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Dead bill Students need a representative on USC's Board of Trustees State Rep. Tim Rogers, D-Richland, is expected to do a favor for USC students sometime next semester. For him, though, it will be next spring, when the General Assemhlv reconvenes to heein a new two^vear evele of bills. votes, amendments and other such lawmaking stuff. One of the bills he is expected to introduce, or reintroduce actually, would place a voting student on USC's Board of Trustees. He is reintroducing it because the bill was allowed to die without any action being taken on it by the previous Student Government. It became a non-issue, as important as it was, and nothing was done. S.G. President James Franklin expects to mobilize an effort among students to help push the bill. He doesn't think it's unimportant, so he won't let it die the ignoble death it died last year. There is much to be said in favor of having a student on the board. First and foremost is a disturbing attitude that was expressed by a member of the board, with the nodding approval of other trustees, that the students are an unimportant, minor part of the university. That's an attitude that can only be changed by having a student become an equal to the trustees, and having that equality enforceable by act of law. Second, the students need to have their opinions expressed by a caDable SDokesman to the board at all times, especially when the board meets in an executive session. The S.G. president is only at times allowed to address the board, but never in executive session. It can easily be said that the subjects addressed in the executive sessions are as important to individual students as the subjects discussed in open session are to the students in general. Some have said if a student is put on the board, a faculty representative will have to be put on the board, and then a staff representative. That argument, which has been expressed by the administration at times, is without base. Students don't work for the administration; we won't be voting on pay raises for ourselves. We have the same relationship to the university, being tuitionpaying students, as the taxpayers of this state have. They have their representatives to express their views to the university. We should have ours. On campus, students are stripped of some of the rights they wouid have if they were living in the real world ? having to put up with inspections, rules that limit the rights they would have if they simply moved off campus. And all the students who live on campus or who have friends oil campus have to listen to the ultra-conservative, out-of-touch babblings of trustees like state Rep. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, who proposed changes to the dorm visitation policy because he didn't like the rules. With reactionaries like Fair on the board, it is imperative that the students have a representative who can vote and oppose 1 Fair's 12th-century proposals. But most importantly, the students need a representative on the board to speak our case when it comes time for the university to discuss tuition increases, such as the one USC President James Holderman told the Commission on Higher Education might be necessary next year. It seems it's never enough. We need a representative, a student, who can go in there and fight for the students' interests. Students don't want to have to pay more to attend USC. And students probably don't need every single service that the university provides, so a student could probably go in and force some budget cuts, not in the academic area, but in the frills area and the programming area. The university can do two things when it is faced with a lowerthan-normal allocation from the state. As it always does, it can raise the tuition. Or it can cut back, as it did in '87-88. But until there is vocal, committed opposition to an increase in fees, as there was in the '86-87 school year with two tuition protest marches to the State House and other methods, the university will think it can get away with these increases. The best opposition, though, would come from a student on the board, relating the feelings and the anger and the determination of the students not to put up with increases. - - - ^ i - i i J -1_ We need a student trustee, so students snouiu waicn careiuny what S.G. is going to do about it, and join in any efforts that might help send Rep. Rogers to the State House. Then he can tell the legislature that there are a number of students who are upset with the lack of representation on the board. I tu n i I Ihe Gamecock . Best Non-daily Collegiate Newspaper, Southeastern Region Society of Professional Journalists, 1987 88 Editor in Chief Datebook Editor STEPHEN GUILFOYLE JENNY SHARPE Copy Desk Chief Graphics Editor WAYNE YANG MICHAEL SHARP Assistant Copy Desk Chief Comics Editor KATHY BLACKWELL TRACY MIXSON News Editor Adviser HAL MILLARD PAT MCNEELY Assistant News Editor Graduate Assistant MARY PEARSON PHILLIP MCKENZIE KELLY C. THOMAS Director of Student Media Features Editor ed bonza susan nesbitt Advertising Manager Assistant Features Editor margaret michels tom joyner Production Manager Sports Editor laura day kevin adams Assistant Production Manager Assistant Sports Editor ray burgos chris silvestri Assistant Advertising Manager Photography Editors barbara brown brian sauls teddy lepp Letters Policy: The Gamecock will try to print letters received. Letters should be, at a maximum, 250 to 300 words long. Guest editorials should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for style or possible libel. The Gamecock will not withhold names under any circumstance. 