page 4 - The Behrend College Collegian Thursday, April 16, 1998 The Behrend College Collegian published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Layout Editor Nathan Mitchell Photography Editor Jason Blake Business Manager Dana Greenhouse Features Editor Jon Stubbs News Editor Ik Chan Kan# \)slal In, The Collegian is 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 Collegian can be reached by calling (814) 898-6488 or (814) 898-6019 (FAX). ISSN 1071-9288. Sororities too sensitive to negative remarks Recently, many groups on campus have expressed discontent about the amount of recognition they receive for their various activities. The most re cent seems to have been the sorori Sororities have been, in the past, extremely sensitive about any nega tive remark made about them or fra ternities and sororities as a whole. They claim to he constantly fighting a negative image and anti-Greek stu dents. The most recent controversy oc curred at the last SGA open forum that was held April Ist. When SGA Presi dent Michael Zampetti made a com ment about sorority members attend ing the forum because they were forced to do so by their organization, it seemed to have spurred some an ger among sorority members. Zampetti's comment was hardly any thing that deserved as much backlash as it received. Like every other cam pus group, sororities must realize that their organization is not the most im portant on campus and must learn to take comments such as these with a SGA candidate Testrake has experience and commitment Many of the candidates for SGA senator are quite good and will prob ably do a great job. However, Charles Testrake has already proven he will work hard for the students. In his past terms with SGA, he has been actively involved with the organization, draw ing up resolutions on students’ con cerns and communicating with ad ministration. Professor points out underlying meanings in student comments Dear Editor, The April 9 issue of The Collegian featured a much appreciated front page article on some of Trigon’s re cent activities. Coincidentally, stu dent comments made in two other articles on this same page suggest how much more work is still to be done to educate the Behrend com munity about gay, lesbian, and bi sexual issues. I am not suggesting these comments should have been stifled, either by the students or by the newspaper itself. Such censor ship, particularly under the guise of “political correctness,” only prevents us from thinking more carefully about some of the assumptions un derlying our everyday speech. I hope that none of the students quoted here will take offense, then, if I tease out some of the implications of their words. I don’t know any of them, and am not assuming anything about them personally. I am rather, trying to think a bit about what our lan guage inadvertently conveys. Specifically: in the article on Samuel Delany, a student noted that the novelist’s announcement of his homosexuality “made it harder for Editor in Chief Andrea M. Zaffino Managing Editor Anne M. Rajotte Sports Editor D\lan Stewart Associate Editor Brian Ashbaugh Advertising Manager The Collegian encourages letters to the editor. Letters should include the address, phone number, semester standing and major of the writer. Writers can mail their letters to behrcoll2@aol.com. Letters must be received no later than spm Tuesday for inclusion in that week’s issue. grain of salt. In addition, the reporter who in cluded this statement in her story re ceived comments from members of sororities who said that she shouldn’t have even included it in the story. It was that reporter’s job to write about the forum, not to make the sororities look good. If there were unflattering remarks made about the sororities and a reporter reports on them, she should not have to deal with members tell ing her what to put or what not to put in her article. Sororities need to take themselves less seriously. Would these members have attended the forum if their so rorities had not asked them to go? This is not to say that it wasn’t good for the sorority members to attend the forum. It was a great show of support for SGA that sorority members par ticipated in the forum. However, it seems that any remark remotely criti cizing sororities is enough for some one to be deemed “anti-Greek.” So rority members need to stop assum ing that every group on campus is persecuting them. Testrake has the experience and the ambition to fairly and effectively rep resent the student body. He is com mitted to listening to student concerns and working towards solving prob lems on campus. Next Tuesday and Wednesday, keep Charles Testrake’s record and ambi tion in mind. He is one of the stron gest candidates for SGA senator. people to look at his work objec tively.” 