OLD GOLD&BLACK W A K E
F O R E S T
U N I V E R S I T Y
T H U R S D AY, S E P T E M B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 0
VOL. 94, NO.7
“Covers the campus like the magnolias”
Award won for cleaning standards By Caitlin Brooks | Production manager
The university was recently recognized for success in their new custodial management program, Operating System I (OS1) at the national OS1 user symposium in Portland, OR. An award for Best New Cleaning Program and Green Certification for the rookie program at Calloway as well as eight Outstanding Cleaning Worker medals for university custodians crowned the first successful year of the university’s involvement with the program. OS1 is a comprehensive, the high-performance cleaning system that focuses on retraining of employees from custodial workers to managers to empower team members and promote a safe working environment. Frank Thomas, director of custodial services, has led the program since his arrival at the university last August, though plans to switch over to a new, cohesive system were in the works even before his appointment. “I think it’s fairly well known that we’ve had some issues with cleaning,” he said. “OS1 is a better way of doing business. “As I tell my staff, ‘The train has left the station and is not coming back.’” Under the new program, custodial duties are now performed at night in academic buildings and during the day in residential buildings. Uneasiness about the continuing rash of thefts from locked offices increased as faculty and staff became Thomas aware of the nightly duties, but Thomas assures community members that their possessions are actually at less risk with the new program. Custodial workers now operate in teams led by outstanding employees. These highly trained teams specialize in one of four key areas: light-duty specialists (trash collection and dusting), vacuum specialists (floors), utility specialists (hallways and recycling) and restroom specialists. The entire system is color coded for simplicity with the added bonus that customers
MOLD LIVES HERE
By Renee Slawsky | News editor
Here is a list of things that are absolutely disgusting: rotten food, human waste, Joan Rivers, body odor and mold. Most of these things are rather abundant and can be found pretty much anywhere you go in some form or another (minus Joan Rivers). While the university does an exceptional job of keeping students away from rotten food and human waste and the students themselves do a good job of keeping their body odor under control, why is mold the only outlier here? Apparently, mold is something that is extremely hard to keep entirely under control. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), it is estimated that over 85 percent of American households are host to at least one type of mold in an amount that borders on dangerous to the residents’ health. The residence halls at the university are no different. While the statistics of mold at the university are neither cutand-dry nor are they necessarily readily available for public knowledge, there is reason to believe that the majority of campus is suffering from mold infestations along with the
rest of America. In a survey of 50 current university students, 44 out of 50 interviewees claimed they either have mold currently or have lived with it in past years. And the residences of the interviewees did not alter the number of occurrences. Residents from Davis, Johnson, North Campus Apartments, Kitchin, Luter, Poteat, Palmer and Collins alike all said that they encountered varying amounts of mold in either their rooms or bathrooms. When asked if they thought that this school was victim to more mold than the homes that they came from, 38 said yes, nine said they couldn’t tell and three said no. The subsequent question of why would they think there is more mold here than at home was answered by the majority with general confusion. Many interesting explanations were tossed out such as “people don’t shower themselves as much in college as they did in high school,” “the damp weather patterns of this area,” “magic” and “it is just gross here.” On the whole, no one could give a reason as to why the university’s residence halls seem to be considerably
See Mold, Page A3
Graphic By Ken Meyer/Old Gold & Black
University launches new and improved website University website revamped in efforts to increase accessability By Ken Meyer | Asst. news editor
Ken Meyer/Old Gold & Black
The Office of Communications and External Relations has given the home page of the university website a new face. news organizations to a list of faculty members who can speak to university specific issues from academics to race. A new page entitled Inside WFU has been created to allow members of the campus community to have their own stories posted. Open to all visitors, this page caters to faculty and staff. Associate Vice President for CER Pamela Dumas Serfes cited the potential of this page to become a new
community newspaper but warned, however, that “this site can only be as good as those post to it.” The Provost’s site has been given a new face; the page for the Office of the President office has been improved; the Career Services site sits entirely new. Dumas Serfes describes these sites as “Phase One” of an initiative to redesign the entirety community of university websites. When Dumas Serfes joined CER a little over a year ago, the website
Life | B7
INSIDE: Brieflies
A2
Police Beat
A2
Spotlight
House set to pass bill aimed at Chinese Yen The House of Representatives began debate on legislation to put pressure on China to let its currency rise faster, fanning the flames of a long-running dispute over trade and jobs. The bill, expected to be passed on Sept. 30 with heavy support from Democrats but a mixed reaction from Republicans, treats China’s exchange rate as a subsidy. That would open the door to extra duties on Chinese goods entering the United States, some of which are already subject to special levies.
