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RENOVATE, page 3 ROOM, page 3 BOARD, page 3 Melissa Bates Stewart is a senior mu- sic education major who Wesleyan recently expe- rienced its first taste of Ex- treme Makeover: College Edition. On Aug. 19, one dorm bit of everything.” Originally, Goodwill wanted to do a makeover of a house with a group like Habitat for Human- ity. They switched gears Shauna Banks Shauna Banks Jonathan Resendez www.sxc.hu Rachel Peel [email protected] [email protected]
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The voice of Texas Wesleyan University students since 1917
The RamblerWesleyan sports prepare for upcoming season.Sports, page 5
WEDNESDAYSeptember 1, 2010
Vol. 93 • No. 14
www.therambler.org
Politicians need to scale back on the politics.Opinion, page 2
Goodwill redoes dorm room
Melissa [email protected]
Wesleyan recently expe-rienced its first taste of Ex-treme Makeover: College Edition.
On Aug. 19, one dorm
resident, Selena Stewart, received a makeover of her dorm room with all furnish-ings supplied by Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth, Inc.
Stewart is a senior mu-sic education major who
plans to become an el-ementary school music teacher after graduation. Stewart spends all her time at Wesleyan. In ad-dition to taking 18 hours this semester, she has a part-time job at the pool
in the SUB as a swim coach.
“Everything in my life is on campus,” Stewart said. “It’s not only my liv-ing area; it’s my study area, my personal area and my hangout area. It’s my little
bit of everything.” Originally, Goodwill
wanted to do a makeover of a house with a group like Habitat for Human-ity. They switched gears
Professor’s book outlines Muslim complexity in U.S.Rachel [email protected]
A Wesleyan professor pub-lished a new book in June that addresses the competing de-mands of American Muslims and the Islamic religious and secular laws.
After two years of research and a year of writing and editing, Wesleyan Religious Studies assistant professor Dr. Mark E. Hanshaw published his book “Muslim and Ameri-can? Straddling Islamic Law and U.S. Justice.” The aspects covered in his book include divorce and child custody in different Muslim and Is-lamic cultures in the U.S. and abroad.
“Hopefully the book will help us better understand the complex fabric of the religion in this country,” Hanshaw said. “I think the Muslim commu-nity doesn’t get as much atten-tion as other religious groups
in this country do.” Hanshaw received his doc-
torate in religious studies from Southern Methodist University in 2004, and he also received his jurist doc-torate from the University of Tennessee in 1991.
He said he has several other degrees. Though Hanshaw’s doctoral work concentrated on the Islamic tradition, he has also done a lot of research in other religious systems.
Professors of religion Dr. Ron Ballard and Dr. Jesse Sowell selected Hanshaw to take over the department of religious studies as they en-tered phased retirement in Fall 2007.
“We found out about Han-shaw when he still was in grad school,” Sowell said. “We were interested in him because he won an award for teaching in a public college. For a religious professor to win an award in a public school said a lot about
who he is.” This will be Hanshaw’s third
year at Wesleyan, and he said he was recently promoted to chair of religious studies.
Hanshaw said he prefers to keep his religious affiliation quiet because he does not want his students to come into his class with preconceived notions.
Melondy Doddy, junior psychology and comparative religions major, said she ap-preciates Hanshaw’s lack of religious bias.
“His ability to step out of his own religion and to teach about other cultures and re-ligions is one of the most in-teresting things about him,” Doddy said. “I think he is a real progressive leader at Wes-leyan, and he is one day going to put Wesleyan on the map.”
Wesleyan continues to upgrade technology with SMART boardsShauna [email protected]
As technology continues to change the way people live their daily lives, Texas Wesleyan officials are keep-ing their promises to inject it into their curriculum, giving students in many majors the opportunity to use cutting-edge devices in their classes.
Dr. Hector Quintanilla identify said the School of Business decided to pur-chase three new SMART boards for faculty to use in their classes within the Armstrong Mabee-Busi-ness Center.
