Bryan residents protest chalk ban
Andrew Kobayashi
STAFF WRITER
A concrete courtyard
played host to a display of com
munity as Bryan residents
came together last Friday af
ternoon to turn a frustrated
protest against perceived cen
sorship into a sprawling piece
of lyrical art.
Chalking on the walls out
side of Bryan dorms was out
lawed for the first time this
year, and amidst confusion
about the reasons for the new
rule, many residents felt that
their artistic voices were being
smothered by bureaucracy.
Guilford students are no
torious for their social con
sciousness, and they do not
take lightly any perceived at
tack on their freedoms, espe
cially the freedom of speech.
But is this a case of freedoms
deprived? Or have students,
overzealously protecting their
rights, failed to comprehend the
full picture?
The latter is exactly the
case, according to residential
life director Patty Burgoon.
"Last year the task of removing
Andrea Gerlak to leave Guilford
Casey Creel
STAFF WRITER
"It's a tremendous loss for
the college," said Ken Gilmore,
K/|f f \jjy^H^|
i> i.^*wy
This semester will be Gerlak's last
THE
GUILFORDIAN
Greensboro, NC
, JL: 1 ; j
ill: • f 'HKV* A # I
The decorated Bryan quad
head of the Political Science de
partment.
"She is a great teacher, a
good friend, and will certainly be
missed at Guilford," said
Dave Dobson, Geology and
Earth Sciences professor.
"I could always go to her
and she'd go out of her way
to help me," said James
Tatum, a junior Political Sci
ence major. "I'm certainly
sorry to see her go."
Andrea Gerlak, a profes
sor of Political Science since
1996 and the person chiefly
responsible for the Environ
mental Studies major, will
leave Guilford at the end of
December.
"It caught me by sur
prise," said Tatum, who
learned of Andrea's depar
ture through an email to Po
litical Science majors two
weeks before the school year
BRITA HELGESEN
began. "I don't see how she could
possibly turn it down though."
What Gerlak could not turn
down was a job offer to teach at
Columbia University's Bio
sphere, a giant metal and glass
dome built in the early 90's to
host every ecosystem found on
the planet. The facility is located
30 miles outside of Tuscon, Ari
zona.
Columbia took over what
was originally a privately funded
operation after it closed in 1995.
October 5, 2001
the chalk went to maintenance,
and since they were unable to
remove some of it, the students
were made to pay damages. We
didn't want that to happen this
year," she said. So the problem
was addressed at what seemed
to be the root, and the chalk
ing was forbidden.
But this was not the logi
cal conclusion for many stu
dents. First-year Tyson Buis
said, "If the problem was re
moval, why not just let us ac
cept financial responsibility
and be done with it?"
"This is completely ridicu
lous," said sophomore Biynne
Kirk, as she and fellow pro
chalk activist Alicia Frasca cir
culated a petition to all Bryan
residents. The petition was in
tended to be a compromise. The
wall-art could stay up, but all
words and phrases would be
promptly taken down. This
would not be a bad idea by most
standards of taste, as one such
phrase reminded Bryanites to
"act your age, not your [exple
tive deletedl size."
But a compromise was not
to be had, and steps were taken
See Chalk, p. 3
LEAH KEFALOST
The university bought it to offer
students "interdisciplinary
hands-on experience in environ
mental studies."
"There aren't too many rain
forests in New York," Gerlak
joked.
Her teaching at the Bio
sphere will deal directly with the
topic of both her dissertation and
the manuscript she is currently
writing: water policy in the West.
See Gerlak, p. 2