Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Students to eat wings for charity BY JACOB DAVIS THE GAMECOCK * The Chi Omega sorority will hold its third annual War of the Wings contest Wednesday to ben efit the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The event will be held on Davis Field from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Advanced tickets are available for $5 and tickets at the door cost $6. The Thomas Reed Band will play, and there will be a raffle with door prizes and a chicken wing and piz za buffet. However the main event is the wing-eating contest, where five-person teams will eat as many wings as possible in 45 sec onds. Registering a team costs $50 and entries will be accepted up until 6 p.m. on the night of the event. The winning teams from the contest will receive plaques., Students who are not entered in the contest can still buy a ticket and enjoy the buffet. Additional contributions can be made to the fund-raiser through the “wishing well,” set up outside in the Humanities and Gambrell area on Tuesday and Wednesday. All pro ceeds from the event go to fund the wish of Monica, a Columbia na tive and UNC-Charlotte freshman. Monica, a long-time Wish Child who was diagnosed with a brain tumor, wants to make a trip to Newjfork City to shop and see a Broadway Show. Chi Omega plans to hold a pre-departure par • ty for Monica before she leaves, sometime in May or early June. In 2001 Chi Omega adopted the Make-A-Wish Foundation as its national philanthropy, and have helped to grant a wish every year for the past three years. The av erage wish costs between $4,000 and $6,000, and any proceeds left over are used to give parties or buy presents for the child. Last year Chi Omega raised nearly $6,000, and the chapter’s goal this year is $8,000. The chapter has attended Wish Granting workshops and is ac tively involved with the Foundation. Fourth-year public relations student and Chi Omega member Katie Barrett empha sized how important it is for ev eryone to get involved in philan thropy. “Being involved with the Make-A-Wish Foundation gives volunteers a specific, visible goal to work toward, and we get to see firsthand the fruits of our labor,” she said. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu WWW.. dailygamecock .com i TREE! Mean Bean Soft Taco we do things different... Quicld Healthy! fresh! 934 Harden St/765-2188 valid through +/200+ — one per customer PRESENT COUPON & STUDENT ID Pharmacy CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 gram that produces top quality students, some of the best in the university,” pharmacy professor Gene Reeder said. Pharmacy dean Farid Sadik asked Reeder to comment for this article on his behalf. Reeder said he thinks the pharmacy school could be com pletely closed in five years and that he expects to lose many out standing faculty members if they are told to relocate. “How do we attract and main tain top faculty when this will be primarily a distance education campus?” he said. Opponents are also concerned about the possibility of losing quality instruction by using streaming video for some in struction. “I’m not sure I’d want the pharmacist preparing my IV so lution to have learned that from watching TV,” Reeder said. Sorensen couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday but has been promoting the merger since November. He has talked about the need to combine the strengths of two noteworthy programs to make an outstanding one. A group of students have formed the Student Alliance to Protect Pharmacists in South Carolina to oppose the merger. The group is focusing on in forming legislators, board of trustees members and alumni of the premises in the merger re port. The group is organizing a rally at the State House Thursday to speak with legisla tors about their concerns during session breaks. “We’re very concerned about where this is going and what this is leading to,” said second-year professional program student John Pugh, the group’s spokesman. Pugh attended a meeting Monday with state Sen. Ronnie Cromer, R-Prosperity, a licensed pharmacist and a graduate of USC’s pharmacy school. Cromer told students that, as a graduate, he will take great interest in the process. The proposal recommends that after the initial four-year ed ucation on both campuses, stu dents would get their clinical ex perience at the Charleston cam pus for a year and then partici pate the final year in a tradition al clerkship somewhere in the state. The fall 2003 freshmen class size for USC’s undergraduate pharmacy program was 374. USC’s pharmacy school current ly serves 650 students. Meanwhile, the state is facing a pharmacist shortage. There are more than 5,000 licensed phar macists in South Carolina and nearly 200,000 nationwide. But experts say it’s not nearly enough and that it’s following a trend of increasing shortages in nearly all health care