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10 Tuesday, April 2, 2002 Opinion GV !aiU| (Uar MM EstM&ial 1893 ■ 109 Yemn of Editorial Freedom www.cUilytarhwl.ium Katie Hunter Editor Office Hours Friday 2 p.m. -3 p.ra. Kim Minugh MANAGING EDITOR Russ Lane SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Kate Hartig EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Lizzie Breyer UNIVERSITY EDITOR Kellie Dixon CITY EDITOR Alex Kaplun STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR lan Gordon SPORTS EDITOR Sarah Sanders FEATURES EDDOR Sarah Kucharski ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Terri Rupar COPY DESK EDITOR Kara Arndt PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Beth Buchholz DESIGN EDITOR Cobi Edelson GRAPHICS EDITOR Jonathan Miller ONLINE EDITOR Michael Flynn OMBUDSMAN Concerns or comments about our coverage? Contact the ombudsman at mffiynrt3emaiLunc.edu or by phone at 843-5794 Readers' Forum White Ribbon Campaign This Week; Men, Pledge Support, Wear a Ribbon TO THE EDITOR: In light of the recent attacks on women on our campus, I feel it’s my responsibili ty to speak out. I participate with a group of campus men who frequendy discuss how we, as men, are lucky to be able to walk on campus at night and never question our safety in doing so. This is our privilege, but for over half of our campus, this is not the case. And the problem is not at the top of campus official’s agendas. With frequent discussion on how night parking permits will force even more students and faculty to walk from further away to campus at night, I feel it’s my duty to speak out in opposition to this new amendment designed to aid in our campus budget shortfalls. Don’t trade the safety of women on this campus for money needed to pay for other goals. One of the safest options women on campus have, especially if they live in a sorority house or apartment near by, is to drive to campus when they need to use the library or meet a friend on campus at night This new fund-raising plan is going to lead to more assault on and around our campus. * **/ ysseS.ALlffl\ Board Editorials Tonight Jen Daum will be inaugurated as student body president to face a challenging and difficult year Tonight Jen Daum will be sworn in as UNC’s 85th student body president, only the third female student to hold the post. Next year will bring many challenges to the office. The plight of current and future UNC students could hinge on decisions regarding parking, tuition and student life made during Daum’s presidency. To effectively push for the interests of the student body, Daum must work to strength en the relationship between the student body and the administration. This goal will require a detailed understanding of the issues at hand backed up with extensive student input. A coherent strategy to deliver proposals to the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees, UNC system Board of Governors and the admin istration is key in regaining the ear of those in the upper echelons of power. The coming year is bound to be an uphill battle when it comes to tuition. The BOG, despite the protests of outgoing Student Body President Justin Young and the student body, voted in March to raise tuition by 8 percent Living in Chapel Hill doesn't mean students or community members can ignore concerns about safety Our parents used to say it when they decided to shield us from the rancor in R rated movies and when they cloaked the bitterness of medicine in a bowl full of ice cream.“ What you don’t know won’t hurt you,” they’d say, and for the most part, we were content to go with the flow. But as we become young adults, perhaps the best thing for us is to be in the know, especially when it comes to violence against members of our commu nity. According to the FBI, one in three women and one in five men will be sexu ally assaulted in their lifetime. And statistics compiled by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence show that more than 50 percent of all women will experience vio lence from intimate partners. In addition, the FBI says 64 percent of rapes and 80 percent of attempted rapes are not report Women on campus are starting to speak out about this issue, but it’s time we men see our privilege in feeling safe, and ask campus officials to provide the same for the women on campus. This week is UNC’s White Ribbon Campaign, designed to help men vocalize their support for women, and our desire to aid them in feeling safe in their homes, dorms and on their own campus. So, I am asking men to find us in the Pit, sign a pledge and help us show campus officials that this is an issue all Carolina stu dents care about. David Bennett Sophomore History Chairman, NC Fellas UNC Academic Diversity Story Shows Perspective On Choices of Majors TO THE EDITOR: I wish to respond to Thursday’s article titled “Classroom Diversity Varies Widely Among Majors.” To preface, the article, although having minute pitfalls, was well-researched and covered much of the University campus. Stepping Up for in state students and by 12 percent for out of-state students. It also voted to raise tuition even more at individual system schools, including an additional S3OO increase at UNC-CH. Long-term planning is essential. The projected N.C. budget shortfall of about $1.2 billion for the 2002-03 fiscal year will continue put pressure on the University. Daum’s difficult task will be to advocate student interests in keeping the price of public education affordable. This action will require much more than the bi weekly polls and advisory committees she championed in her campaign. This job requires