Volume 72, Issue 7 www.themclabeacon.com Thursday, November 11, 2010

The Beacon- Student Newspaper of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, Mass. -

Parking concerns alleviated by purchaseBy Andrew Roiter

Managing Editor

� e o� cial announcement of the Science Center’s location le students wondering where they would park, but the College ad-ministration assuaged those fears by announcing plans to purchase the Shapiro & Sons warehouse. On Tuesday, Nov. 2, the purchase was completed by the Massachu-setts State College Building Au-thority (MSCBA) for MCLA.

“� e building authority has the ability to bond for funding, which we do not,” said James Stakenas, vice president of Administration and Finance, in an interview with the Berkshire Eagle.

� e College will pay back the MSCBA the purchase cost of $310,000 over the next 20 years.

“[But] we don’t expect to see an increase in student fees based on this purchase,” Stakenas said while speaking with � e Beacon.

� e building, located at 331-341 Ashland St., is made up of two portions; a concrete portion and

a brick portion, anked on either side by parking space. � e brick portion will be demolished in the spring, opening up 50 parking spaces for next fall at the latest. � e parking space on the south side of the building may become available before the end of the current semester, adding 15 spac-es.

� e other section of the building will be restored and turned into a uni� ed facilities building. Cur-rently, the various facilities ser-vices are scattered across campus, underneath RPS, the pool, and the current facilities building.

� e new building will house the paint, carpentry and repair shops, as well as provide a place for the College to store its vehicles and receive equipment.

“It’s good for the environment because we’re using something that’s already here,” Stakenas said.

� ere are some plans for the current facilities building, but without a de� nite decision Stak-enas didn’t want to say what the plans were yet.

NEACURH at SUNY Oneonta NACA in Hartford, Conn.By Andrea Whitney

Sta� Writer

Six student delegates and one adviser travelled to the Northeast A� liate of College and University Residence Halls (NEACURH) fall regional conference at SUNY Oneonta on Friday and returned Sunday.

� e conference was � lled with school spirit, leadership programs, and lots of networking opportunities for all of the students that attended.

“I almost lost my voice from cheering so much,” said junior Courtney Wills. “But it was de� nitely worth it.”

� e purpose of the conference is for the members of the northeast chapter of National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH) to get together and discuss the issues happening in residence halls and get ideas for programs to bring back to cam-pus, according to senior Ashley Franco.

� is year MCLA sent student delegates Franco, Josh Nitti, Peter Swain, Katrina Kovalski, Wills and Katie Collins, and adviser Brendon Goodridge.

Both Collins and Goodridge presented programs to the conference. Wills, as a � rst time delegate, had to write a case study on something that happened on

campus, and won second place.

Franco is one of the National Communications Coordi-nators for NEACURH and helped pass 11 pieces of legis-lation for the region, creating rules the whole region must abide by.

“� e main part of it is it’s a really good networking op-portunity,” Collins said. She also said that she is still friends with people she met through the organization in her sopho-more year of college. Photo Courtesy of Kathryn Collins

Advisor Brendon Goodridge, and students Ashley Franco, Kathryn Collins, Courtney Wills, Katrina Kovalski, Josh Nitti, Peter Swain and Sharron Smith.

NEACURH Continued on page 13

Students travel to Hartford and Oneonta

By Andrea WhitneySta� Writer

It was a busy weekend for student leaders, with 12 students and two advisers from dif-ferent clubs on campus travelling to Hart-ford, Conn. for the National Association of Campus Activities Northeast (NACA) con-ference.

� e purpose was to take a group of students from Student Activities Council (SAC), Stu-dent Government Association (SGA), Pines fraternity and BGLAD to a four day confer-ence on planning programs for schools.

“It was good to not only be there with SAC members,” said senior Meghan McMahon, “but other student leaders, too.”

MCLA had the most diversity in their del-egates, since a lot of the other schools had just members from their version of SAC, accord-ing to sophomore Natasha Rothrock.

MCLA sent McMahon, Rothrock, Nora Weiss, Stephanie Na� ah, Sara Katz, Ashley White, Sara Grimaldi, Vanessa Leikvoll, Mike Lattanzio, Jordan Maynard, Ed Damon and Tony Tofani as student delegates along with Jen Craig and Ben Lamb as advisers.

� e group le � ursday a ernoon and re-turned to campus Sunday a ernoon. � e conference was held at the Marriott Hotel in Hartford with over 100 schools from all over the northeast in attendance.

� e delegates attended educational sessions on a variety of topics such as how to program on a low budget, leadership skills, even how to properly shake a person’s hand.

“I feel like [NACA] provides many students with the opportunity to learn about Student

Activities on a college campus,” said junior Jordan Maynard. “It also allows students to learn a plethora of leadership and communi-cation skills.”

� ere were showcases every night that in-cluded bands, poets, comedians and singers so schools could see what is available and af-fordable for colleges.

� ere was also a “marketplace” with over 200 vendors every day showcasing novelties such as dry erase boards, mugs, etc. � ere were tons of demonstrations and agents avail-able to speak to, according to McMahon.

MCLA also won two awards at the confer-ence for best T-shirt and best poster for SAC’s Freak Week.

“If given the opportunity, I would like to go again,” said Rothrock, who attended the conference for the � rst time this year. “Not speci� cally for the free stu� ; the free stu� is really highlighted. I enjoyed the educational sessions more; they had a lot of value.”

Courtesy of Meghan McMahon The 12 students who attended the conference.

Cara Sheedy/Beacon Sta� This open room in Shapiro & Sons will be converted to part of the new facilities building.