Thursday, November 12, 1992
Enhancing your communication
Andrew Festa
the Collegian
1 graduate (I get 0ut...) at the
end of this semester. I’m outta
here; I’m going out into the great
wide open; I'm ... Uh. what am I
going to do?
How many of you are leaving
soon? How many of you are
really prepared for what awaits
you. How many know what
awaits?
If you apply to a particular
business, you'll be prepared if
you know the company - its
history, its employees, its record,
its product, its design, its
purpose, etc. *- thus giving you
an upper hand in an interview.
Life, or 'the great out-thcre’ is
itself something into which you
should explore, testing the waters
while the results are still soft.
By soft, I mean won't cost you a
paycheck or your job.
This brings me to a proposal
in which students get the
opportunity to express
themselves in a non-formal, non
teacher environment. Students
would NOT receive free points
toward a class grade. Instead,
students would receive free
points toward learning how to
interact within a broader social
structure which would later prove
useful.
Sometimes, the best crime deterrent is a small,
emergency backup dog with digestive problems
by Dave Barr
Syndicated Columnist
The man was standing right
outside our master bathroom. He
couldn't sec Beth and me,
standing in the hallway, but we
could sec him clearly. His face
was covered with a slocking
mask, which distorted his features
hideously. He was dressed all in
black, and he had a black plastic
bag stuck in his back pocket.
He was using a screwdriver to
open our sliding glass door.
You always wonder what
you're going to do in a situation
like this. Run? Fight? Wet
your pants?
I'm not experienced with
physical violence. The last fight
I had was in eighth grade, when I
look on John Sniffen after school
because he let the air out of my
bike tires. Actually, I didn't
KNOW that he did this, but he
was the kind of kid who WOULD
have, and all the other suspects
were a lot larger than I was.
The man ouLside our house was
also larger than I am. He jerked
the screwdriver sideways and
opened the door. Just like that,
he was inside our house, maybe
six feet from where Beth and I
were standing.
Then he saw us. For a
moment, nobody spoke.
I envision a setting in which
students would present their
works. Possibilities: Poetry,
Art, SPCOM Projects, Prose,
Physics Projects, Ideas, PSY
Projects and Papers, Engineering
Designs, Plastics Technologies
Designs, PHIL, Radio, Theater,
and others. The possibilities are
endless.
1 say ’non-teacher environment’
to minimalize the negative effects
of a setting in which the teacher
decides a grade which will later
show on your transcript.
Wouldn't it be nice to mingle
with people of other fields in a
non-threatening environment?
Think of the feedback you can
get!
Weak in interpersonal skills?
Want to see how well you’ll do
in a tense setting, in which there
are fewer consequences and of
lesser intensities? Then consider
involvement in Behrend’s first
cross-curriculurn, cross-cultural,
presentational organization
function.
Are you prepared for the
pressures of the interview
process? Want to practice in a
strong SPCOM type
environment iri which you Can
broaden your abilities and reach a
larger audience than students in
your immediate field? Since
"CUT!" yelled the director.
"Way to go, O/.zic!" I said to
the stocking-masked man.
"Looking good! Looking
criminal!"
"I'm wondering if his bag is
too dark to show up," said Beth.
Everybody wants to be a
director.
Anyway, as you have guessed,
Ozzic wasn’t a real burglar. He
was part of a production crew that
was using our house to shoot a
promotional video for the
company that installed our
burglar alarm. Here in South
Florida it's standard procedure to
have burglar alarms in your
house, your car, your workplace,
and, if you've had expensive
dental work, your mouth.
I like having an alarm in our
house, because it gives me the
security that comes from
knowing that trained security
personnel will respond instantly
whenever I trigger a false alarm.
I do this every day at 6 a.m.,
when I get up to let out our large
main dog, Earnest, and our small
emergency backup dog, Zippy.
I'm always in a big hurry,
because Zippy, being about the
size of a hairy lima bean
(although less intelligent), has a
very fast digestive cycle, and I
need to get him right outside.
The Collegian
interacting with people of various
tastes, opinions, and interests is a
common facet of daily 'out there’
existence, it seems only logical
Andrew
Festa
that you might want a creative
environment in which to fine
tune your interpersonal skills.
Of course, this is still in the
theory stage. 1 envision the first
event to be held on the first
Friday after Thanksgiving, from
So I fall out of bed, barely
conscious, and stagger to the
back door, where both dogs arc
waiting, and I open the door and
BWEEPBWEEPBWEEP I realize
that I have failed to disarm the
alarm system.
