A View From The Lighthouse
Say our name, say our name
We are... Penn State. Every one
who has ever been to a Penn State
football game knows that cheer.
And there are some other things
about Penn State that everyone
knows. There are things about
Behrend that everyone knows too.
We all know not to try and get
something to eat between 11 a.m.
and 1 p.m. in Bruno’s. We all know
that even though we have a
balcony on the outside of the
library, no one is allowed there. We
all know that the one time we need
to get money out the ATM machine
that it will be broken. And there are
other things that may seem less
obvious, but everyone knows
anyway. You know what we are
talking about, the little code names
that people have for things across
campus: the ARC, the RUB desk,
B.F.E. parking lot. But until
recently, we here at the Beacon
thought that everyone knew that
we are just that, the Beacon. But
suddenly it has been brought to our
attention that apparently no one
knows who we are...or when we
come out.. .or that it’s free to get
the paper for that matter.
It all started about a year and a
half ago when an administrator was
giving us praise for having an
exceptional college newspaper, and
he was gushing about how much
better it has been than in the past.
That was great, and we were
terribly pleased...until the
administrator told us that he still
ran to the racks every Thursday
morning to get the new weekly
edition. Well, that would have been
great too, but we had been
publishing our paper every Friday
morning for about a semester and a
half!
So after that kick in the teeth, we
walked away with our heads
lowered but with a new
understanding of just how people
viewed us here on campus. With
that said, another story comes to
mind of exactly how many people
do not know that we have a school
newspaper called The Behrend
Beacon.
It was February 16, 2000, and a
majority of the Beacon staff were
sitting in Erie Hall for the
supposed “last regular season game
in Erie Hall ever,” and we noticed
a bunch of banners hung around
the ceiling. After admiring all the
banners, we thought that we should
get one too that said The Beacon.
It was then that we noticed that
there was already one up there for
us...only it said The Collegian , the
name of Behrend's school
newspaper about three and a half
years ago! No one ever bothered to
tell us that we could change the
banner if we wanted to.. .but the
real truth is that probably no one
even noticed.
But this semester has to be the
The Behrend Beacon
published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
Editor-in-Chief
Jason Snyder
Managing Editor
News Editors
Liz Hayes
Erin McCarty (assisstant)
Editorial Page Editor
Katie Galley
Features Editors
Karl Benacci
Jermaine Hardy
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Deanna Symoski
Sports Editors
Abby Dmg
Jeanine Noce (assistant)
Wire Service Editor
Rob Wynne
Photo Editors
Becky Weindorf
Neil Makadia (assistant)
Associate Editor
Christine Kleck
Copy Editor
Paige Miles
Money Page Editor
Amortya Sinha
published weekly by the students of
Penn State Erie, The Behrend
College; First Floor, The J. Elmer
Reed Union Building, Station Road,
Erie, PA 16563. The Beacon can be
reached by calling (814) 898-6488
or (814) 898-6019 (FAX). ISSN
1071-9288.
worst om
thus far
with
people
not even
knowing
that their
school
newspaper
is The
Behrend
Beacon
Because
when members of the School of
Humanities and Social Sciences,
and even old advisors for the
Beacon are still calling it the
Collegian, you know it’s bad!
The absolute worst example,
though, is something that came to
our attention just the other day. The
story goes back to last semester
when on one Friday morning, four
members of the Beacon staff were
forced to come back to the
newspaper office at eight in the
morning after being here until 3:30
a.m. the same morning for layout.
The reason we were forced was
because the Admissions and Public
Relations Offices were putting
together a new viewbook. You
know, the one that arrived in the
mail at your house that first made
you interested in coming to
Behrend.
Well, they forced us here in the
morning to take some phony
looking shots of all of us sitting
around working in the office for
this guidebook. We were happy to
help and looked forward to seeing
the finished product.
Unfortunately, when we got the
book earlier this week, much to our
dismay, right next to the picture of
the four of us sitting around
holding a newspaper that said THE
BEHREND BEACON, there was a
list of clubs and organizations and
it listed us as THE COLLEGIAN!
Now, correct us if we are wrong,
but doesn’t that make all of us here
look a bit foolish that four students
are reading a paper that clearly
says THE BEHREND BEACON
and then it says, “THE
COLLEGIAN, student
newspaper”? Yeah, that’s what we
thought too.
