The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 14, 2000, Page A3, Image 3
_News__
Michigan students protest
on-campus secret society
by James Boozer
College Press Exchange
Ann Arbor, Mich. — Students at the
University of Michigan are protesting a
secret society on campus called “Michiga
mua” that they say shouldn’t be using pub
lic facilities to conduct private business.
Each year, the all-male society, found
ed in 1902, and its female cognate, the
“Andara,” created in the ‘70s, invite 50
students to join. Both groups work to
gether to foster friendships and serve the
university community — but they large
ly conduct their business in secret.
_ Protesters, led by the university’s Stu
® dents of Color Coalition and backed by
the university’s student government, don’t
like that the society holds its meetings in
the student union.
Some students opposed to the society
recently broke into its meeting place, took
inventory of the room’s contents, many
of which are secret, and publicized them.
Protesters said they want the society’s
meeting place converted into a cultural
study lounge.
Not everyone agrees with the pro
testers’ tactics.
“The SCC occupied Michigamua’s
room, kept the members out and publi
cized the items that had been special to
the group for many generations,” Matt
Nolan, a student government official, said
during a recent meeting. “Michigamua’s
right to privacy was violated. We shouldn’t
endorse [the protesters].”
But the majority of student-govern
ment officials voted this week to bar the
society from meeting in a building that
is designed for all students.
They have called for university offi
cials to cut their ties with the society
and have the group removed from the
building.
Michigamua members said getting rid
of them won’t be easy. They point to
records from a 1930 board of regents meet
ing that granted space in the union to the
society because the society paid for some
renovations to the building.
(SO MUCH FOR SAVING"
V_MY NABI MONjg^ ^
9 s
f SURE BABY,
YOU CAN HAVE
HIM.
J
I_I f
NABIBioMedical Center
215 Assembly St., Columbia SC 29201
254-2280 r~
Help children,
lemophillacs, and heart
patients who receive
iroducts made from the
olasma of our donors.
m
Excellence^^
in Teaching
Awards
1999-2000 Recipients
• Dr. Laura Ahearn
Dr. Robert Angel
Dr. Ronald Atkinson
Dr. William O. Bearden
Mr. Jimmy Burkett
Dr. John Cavanaugh
Dr. Erik Collins
Dr. June Cotte
Dr. Cynthia Davis
Ms. Bonnie Drewniany
• * „ _
Dr. Larry Durstine
Dr. Walter Edgar
Dr. Don Fowler
Dr. Hal French
Dr. Don Griener
Dr. Cathy Gustafson
Dr. Paul Higgons
Dr. Carolyn Matalene
Dr. Michael Scardaville
Dr. Vincent Van Brunt
p ^ Dr. Jerald Wallulis
Dr. Stacy Wood
Dr. Doug Woodward
Anthropology
GINT
History
Marketing
Accounting
Institute of Public Affairs
Journalism
Marketing
English
Advertising
Exercise Science
Southern Studies
Political Science
Religious Studies
English
Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism
Sociology
English
History
Chemical Engineering
Philosophy
Marketing
Economics
Presented by Mortar Board Honor Society
Myrtle Beach might suffer
at the hands of the boycott
by Katrice Franklin
College Press Exchange
Virginia Beach, Va. — South Caroli
na’s Confederate flag controversy is bring
ing hundreds of college students to Vir
ginia Beach’s resort strip this spring.
More than 1,000 Duke University col
lege students plan to plant themselves
on the Beach’s Oceanfront in May for
their annual end-of-the-year, post-finals
party.
The 18- to 21-year-olds are chang
ing their party plans to give the boot to
one of Virginia Beach’s top competitors
— Myrtle Beach.
The university’s NAACP chapter
is challenging all students to avoid South
Carolina’s shore and join with the na
tional chapter’s efforts to boycott the
state for refusing to remove the Con
federate flag from its state Capitol.
While the students are not the cus
tomers that Virginia Beach usually tar
gets — 25-to 44-year-olds with families
and annual incomes of more than $45,000
— Beach leaders and hotel owners said
they welcome the young people.
They might not spend a lotand pump
up the city’s tourism dollars. But they’re
worth far more than the money they’ll
contribute to the economy. They signi
fy a different image than the one creat
ed by events in 1989.
A decade ago, Greekfest, a college
party of more than 100,000 black stu
dents at the beginning of the school year,
turned into riots, arrests and claims of
police brutality.
The Labor Day weekend melee trig
gered racial complaints and accusations
that the city did not embrace black col
lege students. The riots also tarnished the
Beach’s reputation among college stu
dents at many schools.
“This is a positive sign,” said Oral
Lambert, the Beach’s chief of operations,
when asked about the Duke students.
“This is an indication that Virginia Beach
is not looked upon as being negative.
That’s the image that many people want
to stir up. This is quite a turnaround in
my view.”
Jimmy H. Capps, president of the
Beach Hotel and Motel Association, said
he’s thrilled about the business.
“We’re not that busy in the middle
of May, and we want to rent hotel rooms,”
Capps said. Twenty-year-old Duke stu
dent Kameron Matthews, who is lead
ing the effort to bring the students to Vir
ginia Beach, said she had never heard
of Greekfest and is not concerned. All
Duke students want is to tan on the beach
and go to the clubs and bars. And for that,
the Beach’s resort strip is ideal, Matthews
said.
About 13 of the university’s organi
zations have agreed to abandon Myrtle
■ Beach. The travel time is roughly the
same distance from Durham, N.C., to
Myrtle Beach, she said.
