An e-mail sent out to students on Monday from Dean of Students Melinda Stoops warned of a recent outbreak of the gastrointestinal disease norovirus.

Hofrenning said the Health Center has seen “between 15 and 18” cases of GI viruses this month that could potentially be norovirus. This is about 10 percent of all students seen by health services, “so it’s a little bit of an increase.”

Although Hofrenning said she would not call this an outbreak on campus, she said “the emergency rooms in Boston and the MetroWest have seen an increase in the number of GI illnesses” also, and that the virus most likely came to campus from the surrounding communities because it is so contagious.

The e-mail said that the Health Center on campus has “seen an increase in the number of students with these [norovirus] symptoms” such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain that last one to two days. The norovirus can be spread by contact with an infected person or contaminated food.

Director of Health Services Ilene Hofrenning said that it is hard to distinguish between norovirus, specifically, and other gastrointestinal (GI) diseases because they are similar in symptoms, but that norovirus is usually much more intense and short-lived. The only way to know for sure if a person has norovirus, as opposed to another GI virus, is to send out a stool sample to a lab to be tested.

The Health Center does not test ill students for norovirus “because by the time you get the results, people are over it already and it’s a little bit tricky to test for it and it’s expensive. … The only people that tend to get tested are people that work with food,” said Hofrenning.

According to a Massachusetts Department of Public Health norovirus fact sheet, “In NLV outbreaks at food-related businesses, food handling employees will be required to provide stool specimens for testing.”

Director of Dining Services Ralph Eddy said, “To our knowledge, none of our employees have been diagnosed with norovirus.  Any employee with symptoms will not be permitted to work until they obtain proper medical clearance.” He added that the increase in norovirus incidents gave Health Services “an opportunity to reinforce with our teams why their extensive safety training, coupled with washing their hands and wearing gloves during food preparation and service, is so important.”

Linda Campbell, the vice president of quality and patient services for the MetroWest Medical Centers, said their hospitals have “absolutely seen an increase” in norovirus cases this winter season. “We’ve seen about five in-patients a day for the past month in the Framingham Union Campus.” She added that lab tests are not used on a routine basis because they are hard to determine, so they diagnos based on symptoms.

No students have been hospitalized because of a GI illness so far.

The school is focusing on making students aware of the illness right now, said Hofrenning, because “the most important thing in preventing the spread is personal hygiene,” such as washing hands frequently, not sharing food and drinks and not going to class when sick, as Stoops listed in her e-mail.

Hofrenning said that although she expects there to be “a few more cases,” she hopes there will be fewer due to people being diligent about prevention techniques.

Tom Lustig, a senior English major, said he believes he had the norovirus recently because he experienced intense stomach pains and “threw up every half hour, which wasn’t very fun.” He experienced these symptoms for about 16 hours and was absent from school one day, but didn’t go to Health Services.

Rachellyn Makuch, a sophmore English major, had similar symptoms that lasted 24 hours. “I felt a little dizzy and was throwing up most of the night. I didn’t go to health services because it was closed when I started to feel really sick.”

Although gastrointestinal diseases have increased this year, Hofrenning said she received some positive news about a decrease in cases of the flu this winter from the Department of Public Health in an e-mail. “Usually in February, they’re inundated with flu, but there’s been very little in Massachusetts.”

According to the FSU Crime Statistics Report from 2010 and information provided by Dean of Students Melinda Stoops for 2011, there has been an increase in documented sexual assaults on campus.

Six cases of sexual assault were reported in 2010, according to the annual FSU crime statistics report for that year. For calendar year 2011, Stoops reported eight cases to FSUPD.

In order to conform with the Federal Campus Security Act and the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, Framingham State, along with other campuses, must compile a crime statistics report yearly.

Stoops said the official 2011 calendar year report is not out yet. “I report numbers to the chief of police that involve residence life numbers, the counseling center and health services. I can’t say that is the final number because campus police may have numbers from elsewhere [which will be known once the official report is out].”

Beginning Jan. 1, 2012, there has been one case reported, according to campus police logs.

“There are different ways that students can report it [sexual assault] and the response is different depending on whom they report to,” said Stoops.

Stoops said the Counseling Center and Health Services are required by law to protect the confidentiality of any victim who reports an offense. “I would know very limited information about what happened, but they [Counseling Center or Health Services] report it to myself and to campus police.

“We want to honor the requests and rights of the individual, but we are also are trying to protect the larger community,” said Stoops. If a student were to communicate with his or her RA or someone in Residence Life, there is “a different standard in regards to confidentiality.”

She said a police or judicial filing would not be required, but she would be notified by Residence Life, of the incident and the student who was involved. “Given the situation, I may or may not follow up with the student – it depends on the circumstances,” said Stoops.

