Waft 94% 2000 1"414141** EAC ONI A PENN STATE ERIE STUDENT PUBLICATION FALL 2000 TODAY : Partly Cloudy • _ „ 41PAPAPI High 64 Low 54 Check page 2 for weekend forecast PAGE 7 KNIGHT SETUP? Bobby Knight questioned whether or not his firing was setup by Indiana University. PAGE 8 ASTI(' OR PAPER? Your Money and You debuts with the always debated issue of credit cards vs. cash PAGE 10 it ST VOI E BF HR Frawley has "new look" on politics in Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain SECTION 2 - PAGE 3 (.'ROSS co U IN TRY FEST I VA I . Behrend Lions to host third annual Penn State Behrend Cross Country Festival this Saturday. NEWS AN 1 X1'111 , 12 WORE &NA 10.7 s X.llo\ AL EDITORIAL ‘I DiI'ORIA CALENDAR OF EVENTS 11;1111* ' 1,11, DNR. FEATURES vit t PPE \ NCS #.~ I':,. SPORTS BEHRFNI.) SPORTS NATION Ai, SPORTS NEWSROOM: 898-6488 FAX US: 898-6019 Offices are located downstairs in Reed Union Building XLVIII No. 4 '4 4 'K Donna Shirley takes questions from the audience after her lecture Speaker Series launched with by Liz Hayes news editor Wednesday, September 13, speaker Donna Shirley kicked off the "American Dream in the New Millennium" Speaker Series, which is new to Behrend this year. Shirley has been greatly involved with NASA the past 30 years, and regaled the audience assembled in the Reed Commons with stories of her experiences. After Provost and Dean Dr. John Lilley introduced her, Shirley began her speech with some background information on how she became Students have problems with Brookwood Village in Belle Valley interested and involved in space and engineering. Growing up in rural Oklahoma, she always wanted to be a pilot, and her dream came true at the age of 15 when she began taking pilot lessons. Several years later she enrolled in the aeronautical engineering program at the University of Oklahoma, in which she was the only woman. After the presentation, Shirley was asked to comment on the difficulty of her minority status. She almost shrugged off the difficulties she faced then, and said that even now, in managerial positions, there is a very solid glass ceiling for anyone who does not fit September 15, 2000 D T:,,,,,,„.7 ( Donna Shirley the mold, not just for women. Shirley proceeded to describe the numerous projects she worked on. It all began with the Mariner 10 project in 1970-1973. Other projects she spoke of included solar energy usage; the Mission Design project which focused on how to maneuver from one planet to another; and several different robotics projects, particularly those involving planetary rovers that gathering geological data and specimens on Mars. Shirley continued on page 3 F MILLER PHOTO As the beginning of the new school year approached this summer, many students had to go through the tribulations of trying to find off campus housing. Because Erie is a college town with 4 major colleges in the area, there is a myriad of different choices that students could make. Most students had very little problem in finding an apartment, signing the lease, and getting settled in. But some students were not as lucky in the realtor that they chose to deal with. A combination of wanting to have a place to live away from school and a lack of available housing drove many students to look for alternative housing in the local area. One company that had a variety of rental properties in the area was Palermo Realty, whose office is located at 3435 West Lake Road in Millcreek. Palermo has apartments for rent, among other locations, at Brookwood Village at 5100 Clubhouse Drive in Belle Valley and in downtown Erie at 407 West Bth Street. Area's registration office confused on voter eligibility by Jason Snyder and Erin McCurdy editor-in-chief and staff writer During this past week two Beacon reporters called the Erie County Voter Registration Office (ECVRO) on three different days in hopes of get ting information on voter registration for college students. The registration office gave three different answers to the same basic question of whether or not Behrend students who live on campus during the school year can vote locally. In the initial phone call made to the ECVRO, the goal was simply to ob tain about 200 registration forms so Behrend students could register to vote. After being transferred to an other person, an unidentified woman asked what will be done with the reg istration forms. After explaining that the forms would be given out so that Behrend students could vote, she said that this could not be done. She said, "they have to register to vote in their home district if they want to vote." Dr. Robert Speel, associate profes Behrend athletic facilities growing rapidly by Liz Hayes news editor Since school let out in May 2000, much work has been completed on the new Athletics and Recreation Center (ARC) on Jordan Road. Although most students have not had a chance to see the construction on the ARC up close, a lot has been done to the internal structure. Over the summer the most time intensive project was installing the walls of the building. There was a delay in the completion of the walls, which then set back the rest of the construction. At deadline, the last wall was set to be finished this Friday, according to Athletic Director Brian Streeter. After the walls are in place, the last time-consuming project will be putting in the gym floor, which off-campus housing by Mike Frawley managing editor ) SECTIONS sor of political science at Behrend was then contacted to verify the informa tion given by the registration office. He said that according to the Penn sylvania law on the secretary of state's official website, to register in PA, voters must be 18 years of age, have lived in PA as a U.S. citizen for 30 days prior to the election, and have not been in jail for conviction of a felony in the past five years. Nothing more is said about voter registration eligibility. He also pointed out that while at tending the University of Pennsylva nia, he registered over 1000 students to vote at their on-campus addresses, including himself. University Park's College Republicans have also been known for doing the same thing. In addition, Dr. Speel points out that "the U.S. Census just counted all stu dents living on-campus as local resi dents this past April. The large stu dent population here is counted when determining local representation in Voting continued on page 3 should take from six to eight weeks Right now, due to the wall delay, the finish date is rather tentative. The dedication ceremony for the building has been scheduled for November 9 at 2:30, though the building probably will not be quite ready for full use by students. Streeter hopes that the ARC will officially open its doors when students return from Thanksgiving Break. ARC continued on page 3 Logan House renovations, Chapel and Bell Tower, Knowledge Park The next S years... Behrend students who rented or tried to rent from Palermo have reported a great variety of problems with Palermo, from promised apartments not materializing to threats of never renting to students again for problems not caused by students. Most of the students involved declined to publicly comment on their specific problems, but froma letter that came into the Beacon's possession; Palermo seems to be biased against college students. One Behrend student, Tracy Hamm, arranged to rent an apartment from Palermo with a group of friends over the summer. When she and her friends came into town and showed up at the Palermo office to sign their lease, the apartment that they had been promised was suddenly not available, and they were forced at the last minute to try and find other accommodations for the school year. Two other students, who asked not to be identified, attempted to move into their apartments in early August. When they arrived at their new apartment, which Palermo said was in living condition, they found the Housing continued on page 3 18 PAGES
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