Newspapers / North Carolina School of … / Dec. 1, 2005, edition 1 / Page 4
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december 2005 the stentorian | ncssm Winter celebrations cross many cultures A S December approach es, NCSSM students can and do take the opportunity to leam about the many cultures and religions represented within the school through the celebration of a mnltitude of holidays. While “Merry Christmas!” is the staple winter greeting for much of America’s Christian majority, members of such a diverse community as NCSSM should be aware of the festivals outside the trimmed trees and stuffed stockings. Many people have learned about Hanukah, the Jewish remembrance of an ancient Israelite victory and the miraculous replenishing of the temple lamp. Children are also taught about Kwanzaa, a cultural event created in 1966 to create unity and promote strong values among African- Americans. But fewer people know about Eid-al-Fitr, the Muslim celebration of the end of Ramadan’s fasting. Before their arrival at NCSSM, some students have never heard of Diwali, the Indian festival of lights. Stndents agree that NCSSM is welcoming to people of all creeds. “Everyone is really accepting and tolerant,” said Muslim junior Aniqa Shahrier. RLA Jake Reardon, who is both Jewish and Catholic, said that “this is what Science and Math is about—diversity.” Dreidel played during Hanukah, Administrators are care ful to respect this diversity through such often-overlooked measures as terminology and decoration. NCSSM has a Winter Dance, which will has blue and white lights to honor the colors of the natural season, and Winter Break. MFC Alex Cole-Weiss said, “The point is not to be politically correct, but to go beyond that and facilitate celebration and learning. We try to further the understanding of different cultures. We hope that everyone, regardless of their religious affiliation, can enjoy themselves.” According to Director of Student Life Kevin Cromwell, students are encouraged to share their culture with their classmates. “IfyouletyomSLI know, celebration of Hanukah can become a hall activity, as can Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, or any other rehgious holiday,” he says. Shahrier explained the basics of Islam to her hallmates during a hall Kwanzaa Candies Culture Night. “I think there’s a lot more we could do to teach one another about the [elements of spirit] that go across the different celebrations,” says Cole-Weiss. The school also makes al lowances to help students cel ebrate days that are important to them. Menorahs are specifi cally listed as an exception to the rule forbidding candles in dorm rooms, and students can request excused absences for religious reasons. Shahrier was excused from classes in order to celebrate Eid-al-Fitr with her family. “I think that for a lot of cultures, it represents a time of reevaluation and coming together and celebrating fam ily and bringing closure to the year. You’re bonding within your community during the cold winter months; it provides a place to come together and be warm,” said Cole-Weiss. The fact that so many differ ent cultures celebrate around the same time allows more peo ple to come together with that legendary “holiday spirit.” Of course, as Christian RLA Me lissa Bragg points out, “[Having Christmas spirit] just in Decem ber is kind of hypocritical.” Ideally, NCSSM’s student body will carry the winter rush of goodwill and cultural curiosity into the New Year. Chemistry students journey to Thailand ThafconOiwmirmii moaS been synthesized chemically, but enzymatic synthesis would be cost less and take a lower amount of time to complete. Working at the UNC-CH School of Pharmacy, the pair was able to complete two of the steps of tire synthesis, which requires six steps. “We’re both interested in biochem,” said Liu, “and we wanted to work in a real university lab that was funded. ... It’s a good way to see what grad school’s like.” Fox and Liu’s project has recently been published in the Biochemical Biophysical Research Communications journal. “We are very excited about this,” said Liu, “but [we] are unsure as to whether we will be able to return to the lab to conduct further research.” At the Thailand Science Fair, Morris presented the bacterial fuel cell project, while Fox and Liu presented the project on heparia Blackboard hurts students by shifting printing burden to them O ver the past year, the increased use of Black board and the price of printing privileges have re vealed an effort to transform NCSSM into a paperless cam pus. The transition, spawned by the financial and environmental costs of printing, has encoun tered several obstacles. NCSSM realized it was nec essary to speed up the transition to a paperless campus when more than four million sheets of paper were printed off the networked printers during the 2000-2001 school year. That is approximately six hundred pieces of paper for every stu dent. This caused the cost of printing and laser cartridges to exceed the amount allocated in the copy center budget by thousands of dollars. The astronomical cost of paper and printer maintenance sparked investigations by LIT@ COM’s Communications Cen ter, in conjunction with ITS, to find out the source of the prob lem and how to fix it. At the time, printing was free and unlimited for students. Diane Futrelle, director