January 23, 2013 Vol 96, No. 1

Page 1

RAMBLER TV WEDNESDAY

January 23, 2013 Vol. 96 • No. 1 www.therambler.org

Newscast Sports Access The Weekender Wesleyan People

Channel 25 when you’re on campus www.therambler.org when you’re not

The Rambler The voice of Texas Wesleyan University students since 1917

Stella’s first floor makes space for academics Victoria Slaten

vaslaten@txwes.edu

Over the Christmas break, one of Texas Wesleyan’s older dorms, Stella, received a makeover. The first floor of the residence hall has been transformed into offices and classrooms for a new program at Texas Wesleyan. Wesleyan is partners with The Language Company, and is the host university for the Dallas/Fort Worth area. As a host university for The Language Company, Texas Wesleyan has to meet certain requirements. Sharon Manson, director of fesidence life said, “The Language Company requires we provide them with office space and classrooms.” Manson said since Wesleyan is limited on room, the best place to put these new additions is the newly altered first floor of Stella. Demetrius Hicks, director of admissions for The Language Company at Texas Wesleyan, said The Language Company is a program where international students can live on campus and are taught English as a second language in order to become eligible to attend a university in the United States. Hicks said instead of semesters, The Language Company works on sessions. One session is four weeks long, which is about a month for each session. Hicks said the students in this program must prove they know a certain amount of English to pass each session. Hicks said there are 13 sessions per year. The number of sessions each student takes varies based on the placement tests taken before beginning classes. This

  STELLA, page 3

Sports,

page 7 & 8

OC Hall makes the transformation: Goodbye offices, hello dorm rooms By Victoria Slaten vaslaten@txwes.edu

The Texas Wesleyan student body is continuing to increase due to the influx of international students transferring to campus. In order to accommodate these new additions to Wesleyan, the second floor of OC Armstrong Hall has returned to its original use: housing students in dorm rooms. Sharon Manson, director of residence life, said there were no other options for housing than to refurbish OC Hall back into a dorm. “Enough students needed housing,” Manson said. “And we ran out of places to put them.” Manson explained the process it took to transform OC Hall back into its original form. She said the student organizations had to move out. Additional beds had to be purchased, and Internet was added to the second floor for student’s access. The rooms were cleaned and repaired, but some flooring still needs finishing. She said all of the room walls, which were painted by the organizations who met there, had to go back to the color white. Professor Joe Brown, dean of freshmen, said some offices like his office, security, and the mass communications department remain in OC Hall. Brown likes the change and enjoys having students close to where he works. “Years ago the first floor of Stella Russell were faculty offices, and the students lived on the second and third floor. So this is not new,” Brown said. “And it was really kind of cool because again the students really could find faculty because they were where they lived.” Brown said his vision of a perfect building on campus is a place where there are

tkevans1098@txwes.edu

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students living and faculty working under the same roof, so there will be more studentfaculty interaction. Before any change to OC Hall was made, all student organizations had to move all of their equipment out of OC Hall and into a smaller storage area they have to share at Polytechnic United Methodist Church. “I know the student organizations that had rooms there were really upset and didn’t have a whole lot of notice to move out,” Brown said. Ashlie Sivley, a junior and active member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority whose office was in OC Hall, said the school is making it seem like organizations are no longer a

priority. Sivley said moving day for the organizations was difficult and frustrating. “It was very confusing. Basically, the way we were understanding it was that we had a date that we had to be out, but we didn’t necessarily have a promise that there would be a room ready for us,” Sivley said. “And it turns out there wasn’t.” Sivley said when the members of Gamma Phi Beta moved their equipment to the room at Polytechnic the walls were still being painted, and there was furniture in the middle of the room. Sivley said there was really no place to put their equipment while the walls were being painted. Gamma Phi Beta

decided to put their equipment in Sivley’s garage for the time being. “I feel like it’s making it seem like the organizations on campus aren’t important ,which seems silly, because it’s been proven that students who are involved in some sort of campus activity are more likely to succeed and graduate,” she said. “So you’d think that student life in general would be one of the top priorities of the university.” However, Gamma Phi Beta members said they acknowledge that as students come in, arrangements must be made for them. Sivley said her sorority is grateful to John Veilleux, vice president for marketing. He

helped by getting lockers for the organizations that will go in the new room. “We do a lot for the school,” Sivley said. “We support the school a lot. We go to events. Students come to school for the classes, but they don’t stay because of the classes. They stay because of the friends they make.” Brown said if more students are admitted to Texas Wesleyan and OC Hall is to be a full residence hall again, it is expected that offices that remain in OC Hall, like faculty and staff offices, must be moved somewhere else. However, right now there is nowhere else on campus to move them, so there they will remain.

Hatton Sumners Scholarship supplies money, support Tristian Evans

Discover where the basketball teams stand at season’s end

Lupe Salas/Rambler Staff Mohammed Althabet, freshman international student, texts his friends while watching TV in the dorm lobby of OC Armstrong Hall. The lobby was converted from a speech classroom over the Christmas break to accommodate an influx of students needing housing.

The Hatton W. Sumners scholarship helps to fund the education of college students who have worked exceptionally hard not only in the classroom, but in their community. “The Hatton W. Sumners Foundation has provided a number of endowed scholarships to a number of universities,” Deborah Roark, director of grants and research, said. “We’re fortunate to be one of those universities.” Roark said the school is given a specific amount of money which is then placed in an investment account. The interest from that money is used for the scholarships. Each year students who are awarded the scholarship receive $3,500 for the fall and spring semesters. As long as the student’s continue to meet the requirements, the scholar-

ship is good for two years. Although some majors such as political science, pre-law, history and social studies are given priority, students from all majors are encouraged to apply. Some of the requirements for the scholarship are having a 3.0 GPA, involvement in campus and civic activities, and being in good standing with the university. Applicants must also submit a 750-word essay about themselves and a resume. The applications must be turned in to the Financial Aid office by Feb. 15. Roark said the top 10 applications are chosen and then sent to the Hatton Sumners Scholarship Foundation in Dallas. “The Foundation trustees come and do the interviews,” Roark said. “In early April [the trustees] will be coming to campus and they’ll interview students all morning long. The students have to put their best

foot forward. They have 15 minutes to answer questions and tell [the trustees] about themselves.” Roark said in addition to receiving the scholarship money, Hatton Sumners scholars receive other various opportunities, such as attending luncheons and workshops in Dallas. They were ponsored by the Sumners Foundation through the National Center for Policy Analysis. The scholars also get the opportunity to attend events such as leadership conferences where they can network with Hatton Scholars from schools across the U.S. “They get broken into groups and meet people from all over,” Roark said. “They talk about leadership, ethics and hot topics that are going on in our society today.” Roark said in the past, networking at such events

  SCHOLAR, page 3

You’ve Got Mail

Job Blasts deliver careers to inbox Rolandra West

rdwest@txwes.edu

Career Services has launched a new service that provides students the chance to view job opportunities that are narrowed down specifically to each student’s field of study. Instead of having to use the Career Link website, the job postings are sent straight to their email once a month. This service is one of the many services provided through career services, Robyn Bone career services director, said. Bone said career services has always provided job postings for Wesleyan students. “We had feedback from students on some of our

surveys and focus groups we did, and either they didn’t know how to access Career Link or they didn’t know that there were jobs relevant to their major,” Bone said. Bone said a lot of students were asking how to sign up for search agents, which career services always had the capability of doing but students just weren’t taking the extra step to do it, Bone said. She said Career Services averages about 120 job postings on career link a month. “We’re talking about tons of employers that are posting jobs, and are just falling through because no

  JOB BLAST, page 3


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