Empath, 1978 September 1

              SGA President Bob Malloy
SGA Sets Goals by Bob Malloy
(Malloy is the elected Student Govern­ment
Association President for the
19 78- 79 academic year. - Ed.)
Two years ago, we as a student body,
voted no confidence in J. Renwick Jack­son
and asked for his dismissal. We
charged that he did not allow the Student
Government to fulfill its responsibilities
by “constantly employing strategies and
techniques designed to exclude our
participation from the decision-making
processes.” Our actions failed to oust
President Jackson but they were success­ful
in other ways. This summer we gained
voting privileges on the Student Life
Committee of the Board of Trustees.
The President and Vice-President of the
Student Government will exercise this
privilege. This may be the start to a
student on the Board of Trustees.
Now that we are a voice that is
respected by the administration, we
must channel our energies into making
this a better place. Socially we need
volunteers for the Dance and Concert,
Film, Speakers and Student Life Com­mittees,
and for the student media
organizations, WSMC, the Empath, year­book
and Avatar. Physically there needs
to be student input on the new Student
Union, the possible conversion of the
Charles Hall basement into a pub and a
concentrated effort against the vandalism
of past years.
Remember, with a little help from
you this can be a hell of a good place to
go to school.
Photos by Carolyn Alkire
Vice President Dave Oswald
THE ST. MARY’S COLLEGE BI-WEEKLY
VOL. 6, NO. 1 ST. MARY'S CITY, MARYLAND SEPTEMBER 1, 1978
College Audit Cites Irregularities From the August 2, 1978, issue o f The Enterprise
By Rick Boyd
The president of St. Mary’s College
was called before a State legislative
committee recently to respond to a
critical audit detailing irregularities in
financial records at the school.
The report by the State Division of
Audits covered the period from April 21,
1975, to Aug. 7, 1977, and charged that
“ deficiencies in the areas of cash receipts
and accounts receivable were of sufficient
magnitude to preclude a satisfactory
verification that all receipts were properly
recorded and deposited or that all charges
were properly assessed and recorded.”
Among the specific criticisms in the
March 28, 1978, report'were overexpen­ditures
of the operating budget during
fiscal year 1977, and the transfer of
$22,300 from the National Direct Stu­dent
Loan Program to cover over expen­ditures
in other areas. The juggled ex­penditures
violate State law, the report
said.T
uition and other student fees “were
distributed to the various programs and
accounts arbitrarily on an as needed
basis,” according to the audit. Some
refunds made to students, averaging
$89,000 a year, lacked supporting
documentation and approval, according
to the report.
In a handwritten note on the audit
report, Pierce J. Lambdin, then director
of the division of audits, recommended
that the College be brought before the
Joint Budget and Audit Committee
of the Maryland legislature “in view of
the deficiencies noted in this report and
(See Audit, page 6)
S t u d e n t H o u s i n g E x p a n d e d O f f - C a m p u s
There is a waiting list for on-campus
student housing this fall due to an in­crease
in requests for dorm rooms. To
accommodate the increased enrollment
and need for housing beyond the avail­able
dorm rooms, students will be living
in other on- and off-campus buildings*
in addition to using studies and corner
rooms as triples and the front offices in
dorm lobbies as doubles.
According to Beth Steinway, Director
of Residence Life, they were not aware
of the dorm situation until the end of
school last spring when returning students
paid a deposit to reserve their rooms for
the fall. “Once the dorms were full we
had to either find other alternatives or
turn people away, so we made arrange­ments
for additional housing space,”
said Steinway. All the front offices in
the dorms, with the exception of the
Inter-Residence Hall Council office in
Queen Anne, have been converted into
doubles. Four new women residents are
living in the apartment on the second
floor of Margaret Brent and five in the
Guest Cottage. “This adds up to 710
students living on campus, but the
buildings aren’t going to be any more
crowded than they were two years ago,”
she said. During the fall 1976 semester
676 students lived in the dorms.
In addition to these on-campus arrange­ments,
40 students are living at St. Mary’s
Garden apartments in Lexington Park.
by Carolyn
Twenty-seven of these students are new
and thirteen are returning students, while
the majority of them, twenty-nine, are
female. Steinway said the apartment
building being used for students at St.
Mary’s Gardens has been vacant for a
while but they have been completely
renovated and repainted, and should be
ready for students to move in.
Alkire
She also explained that housing is
assigned on a first-come, first-served
basis, with returning students assigned
first, then new students in double rooms,
the corner triples and then the studies,
former dorm offices and additional
housing space. “Eventually we will get
new dorms but for now we will do the
best we can,” said Steinway. “We have
to show that our dorms have been over­crowded
before HUD will consider a
loan for the construction of additional
dormitory space.”
If some students leave she indicated
that students would be shifted from
triples and perhaps from the Guest House
and Margaret Brent in order to get every-
(See Housing, page 5)
F o o d C o n t r a c t S p e c s C h a n g e d
by Carolyn Alkire
Photo by Mary Tydlngs
Bob Lococo, Fiscal Officer
The food service this year will be
provided by ARA, the lowest bidder for
the contract. The opening for a food
service company for the College occurred
when Servomation cancelled their two-year
obligation with St. Mary’s at the end
of last semester after one year.
ARA will be following updated
specifications, basically the same as
before but with many minor changes
and the major addition of three entrees
at dinner, one of which will be vegetarian.
According to Bob Lococo, College
Fiscal Officer, the cost will be
$16.63 per week for each student as
opposed to the $17.22 figure Mark IV
submitted.
Modifications of the serving line were
made before school started, and several
pieces of new equipment have been
ordered and are expected to arrive some­time
during the fall semester. A new
dishwasher was ordered in May, and when
the new budget was approved early this
summer, deep fryers, grills and ovens
were also ordered. “The only reason we
didn’t get new equipment before is that
we didn’t have the money. We weren’t
making enough money on the food ser­vice
to improve the facilities,” said
Lococo.
The increase in the board fee will
cover the increased cost of the food
service as well as new equipment. Of the
$100 increase of the board fee from
$610 to $710 per school year for each
resident student, $18 will go to the food
service vendor while the remaining $82
(See Contract, page 4)