Oh Where, Oh Where Are The Items We Need?

The 2009-2010 Dean’s Cup competition began with tonight’s campus-wide scavenger hunt.

Each of the school’s nine residence halls was given a list of items they needed to find from people in their halls within an hour. The only rule? Sportsmanship.

Among the items required were the movie “The Sandlot,” a CCSU parking ticket, a resident that has been attending CCSU for five years or more, and any original Billy Joel CD.

Dean’s Cup is a campus-wide competition between CCSU’s residence halls. Events held throughout the year determine which hall will get to keep the coveted Dean’s Cup trophy for the next year. Beecher Hall is the reigning champion.

Results of the scavenger hunt will be announced on Monday October 5 at the weekly Inter-Residence Council (IRC) meeting. Meetings are held every Monday at 3:00 pm in the Student Center.

Residents of Beecher Hall arrive in Memorial Hall for the beginning of the scavenger hunt.

Members of Carroll Hall make a triumphant return to Memorial Hall after finishing the scavenger hunt.

The mascot for Sheridan Hall (Sheridan Sharks) shows her paper fin as the judging gets underway.

Homecoming 2009

CCSU has arranged a series of events to celebrate Homecoming 2009. In addition to today's Homecoming Carnival, the week's events include screenings of the movie Food, Inc., the CCSU chapter of Phi Sigma Sigma's sponsored Car Smash, and a S'mores Fundraiser for the Education Club. For full details and times, see the school's Homecoming 2009 webpage.

CCSU Makes Safest Colleges List

Good news for residents (and commuters) at CCSU. The school was recently listed as the 15th safest College in the United States by The Daily Beast, an online news site from New York City. The Top 25 Safest Colleges list also included two other schools from Connecticut: Quinnipiac University at number 20 and Southern Connecticut State University at number 22.

Requirements for a school to be considered for the list included having a student body of at least 6,000. Additionally, schools that offered only 2-year programs, graduate programs, or were commuter only schools were not considered.

Congratulations to all the schools who made the list and to everyone at CCSU who helps to keep it a safe and healthy place to live.

Jean Alicandro On Facebook and Roommates

Jean Alicandro has seen a lot in the two years she’s been Director of Residence Life at Central Connecticut State University. With limited space available for housing and an ever growing demand, the process of assigning roommates and approving housing requests can get frustrating.

"The hardest thing for us is we're filled to the max, we have a long waiting list. Even during the school year it's hard for people to understand,” Alicandro said. “We're constantly up against the wall.”

This is due, in part, to the infiltration of facebook and other social networking websites in the residence life process. Thanks to facebook, students that are paired up as roommates by the residence life department are able to speak online and get to know one another before they move-in together. This can lead to some students requesting a roommate change before they have officially met the other student.

When asked what advice she would give to incoming students and returning students who will be assigned new roommates, Alicandro said to try not to “preconceive what the potential roommate is like” and to remember that social networking sites are “like a stage,” since people can present themselves in any way they wish.

That said, Alicandro stated that "there’s no reason why a student should suffer" and that if there are problems between roommates that cannot be resolved through mediation the residence life department will relocate the student who filed the complaint if they have room available to do so and the student is willing to move.