Technician
wednesday october
14 2009
Raleigh, North Carolina
Talley protest moves to cyberspace, Senate Students unhappy with Student Senate resolution plan to attend tonight’s meeting in protest Ty Johnson Editor-in-Chief
Tonight’s Student Senate meeting may have an additional 91 attendees as a Facebook group known as “Rally against Talley,” has planned a protest of the Student Senate’s resolution last week suggesting the fee review committee move forward with an $83 student center renovation fee increase. The student-led initiative has formed an event online which, as of Tuesday night, had 91 “confirmed guests.” Vidya Sankar, a sophomore in biochemistry and creator of the event, said the group aims to hold senators accountable for their votes last week. “We are planning, pretty much, to pack the house and draw out as many people as possible to express their frustration with Student Senate, which has completely ignored the voices of those who they’re supposed to represent,” Sankar said. Sankar said while not everyone who responded to the Facebook group may show, she expects to have at least a good percentage of those confirmed. Tucker Beeninga, a senior in landscape architecture, said he couldn’t estimate how many will show, but thinks it may be more than 90. 130 individuals on Facebook were listed as “maybe attending.” Sankar said the initiative, which sold T-shirts in the Brickyard yesterday with the words “Student Government epic fail” on them, is concerned about both the fees and the lack of impact the student fee referenda had on the senate’s resolution. Beeninga said the “Rally Against Talley” movement, which had 1,348 members early Wednesday morning, began on Facebook because of the
jordan moore/Technician file photo
Peter Barnes, a sophomore in natural resources, speaks about the Senate’s duty to the students at the Student Government meeting Oct. 6.
timing of the Senate’s decision. “It was over fall break,” Beeninga said. “We didn’t have access to any other form of getting people together.” Beeninga said his group is encouraging students to speak tonight at the meeting, and while members’ con-
cerns range from the Senate’s resolution to the renovations, his individual opinion concerns the student senators. “It’s more, to me, about the Student Government not listening to the students,” he said. Sankar said the group and protest
is largely a catch-all for all who are upset about the process by which the fees were approved. “There are definitely troubles around the fees,” Sankar said. “I do think the primary concern of the group is that Student Government is not representing the voices of its constituency.” Sankar said while the questions on the ballot and the criteria the senate used to evaluate the referenda were misleading, students still voted down the measure. “The majority voted against the fee and the Senate shouldn’t be passing the fee,” Sankar said. “It’s definitely a major threat to student democracy.” According to the resolution, the criteria the Senate used to evaluate the referenda were based on the three questions: Whether students see a need for increased funding for a respective project or service, whether students expressed a particular fee is a top priority among all other proposed fee increases and whether a majority of students voted in support of at least partial funding of a proposed fee increase. Student Senate President and Fee Review Committee Co-Chair Kelli Rogers said the Senate and committee considered a smaller fee since the student center fee increase met only two of the three criteria, but determined to do so would be irresponsible since construction could be delayed and possibly more costly. Sankar said the question asking students to rank fees in order of priority shouldn’t have been considered since it was hypothetical. “The three questions, I see them almost as a fail-safe,” Sankar said. “If students didn’t have to pay then of course they would be for renovation. In this situation money is an object.”
PackPulse to increase energy conservation
Recyclable Warfare
IRC holds competition to increase awareness on campus Joanna Banegas Staff Writer
amanda wilkins/Technician
Matthew Sprouse, a junior in parks, recreation and tourism management, looks on as a skirt made of cardboard and duct tape is wrapped around him after Cardboard Wars in front of Witherspoon Tuesday. “I am having fun,” Sprouse chuckled. “This event is very sustainable and educational.” Sprouse acts the east campus liasion for the IRC, who hosted Cardboard Wars Tuesday afternoon. There were information tables set up for the purpose of giving students tips about sustainable living.
