■el
that
nted
does
Irew
and
with
elec-
The Blue
Banner
Features
Down Break and Life’s Ruin play at the
Asheville Music Zone
■ see page 6
Also inside:
Sports
JjKM Men’s basketball off to a shaky start
■ see page 7
Opinions
“The color of our sporting blood”
by Craig Lovelace
■ see page 4
Volume 34 Issue 12
Closing the
computer
literacy gap
f UNCA helps older residents
join ‘technological revolution
The University Of North Carolina At Asheville
Ed Fickle
Staff Reporter
UNCA sah^es Village
UNCA is closing the generation
ap of computer use by having stu
dents teach older Asheville residents
computer literacy through a new
program offered by the North Caro
lina Center for Creative Retirement.
“I really like the idea of working
with older people from outside
UNCA. It seemed like a really good
thing to do to gain experience and
help others in the process,” said
essica Buhl, an undeclared sopho
more at
UNCA who
volunteered
to teach some
classes.
Seven
UNCA un
dergraduates
helped teach
the classes,
with guidance
from Beth
Pilz, a former
IBM em
ployee who
now works in
the Center for
Creative Re
tirement at
UNCA. A
$10,000
grant from
Smith
“What we
find easy to
use is com
pletely for
eign to
people who
grew up
without ad-
V a n c e d
computer
technology”
-Daniel
Mischit,
technology
education
consultant
Barney’s
Citigroup Foundation provided the
funds for the class.
“Young people around my age
usually forget that even though ad
vanced technology was a part of
their lives from a very early age,
their grandparents, and often their
parents, were not part of this tech-
lological revolution,” said Daniel
Mischit, a technology education
consultant who works with schools
in the Raleigh area. “What we find
intuitive and easy to use is com
pletely foreign to people who grew
up without advanced computer
technology.”
The classes began this fall, in an
effort to provide free computer
learning courses to mid and low-
income older Asheville area resi
dents. The UNCA students who
taught the classes were freshman
Ashley Lusk, sophomore Jessica
Buhl, and seniors Becky Guy,
See LITERACY Page 2
WALTER FYLER/PHOTO EDITOR
Three residence halls in Governor’s Village have been demolished to make room for new buildings. UNCA will recycle any usable
items from the three buildings. Summer Starling, a junior at Guilford College, suggested the idea.
School plans to recycle thomands of tons of usable items from demolished dorms
Stuart Gaines
Staff Reporter
UNCA has recently undertaken its largest
and most comprehensive recycling project to
date. Three former residence halls being al
most completely recycled in conjunction with
their demolition and replacement that origi
nally began as a student research project.
“I am very pleased with the administration
and planners of UNCA for Ustening to the
research I put together,” said Summer Star
ling, a junior at Guilford College and former
UNCA student. “It is to the university’s credit
that the students actually have a voice on
issues besides homecoming.”
The idea originally began as a UNCA sum
mer research project for Starling with the help
of Unified Solar, a UNCA environmental
organization, and Paul Braese, mechanical
engineer at UNCA.
Prior to the demolition of Swain, Aycock
and Craig residence halls in the Governor’s
Village, the buildings were stripped of all
usable parts, including light fixtures, win
dows, smoke alarms and concrete blocks,
according to Steve Baxley, director of Facili
ties, management and planning.
After the demolition, over 2,000 tons of
debris, or aggregate, was transported to an on-
campus location to be used for campus build
ing projects, including the new residence halls
built in the Village.
The estimated cost of the new residence
halls, which are scheduled to be completed in
the fall of 2003, is $11.5 million, and will be
paid for through housing fees, according to
the news release about the project.
“We are very pleased with this approach,”
said Baxley. “Recycling the buildings is an
environmentally positive action, and it will
save us the cost of taking the buildings to the
Buncombe County landfill.”
The aggregate will be crushed, and can be
used for the construction of both new build
ings and roads on campus, according to the
news release.
“The hard work of so many different people
has made this whole thing possible,” said
Braese. “Lynne Patzig worked in the build
ings almost every weekend this fall to coordi
nate the stripping of the usable parts.”
Patzig, recycling coordinator at UNCA,
helped bring a variety of people to the project
including computer-gamers, who salvaged
See RECYCLING Page 10
Smoke covers Asheville area after local fires
Alison McKone
Staff Reporter
Western North Carolina has ex
perienced many large wild fires over
the last couple of weeks. This
shrouded much of the area, includ
ing the UNCA campus, in smoke
for several days.
“The smoke caused my aller
gies to worsen,” said Amber
Adams, an undeclared sopho
more. “I had cold-like symp
toms even after the smoked
cleared away.”
According to the Asheville Citi-
zen-Times, there have been 10 for
est fires in WNC this fall that were
intentionally set. The largest of these
was in Swain County inside the
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park. It burned 7,380 acres before
it was put out.
These fires have been exception
ally hazardous because WNC had
not recieved rain since late Octo
ber. Because of this, there has been
a burning ban statewide since Oct.
29.
Firefighters were called in from
around the country to come and
help contain the blaze of the many
fires in the region. In fact, many
spent their Thanksgiving in the
parking lot of the WNC Agri
cultural Center, which has trans
formed into a staging area for
firefighters over the past couple
of months, according to the
See FIRES Page 10
A computer is
missing from
Owen Hall.
November 29, 2001
Equipment
stolen from
Owen Hail
Lana Coffey
Staff Reporter
Public safety officers are investi
gating a lapse in security that re
sulted in an individual(s) stealing a
television and central processing
unit from Owen Hall Nov. 26.
“I never really felt like my stuff
would be safe in
Owen,” said
Ben Blitch, a
junior art major.
When he leaves
Owen, he said
he usually takes
his art and sup
plies with him.
The cost of
the equipment
stolen totals
$1,500, accord
ing to Adams.
“We’re taking steps right now
just to make sure that it doesn’t
happen again, basic steps like keep
ing those rooms locked at night,”
said Adams.
Blitch said he thought the equip
ment was stolen because it had a lot
of monetary value.
“They probably wouldn’t steal a
kid’s art stuff,” said Blitch.
The equipment was taken from
room 229 of Owen Hall and was
part of the accounting and manage
ment departments, said Adams.
Public safety received the call in
forming them that the equipment
had been stolen at around 3:30
a.m.
A housekeeper noticed the equip
ment had been in the room before
Thanksgiving break, but when she
returned, she realized it was gone,
said Adams.
The CPU had been taken, but
the monitor and keyboard was still
there, said Adams.
“The CPU was secured to a cable
The cable was cut, and the CPU
was gone,” said Adams. “Also, there
was an audio-visual cart that had a
TV and a VCR underneath it. The
TV was taken from the cart.”
While Owen does not stay open
24 hours a day, many art students
stay in the building at all times, said
Adams.
“It’s open until late at night, but
the art department has a lot of stu
dents that work in there” at all
hours, said Adams.
“Up until this theft occurred, those
particular rooms were not locked,”
said Adams. “Now we’re working
with the accounting department,
who uses those rooms, to take steps
to make sure it doesn’t happen
again. We’re going to start securing
those rooms at night.”
Public safety is currently trying to
work out other steps to prevent
theft from occurring, said Adams.
Public safety has beefed up foot
patrol in almost every building on
campus, according to Adams.
“We have a lot of academic build
ings at night, and we also have a lot
of residence halls that we have to
See THEFTS Page 10
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