The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 13, 2002, Image 1

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INSIDE: The Mix editor reviews sex books for Valentine’s Day Candidates face off Five contenders debate platforms BY KEVIN FELLNER THE UAMECOCK All five of the Student Government presidential candi dates voiced their opinions at the 2002 SG debates Tuesday night in the Russell House Theater, and tried their best to persuade the at tendees for their vote. The debate, cosponsored by The Gamecock, featured questions by a panel of three moderators as well as the audience and even the other candidates. SG presidential candidate Sen. David Bornemann told listeners he can get his goals accomplished and that he is well-qualified for the job. After the debate, he said he thought he wasn’t the best public speaker of the candidates, but he thought that his platform spoke well enough for itself. Bornemann blatantly opposed the college consolidation within the university and said SG needs to promote interaction among stu dent organizations. Sen. Brook Bristow said he thought he did well in his first public debate. “As student leaders, it is time to represent interest of our students, not ourselves,” Bristow said in his opening statement. He said he has been a proven leader as the cur rent president pro tempore. He said he wants to urge professors to provide online syllabi and to ex tend the drop/add date for classes. SG Parliamentarian and presi dential candidate Ankit Patel de cided to narrow his focus to pro mote his “signature test,” a center piece of his campaign. He said when a president knows whose sig nature he needs to get legislation passed, he will produce more con crete goals for himself and SG. Patel also said student organi zations need larger budgets to op erate properly. According to Patel, a SG president has the responsi bility of preparing his or her own budget to present to the Senate. Candidate Kaleta Brown coun tered her opponents’ views by say ing her campaign focused on “putting the students back in SG.” She encouraged students to “Make your representatives visi ble. Go to them with your ideas.” She added that, as president, she would try to eliminate some of the cliques that are prevalent in SG. Candidate Jim McFadden added some lightheartedness to his speeches. He told the crowd, “I don’t think y’all should want me to have all the answers.” He said his campaign brings a “fresh per spective” to SG. He said SG could reach solutions concurrent with the intentions of the Board of Trustees in both a practical and reasonable manner. The candidates had their chances to refute opponents’ views. Patel said Bornemann’s proposal for a shuttle running from campus to Five Points did not take into ac count the university’s liability in the matter. Bristow said the issue was a lost cause because he had spoken to Alpha Phi Omega offi cials who had already disapproved the system as a university-sup ported program. Bornemann in sisted on asking the Five Points Association to assist with the cam paign for the shuttle. Brown and McFadden both dis cussed improved parking and cam pus beautification as part of their platforms. McFadden said the addi tion of green space on campus would promote student interaction. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com ◄ ► ® O •’ Back Forwar , Stop Refresh Home -v .a Candidate: PHOTO BY MARTHA WRIGHT Sen. Brook Bristow will push for online syllabuses and SG accountability. Vote in Student Government Elections: http://vlp.sc.edu/ The insider-outsider Bristow vows to refocus SG on students » BY BRANDON LARRABEE THE GAMECOCK College of Journalism and Mass Communications Senator Brook Bristow doesn’t worry too much about what he’s wearing. Unlike his successor, Student Government President Corey Ford, Bristown doesn’t plan to wear a suit on his weekly visits to address Student Senate if he’s elected. “I’ll roll in there like this,” Bristow said recently, sporting his trademark T shirt and jeans, “just say what I want to say, because... I’m not a politician.” Call it the “insider-outsider” cam paign; Bristow, a two-term senator, is running to reform SG, he says, cam paigning to fix an organization of which he’s a member. “They’ve forsaken the actual people they represent, which is awful," Bristow said of SG members. That attitude, he said, - added to student apathy, forms “a volatile cocktail, which just doesn’t taste good.” j§| In order to fix the indifference students feel toward SG and change the attitude of government members, Bristow said the organization needs'to do “the simple things that students actually need.” His platform includes the creation of SAFE, Students Allied For Education. Bristow said the organization would serve as a subsidiary of SG and would help get students involved in fighting budget cuts and tuition increases. Bristow would also like to work with Computer Services to improve the col lege’s Internet access and would like to push for universal online syllabuses. He said the syllabuses would help students ♦ FULL STORY, SEE PftGE 3 SG President Pro Tempore _ __ _ ___',' „ _j About OilsIseiTes: The Gamecock will prolile the tive candidates running tor StudenfGovernment president. Old protiles, along with a list of all candidates nmning, will be available at www.dailygamecock.com from the day they appear in print until after the election. 2/6: Ankit Patel ♦ 2/8: Jim McFadden ♦ 2/11: Kaleta Brown ♦ TODAY: Brook Bristow ♦ MONDAY 2/15: David Bornemann SG hopefuls offer ideas Vice presidential and treasurer candidates face controversy BY ADAM BEAM THE GAME COCK With elections a little over a week away, Student Government candidates came to the Russell House Theater last night to debate their platforms in an attempt to sway voters before the person-to person campaigning begins. The treasurer debate was marked by controversy over how revenue from the South Carolina Education Lottery would be spent. It was capped off by a tense moment when candidate Becky Floyd accused candidate Terrance Beeks of not inviting her to hear his address to the South Carolina State Legislature this morning. “If she took the time to actually look at it, she can see that she got the same e-mail as everyone else did,” he said. Beeks claims to have sent a mass e-mail to all the executive officers as well as the candidates to attend. Floyd says she received no e mail, adding that she checks her e-mail daily. Saying that the State Legislature was “dragging its feet” in terms of spending lottery revenue for higher education, Beeks plans on asking the Legislature to sign a contract agreeing to act by March 