Methodist College
Fayetteville, NC Vol. XXXV, No. 6 Tuesday, November 18, 1997
‘97 Spirit Week, Homecoming a rousing success
The 1997 Homecnming Court was crowned at the Homeci»ming [)ance Nov. I at the Holiday Inn Bordeaux. The winners were (lell to
right): First Runner-Up fi>r Queen Nicole Vrcntas; First Runner-Up for King Nate Weston: Queen Sema Hashemi; King Darrien Tlicker;
Second Runner-Up for Queen Brandi Byrd; Second Runner-Up for King Felix Sarfo-Kantanka. (Photo by Bill Billings)
By Sonya Sparks Murdock
StaffWriter
What does the Monarch
football program have in common with
the women’s soccer and men’s cross
country teams? How about with
Darrien Tucker and Sema Hashemi?
Or with East and Sanford Halls? Give
up? They were all winners on Home
coming Day 1997.
In fact. Homecoming itself
was considered a real winner by most
students who participated. SGA
president Brett Davis considers this
year’s Homecoming, which is his third
at Methodist, the best yet. “The stu
dent body really had a sense of com
munity, with the contests between the
dorms ... it brought people together,”
said Davis. Andrew Farriss, an SGA
senator, agreed: “I feel like it was re
ally successful. Everybody got in
volved in the activities for the (Spirit)
week and generated excitement. ”
MC alumni and RHA advi
sor Rob Foreman said, “It was the
most spirit I’ve seen. The students
were excited, and the staff was excited.
I came here in fall 1988, and this was
by far the most activity and the larg
est (Homecoming) we’ve had.” Coin
cidentally, this was the first year that
the RHA, the SGA and SAC have
worked together to plan Spirit Week.
In the past, festivities were
held the day before Homecoming, not
all week. Farriss thinks that Spirit
Week made the difference this year.
With an overall student participation
rate of 42 percent, the joint committee
was satisfied with their efforts. Nearly
250 people attended the bonfire on
Wednesday night, Oct. 29, which was
a better turnout than the committee
expected. Recalling an unsuccessful
bonfire two years ago, Farriss con
ceded, “For one thing, they actually
got the fire started this year.” The
chilly but bearable weather didn’t hurt
matters, either. “It was just cold
enough (for a bonfire),” Farriss added.
Also successful were the
penny wars between the dorms, which
raised $541 for RHA programs such
as alcohol awareness and rape pre
vention. Sanford Hall dominated the
penny wars, while East Hall’s “Ea.st is
the Beast” theme won the judges’
votes for best decorations. Director
of Alumni Affairs Summer Brock said,
“According to the judges, (the East
Hall decorations) had an incredible
look. They were wide open and
showed a lot of thought and creativ
ity.” The Alumni Association an
nounced the winners at halftime dur
ing the Homecoming football game,
picsenting trophies to Sanford and
East Hall representatives.
On Friday, Oct. 31, students
were entertained during lunch by
“Play with a Rattle,” a MC student
band. Meanwhile at the Union, the
SAC sponsored a caricatures artist to
doodle student portraits for free.
(SAC also sponsored Lester, the Pro
fessional Fool, at Saturday’s football
game. He was the wacky character
who, swarmed by fans, twisted bal
loons into a variety of shapes includ
ing hats, flowers and monkeys with
bananas.) But back to Friday. That
evening, the cafeteria workers dressed
in costumes to serve students a Hal
loween treat: steaks for dinner! Al
though it “wasn’t Outback,” Farriss
admitted that the special dinner was
better than the usual cafeteria fare.
Later that night, “Midnight
Madness” officially kicked off basket
ball season as the men’s and women’s
teams showed their stuff in alternat
ing ten-minute scrimmage games. The
crowd also enjoyed performances by
the dance team and the cheerleaders
and competed in free-throw and lay
up contests. Matt Eviston, the MC
Sports Information Director, said that
the games gave players and
scoreboard operators an opportunity
to practice without pressure before
the season begins, while also provid
ing fun for the students. Midnight
Madness is generally held just past
midnight on October 15, marking the
first day that the players can officially
“touch the ball."
Homecoming day began
with the MC Education Department
holding its annual Alumni Breakfast
for its education students and alumni.
The guest speaker was Monty
Coggins, a biology and biochemistry
teacher at Pleasant High School in
Cabarrus County. Coggins, who is
the North Carolina Teacher of the Year
for 1997-98, said, “1 became a teacher
by accident.” He explained that his
first teaching job was only on an in
terim basis, but he enjoyed teaching
so much that he ended up teaching
for the next 18 years.
Dr. Gilda Benstead, Head of
Methodist’s Education Department,
said that it was important that the stu
dents currently in the education pro
gram have the opportunity to hear
Coggins discuss his work in order for
them to better understand the respon
sibilities they will face in the field of
education. Benstead credited the Stu
dent Education Association and the
MC Student Council for Exceptional
Children for organizing the breakfast.
“They made decorations, acted as
hostesses and even put together the
programs, ” said Benstead.
The rest of Homecoming
day took off with sports. The non
stop action began with the fifth An
nual William P. Lowdermilk GolfTour-
nament on November 1 at 8 am. The
winners of the alumni event, a four-
See HOMECOMING, page 2
m
m
Senior ClifT Harris works at starting the bonfire that helped kick off Methodist College's Homecoming Spirit Week
Nearly 250 people attended the bonllre on Oct. 29. (Photo by Jennifer Packard)
Colleges combat grade inflation
By Lisa Bertagnoli
College Press Service
Just like a nickel used to buy
a loaf of bread and a movie cost a
dollar, a C grade used to mean aver
age.
