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J,.. . .7 • ../. -. ,F . • . s Vol. XLVIII No. 6 16 pages Behrend honor society hits early setback Lambda Sigma starts school year with no national membership and negative balance by Jason Snyder editor-in-chief Entering the 1999-2000 school year at Penn State Behrend, the Lambda Sigma Honor Society encountered a major setback towards their plans for the school year. The Behrend repre sentatives for the sophomore honor society have just received news that none of the sophomores elected into membership for the Lambda Sigma Honor Society arc officially members, according to national headquarters. This year's representatives of Lambda Sigma have been looking into the situation to find out why they were left in debt with no members actually being recognized by national head quarters. President Lisa Lada commented on the situation saying, "Lambda Sigma is not concerned with passing the blame onto anyone. We just want to STUDENT FEES FOR ? dministration xplains use of fees by Mike Frawley IllilllilfllllL' c_Illlll" While paying their tuition for this semester, many Behrend students no ticed that they were heing charged additional fees to attend seltool. Two of these tees are the Information Technology Fee and the Transporta tion Fee. While the Information Technology Fee has hecn paid by stu dents for the past few sears, the Transportation Fee is a new fee for students this semester. These tss o fees are University-wide tees; all Penn State students, regardless of which campus they attend. pa, these fees. Many students have been ques tioning what these tees are for and who decides how these fees are be ing spent. The Information Technology Fee is the fee that students pay for any computer use that they, as students, have. Currently, the lee costs stu dents $lOO per semester. Any com puter on campus that is for student use is paid for by the Information Technology Fee. The fee is divided into two parts; one part of the fee stays at Behrend for our local use, while the other half goes to Univer sity Park as overhead for university wide support services. Some items that the fee is put toward are: library computer services, the ACCESS project (servers for e-mail and stu dent Web sites), technology class rooms, consulting services, and dis abled student services. The portion of the fee that goes to University Park supports things that are used by all students. A major part of this is the Comprehensive Aca demic Advising Information System, also known as CAAIS. This system, which is very heavily used by stu dents, has been developed using In formation Technology Fee funding over the past few years. The CAAIS system allows students to review their grades, look at their transcript or degree audit, late drop a class, or WEEKEND WEATHER 0 ~ make sure that our society is an ac tively functioning one. With no money for dues or activities, this is more difficult than we anticipated, but we're all willing to work, so I am sure the situation will he resolved. - Lada and Vice President Sarah Edwards, along with many of this year's members told the Beacon that the dues paid by this year's members were never sent to national headquar ters, thus nullifying Behrend as an active chapter of the Lambda Sigma Honor Society. The responsibility of sending the money to national headquarters was left in the hands of last year's offic ers. This group included President Rachel Hinterlang, Vice President Channasa Taylor, Treasurer Meghan Snyder and Secretary Steph Nardello. This group of officers was also re sponsible for planning a banquet for all their members along with the new PHOTOS BY JEFFREY MILLER CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Students utilizing the Blue Bus; new email kiosk in Aca demic; expanded library computer lab do interactive advising. This portion of the fee also supports e-mail for the entire University and a new softv, are contract with Microsoft. The new Microsoft contract will, in theory, allow all Penn State loca tions to have access to Microsoft soft ware applications. This contract al lows the University to provide soft ware, without charge to students or academic, service, and administration departments. Students will he able to get a certain amount of free Microsoft software for their personal use. Some of the programs that will be available are Windows 98 SE, Of fice 97, and various Microsoft word processing programs. The portion of the Information Technology Fee that is retained for local use by Behrend is dependent on enrollment. Because semester enroll ment figures will not be finalized until October 1, the amount of money Be hrend will receive from the fee for this year is unknown. For fiscal year 1998, Behrend collected a total of $555,480 from the Information Tech nology Fee. 44% of this amount went to University Park as overhead for all students. The remaining 56% of the fee stayed at Behrend, with an addi tional amount in rollover from the previous year. Administration continued on p. 2 See page 2 for full FALL FESTIVAL PAGE 5 weekend forecast. =ZIE members that would represent Be hrend this year. This year's members were required to pay $25 to cover the fee needed to become a member of the Lambda Sigma Honor Society and an additional $2O to cover the charge of the banquet and a souvenir. According to the records, 36 Be hrend students have paid the fee. However, both the fees due to national headquarters and the fee for the ban quet were used for only the banquet. The cost of the banquet far exceeded the expectations and the understand ing of this year's chapter at Behrend. The Beacon contacted Hinterlang and Taylor and heard two different stories. Hinterlang claimed that the planning for the banquet was the re sponsibility of Taylor, last year's vice president. If all 36 of this year's mem bers paid, which was confirmed by Lada. then that would enable Taylor to spend $720 on the banquet and sou What's high-tech at Behrend this fall Many technological improvements have hit the Penn State Behrend cam pus this fall. Much has been added in the way of new hardware, such as new computers, new monitors, and new software packages. Checking e mail, surfing the web, typing papers, and even designing programs have all become quicker processes, thanks to the many upgrades. Some of the most notable improvements have probably been made in the library and Hammermill computer labs. The big talk in the library is about the new high speed laser printers that were added for fall. According to Dr. Richard Hart, the library director, the two lasers replaced eleven old dot matrix printers, providing network capabilities - many computer stations can he linked to one printer - and up to 24 pages per minute output. All of MORE NEWS PAGE 2 EDITORIAL PAGE 6 CALENDAR PAGE 7 Friday, October 1, 1999 by Rob Wynne staff writer 5.... .. . I. venirs. Taylor's plans, however, didn't keep within that price range. The banquet alone, cost Lambda Sigma $1,400. In addition to the cost of the banquet, souvenir