March 2004 Archives
I am posting another commentary regarding how Seton Hill is poorly handling the integration of athletics on campus. This article, click here to read it, is not a personal attack on the athletes, but at the college and its hasty decisions.
From Girl Meets World, under Five Things I Adore About Today comments field:
Amanda,
I've just browsed through the blogosphere....
Is it true??? Has Seton Hill actually considered bringing a football team on campus? And are atheletes REALLY given study halls???
I'm sorry that you will not be able to experience the Seton Hill that I did... I just cannot believe what I am reading.
Even reading the Setonian online, I can see the changing emphasis from academics and the liberal arts to atheletics. Check out the archives from even a year or two ago!
Have any of your classmates or upperclassmen approached the school's leaders or attended any meetings to uncover the real reasons behind these changes? Have you talked about this with your student government? Who is in your student government that is representing you??
With your reporting skills, have you interviewed any professors or other staff members to unveil thier perspective on this issue? You could even allow them to respond anonymously by dropping thier typed response in Campus Mail.
Inquiring minds would LOVE these questions answered. With your skills and contacts on campus could the answers to these questions be uncovered??
Keep me updated!
Amy
~Very concerned alum...
Amanda Cochran's take on it: Can anyone say, "Loss of support (perhaps financial) from disgruntled alumnae"?
You want to know what Lord of The Rings needs? Conan the Barbarian. That's right, every single character in this movie, with the possible exception of Gimli, is a pussy. The only character who was well cast was Legolas, because he is undoubtedly the king of the fairies...er...elves. What this movie needed was some good old fashioned ass kicking.
Days go by, weeks even. You think you're safe. Until one day, when the weather finally gets nice, and campus police comes out in force. I imagine their conversation went something like this:
"Uh...whatcha wanna do?"
"Beats me man, we could drive around the parking lot a coupla more times or something."
"Yeah...uh... hey, you wanna give that guy a ticket?"
"Sure man, sounds like a good time. We haven't given any tickets in a while."
"Been to cold to get outta the damn car."
"Yeah."
The night just went downhill from there. I was parked in the upper parking lot for three weeks, when it was dead cold outside, and never recieved so much as a warning. Then BAM, warm weather comes around and tickets start spreading around like malaria in the congo. No warnings, nothing. If I'm parked there for that long with no consequences, I might just get the idea that i was allowed to park there. Gee, why would I get that impression? Because theres no other parking anywhere? Hmm.
Unfortunately campus security had other ideas. They apparently hibernated throughout the winter to give students a false sense of security before giving them a hard bitch slap to the left temple.
Campus security needed a way to vent their frustration.... They found "lot A." Again. Reminds me of a librarian I used to have, you know, one of those people who liked to abuse the power that they didn't actually have. Yelling things like "Stop yelling!!" across the library, or riding students because their book was two days overdue. Hmm...
On the plus side, at least i finally found a use for all those recycling bins that the school puts in every single room.
For that special blogger in your life...
Imagine my surprise when, in front of the audience at the "Conference on College Composition and Communication," when I showed them the NMJ weblog on the big projection screen at the front of the room, and saw that war had broken out.
I pitched some of my prepared talk (a part that was full of "telling") in order to show the audience what blogging is like at SHU.
Hi. I am posting this by request of an alum friend. She would like people to view her views on the topic.
I am also posting to allow a central posting point for this topic. Obviously there is a lot of controversy about this topic and people feel the need to express their opinion.
Many students have suggested a combined e-mail to Dr. Boyle. In hopes that this does not get too messy I would like to send her a link to this posting. I will wait for some summarizing comments before sending her the links. According to a comment I received on my blog "She likes you." so I would be willing to send her the link.
Mike Rubino: 10 Reasons Why SHU Doesn't Need a Football Team
Brian McCollum: Reasons 11 and 12 Why SHU Doesn't Need a Football Team
Karissa Kilgore: Does this mean war?
Emily Evans: Oooookay
Jason Pugh: Jocks are Taking Over SHU!!!!
Donna Hibbs (alum): The Great Football Debacle
Pittsburgh Tribune Review: Seton Hill to add football
Setonian Online: Structured study halls for athletes
Please comment on my blog if you have more references to add to this entry.
Brian McCollum
Anyone who feels like SHU's direction in academics and athletics is awry should definitely check out my latest blog entry. I normally don't get on NMJ and plug my blog, but I think this time it deserves to be read by as many people as possible.
