The end is in sight for long lines and congested traffic Bi ue B College students often fiml it hart! to get a g(XKl nights rest Icct anner See News 3 See LiFESIYI.es 6 Volume 45, Issue 10 Serving the University of North Carolina at Ashc\ille since 1982 November 2, 2006 Students begin to take part in fund allocation Wall sparks investigation Socialist Union Lea By Kristen MarshafI Copy EorroR By Christa Chappelie Staff Writer Because of concerns over the increasing costs of college, the Student Government Association gave students the opportunity to understand the student fees and tuition process at a pubhc forum Oct. 23. “The reason why I had SGA sponsor the event is that in the past there really has been no trans parency about where student fees are going, how they’re getting spent,” said John Noor, president of SGA. “Any information about it hasn’t been readily available for students. I wanted to make it possi ble for students to come by and see exactly how this money is getting spent, where it’s going, who’s get ting it and how they’re using it.” The forum allowed students to see what happens with their stu dent fees and tuition. Led by Chuck Hawkins, interim vice chancellor of finance and campus operations, students received the opportunity to ask questions and give feedback to the tuition and fees committee and representatives from each fee unit. This new process allows students to have a more active role in the fees process, according to Bill Haggard, vice chancellor of stu dent affairs. ‘This whole forum was actually the idea of the Student Government Association,” Haggard said. “We are working on new procedures this year, and it’s my intention that we will expand those procedures next year to make sure we have a much more trans parent process for setting our tuition and fees, a process that is SEE Fees page 31 A wall displayed on the Quad by the Socialist Union League last week remains the center of con troversy as the university contin ues to investigate possible acts of vandalism, harassment and threats by members of the Student Government Association and Campus Police. ‘The Socialist Unity League is accustomed to threats, most of which have come from members of the Student Government Association,” said Kati Ketz, chair of the standing committee of the SUL of Students for a Democratic Society. “When we try to lodge the complaints about these threats, they go unnoticed by administration. These threats have not stopped, though. They are escalating.” According to SUL, the wall rep resented the actual wall being built along the West Bank in Palestine, and students could spray paint pre-approved mes sages supporting Palestine on it under the supervision of SUL members. The acts in question began last Monday, and by Friday morning, counter-protesting opinions, including some threats, covered the entire back of the wall, Ketz said. “We went to Campus Police for the first time on Wednesday when 10 students came up to us with spray paint cans and spray painted the lawn,” Ketz said. “We went to Campus Police again on Thursday about the threats. We were told that we couldn’t really say that people were harassing a group. It had to be toward an individual.” On Friday morning, members of SUL discovered photographs of their wall on the Facebook.com Megan Wildman - Staff Photographer Sophomore atmospheric science student Greg Goddard, above, looks at the wall that the Socialist Unity League put up representing the wall in Palestine. Goddard said he wrote messages on the wall after the SUL censored what he wanted to write. Campus Police Officer Brandon Hunnicutt is on investigative leave while the university looks into his possible involvement in the acts, according to Campus Police. profile, a social networking site, of Officer Brandon Hijnnicutt, a campus police officer, according to Ketz. SUL immediately filed a complaint with administration. Messages on the wall, depicted in photographs on Facebook.com, include the statements, “Kill the socialists,” “Stop SUL,” and “Destroy Palestine.” Greg Goddard, sophomore atmospheric science student and member of the American Pride Organization, a Facebook.com group opposing SUL, said he is responsible for the messages on the wall. Because SUL regulated the messages allowed on the wall and barred Goddard’s opposing view, he spray painted his own messages, first Wednesday night. “The wall should be about free dom of speech and not your opin ion on a certain subject,” Goddard said. “I originally had a larger group of people to come do it, but everyone either fell asleep or did n’t want to do it, so 1 ended up doing it by myself.” After SUL covered his original messages up, Goddard said he went back again during the hours of 1:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. Friday morning, according to Goddard. “The American flag drawn on the back of the wall had ‘burn the flag’ written on it, and that really pissed me off even more,” said Goddard, SGA sophomore sena tor. According to Goddard, the wall .should have encouraged freedom of speech, not certain peoples’ opinions on certain subjects. “That really pushed me to do what 1 did,” Goddard said. Off-duty campus police officer Brandon Hunnicutt