1 don’t deny that this was probably true for some audience members, and yet I wonder: when a heterosexual speaker— say, Lucille Clifton speaks about her husband and children ( as she did during her recent reading at Behrend), does this automatically prejudice straight people in favor of her work? If so, such audience members can hardly be presumed to be “objective,” (un less “objective” is actually a syn onym for “heterosexual.”) If not, if simply speaking of one’s heterosexu ality does not prejudice an audience in favor of a writer, why would Samuel Delany’s statement about his homosexuality prejudice an audience against him? Unless, of course, the audience was not “objective,” but homophobic to begin with. To com plicate matters even further: Delany is also a light-skinned black man who could easily have passed as white. Should he have failed to men tion his race, so as not to risk offend ing the racists in the audience? Yes, homophobic and racist people were probably offended by Delany’s simple statement, “I am Black and I RJ Frehn Advisor Robert Speel Advisor Alan Parker SGA members not keeping commitment to students Last week, the Student Government Association (SGA) finally issued their report on the possibility of attracting businesses onto Station Road. The Stu dent Life committee was assigned last Fall to prepare this report by March. Their report was delayed due to the fact that it was not ready to be pre sented by their deadline. When the re port finally was presented, it was not much more than the results of a sur vey that SGA sponsored earlier in the semester. The committee was also supposed to contact local businesses and na tional chains about the possibility of locating around campus. They claim to have already done this. However, in the five months they have been working on this, not one business has replied. The possibility of businesses near campus is one of the few campus is sues that students have any interest in. What do they get for this interest? A committee that has obviously not done the job they were meant to do. If these businesses had been contacted three or four months ago, they surely would have responded. What owner of a Taco Bell or a McDonald’s doesn’t want to have a restaurant across the street from over a thousand college students who don’t want to eat at the dining hall? A convenience store owner would be come rich on selling just cigarettes alone. But mysteriously, none of these businesses felt it would be worth their time to express their interest to SGA. The Student Life committee did not spend an adequate amount of time on this issue. If they had done their jobs properly, there would have been a more thorough report to present and students would know how this cam pus might change in the next few years. To a freshman, knowing that there will be access to stores and restaurants in the next few years may make the dif ference between staying at Behrend or transferring to University Park. SGA elections are next week, and I urge voters to keep the work this com mittee has done in mind. This is an is- am Gay.” But such people could hardly be considered “objective.” And perhaps one of Delany’s goals was precisely to make it “hard” for some audience members to forget his race and sexuality under the guise of a phony “objectivity.” Describing his frustration with Housing and Food Services, a stu dent in another article is quoted as saying, “It feels like Housing and Food Services makes you drop your drawers and touch your toes.” Un less I misunderstand the metaphor, this is a euphemism for being pen etrated (“screwed”) from behind. Another student adds, “Housing and Food Services, why you riding mine?” The speakers here are appar ently assuming that being penetrated is something unpleasant, painful, and humiliating, or at the very least, not desirable. What is interesting about these statements is that they don’t distinguish between anal and vagi nal penetration, given that either can occur “from behind.” The metaphor is thus both homophobic and mi sogynist, expressing disgust and ridi cule for the way some people some gay men, some women have sex. Is this what heterosexual men imagine they are doing when they have intercourse with women causing them pain, humiliating them? Are the speakers simply pro jecting onto gay intercourse their own fantasies about what it feels like to be a woman? I’ve always found anti-pom feminist Andrea Dworkin’s writing to be “excessive” in terms of its depiction of all heterosexual in tercourse as rape, yet Dworkin ap parently shares with these students the belief that being “screwed” or “ridden” is degrading apparently as degrading as having to eat at Bruno’s. And to the sexually active heterosexual female students of Be hrend, I can only ask, “Would you want to be intimate with someone who thinks that sex with him is equivalent to the ‘screwing’ he gets from Housing and Food Services?” Editorial ejl sue that is very important in attaining lot about the commitment of our sena and retaining students and also to the tors. quality of life at Behrend. If this com- The issue of the establishment of mittee has produced little more than businesses across from campus will survey results in five months, how long only become more important as the SGA elections are next week, and I urge voters to keep the work this committee has done in mind. This is an issue that is very important in attaining and retaining students and also to the quality of life at Behrend. If this committee has produced little more than survey results in five months, how long will it take for any real change to happen? will it take for any real change to hap pen? SGA senators are elected to repre sent student needs to administration. When a committee wastes time and produces few results on a project that is so important to students, it says a That Strange House on Station Road Let’s hope the sisters are doing it for themselves. (I hope I have not of fended readers with this discussion; I don’t see, however, how it is pos sible to respond to this metaphor a metaphor the editors of The Colle gian chose to highlight in the story without raising these issues.” As any recent