AMECOCK
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18,2005 *l**«*s~,».
Presidential candidates
rally runoff supporters
By TAYLOR SMITH
STAFF WRITER
Student Government runoff elections
are nearing an end, but the two candidates
for president are reiterating their
platforms and revisiting voter groups.
Neither Yvonne Miller nor Justin
Williams were able to earn a majority of
the first election’s votes, so both
candidates returned to their campaigns
and familiar tactics.
“You just got to keep trucking,” a
“tired” Williams said. “I believe I am
doing the right thing.”
Neither candidate mentioned any
trouble acquiring supplies for the
extended campaign trail, and they both
felt their message was being conveyed to
students who would pick the right
person for the job.
“Right now everything is looking
okay,” Miller said. “We are just trying to
get my name out the best way I can.”
Williams said he is using the time to
advertise, distributing mixed CDs
endorsed by local disc jockeys. Williams
added that he was speaking to graduate
students as well as undergraduate groups.
“I don’t know how to reach graduate
students. They have kids,” Williams
said. “But I am going to be sure to talk
to them.”
After giving a WUSC radio address,
Miller said she her primary message was
to reiterate and reinforce students’ rights
on campus, like the right to be aware of
crimes occurring nearby.
“I want to have USCPD address the
students, maybe in a press conference,”
Miller said. “USC students should know
crime statistics.”
♦ Please see CAMPAIGNING, page 3
KATIE KIRKLAND/THE GAMECOCK
Fans rush the court after Tuesday night’s basketball game against Kentucky in the Colonial Center. The SEC might fine USC $5,000.
Disorder on the court
SG Senate resolves to reimburse Athletics Department for possible SECfines
By JON TURNER
NEWS EDITOR
Student Government adopted a
resolution Wednesday to appropriate
$5,000 toward the payment of a possible
SEC fine.
The SEC is considering the
possibility of a fine against USC for its
fans behavior during the basketball
game against Kentucky on Tuesday
night. Cheering students rushed the
court with seconds still on the clock as
the Gamecocks defeated the No. 3
Wildcats in an enormous upset.
Third-year political science student
Adam Piper, the senator who introduced
the resolution, called the misconduct “a
triumph for school spirit.”
“Whereas the general student body
screamed their lungs out for greater
than forty minutes, giving our beloved
Gamecocks a ‘Sixth Man’ on the court
the resolution states, “ ... whereas
the Southeastern Conference fines
member institutions for such actions, be
it resolved by the student senate that it
is recommended that the Senate
Finance Committee appropriates
$5,000, as a donation to the Athletics
Department on behalf of satisfied
students... .*
USC Sports Information Director
Kerry Tharp said the SEC would
probably announce its decision today.
“The rule, and the policy is clear that
you’re not to come onto the floor or the
field after the contest,” he said.
Tharp said he had heard about the
resolution.
“I think it’s admirable,” he said. “I
don’t know exactly how that would play
into it, if indeed we do receive a fine.”
Despite SG’s resolution to donate the
money to the Athletics Department,
Tharp said he wasn’t sure the gift would
be accepted.
“We certainly appreciate the
students’ support,” he said. “We need
them at the remaining two home games.
We don’t want to curb their enthusiasm
by any means, but they also need to
know that there is a policy in place and
we need to abide by that policy.”
Piper said the idea of the resolution
had occurred to him when he read the
SEC policy on the matter.
He called the situation on the floor of
the Colonial Center a “special
circumstance.”
“There was no destruction,” he said.
“There was no bad conduct. Everybody
was just celebrating.” He was quick to
add, “In no shape or form do we
condone the behavior.”
If the Athletics Department doesn’t
want a donation, Piper said, the $5,000
will be returned to the senate’s special
projects fund.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu
Professors breathing new life into African Studies Program
By JESSICA FOSTER
THE GAMECOCK
USC professors are working to
rejuvenate the university s African
Studies Program, which seeks to
promote interest in African issues and
provide a forum for research.
The program, reestablished in fall
2004 after years of inactivity, sponsors
public events and allows students to
minor in African Studies through a
multidisciplinary curriculum.
Program coordinator and African
history professor Ronald Atkinson said
the program had drifted into limbo.
“It just kind of died away and so
what we’re doing is just an attempt to
begin to reconstitute the program, to
revitalize the program,” he said.
Housed in the Walker Institute of
International and Area Studies in the
College of Arts and Sciences, the African
Studies Program brings together
professors in fields such as history,
geology, anthropology, business,
educational psychology and public health.
“There are faculty who are interested
in Africa who are just beginning to get
together and plan some programs and
activities," Atkinson said. “I think it’s
exciting to get something going again.”
Atkinson became interested in
African studies as a student, inspired by
a professor at Kalamazoo College in
Michigan. He, in turn, has heard from
former students who have gone on to
earn doctorates in African history, study
in Africa or participate in the Peace
Corps in Africa.
