Tuesday, November 19, 2002

by Pei Pei Liu
Co-Managing Editor

At last week’s Student Council meeting, it was announced that all community
service groups previously funded through CIVIC will now receive their funds
directly from SBC.

The decision also means that all CIVIC groups must obtain official charters
within the next two weeks and attend spring budgeting on November 24. Groups
will continue to be funded by CIVIC through December only.

“What we’ve done is to eliminate CIVIC’s role as the umbrella organization,”
said SBC Manager Jeff Traczynski ’04. “We felt that SBC did not have
sufficient control over the funds being allocated to CIVIC, and so they will
no longer be in charge of setting the budgets for their groups.”

Until this decision change, SBC had allotted a lump sum to CIVIC, which then
determined how it would distribute the funds among the various community
service groups. CIVIC itself will still exist as a student group and be
eligible for SBC funding for general community service-oriented events,
Traczynski added. SBC envisions CIVIC’s modified role as an organizational
support structure, much like the Forum for Activism.

So far, it does not appear that the decision will have adverse effects on
existing groups. Pat James, Director of Community Service Learning Programs,
said, “No CIVIC coordinator has come to me and said that their group can’t
function because of lack of funding. I’m fine either way [with SBC or CIVIC
funding groups]. This is student money, and students should decide how it
should be handled.”

Kai Xu ’03, one of the student interns for CIVIC, said, “I don’t think
funding will be an issue for any of the groups, since all of their budget
requests are reasonable.”

“However,” he added, “I am concerned that some small groups simply do not
have the time and the people to deal with SBC on a regular basis. Getting
reimbursements from SBC is a very time-consuming process.”

One of the issues over CIVIC’s distribution of funds was whether the money
is being used in ways considered appropriate by SBC. Examples cited by
Traczynski included SHIP’s buying and distributing underwear at homeless
shelters, and Higher Ground’s purchasing field trip tickets for the girls
being mentored by Swarthmore students. The money for all student groups
comes from the Student Activities Fee that is included in each student’s
tuition and is intended to be used for the direct benefit of students and
their activities. “If [the money] is going to people outside of Swarthmore,”
said Traczynski, “is that an appropriate use of student activities money?”

James drew attention to the fine line between the activities and the people
they serve. “As I understand it,” she said, “the SBC rules state that funds
may be spent only for direct benefit of Swarthmore College students, but not
for program expenses that would directly benefit community partners and make
the work of the Swarthmore volunteers a bit more effective.That leaves food
and transportation [as the only appropriate use of funds under SBC rules].”

Traczynski explained, however, that groups can secure independent sources of
funding to cover these extra expenses. Many groups are now beginning to
apply for Swarthmore Foundation Grants, which specifically support community
service projects. Fundraising events, like CIVIC’s partnership with Phi Psi
earlier this semester, are another option, and the new Lang Center for
Social and Civic Responsibility may also provide opportunities for students
to acquire group funding beyond their individual needs.

A separate issue that will be affected by the dissolution of CIVIC’s
budgeting powers is the role of individual volunteers who are not part of a
particular CIVIC group, but who have previously received CIVIC funding for
transportation costs. Traczynski explained that an individual volunteer
could cost SBC $150 per year, assuming that the student took the SEPTA into
Philadelphia for 10 times a semester to participate in volunteer activities.

Members of CIVIC, however, are speaking out strongly against this decision,
arguing that individuals deserve to be supported in volunteer activities as
well as groups.

“We have student volunteers at many sites in Philly,” Xu said, “who are
spending hours a week helping, amongst others, battered women, recent
immigrants, and AIDS patients. Their service is no less valuable than that
of their group affiliated peers and is a perfectly valid form of student
activity.”

Individual volunteers will continue to be funded at the same level for the
rest of the year, and Traczynski acknowledged that the debate about how to
deal with the issue in the future was still ongoing within SBC as well as
between SBC and CIVIC.

“I challenge the SBC,” Xu said, “to ask the student body how they feel about
individual CIVC volunteers and the place of community service on campus.”

James added, “I wish someone would ask SBC or Student Council if they think
there should be any congruence between the college’s mission to foster civic
engagement, and use of student funds to support this. The movie budget is
almost three times the CIVIC budget. If students had a referendum on
spending priorities, would movies be three times as important as community
service?”

But SBC maintains that their goal is not to devalue or eliminate community
service, but to support it in a way that is legitimated by SBC rules and
fair to other student groups. It is impossible, said Traczynski, “to equate
dollars with relative importance, since some activites inherently require
fewer and less expensive materials than others to be equally effective in
accomplishing their goals.”

“To make intelligent decisions when budgeting groups,” he added, “it is
necessary to have a firm knowledge of the entire student budget.”

by Jeremy Schifeling
Co-Managing Editor

Students across campus awoke yesterday morning to find their digital clocks
blinking that all-too familiar “12:00” after the College suffered a power
outage at approximately 9:00 AM.  The  outage lasted only ten minutes, but
it was enough to throw off wake-up alarms and leave students showering in
the dark.

Ralph Thayer, the school’s Director of Maintenance, linked the power loss to
a triggered switch gear, which “is designed to interrupt service if there is
a power failure or a phase loss.”  As a result, the ten-minute delay was the
time it took Facilities to confirm with PECO, the College’s energy provider,
that the power had been stabilized and that it was safe to reset the switch.
However, Thayer noted that PECO was unable to explain the reason for the
triggering of the switch.

Almost all College buildings were affected by the shortage, with the
exception of off-campus dorms ML and Woolman.