glasses were bought for all 80 past and present members. The glasses alone cost $7OO. When the glasses were being passed out, many were broken or blemished. Hinterlang claims that she told Taylor to get refunded for those glasses, hut nothing was ever re solved, and no money was refunded. Hinterlang has not heard from Taylor Hinterlang claims that she knew nothing of the debt that this year's chapter was left in. She commented on the event saying, "I feel so bad about the situation." Taylor, when contacted by the Bea con about the overspending, com mented, "I was told that there was this is at no additional cost to the students Pive new Pentiums were also in stalled in the library since summer, bringing the number of LIAS termi nals up from eleven to sixteen. The library system itself (LIAS - Library Information Access System) has also been upgraded. This includes the addition/expansion of the Penn State databases. Only accessible through a PSU terminal or account, these databases contain full text magazine articles, indexes, and en cyclopedias dealing with various subject matter. There are currently 130 databases on LIAS. "That's for n0w...," chuckled Dr. Hart. He said that there are always upgrades and enhancements going on with the system, and that Behrend has larger databases than probably any of the other area colleges. High-tech continued on p. 4 • • ,;•-=,=:l7 money there." In response to that comment made by Taylor, Hinterlang stated that Tay lor "should have known." She also added that Taylor failed to attend the society's meetings and failed to com municate properly with the treasurer Meghan Snyder. "She [Taylor) came to none of the meetings." Hinterlang added, "her major problem was mis communication. She and Meghan should have been talking." Hinterlang also stated that she can recall signing only one check involv ing the banquet, which was for $4OO. When asked if she signed either of the remaining checks - $995 due to the Marketplace Grill for the banquet and $7OO for souvenir glasses - she said, "I don't remember." The Beacon tried to contact Snyder for comment, but was not able to reach her. Because of the careless spending of Student pleads for better living conditions at Pizza with the Provost On Wednesday, September 22, Niagara Hall hosted the first Pizza with the Provost Meeting for the 1999-2000 school year. It was an event that brought Provost and Dean Dr. John Lilley and the students of Behrend together to talk about issues that affect the lives of everyone here at the school. Before beginning, Dean Lilley re assured everyone in attendance that the meeting would he beneficial to everyone present. He stated that this was "one of the major ways in which I listen to students." Several issues were raised, each dealing with a dif ferent aspect of life here at Behrend, and relating to each student in a dif ferent way. Among the first topics to be dis cussed was earlier opening hours for Bruno's on Saturday and Sunday mornings during the football season. This would give interested students the opportunity to view the games on the big screen inside of Bruno's. In response, the Director of Housing and Food Services stated that if a crowd would be present that would allow Bruno's to make money at those hours, it would be possible to create earlier opening hours on foot ball weekends. An important issue raised was the condition of the residence halls, pay ing particular attention to Niagara. One student, Jeremy Abreu, a resi dent of Niagara, made a fervent plea to the Dean for better living condi tions for the residents of Niagara. He addressed Dean Lilley in an eloquent, yet firm manner, recognizing the hall as, "the worst building." He then went on to express his concerns about the residence hall, stating that it has two broken doors and two non-work ing lights, each of which have been defunct for about a year. Residents of Niagara have attempted to present their problems before authorities, and as Abreu stated, "our cries are not be ing heard. This building is being laughed at like it's some kind of joke. Olt, WIRE SERVICE PAGE 8 ADJUSTING TO BEHREND PAGE 11 FEATURES PAGE 12 SPORTS PAGE 14 by Nicole C. Greene staff writer 4".„ „`~ A Penn State Erie Student Publication last year's officers. this year's mem bers will start off in debt with no money able to he sent to national headquarters. Matt Heidecker. a member of the Lambda Sigma Honor Society, com mented on the events of last year say ing, "there is no excuse for what has happened." He added, "Lambda Sigma was very poorly organized and run last year, but that does not actu ally reflect the true attitude of the members past and present. All of the current members have offered noth ing hut help and time." This year's officers are President Lisa Lada, Vice-Presiderit Sarah Edwards, Secretary Jessica Turos and Treasurer Cecilia Casado. These of ficers have already begun planning as to how to go about fixing the prob lems they have been faced with. Lambda continued on p. 4 They don't care enough. - Before addressing the question, Dean Lilley commended Jeremy for presenting his case in firm manner in which he presented solid evidence to support his claims. He then went on to explain to everyone present, what to do in terms of problem solving. "In the future, when you have a problem and people are not listening to you, take it to the next level." Also, he declared that "the Univer sity has invested about $l3 million in Housing and Food Services, and doors, lights, and windows should not he broken." As a result, he gave Ahreu his card and told him to keep him posted on the changes made to the Niagara Building. A question was also raised about adding new majors to the school. The Dean responded that several majors arc being considered, and that Finance has recently been added as a major here at Behrend. Other possibilities being considered are advertising, which would he included in the Com munications Major, as well as Com- putcr Engineering. Other issues that were discussed included installing Lion Cash ma chines into the residence halls, estab lishing reserved parking spaces, add ing BET to the list of television sta tions currently available at the school, and adding a football team to the Be hrend Athletic Program. Dean Lilley also gave attendees a hit of "authentic biology." He ex plained the difference between the Behrend Lion and the Nitanny Lion. To those who are not aware, the lion roamed from Maryland to Michigan. One roamed to Mt. Nitanny, and the other roamed into the Behrend woods. Therefore, the mascot of University Park is the Nitanny Lion, and our mascot is the Behrend Lion. The meeting between the Dean and the students appeared to he very suc cessful. Both the Dean and the stu dents expressed that it was helpful. The only way to judge its effective ness is to wait to see the outcome, and the changes that take place as a result of this informative conference. 41 ,1 • 7r: PLIN:\4I - A I L 11 17 4cT' 1 A - IL wito
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