Chief of Campus Police Brad Medeiros said, “We encourage anyone to come forward. … It allows us to remove the threat.

“The majority of the department goes through close to a 40-hour training course with either the state police or the municipal police training academy as far as our sexual assault training goes,” said Medeiros.

Medeiros said the Threat Assessment Team [Dean of Students Melinda Stoops, Director of the Counseling Center Paul Welch and the Director of Residence Life Glenn Cochran] meets weekly with him to discuss all of the incidents to which officers and Residence Life respond.

“Each week [every Monday], we are actually taking an in-depth look at every situation with every individual that we deal with to ensure that they are evaluated appropriately. All the key resource people are there at this meeting.”

A minimum of two to three officers and a dispatcher are assigned to each shift and department officers patrol the campus and answer calls on a 24-hour basis.

“We have well over 60 CC TV cameras [closed-circuit televisions] in and around the entire outside of the campus area,” said Medeiros.

In addition, there is an institutional security officer who patrols the campus and the academic buildings and there are code blue phones located outside of every dorm and academic building, behind Hemenway Hall and in the campus parking lots.

He advised students to utilize the shuttle bus service whenever possible because the campus is open to public roads.

“You really never know who is driving up and down the roadways … as innocent as it could be. Sometimes, bad people can land anywhere,” said Medeiros.

Stoops said in order to minimize the risk of becoming a victim, a student needs to “look at the choices that you are making” and not hesitate to call for help. She also advised students to go out in groups with people they know and are comfortable with and not to leave anyone alone or behind.

“If you are drinking, make sure you are with people you know and trust. … Really pay attention to what is going on,” said Stoops.

Medeiros said the FSUPD has many crime prevention programs available – one of which is called R.A.D. [Rape Aggression Defense] which is taught by Sergeant Karen Nicholas.

R.A.D. is specifically geared toward women as it teaches them how to be confident in their abilities to protect themselves in a verbal or physical attack.

According to the FSUPD Facebook page, the crime prevention unit will host a “Sexual Assault Awareness program” on Tuesday, March 6 at 7:00 p.m. in DPAC. The event will be open to students, faculty and staff.

Last fall, FSU enrolled 67 freshmen as full-time students who did not meet the school’s standards for admissions through the newly formed Pathways Program.

Because the students were non-matriculated, they were not officially members of the class of 2015.

Although FSU has always allowed non-matriculated students to take classes, this is the first time in the school’s history that they were allowed to attend with full-time status and live in the residence halls.

Susanne Conley, vice president of enrollment and student development, said one of the motivations for developing the Pathways Program was to ensure that the school would be able to increase the on-campus population from  1,500 to 1,900 resident students with the opening of North Hall in September. She said the need to meet this goal made it necessary to pursue a number of strategies to achieve full residential occupancy.

In order to be officially admitted as members of the class of 2015, students participating in the Pathways Program were required to earn a 2.5 GPA in the first semester, whereas students already officially admitted as first-year students are required to earn a 1.7. According to school policy, students may graduate from FSU with a 2.0 GPA.

According to Conley, 54 percent of the Pathways students met the criteria for admission, and all who were offered admission accepted.

“It’s not really an admissions program,” said Conley, referring to Pathways, “because we’re not really admitting them. It’s more of an enrollment program. But it was for students who were not accepted upon application.”

The Pathways Program is comprised of people who applied to FSU for the 2011-12 school year, but who did not meet the requirements necessary to be admitted as full-time matriculated students. Conley said the students who are a part of Pathways were not admitted, but wished to participate in a “challenge” semester.

“We’ve always had non-matriculated students here,” she said. “What they’ve always done is gotten courses through add-drop and we didn’t know if they were succeeding. They could have ended up in courses they weren’t really eligible to take given placement requirements. So we tried to do a better job by those students.”

The participating students were all self-identified – students who accepted the offer to enroll in the program.

“It was an invitation,” Conley said, “to earn matriculation by completing their necessary post-secondary coursework at FSU.”

The Pathways students were not chosen by the admissions department, she said. They chose to enter into the program themselves. If they had chosen not to attend FSU as Pathways students, they would not have been able to be enrolled at the school. Many of the students who are in the Pathways Program were also accepted to other universities, but decided they wanted to go to FSU, she said.

Students participating in Pathways, said Conley, were restricted to three courses for the semester. This was modeled after the PLUS program (Program Leading to Undergraduate Success) designed for students with academic disadvantages.

“We felt that if you didn’t get accepted, there’s a reason for that,” Conley said, “and we want you to really have a doable load and manage things.”

Conley said because the students participating in the program were non-matriculated, they did not have either a major or an undeclared status.

Conley said many of the students who met the criteria for admissions to FSU after this first semester of enrollment had higher GPAs than the 2.5 Pathways students were required to achieve.

