OCL Looks to Fix Housing Problems

Paul Dahlgren

Pomona’s trend of housing problems due to overcrowding seems to be on the decline. The Office of Campus Life (OCL) has several plans involving the rearrangement of dorm rooms and relocation of freshmen to gain more spaces for students on campus.

Besides finding more spaces for students, OCL also plans to convert back some of the spaces used in previous years as last-minute efforts to find spaces for students.

"Our hope is to recover some of the study lounges," said Dean of Campus Life Matt Taylor. For several years, Harwood, Lyon, Wig, and Mudd-Blaisdell have housed students in old study lounges or computer labs. [con't]

Aramark Talks Still Undecided

Jeff Gernes

Negotiations between Aramark and Pomona are not yet finished as promised, administrators announced Wednesday.

Wednesday was the date administrators had set two weeks ago for negotiations to be finished, but the deadline has been extended for another week. "We said we would be done by April 14," said Director of the Campus Center Neil Gerard Wednesday, "[but] we are not."

Gerard explained that while the general contract for the five colleges has been negotiated, the specifics of Pomona’s individual contract with Aramark have yet to be finalized.

Pomona currently has many benefits above the standard Aramark contract. Items such as Frary being open until 8pm for dinner and Snack are examples of these special allowances which are found only at Pomona and for which Pomona pays extra money. It is these benefits which are still in the process of being negotiated. [con't]

Senior Class Speakers Selected

Neel Garlapati & Chris Schraeder

The members of the senior class elected Rory Van Loo ’99 and Ryan Derby-Talbot ’99 as the graduation and Class day speakers last week. Van Loo will speak at commencement on May 16 while Derby-Talbot will speak at the annual Class day on May 15, the day before the commencement ceremonies.

"Senior day is the day when all the awards are handed out and we run the other way through the gates," commented Derby-Talbot.

Van Loo and Derby-Talbot were selected from a pool of 16 candidates. The elections were run by Senior Class President Jason D’Olier and a group of students he organized to conduct the voting. [con't]

Security Briefs

A stolen "Employee of the Month" sign reported stolen last month was spotted by a Security officer in a student’s room in plain sight. Campus staff and Security retrieved it and seven other stolen signs, including one from the City for which CPD wrote a crime report. [con't]

Senate Briefs

South Campus Senator Sarah Jackal ’01 explained to the Senate that the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC) needed to be evaluated. Jackel added that she considered the IFC more concerned with keeping fraternities out of trouble than regulating its members. Commissioner of Communications Dan Check ’01 said that he had spoken with the managing editors of The Student Life, and had found that the brothers of Phi Delta had a long history of hazing and heavy drinking during initiation and non-initiation weeks. Check then explained that he felt the internal rules of the IFC are generally ignored by member fraternities. He concluded that the IFC could open itself to a more serious outside review, perhaps by the state, if a blind eye is turned to rule violations. [con't]