Ivan the Terrible: Grenadian Students Cope with destruction of of Homeland
Paige Dickerson | News Editor

Ackim Williams hasn’t heard from his mother all week.
It has been that long since Hurricane Ivan ravaged his homeland of Grenada, destroying 90 percent of its structures. At least 34 have been killed, more than 500 injured.“My mother is OK,” he said. “I think if something would have happened I would have known already.”
Approximately 70 Grenadian students attend MSU. Some have heard from their family or have heard through friends that their families survived the hurricane. Others haven’t.
“The phone lines are down, so I tried calling a few friends’ cell phones, but it’s always busy,” Williams said.
Williams has heard from his father’s side of the family though. His father lives in a different area.
“His roof is gone and his home is totally devastated because he lives on top of a hill.”
Williams is confident that his mother, brother and sister who live in Grand Mal on the west side of the island made it through the storm. But he is now worried about how they are going to make it through the aftermath.
“I have no idea what’s happening, how she’s surviving or eating,” he said.
Williams is concerned she could run out of food.
“The country isn’t producing, we’re getting aid. If this continues for too long we will have a serious problem,” he said. “The supplies isn’t going to last forever.”
Prudence Bonaparte was all smiles Monday.
“Today is a good day,” she said. “I didn’t hear anything about my parents until Sunday. I was crying like hell.”
She last heard from her family on Sept. 7 when the hurricane hit. She called her parents as usual, unaware that a hurricane was in their path.
“It’s starting, it’s starting,” her mother said in a rush over the phone.
“I heard a scream and then they said the roof was gone.”
That’s when the phone went dead.
“I’m not a person who shows much emotion,” she said. “But everytime I would pick up a book I would cry. I felt so handicapped. I felt so alone.”
Bonaparte began losing hope when she heard that others had began getting calls from their parents. 
“I couldn’t stay around people who were laughing. I wanted to be around people in the same situation that I was.”
She received the first call from her parents on Sunday while she was at work in the computer lab.
“I was crying on the computer writing an e-mail to my sister, even though I knew she wouldn’t be able to get it,” she said. “Then my phone rang and my heart dropped.”
Bonaparte only got to speak with her mother for three minutes but that was plenty, she said.
“They have food and water and everyone is fine so I don’t have to worry,” she said.
During the storm, her family hid in their father’s storeroom. He sells wholesale goods and that is what they are now surviving on. 
Her family is living in a neighbor’s basement while her father works to build a new roof, she said.
“The whole place is in chaos,” she said. “They’re on a curfew from dawn to dusk, there is no water or electricity, people have to bathe in the ravines and rivers.”
Bonaparte said most people on the island don’t have home insurance because they never believe something like this would happen. Besides, it wouldn’t cover a natural disaster anyway, she said.
With 90 percent of the structures being destroyed, “Most all of the students here have lost their home or some part of it,” said Randy Glean, director of International Student Services.
“There are no major agencies set up to take care of people financially,” Glean said. “Red Cross, Salvation Army will step up, but mostly people will be depending on themselves or from family members living in the U.S., U.K., or Canada.”
Most of the aid for Grenada has come from the surrounding Caribbean islands, he said.
“There is no major U.S. governmental response as of now,” he said. “I’m sure there will be or I hope.”
Glean said some students haven’t heard directly from their parents, but they have heard from third parties that they are fine.
“We will be depending on relief effort and aid,” said Kim Fullerton, coordinator of Clark Student Center Services. Fullterton, originally from Grenada, has lived in the U.S. for eight years.
“Grenada is so small you can’t evacuate so you have to bear down.  The storm was 100 miles wide so it was greater than the width of Grenada,” he said.
The economy has taken a major blow, Fullterton said.
Grenada, known as the isle of spice, is the second largest producer of nutmeg.
“Nutmegs take about 30 years from seedling to fruit, so it’s going to be a while to produce,” Fullterton said.
“That industry is essentially gone for a generation.  That’s about 20 percent of the economy,” Glean said.
“Tourism is half the economy and that will be gone for two to three years minimum,” he added.
MSU is trying to help Grenadian students by allowing extra time for tuition payments and having counseling available, Glean said.
“Some are more distraught than others, especially those who just moved here a month ago,” Fullerton said.
“It is going to affect our recruiting from the Caribbean,” Glean said. “It will take at least three years before things get back to normal.”
This year’s proceeds from the Caribfest will now go toward Grenada, Fullterton said. “We would like other organizations and the Wichita Falls community to help in any way they can.”
In the meantime, Ackim Williams sits by his phone waiting for his mother to call.


