page 4- The Behrend College Beacon. Thursday, September 3, 1998
The Behrend College Beacon
published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
News Editor
Will Jordan
Photography Editor
Andrea Zaino
Business Manager
Jaime Davis
Advisors
Robert Speel
Jim O'Loughlin
Postal !,formation: The Beacon 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 Beacon can be
reached by calling (814) 898-6488 or
(814) 898-6019 (FAX). ISSN 1071-
QIRR
Behrend's fiftieth
anniversary
celebration a success
Behrend's fiftieth anniversary cel
ebration was a very well thought out
event. It managed to include almost
every part of the university, past and
present. It provided activities for stu
dents, which not unexpectedly, were
not as well attended as they could
have been. However, there was a good
turnout for the bands on Friday night,
and most students seemed to have en
joyed themselves.
Behrend also thanked its friends
and benefactors on Saturday night
with a dinner and speaker. This event
did include a few students and was
quite successful. Housing and Food
turned out a meal that we didn't think
it capable of, and Bruno's looked well
for the occasion. Each participant in
that celebration received a copy of
"Behrend Remembered" by Ben Lane
and also were able to taste the Be-
The Behrend Review H
A call for Clinton's resignation
On January 26, 1998, President Bill
Clinton publicly stated: "I did not
have sexual relations with that
woman, Miss Lewinsky."
Then nearly six months later on
August 17th, the President stated in
a nationally televised address: "I did
have a relationship with Miss
Lewinsky that was not appropriate."
Thus implying that he had had a
sexual relationship with Monica
Lewinsky and that he had told a
direct lie to the American people to
cover himself.
Now the issue of whether or not Bill
Clinton had a sexual relationship
with Monica Lewinsky is
insignificant. However, what is
significant is that he may have lied
about it under oath, and he lied about
it to the American people.
A little over thirty-six hours after
Clinton's address the United States
attacked terrorist targets in
Afghanistan and the Sudan, in what
was said to be a response to the
recent bombings of the U.S.
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
And not soon thereafter several
reporters and politicians alike were
questioning whether the timing for
the attack was orchestrated in
advance to divert attention away
from the President's sexual
misconduct. Thus the so-called
"Wag the Dog" scenario taken from
a motion picture of the same name
about a fictional U.S. President who
starts a war with Albania to divert
attention away from his own sex
scandal.
U.S. Senator Dan Coats, a
Republican from Indiana, stated in
his response to the attack, "that once
a President loses credibility with the
Congress, as this President has,
through months of lies and deceit and
manipulations and deceptions,
stonewalling, it raises into doubt
everything he does and maybe
everything he doesn't do and doesn't
say." Now under normal
circumstances remarks similar to that
Editor in Chief
Anne Rajorte
Managing Editor
Ayodele Jones
Associate Editor
Mark Greenbank
' •
Features Editor
Jon Stubbs
Layout Editor
Mike Perkins
Advertising Managers
Erin Edinger
Carey Smith
Letter Policy: The Beacon
encourages letters io the editor.
Letters should include the address,
phone number, semester standing and
major of the writer. Writers can mail
their letters to bihrcoll24aol.com.
Letters must be received no later than
spm Tuesday for inclusion in that
week'c iccite
hrend Berry ice cream. It is to be ex
pected that the benefactors of a col-,
lege are to be treated well when they
visit, and they certainly received an ,
enjoyable evening in return tar their
continued interest m Behrend.
Finally on Sunday, faculty, staff and
students all had the opportunity to
hear Michael Peschlois speak.
Michael Beschloss has been on the
news quite frequently, recently com
menting on Clinton's presidency, and
Behrend was fortunate to have such a
speaker present fo(their anniversary.
Behrend's fiftieth anniversary is a
time to look back on how far Behrend
has come in the 'filty short years it has
been in existence. If it weren't for the
generosity of the Behrends, thousands
of students would not have had the
opportunity to attend such a unique
school.
of Senator Coats could toe, dismissed
as partisan rhdtoric. However the
circumstances are not normal. The
president has admitted on national
television that he "mislead people."