“What we tried to do with students who didn’t meet the challenge was be very careful about how we gave them that news, how we counseled them,” she said, adding that she was aware that the expectations for the Pathways students were higher than the expectations for “traditional first-year, first-time students.

“Some of those [Pathways] students may have done better than that,” Conley said. “So we were very careful in helping them see their options in going forward, making sure we weren’t discouraging anyone from staying in higher education and continuing to pursue a bachelor’s degree. That was very important to us.”

The opportunity to be first-year, first-time freshmen, Conley said, has “passed” for the students who participated in Pathways but did not achieve the required GPA. However, they have the option of taking courses as non-matriculated students either at FSU or at another school to earn admission as a transfer student.

Transfer students are required to have a GPA of 2.5 in order to earn admission to FSU.

The students who were not admitted, Conley said, can still take the credits they earned at FSU and transfer them to other colleges.

“At that time we were saying, ‘Well we want you to come here, but you need to prove that you’re someone who should be here,’” she said.

The students in the Pathways Program, said Conley, understood “that the burden was on their shoulders” to prove that they could earn admission here.

Conley said students in the Pathways Program were divided into three groups and participated in workshops loosely modeled on the first-year seminar. The point of the workshops, she said, was “to make sure they understood everything about living on campus, staying healthy on campus, what to do you do if you need help in one of your courses.”

The workshops were taught by Conley, Dean of Admissions Jeremy Spencer, and an Admissions Office staff member, and were not associated with a class as are other Foundations programs.

“I think the workshop went a long way towards helping ensure at least a level of success for the students,” Conley added.

Conley said FSU is not the first university to offer a “challenge” semester.

“I think the most important thing is that at the end of this program, we have to study it. We have to say, ‘What were the outcomes? Was it worth it? Did we make a difference in these young people’s lives?’”

Conley said that a couple of Pathways students she had talked to had positive experiences at FSU. One said that it was like a wake-up call, not being accepted, and that she loves FSU.

Many of the students were active on campus, Conley said. A lot of the students she worked with, she added, really loved the campus, and wanted to stay at FSU.

Pathways students couldn’t participate in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sports, Conley said, because they were not matriculated. That was the only activity in which they could not participate.

Pathways students paid the same fees as matriculated students. Some of the students lived in residence halls, and some of them commuted. Some, Conley said, were planning to transfer at the end of the semester, but appreciated the opportunity to come to FSU.

Students involved in the Pathways Program did not receive any extra tutoring, Conley said, but they were entitled to use campus services such as CASA, which are paid for through their student fees.

Dr. Robert Donohue, the faculty union president, said the administration did not get any input from faculty when the program was being created. “The fact that there was this apparent change in admissions policy without any input from the faculty or even the faculty being made aware of the Pathways Program is problematic,” he said. “The faculty definitely have a stake in admissions policy and the president responding to some of the faculty’s questions about the program noted that the faculty should have had some input, and in the future would like to have the faculty’s input on admissions policy, which we, the faculty, appreciate.”

The other problem with Pathways, Donohue said, is “the policy itself.” He said that while state universities should make access to bachelor’s and master’s degrees as “broad” as possible, many faculty members are concerned the school is too focused on growth – growth in number of students, growth in number of graduates – and there isn’t an “adequate balance” between the number of students on campus and the resources available to them.

Donohue said by having part-time faculty teaching too many courses, administrators are in violation of the collective bargaining agreement between the Board of Higher Education and the Massachusetts State College Association – the union that represents faculty and librarians. “Given the huge size of the incoming freshman class,” he said, “that dependence upon part-time faculty is going to be exacerbated.”

Donohue said he was not aware of the Pathways Program until October and that was when the faculty became aware of it as well.  “The faculty need to know what’s going on, with our students,” he said.

He said many members of the faculty were concerned they didn’t know about the program, and the union is concerned about how the program will affect faculty evaluations, but he can’t “say for sure what the overall attitudes of the faculty are about this program.”

At the end of every semester, students fill out evaluations of their professors who are non-tenured or up for tenure review. These are important, Donohue said, because they are used  for a variety of reasons.

“If we have students in our classes who do not meet the university’s own criteria for being academically prepared, that really sets up a situation where students are frustrated or angry,” he said. “If we’ve got students whom the university has identified as not qualified to be admitted to the school who are then submitting student evaluations of faculty, we’re really concerned that they’re going to negatively evaluate faculty – not because the faculty are doing anything wrong, but because those students experienced a great deal of frustration by being in classes that they’re not as well prepared [for] as they should have been.”

The “profile” of the students in a class, Donohue said, influences how professors teach a class, the intellectual atmosphere of the class and the level of discussion that takes place.

PULL OUT- “If, in order to expand the number of students, we lower our admissions standards, I think there’s a very high probability that will negatively impact the academic and intellectual climate on campus.”

