A View From The Lighthouse
www.ourinternetserversucks.com
Technology is a wonderful
thing isn't it? Well I guess that
it would be if it worked the way
it was supposed to. We would
be completely lost without our
computers or Internet access.
Oops, wait a second, our
Internet access isn't working the
way it is supposed to, but then
again it never has. All the time
we hear about how the
University is working to bring
Penn State into the 2 century,
and working to improve out
Internet access, but, to put it
bluntly, it still sucks.
Any off campus student can
tell you the litany of problems
that they have trying to connect
onto the Penn State server. One
of the most frustrating problems
is busy signals during peak
periods, and as the semester
goes on these peak periods are
getting longer and longer. Some
days it takes upwards of an hour
to connect in before 8 p.m. at
night. And when you can get
on, the connection is so slow it
wasn't even worth the time you
took to connect in the first place
And on campus use is just as
bad. The one advantage of
living on campus is having an
Ethernet connection that moves
extremely fast. But the
connections are not up and
running in all of the dorms yet,
and the ones that work run
slowly. Most of us at one time
or another have had their
connection slow down to a
crawl so that you can't get
anything done. All of this is
frustrating to the extreme.
But why are our Internet
connections so important to us?
While it can be said that we do
use our Internet connections for
things like talking to our friends
and playing games. it is also
becoming an integrated part of
many of our classes. Teachers
post assignments for their
classes on the web along with
additional information and notes
that students need to pass their
classes. And let's not forget the
poor physics and other physical
science majors that have to
actually complete their
THE BEHREND BEACON
published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
Editor-in-Chief
Jason Snyder
Managing Editor
Michael Frawley
News Editor
Liz Hayes
Editorial Page Editor
Katie Galley
Features Editors
Karl Benacci
Jermaine Hardy
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Deanna Symoski
Sports Editor
Doug Smith
Abby Long (assistant)
Wire Service Editor
Rob Wynne
Photo Editors
Jeff Miller
Becky Weindorf
Associate Editor
Christine Kleck
Copy Editor
Paige Miles
'0 0 eta : 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.
assignments online. The excuse
"the internet wasn't working"
must he ringing in the ears of
professors all over campus by
now. So what are we supposed
to do when we can't get the
information that we need? For
the money that we pay in
tuition, this should not be a
thing that we have to be
concerned with.
The internet has become an
integral part of our lives in this
technological age and we need
to have good access to it for it
to be useful to us. A lot of time
and money has been spent this
past summer to upgrade the
computers around campus, but
the internet connections need
to keep pace. And what
happened to the notebook
computer data ports that were
supposed to have been put in
the Reed Commons? This is
another thing that has seemed
to have slipped through the
cracks. Please don't make us
whine about how we feel our
$ll5 technology fee isn't being
spent fairly or even properly
for that matter.
We understand that a lot of
the problems with the Internet
connection have to do with
University Park, and that the
Behrend Computer Center does
not control the funding that is
needed to upgrade the system,
but something has to he done
to fix this problem. There is no
quick fix for it. We need a
massive upgrade, and we need
one now
A .,.___„„
Money Page Editor
.1 mom,' Sinlui
Advertising Manager
Kim Zut A
Business Manager
Krivine Harakal
Office Manager
Kevin Bruner
Public Relations Manager
Ainslie Ulmer
Secretary
Melissa Praha
Advisor
Robert Sped
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 letters to behrcoll2@aol.com.
Letters must be received no later
than 5 p.m.Tuesday for inclusion
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The Beacon gets a compliment
In high school I was editor-in-chief of one of
the highest acclaimed school newspapers in
Pennsylvania, "The Canary." ... yes, "The
Canary". You may laugh that my school mascot
was a Canary, but if you knew the reason you
wouldn't. Anyway... this paper was beautiful.
We had it all; an excellent staff of writers,
editors, and administrators. To go with this, we
worked with a publisher who was extremely
helpful and reliable. Man those were the days!
I couldn't wait to get to college and work on a
COLLEGE newspaper!!
Well, nearly 4 years ago when I came to
Behrend, I joined the staff of the then called
"Collegian". What a nightmare. I couldn't
believe what I saw. In high school we used a
program called Adobe Page Maker 6.5 to design
our layouts. Once designed, it was a simple
process of printing out and taping down. Every
story, every picture would be designed onto a
page on the computer, then printed out as a
whole. So easy.
The Collegian functioned differently. Each
and every story, picture, sometimes word and
letter, "byline" (where the author's name goes),
page number, headline, and black line (that you
see between stories or columns), was individu
ally taped down to the layout paper. Perhaps
that doesn't sound like that big of a deal. Well
let me assure you, it is.
Go back and look at some of the old Colle-
gians. Notice how the stories are crooked, how
The Behrend revolution
Well another summer has come and
gone, I hope that everyone had fun, but
now it's time to focus on other things.
Unless you have been living in a hole
(and from some of the dorm rooms that
I've seen you have) you know that there
is a major election coming up. And if
you are like most other people in the age
group of most college students, you
don't care in the least about it. And you
are probably sick of people telling you
that you should care, but maybe you just
don't realize how much of an impact
your vote can have for Behrend and the
surrounding community.
