Molly Willms

MANAGING EDITOR

More than three months after the dismissal of Mahmoud Saf-fari, the administration has been able to provide us with a who, what, where, when and even a how.

The area that remains fuzzy is the why.

Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management Mah-moud Saffari was dismissed from his employment at SCSU in September of 2011.

According to MnSCU’s ad-ministrator personnel plan (page nine), his dismissal was legal. The document stipulates that under the terms of his employment, MnSCU can terminate an admin-istrator for any or no reason and at any time with adequate notice.

That’s the how. Since they’re

Meg Iserloth

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Every year, 3.4 million adults in the United States alone are stalked, reports StalkingAwareness-Month.org. Because of this, the Stalking Resource Center, National Center for Victims of Crime,

Violence Against Women dubbed January “Stalking

Awareness Month” in 2004 and have been coming together every year since then to educate the public through events and the sharing of infor-mation on stalking. StalkingAwareness-Month.org has many resources on their website, including sta-tistics, facts, quizzes, activities, and ideas to educate others in the community about

stalking.Lee LaDue, the

Coordinator of the Gender Violence Prevention program, said that nationally 13 percent of college women have admit-ted to being stalked since the beginning of the school year. However, this per-centage only counts those who have gone into services, and many more have

Michael Runyon

NEWS EDITOR

The former St. Cloud Civic Center, now known as the St. Cloud River’s Edge Convention Center, received more than a new name at the ribbon cutting ceremony that ushered the newly renovated and named building to the public eye.

Julie Lunning, the executive director of the chamber of com-

merce, said “When it was built originally, the Civic Center is what it was. It really evolved into a larger convention facility. With that, it really couldn’t be a civic center anymore. Then came the opportunity to call it something else. I know there’s been a lot of discussion involving the river ini-tiatives in St. Cloud. Mayor Kliess chose that name and surprised everybody on the groundbreaking ceremony.”

The construction of the

River’s Edge Convention Cen-ter began mid last year and ran

around the expected deadline of late last year or early this year.

The construction will add around 80,000 square feet of ad-ditional space. The current build-ing is 100,000 square feet. 33,000 feet of the additional space will be used for exhibition space. The construction also added additional loading docks, back of the house catering and a larger lobby.

Convention Center manager Bill Dunsmoor spoke on what the plan was for the construc-tion, saying, “First and foremost we designed a convention center convention hall. We did add retractable seating to the west wall of our facility which will enhance our current client base’s experi-ence for general session audito-rium speaking and will allow us to

Volume 88, Number 27

University

Chronicle Serving SCSU and the St. Cloud Community

Monday, January 16, 2012 WWW.UNIVERSITYCHRONICLE.NET

INSIDENews.........1-6, 12Opinions...........7Marquee.....8-10Sports........13-16

Weather affects businesses

GREAT Theatre will be performing ‘Win-nie the Pooh’ at St. John’s University this weekend.

The warm win-ter has hurt some businesses who rely on snowy Minne-sota winters.

Page 16Page 9

Page 8 - Throwbacks invade Pioneer Place

GREAT ‘Winnie the Pooh’

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YASMIN TCHMOLA / BEAT PHOTOGRAPHER

Events Calendar

Volunteer and Service

10 a.m. - 2 p.m.This event is free and open to the public and will take

place at Atwood, in the main lounge. The event is

designed to connect students and organizations that

provide opportunities for volunteering. The event is sponsored by the Campus

Department of Involvement.

Tuesday

Budget Advisory Group11 a.m. - 12 p.m.

This event is free and open to the public and

will take place at Atwood in the Mississippi room.

The event is sponsored by Administrative Affairs and is an opportunity for discussion

about the spring budget.

Weeklong

Thursday

Wednesday

Customer Service: the

2 - 3 p.m.This event is free and

open to the public. The event will take place at

Centennial Hall, room 351. The workshop will teach attendees how to better

work with customers over the phone or in person and how to deal with irritated

customers.

Mon - FriThis event is free and

open to the public and will take place at the Atwood

Memorial Center’s gallery. The event is sponsored by the UPB Visual Arts

comittee, the SCSU Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education, and the LGBT

center. There will be a schedule for speakers for the event posted in the gallery.

Stalking awareness month observed

Civic Center renamed, expanded

PHOTO COURTESY OF STALKINGAWARENESSMONTH.ORG

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COPY EDITOR

In the past several years, di-versity has been the topic that has dominated headlines around the world. Change and growth have taken over, and everything from political systems to social classes have tossed old ideas to the side to

shape around them.Minnesota has followed suit

with this trend, with it’s colleges

this change. In many ways SCSU is at the forefront of a constantly changing system.

SCSU has many programs happening throughout the year that promote diversity across

Diversity (OCD) is one of the major organizers of these events. Their mission statement includes educating, providing scholarships and mentoring individuals until graduation.

How diverse is SCSU?

Saffari’s dismissal: still no word

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