The QC, Vol. 90, No. 13 • December 4, 2003

              The Voice of Whittier College Since 1914
SPORTSFEST!
Sportsfest is over, but you can live it all over again
with this two-page photo spread • Campus Life, Page 8
Thursday, December 4, 2003
MEN'S BASKETBALL
The men start off the basketball season with two
wins and two losses • Sports, Page 16
SSUE  13 - VOLUME 90
Web.Whittier.Edu/QC
PAUL GALLAHER / QC ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Renovation of College Hall is underway to accomodate the needs of the Alumni Relations,
Public Relations and Development departments, which plan to move from their current off-
campus location to the former home of the S.P.A. program. The move will take place in January.
Move to College Hall will save
$75,000 annually after renovations
Patrick Holmes
QC News Co-Editor
Renovations are taking place
in College Hall (also known as the
Speech Pathology and Audiology
[S.P.A.] building) to accommodate
Whittier College offices that are
located off-campus in the Whittier
Square office building off of Penn
Street.
According to Vice President
for Advancement Bedford Mcintosh, the offices of Public Relations, Development and Alumni
Relations will move into College
Hall. "This was seen as a vacant
space and [the move] was primarily a business decision," Mcintosh
said. "We realized that we could
move into that space, and after incurring some renovation costs, in
the not-very-long-term the college
could save a lot of money [by not
having to pay rent at the current
facility]."
According to a public email
sent out by President Kate Will, the
move will take place in January.
"To be habitable, the building will
require a 'face lift' of the interior,
including paint, carpet, ceiling, etc.,
along with some minor reconfigu
ration to provide necessary office
workspace and storage," Will said.
According to Mcintosh, "The new
building will be a squeeze for us,
but we're just happy to be back on
campus."
"We estimate the cost of renovation to be about $125,000 to
$140,000, which includes $15,000
for contingency," Vice President
for Finance and Administration Jan
Legoza said. "The rental cost [at
Whittier Square] is about $75,000
a year, so there is roughly about a
two year payback." According to
Legoza, the work is being overseen
by Director of Facilities Mark Ursic of the Sodexho firm that the
college contracts maintenance operations to.
Work has begun on the building, including the "demolition of
old carpet and bathroom fixtures
and reconfiguration of electrical
work for the new layout of offices,"
Ursic said. "It is mainly a cosmetic
improvement that consists of painting, carpeting and some tile work
in the bathrooms, exterior paint and
a new entry awning above the door."
Mcintosh said that the new location on campus will allow for the
departments to be more involved in
the community, with easy access to
students, faculty and staff. Mcintosh also said that when alumni
come to the alumni office, they are
already taken to campus, and the
new location will make this easier.
"[The move] uses what is currently
an underused institutional asset,"
Legoza said.
According to Mcintosh, the offices located in Whittier Square
moved there in mid-2003 from their
previous location in the Menden-
hall basement. College Hall has
been vacant since the closing of the
S.P.A. program, and according to
Ursic has been used for storage
ever since. The program opened in
1946 and closed its doors in December of 1998. The program did
not move into College Hall until
1983 [The Rock, vol. 69, no. 2].
Before serving as the S.P.A. building, College Hall was a men's residence. The house was acquired by
Whittier College in 1951, the same
year Wanberg Hall was erected.
Conference to be held
at Whittier next fall
Patrick Holmes
QC News Co-Editor
The 12th annual Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research (S.C.C.U.R.) will
be held at Whittier College in the
fall of 2004.
"I'm anticipating there will
probably be 500 people here so the
conference will be held all over
our campus," Associate Professor
of Biology Cheryl Swift said about
next year's conference. "The folks
that have been putting it on for a
while wanted
to have it at a
small liberal
arts school like
Whittier because that is
how the conference began."
While this
year's conference was at a
large school,
the first two
conferences
were held at the
California Institute of Technology, and according to Swift, participants feel
that there is a better conference
experience at smaller schools.
"Whittier College has faithfully been sending students to the
conference almost since the beginning, so it only makes sense as
a small school in the Los Angeles
area to join in the rotation of
schools to host the conference,"
Swift said. She anticipates that the
conference will be held in the library, Hoover Hall, Deihl Hall and
the Science Building. The conference will be held on Saturday, Nov.
20, 2004, so interference with
classes will not be an issue on the
weekend.
Swift encourages all Whittier
students to start thinking about
"When you are presenting alongside students
from Pomona and
Occidental... and asking
if we are as good as
them, what you find out
is that the answer is
yes."
Cheryl Swift
Associate Professor
of Biology
possible projects for next year's
conference. "I think it's very common for students in the sciences to
go to S.C.C.U.R. because they are
doing experiments and are in the
lab," Swift said.
"I'm not sure that students in
other disciplines are aware that
they are doing research as well,
and that a paper for a class can be
a jumping off point for a large
project.
Once you
stop just reading material
and start synthesizing ideas
and come up
with your own
ideas based on
that research—
then you are
doing research." Swift
also said, "Students need to
stop seeing
themselves as
paper writers
and start seeing
themselves as researchers."
"The most important thing you
can do at Whittier College is to stop
thinking of yourself as a student and
start seeing yourself as a sociologist, a writer or an artist, for whatever field you are in," Swift said.
"[The benefit of presenting at
S.C.C.U.R. is that] when you are
presenting alongside students from
Pomona and Occidental and the
schools that we at Whittier are constantly comparing ourselves to, and
asking if we are as good as them,
what you find out is that the answer
is yes."
29 students and faculty members participated in S.C.C.U.R. 2003
held at the University of California,
Irvine, on Saturday, Nov. 22.
NEWS YOU CAN USE
On Thursday, Nov. 20 and Friday, Nov. 21, junior Jessica Robledo was elected COR president, junior Terrell Tucker became vice-
president, junior Kristen Oase was elected secretary and sophomore
Amethyst Polk was chosen as the external affairs commissioner. The
four members-at-large elected include juniors Carolyn Trapp, Jess
Brown, Elsbeth Detwiler and sophomore Kirsten Kershek.
Robledo's plans as the newly elected president include, "To meet
with [current A.S.W.C. President senior] Zach [Winters] and talk
about his experiences and what he has been through as COR president. Then to talk to all of the members of COR to see what their ideas
are. I have so many new ideas, but I want to hear what is important to
them first."