Donohue added that many first-year students have a hard time transitioning to “the university experience.” Many students who do meet admissions’ criteria still need remedial classes, and still struggle during their first semesters. He said if there are more students who do not meet the criteria, many faculty members are concerned about the impact it will have on the academic and intellectual climate on campus.

Donohue said if a good number of the Pathways students are able to matriculate into FSU, “then I think it definitely should continue. … The faculty and the librarians are committed to access. But we’re also committed to maintaining the integrity of the academic program.”

Dr. Lorretta Holloway, a professor in the English department, said that she “doesn’t necessarily have a problem with the program itself” – her problem was with the way it was carried out.

“It is an admissions and enrollment program,” she said, “but it’s also obviously an academic program. … I think that’s a problem if you’re going to have a program like that with no faculty input.”

She also said that it isn’t clear how the program was developed and that programs – generally even pilots – are supposed to be reviewed by the Academic Policies Committee, but the Pathways Program wasn’t.

She added, “The incoming class this year – and the transfer students – it was such a huge number that I think that pushed people over the edge. And not just faculty – I think faculty, staff, everybody is working so hard, and we’ve been working very hard, and every department – not just academic apartments, but student involvement, Dining Services – are really pressed because the enrollment shot up so much. I don’t think anybody really predicted how much bigger the enrollment would be this year. So everyone’s feeling overworked. Everybody’s understaffed. … Every department could probably make a legitimate argument for hiring two to five full-time people.”

She also said it was a problem that people were finding things out “in a really weird way – news was trickling out about this program,” which, along with everything else, might have made faculty even less receptive to the Pathways Program.

“There are always non-matriculated students on campus,” she said, “partly because in DGCE, you don’t have to be matriculated. … I think there’s always a problem in some ways only because it’s difficult to keep track of those students … success and impact. Whereas if you have a matriculated student, there’s a way to track that student.”

She said the idea sounds good in theory, because it helps students to get a better idea of what full-time college life is like, but she doesn’t think the program was planned very well.

Another concern Holloway has is the economic impact on students. “It’s one thing to pay out of pocket for one class as a non-matriculated student,” she said. “But non-matriculated students do not qualify for financial aid. For me, that’s the real issue.” She said she doesn’t know if anyone has worked with the Pathways students to help them figure out ways to get low-interest loans.

The problem with all students, she said, is if they don’t make it through a semester or if they end up on academic probation and they’ve taken out a loan, “there’s a slippery slope of debt that occurs because the next semester, you may or may not be able to take a full load of classes. You might only take one class or whatever, but that means the time you start paying back your loan is starting to be counted then.”

She said if a student takes a full semester off and then tries to re-apply, they are considered “in default of a loan,” so if a student can get a loan, it will probably be one at a higher interest rate.

Holloway also said there was a problem with the potential for students to be prejudged by their status. “There were a lot of rumors about what the students were like,” she said, “and there was concern that they would be labeled. … And that’s not good for the atmosphere of the university, and it’s definitely not good for the students.”

Holloway said that while it’s harder to teach students who are less prepared to be at FSU, that’s not necessarily a Pathways problem. “This is a college readiness problem,” she said. “Thirty percent of college freshmen don’t persist, and that’s a nation-wide average. … Despite the majority of them going and spending 12 years in our education system, they are not ready for college-level work.

Conley said the thought process behind requiring a higher GPA for Pathways students was, “A ‘C’ at Framingham State means average work. And we were asking the Pathways students to step it up and do better than average work. To meet the challenge and to earn matriculation through the Pathways Program.

“We certainly, for example, wouldn’t have set a policy that would’ve been countervailing to existing university policies about expectations,” she added. “It was the way we structured the program. And nothing in it really undermined the expectations of matriculated students that are set forth by Academic Policies Committee.”

Conley said, “I think in hindsight, we could have done a couple of things a little differently with communication.” She added the administration was worried that Pathways students would be seen as “second-class citizens,” and, “we didn’t ever want to send that message.

“We never kept it a secret, of course,” she added. “I talked about the program in various venues on campus, including President’s Council – but I think there was some confusion about who these students were.”

According to Conley, the Pathways Program is currently under review by Conley and Spencer with input from faculty and staff members, and administrators are still unsure about whether it will be in place for next year. The review is scheduled for completion by the beginning of March.

“Now we’re talking about the program,” and its place in the “larger picture of enrollment at FSU,” she said.

Should the Pathways Program run next semester, Conley said, “We’re not going to spend any dollars promoting a program like this. We’re out there to recruit a first-rate freshman class -and I mean by that matriculated first-year students. Every year, this university rejects any number of students who meet and don’t meet the Department of Higher Education’s admissions guidelines. We care about the people we reject, and we put together this challenge program as a way to deal with some of this desire to continue your higher education in a residential setting, but our focus is on the class of accepted freshmen.