“You should talk to my dad
about a ‘gentleman’s C,’” says Suzy
Avril, a graduate student at the Uni
versity of Chicago, who, like her fa
ther, did her undergraduate work at
Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.
“Parents understood Cs
then,” she says. “Pushing for As was
for desperate academics.”
It appears, however, that
those “desperate academics” far out
number the gentlefolk at Dartmouth
these days. The mean grade-point
average has been creeping up about
1/100th of a point each year, says
Thomas Bickel, registrar at the Ivy
League school. In the 1992-1993
school year, the mean GPA was 3.23;
now it’s 3.28.
Other schools show similar
ascents in grades. Lehigh University
in Bethlehem, Pa., sports an average
GPA of 2.9, up from 2.6 in 1972. At
Stanford, only 8 percent of students
in the 1992-1993 school year got Cs
or Ds; no Fs were given out that year.
The odd thing about grade
inflation is that it’s happening when
first, the education system in this
country is in full crisis mode and sec
ond, when ACT and SAT tests aren't
rising along with grades. “That’s the
definition of grade inflation: when
grades go up over a period of time
Skip days give students a break from studies
By Kristina Lane
College Press Service
Minutes before dawn, there
is a faint chime of campus bells. As
the bells grow louder, bleary-eyed
college students are jarred from their
slumber. Soon students’ screams are
heard across campus as they race up
and down dormitory hallways.
One might think this is a
cruel joke, stirring students from
much-needed rest. But it’s one time a
year students don’t mind waking up
early. That’s because the bells herald
a tradition known as skip day, and for
the next 24 hours, students enjoy a
time-out from their academic respon
sibilities—no classes, no tests, just
time to relax and enjoy the day.
On many campuses, the an
nual skip day is a decades-long tradi
tion. At Doane College in Crete, Neb.,
for example, skip day is known as Stop
Day and has been going on since the
1940s, says J.S. Engebretson,
Doane’s director of public relations.
“Stop Day was originally
created for campus cleanup,” says
Engebretson, who says the day now
is intended as leisure time before the
beginning of spring exams. “These
days, some students might work on
beautification in the morning, but by
afternoon, everyone is having fun at
a nearby park.”
Festivities begin at dinner on
the day before Stop Day, as the stu
dent government association presi
dent announces a dance at the stu
dent union. The following day, stu
dents gather at Tuxedo Park to play
volleyball or softball while members
of sororities and fraternities sing,
dance and act in the annual talent
show. The winners of the talent show
and the achievement grades represent
doesn’t go up accordingly,” says
Perry Zirkel, a professor in the educa
tion department at Lehigh.
That’s preci.sely the problem
with grade inflation. As and Bs are
turning into the kindergarten equiva
lent of gold stars: Everyone gels one,
and therefore they don’t mean much.
More Art Than Science
The problem is more marked
in the humanities than the hard sci
ences, educators note. “I’m a math
professor, an in math there are right
and wrong answers,” says Bickel.
“Grading humanities essays is much
more subjective; there’s more room for
disagreement.”
Softer grading in humanities
classes sometimes lands English, his
tory and other such majors in trouble
when they take science classes. An
English major once came to Gail
Mahood, head of the geology and
environmental sciences department at
Stanford University, upset over a B
grade in Mahood’s introductory ge
ology class. “She thought it was ter
rible because in her department, a B is
mediocre,” Mahood recalls. “In my
class, a B is perfectly fine.”
By the same token, premed
and science majors who take humani
ties courses can be frustrated by the
subjectiveness of the grading. “They
really don’t want to write the essays
and such but they want an A,” says
Avril, who is also a teaching assis
tant at the University of Chicago.
Why So High?
Subjective grading aside,
professors are hard-pressed to explain
the upward creep of GPAs nationwide,
even at the best schools. Some blame
the high cost of education. Avril says
a professor once told her that stu
dents, especially those paying full-
freight tuition, expect sky-high grades
simply because they pay sky-high tu
ition. Avril blames “female socializa
tion” for her own laissez-faire grad
ing system. “I feel 1 have a hard time
being harsh,” she says.
Still others point to a pack
mentality. Zirkel points out that at
Lehigh, new teachers start out with
even grade distribution, but eventu
ally tire of student complaints (and
reputations of being hard graders) and
succumb to grade inflation. “They
will tell you they’re a cog in the sys
tem,” says Zirkel, who terms himself
“not popular, but not off-the-chart
unpopular ” with students.
His real unpopularity at
Lehigh might be with his fellow pro
fessors. In an effort to bring grades
back down, this year, Zirkel offered a
cash reward to the Lehigh professor-
who would score the highest on an
index composed of final-grade distri-,
bution and teacher evaluations. He
had no takers.
A similar plan met similar fate
See GRADE, page 2
are crowned Mr. and Ms. Doane of
the year.
Lorrie Swertzic, a Doane se
nior, says she finds Stop Day to be a
perfect release from stress before the
onslaught of final exams, and believes
the tradition should continue as long
as Doane exists.
“No one misses the activi
ties on Stop Day,” she explained. “It
is a good, clean environment with a
lot of fun—total Doane environment.
You havQ to be involved as a student
to understand the feeling.”
See SKIP DAY, page 3
INSIDE
Mystery of the Mallett-Rogers House explored
-page 4
Midnight Madness showcases talent
--page 5
Coaches reveal their supersitions
-page 5
Younger brothers aren’t as bad as they seem
-page 6
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