Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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POLICE REPORT Each number on the map stands for a crime corresponding with numbered descriptions in the list below. DAY CRIMES (6a.m.-6p.m.) □ Violent O Nonviolent NIGHTCRIMES (6p.m.-6a.m.) ■ Violent • Nonviolent CRIMES AT UNKNOWN HOURS 0 Violent ® Nonviolent These reports are taken directly from the USC Police Department Compiled by Wendy Jeffcoat Thursday, April 3 ® LARCENY OF CAMCORDER, USC SPEECH AND HEARING CENTER, 1601 ST. JULIAN PLACE. (OFF MAP) The complainant said someone took a black and gray Panasonic camcorder. Estimated value: $2,500. Reporting officer: C. Taylor. ® LARCENY OF CELL PHONE, USC SPEECH AND HEARING - CENTER, 1601 ST. JULIAN PLACE. (OFF MAP) The victim said someone took her purse, which contained a Nokia cell phone, $20, her South Carolina driver’s license, a car key, her USC ID, a bank card, a checkbook and her Social security card. Estimated value: $120. Reporting officer: C. Taylor. Q INDECENT EXPOSURE, EAST QUAD, 600 SUMTER ST. The victim said a black male wearing a white T-shirt, khaki shorts and tennis shoes exposed his genitals toward her open, upstairs window. She said she yelled at the man, who then ran toward the east side of campus. A search of the area turned up negative results. Reporting officer: J.A. Clarke. Friday, April 4 O FIRE, SNOWDEN RESIDENCE HALL, 600 MAIN ST. Reporting officer J.A. Clarke was dispatched to a possible fire. Clarke, along wiffi other officers, searched several floors before finding the fire. Stephen Anderson told Clarke he was smoking on the patio and dropped his cigarette in an old pizza box. Anderson said, “I saw it burning, but it did not seem like a big fire.” He said he went back into his room for a while, then a few minutes later, he saw flames and smoke. Several students saw the flames and called the USC Police Department. The Columbia Police Department was also notified. —--—^ Monday, April 7i=-..^.■; "Misconceptions of Islam" by Sheik Yusuf Estes 7:30 p.m. Room 008 BA Building A convert to Islam in 1991, Estes is the National Muslim Chaplain for American Muslims. He will discuss the misconceptions people have about the religion and provide examples of the true teachings of Islam. "Poetry Night" at Barnes mid Nobles 7:00 p.m. 278 Harbison Blvd. Come and enjoy a relaxed atmosphere of various Muslim poets read by students and members of the community. Feel free to bring your own poetry to share with the crowd. Thursday, April 10 ■—«*■■■mm—m "Women in Islam" 7:30 p.m. Room 005 BA Building. A panel of Muslim women will be speaking about uvmen'srights, roles and misconceptions in Islam. Try some Middle Eastern, Indian, and Pakistani FOOD!! Sponsored By: Muslim Students Association E-mail: muslim@gwm.sc.edu Join our Yahoo Group: USC_MSA@yahoogroup.com The Muslim Students Association (MSA) provides USC Students with the opportunity to come together in a supportive Muslim environment to educate the Columbia, SC community about Islam. MSA sponsors guest lectures and events that are free and open to everyone. All students, faculty, and community members are welcome to these events. Above all we recognize to people are at varied levels in their own faith, and we are welcoming to all, regardless of extent of ones' religious knowledge or determination. Iraq CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 sador, came under fire Sunday while evacuating Baghdad, the Russian foreign ministry said. A correspondent for state-run Russian television said the con voy was caught in a crossfire and three diplomats were hurt, one with a serious stomach wound. Central Command officials es timated Sunday that 2,000 to 3,000 Iraqi fighters died in the 3rd Infantry Division’s 25-mile in cursion in an industrial section of Baghdad a day earlier. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks gave no specifics on how the es timate was reached. Iraqi state television broadcast a statement attributed to Saddam, urging soldiers who had been separated from regular units to join up with any unit they could locate. The United States is deploying some of the nation’s exiles and in temal dissidents around the coun try to help with the distribution of humanitarian aid, keep order and root out pro-Saddam elements. Twenty miles southeast of Baghdad, Marines seized one of Saddam’s numerous palaces and destroyed what U.S. intelligence reports suggested was a terrorist training camp. Allies have yet to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; ac cusations that they exist provid ed the chief justification for in vading the country. Wolfowitz said Iraqi authori ties have probably rounded up people who know where the weapons are. Allied forces sifted Sunday through the rubble of the Basra home of Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Iraqi general known as Chemical Ali for ordering a poison gas at tack against Kurds in 1988. Allied officials said the general