“I don’t think it would be wise” to spend funds promoting the program, she added.

Dan Cabral, who was enrolled in the Pathways Program last semester, but who did not meet the 2.5 GPA requirement for admission, said, “It was my only way into college,” adding that it was a great opportunity for him.

“Being able to live in the halls was fun,” he said. “Being with all the people and everything, meeting new people – it was a good time.”

While here, Cabral took classes in geography, philosophy and sociology. He said he didn’t use CASA as much as he should have. “It kind of screwed me over in the process. … I’m the kind of person that will put it off until the last minute and not get it done at all.”

This semester, Cabral is attending a community college and living at home. “I plan on going back [to FSU] in the fall,” he said. “It’s a great school.”

ADMISSION SIDEBAR

In addition to the 67 students in Pathways, this year FSU welcomed the largest incoming class in the school’s history.

Conley said that over 900 freshmen and more than 400 transfers started on campus last semester.

Conley also said there were “90 or so” non-matriculated students – students only taking one or two courses in order to graduate, but who are not attending FSU full time, as opposed to matriculated students, who are enrolled in degree programs and attend FSU full time.

At the Sept. 24 Board of Trustees meeting, Admissions Dean Spencer announced that at that time there were 924 freshmen and 433 transfer students. Spencer also announced that the average SAT score for the incoming class was 1022, up last year from 1017. These figures do not figure in scores from Pathways students.

Conley said, “I’ve heard from a number of faculty that [they] seemed to be quite pleased with the freshman class. Recalculated grade-point averages and SAT scores are coming in higher, which is always good. And I’m just hearing anecdotally that it seems to be a very good, engaged class.”

Conley said that five percent of the students in the freshman class were from out of state.

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions received 6,261 applications for the 2011 fall semester – 4,911 first-year students and 1,210 transfer students. In addition, said Conley, 140 students who previously attended FSU but dropped out reapplied, and 100 were re-admitted. Conley said the number of applications received was a “significant spike” compared to last year.

Jane Decatur, director of international education, said that there are 21 new international students attending FSU this year, bring the total number of international students to 48. They are a mixture of undergraduate, graduate and English as a Second Language (ESL) students, she said.

Elise Howell, a senior history major and a commuter, said she didn’t notice there were more people on campus, but “parking is as bad as it’s ever been.”

Rachel Rose, a junior psychology major, said, “They admitted way too many people, and if you need proof of that, go to the Dining Commons during dinner.”

GP: Please provide a brief summary of your résumé and educational background.

I attended Simmons College in Boston, which is a small women’s college. I got a degree in government and sociology with a minor in Spanish. I went out to California to go to law school but decided to work for a year instead – I wasn’t entirely sure. I had done internships with the Attorney General’s office while I was at Simmons and had mixed feelings about going to law school. I waited for a year and missed sociology. I decided to return to Massachusetts and enrolled in a master’s/Ph.D. program at Boston University. I got my Ph.D. in sociology with a focus in race and ethnic relations.

GP: Why did you decide to major in Sociology?

Of all the academic areas, that one just made the most sense to me. I like to think of myself as someone who is interdisciplinary. I like history, literature and politics. That’s why I had a double major in college. To me, sociology really helps me understand the world and I have always been interested in issues of social justice like inequality and those kinds of issues.

GP: What was your best experience in college?

My best experience in college was the classroom. I went to a small women’s college, and the faculty there were amazing. I got to know them very well and they helped me to take myself seriously. I was very grateful about that. For me, it was really the student-faculty relationship.

GP: What classes do you teach?

Right now, I am teaching Research Methods. I’ve been teaching it since I’ve been here and I started here in 1987. I teach Race and Ethnic Relations and Sport in Society, which I see as a great way to talk about race and ethnic relations and gender. I teach Investigating Social Forces in American Society, Sociology of Work and Internship. I’ve taught almost everything offered in our catalog at some point or another.

GP: What is your favorite aspect of being at FSU?

It’s really the students. I grew up in Natick, which is the next town over. I came here for my interview, which was my first time on campus, and I felt like I could really relate to the students because most of our students come from this area. I find that our students have so much potential and I love working with them to develop that potential. Students are just wonderful – it’s a great place to be.

GP: What do you like about being a department chair?

I’m always busy. I am never bored. I love working with the faculty on projects. I like mentoring new faculty. We have a fantastic department and I really like working with all of my colleagues. Everyone in our department, and most faculty here, are really invested in improving teaching, learning and working with the students.

GP: Are you currently working on any projects?

