Newspapers / North Carolina School of … / May 1, 1998, edition 1 / Page 1
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AROUND TT-IT7 X JlxJlj WORLD .. .and back COMPILED BY TENNIFER U Successful negotiations with Iraq On Feb. 23,1998, UN Seoretaiy Kofi Annan signed a tentative agree ment wifli Iraqi president Saddam Hussein allowing fuU access to Iraqi weapons sites. After three days of peace talks and four rribnths of heightening tensiori betw-een Iraq and the UN, Annan is optimistic about the signing. The deal must be passed by all five members of the UN Security Council before it can go into effect. Annan says he is confident that the agreement will have “unani mous and strong council support.” Despite the outlook for the agree ment, President Clinton plans to keep out the possibility of aif strikes. He has cautiously supported die pd»re agreement, but fears Iraq’s track record on such agreements. Tornadoes hit Florida Six to ten tornadoes struck Kisssimmee, Florida on Tuesday Feb. 23,1998 leaving 38 dead, doz ens missing, 250 injured and a 75 mile path of destruction, making it even deadlier than Hurricane An drew in *92. Property damage is ex tensive and federal disaster aid was available. Surrounding counties ex perienced flooding and dusk-to- dawn curfews. Weather Service warnings were issued just 20 to 30 minutes before the tornadoes reached the area. Au thorities feel the warnings were not dissiminated very quickly because the storm hit late at night white many were sleeping. This disaster is an other result of El Nino. Nagano Olympics end The 1998 Nagano Winter Olym pics came to a close Feb. 23. The 16 day games had their share of upsets, glories and unusual events. A letter threatening the bombing of the Olympic facilities turned out to be a hoax. ITie United States placed sixth in medal standings with a total of 13 medals. This keeps the US at third in Winter Olympic medal history with 143 medals. Nagano passed the Olympic torch to Salt Lake City who will host the 2002 Winter Olympics. tentorian The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics May 1998 Cultures converge amid festivities TOAN PARK ethnic groups hetwpen thpii TOANPARK Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “People boil at different temperatures”. It is true that people are different, and what separates an individual from another can be de fined by the word diversity. Discussions invoke diversity into everything from entertainment to politics. A word almost never defined,- diversity reflects the fact that the population is made up of people from many countries, many races, and many cultural back grounds. In an effort to bring more attention to campus diversity, the MPCs are sponsoring Worldfest for the community of NCSSM. Worldfest, an all-day event, is to be held April 5th in the PEC. MPCs are hard at work to prepare for Worldfest this year. The MPCs are put fully in charge of activities for Worldfest, so that even the spon sor, SLI Amy Wheeler, does not know what to expect. “They [the MPCs] are the boss. I’m just here to supervisejhey ’j-e j pretty autonomous group,” said Wheeler. The MPCs are expecting to have many dance groups and per formances of people from different ethnic groups to come and share their culture. These performances will be made by groups on campus, like the Martial Arts club. Dance Team, Step Team, the African Dance En semble, and an Indian dance group as well as groups from off campus. The MPCs are planning on hav ing about 25 different cultures rep resented at Worldfest, including those less familiar, such as Armenian and Scandinavian cultures. They will also sponsor a dance the night before Worldfest, which will involve music from many cultures. “We want to promote cultural diversity, to celebrate diversity by example,” said MPC Senior Lee Spears. “This is a time to share, a com ing together, unification through di versity”, said MPC Senior Silka between them,” said Patel. There are many groups and club that are avail able for people with similar in terests and g backgrounds to ^ get together and ^ share their feel- ings and experi- § ences.. These ^ groups such as CV Chinese Semi- Smriti Bhotika and Rohan Lewis perform during Worldfest. Mahjong club, Asian Cultures Club, Martial Arts club, Hindi Seminar, and Harambee, also offer the opportunity for students to get exposure to cultures different from their own. The fact that NCSSM has the MPCs, a special group to help deal with diversity, emphasizes the im portance of diversity-awareness in the community. The MPCs are available at cer tain office hours, to peer coun.se! stu dents that may be having some trouble with diversity or they are also “just here to talk, a good ear,” said Robichaux. Patel. At NCSSM many students face a much larger range of diversity in comparison to their home commu nities. “It’s hard, being so close to people so different from them and we need to leam to respect other’s space. I think at this school there’s much respect, people aren’t ignorant, it’s just people have common inter ests, ’’said Senior MPC Paul Robichaux. “Compared to home, [students at] NCSSM seem more accepting to the diversities New RLAs to bring changing of guard ALEX MANN Many juniors faced a series of new challenges and changes this year as they competed in the Resi dential Life Assistant (RLA) selec tion process. SLI Chris Smith is responsible for implementing many of these new ideas as he takes over the job of RLA Coordinator from Jeff Bray. Smith and fellow SLI Anthony Reid worked closely this year with Bray to improve the selection pro cess for RLAs. The changes in cluded anonymity of applicants in the first round of the process and a new group interview session before the second stage of decision-mak ing. To make the applications anonymous, students were identi fied only by their Social Security number, application number and sex. The applications included evaluations by current RLAs, SLIs, and other community members, who were also asked not to refer to the candidates by name on the forms. It’s modeled after the hearing board student applications,” said Smith, a member of the committee that selected students to serve on the judicial panel last fall. “[Keeping students anonymous] worked well on the hearing board. It gave us greater objectivity.” Smith said that the change was de signed to address a common concern that RLAs may of ten be “hand picked” by SLIs. He hopes the process will now be viewed as being more fair and effective. Another addi tion to the selection procedure is a “Group Process” ses sion for candidates who reach the second round. The applicants are di vided into groups of six to eight stu dents and presented with simulations of potential hall problems and issues. The object is to discover how well the students work as a team to solve problems. According to Smith, similar group programs are used by many "I feel like the RLAs are just as good, if not better, judges of their peers than SLIs." universities to pick RAs and DAs “It gives us more information on the candidates. We can see how they interact one-on-one versus in a group and determine where their strengths lie,” said Smith. “I think [the addi tion of group inter views] is a really good idea,” said Jun ior RLA candidate Ray Tan. “It shows you who might be too overbearing or too quiet to be an RLA.” Although many are excited by the change, some have reservations. “Cer tain people weren’t able to express themselves well in the group because others controlled the discussion. I still think some of them might still make good RLAs,” said RLA Brianna Boyd. “It was hectic,” said junior and RLA candidate Darius Smith of his group interview. “Everyone was talking, and it was hard to say what you wanted to say without getting interrupted or interrupting someone else. I didn’t like it.” Boyd said that on the whole she and other RLAs she had spoken with like the new program, but they have concerns as to how it will be viewed when the final decisions are made. The last major change to the RLA selection process was that cur rent RLAs were given a greater voice in evaluating junior candidates at the interview stage. Instead of having two SLIs and one RLA meeting individually with each applicant, the numbers were re versed this year to increase the pres ence of RLAs. Said Chris Smith, “I feel like the RLAs are just as good, if not better, judges of their peers than SLIs. They see each other in class, off campus, at IM games and in many other situ ations.” RLA candidate Darius Smith said that he enjoyed the individual interview most out of the entire se lection process. “It felt like a dis cussion,” he said. “It was fun.” The candidates for RLA found out April 28 if they made the final cut when results were announced .
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Student Newspaper
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May 1, 1998, edition 1
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