Alexandria Acord – The Hilltop Monitor

Trump vs. North Korea

Alexandria Acord — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 13:00:49 +0000

Years of tension between the United States and North Korea are culminating in a series of attacks and agreements with rival countries. While North Korea has had a fully functioning nuclear program since the Clinton administration, presidential opinions have differed on how to handle it. Over the years, many U.S. leaders have chosen to rely on relations with China to leverage North Korea into giving up this program, but over the past few months, the Trump administration has indicated that it will take a much more direct approach.

“The policy of strategic patience has ended,” said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a speech in South Korea.

Tillerson’s message, which was given on Easter Sunday, stated that military tactics would be used only if U.S. or South Korean forces were directly threatened. However, many have seen veiled threats in his ideology that a “new approach” needs to be taken to North Korean politics, and a Navy strike group was already ordered into the area in early April.

Currently, though, the main source of strategy with North Korea continues to hinge on Chinese forces, who have been known to cooperate with both sides of the issue. This supposed conflict of interest has led many, such as President Donald Trump and Tillerson himself, to decry the country’s inaction. Therefore, even as military action still appears to be a last resort, 300,000 U.S. and South Korean forces continue to participate in military drills that have become ever more accommodating to the possibility of North Korean attack. Additionally, the United States has also used economic sanctions and cyber-attacks to combat North Korean missile efforts.

As relations grow ever more unpredictable by the day, new options continue to be developed within Washington. However, figures such as Trump and Tillerson have made it clear that, whatever the course may be, it will be a direct battle between the United States and North Korea, with little intermediary assistance from other countries such as China.

Photo courtesy of Fox News.

Ely Hall to close for renovations

Alexandria Acord — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 16:54:44 +0000

As of this summer, Ely Hall will close for renovations, leaving the First-Year Triangle without one of its cornerstones. While the exact date of Ely’s reopening has not yet been solidified with Student Life, it is expected to last the entire 2017-18 school year. However, this is only the latest in a series of alterations made to the dormitory building throughout the years.

According to Ernie Stufflebean, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Residence Life at William Jewell College, Ely has been in a consistent process of renovation for several years. Most notably, the shower and restroom facilities were renovated this past summer, and new lighting systems were recently installed in the first and second floors. Therefore, this latest set of improvements will largely focus on the third floor, but all sleeping rooms will still be impacted.

Most renovations at the College take place in the summertime, making the year-long changes to Ely Hall especially visible for students. Rumors have abounded about the circumstances behind Ely’s closing, and many students have wondered if it is a sign of financial trouble for Jewell. However, even though Jewell’s first-year class will be smaller than usual, Stufflebean sees no potential threats to the College’s standing.

“This is an opportunity to make changes without impacting students,” Stufflebean says.

The smaller class sizes are, in part, what will make the year-long change possible, as Browning and Eaton are currently large enough to accommodate all incoming first-years on their own. In addition, the Ely lobby will still be open to the public and used for first-year events, much like sororities and fraternities are already using it to spread awareness to new students.

Like the summer projects in the past, renovations will be handled in-house by the trained Facilities Management staff at Jewell. However, spreading it out into a year-long process will ensure maximum care, according to Stufflebean. Without the rush to get the residence hall open before students return, multiple changes can be made in a single step rather than spread out over several years. Jones Hall will still be undergoing the normal summer renovations, but improving Ely will be the main focus for the College.

While Ely’s health center, fitness room and offices will stay open throughout the reconstruction, other members of the Ely staff will be relocated to other parts of the College, says Kelley Huff, Ely’s current Resident Director. Their new positions are currently unknown, but they will continue to be a part of the campus community.

The floor, ceiling and lighting in each room will be redone and in some cases completely replaced. Perhaps the largest proposed change to Ely Hall is its flooring, which is currently covered by carpeting. Stufflebean has suggested switching to a laminate-type floor made out of linoleum, similar to the dorms in Semple Hall. Semple’s floors tend to have a positive reception with students, who find them to be relatively low-maintenance since they do not require much upkeep. Students can choose to customize the room with rugs, and the laminate floor reduces the risk of allergens entering the room. While Stufflebean says switching to this variety of flooring will be more expensive, he asserts that it will serve the College better in the long run, since it has a longer life expectancy than carpeting.

In addition, Ely’s interior will be completely repainted, but one of the features that makes it a student favorite will not be changed. The residence hall’s walls, which are covered in a burlap-like material, allow for easy customization of the room—thumbtacks and tape can be used without damaging the wallpaper like in other Jewell dorms. Student Life understands that this is one of the major reasons for Ely’s popularity among first-years, and no plans for switching wall materials have been announced.