So the question is, can we still trust
President Clinton?
No! Unforttinately no, we as
American citizens can no longer trust
in what our Presiderir "does" or
"says," "doesn't. do"Or "doesn't
say." We know he has lied to us
once. Has he lied to us before or will
he lie to us
again? There
is an old
saying that
once someone
d o e sr
something
once, it is
much easier to
do it a second,
third or fourth
time.
However,
President
Clinton is
indicted by
special
Prosecutor
Ken Star on
charges of
perjury, he
should not be
impeached by
Congress.
Under
Article 11,
Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution:
"The President, yico'PregiOnt and
civil officers of the United States
shall be removed froth Office , on
Impeachment for , ConviCtiOn of,
Treason, Bribery, or other high
Crimes and Misdemeanors."
However I don't feel that lying in a
civil suit, that was later dismissed,
exactly qualifies as "high Crimes and
Misdemeanors." If the President
were to be impeaCbed on these
charges, it would set 'a dangerous
reiriTh
Overenrollment causing crowded campus
Walk into Bruno's at about noon an
any given weekday and you will find
possibly one of the most crowded
spots in Northwest Pennsylvania. Is
it because of the delicious food? Prob
ably not. The low prices? At ninety
nine cents for a bagel, surely not. Sim
ply, it is because there is no other
choice. On-campus students can go to
Dobbins, but for commuters, Bruno's
is the only place to get something to
eat on campus.
The reason for the extreme over
crowding is the ever increasing enroll
ment at Behrend. While the rising stu
dent population is beneficial in some
ways, many students are starting to
feel a little crowded. Parking is so
tight that Polio!. and Safety ran out of
parking passes before the second day
of classes endod. Students are more
RLES TESTRA
precedent in which it would be easier
for Congress to impeach future
Presidents on trumped up charges,
solely because they happen to
disagree with their policies.
The only honorable thing Bill
Clinton can do to restore some
remnants of his credibility is to
resign from the office of the
Presidency. By doing that he would
prove himself a bigger man than he
has thus far demonstrated in the last
several months and possibly save
this nation the strain of a long and
drawn out impeachment hearing.
However a man who would cheat on
his wife with a girl only a few years
older than his daughter, then lie about
it under oath, lie about it to his
family, and lie about it to the
American people probably does not
have the personal conviction to
voluntarily give up the most
powerful office in the world.
Test rake is a political science major.
The Behrend Review will appear ev
ery 3 weeks in The Beacon.
Editorial
and more often having to park in the options. Students wait in 15 minute
lot next to the Police and Safety build- lines for a sub because they have to.
ing, which is quite a walk for those in Students are willing to be herded like
cattle through the various lines in
How is the administration expecting to handle two more
residence halls without expanding the dining hall?
the suites and apartments. However,
nowhere is the crunch felt more than
in the dining halls. Dobbins has a line
that wraps its way around the salad
bar during dinner hours. Bruno's
barely has enough tables to accom
modate all of the students and those
lines are getting longer and longer.
It is simply not pleasant to he in
Dobbins or Bruno's during lunch or
dinner time, but there are few other
Why is college tuition rising?
By Denis Horgan
The Hartford Courant
Those "Night of the Living Dead"
types you see Boris Karloffing around
are not actually people who have been
paying too much attention to the
news, (Whatever happened to the
"Dog Days of August"? The Good
Old Days.) No, the zombies are
mostly stunned people who have just
written their college tuition checks.
You could think, out of a sense of
solidarity, that when the kids finish
up college you'd fling yourself down
the cellar steps a few times as autumn
approaches just to bring back the ex
quisite sensation of paying college
tuition
Consider
For the price of a year at a private
college you can buy a top of the line,
spiffy Toyota Camry without having
to haggle over the pinstriping. The car
will last a decade, but with college,
you get to do it again 12 short months
later. Like those cute Beetles that are
back on the streets? They're not cheap
but you could get two of them for nine
months at one of the more pricey
Dobbins because there is nowhere
else to eat.
