6 The Loquitur
14, 2010
On the
Give me a
By Melanie Greenberg
ton of work
Staff Writer
to do, no time,
a filled plan-
ner and one credit?
Many students can
sympathize with me
on this one.
If a person was to
walk into the com-
munication wing
Monday nights, it
could be filled with
frenzied journalists, photographers, video
crews and radio personnel.
Actually, come in at any point dur-
ing the day and likely the wing will be
a crowded place. Many students will be
close to tears or ready to snap at the first
person who looks at them the wrong way.
One class that I have found is very time-
consuming and stressful is my radio pract-
icum course.
An hour and fifteen minutes is dedi-
cated each Monday night to learning the
ways of radio style news, laws and history.
Two hours a week are dedicated to a
radio show of our style choice. I’m not
going to lie, Sunday nights may be my fa-
vorite two hours of the week. Wait, let me
rephrase that. Sunday nights may be my
favorite required time of the week.
Once a week, I broadcast a sporting
event, on top of the events, homework and
production hours put in. I know I am not
the only student struggling to keep up.
At this point, you would probably think
I hate my major. As much as I complain
and as often as I sit and stare at my planner
wondering how in the world I will get my
work done, I do love it. Once the assign-
ment or event is over, I can breathe a sigh
of relief. And then I do it all over again.
To be in control of a show people actu-
ally listen to and actually enjoy is amaz-
ing.
I love the feeling of being accom-
The radio station is quite literally hands on from the beginning.
Perspectives
The highs and lows
radio: of a practicum
plished after broadcasting a game but it
is very hard to be dedicated to a course
which requires so much and rewards so
little. It is like asking someone to spend all
their money on clothing and never wear a
single item.
There are other courses that offer one
credit such as yoga, pilates, ballet and
modern dance. These courses require at-
tendance once a week. Compare those
hour and 15-minute courses to an hour and
15 minutes, two hours, events and a game.
Let’s look at this even closer. As a com-
munication major, we are all required to
attend a professional development course
three to four times a semester with various
guest speakers. Only two papers are asked
of us. This course is worth half a credit.
Practicum courses are meant to be like
an internship. Typically in U.S. colleges,
one credit equals two hours of study time.
However, an internship requires eight
hours of work per week per credit. Practi-
cum courses are intended to provide col-
lege students with real-life experience,
similar to an internship.
As great as real-life experience is for
preparing for the professional world, I al-
ready take 14 and a half credits and have
two jobs. When I enrolled in this class I
was not aware of the workload. I expected
two hours of work, but got nearly quadru-
ple that.
I believe the experience will be worth
it in the end. The friends I have made by
bonding through the amount of work will
be there for me until senior year and may-
be beyond.
I am ready to do the work we are given
and enjoy the opportunity I am given to
experience hands-on type courses. I am
just positive that my time and energy
wants to see more than just one credit on
my transcript.
mmg65@cabrini.edu
sarah luckert / staff photographer
By Joe Cahill People who know me
Staff Writer might call me a masoch-
ist. They might call me
a glutton for pun-
ishment; a cog in a
thankless machine
in a constant state of
change. I’ve spent
countless days,
nights and week-
ends cooped up in
the mostly window-
less, vacant halls of
the East Wing in Founders Hall, rendering
video, recording, interviewing and yes—
even screaming. I’ve torn my hair out and
yelled at computer screens. At times in my
four years at Cabrini, I’ve driven my body
to the point of physical and mental exhaus-
tion—all for classes that grant me one or
two credits each.
This is the life of a communication ma-
jor. This is the life I live and I have never
in my life been happier.
Don’t think of me as crazy, which,
granted, I very well might be. If anything,
I’m impassioned and dedicated to what
I do. Saying that my major hasn’t given
me, or anyone, anything in return for hard
work is simply asinine.
For almost three years now, I’ve been
involved with Cabrini’s radio station, 89.1
WYBF-FM “The Burn.” I started out tak-
ing the introduction course, moved through
the ranks of a DJ and general member of
the station’s staff, rose to assistant pro-
duction director and, shortly followed by
being appointed production director. I
went from creating sound bites and work-
ing with equipment behind the scenes to
where I am now, working as the station’s
music director. In that time, I have been
extremely blessed and privileged enough
to see my hard work pay off in the form of
a Philadelphia March of Dimes Achieve-
ment in Radio award and a College Broad-
casters Inc., national nomination for a
documentary I helped create, along with
fellow senior communication majors Gi-
anna Shikitino and Kerri Dougherty.
Radio is a practicum, a term often mis-
understood by many. A practicum is not
a normal class. At no point in radio have
we examined texts by Sartre or Camus to
discuss themes of existential philosophy
and literary techniques. Why would we?
We’re involved with the organization and
management of a noncommercial, FCC-
licensed radio station. Typical classes
might follow international business ethics
89.1 WYBF FM The Burn
is always playing your favortie songs
for more info and to listen
live head to wybf.com
Thursday, Oct.
or study the future tenses of verbs in for-
eign tongues. Radio, like most practicums,
is not a common class.
