Staff Editorial
Every year there are changes at Pepperdine, some good, some bad. Some we barely notice, while others are impossible to miss. We at the Graphic would like to acknowledge some of the new additions to the campus and give our opinion on what works and what doesn’t.
Some of the most obvious changes are those on the roads at Pepperdine. The new stop sign at Banowsky Boulevard and Seaver Drive has received mixed reviews, and we can see both sides of the coin. The bad thing is for anyone who drives a car with a manual transmission or underpowered engine – stopping on the hill can be a slow and tricky process. The good thing, however, is that it’s now much easier to turn left onto Banowsky and right onto Seaver.
Another nice addition is the new speed bumps. The new, gentle bumps are no longer bone rattling and are now far more low-rider friendly.
Another change worth praising is the changes made to Frosh Follies this year. In the past, the skits involved in one way or another all of the stereotypes and common themes (mostly negative) that go along with a Pepperdine collegiate experience. There’s no dating at Pepperdine, or Convo is awful and a waste of time, just to name a few.
This year, the Frosh Follies folks decided to change it up and not put pre-conceived notions into freshmen minds. If they’re told there’s no dating at Pepperdine, maybe it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’ll see if the experiment works as the year goes on, and whether or not the class of 2008 begins to resemble an episode of “Elimidate” or “The Fifth Wheel.”
One change we’re still having trouble with is the new ID numbers we were all given to use instead of our social security numbers. While we realize it’s a good way to protect us all against identity theft, the administration should realize that our brains are already jam-packed with knowledge and cannot fit another eight-digit number. Also, our social security numbers are still being used at several places on campus, including Blackboard, so is it really helping us?
On the other hand, let’s applaud the Caf for their effort to take into account “our suggestions” when planning the menu for this year. You may have seen the signs at all the stations in the Caf that talk about how new menu items fit with suggestions turned in by the students. We should be supportive of any change in the menu in the Caf, because the old one was pretty tired with its two-week rotation of meals.
Another food-type change is the Starbucks in the HAWC. We find this to be a welcome change. So many of us drove almost daily to the Starbucks in Malibu, and now we can just walk down the hill and save our gas money for more grande vanilla non-fat mocha lattes. On the downside, it’s a lot less likely that you’ll run into Pamela Anderson or Dianna Ross at the HAWC Starbucks. Now that’s a shame.
Another name-brand company taking over part of Pepperdine is Kinko’s, which is now doing some of the copying on campus. Initially we were disappointed at the increase in the price of copies, but if it means better service and more professional-looking copies, we guess we can live with spending an extra 10 cents or so.
One change that has us a little tripped up is the redesign of Pepperdine’s Web site. We realize its intent is to incorporate the other schools of Pepperdine beside Seaver college and that’s fine. They are just as much a part of Pepperdine as everyone else and deserve to be displayed prominently on the Web site, but on the whole the new design is much less user-friendly. The different features of the site are not shown very well, and we spend a lot of time searching through the different tabs on the top of the screen trying to find what we want. The new search engine feature is also quite awful, and the Graphic-specific feature doesn’t work at all.
On a final technology-related front, we’d like to salute our brand new equipment here at the Graphic. Our new computers and new software make our jobs much easier and more importantly, should greatly improve the product that you see on these pages. Now that’s something to be thankful about.
09-09-2004