page 4- The Behrend College Beacon. Thursday, October I, 1998 The Behrend College Beacon published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College News Editor Will Jordan Photography Editor Andrea Zaffino Associate Editor Mark Greenbank Business Manager Jaime Davis Advisors Robert Speel Jim O 'Loughlin Postal Information: 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- 9288. A view from the lighthouse Misconceptions about the morning after pill The front page article in last week’s Beacon about emergency contracep tion at the Health and Wellness Cen ter sparked a lot of discussion about the technicalities of the morning af ter pill. Some students, despite what Patty Pasky McMahon stated, still believe that the morning after pill is really an abortion pill. However, the morning after pill is virtually the same as birth control pills, only in a higher dosage. The pill prevents an egg from attaching to the lining of the uterus or prevents the ovary from releasing the egg in the first place. While a person’s first priority should be practicing safe sex, acci dents can occur. The morning after pill is back-up in case something should go wrong. The availability of the pill at the Health and Wellness Center is valuable knowledge to many Behrend women. The Health and Wellness Center also has information about dangers such as the date rape drug and what to do if you are sexually assaulted. If a woman is sexually assaulted, she should know about the morning after pill, and how it is used. Merit and the relevance of race in college admissions By William G. Bowen and Derek Bok Special to the Los Angeles Times In his classic study of Wall Street lawyers in the 19605, Erwin Smigel reports that “I only heard of three Negroes who had been hired by large law firms. Two of these were women who did not meet the client.” Smigel’s statement is not surprising. In the 19605, few lead ing professional schools or nation ally prominent colleges and univer sities enrolled more than a handful of minority students. In the late 19605, however, colleges and uni versities began to change these sta tistics, not by establishing quotas, but by considering race, along with many other factors, in deciding whom to admit. This policy was adopted because of a widely shared conviction that it was simply wrong for overwhelming numbers of mi norities to continue holding routine jobs while almost all influential po sitions were held by whites. Educators also considered it vital to create a more diverse learn ing environment to prepare students of all races to live and work in a multiracial society. In recent years, race-sensi tive admissions policies have been vigorously contorted. Surprisingly, however, there has been little hard evidence of how these policies work and what their consequences have been. To remedy this deficiency, we examined the college and later-life experiences of tens of thousands of black and white students who en tered 28 selective colleges and uni versities in the fall of 1976 and the fall of 1989. What did we discover? Compared with their ex tremely high-achieving white class mates, blacks in general received somewhat lower college grades and Editor in Chief Anne Rajotte Managing Editor Ayodele Jones Features Editor Jon Stubbs Sports Editor Jason Snyder Layout Editor Mike Perkins Rose Forrest Advertising Manager Erin Edinger Carey Smith 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 their letters to behrcoll2@aol.com. Letters must be received no later than spm Tuesday for inclusion in that week’s issue. Though some students were angry that the Beacon printed an article about emergency contraception on the front page, the morning after pill has been approved for over the counter sale in certain locations, and will be come more prevalent in the United States in the future. Every person at Behrend should be aware of the avail ability of the morning after pill at the Health and Wellness Center. They should also be aware of the truth about the pill. It is not an abortion pill. Students should remember that emergency contraception is available on campus. This information could prevent an unwanted pregnancy. graduated at moderately lower rates. Still, 75 percent graduated within six years, a figure well above the 40 percent of blacks and 59 percent of whites who gradu ated from all Division I NCAA schools. More than 90 percent of both blacks and whites in our sur vey were satisfied or very satis fied with their college experience, and blacks were even more inclined than whites to credit their undergraduate experience with helping them learn crucial skills. Although more than half the black students attending these schools would have been rejected under a race-neutral admissions regime, they have done exceed ingly well after college. A remark able 40 percent of black graduates who entered these selective col leges in 1976 went on to earn doc torates or professional degrees in the most sought-after fields of law, business and medicine. This fig ure is slightly higher than that for their white classmates and five times higher than that for all black B.A.s nationwide. By the time of our survey, black male graduates who had en tered these schools in 1976, though typically under age 40, were earning an average of $85,000, 82 percent more than other black male college