Practicums are more like internships as
opposed to classes. By their very nature,
they require duties outside of the class-
room and are meant as professional expe-
rience as opposed to strict academic learn-
ing. These are not by any means exclusive
to communication majors.
The Education Practicum, more com-
monly known as Student Teaching, is the
largest practicum on campus. According
to the Cabrini College Student Handbook,
students enrolled in Student Teaching
must complete 40 hours of work for fifteen
weeks, totaling 600 hours of in-class work.
This does not take into account grading,
tutoring, traffic or other obligations tied to
teaching that exist outside of the standard
required times. For this, education majors
earn a total of 12 credits. If one follows
the normal path for radio for four years,
they end up with 14 credits.
Labs and practicums are something
those who work hard at truly appreciate.
“Labs are the most worthwhile part of
courses,” Frank Bearoff, senior chemis-
try, biotechnology and molecular biology
triple-major, said. “They put theory into
terms that are more easily understood. I
tend to learn most from the labs and my
independent study has been the best part of
my education here. I’ve developed mar-
ketable skills in my field and in the end, I
will acquire career skills.”
To liken radio or any other practicum
to yoga or another throwaway one-credit
course is a bold-faced insult to the hard
work that I and others have done and con-
tinue to do here at Cabrini College. I’m
sure that if I did a sun salutation every day
for my four years of college, I would have
a more toned, svelte physique. None of
it, however, would give me professional
skills that I can use when applying to jobs
when I graduate.
Individuals who can’t handle the work
of these courses simply shouldn’t take
them. They are, as I can attest, a lot of
work. Credit-wise, the college has given
me what I need. My major and my classes
have given me so much more. If you’re a
hard worker and you dedicate yourself to
what you love, like I along with so many
others have done over the years, I promise
that perseverance will pay off more than
you can ever imagine.
jwc722@cabrini.edu
Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010 Perspectives The Loquitur 7

We can do more: being eco-friendly on campus

As the world
By Diana Campeggio
around us be-
Staff Writer
gins to adapt to
a greener attitude,
students at Cabrini
are putting a great
deal of thought into
their Ugg boots and
lacrosse games.
They seem blinded
and uncultured to
the choices they
make and how those choices are affecting
our planet. If you need proof, look into
any trashcan on campus and I bet you will
find recyclable paper and plastic bottles in
abundance.
But it comes down to more than that. I
don’t believe that students here really un-
derstand, or care, what the consequences of
their decisions are. These are choices that
we make each and every day, from what
we choose to drink to where we choose to
do our shopping.
Students at this college seem to be ig-
norant to the fact that we, as humans, are
more rapidly than ever destroying the
world in which we are living.
Cabrini prides itself in producing stu-
dents who are world citizens and are aware
of serious, problematic events, but students
here seem to lack consideration for what
their decisions are doing to the planet.
They say that Cabrini constructs a “justice
matters” curriculum but what about the
justice of the planet? Isn’t that also as im-
portant?
As a generation of young people who
have the stereotype of having little inter-
est in world events outside of their own,
why not begin learning about what we, as
students, can do to reduce our carbon foot-
print and aid in making the world a greener
place.
Students are kidding themselves when
they defend their economic state by say-
ing they unplug unused electrical cords
and turn off lights they aren’t using. That
should be second nature by now. People
need to be considering their actions and
putting a lot more thought into the deci-
sions they make.
Like I stated before, walk past any
trashcan on campus and I guarantee that
you will find paper and plastic bottles in-
side. Walk into any classroom and many
students have plastic water bottles sitting
next to them.
It is ridiculous to me that people even
buy plastic bottles of water anymore after
it has been reported that a large amount of
them sit in landfills for 10-plus years.
If you consider that more than half of
the campus drinks one bottle of
water a day, you begin to
see how this quickly
adds up in land-
fills around the
world.
G e t
an eco-
friendly,
reusable
water
bottle
and a
Brita
filter and
you are
set for life.
You save
money and
you help save
the planet. It’s a
win-win. By the time
people begin to make re-
sponsible decisions it will be too late. Then
they will be asking what they can do to re-
verse the condition of the planet. Start now
and start making a difference.
Part of this is the college’s fault. There
are many places on campus where the only
choice is a trashcan because there are not
recycling bins in sight, but students need to
make a conscious decision to make a dif-
ference and not to take the easy way out.
I also don’t think that as a campus we
understand that when you buy cheap cloth-
ing, produce or other goods they need to
be transported from those far away places
they are made. Not only are you promot-
ing non-American goods and the outsourc-
ing of jobs but a serious amount of energy
is wasted in transporting these goods to the
U.S.
By buying local foods and products,
you are not requiring the amount of energy
in transportation. In buying organic prod-
ucts, you know that no chemicals were
used and sprayed on your product, which
you would otherwise ingest.
These sound like senseless things and
nitpicking ideas. When you build them up,
they make a difference in how much
we pollute our planet.
