8The Daily Tar HeelMonday, January 1 3, 1992
ON 7 He
COCK
WPPY
98th year of editorial freedom
STEVE POLITI. University Editor
CULLEN FERGUSON Editorial Page Editor
Neil Amato, Sports Editor
CHRISTINA NlFONG, Features Editor
ALEX De GRAND, Cartoon Editor
MlTCH Kokai, Copy Desk Editor
GRANT HALVERSON, Photography Editor
Jennifer Wing, Editor
JoAnn RODAK, Managing Editor
Amber NlMOCKS, City Editor
ERIC LUSK, State and National Editor
MONDY LAMB, Omnibus Editor
Jennifer Dickens, Layout Editor
Amy SEELEY, Copy Desk Editor
KATHY MICHEL, Photography Editor
MATTHEW Eisley, Special Assignments Editor
How not to steal $75,000
The $75,000 question of the week: How
could the campus yearbook have
$75,896.65 embezzled from its accounts
without anybody discovering it for two
years?
That question has tormented Yackety
Yack and Student Activities Fund Office
officials ever since police charged former
Yack Business Manager Tracy Keene with
21 counts of embezzlement. By using so
phisticated techniques such as false letter
head, forgery and phony checks, police
claim Keene managed to dodge all forms
of checks and balances on student financial
accounts. Considering the magnitude of
the theft more than $75,000 stolen over
two years something must be done to
prevent such an expensive blunder from
happening in the future.
Yack Editor Shea Tisdale and SAFO
Director Howard Brubaker both have pro
posed ways to tighten the process of ap
proving payments from campus groups to
vendors. The following suggestions should
be seriously considered by administrators
and Student Congress to avoid further
embarrassing mistakes.
Instead of the student group handling
the invoices, SAFO could deal directly
with the vendors. SAFO handles all finan
cial transactions between student groups
and vendors. Recommended by Brubaker,
this proposal would eliminate the chance
of a student group making phony invoices.
Already SAFO handles about 230 ac
counts with only a handful of employees.
Brubaker would like to see two more staff
ers added to the office in order to verify the
orders that come in from student groups.
Because of its great volume of work, SAFO
must treat its student clients with trust.
SAFO assumes these organizations put
honest folks in charge of the money, but
sometimes this trust fails. Adding two more
watchdogs would help catch some of the
slip-ups.
Presently the Yack has no governing
body that would scrutinize all financial
transactions. Tisdale is working on creat
ing a board of directors, modeled after The
Daily Tar Heel's, that would serve such a
purpose. Having an outside group of people
concentrating on the Yack's finances would
ensure objectivity and legality. The media
board was created as a similar sort of gov
erning party, but it proved totally worth
less. The Yack needs its own financial
checks and balances, and the University
should help the Yack move quickly in
installing such a board.
Tisdale also recommended that the job
of business manager be divided. One of the
managers could handle incoming payments,
while the other would control outgoing
payments. Thus, two people would over
see the financial transactions.
Under the present treasury laws and
SAFO regulations, the president of a stu
dent group only approves requisitions, not
invoices. If this leader could also sign
checks, then that would be a final approval
before the vendor receives the invoice.
Thus, if the business manager has pulled
any funny business between the requisition
and invoice stages, the president would
catch it.
SAFO already is making adjustments by
becoming stricter with student groupsby
examining all documents more closely.
The precautions and lessons learned from
this $75,000 mistake have been quite ex
pensive. By taking some of the suggestions
made above, UNC may avoid such costly
casualties in the future.
Casting a vote for fairness
Attention students!
Elections for student body officers are
on the way. Consider this fair warning.
Let's face it. Over the past few years,
elections have become well ugly.
Those who have paid attention have seen
the election process drawn out and compli
cated by election board high jinks, deface
ment of candidate's campaign materials
and increasing student apathy. We can hope
that this year will be different.
To begin with, Student Congress needs
to straighten out the elections board. We
can't have elections without it. The ap
pointments to the board need to be ap
proved with Chris Bracey as its chairman.
