Dear Editor,
I am writing this letter in response to two
stories that appeared in last week's
Behrend College Collegian. I'd like to
clarify several issues.
Colleen Fromknecht's opinion piece on
the student activity fee questioned the
integrity of the activity fee allocation
process, and that disappoints me. On
behalf of the Student Activity Fee
Allocation Committee, I had submitted a
two-page progress report to the Collegian
on Tuesday, February 1 I in an effort to
ensure that the newspaper staff would have
good information about the process and
rationale, and the status of the
committee's deliberations.
I was disappointed that the paper carried no
story on the work of the committee.
Instead, an opinion was published, the
author of which had neither read the
progress report nor had done much, if any,
fact-finding prior to alleging that the
committee members had "cheesy ethics."
I do not take issue with the decision to
print an opinion, but since the issue of
ethics has been raised, I'd like to suggest
that there is an ethical problem associated
with printing an opinion which criticizes
the character of individuals without
Should there be
a Johnday ?
by John Amorose
Collegian Staff
While making my bi-weekly trip
home, my mother proposed a very
interesting concept. She said that she
could better handle her work load if she
only had another day in the week. I
thought nothing of it, at first, but when
some friends of mine brought this same
idea up a couple of days later, I started
pondering the advantages of having an
eight day week. This proposal could
solve the world's problems: there would
be no war, violence would take a sharp
decline, and mankind would enter a
golden age of peace and prosperity. All
right, maybe not, but it's pretty cool to
dream, though.
Think about it. A day after Sunday,
but before Monday. Let's call it
Johnday (blatant self-promotion!).
Being college students, there are
several extremely useful reasons for this
day. First of all, for those of us who
travel home for weekends throughout the
semester, those precious few hours on
Sunday just aren't enough. In that time,
we must do homework which was
neglected over the weekend, give our
roommate/friends a vivid recap of the
events that occurred at home, do
The Behrend College
Collegian
published weekly by the students of
Penn State Erie, The Behrend Co'tete
Editors in Chief
Jennifer V. Colvin
Danielle M. Murphy
Business Manager
Carley Gwin
News Editors
Doreen Foutz
Sara Prosser
Sports Editors
Brian Gregory
Matt Plizga
Entertainment Editor
Sheila Bickel
Photography Editor
Colleen Gritzen
Opinion Editor
Colleen Fromknecht
Advertising Manger
Tom Keefe
Office Manager
Crystal Dehart
Advisors
Dr. Ursula Davis
Dr. Rob Speel
postal Woman. The Collegian is
published weekly by the students of Penn State
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Elmer Reed Union Building, Station Road, Erie,
PA 16563. The Collegian can be reached by
calling (814) 898-6488 or (814) 898-6019 (fax).
ISSN 1071-9288
Lia"LAU The Collegian encourages
letters to the editor on news coverage, editorial
content and University affairs. Letters should
be typewritten, double spaced and signed.
Letters should be no longer than 400 wads.
Letters should include the semester standing
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reject letters. Letters submitted to The
Collegian become the property of the
newspaper. The Collegian is published every
Thursday during the academic year on recycled
making an effort to understand their point
of view
Allow me to summarize the allocation
process. First, consistent with
University-wide guidelines, the activity fee
committee is comprised of seven students,
two staff, and a faculty member, and is
appointed jointly by the SGA President
and the Dean of Students. Care was taken
to ensure that the committee would be
representative of the student community,
including commuters and resident students,
returning adults, student athletes, student
government leaders, students of color,
Honors students, and students representing
every year of a four-year acadimic program
and all four academic units of the College.
Seven of the ten committee members
served on the 1996-97 committee.
The committee invited campus-wide input
into this year's planning process. A letter
outlining the process and guidelines, with
a student activity fee suggestion form, was
mailed to every Penn State-Behrend
student, faculty member, and staff
member. A full-page Collegian
advertisement also invited student input,
as well as a poster campaign and an e-mail
memo sent to faculty and staff.
laundry, as well as many other
obligations. With the establishment of
Johnday, students can relax on Sunday
evening, and be more refreshed
throughout the week. Also, with
Johnday being class free, homework or
studying from either the previous week
or the week to come can be completed,
causing a rise in students' grades, thus
opening a broader selection of post
graduation job opportunities.