was believed to have been home when it was attacked Saturday but they did not know whether he was killed. Dreiling CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 the students.” “I just hope Katie does a good job,” he said. “I know she will.” Current SG President Ankit Patel voiced his support for Dreiling after the announce ment. “I think she’ll do well,” Patel said. He said Dreiling’s SG expe rience, including her term as vice president, will serve her well dur ing her presidency. Patel also said Dreiling should keep those candidates who didn’t win in mind when she fills her Cabinet positions and try to bring some of those candidates’ ideas into her administration. Patel also said he hopes Dreiling will carry on the coun cil system he established during his presidency. Dreiling said her first order of business as president will be to contact student organiza tions. “I’m immediately going to send applications and invitations to student organizations and let them know that there are Cabinet positions available and positions open on the students’ concerns boards,” she said. “I want to be gin getting as many students in volved as possible. I want to start that process.” Dreiling also said she saw ways to improve SG during her vice presidency. “I think Ankit accomplished a lot this year, but being in the po sition I was, I did see a lot of things throughout Student Government that I didn’t agree with,” she said. “I can bring bet ter communication into the or ganization.” Dreiling said students can also expect SG to focus less on itself and more on the Carolina com munity and what it wants. “I can guarantee that Student Government will definitely be represented positively all year long, so whenever students hear about Student Government or what we’re doing, they will see that it’s reflecting them in a pos itive way,” she said. Dreiling thanked voters for , their support. “I want to say thank you so much for supporting me, believ ing in me, and I hope that I won’t disappoint you,” she said. “I tried to follow every rule while going through this election, and it was long and it was hard, but I gained their support, and I am their ser vant now.” Dreiling, along with Vice President-elect Zachary Scott and Treasurer-elect Ben Edwards, will be inaugurated April 16 at 3 p.m. in Rutledge College. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com Voting CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 ty vote after the election, then the candidate who comes in last is eliminated, and the second-choice votes from that candidate’s ballots are distributed. This process would continue from the last place candidate upward, un til one candidate has a ma jority. Under USC’s current sys tem, a runoff election is held between the two candidates who received the most votes if there is no clear majority after the first election. SG President-elect Katie Dreiling said runoff elections are a problem. “It’s hard enough to try and get students to vote for a first elec tion, Dreuing said. “In a runoff, a lot of students either don’t know that they have to vote again, or they just don’t want to.” Russell said several other schools, such as Duke, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton, have already switched to in stant runoff voting. Russell said San Francisco recently became the first major city to adopt instant runoff voting in its city wide elec tions. “Several state legislatures are considering whether to allow mu nicipalities to use this system, or to use it in statewide elections,” Russell said. “There are current ly 20 states considering this leg islation, and it does not appear that South Carolina is one of them.” USC professor Don Fowler, for mer chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said there are dangers associated with any change to a voting sys tem. “Generally speaking, when you change the voting sys tem, you get some unan ticipated con sequences,” Fowler said. “One of the tilings you’re doing by starting at the bottom in allocat ing votes is, in effect, rewarding the people who favored the least popular, and presumably least ca pable, candidate. In some theoret ical world, you could say that the people who voted for the poorest candidate are the dumbest crowd “If I were lord and master of Student Government at USC, I would lower the required percentage of votes to win before I would change to a different voting system. That would be my first choice, before any big change.” DON FOWLER USC PROFESSOR AND FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE and you’re giving the dumbest crowd the first choice at selecting the final winner.” Fowler also pointed out that there are several ways an instant runoff voting system could be ma nipulated. “You could have a race where one person was the obvious front runner and another person was No. 2 or No. 3,” Fowler said. “The No. 2 or No. 3 person could go out and make deals with other candi dates that were down the line. If they got all of their people to vote for No. 2 as their second vote, the election could be manipulated, in stead of reflecting people’s straightforward choice.” The voter turnout for a runoff election is generally much lower, and runoff elections can generate more cost, Russell said. “If I were lord and master of Student Government at USC, I would lower the required per centage of votes to win before I would change to a different voting system,” Fowler said. “That would be my first choice, before any big change.” Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com Kaplan CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “These tests come at such a crit ical time” as students are finish ing school, Blass said. She said that with the hurting economy, students are finding it harder to find jobs, so more of them are look ing toward graduate school. “Competition to get into law school, medical school and other graduate programs has been steadily increasing, and stan dardized test scores are more im portant than ever,” Blass said. The Kaplan Center at 1717 Gervais St. will have representa tives on campus this week to reg ister students for the giveaway, said Sarah Safnauer, Kaplan’s Columbia center manager. The center will set up tables in front of the Russell House where students can enter the giveaway and get information on Kaplan Test Prep, Safnauer said. Blass said Kaplan Test Prep helps students prepare for the tests by introducing to them and helping them learn a lot of mate rial they’re not used to. She said Kaplan gives detailed explana tions of why answers are right and wrong and gives students the opportunity to take practice tests. Fourth-year psychology student David Pillinger took a Kaplan Test Prep course before he took the MCAT. Pillinger, who has been ac cepted to medical school at both USC and the Medical University of South Carolina, said he thinks taking the course helped him do well on the entrance exam. “I’d have to say that it is struc tured very well, and it has a lot of materials available for use,” Pillinger said. “The students coming out of my class had a pretty significant im provement on their test scores,” said fourth-year baccalaureus stu dent Bill Burns, who taught a Kaplan GRE course during his sec ond year at USC. “I mean, you have to weigh the cost and the benefits of doing it,” Burns said. “Kaplan does do pretty good courses, but it’s up to the stu dent. If you go in with a perfect score already, the class can’t help you that much.” Kaplan, the largest test-prep provider, is not the only prepara tion course option. The Princeton Review and Peterson’s also offer test-prep courses. According to third-year English student Katie Rawson, who plans to take the GRE in August, Kaplan Test Prep courses have a good reputation. “Oh, Kaplan courses are good. They’re extremely expensive, but if you take them, you will do well,” said Rawson. oaumuci &<aiu sue xmims xne Course-a-Day Giveaway is a great opportunity for students who wouldn’t normally take a Kaplan Test Prep course because of finan cial reasons. “Usually, the way students look at it is as the return in terms of scholarships and getting-into the school they want to go to,” Burns said. “It usually more than makes up the cost of the classes.” Rawson said she is not doing a Kaplan Test Prep course to pre pare for the test, but she did buy a book to help her study. She said she would not enter the give away. “I wouldn’t because I’ve heard that grad schools don’t look as fa vorably upon students that take test-prep classes because it teaches you how to take the test, and that invalidates your true test results,” Rawson said. Pillinger said it might be differ ent for other areas of graduate study, but estimates that 80 per cent of medical-school applicants take some sort of prep course. “The scores are unnaturally el evated due to everyone taking a prep course, so you better take it if you are going to be competitive,” Pillinger said. Pillinger said he paid for the MCAT course with extra scholar ship money and with some help from his parents. The giveaway “would have been something I would have par ticipated in,” Pillinger said. “Sometimes you get lucky,” Pillinger said. Fourth-year chemistry and art studio student Natasha McDonald, who plans to go into a doctorate program for chemistry, said she is unsure because of the price whether she wants to take a test nreD course. “I would definitely be interested because I really don’t have a lot of money, but I would like to take one,” McDonald said of the give away. Students can enter the give away by visiting www.kaptest. com/giveaway or by filling out an entry card at a local Kaplan Center. Official rules can be found on the Web site and at Kaplan cen ters, Blass said. Should winners’ courses be available in both classroom format and online, they can select the course format they prefer, Blass said. Winners must redeem their course by July 31,2004, Blass said. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com ^ cinnematic arts