As a college, we lack
the motivation to care
about becoming a
greener campus.
Though some
professors are
promoting
a paperless
curriculum,
many still
shovel out
packets
and packets
of papers and
don’t even try
to reuse them.
I have been in
classes where they
hand out a four-page
article and after the class
was over, 90 percent of the stu-
dents walk past the trashcan, not recy-
cle bin, and throw those four pages away.
This is a waste and does not promote envi-
ronmental consideration at any means.
It is not just the students who are to
blame here. It’s the 21st century and tech-
nology that is at our fingertips.
Schools all over the country are in-
creasing the emphasis they put into these
environmental concerns and they are leav-
ing Cabrini in the dust. I did my teaching
field experience in a private high school
that had a green house worked into their
science program and students grew fruits
and vegetables for them to take home and
enjoy.
Colleges across the country are install-
ing solar panels, green roofs and gray wa-
ter systems. There are so many things that
we could do to create a greener environ-
ment for our Cabrini students but the col-
lege seems to be putting no emphasis on
these ideas.
As a campus community, we should be
rallying for solar panels on top of cam-
pus buildings and composting food scraps
from the cafeteria.
I think that students need to wake up and
realize that they are directly contributing
to the economic problem that is destroying
our planet. They need to know that when
you throw your plastic bag or water bottle
into the trash, it sits in landfills for longer
than you could imagine. Our planet has a
limited water supply and every time you
take an hour-long shower, you are wasting
gallons of water that could be reused in toi-
lets and watering plants.
As a community, we need to under-
stand these things so that we can demand
that our campus needs to limit the amount
of resources they waste. Until the people
say they want a change, nothing will be
changed.
When it is all said and done, I don’t
think that anyone is perfect at being as
eco-friendly as possible, even myself. But
at least I feel that I understand the conse-
quences of my actions and know where
my clothes and food come from and where
they will end up when I am done with
them. If students put as much thought and
effort into making greener choices then
they did checking Facebook, then I think,
as a campus, we would be in much better
shape economically.
dcc59@cabrini.edu

The NCAA weighs in

on sickle-cell debate
By Ransom Cozzillio When student-athletes are
Staff Writer dying, shouldn’t someone
step in? Or could that precau-
tion be inherently racist? In a po-
tentially controversial but grossly
under-reported decision, the NCAA
has decided to implement a system
for testing its athletes for sickle-
cell trait. This trait, which causes
a deformation in some red blood
cells, can be dangerous when such
a person is placed under athletic and
aerobic strain. As justification, it has
been noted that eight NCAA football players have died in
the past decade as a result of sickle-cell complications on
the football field.
It would appear that this new system of testing is mere-
ly designed to protect the players and avoid liability for
the schools and the NCAA as a whole. While not officially
stated yet, students testing positive may be made ineligible
to play to avoid possible complications.
However, what may fall unnoticed is that the sickle-cell
trait is almost exclusively prevalent in African-Americans
(and those of African descent) and is virtually nonexis-
tent in American Caucasians. This fact, some would ar-
gue, makes such a precautionary test automatically loaded
against African-American athletes, and therefore racist.
After all, how can a test be fair if you already know that
only African-Americans are going to “fail?”
With a student’s athletic career on the line
isn’t this obviously racist?
No. To the casual observer or the overly-
racially sensitive, this may seem to discrim-
inate against African-American student-
athletes. But we must realize that there is a
difference between “racist” and “unfair but
justified.”
This is obvious when we can take a mct
charged word like “race” out of the equation Now that the NCAA requires testing for sickle cell, some athletes’
for a minute. Take, for example, insurance careers will stop before they really even start.
rates. On an individual level, is it “fair” that
about liability, it also shows that its callousness is color-
young males have higher car insurance rates than anyone
blind. If any athlete wants to play, sickle-cell trait or not,
else, including young females? Not really, but considering
they can.
young males get in more accidents than any other demo-
Unfortunately, this whole possible controversy really
graphic, the higher rate is certainly justified.
points back to how hypersensitive the business of race
So, is it fair that, due to testing, several African-Amer-
makes us. That is not to say that we shouldn’t think about
ican college athletes will surely be forced to stop playing
it and strive for fairness.
while no white players will? Perhaps not. But given that
But when a program that is formed as a response to
doing nothing would probably lead to more deaths, en-
young men dying on the football field comes under fire for
forced testing is certainly reasonable.
being racist, we need to examine our motives. Not every-
In fact, the NCAA, in a grand showing of its lack of al-
thing that involves race is racist. This, as it turns out, is just
truism, has actually made this testing less biased. Athletes
a plain old case of the NCAA and affiliated colleges pro-
are actually allowed to opt out of testing as long as they
tecting themselves and their interests. There are certainly
sign a waiver indemnifying the NCAA of liability.
racial battles to fight with NCAA but this isn’t it.
So while this shows that the NCAA doesn’t necessarily
care about the health of their athletes as much as it cares
rjc72@cabrini.edu