Wednesday, October 29, 2003

by Greg Leiserson
Campus News Editor

In an effort to better educate themselves about the issues regarding a living
wage, members of Student Council invited representatives of the Swarthmore Living
Wage and Democracy Campaign to present at last night’s weekly meeting. The SLW&DC
representatives outlined the timeline for the living wage process as it currently
exists, gave SC members informational pamphlets about the living wage, and answered
a number of questions on the issue.

Said SC Co-President Anna Morgan, “Student Council feels the living wage
is an important issue and is considering a referendum on the issue to gauge
student opinion.” She commented that the information gained from the discussion
with the SLW&DC members would help SC develop the referendum and how the
referendum would be used to influence the college’s decision on the issue.

Currently, it appears that the Ad Hoc Committee on a Living Wage will have
at least a draft proposal on what a living wage at Swarthmore would look like
ready for board meetings in December. Board members would then discuss the issue
and probably make a decision in the Fall of 2004.

According to Al Bradbury ’05, a member of the ad hoc committee, the main sticking
point currently facing the committee is whether a living wage should be defined
as the wage required to support a single adult, or whether it should be defined
as a wage sufficient to support an adult along with a dependent. The difference
in the wage required for these two cases can be quite substantial, depending
on the plan proposed.

Student Council members have emphasized their desire to remain an impartial
organization during the process of considering a living wage at Swarthmore.
The goal of the referendum would be to provide board members with an understanding
of student opinion on the matter so that student opinion will influence the
college’s final decision. A significant portion of SC discussion on the matter
has focused on trying to design a referendum. The currently favored proposal
would ask students if they support the living wage and, if they do, what they
would be willing to give up in order to make a symbolic contribution towards
the funds required to enact it.

*****

by Jonathan Ference
Gazette Reporter

Students will soon be able to reap the fruits of yet another Student Council
initiative to expand the course-selection resources available to students. Efforts
announced earlier in the semester to allow easy online access to syllabi for
all Swarthmore courses are being managed by Brendan Moriarty ’04. Since those
preliminary announcements, Moriarty and members of the Student Council have
been hard at work, aiming to have the project come to fruition by spring course
selection in November.

Moriarty, also the creator of the online course recommendation database, explained
that the syllabi are not being collected to be maintained on a central web page
as some students assume. Rather, Student Council members have been responsible
for combing departmental websites with the goal of creating a central list of
links to syllabi for all courses. That website will be accessible either as
part of the Student Council or the Registrar website.

This method of organizing the syllabi arose mainly as a result of professors’
concerns about their syllabi. Many professors, Moriarty explained, view their
syllabi as their intellectual property and did not like the idea of them being
readily accessible off-campus. Thus, rather than submit syllabi as documents
to someone else for posting, professors will be responsible for putting the
syllabi on the Internet themselves–either as web pages or just as documents
that can be downloaded. This will place the onus for keeping syllabi up-to-date
on the professor rather than on the person responsible for maintaining the list
of links.

As for the completion of the list of links, Moriarty was optimistic. “Overall,
it’s spotty and inconsistent,” he said, noting that some departments already
had many more syllabi online than others. As of now, the first version of the
list should be online in about two weeks. Then, Moriarty and the Student Council
will go to work to make it comprehensive: “Filling in the holes is the
idea now,” Moriarty explained.

Barring any unforeseen complications, course shopping will be made easier by
the availability of syllabi for at least some classes before spring course selection,
which begins on November 24th. Over time, as the list of links is fleshed out,
savvy students’ decisions about courses will be much better informed as a result
of this project, the second major online effort in this vein by Student Council.

*****

by Roxanne Yaghoubi
World News Editor

As the semester goes on, and students finish the process of settling into dorm
life, questions have begun to emerge about the maintenance of residential buildings.
Two of the major questions students have been asking are why there isn’t a swipe-card
system for the dorms and why is it so cold or so hot in my room?

As regards the swipe-card question, cost seems to be the main reason why Swarthmore
has not yet installed such a system. Proposed as a way to eliminate the current
key system, the swipe cards have the advantage that even if they are lost they
can be taken out of the computer system immediately so that whoever picks the
lost card up will still not be able to gain access to the building. Last year
the school decided to study the feasibility of such a system. However the resulting
study found that the entire cost would be over a million dollars to install
it for the whole campus, with an additional 12 percent of that amount required
each year. The computer system alone was estimated to cost $60-70,000.