Construction is already underway
on a new residence hall, and yet an
other one is planned after that. How
ever, there has been no talk of a new
dining hall. How is the administration
expecting to handle two more resi
dence halls without expanding the
dining hall? The problem has already
grown out of control. There are twelve
c ;.-•
-
Q •,`?
•
schools
You can go all the way around the
world in high style, no hostels or steer
age travel, for a single semester's
college cost. You could spend a month
on safari and have enough left over
to buy a small elephant with what it
costs to buy off the extortionists at
good old Big Bucks U.
For what you pay for the young
scholar's educational keep for a mea
sly month, you could fly the entire
family to Paris and back or buy a
whole living room's worth of furni
ture. Nice furniture. Send the brilliant
young heir to the state school and
you'll only be
paying the equiva
lent of a family's
food budget for
half his university
sentence.
A week
of college time at
one of the grander
emporiums will
cost what a pin
stripe lawyer pays
for a serious suit at
Brooks Brothers
or for a Waterford
crystal setting for
10. A day of Boola
Boola stands for
what a snazzy
meal costs at the
very best restau
rant, four stars,
where they put out
more than one
fork; and while
you can only eat
so many meals,
the meter ticks re
lentlessly on the college calendar. An
hour of university lectures will set you
back what you'd pay for an NFL
game, if you could get even a cheap
seat.
Turning it around, the average po
liceman or fireman could work from
one end of the year to the next and
barely take home enough to send a
child to party away his or her time for
a college year -- a year with more
vacation gaps in it than there is in a
5-year-old's smile. If the police officer
has the audacity to eat or live under a
hundred new first year students this
year, which is a definite increase from
last year. If the school keeps growing
at this rate, this problem will also keep
growing.
This problem has been brought up
in the past and solutions have been
suggested. For example, it was sug
gested that Dobbins be open extended
hours, the way Bruno's is. This may
help to alleviate the problem some
what, but it will not change the hours
that most students prefer to eat their
meals. Bringing an additional four
hundred people on this campus surely
calls for a reevaluation of the dining
situation. For now, students just have
to fight the crowds.
Rajotte is editor in chief of The Bea
con. One Flew Over the Albatross'
Nest will appear every 3 weeks.
roof during this time, there isn't
enough left to feed the even hungrier
college machine without loans.
Maybe you can afford to pay $6O-an
hour for each class, but most folks
can't.
While most of us wonder where all
that money will ever come from, there
are some others who wonder where it
all goes. Provisions to the Higher
Education Act poke around in the
Congress which would compel the
colleges and universities to explain in
some detail why costs have risen like
mercury in the Sahara, even while the
rest of the economy is almost under
control.
Good luck
While even the Defense Depart
ment -- yes, even the Defense Depart
ment -- has to strive for economies
and explain a lot to cranky taxpayers,
colleges and universities get away
with the old sleight of hand wherein
we are never able to find out under
which shell the pea might be. Where
everyone else has to tighten the belt,
college costs rise at merely double
everyone else's rate.
Why?
Because people will pay for it. All
that malarkey they teach in those col
leges about supply and demand does
not seem to apply to those colleges.
We have long been advised that the
skinnying up of the college-age popu
lation from the depleted Boomers
would create a buyers' market favor
ing the student and his poor parents.
Right.
It is actually worse than before for
the saps in the middle, those caught
between the wealthy who don't care
what it costs and the worthy poor who
are helped along with aid unavailable
to the rest. (In fact, there should be
some consideration allowing the
middle class to declare future poverty
since the thump of tuition will wreck
the savings of all but a Vanderbilt.)
Beyond a bit of theatrical cluck
clucking, the colleges don't care.
They'll charge whatever they want
and anyone troubled by the illogic can
pay extra for an answer -- which
somehow never comes anyway.
There's an education in that some
place.