Thanks
EL 150 students, we'll be starting another short poetry unit next week. For Tuesday, this is the only poem you need to look at in advance. I'd like a half-page written reponse (feel free to blog it, but don't feel obligated, either; and if you do blog it, please hand me a prinout in class on Tuesday so I don't miss your work).
Feel free to find out what you can about Donne and this poem in particular on the Internet -- but don't quote slavishly from off-site soures. I'm interested in your own original response.
If you have good questions you'd like to post here, feel free to do so.
Herbert J.C. Grierson, ed. (1886–1960). Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of the 17th C. 1921.
John Donne
72. "Death be not proud, though some have called thee"
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
http://www.bartleby.com/105/72.html
We have a core of very committed bloggers here at SHU, as well as others who only blog occasionally. Here is the lament of an accomplished writing teacher (I've used his textbook in several different classes) who says he has trouble getting his students to blog voluntarily.
Prototype: Yet Another Midterm ReportMy students, with a few exceptions, continue to avoid posting in their course blogs. My faculty colleagues are even more reticent. The blogs I left up last semester have been deserted by the students they were created for. So as a means of voluntary interaction, they leave a lot to be desired.
What say you, students of mine? I realize that the "blog in blank verse" assignment was pushing it, but what do you think about voluntary blogging and forced blogging?
I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who don't particularly enjoy blogging, and even from those who hate it... remember, you can always post anonymously!
As I mentioned in my EL 267 class last week, Dr. Droppa has agreed to cover for me on Thursday, while I am off at a conference. There will be a quiz on the material we have covered since the last quiz; that quiz will cover the whole of "Bees."
That novel is very popular with literature classes, and you'll find no shortage of online material to help you make sense of it. Particularly interesting to me is this weblog devoted to The Secret Life of Bees (you'll have to scroll down to the bottom to read the comments about the first chapters, of course) and the author's replies to questions from the same instructor's class.
(I'll follow up with more info on the poetry reading exercise shortly.)
If you're interested in seeing how to apply history and biography to understand an author's work (as my EL 150 students are), take a look at this book review. (Remember, quoting a book review of a book you haven't read is not good scholarship....)
LRB | David Edgar : Back to RealityWhat Death of a Salesman can't be is a play about whether reality is real. Willy Loman may well be - as Bigsby argues - a man 'finally unable to separate reality from appearance', but we only know that because we can. Miller found a highly original way of dramatising the gap between the American dream and its achievement, and did it so persuasively that when they made it as a film, Columbia felt obliged to shoot a 25-minute preface about the generally enviable life of the vast majority of American salesmen, to which Miller responded not by asserting that the play was really an epistemological speculation but by asking why the hell they were so ashamed of their picture.
Are there any movie buffs who can find more about this 25-minute movie celebrating the life of salesmen? I made a half-hearted search but came up empty.
Attention EL150 Students:
If you would like to copy edit this issue of the Setonian you can pick up a copy at 6:00pm today 3/19 at the Setonian office.
Sorry this announcement is a bit late.
Thanks!
Bored on campus? Tired of spending your Sunday evenings eating ramen and watching re-runs of Good Times on TV Land. Well come on down to St. Mary's (the theater building halfway up/down the hill) and see some hilarious theater improv!
SHIV- Seton Hill ImproV is an open-stage improv workshop that is happening Sunday, and hopefully every Sunday, from 8-10pm!
Anyone can play! No one if forced to play! Everyone has a good time!
The emphasis of Shiv is improv "games". For those of you who don't know what improv is... well, it's acting without a script, making it up as you go along. Basically what you see on "Whose Line is it Anyway?" Volunteers will be asked to come on stage, and with the help of audience suggestion and various rules for each game, the volunteers will act out a scene. But hey, if you would rather sit and watch, that is wonderful as well. The more the merrier!
So, let's show off SHU as the liberal arts college it is, and do some improv. St. Mary's. Sunday. 8-10. (Did I mention it's free?)
In response to Mike Arnzen's September blog entry on fair use and the blogosphere, Richard Silverstein offers a few resources:
Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place: Calling All Bloggers: Fair Use as a Protection from Copyright InfringementI've been reading up on the concept of Fair Use as a means of protecting bloggers from accusations of copyright infringement. Several non-profit websites whose purpose is to provide access to copyrighted news articles have come up with an interesting and innovative understanding of Fair Use as a strong defense against a charge of infringement.