Aside from the increase in school
performance, there's the physical
effects. How much relaxing does the
average student do on the weekends?
Saturdays are usually spent recovering
from Friday night, and trying to make
plans for Saturday night. Sundays are
usually spent recovering from, and
sometimes regretting what happened on
Saturday night. And just like that, the
weekend's gone, and the next week is
upon you. But if you had a day in
which you could do the things you
forgot, or just didn't do over the
weekend, plus sleep, and maybe catch
up on a little TV, wouldn't you feel
great? I know that I would. Stress
would be reduced and students' overall
self-esteem would increase greatly,
causing a more pleasant atmosphere
around campus, especially on those
dreaded Mondays.
So email the president, write a letter
to your congressmen or talk to
somebody important. Tell them the
world needs Johnday. Penn State-
Behrend needs Johnday. We all need
Johnday!
"Take my advice. Leave it
on the street with the keys
in it."
PENN STATE
:O .A. CnOILA
THE BOOKSTORE WILL BE
RETURNING ALL SPRING SEMESTER
BOOKS TO THE PUBLISHERS SOON
- ANY STUDENT WHO HAS NOT
PURCHASED A TEXT BOOK FOR
THE SPRING SEMESTER SHOULD DO
SO AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Letter to the Editor
Opinion
More than $400,000 in suggested uses of
the fee revenue were received from all
College constituencies. Every suggestion
was reviewed, discussed, and where
appropriate, researched by committee
members. Because of the large number of
suggestions and issues that the committee
had to consider, its preliminary
discussions were not public in an effort to
ensure that all committee members had the
opportunity and comfort to discuss openly
with one another every possible issue and
concern without fear of misrepresentation.
As noted above, a written progress report,
outlining items that the committee had
tentatively agreed to recommend for
activity fee funding, was submitted to the
Collegian on February 11, but the
newspaper chose not to write a story. The
final preliminary report is printed in
another full-page, paid advertisement in
this issue. Questions and comments are
welcomed and may be directed to any
committee members.
I'd like to say a final word about the
integrity of the committee members,
particularly the students. We held four
long evening meetings, including a Friday
evening meeting. The students made this
work a priority by attending meetings, and
they did their homework. One student
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committee member lives 90 minutes from
the campus and is a returning adult who
must balance family with University life.
On one occasion when she had an early
morning class the day after a meeting, she
slept on a friend's floor in a residence hall
in order not to neglect her responsibility
to represent students on the committee.
The decisions of the committee were, in
the final analysis, student-driven. I
commend the students who made this
important work a priority.
I'd also like to comment briefly on the
article entitled, "WPSE loses activity
fee money." The article contains
several inaccuracies, beginning with the
title. WPSE did receive one-time
supplemental activity fee funding last
year in order to provide time for a new
marketing idea to be tested. That was a
difficult and controversial decision, the
rationale for which included a vision for
a future radio station that would be self
supporting and would offer students an
educational opportunity, and the
community a programming opportunity.
WPSE's marketing plan has been
successful to date and no additional
funding was requested this year from the
activity fee committee. The station
didn't request and lose funding as might
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Thursday, February 20, 1997 The Behrend College Collegian - Page 3
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be concluded by some who read this
article, but rather, it honored its
commitment to students to become self
supporting and not to request additional
activity fee funding.
While this year's priority for WPSE has
been fund-raising, the future vision of
WPSE is to involve many more students
in a wider variety of station
experiences, including production work,
marketing efforts, interviews of
corporate leaders, and the more
traditional aspects of operating the radio
board.
Thank you for this opportunity to
comment and clarify.
Sincerely,
Christopher M. Reber
Dean of Student Affairs
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