The Reporter

REPORTER Stetson University's Student Voice | blog.stetson.edu/reporter | DeLand, FL | Tuesday, May 3, 2011 X CAMPUS RENOVATIONS rZ STt-rjON M*tL i_r Renovations! Relandscaping! New Bathrooms! tetson University s facilities is looking forward to a jam-packed ' lUZAKTH HALL Although students may be getting used to all the construction on campus, Stetson University has even bigger plans for campus starting over the summer. Stetson University's facilities will be entering phase II of the ever evolving Campus Master Plan. Students have seen the products of phase I of the Master Plan with the various landscaping projects, along with the improvements to the quad and the classroom renovations. Dober Lidsky Mathey, a higher education planning firm from Belmont, Mass., is heading the design of the Campus Master Plan. The biggest change students should expect to see when they return in the fall, besides those seen to Stetson Hall of course, will be the completion of the landscape enhancement project. According to George Herbst, Stetson University's CFO, the," areas being relandscaped this summer include [those] around the sororities, Carson Hollis Halls, Conrad Hall, and the front and rear of Emily Hall." Students returning in the fall will see a complete and unified campus aesthetic. Stetson's administration also understands that it's not enough just to improve the "look" of campus. That is why the classroom renovation program will also be completed this summer. This includes classroom renovations in Elizabeth, Flagler, and Sampson Halls. Herbst also stated, "In the end over thirty classrooms will have been renovated and new technology installed." What are new classrooms without a new bookstore? My thoughts exactly. Don't fret though, because the bookstore will also be re ceiving a facelift with new finishes and fixtures to be installed mid-May. While aesthetics are certainly important, some renovations occurring over the summer are simple housekeeping improvements. Herbst mentioned that, "the bathrooms in Carson Hollis will be renovated and other renovations will occur in residence halls." Along with new bathrooms, students living on the east end of campus will be happy to know that a new pedestrian path will be constructed on the east side of Sage Hall. "[This] will improve student access from the residence halls east of Amelia [to the] core of campus", stated Herbst. The city of Deland is also pitching into the renovations on campus. Deland is extending their Alabama multi-use trail through campus to connect Stetson to Earl BY FLIP BARTH Brown Park. As some students know, Earl Brown Park is the future home of Stetson football. If you can believe it, all of these renovations are preliminary steps into the final Master Plan. Stetson University President Wendy Libby stated that, "we are awaiting the receipt of the final report." She also stated that after review by the board of trustees in May, "the report will be public and available to everyone, including our students." President Libby, along with the rest of Stetson's community, has certainly been hard at work improving our University. The renovations, both inside and outside the classroom, are perfect examples of this and will be enjoyed by past, present, and future Stetson students. SPECIAL REPORT: YOUR ■PM Wmmm When I sat down to write what I thought was going to be an inspirational piece full of knowledge and sage wisdom I came to the quick and humbling conclusion that I have virtually no vantage point or experience from which to give such advice. All I can do, I realized, is talk about some things I think ring true with importance at this time in your lives, and hopefully you'll take something away from this—or at least more than I did a year ago when I graduated. But please, don't assume that I'm writing this to tell you to reach for the stars or to lecture you on the inconvenient truths of adulthood. You've got Sunscreen songs and grandparents for those sorts of banal anecdotes. What I am here to do is to hand out a brief little tidbit of unsolicited advice about how to combat the forces in your 20's that can and will attempt to blind you to what really matters. Explore the world around you. This is perhaps the single most important time to live on earth. I know that's going to sound extreme, but it really is. This is NOT me telling you to get up off the couch and forge ahead into the wilderness to live as Tho- reau did at Walden. What it is (or at least what I think it is), is a challenge to willfully experience the world through your own eyes and to not, even for a second, allow yourself or others to deceive you into believing that the world as we know it has already been seen and conquered and understood by those that have come before us. We're all a Google search away from attempting to explore both the beauty and darkness of our society—foreign nations, monuments, cultures, wars, and yes, even celebrity gossip—as they are carefully rendered to us in images and videos. But trust me, this type of exploration cannot and will not fulfill that basic youthful curiosity to understand the world and to see it as the marvel that it really is, to see it as more alive than anything could dream to be on screen. As you drift into the routine and responsibility of adult life, maintaining this curiosity will, I predict, become increasingly difficult. This is the honest-to-God challenge of our generation: to take the time granted to us by the conveniences of the modern world and to spend it finding and embracing what has yet to be seen or understood, to use the gifts of this freedom to grow together as human beings. None of us can do this alone. Don't allow yourself to forget the people that helped you grow. Don't forget the friends you had in college. Never again will you be able to develop relationships with people at a time when your collective senses of personal freedom and self-exploration are this alive. Your college friends will become a constant reminder of your potential and independence—that one time when you had the guts to do that one thing. This understanding will become essential. Just ask your parents. We live in an age of boundless communicative potential; don't waste away days playing "Angry Birds" when you can be maintaining relationships—those with the ability to remind you that sometimes you're going to take yourself too seriously, and sometimes you're going to be wrong, and sometimes she or he won't love you back, and sometimes life is just going to blow. But these realities are what make life BY W. SPENCER DECK worth living. Because those petty inconveniences in life will remind you of something that's more important than almost anything else in the proverbial school of life: no matter how much the collaborative assault of personalized technology and advertisement might want you to believe it, the world isn't and shouldn't be tailor- made for YOU. It's an old but true convention—we probably won't recognize the most important moments or people in our lives until they're gone. So, please, do your damndest not to let life or technology separate you from the beliefs and people that matter to you. And, from time to time, when they inevitably force you to do so, reach out your hands as desperately as you can, grab back hold of them with persistence, and allow yourself to entertain the notion that the most priceless assets we have in this world are each other. Jewish Student Organization hosts annual Passover Seder BY JENNIFER SCHMITT Last Wednesday evening, Stetson's Jewish Student Organization (JSO) sponsored a Seder open to anyone and everyone. At 5:30, the Stetson Dining Room filled with students, from those interested in learning about Jewish culture to those who wanted to celebrate their heritage. Small children and professors also joined the college students, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of family Seders. All of Stetson's religious organizations had been invited to send a member to the Seder, and although a few could not make it, the Seder still felt diverse and unifying. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all sat together, laughing and chatting. see JSO, page 3 ^Passover... does a lot for me spiritually, emotionally, socially and to connect with my family.^* JOSH SOLOMON