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oa% ®ar MM CLARIFICATION Due to a reporting error, Tuesday’s page 3 story “New Carrboro hopes fuls mull town’s future” misrepre sents candidate Katrina Ryan’s rea son for running for office and her stance on afforiable housing. She wants to give a voice to northern Qarrboro and sees housing for the workforce as a key issue. The Daily Tkr Heel apologizes for the error. CAMPUS BRIEFS Red Cross blood drive to benefit hurricane victims The Red Cross is holding a blood drive today from 11 a.m. to 4:30 in the Great Hall. ' The drive will benefit the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. The Gulf Coast blood supply has been at dangerous levels all summer. Now with the effects of Katrina, the sup ply could drop even lower. The Red Cross will hold another blood drive Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Berry’s Grove Baptist Church. The next drive on campus will be from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Sept. 8 and Sept. 9 in the Great Hall. . Students can go to unc.gives blood.org to schedule an appoint ment. CITY BRIEFS Orange County Schools see SAT score improvement _ SAT scores for Orange County Schools increased eight points from last year, yielding an average score 0f1047. * The College Board released its 2005 SAT College-Bound Seniors report Tuesday. County schools scored higher than both the state average of 1010 and the national average of 1028. ’ The county saw a participation rate of 77 percent while the nation al rate is 4 9 percent. According to the board, scores usually tend to decrease as more students in a school take the test. Cedar Ridge High students scored an average of 1063, slightly higher than Orange High students’ 1032 average. STATE S NATION Hurricane Katrina wreaks havoc on Gulf Coast area ■ GULFPORT, Miss. - Gulf Coast residents staggered from the body-blow inflicted by Hurricane Katrina, with more than a million people sweltering without power, miles of lowlands swamped and at least 55 dead —a number likely to increase as rescuers reach the hardest-hit areas. Even with Katrina to the north, a large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee gave way Monday afternoon in New Orleans, sending a churning sea of water coursing across the western part of the city. Residents who had ridden out the brunt of Katrina now faced a second more insidious threat as flood waters continued their ascent well into the night. Across the Gulf Coast, people were rescued in boats as they clung to rooftops, hundreds of trees were uprooted and sailboats were flung about like toys when Katrina crashed ashore Monday in what could become the most expensive storm in U.S. history. The federal government began rushing baby formula, commu nications equipment, genera tors, water and ice into hard-hit areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, along with doctors, nurses and first aid supplies. The Pentagon sent experts to help with search-and-rescue oper ations. New bill creates commission to examine global warming The General Assembly gave its final approval Tuesday to create a legislative commission that would study global warming’s impact on North Carolina. The House finally agreed by a vote of 86-25 to a compromise reached with the Senate earlier this month. The Senate already approved the measure, which goes to Gov. Mike Easley for his signa ture. The bill creates a 32-member commission that would study issues related to greenhouse gases. The panel could recommend a pollution-reducing goal when it reports to the General Assembly by November 2006. - The panel membership includes members of the public, representa tives of the state’s top power com panies, as well as industry and envi ronmental groups and universities. ‘“North Carolina has scored again to protect the environment and public health, becoming the fijst state in the Southeast to address global warming in a mean ingful way,” said Michael Shore, with the group Environmental Defense. 5 —From staff and wire reports. New class boasts highest-ever marks BY JENNY RUBY ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR Reporting an average SAT score of 1299 up 12 points from last year the most academically qual ified freshman class in UNC history began its college career Tuesday. This year’s freshman class scored more than 100 points higher than the national average in both the verbal and math sections, accord ing to preliminary data reported by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and the National College Board on TViesday. Freshmen boasted average scores of 643 in verbal and 656 in math compared to the national average ofsoß and 518, respectively. “The group as a whole has got ten appreciably better,” said Steve Farmer, director of undergraduate admissions. “It’s one thing for one person to score 30 points higher on the SAT. It’s another thing for a group 0f3,700 to score higher.” But Provost Robert Shelton said “This year they’ve all decided to come together and promote Panhellenic as a whole.” jenny levering, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FRATERNITY