The Beacon - Student Newspaper of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, Mass. -
Volume 73, Issue 10 www.theonlinebeacon.com Thursday, April 14, 2011
College works to fix cell service By Edward McCormick Staff Writer
MCLA officials are in negotiations with two major cell phone providers in an attempt to improve service on the campus. Mark Berman the Chief Information Officer for the College has met with representatives from AT&T and Verizon to explore options. “We’re interested in having them come to the table and tell us how soon,” Vice President of Administration and Finance Jim Stakenas said. His office oversees the process. “We would really like to do it as soon as practicable. We hope we have a solution and we hope to get them to the table and finish this up.” “We recognize that our school population uses cell phones. We also recognize that we’re in a blind spot to AT&T and Verizon cell services,” Stakenas said. He has been working on the issue for ten years trying to find a cost effective solution that is beneficial to students. “We almost feel like it’s a requirement to improve that service because cell phones are used for e-mail, connectivity, text messaging … and you need a signal to do that.” “The closest tower now is on top of Florida Mountain,” said Berman. Cell phone signals around
campus are blocked by a hill according to Berman. This phenomenon is called topographic shading. The next closest tower is in Adams. “What signal we do get here comes from that tower, but the closer you get to [Florida Mountain] the less good the signal is,” “I remember cell phone reception being total hell before I moved off campus,” said senior Niall Quinn, an English major. “The area along Church Street, from Pleasant St. to Bradley is problematic,” North Adams Mayor Richard Alcombright said. Cell phone reception affects the city as well as the campus. Local businesses on Ashland Street also have poor reception. Mayor Alcombright noted that 911 services could be affected. “I would complement the college on any attempt to improve cell phone service in the city. City Hall would be more than happy to help.” It is not known yet if improvements at the College would benefit the city. “With Verizon we think they are talking about actually putting external antennae on Berkshire Towers and the Campus Center, and that might have a benefit for the surrounding neighborhood,” said Berman. AT&T is exploring other options. “They are talking primarily about a distributing antennae system, which provides
Yorick’s ‘Taming’ premiers tonight By Laura Field Staff Writer
Photo by Cara Sheedy/Beacon staff
Peter Prange tries to get cell service in the Townhouse complex. a signal inside the building; it either cell phone towers or the would bleed out a little bit but not distributing antennae system on much.” campus buildings. Placing a tower on top of resi“The classroom buildings are dence buildings poses a key prob- owned by the Commonwealth of lem. Massachusetts, and the residence “One of the things a cell provid- halls are owned by the Massaer would want is 24 hour access chusetts State College Building and we have to figure out how Authority,” said Stakenas. Final to safely provide that, which is a approval rests in the two bureaugreater challenge in a residence cracies’ hands. “We have informahall than in a classroom building,” tion out to them to ensure that Stakenas said. “Residence halls are very secure what we install is within their paand the only people in there are rameters.” “I have been working on this for students or people with very specific clearance to be in there,” said ten years, the solution has to be beneficial to us and the students Berman. “We’re not excited about it going and it has to be cost effective,” said on the roof of a residence hall for Stakenas. Representatives for Verizon and that reason,” said Stakenas. Besides security, there are other AT&T could not be reached for issues involving the placement of this article.
Lanzoni reflects on Japan By Ed Damon
Managing Editor
Photo by Mark Burridge/Beacon staff
Aya Lanzoni has relatives in Japan.
For Aya Lanzoni, the disaster in Japan hit close to home. The MCLA sophomore has several family members from her mother’s side in Japan. Her grandmother, aunt, uncle and baby cousin all live about half an hour away from Tokyo, she said. Her grandfather lives in a nursing home about an hour away from Tokyo. “I heard about the tsunami (from) my stepdad, who called me really early in the morning,” she said. “That day, I really just went through the motions. I watched the news, and actually got mad the news,” she said. Lanzoni said TV news described images of the tsunami as ‘incredible’ and ‘fantastic,’ which she thought was poor choice of wording. To Lanzoni and her mother’s relief, none of her family members were hurt. “She was shaken up about it,” she said of her mother, who was born in Japan and moved to the U.S. at in her early twenties. “For the first few weeks we couldn’t get in contact with anyone. When we finally did, we couldn’t get in contact with my grandfather because the nursing home he was in didn’t have electricity.” Lanzoni said though there’s a language barrier between her and her mother’s family – neither speaks the other’s language very well – the family is still close.
“My mother’s fluent in Japanese and speaks to them for me,” she said. “She tells me what they want to know about me, and occasionally we’ll talk over the phone.” Overall, she said, her mother handled it the best she could. The hardest part was not being able to control anything. Now, her mother and stepfather are working to help with the Japan relief. Her mother’s best friend since junior high school owns a rice farm, she said. “For the week, one person gets one small bowl of rice, which isn’t a lot at all,” she said. Lanzoni said it’s great that different groups on the MCLA campus are helping out with Japan relief, too. “Not knowing anything is kind of scary,” she said. “Especially when it’s something you don’t have control over.” Lanzoni, an English major who is seriously considering adding a journalism concentration, dreams of writing for “Alternative Press” magazine. “It’s a music magazine for alternative genre music, as well as hardcore, metal and punk,” she said. Lanzoni said she’s been working with her friend Shaniqua Choice to put together a talent show on the MCLA campus, with proceeds going to help the tsunami relief. “We’re collecting any donations,” Lanzoni said. Money, clothing and non-perishable food will be collected. The Dance for Japan! talent show for tsunami relief is tonight, Thursday April 13 at 7p.m. in Sullivan Lounge.
A battle-of-the-sexes comedy is coming to MCLA tonight, Shakespearean-style. Yorick, MCLA’s Shakespeare club, will be putting on the 500-year-old production “The Taming of the Shrew”. The performance is in Venable Theatre tonight, Friday night and Saturday night at 8 p.m. Admission is free. “I expect the audience to really enjoy themselves because it’s a farce,” says director and costume designer Mary Marcil. “It’s so funny… You get some comedy, some slapstick and you get all these different things the people will enjoy.” The plot revolves around a woman named Katharina who is undesirable for marriage because of her headstrong and quick-witted manner. Alternatively, three men long to marry her younger and more amiable sister Bianca. Their mother does not allow the latter to marry unless the older daughter has a husband so some of Bianca’s suitors find a man to tame “the shrew,” thus the title of the play. If the story sounds familiar, the movie “Ten Things I Hate About You” was based on “Taming of the Shrew”.
TAMING continued on Page 10 Inside the Beacon: Pg. 3 Hiroshima surviror speaks at MCLA Pg. 10 An interview with local Slam poet Phoenix Pg. MCLA places fourth in golf tournament.