Students across the campuses of FDU’s College at Florham, Drew University and the College of Saint Elizabeth will soon be able to view their peers’ psychology research through the new Tri-Collegiate Psychology Student Research Symposium.

By definition, a symposium consists of several participants sharing and discussing views and facts on a particular subject.

The three campuses have come together and created a psychology symposium so the works of all psychology students can share, discuss and explore their findings.
FDU freshman Sandy Queroli is considering a major in both the psychology and Quest program and felt the symposium would help her choose a focus.

“I think it would update my knowledge in the field and help me figure out people more easily,” Queroli said.
However, all majors can all find uses from a symposium such as this. Symposia allow undergraduate and graduate students to share their findings and ideas, which in turn can lead to even more research done in the field.

A symposium is a way to study current material or even learn something new. Through this psychology symposium, students will be able to make acquaintances at the other college campuses or simply showcase their own works to a greater audience than one they would find on at their respective schools.
The students participating in the symposium are supposed to submit their proposals to Melanie Conti, Programs Coordinator.

On April 23, a presentation by Dr. Patricia Heindel on “Internationalizing Psychology Today” will be conducted on the campus of the College of Saint Elizabeth. The presentation is meant for any graduate or undergraduate students interested in psychology. There will be three prizes available to the most creative posters advertising the symposium. The prizes range in amounts from $150 to $25.

MARIA DISPENZIERE
STAFF WRITER

On Feb. 25, the College at Florham campus will be administering a pilot program called iSkills Information Literary Assessment. The university library and the college deans are opening the two hour assessment only to seniors. The library is also offering an incentive of a $25 Follett gift certificate for completing the test, according to a flier from the library. The seniors who reach benchmark score levels will receive a free Apple iPod shuffle, according to an e-mail from Denise Marshall, College at Florham’s reference librarian.

The test is limited to thirty students on a first come, first serve basis and will take place at two times: 9:30-11:30 and 12:30-2:30.

The purpose of the test is to discover FDU student’s current level of information literacy. It will also test students on how they retrieve and organize information. The iSkills test assesses students’ abilities to use critical thinking and problem-solving skills in a digital environment.

The test, which will be conducted in the library’s computer room, will critically examine senior’s abilities to navigate, critically evaluate and make sense of the information available through digital technology, according to Marshall.

The iSkills test is the only test that assesses critical thinking in the digital environment. The assessment tests the range of skills aligned with the nationally recognized Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) standards, according to the iSkills Web site.

It also mentioned that the test will help students identify where further development is needed, so they can improve where necessary in order to efficiently participate in the work force. Some of the content topics include material from humanities, social sciences and popular culture. Technology topics focus on Web use, e-mail, database and file management, and much more.

BY MARIA DISPENZIERE
STAFF WRITER

In the last Hot Topics event of the fall semester, Professors Dan Cassino, Roger Koppl and Bruce Peabody and undergraduate political science major Eloy Delgado discussed the outcome of the 2008 presidential election and the effects it may have on the world in the years to come.

The main focus of the discussion was how the Republican Party, which has been in prominence for the past eight years, no longer has the majority in Congress or in the White House. The panel also discussed the switch of many Republicans to the Democratic ticket. Cassino described those who switched as one-time “Bush Democrats,” who Cassino suggested voted for the Democratic Party not based on Barack Obama’s platform, but based on the performance of George W. Bush while in office. The unfavorable performance ratings Bush has received lately have perhaps proven that young voters who identify with the Democratic Party only do so because they associate Bush (and his poor performance ratings in office) with the Republican Party, according to Cassino.

The focus of discussion was also that Obama will be the first black president of the United States. The milestone for America was said to be favorably viewed internationally, according to the panel. For the latter part of the discussion, the panel talked about Obama’s platforms on education, national security and the economy.

MARIA DISPENZIERE
Staff Writer

The last Politics on the PublicMind seminar was a final recap of the results of the most recent presidential election. With the assistance of Tricia Mueller, Director of the “Obama for President” campaign in New Jersey, and Rick Mroz, the New Jersey State Campaign Coordinator for McCain and Palin, the results were analyzed for their historical significance and impact on the future of this country. As always, the seminar was held in the Orangerie and was hosted by a prominent member of FDU’s own political science department, Bruce Peabody.

Both Mueller and Mroz hold significant experience in the field of politics. Both have first hand knowledge of the causes and effects for particular results of the election. By sharing their first hand knowledge with the FDU population, students, faculty and staff were given an opportunity to see how particular decisions made by both candidates and their committees affected the turnout the election.
Mroz and Mueller both focused on the comparison between the 2000 Presidential Election and the most recent election. Mroz focused on how in no other country in the world the government could have such a dramatic switch in power as the United States has just had. He focused on the extraordinary length of this campaign, which began for the McCain committee right after the 2004 election. He described how the results of this election were entirely up in the air, and not one person had any idea what the results of the election would be. Specifically focusing on McCain, Mroz stated that McCain had told him that “if I lose this election because I told people what I think, then so be it.” According to Mroz, McCain did not want the election to be controlled by the press and the falsities they have a habit of printing every election. He emphasized that McCain had realized that he had made some key errors, such as the speech in Philadelphia about the race issue that was so scrutinized during this election.

Mueller focused more on the campaigning aspect of this election, in which she focused on the tactics used by the Obama committee to ensure more voter turnout. She emphasized that in her campaigning throughout New Jersey the focus was more on a union movement and a more community based way of encouraging people to go out and vote. She was proud to state that the Obama campaign had been completely funded by small dollars and the people, which allowed the people to have a greater sense of ownership and activism within the campaign itself. Mueller felt that Obama had done an excellent job of staying on the message he initially stated, and he had a great sense of discipline when it came to campaigning tactics.

