Meredith Herald
December 1,1999
4 Campus News
Students, faculty face off in volleyball match
Ayana Rhodes
staff wmer
The competition was fierce;
the tension was great. On
Wednesday, Nov. 17th, the
Meredith College volleyball
team faced their toughest com
petitors of the season: the
Meredith College faculty.
Uniformed in neon tie-dyed
T-shirts, members of the staff
and faculty, including Dr.
Michael Novak, head of the
history and politics depart
ment, played serious volley
ball.
The game began with the
faculty losing the first serve to
the students, but the self-pro-
claimed old folks were not to
be underestimated. The faculty
regained the serve and scored
four points within the first
three minutes.
The competition grew more
serious as the student score-
keeper changed the team
names from “Us” and ‘Them”
to drawings of “Angels” and
“Devils.” With their new
image, the students began to
gain an advantage over the fac
ulty that they never lost. The
first game ended in the stu
dents' favor: 15-8.
In the sec
ond game, the
players on
both teams
became more
intense as the
faculty ' was
given a well-
deserved five
points to begin
with.
The faculty
got extremely
physical dur
ing this game.
Novak
flipped, rolled,
and skid in
order to help
his team.
To keep up
morale, after
one of the stu
dents hit the
ball, Novak said. “She hit it
much too hard, I thought.”
The hard work of the faculty
team members, including
archaeology professor Vincent
Melomo’s kicking the ball,
paid off. They won the second
game with a score of 15 to the
students’ 11 points.
The final game started with
huddles by both teams. The
faculty ended their huddle
shouting,
“Go Old
Folks!"
The
faculty
was again
the recipi
ent of five
points
before the
game
began as
a sort of
head start.
Unfor
tunately,
by that
time, the
Meredith
Angels
were
warmed
up.
The
faculty played a very good
game, however, with Novak
blocking two attempted spikes
during this game.
The student volleyball team
did not come away with an
easy win. The final score for
the third game was 16-14 in the
students’ favor.
The students won the overall
match by winning two out of
the three games played.
Amy Griswold, an English
professor and volleyball player,
watched the match. “I was very
entertained,” she commented.
She thought the competition
was fun to watch. The players
seemed to enjoy themselves
more than the spectators.
Student athlete Christie
Evans, a senior, said. “It was
fun and a very good way to end
the volleyball season.”
She also thought it was ben
eficial to the school. “It was a
very good way to intermingle
athletics with the depart
ments.”
The "Old Folks’ team keeps up in the student/ faculty volley
ball game.
Photo by Ayana Rhodgs
Communication is key to campus publicity
Stephanie Jordan
Staff Writer
It’s fairly logical. If people
don’t know about your fund
raiser. you won’t make any
money. If students don't real
ize that White Iris Ball tickets
are on sale, the sponsors should
not be surprised when no one is
there on the night. If no one
advertises the next club meet
ing, chances are that atten
dance will not be very high.
Luckily, most organizations
at Meredith seem to have fig
ured out that communication
with the student body is the key
to success. But how do these
organizations distribute their
information?
One of the most used meth
ods of keeping the Meredith
Community informed is
through campus mail. Several
slips of brightly colored paper
with cleverly designed logos
are stuffed into mailboxes and
mail pockets each day, in the
hopes that each student will
learn all that she needs to know
about upcoming events.
Copies of these announce
ments are often stapled to bul
letin boards in classroom build
ings. Johnson Hall and the Cate
Center. And every student is
issued a copy of the Student
Activities Handbook that lists
all meetings for the entire
school year.
But do these efforts at com
munication work? What reach
es the most people? And what
reaches the fewest? How could
Meredith improve its commu
nication with students?
Freshman Katie McNamera
feels that the best way to reach
students in through their
dorms, especially by hanging
fliers in the stairwells. "Every
one spends a lot of time going
in and out of their rooms and
up and everybody has to go
through the stairwells, so that
would be the place that would
be seen by the most people, “
said McNamera.
Because she regularly
checks her mail, she also finds
the mailbox fliers very infor
mative. She suggests that,
“although it may seem sort of
kindergarten, banners on the
breezeways that have catchy
titles and flashy colors would
work best."
Mary-Anne Greene, also a
freshman, agrees that inter
campus mail and dorm adver
tising is effective, but she does
n't think that all things are pub
licized evenly. “I never see
anything advertising the dance
programs or signs making a big
deal of the MDT perfor
mances,” said Greene.
Some students don’t always
understand what exactly is
being publicized on signs and
banners. “Some things really
need to have some extra infor
mation along with just the
event and the date,” says fresh
man Allison Shivar. “A lot of
times I don’t know what the
banners between the breeze
ways are talking about, so I
don't know if I need to go to
the meeting or not, so I just
don’t go.” She thinks that cam
pus mail is the best way for
organizations to meet people.
“If it is in my mailbox. I
assume that it must be impor
tant." said Shivar,
Upperclassmen, however,
tend to disagree. Sophomore
Meredith Carson says. “All
those fliers are just annoying. It
seems like I’ve seen them all
before, and most of the time
they aren’t even something that
I would be interested in. The
way I usually see things is by
reading signs posted on the
doors in the dorms.”
Kate Davies, an on-campus
junior, agrees. “I usually just
throw the things in my mailbox
out.” she says. Davies suggests
that publicity information be
placed on tables where interest
ed students can take what they
want and uninterested students
are not bothered.
Senior Courtney Suggs
reveals another problem with
using inter-campus mail to
publicize Meredith events. “I
don’t check my mail very
often, so even if I read all the
flyers in there, most of them
are out of date, so it’s too late
to do anything anyway.” Suggs
said.
Communicating with off-
campus students is an issue that
is growing as more and more
find alternatives to dorm life.
Sophomore Lauren McHugh
commutes from her home in
North Raleigh and said that
“once you live off campus you
don’t really know anything.”
“I don’t eat lunch in the Cate
Center or in the dining hall, so
I miss any kind of fund raiser
or announcements. It’s very
frustrating,” says McHugh.
Junior Katy Prince agrees.
“Since I moved off campus, I
don’t find out about anything
until it is too late. I think they
should send us stuff in the mail.
I don’t expect them to send us
every little thing, but maybe a
newsletter once a month or
something,” says Prince.
According to sophomore
Katie Goforth, Meredith Col
lege is known for its strong
sense of community. ‘That’s
one of the reasons I came to
Meredith.” says Goforth. “If
people feel uninformed or left
out then they quit trying to par
ticipate in anything, which sort
of defeats the whole purpose of
Meredith. I know that we as
students have the responsibility
to find out what we can, but
there are ways that organiza
tions can make that easier for
us to do, and most students
would give anyone that cared
enough to ask some pretty
good suggestions.”