fields. “We just want to make sure that we take care of the needs of the cit izens of the state with the avail ability of pharmacists, especially with the upcoming situation of the aging baby boomer population,” Cromer said. Cromer added that MUSC doesn’t have the space or re sources to handle the size of the proposed school. Sorensen and Greenberg have spoken publicly in favor of combining the research re sources of the universities to build strong collaborative ef forts in biotechnology fields. The two emphasized in their let ter a statewide vision for phar macy education and a new dean and administration focused on clinical research. Pharmacy deans from Oregon State University, Texas Tech University and the University of Florida were consulted for the merger report. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu EIP.J Salaam PHOTO BY JASON STEELMAN/THE GAMECOCK Alhamid, a member of the Muslim Students Association, writes students' names in Arabic as part of Islam Awareness Week. Bush announces plans to increase U.S. troops in Iraq BY TERENCE HUNT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Conceding a couple of “tough weeks in Iraq,” President Bush signaled Tuesday night he is ready to increase American troop strength in the country, adding he intends to usher in a new era of democracy and “finish the work of the fall en.” At a combination speech and news conference at the White House, Bush rejected a suggestion that Iraq was becoming another Vietnam — a quagmire without ready exit. “I think that analogy is false,” he said. “I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops and sends the wrong message to the enemy.” One year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Bush said a re cent spike in savage violence is neither a civil war nor a popular uprising. “The violence we’ve seen is a power grab by... extreme and ruthless elements” from in side Iraa and from outside. While the troops will remain, Bush also said the United States would stick to a June 30 deadline for handing over political power to Iraqis. He said a U.N. envoy would help decide which Iraqis would be placed in charge. Asked whether he believes he has acted correctly even if it costs him his job, he replied quickly, “I don’t intend to lose my job. Because I’m going to tell the American people I have a plan to win the war on terror. ” Bush opened the session in the White House East Room with a 17 minute statement — roughly the duration of a medium-length ad dress to the nation. The audience included top aides, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Chief of Staff Andrew Card and political guru Karl Rove among them. While Bush opened with re marks about Iraq, the questions were broader — focusing as well on the September 11 terrorist at tacks. Bush sidestepped at least two opportunities to say he wanted to apologize or take personal re sponsibility. “Had I had any inkling whatso ever that people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to protect the country. Just like we’re working to prevent further attacks,” he said. Asked whether he felt any re sponsibility for the attack, Bush said he grieved for the families of the victims and said in retrospect he wished, for example, the Homeland Security Department had been in place. The president also said a highly publicized intelligence briefing he received on Aug. 6,2001, contained “nothing new” in terms of dis closing that Osama bin Laden hoped to attack the United States. He was heartened, he said, by the disclosure that the FBI was con ducting numerous investigations. But that claim was undercut earlier in the day at a televised hearing by the commission inves tigating the terrorist attacks. Former Acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard testified he didn’t know where the material came from, and one commission mem ber, Slade Gorton, suggested many of the investigations related to fund raising, not the threat of at tacks. Bush said he would investigate the matter. Bush strode into the East Room of the White House midway through the deadliest month for Americans since Baghdad fell last spring. At least 83 U.S. forces have been killed and more than 560 wound ed this month, according to the U.S. military, as American troops fight on three fronts: against Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, Shiite militiamen in the south and gunmen in Baghdad and on its outskirts. At least 678 U.S. troops have died since the war began in March 2003. 0,4/WjdL /U*M t AN HISTORIC RESIDENCE Efficiency $525 One Bedroom $585 Two Bedroom $620 Rent includes all utilities and cable TV. All rates quoted are month to month. (Leases available, prices subject to change) Located across from the University Of South Carolina Horseshoe and the State Capital, Cornell Arms offers the premier location for downtown living. (803) 799-1442 1230 PENDLETON STREET COLUMBIA, SC 29201