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2 Wednesday, February 2,1994 Battle Promises to Reform Government BYUSA ROBBINS STAFF WRITER George Battle, a junior political science major Bom Charlotte, said his main prior ity as Student Body President would be to give student government back to the stu dents. “Student government has lost touch,” said Battle, former chairman of the Rules and Judiciary Committee for the Student Congress. “It’s not that students are apa thetic; you can tell by the turnout at black cultural center and housekeepers’ rallies. “We need to show them that student government is not some far-away bastion of politicos,” he said. In his “Battle Plan” he said he would reform student government by setting up more offices around campus to keep stu dents informed of current government is sues, holding quarterly student body meet ings to allow students to voice opinions, and ha ve the student budget planned in the executive branch. Currently, the budget is prepared by Student Congress, and Battle said politics had played too great a role in the budget formation process. “This proposal would make it a non-divisive process.” Battle said once he could start improv ing government-student relations, hewould tackle his concern of human relations on campus. “My greatest disappointment at this school is the way we treat each other,” he said. “In my three years here, I have seen a steady deterioration of respect for each other." Battle’s platform suggests improvements in human relations by creating an annual human-relations summit, forming a per manent human-relations policy commit- Moore Aims to Improve Communication BY USA ROBBINS STAFF WRITER Rebecah Moore, a junior journalism and political science major from Lenoir, said her student body president campaign’s major theme was efficiency— concentrat ing first on establishing a better relation ship between students and student govern ment before attacking other platform prob lems. “We’re not afraid to make the big changes. We're not afraid to make big statements. We’renotafraidto anger people to get things done,” Moore said. “And my first concern would be restruc turing and reintroducing student govern ment to the students, because we need to better the working relationship-between the two.” Moore said she was not only concerned with the lack of communication between student government and the students, but also between administration, faculty and students. “Administration needs to serve the students; they’re not here to serve them selves.” Moore said that as a liaison for students, she would make a serious effort to imple ment her platform. “To be a voice of stu dents, you have to get the platform imple mented,” she said. “It’s very easy to say, ‘Hey, I won. I’m in,’ and then forget about your points.” Moore said she didn’t plan to forget her platform. She said that there really was no limit to what she could achieve, because money was available for her platform projects. But Moore said she was conservative with money and wanted to put students’ fees to good use. “If it’s fiscal, it needs to have a return,” she said. “I don’t want to see money go where it is wasted.” Her projects include creating a safer Inhabit BPFta the World! The International Festival at UNC-CH Cultural Night Wed., Feb. 2 • 7:00 pm Hanes Art Center Exhibition of storytelling, music and dance by International Student Organizations JM Hg| Candidate GEORGE BATTLE wants to give government back to students. tee, backing the housekeepers’ movement and the free-standing Sonja H. Stone Black Cultural Center, and emphasizing minor ity faculty and student retention. Battle said he was different from the other candidates because he had plans for his platform goals. “I have a vision for implementing most of my platform ideas, ” he said. “I know how they can be done. If you don’t know how to put them into action, all of that is wasted.” Battle’s ideas to improve University ser vices include enhancing campus security and establishing an 800 number for Caroline. He said he would work to eliminate the SIOO minimum on the meal plan, which doesn't force Marriott Corp. to compete -gfe 4 -. . Candidate REBECAH MOORE wants to set up a political action committee. campus, providing better benefits for gradu ate students and teaching assistants, and overhauling the undergraduate advising program by hiring full-time staff as advis ers. She would like to create a safe ride program that would extend to off-campus residents during early morning hours and expand the student patrol program. The From the Front Line report is an other area Moore hopes to put money and energy into. The report was the result of polling done by the office of current Student Body Presi dent Jim Copland. As the Front Line project coordinator, she said she felt that she should put time into implementing the recommendations. Moore has recommended the creation of a political action committee to get stu dents involved in the system and to curb International Festival Day Sun., Feb. 6 • Noon Great Hall Food, cultural exhibits & University of Chicago professor Jonathan Z. Smith speaking on International Mythology STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT CANDIDATES with other business. Marriott’s contract is up for renewal later this year. Battle said that these plans were all viable because there were available funds. “The money is there, with the fund raising potential and alumni,” he said. “Whenever something is not a priority, ‘budget constraints’ is the excuse. But I’m sure they could spring for a few lights or expand Point-2-Point.” Battle would also like to recommend reforms in academics, such as expanding the academic minors to all majors, creating a 24-hour study center, recruiting Native American faculty and supporting better benefits for teaching assistants. He said his platform goals were not solutions, but