Recycling water bottles, avoiding driving long distances and taking shorter showers are several approaches to helping the environment. Students in residential halls are also able to track their efforts to “go green” by watching a television screen that shows the amount of electricity consumed in dorms. The PackPulse, an energy conservation project that the InterResidence Council, Student Government and Token Energy Technologies are hosting, is an energy competition between Owen and Syme halls throughout October and November. The purpose of the competition is to stimulate the residential halls towards lower energy consumption on campus. Matt Peterson, IRC sustainability chair, said this will encourage students to change their usage habits, which hopefully will reduce energy usage noticeably in the two dorms. “With involvement of student organizations, the results of this change can be popularized on campus and lead to even more energy reduction as a greater population of students realizes the importance of saving energy,” Peterson said. According to a PackPulse executive summary, the goal of the project is to increase awareness of energy issues to students, faculty and visitors of the University and to continue the search to find the most effective means of displaying energy data through analyti-
cal and behavioral research and experimentation. Anup Engineer, the founder and president of Toke Energy Technology, said the group wants to inform students about energy usage so they can become aware of their own behavior about conserving energy. “Our goal is to increase energy awareness of the students and increase the environment profile of the University, and hopefully get people consciousness of good energy habits,” Engineer said. Kylee Phillips, Inter-Residence Council president, said when students live in residential halls, they do not have to pay for utility bills, and it makes it harder for them to conserve energy. “If they give some energy up, students can actually see the number of electricity reducing on the television screen,” she said. Phillips said the amount of electricity being consumed isn’t going to change unless people change their habits. “That’s what this project is aimed for,” Phillips said. “We want PackPulse to make students realize the importance of conservation and to increase their knowledge of conservation.” Over the past year, Token Energy Technologies has worked with University Housing and student groups to move the project from an idea to a working system called Smart Meter. The system is operational in Owen and Syme. Engineer said to present the electricity consumption data to students in a manner that allows them to see their energy usage, it
PULSE continued page 3
Online tools to ‘streamline’ appointments Student Health Services develops two online services to speed up process for students Chloe Fiorentino-Bach Correspondent
Student Health Services is providing two online tools, HealthWeb and CheckIn, to streamline students’ experiences with the center. HealthWeb helps students schedule appointments and communicate with providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants, refill prescriptions and fill out required medical forms such as immunization records and medical histories. Dr. Elizabeth Neel, the assistant medical director at Student Health Services, said the two online tools are helpful to students. “Students can make appointments anytime during the day or night, and it doesn’t depend on whether the Health Center is open or not,” Neel said. “If a student decides he or she is ill and needs to be seen by a doctor, the student can make an appointment with no wait.” Neel said students can also cancel their appointments online even if they’ve made them over the phone. CheckIn, the other service, gives students the option to check in to the health center before their appointments, replacing the need to stand in line and check in with Health Center staff members. The tool is similar to those found in airport self-check ins and is userfriendly, according to Neel. The new tools, she said, streamlines both the students and health center employees’ experiences. Neel said the tools benefit students and employees because it gets students online and off the center phone lines, which reduces overall student wait time. By uploading electronic records and checking-in online, students can simplify their experience with the Health Center. A student can make an appointment online at night, walk in the next morning, check-in, and sit in the waiting room with a minimal wait time. Both Student Health tools are confidential. Communications through HealthWeb and CheckIn are stored in a secure electronic medical record with Student Health Services and are HIPAA and FERPA compliant, Neel said. “It is a secure Web site because students have to enter their Unity IDs, their passwords and their birth dates,” Neel said. Andrew Cantrell, a graduate student in accounting, said he wasn’t aware of Student Health’s new online tools. “I’ve never heard of the Health Center’s online capabilities,” Cantrell said. “I wish they had it when I was a freshman because it would have made going in and getting out easier.” Cantrell said the program is a step in the right direction. “My schedule is way too busy to
TOOLS continued page 3
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Pack shuts out Georgia Southern, 2-0 See page 8.
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