of the library, observed that the abuse of printing was in tandem with the explosive use of e-mail. “Students printed anything and everything, including per sonal e-mails. One student even printed the entire contents of a book. The length of time, required to print these personal documents prevented other stu dents from printing shorter, school- related assign ments,” Futrelle said. In an effort to lower the costs of printing and en courage students to save paper, printing privileges were instituted begin ning last year, requiring students to pay $20 for 400 pages, or five cents per page. Otherwise, stu dents have the option of using their personal printers, which still is not free, considering the price of the printer, paper, and ink cartridges. “We are not trying to shift the cost to the students. That is not the goal. This is not a profitable "It's not very fair to dump that expense on students. Now you have to have money to be able to do your homework." -Atex Cole-Weis^ "We are not trying to shift the cost to the students. This is not a profitable process." -Diane Futrelle process,” Futrelle said. The actual cost of printing is six cents per page, which does not include the costs of machines and maintenance. Most universities, high schools, and public buildings charge ten cents per page. Data is not yet available to de termine whether the insti tution of printing privi leges has low ered the amount of paper c o n - sump tion. NC- S S M has also been work ing to wards a paperless campus by encouraging teachers to use Blackboard. Willie Painter, the communications center man ager, has watched this shift take effect in the copy center. “I have definitely noticed that more teachers are scanning documents instead of printing copies for every student. I think it’s a good idea because some students are just as happy read ing documents off" of a computer screen as they are about having a hard copy. With Blackboard, the students decide whether or not to print some thing,” Painter said. How ever, it ap pears that stndents do not always have that choice. Many teachers prefer that students print documents instead of reading from their laptops. “I do not like having laptops in my classroom becanse I be- heve they create a barrier during discussions. Although I un- derstaird that I cannot prohibit the use of laptops, I strongly discourage it,” humanities in- stractor Katy Fenn said. In the section of night WECS that Fenn teaches with Kyle Hudson, over 130 pages were posted for required reading during the first trimester. That translates to approximately $6.50 in printing privileges. In this case. Blackboard sim ply transfers the burden and cost of printing to students. “It make s WECS reading a whole lot hard er for us. I feel like I’mwast- ing paper because Fmprint- ing these pages for myself and no body can re-use the m, ” senior Peggy McKay said. Course document pack ets, which are aheady used in several literature classes, are a potential solution to this prob lem. Although the production of literature packets makes the school responsible for the cost of printing, more paper is saved. Humanities teachers are not the only ones who en counter conflicts with printing. Even physics teachers require that students purchase printing privileges in order to print labs during class. “It’s not very' fair to dump that expense on students. Now you have to have money to be able to do your homework,” senior Alex Cole-Weiss said. Printing is the only privilege students have to pay for at NCSSM. Students do not have to pay for textbooks but they are asked to pay for printed documents that they use in the classroom. One option could possibly allow students to print school- related material for free, but pay for personal printing. The difficulty lies in separating the two. “This would probably re quire the examination of every printed document, which is an invasion of personal privacy,” said Futrelle. The conflict between Black board and printing privileges is a hard one to resolve. As long as the satisfaction of having a tangible piece of paper in hand still remains, the necessity of printing will continue. Geek coMlnuwl from iiaBe2 volunteers who were there most of the weekend who really prof ited from the experience. With Fliss’s help, they went from cleaning computers to blowing them out, on to the inner disas sembling of computers and then building them from scratch. All the roles were really im portant,” said Fliss, “including cleaning out keyboards and monitors.” Mark Dibner said the Geek- a-thon “went brilliantly.” “I felt useful,” said McKiimon, who worked most of the time fast paced and on five comput ers at once. The possibility of another Geek-a-thon happen ing on NCSSM’s campus is almost certain. Fliss hopes to have another one in the spring. deperxling on interest, startmg a consistent two-a-year cycle. Although the event went very well, there also is room for im provement. "We are still putting together how to do it well,’’ said Fliss. Most of the work is skill based, but Fliss wants to "make sure folks clearly know where they can help.” Fliss hopes to have many NCSSM volunteers at the next Geek-a-thoa
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Student Newspaper
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Dec. 1, 2005, edition 1
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