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Charger Bulletin The official student newspaper of the University of New Haven since 1938. Volume 94, Issue 11 | November 28, 2012
Therapy Dog for Finals
CAMPUS Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is the first play put on by UNH’s theater program this year. The cast puts on a thrilling performance filled with history, scandal and plot twists galore. SEE PAGE 4
Deepher Dude Delivers
PHOTO PROVIDED BY DPHIE
LOCAL In New Haven, one homeless shelter is encouraging local churches to lend a hand to those who are poor and disadvantaged. SEE PAGE 6
SPORTS The UNH women’s volleyball team won its third Northeast-10 Conference Championship, completing their fifth consecutive, unbeaten NE-10 season at 15-0. SEE PAGE 13
ENTERTAINMENT Aerosmith is back with a brand new album, and Entertainment Editor Katerina Sperl shares her thoughts on this “music from another dimension.” SEE PAGE 15
OPINION Matrix strikes again. Could a rented server during course selection weeks put an end to students’ registration woes? SEE PAGE 9
Are the states about to secede from the Union? Ross Weiner weighs in on the potential of this scenario.
SEE PAGE 9
Text message your news tips and comments to The Charger Bulletin! 1 (270) UNH-NEWS
Ladies” and “A Whole New World” from Disney’s Aladdin. –––––––––––––––––––––––––– One contestant channeled his inner Danny Zuko in a Greaseinspired performance, while another got the entire audience The German Club filled to singing with a rendition of the capacity on Thursday, Nov. 15, famous “Jingle Bell Rock” as Delta Phi Epsilon Sorority routine seen in Mean Girls. hosted their 6th Annual DeepThe swimsuit round had the her Dude to raise money and guys show off their best beach awareness for cystic fibrosis. wear. Outfits ranged everywhere Deepher Dude is an annual from lifeguard attire to bikinis. event put on by Delta Phi EpContestants were scored by silon in which students put on three judges on a scale of one a show featuring male contesto five, one being the worst and tants. The winner becomes the five being the best. This year’s year’s Deepher Dude. judges included Brandie Yerzak, This year, the nine male Amanda Fusco and Scott Kazar. contestants consisted of Steve Clout, Matt Curran, Tim Curtin, Upon entering the German Club, each person was given Joey Driscoll, Evan Jendrasko, a raffle ticket; gift cards along AJ Nelson II, Alex Perez and with other prizes were awarded Billy Sheehan. The dudes competed in five rounds: manly, throughout the night. Contestants were then asked talent, most creative, DPhiE questions on DPhiE history and inspired, and swimsuit. Some cystic fibrosis, which is one of sang songs for their talent, the sorority’s philanthropies. while others danced along to Cystic fibrosis affects approximusic like Beyonce’s “Single By LIANA TEIXEIRA ASSISTANT EDITOR
mately 30,000 children and adults in the United States. It is a disease that causes mucus build-up in the lungs, digestive tract, as well as other areas. It is a life-threatening disorder that one of UNH’s DPhiE sisters suffers from. All money raised from Deepher Dude 2012 is donated to help find a cure and the spread awareness about the disease. The night concluded with an announcement of winners. The “Crowd Favorite” was Stephen Clout and “Most Dedicated” went to Alex Perez. Matt Curan was awarded as the contestant who raised the most money for the event, a total of $200. Third place went to Billy Sheehan and the runner up was Evan Jendrasko. AJ Nelson II won first place, and was crowned this year’s Deepher Dude. The event proved to be a huge success, and Delta Phi Epsilon raised a grand total of $1,400 for their philanthropy.
