4Grad Budget

Fourgrad-Developing (Photos)-

St. Edward’s encourages students to graduate within four years, and boasts a 4-year-graduation rate above the state and national average. What are the benefits and disadvantages of graduating within four years for students and the university? Is money the only issue? How does this stack up against other comparable universities? Wallace, Rogers, Weber, Shedd/ Guillett

Multimedia:

Photo: Photo of St. Edward’s graduation ceremony

Video: Compile a video of St. Edward’s students discussing how long they have been at St. Edward’s, when they plan on graduating, if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with this date, and what the contributing factors are.

Data: An interactive chart that compiles graphs of graduation rates, academic information and demographics of St. Edward’s students and students at some of our benchmark universities.

Sources:

-Collegeboard.

www.Collegeboard.com

Contains demographic and academic information for higher education institutes nationwide. The site allows you to contrast and compare various aspects of the schools’ offerings.

-Newsweek article, “Why college shouldn’t take four years”

http://www.newsweek.com/id/218183

An Op-ed in Newsweek that argues for a three-year Bachelors degree.

-Boston Globe article, “The Four-year college myth”

www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2009/05/31/the_four_year_college_myth

Another Op-ed piece, arguing that the four-year graduation plan is essentially a myth as it is difficult to achieve.

-A project of the American Enterprise Institute, “Diplomas and dropouts” report.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/03/using-college-graduation-rates-for-cost-benefit-analysis/

Contains a roster of enrollment, tuition rates, and graduation rates for hundreds of universities nationwide. This source will be useful for cross-examining rates, and could lead to a correlation between tuition fees and graduation rates.

-The Education Trust, College results online: St. Edward’s University

http://collegeresults.org/search1a.aspx?institutionid=227845

Contains charts of St. Edward’s graduation rates for years 2002-2007. Rates are also broken down by sex, racial demographics, and compared against similar universities.

Zombies: slow vs. fast

Classic films taught us that zombies are supposed to be slow, dumb and persistent. They were usually easy to see coming, but they would take humans down with their relentless nature and unbridled pension for human flesh.

However, newer films such as "Resident Evil," "House of the Dead" and the 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead," challenge this notion with strong, stealthy, speedy zombies.

While purists of the genre prefer the classic lumbering zombie, does the outcrop of agile zombie flicks prove this to be a welcome transition?

Perhaps.

In the early days of horror, zombies were not the only slow villains. Classic horror icons were never seen running, yet they always had the uncanny ability of catching up to their winded victims.

Today, aside from remakes, our movie villains tend to move faster. It's a combination of better special effects and a move savvy audience. For zombies and other creatures alike, we can now see them move at the speed of light without awkward, primitive editing to make them appear faster, or worse, relying on the physical limitations of the actors.

Because today's horror films tend to rely much more so on blood, guts, gore and "gotcha" moments, we are conditioned to fear swift attacks. Gone are the days when the fear was in the approach, now, the film victims tend to be dead before they even see their killer coming.


So, you certainly have less hope of escaping a fast zombie. They can be everywhere you can be, and they tend to not be halted by small obstacles.

Classic slow zombies on the other hand, usually cannot break into a well-built structure, and are easier to outrun on a straight-away.

If the viewers correctly identify with the human victims, there is some motivation for preferring the zombies slow. The characters have a better chance of escape, and the audience has that hope.

Many fast zombie movies justify the speed of their creatures by including a back story of some kind of genetic modification. A good move, because otherwise the audience would not be likely to assume that a decomposing corpse is suddenly able to achieve startling feets of speed and strength.

On the other hand, they came back from the dead, didn't they? Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to make assumptions about their physical abilities.

Zomcoms, that is, comedic zombie films, tend to parody the slow zombie. This is because most zomcoms highlight the human character's zombie kills, and it has proven to be far more comical when the opponent is much slower.

For purists, and comedic spoofs, slow zombies will always be the desired foe, but fast zombies still instill fear, in their victims and the audience alike.

Stardom no excuse for Polanski

When we think of criminals fleeing the United States to avoid arrest, we often imagine them living off the grid in some exotic country, keeping a low profile by assuming a new identity.

However, after engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor in 1977, filmmaker Roman Polanski fled to France. There, he has continued to live a privileged life, direct high profile films and even receive an Academy Award.

As we know, all of this changed when Polanski was arrested on an outstanding warrant in Zurich, Switzerland, Sept. 26, while visiting the country to accept a lifetime achievement award.

He is currently in custody, awaiting a formal extradition request from the U.S.

The 2008 documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired” illuminates the details of the original Polanski case. While photographing then 13-year-old model Samantha Geimer for the French edition of Vogue, Polanski engaged in sexual intercourse with the teen.

