OCR Text |
Show Anger All Around: THE A? M r-. in v; 1 A IFf I J VAL IVj JLjJU 1 Many situations around campus, parking among them, incite student rage. Backroom Deals and Hasty Decisions: if",cr1 lenislative session hurts evervone. savs columnist James Seaman. """J'""" Last Gasp or Next Step Forward? not i'l The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice Since 1890 A "short if the women's basketball team loses one more game, its season will be history. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2002 VOL 111 NO 110 Kegents and Students Strike Dea. Campus Closes at Noon Tomorrow Students Push for'More Power For Paralympics After Tuition Cap Predicting a grim parking situation for this Thursday, March 7, U President Bernie Machen decided to cancel afternoon classes that day. The Salt Lake Organizing Committee will take more than 47 percent of parking on campus that day in order to accommodate the Opening Ceremony later that evening As per a statement from Machen s office, the campus will close at noon to all nonessential personnel, and classes will be held until 1:45 p.m. All classes beginning after 1:45 p.m. are canceled. The statement encourages students, faculty and staff to leave the campus Para-lyrnp- ic by 2 Bill Fails JAKE PARKINSON Chronicle Asst. News Editor The state Board of Regents and the Utah Student Association both work on behalf of higher education, but after Regents squashed a student-propose- d tuition cap, student leaders began wondering if their relationship with the Regents should change. Student leaders went about their work quietly. USA President Steve Palmer met with Rep. Ron Lake, and asked him to sponsor Bigclow, intent language to cap tuition increases at all of the state's institutions of higher education to 8 R-S- percent. In a year where tax revenue shortfalls forced lawmakers to cut millions of dollars from higher education's budget, student leaders feared the weight of the financial problems would be placed on the students' shoulders in the form of large tuition increases. Student body presidents at all state institutions approved the 8 percent cap. As Bigelow began gathering support for the tuition cap, he found out the Regents were working against him. "Once I made a motion to have the intent language approved, there were several legislators who had dropped their support," said Bigclow, who is also vice chair of the executive appropriations committee. Regents managed to persuade legislators to vote against the tuition cap before it was formally presented and killed the tuition cap. The student leaders were saddened to find out it was their own adviser who told the Regents about the 8 percent cap. As adviser to the student leaders, Edie Mitko, received a couple of bulk emails concerning the cap. One day in a casual conversation, she asked Regent spokesman Dave Buhler what he thought of the students' intent language. Buhler said that was the first he or any of the Regents had heard of the plan. However, he admits he quickly contacted Republican leadership and soon after, lawmakers' support for the tuition cap dwindled. "Rather than tie the hands of the Regents and 3 Kappa Sigma President Visits Troubled Frat UTAH WELCOMES CANADA: p.m. Essential U personnel, including Health Science Center employees, can remain on campus. Many buildings, such as the Union, will close by 2 p.m. Campus food services will close at different times. Lund Commons will close at p.m., the food court in the Union and the Union Express will close at 2 p.m., but food service from the Crimson Underground will operate with normal business hours: closed at 2 p.m., but open for dinner at 4 ADAM BENSON Chronicle News Writer 1 p.m. Although more parking is available now that the Olympics are over, the Paralympics are using just under 30 percent of the U's parking facilities. The east and west stadium lots are still closed, as well as the Guardsman Way lot. Part of the Annex parking is unavailable to students as well as many parking lots in the Paralympic Village. The Paralympic Closing Ceremony will take place at the Paralympic Medals Plaza and will not affect the Kappa Sigma International district president Darrell Kilgorc visited the troubled fraternity last weekend, a visit that coincides with the U chapter's Feb. 26 probation. Following a Jan. 19 party that resulted in related citations, the Greek Judiciary Council r placed the fraternity on a probation period. Michael Dalebout, the alumni adviser for the fraternity's U chapter, said Kilgore's visit was nothing out of the ordinary. "He was here to do his part of KSI's investigation. He always visits the campus twice a year anyways, he