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ASG Forms Budget Committee to Handle New Funds
By Elyse Ashburn
Assistant State & National Editor
GREENVILLE - Under fire from
UNC-system Association of Student
Governments members for handling the
association’s
budgeting
process solo,
ASG President
Andrew Payne
created an ad
Members Give
Nominations for
ASG President
See Page 3
hoc Budget and Finance Committee at
the association’s meeting Saturday.
After receiving several complaints
before and during the meeting about
how the budget process was being han-
Student Government
Sees Rise in Interest
By Philissa Cramer
Staff Writer
Although student leaders say many divisions of
student government have seen increases in appli
cations this year, it remains unclear whether inter
est in running for vacant Student Congress seats
will experience a similar rise.
More students than usual applied to fill positions
in the executive branch Cabinet, to join the Student
Advisory Committee to the Chancellor and to
serve as senior marshals.
Congress Speaker Tony Larson said he expects this
trend to extend to open congressional seats. A special
election to fill 14 vacant seats will be held April 23.“1
am very confident we’ll be able to fill all the seats on
the 23rd,” he said.
Traditionally the positions least sought during stu
dent elections, congressional seats have not been com
pletely filled in two years, he said. Larson said 11
people already have formally expressed interest in
running. Petitions to run are due Thursday.
Larson said a rise in applicants would increase
Congress’ legitimacy. “If we have a full Congress
that is representative of the student body, and we
pass a resolution, that really sends a powerful mes
sage that this is what students want,” he said.
Student Body President Jen Daum said she
received 50 applications for Cabinet positions and 21
for officer positions. She said these numbers were at
least twice as high as she could remember them being
in recent years. SACC received 108 applications this
year, which Rudy Kleysteuber, former student
body vice president and SACC chairman, said was
about twice the number it received last year.
This year was the first that the application for
Survey: 1 of 3 UNC Students Feels Unsafe at Night
By John Frank
Assistant University Editor
Freshman Sarah Matista is afraid to
walk to campus at night.
Earlier this year, Matista said two
men asking for money blocked her path
and made her and her roommate feel
threatened in the unlit parking lot
behind Fraternity Court.
That time, Matista and her roommate
were unharmed. A police car pulled up,
and the two men fled, she said.
But Matista said that since the inci
dent, she does not walk from her
Granville Towers room to campus with
out another person -and even then, she
still doesn’t feel safe.
“Since then, I don’t ever walk around
at night alone or even just with my
roommate,” she said.
And Matista is not alone in feeling
unsafe walking on campus at night.
According to a poll conducted by
The Daily Tar Heel last week, almost
one in three students feels unsafe walk
ing on campus at night.
Overall, students almost unanimous
ly - 99.5 percent - feel safe on campus
during the day, but only 69.3 percent
feel that way after dark.
But the degree of students’ feelings of
safety differs dramatically. While 87 per
cent said they feel very safe during the
day, only 15.8 percent said they feel
“Freedom from fear" could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.
Dag Hammarskjold
Hp
died, Payne made a motion to create a
committee that would review and revise
the ASG’s budget.
The finance committee will submit a
final budget proposal May 4 to the ASG
General Assembly for approval.
In March, the UNC-system Board of
Governors approved a $1 systemwide stu
dent fee to increase funding for the orga
nization. But the board also asked the
ASG to examine its budget and specifi
cally the $95,000 allotted to professional
staff members in the original proposal.
The ASG has a budget of no more
than $4,000, but the new fee will gener
ate $165,000 a year for the organization.
“When we only had $4,000, the presi-
SACC was online, which might have helped
increase the number of applicants, Kleysteuber said.
But Daum said she attributes the interest from stu
dents to disillusionment with the relationship between
past student government and the administration.
Daum said she thinks students felt marginalized
by the University administration’s discussions
about a proposed business school in Qatar and a
proposed night parking plan. Asa result, she said,
more students are getting involved.
“Students want to express their views to the
administration, and they feel that hasn’t happened
in the past,” she said.
