Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Sept. 24, 2014, edition 1 / Page 1
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VOL. 61, ISSUE 5 I WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24, 2014 1 THEBLUEBANNER.NET SGA works toward diversity SHANEE SIMHONI ssimhoni@unca.edu - Politicai Correspondent SGA and the multicul tural center collaborate with the diversity action council to increase the number of minority stu dents, at UNC Asheville. “We talked about how we can get African-Amer icans and other minority students and how we can keep them here,” said Keith Knox, executive of multicultural affairs. Between 2009 and the current academic year, Knox said 30 Afri can-American students enrolled at UNCA: 89 in 2009 and 118 this year. Gardner Goodall said he and Harper Spires, co-executives' of sustain ability, started tabling on the quad in preparation for Greenfest. James Whalen, SGA president, said SGA and residential education work together to sign up more voters during voter regis tration week, which occurs this week. National Voter Registration Day is Sept. 23. “We’re going to reach out to the residents and have programs in every hall,” Whalen said. “We’re going to put on several events, table all over the place and get everyone registered who we can.” Whalen said the regis tration goal is 1,500. As of last Wednesday, he said SGA registered 90 stu dents. Sen. Charlie White, chair of the student af fairs committee, said work on the gender-neu tral bathroom maps will begin shortly. Photo by Jorja Smith - Multimedia Editor Students peruse the options at the recently opened Brown Hall during the first weeks of the semester. Meal plan costs worry students JAMES NEAL jneai@unca.edu - Contributor UNC Asheville is worth the money, officials say, but the recent jump in the cost of meal plans worried some students. “UNC Asheville has the lowest tuition and fees amongst our peer groups for 2013-14, in-state un dergraduate students,” said Suzanne Bryson, UN- CA’s associate vice chan cellor for finance. Between 2010-13, the university’s meal plans saw a modest increase of less than 3 percent per term, only to undergo an almost 10 percent jump for 2013-14. Concerned students, many expressing they knew nothing about the increased costs, said prices increased for menu items at the campus’ din ing locations and meal equivalency options di minished. Of the 10 percent in crease, 7 percent resulted from the North Carolina General Assembly’s tax increase, a fact the uni versity attempted to make clear to students, accord ing to Nancy Yeager, as sociate vice chancellor for student affairs. “The university sent out notices to students before their bills last December and also posted the in formation on the Student Affairs website,” Yeager said. “To my surprise, we actually heard very little from students at the time.” According to campus employees, the universi ty gains nothing from the tax increase and the mon ey goes directly to the state. The campus finance department works with Chartwells, the universi ty’s food service company, to keep price increases to a minimum while providing options uncommon at oth er campuses. “Meal equivalencies aren’t common at other universities and they’re very cost ineffective for the food vendor, due to the fact that many of the retail outlets are franchise or local businesses who set their own prices,” Yeager said. “Chartwells actually ends up eating any addi tional cost for a retail meal equivalency.” Yeager - said UNCA worked to preserve meal equivalencies under its most recent contract with Chartwells, but eliminat ing them may have found support among some stu dents. “We originally agreed, but since the new dining hall wouldn’t be open until this year, we didn’t think it would be fair to students to completely take away the meal equivalencies with out giving them the new dining hall,” Yeager said. “This year, we negotiated to still keep meal equiv alencies, but at a limited number per menu.” According to students who purchase meal plans, more options in a meal plan makes the deal sweet- SEE MEAL ON PAGE 2 Students fight stress while trying to stay ahead CALLIE JENNINGS cjenning@unca.edu - Staff Writer According to UNC Ashe ville students and counsel ors, stress levels remain at a peak. “I just have to remind myself why I’m in school. I have to have those mo ments where I’m just not doing anything and think about why it’s important, what it has to do with my life and how it’s improv ing my life,” said Taylor Brown, a 20-year old ju nior at UNCA. The average student at UNCA, according to school officials, takes around 16 credit hours a semester. Nearly double the require ment for full-time students, some students take more than 20 hours. “If you take into account my 16-hour school sched ule and extracurricular work, I think I have about a 23-hour work week. That’s probably low compared to some other people. Thank fully I’m not working cur rently, but I am still em ployed,” Brown said. According to Brown, who is part of Cru Minis tries, having a full schedule as well as an active social life makes it harder to find time to study. “I usually find study time inbetween classes or when I get home, but at that point I’m already half asleep. The stress level’s pretty high. I usually try to study from my notes. I’ll look at the book, but I get distract ed very easily — with ev erything, with life in gen eral,” Brown said. Students, such as Brown, wonder if professors take into account how much work students have to deal with when planning mid terms and finals. “I think it depends on the professor, I think some consider it and realize that we’re only in our 20s and have lives, but others just think that we need to focus in on their class,” Brown said. According to the Health and Counseling Center, early fall is their busiest time. For the spring semes ter, more students come in later because of midterms and finals. “I would say the vast ma jority of sessions deal with stress. Each student may be stressed about differ ent things, but generally, I would say over 50 percent. About 25 percent of the complaints on the medical side are probably stress re lated as well, like stomach aches and headaches,” said Jay Cutspec, director of health and counseling. According to Cutspec, each year the American College Health Association finds stress to be the No. 1 factor known to affect ac ademic performance. This data comes from 123,000 students from approxi mately 153 schools. “The thing about stress and how to relieve it comes SEE STRESS ON PAGE 2 Family celebrates student’s life, degree HARRISON SLAUGHTER jslaught@unca.edu - Staff Writer Robbie Coin, a UNC Asheville student, passed away on Sept. 7 from com plications following neu rosurgery at Emory Uni versity Hospital in Atlanta. Coin’s name will be read for his commencement. “Robbie was kind — he always thought about oth ers. The most consistent thing I keep hearing, from people who I don’t even know, is that he would always call just to see how they were doing,” said Shan non Coin, Robbie’s wife. “I never knew that I could meet someone I could be that comfortable with. He was my best friend. We laughed a lot and just had a wonderful friendship.” According to Courtney Bell, Robbie’s sister, their parents struggled with al coholism, causing their grandparents to take over raising them when she was around 11 years old. “We were really close growing up. We kind of raised each other. I was probably more like his mom for a long time, rather than his sister, since our grand parents were so much old er,” Bell said. “It was pret ty much just me and him.” In August of 2000, he started to notice that one of his eyes was jumpy, so he went to the eye doctor to have it checked out. They performed a MR! that showed a small spot in his brain. He went in for a follow-up and it had grown by around 6 centi meters, -according to Bell. “They did brain surgery in January 2001. They then diagnosed him with Hodgkin lymphoma. There were so few cases of Hod gkin’s disease in the brain, St. Jude’s Children’s Hos pital accepted him for treat ment,” Biell said. “They did a full body scan and realized the cancer spread throughout his body. They performed three months of aggressive chemother apy and three months of total body radiation.” After successful treat ments, Robbie’s can cer went into remission. “During and after his treatment, Robbie was on a lot of medication. With SEE COIN ON PAGE 2
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