The Los Angeles Loyolan, Volume 64, Issue 3 - September 24, 1986

Los Angeles Loyolan Loyola Marymount University Volume 64 Issue 3 September 24, 1986 Reinstatement of convocation hour discussed By DONNA THOMPSON, News Writer { (T t’s contributed to student Ж apathy, it’s deteriorated the school spirit, and school unity is fading away,” said ASLMU Vice President and chairman of student senate Juan Mejia. He was referring to the loss of the late morning convocation hour. Convoca¬ tion hour was originally an hour bet¬ ween 11:00 — 12:25 set aside on Tues¬ day and Thursday for the students to hold club activities, play intramurals, at¬ tend forums, listen to speakers, have career and recreational fairs, and par¬ ticipate in other extracurricular activities affiliated with the university. The executive board took the late morning convocation hour away in the 1984-85 school year and replaced it with a 3:15 — 4:45 convocation hour. The period that had been alloted for con¬ vocation hour was deemed “prime lear¬ ning time.” The theory of “prime learn¬ ing time” is that the students are most aware during this hour because it is after breakfast and before lunch., Classroom demand at this time is 82 percent. This means that the majority of classroom facilities are now used during the hour that had been devoted to other activities. The executive board felt that it would be more advantageous for students to be in class during this time. LMU’s student body also expanded and it was necessary to change the convocation hour to better make use of the classroom space. In last Saturday’s Summer Student Leadership conference follow-up and in- the last two conferences, a major con¬ cern was the reinstatement of the late morning convocation hour. The general consensus of the participants in the con¬ ference was that if the Faculty Senate and Student Senate could agree on the issue, Father Koppes would be more than willing to compromise and support a convocation hour between 12:25 and 1 :40 but could not support reinstating the 11:00 hour. The Faculty Senate resolved at their meeting on September 18 to table the issue in order to gain information. It was felt to be a legitimate concern that must be considered. By tabling the issue it is guaranteed to be voted on at their next meeting on October 2. If the Faculty Senate and Student Senate can agree, the earlier convocation hour might be reinstated as early as the spring semester. Only 69 percent of the classrooms are in use during the proposed convocation hour 12:25 - 1:40. This is considered by both administration and students as a better time to hold convocation than at 3:15. Vandalism problem confronted By KAREN CARRERA, News Writer ■andalism — the malicious or ig ¬ norant destruction of someone else’s property, and a growing problem here at Loyola Marymount University. Most probably didn’t even realize that such a problem exists. But according to Bill Bond, Director of Physical Plant, vandalism has been and still is a problem here at LMU. “The time it takes to fix all the things that get vandalized adds to Physical Plant’s workload, and we have enough to worry about without malicious van¬ dalism,” complained Bond. He added that the time spent replacing and men¬ ding vandalized property is taking away from the time that could be spent fixing and replacing things that break down due to regular use or age. The most popular targets of van¬ dalism are the LMU letters on the bluff, right below Xavier Hall and the fire ex¬ tinguishers in the dorms and apart¬ ments. There have also been a lot of in¬ cidents of stolen exit signs, punched walls in dorm rooms and apartments as well as spray paint on outside grounds and walls. According to Bond, the fraternities and sororities are responsible for the vandalism of the LMU letters. “They like to paint their Greek letters on the LMU letters and to do this they have to go down the bluff, which causes the bluff to erode little by little,” he states, “and one day the whole bluff may slip away.” He added that this again is wasteful in terms of time and money. Physical Plant has to take time out from their regular campus duties to re-paint the LMU letters and this in turn costs us, the students, more money when our tui¬ tion is hiked up to pay for campus repairs. The fire extinguishers mostly get stolen. The negative consequences of this are again the costs and the fact that without fire extinguishers we are not safe from the possibility of fire. “For¬ tunately, we haven’t had many incidents of fire, but if one occured we would be very vulnerable without fire ex¬ tinguishers.” The punched walls in the dorm rooms and apartments have been a reoccurring problem. People deliberate¬ ly punch holes in their walls and also break ceiling tiles in the halls. Spray painting has not been a real problem in the past couple of years, and Physical Plant