Prayer service brings hope to Carib Students

“It’s evidenct tonight that the Caribbean students are loved and appreciated,” said Nyian Farrell in a prayer Thursday night at a vigil for the Grenadian students at the Catholic Campus Ministry.
The Caribbean Students’ Organization held a special church service to pray for those affected by Hurricane Ivan.
More than 100 students along with faculty members read scriptures, sang hymns and gave prayers.
“I think this was a good opportunity for the students to find a little peace within their souls, not just within the Caribbean community but with the MSU community,” said Debbie Neely, Catholic Campus Minister. 
Neely spoke words of hope to reassure the students.
“This is my very first time here in an organization of this kind. The support has been wonderful,” Zeno Ferguson said.
The Caribbean students maintained their composure despite the tragic events.
Marvyn Boatswain said he was still in shock and by not being able to see the destruction, he wasn’t sure how to react.
“I would rather be with my family going through this instead of being far away,” he said”
“Right now I wish I was home to help out my family,” Judlyn Telesford said.
Some students had made contact with their families the day after the storm.
“I spoke to my family finally Wednesday night,” Boatswain said. “The roof of our house was torn off.”
Telesford heard her house was completely gone.
“I think my family is OK,” she said. “There are a lot of students who don’t know anything.”
She heard that people were being moved into shelters and she was thankful that her family would have somewhere to sleep.
Telesford hopes the MSU community will be able to do more for Grenada.
“We need clothes drives, food drives and things to send home,” she said.
A big fear of the Grenadian students is not knowing if they will be able to stay in the United States.
“We don’t know the effects this will have on us. Most of us come here on loans and in a case like this the money may go to the nation instead of students,” Boatswain said.

 
Retention rates Predicted to remain about Average
Konnie Sewell | Staff Reporter

Despite the word on the street, students aren’t leaving MSU for other schools--at least no more so than in the past.
Retention rates for MSU, for the 2004 fall semester, are expected to fall into the average 65 percent of previous years, according to Associate Provost Robert Clark.
"I don't think things will change drastically in the future as far as the retention rates go," Clark said. "I have a feeling more students will stay than leave, if anything."
Clark said the school sometimes loses students because they have nowhere to stay on campus, but things like a possible new dorm building might change that.
"MSU is also becoming more of a traditional campus in the sense that students on the whole are enrolling at a younger age," Clark said. "When you have a shift in the demographic like that, change is likely."
A recent article in Texas Monthly magazine suggests that MSU's retention rates are down and that the institution is a "transfer school," where freshmen come to take their core curriculum requirements and then leave for another college. Clark said the magazine has no data to back up those claims.
"It's popular to write a story with a certain slant," he said, "and to make the story seem cute, rather than give the basic info people should know. Their data is just real thin and the integrity of their sources can be called into question. For all we know, they could have seen two students walking down the street together and asked them what their future plans are."
Clark said MSU is in the middle of the mix when it comes to colleges.
"We keep a lot more students than other schools of our size," he said, "but you can always do better."
Many students find out that switching colleges isn't as easy as they had first imagined.
"It's not easy to leave the school once you're enrolled," Clark said. "For instance, there's the exit interview to consider. There are also many factors that play a role in a student's choosing to leave: family, personal, money and work problems occur. The Academic Support Center is geared toward retention, and can help students quite successfully decide what's best for them at the present time."

The original plan of freshman Hayley Smith, 18, was to attend MSU in order to take her core subjects and then transfer to a larger college - not unlike many incoming freshmen.
"For a little while I was thinking of only staying at MSU for a year," she said. "I was going to transfer after my freshman year and go to school in Lubbock, because my dad lives there, but some things popped up and I won't be doing that. I never decided, 'Well, MSU is just my hometown college, and I need to get away.' It was never that."
Smith, a Mass Communications major, said that because she was born and raised in Wichita Falls, she knows about the temptation to leave immediately after high school. However, she also said that she enjoys her academic life at MSU and would recommend the school to everyone.
"It's too bad that not more people know about it all over the country," she said. "More people should be open-minded and not immediately write it off, which happens to a lot of smaller colleges. The positives definitely outweigh the negatives. Even if I was still able to go to Lubbock, there'd be a chance that I'd stay."
Freshman William Coffey, 19, is a transfer student from Vernon.
"I think a lot of the students who do leave their first year leave more because of personal reasons, and not necessarily because of the school," he said. "Those that stay see that MSU is a good institution, and those that don't just want to get away from home, to experience life outside of Wichita Falls. Some just need to get away from the constant supervision of their parents. In the case of the non-locals, that's exactly what they're getting when they come here."
Coffey believes that before a student can decide whether or not a college is right for them, they need to consider more than just the classes they're taking.
"I ended up changing schools once I realized that Vernon wasn't the right place for what I wanted to do with my life," he said. "I looked into MSU and found something that appealed more to my interests. I plan on staying at MSU because, for the most part, not only have the academics proven challenging, but the student organizations are something that I can appreciate.”
“I see no need in jumping to a new school,” Coffee said, “no matter how much bigger it is, if I can get the same or more from MSU."