We just wanted to clear up some
obvious confusion here on campus.
Because even though we are proud
of the product we put out week
after week, it's not enough.
Everyone on this campus should be
proud too. After all, it’s a paper
that is published for students, by
students and it is all about YOUR
campus. So if you ever see an
administrator running to our
newspaper racks on Thursday
morning, kindly point out to him/
her that the paper has been coming
out on Friday mornings for about
two years now and that what he/
she is reading is old news.
Jeff Miller
Public Relations Manager
Letter Policy: The Beacon
encourages letters to the editor.
Letters should include the address,
phone number, semester standing
and major of the writer. Writers can
mail letters to behrcoll2@aol.com.
Letters must be received no later
than 5 p.m. Tuesday for inclusion
in that week’s issue.
The Beacon is
Health Page Editor
Sarah Orr
Advertising Manager
Atm Marie Havey
Business Manager
Kristine Harakal
Ainslie Ulmer
Distribution Manager
Doug Smith
Secretary
Melissa Proba
Advisor
Robert Speel
ip f % i|
Editorial
Questioning Police and Safety
When I first came to Behrend, the only things
printed in the Police and Safety report were
complaints about “aggressive squirrels” or
people who lost their keys.
Now the reports are filled with cars being
broken into, vandalism and other more serious
threats. This is starting to piss me off.
Almost every weekend there are cars that are
damaged in the BFE or Ohio lots. Windows are
broken, the cars are keyed or the sideview mirros
ripped off. Why can’t P&S do anything about
this?
My main problem is very simple. Being a
resident student for three years I have had the
opportunity to observe Police and Safety many
times. Every hour or so they drive around the
lots. Occasionally they stop for 2 or 3 hours to
talk to friends up in the apartments or just kill
time. The only things I have EVER seen P&S do
is ticket cars and harass people about drinking.
Why don’t they do their job and actually try to
stop crimes?
I don’t care if someone parks in a housing
employee’s spot, and they have to walk a little
It’s not my fault?
“It’s not my fault.” When my fellow
Beaconians and I first heard our iMac pioclaim
these words, it was the funniest thing we had
heard in months and trust me, between all the
nut cases working on our weekly paper, we hear a
lot of funny things; we even keep a list of all the
great things we have said to regale each other
with at a later time. After the first utterance of
the lime iMac, we left our error messages on
longer than necessary just to hear the computer
say those inane words . .. “It’s not my fault.”
But the more I think about it, the more
profound the iMac’s message seems. And though
it may be tragic to hear profundity from an
inanimate machine that crashes every time we try
to run two programs at once, such is the way of
today’s culture. Just how pervasive is this idea of
faultlessness that we have projected it onto our
computers? “It’s not my fault” has not only
become an easy excuse, but also the motto of our
generation.
Let me present a situation for you. Though it is
in detail false, the overall trend shoulJoe pretty
familiar to my college peers. Last week a fellow
student wasn’t productive because of
circumstances completely beyond his control.
On Sunday night he developed a strange rash on
his hands that prevented him from typing his
English essay. On Monday the rash was so
obvious that he couldn’t go to class because of its
unsightliness. Tuesday he missed all of his
classes because of a doctor’s appointment
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
bit (welcome to the students world, and we PAY to
go here). I don’t care if there is some drunk kid
laying outside Reed. I do care about the safety
and security of the parking lots and our cars.
Where in Police and Safety is there a word that
means parking attendants? 1 don’t pay $l5O
dollars to park in an overcrowded lot, so I can be
ticketed for staying five minutes too long in a
temp spot, or so the P&S office can have $lOOO a
piece flat screen monitors. I pay for the security
of myself and my possessions. Now I don’t feel
unsafe at Behrend, but I am greatly concerned that
the damages in the back lots that started last year
continue to escalate.
How do we go about solving this? For starters,
our security could spent a little bit more time in
the back lots. One pass every couple of hours
isn’t going to dissuade anyone from vandalism.
Try actually sitting back there for awhile during
the “problem” times (that would be weekend
nights).
