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‘A DAY ON, NOT A DAY OFF’ , - * - - -\ PHOTO BY ROBERT GRUEN USC students proceeded with their pledges for the MLK Day of Service. Buses took students to participate in various service projects around Columbia. USC honors King Jr. with day of service Volunteers move cans, clean up swamp during MLK holiday BY KRISTEN DEMAREE THE (,'AMECOCK USC’s 19th annual commem oration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life began Monday with a breakfast held in the Russell House Ballroom with guest speaker Rep. Joseph H. Neal, chairman of the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus. Despite some rain, more than 550 volunteers came out to show support for the fourth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, themed “Remember Celebrate-Act: A Day On. Not a Day Off.” A rally was held in the Russell House theater to get volunteers thinking about the life and mes sage of King. Ernest A. Finney, former chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, pumped up the crowd with the message, “We must believe we can achieve.” USC’s own musi cal group “Higher Harmony” was also on hand to perform. The main focus of the day was to celebrate King’s life by giving back to the community. Faculty, staff and students were bused to different locations to help with organizations such as the Epworth Children’s Home, Eden Gardens and Carolina Wildlife Care. “It gives manpower to a non profit organization who would not normally be able to pay someone to promote public awareness,” said Margaret Brantley of Prevent Child Abuse South Carolina, one of the organizations participat ing. Numerous student groups turned out for the event, including the Greek community, City Year, Dance Marathon, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and Brothers of Nubian Descent. Elise Tyndall of the Epsilon Sigma Alpha service sorority de scribed the day of service on a traditional holiday as “an unbi ased approach to unite the com munity.” Volunteers performed vari ous jobs throughout the day, which included assembling pam phlets, moving cans at food pantries, organizing warehous es and cleaning up the Congaree Swamp. “If it weren’t for Dr. King’s dream, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that are available to me today. He has given me, along with others, a chance to ex plore many different aspects of life,” fourth-year student Melissa Fuller said. ♦MLK DAY, SEE PAGE 2 The weather turned few away from the NAACP State House rally. Hundreds gathered during the midday rally. Freedom ride: revisiting history BY SHARON PANELO THE (iAMECOCK A group of USC students and staff members spent four days and three nights of their win ter break traveling through Alabama and Georgia, visiting sites of the civil rights move ment. The 2002 Civil Rights Tour, sponsored by the USC chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), focused on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. The tour was an effort to bring USC students, faculty and staff to reflect on the state of racial equality in America. The tour spanned the southern cities of Montgomery, Ala., Birmingham, Ala. and Atlanta. The tour was also a visit to sites in which major struggles ♦ NAACP, SEE PAGE 2 Time running out for SG officers’ goals BY CHARLES PRASHAW THE CAMECOCK With two months remaining in its term. Student Government has only a few more meetings to finish this semester's business. Last fall, some goals, including the renovation of the Russell House Gameroom, were quickly reached. But other objectives, like fighting state budget cuts, occupied some SG members’ whole term. Among the goals not yet ful filled are pushing back the drop/add date, giving student in put into the bidding process for a new contact with dining services, reviewing the SDI Committee re port, rewriting parts of the SG Constitution and revisiting the issue of campaign finance. Drop date Extending the drop date was first proposed during the 2000 2001 term of SG President Jotaka Eaddy. The extended drop date was one of four campaign promis es that constituted Eaddy’s “Contract for Carolina,” the plat form she ran on during the 2000 SG presidential election. Eaddy left office without get ting the drop date extended. The last attempt to move the drop date was killed in the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate wanted changes in the academic for giveness policy in or der to go along with moving the drop date. It decided not portJ to compromise on the policy so the drop date proposal failed. “It remains to be seen if we will ever get the drop date moved,” said SG President Corey Ford. Dining Services Sodexho Corp. currently runs all food services on campus, but this year the company is up for contract renewal. During the process, two other food service companies, Chartwells and Aramark, will also bid on the con