By: Chloe Scott

Hood began this process in 2011. Four years later, students a faculty still vary on whether Hood’s mission to further education through the iPads is successful.
Many students agree that the root of this problem lies in the faculty. They say some of their professors don’t allow the iPads, while others encourage use of them, as well as make them a part of lesson plans.
“About half of my teachers allow them, and half of them forbid them, “Ariana LeBlanc, a junior, said. “I never know what to expect.”
LeBlanc also said that she mainly uses her iPad for social media and entertainment purposes. She said that the iPad does help her escape from the stresses of school. When she needs to take a break from school work, she watches Netflix and plays different games.
Two freshmen, Tyler Heffner and Ryan Atkinson agree that they don’t use their iPads for much.
“I’m really excited to have the iPad, but I kind of see it as a waste of money,” Atkinson said. And Heffner agreed that the iPads are “pointless” when using them for school.
But some upperclassmen said that they began using their iPads more as they began taking higher-level classes. One senior, Kristine Johnson said that she thinks it’s because of experience—professors think students aren’t going to get as distracted later in their college careers.
“Most of my classes now only have juniors and seniors,” Johnson said. “Professors trust us more.”
Senior Tiffany Kiang agrees, but she thinks that it also depends on which major you choose. Kiang is an English major and pursuing a secondary education certification as well.

She said: “Since there’s such an emphasis placed on education in technology these days, my education professors are starting to use the iPads now, and my English classes are the same. But if I was a bio major, I don’t think I’d use it as often because biology is more hands-on.”
Kiang did say she sees more professors using them each year—and not just for textbooks, but for valid teaching tools as well.
One professor at Hood works hard to promote the use of iPads in the classroom, and makes having an iPad a requirement in her classes. Heather Mitchell-Buck, a professor of English at Hood, integrates iPads into her curriculum.
Mitchell-Buck believes that the role of a teacher is less about giving information, but about giving the tools to learn how to get it. She likes the “size and portability” of the iPads, and said that iPads break a barrier that laptops can create in the classroom.
Recently, Mitchell-Buck became an Apple distinguished educator, which recognizes teachers and professors around the world for use of Apple technology in the classroom.
On her website, admits on the home page that she is “unabashedly addicted” to her iPad. She also describes her vision for using the iPad, and why she uses it in the classroom.
“The more hands-on you can be when learning, the more those lessons stick with you,” she said.
Mitchell-Buck works as a sort of advocate for using Apple technology in the classroom. She said that she doesn’t think forcing faculty to use them will work at all. Instead she relies on having informal conversations with her coworkers works just as well.
Mitchell-Buck is on the advisor committee for Hood’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which holds workshops for professors on how to better implement iPad technology into the classroom.
She said she realizes the use of iPads holds much controversy in the education world, but she believes that people should look at what’s practical.
“People expect you to know how to use technology when getting a job,” she said. “It’s a good edge for people.”
Mitchell-Buck described using iPads as the “low diving board” for students—a “low stakes” way of getting people to try something new.

Photo credit: Katie Misuraca

BY KATIE MISURACA // Every year, Hood College hosts multiple events for prospective students who are looking into Hood.
However, this semester Hood will be only hosting one Admitted Students Day, raising concerns of students and faculty.

Terry Whittum, vice president for Enrollment Management at Hood College, made the decision to host only one Admitted Student Day due to his experience stating, “Quality is better than quantity.”

Admitted Students Day gives students who have been accepted into Hood the opportunity to learn more about what it means to be a part of the Hood tradition. During this event, students will have an opportunity to attend two classes, attend a showcase of student clubs and organizations, take an inside look at the campus and residence halls and meet with faculty members.

“One large program, perhaps with as many 700 total visitors, will generate a level of excitement that will appeal to prospective student, Whittum said. “Students visit that day and see over 300 other students and their parents on campus they will have validation that their decision to attend Hood College was the right decision,” Whittum continued.

Lydia Emory, sophomore at Hood College, is a Star who is student ambassador who offer daily campus tours and help incoming students understand Hood better. “This is the first time that Hood is having one Admitted Students Day, in previous years there have been two. We [Hood] will be expecting a lot of students and as a Star it will be a very busy day,” Emory stated.

Many faculty members seem to be worried that Hood isn’t going to get enough incoming freshman this upcoming school year. However, Whittum believes this single event will be one of the most significant things that Hood can do to improve the percentage
of admitted students who enrolled. “Rather than a smaller class, all indicators are that we will enroll a larger class, over 300 new freshmen, and that the academic profile of this class will improve,” Whittum said.