graduate of English 015 knows, our language has much to teach us about cultural mores and values. It is perhaps fitting that a visit from a writer as brilliant and brave as Delany should provoke a discus sion of how our language might re veal the prejudice we assumed we had conquered. John Champagne Assistant Professor of English Co-Advisor, Trigon SRTEs should be taken seriously by students Dear Editor, I would like to relay a con cern of mine that concerns the per ceived importance of the teacher evaluations handed out at the end of every semester by every professor. I learned from my academic advisor (AA) that she wouldn’t be teaching next semester. My AA then went on to tell me how many professors are in the same predicament as she every year. It seems that what a student feels is an adequate response on the teacher evaluation (5-6) is not what the vari ous department heads view as ad equate (6-7). Many students, myself included, do not feel that anyone should receive a “7,” or strongly agree, on the positive aspects of the survey. Some department heads, which decide if professors stay or leave the faculty list, feel that any LESS than a “7” on a positive aspect is too low. I would like the depart ment heads to accept the way many, if not a majority, of the students grade. What I ask is not for the department heads to lower their standards for the se on S public water system is extended to land across from Behrend, and the Eastside Access highway begins construction. SGA should certainly be involved with the changes on campus. However, if their commitment remains at the level it is at now, SGA will have no influ professors, but for them to come back down to reality. Too many great pro fessors have been lost because of this “misunderstanding,” and it should be considered an offense to Behrend’s dignity and pride should the depart ment heads continue in their "unachievable” expectations of both students and professors, in part. NOTE; 1 am not saying that the de partment heads are wrong in their judgements of the evaluations, I merely suggest that they realize what many students consider a “good” evaluation. David Grygier, 03 MIS SGA Senate candidate explains qualifications Dear Editor: BRING STUDENT GOVERN MENT BACK TO THE STU DENTS! That will be my major goal if I am reelected to a third term as one of your SGA Senators. My name is Charles Testrake and since my fresh man year I have been a Senator on the Student Government Association. Throughout my two years as a Senator, I’ve worked hard for YOU the student body. Last year I pre sented a resolution to alleviate the parking problem on campus and a resolution condemning Housing and Food Services prices. And this year I presented a resolution calling on Penn State to institute a Fall Break, which is now seriously being considered by the administration. But now it’s time to BRING STUDENT GOVERN MENT BACK TO THE STU DENTS! I feel the way to do this is to rede sign the Student Life Committee, a subcommittee of SGA. The goal of the Student Life Committee is to re search student problems and con cerns, find solutions to alleviate them, and then present legislation before SGA to do so. Unfortunately, throughout the past years, the Student A JO ence over future development in the Behrend area. The development will surely happen with or without SGA's involvement, but the only way to ensure that this change will be well received and ben eficial to the students is to have our student leaders influencing decisions. The new highway will bring about great changes to this area, including the destruction of several houses and buildings near campus, including the Behrend child care center. Another building that will he likely be destroyed is a house a few blocks from Behrend; the strange house that this column is named after. The front door of this house is about five feet off the ground. This historical and cer tainly beautiful piece of architecture may well be destroyed for the sake of a McDonald's or a Country Fair. That Strange House on Station Road has appeared every three weeks in The Collegian photo by Andrea Zatfino Life Committee has, for the most part, been open only to SGA members. If I am reelected to SGA, I will see to it as chair of the Student Life Commit tee, that this committee will be open to the entire student body. Next year the Student Life Com mittee will hold weekly or biweekly open meetings in which all those who are willing may come and be a part of the committee. The committee will be divided up into subcommittees, each to deal with one particular issue or concern of students. The Student Life Committee will then take the findings of the subcommittees and present them before SGA. To be honest, it is unlikely that the Student Life Committee and SGA will be able to fix everything that is wrong on this campus in one year’s time. However if YOU the students get in volved, the greater impact we will have. We can become a powerful lobby to the administration, local Harborcreek government, and even the state of Pennsylvania. So I en courage all those who read this letter to come to a Student Life Committee meeting and an SGA meeting with your problems and concerns about Behrend. On this Tuesday and Wednesday vote to BRING STU DENT GOVERNMENT BACK TO THE STUDENTS. Reelect CHARLES TESTRAKE as your SGA Senator. Respectfully, Charles Testrake SGA Senator Letters to the Editor behrcoll2@aol.com
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