COLLEGIATETIMES
friday august 29, 2008 blacksburg, va.
www.collegiatetimes.com
news FRADULENT MONEY ON CAMPPUS The University Bookstore, located on campus, reported yesterday that it received counterfeit money sometime on Aug. 26. The case is being investigated.
LGBTA to celebrate resource center opening
Registration drives: cause for legal concern?
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RAPH PANLILIO
ct staff writer
sports ‘PACMAN’ REINSTATED BY THE NFL Cornerback Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones has been granted full reinstatement to play for the Dallas Cowboys this season. Jones, formerly a member of JONES the Tenessee Titans, was suspended for 2007 after numerous arrests and legal problems.
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corrections In the story “VT seeks certification,” (CT Aug. 28), the CT should have printed that the Edward via College of Osteopathic Medicine is affiliated with Virginia Tech, not directly governed by the university. VCOM is located in Tech’s Corporate Research Center, but it is a private college that is not funded or managed by Tech. The incoming VTC School of Medicine will be managed in part by Tech, but half of its governing body will be appointed by the BOV while the other half will be appointed by Carilion. Yesterday’s headline “Hoops facility costs $30 milliion,” and the corresponding photo caption were incorrect. The facility will cost roughly $20 million as printed in the article. If you see something in today’s paper that needs to be corrected, please e-mail our public editor at publiceditor@collegiatetimes.com, or call 540.231.9865.
KYLE MAXEY/SPPS
Jacob Vuiller relaxes in the recently opened LGBT Resource Center located in 304 Squires Student Center. LGBTA will celebrate its resource center’s opening this evening with speakers and a brief program.
T. REES SHAPIRO
ct campus editor The new Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center will benefit the entire Blacksburg community said Paul Deyerle, director of the LGBTRC. Deyerle, a senior psychology major, and member of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Alliance, said tonight’s grand opening celebrates one of the core ideas of Virginia Tech’s own principles of community: Inclusion. “The LGBTA in conjunction with the LGBT Resource Center really is trying to educate people,” Deyerle said. “You don’t need to be one of the letters in our name to come utilize our center.” The Resource Center, located in Squires Student Center, provides members of the
TUESDAY’S CT Find out what has been going on at the Mount Tabor housing development in the second part of our series, “Dear Future Residents.”
index News.....................2 Features................4 0pinions................5
Classifieds............10 Sports....................6 Sudoku................10
An independent, student-run newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community since 1903 105th year issue 74
Jake Vuillmer, head of Public Relations and Web Communications for the LGBTA, said the idea is to provide resources not usually available in the area. “We are trying to have outreach with all the other people in the community, on campus, in the New River Valley, everywhere,” Vuillmer said. “In the past few years we’ve done a lot but never this much. Now we’re doing a whole bunch. It’s really transforming our whole organization as well and that’s really fun to think about.” The event will be highlighted by speakers such as student government president Emily Mashack, and Tech’s Manager of Diversity Initiatives. The Inn at Virginia Tech will cater the program. Doors open at 4 p.m. in room 304 of Squires Student Center.
Wither the weekend: Dining Services evaluates additional hours CANDACE SIPOS
ct politcs editor Just shy of 18,000 students at Virginia Tech carry some sort of a meal plan this semester. As the number of students who wish to eat on campus continues to rise, Dining Services has begun working toward convincing the university to open more dining halls on the weekends. “It’s important to students and it’s important to us because we need one more place open on the weekends,” said Rick Johnson, the director of Housing and Dining Services. “With the rising price of food, a lot of people just don’t want to cook.”
For the past two years, dining services has suggested opening D2 on the weekends as part of its budget plan. Both years it has been turned down. “There’s perhaps other priorities that people believe take precedence over that,” Johnson said. “The university is very concerned with keeping fees as low as they can for students.” If D2 were to open on the weekends, Johnson said the cost would be about $900,000 — a price that would be divided and added on to students’ fees. Between the breakfast, lunch and dinner shifts at D2, Johnson approximated that about 150-200 workers are required to run the dining hall every day.
He added that because of the relatively low charge to students and the high cost of running the operation, D2 is very expensive. “D2 is all-you-care-to-eat and the prices are very low,” Johnson said. “It’s a great deal for students, but for the dining program it struggles to break even.” D2 costs $5.35 cash, $1.80 on flex meal plans for breakfast. Lunch costs $7.90 in cash and $2.55 for flex meal plans. Dinner costs $9.70 in cash and $3.10 on flex meal plans. Despite the cost, Johnson believes that more dining halls need to be open on the weekends. Johnson, along with others from Dining Services, plans to present a new plan to the university at the
end of the week, aspiring to begin opening Hokie Grill on Saturday and D2 on Sunday. “We’ve re-looked at the entire proposal because we can open up Hokie Grill we believe a little less expensively,” Johnson said. “ChickFil-A can’t open on Sunday, so that leaves the door open for D2.” If the university approves the plan, D2 would have a large breakfast bar on Sunday morning. Dining Services is still deciding what time it would close both dining halls in the afternoon. Even if Tech officials OK the plan, there is still a lot of work for Dining Services to do. “It won’t be immediate, but we would be hoping to get it done this semester,” Johnson said.
see VOTERS, page two
Tech fans head to Charlotte for football opener RILEY PRENDERGAST
coming up
community with an extensive collection of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender materials. The center will operate a library of over 300 publications, such as books by Tech faculty members, and renowned poets, Nikki Giovanni and Jeff Mann. The LGBTRC also has a multimedia collection of 50 DVDs including the Academy Award-winning movie “Brokeback Mountain.” Deyerle said the Resource Center has been receiving donated materials from a variety of organizations and individuals. Edd Sewell, an associate professor of communication, donated 80 books to the library. The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT civil rights organization, also donated subscriptions to its publications. Any member of the community may check out items from the Resource Center.
