News
News Briefs
Kappa Nu Sigma
Welcomes New Members
Kelty Wallace, staff writer
Oldest-known Holocaust
survivor dies at no
Alice Herz-Sommer
was believed to be the oldest-
known survivor of the Holo
caust. MSN reported that Herz-
Sommer died Sunday morning
in London- she was uo. Herz-
Sommer was sent to the con
centration camp in the Czech
city of Terezin in 194, along
with her husband and her son.
As an accomplished pianist, she
was allowed to stage concerts
at the camp along with other
inmates. Herz-Sommer and
her son, Stephan, were freed
when the camp was liberated by
the Soviet Union in May 1945.
Her husband died of typhus at
Dachau. After being freed from
the concentration camp she
moved to Jerusalem and taught
at the Jerusalem Conservatory
until 1986, when she moved to
London. According to MSN, a
film about her has been nomi
nated for best short documen
tary at next week’s Academy
Awards.
Reducing the US military'
Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel proposed shrink
ing the Ai'iny to the smallest
size it has been in 74 years. Ac
cording to The New York Times,
Hagel commented on unveiling
the department’s $496 billion
budget for the 2015 fiscal year:
“Readiness is not the same
standard. Of course there’s go
ing to be risk.” General Martin
E. Dempsey, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, mentioned
that a smaller Army must not
only serve the needs of the
country, but also provide battle
field support to other segments
of the military. Hagel said that
the nation can afford a smaller
military as long as it retains a
technological edge and the agil
ity to response on a short notice
to crises anywhere on the globe.
Noah Spivey
As a part of an Eagle
Scout service project in Ra
leigh’s Troop 364, 17 year old
Noah Spivey began planning
and building a garden at Pleas
ant Grove United Methodist
Church. His plan was put on
hold though when he was diag
nosed with a rare bone cancer
called Ewig sarcoma. WRAL
reported that Spivey is now re
ceiving hospice care to relieve
the effects of the cancer. He
was presented last week with
the Heart of the Eagle Award,
an honor never before given
to a local Boy Scout. After No
ah’s story was on WRAL News,
thousands of people offered do
nations and time to help Noah
with his garden. After a team of
volunteers spent the weekend
working on the garden, Spivey
was surprised on Sunday with
the unveiling of Noah’s Prayer
Garden.
Fear of Designer Babies
The New York Times
reported that the F.D.A. is mon
itoring a controversial fertility
treatment that will involve com
bining three people to make a
baby that is free of certain de
fects. Critics of the therapy say
that this is an ethical minefield
and could lead to the creation of
designer babies. A panel of ex
perts was asked to summarize
current science to determine
whether the fertility treatment
will safe enough to be used in
people. Although not yet tested
on humans, the procedure has
been successfully performed in
monkeys. The F.D.A is meeting
on February 25th and February
26th to discuss the scientific is
sues about the procedure not
the ethics of it.
By Alla Akiyeva,
staff writer
Thirty-three high-
achieving students were
inducted into Kappa Nu
Sigma honor society on
Thursday, Feb 20. A formal
dinner in Belk Dining Hall
preceded the ceremony, and
a guest speaker presenta
tion followed it. Along with
the thirty-three inductees,
five Helen Price scholar
ship recipients were also
announced during the cer
emony. The guest speaker
for the event was Dr. Amie
Hess, Meredith Assistant
Professor of Sociology, who
delivered a report called
“The Status of Girls in
North Carolina 2013.” In
her report, Dr. Hess shared
about the progress North
Carolina girls have made in
areas such as education and
health in the past year.
Invitation to join
the society came as a sur
prise to some students, in
cluding Hawa Tuli’14, Mol-
lie Melton’i6, and Allison
Adams’14. Tuli shared that,
during her time as a Mer
edith student, she was only
doing what she thought she
was supposed to do, un
aware about the existence
of Kappa Nu Sigma. Ad
ams joined the society last
year, this year serving as the
vice president of Kappa Nu
Sigma. Friends and family
members of the inductees
were able to join the cer
emony and share the proud
moment with the students.
The purpose of
Kappa Nu Sigma, a scholas
tic honor society created in
1923, is to promote and rec
ognize academic excellence.
Students must achieve total
GPA of 3.9 after completing
75 hours or 3.8 after com
pleting 90 or more hours in
order to qualify for mem
bership.
The Colton Review is now
accepting submissions!
Send your poetry, short stories, and
experimental pieces to:
coltonreview@email.meredith.edu.