rather ways to find solutions to solve problems. “My list is just a list of what I think can be done,” Battle said. “I have been a regu lar student here, and I know the problems that other students have. There are some common threads that we share.” Battle said he also would want to be more visible than past presidents. “I want students to be able to call me on the phone to give me suggestions, ” he said. “I don’t want to be some abstract figure. I want students to know me personally, and I will make everyefforttodothatifelected.” “If (students) vote George Battle, they will be putting an honest, decent, experi enced, progressive individual into office who will look out for their needs first and foremost,” he said. “I’m not afraid to bite the bullet, put my neck on the line, protect student interests or to be a voice for those who previously had no voice.” Battle was internal chief of staff for the executive branch. He is a Pogue Scholar and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha frater nity. apathy about campus politics. The com mittee would give students a strong voice in the state legislature. “Right now, there is no outlet in student government for students,” Moore said. “Anyone interested in state affairs can help at leisure.” In addition, she has proposed opening cabinet meetings to students once a month to give them the opportunity to find out what their representatives are say ing. Moore is a supporter of the Sonya H. Stone Black Cultural Center and said that student government should have a strong commitment to it. Though she had been in favor of a multicultural center, she said she realized it was now a moot point, and that she wanted to work through problems with the Black Student Movement. In her quest to improve student body president relations with students, Moore said that she wanted to make herself acces sible. “Candidates every year say they’re going to be more accessible,” she said. “But things get busy, and they stay in Suite C.” Asa student government chief legisla tive lobbyist, and an editorial writer and state and national editor at The Daily Tar Heel, Moore said she had gained two dif ferent perspectives of campus politics, which had encouraged her to take action by running for student body president. “You can only watch from afar for so long,” she said. “You realize that you might be able to help and do the job that needs to get done.” “I’m willing to take chances big chances,” Moore said. “You have to sup port students 100 percent of the time with out worrying about who you will offend. I just don’t think there is enough of that being done.” Moore is a member of Delta Zeta soror ity and a recipient of the Coffey Scholar ship. Koonce Wants to Be an Accessible SBP BY CHRIS GIOIA ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR If you know little and care less about what the student body president does, Tommy Koonce says he’s your man. If elected as student body president, this junior from Fayetteville will make the of fice more relevant and accessible to stu dents, he said. “I want to do things so that people will say, ‘Yeah, that really helped,’ ” he said. After working with the past three ad ministrations, Koonce said he noticed that much of his work wasn’t helping UNC students directly. “I guess I’ve been frustrated by being up there, the past three years, because I work, andthenlsay, ‘Yes, but does anyone know we’re doing this?”’ he said. Koonce was chief of staff for current Student Body President Jim Copland. Koonce’s four-part platform refers to campus security, the environment, student voice and academic reform. To improve security, he wants to re place campus security guards with police officers, which he said would be cheaper and more effective. Security guards “are more expensive, and they aren’t as trained as police offic ers," he said. “It would make more sense to take that money and use it to train more police officers and hire them, instead of renting security guards.” He also supports changing Point-2- Point, whose pickup rules he described as “ridiculous.” “I think it’s kind of silly that you can be out on Franklin Street at 2 a.m., and you have to walk across a dark campus to a designated pickup spot,” he said. Koonce would also push for increased Rash Plans to Push His ‘Realistic Goals’- BY CHRIS GIOIA ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR Wayne Rash says he’s the answer to student complaints that everyone in Stu dent Government was cut from the same mold. The candidate for student body presi dent, a junior from Wilmington, is spend ing his first year in student government as the chairman of the Student Congress Fi nance Committee, in addition to positions on several other committees. “I want to give a voice to the people who are not usually heard,” he said. Rash is also on the cabinet of the Caro lina Athletic Association and vice presi dent of Carolina Fever, in addition fo work ing for the University housing department. These positions give him an outside view of the office of student body presi dent, he said. “Through the work I’ve done with the CAA and the housing department, I’ve met a lot of different people, and I think I can bring in that perspective,” he said. His platform includes issues of campus safety, the environment and student life, concerns which he said were of primary importance to most UNC students. “The type of things I want to focus on, and the things I think students are truly interested in, are realistic goals,” Rash said. “They may be simple, but they’re goals that they can see results with.” The part of his platform that deals with security includes more lighting and call boxes on campus, a revamped Point-2- Point and funding for victims of sexual assault, he said. P-2-P is inefficient and doesn’t ad equately serve students’ needs, Rash said. Too many vans sit idle during the day, or employees use them to