Uprising at
Guilford?...p.7
m GUILFORDIAN m
Vol. 73 No. 6
Presidential Election Part of Syllabus for Guilford Class
by Maria Smith
To many Americans, the
presidential election this fall is
an important event. To the
students in Guilford's Political
Sociology class, that event is
part of their daily homework.
The senior-level sociology
seminar is the brainchild of
assistant professor of sociology
Vaneeta D'Andrea, who
originally conceived the idea of
centering a course on the
American political process
during the Nixon/McGovern
election of 1972. This is the
first time she has taught such a
course at Guilford.
The class is composed of
mainly senior sociology majors
and meets twice weekly under
D'Andrea's supervision.
D'Andrea supplies a degree of
Joint Meeting Begins
Residential Life Initiative
by David Simpson
A meeting of students,
faculty, and staff took place
Wednesday evening for
discussion of the short and long
term plans for expanding and
improving the college campus.
Groups represented at the
meeting included the newly
formed Student Residence
Council, the Student Affairs
Committtee, the Quality of
Residential Life Task Force, the
Senate Executive Council, the
Administrative Council, and
members of the Residential Life
and Student Development staffs.
Plans for a ten to thirty year
campus expansion were unveiled
by Jim Newlin, Director of
Financial Planing and a member
of the Quality of Residentail Life
Task Force.
Newlin showed slides
depicting the campus with future
academic and administrative
buildings, residence halls,
expanded parking, as well as
many cosmetic changes.
Newlin stresses that academic,
administrative, and residential
structures will be built only
according to need and he gave a
tentative schedule for proposed
improvements.
The first project is, of
course, the library expansion.
Next, the college wants to
address the parking and traffic
problems by redesigning the
entrances to the school, adding a
Guilford College, Greensboro, N.C.
structure to the class meetings,
but it is the students who form
the basis of the discussions,
delving into the often-complex
issues surrounding the political
climate of the election season.
D'Andrea calls her class "a
teacher's dream." She sees the
students as being "very involved
in their work ... the class
essentially set up the whole
project [of covering last
week's presidential debate and
several other area-wide political
events]." She says that she can
"feel the enthusiasm of the
students and how excited they are
over the [class's] content" and
that she is impressed with the
group's overall sociological
background. D'Andrea says,
"they are able to focus in on
relationships between what
they've been taught before and
stoplight at the back entrance
(which will become the front
one), and expanding parking
lots.
A recent gift to the school
is allowing the start of a
telecommunications center.
Newlin said that the center will
be built and that if things run
smoothly, it could be finished
about the same time as the
library. This structure will house
a new computer center, a new
phone system for the entire
campus, and cable hookups for
residence halls.
Newlin also said that the
school is looking at nearby
properties to see if it would be
advantageous to purchase them.
The meeting also
established some short-term
improvement priorites and named
which groups would be in charge
of these improvements. High on
the list were security and
maintenace concerns. The
S.R.C. and S.A.C. agreed to
form joint committees to address
both of these issues because they
thought that more would be
accomplished this way.
Other issues of concern
include residential life student
programming, minority affairs,
off-campus housing, residence
hall staff selection and training
programs, budget needs, and
judicial procedure reviews.
The groups will reconvene
in mid-November to report their
findings and progress.
Disability Action
Committee...p. 3
the complex information that
they are receiving now."
The primary objective of the
class is to use the campaign and
elections as illustrations of
power in society and to analyze
the whole election process from
a sociological perspective.
This is not an easy task,
according to many class
members.
Says senior sociology
student and class member Amy
Mast, "Each week we're doing
lots of field work and then
coming back to class. Vaneeta
gives us a framework and helps
us relate this to basic
sociological theories."
The class initially focused on
all electoral activities in
Greensboro so that they could
learn how to use the camera and
Has Your Favorite Book Been Banned?
by Carol Joy Crane
"Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or of the right of
the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the
government for a redress of
grievances."
So reads the First
Amendment to our Constitution,
protecting our freedom to
publish and read without
censorship the removal of
material from open access by
any governing authority.
Last week September 24-
October 1 the Guilford College
Bookstore participated in the
seventh annual "Banned Books
Week," working to demonstrate
the harms of censorship.
Near the entrance to the
store, black and red "CAUTION"
signs alerted visitors to a
display of books that have
recently been challenged or
banned in the United States,
along with a brief explanation of
the where and why of each
controversy. Students may be
alarmed by the titles listed, four
of which are currently on reading
lists for classes at Guilford.
Store manager Betsy
Johnson stresses the currentness
of the exhibit. Students should
realize that censorship "is not
just something that went on
back in their grandma's days."
It's going on today, in North
Carolina.
Volleyball Goes
to 10-3...p.10
video equipment. The events
they covered to "get a feel for
this type of field work" says
Mast, included the Republican
executive committee meeting and
several Dukakis and Bush rallies.
As class member Susan
Nelson states, "unlike students
in traditional history or political
science courses, we have chosen
to dedicate a great deal of extra
time to conducting fieldwork
research."
The pinnacle of their
fieldwork experience, says
D'Andrea, was the presidential
debate at Wake Forest two
Sundays ago. For the debate, the
class was split into three groups.
The first group covered the area
around the university and
interviewed the spectators,
protestors and media people.
The second group went to the
CAUTION - banned books! photo by Eric Buck
John Steinbeck's The Grapes
of Wrath was challenged in
Cummings High School,
Burlington, NC in 1986 with
this objection: "The book is
full of filth. My son is being
raised in a Christian home, and
this book takes the Lord's name
in vain and has all kinds of
profanity in it."
Four members of the
Alabama State Textbook
Committee in 1983 called for the
rejection of The Diary of Anne
Frank because it is a "real
downer."
Catcher in the Rye, by J. D.
Salinger, was banned from a
required sophomore English
reading list at the Napoleon, ND
High School in 1987 after
parents and the local Knights of
Columbus chapter complained
about its profanity and sexual
references.
The American Heritage
Dictionary has been removed
October 3, 1988
Dukakis rally in the Benton
Convention Center to watch the
debate on wide-screen T.V. and
to videotape it from a special
press area. Meanwhile, the third
group went to the Bush rally in
the Dixie Classic Fair Barn to
watch the debate from there.
Amy Mast was not in any of
these groups; she watched the
debate from inside Wait Chapel
and was thus able to gain
different insight into the
evening.
One of the main themes of
the class is the significance of
the media's role in creating and
maintaining social definitions.
Since Mast was able to get an
inside view into the debate
proceedings, she saw different
sides of the Presidential
nominees than those who
(cont'd, on p. 4)
from at least four districts due to
"objectionable" language.
Most ironically, Ray
Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a
futuristic novel about censorship
(451 degrees Fahrenheit is the
heat at which books burn), is
also on the banned book list.
Challenges have not been
limited to any one political
perspective. Among the
hundreds of other titles that have
been banned are Harriet Beecher
Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, The
Joy of Lesbian Sex by Emily L.
Sissley and Bertha Harris,
American Foreign Policy by
Thomas Paterson, Mother Goose:
Old Nursery Rhymes,
Shakespeare's The Merchant of
Venice, and The Bible.
The observance of Banned
Books Week means to show
"that it is only when all speech
is protected for all citizens that
everyone's rights are
(cont'd, on p. 9)