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■ SWIMMER Continued from page 1 again in my life, ever.” USC police arrested Kacprzak on Sept. 14 after an unidentified victim picked him out of a photograph lineup of men suspected of spying on five women who were showering in the Blatt P.E. Centet and the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center. Kacprzak' admitted to police that he peered over a shower curtain at a woman on Sept. 1. While that victim pressed charges, Fifth Circuit Assistant Solicitor Erin Gaddy said the state will pursue no further peeping charges against Kacprzak as part of a plea bargain. Crews told the court during the hearing that Kacprzak underwent an examination by a forensic psychologist, who evaluated the swimmer as “arrogant, immature and normal.” “Those investigations are gruesome,” Crews said after the hearing. “He’s been through hell.” v^rews asked that hooper consider Kacprzak’s future before making a decision. The swimmer was attending USC on a full scholarship before the men’s swimming and diving team dismissed him last month. USC will permit Kacprzak, who has voluntarily left his campus housing at Bates West, to finish the semester in Columbia. “He is world-class caliber,” Crews told the judge. He also said Kacprzak might leave USC in January and that the swimmer is considering applying to the University of Iowa as well as to schools in Ohio, Connecticut and New Jersey. “He’s well sought-after,” Crews said. After the hearing, Crews added, the case was resolved by NCAA standards. Gaddy told the judge that Kacprzak had no prior criminal record. “He never touched anyone, and he never made any physical threats to anyone,” she added. While Gaddy told the judge that the state was not opposed to probationary sentencing, Cooper gave Kacprzak the maximum penalty anyway. Crews said Kacprzak was too distraught to make a statement after the hearing. Comments on this story ? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu M STRAND Continued from page 1 “This is perhaps the oddest poem I’ve ever written," he said in his introduction of“elevator.” “You should never introduce a poem that way.” Strand didn’t talk much about his poetry, thought. “Clearly, I don’t have much to say about these poems,” he said, “I don’t remember writing them, and I don’t remember what I was thinking when I wrote them. Strand couldn’t say which of his poems he liked best. “I don’t really have a favorite poem,” he said. “I have poems I think I wrote well.” He traced his own fascination with poetry to a youthful encounter with the work of Wallace Stevens, reading “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” “That was the moment I felt the possibility of poetry in my life.” Strand said he couldn’t pick a favorite poet, though. “I tend to like poetry.” Strand is the author of a book of stories, as well as several volumes of translations, monographs on contemporary artists and books for children. He recently received the prestigious MacArthur fellowship. After answering a few questions from the audience, he sat down to sign copies of his books. Ashleigh Bastak, a fourth-year English student, said she found Strand’s reading “inspirational.” “When Dr. Dings was sharing his work in class I was kind of inspired,” she said. “Anybody who reads his work is struck with the desire to have his way with words.” Dings studied under Strand in Utah, before Strand moved to Washington, D.C., for his work as U.S. poet laureate in 1990. Dings convinced Strand to come speak. Comments on this stoiy? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.se. edu • ” * ---* •---*-‘ • I Making ends'wept Graduate student struggles to pay for school,, family Public Health graduate student Shane Dixon is finding it all but impossible to survive while trying to finish the final written portion of his master’s thesis. Even with a bachelor’s in biology and an almost-complete master’s in public health, Dixon has been unable to get a job to • support his family and has had to rely on government food stamps so his family can eat. * ■ “I’ve put in probably^.200 applications in the past five months. I’ve had four int^yiews out’of those (applications) and no jobs,” Dixon said. k 9 f • Shane’s wffe, Jill, wa$#v^pirking at W%I-Mart, but her paychecks t • were not enough to cover their expenses. With his inability to find work and the need to have someone at home with their 2-year-old * t *. * • son, Jill Dixon will begin working^as a dancer at Platinum Plus, a local strip club, as early as Saturday so the family can pay its bills. • • BY MARJORIE RJDDL-E “I feel pretty worthless. I wouldn’t choose for her to do that,” Dixon said about his wife dancing at Platinum Plus. “It’s just something she was willing to do even though she hates the job herself. She just said to me today that she hopes I get hired soon so she won’t have to put up with it.” Shane Dixon does not disapprove of someone choosing to work as a dancer. “I (just) don’t like people having to do that to survive,” he said. Jill Dixon was originally going to work at Platinum Plus as a waitress, but the club’s management convinced her she could make more money and work