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EDITORIAL Rlinrlness Lack of preparation hurts IJSC 's academic future ?????6 4rT"',he University we JL envision is a unified community of teaching scholars attuned to die needs ?f die larger state community and acknowledged as one of the finest in the Southeast. Dedicated first to serving the students, USC Columbia will continue to offer high-quality undergraduate and graduate programs with a core curriculum centered in the liberal aits, as it continues to build a nationally recognized research faculty." -The Future Committee's vision for (JSC as written in its report to President John Palms With the scuttling of the S.S. Holderman in the early '90s. the future of USC lies amidst its flotsam and jetsam. The Future Committee's final report seems an ironic dichotomy when compared with the reality of the university's situation. Left to salvage the wreckage, the committee was supposed to recommend cuts and enhancements that would help lead the university into a bold future. Instead, the recommendations were ineffective at best, and regressive at worst. The committee based its decision on the assumption that they would receive a level of funding equal to the previous fiscal year. However, if the state's projection for higher education funding is correct, USC will face a $7 million shortfall, making the committee's and Palms' decisions moot. Now. they must begin the whole process again. One would think a committee of USC's best anu brightest would make several projections ranging from the best- to worst-case scenarios. This lack of preparation defies common sense. If this is the type of blind leadership USC has to offer, then it is little wonder why USC is in trouble. With the loss of four deans, along with F.arl Black. Nora Bell, Bernie Dunlap, and other noted professors, the idea of building a nationally recognized faculty is in jeopardy. Even the rats realize when the ship is sinking! What will remain is a poor hybrid of teaching and research professors: consequently leading to poorer academics, and a declining reputation. With poor professors, the difficulty in creating "a unified community of scholars...acknowledged as one of the finest in the Southeast" is Herculean. With the exception of the MIBS program. USC lacks nationally recognized programs, making the process of recruiting the highest caliber of new students equally difficult. The future of USC now lies in Dr. Palms' hands. Rather than focus on the needs of research, he should focus on keeping the students and professors from walking the gangplank, or else he may find himself in the midst of a mutiny. r AS ? SAlP P0R1N6 0\6 CAMPAIGN IU ^ NOT PANPEA To (iftUHL-J- IfcKCa I vsru ANP THAT MCLUPCS Vi SoTAHe *40UA 'CotjceuMs' ? ?L%ewnene/y Recipe for Bos "This thing in Croatia is going to get settled somehow, but if they start it in Bosnia...it is going to be a true Bosnian pot." These were the words of a friend of mine, said in the winter of 1991-92 during my last weeks at home in Yugoslavia, and a few months before the outbreak of war in Bosnia-Hercegovina. "Bosnian pot" is a traditional Bosnian dish made from different kinds of vegetables, meat and potatoes, mixed up, and cooked in a large pot. Now, more than one year since the beginning of the Bosnian brawl between the people of two nationalities and three religions. I see how right my friend was. Not only that something was cooking, but it seems it has been boiling forever. Bosnia-Hercegovina is a region in the southwestern Balkans, peopled by southern Slavs. The last demographic polls showed that 17 percent of the Bosnian inhabitants declared themselves as Croats. 33 percent as Serbs, and about 40 percent as Moslem. The Moslems are also Slavs who converted to Islam during the oppressive Ottoman rule that lasted four centuries. They were allowed to call themselves ethnic Moslems after the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974, thus enabling them to confuse their religion with their nationality. Bosnia-IIercegovina had never been an independent country. [ t \t rrkc m'wln into a Q/\/^tolici I)<itMikl?r? ii ?ac> uiauv, IIHV7 a jwidii^i ixk, j/ui'in after World War II by Josip Broz Tito, president of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1980, who designed the six Yugoslavrepublics ? not along the ethnic lines ? but rather according to his own taste and imitating the example of the Soviet Union. During World War II, Bosnia was a part of the Croatian-Nazi puppet regime of Ante Pavelic in which hundreds of thousands of Serbs were killed in their homes and concentration camps. Moslems were loosely allied with Croatia. Serbs never ^Wii\ i, la \ / ,ups 1] ' i ov/// ^ , 7 _fflr which T/^6 ? MAI nian conflict fo Columnist wanted to forget this episode. In it one can see the reason for the fervor with which Serbs, kindled by outrageous nationalist propaganda, plunged into the most recent war. On June 26, 1992. Slovenia and Croatia, two of the six republics, declared themselves independent. After brief fighting broke out in Slovenia between the Yiianclnv Nlnrinnnl Armv oiul Slnucnp National Guard, the rest of Yugolavia, controlled by Serbia's capital, Belgrade, yielded. Slovenia and Croatia were recognized by the European Community in January of 1992. The EC declared it would recognize any other republic that wanted to secede. On March 1, 1992, Croats and Moslems of Bosnia voted for independence, while Serbs boycotted the referendum. In April, Bosnia-Hercegovina were recognized by the United States and the EC. This was regarded as a good solution aimed at slopping the bloodshed in the Balkans. How wrong it was! The massive slaughter only then started. Hundreds of people are losing their lives in Bosnia; thousands are forced to flee their homes in ruins. The main target are the followers of Mohammed; nearly one million of them were expulsed from the new country. Not only are they being attacked by the Serbs; they became a target of the Croatian land greed as, well. Bosnian Serbs hold now nearly twothirds of the territory. Croats the other 1 the Ml mi CLASS I SoN&otit looking I ^^^9Acliru?[ ^ - - - una in history third, and Moslems are confined to narrow strips of land. Realizing that they are being neglected by the international community, they seem to be launching a counter-offensive against the Croats now. The proposition to divide Bosnia into 10 ethnic cantons, the so-called VanceOwen plan, is not very likely to be implemented in the near future. President Clinton's policies toward Bosnia had gone from threats to arm the Moslems to the mn?l rfn1 nI nhlionlinn rn nrofi^rl >;ix Moslem "havens." The end. however, does not seem to be near if the warring factions don't decide to stop it themselves. It was a widespread belief that Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, the man regarded as most responsible for the war, could stop it all ? for that reason Serbia and Montenegro rue presently suffering under a complete economic blockade. The passions, it seems, have gone too far. Milosevic has supposedly stopped supplying the Bosnians with arms, but the shelling and pillage of Bosnian towns and villages is still relentless. Today, the former country's intelli gentsia is continuing to emigrate abroad, leaving the Balkan Peninsula to be governed by the ones who are only interested in power and not the well-being of all the peoples, regardless of their nationality or religion. Worst of all, the leaders are always going to llnd ways to persuade and intoxicate the innocent ones with hatred, bringing only tears and despair. Despite everything, as a Serb not immune to feelings of nostalgia, I want to be able to go back to my homeland freely one uay ana eat again an autnentic Bosnian pot, instead of merely sitting in front of the TV every day, thousands of miles away, watching people entangled in that bloody stew. Sveto Postic is a columnist for The Gamecock.