1 / f ...ANPNOWWe I JL PAUSE FOR "THIS MESSAGE. Halloween a i I'm not quite sure when it happens, but I think it's safe to say you really begin to lose your childhood the first time you stay home on Halloween night. For most, it happens around the 12th year of life. It's the time when dressing in costumes and getting free candy begins to take a back seat to listening to music, watching TV and thinking about girls. You're still a child in the classic sense, but the first time you wake up and realize you don't have a costume and don't care to walk around the neighborhood is when you know it's becoming time to put down childish things and move on with your life. Soon after, going to a Halloween party is much mnrp fun than hittincr the sidewalks dressed as a spaceman saying "trick or treat." When you're young, very young, Halloween is such a special time. You get caught up in the ceremony and mystery of the strange and scary night. You wonder if there really are ghosts and goblins, and you wonder if there is a devil. You look forward to carving a pumpkin into an evil-looking jack-o-lantern and lighting the candle that casts an eerie glow on your front porch. It's a fun time for the kids to spend a night with their parents and get oodles of candy and treats. But it's just that ? a time for kids. I remember, as does everyone I imagine, the first Halloween I spent at home. Win has colun The annoying burps of trivialities return, in a special football victory installment. How many people saw the game Saturday? (Anybody who says "What game?" goes to bed without supper tonight.) This week's football hero ? Patfick Hinton. If you see him, stop him, shake his hands and say, "Great job, big guy." Speaking of people I'm going to be speaking to, I'll be looking for Todd Ellis tomorrow. I normally see him in Gambrell before my . . . but we wouldn't want to have a crowd there would we? No. Suffice it to say I'll see him, and I'm gonna ask our junior quarterback what he was doing and saying immediately following that perfect touchdown strike to Eddie Miller in the fourth quarter. Instead of the touchdown shuffle, Ellis pulled his fingers as if they were two six shooters, shot twice, and holstered his fingers and said something that looked like "SO THERE." Yes, Todd "The Kid" Ellis, you did that to a national audience. But some of those watching, myself included, are a trifle confused. And we're wondering about what you did, too. I think you were doing it to one of the sidelines, I'm not sure which one, but it also looked like it could have been done to the backfield referee. He was right in line of your "six shooters." I guess it's all right. From their earlier calls (and worse, their failure to make other calls), they showed, to use the Western imagery you brought into my mind, that they were nothin' but a buncha sidewindin', horse robbin' varmints. Back to Patrick Hinton for a moment. Wat Letters to the Student should ^"1 report bugs To the editor: Part I feel the definite need to respond to (Monty Seth Warner's Friday let- C*riO|| ter) "USC dorm like roach motel." I am the resident adviser on the second floor of Douglas, and I am embar- To the edit rassed; however, it's not fair! In respoi Just like R.A.s and employees of ter "Duk< USC Housing, students also have which app responsibilities. An R.A. is more or Friday, M less a mediator who relays and down as stresses problems that students may analyst anc have to the proper officials. If a stu- to reality ? dent doesn't inform the R.A., then that neithe: the R.A. may not know the problem governor o exists. On these lines, I have not seen substantive . a roach in my room or elsewhere on than the the second floor of Douglas this believes hi semester. hail the E I have no quarrels with the young ability to man who wrote the subject article. I without a ( only wish that residents would handle in this part things with a little more common pose in the sense and a lot less ignorance. There I believe is a proper way to handle things, and just a sm measure of yo i izzzn i It was a cold Wednesday, and I got back from school at about 4 p.m. My mother was in the kit- ' chen dumping a bag of lollipops in a glass bowl and ' whistling a happy tune. I came in and put my ] books on the table, then went over and grabbed a lollipop out of the bowl. "Mom," I said, unwrapping the coating. "I think I'll stay home tonight." My mother, a fine woman, stopped and looked at me with a sort of inquisitive twitch to her eye. She pulled up a chair and sat down next to me. "Why?" she asked, taking my hand. "I'm getting too old for that stuff." "You're sister is going out. She's up there right now getting her costume together." Yean, out sne s a kia. I remember at the time being proud to say that mist crowing 111 ching on the tube as 1 was, my trienas and I saw that the fumble recovery Hinton made in the second half was actually his fourth interception of the evening. N.C. State's receiver never had possession of the ball, and it bounced around on him Until it popped into Hinton's hands, without having touched the ground. Don't believe what you read in The State ? that was an interception. Speaking of big wins, did any of the others watching the game on ESPN see that HUGE smile on coach Joe Morrison's face? He's reached the /mntiii-ir morl/ nnill tVlic Hio OQtnP UIDC tWIfP US ilT\ ItW-llluijr nidi iv nvn, tmo ui^ v ?. %?u *..