This newer technology uses an interactive white board, digital ink pens, a computer and projector, allowing faculty to share examples and lecture notes with students. Students can also access entire lectures, including class notes writ-ten on the SMART board
through different software, including Blackboard, cur-rently used by some facul-ty, said associate professor of economics and finance Dr. Kalpana Pai.
“For me it’s easy to go back to materials I’ve al-ready covered. But for stu-dents I think it’s a good tool to have,” Pai said.
These three new SMART boards were purchased with restricted money do-nated to and raised by the school of business, and make up only a small frac-tion of the 21 installed across the campus, said Title III instructional tech-nologist Meghan Foster.
In 2007, AT&T donated $25,000 to the university as part of an initiative to bring technology into the classroom and use it on campus.
“As part of a project pro-posal, we basically prom-ised AT&T that we would continue that initiative,”
Quintanilla said. “We took that money and we did several things with it. We took some of that money and bought new chairs and new desks for a lot of these classrooms.”
Some of the money do-nated by AT&T was also used to purchase the first two SMART boards for the AMB in 2007. Quintanilla said each board is approxi-mately $2,000 for all the components needed, and about $1,500-$2,000 to in-stall.
Most other SMART boards currently on cam-pus were purchased through the Title III Grant in 2007, where the uni-versity received nearly $2 million from the U.S. De-partment of Education’s Strengthening Institutions Program, Foster said.
Foster also said the SMART boards are just
Rooms beginning to change per reportShauna [email protected]
Gone are the days of pink vertical blinds and spending precious dollars on a load of laundry. In are the days of late-night gaming tournaments and Lizzy lounge chairs.
After bringing in two consultants last spring, John White and Bambi Harris, Residence Life at Texas Wesleyan imple-mented several sugges-tions from the consultants’ report over the summer.
Most renovations sug-gested were focused on the lobbies of Stella Rus-sell and Elizabeth Means Armstrong Halls, with plans to re-carpet and paint Wesleyan Village.
“They looked like the 1960s dorms, and so we had done some painting, but this is a total make-over,” said Pati Alexander, vice president for enroll-ment and student services. “Elizabeth was converted to all singles. We pulled out the extra beds and then we ordered recliner chairs; they’re called Lizzy chairs.”
www.sxc.hu
Publication ranks TWU in top tierJonathan [email protected]
US. News & World Report recently ranked Texas Wesleyan a top tier school and No. 71 among the West-ern Regional Universities in its “Best Colleges” list.
The list ranks more than 1,400 schools using the Carnegie Founda-tion for the Advancement of Teach-ing. The top tier ranking only applies
to the U.S. News and not the one is-sued by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
“When you consider the number of universities in the United States, I think [the ranking] is very positive,” Interim President Dr. Lamar Smith said.
Smith also said that the rank shows the school’s progression.
“When you consider where we’ve come from, that’s just more impres-
sive than ever,” he said. “I suspect there was a time in our past where we would not have a ranking at all.”
The positive growth pattern is at-tributed to the quality of the teachers and administrators, Smith said.
Senior Vice President and Pro-vost Allen Henderson said the rank “speaks to the health and vitality” of Texas Wesleyan.
“Our university is in excellent fi-nancial shape, and we’ve grown con-
siderably in the last 10 years,” Hen-derson said in a press release. “We’re poised to do some new and creative things in the future.”
Senior psychology major Court-ney Hickerson said more one-on-one time with class instructors is one of the qualities Wesleyan has that sets it apart from other schools.
“The teachers get to know you bet-ter, and you get to spend more time with them,” she said. “You have more
opportunity to learn from them spe-cifically.”
Polytechnic High School coun-selor Sodonia Johnson said prospec-tive students sometimes consider the rankings when school shopping. A tough economy can also give the rankings more value, she said.
“Usually kids interested in that [number] know that the job mar-ket may look at the school rankings more favorably,” she said.
RENOVATE, page 3
BOARD, page 3
Meisa Keivani Najafabadi | Rambler StaffGoodwill Inc. remodeled Stewart’s room after she wrote an essay.
ROOM, page 3
