HPU Dance Team On the Rise

It's all about Panther spirit at High Point University! Enthusiastic fans, the pep band, and the cheerleaders are known to display their spirit, but what about High Point's dance team? They tend to be overlooked by many who attend sports events. This year the dance team improved greatly and is ready to show their spirit!





Good Coaching is Key


Last year, in June of 2007, High Point welcomed Melissa Smith as the head coach of the dance team. With more than 18 years of dance experience under her belt, Smith was able to build a team of dancers who were as passionate about dance as she was.


For the 2007-2008 season, Smith had a solid team, but did not receive the recognition that she thought her team deserved. In September of 2008, Smith chose a new team of 15 girls with only five returning dancers from the previous year.


The dancers had more experience and came from several different dance backgrounds including jazz, ballet, tap, hip-hop, cheerleading, and modern. Smith is very excited about the new talent on her team this year."The girls this year are amazing," says Smith. "They're much better than last year!"


Dancers With Confidence


The HPU dancers had their first performance of the year at a women's basketball game November 16 in the Millis Athletic Center. Despite fear and doubt, the team pulled off an outstanding two minute performance. The cheers and praise from the audience was enough to confirm how much the team improved from last year.


Senior Katie Blandford, who has been on the dance team since her freshman year, says, "I remember when our team used to wear T-shirts and jeans as our uniform. Now we can actually call ourselves a team because we have real unifroms and look great!"


Getting Involved

Each HPU dancer takes the time out of their busy schedule to dance at sporting events. Along with keeping up with their academics, the dancers add volunteering to their long list of activities to accomplish.


This year the dancers are involved with the Big Brothers, Big Sisters Program as well as Panther Club activities. Each member of the team is required to participate in the programs. It is well worth it since each member is usually awarded scholarship money ranging from up to $300! This is a great reward just for dancing!


The HPU dancers will be a part of High Point's Thanksgiving parade on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 and dance at the men's and women's basketball games Monday, December 1, 2008.





Related Material:

2008-2009 Dance Team Information

Panther Spirit

When Did College Become Like This?

College has been called "the greatest four years" of a person’s life. A time to work hard and party hard, creating memories that will last an entire lifetime. But lately at HPU the students are not feeling that way.

More recently students at HPU are feeling smothered by the administration. Their weekend activities are being put to an end early and often. The tension seems to be rising on both ends, when will the water boil over?

THE MEETING

One week ago, November 17th there was a meeting between some HPU Greek organizations, and the some HPU administrators. The details of the meeting were kept tight. But basically the meeting's goal was to strengthen the tie between students and administration.

Many administrators spoke on keeping everything "in house", meaning that the local HPU Police would not be on campus unless HPU Security called for their assistance. If each party was known about and an S-Form was filled out, the school would know of the party. This ensures that security would not have to notify the local police. Many Greek members were very happy with this news.

Jamie Baumgarnter, a Greek affiliate and senior, at HPU stated "Coming out of that meeting we were all very excited. It seemed easy to comply with the Administrator's demands. We all had finally seemed to reach an agreement."

THE TEST

The following Saturday Night, after all the proper paper work was filled out and everything seemed to be in order. Brad Lawson, a sophomore at HPU and a Greek affiliate, stated "We could tell right off the bat that something was wrong. There were two cop cars parked outside our Greek house at 9 pm. The party had no even begun yet and already there were signs of fishy business."

Mr. Lawson’s intuition turned out to be right. Fifteen minutes into the party four police officers knocked on the door and explained that they had already received a noise complaint. "We found this very odd, never had the cops come this early. They issued us a warning and were on their way."

Not more than 30 minutes later there was another knock at the door. Yes it was the local law enforcement again and this time they made everyone leave the party or face the consequences of receiving a citation. Many of the Greek Affiliates’ believed this to be ridiculous. James Baumgarnter asks the questions, "Isn't there something else these officers of the law could be doing, rather than breaking up a college party?"

The Aftermath

Many Greek Affiliates’ came to the conclusion that the reason the cops were there so early, was because of the forms that the Administration wanted them to fill out. These particular forms notified the School of the party thus having the School notify the local police.

Recent activities at other schools might be the reasons for HPU administrations harsh actions. A few weeks ago and UNCG there was approximately 200 DUI's given out to Students driving intoxicated around campus. HPU administrators might want to eliminate any chance of this happening on our campus.

No matter the reason on why the events of November 17th happened they did indeed happen. It left both the administration and the students back where they started. A resolution needs to be made soon. Otherwise the water is destined to boil over.

Other Sources:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=520014

http://www.high-point.net/police/news_releases.cfm

Unrealistic Tuition Increases

Families struggle in finding the finances to afford college educations. College tuition across the United States is rising, but not all can meet the expenses in receiving an education.

Colleges are raising tuition to enhance education, facilities, and overall appearance, but are all these costly new luxuries essential? With varied incomes, some tuitions seem unrealistic to many and can cause a great deal of debt after graduation.


High Point's Raise

High Point University, with a student body of around 3,000 undergraduate students, raised tuition over $3,000 from the academic school year 2007-2008 to the academic school year 2008-2009.

Where is this increase in tuition going towards? With President Nido Qubein's ambition in the new construction of countless state of the art academic, residential, and campus life buildings, families across the United States are attracted to High Point University's appealing look.

As HPU increases tuition, other luxuries on campus seem to make the university more appealing. Kiosks, the campus concierge, pools, free tutoring, free laundry, and single rooms with double beds, all seem great, but are these luxuries necessary or needed?

Jessica Henderson, HPU sophomore, claims, "tuition increase is going towards improvement of the school, to better the appearance, not my education." Henderson, born in High Point, N.C., applied to HPU for the specific interior design program, not because of the appearance or extras of the school.


Financial Solutions

Newsweek's article, "Harvard Hits the Rich-Poor Gap", addressed concerns raised about the rising costs of education. The article identifies the multiple schools throughout the U.S. that now offer varied tuition costs based on individual family incomes.

The financial plan for Harvard students, "Helping You Meet Your Needs", provides families a realistic approach in handling tuition costs and allow them to still receive a good education.

Harvard University's financial plan states, "All of our financial aid is awarded on the basis of demonstrated financial need—there are no academic, athletic or merit-based awards."

Their main goal is to provide scholarships based on the financial need of the family without the family having to ask for a loan. "Harvard meets the full need of every student, including international students, for all four years."


College Budgeting

Junior at High Point University, Lauren Mungo, says that when she applied, she thought tuition was one thing and did not anticipate the thousands and thousands of dollars more she would spend more then originally planned.

Many colleges have financial plans that grant students money to go to college, but might require a payment plan after their graduation. This may cause students to go into debt.

Harvard and several other universities throughout the U.S. are on the right track in appealing to students with their financial solutions. These universities are still able to keep their high ranking and luxuries with the attraction of their financial need scholarship plans.



Related Articles:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/151734

http://www.newsweek.com/id/151695/page/1

http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/

Students Help Prevent Abuse, While Dancing Their Pants Off!

It's common on any given weekend to find college students dancing at a party or night club, but it's not so common to find students dancing for a cause. This weekend, however, that's exactly what many HPU students did, as they used a favorite pastime to make a difference.

This Saturday, marked HPU's first Danceathon, which will be held annually, to raise money for Prevent Child Abuse America. The event was put on by an HPU sorority, Kappa Delta, as their annual Shamrock event, which is always their biggest philanthropy event of the year.


What's A Danceathon?

A danceathon is essentially an all day dancing event, where people pay admission to dance and all the proceeds go to help a specific charity. The HPU Danceathon, which was open to faculty, students, and the community, was broken up into specific times for certain age groups: a kid's time, adult time, and college time, but each time was attended by people from other age groups and many college students stayed the entire day, from noon to midnight.

"Dance Your Pants Off"

More than just a catchy slogan advertising the event, participants in the danceathon danced their pants off in more ways than one. Admission for the event was $1 to dance, or a pair of unwanted pants--for a needy family.


Some Highlights

Although dancing was the primary activity at the danceathon, it was far from the only one. The day included performances by HPU's two a cappella groups, the Toccatatones and the Petal Points, as well as D.J. Snow, from Club Triangle.

And of course there's the food! A highlight for many of the participants, the array of donated food was one of the main draws. Panera bagels, Domino's Pizza, Chick-fil-A nuggets, Dunkin' donuts, and Cold Stone ice cream were just some of the food choices at the danceathon.

The Impact

While participants in the danceathon said the food was great and they had a good time, the event was more than just a good time. In addition to helping a good cause, which it did, raising $982, the danceathon also brought different campus groups together.

According to Barbra Guimaraes, a Kappa Delta who helped put on the event, her favorite part, other than the food, was seeing "so much support" from the other organizations on campus, like the dance team, other sororities and fraternities, and the Toccatatones and Petal Points. She said she likes an event like this, because, "It brings us together."

When asked how they thought the event went, Barbra and another sister, Vanessa Hansen, said they thought it went well, but they think it will be better next year, since it was the same night as the N.C. State versus High Point basketball game, which heavily impacted its attendance.

Attack of the Killer Fish, by: Alyssa Wiley

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