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Faculty unhappy about
House, Loft
Senate cites safety, lack of resources as areas
of concern |
Jennifer
Brannock
Faculty Senate Beat |
“The
main complaint is that [the faculty] doesn’t have enough time
to do their research,” Kreszock said. “They’ve always
had the responsibilities of looking after the loft and the house,
and sometimes that does not allow them enough time to do the things
that they want to do. The house facility has always taken precedence.”
Some faculty members cited research as one of the requirements for
becoming a supervisor in one of the facilities and felt they were
not able to get the most out of their experience.
Senator George H. Olson, a professor in the department of leadership
and educational studies, recently visited the New York Loft and
claimed the facility had numerous inadequacies, including defunct
wall outlets and a lack of Internet service. Olson said he and others
traveling to New York on grant proposals have had cuts in their
funding and were recommended to stay at the Loft to save money.
“I think either we need to make [the Loft and App House] conducive
to faculty doing research up there or we shouldn’t be recommending
that they stay there,” Olson said.
Kreszock said the wall outlets have since been repaired, but the
Internet availability is an ongoing problem.
Others have had a more positive experience at the New York Loft,
including senior Abby R. Brinkley, who visited the facility in spring
2001.
“I would definitely go to the Loft again,” Brinkley said.
“There are friendly faces and people there who know where I
come from. It’s in a great location, because anywhere you turn
there’s always something interesting.”
Multiple renovations are needed at the Washington, D.C., facility
to make living conditions safer and more comfortable. Provost Harvey
R. Durham said he felt the App House should be gutted completely
and listed such problems as duct tape on the stairs and other small,
physical hazards.
“The house in Washington, D.C., which is a leased facility,
has some wear and tear,” Kreszock said. “We need new furnishings,
we need new carpeting, we need to paint it, we need those sorts
of things and they’re basically cosmetic.”
Appalachian is in the process of negotiating renovations, but the
administration is also exploring the possibility of purchasing their
own facility in downtown Washington, D.C., which Kreszock feels
would have already been done had it not been for state budget problems.
“Part of the situation is that the university is in the process
of exploring the possibility of buying a facility somewhere in Washington,
D.C., on Capitol Hill and doesn’t want to spend a bunch of
money putting all of that into the current house if they buy something
else, because that would be a big waste of money,” Kreszock
said.
Faculty members also made suggestions pertaining to their time constrictions,
stating that the current open check-in time was unacceptable. Students
are told to notify supervising professors weeks in advance of their
arrival time, but are not made to stick to those times, which sometimes
leaves professors wasting their research time in the office.
Several faculty members showed interest in creating a for-credit
internship program within the facilities, working with the supervising
professor and handling several of their administrative duties.
“My feeling is it’s a matter of problem-solving to not
dismiss the idea of having an intern in there to meet some of our
needs and to look at things like undergraduate internships with
the person getting credit for being there,” said Senator Margaret
A. Yaukey, an assistant professor in the department of art.
“They’re not holding a separate internship outside the
loft but actually working with the business instructor of the Loft
as the quality of their internship.”
Kreszock presented the idea of giving academic credit for interns
working solely at the Loft and App House in the past, but the idea
was rejected by the hospitality department, who did not feel the
experience would meet their students’ educational needs.
Yaukey encouraged Kreszock to ask the department again and assured
him of other departments that would welcome the experience for their
students. |
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