The Hawk Pursuing a passion
Tea time at Random
Freshman Piper Bateman sings, releases music video
The Random Tea Room promotes wellness through tea
Features, Pg. 12
Features, Pg. 13
Saint Joseph’s University
11.13.13
Est. 1929
Volume XCI
Education department fails to stack up
Pedestrian severely injured in hit and run on City Ave. Katherine Grygo ’16 Hawk Staff
Karen Funaro ’16
R
Assistant News Editor
egistration time is always stressful for college students, regardless of their major, but this semester education majors at Saint Joseph’s University are feeling exceptionally frustrated while trying to get a seat in some of their required classes. Their irritation is due the vast requirements they need to fulfill for their major and the fact that certain classes are only offered during specific semesters, forcing many students to fight for spots in classes with limited availability. Education majors are unable to student teach without having taken certain classes as prerequisites, and with such a limited number of spots in these classes, this can become problematic. “There are some issues with this one special ed class that everyone needs to take this spring, because they’re not going to have it in the fall,” said Caroline Fearnley, ’15. “If you want to student teach next year, you have to take it before you go, so everyone was fighting for spots in this class and space is limited.” With certain classes only being offered during specific semesters, the fear of not being able to fulfill all the necessary requirements in time
for graduation is common for many education majors. “It’s always a fear in my mind that if I can’t get a class I might not be able to graduate on time,” said Victoria Evans, ’16. This year especially, scheduling has been overwhelmingly difficult for education majors. The department has decided to require all junior education majors to participate in full-day field placement. Field placement is when education majors are sent to different schools in the Philadelphia area to observe and gain hands-on exposure to the classroom setting. John J. Vacca, Ph.D. associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for education and associate professor of teacher education, commented that he felt the transition to full-day field was beneficial. “It really allows the students to see an entire day, and the flow of subjects, and transition across the day that students go through,” said Vacca. “The observations that they get are richer in terms of their content versus going out for a couple hours in the morning where they may or may not see what they are scheduled to see. So requiring a whole day also gets them ready for student teaching, which is what they’ll do in the year after.”
Around 2:15 p.m. on Nov. 8, a man attempting to cross the street at the corner of City Avenue and Cardinal Avenue was struck by a moving vehicle. Emergency services were called and an ambulance came to the scene to aid the victim. John Gallagher, director of Public Safety and Security at Saint Joseph’s University, arrived at the scene shortly after the victim had been taken by ambulance to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. Gallagher approximates that the victim is 45 years old. “It looks like we have a pedestrian who is non-SJU affiliated got hit by a car, or maybe two cars, and suffered a compound fracture and some other injuries, and some internal bleeding,” stated Gallagher. “He was transported to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania from this location, and the Accident Investigation Division of the Philadelphia Police [is] going to be investigating the nature of the incident. Right now, we’re supporting that effort in Public Safety and hopefully we’ll get [a] good word from the hospital about the person who was struck. The 19th District of the Philadelphia Police Department is on scene and we’re providing assistance.”
Continued EDUCATION, Pg. 3
Continued HIT & RUN, Pg. 5
Communication begins University provost responds to faculty censure Amanda Murphy ’14 Managing Editor
Brice R. Wachterhauser, Ph.D., provost and professor of philosophy, met with the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate on Nov. 5 in response to the Faculty Senate Resolution to begin communication and rebuild trust between faculty and administration. Wachterhauser’s response follows the Senate’s move to censure the university’s senior leadership team on Sept. 24. The censure, or written expression of disapproval, discusses the disparity in pay increases between faculty and administration, as well as the faculty’s frustration concerning health benefits. Wachterhauser responded in writing regarding the
censure vote in September and said that he wanted an opportunity to come to the full Senate meeting at the end of the November. On Nov. 5, he met with the Executive Committee of Faculty Senate, the group of leading individuals in the Faculty Senate, to both acknowledge that the vote to censure is a strong statement of disapproval and to understand how each side calculated salary increases. Robert Moore, Ph.D., assistant professor of Africana Studies, criminal justice, and sociology and president of Faculty Senate, reacted to the meeting with Wachterhauser. “At the Executive Committee meeting, we talked about what would be the best way for [Wachterhauser] to respond in person to the full Senate,” Moore said. “There is some disagreement on the numbers, there’s some disagreement on methodology, and I recognize that, others
recognize that.” Moore believes that many of the disagreements between the groups stem from the different methodology of how the numbers were calculated. If both Faculty Senate and administration understand how the other computed the numbers, it would be one step closer to better communication. “I think there’s some hope that between now and the Faculty Senate meeting [at the end of the month] we can, if not reconcile those differences, come up with the same numbers,” said Moore. “[And] at least understand how each party went about doing their calculations in terms of methodology.” Continued CENSURE, Pg. 4