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Apartments
an eyesore, say neighbors
The new on-campus apartments are clearly progressing, but what will they really be like? And what does everyone really think of them? According to Danny Reddick, assistant director of housing, the new apartments will be “some of the nicest apartments in town.” Although the project is ahead of schedule, it isn’t running as smoothly for everyone. Some of the local residents feel the apartments have been a hindrance and will take away some of their privacy. “It has been a lot of an inconvenience. My mom lives in the cabana in the back of our house. She’s had pneumonia, and it has been really dusty. For a while we had a terrible odor, and we later figured out that it was the toilets from over there,” said Fran Weber, who lives behind the construction site. “It is change and you have got to live with it. It’s a good idea, but we were hoping that they would move it somewhere else. Maybe over by the lake.” Another main concern for residents is privacy. “It is causing us to look at how we can regain our privacy. When people move in, there will be some lines of sight into our back yards, and we all want the privacy we once had,” said Pat Morgan, who also lives directly behind the apartments. “I loved being able to walk out of my backyard to the fine arts building, and that is just not going to happen anymore,” she continued. “We had wide open spaces prior to this project. I support MSU and am eager for it to grow, but we all want as much privacy as we had before.” In order to help the project go as smoothly as possible and help the residents behind the apartments regain some privacy, the university is looking at planting trees and fencing it in. “No decisions have been made, but we are in the talking stages on how to regain privacy,” Morgan said. The apartments will be available for 336 students to move into by the fall semester. The apartments were built to help compensate for the housing shortage that has been plaguing MSU for the past three years. “For the last three years we’ve been having to rent off-campus housing, and that is not ideal. We want all students on campus,” Reddick said. The apartments will be fully furnished including a kitchen, living area, laundry room and bedrooms. Students can select two-bedroom or four-bedroom apartments. In the two-bedroom apartments, each person has a private bathroom. In the four-bedroom apartments, two people will share a bathroom but will have private vanities. Each bedroom will include a full-sized bed, dresser and desk with chair. “We will be some of the nicest in town,” Reddick said, “and when we did pricing we went to many complexes and looked at all costs and made sure it was less than living off campus. Everything is furnished: Ethernet, cable, phone and unlike the other dorms, don’t have to worry about money for laundry.” Part of the project is a common building, which will include a visitor’s center, a workout center, a computer lab, study rooms, a club room, a kitchen and a classroom area. The computer lab, study rooms, and workout room will all be available to residents of the apartments 24 hours a day, every day. According to Reddick, if construction continues as planned, a showroom will be available for students to see at the beginning of April.
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from Main $350. “I use my favorite (stick) all the time,” Burk said. “The others are just for backups. I won’t let anyone else use my pool stick.”Burk has learned the ultimate fighting words for a woman in playing pool. “The worst thing to tell a girl, especially if she just beat you is, ‘You play pretty good for a girl.’ Those words could get you in a fight real fast.” Burk’s first husband taught her a lot about how to play pool. “I can remember going to the bar in Mineral Wells and sitting my baby carrier on the table next to us and just playing pool and practicing my shots,” Burk recalls. When it comes to pool, Burk has seen it all. From people breaking their sticks to them hitting the cue ball so hard it busted open against the wall, Burk has been around the pool scene. “It’s a great way to meet new and interesting people,” Burk said. “It is also a great way for the bars to make money because it brings so many people in and they sell more drinks.” When Burk moved here from Fort Worth, she had never played in a pool league before. “In Fort Worth, if you walked into a bar with your own pool stick, people looked at you like were crazy. I came to Wichita Falls and if you walked into a bar without a pool stick people looked at you like you were crazy,” Burk said. “It was a big adjustment.” Burk was working as a certified nurses assistant (CNA) when she first came to Wichita Falls. She was invited to a bar by a co-worker to have a drink after work. She watched two men play each other in pool then walked up to one of them and said, “I bet you $5 I can beat you.” They played and Burk ended up losing the game, but the man asked if she had ever played in a league and when she said no, he told her to check into it. She’s been competing ever since. “Pool is like chess, it’s never the same game twice,” Burk said. “And that’s why I like it.”
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from Main representing the people rather than some presently in office.” Leishner said. According to Feb. 21 USA Today, “The Bush administration has filed a brief against the University of Michigan’s minority admissions practices while proposing a 5percent increase in federal funding to historically black colleges and universities. Bush, it seems, is implying that historically black schools can be of greater value to African-Americans than other educational institutions.” Marable attributed the Bush case to show how major deregulation is still prevalent in a modern society. It is “deeply dishonest” he said, “to not take corrective measures based on Black history and college treatment is simply a policy of preferences.” “The signs of segregation have been taken down, but restrictions are still in place,” he said. Recent graduate in the business administration’s masters program, Dameon Middleton said the African American students that attended the lecture were given an opportunity to learn more about themselves as well as their culture. It is the responsibility of students to attend these types of events,” Middleton said. Some African American students in the Clark Student Center were unaware of the lecture by the renowned speaker. A poster near the recreation room in the CSC advertised various events for Black History Month, but Marable’s name was unlisted. Political Science graduate student, Kim Fullerton said, “The school should have done more to promote the activity to get more students out to the function. When we have a scholar like this come in we have a responsibility to get more students to listen. Black students on campus should also have the responsibility to show up to honor one of their own who aspired to become a scholar,” he said. Leishner attributed lack of promotion to be a possible factor for the poor attendance. “There are some very bright students on this campus, and I expected more of his race to be here.” Keith Lamb, assistant vice president for student affairs, was pleased with the numbers. He said there was a “relatively good turnout from both groups.”
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from Main Utah conditioned her to withstand weather like this or worse. “It kills me when it snows one or two inches, and everybody freaks out and closes down,” Galloway said. “When it snows 3 feet up north, everybody still has to go to school and still has to do everything.” In fact, in places like Peoria, Ill., where Lewandowski called home for 23 years, the countryside becomes a serious winter wonderland, with snow piling high enough to dig tunnels and walk through. “I can remember a time when I had to walk to the barn to take boiling water to the ponies with a rope tied around my waist so I could find my way back,” Lewandowski said. As for her first year here, “It snowed an inch or two, and they cancelled school,” she recalled with a laugh. “I just sat by my fireplace and enjoyed my day off.” As far as how the administration decides when inclement weather conditions are severe enough to close the campus, Wiedemann said it usually rests in the hands of the president, who usually consults with the rest of the administration. “There are no absolutes,” she said. “Classes weren’t cancelled today (Tuesday) because early reports (5:30 a.m.) showed that the main streets were clear. It stood to good reason that the great majority of students and faculty could be here.” Wiedemann also stated students are responsible for the risks they take in order to attend classes on days like the past few have been. “If they decide that driving might be too dangerous, they should stay home,” she said. “I would suggest, of course, that they try to reach their instructors to explain their situation.” Some of the students found the trouble with the roads and icy conditions weren’t as big of a threat off campus as they were on campus. Freshman Jennifer Fields admitted the ice put her in some slippery situations Tuesday when she was walking to the Bolin Science Hall. “I stepped on an icy patch and slipped, like it was banana in a cartoon,” Fields said. “It hurt my pride a lot, but I got up and went to class. I almost slipped about three times before I got to my class.” Other students like Whatcott found entertainment in the frozen novelty. “I’m not keeping warm, I’m going out and playing in it,” Whatcott said. “We took a skateboard without the wheels and went skating on it. We spent most of the time on our butts.”
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