I am chairing the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, and we are working on some exciting things for this year. We are going to do some faculty and staff diversity training in May. We are doing all sorts of events this semester. I am very busy with that. I am interested in doing some research on gender and stereotype threat. Our department has grown considerably – a few years ago, we had 150 majors, and now we have over 250, so that’s a huge amount of growth in a short amount of time. I’ve been busy with hiring new faculty and dealing with the growth of our department.

GP: Do you have any hobbies?

Oh yeah. I like sports. I like to watch sports. I like the Red Sox, as most of my students know. I follow a lot of local sports teams. I like to read, I like to go bicycling and I like to be on Martha’s Vineyard as much as I can.

GP: Do you have any advice for students?

My advice for students is to push yourselves as much as you can. Use the time here to grow as much as you can. Students can settle for complacency and mediocrity, and I think that it’s very important to push and try to get to the next level. And we’re here to help you do that. I really try to convey to students to reach their full potential. This institution belongs to the students. That’s part of pushing yourself to the next level, in your classes and in other parts of campus life. Take advantage of all the opportunities here – it’s a great place. Don’t sit in your room and watch TV.

Last week, the FSUPD announced a new tip service community members can utilize anonymously to send information to police via text message.

Deputy Police Chief John Santoro said the new way of communicating with police was created by the same company, Rave Mobile Safety Technologies, that created the emergency FSU Alert notifications for school cancellations, inclement weather and public safety warnings.

“It was a product which they [Rave] told us about, and we thought it was a great tool for us to use to help receive information about bad things going on around campus,” said Santoro.

He said the bystander who sends a message to police will remain anonymous.

When a message is sent through a mobile device, that number is “scrambled by software” in an off campus location, said Santoro. That specific cell phone number is then assigned a random identification of mixed letters and numbers.

“When we want to communicate back and forth with that person, they are that unique identifier that is a mismatch of numbers and letters, so this way, we are making sure we are sending the right message to the right person,” said Santoro.

He explained that this process makes it possible for two-way communication. “So you’ll send it in from your cell phone number and you’re assigned a random digit ID number and we’ll respond back to you,” said Santoro.

With said anonymity, Santoro said the department hopes “that folks here will take it seriously and be mature responsible adults whoever it may be, and only send us legitimate information.”

He said sending in a false tip could increase the chances of someone getting hurt because the police and fire departments would be occupied responding to a false alarm. “We start rushing over there and … the officers go there in a heightened sense of awareness,” said Santoro.

Each tip is immediately received by the dispatcher on duty and also goes to each member of the command staff’s cell phones, said Santoro.

“We don’t respond to it, but we are just notified of it. It sets off a different tone at the dispatch computer that a tip has come in,” said Santoro.

He said in the little over a week which this service has been running, there have been at least two to three tips coming in per day. The response time for the tip is “contingent upon whatever the information is we receive.”

Some of the tips which have been received involve narcotics investigations, alcohol, suspicious vehicles and illegally parked cars. One of the messages received concerned an on-campus party.

Santoro advised students to utilize the tip service whenever they want to pass on information to the police anonymously. He would prefer that students call 4911 if someone’s life were at stake, so more information could be sent back and forth.

“There could be a situation where they are witnessing something that is going on and they don’t want to be picking up the phone,” which is when resorting to text messaging would be the next option, said Santoro.

Kristin Will, ‘09, and Kevin Doherty, ‘09, received Better Newspaper Contest awards from The New England Newspaper & Press Association (NENPA) on Feb. 11.

Will earned the second-place award in the Weekly Class Two Crime and Courts Reporting category, and Doherty earned the third-place award in the Spot Reporting category for daily newspapers with a circulation up to 29,999.

Will is the editor of the South Hadley Town Reminder and the Holyoke Sun newspaper. Will’s award was given for her coverage of the Phoebe Prince bullying case.

Prince, a 15-year-old South Hadley High School student, committed suicide in 2010 after being bullied for months by classmates. Six teenagers were criminally prosecuted in the wake of her death, with charges ranging from, statutory rape, civil rights violations, criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly and stalking.

A South Hadley resident herself, Will said, “It was certainly difficult covering such a tragic event in the first place, but it really hit home being so close to home.”

She added, that because she was editor of a long-time community newspaper, she was able to connect to “residents and to the students who might not have otherwise spoken to media.”

National and international media crews “hounded” the town for almost two years as the Prince case unfolded, said Will.

“The media frenzy would come and go, but what they didn’t realize was there was still a town left in their wake. The Town Reminder was cognizant of that fact,” said Will.

“While other media outlets portrayed South Hadley as a town that hadn’t been impacted, or hadn’t changed, I wrote otherwise. I maintain South Hadley has changed, and the students are more aware of one another and the impact each and every one of them has, in the school world and real world, on and off-line,” explained Will.

She credits her recent award and job success to Dr. Desmond McCarthy and FSU’s English department.