Then there would be staff costs: people to maintain the system (which would
likely break down easily due to weather conditions) and additional public safety
officers would be needed to make sure that the doors were not propped open.
Stu Hain of the facilities department also pointed out that alarms would be
installed along with the swipe card machine, an alarm which if it were to go
off would noticeably aggravate the residents of the dorm. The system would also
not give access to all dorms on campus with one card, and students would still
have keys for their individual rooms. Thus there would not really be much of
a difference between the two systems in terms of dorm accessibility for students.
For these reasons the housing committee decided that the money could be used
in better ways.

Both Myrt Westphal, the dean responsible for housing issues, and Mr. Hain emphasized
that heating is an issue that arises every year. The problem lies mainly in
the fact that temperature fluctuations are normal for this type of year, with
one day being as high as 70 and the next as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Low
temperatures may cause the heating system to be turned on, but if there is unusually
warm weather later on then the dorms will be too hot. Even if the heating system
is turned off it takes a day for the system to cool down completely. The fluctuations
in dorm temperature are thus not due to a malfunction of the heating system,
which has generally been working well thus far this season.

Mr. Hain asked students who feel that they are continuing to experience problems
to call the facilities department or email them at workbox@swarthmore.edu. They
can then determine whether a cluster of rooms is experiencing the same problem.
Often the problem is small, such as a window that is not tightly closed. Dean
Westphal also said that the students’ problems may in part be due to the fact
that they come from a part of the country or world where it does not get as
cold as here, and so the students are not yet used to dressing appropriately
for the weather. But no matter how cold they feel, students should not use a
space heater in their rooms, as such a device is a fire hazard.

*****

* Authorities in California said on Tuesday they were searching for two men
believed to have sparked one of the largest fires devastating the southern part
of the state. ‘We are looking for two subjects, both white males,’ said Sergeant
Bobby Dean of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department outside Los Angeles.
A sketch of one suspect, based on descriptions by witnesses, was broadcast on
television. Police also asked the public for help in finding a witness who was
described as a Hispanic man in his early 20s, in an appeal also carried on local
television. More than 11,000 firefighters were on Tuesday battling the more
than 14 blazes roaring across the state that have killed at least 18 people,
destroyed 2,000 homes and forced tens of thousands into shelters. Officials
have warned that the wildfires will be the most expensive disaster in the state’s
history. California governor Gray Davis said he expects the bill to shoot up
to $2 billion in the coming days.

* US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday appealed personally to the
chief of the International Committee of the Red Cross not to pull the agency’s
foreign staff out of Iraq after the bombing of its headquarters in Bagdhad.
Mr Powell, who on Monday said the departure of the Red Cross, the United Nations
or other groups would be a victory for ‘terrorists’, called Red Cross head Jakob
Kellenberger and UN chief Kofi Annan to discuss security in Iraq. Mr Powell
told Mr Kellenberger and Mr Annan that the United States was committed to providing
the highest level of security it could in Iraq and stressed Washington’s hope
that the Red Cross and other organisations would not withdraw, spokesman Richard
Boucher said. Earlier, the Red Cross launched consultations at its Geneva headquarters
about the future of its operations in Iraq but said it had not made a decision
on whether to pull its foreign staff out of Baghdad after Monday’s bombing.
A series of attacks around Baghdad on Monday wounded more than 200 and killed
43 people, including two Red Cross staffers killed by an explosion at the group’s
headquarters. A Red Cross spokesman said the organisation wanted to balance
the security of its staff against the needs of the Iraqi people. It has 30 to
40 foreign workers and more than 600 national staff in the country. Mr Powell
on Monday made a public appeal to the Red Cross and other agencies not to leave.
‘They are needed, their work is needed and if they are driven out then the terrorists
win,’ he said.

* A Japanese woman has applied for political asylum in North Korea while visiting
China in what is believed to be the first case of its kind. The bizarre incident
comes as anger runs high in Japan over the kidnapping of Japanese citizens in
the 1970s and 1980s for the training of North Korean spies. The Korean Central
News Agency (KCNA) did not say how the woman had entered North Korea, but Japan’s
Jiji press agency said she swam across a river to reach the communist state
in August. A Foreign Ministry official in Tokyo told reporters that North Korea’s
embassy in Beijing had informed Tokyo’s mission there on Monday that a Japanese
woman had entered North Korea and that the ‘third country’ was China. The official
said the woman had not broken Japanese law and her family had not asked for
help. ‘As far as we know there has never been such a case,’ he said. In the
past, many Japanese moved to North Korea as part of a repatriation programme.
More than 90,000 people – mostly ethnic Koreans, but including 1,800 Japanese
women married to Koreans – moved to North Korea between 1959 and 1984. But Tokyo’s
greater concern is that of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea. At a
historic summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Pyongyang
last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted that his agents had kidnapped
a dozen young Japanese for use in the training of spies to infiltrate South
Korea.