tract to provide management for USC’s Dining Services. Chartwells Dining Services al ready provides dining services at Louisiana State University, University of Miami and the University of Utah. Among Sodexho’s many college clients are Georgia Tech and Florida State University. Aramark provides din ing services to mostly northern schools like Penn State University and George Washington University. ♦ SG, SEE PAGE 2 SACS team recommends few changes BY JESSICA FOY THE GAMECOCK * Once again, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools has reaccredited USC. But this time, the commission gave USC fewer recommenda tions for improvement. The school received its reac creditation in mid-December. It applies to the Columbia campus and all of the two-year campuses. The USC campuses in Aiken and Spartanburg are four-year schools and will undergo their own reaccreditation process. “Accreditation is a voluntary process every 10 years. It requires a university to conduct a com prehensive self-examination of its academic programs and support services. This study has involved the hard work of our faculty, ad ministrators, students, staff and Board of Trustees, and I was pleased to be part of this rigorous and successful process,” said USC President John Palms. Dan Barron, a professor in the College of Library and Information Science, and Peter Becker, a pro fessor emeritus of history, were chosen to co-direct the study in the fall of 1998. Barron explained the impor tance of receiving reaccreditation from SACS. He said that among many other setbacks, USC would not be able to apply for federal funds, and most other institutions would not accept the school’s de grees without it. According to Barron, USC de cided to direct the self-study into two different areas. The first por tion of the study examined the school to make sure it met all the criteria set forth by the SACS. - The self-study prepared a report, called “USC 2001,” that explained how the school complied with over 400 criteria set forth by the SACS. In April 2001, a visiting dean examined the campus and decid ed how much the school was ac tually in compliance with these criteria. The visiting dean made 15 rec ommendations as to how the cam pus could better meet the criteria. Barron pointed out that this is a ♦ SACS, SEE PAGE 2 ' use adds parking lot The university recently acquired the old BellSouth building, which gives it access to the building’s parking lot at Barnwell and Hampton streets. The new lot would add 500 spaces. ILLUSTRATION BY BRANDON LARRABEE Parking services adds 500-car lot BY BRANDON LARRABEE THE GAMECOCK A new parking lot for com muter students should be ready for use in less than a month. The lot, which will initially pro vide about 500 spaces, is located near Hampton and Barnwell streets, according to Parking Services Director Derrick Huggins. USC picked up the lot when it acquired the old BellSouth building nearby. Huggins said the lot eventual ly will give the university 700 spaces. He said the additional spaces could be in place in about three years. “It puts us in a good position where we’re ... trying to ease the parking situation,” Huggins said. The university will provide shuttles every seven minutes, Huggins said. Those shuttles will likely stop between Capstone and the Close/Hipp business adminis tration building and near the Williams-Brice building, where the College of Nursing is located. “If you have a class in BA, most of your curriculum is in BA. that’s the area for you to park,” Huggins said. To use the lot, commuter stu dents will be asked to turn in their decals and purchase new ones, Huggins said. He said students could apply some of the cost of their old decal to the new sticker. “We haven’t set the cost yet, but it won’t be high at all,” Huggins said. The new money will be used to put up new signs and hire security guards for the lot. According to Huggins, the new lot is part of the university’s plan to move students to perimeter parking and have them taken to class by regular shuttle runs. “We’re starting to see the park ing plan that we started four years ago starting to come about,” he said. Future developments could in clude additional lots behind the Carolina Coliseum. And the university is also plan ning to work with the regional transit authority, which will soon take over buses now run by South Carolina Electric & Gas company, to work on programs to augment the university’s shuttle system. Those plans, which might begin as soon as October, could include agreements to have buses run from the University Commons and Shandon areas to campus. “It’s going to be a multiple facet system. It’s not just going to be Carolina Shuttle anymore,” Huggins said. . Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com TODAY’S WEATHER: A few showers ending early with ample sunshine. High 73, Low 55. j TOMORROW’S WEATHER: Partly cloudy. High 75, Low 51.