the Racquette
SUNY Potsdam’s Student-run Newspaper since 1927
College Libraries Call for More Funding
Draime Extension: The Animal House
Rebecca Augustine Staff Writer
Draime Extension will have pet-friendly housing on the third and fourth floors.
Forest Ashley Staff Writer
The time has come for students to request housing for next semester. Although this spring housing process seems to be business as usual, this year the Residence Life Office is adding Pet-Friendly housing to their list of housing options for students. Along with Gender Inclusive, Study Intensive and SubstanceFree dorms, there will also be Pet-Friendly housing open to all students who attend the mandatory information session at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 29, in Bowman Commons, or from noon to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, March 23, in the Draime Hall Residence Life conference room. According to the housing surveys, a pet-friendly housing option was the number one thing that students requested from the college. Josh McLear, assistant director of Housing and Operations for Residence Life, took those suggestions, and this year the college is happy to offer students the pet-friendly housing pilot. “We want to see this succeed,” McLear said. “I think it’s a great thing.” Pet-friendly housing will be located on the third and fourth floors of Draime extension, and McLear said there would be no additional fee for students to house in this hall. The rules and regulations that go with pet-friendly housing can be found on the Potsdam Residence Life website, including rules and regulations for pets, vaccines, safety, types of pets allowed and cleanliness. Students will now be able to bring their cat, ferret, rabbit, hamster, guinea pig or mouse to college with them, but some pets will not be allowed for safety reasons.
Every pet has to be approved during the application process in order to come on campus. The journey to college is often stressful because it is new, and many students have to leave their beloved pets at home, learning to adjust to the stresses of college life without them.
“With pets around people can be comforted.” This pilot study at SUNY Potsdam allows students to bring those pets with them to college, as long as they are accepted into the program, which would change the SUNY Potsdam campus. McLear said that if pet-friendly housing is successful, the list of pets allowed in dorms will possibly expand to include pets such as dogs. Mary Kate Graham, a junior at SUNY Potsdam, said that happiness is contagious, and the more good vibes thrown out the better. Having a pet will help keep spirits up. It is known that college offers a certain level of stress to students with deadlines, tests, papers and pressure to succeed. Pets offer a sense of relief — a type of therapy that can reduce stress to not just those who have a pet but those who are able to interact with the pet as well. According an article written by Jeannine Moga for the Vital Aging Network, “Studies have shown that forming a relationship with an animal can have important health and psychological benefits. Owning a pet or interacting regularly with animals can lower humans’s blood pressure, reduce anxiety and depression, and increase their social interaction.” Karl Palmer, a senior at SUNY Potsdam, said he would agree with
Katie Daloia
the research and article Moga wrote about and the benefits she describes in her article. “I think having pets could have very positive effects on emotional health,” Palmer said. Miasia Sinclair, a freshman at SUNY Potsdam, had many positive things to say about the themed pet-friendly housing option, she also said she had one reservation. Sometimes pets can be a distraction, and this is a school where you come to learn. Overall, however, she said she agreed that pets could be beneficial to have on campus. “A lot of people get depressed,” Sinclair said. “With pets around, people can be comforted. I think it would be a great environment because people won’t be too far from home with their pets beside them.” The overall impression of the Residence Life Office’s new theme housing option is positive, and many on the campus say they would be excited about seeing pets. Rebecca Keyes, a sophomore at SUNY Potsdam, said she believed that pets on campus could have many benefits, especially for the attractiveness of the campus to incoming students. “It’s going to attract more students, definitely,” Keyes said. “It’s really cool; it’s like a little piece of home.” People love pets. They bring joy, relieve stress, and connect people with one another through the shared love people have for pets. Though there are restrictions to the types of pets the college is allowing, the benefits that the pets will bring to students are the same, and the enthusiasm the students have about this pilot remains unchanged. “All animals are fun,” Sinclair said.
The SUNY Potsdam libraries are calling for an action plan from administration in order to maintain and grow their services. Jenica Rogers, the librarian director of the College Libraries, said that SUNY Potsdam currently has six librarians total to serve about 4,000 students, compared to the 10 the college had two years ago. In the past 18 months, the college libraries have concurrently lost four librarians for reasons such as retirement, getting new job offers and marriage. “We actually are down five because when I was hired as director, I was a librarian before I was librarian director and I was never replaced,” Rogers said. “It depends on what you start counting because there has been a attrition over the years.” With budget cuts, they were authorized to replace two librarians, tentatively only successfully hiring one. At one point during the decline, Rogers said the library only had four librarians. Additionally, monetary issues such as budget cuts and the minimum wage increasing to $9.75 for SUNY students, also affected the library’s situation. Rogers said that the minimum wage increase “happened two-thirds through the way of our budget year and they’re not giving us any extra budget, any extra money.” This has caused job loss for allot of student workers at this place that hires “the most students on campus,” said senior Melissa Maldonado, a student employee and communications intern
for the Crumb Library. A problem that SUNY Potsdam faces due to this issue is the fact that its archives are closed because it does not have a librarian specialist archivist. With the conclusion of the bicentennial year, the archives are valuable in history courses and their lack of accessibility are disrupting both the schedules of students and professors. “People who are in the history department — that have to work in their seminars — they need access to the archives and we just can’t give it to them,” Maldonado said. “That in and of itself is hindering to the student experience. Even though, they might not know it.” Faculty have had to change their course assignment in order to accommodate this flaw, Alzo said. “We’re working with faculty to make sure that they are not assigning projects that require that they get access to those primary source materials,” Rogers said. “So it’s having an impact on faculty as well. It is a real, legit problem.” It’s hard to think of all the possibilities that the libraries could be offering, but our librarians work very hard to make the best out of the library as they can. The librarians have had to overlap duties in order to get all the work done. “We meet frequently and work together and get things done and all the librarians here are very aware of all the librarian’s tasks and fill in as we need to fill in,” said Nancy Alzo, an associate librarian at the circulation desk in Crumb Library. — Continued on page 4 —
Senior Assistant Librarian Jessica Ramey helps student with research. Katie Daloia