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Post by southhampton on May 4, 2005 8:54:23 GMT -5
Our great presidents nick name on campus is Sister Margret Carnage. That should tell you all you need to know about how the student body feels about what she is doing to the university.
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Post by sireltonruddock on May 4, 2005 13:34:57 GMT -5
Actually, it's "Sister Margaret's Carnage". The carnage she has brought to campus (mainly stemming from the loss of the beer truck and threats to ban Spring Weekend) is what gave birth to the nickname. We aren't Houghton College, and it's ok to have a few drinks here and there.
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Post by bonagoose on May 4, 2005 14:12:01 GMT -5
Couple points to make.
Frankly, I've been unimpressed with the character of the recent student body. Coming from my hometown the students from my high school that get into Bonaventure and attend there are not the sharpest tools in the shed and aren't the types of citizens I want getting the same degree as me. Attending Saint Bonaventure was a great blessing for me, it's unfortunate how some choose to spend their college years and give Bonaventure a bad name. Is Sister Margaret wrong? No, what's wrong with a little restraint at Catholic/Franciscan private university?
As far as Fro comparing SBU to UB, that is wrong and ridiculous. They are completely different schools. UB is a research university with an unlimited bankroll whose press is limited to the Buffalo News (the worse newspaper for decent journalism in the country IMO). SBU is a small liberal arts private university with fiscal problems and string of recent negative events. Frankly, JVBK and his posse are at the root of the fiscal problems and the negative events.
Interested to hear everyone's thoughts?
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Post by sjb2k1 on May 4, 2005 21:25:04 GMT -5
thanks for all your input on my column. four years at SBU and from my submission, you wouldn't know i liked it here, would you? i did, a lot, but after three years of dedication to the BV, a girl can get kind of jaded. the administrators don't respect BV staff, and the students complain about what they read but never write in to change content.
to clarify a few things: i dont know where fox got that copy of my column but it is not the final one that ran. i changed some of the wording before deadline. as i said, BVers get disillusioned with this place after awhile. every week we get stiff armed on even the silliest stories. for example, brenda snow deferred comment for seven weeks on a story about a Subway restaurant going into the skeller. so when solan tells us he reported a rape but the state police and every other police in the area say he didn't, or brenda snow says gas and heat bills haven't contributed to tuition hikes in the past four years but two years ago she said they did factor in to that year's raise...perhaps some of you can see how these types of incidents, repeated over a period of years, will frustrate a person and maybe cause her to write a not so happy, my time here was all roses and cake and fun, kind of column.
if you want to read something fluffy, read the columns from the two weeks prior to the week mine ran. they'll tell you all the sappy stuff you want to hear.
to the column itself: bravo to those who got the sarcasm. i dont really think this place should put up a gate. a moat would do a much better job. ~i always found it funny that everyone says "good journey" blah blah, when bona venture means good luck/fortune.
~yes i chose to come here, but i did not choose the 10.5 percent tuition hike that next year's bonnies will pay, for no good reason as dictated by brenda snow. that won't affect me, but i think that remaining students should question it. also, most alumni haven't had to deal with clare college. the credits from those classes won't transfer hardly anywhere, so you're kind of stuck with this place if you come to dislike many of its policies.
~i didn't like living through the scandal. being here at ground zero was not pleasant. this school has rebounded well, but from a student's point of view, if there was even a small chance of academics and althletics being in the same sentence again, it was too much. too fishy for me that this academic policy was tested by a student athlete, too close to the horrors of 2003.
~for my stance on domestic violence, please see the column i wrote a few weeks ago. summary: domestic violence is a horrible thing. i watched it happen.
~the procter refers to procter and gamble. the university's commercial says the company's name is proctor and gamble.
~as for my friend, yes, it is ultimately her responsibility for knowing her GPA, but the guy never told her not to bother with her project. none of the people who were supposed to advise her did so. and what you dont know is that her parents are giving her the same sh*t as some of the people on this board. too much time at the mountain, not enough time with her bio book. but the mountain needs just as much student support as the hapless basketball team, and if it weren't for people like my friend, the mountain wouldn't exist as it does today. let's face it, a majority of bona kids are far happier with a bottle than with a bible.
~"get a life worth sharing" insults you whether you know it or not. it implies that your life is not worth anything unless you attend this school. like i said, my life was fine before i attended SBU. and my friends who go to other schools seem like well-rounded people to me. but i'm just the petty ingrate whiner who doesn't know how good she has it. one of the people who complains far more than she acts (more sarcasm!!), though i consider running the BV a huge act.
i know nobody's ever going to agree 100 percent of the time with what i have to say. but i thought before people condemned me (for one reason or another), i'd put in my other two cents.
and to the person who posted about bona kids not being the sharpest tools in the shed, i agree. they want the BV to have more national content, when they have three free newspapers with just that sitting right in front of them. and doing the puzzles could help a few of them sound a bit smarter in conversation than "man, he puked all over himself last night." (a snippet i heard last week going from plassmann to the RC)
steph
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Post by drive97 on May 4, 2005 22:05:38 GMT -5
I think Steph has taken some undue criticism for her column. I applaud her for having the guts to break the mold and write a piece that wasn't pure fluff. Bonas is still a great place, but I would be willing to bet its not the same school most of the alumni remember. The problems here run deep, and I've seen it fail at a frightening rate the past year. From an administration that threatens to persecute its own faculty to an admissions process that seems to allow anyone that has the cash to enroll (some people I know for a fact that barely could graduate from high school) to the culture of saying "its okay to get completely inebriated to the point of passing out and needing a trip to the ER four or five nights a week" there are serious problems here. They run much deeper than having to walk a few hundred yards from your car to class. Somewhere along the way the values of St. Francis have been neglected. The all-mighty dollar has taken its place. I'm not here to bash Bonaventure. There are many things I love about SBU, and it holds a special place in my heart. That's why I hate to see it go down hill. Perhaps one good thing will come out of the bad press, maybe someone will step up to the plate and realize something needs to change before this great university becomes just another school.
