The Rambler (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 93, No. 7, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 9, 2005 Page: 1 of 8
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TEXAS W E
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The
The students' voice since 1917
March 9, 2005
Fort Worth, Texas
Vol. 93, No. 7
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News Briefs
Race for the Cure
Students interested in
helping find a cure for
breast cancer can partici-
pate in the Race for the
Cure marathon at 8 a.m.
on April 2 in downtown
Fort Worth.
Students can sign up to
race at the Web site
www.komentarrant.org
and click on "Join a
Team." For more informa-
tion, contact Dr. Libby
Gilmore at Igilmore
@txwes.edu.
Psi Chi deadline
The national I honor
society for psychology, Psi
Chi, is currently accepting
applications for new mem-
bers.
To qualify for mem-
bership, applicants must
be a psychology major or
minor, have completed
three semesters of course
work, at least nine hours
of psychology classes,
have a 3.0 GPA in psy-
chology classes and a 3.0
overall.
Applications are due
by March 10. For more
information or an applica-
tion, contact Reagan
Crawford at (817) 913-
3659 or Dr. John Hall at
jhall@txwes. edu.
Sigma Tau Delta
Sigma Tau Delta, a
national English honor
society, is currently
accepting applications for
new members.
To qualify for mem-
bership, applicants must
be an English major or
minor, have an English
GPA of at least 3.0, be in
the upper 35 percent of
their graduating class, and
have completed a mini-
mum of 12 hours of
English.
The initiation ceremo-
ny is scheduled for the
evening of April 2.
For more information,
contact Dr. Carl Smeller at
(817) 531-4924 or
csmeller@txwes. edu.
Easter egg hunt
Student Life will host
an Easter egg hunt at 6
p.m. on March 22.
The event is open to
all students, faculty, staff
and their children.
RSVP at (817) 531-
4872.
Holiday dates
Spring Break starts on
March 14. Classes will
resume on March 21. The
campus will also be closed
on March 24 and 25 in
observance of the Easter
holiday.
The Rambler will pub-
lish its next issue on
March 30.
VP gives answers DNA sequencer
on financial aid,
other student issues
available for use
Tyler Atkinson
""STAFF WRITER
Another forum, another
small turnout. Eight students
met with Pati Alexander, vice
president of enrollment and
student services on March 3.
Alexander is over financial
aid, admissions, student serv-
ices, food and housing and
scheduled the meeting to hear
students concerns about the
rently training one of her staff
members, Annette C'erda, to
be an assistant director to
field some of those ques-
tions."
Alexander told the stu-
dents of a plan to implement
a new system of allowing stu-
dent workers to work with
their peers to find outside
scholarships.
"There will be a group of
student workers that will be
Photo by Jillian Jones
Codv Hand, consultant of marketing for the dorm, and Pati
Alexander, vice president of enrollment and student services,
field questions at a March 3 forum.
Wesleyan campus, specifical-
ly targeted to her areas on
campus.
Three of these students
addressed a concern with the
service in the financial aid
office.
"1 have been trying to get
in touch with the financial aid
office for a month," said
Joanne Oport, a sophomore
political science major. "I
was trying to get information
on additional scholarships. I
have not received a reply
back."
Oport ————
said every
time she
inquires to
financial
aid person-
nel, they
tell her
there are no
"There will be a group of
student workers that will be
trained in getting on the
Internet and finding aid."
— Pati Alexander
Vice President of Enrollment and
Student Services
trained in getting on the
Internet and finding aid." she
said. "They will help you
search that information out.
There are already several lists
out there, but they will go as
far as get on the computer
with you, help you apply for
the aid. wrile the letter
requesting the aid and those
kind of things."
Oport said she did not
want to talk to a student
about her financial aid. but
would rather talk to a trained
staff member.
——— A stu-
dent asked
about
Alexander's
opinion on
the new
apartment-
style hous-
ing.
more scholarships available.
Student Government
Chief Justice Tiffany Garcia
expressed her concern over
the misplacement of informa-
tion between offices.
"Some things get lost!
My stuff has been lost by
financial aid before." Garcia
said. She filled out a loan
application and received no
notification of an award
amount. "I just went back in,
filled all the information out
again and received the loan
right away. I know they just
lost my information and did
not tell me."
Alexander said, "There is
no exctisc for lost paperwork.
We are looking at 2,500 stu-
dents. so it is real easy to lose
something. We just need to
be aware of that and pay
more attention to it.
"Another problem I see is
that every time someone goes
into the financial aid office
they have to speak to Dean
Carpenter [director of finan-
cial aid] in order to get direct
answers to your questions,"
Alexander said. "Dean is cur-
Eric Douglas
STAFF WRITER
Last semester the biology
department purchased equip-
ment to research and study
Deoxyribonucleic Acid
(DNA). This $80,000 DNA
sequencer has been used
sparingly over the past few
months, though, due to costs
of operation and its lack of a
good fit into the current cur-
riculum.