Daum said many students are trying to channel
their frustrations into effective involvement.
“I think that students are ready to see serious
change in the administration, and I think students
want to be a part of that change,” she said.
Larson said student government’s recent
achievements - like getting a seminar on Qatar
established last semester and helping convince the
UNC Board of Trustees to send back the
University’s night parking proposal - now have
galvanized the student body. “The success student
government has had in getting its voice heard has
increased interest as well,” he said.
But Kleysteuber also said the various setbacks -
noting the recent approval of a campus-initiated
tuition increase - that last year’s administration suf
fered sent the message to students that active par
ticipation in the University is needed.
“There’s anew thread of student frustration that
is providing a motivation to get involved.”
The University Editor can be reached at
udesk@unc.edu.
very safe at night.
The poll, which was conducted by
telephone April 1 through April 8, sur
veyed 385 randomly selected under
graduate, graduate and professional stu
dents regarding their opinions about the
level of safety on campus.
Students assessed their feelings about
campus safety through a series of eight
questions. The results have a sampling
error of plus or minus 5 percent.
The issue of campus safety has come
to the forefront after three on-campus
assaults were reported in recent months.
Safety concerns also were a major issue
in the discussion of a night parking pro
gram the UNC Board of Trustees reject
ed at its meeting last month.
On Jan. 19, a male and female student
were robbed at gunpoint shortly after 9
p.m. near Coker Arboretum. The two sus
pects took an unknown amount of money
from the students and then fled on foot.
Two months later, a 21-year-old
female student reported that she was the
victim of a misdemeanor assault while
working in the Morehead Parking Lot
qn March 20. Police said the incident
involved a man who inappropriately
touched the victim.
Three days later, a female student
reported that she was the victim of a
sexual assault that occurred Feb. 27. The
student reported that she was forced to
the ground by her assailant near Alumni
Serving the students and the University community since 1893,
I Would Walk...
... 27 miles to N.C. State. Students walk
to support the battle against AIDS
See Page 3
dent and the secre
tary of finance
made budget rec
ommendations,”
Payne said. “But
that was $4,000,
and now we have
$165,000, and
maybe we need a
new process.”
Former UNC-
Chapel Hill
Student Body
President Justin
Young was select
ed to serve as
chairman of the
m
Survey Says...
A poll recently conducted by The Daily
Tar Heel provided statistics about
students' perceptions of campus
safety. The results showed drastic
divides when broken down by gender.
The poll surveyed 385 randomly
selected students by telephone from
April 1 to April 8. The results have a
plus or minus 5 percent sampling error
with a 95 percent confidence level.
The survey had a 55 percent response
rate. Of the people surveyed,
43.2 percent were men, and 56.8
percent were women; 73.2 percent
were undergraduate students, and
26.6 percent were graduate or
professional students.
SOURCE: DAI I.YTAR HEU POLL
Hall and that she then blacked out.
Police said the student was a victim of a
sexual assault, although University
Police Chief Derek Poarch did not
describe the incident as a rape.
Police have not made an arrest in any
of the three assaults.
About two out of five, or 43.8 per
cent, of the students responded that they
were more afraid walking on campus at
night than they had been before learn
Spring Fling
Football ends spring practice
with intra-squad scrimmage.
See Page 10
Volume 110, Issue 30
budget committee.
Payne said Young was selected
because he serves as the chairman of the
Council of Student Body Presidents and
is well-respected within the association.
Young said he was pleased with the
nomination even though he had been
looking forward to some time off. “I was
kind of surprised that I would chair it,”
he said. “I’m excited, actually, about
doing it.”
The budget committee tackled sever
al issues during its first meeting
Saturday, including how to schedule
enough time in the next three weeks to
meet the May 4 deadline.
The committee also began prelimi
ASG President
Andrew Payne
called for tne
creation of a
committee to
review the budget.