How about having some one around in the
office on the weekends too? My car was recently
broken into, and when I tried to go to the office to
regarding this rash. Wednesday he went to one
class (the one latest in the day)
d the Cheap but didn’t have any work done
j r j O Uf V because the medication he was on
ea LflgrllS made him fee j ju Wednesday night
Hayes he called off work to get his work done,
but was so tired that he went to bed early.
Thursday he went to class, and told all his
professors his sob story and was excused his
absences. Thursday night he decided that he
deserved a break, so he blew off the evening and
hung out with his friends. Friday he missed all of
his classes again, this time due to the after-effects
of hanging out with his friends the night before.
But, he still had the rash excuse to get him off the
hook. The weekend passes, and little gets done -
maybe he gets caught up to the beginning of the
week before. The English paper gets turned in a
week late. And now he is behind, and will
probably stay behind all semester. Why? Because
of that rash, of course.
Now, I don’t really have any friends who have
had a suspicious rash lately (to my knowledge).
But 1 have many friends and acquaintances that
have fallen prey to this example. Maybe, just
maybe, 1 have even been in a similar situation. Be
it an illness, a death, a break-up, a hellacious party,
several killer assignments in a row, whatever.
Something alters the pattern, and we get behind.
But is it our fault? Of course not! We were
victims of circumstances beyond our control. We
try and try and try, but superior forces keep right
on pushing us back. We would have persevered if
only that one thing hadn’t happened. And after the
fact, we just can’t seem to drag ourselves out from
under it.
So, we are now a society of victims. The TV
show should be renamed Victim in order to
properly reflect our culture’s attitudes. Survivors
don’t whine about how “The Man” or “Big
Brother” or that darned cough/ cold/ flu/ strep
throat/ bronchitis/ mononucleosis/ meningitis/
terminal cancer kept them down. Survivors don’t
blame all the fault in their lives on that one event
or series of events that affected them. Survivors
LOOKS LIKE
TORE RAISING
TUTWN AGAIN...
l Phi IRFNP BFACON
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9,2001
file a report, I was greeted with a “Sorry, no
office hours on the weekends” sign. Does crime
slow down on weekends? No, so why do our
officers slow down?
It is common knowledge that on campus, our
police have the same rights as the “real” police.
They can arrest and detain people for any real
crime and follow the same laws and regulations
that the real police do. So shouldn’t they have
the same responsibilities to the security of the
students?
I leave you with this. No one is pleased with
the current parking situation, and Behrend is
planning on expanding the lots and building new
ones. If our police cannot even protect the lots
that we have now, how will they even protect a
larger area? It is about time for F&S to step
forward and take some responsibilities and do
their job, which is a hell of a lot broader than
issuing tickets for people whose permits fall off.
Name withheld by request
don’t go on national television and blame all their
problems on that one time their friends kicked
them off tjie island. That is what victims do.
And let’s be honest, that is what we really are.
Personally, I think it is much more credible to
be a survivor than a victim. A survivor moves on
with life and lets the past be just that the past.
Yeah, the past will always be there shaping the
future, but it will only dictate that future if you
let it. I think that is a choice we all have to make.
Should we let the past bring us down 24/7, or
should we put it in perspective and move on? I
know which I would prefer to do. It is much
easier said than done, but I don’t think it
impossible.
Next time, instead of saying “It’s not my
fault,” try to say something else. For instance,
“Yeah, I screwed up, but I won’t do it again.”
Because let’s face it, that rash wasn’t that bad.
You could have typed that paper on Sunday. It
was just another excuse to put it off for one more
day. And that rash wasn’t the reason you were
behind all week. Putting off the work and
partying with the friends all weekend (and that
weekend started on Wednesday, not Friday) put
you behind. If it prevents you from getting the
work done, don’t tell the profs it was the rash
they may be out there sometimes, but I bet they
know the truth. And stop whining to your friends
that your life is crap and you can’t change that.
The only reason it is crap is because you let it be
crap. It is your fault!
The way things are working right now, we
should be called the Generation V for Victim.
We should all be sportin’ scarlet Vs on our chests
(and that V ain’t for Virgin). We should change
the Queen song to “We are the victims, my
friends. And we’ll keep on whining to the end.”
It’s pretty sad that the lime iMac has been
programmed to our whiney mentality. “It’s not
my fault?” No wonder the iMac never gets
anything done it was created by us!
Hayes’ column appears every three weeks.
BEELER’Oi