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10 Wednesday, August 23, 2000 Kelli Boutin EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Kim Minugh UNIVERSITY EDITOR Ginny Sciabbarrasi CITY EDITOR Board Editorials Bring the Payne New Director of University Housing Christopher Payne faces many challenges that must be addressed immediately. Chancellor James Moeser wasn’t the only fresh face at UNC as this semester began. Director of University Housing Christopher Payne stepped into the shoes vacated by Wayne Kuncl on Aug. 1. And he has his work cut out for him. Payne finds himself in the middle of major renovations and construction as a part of UNC’s ongoing Master Plan. As UNC grows into the future, Payne is responsible for see ing that the housing department keeps pace. There are a number of problems he must address. One of the hottest issues of last school year was fire safety, sparked by a rash of fires at Morrison Residence Hall. Payne can be an instrumental voice for students in speeding up the necessary sprin kler upgrades in South Campus residence halls if he chooses to take on the task. A lack of housing has been a problem as well. There have already been housing short ages this semester, with less than 100 students in temporary housing. And while Payne has done a good job set ting these students up in residence hall lounges until permanent rooms open up, he must continue the preparation for the 5,000 additional students the University will absorb when the Master Plan is realized. More resi dence halls will have to be constructed, and Payne must be a major player in the process. Before students can enjoy the full benefits of Islands in the Stream Bravo to University officials for taking the initiative to make campus crosswalks more pedestrian-friendly. Students looking for an island getaway need look no further than South Road. During the summer, permanent bright yellow pedestrian crossing signs, newly painted crosswalks and concrete traffic islands popped up along the ever-busy cam pus thoroughfare. These new additions promise to be more effective in protecting walkers than last semester’s here-one-minute-gone-the-next stop signs. Although previous efforts to protect pedes trians were needed and welcome in the wake of the death of a UNC Dental Fellow last November, removable signs and stepped-up patrols did not do enough to slow speeders. Temporary signs convey the message that the University’s commitment to pedestrian safety existed only during normal business hours. The new signs, because of their perma nence and prominence, show that the University’s concern did not dwindle in the months after Fusayoshi Matsukawa’s death. Fortunately, University officials did not stop their efforts at South Road. Other equal ly busy and equally dangerous crosswalks, such as the one on Ridge Road near America Must Continue to Welcome the Huddled Masses lam Tar Heel bom and Tar Heel bred. For the last 20 years, my Raleigh-based law practice has been limited to immigration issues. Virtually every day of my profes sional life I meet or speak with the employer, spouse, pastor, neighbor or friend of a long-time U.S. resident who does not yet have a “green card.” The person who contacts me wants to help “get papers” for their key employee or wife or parent or friend. They often describe the person they are calling for as a good worker, a lov ing parent, a good provider, a good neighbor or a faithful churchgoer. These American citizens are astounded to learn that under current U.S. law there is nothing that can be done to help the foreign national, even if the person is married to a U.S. citi zen and the parent of children who are U.S. citizens. In fact, pursuit of immigration status for the foreign national might actually result in banishment from the U.S. for as long as 10 years, if not for life. Sometimes I think I am dreaming. Is this still America? Or are we in a night mare that only Franz Kafka would appreciate? Matt Dees EDITOR Office Hours Friday 2 p.m. -3 p.m. Kathleen Hunter STATES NATIONAL EDITOR T. Nolan Hayes SPORTS EDITOR Will Kimmey SPORTSATURDAY EDITOR the Master Plan, Payne needs to take steps to improve the quality of life on South Campus. Renovations this summer helped the situ ation, with some residence halls receiving new loft beds, mattresses, paint jobs and refurbished kitchens and study halls. But there are still numerous improvements that can be made, from air conditioning for the sweltering rooms to sprinklers to prevent any more lounges going up in smoke as hap pened in Morrison last year. The good news is that Payne has taken a proactive approach to his new position. From the start of the month, he has been out touring residence halls to get a feel for what repairs and renovations are needed. And he seems willing to listen to students. “When students feel their residence hall needs some work, I hope they bring me over and show me,” Payne told The Daily Tar Heel. “I hope to be out of my office and talking to students.” But one man can’t do it alone. Students should take advantage of a responsive and open housing director and go to Payne with their concerns about the University’s resi dence halls. There’s only so much that whining can do, unless it’s directed at the right person. And Christopher Payne is the right person to take a little bit of pain out of residence hall life. Ehringhaus Field, also have received the bright warning signs. The new safety measures also show University officials understand that signs alone are not enough. Because it is unrea sonable to expect police officers to be avail able to patrol campus crosswalks around the clock, the traffic islands will serve an impor tant role in keeping pedestrians safe. Without the constant presence of law enforcement, some drivers are bound to speed past the signs. The traffic islands can serve as a welcome refuge for someone who finds a speeding car