just pushed his visit up two weeks," Dalebout said. A hearing before the national board scheduled for March 23 in Georgia will determine the ultimate status of Kappa Sigma's U chapter, according to KSI Executive Director Mitchell Wilson. Until KSI presents the results of its investigation to the U chapter, the fraternity must adhere to the guidelines laid out in its probation. Any violation will result in the Greek Judiciary pulling its recognition of the fraternity's charter, an action that KSI would most likely one-yea- U. On Friday, business will return to normal on campus. see REGENTS, page Navajo dancer Drew James performs for Canadian Paralympic athletes Tuesday in the Union Ballroom. SHEENA MCFARLAND Is ASUU Getting the Money it Should? ERIKA JOHNSON Chronicle News Writer A resident undergraduate student taking 15 credit hours pays S270.12 in student fees .per semester. This money includes fees for computing, fine arts, health and recreation. The Associated Students of the University of Utah want to know exactly where that money is going. As a member of the Board of Trustees, ASUU President Ben Lowe formally requested an audit of all student fees. Although Lowe has not yet determined what the depth and scope of the audit will be, he wants to determine whether or not student fees are spent the way they are meant to be. "There needs to be accountability for where student fees are spent," Lowe said. "We need to know where they are going." ASUU leaders have been investigating how student fees are spent for months, according to Lowe, and they have found many numbers that do not quite add up. For example, the ASUU activity fee from all students enrolled during Fall Semester should have been 5446,114. According to George Lindsey, ASUU accountant, ASUU received $542,343. Some semesters ASUU gets much less than the organization should receive. "That could be a lot of different things," Lowe said. Any number of exceptions could cause the numbers to not add up, but nobody knows why they do not The internal audit will try to answer all of those questions and find out how groups use student fees. "It will help provide accountability to those who do receive student fees," Lowe said. "We want to make sure everyone is accountable who uses student fees." After analyzing the issues, ASUU decided an audit was the best way to find answers to all of these questions. "We decided we needed to take a more forward approach," Lowe said. "We're going to see if it can help shed some light on this." A typical audit requires three to six months to complete, according to Randy VanDyke, U internal audit director. Audits involve a review of pertinent policies, analysis of the data, and analysis of sample transactions. "It's unusual for the ASUU president to request an audit, but certainly appropriate," VanDyke said. the daily utah chronicle is on VanDyke cannot remember ASUU ever requesting an audit before. "I hope that in the last few years an audit hasn't been done, because they sure missed a lot," Lowe said. He said that at least in the last 10 years no one has looked at student fees in such an way. Although ASUU has not recently investigated the way fees are spent, audits are typical for most organizations, according to Ryan Wilson, ASUU finance board director. "It's general accounting," he said. "In any financial area there's always auditing. It's a clean procedure to always make sure all monies arc accounted for." An audit explaining how ASUU receives its money will help the budgeting process, according to Lindsey. If ASUU knows more precisely how much money they should receive, they can "make that money available to as many student groups as possible," Lindsey said. According to Lowe, the administration supports ASUU in requesting the audit. "Students don't have a lot of money to give for their educations," Lowe said. "It's important that student fees are being used to a good purpose." the vorld wide th ejohnsonchronicle.utah.edu web at follow. Reed Sutton, president of the U's Kappa Sigma, is scheduled to arrive in Georgia for the crucial March 23 hearing that will rule on the fate of Kappa Sigma at the U. "I'm 90 percent sure we're going to be fine," Sutton said. "The Council didn't pull our charter, so I don't think KSI will." Though Kilgore's visit seems to coincide with KSI's impending investigation, Sutton said the district president's visit was not specifically related to the Jan. 19 incident. "His visit was planned three months before we got into trouble.. .he talked about what happened, but he came down for other things," Sutton said. abenson chronicle, utah. edu www.DailyUtahChronicle.com Intcr-Fratcrni- ty |