Volume 92/Issue 18
THE
March 25th, 2019
ANCHOR
Rhode Island College’s Independent Student Newspaper Since 1928
“We didn’t have much of a choice” Interim Provost of Academic Affairs explains reason for shortened semester Aaron Isaac Anchor Staff Did you know classes this semester were cut short by a week? If you didn’t know you may be asking yourself if you missed an announcement or an email. You can look, but no such email exists. The reason for the shortened semester is due to the failure of the calendar committee to schedule the Dunkin’ Donuts Center for commencement
in time. Interim Provost of Academic Affairs Sue Pearlmutter explained that the venue the administration wanted was not available when they needed it to be, on May 18. Director of the Records Office Tameka Hardmon said she learned about the issue months after the calendar was published and reported it to Pearlmutter. Starting in August, Pearlmutter said she and the committee spent months trying to decide what to do.
In the end they decided to schedule commencement for May 11 and cut the semester by a week. How much faculty knew while the decisions were being made is uncertain. Hardmon said Pearlmutter was responsible for informing faculty, and according to Pearlmutter there were two emails sent. One was to inform faculty about the scheduling problem, a second email was a note about what the calendar committee de-
cided to do. Pearlmutter was not sure of the clarity of those emails saying “I don’t think they realized that what I said was we’re going to start the week that we had planned, we’re going to end classes on April 30th.” As a result, faculty lost days to complete their grading. She acknowledged this new schedule may be inconveniencing professors, “the last thing we wanted was to inconvenience anyone, but we didn’t have
much choice.” She added that faculty will soon get a notice saying those professors not holding final exams can use that day as an additional class day. Administrators knew, faculty would know later, so why didn’t students know? “If you want to know the truth I consider myself really student centered, but I didn’t think about writing a note to Continued on page 5, “Shortened Semester”
The long road to school: Commuter students frustrated with driving to, and parking at RIC
Tim Caplan News Editor In 2018, the non-profit national transportation research group TRIP ranked Providence roads as being America’s ninth worst in urban areas with a population of 500,000 people or more. TRIP claimed that 46 percent of Providence roads were in poor condition as of October.
Photo Courtesy of Sam Scetta
According to RIC. edu, 85 percent of students who attend Rhode Island College are commuters. The Anchor set out last week to find out how commuters felt about traveling to school and the effect that these roads have on their cars. “I worry at least once a week about my car while driving into school,” said
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commuter Josh Dibastiani. Perla Torres and Aria Nirandone are two commuters who come by way of Mount Pleasant Avenue. They both spoke of serious concerns with the amount of potholes in the streets when coming to RIC. “Sometimes I take the bus because at this point I want no more problems [driving],” said Torres. The Mt. Pleasant route to RIC was not the only one in which students expressed dissatisfaction. Kim Hout makes his commute from Cranston to Johnston and vice versa. “Coming and leaving construction sites are especially [problematic] right now,” said Hout. “When there’s potholes they don’t fill them until they finish everything [at the site]
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Photo Courtesy of Tim Caplan
and when they fill its not complete, and tires that are more flat tend to consume more gas mileage”. While the roads leading into the college were the primary concern of commuters, several people also conveyed disappointment in the maintenance of roads on campus. “When it snows, they don’t plow right away, the cars slip and hit curbs,”
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said Tabatha Karlowicz, a student at RIC, “also the sand is unnecessary, and they don’t clean it up when the snow is gone, and snowbanks take up spots to park in.” The Anchor found at least four different spots in lots J and K which had snow banks that either partially or fully obstructed parking.
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