Fall 2016 issue 10

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CAMPUS LIFE Is Yik Yak still out there? | PAGE 9 SPORTS Buzzer-beater lifts men’s basketball to win | PAGE 12

The Etownian

www.etownian.com

Thursday, december 8, 2016

Vol. 113. Issue 10

BE Inspired campaign Day of Positivity event covers campus continues raising funds in thousands of inspiring sticky notes by Stephanie Miller Asst. News Editor

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he Elizabethtown College Board of Trustees (BOT) and the Elizabethtown College Alumni Association (ECAA) have been raising funds in a variety of ways. The money raised from both organizations’ efforts will benefit the entire College community. The BOT has been raising money through the College’s BE Inspired campaign, which began in April. The goal of the campaign is to raise money to benefit all aspects of the College. According to the BE Inspired page on the College’s website, the campaign was planned with several goals in mind. One of the campaign’s goals is “Transforming Lives,” the money from which will fund things like student-faculty research and programs like Called to Lead. The “Fulfilling Dreams” goal will benefit things like the Honors Program and the First-Year and Sophomore Year Experience programs. “We…recognize the importance of our student-faculty relationships through mentoring, research projects, small class sizes and individualized learning,” Vice President for Institutional Advancement and Community Relations David Beidleman said in an email. “As a part of the Transforming Lives priority, we are excited about funding these opportunities as well as expanding internship and global study opportunities.” At the BOT’s fall meeting in October, over $34 million had been raised for the campaign. Of this total, over $30 million comes from cash and pledged donations. This puts the Board more than halfway to the campaign’s goal of raising $50 million by 2020.

“Any gift given to the College during the campaign will count towards our goals.” ~David Beidleman One donation that stood out to Beidleman was a donation of $750,000 from the estate of Miriam O’Donnell, who graduated from Etown in 1940. More than half of that donation will be put toward the BE Inspired campaign. “We are truly inspired and grateful to Miriam and all of our donors that continue to support the College in remarkable ways,” Beidleman said. At the October meeting, the Board had received $11 million of the $15 million fundraising goal for the Sports, Fitness & Wellness Center and voted to proceed in designing the building. Since the meeting, the board has raised another $260,000 to put toward building the Center. The Center will be located on the practice field next to Wolf Field and is predicted to open in the fall of 2018. The building will be constructed once the Board has approved the design. According to Beidleman, the College is planning to break ground for the building in late 2017.

SEE INSPIRED PAGE 3

Photo: Taylor Miles | Photography Editor

Elizabethtown College’s first Day of Positivity spread over 2,000 sticky notes with positive messages around campus. The first-year class sponsored the event, which attracted attention from the local media for its expansiveness and novelty.The notes encouraged students to keep trucking through the end of the semester.

by Amanda Jobes Copy Chief

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ednesday, Nov. 30, the students of Elizabethtown College gathered as a group and acknowledged the campus’s first ever Day of Positivity. The event was put together and sponsored by the Class of 2020 Student Senate to celebrate diversity on campus and spread positivity among students over the unease of the recent Presidential election, as well as the looming threat of final exams. With the end of the Fall 2016 semester quickly approaching, students are growing restless and eager to depart to their homes for the holiday season. However, with all the negativity clouding the media and the stress of last minute assignments and tests getting in the way of holiday cheer, keeping a positive outlook on life can be a challenge. As a result, the Class of 2020 got together and decided to host the Day of Positivity as its first unity event this year. The event lasted the entirety of the day, from 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. During this 12-hour time frame, students had the opportunity to visit the Blue Bean Café in the BSC, where a table was set up with different colored markers and sticky notes. The job was simple: write as many positive messages on sticky notes as they wanted and post them in various places around campus. Any student could write whatever

message their heart desired, as long as the message was positive in nature. By the end of the day, buildings across campus were filled with colorful, positive sticky notes. They could be found on the walls in the BSC, on bathroom mirrors, on doors and scattered about in the dorms. Brinser Residence Hall, for example, featured a sticky note with an inspiring message on each door. Overall, between 2,000 and 3,000 positive notes were posted. Messages, such as “Love yourself, always,” “Turn that frown upside down,” “You will ace finals!” and many more riddled the walls of campus buildings after the Day of Positivity’s end, ensuring that all the students could see the overwhelming positivity that the others were sending their way. First-year class president Rachel Craft made this event possible with the help of the rest of the Class of 2020 senators, including fellow first-year Dylan Warner. Warner is the student who originally came up with the idea of posting uplifting sticky notes around campus for the Day of Positivity. His inspiration arose from a sticky note he received on his door from a friend he had told once this year about his rough day. SEE POSITIVITY PAGE 2

Drug Take Back program safely collects expired medications by Emily Seiser Staff Writer

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Photo: Alisha Curreri | Staff Photographer

The Drug Take Back program is a safe way for students and faculty members to dispose of old or unwanted prescriptions.

onday, Dec. 12 Elizabethtown College will be having a Prescription Take Back. Students and faculty can drop off their expired or unneeded prescriptions at the table outside of the Jays Nest from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. They will accept any form of prescription other than liquid and gel cap medications. Sophomore psycholog y major Erin Driscoll is partnering with Communities that Care and Club Ophelia to bring this event together. Driscoll found out about the idea through Gail Viscome, the executive director of Communities that Care and thought this would be a great program to reinstate on campus. Two years ago, a Prescription Take Back was organized at the College through Communities that Care, ENACTUS and Campus Security. The goal of the program is to reduce the risk of prescription drug abuse by collecting expired and no longer used medications that if discarded of improperly could result in hard to an individual. According to a press release by President Obama from 2015, prescription drug abuse is the most rapidly growing drug issue in the United States. Over 40,000 people died from various forms of drug use in 2013,

which is the equivalent of two large commercial planes crashing every week. There are about 200 million prescriptions written each year, with people in the United States using between 75 and 80 percent of the pain medicine prescribed in the world. To put that in perspective, the United States only comprises about five percent of the world’s population. Only about 17 percent of people get their prescriptions from an authorized doctor, while the rest obtain them from their family and friends. In 2010, Pennsylvania’s overdose rates were above the national average. The state is also one of the four states where more people die from overdoses than car accidents. Sophomore Kelsea Davis was unaware how prevalent this issue is before hearing these statistics and feels that if this was more widely publicized, “there would be a bigger movement.” She says that drug abuse is scary, a “silent killer,” because someone could take a pill to lower blood pressure and not know they already have low blood pressure. This could then lead to fatal effects. Davis also thinks that having a Prescription Take Back at Etown is awesome and that it is “good to get medications that are no longer being used into safe hands.” SEE PRESCRIPTION PAGE 2


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Fall 2016 issue 10 by The Etownian - Issuu