That's step one.
Once the board is approved, it should do
what it can to avoid stretching out the
election process. The longerthe campaign
ing and the voting go on, the less the
students are going to care and, thus, vote.
Aggravate the students any more than
necessary, and write-ins such as Batman
and Bullwinkle will appear on ballots.
Candidates have it a little rougher this
year, as they have less time to get the
number of petition signatures they need to
get on the ballot. This may concern some
candidates more than others, but, if con
gress considers this to be a problem, reduc
ing the number of signatures required of
each candidate is a better course of action
than allotting them extra time to gather the
needed John Hancocks.
As for the candidates themselves, the
operative words here are "Keep It Clean."
The elections board should make it abun
dantly clear what are and what are not
acceptable campaign tactics. And in turn,
the candidates should make sure that their
campaign workers, for whom they are re
sponsible, understand the rules as well.
In the past, there have been incidents of
campaign materials purchased by candi
dates disappearing or being defaced or
destroyed.
Put simply, messing with other people's
stuff is against the rules.
Most 4-year-olds know
that. To be safe, if you
see something having
anything to do with elec
tions, keep your hands
off. Don't write on it.
Don't pour things on it. Don't say mean
things to it. Don't even give it a dirty look.
Leave it alone. It doesn't get any clearer
than that.
As for Student Congress, do what you
can to smooth the times ahead and try not
to let politics interfere. The student body
cringes at the mention of elections as it is.
Let's try to reverse the trends of the past
few years and make elections a quick,
clean process.
Business and advertising: Kevin Schwartz, directorgeneral manager; 8ob Bales, advertising director; Leslie Humphrey, classified ad
manager, miiisum Hsnwonn, Business manager.
Business slaH:MichelleGrav.asss(antmanaoer:Gina Berardino.and Laurie Davis. olticeassislants:ChrissuDaiis.Dromotionsmanaaer.
Classified advertising: Amy Dew, Becky Marquette, Lome Pale, Leah Richards and Jennifer Terry, representatives.Oai Campbell.
prooucuort assisiani.
Display advertising: Ashleigh Heath, advertising manager Milton Artis. Marcie Bailev. Robert Lee Carson. Carrie Grady. Angela Gray.
David Hoffmann, Joanna Hutchins. Lynne Sandridge, Brooks Spradling, and Ginger Wagoner, account execuftVes; Mariea Miller, assistant
accounr execunvo; unanone weaver, nicki Diair, proorreaaers.
Advertising production: Bill Leslie, managersystem administrator; twite Bentley and Lorrie Pate, assistants.
Assistant editors: Anne Michaud, arts coordinator; Hardy Floyd, copy; Dana Pope, city; Beth Tatum, features; Valerie Fields, managing;
Vicki Hyman and Mike Long, Omnibus; Andrew Cline, pnoto.Stewart Chisam, Eric David, Warren Hynes and Bryan Strickland, sportsAnna
Griffin, state and national; Birch DeVault, Ashley Fogle and Bonnie Rochman, university.
Newsclerk: Kevin Brennan.
Editorial writers: David Elchison, Adam Ford and Will Spears.
University: John Broadfoot, Beth Broodno, Micah Cover, Soyia Ellison, Amy Eslinger, Heather Harreld, Jenny Mclnnis, Matthew Mielke,
Marty Minchin, Jennifer Mueller, Cathy Oberle, Shea Riggsbee, Karen Schwartz, Peter Smith, Sarah Suiter, Jennifer Talhelm, Jon Whisenant
and Michael Workman.
City: Tiffany Ashhurst, Jennifer Brett, Sally Bright, Kim Cable, Maile Carpenter, Andrew Cline, Carol Davis, Julie Flick, Chris Goodson,
Jackie Hershkowitz, Grant Holland, Amie Lane. Amber Nimocks, Liz Parker, Dana Pope, Emily Russ, Kelly Ryan and Chris Trahan.