in the far lane. That is why it is imperative that University officials install the same safety measures at other crosswalks, such as the one at Ridge Road, which is notorious for speeding cars. Of course, drivers should not look at the islands as an excuse to engage in a game of chicken with the people in the crosswalk. Instead, they should serve as a reminder of why they were put there in the first place. After all, while campus pedestrian safety initiatives should come from University offi cials, it will take everyone’s cooperation to truly make the campus friendly for those who choose to travel by foot. JACK PINNIX GUEST COLUMNIST Historically, U.S. immigration poli cy has provided for reunification of core families (such as husbands and wives, parents and children of U.S. citi zens and lawful permanent residents) and securing the services of shortage workers whose presence is deemed to be in the national interest. If a person who met all the require ments set by Congress had, even inad vertently, violated his status while awaiting the final “green card,” he was barred from finalizing his case in the United States and had to complete the processing at a U.S. consulate abroad. Limited exceptions allowed “inspect ed” parents and spouses of U.S. citi zens to process in the United States. This consular processing require ment was a substantial penalty; it required expensive travel and poten tially lengthy time abroad - especially if unforeseen processing complications occurred. Additionally, it penalized the U.S. employer and often threatened the person’s family’s financial stability. Opinion ahR IrnUj alar Mttl Established 1893 • 107 Years of Editorial Freedom www.unc.edu/dth Jermaine Caldwell FEATURF.S EDITOR Ashley Atkinson ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Carolyn Haynes COPY DESK EDITOR f Surviving UNC in Your First Year Another year for most of us. I can hardly remember what it was like to be a freshman, but good advice comes rarely to you new innocent ones, so here’s what you’ll need to decipher the myths and mayhem of UNC. This thin little newspaper called The Daily Tar Heel is Myth 1 because it’s not like some lame paper your mom and dad read. The UNC population! conforms like peanut butter to jelly and this is the bread. So you’ll soon find yourself running around like the new UNC clones you are, grabbing your DTH and understanding why it’s invisi ble by 2 p.m. on any given day. What you’ll find is cool stuff about what’s going on around campus and my Pulitzer-prize winning litera ture on the back page every Wednesday. If you’re from the backwoods of North Carolina like I am, smoking was probably cool in high school. Some of you might think, “I’m going to really look like an upperclass man smoking in the quad.” Myth 2: Take it from a former smoker. There are a lot of ope'n-mmded people here, just not to your smoke. You’d have a better chance of being accepted at UNC if you were a carnival freak with leprosy than if you smoke. My junior year, after my fourth attempt at quitting, I became a closet smoker. Smoking in your closet is the only sure-fire way to avoid losing any coolness at UNC, so unless you’re at a parly where smoking is acceptable, I highly recommend the closet. Lucky for me, I’m finally free of candy cancer sticks and closets. Then there might be a few of you who don’t quite understand that sports are equiva lent to a religion here, especially basketball. The first week of class I had no idea who the basketball players were. I said to a friend: “That guy is really tall. He should play basket ball.” She was like (totally mortified), “Uh, he does.” See, you need people like me to point out the obvious, and sports are a big deal here. The sooner you learn the names, heights and In 1994, as it became increasingly expensive to post U.S. foreign service employees abroad, Congress enacted experimental legislation, so-called sec tion 245(i), to permit these otherwise qualified immigrants to pay a penalty and process applications for green cards through die Immigration and Naturalization Service without being compelled to leave. Although the penalty was substan tial, ultimately SI,OOO for each family member 17 and over, it proved to be a “win-win” program. Not only did the American taxpayer realize tremendous savings in Department of State appro priations; the INS collected huge rev enues. For instance, the then-relatively small INS suboffice in Charlotte col lected $3 million in a single year; the INS collected S2OO million nationwide. But Congress failed to extend 245(i). And worse, by the time 245(i) ended, another provision of law became effec tive and foreign nationals who were fully qualified for green cards could no longer “simply” go abroad, process at a consulate and then return to their jobs and families. The new provision provides that if a person is “unlawfully” present in the weights of every football and basketball play er and collect their fingerprint samples, the more you’ll be at home and accepted as a true Carolina Tar Heel. Myth 3: Carolina basketball is just a sport. Myth 4: Those “Had Enough?” beer ads work. The greatest waste of paper you’ll find is in the offensive and gross quarter-page “Had Enough” ads designed to keep students from drinking that hideous thing called alco hol. The ad’s creators even sent an e-mail sur vey to determine the ad’s effectiveness; how ever, they forgot the most crucial question for their survey: “Is this ad completely useless and lame?” Too bad “Most definitely” wasn’t an answer choice, either. I’ll tell you the way you know when you’ve had enough to drink. Last March during the NCAA finals, I had a party and this friend of mine discovered his limit when he spewed 6 feet up on my wall, in my bathroom and down the entire hallway. I guarantee you he learned what “Had Enough” meant that night, and no quarter-page ad can teach it like expe rience