Chiles hosts ‘rock n’
roll invitational’
Sports, page 16
Students share Valentine's Day
bliss; horror
Living, page 6
THE BEACON ■=
Vol 109, Issue 16
UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND
the-beacon.net
Cove
menu
may
expand
By Maureen Inouye
Senior Staff Writer
The Cove’s menu options may soon expand
after the facility adds more food storage by
installing walk-in refrigerators in the next two
weeks.
The refrigerators will double the space of The
Cove’s kitchens. Once they are installed, Bon
Appetit plans to consider adding more items to
the menu during spring break.
The walk-ins are a necessary improvement to
The Cove kitchens, according to Kirk Mustain,
the general manager of Bon Appetit at U P, and
will be placed behind the current building.
Construction has already begun.
“As the campus community grows, the
building doesn’t get bigger,” said John Faulkner,
the chef manager for The Cove. He noted that The
Cove handles about 3,200 transactions per day.
According to Mustain and Faulkner, The Cove
accommodates 100 to 1 10 more transactions per
day than it did last year.
After the new walk-ins are installed behind
the kitchen, the current walk-in refrigerator and
freezer will be taken out to create more space for
food storage and preparation.
“That’s why we cut some menu items - there
just isn’t enough room to store food,” Mustain
said.
At the beginning of fall semester, students
noticed that several items were missing from the
regular Cove menu, including the BLT, the club
sandwich and the patty melt.
“I guess I was upset about the lack of club
sandwiches. They were a staple for me,” senior
Kyle Mechling said.
Faulkner said that no items were really cut
from the menu — all the items that do not appear
on the regular menu have become recurring
specials.
“We now have three specials at the grill every
day versus one last year — they just come around
in rotation,” he said.
The expansion of The Cove’s refrigerator
space makes the reinstatement of items such as
the club sandwich possible.
“Some things will be back. Maybe we’ll have
new things,” Mustain said.
See Cove, page 4
i IMM I I KAMJN
/ 1ПС ВСПШ1Ч
Sophomore Ryan Young of Christie Hall has the hookup when it comes to video games. Young estimates the he owns more
than 400 games and 1 8 consoles. He even has a projector and screen to enlarge the video game graphics.
Study suggests males
are more prone to
video game addiction
By Anna Walters
News Editor
Even when freshman Carla
Norris is unloading rounds
from her assault rifle into
opponents playing Halo 3 online,
her presence still suggests a trace of
femininity. Norris goes by the alias,
“Pecanpiell,” a name she nabbed from
the classic chick flick, “When Harry
Met Sally.”
“If I play with 15 guys on a team
slayer game, and they find out I’m a
girl, they’ll freak out,” Norris said,
adding that the men she plays online
are incredulous and stunned when they
discover that their characters died at the
joystick of a female.
“Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean
I can't play video games — (gender) has
nothing to do with it,”
Norris is used to sticking up for
females.
“I’m a civil engineering major, so I
pretty much fight for my gender all the
time,” she said.
Norris defies the evidence that video
game play is more psychologically
rewarding for men than it is for women.
A recent study conducted at the Sanford
University School of Medicine suggests
that men’s reward centers in the brain
are more activated than women’s while
playing video games.
In the study, 1 1 men and 1 1 women
were hooked up to a functional magnetic
resonance imaging, or fMRI, machine
and then asked to play 24-second rounds
of a simple computer game. The fMRI
machine generates dynamic images that
show certain parts of the brain “lighting
up” during an assigned activity.
The researchers found that men
experienced more of reward-center
thrill out of working toward the goal
on the game than the women did, and,
consequently, were more successful.
Sophomore Clement Uduk, an
environmental science major, admits
to playing some “heated games” with
fellow Villa Maria residents. During the
final seconds of one particularly close
NCAA Football 2007 game, Uduk’s
quarterback failed to make a crucial
tackle, enabling his opponent's wideout
to sprint 60 yards for the 30-27 win.
“I just stood there spewing expletives:
‘I can’t believe you just did that! What
the hell just happened?’ and that’s the
PG version.” Uduk cites many intense
games like the one just described as a
testament to men’s zeal while playing
video games.
But female gamers can be just as
fervent about video games as their male
See Video Games, page 2
Health Center reduces appointment times
By Ame Phitwong
Senior Staff Writer
In an effort to accommodate
more students, the UP Health
Center recently reduced most
appointment times by five to
10 minutes, said Paul Myers,
director of the Health Center.
The Health Center determines
appointment times based on
students' medical needs. For
example, a student with an ear
ache would see a nurse for 20
minutes prior to the change, but
would now be scheduled for a 15-
minute appointment, Myers said.
Forty-minute appointments were
cut down to 30 minutes, and 20-
minute appointments are now 15-
minute appointments.
Based on this new system,
Myers said the Health Center
is able to accommodate an
additional three students per day.
Despite the addition of more
appointments, Myers said the
Health Center will continue to
provide quality and efficient care
to students, explaining that the
internal goal at the Health Center
is to adequately balance access,
efficiency and effectiveness.
“You can be so efficient that
it threatens quality, but you don’t
want so much quality it’s not
efficient,” Myers said.
According to last spring’s
Health Center survey, the average
wait for appointments was two
days, but this average includes
weekends and students who
choose to make appointments
months ahead of time.
The average wait time in the
office for an already-scheduled
appointment is six minutes.
“The vast majority of students
are seen the same day or the next
day,” Myers said, adding that if
the Health Center accommodated
walk-ins, the average wait would
be three hours. The office keeps
a call list to try to get students in
sooner when there are no-shows
or cancellations.
At a recent ASUP Senate
meeting, a student questioned
how the Health Center is adapting
to UP’s growing enrollment and
how it will continue to meet
students’ health needs.
Although no plans are definite,
the Health Center is weighting
its options on how to expand as
enrollment grows.
“We’re not quite at the level
where we are hiring or breaking
down walls,” Myers said.
Myers believes the demand for
Health Center appointments has
increased in recent years. Last
year, the office had 7,800 visits.
“The truth is, the Health
Center will need to expand to
meet demands,” he said.
See Health Center, page 3
