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THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF MANHATTAN COLLEGE | SINCE 1924
Volume C, Issue 5
FREE
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
Higgins Construction Continues on South Campus August Kissel & Brian Asare Web Editor & Photography Editor
Higgins Construction Approaching Completion BRIAN ASARE/ THE QUADRANGLE
Senate Has First Meeting, Search for Provost Starts
Gabriella DePinho News Editor
Nearly a month into the school year, Manhattan College’s Senate hosted its first meeting; on the same day, a public meeting for students regarding the issue of finding a new provost for the college was held. Tuesday, Sept. 17, was a busy day for upper administration. President Brennan O’Donnell, Richard Satterlee, VP of Student Life, and Provost Bill Clyde were all in attendance of the first senate meeting of the year. Later that afternoon, consultants from RH Perry & Associates, a search counsel to assist higher education institutions, hosted a public forum with students to inform them of the process of searching for a new provost. O’Donnell addressed the senate and constituents in attendance for nearly half an hour, continuing a five year tradition of updating the senate about summer happenings, changes to institutional plans and any other topics O’Donnell feels necessary to discuss. O’Donnell updated the attendees about the South Campus construction, which you
can read more about on page four. In addition, he addressed the slow-coming renovations that are being made to the residence halls, stating that Horan is seeing some work and some redesign tests first. While O’Donnell shared that this year, Manhattan has received the most money in donations - upwards of 16 million dollars - the school has been facing a slimmer budget because of lowering enrollment. “We’re in a tighter budget year than we have been in many, many years on campus. We’ve been riding the wave of very strong annual revenue streams and we have been running counter to most of higher education. This year, for a number of reasons having to do with our enrollment figures, we’re just a little tighter, we’re not in crisis mode,” said O’Donnell. Due to the smaller size of the sophomore and junior classes, the school is seeing smaller revenue from tuition. In addition, the class of 2022’s retention rate dropped to under 82 percent, compared to previous retention rate highs of 88 percent in the past. Another strain on the budget comes from the school trying to give large financial aid packages. The college is looking
IN FEATURES: Counterterrorism MC Italian Club Seminar on Active visits the San Shooter Protocol Gennaro Festival on p. 7 p. 4
IN NEWS:
at how to diversify revenue streams, as well as possibly tightening budgets throughout campus, in order to manage the overall tighter budget this year. After O’Donnell spoke, Satterlee addressed the senate regarding a few issues, including access control and parking facilities. “It’s main aim was to protect the safety and welfare of the students who live in the residence halls. We’ve got folks living here and their safety was paramount to us,” said Satterlee about the decision to implement access control. “After [the respectful pushback] ... we met with Student Government leadership on September 3rd … we really wanted to engage them and talk about the criticism they were receiving and we were receiving,” he said. Satterlee shared the updates that were made to the policy and acknowledged the lack of student involvement in discussions. Satterlee also addressed the issue of overselling parking passes and answered questions about problems with access to the parking garage. __________________________ CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
After a year and a half of construction, the master plan for South Campus has begun to take shape. For students returning to campus, the progress made from when they were gone for the summer is noticeable and for the college as a whole, the transformation is an exciting process. “When we left last year, we were still doing steals, and concrete down there. I mean, at this point in time on that building, we’ve got the whole superstructure off. We’re putting the facade on the building that’s about 50 percent done. Then inside the building, all the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, sprinkler trades, is all in progress. They’re all at least 50, 55 percent complete. A lot has happened on the inside and we’re just going right along with the progress,” said Vice President of Facilities Andrew J. Ryan. For students who were on campus this summer this meant seeing the development of the facade of the Higgins Building each day on their way to work. This facade is constructed from a terracotta that has been carved in various ways that alter the color of each tile. Other progress includes the addition of windows, exterior walls, as well as the internal structures and systems that help to run the building in the day by day, such as plumbing and air conditioning. During the summer some Manhattan College students had the opportunity to work on pieces of the Higgins Building through their summer internships. These experiences include working with the mechanical systems such as Acoustics with Longman Lindsey Acoustical Consulting and the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning with Jaros Baum & Bolles. “In terms of working on noise, we will deal with mechanical noises like a generator
IN A&E:
Opening Dinner kicks off Latinx Heritage Month on p. 10
or a fan that was too loud and needed to be isolated and so we would take measurements using a sound level meter and that would tell us at which frequencies the noise was occurring at and with that we could isolate the frequencies and block off the frequencies,” said senior mechanical engineering major Piotr Zarzecki, who interned at Longman Lindsey. “We did some offices on South Campus, and we came earlier in the summer and we tested the offices and it was a little bit on the louder side and then once we came back later in the summer we tested it again and it sounded significantly better.” The progress on South Campus has been visible both internally and externally and has followed the proposed project timeline. The facilities are expected to be finished by the Spring of 2020 and open for use in Fall 2020. “The building has come along really well. Now when you look inside, you can see the systems are all connected and pretty much in place now. So, you know, the next thing we got is to put the glass up on the outside. We are going to have to go inside and put the walls up on. They got the studs in, they have to go in and hang the walls in there and get that ready,” said Tim J. Ward, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Engineering. The Higgins Building along with the interior renovations to Leo spaces such as the cafeteria have become a source of excitement for the engineering and communications students on campus. Leo holds the main classrooms and study spaces for the four largest departments at the college: civil engineering, mechanical engineering, biology and communication. The renovations also include modernizing the labs for study and teaching purposes as well as creating student study and meeting spaces. “We were in a big need of a big renovation for our labs and we are going to be up on __________________________ CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
IN SPORTS:
MC Alum nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year on p. 11