* The future of Britain’s embattled opposition leader was in doubt yesterday
after rebels in the Conservative Party cleared the way for a vote of confidence
that could lead to his removal. A Conservative Party spokesman said enough lawmakers
from the party had called for a vote on the future of Mr Iain Duncan Smith to
trigger the vote, which the BBC said would take place today. ‘I will absolutely
submit my name for a new mandate to lead the party to the general election,’
a defiant Mr Duncan Smith told reporters. The announcement followed weeks of
rumours of a plot to oust the leader who has failed to make significant gains
against Prime Minister Tony Blair’s governing Labour Party since he was elected
leader two years ago. If Mr Duncan Smith fails to win a majority in the vote,
an election for a new party leader will take place, and he will be excluded
from running. Many Conservative lawmakers are angry the party is still trailing
in the polls, despite a slump in Mr Blair’s popularity and the government’s
troubles over the war in Iraq. They fear that without a charismatic and powerful
figurehead, the party has little hope of toppling Mr Blair’s Labour Party and
regaining power in national elections to be held by 2006. Mr Duncan Smith had
set a deadline of tonight for his opponents to gather enough support for a vote.
He urged the party, which lost power in 1997 after 18 years in office, to ‘reject
the cowardly plotting of recent weeks’.

*****

Smoking Cessation Workshop
Kohlberg 328, 12:15 p.m.

Workshop with transgender activist Michelle O’Brien: ‘Coalition Building and
Accountability in Organizing’
Intercultural Center, 1:30 p.m.

AC Nielsen Bases Info Session
Bond, 7:00 p.m.

Foreign Study Predeparture Orientation Session
Science Center 101, 7:00 p.m.

Umfundalai African Dance Talk and Class by Kariamu Welsh
LPAC Troy Dance Lab, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Movie Viewing: ‘Trading Democracy’
Science Center 101, 8:00 p.m.

Film Society Screening: ‘It Came from Outer Space’, a 3-D sci-fi classic
Science Center 101, 10:00 p.m.

———-
Scary Story Writing Contest
Sponsored by Red Sky Night

Want to kick-start Halloween early? Come to Red Sky Night’s Scary Story Writing
Contest on Thursday, October 30, from 9:00 p.m-12:00 a.m. in Parrish Parlors.
Come early, come late, and stay as long as you can to churn out your best/scariest/funniest/weirdest
Halloween story! Pencil, paper, and refreshments provided; prizes awarded at
the stroke of midnight. All are welcome!

———-
Got poetry? Prose? Art?
Submit to Small Craft Warnings, Swarthmore’s oldest literary magazine!

Send entries to submit-scw@sccs.swarthmore.edu or Amy Long ’04 by Friday, October
31.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

Katey McCaffrey ’04 broke both Swarthmore and Centennial Conference records
by scoring the first of her two goals in the game about 12 seconds in, setting
the path to the Garnet’s 4-1 victory. Sarah Hobbs ’06 scored the second goal
off of a Natalie Negrey ’07 feed and then set Val Maulbeck ’06 up for her first
goal of the season. The Garnet’s fearless goalkeeper Catherine Salussolia ’04
recorded 3 saves.

*****

Thanks to Karen Lorang ’07 with 13 saves and Neema Patel ’07 and Helen Leitner
’04 with a goal each, the Swarthmore field hockey team beat Haverford 2-1 on
Tuesday at Clothier field.

*****

Today:
Women’s Soccer at Haverford, 2:30 p.m.
Men’s Soccer hosts Ursinus, 6:00 p.m.
Volleyball hosts Haverford, 7:00 p.m.

Tomorrow:
There are no contests scheduled for tomorrow.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.”
–Henri Poincare

*****

Interested in reporting or writing for the Gazette?
Got a news or sports tip for us?
Just want to tell us what you think?

Contact the staff at daily@swarthmore.edu

The Daily Gazette is published Monday through Friday by an independent
group of Swarthmore College students. The Daily Gazette Web Site is updated
regularly, as news happens. Technical support from the Swarthmore College
Computer Society is gratefully acknowledged.