Point News, 1996 January 30

              January 3 0 ,19 9 6 commentary- page 3
New class waiting list system leaves students
waiting and waiting and waiting. . .
BENJAMIN WYSKIDA
staff writer
There is, typically, a process at work
as far as this whole college thing is con-,
cerned. We, the students, come to col­lege,
move into our little rooms, take
classes, etc. Let's back up a little here;
did I say “take classes?” Not this semes­ter
at SMC, where getting into a class
seemed to be an especially large night­mare.
First, my own saga. I had myself
signed up for classes, like a good boy. I
was also put on the new and exciting
electronic wait lists, which have served
effectively as toilet paper for about half
of the SMC faculty. I was third on the
wait list, and second on another, and I
was confident that I would get one of
the classes. However I miscalculated
my odds-I was booted from both. But it
was only Tuesday, of the first week of
class, and I had confidence. So, I talked
to some professors:
“Sorry, there are transfer students.”
“There aren’t enough chairs .”
“I need to hold that spot for majors,
seniors, the O.J. Jury and your
mother.”
“I am mean and cynical. Go rot in 12
credit hell.”
After asking two other professors for
a spot in their class, and showing up
for two more, the body count was com­plete:
I had been flat out booted from
four classes, and five other professors
had offered their condolences, but told
me not even to show up. That’s okay
though-12 credits.I don’t need to gradu­ate
in four years. Now, those readers
still with me may say, “Ben, you’re a
freshman, you tried to get into all the
cool classes, suck it up.” However I am
not the only person to voice the same
complaints. It appears as though ap­proximately
3,000 students were on a
waiting list for Introduction to Litera­ture,
two thirds of which had bribed a
professor.
So, what caused these problems? First
off, more students. The school accepted
a high number of transfer applicants,
and anyone can tell you that Wood’s
seems a whole lot more crowded. But it
was also a problem of anticipation. The
English department added two new sec­tions
of Introduction to Literature after
registration, just to accommodate a rise
in higher class numbers. It would seem
that this semester is sending a message
to the college-the students want vari­ety,
and they want options. Every de­partment
at SMC should be taking a
look at what they offer, when they offer
it, and who the professor is. More im­portantly,
the faculty needs to decide-are
they going to abide by the official
waiting lists, or are they going to choose
more freely which students they want
in their classes. Either option would be
fine, as long as the faculty will all go by
the same rule.
I finally got my elusive class-Inter-pretation
of Myth. I don't know what
that means, and it isn’t my major, but
it is a great class. I haven’t studied
myth before, but our first assignment
is the SMC Course Listing....
Recycling: up and running, now campus needs to use it
I have a friend who told me once
that he was sick of hearing people
preach to him about being environ­mentally
friendly. He was tired of
hypocrites, and sick of “green prod­ucts.”
He didn’t want to deal with
Earth Day, or listen in his environ­mentally
focused economics class. He
had been overwhelmed with “green.”
And I suppose that there is a good rea­son
for that. But in Alaska, the last
remaining old growth rain forest in
North America (yes—a rain forest in
Alaska) is being threatened by lum­ber
companies to provide us with pa­per.
Forests have been completely
logged, for paper and for other rea­sons,
such as mining underneath the
forest.
Mining leaks poisonous minerals into
the environment, poisioning plants,
animals, and people. But there is some­thing
that we can do about these hor­rors.
We can do something real, help­ful,
and right: REDUCE, REUSE, RE­CYCLE.
As part of SEAC’s effort to firmly es­tablish
a recycling program at St.
Mary’s, we have been talking to faculty,
staff, and students. Getting a program
started from almost scratch is a huge
effort that has taken a lot of time—but
recycling is up and running. There are
boxes for paper in almost all the offices.
There are signs up on bathroom doors,
in every laundry room, and numerous
other spots around campus. Please read
them before putting anything in the
bins-they are no longer trash cans.
If each of us does our small part, to­gether,
we can make a difference! For
instance, just the recyclable glass
bottles we have collected since this
school year began weighed almost a
ton!! Recycling eases some of the bur­den
on our dwindling natural resources.
Its not the final solution, but it is an
important step in the right direction.
Please recycle!
blue bins around campus, and cardboard
- Chris Slaght, Robbin Garber, and Moe Moore
Student Environmental Action Coalition
f v t io n W h a t do Y O U think of the
OF THE W e e k c h a n 9es th a t W o o d ’s has
made? -Photos, quotes compiled by Elizabeth Rose
Lauri Watkins Clayton Ahrens
Sophomore Sopiiomore
“I don’t trust any regime “The new changes pro-that
doesn’t have spinach vide a cornucopia of foods
feta turnovers.” that are appealing to the
eye.’
Leila Dongala
Freshman
“They made changes?
The setup is different but
the food is the same as be­fore.”
Nicole Erickson
Junior
“I think they’ve improved
a lot. The salad bar is al­ways
fresh, and there is
more variety ”
High comedy or
ignorant burlesque?
JENNIFER CHAPIN-HARRIS
staff writer
The blatant use of derogatory insults
towards various minority groups is
common and horrible enough, but
worse still is their use as “comedy.”
Real, true comedy is funny and enter­taining,
not offensive. Apparently,
however, “comedians”such as Pure In­sanity,
never learned this lesson, for
instead of entertaining St. Mary’s Col­lege
students last Wednesday, they
managed to offend most of those
present at the event.
The comedians in the space of little
over an hour managed to so horribly
insult women, gays, and racial minori­ties
to the extent that most of the au­dience
had left before their show fin­ished.
For instance, one of the come ­dians
chose to put on a Native Ameri­can
head-dress and mock their ritual
dance and song. I seriously doubt that
the European-American comedians
would care to have some other ethnic
or racial group racially slander them
for the sake of “comedy.” Please par­don
me, reader, if I ask if they would
themselves be amused when someone
called them “honky slave holders.”
How dare they, then, laugh at what
one oppressed group holds dear?
Another comedian pretended to be
a “gay recruiter” (obviously forgetting
that scientists have already proven
that sexual orientation is genetically
determined) and targeted various men
in the crowd to “convert.” For some
reason, this man thought he could en­tertain
us by using stereotypes hurt-iul
to gays and the gay community in
order to cause others to laugh. How­ever,
he only succeeded in bringing
down himself and his comrades. Did
they expect to find something amus­ing
in keeping alive the horrible preju­dices
which already tear at this com­munity?
And what can possibly be so amus­ing
about a woman that would cause
these sexist fools to ask one woman to
jump up and down so they could laugh
at her shaking breasts? Do they not
realize how insulting that is and how
reminiscent of the sexual violence
many women face in their daily lives?
No, they were much more interested
at laughing at everyone not in their
good ol* boys club.
Of course, the campus should not
blame Coffeehouse or Student Devel­opment
for what happened-they didn't
know the nature of the performance.
They have already written letters to
the National Association of Campus
Activities dealing with the issue. It
is not to them that I address mine and
the campus’ outrage, but to those so-called
comedians. They thought that
mocking certain groups of people
would amuse others, but they failed
to realize that they were insulting all
people and therefore could not enter­tain
us. Still, we ought to learn from
this incident and try to end what
prejudices exist on this campus.