The Reporter

www.stetsonreporter.com Thursday, February 4, 2010 One semester after taking the reins of Stetson, Dr. Libby sat down with us to talk about Academics. Lacrosse, Tony's Pizza and the idea of \\ One University // A semester ago, the university welcomed Dr. Wendy Libby to campus as University President. "I have been about as busy as I expected to be," Libby said of her new position. "In thinking about how we keep good stuff and change what needs to be changed, we need to look at the campus with fresh eyes every day," Libby said. "Fortunately I'm still new enough that everything still looks fresh." According to Libby, we need to always look freshly at the university continually changing, re-evaluating and refusing to settle for the status quo. According to Libby, the university has already come to meet and rise above her high expectations. "One of the reasons I came [to Stetson] was because I was so impressed with the faculty and their interaction with the students," libby said. "I actually underestimated how good they are." When asked about what has been most surprising, Libby responded, "Intensity. The intensity of what I'm doing. The demands on my brain. The intensity of the relationship between the faculty and students and the intensity of everyone's desire to make Stetson better." This intensity of life surprised her. "You think of Florida as laid back - but it's intense." Libby says the biggest challenge is this time of economic uncertainty. "The problem is that there are students who would be perfect for Stetson but just can't afford it," Libby said. Another problem is that some faculty members have gone without raises the past year. Libby is thinking about how to deal with these financial issues. The need to prioritize, set up a budget that relfects to importance of each priority is the current plan Dr. Libby is planning to implement. There are currently five committees that are meeting and discussing plans in five different areas: Admissions/Retention, Marketing, Facilities, Campus Life, and Athletics. According to Libby, these committees are supposed to propose ideas about "what we can do that makes a difference soon." These committees are currently meeting and will propose ideas to Libby in February - so their plans are not final yet. However, Libby did want to share one example of the proposals of these committees. "By later this spring, we hope to start having club sports," said Libby. "We will start with lacrosse and then add other sports." The university has sports at the Atlantic Sun Conference level and then intramurals; club sports is the competitive level in between and is an activity that students desire in a university. Stetson currently might lose students because of this lack of club sports and the easy implementation of club sports should help with recruiting and retention. These are the kinds of plans proposed by the committees - ones that can be implemented quickly and will make a bit of a difference. Libby is also working on long term planning. One example of this is the planning of a new campus master plan. This plan will involve the CUB, residence halls, the green environment and the pathways. Ac- Please See "President," Page 3 "Intensity. The intensity of what I'm doing. The demands on my brain. The intensity of the relationship between the faculty and students and the intensity of everyone's desire to make Stetson better. You think of Florida as laid back - but it's intense." - Dr. Libby, on suprises presented by Stetson Opinions Hideous Men take their Superbowl picks Page 5 Life Lil Wayne just another/ailed Rock-Rapper Page 9 Logout bv Natalva Jones It's something ubiquitous to the college experience - staying on Facebook for hours (or, in some cases, days) on end when there are productive tasks to attend to. Whether users are guilty of constant status changes, endless chatting, or just "creepin'," it seems that the world-wide phenomenon has become too addicting and possibly a distraction. But even if this Mys- pace-replacing trend is labeled as so, does it really take a detrimental toll on students' grades and duties? Can it possibly affect one's psychological wellness? Andrea Garava- glia, a third year Psychology major, and Amanda Colon, a third year English and Psychology doublr major, will hopefully find the answers to such questions and more in their study, dubbed "The Facebook Challenge". In this experiment, half of the participants will give up Facebook for the month of February, while the other half will be permitted to use it. In March, the roles are reversed as the group who was banned from the enslaving website is authorized to use it Please while the other group becomes prohibited to using it. Both groups participate for two months, yet are only requested to give up Facebook for the time span of a month. Ap- plicants are required to answer questionnaires throughout the process, which occur in the beginning, middle, and end of each month. In order to ensure that students wouldn't "cheat" during the process, students are required to have their password changed. Although the topic of changing passwords has been described as "touchy," Amanda offers reassurance: "We developed a method of changing their passwords that would be confidential and students would be able to retrieve it at any time if See "Facebook," Page 3 Life The best Pop- Punk album in years Page 9 Sports Tennis features a multinational flair Page 12