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Post by wgt on May 4, 2005 23:22:00 GMT -5
Steph, I commend you & all the BV staff for all your hard work. You make clear you feel unappreciated. I’m sure you are well aware of so many Bona students that commit their time & efforts to so many good works with little recognition: Bona Buddies, Students for the Mountain, Warming House, to just name a few. Sounds like you are not only disenchanted with the administration but with many of your fellow students. Dealing with the basketball scandal was indeed painful for many on & off the campus & tragically a factor in Bill Swan’s suicide. However, I do find your comment “…being here at ground zero…” far more troubling then your criticism of the Bona “Get a Life Worth Living.” Any comparison of the Bona campus with “ground zero” is so terribly inappropriate & insensitive to those whose lives were lost & their loved ones. All the best to you & all members of the class of 2005 even those who overindulged.
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Post by FriendsofAN44 on May 5, 2005 4:48:36 GMT -5
Good reply Steph. As for where I got your article that I copied and pasted, it was in the online version of the paper (http://www.sbu.edu/go/student-services/student-activities/the-bona-venture/opinion/opinion-page-2/index.htm)
Didn't see the print version - does it normally differ from the online version ?
I would love to go back to old issues of the BV online but they don't offer that option; just the current issue is available to read.
Thanks for your input, congrats on the diploma, and "Bona Venture" !!
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geo
Freshman Member
Posts: 59
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Post by geo on May 5, 2005 7:35:16 GMT -5
To Steph,
I, for one, wasn't interested in reading "fluff". I would have read with great interest an article addressing the serious concerns you have upon leaving SBU. The problem is, your article was heavily laced with "fluff" and didn't adequately separate and/or describe the more serious concerns that you were apparently attempting to bring forth. I'm willing to bet that your journalism professor would tell you that the structure and presentation of ideas needed a lot more work.
I also agree that your ground zero comment was highly inappropriate. Perhaps you've forgotten that Father Mike was victim #1 on 9/11/2001.
Good luck to you as you move on. Congratulations on graduating from a great university.
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Post by Phxfan on May 5, 2005 8:40:28 GMT -5
Not to quibble over minor details, but I am not sure she was using ground zero in a 9/11 context, and therefore was not being insensitive as you have suggested. Ground zero was a part of our lexicon long before 9/11, and all though it has been co-opted to some degree by that horrible fall day, that doesn't mean that every ground zero reference is related to Osama bin Laden. If she was referencing NYC, I am guessing she would have capitalized or quoted ground zero, as most now do, to signify a specific place. Instead she left it in lower case letters, to note a more generic application. I might be wrong...I don't have a journalism degree...
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Post by Ladderman on May 5, 2005 9:34:11 GMT -5
Really, Phantom? I had no idea you were an aspiring journalist.
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Post by West End Stench on May 5, 2005 9:43:39 GMT -5
This is the biggest beating of a dead horse i've ever seen in my life! (The Secretariat of dead horses!) I can't believe all of the people getting worked up about an opinion piece in the BV!
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Post by wgt on May 5, 2005 17:38:48 GMT -5
I don’t have a journalism degree either “Phyxfar” but I don’t believe you need one to notice the lack of caps throughout her post, as pointed out by Phantom. Therefore, I don’t buy your explanation, in her behalf, that she probably didn’t use the phrase “ground zero” in connection to 9/11. Of course only Steph knows for sure. However, if she is a jounalism major she should certainly be aware of & sensitive to reactions to that particular phrase. Whether it is due to ignorance or lack of sensitivity it is an extremely poor comparison at best to compare the Bona campus to “ground zero.” If Steph is a journalism, major I wish her all the best in the pursuit of her career. Hopefully she has already secured a position with the media. If not I wonder if she would confidently submit her final article for the BV in her portfolio as a sample of her finest writing.
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Post by sjb2k1 on May 6, 2005 21:07:58 GMT -5
i may be crude at times, but i'm not completely insensitive. no, i haven't forgotten that mychal judge was victim number 1. i was NOT comparing sept. 11 and st. bona by using the very common phrase "ground zero". and when i post on message boards, i tend not to use capital letters. it's easier for me to type that way. it's too bad the discussion has gone this far off track.
i am a journalism major, and no, i don't plan on using that column as a clip. i have plenty already. and to those who think i'm a coward, i don't consider it cowardly to have written it for the last issue. many schools have stricter versions of what can be considered free speech, and i still don't have my diploma in hand. i had a lot to say and only 600 words to say it in (and i still went to 800). so i apologize to those who felt i wrote fluff and didn't go in depth. to do so would have required a separate column for pretty much every point. and that's exactly what my journalism professors would have said: next time, break it down into separate columns.
fox, yes, sometimes the print copy does differ from the online. mine did because i edited it again on the page before it went to print. and for the record, i hated the headline on that column. it wasn't about good riddance, it was about saying some of the things that need to be said.
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Post by sneakers on May 9, 2005 6:24:52 GMT -5
Give it a rest. It was a poorly written list of whining complaints. You're no hero for writing it. To infer that you won't get your degree for it is a bit dramatic, don't you think?
Good luck to you in the future. I hope you are able to look back at your four years more positively at some point.
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O2level
Sophomore Member
Posts: 219
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Post by O2level on May 9, 2005 7:48:47 GMT -5
Might I suggest that all of you stay at a Holiday Inn Express tonight? ?
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