Tuesday, September 17, 2002

by Jeremy Schifeling
Managing Editor

Coming off a weekend brainstorming retreat, the Student Council held its first
official
meeting of the semester last night and immediately dove into a full slate of
initiatives and
issues.

While administrative concerns such as the upcoming election of a new
secretary/treasurer
(voting will be held this Thursday and Friday in Sharples) and the allocation of
capital
replacement funds to Olde Club occupied the early portion of the meeting, the
bulk of the
session was spent unveiling the myriad proposals that the Council is considering
this
semester.

A listing of all the initiatives would likely exhaust even the near-infinite
capacity of
this space.  Thus, the following are merely the highlights of the fall agenda:

* Allow students to vote in Board of Managers elections.  Co-president Matt
Rubin ’03 noted
that Yale’s executive board is “voted on proportionally by students and
alumni…, while at
Swarthmore, that’s not the case.”  “I think that [student voting] would be a
very
interesting situation to have on campus,” said Rubin.

* Enhance faculty advising.  Ryan Budish ’04, Council co-president, said that
many students
he has talked with “have had very negative experiences with their advisors,” and
conversely,
that “some [profs] seem to hate being advisors.”  Thus, the Council will look
into ways to
increase advisor training and/or allow faculty members to refrain from advising
if they
don’t feel comfortable in that role.

* Increase Swat’s national presence.  Some Council members suggested that there
exists
strong student demand for enhancing the College’s national reputation.  Others,
including Ed
Stehlik ’05 and Rubin voiced concerns that such an increase in visibility would
force the
school into the mainstream and away from its “quirky” roots.  There was also a
lack of
agreement on what the SC could do in this regard, without a massive advertising
budget.
However, Joe Dickerson ’04 suggested that the Council could use the student
body’s
experience as consumers of college information to help the administration shape
their
marketing message.

* Create a new 11-meal plan.  With the success of the recently-introduced
17-meal plan (200+
students have enrolled), Budish proposed that an 11-meal plan, with more points
than are
currently offered through the 14-meal plan (125), would cater to a sizeable
segment of the
student population.

* More funding for club sports.  Neil Cavanaugh ’03 said that the $10,000
currently provided
to club sports teams by the Athletics Department was insufficient to cover the
large student
interest in these squads.  As such, the Council would look to that department,
as well as
the Dean’s Office, for additional resources.

* Increase the amount and availability of secure storage.  In order to satisfy
student
demands for more and better secure storage, the Council is looking into
upgrading the
security of non-dorm storage.  This would potentially be accomplished by
restricting access
to these areas to the RAs, and then requiring all students to retrieve their
posessions
under the observation of the RA, as well as to fully label their boxes and
belongings.
Additionally, the Council will attempt to make the existing secure storage
available more
often.

* Investigate the Council on Education Policy’s recommendation to replace the
PDC system
with first-year seminars.  The SC wants to find out how the change will affect
class size
and what benefits it will entail for students.

* Preserve or lengthen Reading Week.  The Council will try to discourage profs
from
scheduling exams during the reading period, and will look into the possibility
of increasing
the period’s length, particularly in the fall, where it is only 2-1/2 days.

* Raise the top student pay scale.  Due to the extra demands of certain campus
jobs,
employers are sometimes forced to use incentives (i.e., gift certificates or
hour-doubling)
to attract enough student workers.  If the top pay scale can be raised for these
jobs (it is
currently $7.50/hour), the use of these questionable incentives can be
curtailed.

* Unify Tri-Co meal cards, allowing students to more easily purchase meals at
Haverford and
Bryn Mawr.

* And everyone’s favorite initiative: More parking.  With all of the
construction going on,
the SC will discuss the possibility of adding new spaces around campus as part
of the
various facilities upgrades.

*In a suprise announcement Monday, Iraq said that it would once again allow UN
weapons
inspectors into the country. The announcement was made by Iraqi Prime-Minister
Naji Sabri in
a meeting on Monday evening with Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the UN, and
Amr Moussa,
secretary general of the Arab League. The timing of the announcement coincides
with a push
by the Bush administration to have the UN pass a resolution condemning Iraq.
Soon after the
announcement was made, however, the Bush administration rejected the offer,
calling instead
for complete and total disarmament of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

*The three medical students investigated on charges of carrying explosives will
not be
allowed to start their clinical internships at a Miami hospital. The three men
of  Arabic
descent were stopped and searched on Friday, while en route from a medical
conference to
their internship. The search occurred after authorities received a report from a
woman named
Eunice Stone, who alleged that she had heard the students making terror plans at
a
restaurant in Georgia. Authorities found no evidence in the car, and the men
were not
charged with any crime.

*The Center on Disease Control in Atlanta reported on Saturday that ten more
deaths in the United States have been linked to the West Nile Virus. Those
ten bring the total deaths to 64, with more than 1,400 dead total. The disease
is spread by mosquitoes, and can be fatal for people with weakened immuned
systems.

*****

Aikido Practice
Wrestling Room – Lamb-Miller Field House, 7:00 p.m.

Sigma Xi Student Research Poster Session
LPAC Lobby, 7:00 p.m.

Lecture: “As Imagination Bodies Forth”: English Classics from Beowulf to Twelfth
Night
LPAC 301, 7:00 p.m.

Argentine Tango
Upper Tarble, 9:00 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

by Pat Quinn
Sports Editor

The women’s soccer team played hard last night, but was unsuccessful in their
game against
the highly ranked Ospreys.  The team traveled to the Jersey shore to face
Richard Stockton
College, which is ranked fifth in the region.  Swarthmore played a hard
defensive game,
shutting out Stockton for much of the match, but the squad was unable to
outmatch the
powerful Osprey defense.

After struggling through 72 scoreless minutes, the Garnet finally allowed a goal
when the
Ospreys scored off a header.  Later, with four minutes to go, Swarthmore allowed
the final
goal of the game.

Though the boxscore suggests that the Garnet were clearly outperformed,
Swarthmore still put
up a strong fight.  Despite being outshot 12-1, Swat managed to holf the Ospreys
to two
goals, both of which came at the end of the second half.  Meanwhile, in goal,
Swarthmore’s
Catherine Salussolia ’04 recorded five saves.

The team did play an extremely physical game, even if they were somewhat
outmatched by the
Stockton squad.  Said sophomore Tanya Hahnel of the contest, “We played as hard
as we could,
and we gave [the Ospreys] a fight.  Our team did a great job.”

With a 4-3 record (1-0 in the Centennial Conference), the Garnet look as strong
as ever.
The team next goes up against McDaniel College at home on Wednesday at 4:30.

*****

Today:
Field hockey hosts Notre Dame (MD), 4:30 p.m.

Tomorrow:

Men’s soccer at Phila. Biblical, 4:15 p.m.
Women’s soccer hosts McDaniel, 4:30 p.m.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I can’t wait for tomorrow.  You know why?  Because I get better looking every
day.
–Joe Namath

*****
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