Appropriations Act Affects Teachers
Katy Koop, staff writer
Through the Appro
priations Act of 2013, the
North Carolina General As
sembly has brought forth
change that has upset current
and future North Carolina
educators. This new legisla
tion ended salary benefits for
teachers. In addition, the Gen
eral Assembly directed school
boards to identify the top 25%
of teachers and to give them
the opportunity to either keep
their career status or exchange
it for an annual $500 addi
tional income for four years.
Mary Delaney, the
Meredith Education Depart
ment head, explained that
“career status,” which is being
referred to interchangeably as
“tenure,” is “not the same as
tenure for college professors.
Career status gives teachers
the opportunity to have a say
and requires school systems
to base firing and demotion
decisions on fair reasons. For
teachers who have career sta
tus, for example, a school sys
tem could not fire a teacher ar
bitrarily or reduce salary and
benefits arbitrarily.”
According to the leg
islation, teachers that do not
have career status can only be
offered one year contracts and
may be terminated at the end
of the contract with no expla
nation. Institutions such as the
Guilford County School Board
have voted against the law.
This act also prohibits raises in
teacher salary and eliminates
the pay increase for teachers
with master’s degrees.
Current Meredith
M.Ed student Erica Elrond
stated, “I knew it wouldn’t be
an extremely well-paying ca
reer, but I thought my hard
work and developed expertise
would be rewarded — reward
ed with respect, admiration,
and proper acknowledgement
of experience and further
study. I feel like all of the poli
tics right now are just turning
people off to education [...]
the young people who want to
make their futures in educa
tion, are being hurt by seeing
so little promise in our field”.
With growing con
cern, Governor Pat McCrory
responded with a recent an
nouncement to increase the
salary of beginning teachers.
Yet the proposal, which would
have to gain approval from the
General Assembly, does not
address experienced teacher’s
salaries. Delaney stated, “One
teacher I talked to described
this proposal as a “slap in the
face” of experienced teachers.
Another said that the proposal
was like “cleaning the floor
with the experienced teachers.
Teachers feel disrespected and
confused.”
President Allen Implements Second Year of Strategic Plan
Julia Dent, managing editor
The three year strategic plan
for Meredith College is “designed to be
a road map for the future of Meredith,
for going strong and going strong in
the future,” said President Jo Allen.
The plan, named “Meredith Forever,”
to improve Meredith for current and
future students, faculty, staff and out
side community went into motion in
October 2012 after the Board of Trust
ees approved the first phase. The plan
is focusing on six areas, or “pillars”:
educational excellence, enrollment, fi
nancial strength, facilities and technol
ogy, visibility and quality of life.
The phases of the plan will be
laid out in three year increments be
cause “historically, a lot of institutions
have done [increments of] five or to,
and we decided higher education is
volatile right now and it is more im
portant to lay out pillars that would be
critical for a lifetime so we would never
have to change them, and a three year
increment is better to push on those
pillars,” said Allen.
While researching what to in
clude in the plan, ideas came in from
the community, faculty, staff, students,
alumnae, donors and trustees to get
a variety of feedback to better serve
the Meredith community. “One of the
things that Meredith wants to be is
open and a really fluid part of the com
munity we serve, so having voices from
everybody is really important,” said
Allen. An outside firm was brought in
to research and collect data about Mer
edith and analyze people’s ideas for it.
“We decided philosophically and intel
lectually that we needed to be working
from data, not just assumptions based
on how we behave,” said Allen. “How
are we really doing? For example, we
say that we are committed to diversify,
what do we really look like in terms of
diversity? What can we do more of or
less of?”
Once the “foundational data”
was established, they examined pri
orities and pricing, and one of the first
items on the agenda was to come up
with a new branding. “We felt that
Meredith is a bold place and we need to
claim that a little more and turn away
from the softer ‘I Believe,”’ said Allen.
“It was based on six months of research
and the one word that kept coming
up about Meredith was ‘strong.’” And
so, “Going Strong” was born, and the
branding of Meredith got a new look.
“From the initial ‘Going Strong’ video,
I think I saw it about a hundred times
before I stopped crying,” said Allen.
“Finally, this is really us, and this is re
ally the right message.”
After a year of the Meredith
Forever strategic plan, there has been
good feedback about the Going Strong
campaign, enrollment is higher, more
inquiries and applications are coming
from out of state, retention rates are
stronger, new academic majors are go
ing through the process of being added
and the qualify of life has improved.
“We added quality of life as a pillar,
and I don’t know of any other institu
tion that’s done that,” said Allen. “It re
ally speaks to the culture of Meredith
and shows that we care deeply about
each other, whether it’s finding the
right kind of career opportunities for
students, looking out for their health
and well-being or improving our sus
tainability efforts to help the environ
ment.”