Page 12/ Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Shelley Russell
Special Projects Editor
Sarah McGllnchey
Reporter
MYTHBUSTERS
Submitted by students through questioning and a Facebook group,
these are some myths that have been spread around campus for
years. After asking authority figures about these issues, we were able
to uncover the truth, once and for all.
The hills in front of Moseley were put
there to block out the road that runs
through campus
After contacting McBride Hess Design Group, the landscape
architecture firm that designed Young Commons outside of
IVIoseley, this myth is partially true; but obstructing the road was not
the main reason for the construction of the hills.
“It was to try to give a relief and volumetric space so that you
would feel like you were in a big green bowl, so to speak,” said
Ken Bark, of McBride Hess Design Group. “The hills were put there
to bring down the size of the buildings and give the open space a
park-like setting. The road was just one of a number of reasons to
place the hills in Young Commons.”
Elon’s Bird Flu plan calls for a
up on campus
1
m tion's Bird Flu pla
Dan Anderson said that in 2006, thJfiiversity developed a
plan to deal with quarantine or a major national flu outbreak.
“There was a very expensive pandemic plan that would include
any sort of contagious disease,” Anderson said. “If students died
on campus and you wouldn’t be able to transfer them to a morgue,
there would be a temporary morgue on campus.”
According to Anderson, the reason behind the plan to have
a morgue came from the fact that Alamance Regional would be
overwhelmed in the case of a flu pandemic.
In terms of the exact location of the morgue, Jana Lynn
Patterson, assistant vice president for student life, said that the first
option would be to use the space in McMichael, where cadavers
were already stored. After this space was filled, the next option
would be to bring in a refrigerated space, such as a tent.
Elon
means
“oak”
[UNSOLVED]
Several Web sites have
cited Elon to mean oak. Others
have also said that Elon means
terebinth, which is a different
type of tree. According to the
Jewish Daily Web site, the
Hebrew word “alon” means oak,
and “elah” means terebinth. In
Genesis, “elon” combines each
of these words. As a result, some
translations cite “elon" to mean
specifically and oak tree, while
others say that it can also mean
simply, a tree.
I
*
Elon spends $5 million a year
on flowers and re-plants them
as soon as they wilt
Tom Flood, superintendent of landscaping and grounds, was
excited at the notion of having $5 million in the landscaping
budget, but said that the amount spent on flowers each year is
only a small fraction of the rumored figure.
“We plant between 40,000 and 55,000 annual plants a year,"
Flood said. “But they are very small when we plant them and
they don’t cost all that much.”
The landscaping crew rotates the flowers twice a year
They plant around commencement, replacing the pansies with
summer flowers, and then again in October when the summer
flowers are replaced with winter pansies. Flood said that it is
very rare that flowers are re-planted in addition to the normal
planting schedule.
“Sometimes we will have a disease problem that will cause
a planted bed to fail,” Flood said. “Once in a while we will just
have to pull it out and put something back in its place, but that
is unusual.”
I
fa
■I Elon puts blue
11 dye in the ponds
■■ on campus -
[CONFIRMED]
■» Pond dye is added to Lakes Mary Nell
and Verona in the spring and summer,
but it is not for aesthetic value. Flood
said that pond dye reduces the amount
of sunlight in the water, and therefore
reduces the amount of algae that grows
in the ponds.
Dye is added to the ponds during
typical algae seasons. Flood also said
that in addition to Mary Nell and Verona,
Elon Homes Pond will also require an
occasional pack of pond dye.
Students must wait 15 minutes
before leaving class if a
professor does not show up
Whether the professor has a B.A. or a Ph.D., there is
no required time that students must wait for a professor
at Elon.
“There is no policy on this,” said Dr. Steven House,
dean of Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences.
“We expect our faculty to be in class when the class is
scheduled. We also expect the students to be there. But
things can happen, so I think the thing to do is to wait
a reasonable amount of time, and then have a student
try to contact one of the program assistants from the
department or the department chair If I know a faculty
member is going to be late, we will have something
posted on Blackboard.”
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While Patterson saidW
left on medical withdrawal
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gotten credit for this absent
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connected with *
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through campuses arou^
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where two students a e _
depressed roommate toc
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