“I took every journalism-related class and benefitted immensely from each one. It wasn’t a journalism school, but it was damn close. The curriculum is current and tough and really prepares you for the types of articles and events reporters in the ‘real world’ cover,” she said.

The Gatepost taught hands-on experience, which Will still uses today. “The Gatepost was like a four-year in-house internship. … It was practical hands-on experience,” said Will.

After graduating in ’08, Will freelanced for the Holyoke Sun newspaper and the South Hadley Town Reminder, both of which are owned by Turley Publications.

In March, 2010, Will was hired as a full-time editor for both the South Hadley Town Reminder and the Holyoke Sun newspapers. At age 24, she was officially the youngest editor in the company.

Will said, “My first official day on the job found me in a press conference with the Northwestern District Attorney for the Phoebe bullying case, surrounded by giant news cameras from across the state. Nothing like a national news story to kick-off your first day!

Will said FSU prepared her for her career.

“I literally owe my career to Desmond McCarthy. I am forever grateful. He was actually the first person I called when I learned of the NENPA award. My mum was second, but when I told her, she totally understood!”

Will’s coverage of the Prince case taught her that “words are powerful weapons. You never know what could send someone over the edge, so it’s important to think before you speak, and bullying hurts- literally.

Referring to the recognition earned by two recent alumni of The Gatepost, McCarthy, The Gatepost’s advisor, said, “I am proud that two of our recent alumni were honored by NENPA. It is a tribute to our small journalism program and to the ability, professionalism, and hard work of our alumni.

“The Phoebe Prince tragedy brought the issue of bullying to the attention of our entire country, and Kristin Will covered the story with clarity and compassion. She is an enormously talented journalist who has a lot of integrity.”

The Gatepost was unable to reach Doherty before going to press.

As they were considered to be non-matriculated, these students were not eligible for financial aid, and for the privilege of paying full price out-of-pocket for tuition, fees, and for some, a meal plan and residence, the Pathways students were allowed to take only three classes and had to pull off a 2.5 GPA – leagues above the 1.7 required of freshmen – to come back in the spring. Seniors can graduate with a 2.0!

Students who elected to participate in the Pathways Program had to gamble thousands of dollars on the most challenging academic endeavor of their lives, and nearly half of them lost.

The idea that allowing rejected applicants to enter the school with dramatically inflated expectations thrust upon them is actually for their own benefit is an outright fantasy.

If the administration really wanted to, as Vice President of Enrollment and Student Development Susanne Conley said, “make a difference in these young people’s lives” by giving them access to a college education, the morally sound way to do so would have been to loosen the school’s admissions standards and admit more students the ethical way. Rather than being given a “challenge” semester in order to  “prove themselves,” these students have been treated with about as much contempt as an academic institution is capable of displaying – making them pawns in a very expensive game.

As it happened, administrators did, in fact, manage to fill every bed on campus. And then some. In fact, so many students chose to attend FSU that the school’s residence capacity was overextended, resulting in yet another semester in which the school had to buy students hotel rooms at the Sheraton three miles down Route 9.

The Pathways students who managed to pull off the required 2.5 GPA to be admitted for this semester were the lucky ones who didn’t encounter the typical freshman experience of being placed in a class which didn’t suit them or that just didn’t go well. For those who flunked their first-ever finals week or just couldn’t handle taking a college math course, the so-called “challenge” semester was a devastating letdown and an enormous waste of money. With only three classes, all it would take is one or two bad grades to derail Pathways students’ college careers, sever budding friendships and uproot them from their newfound homes in their res halls.

Adding insult to injury, administrators flaunted both their success in meeting enrollment goals and an apparent increase in the SAT scores and GPAs of admitted students last fall, all the while knowing that those celebrated academic statistics didn’t take into account the 67 Pathways students who were quietly snuck in the school’s proverbial back door.

If FSU were a for-profit corporation, the Pathways strategy would make perfect sense, but it isn’t. This is not how a public university is supposed to function, which is why a program like this had never existed at FSU in the past, and, hopefully, will never exist here again.

Staff Writer

In a very special Valentine’s Day tribute, the documentary “Orgasm, Inc.: The Strange Science of Female Pleasure” by filmmaker Liz Canner was screened on campus as a way for students to explore sexuality.

 The Health and Wellness Center and the Academic Affairs’ Linked Learning Community teamed up to bring this provocative film about the cultural, social and business aspects of women’s sexual problems to campus. Before the event, Professor Virginia Rutter said, “The approach of the film is to look at the way the pharmaceutical industry has taken interest in female sexuality.”