See also http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2004/03/online_copyrigh.html (Calling All Bloggers: Fair Use as a Protection from Copyright Infringement)
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2004/02/blogging_copyri.html (Blogging, Copyright & Fair Use)
I have posted my comments about Death of a Salesman on my blog and I would love to hear from everyone else....So please, check it out and leave a comment!
Tiff
WANTED: Submissions for my Setonian column "STREET BEAT".
Please submit a query or concern you have about what's going on at the Hill to
STREET BEAT
c/o Rachel Crump
Box 387 A
Seton Hill University.
Ta!
Chel
From Google News to Setonian:
Thank you again for your suggestion. We have reviewed your site and will be including it in Google News in the near future. You should be able to find your articles in Google News within 6-8 weeks.Thank you for trying Google News and for taking the time to write us.
Regards,
The Google Team
The Setonian Online continues to grow with Tiffany Graham having the first non-published article on the site. Head over to the Setonian and check out some of the new graphics and leave comments on where you think the site could improve.
Since you are the heart of the SHU Online community, I decided to come to you for suggestions.
Hi Everyone in Dr. Jerz's EL150 class! There will be a Setonian proofreading session on Wednesday, March 17 from 4:15pm to 5:15pm in the Setonian office on third Maura. Thanks!
A story in a campus paper has alarmed administrators of one of journalism's highest awards, prompted a crackdown by the university and sparked a debate over journalism ethics, privacy and freedom of the student press.
Who ever said, "You are what you eat?" well does that mean that if you eat a brocolli, you'll have a canopy/afro of green hair...
I would imagine that all new media journalists should be anticipating the inevitable rise of digital ink technologies in their lifetime. This will enable "digital newspapers" -- portable documents far better than your average PDA or cell phone screen, with better resolution than even the top of the line laptops have. Imagine a flexible thin piece of plastic that you could roll up like a wafer-thin newspaper and put into your backpocket. That's what the future might hold: check out Polymer Vision.
This research has been going on for quite some time now, but it's up to our culture and the industries at large to make it a success. If you haven't read up on digital ink, go to the news releases housed at E-Ink, who seems to be reigning in the industry right now.
The Ralph Flamminio Memorial Scholarship
Presented by: The Pennsylvania Associated Press Manager Editors
The winner of PAPME's 2004 Ralph Flamminio Memorial Scholarship will
receive:
$2,500.00 cash award
A paid summer internship at a Pennsylvania newspaper
(more below)
The machine on which blogs.setonhill.edu lives will be changing hands. I've contacted the new owner, who plans to continue hosting our blogs... when I get more details, I'll let you know. But blogs.setonhill.edu might be unavailable for a little while starting next week.
Hello everyone
Please come to the ABC Variety Show Thursday March 11 @ 9 p.m. in Ceilian Hall. Tickets are on sale are $2 a piece. Check out Ryanne F. from ALD, Kathleen V. from ABC and the ISO office on second Maura to purchase tickets. More are sold at the door.
For those who are not familar with the Variety Show it is a show that is held by ABC (Associations of Black Collegians) that have amazing performances from singers, dancers, skits and more. So come out and enjoy yourself. You never know what you may miss!
God Bless, hope to see you there.
I had to post a blog entry about the book we read in class, Machinal. This was one of the best plays that I have ever read. It was simple, easy, and straight to the point. This type of book is predictable, but still exciting, it kept me off my seat. In the future I would like to read up on some other plays from Sophie Treadwell.
A typical woman in a machine-like world (Machinal French for Machine), which has a normal life as a worker in the office. She is pressured from her mother to marry her boss because of his money, to support her mother. She is not in love with this man and I think this is the main part that starts the conflict in her life. After having an unwanted child with a man who she is not in love with, she has an affair with a man she meets in a bar. After this man tells her the key points on how he murders people (a glass bottle filled with stones), she falls in love with this man. The scene jumps to the courtroom where she is questioned if she killed her husband. After specific details are asked to her, she gave in and admitted that she did indeed kill him. Sophie Treadwell (author) makes us think her death is not going to be painful, but in the end the young woman suffers greatly.
Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot. I would like to see a play or movie on it. One point I want to say is that I tried to mention about the murder scene in class, I think I was just confused. I think to make some episodes in this play more interesting if one episode would be the murder of her husband. The description and details to lead us on to the courtroom scene. Most of predicted what was going to happen at the end of the play, so why not add this scene in.
Here is my review on Barnes and Noble
...Stefanie, a freshman at Seton Hill University, March 10, 2004,
Machinal....an outstanding piece of literature.
