University of South Carolina Libraries
Health Center offers ways to quit smoking By AMANDA CRIDER THEGAMECOCK More than 27 percent of USC students are high-risk smokers, and USC is working to help them quit. The Thomson Student Health Center is offering a free three-week long smoking cessation program beginning Nov. 1 for all students, faculty, staff and their family members. The program offers free medicine such as nicotine patches and Zyban to help attendees gradually quit smoking, said Marcos Gardner, director of the program. The cessation program has an 85 percent success rate, which is higher than the national average of 30 percent, according to Gardner. “Approximately 27 percent to 28 percent of students at USC are smokers,” Gardner said. “Many of those students are freshmen and sophomores.” If the habit is picked up during freshman year, it is usually “formed permanently by sophomore year,” Gardner said. Smokers also tend to relate smoking to drinking, Gardner said, which causes people to light up more often when they have been drinking. He said the risks involved with smoking are not always clear when the habit is initially started, but risks of getting cancer or having a heart attack increase when smoking. “Nicotine is more addictive than heroin and cocaine,” Gardner said. “Many times people don’t realize that they are going to be addicted to nicotine. They think that they can quit when they want, but in reality they w can’t.” Gardner the best ways to successfully quit smoking include telling friends and family you are trying to quit and picking a time when it is convenient to quit. A smoker shouldn’t quit at a stressful and hectic time, he said, because a smoker’s body will go through withdrawal, which can make a person depressed and groggy. It is important to find a smoke free friend to talk with and to exercise regularly, he said. Quitters should also eat well. Many people do not quit because they are afraid they will gain weight, Gardner said. A slight weight gain is expected because of changes in metabolism, but significant weight gain is caused by quitters replacing cigarettes with unhealthy food. Keeping hard candies and chewing gum nearby can sometimes curb this problem, he said. Gardner said that after quitting smoking for one day, blood pressure, body temperature, pulse rate and blood oxygen levels return to normal and chances of a heart attack decrease. He also said that within two weeks, breathing gets better, nerve endings begin re-growing, blood circulation improves and lung function increases by 30 percent. The deadline to enroll for the smoking cessation program is Friday. To register for the class, call 296-CARE or the Thomson Student Health Center at 777-8248. Meetings will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 6:45 p m. Mondays and Wednesdays at the Russell House. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknevis@gwm.sc.edu ■ PARKING Continued from page 1 can keep building these garages.” Third-year physics student Jonathan Stenbeck has a garage spot in the Blossom Street garage. He said he didn’t know about the fee increases. “I don’t really want to pay it, but I don’t have a choice,” Stenbeck said. “I’ve just kind of given up. It’s going to suck, I’m going to have to pay a lot, but I’ll have to do it.” Stenbeck said he does think the new rates are worth getting a new parking garage, however. He said parking is getting worse on campus and around Columbia, so any thing can help. Adam said that normally Parking Services is a “self-supporting entity,” but the expense of building a parking lot can be too costly, so it arrives on the agenda of Board of Trustees. “Parking is a premium. It is very expensive to build a garage,” Adams said. “And if you think about $65 per month, that is only $2 a day, which is not too bad.” The construction of the Bull Street garage did not require any significant raised cost for students, Adams said, because money was given by the government to help with parking for the National Advocacy Center, a training center for federal prosecutors. This isn’t the first time Parking Services has raised rates this semester, however, as the department doubled parking sticker prices to $40 in August. Some students feel garage spots aren’t worth the money. “I think that if they are going to keep raising prices for parking decals, they should be able to guarantee a parking spot for everybody or at least assign parking lots,” said Kristin Reamer, a third-year music education student. “I paid $40, and half of the time I can’t even find a spot. I’m glad I used my money wisely, paying for parking that I can’t get.” The raised fees for next semester’s parking might not be the last bout of raised prices. The new baseball stadium could eliminate more parking, and USC might be forced to raise prices in the future. “As we look at the baseball stadium, we know that we are going to have to do something about parking,” Adams said. ‘5We know that this is something that will never go away.” Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu ■ CREED Continued from page 1 way of life, not something that you concentrate on one week of the year.” Harris said he doubted that most students considered it at all. “I’m sure half of them don’t think anything about it,” he said. Dennis Pruitt, vice president for Student Affairs, was one of the Creed’s early proponents and architects. “What happened is that, in the mid ’80s there were a lot of people that were looking at what they called a ‘social honor code,’” he said. Pruitt said the Carolinian Creed was inspired in part by a national trend. “In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s there were a lot of people designing speech codes,” he said. The Creed was intended to simplify the complex code that governed USC students after 1955. “Before 1955, there was really only one rule, ‘No student will engage in any behavior that would bring dishonor to his fellow students,”’ Pruitt said. “After 1955 there were hundreds.” “Through a series of discussions, we came up with the Carolinian Creed.” But the Creed was intended to function as a flexible set of guidelines rather than rules set in stone. “It was meant to be a creed rather than a code. A code is a document with enforceable penalties,” he said. “A creed should be mutually beneficial.” Creed Week is intended to call attention to that goal. “The purpose of Creed Week is to use the Creed as a teaching document,” Pruitt said. Harris said he was aware of no such week. He said he’d read the creed “a couple times in U-101, maybe.” “I’m sure if*s just a reason for people to throw a little party out in front of the Russell House, to get together to do nothing,” he said. Pruitt said the Creed was a manifestation of USC’s commitment to building a college community. “One of the things this university pledges for our students is that we’ll provide meaningful experiences,” he said. “So every time we have a speaker, every time we have a controversial situation ... what that does is that helps us build a community, and that helps us increase the value of a diploma.” The Carolinian Creed should be a guide for students year round, Pruitt said. “It’s not just one week. It’s a whole series of reintroductions and usage of the creed to help people understand why we treat each other with civility and respect.” Vane said he would rather celebrate something else. He suggested an international food week, “where booths are set up outside the Russell House and sell food of different ethnicity. We can celebrate the wonderful diversity of the food in the world.” “I’m serious,” he said, “that’d be so much cooler.” Comments on this story ? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu ■ COMPUTER Continued from page 1 purchase from. “The kind of system we use, a sort of ‘broadcast meritocracy’ if you will, allows the user community to call out public consumption excellent service or poor service and allows individual users the ability to read about the circumstances and frequency of such experiences so they can make their own decisions on a seller they have not done business with previously,” said Rob Smahl, vice president of marketing for PriceGrabber. While ratings systems are in place to alert users, there have been few complaints about purchases, Smahl said. “We believe the amount of poor user experiences our customers have online is not worse than they experience offline.” While it may seem intimidating to try building your own computer, Sleister said it’s no harder than reading the instructions that come with the parts. Books such as “Build Your Own Computer” and “Building a PC for Dummies” make the process even easier. For students living on campus, help is also available from USC’s Computer Services office. Computer Services recommends at least a 1 GHz processor, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB hard drive and Windows 2000 or XP Professional to get the most out of the high-speed network at USC. “The most common problem technicians have is a lack of the proper driver for the Ethernet card,” said Computer Services spokeswoman Kimberly South said: South said another concern for students might be that their old computer needs upgrading to meet specifications. Students may need more RAM or a new operating system to take full advantage of the network at USC or to be able to use other software. If students come across problems getting their computer running once it has been built or upgraded, Computer Service technicians can help them get through software problems and tell them what components they will need and approximate prices for them, South said. While there is an array of products with varying price ranges available to customize your homemade ... PC, constructing a barebones computer to handle the everyday needs of a college stu'dent is less costly. For example, two hours spent looking for parts on pricegrabber.com was plenty of time to put together a shopping list for a computer with 80 GB hard drive, 256 MB of RAM, a monitor, Windows XP, all other requisite parts to make the machine run and even a color printer to save those trips to the computer lab to print out an essay. The bill for this computer totaled $647. Comparable computers, labeled as the entry-level models, from Hewlett Packard and Dell were significantly higher-priced. The HP Pavilion, once customized to include everything this homemade machine would have, sells for $935.95 at HP’s online store. Dell, which has marketed itself toward college students by offering low prices and featuring commercials depicting their machines being used by college students, offers the Dimension 2400 series desktop at their online store with the same specifications for $838. Both prices are listed after mail-in rebates. “The more you want to spend on parts, the greater the price difference to store-bought computers gets,” Sleister said. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu "In the Heart of Every Gamecock There is One Spirit That Binds Us" I • “• ;«» r. - - 'M " ;: . We Lost Last Week, So Come On Now... I I Make www.capitalonebowl.com your home page and vote everyday!!! •[ If COCK THE VOTE! I M I Help us protect our roost in the 2004 Capital One Bowl Mascot of the Year competition. With your help, f Cocky can win back-to-back National Mascot of the Year championships. Remember to vote everyday at ■ iviviv.capitalonebowl.com. ft _ s y _ f