“I think that it’s been a real privilege
to introduce so many students here to
Africa and African history and to see how
many of those students become really
engaged in that interest,” Atkinson said.
Heading up the program, Atkinson
will help provide students with more
opportunities to learn about the
continent that fascinates him.
“One of the main goals of the
program is to foster campus and
community interest in and awareness of
issues related to Africa, especially (but
not exclusively) Sub-Saharan Africa,”
according to the African Studies Web
site. To this end, the African Studies
Program sponsors public lectures,
colloquia, and symposia, and supports
faculty and student research on African
topics, both in Africa and elsewhere.”
Last semester’s events include a
workshop about economic development
in Sub-Saharan Africa, presentations on
genocide in Rwanda and a lecture
focusing on the Somali Bantu. This
semester’s events have not been
announced.
The lectures and courses organized
by the program aim to teach students
explore Africa from a variety of
perspectives across several disciplines.
To satisfy requirement? for an African
Studies minor, students can choose from
Africa-related courses in history,
geography, anthropology, English,
French, economics, political science and
religion, as well as language courses in
Swahili and Arabic. Students also have
the option of focusing on particular
themes and traveling for research.
For Atkinson, traveling to Africa,
studying and researching it has been a
♦ Please see REJUVENATE, page 3
DEAN DIALOGUE
NICK ESARES/THE GAMECOCK
Honors College Dean Peter Sederberg will step down in
June. Sederberg has been with the Honors College since its
founding in 1977. The college is housed on the Horseshoe.
Dean leaves college
with bright future
By TAYLOR SMITH
STAFF WRITER
Located on the Horseshoe, the
South Carolina Honors College
boasts the highest SAT scores on
campus.
Honors College Dean Peter
Sederberg is stepping down in June,
but the tradition he cultivated in
USC’s youngest college will remain
intact.
Sederberg was instrumental in
getting the college started in 1977
and worked to build respect for it
within both the university and the
greater academic community.
Having an honors college raises
USC’s prestige as a university too,
Sederberg said.
When the college was
introduced, the competition for
acceptance was fierce, but nothing
compared to the 1400 average SAT
of today.
“Probably half of the class we
admitted in 1983 would not get
into the college today,” Sederberg
said.
Despite the raised admission
standards, the Honors College has
managed to raise the caliber of
students’ overall numbers.
“In the last 25 years, there are
800 students that would not have
been here then,” Sederberg said.
, Jeremy Wolfe, a fifth-year
honors student recently named to
the USA Today All-USA academic
team, said the Honors College was
appealing to him because he knew
USC had a passion for
undergraduate research unlike some
Ivy League schools.
Wolfe said he appreciated that
the university had such a focus on
♦ Please see SEDERBERG, page 3
Academic libraries
link up to create
research database
By SOREN KORNEGAY
THE GAMECOCK
Several academic libraries around
the state, including USC’s Thomas
Cooper Library, have united to create
a massive statewide database of
electronic research materials.
The Partnership Among South
Carolina Academic Libraries looks for
the South Carolina Virtual Academic
Library to unite existing electronic
resources with an annual licensing
agreement that would allow
compilation of 12,000 full-text journal
volumes in core academic disciplines,
business and health sciences.
The new database would allow
students to read entire journals online
over the Internet. It would replace a
system similar to a topic index, eaoi
entry containing merely the titles and
subjects of articles within that journal
— rather than full journals or articles.
Thomas McNally, a Thomas
Cooper librarian, said the system
would also benefit non-students.
“One of the things we had written
into the contract was that anyone in
the general public could use the new
system once it was in place, whether
they are students, small businessmen,
or anyone else in the community,” he
said.
PASCAL’S other initiative, called
“universal borrowing,” serves to create
a unified collection of almost evdry
book within South Carolina’s
academic libraries — allowing
students to borrow any of the 12
million titles in the system. Students
would place book orders over the
Internet. The system would be able to
ship any title within two days of its
request.
The PASCAL initiative is being
paid for by a $2 million donation from
the S.C. General Assembly. The
funds, taken from unclaimed lottery
winnings, were initially expected to be
a one-time donation, but McNally
said, the libraries were looking for an
annual contribution.
“We feel like this makes it a
program important enough to cover
annually in the state’s budget,” he said.
The program also eliminates
redundancy in the purchasing needs of
all the state’s academic libraries.
“We feel like this is a win-win
situation for the student, the
community and the state,” McNally
said.
Comments on this story ? E-mail
gamecocknews@givm.sc. edu
I IN THIS ISSUE
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■i ._ ■
♦ THE MIX
Subliminal
messages
Sublime tribute band
Badfish visits Headliners
tonight.
Page 5
♦ SPORTS
’Bama bound
The men’s basketball
team looks to force
another upset as they
travel to Tuscaloosa to
take on the Alabama
Crimson tide.
Page 8
——————mmmmmmmmmmmm WW,W.dailygameCOck.COm ^—