Her last emphasis was on the influence of new media on this election, which was the first election to really take advantage of the Internet and blogs. Mueller stated that she felt that the Internet had given the Obama campaign a clear advantage over the McCain committee, since statistically young voters tend to be more Democratic. Obama had especially emphasized his application on Facebook and the iPhone, in which people were given the ability to technologically interact with the candidate and his campaign committee.

MARIA DISPENZIERE
STAFF WRITER

The presidential election, although deemed both extremely historical and extremely controversial, has often times been overlooked as a race between a white man and a racially mixed man. However, at the most recent FDU Hot Topics seminar, titled “Election 2008: Our Students Speak Out!,” students were given the opportunity to analyze and view the presidential election not from a racial standpoint, but from an ideological standpoint.

Held in the Hartman Lounge and moderated by Professor Peter Woolley, the small room contained a heated debate between Samantha Horwich for Sen. John McCain, Kristin Fulton for President-elect Barack Obama, and Jacob Zychick on the need for a third Party. The three student volunteers took the sides of their respective candidates and broke down and analyzed each candidate’s platforms. The student representatives also analyzed how each party was convincing the voters that its point of view was the correct view.

Horwich, talking about McCain, presented to the audience a rather blunt and basic representation fo the goals of the McCain administration if he was elected into office. The main focus of the McCain presentation was the emphasis on military strength, in both Iraq and in other foreign policy. According to the McCain’s platform, the military should remain in Iraq until a stable, reliable government is put into place. She also noted that the emphasis on military strength should not only be exercised in present-day Iraq, but should also be emphasized throughout all aspects of foreign policy. McCain believes that military power should be the force that drives countries into creating peaceful relationships with one another, and unless that military strength is emphasized in the creation of such relationships, then no country can possibly take the United States seriously. According to Horwich, the underlying goal of the Republican Party is obviously to gain control of the major houses of government and directed the United States down a less liberal path. It is up to the Republican Party to uphold the meaning of the constitution. Other points touched upon by Horwich included abortion and education. The Republican Party under McCain is pro-life.

Fulton, representing Obama, had extremely different, yet equally credible, takes on certain topics. Fulton sxpressed how Obama feels that the United States needs to pull out of Iraq as soon as possible, and should not maintain an aggressive foreign policy. Safety does not always result from an aggressive military style foreign policy structure, and Fulton suggested that a more “soft, subtle” approach could be more effective in obtaining foreign relationships. Obama feels that there is no longer a need for conservatives in government because conservatives do not understand the American people but rather their “inner circle,” said Fulton. In a final note, Fulton spoke of the topic “No Child Left Behind,” saying that “[it] sucked. All the children were left behind.”

Finally,Zychick, representing the third party candidate Bob Barr, only felt the need to say few words. He made a point by stating that the United States spends more money annually on the military than all other countries combined. He added that nothing the past administrations have done worked, and people are looking for peaceful solutions to America’s problems. According to Zychnick, nowhere in the Constitution does it state such factions such as liberal and conservative, and the United States is not simply comprised of Liberals and Conservatives. The final note Zychick left us with was that the federal government should have absolutely no right to tell anyone what to do with his body, and the topics of abortion and even the abuse of illegal substances such as marijuana should not even be questioned by the federal government, the liberals, or the conservatives.

MARIA DISPENZIERE
Staff Writer

Once again, FDU’s Politics on the PublicMind series succeeded in bringing the students, staff, and community members’ attention to a controversial subject. The discussion took place on Friday, Oct. 24 and was lead by WNYC Radio’s Bob Hennelly and PolitickerNJ.com’s Debbie Borrie-Holtz.

Hennelly, an award-winning investigative journalist, has been featured on top television news programs such as “60 Minutes” and in newspapers such as The New York Times and The Miami Herald. As a political consultant and analyst, Hennelly has followed the development of the present presidential campaign as affected by the media.

Borrie-Holtz, a regular blogger on PolitickerNJ.com, is considered a top Internet media critic. She has worked closely with the chief of staff, the senate majority leader, and has been an assistant to the secretary of state. Borrie-Holtz is now a professor of public policy at Rutgers.

According to the discussion, the modern media forces politicians to cut back on commenting about foreign situations and most media networks refrain from showing any coverage concerning foreign controversies. Hennelly said that the media has been allowed to run rampant, unregulated, and now is uninformative and leaves people ignorant. The media has not given the people the sense of global fluency they should have. “The political process is about leadership. Leadership is the ability to suspend one’s personal interest to benefit the masses,” said Hennelly.

Borrie-Holtz made several underlying connections from what Hennelly said to the present media. She said that although the media cannot tell us what to think, it can do a pretty good job of telling us what we need to think about. She said that the news we all receive through newspapers and television is nothing but information from wire services, such as the Associated Press. Overall, Borrie-Holtz’s main point is that the American people have a shrinking attention span for what they see on television, and the media has done a great job of playing into this.

What PublicMind, Hennelly and Borrie-Holtz succeeded in doing through this seminar is exemplifying what the media has done to us as an audience. The media has grasped the ability to show us only what they believe to be news worthy stories, whether they are or not. News has become less about domestic and foreign issues and more about the personal aspects of government officials.

Borrie-Holtz said that because of the public’s short attention span for news, the media has resorted to showing audiences only what it feels the audience needs to see. The media has been completely changed by the modern presidential campaigns, and only time will be able to tell how the media plays out in the present presidential campaign.

MARIA DISPENZIERE
Staff Writer