“It’s also got the same atmosphere,”
Matthews said. Ash By Ward, president
of the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Com
merce, said (KRT)the strip has no record
of the students ever coming. But of the
scheduled 591 groups that planned to
travel to Myrtle Beach this year, 26 have
canceled.
Ward estimates a loss of about
$933,000, or nearly one-half of 1 per
cent of the nearly $200 million a year
that Myrtle Beach collects from the
tourism market.
“Duke University is a top-notch
school,” said Beach hotel owner
Robert Vakos. “I can’t image those kids
being real hell-raiseis coming out of there.
Are they going to jeopardize their lives
by trying to do something stupid? I doubt
it.”
James Ricketts, director of the
Beach’s Department of Convention and
Visitor Development, said the city has
also made an effort to leant how to deal
with youth. Several city leaders attend
ed a youth conference in Atlanta last year
with officials from places like Myrtle
Beach and Atlanta to talk about the be
havior issue.
“The Beach is open to anybody,”
Ricketts said. “Our visitation is made up
of a number of ethnic groups, single to
married, to senior citizens to young folks.”
Cnnaress tn slnm tuition increases
o
by Tony Pugh
College Press Exchange
Washington — Flush with money from smart investments,
administrators at Williams College last month did the un
thinkable — they froze the school’s annual tuition for the first
time in more than 40 yean — albeit at $31,520.
That was a rarity among prestigious private schools. Of
ficials at the college in Williamstown, Mass., hope the price
freeze will engender good will and attract more top-notch sons
and daughters of money-conscious parents.
But experts say that’s unlikely, mainly because of an atti
tude prevalent among the wealthy, which holds that a school
charging less than its competitors must not be as good. So the
Harvards and Princetons of the world continue to hike tuition
each year, with little adverse impact on their ability to at
tract superior students.
That so-called “luxury mentality” is just one of many fac
tors that have driven tuition to unprecedented heights over
the last 20 years, analysts say. This year the average combined
cost of tuition and fees at public four- year institutions is $3,356;
it is $15,380 at private ones.
Average tuition for a full-time resident undergraduate stu
dent rose 44 percent from 1990 to 19%, according to the Gen
eral Accounting Office. In the same period, the cost of liv
ing, as measured by the consumer price index, rose only 15.4
percent, and median household income rose a mere 13.8
percent.
One result of skyrocketing tuition is that college has be
come all but unaffordable for most low-income families and
many middle-class ones, forcing both to borrow heavily, and
often crushing students with debt for decades.
No one is quite sure why education costs have grown so
much faster than inflation.
The National Commission on the Cost of Higher Educa
tion essentially threw up its hands with its final report in 1998,
noting that colleges and universities have made little effort
to explain their finances. “As a result, there is no readily avail
able information about college costs and prices — nor is there
a common national reporting standard for either,” the com
mission report said.
But academia’s veil of secrecy may be lifting slowly un
der growing pressure for accountability.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee examined
the trend of rising college costs at hearings Wednesday and
Thursday. College administrators, professors and other edu
cation experts acknowledged their failure to justify tuition
hikes, and some recommended steps to take, but no one had
a definitive answer on why college costs keep rising so fast.
The colleges’ own bills are driven by expensive factors such
as complying with regulations, recruiting faculty, acquiring
technology and building facilities. All are partly to blame, said
William Troutt, president of Rhodes College in Memphis,
Tenn., and chairman of the National Association of Indepen
dent Colleges and Universities.
Costs per student soared 57 percent at four-year public in
stitutions front 1987 to 19%, and 69 percent at private schools,
Troutt said.
Most four-year institutions will continue to see annual in
creases, “probably at rates averaging as much as one or two
points over inflation,” said William Massey, a professor at Stan
ford University and a prominent education consultant.
Meanwhile, a uniform system for reporting an institution’s
costs, prices and subsidies is being developed by the National
Association of College and University Business Officers. A
task force of experts has been working longer than a year to
devise a standard disclosure format, said Gregory Fusco, the
consultant heading the project.
Many tuition-paying parents voice frustration and confu
sion over a related phenomenon: Why, they wonder, does tu
ition keep going up even as federal student financial aid tops
S41 billion a year?
“We appear to be pouring more money into the system
only to have it mopped up by tuition increases,” said Sen.
Susan Collins, R-Maine.
In 1980, about 55 percent of the feden*’ aid came in the
form of grants; loans accounted for aboi* 42 percent. Today
those figures have reversed, with loancdccounting for 58 per
cent, and 40 percent in grants.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn, who requested the hear
ings, wondered whether the increased federal aid combined
with tax credits for tuition simply emboldens colleges to chaige
more.
Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby said that was “not like
ly,” but .a recent report by the Council for Aid to Education,
a nonprofit advocacy group, said the position Hoxby voices
is “akin to aiguing that the ready availability of home mort
gages has no impact on the price of housing.
*
Take a Test Drive and find out!
Kaplan and Golden Key are sponsoring a practice test
Saturday, Feb. 19, 9am BA building. $5 donation to
Golden Key. You MUST call 1-800-KAPTEST to register.
Or stop by our table this Tuesday,Wednesday or Thursday
in front of Russell House from 11am-2pm.Call today!
Or take it online from
February 15-29 at kaptestdrive.com!
(ITJWTfr
kaptest.com I
'Tost names are registered trademarks ol their respective owners. 1