The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 25, 2002, Page 3, Image 3
Enhancing research a
main goal of combining
USC health schools
BY KEVIN FELLNER
THE GAMECOCK
During a USC Board of Trustees
fiscal policy meeting Wednesday,
Provost Jerry Odom and other
Strategic Directions and Initiatives
Committee members explained
their recommendations to consoli
date the School of Medicine,
College of Nursing, College of
Pharmacy, College of Social Work
and School of Public Health into a
Health Sciences College.
Odom said during the meeting at
Carolina Plaza that the recommen
dations’ main objectives are to en
hance the university’s research pro
ductivity and express the need for
increasing outside funding, espe
cially from the National Institutes
of Health, for research at USC.
The recommendations are con
sistent with the committee’s plan
to consolidate university pro
grams with a technique called
Value-Centered Management,
which gives financial priority to
more successful or renowned pio
grams while the university faces
reduced state allocations.
uoij riesiuem juiui reams iuiu
the committee the goals of the pro
posed Health Sciences College in
clude using research done at USC
as part of the teaching curriculum
in its health sciences programs.
According to Odom, health sci
ences’ greatest problem at USC is
the lack of funding for research.
He said the committee is propos
ing paying faculty members nine
month salaries, a move he said
would give faculty members in
centives to pursue outside fund
ing for research projects to make
up for the three months during
which they won’t be paid.
“We need more internal pres
sure for faculty members to be en
terprising in research ventures,”
said Odom, who added that the
nine-month salary appointments
have been implemented at other
state universities.
Larry Faulkner, School of
Medicine dean, said his greatest
concern about the committee’s
recommendations is the need for
long-term, strategic planning.
According to Faulkner, USC re
ceives less then $10 million in NIH
research funding, while the
University of Washington receives
more than $270 million.
“We’re not going to catch up to
them just by being conservative,”
he said.
Faulkner said Washington’s
program is so advanced because
of its large faculty, which is en
couraged to be enterprising in
biomedical research.
Odom said the goal right now
is to start assessing research costs
immediately.
“We’ve got to start. We’ve got
to figure out what we’ve got and
what we have to do to get better
project grants,” Odom said.
Trustee Darla Moore said
South Carolina has some unique
research opportunities the uni
versity isn’t completely taking
advantage of. She was also con
cerned about how recruiting out
of-state students will affect the de
velopment of the proposed Health
Sciences College.
OHom caiH the anal ic tn nn.
ticeably increase the overall qual
ity of the students. He said out-of
state recruitment could be a long
term goal, but it doesn’t have to
be decided now.
Odom told the board that USC is
important for research because it
houses the only schools of public
health and social work in South
Carolina, along with one each of
only two medical and pharmacy
schools. He said the university has a
distinct opportunity to influence the
improvement of health sciences.
The proposed Health Sciences
College would aim at reducing the
amount of duplication in class cur
ricula among health science stud
ies and would provide unified
leadership for all health programs,
according to the SDI report.
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecockudesk@hotmail.com
Mideast
truce talks
end without
agreement
BY GREG MYRE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — U.S.-led truce
talks ended without an agree
ment late Sunday but both
Israelis and Palestinians said
they would meet again, focus
ing on new American propos
als aimed at bridging their dif
ferences and halting 18
months of bloodshed.
Violence raged despite the
cease-fire efforts. Israeli com
mandos backed by helicopters
tracked and killed four mili
tants who slipped across the
normally quiet border from
Jordan, and seven other people
were killed in other violence.
U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni
convened Israeli and
Palestinian security comman
ders in an undisclosed location
to try to settle the final differ
ences over implementing a
truce plan negotiated last year
by CIA director George Tenet.
Israeli and Palestinian offi
cials, requesting anonymity,
said Zinni presented propos
als to bridge the gaps between
the two sides, and the two
sides were to present their re
sponses at another meeting of
security commanders on
Monday.
xt_ J _ j._ il _ _ r* n_tt n _
iiu uciauo ui mu u.u. piu
posals were made public. But
an Israeli official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said
those proposals were con
structive.
A U.S. official said Sunday’s
meeting was “slow going. It’s
fair to point a finger of blame
at the Palestinians.”
“We are not there yet,” the
U.S official said of Yasser
Arafat accepting truce terms
which President Bush and
Vice President Cheney set as
a precondition for Cheney to
meet Arafat in Egypt.
STATE
Marine recruit dies
during training run
PARRIS ISLAND (AP) -
Marine Corps officials have
identified an 18-year-old recruit
who died during a 1.5-mile
training run this weekend.