Now t have a problem.
Because within seconds, the voice
of the Cheerful Lady at the alarm
company is going to come out of
the alarm control panel, asking
me to identify myself, and unless
I give her the Secret Password,
she's going to cheerfully notify
the police. So I stagger quickly
over to the panel. But this leaves
Earnest and Zippy alone out on
the patio. Theoretically, they can
get from the patio to our back
Bp.m. to ?? (Could hold it in
cooperation with Bruno’s (hint
hint).) If could be something
great, or like many good ideas, it
can Fizzle out. Right now, l just
want to get it out of the drawing
room and into production.
Arc there enough students
interested in such a far-fetched
idea? Do enough of you see a
need for a place in which an
Engineering student might get
some feedback and/or help from
an English student? Where a
Psychology student might find an
answer from a conversation with
a Physics student, or a Political
Science student might find fresh
insight into an old and nagging
problem from a Business student?
Where a heck of a lot of people
can mix and mingle, meeting
tomorrow's world, gaining new
understand! fresh insight?
People are multi-faceted. They
are, by their very nature as
human beings, multi-genrcd.
Why not strive for a multi-genred
atmosphere in which to grow?
I envision something so huge
as to encompass every
occupation, every major, crossing
all boundaries, and touching
every student. In this setting,
one can learn how to interact
with others, one can learn
through a Feedback Mirror one’s
yard all by themselves. They
used to be prevented from doing
this by a screen enclosure around
the patio, but thanks to Hurricane
Andrew, most of this enclosure is
now orbiting the Earth. The
hurricane did NOT blow away the
screen door, however. It's still
standing there, and the dogs
firmly believe that it's the only
way out. So - 1 swear I’m not
making this up -- instead of
going two feet to the left or
right, where there’s nothing to
prevent them from simply
wandering out into the yard, they
trot directly to the door, stop,
then turn around to look at me
with a look that says, "Well?”
"GO OUTSIDE!" I yell at
them as I lunge toward the alarm
control panel. "THERE’S NO
SCREEN ANYMORE, YOU
MORONS!"
"I beg your pardon?" says the
Cheerful Alarm Lady, because
this is not the Secret Password.
"Bark," says Earnest, who is
trotting back toward the house, in
case I am telling her that it’s time
to eat.
"Grunt," says Zippy, as his
internal digestive timer reaches
zero and he detonates on the
We do this almost every
morning. We’re very dependable.
Page 5
skills
strengths and weaknesses, one
can talk to others and learn what
they otherwise would have
missed, and gain friends on the
way.
I*d like to sec it happen on a
bi-weekly basis, like the Gannon
reading every other Thursday at
Cup-A-Ccinos downtown. It
could become the biggest
sensation Erie's ever seen. It
could became the best thing to
happen at Behrend in quite a
while, including the ground
breaking -- it could be well
publicized and promoted to the
Behrend and general
communities {hint hint).
Docs anyone know of a belter
way to learn about other cultures
than to interact with, talk to, and
listen to other cultures? Is there
a better way to bring people
together into one setting in
which social interaction and
critical feedback have the
potential to become something
strong and educational and
rewarding and fun? What better
way can one learn the
interpersonal skills needed for
such an event?
Someone once asked me to come
up with some answers instead of
questions. Ok. Ho&’S this?
Think it’s got a chance?
In fact, if some morning 1
DIDN'T trigger a false alarm, I
think the Cheerful Alarm Lady
would notify the police.
"You'd belter check the Barry
residence," she'd say.
"Apparently something has
happened to Mr. Barry. Or else
he's strangling one of his dogs."
So the alarm people have been
very nice to us, which is why we
let them use our house for the
video. It had a great Action
Ending, wherein O/.zic runs out
our front door, and an armed
security man drives up, screeches
to a halt, leaps out, puts his hand
on his gun and yells "FREEZE! "
This is Ozzic's cue to freeze and
look concerned inside his
stocking. They shot this scene
several limes, so there was a lot
of commotion in our yard.
Fortunately in South Florida
we're used to seeing people sprint
around with guns and stocking
masks, so the activity in our yard
did not alarm the neighbors.
("Look, Walter, the Barrys
planted a new shrub." "Where?"
"Over there, next to the burglar.")
Anyway, the point is that our
house is well-protected. The
alarm system is there in case we
ever need it, which I doubt we
will, because - thanks to Zippy
- only a fool would try to cross
our patio on fooL