wants to keep it that way. In the past students have spray painted white footprints on the walls of Des¬ mond Hall, one of the girl’s dorms, and the Engineering students used to have a tradition of painting green shamrocks every St. Patrick’s Day, the administra¬ tion cracked down on them. “It spoils the appearance of the campus, so it doesn’t happen very often, the spray painting that is. I just hope it doesn’t happen at all,” says Bond. (continued on page 2) Vice President of Student Services, Margret O’Malley feels that the 3:15 hour is very awkward and discriminates against the commuter studens since it is so late in the day, and most commuter students are not on campus during this hour. By having an earlier convocation hour commuters could participate in more activities. The commuter student could stay on campus and be involved in intramurals and club and organization activities without having to deal with traffic. After the change in time of con¬ vocation hour, students’ participaion in week time activities dropped. When the 11:00 — 12:25 convocation hour was first omitted there was a negative student reaction. There were student protests because the executive board neither informed nor consulted the Student or Faculty Senates on the change. According to Student senate, every semester since, students have made disgruntled attempts to get convocation hour reinstated. An actual policy state¬ ment or proposal on this subject had never been submitted to the Academic Vice President until now. The main fear of the student senate members involved in this cause is that gradually the students who have not had convocation hour, will not know how necessary it is, or the purpose that it serves, and convocation hour will cease to exist. In this sense the longer they wait, the worse it will be. In the opinion of Mejia and O’Malley, the reinstatement of an early convoca¬ tion hour “could only have a positive ef¬ fect on the school, not a negative one.” “If convocation hour is not reinstated, we can’t lose either way because they have already taken it away from us. We’ve'got nothing to lose because we’re at the bottom of the barrel.” ■ Career development branches out By JAMES GRANOSKI, Contributor How do students get a foot in the door of a good job? How do they “network” to find avenues into their desired profession? It doesn’t necessari¬ ly require dues to any organization, or having the university president pull str¬ ings for you. One way to network is to visit the Career Placement Office in Malone 301 and ask about the Alumni Development Team. The Alumni Development Team (ADT) is a new organization in the Career Development Office. The goal of the Alumni Development Team is to in¬ crease the number of alumni advisors and employment opportunities for LMU students and alumni. The ADT coordinator and supporting paraprofessional staff contact alumni working in assorted occupations to in¬ quire if they would be interested in any of several activities: 1) Sending information about their company or organization to the Place¬ ment Office. 2)Receiving resumes or letters of ap¬ plication for employment. 3)Meetmg with students to counsel and provide them with information on careers in their fields, or 4)Speaking to student organizations. All respondents are kept on file and classified by career. These files are available for students to peruse. Two other committees wmch work in conjunction with the Alumni Develop¬ ment Team are the Special Projects Committee and the Seasonal Internship Committee. The Special Projects Committee is . designed to help plan and implement special events such as Graduate School Day and Career Fair. The Seasonal Intership Committee provides students with the opportunity to obtain a career-related position in their chosen field while attending school. Any students who desire to work more closely with LMU alumni, or who wish to obtain office experience, may stop by the EPIC office in Malone 6, and in¬ quire about an internship with the ADT, the Special Projects Committee, or the Seasonal Internship Committee. ■ Campus experiences blackout By MIKE ZYTOWSKI, Loyolan Staff F For many students at LMU last week, Wednesday was a dark day. We suffered a major power outage that lasted nearly five hours. At approx¬ imately 2:30 p.m.-’ the power went out and wasn’t restored until close to 7:00 p.m. The Director of Facilities Planning and Construction, Bill Wilson, stated that he was surprised that the power was back on as soon as it was, due to the ex¬ tent of the damage. On that Wednesday, Robert Matson, an electrician, was measuring voltage at a link box at Sullivan Hall south when an explosion occured, knocking out the power for the entire campus. Matson also sustained burns on his hands and arms as a result of the explosion. Wilson could not elaborate on Matson’s condition or the cause of the accident.