In my English college course, we were assigned to read Sophie Treadwell's play, 'Machinal.' This play is amazing. Its simple, sweet, and gets straight to the point. It does not lead you confused at the end (I like those kind of books). This play is very predictable, but that is what makes it exciting. I sat on the edge of my seat while reading this because it jumps from episode to episode and every time it jumps, it gets more interesting. In a machine-like world, the young woman is pressured to marry a man who she is not even in love with. Also, is pressured to have a child, which she does not want, and pressured by her work force and machine-like society that she lives in. Every little part of this book surprised me sometimes, on some parts, but I will leave it for you to find out yourself how good this play is.
Many people are taught at a young age that is it only normal to be attracted to a person of the opposite sex and because of this, that is what society automatically comes to assume. Many people, especially Americans are taught that one of the freedoms of life is being able to marry who you want and love. But, when it comes to same sex marriages in America all of a sudden the whole concept of companionship is shunned...
JS Online: Teens may want to leave witty screen names behind
Teenagers often strive for an e-mail persona with punch, something that's simple but sassy, creative but not cloying.
But what seems like a cool e-mail address when you're 16 can make you shrink with embarrassment a few years later. And those witty screen names are gaining a wider audience than ever before, as more students apply to colleges online and use e-mail to correspond with everyone from college admissions counselors to prospective employers.
"We get some like 'hot mama' or 'big boy' . . . goofy names like that that students use with friends and don't think twice about putting it on a college application," said Melissa Marabella, admissions counselor at Marquette University. "It just doesn't look professional."
I came across this essay called, "Blogging Off" when I was searching for "Journalism News." The author of this essay is describing different types blogging sites and how each of them have their own style of blogging. The best part about this essay is at the end when she describes how "Blogs are ruining her life."
Check out the 5 different reasons why blogs are ruining her life.
The funny part about this is that she is not even a blogger, but a normal person who is a non-blogger telling about how bloggers are affecting her life.
I started this little thing. Check out my blog on "rules" and including images in the comments. <BAM SE>
By the way, this doesn't have to be just SHU bloggers ...
I'm posting here on NMJ because Dr. Jerz said he's feeling lonely on the site. Well, given the fact that I've been terribly too busy to blog, I suppose I'll link to a recent entry.
Let me know what you think. I haven't had a chance to see the flick yet.
I just received this notice from the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education:
Lenten Forum I: Panel & Discussion on Mel Gibson's Movie "The Passion of Christ" Monday, March 29, 2004, 7 p.m. Lynch Lecture Hall (L101)Welcome: Mary Ann Gawelek
Moderator: Lois Sculco, SC
Panelists: Michael Cary, Dorothy Jacko, SC, Fran Leap, Rabbi Sara Perman and Rev. Peter PettitWhether or not you have seen "The Passion of the Christ" join us for an evening of presentation and discussion to learn--What's the Fuss About?
Lenten Forum II: Images of Jews in "Jesus" Films
Wednesday, March 31, 2004, 7:30 p.m.
206 Admin
Presenter: Fran LeapDr. Leap will examine the images of Jews as portrayed in the "Jesus" film genre. She will illustrate her points using sample clips from several films.
These programs are sponsored by Seton Hill University's Mission Effectiveness Committee, National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, Religious Studies/Theology and History/Political Science programs and Campus Ministry.
I strongly recommend that students in my "Introduction to Literary Studies" and "Amercian lit 1915-Present" courses see the Seton Hill production of "Trifles," which is Susan Glaspell's one-act play that covers the same material as the short story "A Jury of Her Peers".
Setonian Online: McDonough presents Trifles as student directed play
"Trifles is a murder/mystery but with a twist. It has a nice build to the climax...it'll make people think," said McDonough. "Directing Trifles gave me a chance to go more in depth with the theories I learned...and this also helped me to develop my own directing style." Assistant stage manager Rose Marotta said, "This play is gender-geared. It examines female roles in a male dominated society of the early 1900s."
The free play runs Friday, March 12 to Sunday March 14 in St. Marys Hall.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | 10 facts about Dr Seuss
It's the 100th anniversary on Tuesday of the birth of the children's writer, Dr Seuss, author of classics such as The Cat in the Hat, and Green Eggs and Ham.
Crooked Timber: Completely trivial
Tomorrow, at one minute past midnight, in those (sensible) countries which represent dates as day/month/year, the time and date can be represented as the sequence 00:01/02/03/04 .
