By Tealy Dippel staff reporter TCU students provide more than 50,000 hours of community service each year, but one student has been working for over a year with administrators and faculty members to implement a new program that would couple academic course work with community outreach. Ben Wilkinson, a senior premed/business major went to Larry Adams, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, in Fall 1998 to gain university support for service learning - an experience-based learning program currently used by hundreds of American colleges and universities. Wilkinson said he first became familiar with service learning after attending a leadership exchange at the Universidad de Las Américas, TCU's sister school in Puebla, Mexico, where students have a graduation requirement to fulfill 480 hours of service. Wilkinson said he researched the program, went to Adams with the information and they later formed a committee consisting of eight members, including Wilkinson and Adams. The committee was designed to help structure a proposal and concept for service learning. Wilkinson said service learning is different from other community service in that students go out to the community and come back and share their experiences with class members and faculty. "It's a lot more powerful than discussing what you read in a book the night before," he said. The program would be something for faculty and students to add to their classes to enhance them, Wilkinson said. He would like students to have the option of taking classes that offer service learning, but not require it. Adams, who is chairman of the committee, said the program would permit students to gain practical experience on a topic and would rather it be reading, writing or working in a homeless shelter. He said it would give students both perspectives on learning. "I think a service experience in the community coupled with an academic project does indeed make for service learning," Adams said. Richard Enos, a professor of English and member of the committee, said it would give students a valuable perspective when they leave TCU. "I think the notion of having service learning at TCU is very compatible with TCU's philosophy of caring for others in the community," Enos said. Don Mills, vice chancellor for student affairs, said community service is a valuable experience. "Service will keep our country going and service learning is going to provide one of our missions to go out and to serve others," Mills said. Wilkinson will present a concept paper endorsed by the committee to the Commission for the Future of TCU at its first meeting Nov. 17 to try to gain university support. Service learning has already won the support of the House. Resolution 99-10, a plan to support the concept of service learning and recommend that the university actively investigate starting a service learning program, was approved by House members Oct. 26. Chelsea Hudson, a freshman political science/prelaw major and Colby Hall representative, co-authored the resolution with Wilkinson. Hudson said she thinks the plan is an excellent way to improve community on campus. "Chancellor Ferrari wants to make TCU a tier-one school in the next 10 years and service learning is an excellent way to do that," Hudson said. "If TCU wants to be a Harvard or a Yale, we need to play like they play." Jason Cordova, a junior advertising/public relations major and chairman of the Elections and Regulations Committee, said service learning is a good idea because it benefits the community. "In some ways TCU is isolated from Fort Worth and service learning is a great way for us to reach out to the surrounding community," Cordova said. Wilkinson said some classes at TCU already participate in service projects, but the overall goal of his proposal is to have a center that organizes both the student side and the community-relations side of service learning. "We have so many resources at TCU in terms of student potential, so we could really reach out to the community," he said, adding that service learning is a topic that will be a part of the Faculty Senate's agenda in December.
Tealy Dippel
By Lori Eshelman staff reporter FrogNet has transformed registration into an entirely electronic process, and some faculty members and students are questioning how the change has affected advising. Registrar Patrick Miller said the biggest change to the advising process is that it is no longer required, but that does not mean it is not expected. "(Advising) is certainly encouraged, and I think faculty still want to be involved in the process," he said. But some faculty members such as Stephen Powell, an assistant professor of English, said their ability to advise students has been hampered because they no longer receive any printed materials from the Registrar's Office, such as copies of student transcripts. "I certainly am not able to do advising without some knowledge of the student's background," Powell said. Miller said students and advisers can use FrogNet to view student class schedules from previous semesters, but each semester has to be accessed separately. A complete transcript is not available. David Whillock, interim dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, said professors will have to tack 15 to 20 minutes onto each session to access the information on the Internet. But Miller said this should not affect the length of advising sessions because students can print out their FrogNet information before going to their advisors. Liz Aslin, a junior psychology major, said the changes have made advising and registration harder, not easier, for students. "I don't really even know what the new process is because no one is getting any printed information any more," she said. "And now we have to spend all that time looking up stuff, and our advisers don't have anything." Miller said the Registrar's Office notified students of the changes several times, and all students should have received an e-mail telling them to check FrogNet for their registration time. But several students, such as sophomore Sarah Peacock, said they have not received any information via e-mail from the Registrar's Office. Miller could not explain why some students did not receive the e-mail, but said it will be redistributed if students did not get it. Kimberly See, director of the Neeley Student Resource Center, said part of the problem is that many students do not check their TCU e-mail accounts. "(FrogNet) is a great system and all the information is there," she said. "Students are just going to have to be aware of the changes, then get on (FrogNet) and play around until they figure this stuff out." Accounting professor Donald Nichols said he anticipates fewer students will see their advisers, which will not be a problem for students who know what courses or prerequisites they need. "My concern is with the students who don't know the prerequisites and make errors when registering," he said. "It will be a mess if the semester starts and there are all these students enrolled in courses they are not eligible to be in." Miller said prerequisite checking is one of two major functions that will be added to the FrogNet system within a year, and it will enable the system to deny students enrollment in a class if the prerequisites have not been met. Currently, only selected courses from each college are set up to do this. The other addition to FrogNet will be an advising academic audit plan, which would allow students to compare their course work to the courses necessary for their degree plan, Miller said. "Our hope is to de-emphasize the technical aspect of class selection and encourage (advising) to be more of a mentoring session," Miller said. "I'm hoping these changes are giving students better tools to do that."