the commitment of stu dent leaders to represent the interests of the student body in a way that affects the long term decision-making process. Extending the role of the Carolina Lobby Corps, as Daum said she would do, is a promising idea. CLC will provide expert information and create a dialogue with the decision-makers. The success of a different student gov ernment approach became apparent after An Assaulting Reality ed to the police. Nevertheless, many members of the Chapel Hill community live under the illu sion that the numbers don’t apply to those within our bubble. This is why the only attor ney representing indigent vic tims of domestic violence in both Orange and Chatham counties’ civil courts will Daniele Eubanks Editorial Notebook have to close her doors in June because of a lack of funding. The 293 clients she has taken on since August will continue being statistics, but they will lose the only voice with skills to plead for their protection. This is also why it did not dawn upon UNC administrators that requiring night parking permits might jeopardize student safety. The embarrassing truth is that people just don’t seem concerned with assault until it happens to them or someone they care about. I also would like to state that I am Caucasian in skin tone. I, myself, am a third year history and political science major that has enjoyed the educational fruits of this campus. Much of intellectual time here has been focused upon understanding the “other” and deciding where my true path in life is located. That being said, I regret one thing since I have been here. I should have majored in Afro-American studies. My pursuits within, specifically, the Department of History has been directed toward modem American history trying to see it from the black citizen’s perspective. I have grown an appreciation for the true horrors of American slavery, the grave injustices our legal system places upon vast amounts of minorities and how no where in this great land has racism been complete ly abolished. I am planning a history honors thesis on the evolution of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and its direction of major Supreme Court Cases, including the well-known Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. With all due respect to the won derful history professors that I have had the pleasure to work with, many AFAM pro fessors have become my main advisers in my thesis ambitions. That is no coinci Thursday’s BOT meeting. Rather than cre ating a ruckus with rhetoric, posters and chants, Young along with Daum contacted the trustees to talk to them individually. She also urged students to contact the trustees before the meeting. BOT members appeared to respond pos itively to this change in strategy and Thursday, rather than voting with the administration, they sided with students and sent the night parking proposal back for revi sion. Daum seems to be on the right track. While this strategy is producing tangible results, the battle isn’t over. With the Department of Public Safety strapped for funds, parking will continue to be a tug-of war between students and the administration until the BOT reaches its ultimate decision. While the student body president has the potential to make significant changes, this can only be done with the help of the stu dent body. It certainly will be a difficult year, but students also have a responsibility to help make Daum’s term a success. Nancy Suttenfield, UNC vice chancellor for finance and administration, advocated the night parking plan as the best way to ameliorate the Department of Public Safety’s budget crunch and maximize the dwindling number of available parking spaces due to development. I wonder, where is her parking space, and will she have to pay to keep it next year? Commendably, Student Body President elect Jen Daum pressed administrators to consider preserving student’s safety practi cally, by letting them freely park where they feel most secure. Her reason? She per sonally knows people who have been vic tims of violence. Yet Daum’s public action is rare. Most of us go about our days oblivious to the vio lence around us, and each unseen blow perpetuates pain and damages our com munity. When it comes to assault, what we don’t know can hurt us, and it is. dence. For some reason, while a freshman and sophomore, I never contemplated being an AFAM major, even though my passions were in that field - maybe it was because that was not “expected of me” or maybe, in all honesty, I did not think I belonged. Whatever the reasons, my decision, or lack thereof, was due to my insecurities, and if I had to do all over again, my diplo ma next year would say Afro-American studies and political science major. Jonathan T. Hoffman Junior History and Political Science All Students Encouraged To Attend Inauguration Tonight at Friday Center TO THE EDITOR: Your presence is requested tonight as your new student body officers are inaugu rated! Students to be inaugurated include the 84th Session of Student Congress, Student Attorney General Amanda Spillman, Carolina Athletic Association President Kris Willett, Residence Hall Association President Joanna Jordan, Graduate and Shaving Into Manhood By Choice Razor Every four weeks or so, I must bid a sorrowful farewell to the single natural bodily fixture that I feel most convincingly proves that I am in fact a man. As that time of the month slowly approaches, I reflect on other stereotypical aspects that I could possibly have that would also convey my manhood to the skeptic. Sadly, I’m always forced to conclude, whilst heaving a heavy sigh, that I’m as manly as a flock of