As I'm sure everyone is aware, 2012 is an election year. In just a few short months, we'll be positively mired in political lawn signs, attack ads and all other kinds of propaganda-all of which (and here's the rub) costs money.
While the recent study conducted of faculty salaries at Seton Hall demonstrates that female professors earn on average 11 percent less than their male counterparts, the fact that the study took place at all is encouraging. Taken at face value, the numbers appear shocking, but it is important not to jump to conclusions, and to appreciate the enormous complexity involved in the hiring and salary assignment process at our university.
What is the easiest way to make a quick buck? Open your doors at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving, slap a Black Friday sticker on it and call it a ridiculous sale. I am sure at least one person is willing to pepper spray their way through a crowd to get some $1.99 DVDs.
The men's basketball team recently became acquainted with a new kind of fan - the Speedo-clad sixth man. In the front page story this week, head coach Kevin Willard and many of the players reacted after a strong Pirates win against Auburn, where men from the swim team showed plenty of skin with painted pirate blue on their chests.
It's finally December, which means we all have two things on our minds: finals, and the holidays. As much as I love finals (just kidding), I'd much rather talk about Christmas.
Every year, the tree on the Green is lit, the wreaths are hanged and the Nativity rests outside the Chapel. Every year, the University celebrates another Christmas at the Hall, one of best perks of attending a Catholic institution. Christmas, here at Seton Hall, is truly the most wonderful time of the year.
Following recent events, society has taken particular interest in the topic of bullying. Over the years, we've seen it in the movies and on television, from the "Plastics" roaming the halls in Mean Girls to the misunderstood kids in The Breakfast Club. It's dubbed a serious problem and yet it's one that no one can really define. However, time and time again, pop culture has tried to define it for us.
Our generation has a wide array of reasons for taking to the streets against the injustices we have witnessed over the past 20 years. For more than half of our lives, our government has been involved in armed conflict in countries across the globe in the name of liberal democracy. Our politicians regularly engage in dubious behavior as they put their financial interests before that of their constituencies. In 2008, politicians, regulators, and bankers alike were implicated for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression yet no one has been held accountable. Meanwhile, the cost of our education and the level of student debt compiles while the value of a college degree diminishes.
In college it's a given that you're going to procrastinate. Since my freshman year, I have procrastinated assignments until the last minute on reasoning that "I study/write better under pressure." With just a semester and a half left before I graduate, senioritis has hit me at full speed.
For more than five weeks, angry New Yorkers and others from around the country have been descending upon Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park to voice their dismay at the nexus between legislators in Washington and the nation's biggest banks. While the links between our federal government and the finance industry are indeed troubling, the protesters' grievances are at best misguided, and at worst deplorable. The movement, coined Occupy Wall Street, has whipped cities across America into a repulsive frenzy of populism.
Right now there is a sickening feeling in my stomach not just as a Penn State football fan but as a person. The acts described in the 23 page Grand Jury Report on Jerry Sandusky, are among the worst that can be done. But what makes it the most sickening is how the entire situation was handled.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, the Seton Hall community awoke to a series of PirateAlert messages that revealed yet another event in what has been a crime ridden few weeks. A female student had reported that she was robbed on Tichenor Avenue and Irvington Avenue as she walked alone. While many students spent the hours after the alleged robbery pointing fingers at the University, citing that safety remains unachievable in South Orange, they were eventually made aware that for the second time in a year, a Seton Hall student had lied about a crime.
On the front page story this week, The Setonian reported that the University has severely inflated the price of both replacement student I.D.'s and temporary I.D.'s. Both have seen a price increase of $15 since the beginning of the semester, in an effort to discourage students from losing their cards, as well as an attempt to remain consistent with other Universities' fees.
I started my senior year expecting it to be difficult. Of course, I want to have as much fun as possible, because this is pretty much the last year I can be a "young adult," instead of just plain "adult" (unless, of course, I cannot get a job and end up having to apply to grad school or something,) but I figured school would be difficult.
In college, it seems like often times we can get so wrapped up in our own lives, we forget about the world around us. While everyone is entitled to spend their free time as they please, I strongly encourage everyone to read the news, and read it often.
Do you remember your childhood when your parents signed you up for pretty much everything, whether you wanted to or not?
It has been 25 years since WSOU started spinning metal over the airwaves. Seton Hall's radio station, which has continuously earned numerous awards and accolades over these 25 years, and remains one of the most respected stations in the New York market, deserves not only the University's respect, but the respect of the community at large. Seldom does one see such success, from a student run station no less.
The Student Government Association's announcement of the new Collegiate Readership Program, which will bring three major newspapers -USA Today, The New York Times and the Star Ledger - to campus for students to utilize at their leisure, is exciting for students and membersof the University community. The Setonian would like to commend SGA for working to bring this measure to campus, even if, at this point at least, it is simply a plan for the spring semester.
No matter how many times we talk, my sister asks me the same painfully common question: "Is college really worth it?"
Solutions by The State News