Stale and National: Josh Boyer, Karen Dietrich, Brandy Fisher, Gilliam Hall, Vicki Hyman, Laura Laxton, Beth McNichol, Rebeccah Moore
and Jason Richardson.
Special Assignments: Alisa DeMao, Anna Griffin, Mara Lee, Jennifer Mueller and Gillian Murphy. -
Arts: Layton Croft, Ned Dirlik, Beth Formy-Duval, Laura Guy, Grant Halverson, Ashley Harris, Melissa Mankowski, Charles Marshall, Rahul
Mehta. Greg Miller, Susie Rickard, Sally Stryker and Ian Williams.
Features: Yi-Hsin Chang, Jackie Herskowitz, Thomas King. Mara Lee, Robin Lowe. Kelly Noyes, Mary Moore Parham and Winifred Sease.
Snorts: Mark Anderson, senior writer Jason Bates. Jennifer Dunlao, Jav Exum, Stuart Gordan. Dave Heiser. Doua Hoooervorst. Matt
Johnson, David J. Kupstas, Mary Latterly, John C. Manuel, Amy McCaffrey, Bobby McCroskey, David Monroe, Jay Stroble and Carter Toole.
Photography: Brian Jones, senior photographer Jonathan Atkeson, Jamie Batten, Kevin Chignell, Andrew Cline, Steve Exum, Garth Fort,
Florian Hanig, Scott Lansing, Erin Randall, Evie Sandlin, Debbie Stengel and Susan Tebbens.
Copy Editors: Lisa Lindsay, senior copy editor, Andy Bechtel. Amy Cummins. Michael Gaudio, Tera Hensley, Aimee Hobbs. Rama Kayyali,
Jennifer Kurfees, Mara Lee, Amy McCarter, Vikki Mercer, Susan Pearsall, Elliot Poger, Jennifer Reid, Alison Roxby, Christie Saleh, John
Staton, Jacqueline Torok, Rick Twomey, Kenyatta Upchurch, Sara Watson, Amy Weller and Nancy West.
Grapnics: unip suoorem.
Cartoonists: Mandy Brame, Chris DePree, Jake McNelly, Jason Torchinsky.
layout: Ian Leong and Heather Modlin.
Editorial Production: Stacy Wynn, manager Lisa Reichle, assistant.
Distribution and Printing: Village Printing Company
The Daily Tar Heel is published by the DTH Publishing Corp., a non-profit North Carolina corporation, Monday-Friday, according to the
University calendar.
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Reward your favorite professors with $5,000 gifts
Editor' s note: the writer is vice chairwoman
for the Student's Undergraduate Teaching
Award Selection Committee.
GIVE YOUR FAVORITE PROFESSOR
$5,000!" By now, you've seen the Pit
sign. Soon, fliers proclaiming this same
message will cover the walls of your class
rooms and dorms.
Sound a little absurd? Certainly, no one
expects you to delve into your personal bank
account and offer a professor every penny
you've ever made. As a student body, we've
already raised the money; in fact, we have
$20,000 enough for three $5,000 awards for
professors and Ave $ 1 ,000 awards for teaching
assistants.
Through our student activity fees, we each
give the equivalent of one drink 75 cents
a semester to fund what is called the Students
Undergraduate Teaching Award. It is our only
opportunity as students to thank our outstand
ing teachers with a substantial reward. And it is
our only opportunity to affirm the importance
of undergraduate teaching at a university where
research is the primary criteria for hiring, pro
moting and firing our professors.
'GIVE YOUR FAVORITE INSTRUCTOR
$5,000," the publicity signs read. Last year's
Jennifer Lloyd
Guest Writer
recipients argue that it's not just the money that
counts. Michael Folio, a geology professor in
his sixth year at Carolina and a past winner of
the award, pointed out that "even if no money
were involved, the fact that there were students
out there who took the time to recommend me
was tremendous affirmation." Folio said that
"there is no one better qualified to evaluate
teaching than students," and he also stressed
that professors improve their performance after
receiving the award.
