids get outside and away from screens and they suggested parents give kids everyday lessons, like asking them to estimate the final bill while grocery shopping.

Farbes encouraged other young people to take on creative projects and to be curious about the world around them. She noted by the time you get to the end of her book, you realize the main character does not know everything.

"And that's OK, she's figuring it out," Farbes stressed. "Sometimes all you know is that you are just on your process to figuring it out. But make sure you remember everything that you learn."

Farbes's collection includes insights into the complexities of biracial identity, the joys of summer and sisterhood and the challenges of gardening. Here she reads her title poem, "All I Know."

"Familiar with myself, is the greatest gift on the shelf. Comfort in my own skin, who I am within, is all I'll have in the end. In that end, past all time, will I still be able to look myself in the eye?"


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Proposed federal legislation would expand school choice options for families to send their students to private schools or home educate them and the move could affect Arizona's current scholarship accounts.

Public school officials are pushing back. While Arizona parents can already get reimbursed for private and homeschool expenses, the Educational Choice for Children Act would create a tax credit for a similar purpose.

Brian Jodice, national press secretary for the American Federation for Children, said the measure is not a voucher program but a donor-driven initiative to provide families with more schooling options.

"It doesn't impact state budgets. It doesn't impact the federal budget. It allows people to donate to these scholarship granting organizations and get a tax credit, so (it) incentivizes the donors to go do that, which we think is a good thing," Jodice explained. "It also incentivizes families to be able to go apply for it and let their students benefit from it."

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said at least 138 million people nationwide could be eligible for the tax credit. States must opt in to participate.

Arizona public education officials have said its private school funding comes at the expense of K-12 schools. Demand for the program far outpaced what the state had budgeted in the first year alone and demand has continued to grow.

Maura McInerney, legal director at the Education Law Center, called the national program a tax shelter to benefit wealthy people at the expense of public schools.

"We've seen this occur in other states and there's no accountability for these dollars and how they're spent," McInerney pointed out. "The only criterion for receiving a voucher is actually a high family income limit. So essentially this money will potentially benefit students who are already in private schools."

The nationwide program would cost the federal government at least $100 billion per year.


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