article: scott nelson

Assistant dean of students resigns
Scott Nelson leaves after allegations of inappropriate conduct

Olivia Hubert-Allen, News Editor

Scott Nelson, assistant dean of students and director of judicial affairs, resigned unexpectedly effective immediately on Oct. 30.

The resignation came two days after Homecoming festivities, when Nelson was accused of engaging in behavior not condoned by the faculty handbook.

Nelson, who has spent seven years supervising punishments given to students for problem behavior, including drinking violations, resigned after drinking with students during the tailgating in the Harper Center Lot.

Though it is typically the university’s policy not to discuss personal matters of its employees, Nelson gave Smith Jackson, vice president of student life, consent to release a statement about the situation.

“Early last week I received several reports concerning Dean Nelson,” Jackson said in a prepared statement. “The reports indicated Dean Nelson had participated with some alumni and students in consuming alcohol in the tailgating area, interacted inappropriately with students, and did not shut down the tailgating area during the football game [which was his responsibility].”

The Elon University Staff Manual states that “being intoxicated or under the influence of controlled substances while at work or on University business” is considered an unacceptable activity.

In a statement made by three female students involved in the incident and evidence gathered by The Pendulum, the inappropriate behavior also included, “unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors and other physically expressive behavior of a sexual nature,” as outlined in the staff manual.

The students’ statement read in part: “Nelson’s behavior was concerning and upsetting. We want students to know what happened so that in the future, others will come forward if a similar situation occurs.”

Nelson admitted to acting unprofessionally during tailgating and takes full responsibility for drinking with students.

“I drank way too much and was way too casual,” says Nelson. “I don’t remember much really.”

He had little recollection of any specific incidents that may have followed.

“I’ve never done anything with students that way,” Nelson said. “Maybe I just came across a little too warm. I never wanted anything from a student in that way.”

He says he resigned because he knows he couldn’t expect students to respect him as a judicial officer if he had violated the regulations his office enforces.

“I apologize to staff, deans and students,” Nelson says. “I hope they learn from my poor example. I tried to be a mentor and was the exact opposite.”

Nelson spent the week in South Carolina with his family.

Whitney Pack has temporarily taken Nelson’s responsibilities, and has become chief justice of judicial affairs. A search will be conducted in the future to find a new director of judicial affairs.

Brittany Smith, Kaitlin Ugolik, Justin Hite and Leigh Ann Vanscoy contributed to this story.

eye of the steam valve.

I'm beginning to reach a breaking point. My inability to say 'no' to commitments has now begun to creep its way into affecting my sleep cycle, eating habits, workout habits and oh yeah... my social existence. I ran into a friend today on my way across campus who I used to spend a lot of time with. "I thought you were still abroad," he said. "You look tired."

No. I'm here. And thanks. I am tired.

I don't know if I am starting to feel the early signs of "slowing down" with age OR if I have just finally bitten off so much, that not only am I unable to chew -- but I'm having trouble breathing too. cough cough.

I know New Years resolutions are miles away from now, but during moments of downtime I fantasize about a reduced workload that a strict resolution might bring. Simple things like being able to cook myself a proper meal, or sneak in an hour with my running shoes and iPod seem like luxuries that I will never be able to afford.

I've convinced myself that if I don't do a million things day that I will not be a successful person in life. Sure, there's some correlation. But if I am starting to wince at my quality of life because of it, maybe success isn't really worth it after all. Can I be happy being average? Part of me hopes so.

I've got two months left until the end of the hardest semester I've experienced to date. To make matters worse, I came into the hardest semester after having basked in the easiest. London was leagues short of academically challenging -- to be honest, academia was more of a nuisance getting in my way of fully capturing the city. Oh to be back again.

But yes. Two months left of sprinting. Then I think I might settle down and jog for a while.

Note to self this January 1st: chill out.

article: statistics matter.

I'm going to start posting some of the articles that I have been busy writing for class/The Pendulum/University Relations. Below is an exercise in writing about statistics.

Elon competes with flagship public colleges

ELON—The number of students from North Carolina who attend Elon University has hovered around 30 percent for the past ten years. Now, higher standards for admission are threatening to reduce the number of students coming from the Tar Heel State.

“North Carolina enrollment is very important to us,” said Greg Zaiser, dean of admissions at Elon. “Students from the state receive the North Carolina Legislative Tuition Grant. That money can be channeled into the financial aid budget, which can then be allocated across the board.”

These financial incentives encourage Elon to admit a high number of in-state students, but Zaiser explains that there is difficulty getting high school students from North Carolina to consider Elon. North Carolina’s well-established public university system boasts such academic heavyweights as North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Coming from high school, Chapel Hill was my top choice,” said Sean Flynn, a junior at Elon from Raleigh, N.C. “Carolina just has a name in this state that Elon hasn’t established yet. I was nervous to tell my friends about attending Elon since they didn’t recognize the name.”

Other North Carolina high school students are turned away from Elon because of tuition disparities that make public schools more attractive. In-state tuition for UNC-Chapel Hill costs $5,300, while Elon’s in-state tuition rate is three and half times more at $20,200.

“It’s usually the North Carolina family who makes the comment about Elon being outrageously expensive because we do have the flagship public school system,” Zaiser said. “At this point we’re really looking at the same student.”

In a survey distributed to students that Elon accepted for admission but did not enroll, one out of 11 respondents indicated enrollment at UNC-Chapel Hill instead, making the school Elon’s top competitor.

In the past, Elon’s student “market” was comprised of students who would not be competitive candidates for admission at UNC-Chapel Hill or NC State. In the past five years the standards for admission to Elon have been rising beyond expectation, placing the university in closer competition with the top public schools.

In the demanding industry of higher education new admissions standards mean a new strategy. Elon’s is simple and direct: money.

Increased presidential and fellows scholarships are aimed to put Elon on equal footing with the less-expensive public schools, said Zaiser. The university is also in the middle of a capital campaign that is focused on raising money for the endowment, which should lessen the school’s dependence on tuition increases in the future.

Money, however, can only do so much. To remain a viable option for North Carolina students, Elon will need to keep standards for admission from competing directly with NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill. Though the admissions office has no plans for intentional degradation of standards, they are monitoring the situation with caution.

“We may reach a point at which we need to stop increasing the admissions standards,” said Zaiser. “We would be foolish to leave the market we’re in. We’re not trying to be a Duke or a Davidson. We know who our students are and which students we want.”

inspired by watergate.

On June 17, 1972 five men broke into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Two young reporters – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein – with meager reputations who worked at the city desk of The Washington Post were assigned to the story, which was expected to be nothing more than a blip on the radar.

“I thought to myself … this is where they keep the yard signs! Why would anybody break into a campaign office,” said Bob Schieffer, as he reflected on his first impressions of the story.

Soon, however, opinions changed as the biggest known cover-up in Presidential History was revealed. Woodward and Bernstein were the driving force – able to get to the bottom of the truth by prodding sources for more and more information. As the dust settled, America learned that President Nixon and his staff had taken part in a slew of illegal activity that included campaign fraud, espionage, wire tapping, money laundering and break-ins.

Nixon, sensing his impending doom, resigned.

It’s stories like these that inspire journalists today to push boundaries, ask tough questions and be critical of our administration. While at the SPJ Convention this afternoon we listened in on a panel discussion between journalistic heavyweights Bob Schieffer, Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Daniel Shorr and Alicia Shepard.

The group reflected on their experiences during the Watergate Scandal with humor and nostalgia. They spoke in depth about from the first moments that they heard about the break-in at The Watergate to the making of All The Presidents Men years later. What was most interesting though, was the insight they shared about how the Watergate scandal has changed the face of journalism.

“Watergate taught us that there could be conspiracy in the government,” said Dan Shorr. “We don’t assume that a President, or vice president, or secretary are telling us the truth anymore.”

Though this may seem a sad regression, I think it is probably good that a case like this alerted journalists to the darker side of politics. Think of all that we might have missed if we hadn’t been watching the government closely. I can’t even imagine what they might have gotten away with.

The mood lightened when Woodward reflected on the making of the movie All The Presidents Men. He explained how actor Jason Robards was being considered for Ben Bradlee’s part in the movie. They gave him a script and had him look over it.

He returned the next day saying “I can’t play this part! This guy only says one thing – “Where’s the fucking story!”

“Well,” the movie exec’s replied, “That’s what an executive editor does! We need you to find 15 interesting, creative ways to say ‘Where’s the fucking story?”

Sure enough, Robards played the part and ended up winning and Oscar.

I think I may have found a new catchphrase for myself at The Pendulum.

tax appreciation.

So far this year, I have paid $834 in income taxes. Yes, to many adults this number is probably laughable next to the thousands they pay – but if you put it into perspective for a moment $834 seems no small fare. To a college student, $834 can be three months of food. Two and a half car payments. Enough beer money to last years (perhaps for others only months…). It’s couple month’s rent. A semester worth of books. Two speeding tickets. Or – my favorite – a carefully planned five-day trip to California, London, Southern France or Spain.

However, after two hours in my economics class today, I have begun to think about that $834 a little bit differently. We’ve been discussing personal gain versus social cost. Though I’ve always found myself to be liberal leaning, when it came to taxes I’ve been stumped. It’s hard not to think of all the things I could have if I were allowed to keep the money that Uncle Sam takes from me each month. But after thinking on it for a bit, I’ve found a new way to appreciate taxes. Instead of thinking what I am losing, I am going to now think of what I am gaining…

Roads to carry me all across the country. 13 years of free primary and secondary school. Police officers that keep me safe. Electricity at the DMV, city hall and in the schools. Lawyers to represent the poor in court. The military that continues a disheartening war that is less supported by the hour… My $834 goes towards most of the things that I take for granted.

I’ve wished my cynicism away for the day. For once in a long while, the glass is half full. If having a life of order and society that is – relatively – peaceful costs merely $834. Then I guess I’m getting my money’s worth.

audio pilgrimage.

Squinting my eyes to make out the monochrome shape of the car in front of me is not usually my idea of an ideal way to spend a Thursday afternoon. In fact, spending a half-hour in a torrential downpour on I-95 (oh it gets worse…) through Northern Virginia sounds like an episode worthy of an anxiety attack. And in most cases it probably would have been but yesterday was clearly an oddity. Somehow I found a sense of peace among the large drops of water that pelted my car, breaking their round form on my windshield with a loud “snap.”

The thunderstorm was vibrant, providing spectacular bolts of lighting that would work their way through the sky like delicate winding capillaries. Every bright flash warned me for the deafening cracking sound which was always soon to follow.

I was driving home from visiting my family in Bethlehem, Penn., a conflicted city that is trying to find community among rich college students, underpaid Puerto Ricans and unemployed steel workers. To be honest, it's a lot like Burlington, only with Hispanics and mill workers respectively. The trip was short, but since it marked my first long-distance solo road trip, it was one to remember.

One thing that I reconnected with during my trip was my music collection. To be honest, I am often times ashamed out out of touch I am with music. I never devote time to finding new artists or even given my good ole stand-bys a listen. I mostly tune into NPR in hopes they will make sense of the chaotic news cycle. But on this trip I was armed with something that I have never had before -- proper car speakers.

In my last car, affectionately know as Miss Noxzema (or Noxie for short), had blown speakers that would buzz if a single decimal of bass was in the audio. It isn't until you lose the ability to have bass that you realize how much all music depends on it. :/ So my options were always NPR or James Taylor. Now I love James, don't get me wrong, but hours and hours and hours of James just gets old (As do the repeating news segments on NPR.) BUT on this trip, in my new car, I was free to explore the more soulful parts of my music collection -- Bob Dylan, Etta James, Miles Davis, Just Jack, Justice... mmm ... really anything that skewed from beach music was a relief.

I think that 7 hours of music was enough to pull me out of my dry spell. As soon as I got home I began searching for something new ... something jazzy ... something with some bass! I'm already excited about the musical experience during my next road trip.

internal nesting.

I start this new chapter of my life just like I started my last one -- moving boxes. As I sift through old letters, forgotten books and tattered clothing I am constantly reminded of the life I left behind to cross the Atlantic just six months ago. It's odd how easily things can be forgotten when you don't see them on a daily basis.

My summer has been consumed with finding places for things. Moving into a new house has given me the ongoing challenge at interior decoratioin -- where does this lamp belong? Does the bookshelf look better next to the bed or the closet? However, I have also been busy finding places in my life for things that I've let myself exclude. Familiar friends, spirituality, family and work were all things that I snuck onto the back burner while in London. As I come back to my life here, I admit that I am struggle to make these things a part of my daily routine again.

What is most interesting, is that part of me doesn't want to bring these things into the forefront of my life once again. Being in London gave me an opportunity to reinvent myself, or rather discover who I really might be. Instead of keeping up appearences and meeting expectations I had the freedom to be entirely who I wanted to be from moment to moment.

That is a freedom that will be hard to give up.

But then again, maybe I don't have to...