"The award challenges me and demands that
I maintain a high level of quality teaching,"
Folio said. "I feel that my students' expecta
tions are higher, and I work to meet those
expectations."
Suggestion 368 in "Life's Little Instruction
Book" by Jackson Brown, Jr. reads:
"Remember, no one makes it alone. Have a
grateful heart and be quick to acknowledge
those who help you."
It would be impossible to graduate from
Carolina without encountering a professor de
serving of recognition for his or her excellence
in teaching. Take the time to fill out a nomina
tion form for those instructors who excel in the
classroom. It is the most appropriate way "to
acknowledge" their efforts.
In honor of the Bicentennial fund-raising
campaign for the College of Arts and Sciences,
Doris Betts, the alumni distinguished professor
of English, has written a very convincing argu
ment titled "In Defense of Teaching and Learn
ing." At the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, we profess "teaching and learning" to be
our priorities. Yet, it is unusual for a student to
find an instructor who can honestly state that
his priority and his greatest strengths can be
found in the classroom.
We need you to find these professors for us.
Applications are available everywhere from
the Student Union to the libraries to the cafete
rias and are due by Jan. 3 1 . Don't miss this
unique opportunity ... and thanks in advance
for your help.
Jennifer Lloyd is a sophomore political sci
ence and psychology major from Burlington.
Creationism merits no
place in science class
To the editor:
As a biologist and as a biology
teacher, I feel compelled to com
ment on Eric Lusk's Jan. 10 article
("Schools debate merits of teach
ing creationism"). There is more to
the omission of "creationism" and
scientific creationism" from sci
ence classrooms and textbooks than
the legally required separation of
church and state.
Science in general represents a
way of looking at the world; it is
not necessarily any more valid than
any given religious view of the
world, only distinctly different. To
present science and religion to
gether, in the same context, is in
tellectually false. Science and sci
entific ideas are repeatedly sub
jected to intense scrutiny and re-
evaluation. If a scientific hypoth
esis does not withstand this scru
tiny completely intact, it is modi
fied or rejected. I would argue that,
by definition, religious tenets are
not tested in this manner.
Creationism does not fall within
the realm of science fora multitude
of reasons, the primary ones being
that it is untestable and unsupported
by direct physical evidence. (Cre
ationists do have a list of "evi
dences" they claim support their
beliefs; however, they are similar
in quality to the "seashell on a
mountaintop" cited in Lusk's ar
ticle. If you are uncertain as to why
the seashells are there, take Geol
ogy II). Since creationism is, by
virtually everyone's assertion ex
cept the creationists', a religious
belief and not a scientific one, there
is no legal or intellectual reason to
present it as a science in a class
room. Al Isaak is quoted as equating
creationism and evolution in terms
of their lack of proof, ostensibly
because "we weren't there when it
happened." If it is not possible to
infer the existence of phenomena
and the natural rules that govern
their behavior based on evidence,
then science as an intellectual pur
suit is bankrupt. In other words, if
the only evidence that is admis
sible is direct human observation,
as Isaak claims, then science is
completely worthless (as are many
other academic fields, including
religion and philosophy).
Finally, Lusk falls into the same
trap that most creationists and
many scientists fall into: Evolu
tion and religion are mutually ex
clusive belief systems. This just
simply is not the case. Most scien
tists and theologians I know and
whose works I have read have little
difficulty reconciling their reli
gious beliefs with their scientific
beliefs. Only narrowmindedness
can prevent one belief from coex
isting with the other. I have no
objection to students being exposed
to conflicting ideas on our origins,
as long as it is in the appropriate
forum. Creationism does not be
long in a science classroom.
JOHN BUIE
1988 BS Biology
1989 MAT Science Education
"Helmsian Moore
denies students choice
To the editor
I could not help laughing at the
ridiculous nature of Tim Moore's
argument ("Student Government
Code must be followed," Dec. 6).
It simply reaffirmed my belief that
Mr. Moore himself is "posturing
and grandstanding" for personal
glory.
