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SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL Create message boards at Are you happy with all of the www.dailygamecock.com or new construction? Vote at send letters to the editor to www.dailygamecock.com. gamecockeditor@hotmail.com ' Results published on Fridays. _ ■ _ _ ■ ■■■■.- M , - -- -—------1 IN OUR OPINION Fall should be interesting This summer tuition rose, the university revolutionized its budgeting system, Sorensen tested plans to build a new university-owned hotel, students will pay using a modified credit-hour system, the university received grants from Intel and the NSF and the Russell House got a makeover. USC is in a whirlwind of change. And for the first time in the history of the university, state government funding will constitute less than 50 For the first time in the history of the university, state government funding will constitute less than 50 percent of USC’s income. percent ot ut>(J s income. Tellingly, the university looks like it plans, in the long term, to withstand a series of budget cuts with a grant winning research campus and a profitable hotel - or, if it fails, use the tough-minded decision making apparatus of value centered management as a guide. It looks like a precarious new year for USC. But it’s also a dynamic new year. USC is the center for engineering education in the state. This summer, the university began educating teachers to offer college-credit engineering courses in high school. The university also now sponsors the nation’s only industry co-operative for fuel cell research, which could revolutionize the automobile and help the environment. Most importantly, though, USC has a plan. Though value-centered management could bring about the end of a college, it will resist the state’s budget cuts and protect the core of the university. Sorensen plays hardball, but he might be what the university needs. This coming school year will tell. Gamecock Quotables “Going into this year, our state appropriations for the university system had been cut over $60 million. The Columbia campus had experienced a $43.5 million reduction.” RICHARD KELLY use VP OF FINANCE ON THE REDUCTION OF STATE SUPPORT FOR USC _ _1_ _ . “If the students can prove they need to take those hours, perhaps there could be some sort of way to provide funding for students to meet the goals they had laid out in a proposal.” JUDITH KALB DIRECTOR OF THE RUSSIAN PROGRAM ON THE NEW TUITION BRACKETING SYSTEM Winners and Sinners WUSC Campus radio station goes worldwide with new streaming audio on the Internet. FRITZ HOLLINGS U.S. Senator from Charleston ends illustrious career that included a presidential bid in 1984. KRISTINA COOPER Earns largest scholorship to have been awarded to a USC student. S.C. GENERAL ASSEMBLY State cutbacks are taking a toll on S.C. education J.LO AND BEN AFFLECK Movie “Gigli” is an officially certified disaster. SCHWARZENEGGER FOR GOVERNOR What we don’t need is another actor running for governor of California. GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us at gamecockeditor@hotmail.com. ABOUT THE GAMECOCK STAFF Editor in Chief Corey Garriott Managing Editor Julia Knetzer News Editor Gabrielle Sinclair Viewpoints Editoi Wes Wolfe The Mix Editor Brian Ray Sports Editor Brad Senkiw Photo Editor Patricia Shadwell Page Designers Rachel Edwards, Patricia Shadwell Copy Editors Amy Genoble, Parul Joshi STUDENT MEDIA Faculty Advisor Erik Collins Advertising Manager Sarah Scarborough Creative Director Susan King Production Manager Patrick Bergen Business Manager Carolyn Griffin Classified Manager Sherry F. Holmes Advertising Staff John Blackshire, Adam Bourgoin, Ryan Gorman, Jesica Johnson, LaToya Hines TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock 1400 Greene St. Columbia, S.C. 29208 Advertising: 777-3888 CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Editor in Chief: gamecockeditor@hotmail.com News: gamecockudesk@hotmail.com Viewpoints: gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com The Mix: gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Sports: gamecocksports@hotmail.com Public Affairs: gckpublicaffairs@hotmail.com Online: www.dailygamecock.com Newsroom: 777-7726 Editor s Office: 777-3914 The Gamecock is the student newspaper of the University of South Carolina and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the fall and spring semesters and nine times during the , summer with the exception of university holidays and exam periods. Opinions expressed in The Gamecock are those of the editors or author and not those of the University of South Carolina. The Board of Student Publications and Communications is the publisher of The Gamecock. The Department of Student Media is the newspaper's parent organization. The Gamecock is supported in part by student activities fees. One free copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for one dollar each from the Department of Student Media. Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 I p^op^?e#S ToJAt<~) tf THAf5 Hou/ w Y u>*/6 xW titae.. A_ THAt'5 H^u/ A\Ab>Y J uiwk CDs X \)oWu>M601 yjL a^yS-w1 I CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Watch for that USCstiCker COREY HUTCHINS GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Freshmen should be vigilant of girls offering parties and punch My first week of school I was walking back from downtown and came across a big party with a band playing and everything. As I walked down the sidewalk this cute girl came up and gave me a drink and asked me if I wanted to party. Of course, I said yes, and we went inside. I started thinking about how good this semester was going to be and how nice these girls were and all of a sudden she said, "Have you been saved?" Huh? I was at a church party. I was drinking punch. I ran all the way home. That was the first of many em barrassing lessons I learned in the 24-hour, four-year party called college and hopefully something like that won’t happen to you. You might even get some sort of degree as a party favor when it’s all over if you're lucky. Since this is the welcome back issue, I think I'll go ahead and get you ready for the hardest part of college life. , No, it’s is not going to be that class with 400 kids. Or that tutorial on the post modern condition. Or the 8 a.m. lab where the professor is more hung over than you are and grades you accord ingly. It's also something that you've all been through and if you haven't then you will soon enough. I don't mean to make light of the situation. And this is in no way intend ed to discourage any freshman students. However, since no one ever tells you this before you enroll I think it’s more than fair that you read it here. No matter how hard you try, you will never ever get that University of South Carolina sticker on the back window of your car the way you want it to look. No matter how many credit hours of class you skip in order to get it positioned right, cen tered right and leveled right, you'll never be satisfied. And if you are one of the lucky ones who do, those bubbles will never come out. The engineering students try to measure the gradient of the window while the math majors try to subtract that by the curva ture. The advertising students try a little too hard to figure out the place on the windshield with the greatest readability by other drivers. The law students know it's il legal to have the stickers there in the first place. Business majors have it the worst because they won't buy more than one if they do fail to get it right. The economies of scale on such an inelastic good is a waste of their beer money. The political science students have no room on their cars for another sticker and the English majors don't have to worry. After all, the sticky side really doesn't adhere too well to bikes and skateboards. So, take it as your first lesson, and welcome to college. Corey Hutchins is a fourth-year print journalism student. IN THEIR WORDS Beginning in the fall of2004, many college students across the country will face a bleak re ality. If they are among nearly half of all college students who receive financial aid, they might have to dig a bit deeper into their pockets. The Department of Education re cently revised its financial aid formula, which will reduce the amount of aid awarded by $270 million. JEN GROSSMAN INDIANA DAILY STUDENT (INDIANA UNIVERSITY) ON RECENT FINANCIAL AID CHANGES While adjusting to a new coaching staff, the Tide will also have to deal with two ma jor changes regarding prac tices. There will be no back-to back days of two practices in the same day, called the "2-1-2 rule." Another rule states that the freshmen and varsity must start practice together, which is different than in years past where the freshmen usually had up to three days to get ad justed on their own. DREW CHAMPLIN CRIMSON WHITE (UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA) ON NEW NCAA FOOTBALL RULES But, this man is still a publicly elected official that was sworn into office and therefore should faithfully execute the duties prescribed to him in the California constitution. He hasn't done anything that would warrant getting the boot in any other state. He hasn't flipped out and driven his governor's limousine through a Burger King window. He hasn’t auctioned off the Golden Gate Bridge to a third-world nation. He’s just pushing his way through some tough times in California. CONOR MORAN DAILY COLLEGIAN (PENN STATE) ON THE RECALL VOTE OF CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR GRAY DAVIS The college pigskin passion ate have it easy. In less than a minute, football fans can read afty number of stories on their favorite recruit from their fa vorite collegiate program on line. With just a few clicks, coaching staffs can find out what other schools their prospective signees have been visiting and when exactly those visits are scheduled. And, by following a few links, top re cruits can find out how they stack up against other players by looking at national rank ings. With the growth of college football recruiting Web sites and databases, the face of re cruiting is changing - and the Internet has brought it into the next era. ROB RIVA JENNY VRENTAS DAILY COLLEGIAN (PENN STATE) ON WEI! FOOTBALL RECRUITING After only one weekend of release (and months of negative press), director Martin Brest's messy mob comedy "Gigli" al ready seems destined to be come the "Ishtar” of 