took pictures of Goddard and the wall and post ed them on his Facebook.com SEE Wall page 31 Basketball teams rev up for season on radio show By Courtney Metz Staff Writer Trey Bouvier - Staff Photographer Senior forward Amanda Elder, 1310 AM commentator Mike Gore, and women’s Head Coach Betsy Blose discuss the upcoming basketball seasons. The teams spent the first night of the season at downtown bar and restaurant Hanna Flannagan’s in order to talk about sports and promote UNC Asheville basketball. In the final days before the start of their 2006-07 seasons, the UNC Asheville men’s and women’s bas ketball teams hosted their first radio show of the year Thursday. “It is an opportunity to talk about sports and promote UNC Asheville athletics,” said Betsy Blose, head women’s basketball coach. “It’s a fun time.” The radio station ,1310 AM will air the show live from 6-7 p.m. every Thursday for the remainder of the season. Each week, both the men’s and women’s basketball coaches have an opportunity to discuss their previous games, upcoming games and the season as a whole. “I think the more things like this that we can do, the better,” said Nicholas McDevitt, men’s assis tant basketball coach. “One of the goals of Athletic Director Janet Cone is to make UNC Asheville the Asheville community’s team. 1 think things like this will really help that.” TTie players agree that it is a 66 It’s a good opportunity to get everybody involved. C.J. WA1.KER men’s junior center good opportunity for both teams. “We have been doing it for a couple of years now, and it is a good opportunity to get everybody involved in it,” said men’s junior center C.J. Walker. Hannah Flanagan’s has hosted the radio show for the past three years and encourages fans to come listen to the show live on Thursday nights. During the show from 5-9 p.m., they are offering anyone with a valid UNC Asheville ID half off the price of any appetizer. In addition to hosting the radio show, Hannah Flanagan’s also supports the team in several other ways. “We are now members of the booster club, and we also cater the Bulldog Club at the basketball games in the hospitality tent,” said Mark Sternal, general manager of Hannah Flanagan’s. “We’re also members of Asheville’s Independent Restaurant Association, and AIR is going to be catering the coaches club at the basketball games. We just keep plugging into UNC SEE Basketball page 21 Asheville leads way in storm hazard studies, technology saves lives By Anna Lee Staff Writer The planned opening of a new research lab in December will make Asheville a landmark in storm hazard mitigation studies and the visual application of data to the Geographic Information Survey, a computer application used to store, view and analyze geographic information. “The lab is going to be looking at emergency response for natural disasters very similar to the floods due to hurricanes a couple of years ago,” said Jim Fox, a research associate for the National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center located in Rhoades-Robinson Hall. “What we are going to do then is take sci entific information and really put that into visual environments so the general public can interact and make decisions off of that.” The Apphed Visualization Lab, also known as the RENCI- Asheville Campus, will be a col laboration of UNC Asheville and Renaissance Computing the Institute, a state-funded organiza tion that allows businesses and educational institutions to work together on research that involves sophisticated computer technolo gy- NEMAC is already interviewing students, graduates and profes sionals to do the research at the lab. “We are looking for some stu dents to be working with us on GIS information,” Fox said. “We are really interested in how this sort of data goes across a broad front, so being at a liberal arts campus, we’re looking for stu dents from the multimedia depart ment to be turning this information into exciting content.” The lab will allow UNC Asheville graduates to stay in Asheville who might not be able to otherwise, according to Fox. “What we’re really interested in doing with this is setting up a site where people collaborate, but then also use these technologies in our area so the especially promising UNC Asheville graduates do not have to move away from our area,” Fox said. “We can keep that talent here.” The Applied Visualization Lab’s researchers will get their storm data from the archives of the National Climactic Data Center located at 151 Patton Ave. in Asheville. “We begin a process, with every grid space in North Carolina including every windstorm, hail storm, mudslide, flood, every count of every storm, every death, every traffic accident and every report of trees knocking down util ity lines,” said Marjorie McGuirk, a meteorologist at the National Climactic Data Center. “Every report ever is in the archives of the National Climactic Data Center. It just hasn’t been identified on the GIS layer.” The researchers will then figure out the probabilities of various hazards t^ing place and map them to GIS, according to McGuirk. Policy and decision-makers will SEE RENCI ^AGE 2 I • • ’rj : « • «

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