PAGE 2 — THE DECREE — FEBRUARY 23,1990
The Decree
OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF
NORTH CAROLINA WESLEYAN COLLEGE
Editor — John Pernell
Staff — Dhana Chesson, Mark Brett, D.A. Lentz
The Decree is located in the Student Union, North Carolina
Wesleyan College, Wesleyan College Station, Rocky Mount,
NC 27801. Policy is determined by the Editorial Board of The
Decree. Republiciation of any matter herein without the ex
press consent of the Editorial Board is strictly forbidden. The
Decree is composed and printed by The Spring Hope Enterprise.
Opinions published do not necessarily reflect those of North
Carolina Wesleyan College.
Let’s try to stop
campus rumors
Have you ever heard a
rumor passed around campus?
If not, you might be the only
person who has at sometime
or another been missed by the
Wesleyan grapevine. For this,
congratulations, because you
just might be the only person
in this college that is minding
their own business. We have
narrowed the source of the
North American Wesleyan
rumor down to three possible
culprits. They are the faculty,
the students, and the Office of
Student Life.
Faculty, spread gossip?
You bet your tenure the fac
ulty gossips. We do not mean
that they hide in the dark cor
ners of the library and pass
information over hot tea. We
mean student-teacher confi
dentiality. There have been
many cases where one of the
honorable faculty has leaked a
few words about one of their
students. This is unprofes
sional. Fortunately, this is true
of only a few of the members
of Wesleyan’s Faculty.
The students of Wesleyan
are ruthless with rumors. You
can sometimes picture the
cafeteria as a hair salon on a
Saturday afternoon. Often the
gentlemen are guiltier than the
ladies. The guys and girls
need to find a better pastime,
a pastime that is a little more
constructive, like book burn
ing.
Rumors are forever seep
ing out from under the door of
Student Life. Often the gossip
is misleading and warped weU
out of proportion. For ex
ample, the time everyone
thought that the Japanese
were going to buy the school,
or the rumor about the locks
being changed on all the
doors.
Misunderstandings like
this would not take place if
Student Life would start being
up front with the student
body. This is a novel idea we
know, but it just might help a
little. Now that everyone
knows the sources, try to kiU
the Wesleyan grapevine.
Symposium informative
Pollution war needs help
By DR. STEVE FEREBEE
If you are drinking Rocky
Mount water, do you know where
it comes from? If you know
where it comes from, do you
know whether or not it is clean?
If you know it isn’t clean, do you
know what is in it? If you know
what is in it, do you know how to
get rid of it? Remember Perrier is
no longer the solution.
Ironically, as Wesleyan at
tempted to educate the commu
nity and spark debate about envi
ronmental concerns, Mayor Tur-
nage bragged about Rocky
Mount’s expensive new waste
water treatment plant the very
morning a report sponsored by
two North Carolina environ
mental groups announced that
Dr. Steve
Muses
last year 2.5 billion gallons of
untreated sewage and industrial
waste bypassed the wastewater
treatment plant.
Guess what local river [and
drinking water source] it poi
sons? Flush and then drink up.
All kinds of people visited
campus last week to discuss and
teach. You missed moments of
real drama if you didn’t hear the
representative from Greenpeace
challenge us to think about tuna
fish or the man from the Pamlico
Tar River Association say bluntly
that Americans need to consume
less or Dr. Wilson Oyelaran tell
the story of the tin can in Nigeria.
This year’s symposium topic —
“Our Island Earth: What Can We
Eastern North Carolinians Do?”
— is so dramatic and vital that it
should have had crowds filling
the rooms.
Instead, both the student body
and the faculty sent its usual mi
nority and failed to accept the
challenges offered by the sympo
sium organizers. I saw clearly
from my class discussions that
the people who did go realized
how their ignorances contribute
to problems which go beyond
one’s selfish desires.
(Continued on Page 3)
Trash problem needs lifestyle change
By DANIELLE MECKLEY
According to the U.S. Envi
ronmental Protection Agency,
the average American produces
3.5 pounds of trash every day.
That means every year each per
son is responsible for about 1,300
pounds of trash. Statistics like
this are as abundant as they are
staggering. But for every prob
lem there awaits a solution; the
trash problem is not hopeless.
The problem with trash is that
it is getting more and more ex
pensive to take care of. The ex
pense comes from shipping trash
to landfills that are far away. To
solve the expense problem is
easy: build waste management
facilities in every community.
But this isn’t a very attractive
solution. So with more trash and
less place to put it community
leaders and everyday citizens ar
realizing that the waste must
stop. This is possible if everyone
takes a good look at what they
buy and what they throw away.
A few students here at North
Carolina Wesleyan College have
already been doing so and play
ing a part in solving the trash
problem. NCWC’s newly formed
Honor Student’s Association
voted unanimously for a recy
cling progect as a community
service. The plan is to establish a
bin exclusively for paper in the
Braswell Administration Build
ing which members of the
Honor’s Student’s Association
would then take to the recycling
center. Carey Knupp, member of
the organization, believes this is a
worthy community project “be
cause it will help students be
come more environmentally con
scious.”
Setting examples for correct
trash behavior has become wide
spread. In area elementary
schools there is a program in the
social studies and health classes
to teach young students about the
dangers of trash. Judy Boyd,
freshman at NCWC who has
taken a special interest in this
project, believe “if they become
environmentally aware of the
need to recycle and to not pollute
then perhaps they will have a
chance of saving our world.”
(Continued on Page 3)