Newspapers / Meredith College Student Newspaper / Sept. 20, 2000, edition 1 / Page 1
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Meredith Herald Volume XVII, Issue 5 Educating Women to Excel September 20,2000 On the inside: Lay off Napster, tech services asks O Students went on a tropi cal adventure this summen Page 2 □ shows opened at Meredith this weekend. Page 5 □ Find out who new fresh man oil^cers will foe. Page 8 Meredith Herald at Meredith College 3800 Hillsborough St. Raldgh, NC 27607 (919) 760-2824 FAX (919) 760-2869 maxwell!® merediUi.edu □ Napster may be the culprit for our slow computers. Jenny Costa News Editor All over campus, slow com puters have been the bane of many students existence since the start of school. Now, Tech nology Services has found the culprit. The use of Napster by resi dent students seems to be caus ing the Internet cotnmunica- tions lines to operate at 100 percent. An email went out from Technology Services last week abmjt the use of Napster by res ident students. Technology Services hoped that the notice contained useful information about Napster and the problems it has been caus ing for our campus network. There are two issues that campus officials are having to discuss involving the use of Napster. The first is a legal issue. Colleges and universities are consideringd banning Napster because they fear that they may be held liable for the actions of students who choose to use this software illegally. The second issue, which is more relevant to Meredith, is technical. The technical issues center around security and bandwidth, according to the email that was sent out. The security problem is somewhat complicated. Meredith has invested in a valuable, elTicient firewall sys tem that protects the system from outside users but allow.s Meredith students to access campus information from any location. The Napster software is specifically designed to cir cumvent traditional network security and to make informa tion on its users' systems accessible to anyone anywhere on the Internet. Computer experts predict that it is only a matter of time before some malicious com puter hacker finds a way to exploit Napster to illegally acquire, alter or deface com puter flies, the email reported. Bandwidth is the real prob lem for the-Meredith system at this time. There is only a cer tain amount of space on (he vir tual spectrum that Meredith pays to use, and recently, it has been reaching full capacity. Some signs that it is nearing capacity are messages that say “Server not responding,” “Host not available” or “Time-out error.” Many Meredith students have received these responses when trying to access the Inter net. “We have a serious problem which we must address imme diately,” said Network Systems Supervisor E>oug Aim. This year there are student owned computers using more than ten times the combined bandwidth of the email, web and Blackboard servers. There are several proposed solutions for the problem. One is for the school to buy more bandwidth. However, this idea is both limited and very costly. Another idea is to simply ban Napster, a very unpopular choice for .student.^. And a third idea is to forcibly block access to Napster, which would be dif ficult and costly. The Senior Management Team has been briefed on the technical and legal implica tions of the software and will decide what course of action (hey will take, accoring to Aim’s email. In lieu of making these cost ly changes. Technology Ser vices asks all resident students to refrain from using Napster for the remainder of this week, through Sept. 22, so they can measure its impacfx>n the sys tem. They also ask that students educate themselves about Nap ster. There are several websites that have more in depth infor mation about the legal and technical implications of the software. Brodie speaks on women, military Stephanie Jordan Copy Editor With the proximity of the Citadel and Virginia Military Institute to North Carolina, Meredith students have seen the controversy over admitting women to both military schools. Laura Fairchild Brodie, author of Breaking Out, a new book that addresses issues relating to admitting women to the Virginia Military Institute, spoke at Meredith on Wednes day, Sept. 13. Brodie’s visit was sponsored by the History and Politics Club but was open to anyone in the Meredith community. Brodie earned her B.A. from Harvard and a Hi.D. in English literature from the University of Virginia. She began her research of women at VMI in 1997, just after (he Supreme Court ruled that VMI must either admit women or renounce public funding. Brodie’s husband had been VMl’s band director for ten years, so she “got to know the VMI culture very personally.” She also taught freshman Eng lish at VMI. When you take on a research project like this, it has to be something close to your heart” Brodie said. Originally she only intended to write a few articles, but she soon “realized that a lot of peo ple had interesting views on this subject.” Brodie was surprised at some of the things that people are willing to tell her she said. Brodie spoke with a wide variety of people for her book because she wanted to capture “a view of an entire college culture.” “Different generations that you speak to give you very dif ferent views,” Brodie said. “1 spoke to students, staff and alumnae, and they would each have their own take on the same event.” VMI had been an all male institution from 1839-1997, so the decision to admit women introduced several areas of concern. The campus was set up so that students had almost no pri vacy. This was to create an open brotherhood among stu dents, but admitting wonnen introduced the issue of privacy. VMI decided to allow shades to be pulled over door windows when wonten were changing clothes. They also installed private shower stalls, a very controversial move. Another concern arose over the Rat Line, a tradition of hard physical and mental work forced on freshmen by upper class cadets. ‘To outsiders it looks some thing like Marine Ctoips boot camp,” explained Brodie. “VMI worried that women wouldn't be able to handle it, but they definitely did not want to take it out.” So far VMI has not altered this tradition. Women are sub jected to identical physical tests as the men. Brodie did not intend for her book to take a stand on whether or not women should have been admitted to VMI. Instead she wanted to show all sides of the debate and “the progress being made toward the assimi lation of women.” A reception was held in Joyner Lounge following Brodie’s presentation. Students and faculty used this time to talk personally with Brodie. In addition. Brodie gave a book reading and signing at Quail Ridge Books in Ridge wood Shopping Center later in the evening. Brodie’s connection to Meredith is that her mother once taught on campus.
Meredith College Student Newspaper
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Sept. 20, 2000, edition 1
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