Pvt. James R. Boglin of
Selma, Ala., died Saturday af
ternoon, said Capt. Porter
Harlow, duty officer at the
Parris Island Marine Corps
Recruit Depot.
He was taking part of the
initial strength test (1ST)—the
first test a recruit must pass be
fore 12 weeks of training —
when he stopped and collapsed.
Harlow said initial indica
tions were that Boglin had a
heart attack. The cause of death
is still being investigated.
It is the second training
death at the depot this year.
Last month, a sergeant
training to be a drill instructor
died after finishing a 4-mile
run. Sgt. Fredrick A. Hughes,
30, collapsed while walking
around to cool down after his
run.
Parents of 15 agree
to government aid
GREENVILLE (AP) - The
Upstate parents of 15 adopted
and foster children have
agreed to accept government
aid and get outside care need
ed by the children returned to
their care.
That’s a big change for Bill
and Debbie Rettew, who have
rejected the involvement of
government agencies in then
care of special-needs children
for 20 years.
The Rettews’ change of
heart was prompted by the re
moval of 15 children from then
home this past November and
a subsequent finding of med
ical and educational neglect.
BE PREPARED: The
American Red Cross sent three
of its new disaster trailers to
Beaufort, Hampton and Jasper
counties to prepare for this
year’s hurricane season.
NATION
$8 million might go
to plane’s survivors
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Bush administration has pro
posed paying $8 million to the
survivors of a missionary
plane that was misidentified as
a possible drug-smuggling
flight and shot down last year
by a Peruvian jet.
An American missionary
and her infant daughter were
killed. **
The request was made last
week in President Bush’s sup
plemental spending proposal,
which Congress must approve.
“I know that there had been
talks about that topic, and I’m
not confirming the exact set
tlement,” White House
spokesman Ari Fleischer said
Sunday as he traveled with the
president in Latin America.
The Cessna float plane was
fired on in April 2001 after a
CIA-operated surveillance
plane misidentified if.
Veronica Bowers, 35, and
her 7-month-old daughter,
Charity, were killed. Her hus
band, Jim Bowers, and the cou
ple’s son, Cory, escaped serious
injury. Pilot Kevin Donaldson,
who had serious leg wounds,
crash-landed the plane on the
Amazon River.
Jim Bowers, along with
Veronica Bowers’ parents,
Donaldson and the Association
^of Baptists for World
Evangelism, jointly have been
trying to reach a settlement
with the government.
Ashes spark large
fire in New Mexico
ALTO, N.M. (AP) — Fireplace
ashes dumped in a back yard
sparked a grass and timber wild
fire that burned 28 homes in an
affluent neighborhood in the
mountains of southern New
Mexico, authorities said Sunday.
Firefighters said winds died
down Sunday and that the fire
was 60 percent contained. The
fire destroyed a bam as well as
the homes.
WORLD
Central American
trade might expand
SAN SALVADOR, EL
SALVADOR (AP) — President
Bush on Sunday held out the
promise of expanded trade to
Central American nations, say
ing countries once racked by
civil war now deserve jobs as a
reward for the way they have
“changed old ways and have
'found new wealth and new
freedom.”
Bush paid a six-hour visit
here — his first ever, he said —
to discuss the possibilities of a
Central American trade pact
. with Salvadoran President
Francisco Flores and other
leaders from the region. The
sessions closed out a four-day
tour of Latin America in which
Bush pushed open markets,
anti-terrorism efforts and
more foreign aid money for de
veloping nations that flush out
corruption.
Bush also pledged Sunday to
pursue a trade agreement for all
the Americas, and promote im
migration policies that would
, establish temporary protective
status for some immigrants
whose visas have expired.
Over lunch with the leaders of
El Salvador, Belize, Guatemala.
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras
and Panama, Bush said he wants
to get Congress energized behind
the regional trade proposal he
submitted in January, even
though the matter, for now, is “at
• the working level," White House
spokesman Sean McCormack
said.
nnirntim mrm m . rm. _ _
I IIIWVI1U1 VIWI Ulk. U1C guv
ernor of an eastern Afghan
province demanded U.S. Special
Forces hand over several rival
Afghan allies who allegedly
opened fire Sunday on the re
gion’s security chief, "killing a
bodyguard and wounding two
pthers before reportedly fleeing
into an American compound.
HEALING BEGINS: Survivors
of a grenade attack on a
Protestant church in Pakistan
that killed five people gathered
on Palm Sunday for the first
time since the assault.