Coleen Yazurlo, assistant director of Admission at Hood, says that most schools only have one Admitted Students Day. The reason why Hood only has had two in the past is because of space issues.  “However, with the new gym, we have come to realize that there is space on campus for larger gatherings,” she said. “We have also re-worked the ASD event to make it more of a this is how life will be once you are a student at Hood type of event, which we think will aid students in making their college decision,” Yazurlo said.

Even though Hood is changing how it does events, there will be one new event: an Admitted Students Reception off campus.  This event will allow students and their families a chance to meet with Hood students, faculty, and alumni in a location that is closer to their home. “This will be helpful for students who cannot make it to campus as easily as others,” Yazurlo said.
In addition to this event, Admissions will be offering daily tours as well as tours and information sessions every other Saturday.  “In addition to campus tours, students can also participate in a “Blazer for a Day” visits, where students have the opportunity to sit it on a class and eat lunch in the dining hall.  While students are in their class, their parents can meet with financial aid and/or the career center.  There are also overnight visits to campus Monday through Thursday,” Yazurlo stated.

The Admissions offices at Hood are trying to make a greater impact for incoming and currents students. They are trying to “start over” with trying to start traditions and even change current traditions Hood already has.

Photo credit: Hood Student Power

BY GENEVA DENNEY // Academic schedule changes, effective fall 2014, have been
the talk of the Hood College community for weeks now.

Many rumors are flying about what is and isn’t changing next year and these changes have caused
major uproar with students and staff. Some are embracing the changes, and others are opposed to them.

Next year, the time slots for classes will be extended with the earliest class starting at 8 a.m. This was done to accommodate more classes throughout the day and to eliminate overlapping schedule conflicts, Katherine Conway-Turner the provost and vice president of academic affairs said.

She mentioned moving common hour from 12-2 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday, to having it on Wednesdays from 2-5 p.m. This was done to allow more classes during the day, Conway-Turner said.

Hood is also trying to hold fewer undergraduate classes at night. By doing so, the college will allow fewer overlaps of graduate and undergraduate classes.

Conway-Turner proposed and took action to implement the changes. “These changes are all about the students. There will be less conflicts and it’s allowing students to have easier schedules so they can get in and completed in four years.”

There were three public forums held over the past winter to address the issues with students.
However, not many attended. Some of the major topics of interest included sports conflicts and dining hall conflicts.

“We want to character build and educate, as well as account for sports and academic breaks,” Conway-Turner said. “I’m eager for our students to really understand what the changes are and how it will help them in the long run. We want students to move through the program successfully without glitches—the problems they think will occur are unlikely.”

Hood Student Power is an organization that pulls together the voice of the student body and has been the face of opposing the current schedule changes.  Grant Gallagher, 18, a freshman, has actively been a part of Hood Power since entering the school.

“Hood Power is more of a movement than an organization and it grew out of a lot of dedicated people’s ideas,” Gallagher said. “We’re all here because we see these schedule changes as problematic and think that since we’re paying for this education, we ought to be part of the process.”

“No one can defend the process and secrecy behind these decisions,” Gallagher said. “Most students wouldn’t have known
about them if members of the faculty hadn’t stood up for us and told their classes. As for the changes themselves, they’re a disaster for students. It’s going to make a lot of students have to choose between their right to work and the classes they need to graduate in four years.”

Hood Power currently has a petition running that’s surpassing expectations, Gallagher said. The group has also made a dominant effort on Facebook to make other students aware of what’s happening.

“Once we deliver our petition there are a lot of potential next steps, but what we do depends on how responsive administrators are to what students want,” Gallagher said. “We’re demanding that these schedule changes not be implemented in their current form. If changes happen in the future they need to come from administrators, faculty, and students working together. We need a democratic
and student-first process, one that builds our voice into the system.”

Justin Callas, 19, a sophomore, has been at Hood for two years now and has acclimated to the current schedule. His attitude toward the change reflects that of many students on campus.

“With the amount of students complaining about the change, why would they do it?” Callas said. “But, it really shouldn’t bother anyone, if students don’t want to take classes during the new time slots, then they should pick a different class.”

Photo Credit:  Wallis Shamieh. Students seek light in the darkness.

BY WALLIS SHANIEH // Recent power outages, across Hood College’s campus,
have left several students fearful of a reoccurrence of a serious outage that occurred in the 2010-2011 academic year. Monday morning, the entire college campus lost power for a little under an hour causing several classes to be cancelled and interrupting daily morning events.