less hours if she danced. “They go for certain looks. I’ve been working out four or five times a week for the past sue months, so I’m kind of buff,” Jill Dixon said. Jill Dixon has been pursuing her dream of independent filmmaking for the past six years after dropping out of the University of Central Florida, where she was pursuing a chemistry and forensic science degree and had a 4.0 GPA. Since the family needs the money, Jill Dixon said she has no choice but to go work at the club. “I despise, I absolutely hate stripping. I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t turn tricks. I (will probably) make the least amount of money in there,” she said. Jill Dixon said that Platinum Plus lets their strippers work when they want to. While the flexible hours are appealing, Dixon said she is dreading the stan of her new job. “I should go in (Friday), but I really don’t want to,” Jill Dixon said. “I’m going to have no choice but to go in and dance.” After two years in the Public Health graduate program, Shane Dixon successfully defended his master’s thesis over the summer and planned on graduating in August. “I filed for graduation at the very beginning of summer. Originally I was supposed to have defended (my thesis) and turned everything *in, but I was waiting for validation of my models before I could finish my paper,” Dixon said. • Validation took longer than expected, and Dixon found that he would have to postpone graduation until December to finish Editing his thesis. To completf his thesis and graduate? he had to sign up for a one-hour flass for the fall semester. • Shane Dixon described dfcs one hour thesis preparation as ARrictly a formality of paying the sthool $400.” His adviser, Dwayne Porter, aided ' Dixon by extending his assistantship through the fall so that he would be able to pay his bills and finish school. Unfortunately, Dixon discovered through VIP that he would have tp sign up for six hours of course credit to keep his assistantship. Six credit hours meant^hat he would have to pay abo*t $2,400 up front^ “The assistantship was going be paying me $1,000 a month, but I had to pay everything up front,” Dixon fiid. a “They canceled my assistantship because I couldn’t afford the hours.” Dixon said he wishes USC had been more helpful in assisting him in^thii 1 process. “This particular situation aggi^vated me. In general, the university is becoming a business cor^jration wher^ we’re just a number,” he said. • _ Even more frustrating for Dixon was not ftiowinj^ he had to re-file for graduation, pissing tfce filing deadline and having to pay a $25 late fee. Dixon said he and Jill “scrounged for the $25, which we didn’t have.” When he went to pay the fee after Oct. 9, hf^vas told A then owed $50 •because he had missed another deadline. “It always seems they’re nickel-and diming us,” Dixon said. “I’ve found that when it comes to policy, it’s not < always in black and white.” Cheryl Addy, associate dean in the Arnold School of Public Health, said the issue of students not finishing their requirements by deadline js not at all unusual. #Addy said most students who have to spend an extra semester to complete their program are able to find jobs to easelthe burden of paying for school and kipporting themselves. She said that Dixfm’s situation is fuifortunate becaus# he seems to be caught in the middle of hgving either an assiAantship nr employment to minimize the financial difficulty. H^ ^dyifce for Dixon would be to t , • • • “ke«p trying, keep working at finding a job and finishing the thesis, because having the degree completed may be a factor in finding a job.” For other students, Addy recommend# they “pay attention to the deadline. Sometimes it’s unavoidable (to miss a deadline). But know the guidelines of assistantships.” “Students *need to be aware of the expectations for their program and very cognizant of those deadlines and what is > requited to meet those deadlines,” Addy said. Uhfortunately for Jfrn Dixon and other struggling students facing graduation, a degree in hand does not automatically signify a job offer. Dixon’s financial difficulties do not end once he gets a job. He still has $60,000 in loans to repay. “I don’t see any end to this. There is a percentage of people that can get jobs,” Dixc* said. “I’m not finding any employment that shows my investment in education was wortft it.” • Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknervs@gwm.se. edu • ■ SCSSA Continued from page 1 “We would like to emerge with a functioning constitution and a board of elected officers,” Hughes said. The delegations from each school plan to elect a state chairman, vice-chairman, media relations chairman, grassroots chairman and a lobbyist chairman. “Ideally, this will be a model the representatives can take back and model at their own schools,” Scott said. Scott explained a shared organizational structure would make communication and coordination between the groups easier. However, he stressed the plan was only a structure. “This is a first-year plan,” Scott said. Hughes said that the power structure might resemble that in place at schools like use. You 11 have two bodies. One will be made up of the elected