Newspapers / Elon University Student Newspaper / Nov. 13, 1980, edition 1 / Page 2
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Page 2 The Pendulum November 13, 1980 Newspapers as ‘watchdogs’ Recently several branches of the administration have come under fire from var ious articles in the Pendulum. All the articles were written to be constructive and were not meant to be harmful. Whenever people or groups in society operate without criticism, they as sume that their way of doing things is the ideal way and they consequently gain too much power. People who are closely involved with a group cannot see any wrong. Without the help of out siders, groups or individuals could not improve their jobs. The Pendulum tries to act as an outsider looking in. Whenever any article, letter,, or editorial appears in the newspaper, it is meant to be constructive and will conse quently result in improve ment. Maybe the groups who have been criticized are not aware of the intent of the Pendulum, and need to re Crying ‘wolf too often Although pulling the Hre alarm may be a “fun” thing to do on a boring Saturday night, it is actually endan gering the life of every Elon College student who lives on campus. With the new campus security system, a monthly fire drill is on the agenda for all residence halls. When the fire alarm is sounded, the residence counselors make sure all students are out of the dorm. According to David Joyce, all alarms must be treated as real. When the drill alarm stops, students may come back in the dorm. Elon College Public Safety Chief Seagroves suspects that whoever pulled the fire alarm Friday night in Staley called the fire department either before or after pulling the alarm to prevent the trucks from dispatching. He says that such a false fire alarm is a state misde meanor — the penalty of which is a fine of $50 and/or two years in prison. For some reason, Elon is not wired into the county central communications sys tem that immediately alerts the police in case of a fire. Dean Joyce says, “There is no direct link from the residence hall to the fire department.” The Pendulum staff questions the safety of such an arrangement. At present, if there were a fire on campus, the fire depart ment would not be notiHed until they received a phone call. Besides being impracti cal, this is unsafe and ha zardous. Another problem is that 25-30 fire extinguishers are misused every month. This means if a fire started, many of the extinguishers would be useless. Chief Seagroves says that checking and filling these fire extinguishers is time consuming and presents a problem since one never knows quite when a fire extinguisher will be needed. Chief Seagroves also says that whoever pulls a fire alarm is playing with danger and endangering the lives of others. After the second alarm Friday night, only a mino rity of the students bothered to come out of their rooms. What if there had been a real fire? Because of a prankster, lives could have been lost. Are we that hard up for excitement? University grants speech M.A. Dear Editor: Even the most talented graduates of small liberal arts institutions sometimes have difficulty making the transition from undergrad uate study to professional careers or advanced work in large, highly competitive megaversities. The University of Wis consin at Superior is a small institution of 2,000 students which grants an M.A. in speech with emphasis on speech communication, thea ter, and radio-television- films. There are four work ing theaters on campus, an FM radio station and a television production studio. With its sister city, Du luth, Miim., there is an ur ban area of 140,000 people which serves as a production base. Interns are placed in commercial production. A limited number of gra duate assistantships are available, and the recipients of these are given positions of responsibility which help to prepare them for careers in a highly competitive pro fession. For more information write to me at Department of Communicating Arts, University of Wisconsin- Superior, Superior, Wis. 54880. member the overall rights of newspapers. Newspapers were deve loped to be “watchdogs” for the communities they serve. In our case the com munity is composed of stu dents. The governing bodies it watches are the faculty, administration, and the Stu dent Government Associa tion. A newspaper is in no way supposed to be a calendar of events or serve the place of a public information bureau. Newspapers have been in strumental in making chan ges worldwide and will con tinue to ignite constructive changes. Whenever newspapers are silenced, then the democracy of this nation will be noi more. Truth is the primary objective of every news paper. Truth will always win out, regardless of the conse quences or circumstances. And if administrators, facuhy or students are dis turbed by truth and/or criticism, then they lack thj maturity needed to survivt in our present-day world. Maybe one problem with people becoming so defen sive is that they refer to Pendulum journalists as stu dents. They are training to be professionals first, and students second. And $om^ where between one and two they are humans who do en. The new English-jouma- lism major will not only increase the number of stu dents who want to work on the newspaper staff but will increase competitiveness and directly result in better Pen dulum coverage of all as pects of life at Elon College. And as responsible jour nalists, it is our obligation to search for the truth through research, interviews, and witnesses. And if the found truth hurts, then maybe there is a wrong in that particular organization— for starters, it lacks mature pro fessionals. One view of registration To the Editor: After my years at Elon, I have become totally frustrated with the system of pre-registration and registration. There is a better way. It takes Elon the same amount of time to register 2,500 students that it takes larger schools to register 20,000. I realize that the new computer system has speeded the process up, but it still takes forever. If Mr. Albertson would consider any serious suggestions, I would like to talk to him. Chris Christopho ‘Messiah’ to be presented The traditional community performance of Handel’s “Messiah” will be held Sun day evening, Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. in the Alumni Gymna sium. Participating in the per formance are the Elon Col lege Choir, Elon College Community Orchestra, and members of various church choirs from the surrounding area. William H. Stock ' Chairman snie IPctiiiulitm Editor Joy Hamilton Featnm Editor Robin Adams Entertainment Editor Becky Kimbrell Sports Editor yield Blankenship Photographs Pam Overstreet & Susan Burleson David Avrette Composition PrisdUa Cnmipton & Karen Carrontli Layout Mari Behrend ft Day Irmiter Adviser Mary EUen Priestley AdvertisiBg Manager Ken Whitley Myra Worth ^bliAed by Conuounications Media Board of Elon “ conjunction with the Stodent Government Association. Founded on October 14, 1974, as a student newspapn of Elon O^e, the Pendulum I* Subnshed eacn rhiusday during ue school year except uring examination, summer and holiday periods. Stsif meetings Thu^ays at 4 p.m., 205 Stndcnt Center, '.li.i.i;iSuhscripdons — $5 per year
Elon University Student Newspaper
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Nov. 13, 1980, edition 1
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