“Students appreciate the freedom,” Stufflebean says.

While the Ely project has been on slate for longer than Jewell’s branding operation, it could be likely that these changes will further back Dr. Elizabeth MacLeod Walls’ course of improving the school. Though no huge changes will be coming to Ely—as Stufflebean has dismissed the commonly-spread rumor of a Jacuzzi being installed within the residence hall—it will nevertheless serve as the cornerstone of Jewell’s constant cycle of improvement.

Donald Trump the Golfer

Alexandria Acord — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 15:00:22 +0000

This Sunday was an important marker in many respects as the war in Syria intensified, and many in the Christian religion celebrated Palm Sunday. However, for detractors of President Donald Trump, it serves as another important milestone: as April 10 was the day Trump played his sixteenth game of golf. While the sport has served as a leisure activity for many presidents—including, Barack Obama—Trump’s habits are being used as further evidence for those who believe the Commander in Chief is neglecting his position.

White House officials, including Press Secretary Sean Spicer, have released few details about these visits except for their locations; Trump-owned golf clubs near his Mar-a-Lago resort. According to Spicer, these visits are little-documented for the sake of the new President’s privacy, and many international dignitaries have joined him in the game.

However, this seeming lack of discrepancy has fueled doubts about Trump’s real intentions. Spicer’s claims are widely disputed, and even for those who believe them, the idea of entertaining dignitaries at one of his own properties echoes a similar controversy about Trump using his Mar-a-Lago resort to host confidential conversations. With a 41 percent approval rating and several ongoing controversies, Trump’s golfing habits are being used as yet another talking point for politicians across the board.

Most notably, the Trump opposition has cited a multitude of tweets from before the 2016 election, in which Trump criticized Obama’s golfing habits. According to these tweets, Obama played 333 rounds during his eight-year presidency, which Trump took as a sign of inefficiency. In spite of his long-running habit, though, detractors have noted that Obama did not start playing until “almost the 100-day mark of his presidency.” When stacked up against this precedent, they claim, Trump’s behavior appears hypocritical and irresponsible.

For many who oppose Trump, the golf games would have been a non-issue, were they not used as a talking point against the previous president. In the meantime, reporters continue to scour social media for evidence of Trump’s visits, further evincing that they are just another private presidential affair that is no longer secret from the public eye.

AFE: He Came from Planet Faulkner: A look at the real Dr. Walters

Alexandria Acord — Sat, 01 Apr 2017 15:00:33 +0000

As highly reliable History Channel documentaries often tell us, aliens are everywhere in today’s culture. While such thoughts are often shrugged off as mere fantasies, perhaps part of the reason aliens have been able to integrate into our society is because they can change their appearance to resemble our own. This allows them to infiltrate every corner of human life, even here, where we least expect it—William Jewell College. For aliens’ true forms can range from strangely colored horses to sentient gemstones that project human appearances…or even exact clones of famed Mississippi novelist William Faulkner.

On any average day, you can find English department chair Dr. Mark Walters in his office full of yellowing books. Like any professor, though, he holds office hours only at certain times, and when the Monitor set out to discover why his office closes, we found nothing remarkable. However, one of our investigators disappeared without a trace after visiting Dr. Walters’ office, which prompted further inquiry.

Many students who claim to know what Faulkner looks like say that they have seen Dr. Walters transforming into a mirror image of the late author behind closed doors. Before, it was commonly assumed that his encyclopedic knowledge of Faulkner was due to rigorous study, but our assumptions line up with the recent discovery of a new planet known as Yoknapatawpha (the ability to spell this word correctly on the first try is a surefire sign that the person you are talking to is an extraterrestrial being). Bearing the name of Faulkner’s fictional Mississippi County, NASA states that Yoknapatawpha residents are strapped into reading chambers from young ages and are consistently asked to interpret, or occasionally quote, the entire Benjy section of “The Sound and the Fury.” Any and all attempts to differentiate oneself from Faulkner, such as dying one’s hair or pursuing a career in engineering, are considered capital crimes.

While all these signs point to Walters—or “Quentin Snopes” as he is called in his home world—being a victim of a repressive system, there are still multiple questions to be answered. He is a well-respected member of the Jewell community, alien or not, and so answering these questions will not bring him any harm—and may even improve human understanding of other worlds. Why, for instance, did he escape from Yoknapatawpha to teach Faulkner at a liberal arts college? Is this an intentionally malicious act or merely a normal interplanetary exchange system on Yoknapatawpha?

And most important of all—did Yoknapatawpha really base their society on Faulkner, or was he just the first human they—

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