After the victim turned him in, Polanski faced a barrage of charges, including rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, a lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.

Polanski pled guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

While the film begins with a transcript of the victim’s chilling testimony, it soon delves into the narrative of Polanski’s life. He survived the Holocaust, suffered the pain of his pregnant wife’s murder by the Manson Family, was hounded by a relentless press and faced a ruthless judge who played fast and loose with the legal system.

After the initial shock, it’s actually easy to feel sorry for the man. Couple this narrative of perseverance with the fact that he is an award-winning filmmaker, and the Hollywood elite would have you believe this is enough to forget about his crime.

But Polanski is not above the law, and his accomplishments do not make his crime any less heinous or illegal. It’s only prestige that separates him from any other sex offender in the registry.

Yes, it was a different time; Polanski was confined for a 42-day observational sentence in state prison, and the victim is currently preaching forgiveness. But no inconsistency, legal injustice or minor technicality excuses what he did and how he subsequently handled it.

As we await his extradition, the thing that should matter above all else is a fact one wouldn’t think needed arguing: that no amount of wealth, talent or connections makes it all right for a middle-aged man to have sex with a 13-year-old child.

Zombies attack Austin

They are relentless, rotting and hungry.

They are flesh-eating zombies, and they are on the loose in Austin this fall.

While the rest of the country is immersed in a pervasive vampire trend, evident through such pop culture phenomena as the Twilight Saga and True Blood, Austinites will be emulating these brain dead movie monsters this Halloween season.

Numerous zombie-themed events are slated for Halloween evening and throughout the month of October. Some of these events will be occurring for the first time, while others are blossoming into Halloween mainstays.

The University Hills branch of the Austin Public Library is hosting its second annual Zombie Fest, a month long series of programming focused on all things zombie.

This year’s lineup of events includes a zombie video game tournament, book club, art show, survival discussion, numerous film screenings and a Halloween blow-out, complete with costume contest and refreshments.

The program’s coordinator, Billy McConnel, dreamed up the Zombie Fest idea with some of his coworkers, after seeing the zombie film “Resident Evil: Extinction.”

The film opened the doors for numerous zombie attack survival discussions and prompted the group to read “The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.” As their interest grew, the library staff was inspired to fill their empty October programming slot with a zombie-themed event.

McConnel said that before the 2008 Zombie Fest had even finished, attendees were already interested in if the event would return the following year.

So far, McConnel said, the 2009 Zombie Fest has been even more successful than its predecessor, with some of the events doubling in turnout.

So what is it about the living dead that has people so captivated?

“For me, its the psychological fear that any moment you could turn around and one of these zombies could be someone you know,” McConnel said. “That kind of psychological horror entertains me.”

“I just think zombies are such fun movie monsters,” said April Puente, a junior at St. Edward’s University. “I get scared really easily by horror movies, so what I really like about zombies is that they can be terrifying or they can be really hilarious.”

Comedic zombie films, affectionately known as “ZomComs,” have been around for a while. However, the recent release of “Zombieland,” which took the top slot at the box-office its opening weekend, has perhaps brought further attention to the genre.

The film premiered Sept. 25, weeks prior to its national release, at Austin’s Paramount Theatre as part of Fantastic Fest, Austin’s genre-based film festival.

Adding to the undead ambiance of the event were special effects makeup artists from the Zombie Manor haunted house in Arlington Texas. The artists arrived early to transform members of the audience into full-blown zombies.

This Halloween, those attendees and Austinites alike will have the opportunity to drag their feet on the dance floor at two competing zombie parties.

The Alamo Drafthouse has moved its annual Halloween Zombie Prom to the new Highball venue, a retro bar and diner, outfitted with a dance floor, classic bowling lanes and karaoke rooms.
All attendees are required to arrive in zombie attire.

According to the Drafthouse’s website, “The super strict costume regulations are just the beginning.”

The party will also feature a dance party, zombie video backdrops, a photo booth, costume contest, and “human brains” on special from the kitchen all night. As with any Drafthouse party, the coordinators promise further surprises.

Zombie Prom will have some competition on Halloween. The similarly named Zombie Ball, a party featuring live music and art exhibitions, is making its Austin debut as a two-day event Oct. 30-31. The ball will feature performances from musical acts like T Bird and the Breaks and Spoonfed Tribe.
Instead of asking attendees to arrive in costume, the Zombie Ball coordinators are taking its slogan “Come as you are, but a zombie you will become” to heart. They will be supplying the makeup and costumes to everyone, outfitting their own dance for the dead.

With so many of these events slated for the night of Halloween, Austinites may want to brush up on their zombie attack survival skills. There’s always a chance that festering, blood-hungry zombie coming towards you is not a costume-clad trick-or-treater.