The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 08, 2003, Image 1
www.dailygamecock.com WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8,2003 • "*££45
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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