AND SORORITY LIFE . : jfo. ' V if B Hk S# ' / 39jk r _ - ' ... fl jraF H jpfag-g,’ X ffc I{' Bf /■ yi* ■Mf? v* W .SSTaKg jrBBMy j DTH/BRANDON SMITH Fifty-seven recruitment coordinators cheer for different sororities as part of sorority kick-off week Tuesday in the Great Hall. The coordi nators serve as mentors to a small group of students during the week, helping them with general Greek life and the selection process. KICKOFF STRESSES UNITY, DIALOGUE Greek communities launch recruitment season BY JENNY RUBY ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR Explosions of applause rang out from the Great Hall on Tuesday night as more than 500 potential sorority members were introduced to the University’s nine Panhellenic sororities. The season of recruitment has begun. And with the new season comes new recruitment practices for both sororities and fraternities. Sororities have adopted the Panhellenic spirited contact agreement, which allows members to talk with women going through the recruitment process. “It’s not for the purpose of recruiting for your chapter,” said Liz Hancock, Panhellenic vice president of recruitment. “The whole purpose of this resolution is to have natural, normal communication.” In the past, the sororities followed a policy that prohibited current and potential members from speaking with one another First day of classes leaves freshmen unscathed BY EMILY FISHER STAFf WRITER UNC freshman Aaron Harrill wasn’t expecting a party Tuesday when he walked through the Pit on his first day of classes. “It was a lot of people —a little overwhelming,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting the music.” Harrill was one of the thousands of increasingly ambitious, qualified Carolina freshmen winding their way through the Tuesday humid ity. The sight of freshmen study ing maps and shouldering mas sive backpacks was common on campus as the University’s newest additions experienced their first lull academic day. Abbas Rattani, another member of the class 0f2009, vowed to go to bed at 6 p.m. Monday evening to be well-rested for his first day, but says he was distracted by his suitemates Top News the SAT is just one of many aspects reviewed during the application process. “As the SAT continues to rise, all the parameters are as well,” he said. “It’s a surrogate for overall perfor mance.” The number of top students enrolling at the University also is on the rise. About 40 percent of students were ranked in the top ten of their graduating class, up from 38.9 percent in 2004. Farmer said University enroll ment data is still preliminary and won’t be finalized until the 10th day of the semester, but he said he doesn’t anticipate any drastic changes. During a time where the University is fighting to attract and retain top faculty, its caliber of students is important. “One of the reasons people choose jobs at Carolina is the SEE ENROLLMENT, PAGE 6 outside formal recruitment events. “They thought that it would be better not to talk to women going through recruitment so there would be no dirty recruiting going on,” said Jenny Levering, assistant direc tor of fraternity and sorority life. “This year they’ve all decided to come together and promote (the Panhellenic community) as a whole.” Levering also said the open communica tion would help eliminate the impression that the Panhellenic sororities are separate entities. Instead, the new agreement will encourage women to speak positively of the entire community. “This year they’ve all decided to come together and promote Panhellenic as a whole,” she said. She said that changes to recruitment also will be seen in fraternities but that their pro cess won’t begin until Sept. 11. “This is one of the first times in several until after midnight. But after his classes, Rattani wasn’t exactly lacking energy. He carried the books for all of his classes even the ones he didn’t have Tuesday because he was so excited about the start of school. Rattani, who plans to dou ble-major in religious stud ies and phys ics, has classes from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He says he is tak- freshman FIRST series about freshman first experiences * ing so many hours in an effort to eliminate his required perspectives so that he can study in Iran. Although he had been scared of taking Economics 10, it turned out to have only 40 people, and he says he liked the professor. Studies unsure of college readiness BY JULIA FURLONG ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR Many high-school graduates are anxious about the demanding classes that await them on college campuses this fall. “I’m nervous for the work itself .more than anything else,” says freshman Mallory Plaks of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But the students themselves are not the only ones feeling insecure about whether they have had ade quate preparation for the rigors of college coursework. In fact, the issue of college readiness has been thrust into the spotlight after several recent stud ies cast doubt on whether high school curriculums are challeng ing