* portant to the coach because he's got 100 wins. Way to go, JoMo. Sources told the guy in The Gamecock that Morrison was still smiling by the time he held his conference with the rest of the press inside the locker room area. He was also seen shaking hands and patting players on the back. I haven't heard of Morrison being this happy and ebullient since I saw his Coca-Cola commercial. He was REALLY happy in his Coke commercial. editor lg others without giving issues so feverishly rattle nee is not the proper way. week and were to use didate's record, as well as Tim Mobley mon sense as a guide, one 1 metrical engineering senior neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. 1 . _ _ be truly committed to thos ivS USv all hold dear. For, # economic push comes to si fshow their true aristocrats IVP I***' llXsV Neither candidate has th to outline any solution tc or blem our nation presently ise to Michael Yoder's let- why should they? It ikis More Substantive," political suicide to rock the eared in The Gamecock boat. Afterall, we as Amei ? v 1 1~* **"^ Ua JftnAront nf ct X. I UUCI UUglll IU 5lCp iw 115111 tvj ut igiivyiant v/i 5 self-proclaimed political ty and to feel a false 1, if capable, open his eyes economic security, and i ind acknowledge the fact these, we truly deserve whi r the vice president nor the We must admit, however f Massachusetts is a more the nasty American : presidential candidate ecomony that sustains all 1 other. If Yoder truly humanitarian and envi s claims legitimate then I policies. We also must adi iukakis campaign for its each of us move up I attract all those Yoders capitalist ladder we ;ause (without a candidate ourselves otten speaKing icular case) who seek pur- other side of our rr : political realm. phenomenon prevalent to that if one were to delve fervent part-time pseudo-1 idgen deeper into those I think it beyond the sc ydC -PAID FOR BY-THE S ^ BUSH-QUAYLE 9H COMMITTEE... HI ! li&M% ur childhood because for the first time I felt like I would evenually become an adult like my mom. 1 knew at that iioment that everyone, even her, had gone through :he same thing ? realizing they were growing up. I also projected in my mind a time when I too would be sitting next to my child, taking his hand and bearing him lose some of his innocence. It was an emotional moment. "Are you, sure?" she asked, smiling. "Yes. I think I'm going to watch TV." My mom started to sniffle, I think. She stood and hugged me. "You're growing up too fast for me," she said quietly in my ear. She pulled back and our eyes connected in one of those parent-child emotional locks, we Doth knew this was one of those epiphanies that life periodically deals out. She accepted it, though, probably feeling a little older herself. "Would you like to hand out the candy?" she asked. I thought about it. It would be the first grown-up thing I ever got to do. I had never considered the fact that I might someday be the one greeting the little ballerinas, cowboys and ghosts at the door and giving them treats from a bowl. I knew they would be looking at me through the door knowing I wasn't one of them anymore. They would know I wasn't a kid. I started to cry. I still love to carve pumpkins, though. ke Gamecock ^ ? t.x j .ij.it Speaking of which, I wonder if the coach did put in that play he drew. I guess it was a Coke-rooskie? It looked good to me. The guy in The Gamecock is really happy right now, because he is going to go to his religion class this morning and just laugh, laugh, laugh, and when I'm done laughing, I'll laugh some more, just for the heck of it. I'm allowed to crow, because I was the only one in the class to pick the Gamecocks to win by 14 or more points. Almost half the class thought we wouldn't win. The rest thought it would be by 3 to 7 points. My professor said 10-7, USC. For Wednesday, we'll have a complete list ? with addresses and phone numbers ? of the traitors who picked N.C. State. But for now, before my religion professor asks what I knew that he and the rest of the pollsters and pundits and pickers didn't, I'll say that I don't look at statistics. I've talked to the players. And I knew that Matt McKernan was still angry about State's victory two years ago. And 1 know he's honest enough and outspoken enough a player to get the entire defense ready by himself if he had to. And I talked to McKernan, Patrick Hinton and Derrick Frazier after the Georgia Tech game. They were humiliated and I kind of thought they would be looking for someone to take out their humiliation on. How 'bout that rejuvenated running game? How 'bout that rejuvenated Harold Green? Ah, 'tis good to be a Gamecock, 'tisn't it? d off last 65-line commentary to delineate even each can- the fundamental issues that should be plain com- considered when assessing a canwould find didate to the highest elected office of [Dukakis to our country. Anyone attempting to e issues we do so (Yoder, Mullinax, Arant, et al) when the would be foolishly simplistic in doing hove, both so and should be encouraged to c colors. refrain, and any vote influenced by e fortitude such commentary, as well as the past ) any pro- 12 months of election year rhetoric, faces, and should not be cast. Ignorance, in would be fact, is not bliss. If one were to : American evaluate the records of both the icans have Republican and Democratic canlobal reali- didates, the bottom line is that sense of neither candidate has demonstrated n light of the strength, creativity, wisdom or it we elect. diplomacy that will be required of the , that it is next president of the United States, capitalist Neither candidate is substantive those good and both camps are guilty of (to use ronmental Mr. Yoder's words) "shallow, fact nut that as twisting ana negative campaigns, a ;hat nasty bipartisan practice indeed, Mr. will find Yoder. I am anxiously awaiting the from the day when people will think more and louths, a speak less, those once iberals. Daniel J. Sarlitto ope of any geography graduate student