go to lunch, a practice which Rash would work to end, he said. Come 0n... /fS*v ggh AROUND IHE WORLD NIGHT fig- J $2.00 Import Bottles • $1.50 Import Drafts SBPT (Over 40 Different Beers!) m NITE fife J $1.50 Ice Beers • $2.00 Ice Sculpture Shots You’ve Got To See It To Believe It! jgj *3 PITCHERS •*2 SHOTS £rt BIG MOUTH FRIDAY |H fjHT $1.50 BIG MOUTHS Vfßft Hi *2.00 SHOTS LIVE DJ • °5 E pj^ T • 6 TV's • POOL TABLE • FOOSBALL 157 E. Rosemary St. 967-6112 (below Tammany Hall) S it wH Candidate TOMMY KOONCE plans to help students directly. lighting and an automated door system for residence halls, he said. Such a system would allow visitors either to use their UNC ONE cards as an electronic “key” or to buzz in and have someone unlock the door using a security code, he said. Koonce’s environmental platform pushes for all-recycled paper in copy ma chines and adding to the number of recy cling bins around campus. Additional re cycling bins would prevent less conscien tious students from simply throwing their cans and bottles away, he said. Koonce also wants to give students a louder voice in Student Government and the University administration, he said. “There are lots of things that go on here on a daily basis that students don’t have the Candidate WAYNE RASH wants to be a voice for all students. “If we could scale back the daytime operations, then we could devote more resources to the nighttime operation,” he said. Rash also wants to increase funding for the Victims’ Assistance Fund, an organi zation which counsels victims of sexual assault and offers prevention tips to UNC students. The group is so short on funding that it can’t even afford to distribute fliers and other information, he said. “That stuff is often overlooked because no one ever thinks that much about it,” he said. “But if something like this happens to you, you want to make sure it’s there.” If elected, Rash said his environmental concerns would include increasing the number of trash cans, especially along the main paths on North and South Campus. uHjpiaily uJarUwl opportunity to give their input on,” he said. “Not to put it as us against them, but administrators are paid to live and breathe those issues, and we have a whole lot of other things on our minds.” Koonce said some of those issues were the selection of an interim director for the Sonja H. Stone Black Cultural Cent*, which was determined by UNC officials, and the 24-hour visitation policy, which the Board ofTrustees rescinded in No vem ber. To give students more power within the system, Koonce said he would push foria reduction of Student Congress’ size. He would try to abolish the committee struc ture altogether, which he said creates a “nightmare” for students who try to use the system. Under academic reform he included improved advising, faculty diversity and training for housekeepers. To improve undergraduate advising, Koonce would work to augment the exist ing system with several professional advis ers, iong with a corps of student advisers who would receive credit or another incen tive for their time, he said. >. Koonce also would push for morecli versity-minded hiring practices and a train ing program to give housekeepers the skills to move up in their jobs at UNC or apply for a better job elsewhere, he said. In addition to his Student Government service, Koonce plays club tennis and is chairman of the Special Projects Commit tee ofthe Carolina Union Activities Board. He spends much of his free time with the Episcopal Diocese of East Carolina, designing and leading youth retreats and working in the inner-city areas ofhis native Fayetteville. The receptacles “something that would look nice, and not just a barrel, ’’ he said— would give students a place to throw away waste on the way to class. In addition, he would prod Marriott Corp.’s Carolina Dining Services to allow students to get refills in glasses in the din ing halls, a measure that would discourage students from using Styrofoam cups, he said. Rash said he thought students used the disposable cups because they could get more to drink than with glasses. Under the student life part of his plat form, Rash wants to institute simple, effec tive changes, he said. He supports the Board ofTrustees’ plan to allow students to choose 24-hour visita tion as a residence hall optiori, he said.” Rash co-sponsored the Student Con gress bill that allowed six dorms to hold a referendum on visitation last fall. If elected, Rash also would promote a plan to match roommates based on a com patibility questionnaire, he said. The current method, which he called, “Let’s match this social security number with that one,” is ineffective, giving UNC a high rate of roommate problems, Rash said. r “Z “I mean, if you’re not in a good living environment, you’re not going to do well academically,” he said. “You’re not going to do well socially, and you’re just not going to feel welcome here.” ” - ‘ Other goals include adding a reading day to the middle of exam week and allow ing housekeepers to attend UNC at re duced fees, he said. Rash promotes his realistic goals with his campaign slogan, “We Can Make a Difference.” “You’re never going to cure everyone’s problems,” he said. “But you can make improvements.” For the Record £ In Tuesday's article 'BSM Backs Battle for Student Body President,' The Daily Tar Heel misrepresented student body president can didate Rebecah Moore's position on whether Honor Court should try sexual-assault cases? Moore said sexual assault was a criminal act and should be tried in criminal court but that Honor Court was qualified to try such cases. The DTH regrets the error. %vFIRS t # Wv o _AK Red lobster, America's number one full-ser? vice seafood dinnerhouse, is ready to lure you in with a convenient location, upbeat environment, full training, great poy and excellent benefits! 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