The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 22, 2004, Page 3, Image 3
■ 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.
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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.
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• ” *
---* •---*-‘
• 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.”
•
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•
■ 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.
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■ 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.
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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»>^
•_._
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