Though recent reports and speculations may imply that MSU has lower student retention, these claims do not withstand the statistics and testimonies of the university’s student body. 
Merkle said that when all is said and done, there is a difference between what is reported and what is actually happening.

New Computer program to help Catch Plagiarism
Paige Dickerson | News Editor

A computer program newly available to MSU professors will help them catch students who are plagiarizing.
Plagiarism is any use of “intellectual material” without giving proper credit.
The program selected “Turnitin” evaluates a paper for originality based on a database of more than 4.5 billion pages.
“It is adding 40 million more every day,” Grant Simpson, dean of the college of education, said.
In addition to scanning journal articles, digital books and Web sites, Turnitin will also add a students paper to the database, thus catching any student who hands in the same paper twice or uses a friend’s or fraternity’s paper.
Once a paper has been scanned, it highlights any material that is substantially like anything in the database in different colors and leaves original material in black.
“The professor then would need to check and make sure the student cited things properly,” Robert Redmon, assistant professor of Education, said.
Redmon helped train at the TACT (Texas Association of College Teachers) conference and said there was significant interest from MSU faculty.
Redmon and Simpson tested the program last year on a graduate student’s paper who was suspected of plagiarizing. After the system checked it they discovered that he had mostly copied from three sources who were not even listed in his bibliography.
“There were a grand total of three original sentences,” Redmon said. “When we tested his paper, we found he had almost completely copied it from two different literary resources that were posted on the Internet.”
Professors who will use the program must have it stated in their syllabi and the papers must be in digital form in order for Turnitin to scan it.
Some students claim they didn’t know they were plagiarizing, Simpson said.
“My son teaches fourth grade and he said those kids know when they need to cite things and how to cite things, so that is just not an excuse,” he said.
Another option available through Turnitin is the professor can choose to allow students to use the program.
“If I were teaching a freshmen-level English course, I would turn this option on. Then students could check their papers and if they need to do some tweaking, they can keep playing with it to get it that way,” Redmon said.
Government professor Steve Garrison said he will use the program to check all the papers in his class.
“I’ve noticed a problem with students copying off the Internet or reusing a fraternity brother’s or a friend’s paper and to my understanding the program will build a database to keep track of this kind of thing,” Garrison said.
Garrision said he has seen more plagiarism than he would expect in his classes.
“It is also my belief that I am not catching everybody who is doing it,” he said.
In addition to catching more students in the act of plagiarizing, a committee has set out to rewrite the appeals process for when a student is caught.
In the past, the appeals process has gone through the Student Conduct Committee but did not go through Academic Affairs. Since plagiarism is an academic matter, the process was amended to go through Academic Affairs. The dean of students will still be notified of plagiarism incidents in order to have a complete list of problems that have occurred.
“Maybe a student commits a minor offense and a professor could decide to give them a break and just lower their grade on the assignment, but if we notice a pattern developing, they can decide if a more severe punishment is needed,” Simpson said.
Grant, who heads up the ad hoc committee to change the plagiarism wording in the Student Code of Conduct, said the new guidelines will include a specific number of days a professor has to respond to plagiarism and a specific number of days for the student to respond to the accusation.
“One thing I typically tell my students is that it takes more effort to plagiarize than to do it yourself,” Garrison said.

Rec Center envisioned for MSU Campus
Shinice Curry | Staff Reporter

Architects Craig Reynolds and Gary Reeves presented a new plan for a recreation center to the Student Senate at the meeting on Tuesday.
 After visiting other college campuses, a student committee devised a plan for MSU.  They also spoke with students on campus to see what the students would want from the new recreation center.
“Most schools in our conference have a new recreation center or are building a new recreation center,” said Joey Greenwood, Director of Recreational sports.
Some of the things that would be included in the recreation center are climbing walls, cyber cafes, basketball courts, multiple gymnasiums, and racket ball courts.
There are also plans for a cardio theatre and three multi-purpose rooms. An outdoor pool is also under consideration for the new recreation center.
The recreation center will also benefit the student body by providing more on campus jobs, according to Greenwood.
According to Greenwood no academic classes will be held in the new facilities.
The south side of campus by Sikes Lake is the prospective site for the recreation center to be built.
“All ideas are conceptual. They are driven by the students wants, needs and approval,” said Keith Lamb, Vice President of Academic Affairs.
Along with discussing plans for the new recreation center, the Student Senate voted on a bill to establish online voting.  The bill was passed unanimously.
The new voting system will make voting procedures more efficient, more secure and easier to maintain. Online voting will also extend the voting time to 91 hours. At all other universities that have used the online voting system, the number of students voting has increased.
The software is already in place and will take about a week to set up.
“The E-Ballot is fully supported by the administration,” said Adel Aitroua, President of the Student Government Association.
Online voting will be used for Homecoming election and the class senator elections, which are coming up the week of September 20th.
In student issues, the Senate discussed the catastrophe in Grenada.