All around the Virginia Tech campus and downtown Blacksburg, campaigners are hard at work registering students to vote in the upcoming election. Owing to Virginia’s crucial status on the national electoral map, several politically-minded groups have come to Blacksburg hoping to register voters. However, simply registering to vote could have dire consequences for some college students. In the past few days, Randy Wertz, the general registrar at the Montgomery County Voter Registration Office, said he has received phone calls from many distraught parents and worried students fretting over what legal implications are caused by registering to vote in Blacksburg. Mark Everett, a senior in computer science, recently registered to vote in Blacksburg; his parents reside in Haynesville, Va. When approached by a voter registration campaigner, no mention was made of any implications in re-registering to vote with his Blacksburg address. However, when a person’s registration is switched to Montgomery County, it is required that they change their driver’s license and car registration to their address in Blacksburg within 30 days. “When a voter registers to vote in a county other than his hometown, you’re supposed to change everything. Your car should be registered and your driver’s license should be renewed,” said Bruce Phillips, attorney at law of Student Legal Services,. Everett was unaware of this law and expressed his dismay. “I wish I had known that,” Everett said. “I probably wouldn’t have registered to vote in Blacksburg and would have sent in an absentee ballot.” Many students consider where their parents live to be their official address. But some consider Blacksburg, where they spend a majority of their year at school, to be their place of residency. Wertz said the misunderstanding of the law lies within where differing students consider themselves home. “Domicile is the key,” Wertz said. “By registering here, (students) consider this their domicile. They need to check with people once they claim this is their permanent residence. They need to check with tax attorneys or insurance people” to see whether they might be affected. However, the concept of change of residence through voter registration in a town other than your own isn’t completely accurate. Phillips provided a more precise understanding of the repercussions of registering to vote in Blacksburg. “They turned it around,” he said. “It’s not that registering makes this your permanent address. It’s that you shouldn’t be registering unless this is your permanent address.” Virginia Code 24.2-101 states, “‘Residence’ or ‘resident,’ for all purposes of qualification to register and vote, means domicile and a place of abode. In determining domicile, consideration may be given to … financial independence, business pursuits, employment, income sources, residence for income tax purposes, marital status, residence of parents, spouse and children … other factors reasonably necessary to determine the qualification of a person to register or vote.” Back in 2005, several organizations had tried to have people registered to vote in Blacksburg. Groups such as Virginia 21 Coalition and the New Voters Project managed to rake in several thousand voters, mostly students from Tech and Radford University. The same problem emerged. A majority of the student’s registrations were rejected. “The problem is the registrar’s office over at Christiansburg,” Phillips said. “They may reject that person’s voter registration here because they may say you’re not actually a resident here. If your driver’s license is from somewhere else, you’re not
ct news reporter As the beginning of the Virginia Tech football season draws near, the Hokie Nation may be asking itself, “Why ECU?” This will be the second consecutive season that the Hokies take on the East Carolina University Pirates in their opening game. Returning students may remember the highly emotional season opener last year against the Pirates, coming just months after ECU donated $100,000 dollars to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. This year, however, something new has been thrown into the mix: The Hokie season opener is an away game on a neutral field. ECU will be playing an extremely challenging schedule, competing against Tech, the University of Virginia, West Virginia University and North Carolina State University in an attempt to make a name
for its program and boost it into the lucrative heights of the Bowl Championship Series standings. The game against Tech will be played at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., a site that Athletic Director Jim Weaver said was not selected by Tech. “As part of the nine-year contract with ECU, we decided on one neutral site game,” said Weaver. “This just happens to be the year.” Weaver said that the reason for the contract with ECU stems from the shared ability to perform well on the road. “Both teams travel well, ECU is a great program, and we knew it would be a great addition to the schedule,” Weaver said. Though the venue is two-anda-half hours away from campus, students need to find their own way into Charlotte. Sandy Smith, the assistant director of athletics for Ticketing Services, said that the game would not be considered a home game for Tech.
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“Non-student season ticket holders, Hokie Club Members, have the game included in their season ticket package,” Smith said. “We sent out an e-mail early in the summer, first to student season ticket holders offering them tickets to the game, and there were a few thousand left over so we released them to all students. When those were not sold we released them
to the public.” Even with the lackluster response from the student body, there should still be a considerable Hokie following in Charlotte. “One of the reasons why we agreed to the venue site was because it allows for Hokie fans near ECU to easily make the trip to Charlotte, so there will be a full compliment of fans,”
Weaver said. “So we both knew that we would sell out.” Smith added that Tech sold its entire allotment of tickets, though not all of them were to students. Bryan Johnston, assistant director of sports information, announced that the game would be televised live on Saturday at noon on ESPN.
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