Maintenance
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
mated amount the university
should spend to maintain and re
pair its facilities every year.
According to the Association
of Physical Plant Administrators’
guidelines, USC should spend be
tween $9.5 million and $14.3 mil
lion annually. The university,
however, can now only afford to
spend about $7 million.
According to USC Chief
Financial Officer Rick Kelly, the
university can no longer afford to
have a rotating schedule for re
painting buildings. “We have no
routine to repaint common areas
and walls — it’s a problem,” he
said.
Board member Darla Moore
urged the board to be inventive.
“We need creative, alternative so
lutions if we’re going to fix this
problem,” she said. “Even ones
that sound outlandish.”
Wilcox said physical environ
ment being voted the No. 1 con
cern in a survey of faculty shows
it really is a problem. *
“To bump faculty salaries out
of No. 1 at any institution, you
know you’ve got some issues,”
Wilcox said.
Wilcox said many faculty
members have discussed their
Emmert
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
investments in higher education,”
Foster said. “All the talk about
rolling back taxes while LSU is last
in the SEC in investment mystifies
me.”
LSU System President Bill
Jenkins said the whole state of
Louisiana should be pleased by
Emmert’s decision.
“I’m truly very, very, very
pleased that the chancellor has
decided to stay with us and con
tinue on the difficult path we’ve
taken,” he said.
Hubbard said USC’s search
committee would focus on find
ing the best candidate for the job
instead of trying to meet an “ar
tificial deadline.”
“We would like to have some
body, obviously, in place by the
time Dr. Palms retires,” Hubbard
said.
The university’s Strategic
Directions and Initiati tfes report
might help.
maintenance concerns, which
vary from classroom size to light
ing. “It’s hard to teach when the
lights are flickering,” he said.
One suggestion the committee
gave in its report was to ask the
General Assembly for a one-time
sum of money that would let USC
make needed repairs.
Board member Michael
Mungo disagreed with the idea.
“That isn’t ever going to hap
pen,” Mungo said. “They’re too
busy reducing taxes, which is the
most ludicrous thing in the world. ’’
Mungo said USC needs more of
a long-range system, and sug
gested the university privatize its
buildings by making them avail
able for corporate sponsorship.
The ‘Faculty Welfare’ and
‘Services, Resources, Students’
section of the survey reports that
94.6 percent of faculty who re
sponded said campus building
conditions need improvement.
Wilcox said he hopes a solu
tion is found to USC’s mainte
nance problems so that graduates
don’t look back on their college
careers and remember poor fa
cilities.
“On the development side of
things, you don’t want to have
alumni leaving with that image,”
he said.
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecockudesk@hotmail.com
“We would like to have
somebody, obviously, in
place by the time Dr.
Palms retires.”
WILLIAM HUBBARD
PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
Board member Herbert Adams
said he’s heard that the report has
encouraged candidates who have
interviewed with the university.
“Every candidate that we have
talked to that has seen the SDI re
port has been very positive,”
Adams said. “Most of them have
done similar things. I think it is
an attractive thing. That’s what
Mr. Hubbard tells me: It’s an at
tractive thing.”
Emmert was confident USC
would find a good president.
“It’s a wonderful place with
wonderful leadership,” he said.
“They’ll wind up with a terrific
president. I have no doubt of
that.”
Adam Beam contributed to this
story. I
Comments on this story?E-mail
gamecockudesk@hotmail. com
1752 Airport Blvd. • Gyce, SC 29033
(803) 794-6007
Ym Spring Brut
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
TANNING
i's visiTsl’lMD^’]
(h-i o “ Tanning j
4>1Z i jj <tqc oo j
must have student ID n •
J I* * must have student ID J
Expires 4/5/02 It Expires4/5/02
Only at 422 Colonial Life Blvcfl
^LmSSSSMSSS^W 803-772-3735 phone ■
803-216-8288 fax ■
SUBS & SALADS 10am - 8pm Mon - Sat fl
$1.00 OFF any 12" Sub I
50<£ OFF any 6" Sub I
Not good with any other discounts.
Catering available.
/Ti - - - - -
T>d tor ML I
i
Ss^SODS I
15% off any package, f l I
^ (except Gamecock Special) " i
y^O-10 visits M3.00 1
/1 * Bring coupon in to redeem savings.
Call ahead for appointments. 3308 Forest Drive
yjH|^ Columbia, SC 292041
-1 •*.,_782-0830 _J
NOW HIRING DRIVERS
2002 Greene St. Suite 106
(803) 252-6700