The event was not just a documentary screening, but a panel of speakers as well. The panel included Rutter, Wellness Center Health Educator Pam Lehmberg and History Professor Bridgette Sheriden. Sheriden and Rutter both teach classes concerning sexuality. It also included Framingham State students Keyona Bell, a senior history major and participant in Hilltop’s “Vagina Monologues,” Dan Jalonski, a senior English major and former adult video store employee and Angelique Bouthot, a freshman sociology major who takes part in sociological research.

The panel’s discussion, which took place after the screening, facilitated conversations about genuine health problems which interfere with pleasure, and the way that sexuality and pleasure are treated in people’s lives.

Rutter stated that this event was “organized to raise awareness of physical health and sexual health, and also to raise awareness about the kinds of social pressures and programming that we have on something so seemingly private as pleasure and orgasms.”

The focus of the film is what is referred to as Female Sexual Dysfunction, or the inability to achieve orgasm during intercourse. The film argues that the pharmaceutical companies use the fear of being abnormal to get women to search for a “quick fix” solution.

A survey from the early ‘90s, which was broadly covered in the news, stated that 43 percent of women had a sexual dysfunction. At the time, women feared that they were part of that 43 percent.

Later, the survey conductor came forward, saying the majority of those women who were reported as having sexual dysfunction were perfectly normal. which was reported by the survey conductor.

According to the film, women often seek out medical solution to treat their perceived abnormality, not realizing that trials funded by pharmaceutical companies have a 60 percent chance of steering women toward drugs, regardless of the women’s actual needs.

Rutter said, “The topic of pleasure gets neglected. In the past, sex was for procreation. Now, we have a well understood separation between sex for pleasure and sex for procreation. It’s great to have big, open discussions where we discuss how pleasure is discussed.”

Lehmberg, one of the event’s panelists, was “thrilled to be on a panel about pleasure, because I usually discuss the negative effects of sex.”

She also said there are some medications and some medical issues that can cause a change in libido, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that a woman has a sexual dysfunction.

Bouthot wanted to view female sexual dysfunction as a social problem.

“Problems don’t speak for themselves, so what makes us care about female sexual dysfunction … wasn’t that more women were suddenly suffering … [it was that] somebody told us that there was a problem,” she said.

Bouthot also pointed out that within the film, Leonore Tiefer, who fought against pharmaceutical companies at an FDA approval hearing, said sexual dysfunction is not necessarily a problem, but is natural.

Bell captured the underlying statement perfectly, saying, “The sense of what is normal, and I think that’s a question, is just like the question of sex and pleasure that no one truly openly talks about. It’s something that is behind closed doors.

“Tonight we are going to openly talk about it which is what we need to do.”

Jalonski said there is “definitely a consumer-driven, bargain-driven aspect to promoting these pills and these creams.” He said the adult video store at which he worked had college-age customers who would come in and buy products for treating sexual disfunction, and did not believe that they necessarily needed them. In discussing adult movies, he said that “It’s not necessarily how things are done in the real world, and it’s not necessarily normal.”

After the panel, the audience participated in a discussion with the panel members, which lasted nearly 20 minutes.

[Editors note: Dan Jalonski is a member of The Gatepost editorial staff]

Staff Writer

Liam Neeson is The Man. He’s proven he can do anything: a wise martial arts master (Batman Begins, Star Wars Episode I), a dangerously smart ex-agent-of-some-kind (Taken, The A-Team), and even a troubled widower (Love Actually). What separates him from machos like Willis or Stallone is that he puts the “act” in “action.”

Now, in “The Grey,” viewers see him in a story that strips actors of most resources like a gun. There’s nothing in this movie but natural predators and brutal weather. There’s also nothing to save Neeson’s character, and a half-dozen unfortunate men, as they try to face the baren wilderness. Well, nothing except his extensive knowledge of the Alaskan tundra.

Neeson plays John Ottway, a wildlife sniper at an Alaskan oil rig, full of blue-collar, foul-mouthed working stiffs heading home. Their plane crashes in a place that’s worse than the middle of nowhere – wolf territory.

For those of the “if it’s furry, it’s cuddly” opinion, these wolves are anything but. Often, they’re shown as too-fast glimpses as they attack the survivors. These animals are not cute. The film made these animals amount to wild Alaska’s violent street gangs. The overuse of CGI-rendered wolves and the lack of real footage of wolves made part of the film feel unrealistic, but I was so caught up in praying for the survivors of the plane crash to make it that I didn’t care.

It’s delightfully frightening, and even though you probably weren’t looking for it, it was spiritually enlightening. Man against nature? I found myself reflecting on a lot of literature I read based on that theme, like “Call of the Wild.” I was glad to have watched a film that was so believably frightening.

The film may engage viewers in a battle between man and animal, but it’s not completely bad-ass. It’s like Survivor, but there’s no prize at the end. You don’t expect anyone to live. But sometime you don’t need an indulgent Hollywood ending. And rest assured, this one doesn’t have one.