"We're still working it
into the curriculum," said Dr.
Bruce Benz, associate profes-
sor of biology.
Because an adequate
amount of information is
needed for the results of the
tests completed by the
sequencer to be of any use to
students, not many students
have used it.
Dr. Chitra Chandra-
sekaran, assistant professor
of biology, said that students
must go through a time of
learning before they actually
use the high-tech machine.
"There is a lot of devel-
opment time before you get
to sequence. A lot of times
biology doesn't make sense
until you do it on your own in
the lab. You have to learn
first," she said.
"[The professors] are still
trying to work out all the
bugs in the experiments,"
said Benz, who will be using
the sequencer in his evolution
and ecology class.
"We believe this will
enhance the education of our
students, both majors and
non-majors," said Chandra-
sekaran in an Oct. 13, 2004
interview. "Additionally, stu-
dents and faculty will be able
Photo by Nici Sandberg
Huong Phan, a biology and psychology major, and other biolo-
gy majors will have the opportunity to work with the DNA
sequencer in the coming weeks.
to advance their research with
this technology and present
their findings in a public
forum or publish their find-
ings in peer-reviewed scien-
tific journals."
The amount of time and
funds the sequencer takes to
carry out a project is part of
the reason it has not been
used as much since its acqui-
sition. Carrying out an opera-
tion using the sequencer takes
up almost all of a student's
day. Also, supplies and elec-
tricity to run the machine are
costly. Despite the costs of
operation and the time taken
to use it, there are still a hand-
ful of students carrying out
projects that include the
sequencer.
C'handrasekaran said that
her techniques of molecular
biology class will use the
sequencer in two to three
weeks. The class currently
has seven students enrolled
who will be doing sequencing
as part of their coursework.
Three or four research stu-
dents will be using the
machine as well this semes-
ter, according to Chandra-
sekaran.
DNA can be compared to
a sophisticated fingerprint,
describing how a person is
made up. When DNA is
amplified through an amplifi-
er, it makes copies, according
to Chandrasekaran.
"Sequencing is a tool,"
she explained. "By using
DNA we can find out more
about cell biology."
"1 think it is wonderful
that we are getting a new
dorni," she said. Alexander
said the new apartments are a
step in the right direction for
the campus.
Alexander was excited
about the student response to
the new dorms.
"The law school will be
bringing in a hundred resi-
dents," she said. "They will
have there own building, and
the others will be undergrad-
uate."
Also attending the meet-
ing was Cody Hand, the con-
sultant of marketing for the
new apartment-style housing.
"Our apartments are the
second lowest in terms of
cost for the Texas area,"
Hand said. "We arc offering
great quality at a great price."
Alexander was able to
answer most of the student's
questions, except one. When
asked to comment on her
opinion of the rumored
seven-year contract extension
for President Hal Jeffcoat,
Alexander declined to com-
ment.
Getting answers
Administration, faculty, students deal
with quiet communication difficulties
Nic i Sandberg
NEWS EDITOR
Faculty, administration and students rec-
ognize that communication has been, and
continues to be. a problem among all three of
these groups. However, despite leaders of
each entity admitting to the concerns, a spe-
cific solution remains uncertain.
Jessica Krizek. president of the Student
Government Association, recently surveyed
about 150 students about their feelings on
several issues including the proposed changes
to the General Education Curriculum and a
rumored seven-year contract extension for
President Hal Jeffcoat.
From Krizek's survey, one particular
finding disturbed her and others. An estimat-
ed 25 percent of students asked, "Who is
Jeffcoat?"
"The majority of the ones who did not
know who he was were the students who are
not very active on campus," she said.
"It is of great concern to me that many
students do not even know who the president
of the university is," Krizek said. "For years
now we have been saying the administration
is not in touch with the students. This survev
proves us right. When students do not know
the name of the president or even recognize it.
the administration is not interacting enough
with the students."
She also commented on the communica-
tion issues from the students' perspective.
"We, as students, for weeks now have
been trying to get some answers from admin-
istration." she said. "We have had a problem
getting a straight answer or even answers that
are the same."
Krizek said that the administration has
not given SGA a clear answer on whether
Jeffcoat was offered a contract extension or
where the push for the GEC revisions came
from. She also said that, according to faculty,
no one in the administration has admitted to
initiating the proposed changes to the univer-
sity policy manual that some faculty fear
could diminish the professors' protection of
tenure.
"These are just the three main issues
where nobody will admit who started what,"
she said.
The communication issue is colossal to
Krizek.
"The fact that the administration is not at
ee Communicating, page 2
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Fowler, Whitney. The Rambler (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 93, No. 7, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 9, 2005, newspaper, March 9, 2005; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth253341/m1/1/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Wesleyan University.