Physical Plant changes to facilities management

Effective Jan. 1, Physical Plant changed its name to Facilities Management.

According to Director of Facilities Management Mark Dickinson, there are multiple reasons for the name change. “Facilities Management is a good description of what we do,” said Director of Facilities Management Mark Dickinson. “We manage the facilities of Macalester College. The title Physical Plant has been around for many years and as many departments around campus have also undergone a name change, it seemed like it was time for us to change as well.”

“As I’ve been saying to a lot of people, the tongue–in-cheek reason for changing the name was that we were out of stationery,” Dickinson said.

Dickinson said that the name change has caused few hassles for the office. “We did not want to spend a lot of money, so we didn’t go to lots of expense in changing the name,” he said. “We didn’t have any fancy signs to change our names on vehicles. All we had to do was buy new business cards for the people employed in the department.”

The department has a new web site at www.macalester.edu/facilities that Dickinson said contains “more information and fun pictures.” People who need to reserve vans or make work orders can do so from the web site.
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Phone-a-thon raises $54,759

Students who stayed at Macalester over J-term participated in a phone-a-thon to raise money for the Annual Fund.

The phone-a-thon lasted from Jan. 12-22.

By the end of the event, 341 donors made pledges or gifts to the Annual Fund totaling $54,759.

Annual Fund organizers awarded prizes to the students who raised the most money during the phone-a-thon. Alex Reinhardt ’05 won first prize, which was a semester’s worth of free textbooks from the bookstore. Anne Marie Worley ’05 won second prize–an MP3 player. Meg Stinchcomb ’04 placed third and won dinner for four at Punch Pizza.

Adrienne Dorn ’03, an employee of the Annual Fund, said that she felt the phone-a-thon was beneficial. “It went well, but we always need more participation,” she said.
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Wright publishes new book Becoming Black

Associate Professor of English Michelle Wright recently published a book entitled Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora.

Duke University Press published the book. Becoming Black is a comparative study of the differences and commonalities in the ways black thinkers from the United States, Africa, the Caribbean, Germany, Great Britain and France have responded to white European and American ideas about black consciousness.

Becoming Black argues that three nineteenth-century works on race by Thomas Jefferson, G.W.F. Hegel and Count Arthur de Gobineau had a profound influence on the twentieth-century ideas of black subjectivity. Wright considers these texts in depth and describes how black thinkers such as W.E.B. DuBois countered the theories presented in these works.

In considering diasporic writing from many sources, Wright reveals that the idea of black subjectivity is rich, varied and ever-changing.

Megan Bayles ’05 said that she is excited about the publication of the book. “I saw Michelle’s book in the provost’s office and I got really excited,” she said. “It seemed like the perfect combination of her classes and the research she does. It will be a really interesting read.”