„ Behrend Beacon If" I I IJ I II I(I |1 September 18,2009 1111 V-/ X X www.thebehrendbeacon.com MY VOICE Plans change for convenience store RAUL MONETJO contributing writer I almost fell out of my chair laughing as I was reading one of last week’s front page arti cles. My laughter quickly turned to groans of frustration upon seeing the results of SGA’s open forum held last Wednesday. Last semester, students voted that the money generated from our student facility fee be used to build a new convenience store, to provide us with prod ucts and services not currently available on campus. 1 guess none of those students made it to last week’s forum. Read the results and you’ll quickly dis- MY VOICE Ohio Hall doorstop deficiency Ohio Hall, located on the southern-most tip of campus near the Wintergreen Gorge, is a suite-style residence hall re served for upper classmen of at least sophomore status. It has relatively modern rooms that offer a personal bathroom for every suite. Students from other colleges and campuses often comment on how nice the interior of the building looks, sometimes even going as far as to compare it with a hotel. The only negative factor is the dis tance from most of the aca demic buildings and the Junker Center. Until recently, I thought this was the only issue I would ever encounter while living there. Another issue quickly appeared forefront during these past few weeks. The lack of communica tion between students in each hallway, at least within my hall way, frustrates me beyond be lief. The circumstance has not improved in the least bit with the absence of doorstops for each room. Perhaps this is one of the rea sons contributing to the anti-so- OURVIEW Over the past week, Behrend students have been bombarded with claims from local media: that they are afraid, that we are essentially a sick ward, that Swine Flu could strike at any moment. When the Erie Times-News ran articles about the virus at Behrend, they used language such as “Swine Flu feared at Behrend” and “Behrend reports 2 suspected Swine Flu cases.” Are these statements true? Are we afraid? Have we re ported two “suspected” Swine Flu cases? We have not. Here’s the official data - sev eral students have tested posi tive for Typa A influenza. A subtype of Type A, known as cover that the goods and serv ices voted most essential to us in the proposed convenience store were those already pro vided by Bruno’s and the book store. And those things we can’t already get here - things we could actually use - took a distant second. It seems “we” want the new store to stay open on week nights to the conveniently late hour of midnight (an hour after Bruno’s closing time) and con sider the availability of pre-pre pared foods (Bruno’s most abundant product) most impor tant. They also voted for laun dry supplies such as cleaning products most necessary. The bookstore has laundry supplies. cial mentality circulating throughout each hallway. I find it rather odd not knowing a ma jority of the residents in my hallway, but it seems to be a re peating practice among Ohio Hall residents when compared with previous years Ohio Hall is not completely anti-so cial since many of the residents re quested rooms near or with friends from the previous years. As a returning sopho more, living in a new residence hall this year seemed exciting to me, es- pecially since it most likely meant meeting new people. Most of the Ohio residents who 1 am familiar with, however, are those I met last year. Most of the residents in my hallway I speak to talk to are students I met from last year. This is not to say that all upper classmen barricade themselves in their rooms and Stop fearmongering. HINI, is Swine Flu. Likely, by the time this paper finishes cir culating through the campus, we will know whether these students actually have that spe cific strain. Those tests, as of publication time, are still out. So, there are no cases of Swine Flu on-campus. There are only cases of the flu. But, it remains the topic around campus. Comments such as “Did you hear we’re up to seven cases of Swine Flu?” are flying around everywhere. We find it very journalisti cally irresponsible to fearmon ger by using large headlines to mislead readers. We under stand that the Behrend Beacon is in very few ways similar to In their infinite wisdom, vot ers insisted that the project shouldn’t focus on providing items we could actually benefit from having on campus: household cleaning supplies, over-the-counter medications, dental care products, and shower supplies. Instead they chose snacks. Then they se lected “misc. hygiene” as our personal care product of choice because condoms are more vital to us than deodorant. Let’s be realistic. We, the stu dents, are paying good money for the privilege to improve our campus. We must create solu tions that produce positive change, not waste valuable re sources. I guarantee that SGA dedicate all of their time to work on mile high stacks of class assignments on a consis tent basis. Although this is a common occurrence with stu dents partaking in advanced classes at Behrend, it is close to impossible for stu dents to study and/or work on class work during the duration of the entire day without any breaks in be tween. Why not spend those ten or two minute breaks getting to know others in your hall? The length of time spent meeting MCGOVERN News Editor hallmates greatly depends on each students’ choice of major with engineer ing and business students hav ing half the available time as everyone else. However, even having a 30 second conversa tion with some of the residents in your hall is better than com pletely ignoring them alto gether. Leaving the door open during the Erie Times-News. The Bea con does not operate from sub scriptions and a heavy dependence on advertising, meaning we never need to shock readers. Upon learning about the first two cases, we were bombarded with questions on our lack of “BREAKING NEWS” headlines on our website. Why weren’t we scrambling to cover such important news? The answer is, simply, we are waiting to provide our students the honest truth. We wanted to get a full view on the situation. Getting it first, we have learned, is massively less im portant than getting it right. All of this coverage, not only of Behrend but of the entire will deem the project, as it stands, infeasible. The costs outweigh the benefits by a landslide. We can do better than this. There are many problems that a properly implemented con venience store on campus would solve and many luxuries the store would add to campus life, but we must not dismiss the option to cut costs by ex panding programs and facilities already in place. Let’s focus on these areas and create a solu tion that works. This is our op portunity to make history and create something that benefits our whole community. Let’s take it. THE PRESIDENT IT tome; any one of these breaks or ini tiating a quick conversation with other residents while pass ing them in the hallway are two excellent ways to get to know everyone in your hallway, even if it remains on a name to name basis with a few of those resi dents. Considering how simple it is to leave the door open and extend an open invitation for other’s to visit and chat every so often, why do Ohio Hall res idents keep their doors closed at all times excluding the few instances that fhey slip in and out of the door for class? If Penn State Behrend in vested in providing doorstops to all Ohio Hall residents’ rooms, it would be that much easier to get a sense of who is living in each hallway. Students might not take advantage of the opportunity to crack their door open every so often, but the op portunity to step out of per sonal comfort zones and meet new people on your floor would be more readily available for those living in Ohio Hall. sickness itself, seems very over drawn. Much of the panic from this disease is coming from the media, who, with flashy graph ics and scary headlines, bom bards readers with grim prognoses. We do not want to be a part of that. We want to be a source of responsibly re ported, calm news. We do recognize the impor tance of giving you quick up dates as soon as we find out whether these students are pos itive for Swine Flu or not. Stay tuned to our website, where we will give you the straightfor ward news as soon as we hear it. Connor Sattely for the Behrend Beacon editorial staff. &r