Indonesia lifts tsunami warning after 7.2 quake A local tsunami alert was issued and later lifted after a magnitude 7.2 quake struck off Papua, eastern Indonesia early on Sept. 23. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported a strong 6.6 tremor followed by the stronger second quake, which hit at 2:11 a.m. on Sept. 23. An official at the Indonesian meteorological agency said there were no reports of damage or of a tsunami.
U.S. judge grants bond to man in Afghan murder case A U.S. judge agreed on Sept. 29 to release on bond one of two former contractors from the private security firm previously known as Blackwater Worldwide while they await retrial on charges they murdered two Afghans in Kabul. They were charged earlier this year with 13 counts related to the shooting deaths of the two Afghans and wounding a third at an intersection in Kabul in 2009.
Infant found outside Planned Parenthood is buried
See OS1, Page A3
The Office of Communications and Exernational Relations (CER) officially released its renewed, revamped and redesigned websites as of Sept. 29. The new websites include both new iterations of previously functioning addresses as well as entirely new addresses. Each page is designed to meet specific needs. The home page changed to meet the needs of its most frequent guests. Three blocks at the top provide a three-tiered list of links, each catering to separate needs. The first lists sites by frequent visitors; the second guides visitors to administrative needs; the third offers the most visited pages. The Window on Wake Forest page has become an entirely new news site. News.wfu.edu offers university-wide stories and allows visitors to see feeds of news catering to specific schools and departments. It also features a link entitled “For The Media” which guides outside
Outside the Bubble...
Party 101 and a Recipe for Fun
team was swamped with a growing list of requests for everything from new or changed websites to a social media site. “There were too many requests for our team to handle with our limited staff,” Dumas Serfes said. At that point, Dumas Serfes, in concert with the web team, began a conversation with Information Systems (IS), Associate Provost for Technology and IS Rich Matthews and Provost Jill Tiefenthaler about changing the university websites. IS aided the team in the creation of a new content management system which allows individual faculty members, staff members or university groups to alter their own webpages from their laptops without sending a request to CER. This content management system launched with the formal launch of these websites, and the web team will soon begin teaching individuals to use the system themselves. Tiefenthaler guided the web team to pinpoint specific websites for the web team to revamp. Tiefenthaler and the team chose websites which would help guide the university towards the furtherance of its strategic plan. Dumas Serfes explained how the work done over the past year on these
See Website, Page A6
Sports | B1 Jay Bilas comes to campus Jay Bilas offers his per-
B2
Readers are provided with a crashcourse on partying outside the fraternity basements.
The Hot List
B8
In Other News
and problems that are
Sudoku
B8
• Saturdays are for more than sleeping in | A7 • Lecture of financial crisis clears up confusions | A3
spective on the issues currently plauguing college basketball.
An infant girl found dead outside the Winston-Salem Planned Parenthood office on Sept. 11 was buried Sept. 27 at Lewisville United Methodist Church. The infant was named “Therese the Little Flower’’ by funeral organizers. Investigators are still looking for the mother of the infant, whose body was found wrapped in blanket in a blue plastic storage container outside of the Planned Parenthood office on Maplewood Avenue.
Error by state puts jobless in stressful situation The stress of unemployment has gotten a lot worse for people who are finding out that they may lose some money because of a state error. The Employment Security Commission of North Carolina made about $28 million in overpayments to jobless state residents over the last two years, the Raleigh News & Observer reported. Last week, the newspaper said, the agency began sending letters to about 38,000 people who were either overpaid or underpaid through no fault of their own.
Study said e-books may spur more kids to read The amount of time children spend reading books for enjoyment decreases as they use cell phones and other mobile technology, but e-books might just bring them back to literature, according to a report released on Sept. 28. About 40 percent of parents believed that time spent online or on mobile devices would reduce time for books or engaging in physical activities. However, the study found that technology might actually encourage a child to read. Of the kids polled in the study, 57 percent said they would be interested in reading an e-book.
Opinion | A5 “Not-so-happy birthday!” Hamlin Wade discusses the decreasing significance of birthdays for students.