Students living in off-campus housing at Sunset Apartments lost power for about six hours on Monday evening, and left residents unsure of where they would sleep that night. Low temperatures outside and no heat in the apartments left students looking for other places to stay.

The cause of the outages on campus and at Sunset Apartments was unknown, but could potentially be related to the
recent ice and snow that have been causing outages to homes in Frederick and the surrounding area. The streets directly next to campus had lost power for several days during an ice storm the same week.

“I was surprised that we lost power and concerned about heating and the electricity for cooking meals,” said David
Guwani, a student at Hood College who lost power to his off-campus apartment. He still had access to tap water and bottled water that he kept stored in his apartment, but lost heat during the cold winter day.

Housing arrangements were made for students to stay in school-provided housing, on-campus, which had power
returned earlier in the day.

“Apart from taking time to pack and move on campus, the outage did not disrupt my day. All my work was complete so
it gave me an excuse to go and hang out with my friends,” Guwani, said. Not every student was concerned with the loss of power to their homes, as Guwani found a bright side to the outage.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal. I think Hood and the people around me freaked out a bit too much,” said Taylor
Anderson, a student at Hood College who lives in an off-campus apartment. “I stayed at my apartment and just watched movies on my laptop until it came back on around 10:30 after being out for about 6 hours.”

Dan Bryant, a student at Hood College experienced a significant outage to the college’s campus in the winter of the 2010-2011 academic year, due to a water main break. The recent outage had him fearful of a repeat of the event.

“My apartment lost power and another meeting was held to see where we would stay. The only thing that was going through
my mind was a hotel room,” Bryant said.

The 2010-2011 outage caused classes to be cancelled and students had to be removed from the dormitories since there was
no water being supplied to them. They were given the option to return home, stay with friends who had power, or to be moved to a hotel until the power was restored.

“There was no water to take showers, no power to do anything. The power was out all day and my roommate and I had nothing
to do and nowhere to go, along with every other student,” said Bryant.

Many other students who experienced the 2010-2011 outage were afraid that their schedules would be interrupted, and
would have to move once again.

Fortunately, on Monday, the power returned to Sunset Apartments before the end of the night, allowing students to return
to their homes and dismissing their fears.

BY NATALIE HERNANDEZ //  Tatem Arts Center will be undergoing a renovation the day after graduation.   “I’m very excited. The
building is in dire need of a renovation,” said Vice-President of Finance & Treasurer Charles Mann. Since Tatem was built in the 1960’s it has not been remodeled Mann shared.

Tatem lacks handicap accessibility and doesn’t meet fire code and safety regulations. “I think it’s very overdue,” said Dr. Genevieve Gessert, assistant professor of art and archeology, who teaches in the building. “The building needs a lot of updating. It’s not compliant with disabled students and visitors. There are basic needs that the renovation will
bring.”

The third floor of Tatem is mostly inaccessible with restricted areas because it houses the closed-off large HVAC mechanical systems. “Around those mechanical systems there are no fire retardant materials, so if one of those mechanical systems malfunctioned and
had a fire there is nothing that will keep it out of the classrooms [classrooms that no longer exist on the third floor for that reason.],” said Prof. Joyce Michaud, assistant professor of art. Michaud calls the third floor wasted space and calls antiquated mechanical and heating systems a hazard.

Tatem will also be undergoing the renovation because it has a lot of wasted space. Gessert specifically called Price
Auditorium a waste of space. She said, “Unfortunately the core of this building [Price Auditorium] cannot be used.”

Price Auditorium will be stripped down, cleaned of asbestos and repurposed into classrooms. A new addition will
be built to the Martha E. Church Drive side of Tatem filling in the U shape of the building to install an elevator. Four new classrooms, an elevator that can be accessed from the outside like Coblentz Memorial Hall, more offices, a new
HVAC system, a sprinkler and fire alarm system and two new front entrances are a few impending add-ons to Tatem.

“We are going to add a new fire alarm and sprinkler system and then to make it look nice we are going to add
some carpet and paint to all the offices and classrooms,” said Director of Facilities, John Wichser.

And Dr. Gessert is most excited for the added space. “I think it’s good, for the archeology department in
particular, there will be an archeology lab incorporated in the renovation,” she said.

In addition, the all-too-familiar signs on the Tatem front doors that read “please don’t open these doors because
the wind will knock the art work over” will be gone.  “We will remove the side doors and build a vestibule… kind of like the library,” said Wichser. The vestibule will be added to the front and new back entrances of Tatem.

