Point News, 1993 November 22

              St. Mary’s student weekly • Volume 81, No. 10 November 22,1993 • St. Mary’s City, MD 20686
PHOTO BY NORINE ROWE During a tour given to members from the SGA and The Point News, Dr. John Underw ood shows one of the
research labs in the new science building, where faculty and students can set up long-term experiments.
BROOKS E. SCOVILLE
editor-in-chief
Since December 17, 1991, when
the ground was broken at the new
science building site, the St. Mary’s
College community has been anx­iously
watching its construction. Next
week, after almost two years of wait­ing,
the college will finally be the
proud owners of a brand new $16
million high-tech natural and physi­cal
science facility.
The new building, which covers
60,000 square feet, was designed with
special care and sensitivity to the
unique historical and environmental
surroundings of the area.
“I think this is a really exciting time
for the college. A lot of hard work has
gone into getting this facility and it is
a vibrant addition to the campus,”
said Dr. John Underwood, Vice Pres­ident
of Administration. “It was a
great group effort between the admin­istration
and the science faculty to
design the building. Others have con­tributed
to the building, like the Busi­ness
Office, who was in charge of
buying the equipment, and the Facil­ities
Office, who managed the con­struction.”
The building is unusual in that most
colleges have science buildings which
look like big boxes, but the adminis­tration
wanted it to be more in keep­ing
with the rest of the college.
“We wanted the building to en­hance
the campus by its location and
become the college’s focal point at
(See SCIENCE, Page 6)
j§ a jb f|§ ^ ^
to be delayed further
AARON KOOS
staff xvrHer
GeneraTs afftce as late :as: last Fri-
Contmued \
the: College • and American Cable j
over the 36 channel cable system
have frustmiedresideote whs looked
forward to returning to an installed
system thi$ semester.. Although the
College recently forwarded what
hoped to be the final draft of €h&i
' contrac^toiAr^nc^Cabl^ acc&rd- i
rngto General Manager Phil Spmiit.
at American Cable, changes were
being made by the State Attorney
“Tbesenewchanges will go b a ck
to my : contract d ep a rtm en t;’ said
Sptodt who would aote iab o ra te on
th e specific alterations b u t would
say th a t %oirie are simple changes
b u tsom e are issu&thaiare; causing
u s some problem.”
I $pindta&b quieted rumors that
; the delays were the result of Amer­ican
Cable's parent company TCI
merging with Bell Atlantic; “It
•Ilf (See CABLE/Page 6)
Delgado-Gaitan delivers speech
DANA FEHLBERG
staff writer
CAMPUS ALERT
North of the college on Park Hall Road, Rt. 489,
a sexual assault occurred on Thursday, Nov. 4,
1993, at approxi«ately 3:30 P.M. A young
voaan nas Jogging alone then she Has assaulted
The unfortunate reality is that danger can
happen to seibers of our cosfiunity at any
tine. Our hope is that sith a little fore­thought
one can prevent ham or loss. When
nalking, Jogging or biking oW caapus please
take the following precautions:
* TAKE A PARTNER ALONG OR CO IN A GROUP
* HAKE SURE IT’S DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS
* ALWAYS CARRY A DEFENSIVE DEVICE (EX. MACE,
WHISTLE, ETC.)
* WHEN FEASABLE. ALWAYS LET SOMEONE KNOW
YOUR DESTINATION AND YOUR APPROX. TIME OF
ARRIVAL AND RETURN
* PLEASE CONFINE YOUR EXERCISE TO CAMPUS
This is a copy
of a flyer that
was sparsely
distributed
around the
campus. Many
students,
faculty and
staff feel that
the incident
was not
publicized
enough. See
related
editorials on
Page 3.
The majority of the 25 million
Latinos living in the United States are
Mexican-American immigrants. On
Wednesday, November 17, Dr. Con­cha
Delgado-Gaitan, a professor at
the University of California at Davis,
spoke about the school performance
of these people.
Dr. Delgado-Gaitan has done ex­tensive
educational research in a
Mexican-American community in
Carpenteria, California. Her research
challenges the common notion that
hispanics enter the school system with
disadvantages and these account for
their failure in school.
Most educators agree that if par­ents
are reinforcing school lessons in
the home, their children will succeed
in reading. There is also the common
belief that Hispanic parents either sim­ply
“don’t care” or “don’thave enough
time” to care about their child’s edu­cation.
In the Carpenteria school, the His­panic
children were often put in the
lower level reading group. The inves­tigation
of Delgado-Gaitan discusses
what parents of children in higher
level reading groups did in the home
in orderthat their children were placed
in those groups.
Surprisingly, Delgado-Gaitan
found no significant differences be­tween
what was done in Hispanic
households than what was done in
caucasian households. In fact, His­panic
parents often sat with their chil­dren
for hours trying to help them
with assignments.
However, the parents had very lit­tle
grasp of the English language,
which caused them to become frus­trated
with confusing directions. The
children often failed to complete as­signments,
resulting in a downward
spiral of failure.
Dr. Conch Delgado-Gaitan, a professor at the University of Califomia-
Davis, spoke about the school performance of Latino children.
The parents in the Carpenteria com­munity
were eventually able to help
their children because they learned to
adapt themselves to the “culture of
the school.” The implication of
Delgado-Gaitan’s study is that the
problem is not “that parents aren’t
communicating with the school” but
that “the school doesn’t communi­cate
with the parents.”
Parents and school officials estab­lished
open lines of communication
to better understand the progress of
their child. Important information
began to be transmitted in Spanish.
Delgado-Gaitan says that her
project is “not finished” because fur­ther
success “depends on continued
communication between school per­sonnel
and parents.”
j v i& v d & '
'
Letters to the Editor 3,4
The Pendulum of History, a commentary 5
A tour of the science building 6
The Brits fight back 7
Roaches, roaches everywhere 8
Consumerism and the SMC student 9
Comics: Lost in the Woods contest 10,11
Women sailors ranked first in the nation! 12
Science building to be
turned over to college