October 24, 2012 Vol. 95, No. 16

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RAMBLER TV wednesday

October 24, 2012

Vol. 95 • No. 16

www.therambler.org

Spirits haunting Wesleyan buildings?

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

Director of Career Services uses sports to relieve stress. Campus, page 6

Campus, page 4

2012 Presidential Election Who are you voting for in the upcoming presidential election, and why?

“I’m unsure at the moment, because there is a lot of negative campaigning right now. They’re both talking about why you shouldn’t go with the other party, but I want to know what they really will do. Obama hasn’t done a lot, and I guess a lot of that is Congress, but he hasn’t really been able to make much of a change. I don’t really necessarily like some of Romney’s policies concerning the middle class and how his decisions will affect the middle class. So, right now I’m researching both, but I’m really unsure.” -Brittany Robbins, General Business Freshman “I will be voting for the Republican party. Mainly because I’m ready to see if we can get some economy changes going on. At this present, that’s the only reason I’m voting in that direction.” -Steve Smith, Graduate Program of Nurse Anesthesia Student “I’m voting for Obama. The main reason is that after watching the debate, I believe he was able to argue his point of view better than Romney could. I just always support Democrats.

Rachel Peel

rlpeel@txwes.edu

Throughout his whole term as president, I’ve seen [Obama] make more improvements than anyone else, even though nobody really wants to credit him with it. -Robert Vera, Computer Science Senior “I’m voting for Barack Obama, because he’s for the people. He’s open to giving more people job opportunities. He’s not just for the rich; he’s for everyone prospering in America.” -Joaquin Turner, Master’s of Business Administration Graduate Student

“I will not be voting, because I did not register to vote.” -Abby Zipoy, Psychology Freshman

“I’m not voting, but if I was, I would vote for Obama. I can’t vote because I am not a citizen.” -Jessica Lopez, Mass Communication Freshman

rlpeel@txwes.edu

As the economy tightens the wallets of parents planning to send their kids to college, Texas Governor Rick Perry has a plan to help alleviate the growing financial burden by freezing college tuition at public schools. Perry hopes to freeze college tuition in the public sector at the price a student pays his or her freshman year. Lucy Nashed, deputy press secretary to the office of governor Rick Perry, said in an email that the governor’s idea is not a new one, as he has mentioned the tuition freeze in his last two State of the State addresses. “Institutions can already adopt tuition freezes and some, like the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Texas at El Paso, have adopted them,” Nashed said in an email. “But as more and more Texans are looking for higher education opportunities, the governor is calling on more institutions to give Texas families predictability in cost.” Nashed said the freeze also serves as an incentive for students to complete their degrees in four years. “The governor is committed to working with stakeholders to determine the best

When students receive their tuition refund checks, they sometimes think about purchasing the newest iPhone or the latest game system rather than textbooks for classes. In reality, most students are supposed to use these funds to purchase books or cover living expenses throughout the semester. With the rising amount of debt students acquire before graduation, the government has issued mandatory entrance and exit counseling for students receiving government loans. The entrance and exit counseling can be taken online by going to the National Student Loans Data System (NSLDS) website and clicking on the financial aid review tab or the exit counseling tab. Tara Cates, senior psychology major and financial aid secretary, said she knows when refund time has hit, because everyone starts talking about purchases they are going to make. “I remember being that person,” Cates said. “Thinking, ‘OK, I got this money I can do whatever with,’ but you don’t think about how years from now you have to pay this back.” Cates said when she first started taking out loans no one explained to her what all was involved when a student takes out a loan. “When I first started taking loans out, nobody counseled me or talked to me,” Cates said. “It was just like ‘OK, here are your options; take out a loan; this is what tuition is going to be; you are not going to make it without loans.’” Cates recently had to participate in the entrance counseling when she applied for loans this past semester. Cates said the online entrance counseling talked about how to payback student loans and how much time stu-

  counseling, page 3

Perry calls for tuition freeze Rachel Peel

Students required to participate in financial counseling

“But as more and more Texans are look-

ing for higher education opportunities, the governor is calling on more institutions to give Texas families predictability in cost.” Lucy Nashed

Deputy Press Secretary for Rick Perry

course of action for students,” Nashed said. She said community college and transfer students are also eligible for a tuition freeze for the amount of time remaining in their degrees. “We need to provide an incentive for universities to not only enroll students, but to make sure they are actually completing a degree – instead of 100 percent of formula funding being based on enrollment,” Nashed said. Perry also wants to base a portion of a school’s funding on the amount of graduates it produces. This means that instead of funding colleges based on their enrollment, the government will base funding on the number of students who graduate, Nashed said. “The role of these institutions is to help students graduate with a quality higher education,” she said. “Chang-

ing the funding structure will allow them demonstrate a clear commitment to more productivity and better outcomes as a down payment for more resources from the state.” Denise Schmidt, administrative assistant for the Wesleyan School of Business Administration and Professional Programs, said she has mixed feelings about the governor’s idea. “I think it is a good idea, and that it could help many families, but I think it is limiting children’s school choices,” Schmidt said. “Because, even though you are living here in Texas, you can only go to Texas public schools and you couldn’t go to any private institutions.” Schmidt said if parents participate in the governor’s plan, they are forcing their

  tuition, page 3

Photo Illustration by Jonathan Resendez

Voters likely to resist facts Jonathan Resendez

jlresendez@txwes.edu

An atheist, a Turkish graduate student and a member of the Gay Straight Alliance walk into a bar — no, they attend Texas Wesleyan. Although one of them cannot vote, all three fall within the 18 to 29-year-old age range of 46 million eligible voters in the upcoming presidential election, which accounts for 21 percent of the eligible voting population, according to The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Studies have shown that

millions of voters may not change their opinions or beliefs when making decisions at the polls this November, or ever, even if presented with information that proves their opinion wrong. Misinformed and Stubborn Conducted about six years ago by professors at the University of Michigan and Georgia State University, the When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions studies showed test subjects news stories containing misleading information. When presented with corrections, rather than change

their opinions according to the facts, subjects’ opinions were reinforced and their misinformed beliefs were strengthened. Lisa Hensley, associate professor and chair of psychology at Wesleyan, describes the studies’ findings in an over-the-top manner: It’s like a person who believes a politician eats babies, she said, even after hard data proves otherwise. “If you’re already predisposed to hate that candidate anyway, that new information is not likely to change your mind,” Hensley said.

  vote, page 3


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