And though Price Auditorium is being taken away, Mann and Gessert don’t believe it will negatively affect any
department, not even the theater program. “I don’t think anyone will miss Price,” Mann said, “It hasn’t been used for classrooms
in years.” “It [Price] doesn’t have a backstage. It goes directly to the outside, so it can’t be used for theatrical productions,” Gessert said.

The current theater the Avalon Performing Arts Studio, the performance room that contains the black box theater, found in the lower level of Tatem will be having a facelift. “They’re giving the [black box] theater a dressing room and a bathroom backstage so that if anyone needs to go to bathroom without going out into the hall with costume they can,” Michaud said. “The black box
will be also receiving a ticket office,” Wichser said.

Though the renovation is needed for Tatem, it will take time and cause a couple changes. For example, Mann said, “All classes in the summer will be held in other buildings.”

And Gessert said, “In short term it will be very disruptive, we do a lot of teaching in this department during the
summer time, in the studio art program in particular… I think in the long term… there have been a lot of changes in the curriculum, so our department is in a very transitional phase. So to have this change come right now to the infrastructure is also kind of disruptive.”

However, the people in charge of the project are trying to keep the uprooting and disruption to a minimum and only when necessary. Wichser said, “We’re hoping to do a little bit of work on this addition during the school year and inside this old auditorium space, and
we’re hoping that they can get to the point to set studs, hang sheet rock and that kind of thing then. Instead of the jack hammering, that can affect the class outside of this space.”

And though the renovation seems so far away with a scheduled completion date of August 2015 and the majority of
the work not starting until after this semester, the planning process is well underway. “We’re actually in process of interviewing four finalists for general contractor,” said Wichser. “We’ll know by Friday who the final contractor will be.” He said, “We have an architect on board who has done all the design work.”

Mann said that the college received a capital grant from the state for $ 2.5 million, a committed fund from a donor
of $2 million, and already has in its capital budget around $500,000 for all the renovations. And Wichser said $300,000 will be spent on architecture and engineering and $ 5.2 million on construction.

Most of the budget and changes will be given to Tatem, but the Hodson Science and Technology Center will also
undergo remodeling and a smaller portion of the same budget will be allotted for its funding. Hodson’s unoccupied north and south wings will be receiving upgrades for the costal studies, computer science, GSI, and nursing programs.

“The reason why I bring this in is, because we combine both projects into one project, so we have one contractor to
reduce our cost overall,” Mann said.

Photo credit: Joshua Kling. The facilities center building.

BY JOSHUA KLING // The Department of Maintenance and Facilities has altered the staffing and scheduling on dorm cleaning duty for the 2013-2014 school year.

Instead of staffing one custodial worker to clean an entire dorm throughout the day, the Department has switched to a system where 5
custodial workers clean a dorm in an hour and a half. John Wichser, the Head of Department and Facilities, said this was the most cost efficient method of cleaning the dorms.

The Facilities Department is trying to do more cleaning while the dorms are unoccupied and students are in class, Wichser said. “We
feel like a better job is done with less people in the building.”

“When the students aren’t here it’s a lot easier,” Helena Dorsey, a member of the Hood custodial staff, said. The new system allows custodial staff to clean bathrooms and vacuum without disturbing students, which in turn, also decreases the time spent cleaning, she said.

“The change helps us all. When one person is doing the building, you know, you got a lot of work to do,” Dorsey said.

Now that the custodial staff is cleaning dorms in shorter periods of time when students are out of the dorms, interactions between
students and staff have been limited.

Several students have commented that they occasionally say ‘Hello’ to the staff, but do not get a chance to talk to them frequently. “I see the staff every day, and always try to say hi, but I don’t know their names,” said Chadbourne Allen, a freshman.

Dorsey agreed it’s difficult to interact with students because of the changes to the cleaning schedule, but affirms that the changes allow staff to clean more efficiently.

“They miss us and we miss them,” Dorsey said. “We don’t get to see the students we’ve gotten to know over the years because of the changes, but that’s okay because every now and then we might run into each other.”

Some students have commented that the time limit constrains custodial staff and affects the quality of cleanliness. “I think it’s less clean because throughout the day they’re able to continually clean, but if they just clean in the
morning the dorm’s just get dirtier throughout the day,” said Nathaniel Leighton, a junior and Resident Assistant on Smith Dorm.

Despite negative criticism, the Facilities Department has not received any complaint for unclean or neglected areas of the residence halls this year, Wichser said. “As with any change to routine, there is an adjustment period, but the new
schedule, overall, has worked well.”