enough. “I don’t doubt that there are sig nificant groups of students nation wide that could use help, even in years that recruitment hasn’t started back in the first week of the fall semester,” said Interfraternity Council President Tom Merrihew. Until this year, fraternity recruitment lasted more than two weeks, a process that was often taxing on new students. “(The new recruitment schedule) gives men who might be going through the recruitment process the opportunity to focus on different things... and not have to make the decision the first of the school year,” said Larry Shaheen, IFC vice president of recruitment. He said other policy changes include the creation of a Fraternity Monitoring Group, which will visit all fraternity functions dur ing formal recruitment and document any violations they witness. “IFC is working hard this year to make sure accountability is the most important factor,” he said. And representatives said recruiting book- SEE RUSH, PAGE 6 “The guy was laid-back and easy to follow,” Rattani says. And Rattani says he thinks he’s going to like his English class. He says his professor, in an attempt to curb class disturbances, told the class, “If my cell phone rings in class, you guys are dismissed.” Rattani says he tried to get the professor’s number but nobody had it. The professor let the class out early anyway. Raleigh native Eric Sim, one of Rattani’s distracting suitemates and a fellow freshman, says he knows time management will be the hardest adjustment to college life. “It’s tough, but I’m getting used to it,” says Sim, who plans to play ice hockey and to study in Japan next year. Despite his desire to study in SEE FRESHMEN, PAGE 6 WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2005 basic skills,” says Stephen Farmer, director of undergraduate admis sions. As for UNC in particular, Farmer notes that the admissions department is fortunate enough to choose from a well-prepared group of students. “I think individual students, however, can certainly be sur prised by course expectations,” Farmer says. The ACT Assessment, a curricu lum-based college entrance exam, reported a few weeks ago that less than one-quarter of the 1.2 million high-school graduates taking the test last year met all of its college readiness benchmarks in English, math, reading comprehension and science. ACT administrators created the benchmarks by correlating previ ous ACT scores with grades the H j B HR! Al JMK j After his first day of class, which included a first-year seminaUtob SANDUN Stephens, left, calls a freshmen classmate to make plans for the evening. same students earned at college. The most recent test scores available at UNC are for the fall 2004 freshman class, which aver aged above ACTs benchmarks for each subject. The average enrolling student was strongest in English, earning a 27.2 (with a benchmark of 18) and weakest in science, earning a 25.9 (with a benchmark of 24). The highest possible score for each subject area is a 36. “At UNC it’s a little different since we’re such a competitive uni versity,” says Bobbi Owen, senior associate dean for undergraduate education. “Students know what they need to achieve to be here, to stay here, to graduate,” Owen says, and points out the six-year graduation SEE READY, PAGE 6 Planks slow to reach fruition Dearmin calls for due process BY KATIE HOFFMANN ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR Student Body President Seth Dearmin had mixed success this summer tackling some of his platform planks but letting others slip by. While some students have applauded Dearmin for his approachability, others have criti cized him for failing to kick-start several promised initiatives. During the spring’s student elec tions, Dearmin pledged to work with the Chapel Hill Town Council to introduce wireless Internet to Franklin Street! While members of the Town Council made strides to implement the plan, Dearmin did not attend a single council meeting this sum mer. There were three council busi ness meetings during the summer. Dearmin intended to go in August, but was unable to because there were no meetings, he said. He said Tuesday he would be there when the council reconvenes in September. Dearmin recently helped form a University task force composed of administrators and student leaders to examine the matter. The task force is preparing to set a date for their first meeting. Adrian Johnston, student body vice president, said the task force will look into combining efforts with the Town Council. While Dearmin has not made substantial strides toward imple menting his wireless plan, he has had successes in other initiatives this summer. This summer the N.C. General Assembly approved a bill that will allow the Chapel Hill township to revise its voting precincts into a larger superprecinct. The change will make vot ing more accessible to students, Dearmin says. He inherited the initiative from his two predecessors and saw it through completion this summer. SEE DEARMIN, PAGE 6 3
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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