2 THE CAPITAL TIMES ‘ , , hots This semester is a time for change. Change, as you can see, has come to The Capital Times once again. As a senior/junior, or whatever I was at the beginning of last fall, I knew I was staring at the end of the road. Even though I still had a long journey of course work ahead of me, 1 started thinking about my path to graduation. At that point in time, I hadn't really done anything in college I felt would benefit me once I got to the real world. Just taking the classes I need to meet graduation requirements doesn't satisfy me and being published a few random times isn't exactly an outstanding accomplishment for a communications major, its more or less expected. Since Penn State Harrisburg is the school I finally decided to settle on (after attending two others), this is where I finally started to see the goal of graduation not just as getting that piece of paper, but reaching it with a list of things to show for myself. So, I decided to work for our student newspaper. I started out last fall as the Photography Editor. I walked into this office as just another student How old are we? This is how the lobby in Olmsted looked on Friday afternoon Jan. 20. Let's ask ourselves how hard it is as college educated adults to pick up after ourselves and walk the ten feet to a trash can. Please take care of our school and consider the janitors who work overnight to keep our school clean. Also keep in mind this is the first public area a guest sees when they enter our school. Thank you. Any necessary correc- THE CAPITAL 1 IMES tions, comments or cri tiques are wanted and welcome. Please stop We are currently looking to fill the following positions: by The Capital Times Business Manager office [El26], e-mail captimes@psu.edu, drop Photographer a suggestion in the box Copy Editor outside the office or call Reporter the office at 948-6440. Any corrections should Anyone interested, please contact The Capital Times be reported no later than a week after the paper is office at 948-6440, captimes@psu.edu, or stop in printed. Olmsted room E 126 sitogitt claiming they wanted to help work on the paper. There's a running list of contacts in this office right now of students who claim they'd like to help us out but somehow don't have the time. Which between course work, family, friends, and partying, ya know, the typical busy college kids life, I can understand how many of them just don't have the time. The difference is, wanting to make the time. The second I was given a chance to work here I began to make the most of it. I spent countless hours here learning and absorbing everything I could. The first issue I helped with I spent nearly 15 hours on a Sunday helping to get the paper out on time. I sit here now after spending 13 hours here on Friday, 15 Saturday, and now today, instead of being at a party watching my Steelers and hanging out with my friends living the typical student life, I am here again and will be here until the paper is finished in order to meet our first deadline. The point is I'm dedicated. Dedicated to change. Once I found out I'd be the new editor this semester I automatically started thinking about what I would do in this kind of position. I made note of everything I would want to do if I were to manage the paper - what I felt should be different - and also tried to take into consideration what the student body would most likely want to see evolve as well. I kept my eyes and ears open and, along with the help of my assistant editors, well, as you can see, we came up with a lot. The obvious change is the "look" of the paper. The main reason why we made so many changes to the appearance is because we honestly Editor in Chief: Ashley Lockard Assistant Editor: Maruja Rosario Layout/Design Editor: Kristen Poole Entertainment Editor: Brandon Sarzynski Photography Editor: Supat Kanchanasakul January 23, 2006 just didn't feel right looking at the old style of the paper. Something just said "high school" to me. Looking back at it, I feel it would be an acceptable high school level "look" for a paper. Yet, we are in college and with some of the staff we have obtained we have the ability and skills to make it look more on our level. So we painstakingly did. I say it gritting my teeth because we didn't just change a few font styles, headline sizes or the masthead. We changed everything. And I mean everything, right down to the size of the lines that run between stories. We spent a lot of time bringing the paper up to code, so to speak, visually, and I hope everyone enjoys the changes. Something I would like to make special note of is last semesters staff owes some apologies from some of the issues. To anyone that was ever misquoted, misrepresented, had their name spelled wrong, or anything else, we hope you forgive the mistakes. Please recognize that the newspaper staff has undergone changes and the current staff looks to rectify our position as a respectable student body newspaper. We would also appreciate any constructive criticism as we are always looking for new suggestions, as our main mission this semester is improvement. Anyone with comments or suggestions may either stop by the office or put their thoughts in the suggestion box on the table right outside the office (E 126 Olmsted). I hope everyone's semester is off to an easier start than ours has been and that you all enjoy reading the new and improved Capital Times. Regards, scu,{,fy ~.k.,,,1 Ashley Lockard Editor in Chief Photo by ASHLEY LOCKARD/ The Capit.il T ies Photographers: By ASHLEY LOCKARD and HOLLY WEK:HMAN Editor in Chief/Staff Reporter AFLSOOO@PSU.EDU HNM/1 04@PSU.EDU SGA Meeting: January 12 • A proposal for funds to support the Tennis club's interest in reserving indoor courts for its members was brought to the SGA by the club's president. The club is asking for $l2OO for indoor rental expenses and $290 for outdoor expenses. SGA is considering the budget proposal and also stated they would help with fundraising ideas to also help them come up with the funds. • Communications Director Augie Bravo shared his research for changing the voting system we use on campus for the student wide SGA elections. In the past, SGA paid $3OOO for an outside service to provide a secure server for students to vote online. The problem was, besides cost, the server required students to log in using their last name and birthday. This meant that for anyone who had a twin, only one of them could vote. Bravo discovered Testing University Services at University Park is able to set up a secure server voting website for our campus using the students user name and password to log in. To have this system put in place will only cost roughly $l5O and they Supat Kanchanasakul Reporters Ashley Lockard Kristen Poole Michale Albright Diane Kenney SGA Update SGA Meeting: January 19 will own and maintain the website as well. • Bravo proposed a ticker be purchased for the Olmsted lobby, 10ft. in size to hang above the lion. The ticker would display important news and updates for students. • Plans for the Middletown Home dance on Feb. 14 were discussed. Male volunteers will be escorting the residents for Valentine's Day. • President Michel Edwards discussed his decision to bring back the Rites of Spring celebration. It was a tradition on campus, which started in 1969. Edwards proposed the event be combined with the Spring Luau, which takes place every April. • Senate Leader Mathew Mahoney proposed SGA pay the $75 dancer processing fee for THON. A vote was taken and the proposal was awarded. • Congratulations to Omar "Andy" Palacios and Ben Adelman for approval to be new members of SGA. Omar is a sophomore majoring in Business Finance, and Adelman is a Political Science major interested in law. Maruja Rosario Heather Coleman Lisa Stone Steve D'Holla Ashley Lockard Diane Kenney Nadezda Ivanova Brianna Guyer • SGA is conducting a: Student Activity Survey to find out what activities the student body would be interested in attending.: The survey can be found at the URL of http://www. hbg.psu.edu/clubs/SGA/ activityform.html. • In the advisors report, Donna Howard urged SGA members to "find out what students want out of activities on campus. We have a job ahead of us. SGA members need to attend events otherwise the rest of the student body will not attend them." • In the student courts report the Graduate Student Association lost official university club status due to failure to change their constitution. • SGA $3OO for Council of Commonwealth Student Governments (CCSG) mileage expenses for their trip to State College, Jan. 20-21. The trip was for their monthly meeting. • SGA approved $94 for THON's t-shirt expenses. THON also needs people to sign up to be volunteers for canning. • Come In From The Cold event will be held at 1:00 p.m. and 6:15 pm, Jan. 24. The food available to students will be chicken fingers, assorted wraps, bowls of soup and subs. Michael Albright Holly Weichman James Grap Matthew Miller Brandon Sarzynski Matthew Mahoney Oscar Beisert Megan Resser approved