11.09.12

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T w he el T co ri m ni es to a l ni a um n ni !

Sports 25

A&E 17

Campus Pulse 15

Double Trouble

Famous Faces

Senior Jana Tucker played basketball all four of her years at Trinity. This year, she took her skills to the volleyball court as well.

What do the Butthole Surfers, Barney and an original Charlie’s Angel all have in common? They’re Trinity alumni!

Trinity thespians take on Shakepeare’s “The Tempest,” with puppets

theTrinitonian Volume 110, Issue 12

www.trinitonian.com

Housing, alcohol policies currently under review Trinity looks to students and peer institutions for updates to alcohol, housing regulations Faith Ozer NEWS REPORTER University officials continue to revise residential policies to accommodate an increasingly diverse student population while maintaining alcohol policies to ensure student safety.

“We recently attended a Sexual Diversity Allaince meeting and solicited feedback about what we can do to meet the needs of LGBTQ students.” Melissa Flowers

Assistant Director for Residential Education Trinity University is part of the Associated Colleges of the South, a group of 16 distinguished liberal arts colleges and universities including Rhodes College, Sewanee: the University of the South, Millsaps College and Southwestern University. According to David Tuttle, associate vice president of student affairs and dean of students, while these universities compare policies and ideas about university life, it is largely the students that influence university procedures. At Trinity, revisions are currently being considered to the Residential Life practices in order to better accommodate LGBTQ students. “We recently attended a Sexual Diversity Alliance meeting and solicited feedback about what we can do to meet the needs of LGBTQ students,” said Melissa Flowers, assistant director for residential education. “We received a lot of information, and it’s just unfortunate that in the past we did not know some of the opinions and feelings regarding our office.”

According to Flowers, one of their main goals this year in the Residential Life office is to ensure that students feel “comfortable and safe” in the school living environment, even if that means possibly changing the current structure of student residence hall placement. However, challenges often arise when opening the conversation between students and faculty. “The problem is that it is really hard to ask students ‘Are you gay or transgender or will you live with a gay or transgender student?’ You can’t discriminate, so if you ask the question people will be like ‘Dude, why are you asking?’ But then on the other hand you can’t dilute it too much…” Tuttle said. Placing LGBTQ students within residence halls may possibly cause challenges for residential life staff. However, according to Tuttle, policies are ultimately to promote the good of the student population as a whole.

“Our policies are value-driven, and to me that’s really important. We don’t have just a long list of ‘Thou Shall Not’s.’ Our guiding policies are the respect for self, others, community, property, and personal responsibility.” David Tuttle

Associate Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students “We don’t want to have a floor of gay and transgender students because that’s not fair to them, and it is not fair to the rest of the community. We don’t want to have separate housing like that. We just want to do right by our students,” Tuttle said. “Our students are pretty well educated about those issues and pretty open minded for the most part. For some it is very new, so we have to be sensitive to their feelings too.”

see STUDENT Page 4

Serving Trinity University Since 1902

NOVEMBER 9, 2012

“We are the Champions”

photo by Carly Cowen On Sunday, Nov. 4, the men’s soccer team beat Southwestern University 2-0 to win the 2012 SCAC Championship. Sunday’s game marked the 15th conference championship Trinity has won in the last 22 years. In addition to the victory the men’s soccer team secured, the women’s soccer team also ended Sunday as SCAC champions. For more coverage on the games, check out Page 21.

Groups encouraged to consider proposed officer transition time Administrators urge student groups to change leadership in January rather than April by Caleb Franzmann NEWS REPORTER On Wednesday, Oct. 31, Jamie Thompson, director of campus and community involvement, presented a new officer transition timeline to be considered by the university sponsored organizations. The new timeline operates on a January to December term for organizational officers, rather than the April-to-April term that many student organizations currently employ. According to Thompson, the new officer transition timeline would afford organizations stronger leadership and smoother transitions. Since seniors would only hold officer positions until January, newly elected officers would have an entire semester to seek advice from former officers. “Being a junior president is tough… There’s a level of experience you need to run an organization,” said Graham

Bates president of Iota Chi Rho. “I came in with as much as I could have possibly had, but it would have been nice to have had the former president around.” Seniors may also benefit from a new officer transition timeline, as they will be able to better focus on senior projects and post-graduation plans. “I know that my senior year, continuing to go full throttle through the spring semester was a lot. There were a lot of things going on,” Thompson said. “Having the spring semester to myself would have been nice.” If the new officer transition timeline catches on, student organizational training could be moved to the beginning of the semester. According to Thompson, the beginning of the semester is a much better time for training. “Student organization training is at a terrible time, because of final projects and everything,” said Pola Shim, president of Korean Student Association. “I could see the change being very beneficial.” Additionally, changing the officer transition timeline would allow organizations to make better use of national leadership conferences as

many campuses nationwide use the calendar year to transition leadership in student organizations. Since many campuses transition officers in January, many leadership conferences are held early on in the spring semester. “Some of our organizations have annual leadership conferences that they can attend,” Thompson said. “Currently, officers in most of our student organizations are at the tail-end of their term when these conferences occur, so the conferences make no sense for them.” Trinity University Volunteer Action Community currently utilizes a similar officer transition timeline so that they can attend Impact, a national service and social responsibility conference. Edwin Blanton, TUVAC advisor, says the early officer transition would allow TUVAC officers to understand their role as an officer earlier, attend the conference, and submit a wellthought out funding proposal to the Association of Student Representatives According to Joe Moore, president of ASR, the new officer transition timeline should

see CCI page 6


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