Students and faculty say they still feel unsafe after Bin Laden’s death

           ST. BONAVENTURE (May 9)—Students and faculty at St. Bonaventure University agree that the recent death of Osama Bin Laden was a step toward a terrorism-free world, but they still don’t feel safe.

            Barack Obama announced the capture and death of Bin Laden May 1, leading to debates over if the correct precautions were taken while capturing and killing him.  Students and faculty said they were unsure if American forces needed to kill Bin Laden in order to capture him.

            “I felt a sense of satisfaction that everybody was elated despite the fact that the majority of the country spent the last 10 years complaining about the war and George Bush,” said Tim Crino, a freshman English major.

“I have always thought that the war was worthwhile,” he said. Crino said that he believed that the recent turn of events will certainly be helpful to squashing terrorism.

Academic and social factors affect Bonaventure retention rate

ST. BONAVENTURE (April 19) – Despite a 3.7 GPA, Nate Carson, a freshman business major, will be transferring out of St. Bonaventure University.  He’s dissatisfied with the business program.

For every 500 freshmen who attend St. Bonaventure, 100 are likely to transfer before the end of the year.  While other private liberal arts colleges have a less-than-70 percent retention rate from freshmen year to second year, St. Bonaventure’s rate is 82 percent, according to the most recent statistics from the federal Department of Education.

St. Bonaventure, a campus of about 2,000 undergraduate students, flaunts its 14:1 student-to-faculty ratio, but students said they question the quality of the faculty and the facilities.

James Tantalo, a freshman finance major sporting a 4.0 GPA, considered transferring after complaining about a professor.

Students disagree on housing lottery fairness at SBU

 

                ST. BONAVENTURE (Mar. 18) – Students at St. Bonaventure University said they disagree on the fairness of the housing lottery system.

University officials say they use a lottery system to provide students with a ranking in which to select campus housing for the following school year.  Those with the lowest numbers pick first.

Chris Brown, coordinator for residential education and housing, said raw lottery scores are assigned by a random, computer-generated process.  “Not only is it functional, but it’s also necessary,” he said.

However, a student’s raw lottery number can be altered based on behavior, Brown said.

Students are awarded 50 points if they hold campus leadership positions, like an officer of a club or a captain of a sports team, Brown said.  If a student is a member of a club or organization, a Division-1 sports team, or if a student completes at least 20 hours of community service, the student earns 25 points per club, he said.