2003. Is it actually deserving of this eter nally embarrassing stigma? Well, after deciding to give the movie a chance by actually sit ting through it and watching it, I can honestly say... yes, it is indeed. Maybe it doesn't de serve as much criticism as it's gotten so far, but yes. GRAHAM FLANAGAN CRIMSON WHITE (UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA) ON LOPEZ-AFFLEGK MOViJi "GIGLI" Some on the right are clutch ing wild-eyed to the privilege of marriage, seeing it as the next tar get of the "homosexual agenda." The president is opposed to gay marriages, and some political leaders are pushing for a Constitutional Amendment that would strictly define marriage as between a man and a woman. Contrary to the Constitution's his tory, this would be the first amendment to restrict the civil liberties of a singled-out portion - of the population. Debate has cen tered on why gays should be al lowed to marry. But the real ques tion is: Why should the govern ment prevent gays from marry ing? Why is it assumed that mar rying whomever one wants, re gardless of gender, is not among every citizen's basic civil liber ties? MATT WRIGHT DAILYTEXAN (UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS) ON THE GAY MARRIAGE DEBATE Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore will have to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state judicial building within 15 days after a federal judge ruled Tuesday that its location on public grounds was unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled the 5,300-pound monument violates the Constitution's ban on govern ment promotion of religion. JON GARGIS CRIMSON WHITE (UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA) ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS MONUMENT IN MONTGOMERY. ALA. Submission Policy Letters to the editor should be less than 300 words and include name, phone number, professional title or year and major, if a student. E-mail letters to gamecocKviewpoints@hotmail.com. Letters will be edited. Anonymous letters will not be published. Call the newsroom at 777-7726 for more information. Budget cuts will hurt students • * WES WOLFE GAMEC0CKVIEWP0INTS@H0TMAIL\C0M The leaders of our state should try harder to meet students’ needs The Aug. 3 issue of The State led with the headline, "Cuts cost S.C. 1,000 teachers". State cutbacks have not only ... resulted in loss of faculty and staff, but also important programs for the students of this state. Across the state, summer school is being fundamentally re duced. Because, of course, helping struggling students catch up should be our last priority. Next to be sliced are remedial reading programs, because it seems that getting Johnny to read isn't really that important, espe cially since being able to read well is the least important skill in find mg a decent jod. Also to be cut are foreign lan guage programs, art, music, dra ma and P.E. Not to mention sup plies and maintenance. And still, many school districts are having to raise taxes to cover the bare minimum of social studies, English, math and science. These cuts compound a situa tion that was bad to begin with. South Carolina has never been known for providing an excellent public education. During my experience at Dutch Fork High School in 1998,1 no ticed the government classes were using text books from 1990. At my previous high school in North Carolina in 19%, the government textbooks that were being used were from 1994. Now, tell me why, at what is supposedly one of our state’s top schools, were they using books that were eight years old, when a comparable public high school one state away had books that were only two years old? I guess nothing happened be tween 1990 and 1998 that needed to be known, like maybe the re unification of Germany and the fall of the Soviet Union and the election of the first Democratic president to win two terms since Franklin Roosevelt and the Republican takeover of Congress. These things aren't politically anH hic+nrirallv imnnrtant nf all T suppose. If one of the top high schools in our state is this behind, what does that say for the poorer and more understaffed schools? Class sizes are rising, even though small class sizes are best for learning. Ehrhardt Elementary in Bamberg County is looking at having to close because of lack of funding. Clarendon County is lay ing off 17 teachers. Richland District 1 is giving 3,000 students the opportunity to transfer to other schools, because 11 schools aren't performing up to the standards set by the "No Child Left Behind" legislation. However, neither the federal nor the state government are ad equately giving schools the abili ty to meet these requirements. What happens when most or all of the schools in a district are un derperforming? wnat Happens wnen an entire state's educational system hits the wall and is "underperforming"? Because, hey, we have hit the wall. Maybe we should allow S.C. students to transfer to other states, because our state govern ment has made sure our schools aren’t able to do the job. Thanks, guys and gals. I know being in the General Assembly is a part-time job, but we need a lit tle better than part-time effort. Wes Wolfe is a fourth-year public relations student.