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Thursday, February 21, 2013
Inside News
campus briefs page 2 destroyed atms concern banks oversized classes: a hinderance to learning
Sports Baseball going to houston for urban invitational softball update track clinches titles & sustains injuries Men’s Hoops Lead by grace hoops prep for home finales
Columns
Let’s talk politics: increase taxes, isn’t that what the GOP doesn’t Like? Serious answers to your sextions: how to properly trim the bush
Commentary what can you do by yourself (completely by yourself) did you know it’s black history month? they don’t want music... they don’t know how to use it
Photos of the week
students go out for jobs at career fair, m-9 support breast cancer awareness & more...
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Volume 60, Issue 5
ATMs may not return Marcus Green
The Southern Digest According to Southern University Police Lt. Floyd Williams, the investigation is on going concerning the vandalism of the ATMs in Smith-Brown Memorial Union entryway that occurred on February 10. The perpetrators could face anywhere from six months to 20 years depending on the conviction and severity of the crime they are charged with. Although Detective Zoe Collier is leading the investigation, Williams said that everyone in the department up to police chief Ronald Stevens are actively involved in solving the crime. “Detective Zoe Collier is the lead investigator, she has contacted the ATM representatives and she’s working in collaboration with them,” Williams said. He said the length of the investigation will be determined on how much information is gathered and the amount of cooperation from ATM investigators that are located outside of Louisiana. SUPD is cooperating with the ATM investigators over the phone as the banks or vendors of the ATMs have their own investigators who work for them that handle issues dealing with their ATMs. “Right now the SUPD is the only police entity working along with them,” Williams said. Williams said that they are currently trying to gather footage from the ATM cameras in order to identify the potential suspects responsible for the damages caused.
Evan Taylor/DIGEST Students wait in line at the only working ATM on campus. Capital One’s ATM was the only one functioning last week after the machines were destroyed. Due to a button malfunction, there are currently no ATMs on campus for students’ use. “We do have footage of individuals and are still looking, so yes the investigation is ongoing,” Williams said. SUPD has video of people leaving and entering the union and even people at the ATM and are using those images to identify the perpetrators. As students can see by now, the ATMs in the union are seriously damaged, but according to Williams, that is all that seems to be the case as he said it seems nobody was able to actually get any money from them.
Williams said the removal of the Chase ATM was not at the hands of SUPD, but Chase, as they are concerned about their unit being in an unsecure location and are encouraging the university to make upgrades before they consider returning the unit. Williams broke down the procedure for this type of crime, saying that once they receive an original complaint from the person who first called and after they tell police what they’ve seen, SUPD will proceed to the “crime scene” and survey the area to gather
further information like prints, blood, any tools used, etc. and then they backtrack. “At this point, we’re doing a lot of viewing of all our cameras around the campus because we believe that the individuals had to have been on one of our cameras at some point and that’s time consuming,” Williams said. He explained that the process is going to take some time, as there are over 500 cameras on campus.
See AtM Crime page 3
Class sizes create teaching issues Jessica Sarpy
The Southern Digest In what the university is calling a ‘change in the class model’ due to ‘dwindling resources’, may be a hinderance to students and faculty with the anticipation of a interpersonal professor relationship. Class sizes have increased significantly this semester due to the attrition of faculty and limited university resources. Ella Kelley, Associate vice chancellor of academic affairs said, “What’s happening at Southern is we are moving to larger sized classes. In some institutions a class of 75-100 students is considered small. The university is moving toward that model of larger classes at the general education level.” Southern University has traditionally had class sizes of 30-45 students maximum, with the exception of general biology courses. By combining general education classes Academic Affairs is hoping to better utilize dwindling resourses. With two classes this semester with an enrollment of 120-150 per class, John
Hainly, professor of English has had negative experiences with large classes. “I’ve done it before, then resigned. About 10 years ago, I taught a class of about 120. I need a more suitable classroom, and technical support,” Hainly said. Hainly explained how larger classes can sometimes be undesirable to a professor. “From the standpoint of education, there is no benefit to larger classes. All research has pointed to smaller classes for better education. Smaller classes can offer better interaction, personalized feedback and academic direction,” Hainly said. Hainly said the university standards and quality assurance is based on the smaller faculty to student ratio, proving a better academic performance. “All Universities are academically evaluated by how small their classes are, how small the student to faculty ratio is. Academics are about a quality education, not the quantity of degree production. We are not running a factory stamping out plastic cups. We are a state run academic institute of higher learning,” Hainly said.
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Kelley said that the cause for the change in the model was ‘dwindling resources’ with the assumption that larger classes could be just as effective. “Dwindling resources is the primary reason. We felt that we could be just as effective with larger sized classes given the resources that we had. Its not that we’re just trying to dump everybody in one or two classes, but this is a model that is used in a number of universities throughout the country,” Kelley said. Kelley and Academic Affairs are confident in the procedure in which biology is successful at executing larger learning environments. “We were confident in the fact that biology has been successful in doing that. Resources primarily equal money. We don’t have the funds to have perhaps 10 teachers in a given unit,” Kelley said. Hainly discussed the hardships he faces teaching philosophy, where writing assignments and critical thinking with class discussion is most effective.
See Large Classes page 3