Take the Plunge Douse for a House has students running and jumping into freezing water for a good cause. Page C-4
Friday, February 21, 2014 • Volume 97, Issue Number 16 • Slippery Rock University's Student Newspaper
the rocket
www.theonlinerocket.com
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
'Mythbusters' event attracts student crowd
NEWS
ITHINK Program Rethinks Math A professor at SRU has begun a new program that challenges students to justify simple mathematical equations. Page A-2
OPINION
Academic Minor Policy Changes SRU updates the minor policy for students, makes it more challenging for students to earn minors. Page B-1
SPORTS
REBECCA DIETRICH/THE ROCKET
Basketball To 'White Out' IUP SRU men's and women's basketball look to close out regular season with games against Seton Hill and IUP. Page C-1
CAMPUS LIFE
Celebrate Black History Month The NAACP and Black Action Society celebrate Black History Month with events held all month. Page D-3
Potter's Guild:
Art for Everyone The Potter's Guild teaches the Slippery Rock community and students the art of ceramics with guest artists. Page D-1
Students awaited Mythbusters' Kari Byron and Tory Belleci who came to Slippery Rock University Thursday night. The event was held in the Robert M. Smith Student Center Ballroom and hosted by the University Program Board. Photographs from the event can be found on The Rocket's website and Facebook page.
SRU prepares for PASSHE academic minors policy change By Kevin Squires Assistant News Editor
Students graduating from Slippery Rock University in Fall 2015 or later may need to rethink their minor. The Pa. State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) amended their policy regarding academic minors in Jan. 2012, stating that “the academic minor comprises no more than six credits from the major field of study.” PASSHE also stated that all programs must be in compliance with the policy as of Aug. 1, 2015. Elliot Baker, Slippery Rock University’s Executive Director of Academic Records, Summer School and Graduate Studies, said, “we didn’t want to announce this until we were sure we clearly understood what we thought the policy was trying to say.” He began sending emails last semester to students with declared minors informing them of the changes set to take place in the coming years. “This [new policy] means that a minor requiring 18 credits may include
up to six credits from the student’s major including cognate courses,” said Baker. He explained that there was some question as to what if the policy was including cognate courses or not. It does. According to PASSHE policy, “cognate courses are those that are in a discipline or field of study different from the primary discipline of the major, but are considered essential to the major requirements for the program of study.” Baker said that this could be like a student majoring in biology being required to chemistry courses to earn the degree. So far, Baker said that only two or three departments have vocalized discontent with the new policy, mentioning the geography, geology and environmental science department and the biology department. He said that the sciences are the “minority” group in this situation because their degree programs include so many cognate courses. “This isn’t a problem for a history major, for example,” Baker said. This is because within the history degree
program, all of the required courses are in the history department. Any minor from a student in a program like history chose would be out of a different department and therefore have a large enough amount of credits outside the academic major. According to Baker, an academic minor currently must include at least four credits from outside of a student’s academic major. For example, a minor requiring 18 credits may include up to 14 credits from the student’s major. This current policy will be in effect until the summer of 2015 with the new one applying to all students graduating in the fall of 2015 and later, regardless of when they declared their minor or started their education at Slippery Rock University. He said that he hopes to raise awareness as much as possible to the students the change is affecting and disclosed that he hopes to have the degree audits reflect the changes soon with a disclaimer for students graduating before the policy change to ignore the minor requirements.
Million dollar SRU budget discrepancy questioned By Jonathan Janasik
that the university created affiliated entities or used foundations to take on debt for new construction. In December, the Association of Pa. State College In many cases, the affiliated entities are taking on and University Faculties (ASPCUF) hired an debt to pay for new dormitories and other lavish accounting firm to check the State System of Higher construction,” the APSCUF blog post stated. Education’s (PASSHE) finances within APSCUF president Steve seven schools including SRU and "Our students, their families Hicks also commented on reported that PASSHE’s budgets were the findings of the report and the public deserve to know within the blog post. off by millions of dollars. At the time, Pa. schools had been how their money is being “The universities and announcing plans to cut programs and the State System must be retrench faculty members because of spent." good stewards of the public a large decrease in income. APSCUF - APSCUF President Steve Hicks dollar,” Hicks explained. hired the Boyer and Ritter accounting “Instead, their poor firm in order to organize a report budgetar y decisions are about the status of PASSHE’s finances. forcing students to double pay because universities “There appears to be minimal accountability for are using both their tuition dollars and their fees to budgeting at the University level with the PASSHE pay off debt on buildings. Our students, their families Board of Governors,” the report stated and the public deserve to know how their money is After the report was finished, APSCUF announced actually being spent.” the findings on their website’s blog. “In every case, the accounting firm discovered SEE ADMINISTRATION, PAGE A-2 News Editor