A Message from President Kaplan Academic and Administrative Program Prioritization Initiative Dear Campus Community, The University of New Haven has reached a major crossroads in its history. In recent years, the University has thrived by growing student enrollment, adding a number of new academic programs, raising its academic profile, and investing significantly in physical enhancements and expansions to the campus. Our financial health has never been stronger, and we have met or exceeded our operating margin goals each of the past eight years. Still, there is more to be done. As noted in our recently completed Strategic Plan, we are in need of additional science facilities, and our most prominent academic programs need additional investments to remain competitive. Overall, we must continue to strengthen our core academic programs while prioritizing new areas for investment and explore creating new majors that may be more attractive to prospective, higher-achieving students. We will require additional resources to achieve these goals, which will initially have to come from a reallocation of our current budget. This should, in turn, generate new income, which will allow us to continue to thrive. Now is the optimum time for the University to undertake a comprehensive review and assessment of all of our academic
and administrative programs to ensure that we are strategic in moving forward and to help us determine for which programs we want to allocate additional funding, for which ones we want to retain funding at the current level, and for which ones we want to reduce funding or phase out. We have built our current financial health through effective planning and prudent resource management. We must continue to plan for our future and intensify these efforts in the context of an uncertain global economic outlook. With the objective of becoming an even better institution, I would like to lead us through a comprehensive, long-term budget reallocation process to help secure our institution’s future. At the end of this process, which will take approximately nine months, every academic and administrative program currently offered by UNH will be examined to assess its contributions to our overall success in comparison with other programs. Our approach to this effort will be modeled on the process in Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services by Robert C. Dickeson, but it will be adapted to meet our specific needs. It will begin formally in the next few weeks, include a campus forum to solicit input on initial findings, and conclude with the submission of a report of recommendations to the
senior administration and the Board of Governors. This is not intended to be a cost-cutting exercise. Rather, over a multi-year period, we intend to shift resources away from programs that are no longer adequately contributing to our success so that we can make additional investments in programs that are performing exceptionally well. This effort will be carried out by a broadly representative and diverse group of stakeholders from across the University. Two task forces will be created: one to examine academic programs and another to examine administrative programs. The academic task force will be staffed by faculty and academic administrators. The administrative task force will be staffed by administrators, faculty and staff. Student input will also be sought throughout the process. Although we will seek to ensure that the task force participants bring perspectives from all sectors of the institution, it is critically important that everyone recognize they will not be representing any individual unit or constituency. Instead, they will be asked to adopt a “trustee mentality.” In other words, though they bring knowledge and experience shaped and informed by involvement in their unit or constituency, they must adopt a broad institutional See KAPLAN page 6
PROVIDED BY DR. MELISSA WHITSON
By ISAAK KIFLE
COPY EDITOR/STAFF WRITER
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It is almost that time of the year again. No, not the holiday season; while that may be coming soon as well, there is one important thing standing in the way: finals. Final exams are approaching at the speed of a freight train, and soon everyone will be moving into the library. Every semester, final exams bring with them a lot of stress and it is easy to become overwhelmed by it all. The Marvin K. Peterson Library, which began operating on a 24-hour schedule in October, is always looking for more ways to better serve the student body. The latest step in that direction has come in the form of a therapy dog. A therapy dog is a dog that is trained and certified to provide comfort to people in various public settings, including schools and hospitals. For example, therapy dogs are used with early elementary school students, where the students will practice reading to the dog to increase their reading confidence. Yale University and the University of Connecticut have variants of this where therapy dogs are used during finals to relieve student stress, and now UNH is following suit. Dr. Melissa Whitson, Assistant Professor of Psychology at UNH, is part of a certified therapy dog team along with her dog Fenway. Dr. Whitson has been working with Hanko Dobi, University Librarian, to obtain approval to bring Fenway to campus and arrange times for him to meet with students. Fenway will be in the Marvin K. Peterson Library on Tuesday, Dec. 11, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m, Wednesday, Dec. 12, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., and Friday, Dec. 14, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Students will be able to sign up for a block of time, roughly 15 minutes, where they can pet, cuddle or play with Fenway, or walk him around. Fenway is a six-year-old Bichon Frise/Poodle mix and is hypoallergenic. Lastly, as he has gone through a rigorous certification process by the American Kennel Club and Delta Society; rest assured that he will not bite.