graduates nationwide. Their black female classmates earned 73 percent more than all black women B.A.s. But the blacks we studied were not simply “looking out for No. 1.” In virtually every type of civic activity; from social service organizations to parent-teacher as sociations; black men were more likely than their white male class mates to occupy leadership posi Live from Guyana America’s favorite pastime I am a huge Yankees fan, okay well maybe a huge Derek Jeter fan, but what do you expect. I am a New Yorker. Since my “infallible” Knicks always fail to get past the Indiana Pacers, The Miami Heat or Da Bulls, I’ve decided to finally take on a New York team which will presumably not end the season early and will not give me heartaches. This in mind, I fol lowed every Yankees game and was so proud of my home team which was at one point in time almost fifty games ahead of five hundred. This was one of the main focus points on local sports news and ESPN; of course the other one being the home run derby occurring between Sosa, McGwire, and Griffey. The latter eventually eclipsed the incredible feats being accomplished by the Yan kees and soon the nation’s attention was turned to who would be the first to break Roger Maris’ home run record. Baseball is as American as apple pie and it’s America’s national pas- rdina Stop whining and do something this weekend So, it’s another weekend here at Behrend and you’re looking for something to do. You live on cam pus, and decided not to go home un like the other 80% of the student body. The horrendous snowfall hasn’t yet begun, contrary to the oh so accurate Erie weathermen, but you don’t have a car to go off campus anyway. Your psychotic glue-sniff ing roommate thankfully decided to go home, but all your other friends did as well. The big question is what do you do for some fun. Obviously you have plenty of homework to do, but hey, you’re in college now and homework is optional. If you get motivated enough you can get off your computer and out of the chat room, or maybe quit playing your Nintendo 64 and leave your room. Many students say that there tions. (Latinos and other minority groups also appear to have done well, but too few entered in 1976 to permit an equally detailed analysis.) Were black students de moralized by competing with whites possessing higher high school grades and test scores? Is it true, as conservative scholar and author Dinesh D’Souza asserts, that “American universities are quite willing to sacrifice the fu ture happiness of many young blacks and Hispanics to achieve diversity, proportional representa tion and what they consider to be multiracial progress”? The facts are very clear on this point. Among blacks with similar test scores, the more selective the col lege they attend (that is, the higher the test scores of their classmates), the likelier they are to graduate, earn advanced degrees and receive high salaries. Far from being de moralized, blacks from the most selective schools are the most sat isfied with their college experi ence. How much does diversity add to the learning experience? Have blacks and whites learned to get along better or has diversity resulted in self-segregation and greater tension? Undoubtedly, blacks often spend time together (as do hockey players, campus newspaper editors and other stu dent groups). But much interac tion also occurs. Eighty-eight per cent of blacks who entered selec tive colleges in 1989 report hav ing known well two or more white classmates, while 56 percent of their white classmates say that they knew at least two black class mates well. How many older Americans can make that claim? Editorial time, but before this season I was not at all intrigued or excited by this sport. In fact it elicited no greater feelings in me than that of attending a Tupperware convention. I didn’t posses the same passion for this sport as I did for basketball. I felt for Charles Smith (former forward of the New York Knicks) when he tried and tried and even tried again to make a lay-up under the encompassing pres ence of Scottie Pippen. I literally cried in agony. Yet my Knicks didn’t always solicit feelings of anger and depression. One of my greatest mo ments as a Knicks fan occurred on Tuesday May 25,1993, when John Starks dunked on the “great” Michael Jordan. Nine innings of baseball didn’t in trigue me, but rather it was a way to pass a lazy Saturday afternoon if there wasn’t a good movie on AMC. After watching one game earlier this year, I decided that I was really missing something, the attractive players Colle is never anything to do on the week ends here. One popular avenue that many students pursue is partying. There is a general feeling on this campus and many others that if stu dents are not going to a party, then there is nothing worth doing. While there is nothing really wrong with going to a Greek party to hang out, or any party for that matter, students need to open their eyes and realize that there are other things to do for weekend entertainment. If students would simply walk around and read the hundreds of signs put up by all the different organizations they would realize that other things do occur here Friday through Sunday, That’s why turnout at most on-cam pus events is so poor. Advertising alternatives have been tried and they still fail. It’s not that the