fat, one-legged pigeons taking a nap. Yes, I’m a boy. While other kids my age dreamt (or, I guess, still dream) of being Luke Skywalker or Rocky or, for some strange reason, Mr. Miyagi, I wor shiped and idolized Scott Howard. Better known as the character played by Michael J. Fox in the com edy/horror classic “Teen Wolf,” Scott Howard was a classic role model that proved that there was one and only one key to manhood - hair, and lots of it. So, last week I went to CVS to go buy myself a razor - not because I really needed one for my sparser-than- Indigo-Girls-fans-in-a-frat house stubble but because I felt that without it I’d be missing out on an important rite of passage. Without a razor, I can’t really call myself a man because every man needs a razor, right? The razor is the key to my ascendancy from boyhood to manhood. You see, I already have an electric razor, which by the way, definitely ranks as the most bizarre Christmas gift I’ve ever received from my parents (“Gee, thanks Mom and Dad. ... Um, do they sell some kind of Rogaine for the face?”) However, shaving your face with a buzzing piece of cobalt blue molded plastic doesn’t seem to be as virile as frosting your face with scented foam and painstakingly rak ing a bladed device across your skin. Or at least, that’s my impression, since I’ve never actually used a razor. Or taken the driving test. So what better razor for a burgeoning hopeful-man like myself than the Gillette Mach 3? As I was staring at the decidedly unkempt razor display at CVS, the Mach 3 hung silendy on its rack, smugly awaiting for me to shell out $7.29, all for the sake of reveling in the validation it could provide for my tenuously assembled male soul. Six days of facial growth later, I still haven’t bought the Mach 3. Frankly, I’m a little scared - its three anti-friction blades and soft, protective microfins will banish what few facial hairs I have to a foamy, scented purgatory. Yeah, they may grow back, but then again, tomorrow I might wake up a monkey. (With my luck, it would be a hairless monkey with three nipples.) Furthermore, I refuse to shell out a meal’s worth of dol lars for a razor whose only difference from any pre-1998 razor is one measly blade. So, why is it so bloody expen sive, I wondered. Well, surprise, surprise. Gillette’s flagship razor, a true marvel of depilatory technology, cost nearly $1 billion over a period of seven years to develop. There were undoubted ly a myriad of sleepless nights for the tireless research and development specialists - tired, surely, from spending an average of $400,000 per day on building a better razor. A third blade! Ingenious! Talk about another reminder about the stupid world in which we live. What bevy of fools needed the amount of money it takes to buy a B-2 stealth bomber (another notorious waste of money) and the amount of time it takes to digest a piece of gum in your stomach (a complete lie) to come up with something as mind-numbingly simple as the Mach 3? This display of sheer brilliance rivals only that of smart-mouth Dan Quayle and the space program, combined. *Sigh* A Dan Quayle joke -1 feel so sophisticated. What a dilemma - I’m standing on the event horizon of a paradigm shift, yearning for the man-status that the bil lion-dollar “stealth bomber” of razors can grant me. The irony - finding manhood in a piece of plastic that removes the one piece of evidence I have that testosterone courses through my veins. What me and my bruised, hairless boy-ego really need is that Rogaine for the face. Why isn’t anybody pouring a bil lion dollars into that? The White Ribbon Campaign is this week. It’s an opportu nity for men at Carolina to pledge their support in ending men’s violence against women. Please, show your support by signing the pledge and wearing the white ribbon (this can be done in the Pit).Thanks. Also, contact Eugene Kim at chinook@email.unc.edu. Professional Student Federation President Branson Page, Student Body Treasurer Michael Vollmer, Student Body Secretary Rebecca Williford, Student Body Vice- President Aaron Hiller and Student Body President Jen Daum. The ceremony will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Friday Center. To ensure that all have transportation, there will be a pick up at the ATMs for any interested students at 7:10 p.m. Additionally, you can take the (fare-free) V bus at 7:05 pm, which picks up outside Fetzer Gym on South Road. We will arrange transportation back to campus for you. We look forward to serv ing you and hope to see you tonight! Jen Daum Student Body President-elect Aaron Hiller Student Body Vice President-elect Editor’s Note Submissions for next week’s Viewpoints are still being considered. Each Monday, four guest columns at 750 words in length run on the Viewpoints page. If you are interested in writing please e-mail Kate Hartig at khartig@email.unc.edu. dhp laily (Tar MM EUGENE KIM OUTCLASSED AT BAGGAGE CLAIM © A The Daily Tar Heel wel comes reader comments and criticism. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 300 words and must be typed, dou ble-spaced, dated and signed by no more than two people. Students should include their year, major and phone num ber. Faculty and staff should include their title, department and phone number. The DTH reserves the right to edit letters for space, clarity and vul garity. Publication is not guaranteed. Bring letters to the DTH office at Suite 104, Carolina Union, mail them to P.O. Box 3257, Chapel Hill, NC 27515 or e-mail forum to: editdesk@unc.edu.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 2, 2002, edition 1
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