APRIL 24, 2019 • VOLUME 89 • ISSUE 25
The official student newspaper of Quinnipiac University since 1929
OPINION: LETTER TO THE EDITOR P. 5
SPORTS: WOMEN’S LAX P. 11
ARTS & LIFE: GRADUATION P. 6
Three Quinnipiac administrators plan to leave university By EMILY DISALVO News Editor
CAS in change PHOTO COURTESY OF SARAH BUGBEE
After recognized shortages, CAS is in the process of making a comeback By EMILY DISALVO News Editor
Come next semester, some professors in the College in the Arts and Sciences (CAS) will find their offices in a new location. Executive Vice President Mark Thompson announced to the faculty senate this week that the university will be constructing temporary office space for faculty members in CAS. The temporary offices will most likely be stationed in the Pine Grove, according to faculty senate member Margarita Diaz, who was present during Thompson’s announcement. Associate Dean of CAS Wesley Renfro, who was also at the meeting, seemed less certain about the location. He said the spaces could be located in the Pine Grove or behind CAS 3. “I actually don’t know quite where they are going to go, but we will be housing folks in temporary offices probably for next year and the year after, maybe longer,” Renfro said. “The details are not really forthcoming, at least on my level.” Renfro said at the meeting Thompson discussed various proposals regarding what these temporary structures will look like, but the details haven’t been ironed out yet. “We have been told that they are going to be high quality and that they are going to be attractive,” Renfro said. “I don’t think
folks want things that don’t look aesthetically pleasing. The details on the location and how folks decide to go there– I don’t have any idea.” Rebecca Bamford, associate professor of philosophy, said the addition of these offices could cut down on the number of CAS faculty sharing offices. “Faculty have single offices at other Quinnipiac schools,” Bamford said in an email. “Only CAS seems to have to put our faculty in double and triple offices.” Bamford said that the new offices will be helpful for advising meetings with students, but a faculty uses his or her office space for much more than that. “The temporary faculty office space is not only for advising,” Bamford stated. “In addition to student advising, CAS faculty conduct a great deal of other work in their offices, including preparing classes, grading, meeting with students about their class work, holding some meetings with individual colleagues, some aspects of faculty service, and some aspects of faculty scholarship.” The announcement comes after the hiring of 15 full-time faculty members in CAS, most of which are entirely new positions, to meet the demands of the growing student body. “CAS did get permission to hire a number of full-time faculty that will start in 2019, but
again we are waiting to hear the final version of the strategic plan,” Renfro said. “They are distributed. Some are in biology, we have some in art, we have some in psychology, we have some history. We have some folks who will work in first-year writing.” Renfro said the addition of the temporary offices will help to alleviate crowding when the new faculty start. “CAS is really short on office space and any way that we can add capacity is really good,” Renfro said. “It takes a while to grow permanent capacity so if the university is going to do high-quality, temporary offices, that’s great.” Renfro said that hiring new faculty opens doors beyond those leading to their new offices. It creates more opportunities for students. “It will give us the ability to expand course offerings,” Renfro said. “We will be able to offer new types of courses, we will be able to enroll more students in courses that already exist that are very popular that in the past students have had a hard time getting in to. From our perspective, this is great.” This large pool of new hires is the maximum number CAS can handle at a time according to Renfro.
Three high-level Quinnipiac administrators will be leaving the university, according to a letter from President Olian sent to all faculty and staff. Lynn Bushnell, vice president for public affairs; Donald Weinbach, vice president for development and alumni affairs and Greg Eichhorn, vice president for admissions and financial aid have announced their departures. Bushnell will be leaving in June 2019 after 25 years with the university for a “longplanned” retirement. Weinbach will be retiring in June 2020 after 24 years with the university. Eichhorn will also be leaving at the end of June, but has plans to continue leading the admissions process for the incoming class. Mark Thompson, executive vice president, announced plans to leave earlier this year. “In the coming weeks and months, we will have many opportunities to express our gratitude to Mark, Don, Lynn and Greg for their dedicated service and impact at Quinnipiac,” Olian stated in the email. “They have meant so much to our institution, and to our students, staff, and faculty. We wish them the very best in the next chapters of their lives.” In the email, Olian also announced changes to the president’s office to “better align with the new organizational structure.” Dean Jennifer Brown, who will take over the role of Interim Provost from Provost Mark Thompson on June 1, is moving into the president’s office. Olian said these changes are advantageous for administration as well as students. “At the same time, this renovation frees up space for the Learning Commons, providing new offices and one-on-one tutoring spaces for the six new academic coaches being hired to improve retention and enhance academic support for students,” Olian stated. Read what Donald Weinbach and Greg Eichhorn have to say about their tenure at the university and their plans for the future on page 2.
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A fresh start President Olian announces changes for the upcoming school year With the beginning of spring and budding trees, President Judy Olian notified returning students about the changes they can expect in the next several months. Olian addressed the Quinnipiac community in a short video on the Quinnipiac Instagram page last Tuesday. She then described the new upgrades in store for the 2019-2020 school year as well as for the commencement ceremony.
ROCKY TOP BAR AND RESTAURANT
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“This summer, we will make improve-
ments to the Rocky Top Student Center,” Olian said, “adding furniture, a pool table, TVs and a bar area with extended food service.” Senior and SGA Vice President to the senior class, Allison Kuhn, began working on the proposal for the York Hill pub last year. Kuhn said that she remembers “miniinitiatives” for arcade games at Rocky Top since she was a freshman. “I was inspired to go for a pub after learning that Fairfield, Sacred Heart and a ton of other schools in the area have a pub,” Kuhn said. Kuhn said she was not only thinking
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about the students. She noticed that alumni had nowhere on campus to go to mingle. Instead, they were going to establishments off campus, like Eli’s or Alberto’s. “Getting alumni back on campus is a big part of this,” she said. Along with Kuhn’s proposal came several trial and error pub nights on York. “We were told that for the first pub night, we were going to go big or go home,” Kuhn said. “It was going to be a two-drink maximum, beer only. And we argued that is not realistic. A bar is going to have beer, wine and liquor and there would be no maximum.
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No one is going to come somewhere and have one beer.” It was not a simple process. After Kuhn’s advisor, Matt Kurz, spoke the Vice President and Dean of Students, Monique Drucker, they agreed there should be no drink limit. “They put the trust in the students to behave,” Kuhn said. “And students showed there was no problem with that. No one dropped a drink, no one was drunk, no one broke anything. There were no issues.” When asked about whether QU Dining See OLIAN Page 3
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By GARRET REICH
Opinion: 4
Arts and Life: 6
Sports: 10