PAGE 4 — THE DECREE — OCTOBER 21,1994
OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF
NORTH CAROUNA WESLEYAN COULEGE
£ditor-iii-Chief—Patrick Brannan
OHPySditor—Alan Felton
Advertising Mani^er—John Morgan
Staff—Cecilia Lynn Casey, Kimberly Curseen,
Winona Price, Greg PoFceli^ Scott B^^e, Julie Scalzoj
Kevin Coiribett, Anty Lyns Brayton
Contributing Writers — Dr. Steve Ferebee, Ben Hamrick
Advtsw— Chris LaLonde
feyin CeOf^ 340t
»fr meetings are Jh
' the Decree ofRce.
North Canilina Wes-
Blvi, Rocicy Mount, NC 27801. Weekly
at 10:30 ajn. and Thursday at 4:30 pjn.
of aiqr matter herefai witbiint the
Ls strictly forbUden. The Decret is
Wesleyan not good
at communication
Coinmxinication is a key in
any relationship. At Wesleyan
lack of communication is a big
problem across campus. Com
munication between the ad^
ministration and students is
one of the biggest problems.
The students lack an under
standing of the administration.
They see them as a group of
people that sit behind their
desks and make life hard for
the students. At a school that
prides itself in the fact that stu
dents have opportunities to
start their own organizations
and get involved in many
learning experiences outside
the classroom, this lack of
communication is an odd re
sponse.
The school recently
dropped the slogan, “Where
the student comes first.” Right
fully so.
The school is currently in
the process of searching for a
new president, the head of the
school. How many students
know who is on the commit
tee that is conducting the
search? How many students
are even involved on this com
mittee?
Recently the firm that is
conducting the search was on
campus and there was a meet
ing open to all students. Yet
this meeting was not adver
tised to students and atten
dance was poor. In fact, the
newspaper only learned of the
meeting when we asked about
the agenda for the search com
mittee.
Why was that? Was there a
reason the students were not
informed of this meeting? How
come students aren’t informed
that they can go and read the
consulting firm’s report in the
library?
Also the school is currently
in the process of changing the
mission statement. Again an
other meeting, open to all stu
dents, was held on this sub
ject. The only way it was
passed on to the students was
at an SGA meeting. Two stu
dents attended this community
meeting.
Does the college’s defini
tion of community include stu
dents? If a student is payiog
close to $13,000 a year to at
tend this college, shouldn’t
they be involved or at least
informed of the college’s ac
tions?
It appears that the adminis
tration has no desire to work
with the students. The school
says that The Decree and Stu
dent Radio need to pay for
their own phones and phone
lines. At a cost of $75 for in
stallation of a phone line, $35
a month, and from the school’s
records $800 for a display type
phone, there is no way a stu
dent organization can pay that
sum. SGA is stretched to the
limit in funding organizations
now and new organizations
continue to come before SGA
for approval.
The administration’s lack of
communication with the stu
dents only leads to trouble. It
creates a negative attitude in
the student body as a whole. If
the administration would open
lines of communication with
the students, including using
The Decree, Wesleyan can be
come a better place for every
one.
BVDUK'PS
I WS^SicKANPTOD
CF >OV)R COtSTANT
FlGHTiNlG/..
13
Procrastination doesn’t help
Problems don’t go away
By DR. STEVE FEREBEE
I have a phone call to make
this weekend, and because I have
to give a friend some bad news, I
do not want to make the call. I
hate giving people bad news. So
I did what any self-respecting,
conscientious friend would do. I
procrastinated, I bargained with
myself, I cleaned the bathroom,
and I worried.
What would happen if we had
the freedom to avoid all unpleas
ant tasks? One of my students
said to me the other day that he
hadn’t done his revision because
he didn’t want to. He was wor
ried that he wouldn’t do a good
enough job. Well, of course, I
think he should have wanted to
make the attempt to see what
would happen, but I think I un
derstood what he meant.
I mean, does anyone really like
to do housework? I like my house
to be clean and neat, but people
assume that I therefore like doing
the cleaning and tidying. No way.
I grit my teeth once a week and
push the vacuum and the mop to
the rhythms of the loudest, raun
chiest rock and roll I can stand.
And does anyone like mov
ing? Packing up every glass, ev
ery fork, every towel, every book,
and every unidentifiable bunch of
papers that someday-I-swear I’ll
go through? What about doing
laundry? Or sharpening the
lawnmower blade? Cleaning the
windows? Washing the car? And
how about getting up on dark,
cold winter mornings?
Sometimes I think life is full
of these seemingly irrelevant irri
tants which irradiate our lives.
Sometimes I wonder what life
Dr. Steve
Muses
would be like if we had no ambi
tion, no willpower, no self-re
spect. We could just float through
our days without rippling our
complacency.
Now, I know what you’re say
ing. You’re saying that you know
someone just like that, someone
who doesn’t ever do any of these
little jobs. Well, maybe not the
ones you wish he or she would
do, but no one can move through
life without some of them. Maybe
rich people have someone else
clean the windows and maybe
they don’t have to arise when the
sun isn’t up yet; but everyone
thinks of some activities as mean
ingless and others as tedious and
others as painful, but do them any
way.
But we are odd creatures. I
have a dogwood tree which is dy
ing. I Uke this tree, and I have put
off for two years now the inevi
table. Maybe it’ll spring back to
life? Maybe if I take those
branches the others will find re
newal? Maybe if I fertilize?
Maybe if I take a nap? And so the
tree goes on dying and I go on
worrying.
We all have some degree of
this tendency to push problems
away, hoping that they will some
how disappear. And we have dif
ferent degrees about different
problems. Some of my gardening
friends actually hke to weed; I
wait until weeds trip me as I walk
by. Some of my students write
those revisions when and how
they are assigned to do so; others
show up for class a day after they
were assigned blissfully unaware
that their grades are going down.
I guess we all have to learn
what our limitations are and what
other people’s expectations of us
are. We have to balance that de
sire to escape tedium or pain with
the need to survive, to be a part
of the human community.
And yes, in case you haven’t
figured it out, I have been writing
this column instead of calling my
friend with my bad news. And
after “a hundred indecisions/. And
... a hundred visions and revi
sions,” I’ll make that call.
Blood was appreciated
Dear Editor:
I would like to thank everyone
who donated at the Red Cross
Bloodmobile on Tuesday, Oct. 4,
in the Student Activities Center.
We collected 53 pints, which
was only seven less than our goal
of 60. I would like to thank Nu
Gamma Phi for having the most
members donate and my college
101 class for signing people up
and advertising the bloodmobile.
Keep in mind that the next
bloodmobile here on campus will
be in April. If you missed the
opportunity to donate at our
bloodmobile, there will be a pub
lic bloodmobile at the Moose
Lodge in December.
Barbara A. Hollandsworth