28. Floyd responded by saying that she has contacted the Senate Finance Committee and that they can’t make any promises about where the money will go because they’re not sure if they can keep them. “It’s not about what they want to do, it’s about what the voters asked them to do when they voted,” said Beeks. Floyd pressed that the lottery money isn’t used just for higher education, but for K-12 as well, a fact that treasure candidate Brant Tosi says is more important. “We need to focus more of the money to K-12,” he said. “College is a privilege, not a necessity.” The vice-presidential debate featured a clash of platforms. Candidate Katie Dreiling asked candidate Shereef El-lbiary to change his platform, saying that his academic forgiveness policy would not pass. “I’m not going to change my platform,” said El-libiary. He added that he plans to attend every faculty senate meeting and meet with the Board of Trustees so that he can “change their opinions.” Dreiling focused on the three pillars of her platform, which in clude preserving the budget, park ing and safety. She claims that new spaces are already in the works and she knows where they are. ♦ DEBATE, SEE PAGE 3 CSJC to rule on candidate Council to decide White’s eligibility to run for office BY BRANDON LARRABEE THE GAMECOCK The Carolina Student Judicial Council will decide tonight whether former Student Government Sen. Nathan White will be allowed to officially run for vice president. The council, which serves as an arbitrator for conflicts over the SG Constitution, denied White’s request Tuesday for an injunction allowing him to cam paign while the issue remained unresolved. White had earlier filed a challenge to a decision not allowing him to run because he is not in “good standing” with the College of Liberal Arts. “Your request for an injunc tion is denied due to our ability to hear your case in less than 48 hours,” Chief Justice Aaron Hark wrote in a letter addressed to White. Hark, president of the council, serves as chief justice in the event of any constitutional challenge. Hark said late Tuesday that the council would quickly deal with the manner. “The council has decided to handle it immediately without any delay, due to the obvious time issues,” Hark said. News of the meeting capped a series of developments Tuesday as statements, rulings and chal lenges whisked through the SG election system. Earlier in the day, SG President Corey Ford, acting on the recommendations of SG Attorney General Brian Hunter and Elections Commissioner Adam Bourne, thought he had cleared the way for White to run based on White’s challenge filed with the Carolina Student Judicial Council. White filed the challenge on Monday, saying the code cited by SG Coordinator Angela Dusenbury only prevented White from serving as vice pres ident, not from running. Dusenbury places candidates on the online ballot. White, who is seeking his master’s degree from the College of Liberal Arts and plans to at tend USC’s Law School, was told last week that he was ineligible to run for the position because he was not in good standing with his college. _ “I challenge the applicability of this statute in regards to my eligibility to run for office,” White wrote in his memoran dum to the council. “This statute says nothing about running for office and there is no language in the Student Government con stitution or codes that states any eligibility requirements for cam paigning.” In his original statement, Ford accepted that view. “The constitution, however unclear [White’s] future is, does not mention that candidates must be in academic good stand ing,” Ford wrote. The statement would have al lowed White to continue his campaign — including partici pating in The Gamecock/SG de bate Tuesday evening — until the judicial council ruled. But Ford issued another statement based on section H of the codes of the Division of Student and Alumni Services, of which SG is a part. “Students who do not meet the minimum GPR require ments at the time of elections may not serve in a leadership ca pacity. In the event a student is elected to office without the min imum GPR requirements, the organization must hold a re-elec tion and notify the department of Student Life with the officer changes within two weeks,” sec tion H of those codes states. “After this clause was brought to our attention ... the Office of the Vice President [of Student and Alumni Services] offered an opinion that Mr. White could not be an officially sanctioned candidate,” Ford wrote in the second statement. White said the second state ment reinforced his reasons for filing for office. He said Student Life staff members have too much influence in SG decisions. ♦ WHITE, SEE PAGE 3 Darla Moore gives advice BY MEGHAN MCNAIR THEGAMBOOCK Darla Moore reflected on the theme of courage during her speech to USC students Tuesday afternoon. Moore, the first woman to be on the cover of Fortune Magazine, explained how courage has played a key role in her multimillion-dol lar success. During her speech at the Belk Auditorium, Moore also warned students of the halo effect. She said that just because someone has done something great once does not always mean that they will always be great. “Darla has a resume that is in credible, but what is great about her is deeper than that. She has concern, compassion, and com mitment for things that she cares about,” Joel Smith, Dean of the Business School said as he intro duced Darla Moore. “Her concern is very deep, she cares, she is com passionate, she believes that every South Carolinian must be successful. Moore graduated from USC with a degree in political science, and from there moved on to Washington D.C. According to Moore, it was ♦ MOORE, SEE PAGE 3 INSIDE TODAY’S ISSUE El-lblary Shereef EMbiary ♦Third-year chemistry student. ♦Hometown: Greenville, SC. ♦Family: One sister, 66. ♦Hobbies: running, soccer, tennis, hospital volunteer. ♦Past and present activities at USC: coordinator of Second Serving, Senate, Pi Kappa Phi, Omicron Delta Kappa. ♦Favorite song: “One" by U2 ♦Goals: To attend medical school and practice emergency medicine. Dreillng Katie Dreiling ♦Second-year political science student. ♦Hometown: Irmo, SC. ♦Family: One brother, 23. ♦Hobbies: reading, coordinating social activities. ♦Past and present activities at USC: SG Safety Committee Chair, Student Ambassadors, Mock Trial, Business Incubator Advisory Board, Kappa Kappa Gamma. ♦Favorite song: ‘These Are the Days,” 10,000 Maniacs. ♦Future goals: To attend law school. . TODAY’S WEATHER: Mostly cloudy. High 57, Low 32. TOMORROW’S WEATHER: Partly Cloudy, Light wind for North East. High 52, Low 28.