University of South Carolina Libraries
www.dailygamecock.com WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8,2003 • "*££45 -- - --- Carolina Center to get new name dp^BY Z’ANNE COVELL ^^niK (iAMKCOCK USC announced Tuesday that they have reached agreement with the Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company to rename the Carolina Center. The announcement comes after the university entered into a 12 year, $5.5 million naming-rights sponsorship agreement with Colonial Life to christen one of USC’s newest building the Colonial Center. Both USC and Colonial antici pate the sponsorship will bring several opportunities. “We couldn’t be happier,” said Kerry Tharp, USC sports infor mation director. “In order for the arena to reach its full potential to bring in shows and entertainment and turn a profit, it was necessary that we get a naming rights spon sor.” Jeanne Reynolds, Colonial Life director of corporate communica tions and media relations, was equally optimistic. “It’s a major commitment to the community and the whole state. The arena has become a landmark for our state as both a sports and cultural venue,” Reynolds said. “Colonial is a bom and-raised Carolina company since 1939, and we want to be vis ible in our state. This will in crease our visibility.” Besides naming rights, which will be depicted in both the are na’s interior and exterior signs, Colonial Life also will be allowed access to the arena facilities for company promotional activities such as meetings and training events. The company will also have rights to an enclosed arena suite for basketball games. According to Reynolds, the sponsorship agreement involved long-term negotiations between both parties that began before the Carolina Center opened in November 2002. “Colonial was a founding spon sor of the arena,” Reynolds said. “This agreement is building on that partnership we had already established.” When considering sponsors for the arena, Tharp said Colonial stood out among other corpora tions because of its long-term com mitment. “They were one of the original sponsors, and they were always there with us,” he said. Tharp said the university is both thankful for and lucky to have Colonial’s support. “You’ve got to hand it to Colonial for making this sort of fi nancial commitment in this day and time with the present eco nomic situation,” he said. Similarly, Colonial representa tives are thankful for the chance to back the university. “Colonial is very excited be cause there are not very many op ♦ CENTER, SEE PAGE 3 PHOTO ILLUSTRATION SPECIAL TO THE GAMECOCK This is what the new Colonial Center sign will look like. Terms of USC hotel reached BY MICHAEL LAFORGIA THE GAMECOCK After months of conflict, USC officials reached an agreement with local hotel owners Monday night over the construction of a USC hotel near the .National Advocacy Center on Pendleton Street. The terms of the compromise, which were announced Tuesday morning at the governor’s office, include a gradually phased-in oc cupancy rate for the new hotel, a seven-year moratorium on new university hotel development and the inclusion of links to area hotel Web sites on the USC Web site. Conflict initially arose more than a year ago, when local hote liers voiced concern that a USC owned hotel would introduce pub licly funded competition to then private businesses. The disagreement grew to in clude an anti-USC hotel public re lations campaign launched by lo cal hotel owners, who were on the brink of filing a lawsuit against the university when the compro mise was reached. Bob Wislinski, spokesman for the Greater Columbia Hotel and Motel Association, called the de cision to compromise a tough one, but said the hotel association de cided it wasn’t worth it to pursue legal action against the universi ty “It does, from our perspective, allow the university to do what it wants to do without hurting us too much,” Wislinski said. According to Wislinski, the Advocacy Center brings in about $1 million a year, profits that are currently divided among eight ♦ HOTEL, SEE PAGE 2 A gutsy new theater PHOTO BY MARK SCHILLING/THE GAMECOCK From left, Nlcol Cabe, Rala Hirsch, Ashley Kolaya and Jessica Wharton, all theater students, rehearse for the play “Gut Girls,” which will be performed in the new Black Box Theater. ♦ FOR MORE ON THIS STORY, SEE PAGE 5 *Plan for RA tech support raises concerns Housing worries that computer training would overburden RAs BY JESSICA FOSTER THE, GAMECOCK University Housing officials have voiced concerns regarding the practicality of Student Government President Katie Dreiling’s plan to train resident advisers through Computer Services and are expected to meet in hopes of modifying the plan. Housing Director Gene Luna said one of his primary concerns is that RAs will not have enough time to perform the duties en tailed in Dreiling’s plan, such as helping students install anti virus software, install critical se curity updates and clean viruses off infected computers. The need for most of these ser vices is at the beginning of the semester, when RAs are already particularly busy with roommate contracts, conducting hall meet ings, planning welcome activi ties, recruiting desk assistance and acclimating their residents to dorm life. “I think it would be a good idea because I know a lot of my resi dents had problems with their computers at the beginning of the year,” said Lee Bryant, an RA at McBryde. He also said some resi dents were left without a func tional computer for two weeks be cause of virus problems. But Bryant also acknowledged “it would be putting a lot of extra pressure on us when we’re al ready really busy.” There is also the question of whether the one-hour training session Dreiling specified would be sufficient for the tasks that RAs are expected to perform, es pecially for students who are less technologically inclined. “I think a lot of it needs to be left to experts in the area or peo ple who have been trained really well,” Stewart Livingston, an RA at Woodrow, said. At the beginning of the semester, Housing did offer to al low an understaffed Computer Services to use RAs as referral agents to help distribute any in formation that students would need to secure or fix their com puters, Luna said. He suggests ► TRAINING, SEE PAGE 4 Planning for USG’s future Architects envision a new look for the university, one step at a time BY KEVIN FELLNER TIIK (lAMKCOCK The USC campus is in the midst of one of the most elaborate and constructive expansion periods in its history. The theme of the past 10 years has been to replace or ^^restore bid buildings with modernized ones that give the ^^campus an original appearance. But as university archi tect onarhe Jeffcoat says, the administration is always looking for ward to its next campus addition. The campus saw its first surge with the construction of Horseshoe buildings such as Lieber College and the South Caroliniana Library in the 1830s. A century later, the Works Progress Administration sought to create jobs during the depression by undertaking construction pro jects including the McKissick Museum. But the most ambitious ex pansion has come about in the past decade with the implementation of the Board of Trustees’ 1994 Master Plan. The Master Plan wasn’t designed as a blueprint for the campus. Its recommendations are only directed at spec ifying what each section of the campus should be used for. For instance, the plan encourages the south end of campus to be used for new housing and recreation facilities. Since the plan was pro posed, East and South quads as well as the Strom Thurmond Fitness Center have opened, and West Quad is currently under construction. The first new building planned after the Master Plan s approval was when the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to build its National Advocacy Center on campus. Jeffcoat said the project began a new era of campus design and planning. One challenge planners have faced in the past decade’s planning has been incorporating architectural continuity among historic and new buildings. Jeffcoat said the simplistic design of the Towers Complex and other campus buildings planned in the mid-20th century represent a departure on campuses nationwide from consideration of a single ♦ARCHITECTS, SEE PAGE 3 PHOTO BY MORGAN FORD/THE GAMECOCK USC plans to remodel the Kirkland Apartments Into a hotel for National Advocacy students and guests of the university. Index Comics and Crossword _ 13 Classifieds_16 Horoscopes 13 Letters to the Editor _ 10 Online Poll 10 Police Report 7 Weather TODAY High 74 Low 60 THURSDAY High 81 Low 56 In This Issue ♦ NEWS California voters recall Davis. Page 2 ♦ VIEWPOINTS Julie Cook says student senators should take their jobs seriously. Page 10 ♦ THE MIX From hot dramas to reality shows, students are turning on the tube and tuning in to the new TV season. Page 11 ♦ SPORTS The football team prepares to take on Kentucky tomorrow night at home. Page 14