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University of South Carolina FRIDAY AUDI |QT 9Q Vol. 97, No. 13 ' www.dailygamecock.com ' ■ »ILJr\I, nUuUOl ZUUJ ‘ Since 1908 'Colleges consider merge BY ADAM BEAM TilK (iAMECOCK A university committee is look ing into the possibility of merging the College of Liberal Arts with the College of Math and Science. The committee, made up of 10 representatives with five from each college, plans to give its rec ommendation to USC President Andrew Sorensen by the end of September. Pat Maney, co-chairman of the committee and chairman of the his tory department, said the commit » tee is acting only as an advisory committee and that the decision to formally recommend the merger from Sorensen. The Board of Trustees would then have to approve the merger. tee was created in late July with the instructions to compare col leges and universities that have a college of arts against those that don’t. In addition, they have also A merger would create a mega-college that would include more than 40 percent of USC students. interviewed the deans from both of the colleges, as well as faculty members and administrative staff. f I'h A rw'Arwu'nrl merger wouldn't be the first time the two colleges were together. Loren Knapp, associate dean Math and Science, said the two col leges split in 1973 in order to take advantage of all the science grants available at the time. The College of Liberal Arts was formed in 1994 with the merger of the colleges of humanities and social sciences. The College of Math and Science has a little over 1,700 un dergraduate students, making it the third largest college at USC. Liberal Arts is the biggest, with an estimated enrollment of 5,200 undergraduate students. As of Aug. 17, the undergradu ate enrollment at USC-Columbia was 16,645. If the two colleges merge, it would create a mega-col lege encompassing more than 40 percent of the student body. A merger of this magnitude would take an incredible amount of planning and development, lyhich is why it is generating con cern among faculty members. Knapp said while he hasn’t made a decision yet on the matter, he is leaning away from a merger be cause of how complex the process would be. “It’s complicated, and I think that complication makes it more confusing, and the confusion makes ifreluctant for people to step in on that,” Knapp said. ♦ MERGER, SEE PAGE 2 A messy crowd on Greene Street Hundreds of students congregated Wednesday on Greene Street for the biannual Student Organization Fair. USC has more than 300 student organizations, and many of them were on the scene handing out fliers, plastic cups, T-shirts and food — much of which ended up on the ground when the event was over. TOP PHOTO BY TRISHA SHADWELL/THE GAMECOCK. BOTTOM PHOTO BY MORGAN FORD/THE GAMECOCK The Big Apple , returns home BY KEVIN FELLNER THE GAMECOCK In 1936, young black students would dance traditional swing dance steps, like the Lindy Hop and the Charleston, to the tune of boisterous jazz and big band mu sic every weekend at Columbia’s Big Apple Club on Park Street. Someone would then shout from the dance floor, “Let’s shine the Big Apple!” And the club would erupt into a mix of original steps rooted in jazz and African music that was soon named after the club and became a national dance craze. This weekend, Historic Columbia is playing host at the ft club to dozens of dance experts ft from as far away as California to celebrate and teach the Big Apple dance and its enduring legacy. The club was originally built as a synagogue in the midst of an in tegrated Jewish and black neigh borhood but was later converted to a club that had a large apple on the front. As the story goes, white USC students and other teenagers, of ten in defiance of their parents, im would bribe bouncers to get in to see the dancing, usually after they had heard the music from outside. Since segregation was an issue at the time, the white students were forced to watch the black students from the balcony, all the while try ing to mimic the steps. Helen Coplan, a 1939 USC grad uate, said her friends and she would throw pennies and nickels to the dancers when they saw steps they liked. “That doesn’t have much value today, but during the Depression you could buy something with that,” Coplan said. “They thought we were just so generous to be throwing that money down there.” USC students would take the steps they learned and dance the Big Apple at fraternity and soror ity socials. “The blacks were such wonder ful dancers, and it was so uninhib ited: they just let it go,” Coplan said. During their summer breaks, USC students would take their moves to clubs at Myrtle Beach, where the state dance, the Carolina Shag, was developed by some of the same dancers in sub sequent years as a tamer version of swing dancing. “The kids would go to the beach. They would dance all day. They would dance all night, and of course they were dancing to black R&B tunes that they weren’t sup posed to have,” said co-chair of the Big Apple Dance Committee and trained dancer Breedlove, who is a retired professor from the USC College of Education. Her dance partner and other co chair Richard Durlach, who grad uated from USC in 1973, said juke box repairmen would often put R & B records in machines in white dance clubs as a favor to the dancers craving its favorable beat for dancing. A talent scout discovered USC students dancing the Big Apple and took 16 of them to New York City, where they performed to sold-out crowds at the Roxy Theater for several months. Some students quit school and moved there permanently. One girl was even making more money than her father, who was facing the hardships of the Depression. ♦ SWING, SEE PAGE 2 — — Consortium to combat S.C. obesity BY GABRIELLE SINCLAIR THE GAMECOCK The recently announced nutri tion research consortium among USC, Clemson and the Medical University of South Carolina will work to become a nationally rec ognized scientific leader to com bat widespread obesity, USC offi cials said Wednesday. “The universities have capa bilities that, when put together, are more than the sum of its parts,” said Larry Kelly, Clemson’s vice president for pub lic service and agriculture. The presidents of USC, Clemson and MUSC announced Wednesday the establishment of the $1.2 mil lion nutrition research consor tium to study health issues related to chronic disease in South Carolina. Each school, along with the South Carolina Research Authority, will invest $300,000 in the project and apply the research to easing South Carolina’s health crisis. Obesity-related diseases in clude Type 2 diabetes, heart dis ease, stroke, and some cancers, “all of which kill and debilitate a disproportionate number of South Carolinians, resulting in costs in terms of lost wages, health care costs and diminished quality of life,” USC President Andrew Sorensen said during the an nouncement. According to the Department of Health and Environmental Control Web site, more than half of South Carolina adults are over weight or obese. The state also ♦ NUTRITION, SEE PAGE 2 Students look to online book stores to lower expenses BY JOCELYN MEYER THE GAMECOCK As the fall semester begins, textbook prices are a bitter topic on students’ minds. According to the National Association of College Stores, the textbook industry profited $7.8 bil lion last year. “School costs so much already; I think that books should cost a lit tle bit less,” Lance Lanford, a sec ond-year business student, said. “I have spent over $400 on books this semester.” StudentMarket.com, a large on line bookstore, offers a free text book comparison among other bookstores to quickly find the low est available price. The site helps eliminate the time it takes to search from Web site to Web site to find the books; Student Market.com automatically com pares the prices in one step. “I bought books online and saved about $10 to $15 on each book for new books. It really starts to add up,” Tara Gesek, a first-year continuing education student said. ♦ TEXTBOOKS, SEE PAGE 2 Index Comics and Crossword 6 Classifieds_ 8 Horoscopes 6 Letters to the Editor _ 4 Online Poll 4 Police Report 3 Weather □ 3 High 95 High 92 Low 72 Low 71 : j V/-, Inside ♦ NEWS USC receives a record amount of private funding. Page 2 ♦ VIEWPOINTS Maybe green space isn’t so bad, says Patrick Walsh. Page 4 ♦ THE MIX FairTrade aims to better the best part of waking up with its socially conscious coffee blend. Page 5 ♦ SPORTS Several USC sports are ready for season openers. Page 7