Lori Eshelman
By Carey Hix staff reporter TCU Theater will present David Edgar's "Pentecost," a dramatic portrayal of human nature that borders on tragedy, beginning today and running through the weekend. The play, directed by George Brown, an associate professor of theater, will give the audience a glimpse into the dark side of human beings that is uncovered when people are intolerant of others' beliefs and practices and how that intolerance makes the concept of art null and void.
The play will be performed at 8 p.m. today through Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday in University Theater. Performances will also be held at 8 p.m. Nov. 18 through 20. The play is thought-provoking, said Nikki Gonzales, a sophomore theater/television major. "You might go in and feel one way about things, and you leave with a totally different perspective," she said. "It's a very moving show." Attending the play will involve more than simply being entertained, said Dustin Griffith, a junior theater/television major. "It's one of those plays that involves a lot of different emotions," he said. "(Attendees) will walk away with a reminder of how limited the world still is. They'll walk away reminded of how harsh the world can be." Brown said this play is important because there have been recent instances in which art has been repressed because of the conflicting views of people. For example, a play, "Angels in America" was presented by Kilgore College but county commissioners disagreed with the content of the play and pulled more than $50,000 of funding from an unrelated program at the college, he said. "We have a perfect example right down the road in Texas where art is being censored and shoved into a corner," Brown said. Cast member Rachel Morris, a junior theater major, said because the play is set in eastern Europe, it may be too easy for people to say, "That wouldn't happen here." "Although (the play) deals specifically with the effects of the Bosnian War, it is very universal in its message," she said. "It is a very intense play, but it's worth seeing. I think a lot of people will get a lot out of seeing it." For tickets, call the box office, at 257-7550. Cost is $5 for adults and $3 for children and senior citizens. Students can show their TCU IDs for free admittance.
Carey Hix
By Stephen Suffron staff reporter Originality is a key component to any good comedy act, and the men of Four Day Weekend rely on both their own and the audience's creativity to make every show different from the last. Four Day Weekend, an improvisational comedy group that takes suggestions from the audience to create comedy skits and songs, will perform two shows at 7 and 9 p.m. today in the Student Center Ballroom. Throughout its act, the group asks the audience for ideas and suggestions within the loose framework of various games and situations from which they work. For the first half of the show, the group takes verbal suggestions. During intermission, the audience is given a chance to write different subjects and short quotations they would like to see in skits. The written suggestions are selected at random. PC Homecoming co-chairwomen Jenni Jones and Lisette Gerch said they invited Four Day Weekend, whose act could be described as PG-13, partly to avoid the problems they had with last year's Homecoming comedy act, Andy Dick. Dick's appearance, which was filled with profanities and off-color humor, was characterized as a disaster by Jones and Gerch, both sophomore business majors. They expect no such problems from Four Day Weekend. "One of the very first things Four Day Weekend does when they start their act is say, 'We don't want anything off-color, we don't want anything distasteful, or we won't use it,'" Gerch said. "They're very adamant about not being too vulgar." Jones said Four Day Weekend's act, which cost $4,500 to bring to campus, should have more widespread appeal than Dick, who cost PC well over six times as much. "You can have fun without all the cussing and gross scenes," she said. "They want to make it enjoyable for everyone." Kara Martin, a junior speech communication major, has seen Four Day Weekend perform twice at the Caravan of Dreams Theater in downtown Fort Worth. She said she enjoys their show because it is so interactive. "It's not something you do on your typical night out," she said. "It's more meaningful to me than going and sitting through a movie for two hours." The group began developing its unique style in the fall of 1996, when the three original cast members David Wilk, Troy Grant and Frank Ford formed the team that would eventually become Four Day Weekend, according to information released by the group. They performed for six weeks at the Casa Mañana's Theater on the Square in February 1997, and one year later moved to the larger venue downtown. During their run at Casa Mañana, they added music director Paul Slavens and added Oliver Tull in September 1999.
Stephen Suffron |
"The entire theme of the play is that in a society
that does not respect cultural, religious, social and political differences,
there is no need for art, because art is the celebration of our humanity.
And when we have no humanity, there is no purpose in art," Brown said.| The TCU Daily Skiff © 1998, 1999 Credits |