can. So, freshman, you have to learn how to study and drink well to handle it at UNC. Bottom line: Don’t drink a few beers and then chug vodka through a funnel. Most likely Myth 5: You’re special and unique. When I was in high school, I had beautiful long blond locks and was a one-of-a-' kind at my school. Then I came to UNC and saw about a thousand other blue-eyed blondes with long locks. I thought graduating at the United States more than 180 days and leaves he cannot obtain a visa at a con sulate and return without remaining outside the United States for three years; a person unlawfully present one year or more must remain outside the United States 10 years. While this unlawful presence might be entirely the fault of the foreign national, it does not matter if it is inten tional, technical or inadvertent. It also could be through the negligence or oversight of the employer or even the INS. It still does not matter. There is no waiver unless the foreign national can establish an extreme hardship to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resi dent, parent or spouse. Even pursuit of this very limited waiver could take a year or more while the foreign national is stranded outside the United States, with no indication, much less guarantee, that it will in fact be granted. The criteria for granting the waiver is not “hardship,” but “extreme hardship,” and die decision is made by a bureaucrat who will never meet the applicant or the family. Worldwide the waiver is infrequendy granted. What has been accomplished by this Cate Doty & Lauren Beal MANAGING EDITORS Sefton Ipock PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Cobi Edelson DESIGN EDITOR Saleem Reshamwala GRAPHICS EDITOR is£ ANNE MARIE TEAGUE GLAMOROUS TRASH harsh turn of events? To be sure, some people will gamble, leave and in antici pation that a waiver ultimately will be issued, try to wait it out. They will be like so many lambs to the slaughter, some never able to return, irrespective of the loss to those they had to leave. Many more, unwilling or unable to leave their families, will stay, also gambling they will not get caught. Calculating the time they can give their families now will prove more impor tant than a potentially permanent sepa ration at some later date. Do not doubt that they live in fear, that they live in dread - every day of their lives. Often the documentation problem divides siblings as well as generations. Older children bom in the old country have the same problems as the parents; the younger children bom in the United States are citizens. But in a real sense, all of the children are American. A child brought to America at 5 cannot identify with Iran, China, Korea, Mexico, Romania or Ireland if forced to leave at 16. They know no other country; they know no other world. Before leaving Washington to cam paign for the fall election, Congress will vote on whether to restore section lath} ©ar UM Josh Williams ONLINE EDITOR Brian Frederick OMBUDSMAN top of my class and receiving a lot of awards for my accomplishments was a big deal. Guess what? So did everyone else here. It was a shock not to be special anymore, but for those of you out there who are like I was, it’s good for you. I was determined not to spend my four years blending in with all my Goldie Locks twin sisters and being average. So maybe you were special or beautiful or the jock at your high school; just be prepared to meet a lot of walking mirrors of yourself. Good luck this semester and in the future making a name for yourself. There are a lot of amazing people here who’ve done amazing things. If you can make yourself stand out here, you’ll be able to stand out anywhere. And just a few more myths or expectations I feel compelled to shatter: 6. There’s plenty of parking. 7. Morrison will always have enough hot water, and there will be only two fire drills a semester. 8. All of you who are pre-med and business majors will still have the same major after CHEM 21 and STAT 23. 9. The swim test is optional. 10. You’ll be really popular if you join the Honor Court. 11. The ALE is your friend and stands for Automated Liquor Expeditors. 12. Student Congress actually makes a dif ference. 13. You will never wait in a line anywhere. 14. From the billion-dollar parking ticket revenue UNC generates, UNC is going to build a parking deck that will allow every stu dent to park near campus. Note: Near does not mean having to take a bus. 15. Students always get the best seats at basketball games. 16. Substance-free housing is really sub stance-free. Anne Marie Teague is a senior business administration major from Lumberton. Beach her for more True Blue info about UNC at teague@email.unc.edu. 245(i). At best, this is an uphill battle. Congress needs to pass this measure, and the president needs to sign it before adjournment. To express sup port for restoration of 245(i), call your congressman or senator through die Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121; or the White House at (202) 456-1414. This is common-sense legislation, and it is good public policy. Any mem ber who votes against it should be ashamed. If they do not vote to restore section 245(i), it is a sure sign that their staff, not them, are getting the phone calls I take every day. I do not want to ever again tell a 12-year-old child, “I do not know when your mother can come home.” I do not want to ever again have to tell a high school honor student who has lived in the United States since infancy, “You can’t go to college, and you have no future in America.” Jack Pinnix is a partner at the Raleigh law firm Allen and Pinnix, RA. He is a North Carolina board-certified special ist in immigration law and first vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Reach him at jlp@allen-pinnix.com.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Aug. 23, 2000, edition 1
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