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COMMENTARY

The Norwich Guidon
April 8, 2004

Dear Editor:

I wanted to take this time and say I, along with many others, am awfully appreciative of the new banner web program computer services has added to our CLiC accounts. With this new program, it has made something much more convenient and easier for us, as students, to check our grades, financial status, and review our schedules, just to name a few things that banner web can do.

In my own experience, I have used the banner web on many occasions: not feeling like waiting for my grades to come in the mail as late as a couple days after New Years, I could just go on the computer before Christmas and see what my grades were. Another great thing is, it shows our unofficial transcript; that way, we, as students, do not have to meet with our advisors; we have what we have taken right in front of us, and then we know exactly what we have and need to take. Also, while making a resume, or need to find your GPA for any reason, you can simply log on and find exactly what your GPA is.

This was long in waiting for some people, for they knew of programs such as this at other schools; I have known several friends who had this benefit since freshman year (I am a senior now). Again, I just wanted to let people know that this new program is appreciated by many students.

Daryl Buttrick

Dear Editor:

The reason that I am writing you this letter is to express my dissatisfaction with the current arrangement involving the maximum amount of credits that a student can enroll for. I strongly feel that if we are paying almost $27,000 a year to attend Norwich University as full-time students, we should be able to take as many classes (and therefore as many credits) as we can fit into our daily schedule. I do not think it is reasonable for the university to expect the students to pay more money in order to take a full load.

Many students would like to fit 18 to 21 credits' worth of classes into their schedule. However, I believe they are required to pay an additional $500 for each class exceeding 18 credits. I am currently a full-time Junior who is taking 18 credits, and I am finished with classes before noon four days a week, and once a week I have one afternoon class. Therefore, I feel that I have the room in my schedule to add another class and not be too stressed out. However, I do not think my parents will be willing to let me take another class, because it will cost more. As a resolution to this problem, I suggest that each student be allowed to take 19 credits every semester, and if there is a semester that the student takes fewer than 19 credits, I think they should be allowed to take more then 19 credits the next semester in order to compensate for the semester. This is not something that is expectable, I would also like to suggest that there should be one semester in which students are allowed to exceed the 18 credit maximum in order to compensate for the common occurrence of changing majors.

John Higgins

Dear Editor:

I am in the corps, and every time it rains, our uniforms smell pretty bad. When we get wet, the starch stinks; the wool stinks; everything just stinks. It’s almost as if our uniforms hold in the stench. It seems to me that the uniforms not only hold in our own smells, but pick up other smells, as well. How can we fix this? Is there a way to make these uniforms not smell so bad? If not, is there a possibility of getting some new uniform items in the future? I’m guessing that new uniform items would be expensive and impractical, but it's just a thought.

Justin Fitzgerald

Dear Editor:

Why is it that everyone on campus with a car seems to be ticketed, somehow? We already don't have enough parking for all the people with cars, and the parking we do have is terrible. There is no need to ticket people for ridiculous problems. The first thing this university should look into is correcting the parking problem; this would solve almost all the "improper parking." Why do we not use all the money charged from tickets over the past few years and make a new parking lot? Maybe we could do something crazy and put a parking garage up; that would double and maybe even triple the parking capacity. The second thing we need to do is stop giving people tickets for stupid reasons. I understand some things can't be overlooked: if a car is parked upside-down in a tree covered in snow, then it should probably get a ticket. But if people improvise, don't park inside "yellow lines", as long as it is not in the way, let it go, man. The last thing that bothers me about a parking ticket rampage is the strength it is enforced. I have seen more parking leniency in downtown Orlando. I have seen cars in our lot with three and four tickets on one car. We are college students; some of these people park their cars on Sunday and don't even go look at it, again, until Friday. Our security piles tickets on cars every day; if the poor person does not know they have a ticket, how are they supposed to move it? This leads to mass towing projects. The last time I saw a tow truck in the parking lot, there were 22 cars marked to be towed. I can only imagine what it is like to go for a drive and find your car no longer there. We really need to re-evaluate our policy on parking or do something about our award-winning parking lot.

David Armeson

Dear Editor:

It’s been griped about on six million different occasions and in about 4 million different ways. Compromises have been attempted and some even agreed on, but the students, the people it affects the most, still hate the attendance policy at this school. Why do we really need one? By college, most would think that students are responsible enough to go to class when they're supposed to; they shouldn't be required to because of some policy; if the work gets done and the grades are good without actually having the student going to class all the time, who really cares? If the material is understood and learned, then is it really important how that happens? The policy isn't really doing anything, anyways; the people that want to skip class will skip class regardless of what the school says. Tightening up the pink slip policy at the infirmary hasn't increased classroom attendance like it was supposed to; it's just ticked off people who have a head cold and would rather stay in bed and sleep it off than spread it to all their professors and peers. If the illness isn't "debilitating" then it's just an unexcused cut rather than a medically excused one. I find it almost insulting that a rule is required to make students go to class; if we're paying to go here, shouldn't we be able to make the call on whether going to class every day is necessary for us as individual students?

Kate Drummey

The Norwich Guidon is a twice-monthly student newspaper distributed at Norwich University. It provides laboratory experience for students in the Communications program. Claims asserted by letter writers, editorials and other articles do not represent the positions of Norwich University. The Norwich Guidon welcomes signed letters to the editor. They should be no longer than 300 words. Unsigned letters will not be printed, but names may be withheld upon worthy request. All letters are subject to editing for length and good taste. Mailing address: The Norwich Guidon, Communications Center, Norwich University, Northfield, VT 056632. www.norwich.edu/guidon. If you have any questions or comments about the paper, please contact Professor Ken Bush at kbush@norwich.edu.