“I always check our Christmas
tree for unwelcome visitors,
even though it’s plastic.”
Maureen Simpson, junior
Music file-sharing alive
in university dorms
Parachutists invade campus
Samford football kicked off its inaugural OVC season against Southeast
Missouri State on Saturday night. Two parachutists brought the game ball
with them as they glided into the stadium.
By Ginny Temple
It appears that file-sharing has become
to the administration what was once con¬
troversies over the use of alcohol and
p dancing on Samford's campus.
Students say coming to college almost
makes the act easier and more enticing be
cause of the fast Internet access that stu¬
dents are linked to from the privacy of
their domi rooms.
Samford runs on
the University Lo¬
cal Area Network
which dictates what
students can and
cannot do from on-
and sharing it," he said. "That's not just
through the Internet. That's even recording
a song from the radio to a cassette tape and
then giving it to some one."
He also knows what programs not to
use. The downloading program he has
been using for five years is safe and does¬
n't allow others to have access to his com¬
puter. But with programs like Kazaa. that
access can't just be turned off.
If a program al-
“lf it is illegal, then why do
they allow us to have
access?”
lows file-sharing,
that means any
file can be seen,
not just music
Anonymous senior JMC major files, it also
- means others can
campus computers. Using file-sharing pro¬
grams through the network to download
and upload is not currently being stopped
or filtered by Samford's system.
In a recent e-mail sent out by the Com¬
puter and Telecommunication Services re¬
garding attaching devices to the university
network, Samford does spell out guidelines
for use.
One such rule is that it is "unacceptable
to share files to other computers or users,
on or off campus."
Unacceptable and discouraged maybe,
but it is, however, possible and is happen¬
ing on campus.
Samford currently houses and provides
the Internet to a sophomore computer sci¬
ence major who has a collection of over
8,500 downloaded music files.
He knows computers, knows copyright
laws and. knows not to share.
“Copyright breaking is having a song
easily share viruses and other computer
hazards.
"Some people are stupid with what they
are doing. If you use something like that,
you deserve to be caught," he said.
A senior JMC major who has used
Kazaa in the past said, "Most students
don't know what file sharing is, let alone
that it is bad. I didn't know.”
Soon though, many may discover just
how bad file sharing is.
The Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) has started handing out
subpoenas to frequent file swappers with a
price tag of up to $15,000 per song.
This July, the RIAA issued more than
800 subpoenas.
Samford’s frequent filer said he figured
his bill would set him back about $120
million.
Please see SHARING, pg. 2
SU Family
Weekend kicks
off Friday
Talladega race forces Family
Weekend committee to rethink
events and scheduling
By Sarah Davis
Samford's annual Family Weekend will
start this weekend with a number of activi¬
ties provided for students and their fami¬
lies to enjoy. The activities will begin on
Friday and will go through Sunday after¬
noon.
"Family Weekend is a great time for
families and friends of Samford to meet
and greet each other while deepening ex¬
isting friendships,” Student Activities
Council Vice President Mike Giles said.
This year's chairs of the event are soph¬
omores Tara McCafferty and Allison
Swartz and senior Sarah Wilcox. These
three, along with their committee mem¬
bers, have been planning the weekend
since school started.
Family Weekend was originally sched¬
uled to be the last weekend in September,
but because of thfc timing of the EA
Sports 500 at the Talladega Speedway, the
event was pushed back a week so hotel ac¬
commodations would be available.
"Family Weekend will be more in¬
volved this year, with more on campus op-
Please see WEEKEND, pg. 2
New learning program
By Brittany Dawkins
The Samford Learning Round Table has instituted a new pro¬
gram that will help students demonstrate mastery and proficiency
in four specific literacies.
The four focuses of the Transformational Learning Program
(TLP) are information literacy,
quantitative literacy, oral communi¬
cation and written communication.
The program's goal is to create
leaders who are not bound to the
skills of their major alone. The pro¬
gram designers, who came from all
areas of Samford's campus, found
it necessary for students to attain
the knowledge and skills related to
efficient communication.
Samford's faculty wished to in¬
still such values in their students so
that the skills and information ac¬
quired during their time at the uni¬
versity would contribute to a life¬
long learning experience.
Besides strengthening Samford’s
academic sphere as a whole, the
program is specifically designed to
sharpen the abilities of every indi¬
vidual that graduates from Sam¬
ford, thus elevating the capacity
and competence of every student.
The program was created in re¬
sponse comments made by univer¬
sity faculty regarding the freshmen
“Horizons” program, and its concluding compliment of “Senior
Seminar.” The faculty found, however, that aspirations and goals
addressed in the first year are often neglected and lost in the years
before “Senior Seminar.”
to aid students’ future
TLP is a five to seven year project and is currently in the as¬
sessment stages. During the summer, decisions will be made re¬
garding the practical application of the program that will probably
begin next fall.
Director of Samford's Center for Teaching, Learning and
Scholarship Mary Sue Baldwin has very specific goals for the
program.
“ I believe the implementation
of this program will strengthen
individuals in their ability to
write, speak in various circum¬
stances. to utilize computer tech¬
nology appropriately and to eval¬
uate quantitative information ef¬
fectively," she said.
Baldwin believes that profi¬
ciency in these areas will be an
asset to students in both the fur¬
thering of their education and
their chosen career path.
The program is set to work
alongside the existing composi¬
tion of Samford’s curricular de¬
velopment that combines under¬
graduate learning with Christian
identity. As the TLP mission
reads, “The institutions will de¬
sign, implement and assess uni¬
versity-wide and interdiscipli¬
nary undergraduate learning out- ‘
comes in the areas of writing,
oral communication, information
and quantitative literacy. We be¬
lieve in transforming persons for God, for learning, forever.”
bsdawkin @ samford. edu
Samford University Library
Professor Killian Manning lectures students. Manning helped
with the creation of the Transformational Learning Program.
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