The Stetson Reporter

' 1 fforida, s Oldest Cotttgiatt Newspaper Historic Chaudoin gets a facelift, lead paint removal causes delays Angela Furnari The Stetson Reporter Late in July, workers from L.C. Painting of DeLand began renovations on Chaudoin Hall, the second oldest residence hall on campus, after the discovery of old, lead-based paint on the exterior trim of the building. A routine scraping and painting had been planned at an estimated cost of $88,000, but new federal hazardous materials regulations dictate that the old paint cannot be merely scraped or sanded away. Instead, the university had to remove the old paint using a special lead abatement process. The process involved using a product called Peel Away, scraping off the old paint and disposing of it, and then applying a neutralizer. These special •procedures caused the cost of the project to jump to $250,000. Butch Morgan, coordinator and project manager for the Chaudoin renovations, says, "Aluminum siding was considered to go over the wood, but was not cost-effective. Some of the wood needed to be replaced, so we didn't want to just cover it up with siding." However, cost wasn't the only factor in deciding whether or.not to repaint. Besides housing students, Chaudoin also serves as a standing reminder of Stetson's history. The center section of the building was built in 1892, with the north wing added in 1894 and the south wing added in 1935. Its parlor retains an old-fashioned feel, featuring a large fireplace and John B. Stetson's rosewood piano. "Other options [for renovating] would have destroyed the architectural detail and historic character of the building," says Ann Graham, Stetson's Vice President for Business ahd Finance. Now that the project has begun, the main issue is that it isn't finished yet. David Noyes, Director of Facilities Management, says, "We started late, in July, in part due to the weather. Our original intent was to start prior to that time, but we're having an abnormal summer in terms of rain, which is causing a setback." Noyes says Chaudoin should be opening on time. As to whether or not the work will still be in progress when residents begin moving in, he says, "From a painting standpoint, yes, we've had about 30 to 40 percent moisture penetration in the wood, so the moisture content is still too high to paint" Hopefully, the work will not affect students who are moving into the build- Resignations leave administrators scrambling for replacements Becky Bridges The Stetson Reporter. As the new semester begins, a number of familiar staff members have moved on to other opportunities and, as of yet their former positions are still vacant. Three major Campus Life positions remain unfilled, as the official opening day of the academic year looms ever closer. Both of last year's Assistant Directors of Residential Life, Amy Radford and Rich Martins, have left the university. Radford left in March, while Martins stayed on through June. Dr. Dale Tampke, Director of Residential Life for the past two years, left in May after the university decided to return to the former system of having Judicial Affairs and Residential Life headed by one person. And Maureen Gagnon, who headed up the operations side of Residential Life, left Stetson this summer. What remains is a professional Residential Life staff that is entirely new, ahd that is at this point only half its normal size. The new Director of Residential Life and Judicial Affairs, David Bergen, says, "Obviously the situation is creating a challenge for both Michelle [Espinosa, the new Associate Director of Operations for Residential Life] and myself," since he and Espinosa are handling duties normally fulfilled by the assistant directors. However, he says that they are "working as quickly as we can to attract quality candidates to get these positions filled." Vice President for Campus Life, Dr. James Beasley, says that advertisements for the positions have been placed in The Chronicle of Higher Education at various times throughout the search process. Stetson also listed the vacancies with the placement bureaus of two of the major societies for those who work in the student affairs field, the American College Per- ' sonnel Association and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. Stetson administrators also attended the conferences of both of these associations this spring, and conducted initial screening interviews with applicants while there. "The prime time for us to interview is in March at those conventions," says Beasley. After compiling a list of potential candidates from applicant pools derived from the listing in The Chronicle of Higher Education and the association conferences and job bureaus, a committee began to identify a group of applicants for on-campus inter views, which started being conducted in early May. The position of Assistant Director of Residential Life (formerly held by Radford) was offered to one applicant, but she accepted a position elsewhere. So the committee went back to its pool of candidates, but "for one reason or another it simply did not work out that the first pool of candidates produced a viable candidate for us," says Beasley. Some ofjhe candidates from the first pool wanted the job very badly, according to Beasley, but the committee did not feel that they were right for the position. "We are trying to be very careful to get the best people that we possibly can," he says of the selectivity involved in this process. By the end of the school year, the search for someone to fill the position left vacant by Radford continued, but the search to fill the director and associate director positions was progressing. Stetson was thrown another curve ball , however, with the June resignations of Gagnon (formerly the Associate Director of Operations for Residential Life) and Steve Coleman (previously the Assistant Director of Student Life and Coordinator of Multicultural Affairs). The timing of these resignations proved to be a problem for the university. "Unfortunately," says Beasley, "in our field if s that March/April time [period] that is [the best] hiring time. If s at the national conventions that most of the [screening] interviews take place. If you miss that cycle you're terribly disadvantaged." Once the summer rolled around, the pool of qualified candidates shrinks drastically, and many of the better people have already taken jobs, Beasley reports. Just as the search process was gear- ingup again, with more openings to fill, Rich Martins resigned in late June to go to work for IBM. So the advertising in The Chronicle of Higher Education-was expanded to include the new vacancies, and lists of possible candidates began to be compiled once again. Again several people were very interested in accepting the positions, but Stetson was not prepared to offer them the jobs. "We are now in a position," says Beasley, "where we have redescribed the position of Assistant Director [of Residential Life] as a one-year appointment. So we are going to be looking at a little different kind of candidate for this position, i.e., a candidate who may not have to meet with the same requirements that we had for the permanent appointment sort of position, so that we can fill the See VACANCIES, Page 2 ing. Bisquene plastic will stay up during the painting process to allow residents to have privacy. The heavy equipment should be moved out by then, but cherry-pickers will still be present. In addition to repainting, workers have been doing some caulking, and have removed some of the rotted wood. Noyes wants residents to know that the reasons for renovating Chaudoin have nothing to do with health risks, as the paint poses no threat to residents. The building needed to be repainted because the paint was peeling. "To this point, the project is on schedule, all tests have come back negative, and the building is safe for occupancy," says Morgan. "Weather permitting, the project should be finished the week of September 19th." In the meantime. Resident Advisors (RAs) for Chaudoin are just now moving in. Michelle Espinosa, Associate Director of Operations for Residential Life, says, "The RAs have been excellent, very patient, very cooperative, but it was difficult for them because when they got here they had to move into Emily Hall, so they were working out of there. While some other staffs were maybe getting their halls ready or starting to hang signs and make banners, Chaudoin could start to make some of those signs, but they couldn't start to put it together yet." ■ "I 'think that was a challenge for them. They had to be real patient, but I found that they used that time really well to do some things that other staffs weren't doing at that time, setting goals and expectations, defining their programs for the year. They didn't waste the time at all." Inconveniences aside, senior Melody Meyer, who has lived in Chaudoin for two years, thinks the renovations are a good idea. Meyer says, "It looked like it needed it when I was here over the summer." Health Services changes with the times David Young The Stetson Reporter. Although first-year Stetson students may hot notice the differences, returning students will find that some changes have taken, place in the university's Student Health Services department. - Perhaps the most obvious change is in the hours of operation for the Health Services building. While in past years it has been open 24 hours a day Sunday through Friday, beginning with the 1994-1995 school year Health Services will be open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on Sunday evenings from 6 to 8 p.m. Health Services will be closed on Saturday, as before. Pharmacy service will still be available during regular hours, and university physicians will also be available by appointment during those hours. In addition, a Women's Clinic, offering routine gynecological exams by confidential consultation will be available on the fourth Wednesday of each month beginning in September. The Women's Clinic physician will be Dr. David Rauschenberger, formerly a part- time physician at Health Services. Dr. James Beasley, Vice President of Campus Life, says the change in operating hours stemmed from discussions between himself and the Health Services staff in an effort to better focus monies, as part of a "general reevaluation" by the university of how to best utilize its resources. Keeping Health Services open 24 hours in past years had been done, "at considerable cost to the institution," according to Beasley. A study conducted this past winter and spring revealed that many of the calls or visits received by Health Services involved minor medical problems that could be handled the next day. After also consulting with the Student Government Association and a student advisory group this past spring, Beasley and the Health Services staff made a joint proposal to re-allocate some' of the money that had been used to keep Health Services open 24 hours towards other programs. A major new area of focus, Beasley says, will be "preventative medicine," in particular health education programs. Penny Taylor, Assistant Director of Student Health Services, will be the Health Education Coordinator. According to Taylor, one of the former patient rooms at Health Services has beenconverted into the Health and Wellness Resource Center. Taylor will be on hand to aid individual students, Resident Advisors and others who wish to use the Center's health education materials ahd videos, on issues such as eating disorders, sexuality and AIDS education awareness, for personal use or presentation. Also new will be Quest, a student organization funded by Health Services, that will help develop programs for various groups within the University. Taylor says this program will "help prbvide specific information and training, so presenters can deal with students on a para- professional level." Taylor is "very excited" about the future of the Resource Center and its programs, and says she hopes those who participate in them will serve as "a lot of little fingers going out into the greater community." FOCUSadvisorLindseyHobbstakes a break to help out some new students. -■■st <t ■tv