The return of Cucalorus:
Independant filnn festival in its tenth year
5
March Sadness:
Basketball seasons finish at tourney
March 18, 2004
Volume LV, Number 22
ving UNC Wilmington since
Terrorist attacks affect UNCW
Katie Trapp
Editor-in-Chief
The U.S. Department of
State’s Web site offers the follow
ing advice for college students
traveling abroad for Spring
Break: “Most [students] will have
a safe and enjoyable adventure,
tot for some the trip will become
a nightmare.” Two UNCW stu
dents experienced both extremes
on their recent spring break trip to
Europe.
Last week in Madrid, 10
bombs exploded on four com
muter trains at 7:30 a.m March
11. More than 200 people were
killed and 1,647 people were
wounded. It was the deadliest
attack on a European city since
World War II.
Seniors Bryan McDowell and
Matt Cottet spent four days in
Madrid over break, one of those
days being March 11.
During the attacks, the two
students were safely asleep in
their hostel.
‘There was an uneasy feeling
in the city. You heard sirens all
over the place, and everybody
was on edge throughout
Thursday,” McDowell said.
Due to cancelled trains, travel
ers had to find other modes of
transportation. “We decided not
to use public transportation until
Friday when we had to go to the
I Mrport,” McDowell said. “All the
trains with destination to Madrid
j Atocha were cancelled on
Thursday, but the majority of
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Courtesy of Bryan McDowell
Spaniards gather in Puerta del Sol to protest
terrorism after the train explosions March 11
in Madrid. Many UNCW students were in
Madrid for the attacks.
trains ran on Friday.”
“I didn’t want to use public
transportation after the attacks,”
Cottet said.
With Prime Minister elections
in three days, the city worked
hard to settle down Madrid.
“Madrid officials decided that
they would let people ride the
metro for free Friday aftemoon so
that was an effort to help the city
return to normal,” McDowell
said.
The attacks spawned protests
and moments of silence in the fol
lowing days. “We were in Puerta
del Sol on Friday for the 15 min
utes of silence. Everybody was
standing and facing the flags in
Puerta del Sol,” McDowell said.
“Even taxi drivers stopped and
got out of their cars and people in
stores stood silently. You could
hear sirens in the background.”
There are currently 34 UNCW
students studying abroad in
Spain, and all were accounted for
after the explosions, including
one student studying at La
Universidad Europea de Madrid.
“We have a lot of students in
Spain and they are all safe,” said
Liz Adams, director of Education
Abroad Programs.
Valerie Rider, a foreign lan
guages and literatures lecturer at
UNCW, took a group of 16 peo
ple from the university.
“I take groups of students to
Spain every Spring Break,”
See MADRID, Page 3
Students’ ratings of
professors cause debate
Kathy Gillen
Staff Writer
The popularity of Web sites
used for rating teachers is grow
ing and 484 UNCW professors
are among over 300,000 college
professors across the United
States and Canada who have been
rated on Ratemyprofessors.com,
one of the national professor-rat
ing Web sites.
Since 2002, the Web site has
added over 2,000 schools to its
hstings. In the same time period,
teacher ratings rose from about
200,000 to over 1.5 million.
Ratemyprofessors.com went
online in 1999. The site’s presi
dent and founder, John
Swapceinski, created the site after
a particularly bad experience with
a professor in graduate school.
Professors are rated according
to easiness, helpfulness, clarity
and hotness. The teachers get an
Overall Quality grade, which is
the average of their helpfulness
and clarity scores.
Icons denote whether the pro
fessor has a good, average or poor
rating. If a student rates a teacher
as “hot,” they get a chili pepper
icon.
Both students and faculty
members say Internet grading
sites like Ratemyprofessors.com
aren’t reliable indicators of a
teacher’s proficiency. These sites
also raise issues of the accounta
bility of the reviewers.
“Some of my colleagues ...
worry that all too often it winds up
being either a popularity contest
or an entertainment quotient,” said
Dan Noland, associate professor
of English. “And so, somebody
could be highly rated because
they’re fun to sit in class and listen
to even though at the end of the
semester, what have you done? On
the other hand, suppose you con
ceive the notion that I needed to be
punished, that I needed to be
destroyed. Then you could get
together with a few people on the
computer versions and just artifi
cially lower the average by giving
the lowest possible score.”
English and Spanish major
Melinda Johnston also has con
cerns, “Whereas some people
might find it beneficial to read
things about a professor like good
comments, there are also very
inappropriate comments that
aren’t really important for other
students to know, like if the
teacher’s hot or not.”
Junior Charles Osgood thought
the lack of regulations on the
Internet discredited the site and
those like it entirely. “You really
can’t go by what they say.”
Many students agree, however,
that finding a legitimate way to
look at professors’ ratings and
comments by other UNCW stu
dents is a good idea. When a stu
dent is registering for a class that
has several sections taught by dif
ferent professors, it’s a common
See online, page 3
m rvM *• [ m
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