Mr. Moore states that defeat of
theSELFbilP'is indicative of what
a fiscally responsible .congress
should do to protect students."
What is our Helmsian speaker pro
tecting us from? The right to de
cide issues for ourselves? Strong
libraries? Mr. Moore goes on to
say that "a fee increase is espe
cially improper." Isn't that a deci
sion for students to make?
If students do not want a whop
ping $2.50 increase to support our
libraries, which benefit every stu
dent, then that is something for us
to decide. Mr. Moore, who didn't
even bother to sit in on the debate
of the SELF proposal, does not
have the right to speak for the
entire student body.
GEORGE STILES
Junior
Public Policy Analysis
Letters policy
The Daily Tar Heel welcomes
reader comments and criticisms.
We attempt to print as many letters
to theeditor as space permits. When
writing letters, please follow these
guidelines:
Letters should be limited to
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are accepted. However, the shorter
the letter, the better chance it has
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If you want your letter pub
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All letters must be typed and
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Include your year in school,
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town. If you have a title that is rel
evant to your letter's subject, please
include it.
The DTH reserves the right to
edit letters for space, clarity and
vulgarity.
Futuristic industrial facility good for state, nation
Less man a year ago, we oegan studying imc
possibility of building a unique, futuristic
industrial park in North Carolina that would
revolutionize the way business is conducted in
the global economy of the 2 1 st century.
This project known as the Global
TransPark clusters an industrial park facility
around an intermodal transportation network
that includes an airport capable of handling
international cargo flights. That network would
integrate the production and distribution de
mands of our U.S. industrial base and that of
a worldwide market with the latest improve
ments in air, sea and land transportation.
The Global TransPark would combine the
most up-to-date equipment in aviation and cargo
handling, industrial production and telecom
munications to improve our access to world
wide markets. The three main qualities of this
state-of-the-art distribution system would be
speed, access and reliability.
History has taught us a very clear lesson:
Transportation plays an extremely important
role in commercial development. For North
Carolina, the Global TransPark and its promise
of a state-of-the-art intermodal transportation
system makes sense, especially since our state
is already blessed with a very good network of
highways, airports, rails and seaports.
Aviation is a rapidly expanding method of
Jim Martin
Guest Writer
distribution for industrial goods, leading to the
rise of what many refer to as "just-in-time"
(JIT) production.
Whit just-in-time production, an order is
received and processing begins the same day.
The product can then be delivered to any point
on the globe in a matter of hours. The access,
speed and reliability offered by the Global
TransPark's transportation infrastructure of
highways, rails, seaports and other airports
would immediately answer the needs of grow
ing JIT businesses American and foreign
alike as well as a wide array of manufactur
ers who rely on less immediate delivery.
If we are to compete in international mar
kets, the United States must develop a better
understanding of how government and the pri
vate sector can work together to improve U.S.
commerce. The success of joint efforts be
tween private enterprise and government in
European and Pacific Rim countries show that
we must continue our efforts to develop similar
partnerships.
Global TransPark is a good example of how
we can work together to bring vast opportuni
ties to the American economy and transform
American business enterprise.
We face many challenges in building this
facility in North Carolina. For example, about
2,000 bilateral agreements currently determine
what routes are flown by international carriers.
The framework for these bilateral agreements
was laid in 1945 and needs to be drastically
modified.
These bilateral agreements severely hinder
the ability of American business to compete in
a global economy.
Yet the Global TransPark concept with its
many facets holds great promise. For North
Carolina alone, early projections show that this
facility could create almost 55,000 new jobs
and bring $2.8 billion into the state economy
each year.
The Global TransPark is also symbolic. It
marks a new turn that American government
and business can take toward renewed prosper
ity and competitiveness in a global market. Our
plan for the Global TransPark sets a new agenda
that integrates a highly expensive, and highly
fragmented, intermodal transportation system
to strengthen the economic future of both our
state and nation.
Jim Martin is governor of North Carolina.