Alpha Omega XI Presents: HIV and AIDS in our Community Presented by Yvonne Carly of the Cape Fear Valley Health System Monday, December 12 11:00 am Science Auditorium - S222 Exam Breakfast Wednesday December 5. 10:00 pm in the cafeternia. Come and participate in a time of fun, fellowship, and fremzy as faculty and staff serve students. Faculty and staff should arrive no later that 9:45 pm. Vol. 40, issue 6 Wednesday, December 5, 2001 r Methodist College, Fayetteville, NC Established 1967 Disability Changes on Methodist Grounds By Stacy Barreira Staff Writer Disabilities? What comes to mind when when that word is said? Perceptions are placed and images and stereotypes come to mind When it comes to academics, many students have wondered how, who, and why? With modem technology, innovations in the 21 st century and people becoming more open minded and less stereo typical, times are changing. Recendy, Methodist College began improvements to ac commodate students with dis abilities. These changes range from students with learning dis abilities to visual and physical disabilities. The Academic Center for Development, directed by Nicolette Campos offers ser vices for students. More people with learning, vi sual, and physical disabilities now have the opportunity to become more and more inde pendent, rely less on assistants, learn exactly what others are learning, and accomplish nec essary goals. There is no room for difference now. We are all capable of doing it all, just at different speeds, and with dif ferent technological means. There has been a great amount of support from staff this se mester, especially from Presi dent Hendricks. In a recent interview with Campos, she stated that, the difference between high school students and college students is that while students are in high school, it is the institutions re sponsibilities to test and ac commodate students, on the other hand, while students on the college level are solely re sponsible to get the accommo dation they need. In order to receive some type of service at all, students need to bring proper documentation to Cam pos and then the procedure begins. The student and the Director discuss what is to hap pen with the disability. Release fonns (which are very impor tant) are then signed and finally the director writes a letter and completes a disability certifica tion form. The student is able to use Trustees bathroom improvement Robin IVarrington what is necessary to modify his/her disability. Some accommodations in clude extra time on tests. Tests are able to be taken in the Aca demic Center for Develop ment. Classes are also able to be recorded and texts can be put on tape. A few additions have been made to the ACD; such as new computer software like JAWS. This is a talking word proces sor which is capable of read ing line by line, paragraph by paragraph at any speed or any tone. Other additions include Open Book, a scanner and talking program that allows vi sually impaired students textur- ally feel pictures and Braille and speak. This is used as a note taker. A few changes have been made around the campus as well. A new policy and proce dure has been written by Cam pos and is handed out to any student who wishes to receive services. It highlights disabili ties and the services offered for each. Another improvement being completed in the improvement of the bathrooms in the Trust ees building. They are being made more wheelchair friendly. The hedges and trees are be ing taken down and/or trimmed for accessibility around cam pus. The pencil box in the Math building has also been re moved for safety issues. Some works in progress in clude an addition of a sidewalk from the Science Building to ADC and an elevator in the Trustees Building. Campos stated that she, along with Cynthia Curtis from the Development Office are teamed up to make way for possible grant money that will benefit student’s with disabili ties and offer many more ac- coinmodations for the near fii- ture. Campos also stated that she wants to hold workshops in the spring for both students and staff on issues pertaining to dis abilities and also inform every one of new improvements and fiiture ideas. If anyone is inter ested in finding out more about the new services or volunteer ing, please contact Niccolette Campos at 630-7033. Community Building Under Stress to Finish Completion By Ashleigh Radford Managing Editor For some time now, the com munity building for the Cape Fear Commons has been be hind schedule. The building that was supposed to be complete in August is now behind sched ule. The center, which in fact is almost complete, is located be hind the Commons, and houses a study room, a multipurpose room, and an office for the area coordinator, a kitchen, and bathrooms. Located on the outside of the building on ei ther side is a deck. The center’s scheduled completion was last year, fol lowing the completion of the residential portion. The delay came in Jan of 2001 when construction ceased be cause the con struction com pany, Sigma Construction, filed bank ruptcy. Ac cording to Ashley James, Assistant Di rector of Housing and Residence Life, Meth odist was a small contract of Sigma. They also completed jobs in Community Building. Bladen County, Moore County, and Randolph County. Anew con tractor was appointed shortly there after. Ellis Walker took over the job to finish the com munity build ing. Construc- tion of the building is now com plete. How- ever, there are some problems Robin Warrington with the wiring and the smoke detector. These problems are preventing the building from receiving the certificate of Oc cupancy that it needs to allow it to be utilized. Students have been informed of the delay and have periodi cally been informed about what is being done to ensure the building will open soon. “Stu dents have been notified about the progress being made on the building. They have been in formed periodically,” Rob Foreman said. “It was not realistic to ac cept that the construction would be done by August 2001,” Ashley James said. Opinions 4 Lifestyles 5 Sports 6 Classifieds 7

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view