Do you realize that if you live on campus and
register to vote as a resident of Harborcreek you
could help take over the local political scene?
We could pick a candidate to support, then
everyone could march down to the polls, vote for
that person, and they would win by a landslide.
Ok, by now you're saying to yourself, that's nice,
but again why should I care about who gets
elected, how does this affect me? Well let's
think about all of the ways that your vote could
help change Behrend.
District Justices are elected in this area. So
let's assume that you get caught underage
drinking (god forbid that that would ever happen
on this campus) and you have to go to the district
justice for your sentence. Do you want some
D.J. who was elected by the AARP and hates
college students or do you want someone who
might cut a first time offender a little slack
because they understand what it is like to be in
college? At least in my opinion this is a no
brainer.
And who do you think controls any kind of
._,,....._
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-.-,,
OEM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
the lines are wavy, and how every now and then
you could see shadows of the massive amounts
of tape used to fasten the printouts to the layout
pages. "Production nights" were on Wednesday
nights and lasted from 7:00 PM until 7 or 8:00
AM. If we were lucky, some nights we would
get out by 3. This is the time where everything
is put together to be sent to the printer. I can't
even describe the chaos.
Enough of the negative stuff. I'm sure you all
get the point. I'm not writing this letter to
discuss the downfalls of the Collegian, but rather
the relative glory of the Beacon.
Hats off to Robert Speel, the Advisor, Jason
Snyder, the Editor-in-Chief, and the rest of the
Beacon staff for taking huge steps to improve not
only the visial quality of the newspaper, but also
the story and editorial quality. One now gets a
much more accurate and positive impression of
the school and its students by reading the
newspaper.
Athletes who were virtually unrecognized for
their accomplishments are now praised ad
equately in the re-vamped sports section, while
color pictures of campus now cover the front and
back pages accompanied by excellent school
interest stories. Entire layouts of all sports
scores are now also included.
The editorial section is full of interesting
commentary by Katie Galley, Editoral Page
Editor, Becky Weindorf, Ben Kundman, and Liz
Hayes. I'm still trying to understand though just
around this campus?
Do you really enjoy
having to walk miles
town a dark road to
t to a store where the
ices are jacked up
through the roof? Don't you hate being forced to
eat on campus because the nearest restaurants are
all down on Buffalo Road? The only way that we
will ever get any kind of development is to have
local politicians who see this development as a
good idea. We can vote candidates in who support
these views.
Local politicians would also be forced to pay
attention to our needs. Once they know that we
control their chance of election they will be forced
to tailor their positions to things that we care
about. Behrend is one of the largest gatherings of
potential voters in Harborcreek, but political
candidates never come here to try and get votes.
They know that college students don't bother to
vote, so why should they bother with us.
Well, damn it they should be paying attention to
us. I, for one, hate to be ignored, and that's what
they are doing to us. Do you know what age
group has the highest voter turnout? Senior
citizens, that's who. And what kind of things do
they vote for. No money for schools, that's what
T - their kiric are through with
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school, so why should they
No Attention To The keep paying for them. Why
Behind The Curtain don't our schools have
enough money, especially
.ike Frawley state supported public
colleges? Because seniors don't want
to pay the taxes and they vote, so they get
what they want. So why aren't we doing
anything about it?
This election on the national level has
been very focused on trying to get the
youth vote. MTV's Rock the Vote and the
WWF's Smackdown the Vote have had a
great deal of success. The WWF alone has
had almost 40,000 new voters registered to
vote. Now many critics of these programs
say that most of these newly registered
voters won't bother to come out and vote,
but if they had a reason they would. While
the topics that candidates are talking about
are important, such as Social Security,
prescription plans, and what to do with the
tax surplus, most college students don't
care about them. Is it then surprising that
we don't bother to vote?
Behrend could be a great voice for
change in the community, all we have to
do is get active and regeister to vote! All
you have to do is go to
www.rockthevote.com, fill out the online
form and you're all set. Behrend's College
Republicans and College Democrats are
now active organizations on campus so
come check them out, and keep on reading
the Beacon, as we will keep you posted on
the issues of all of the major local races.
development
that we will have
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15,
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what Jason Leto was talking about in his
letter to the editor... hmm. Anyway, Kudos
to the Editorial staff, namely Ms. Galley fo
heading up such an entertaining section.
How could I write a letter to the editor
about the Beacon without mentioning the
Police And Safety Report? Well I can't. A
I can say is that the P&S Report better stay
in the paper unconditionally!! If for any
reason one week I don't get to read about
how P&S "secured the situation" of a cat
running through the halls of one of the
dorms, I will immediately have the Beacon
print a retraction of this letter! Well not
Well, in an effort to keep this as short as
possible while still getting my point accros
I'm going to end it here; but not before I
take credit for my little claim to fame with
the Beacon. I was the one... yes I WAS TI-I
ONE who introduced Adobe Page Maker 6.'
into the production process of the Beacon.
So for those of you on the staff who are
interested, I will be in Reed Friday from 2-
4PM signing autographs and laying hands.
Sincerely,
John Grolier
MISBD, May 2001
The Pennsylvania State University
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