Everyone's done for the semester and it's time for new jobs, new cities, new friends and new news. Instead of the regular, weekly Sunday Sweep, this summer we'll be posting twice monthly "cheat sheets" that span multiple topics in the news instead of just one.
Do you remember reading about these stories when they first came out in print? Here are this year’s top 7 stories, straight from the news editors’ desks. FALL *Creating a place to worship: New multi-faith center seeks to raise awareness and acceptance for students: Plans for a new building to replace the Truitt Center and create more meeting and worship space for all denominations on campus were unveiled early during fall semester.
According to insidehighered.com, a recent study focused on the research papers of first-year college students at 15 different schools and found many students "simply copy chunks of text from the sources they cite without truly grasping the underlying argument, quality or context." As a service to students and faculty alike, the Writing Center's purpose is to help students improve their writing techniques and develop strategies and practices that will make them be more effective writers in any situation. But how helpful is the Center, in reality? Paula Patch, English lecturer and college writing professor, said she believes the Writing Center is beneficial for students because writers are forced to compile more than one draft after visiting with a consultant.
While the Blog had some exciting international news this week, I am going to turn the focus back to Elon and Student Government Association.
The response to President Barack Obama's announcement of Osama bin Laden's death was swift. Within minutes of his speech, throngs of people, mostly college students, had gathered at the gates of the White House waving flags and chanting as images of the scene was played across millions of televisions.
Timing was certainly not to our advantage when the news hit. It was at around 10:00 p.m. Sunday night that I first began to notice the Tweets rolling in about an announcement from President Barack Obama planned for 10:30.
Former Pendulum staff photographer Julia Murphy spent the spring semester studying abroad in London and had the opportunity to attend the royal wedding last Friday.
For more than a decade, four Elon University professors have been riding to and from work together in an effort to make their 40-plus minute drive more interesting.
Below are a few items discussed at the SGA meeting Thursday. Look for more in-depth articles in The Pendulum to better understand how these changes will affect you!Hiring process- in addition to hiring a chaplain they still have to replace Niki Turley and Leigh-Anne Royster because they were promoted earlier this year.
This was written by Pendulum columnist Rebecca Cummings. How do we prepare for the end of the year? Most students would probably agree there is no real time to stop and think about it.
This was written by Pendulum columnist Nicole Monge. Like it or not, “Gossip Girl” and “The Real Housewives” series are television programs that have made their way onto our televisions and into our culture. One of the negative facets of both shows is they tend to teach audiences that manipulating people and stabbing them in the back are practical behaviors for personal gains.
This is the semester of the "Arab Spring," and the uprisings in the Middle East seem to be far from over.
Elon University's fifth-year senior percentage is low in and of itself. But, when compared to other universities, it is only emphasized further. For universities of high populations, around 15,000+ undergraduate students, graduation within four years is very unlikely for students.
The next week at Elon will be fairly hectic. Tomorrow, it's a safe bet that at least the campus will empty out with people heading home or to friends' for Easter break.
SGA passed two new resolutions in an effort to demonstrate support of the victims of the two recent natural disasters. It is customary and normally appropriate for a legislative body to pass a resolution following a tragedy in order to demonstrate sympathy for the victims, according to Darien Flowers, junior class senate member. SGA voted 29-0-1 to pass S.R.
An Elon senior filed suit against Elon University and N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper for withholding Campus Safety and Police records concerning the arrest of a student last year. Nick Ochsner, a reporter for Phoenix14 News, Elon's student television news program, filed the lawsuit April 13, 2011. "I filed the lawsuit because I believe that the documents I am seeking are public records," Ochsner said. Ochsner said he was trying to obtain an arrest narrative, a document that describes the events surrounding an arrest. "(Campus Safety and Police's) practices subvert state law and I believe that the state public records law intends for the information that I am seeking to be public," he said. This is not the first time records have been withheld, he said, and about half of the police departments across the state do not release the records. Dan Anderson, director of University Relations, released a statement concerning the pending litigation. It states: Elon University is surprised that this case moved to litigation despite the best efforts by the university and its attorneys over the past year to respond to this student's request for records concerning the arrest of another student.
Elon’s license with Blackboard expires October 2012 and the Teaching and Learning Technologies department is evaluating other options. According to Chris Fulkerson, assistant vice president of technology, although the license expires in October, the university would switch over to another program during the summer of 2012 in order to cause less stress and confusion during the following semester. The university is very interested in Moodle, a learning management system very similar to Blackboard, but it does have some differences. Moodle is a free web application and open source learning management system software, while Blackboard is a proprietary form of software partially owned by Microsoft. Unlike Blackboard, Moodle would not require the university to pay for the software since it is an open source learning management system software.
This past weekend, a tornado from a deadly storm touched down in the Town of Elon. Although there was no serious damage and no injuries at Elon University, other tornadoes from the storm flattened certain areas of North Carolina, killing some and leaving others homeless.
In the interest of student accountability, the entire student body, not only SGA, should be aware of the Elon Student Government Association constitution and bylaws.
Rumor had it that Elon University's Spring Convocation was a sold-out event. However, attendees who sat in Alumni Gym on the afternoon of April 7 noticed hundreds of empty seats surrounding them. What was the reason responsible for contradicting the event's sold-out status with its actual attendance that left approximately 300 seats empty? A large number of unexpected no-shows, according to Jeff Clark, executive director of cultural and special programs. To find out more about the attendance issues of Convocation, the students who were placed on waiting lists and the policies that the cultural and special programs department is going to enforce from this point forward in order to avoid similar situations, check out this week's issue of the Pendulum, out on April 20. -Sam Parker, senior reporter
