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The Cavalier Daily Wednesday, April 25, 2012
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Volume 122, No. 142 Distribution 10,000
Council passes activity budget Representatives award initiatives $17,000, discuss committee to increase graduate members’ participation By Emily Hutt
Cavalier Daily Senior Writer
Thomas Bynum | Cavalier Daily
Student Council passed a budget yesterday which allocated about $17,000 to fund summer and fall initiatives. Council members also discussed a new committee which would change bylaws to allow greater graduate participation.
At its representative body meeting yesterday evening, Student Council passed a budget which allocated about $17,000 to fund summer and fall initiatives for the next few months. Council members also approved the introduction of an ad hoc committee which would review and overhaul Council bylaws. Council’s revenue is generated from both student activities fees (SAFs) and non-SAFs from the 2011-2012 year, both of which are then distributed among the 13 presidential Council committees and programs such as the fall activities fair. Vice President of Administration Ann Laurence Baumer said Council formed the budget using
the previous summer’s budget as a jumping-off point. Council also approved the formation of an ad hoc committee which would redesign the bylaws’ attendance requirements to lessen time commitments for graduate students while also allowing them to adequately represent their respective graduate schools. Discussion at a recent Graduate Student Affairs Committee meeting first brought the scheduling problems facing Graduate representatives to Council’s attention, causing Graduate Arts and Sciences Rep. Adam Lees to propose the initiative yesterday. Law School Rep. Brian Park said the proposal did not mean graduate students “don’t want to come to meetings.” Instead, he Please see Council, Page A3
FEATURE Obama talks student loans Clinics face new laws President says college loans’ interest rate will increase ‘unless Congress does what it needs to do’ By Grace Hollis
Cavalier Daily Associate Editor President Barack Obama held a conference call yesterday afternoon with college students from around the nation to speak about the costs of higher education. From aboard Air Force One, he explained the importance of maintaining current interest rates on student loans in a changing economy. “We’re going to schools to talk to students directly about the critical importance of the possibility that 7.3 million students with loans would see rates double in July unless Congress does what it needs to do,” Obama said. The current interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans — the most common fixed-rate loan for college students, according to the Stafford loans website — will expire July 1. Obama said current interest rates could be extended beyond July if there was bipartisan Congressional cooperation. During the call, Cecilia Munoz, White House director of Intergovernmental Affairs , said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made “important progress” as one of the first Republicans to support maintaining the current interest rate. The conference call took place while the president was flying from the University of North Carolina to the University of Colorado, universities where he is speaking to students about the affordability of higher education. He is set to speak today at the University of Iowa. Geoff Skelley, University Center A Lawn resident displays a sign indicating his involvement in the Giving Back Campaign for the Class of 2012, the Fourth Year Board of Trustees’ effort to raise funds from fourth-year donations.
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for Politics spokesperson, said those universities were most likely chosen because they are located in what are considered “swing” states for Obama’s reelection effort against likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney. “Last election, North Carolina went for the president by a few tenths of a point,” Skelley said. “Iowa and Colorado voted for him more but still are considered ‘swing states.’” Obama said his personal experiences with paying off student loans made providing affordable higher education important to him. “When Michelle and I graduated from college and law school, it took us a lot of years to pay off debt, so this is why I feel so personally [about this issue],” Obama said. “For working families, the idea of this much money means education is simply out of reach to students.” Munoz predicted efforts to make higher education more affordable would benefit the economy as a whole, as it would increase the United States’ level of global economic competitiveness. “We know students who complete a college education make twice what those who don’t [complete a college degree] earn,” Munoz said. “As we continue to create jobs, we are bringing on more jobs that require important skills and a college education.” Obama said higher education should be available to a large proportion of American society.
Legislation defines clinics as hospitals, requires stringent building requirements By Thomas Forman II Cavalier Daily Staff Writer
When legislation took effect in January which requires women’s health clinics to meet stricter regulations, clinics across the state began searching for a way to comply while continuing to offer the same services to their patients. Gov. Bob McDonnell enacted a law March 7 which classifies clinics as hospitals if they provide more than five first-trimester abortions per month and therefore requires them to adhere to more stringent building regulations. Critics of the legislation say the cost of renovating buildings to comply with the regulations would add substantial financial burdens to clinics throughout
Currently, however, 20 of the 23 facilities affected by the regulations have submitted applications for new licenses which, if approved, would allow them two years to renovate and meet the legislation’s standards, said Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL pro-choice Virginia. Of the three which have not filed applications, two plan to perform fewer than five firsttrimester abortions per month, and one has stopped providing abortions. Planned Parenthood predominantly provides preventative treatment to men and women including breast cancer screenings, sexually transmitted disease tests, sexual education and
Virginia and Charlottesville. Tanya Semones, the Virginia field coordinator for Planned Parenthood Health Systems, said she thought the regulation would have serious effects on Planned Parenthood’s patients. One in every five women seeks care at Planned Parenthood sometime during their life, according to the organization’s website. “We see more than 33,000 women, men and young adults across America each year,” Semones said, she added that a large percentage of these patients are uninsured. She said the new requirements could cause many clinics to close if they did not have the resources to comply with the change, leaving patients without “affordable health care.”
Please see Abortion, Page A3 One in every five women seek care at Planned Parenthood, pictured. Planned Parenthood Health Systems see 33,000 women, men and young adults nationally each year.
Courtesy plannedparenthood.com
Please see Obama, Page A3
Alumni donations decline
Study finds young graduates less inclined to financially support alma mater By Viet VoPham
Cavalier Daily Associate Editor Alumni donations to universities, specifically those from younger alumni, have dropped in the past few years, according to a report released last week by Blackbaud, Inc., an organization which provides information and services to non-profit groups. The report, titled the “2011 Index of Higher Education Fundraising Performance,” evaluates various higher education insti-
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tutions’ funding sources in the past year. “The opportunity to bolster participation rates has all but disappeared in an era where younger alumni are not inclined to support higher education at the same rates as their parents and grandparents,” according to the report. “This trend, for most programs, is likely not reversible and we’ll continue to see participation rates decline.” John Mastrobattista , Blackbaud Inc. senior fundraising analyst, said in an email the
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report is based on “actual donor transaction data posted to fundraising databases” by hundreds of institutions of higher education. “The primary purpose of the annual index is to help our clients compare their individual indicators of program performance to a larger sample of other schools,” Mastrobattista said. “Benchmarking performance against other schools, and discussing the circumstances
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