Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

✓'T‘% _ University of South Carolina TUI IRQ HAY AI IHI I QT 9 1 OHOQ Vol.97,No.lO www.dailygamecock.com II lUrVOL/rVI, nUuUOl 1, Z.VJVJO Since 1908 Wailing during Welcome Week PHOTO BY JUSTINE BULLER/THE GAMECOCK Thomas Reed was one of twelve bands to play at Carolina Productions' first-ever Cockapalooza, held at Davis Field on Tuesday. * ^ y > LIVING ON CAMPUS Housing director plans new dorm BY ADAM BEAM THE GAMECOCK A new suite-style residence hall for freshmen and sopho mores is in the planning stages, according to Housing Director Gene Luna. The residence hall is phase four of housing’s expansion pro ject. Luna said the dorm would eventually replace the Towers, which are scheduled for demo lition sometime after West Quad opens in 2004. Luna said USC President Andrew Sorensen will present the proposal to the Board of Trustees sometime this semester. A location has not been decided yet. USC’s master plan calls for two research sci ence buildings to be built on the Towers site. The removal of the Towers would reduce the number of hall-style dorms on campus from 10 to six, as housing con tinues to try to respond to stu dents’ wishes. The new dorm should also help with housing freshmen. All freshmen are guaranteed hous ing if they apply by May 1. For the past two years, that meant some freshmen had to begin their college careers by living in hotels. This year, Housing as signed on-campus housing for all first-year students who ap plied - some 3,070 spots. The new dorm would be the third housing project an nounced in the past two years. West Quad, an environment friendly “green” apartment style dorm, is scheduled to open in fall 2004. The Greek Village on Blossom Street opened four more houses this year, with three more scheduled to be open in the next two to three weeks. That has opened up space in the McBryde Quadrangle for 175 first-year students. Adam Hark, president of the Residence Hall Association, said he thinks the Towers should be torn down, but not at the loss for students. He said the proposal for the new dorm should be a re lief to students. “I’m leery of the impression I’ve gotten that Greek housing will fill some of the void for the Towers,” he said. “I don’t think someone should have to go Greek to stay on campus.” Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com Wait-listed students receive housing offers BY ADAM BEAM THE GAMECOCK All but 50 to 60 of the 550 up . perclassmen who were placed on University Housing’s wait list last spring accepted univer sity housing for the fall semester. Housing director Gene Luna said that all of the wait-listed students were offered housing by early August, just as promised last spring. Adam Hark is president of the Residence Hall Association, which represents every on-cam pus student. He said Housing shouldn’t be too quick to claim a victory in this situation. “I think for them to say that is deceptive of the true context of the time,” Hark said. “It’s very easy for housing to look back in hindsight and say we ended up offering everyone a spot, but in the context of the time, no one had any guarantee they would end up with a place to live.” Most of the wait list consist ed of juniors and seniors who wanted apartments, but Luna said there just weren’t enough apartments to go around. For the past two years, a grow- . ing number of first-year students ♦ HOUSING, SEE PAGE A5 ♦ MORE HOUSES ARE OPENING IN THE GREEK VILLAGE. SEE PAGEA5. ’Freshman class reaches new high BY MICHAEL LAFORGIA THE IJAMKCOCK For the second straight year, a record number of freshmen are at tending classes at USC this fall, and growing class sizes will soon affect on-campus housing and ad mission standards, university of ficials said. Last year’s freshmen class, which included about 3,500 stu dents and is slightly smaller than this year’s, was previously the largest in USC history. That large class size took the university by surprise, and the resulting hous ing overflow saw first-year stu dents temporarily placed in three Columbia hotels until on-campus accommodations could be made for them. “This year we made accommo dations for all freshmen to live in the residence halls, said Dennis Pruitt, director of Student and Alumni Services. The university is currently building a new 500-apartment residence hall, West Quad, to house more students, Housing Director Gene Luna said. He said West Quad should be open next fall. In addition, Pruitt said USC is debating whether to tear down the Towers. He said although they are old, they offer cheaper housing alternatives and a sense of hall camaraderie to first-year students. Besides housing changes, Pruitt said USC will become more selective if applications continue to pour in as they have in recent years. “It was harder to get in this year than last year,” Pruitt said. According to Pruitt, Student and Alumni Services set goals for ♦ FRESHMEN, SEE PAGE A4 Index Comics and Crossword B8 Classifieds • C8 Horoscopes B8 Letters to the Editor A9 Online Poll A9 Police Report ~ A8 Weather tomorrow & High 92 Low 71 f- ^ \ _ In This Issue ♦ NEWS Cockv is named to the Capital One All-America Mascot team. Page A2 ♦ VIEWPOINTS Elizabeth Catanese says gay high schools are a straight shot. PageA9 ♦ THE MIX Prepare to be scared. America’s most terrifying film stars face off on the big screen. PageB2 ♦ SPORTS The USC football team takes shape after hard summer practices. Page Cl > Officials hope research funds will build USC’s reputation BY ALEXIS STRATTON THE GAMECOCK USC received $130.9 million in research funding for 2002-2003, making this year’s funding,the most since the $123 million re ceived in 2000-2001. The funds, received through re search grants and other forms of monetary compensation, go to support research in a variety of USC’s colleges, including the Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health, the College of Science and Mathematics and even the College of Liberal Arts. “I think it’s very important for . the university and specifically its faculty to secure funding for their scholarly endeavors, especially as we face diminishing support from the state,” said Tony Boccanfuso, managing director of the USC re search foundation. “People look at external fund ing as a measure of the quality of an institution. It helps the uni versity’s overall reputation,” he said. With a growing student popu lation and reduced funding from the state, the research funds re ceived by the university help sus tain USC’s drive to become a bet ter-recognized research institu tion. “In light of the state budget cri sis, the University faculty are find ing a way to provide for the growth and the initiatives that we need,” said Harris Pastides, in terim vice president of research and dean of public health school. “It provides the money to keep our faculty at the cutting edge, which ♦ FUND RAISING, SEE PAGEA4 I--. 1 —iliH 1 ————BMMMiiMwWi PHOTO BY MORGAN FORD/THE GAMECOCK Kimberly Fowler, a first-year nursing student, rings up second-year graduate student Anna Robinson’s book?. ♦ The Center of Biomedical! *S3 Research Excellence will estlblMl a Center for Colon Cancer \*E Research. This effort was funded by an $11 million grant-the largest in the university’s history - from the National Institutes of Health. ♦ A study on the long-term development of children is being funded by a five-year, $4.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. l ¥ Funded by a $1 million grant Horn the Centers for Disease 'Control and Prevention, the Center for Public Health Preparedness will ' respond to bioterrorism threats and other public health emergencies. ♦ The nation’s first Industry/ University Cooperative Research Center for fuel cells at USC will receive funding from the National Science Foundation and 11 industry and public sector partners. Bookstores strive to keep costs low BY BRIAN RAY THE CAMECOCK Manager Greg Yancey at the South Carolina Bookstore said he has been cussed out a lot over the years. “They ask me how I can sleep at night,” Yancey said. But Yancey said that like many campus book vendors, he’s oper ating on a thin line between profit and bankruptcy. Book publishers like McGraw Hill and Tompson sell books at dis count prices to bookstores, but there are other costs to consider such as shipping, payroll for em ployees and utilities, Yancey said. And it’s easy to make mistakes. Yancey cited “Jones Contemporary College Physics” ♦ TEXTBOOKS, SEE PAGE A2