*****

The College Bowl team played host to its annual SNEWT tournament for first
and second-year players this past weekend, with the Swat novices producing
their best performance of the semester.  Both the A (William Schricker ’04,
Matt Fiedler ’06, and Rachel Winer ’06) and B (Emily Ullman ’06, Megan Mills
’06, and Alex Glick ’06) teams finished in the top brackets, placing fourth
and sixth, respectively.  Ullman led all Swatties with 55.71 points per
game, good enough for fourth-place overall.  Schricker and Fiedler also did
well, taking the sixth and tenth spots in that order.  The entire team will
next be in action on December 7th, when they travel to Yale for the Bulldogs
Over Broadway tournament.

* A team of UN weapons inspectors, headed by Hans Blix, arrived in Iraq on
Monday.  The team will start work on November 27, and must report back to
the UN by February 21. Under the terms of the Security Council Resolution,
the team has the ability to inspect any site in Iraq that they deem
necessary. Upon arrival Blix called the situation in Iraq tense.

* North Korean officials said on Monday that an earlier radio broadcast
stating that the country possessed nuclear weapons, in violation of a 1994
agreement, was in fact mistranslated. Instead, the report stated that North
Korea is entitled to possess such weapons. The linguistic mistake is
believed to have been caused by a single syllable.

* A three-judge review panel decided on Monday to give the federal
government more power in following those they suspect are involved in acts
of terrorism. Under the USA Patriot Act, the Justice Department now has the
ability to use wiretapping and other surveillance methods. The ruling is a
significant victory for Attorney General John Aschroft and a disappointment
to groups
like the ACLU who protest that such methods infringe on people’s privacy.

Classics Lecture
Scheuer Room – Kohlberg, 4:15 p.m.

Master Storyteller with Guitarist Robert Alberga:
“An Afternoon of African Stories for the Whole Family”
Upper Tarble, 4:15 p.m.

FMFCU Checking Account Info Session
Kohlberg 115, 4:30 p.m.

Department of Education Lecture: Jim Nevels
Scheuer Room – Kohlberg, 7:00 p.m.

Diya Week Movie Screening: “American Chai”
Followed by discussion with director Anurag Mehta
Kirby Lecture Hall – Martin, 7:00 p.m.

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

SAM Time Management Workshop
Kohlberg 202, 8:00 p.m.

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

Animal Rights Coalition Meeting
Hicks 211, 9:15 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

by Saurav Dhital
Gazette Sportswriter

Saturday afternoon, 2 PM. Some students are out on the Mertz field trying to
hit a tennis ball with a big, flat bat! A contorted form of baseball? An
easier format for people who would like a slower ball instead of the
sometimes frighteningly fast baseball!

Actually, no. This is a whole new ball game; this is cricket. As Bernadette
Baird-Zars ’06 explains, “The objects of the game, as far as I can tell, are
to either hit the ball with a big, flat bat or to stall as long as possible,
protecting the wicket from the ball by any means possible.”

This is partly true.  There are no strikeouts as in baseball, so you can
stay in the middle as long as you want. But as part of the bargain, you also
have to run back and forth, because the objective, like in its American
cousin, is to make the highest number of runs. And yes, you also have to get
the better of the other bloke at the opposite end who is trying to “blow
your stumps” (stumps being comparable to the base in baseball) out of the
ground by bowling at around 90 mph or spinning the ball both ways. And
because he bounces the ball, you have to judge the bounce as well.

While cricket may seem incredibly difficult to the novice, this is not
necessarily so at the recreational level of the Swarthmore club. The players
are all still learning and as Arvind Nair ’06 says, “Cricket here at
Swarthmore is basically about a bunch of people playing to have fun.” Thus,
without the intense competition that characterizes the professional sport,
Swat cricket is just another way of enjoying a nice Saturday afternoon. And
since the people who have played baseball have good hand-eye coordination,
they have been amazing everybody else with their long, hard and clean
hitting.

Shiva Thiagarajan ’05 says “It would be great if we had a hard pitch off
which the ball could bounce.” As of now, the bowlers are struggling to get a
decent bounce off the soggy Mertz field. And cricket is not a game to be
played in soggy ground. Shiva thinks it would be a good idea to try indoor
cricket, even though he is not happy about having to play with tennis balls.
But they seem to have no choice as the actual cricket ball is very hard and
using it would be dangerous since Mertz field bounces very awkwardly.
Nevertheless, some of the guys really want to get padded up, don a helmet,
and face the leather ball.

Cricket is quite popular in the Indian subcontinent, Australia, England,
South Africa and the Caribbean Islands. Arvind says that cricket is more
than a way of life in India. Still, considering that only a handful of
Swatties have played cricket before, the participation has been very
encouraging. And it’s not just students from the areas where cricket is
traditionally played.  Ani Silwal ’03 noted being “pleasantly surprised by
how many non-South Asians have shown interest in the game.” Additionally,
this interest has transferred off the pitch, with a number of students
turning out for the Diya Week screening of the four-hour cricket epic
“Lagaan” on Sunday.

The rest of America has not been immune to cricket fever either. Many
colleges have varsity teams although it is not yet recognized like other
sports. In our immediate area, the University of Pennsylvania, Haverford,
Gettysburg, and Franklin & Marshall all have cricket teams. Additionally,
there are small-time cricket leagues starting up all across the country.

Meanwhile, back at Swat, the cricket club’s enthusiastic players are already
looking ahead to the day when their favorite sport is common knowledge
amongst all Swatties – a day that may come speeding in like a certain round,
leather ball!

There are no contests scheduled for today or tomorrow.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a
dog. Sigh! There’s so little hope for advancement.”
–Snoopy (Charles M. Schulz)

*****
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