leaders from each school, and the other will be the school representatives,” Hughes said. “The representative body will advise while the leadership body will make the official decisions, much like the Board of Trustees make official decisions after being advised by the president or provost.” She also stressed that representation in the body will be equal: one school, one vote. USC Upstate will have the same vote as USC Columbia. Clemson student body president Adam Hammond reiterated how important the meeting was. “We’ve been working toward this for three years, and the most important thing is that we don’t drop the ball now that so much work has been done,” Hammond said. “We want to come out of this weekend with an issue to bring to the legislature and an established structure that will guarantee the sustainability of the group.” Activities will begin Saturday at 10 a.m. as the school representatives register at USC From noon until 2 p.m. the group will be received at a reception at the President’s House. From there, the group will split, one session for executives, another for representatives. During the executive sessions Saturday, the leaders from each school will meet to hammer out a constitution for the group, as well as establish organizational goals. While the executives meet, the representatives will attend workshops like “Grassroots Campaign Planning” and “Recruiting Student Volunteers,” which will educate them^on how to start up their own branch organizations once they return to their home schools. They will also hear guest speaker Rita Allison, a member of the Committee on Higher * Education who works closely with Gov. Mark Sanford. The groups will reassemble at 9 a.m. Sunday where the executives will announce the results of their meetings. They will also see a presentation on the readership program by representatives from USA Today and will hear a presentation by Scott titled “Lobbying and Negotiating to Win.” The weekend’s events wrap up at 3:30 p.m. Sunday when the groups will return home to bring the results of the conference to their own schools. “We’ve tried this before, but never have we had such a high level of support or involvement; we are very optimistic. We want to push for the betterment of higher education in the state, and to a lesser extent, influence general education policy,” Scott said. The group hopes to get a response from the state legislature when that body returns to session injanuary. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gam.sc. edu ■ FITZPATRICK.^ 4 Continued from page 1 . • 9 Communication, as well as the director of graduate studies and the chairwoman of communicationfcarts. Fitzpatrick was named associate dean for' the social sciences in 1997, and later became senior adviser to the chancellor for informat^m technology and distributed learning. « * “She is an energetic and visionary leader, a nationally recognized scholar and has anfoutstanding record of accomplishnfent in university administration and leadership positions at a la^e, comprehensive public research university*” Becker said in a news* release. ^ 1 Outside of university life, Fitzpatriclc has served organizations such as*he^Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences, the AAU Liberal Arts and Sciences Deans, and the Higher Learning Commission. She has also been a regular reviewer of grants for the Aostralfan Research Council as well as being actively involved in establishing a college for women in the Middle East. “Merging the managtment structures of the colleges • # allows administrators ip work across disciplinary lines in performing the teaching, research and outreach missijn of Carolina’s flagship university,” Fitzpatrick wrote in an e-mail. “The merger will help individual programs and departments to fulfill their own particular missions.” Fitzpatrick attended Temple University, where she earned her undergAluate degree in political science in 1971. She then earned her master’s in communication from Emerson College in 1973 and her doctorate in communication from Temple in 1976. She said she is excited about coming to the Palmetto State. “The campus is lovely, I am charmed by the sense of history and the care taken on the preservation of some of th^older campus buildings,” Fitzpatrick wrote in an e-mail. “Rumors have it that your winters are more salutary than are those in Wisconsin.” Fitzpatrick will officially take her post as dean Jan. 16, the same day the merger will be complete and the College of Arts and Sciences will open. Comments on this story ? E-mail * gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu A tfgf*9 *f& The Technology Support (r ijL# ^ f & Training Management t :**41. *Mfa Program is holding an OPEN HOUSE, ^ - / <ev -—^ McCutchen House firl,.,lrf. 7:„.„„lj, (located on USC's historic horseshoe) October 25,2004 ■****-, 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. ®*-*-~***~~*~~*’ 'fKojptf' f*rnw<yirH>wf Come talk to faculty and students and discover what opportunities lie ahead for your future. For more detailed information about this event, visit our website at www.hrsm.sc.edu/TSTM or call 803.777.6622 %$im£r A Sjp&Hf ?*&» vyi i»>^ •_._ [travel]1