JUST PEACE PROTEST CONVENES ON FRANKLIN
II p -
m :
DTH/SARA ABRONS
Members of Jews for a Just Peace and other concerned community members gather to protest in front
of the Franklin Street post office. Jews for a Just Peace organized the gathering late Friday afternoon
to protest Israeli occupation of Palestine and violence against Palestinians.
How safe do you feel walking on campus after dark?
Very safe—. i —Very Unsafe
£jy\ 3 - ?% sMr
Safe [,31.9% j safe < Unsafe
6 °' B% llfeJ 47.7% 44.5%
Unsafe
7.2%
Men Women
*O% surveyed answered 'Very Unsafe' * 46% surveyed answered 'Don't Know*
Since learning of the recent assaults, do you feel more
safe on campus at night, less safe or about the same?
11,1111 * Same
About the
Men Women
DTH/MAKY STOWELL
ing of the three assaults.
More than 92 percent of students said
they knew about the assaults.
But Sue Kitchen, vice chancellor for
student affairs, dismissed the idea that
students are unsafe on campus. Kitchen
said that students’ safety concerns do
not reflect their actual risk on campus
but rather reflect their misperception
See SAFETY PERCEPTION, Page 2
nary discussions about possible revisions
to the budget proposal, including allo
cating some funds for savings.
Several committee members initially
reacted positively to the savings concept,
but N.C. Agricultural & Technical State
University Student Body President Greg
Drumwright squelched the discussion. “I
don’t think it would be a smart idea to
have a savings account in our first propos
al,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘Wait a minute,
I thought you needed ail this money.’”
Other committee members voiced
concern that long-term planning did not
factor enough into the standing proposal.
ASG Treasurer Jonathan Ducote said
the proposal should be revised to incor
Poll Shows That Women
Feel Less Safe Than Men
By John Frank
Assistant University Editor
Students and officials said they want to
see expanded programs to address feel
ings of women and off-campus residents
that they are not safe on campus at night
A poll conducted by The Daily Tar
Heel last week showed that 48.2 percent
of women feel unsafe on campus at
night, while only 7.2 percent of men do.
The poll also showed that 25 percent of
women surveyed have felt threatened on
campus as the result of another person’s
action, compared to 15 percent of men.
Diane Kjervik, director of the
Carolina Women’s Center, said she is
not surprised by the results. “I think
women on campus and women in gen
eral feel they could be victims if they are
not watchful at any given time," she said.
Sue Kitchen, vice chancellor for stu
dent affairs, also said women tend to be
portrayed in society as the victims of most
assaults - adding that three recent assaults
on campus involved female victims.
The poll showed that 59 percent of
Weather
Today: T-storms; H 82, L 59
Tuesday: T-storms; H 86, L 58
Wednesday: Showers; H 85, L 59
Monday, April 15 2002
jt r t
porate more far-reaching goals. “We
need to set three-year goals,” he said.
“We need to be thinking three years
ahead. I think that’s the smart thing.”
Overall the committee seemed opti
mistic about the possibilities created by
the $165,000 in funds. But members
acknowledged the limitations created by
the massive start-up costs they face this
year as the association attempts to set up
a permanent office. “Some of the projects
we may want to do may have to go on
hold for a while because of start-up costs,”
Ducote said. “That’s the grim reality.”
The State & National Editor can be
reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.
women feel less safe since learning of the
recent assaults. In comparison, 24.5 per
cent of men said they feel less safe.
Student leaders said that because
women make up almost 60 percent of
the student body, they are concerned
that such a large group feels threatened.
“On a campus that is predominandy
female, we need to prevent these feel
ings from occurring and make sure
women have options,” Student Body
President Jen Daum said.
Kindi Shinn, chairwoman of Advocates
for Sexual Assault Prevention, also said
she thinks it is important for women to feel
safe so they are willing to go out at night.
“The threat is more for women,”
Shinn said. “They worry about every
sound in the bushes. You don’t want to
feel like a hostage.”
But women are not the only group that
has safety concerns - the poll showed 33
percent of off-campus residents feel
unsafe, as compared to 26.9 percent of
on-campus residents. Most students and
See WOMEN, Page 2
w