organiza Looking back, large majorities of blacks, whites and Latinos believe that their college experience contributed much to their ability to live and work with members of other races. Almost 80 percent of the white graduates favor re taining their school’s current emphasis on diversity or emphasizing it even more. Our findings also clarify the much misunderstood concept of “merit” in college admissions. Selective col leges do not automatically offer admis sion as a reward for past performance. Many students, white and black, are re jected even though they finished in the top 5 percent of their high school class. Admissions officers do not admit sim ply “by the numbers” because they dent e St, which compose the thirty teams of Major League Baseball. After my as tonishing discovery, I was further sur prised that as the season progressed I was more interested in who won and their standings in the American and National League rather than who was at bat. Albeit, I only know the fundamen tal principles of baseball, I cannot ramble on about players, individual errors or RBl’s, but I could tell you won last night, who was on a win ning or losing streak and what player, if any, got traded. I may have gotten interested in baseball for the wrong reasons (how good the players looked in uniform), but I can definitely say now that I see baseball as not only a spectator but rather as a fan. This season has been filled of ma jor accomplishments for Major League Baseball. Just to name a few, Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs and Mark McGwire stirred national interest in their contest to break Roger tions need to be more creative, it is the simple fact that nobody takes the time to stop and read a sign, listen to a voicemail message, or hear about what is taking place. Bruno’s has at least one event taking place every weekend in addi tion to the movie shown over half the week every week. Okay, so the comedians aren’t always the best, and the other acts can be a bit strange, and there are usually pro jector and sound difficulties with the movie, but it’s still something to do. Also, there is the multitude of sports events which take place on week ends, as well as intramurals. The Blue Bus Occasionally makes trips for a small price and there are many other day trips that take place. There are BBQ’s, speakers, dances, and other interesting programs going on. know that grades and test scores, though important, do not deter mine how much applicants con tribute to their fellow classmates or how they perform in later life. Rather, admissions officers select those applicants most likely to help the institution fulfill its educational objectives and its re sponsibilities to society. For selec tive institutions, meritorious stu dents are those above a high aca demic threshold who seem most likely to enhance the education of other students and contribute to their professions and communi ties. From this perspective, the minority students admitted to the 28 institutions in our study have Maris’ home run record, Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles ended his streak of consecutive games played, the left handed pitcher of the Yankees, David Wells, pitched a perfect game and last but not least Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants went into a league of his own, with four hundred lifetime home runs and four hundred steals. All who had no prior interest in this sport were encouraged by the excessive media coverage following these historic feats. The combination of these memo rable and notable moments made this season one to remember. In the end I’ll always love my passion filled and adrenaline pumping games of basket ball, but I’ll gladly put those games on hold to witness a part of history being made on a lazy afternoon with a tied game, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded and a full count. Here comes the pitch, the batter swings .. Jones is managing editor of the Bea con. Live from Guyana apppears ev ery 3 weeks.. In addition, students need to take the initiative and create things to do and not rely on on-campus groups to cre ate weekend activities, especially while the weather is still decent out side. If students don’t wish to join one of the 10,000,000 clubs and or ganizations on this campus then they really have no room to complain. It’s just frustrating to hear stu dents bitch, whine, moan and com plain that there is never anything to do. Maybe if these students got out of their mole hole of a room, got in volved in something, quit binge drinking every weekend, or partici pated in some form, then these same students would have something to do, or have a say in what goes on in regards to weekend activities. Greenbank is associate editor of the Beacon. The Ordinary College Stu dent appears every 3 weeks. been “meritorious” in the best sense of the term A mandate to ignore race in choosing applicants would require that more than half the black stu dents attending these selective in stitutions be rejected. Would society be better off as a result? Considering the edu cational benefits of diversity and the need to include more highly qualified minorities in the top ranks of business, government and the professions, our findings con vince us that the answer is no.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers