AT&T threatens Apple’s long-time control over products

Published in the Lee Clarion.

One of the long-time advantages Apple has held over rival computer manufacturers is the perfect union of hardware and software.

Apple prides itself in being able to control the full user experience by designing its own products and creating operating systems that seamlessly integrate with them.

Computers purchased from Dell, for example, run an OS designed by an entirely different corporation, Microsoft. That means the hardware and software often don’t communicate together as they should, resulting in a junky user experience.

But in a world of fast-moving telecommunications, Apple’s new star device isn’t a desktop, laptop or iPod. It’s the iPhone.

When Steve Jobs conceives of a product, he keeps users, not customers, in mind from start to finish. Apple’s unity provides a perfect playground for Jobs to meticulously meddle in every decision, resulting in an easy-to-use experience for consumers.

The iPhone throws a ratchet in the utopia Jobs has created for himself and his successors. You see, Apple doesn’t own a cellular network, hence, the exclusive deal with AT&T.

When a second company enters the picture, Apple can negotiate all they want, but Jobs has little to no power when it comes to influencing the infrastructure of the company.

At Apple, Jobs’ business ethic of perfection has successfully been ingrained and instilled in the Cupertino company’s employees. No such luck at AT&T.

WWDC provided just enough evidence of Apple’s disappointment with the U.S. wireless carrier.

AT&T’s lack of preparation and cooperation for providing tethering support and MMS capability for the iPhone in the United States, at least for several weeks, shows an inability to meet deadline, and produce the results Apple was demanding of its carriers.

Thankfully, Apple’s partnership with AT&T provides the computer company with a scapegoat in this scenario. On the other hand, if AT&T had been well prepared, and Apple hadn’t delivered, quibbles on Twitter and in headlines would be directed in the opposite direction.

But negative press is negative press. And that’s the risk Apple, and any business for that matter, takes when it comes to a partnership.

When two companies collaborate to innovate, no one can control the full user-experience. In this case, AT&T is Apple’s weakest link, crippling a company that once prided itself in having it all together.

Newspaper making an impact online

Published in the Lee Clarion.
A relatively new competitor among collegiate news Web sites, LeeClarion.com, the online edition of Lee University’s student news media, is already winning awards.

LeeClarion.com debuted in 2008 to complement and expand upon the print edition of the Lee Clarion by providing easy access to up-to-date information, a digital archive of articles and helpful features including polls and real-time weather results.

In recent months LeeClarion.com has expanded to include a full video gallery, serving as a news station to the campus, and a blog operated by the newspaper editors.

LeeClarion.com won first place for the Overall World-Wide Web Site at the 2008 Collegiate Journalism Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

More recently, LeeClarion.com was selected as a 2009 Associated Collegiate Press Online Pacemaker finalist. Competition winners are scheduled to be announced this November.

In the first eight months of operation, LeeClarion.com received nearly 60,000 page views alone.

The Lee Clarion has made a splash in social media in recent months, opening accounts on services like Facebook and Twitter. The result is two-fold.

In addition to providing readers with faster breaking news, the social sites have contributed to the dialogue, enabling readers to participate in conversation with the Lee Clarion by commenting on posts and submitting story tips.

The Lee Clarion currently has nearly 2,550 fans and followers across the two services. Both Facebook and Twitter allow readers to subscribe to news updates from the Lee Clarion on their cell phones for instant coverage.

The Lee Clarion has also used its Facebook page to show off the award-winning talent of the Lee University Student Media photography staff.

During the 2008-2009 academic year over 9,000 pictures of campus events and news stories were uploaded to the Lee Clarion Facebook page, engaging fans with high-quality photos.

Every time a new album is uploaded, readers receive an invitation to view the latest album, tag their friends, share the pictures and write comments for others to see. Instead of keeping Lee’s talented photographers’ work constricted, the Lee Clarion encourages fans to view the archives and share the content.

The Lee Clarion recently launched a video news station on LeeClarion.com bringing in well over 5,000 views since its inception at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year.

The video gallery encourages student journalists who are interested in video news to learn how to report on-camera and tell a story through visual means.

By utilizing social media including blogs and profiles as well as finding new ways to deliver fresh photos and video news reports, the LeeClarion is on the forefront of the digital media revolution.

Student journalists at Lee University have an outlet to engage their talents, in writing, editing, reporting, designing, or taking photos for the Lee Clarion.

The student media newsroom (located at PCSU 104) provides students working on the Lee Clarion with a highly-equipped office filled with the proper technology and software necessary to produce quality and award-winning news.

Pi was framed in car vandalism incident, victims say

Published in the Lee Clarion.

Over a dozen vehicles were vandalized in the O’Bannon-Bowdle parking lot early Friday morning between 2-4 a.m. according to freshmen residents.

Car chalk was used on the windows of the vehicles to paint images of male genitalia, obscene words and the symbols of Lee University Greek club Pi Kappa Pi on a number of cars.

“Somebody was trying to make Pi look even worse than they do already,” Patrick Wright, a freshman psychology major, said. “I have a lot of friends in Pi. I’m not bias at all, but there’s no way that was Pi.”

Most of the vandalized vehicles belonged to the freshman residents of fourth floor O’Bannon Hall, although cars belonging to other residents, including the resident director’s wife, were also struck.

“That’s kind of weird that they did that,” freshman Nick Ridge said. “She wasn’t happy.”

Ridge said that the RD’s wife immediately called local law enforcement when she saw the crime.

Officials from the Office of Residential Life were unavailable and did not return calls for comment.

Shayn Fernandez, a freshman and Pi member, said he thought someone else was responsible for the attack.

“We’ve been blamed for a lot of crap…that kind of ticks me off,” he said. “People are just taking advantage of the situation we’re in right now.”

Wright said that he first spotted the prank when he went to his car to get money at around 4:30 a.m.

The crimes were likely committed by multiple perpetrators who were aiming to frame Pi, he said, noting the different colors of car chalk used.

“I have no clue who could have possibly done it,” he said. “I know for a fact it wasn’t anybody in Pi. Pi wouldn’t do that. It would be ridiculous.”

Freshman business major Brett Lowery said he believed the violators were fourth floor O’Bannon residents.

Jared Owen, the resident assistant for the fourth floor cluster, said that while a few of the guys on his floor were targeted, his own vehicle was preserved.

“I wasn’t surprised,” the junior pastoral ministry major said. “Stuff like this happens all the time … you just learn to take things in stride.”

Freshman Nick Ridge said his Mustang was among the desecrated.

“I had one big thing on my window,” he said. “It was all over the cars this morning. A lot of them have been cleaned up.”

Ridge said that the dorm fire alarm was pulled at approximately 4:30 a.m. His guess was that the perpetrator wanted residents to come outside and see the prank while it was fresh.

Only three cars belonging to fourth floor residents were left unscathed, Ridge said.

Ridge said he thought the perpetrator was likely a resident of the dorm who had a grudge against Pi.

“Pi wouldn’t do that; they’re not that dumb,” he said.

Mikey Mckellar, a freshman telecommunications major, said he also fell victim.

“All I know is that is that there’s a PI Kappa Pi [symbol] on the back of my truck,” he said. “But it would be stupid to put their greek club on there. We think it’s someone just joking around, doing their thing.”

Lee Clarion issue stolen from stands

Published in the Lee Clarion.

If you couldn’t find a copy of the April 17 issue of the Lee Clarion, chances are you weren’t the one who stole approximately 1,550 copies of Volume 63, Issue 12 from campus newsstands.

The newspapers were likely stolen because of an article regarding changes in Greek society since revisions in induction policy.

The article, “Two years later: Has Greek society changed,” discussed the contrast between new and old members during induction and mentioned a Pi Kappa Pi newsletter that discussed upcoming inductions. The newsletter was quoted, “We never put anyone in the hospital durin[g] induction…so I guess we should take this opportunity and try…”

Adam Marroquin, the president of Pi, said that one member of the club’s executive council was responsible for producing the newsletter, though he wouldn’t deny that it was the secretary’s job.

The copies were stolen off newsstands sometime between 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday, April 17. The managing editor contacted Lee University Campus Safety regarding the theft. The perpetrator of the crime remains unidentified.

Although it is not clear why the copies of the Lee Clarion were stolen, members of Pi Kappa Pi wrote on the Lee Clarion Facebook wall on the day the issue came out.

Themba Moyo, secretary of Pi, commented on a status update informing readers that a new issue of the newspaper had been distributed.

“This one isn’t that great…” he said. “Lookin’ forward to the next one.”

Pi member Maurice Huggins wrote the following comment on the wall regarding the author of the article:

“Harrison Keely is an idiot tell him to quote me on that!!”

The comment has since been removed due to a Lee Clarion policy that disallows personal attacks in comments.

Total damages are estimated at more than $300.

Mike Hiestand, a legal consultant to the Student Press Law Center, said newspaper theft is a form of censorship.

“Greek organizations, for example, have occasionally seen newspaper theft as the best way to kill a story that includes negative news about their fraternity or sorority (or one of their members) and have frequently sent out thieves en masse,” he wrote.

The SLPC notes that possible charges include petty theft, criminal mischief, grand larceny and destruction of property.

The April 17 theft isn’t the first of the Lee Clarion.

Campus Safety became involved after approximately 500 copies of old and new issues of the Lee Clarion were taken from three stands in the Dixon Center and student union March 25. The majority of those issues, however, were anonymously returned to the door of the Student Media lab in the PCSU March 31.

The Lee Clarion also reported that around 175 copies of Volume 63, Issue 9 might have been stolen from the library and the Dixon Center on February 27.

Kevin Trowbridge, faculty adviser to Lee University Student Media, issued a statement saying, “I am disappointed and disturbed that anyone would commit such an act of censorship. Theft is a crime and, more importantly, it is morally wrong.”

The Lee Clarion asks that responsible parties step forward and is seeking tips that lead to information about the person(s) responsible.

The issue can be viewed in its entirety at www.LeeClarion.com.

Two years later: Has Greek society changed?

Published in the Lee Clarion.
It’s been more than two years since President Paul Conn dramatically revamped Lee University’s Greek club induction process to remove the heavy emphasis on physicality.

While some Greeks have argued that inductions have ceased to be effective and challenging as a result, others in Lee’s Greek community say that the changes have actually helped clubs place more emphasis on their founding mission: growing spiritually and serving others.

Kristin Chumley, a member of Epsilon Lambda Phi, said that Greek clubs have definitely changed since the administration’s induction overhaul in October 2006.

“It’s a different breed of person who rushes clubs now,” the senior elementary education major said. “I don’t think members are as committed to the club as they were in the past … It’s few and far between that you find someone willing to sacrifice. There tended to be more of that person during the old induction.”

Chumley said she was in the second to last tap to endure the physical inductions prior to the change, noting that she was Epsilon’s induction chair when the overhaul took place.

Dean of Students Alan McClung said that he expected Greek guys to feel less dedicated as a result of the changes, because the physical inductions were so much more a part of their clubs.

Contrast is something older members of every Greek club talk about frequently, Chumley said, adding that turnover will soon chip away at those memories as members who remember the old induction graduate.

“We’re being weeded out … in every club,” she said. “You never talk about it with the new girls.”

Junior elementary education major and Epsilon member Jamie Reed said that she entered the club after the induction changes.

“At least with our club I don’t think there’s any disunity,” she said. “I think we’re still pretty close.”

Self-imposed changes

Reed said that she didn’t believe the induction changes had any effect on the club.

Jeremiah Argo, a junior pastoral ministries major in Tau Kappa Omega, said that TKO is moving away from the old induction system in a progressive manner.

“[We're] trying to get into a more brotherly sort of rushing system where we spend the whole semester actually hanging out with them and teaching them by example, rather than one weekend of inductions, shoving it all in your face,” he said.

Argo said that Greeks don’t often talk about inductions in general.

“We actually promise not to tell what happens for the simple fact that it could hurt someone else’s experience,” he said. “It could stop them from wanting to do it.”

TKO came to the conclusion that even the new induction system wasn’t working well, Argo said, noting that TKO thought it could get through to new members in a different way.

“We agree that the way inductions has been is very utilitarian and kind of sadistic, and so we’re trying to move away from that,” he said.

Chumley said that when inductions were reformatted in 2006 Epsilon “completely threw out” their previous process and started over, but she noted that there was little work to be done.

“[Dean of Students Alan] McClung will tell you Epsilon didn’t need to change at all because, come on, we’re girls,” she said.

McClung said that the induction process in most girls clubs was in very little need of change at the time, adding that it was more difficult for guys to make the transition.

“That’s just natural because of gender,” he said. “Guys tend to be more physical. They demand more.”

Chumley said that the changes encouraged the group to concentrate on what it stood for, stating that the new process is more mentally challenging, focusing mostly on team building and learning Biblical lessons.

“You want to put someone to their breaking point,” she said, stating that such a moment teaches new taps that they can’t do anything without God.

Chumley said that since the induction overhaul certain Greek clubs have received warnings about specific activities that too closely resembled old induction practices.

She said that no one is ever forced to do anything during an induction, “It’s what they choose to do.”

The first tap to experience the new inductions completely lost the “my induction was harder than yours attitude,” Chumley said.

Adam Marroquin, president of Pi Kappa Pi, said that the different attitude was likely isolated to Epsilon. While he stated that he understood that some Greeks may not feel as connected, he said the members of Pi felt unified.

“Every year we give back to the community,” the senior pastoral ministry major said. “We are social service organizations.”

Next spring Pi Kappa Pi plans to take its members on a cross cultural trip to help others in Cambodia, he said.

Marroquin said that all of Lee’s Greek clubs were based on Biblical principals and that the motive behind induction is to build people up.

“We’re not a national fraternity by any means,” he said. “Hazing is wrong. I agree with that … Lee University wouldn’t allow Greek clubs to be in existence if they thought they would be intentionally harming students.”

Marroquin acknowledged that Pi Kappa Pi “didn’t have the best reputation on campus” when he first joined three years ago but said that the club had dramatically changed since that time.

Induction Harm

Sophomore anthropology major Ryan Austin said he had always understood Greek clubs at Lee to be service-oriented and for the betterment of each individual, but a recent finding had called that attitude into question.

Austin said he received a copy of Pi Kappa Pi’s newsletter “The Not So Green Pages” from a student who found it in a hallway of the Humanities Center.

“They thought I would be interested and gave me a call,” he said. “From what I see in [the newsletter] there might be cause for concern.”

The four-page newsletter gave new members degrading nicknames, featured a degrading photo caption and discussed upcoming formal inductions:

“New guys..this will challenge you mentally, physically, and spiritually,” it read. “We never put anyone in the hospital durin[g] induction…so I guess we should take this opportunity and try…”

Marroquin said the statement was a joke that outsiders wouldn’t understand.
“We don’t do anything to anybody; we haven’t in a long time,” he said. “It’s never our intention to harm anybody, period … No Greek club harms anybody.”

Marroquin said the statement was meant to make fun of the old induction ways and incidents other clubs have had in the past.

One member of Pi Kappa Pi’s executive council was responsible for producing the newsletter, Marroquin said, though he wouldn’t deny that it was the secretary’s job.

“As president that’s not something that I worry about,” he said. “Anything else that’s in there, I don’t have a hand in it … I trust whoever’s writing it will do a good job.”

Marroquin said that he had been personally addressed about the issue by a member of the administration.

“I explained to them exactly what was going on,” he said. “That was it, period. Jokes like that shouldn’t be made because as you see they can be taken out of context.”

McClung said that when he saw a copy of the newsletter he took the hospital comment as a joke that reflects poorly on the whole club.

“Nobody should be joking like that,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if anybody sees it or not. It does not convey the mission of what their club represents, simple as that.”

McClung said he took the newsletter to the club’s head sponsor, Nate Tucker, and demanded action but left any discipline up to the the club itself.

The “Not So Green Pages” isn’t the first time that an inappropriate newsletter has been circulated in a Greek club at Lee, McClung said. He said that a different club dealt with a similar situation in much the same way around 15 years ago.

“You can do so much good and one thing can negate all the good you do,” he said.

“They know that if anyone goes to the hospital, we’re going to want to know why. There’s going to be a high level of accountability.”

Lee students have visited the hospital before during inductions, McClung said, but only because they couldn’t endure the physical requirements of the old induction process.

He said that the hospital visits was the impetus for the revisions.

“If they tap a couch potato, he’s not in shape, and you get him out there in the morning doing jumping jacks and stuff like that, it takes its toll,” he said.

McClung said Lee’s Greek clubs haven’t sent a student to the hospital in a long time.

“They don’t want to put anybody in the hospital because that’s the kind of attention they don’t want,” he said.

While Austin acknowledged that the physical safety of members was a concern, he said he thought the statement in the newsletter was simply a joke.

“Personally, I see this just as college students being college students,” he said. “We’re not the most thoughtful people.”

Austin said the language used in the newsletter seemed to harm individuals spiritually and emotionally.

“If the people who are leaders in this Greek club are using ‘sending someone to the ER’ euphemistically… what are they really going to do? What is the extent?” he asked. “It’s kind of worrisome to me.”

Greek clubs become a waste when they’re not used to build individuals up spiritually, he said.

Austin said he believes that Greek club leaders have put less emphasis on being role models in recent years and have instead focused on making friends by “joking around with people.”

Sowing good seed

Argo said that in his case, however, the brotherhood of TKO saved his life.

“If it wasn’t for TKO I would have committed suicide, literally committed suicide, at the end of my first semester at Lee,” he said.

TKO focuses on leading by example, he said, ensuring that each member is held accountable to the community covenant.

“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do any of that stuff,” Argo said. “I will fully admit that I have in the past, but I don’t, and my brothers keep me accountable.

Argo said that when he first joined TKO in spring 2007 he was shunned by another Greek club on campus because of TKO’s bad reputation at Lee. Members wouldn’t even talk to him until recently, he said.

“In the past certain clubs have had reputations….but that comes with envy and pride. Some of the clubs have been elitist.”

Greek clubs on campus have started a recovery effort though, he said, noting that the goal is to stop rumors, answer more questions, and be more honest and open.

Argo said that Greek clubs have become much more focused on their original missions in recent years.

“They’re focused a lot more on spiritual inner-edification than they were,” he said. “If we ever came down to only having one guy [rush] in a semester, we would ask him to wait until next semester. We refuse to put someone in by themselves. We refer to ourselves as the brotherhood… You can’t get through life alone.”

Reed said that her Greek club has become more concerned about helping the community.

“I think that something we need to work on as a service club is actually doing more service,” she said.

Argo said that he’s logged about 40 hours of service this semester alone, but he’s only recorded seven of those hours officially to fulfill Lee’s requirement. He said that logging hours didn’t matter anymore to him and that the main focus was helping as much as he could.

McClung said that he thought service projects by Greek clubs have increased in number over time, but that the projects get less publicity than most clubs.
“Service is really very much a part of their makeup,” he said. “I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t.”

McClung said that clubs have adopted a section of a highway, crocheted for the homeless, raised money for a victim of Chernobyl who couldn’t afford treatments, held a lingerie party for a battered women’s shelter, and worked with the Crossover ministry, just to name a few examples.

“They do so much in the community that no body knows about,” he said. “Right now I could not be more pleased with where all of the Greek clubs are at and it’s been that way the last few semesters.”

GPA concerns

McClung said he and Vice President for Student Life Dr. Walt Mauldin meet with the presidents, officers and sponsors of Greek clubs at the beginning of every fall.

“Dr. Mauldin and I just spell it out,” he said. “This is what you can do, this is what you can’t do. If you violate, we’re going to come for you. They know we’re serious.”

Club newsletters are on the agenda to talk about at the next meeting, he said, as well as member GPAs.

“We’ll go over induction again,” he said. “We’ll encourage them to follow their constitutions and stay consistent with that. There’s been a little coloring outside the lines.”

He said that while girls clubs have not budged when it comes to the minimum GPA of new members, guys clubs have repeatedly asked for exceptions.

“In the past we kind of winked if it was close enough,” he said. “If the kid was one tenth of a point away, I thought, how can you deny that?”

McClung said that he now tells club members to follow the constitution, no matter how close the GPA may be to the minimum requirement.

“I think they’ve let things slide because it was…for the better of the club,” he said, adding that sticking to the constitution “protects them and protects me.”

McClung said he holds Greek students to a higher level of accountability than other students on campus.

Despite the shift away from danger and toward Christ-focused serving, some students still don’t subscribe to the notion of the Greek club.

“I have nothing against Greek clubs. It’s just not my cup of tea,” Austin said. “People can have friends wherever. I have friends; I’m not in a Greek club.”

Austin said that the real question was whether or not the administration should be concerned about the path Greek clubs are beginning to take on Lee’s campus.

Considering McClung’s position, however, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Marroquin said that Greek clubs will continue to be a major spiritual element in the lives of Greeks at Lee.

“As president I still have a chaplain’s heart,” he said. “I still have a heart for my guys.”
Marroquin compared Pi to a church where the guys meet to talk about the struggles in their lives.

“They’re mature as far as college goes,” he said. “They’re a lot of great guys that have good heads on their shoulders. Every club has its bad apples. There’s not quite as many as there used to be.”

Students diagnose Cleveland ER

Published in the Lee Clarion.
Angel Cromer was running to class at the Humanities Center when she felt stabbed by a severe amount of pain and fainted before even reaching the doors.

The senior theology major said she remembered being rushed to the emergency room at Cleveland’s SkyRidge Medical Center during her first semester at Lee in the fall of 2005.

Good and bad experiences can happen in any emergency room, but students at Lee have generally had negative stories to tell about their times at Bradley County’s ER.

Cromer said that by the time she arrived at the hospital, the episode was almost over, but that the medical staff decided to investigate further.

“Due to their excavation, they actually ruptured my ovarian cyst that was the size of a baseball,” she said.

Cromer said that cysts shouldn’t be ruptured at all as they introduce harmful chemicals into the body.

“It probably was an accident, but you’re not supposed to touch it, period,” she said. “I would expect a female of any variety who has had female issues to understand you’re not supposed to touch a cyst.”

Cromer said she was then sent home, sans painkillers, and suffered a severe amount of pain for a week until she was able to visit a specialist.

When junior telecommunications major Beth Blair passed out at Lee and awoke unable to move, she was rushed to the emergency room at Cleveland’s SkyRidge Medical Center, a trip she now wish she never took.

“They never really paid any attention to the fact that I was there,” Blair said. “The waiting room wasn’t packed or anything. They just didn’t do anything.”

She stayed in the waiting room for three hours before finally being admitted, where she waited for another nine hours as she was told that tests were being run.

By the time 12 hours had passed, Blair said she was told a different doctor would replace the first, who was rude and hadn’t made any progress.

Blair said the nurse told her that she needed an IV due to dehydration, despite Blair’s insistence otherwise. She said that the nurse made seven attempts to strike a vein.

“I was yelling at the nurse, telling him to stop, but he continued,” she said. Finally, a second nurse was brought in to insert the IV.

Blair said she was finally told she could leave when she was able to eat.

“I spent over 36 hours in the hospital and they couldn’t find out what was wrong with me,” she said. “I thought it was pretty ridiculous that it took them that long.”

The bill for the visit came to around $4,500, she said.

“Unless I literally will die…do not take me [back],” she said. “Never go to Skyridge. I’ve heard enough malpractice suits, I’ve heard enough misdiagnosis…It’s as if your garbage man is your doctor.”

Sara Kistner, a sophomore education major, said that her encounter with the local ER left her extremely displeased as well.

“We waited for well over an hour (good thing it wasn’t life or death!) and finally gave up and left,” she said. “There were several other people waiting and none of them got seen either.”

Mickey Moore, director of Lee University’s health clinic, is a former employee of the medical center.

“I worked as a nurse in the ER at SkyRidge for two years and as a nurse for many years when it was Bradley Memorial Hospital,” Moore said. “I have seen both sides to a great extent.”

Moore said that Lee’s health clinic very rarely sends students to the SkyRidge ER. He said that the clinic only refers students to the ER if they have the insurance for it.

“We can treat most common illnesses and can provide stabilization in the case of an emergent condition until advanced care can be reached either with the EMS unit or by transportation to the ER,” Moore said. “We are not equipped nor licensed to operate an emergency care unit.”

Not all experiences with the medical center are negative, though.

Carol Hays, a senior sociology major, said she was met with positive service during her two visits to the ER.

“Both times were a ‘good’ experience, ‘good’ being a relative term,” Hayes said. “We received care fairly quickly, less than one hour both times, and the nurses were helpful.”

Senior biochemistry and English major Jeremy Blanchard said that a serious injury led him to the local ER.

“I broke my collar bone at rugby practice,” he said. “All the doctors and administration were very professional.”

Jason Feliciano, a junior telecommunication major, said he visited the ER after a bike accident in downtown Cleveland.

“Campus Safety drove me to SkyRidge where they left me,” he said. “I was by myself…didn’t know anyone.”

Feliciano said he waited for three hours to be seen.

“Doctors kept coming in, but they didn’t do anyting, didn’t talk to you,” he said. “Finally a doctor came in and…started touching my open wounds with his bare hands….It was disgusting. And it hurt too.”

Cromer said two other scenarios at SkyRidge caused her to lose faith in the medical center.

In one instance, she said the hospital refused to give care. At a different time, she said the hospital wouldn’t stop providing treatment, despite her refusal.

“They wouldn’t treat me for being a psychiatric patient. That isn’t quite right,” Cromer said. “I was literally having a breakdown and seeing things – which isn’t right … They wouldn’t even sedate me.”

Two days before the 2008-09 academic year at Lee began, Cromer said she was riding her bike in humid 100 degree weather when she blacked out on the side of the road and local pedestrians called an ambulance.

Despite having already consumed a half gallon of water, she said medics tried to treat her for dehydration.

“I understand that by state law if an ambulance stops, you have to take it. However, I refused to get in the ambulance,” she said. “I refused everything. I refused to go to the ER…. I refused to go to the hospital.”

Cromer said that state law requires that she be able to refuse treatment and leave after arriving at the hospital.

“I demanded,” she said. “I said ‘I refuse treatment, please let me leave’ and they said ‘no, you’re too dehydrated.’”

Cromer said she could deal with dehydration at home instead of having to pay a $600 hospital bill plus a $1000 ambulance fee.

“They decided to sidestep the law by saying ‘you are in no condition to choose because you are so dehydrated,’” she said.

When it comes to broken bones and X-Rays, Cromer said SkyRidge could get the job done. However, if your condition is undiagnosed, she advised that Lee students seek more advanced medical assistance.

Cromer said it was worth spending more money on doctors who actually care, despite the state of the economy and college students’ notoriously-empty bank accounts and lack of insurance.

“I know money is tight but you end up getting crappy doctorship,” she said. “Do not wait until you have an episode like I did and then go to the ER and get everything messed up worse.”

• Jessica Wright and Andrea Matthews contributed to this article.

Stream of consciousness

Published at Social Disclosure, a PR & Social Media blog.

I promise not to let my Facebook habits ruin my Twitter experience.

That’s the vow I made when I first joined Twitter. It’s the decision I faced on the third step:

1. Create an account.

2. Decide if the account should be public or private.

3. The Facebook Factor.

So I created a private account, meaning I could feel more comfortable about sharing more personal details about my everyday life in real time.

But even with a “locked” account, friend requests pop up from three different kinds of people:

1. Real friends.

2. People who live in the area and may know you.

3. Odd people or businesses that you’ve never heard of before.

If you’re crazy, you’ll accept people from all three edges of the spectrum. On Facebook, I limited myself to the first two categories of “friends,” worried that I might offend someone who knew me if I couldn’t remember their name, or even worse, their face.

And now I’ve ended up with 2,000 Facebook friends. I might know 400 of them.

Quite honestly, that worries me.

So when I discovered Twitter, I set the law… I won’t add you, if I don’t know you.

And now I have a list of strangers, in both accounts, who want access to my account, and they just pile up as I magically hope to recognize them one day and invite them in.

If you’ve been following the social news as of late, you know doubt no (yes, it was intentional) that Facebook is preparing an all-intensive assault against tiny-but-swelling rival Twitter.

Soon it will be easier than ever to send out status updates that eerily resemble tweets. It will be commonplace for businesses and for users.

So Facebook strikes the spellbinding chord, and Twitter accounts suddenly dry up like springs run dry, but do I switch?

Certainly it’s a brilliant notion to integrate the Twitter service I love so much with the Facebook service I use so frequently, but something holds me back.

I started Twitter as a real-time diary, as a timeline of thoughts and actions, life. No wonder it makes sense to push that just a step further and shove it into a box holding my every photo and video.

But my dilemma is this:

When your Facebook profile serves as a PR representation of yourself, and your Twitter serves as a diary of personality, marrying the two results in some kind of conflict.

Do I want 1,600 strangers reading about where I am and what’s on my mind?

It’s definitely possible to cram all of my legit pals into a single friends list and grant them sole rights to my status updates, but here’s my issue:

There are times when you want your status to be that private diary and there are times that you want to announce (or advertise) a message to as broad an audience as possible.

For instance, “Harrison is watching CNN while eating tacos on the top of the National Press Building with Greg and Jezerey,” could easily be TMI for most “friends.” In reality, do strangers really care? And if they do, then I don’t want them caring.

But a post like “Harrison just blogged about the top ten most exciting things in D.C. Check it out by clicking here,” is something I’d want to send to as many people as possible. It comes back to the whole personal/PR representation.

While it’s possible to make your personal life your broadcasted or “PR” life, it’s a stunt reserved more so for celebrities, or people that strangers really do care about or feel as if they have a connection with.

Facebook could solve the problem by allowing two streams of status updates or sharing, but unless such a move was optional, it would further complicate Facebook.

The company realizes that people put on varying personas for different groups, such as business and family and classmates. Therefore, friend lists were developed.

In the upcoming redesign of the network’s homepage, the company places a particular emphasis on these friend lists in the news feed or “stream.”

It’s a new revelation that people either:

1. Add strangers that they just don’t want to see news from

2. Want to see news sorted by the areas of their social lives, rather than a jumbled mess, or

3. Keep looking for a Twitter-esque solution that focuses only on a single specific group, based on degree of interaction.

Another problem that emerges, both in Twitter and on Facebook, is social archiving.

Blogs take on a sort of non-linear state with drop-down menus or visual representations of calendars that can easily transport visitors back in time.

Twitter and Facebook are both competing to become the primary stakeholder in the very life of every human.

Our memories, our photos, our videos, our comments, our shared items, our discussions, our status updates, our location, all recorded in one single place.

Everything we hold valuable trusted as the responsibility of one company.

That’s why Google’s jealous. Google may have our search history and our YouTube videos, but it doesn’t have our life.

This is one reason that users get so upset when they’re booted from Facebook for one reason or another. This is why there’s such an audible scuffle over the terms of use at Facebook and the ownership of content.

In the world of tomorrow, when contact lenses record video, our mind has a direct link to sending tweets, and our discussions are recorded to reflect on, recall – the social timeline – is going to be more important than ever.

Companies like Facebook and Twitter and Google realize this now. The race has begun. It’s a competition for the users. Why else would Facebook be so scared of Twitter?

Take a look at cell phone companies, for example. There’s barely anyone in the United States who doesn’t have a cellular phone. The market is saturated. That’s precisely why keeping customers is so important. People stay locked into a cell phone plan through contracts, and new gadgets and new services.

In fact, the only way to apparently convert users now is through a Trojan Horse like the iPhone.

About half of all customers who sign up for the iPhone with AT&T now have never had a contract with the company before.

It’s all about locking in as many users as possible and keeping them locked in for as long as possible.

To be successful in the development of the social timeline, Facebook and Twitter must integrate an easy way to search the past of individual users, by keyword and date.

Facebook almost paid $500 million to acquire Twitter last year. Instead, it’s decided to compete head-on.

But even Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, sees a high value in communicating publicly through Twitter.

Just today it was revealed that the the company’s CEO has his own public Twitter feed, in addition to his private one.

Companies and PR professionals have always known that it’s important to be an integral part in the lives of customers and potential customers. Simply put, that’s the real value of social networks.

By finding a place on the timeline of the common man, a company ensures a personal part of at least one man’s history. And if the Web has taught us anything, one reference is a thousand references.

Social networking isn’t about talking to friends, it isn’t about sharing photos or tweets. Social networking is about life.

The companies understand that fact much more than the plebeians who in many cases blindly use such online software.

The gun went off a few years ago but the runners are neck and neck just a few feet from the starting line. Even Twitter, who got a late start, is catching up quickly.