Alumni donations decline

PATRICIA J.SHEEHAN ASST.SPORTS EDITOR

PJS723@CABRINI EDU

grams.com, anorexia is described as a condition in which the main characteristic of the disease is restricting food and the refusal to maintain a minimal, normal body weight. Most anorexics lose weight by restricting their food intake. Anorexics usually start by limiting or excluding foods that they perceive as having a high fat or caloric content.

Someone suffering from anorexia will tend to hold a very restrictive diet that is limited to inadequate portions of food. If this turns out to not be enough, the afflicted will turn to vomiting, laxative abuse, diuretic abuse, insulin abuse, chew-spitting and excessive exercise.

“It’sashame that this much time has passed since a terminology has come along for male anorexia. There have been men suffering from this disease for a long time, and it is nice to see it finally come out to the public,” Erik Parrillo, a junior marketing major,said.

According to the Eating Disorders Association, the MANOREXIA, page 3

Where Do Your Dollars Go?

Donations and contributions are a very important aspect for every college or university. Private schools like Cabrini rely on these donations in order to prosper asan institution. This year, Cabrini is trying to make up for the sharp drop in donations last year.

In the 2004-2005 academic year, Cabrini received $1,891,027 in contributions from trustees, alumni, parents, faculty, religious organizations and corporations. This is a decrease from the years prior. Cabrini was given $2,153,831 in contributions in the 2003-2004 academic year.

Gifts from individuals represented only 25 percent of the annual funds that Cabrini has raised. This is well below the national average, where individual gifts make up 75 percent of the total amount of contributions in the United States, according to Jean Jacobson, the director for corporation foundation and government relations at Cabrini.

Gifts are needed to increase endowment, which colleges use to fund scholarships and long term projects.

“Increasing the level of endowment is also an important way to provide income for scholarships and for grow- ing and sustaining academic programs. Cabrini’sendowment is lower than comparable institutions of higher education. As a general rule of thumb, a college would like to raise an endowment that’s twice the size of its annual operating budget,” Jacobson said. Jacobson also said that Cabrini has a hard time receiving large contributions from alumni because class sizes did not start to grow until the late ‘90s. As a young college with a small alumni base, some of the older alums are finally at a point in their lives where they can afford to give larger gifts to Cabrini.

“Contributions to Cabrini, excluding government grants, did decrease in 2005 from the previous year; this is primarily due to the timing of larger pledges to the ‘10,000 Hearts Comprehensive Campaign,’ which includes pledges to the Center for Science Education and Technology,endowment and gifts to annual operations. Since it is a comprehensive campaign, gifts to one area versus another really do not impact the overall goal of $16.5 million. The timing of

DONOR, page 3

Praxis exam scoring upsets education majors

NIKKI SABELLA

ASST.SPORTS EDITOR

NS722@CABRINI EDU

Aclass-action lawsuit against the Educational Testing Service was settled on March 14 when they agreed to pay $11.1 million to test takers who had been wrongly scored.

The tests that were scored incorrectly by the ETS were the Praxis series exams. The “Praxis Principles of Learning and Teaching: Grades 7-12” that were taken from January 2003 to August 2004 were the particular cases involved in the lawsuit. That specific test is taken over three ses- sions, during two hours with a cost of $85. The Praxis exams are primarily taken to determine whether or not education majors in college will be able to student teach or even become licensed teachers.

Thirty-nine states use the Praxis series tests to determine who can become a licensed teacher each year. According to the New York Times, there were 27,000 people who took the tests, and their scores ranked lower than they should have been, and 4,100 wrongly failed the tests. In their attempt to compensate students for their mistakes, the ETS is paying approximately $500 per student who was wrongly failed. Plaintiffs that present their individual instances to a courtappointed master will receive the remainder of the $11.1 million.

“Unbelievable,” Karen Randazzo, a junior chemistry and secondary education major, said. “I would have been really upset. We count on these tests to make sure that our basic skills are where they should be. Having been mis-scored would completely make that purpose meaningless,” Randazzo said.

“I’d be angry, and that’s to say it nicely. It would send me back page 3