Dance Majors Plan to Travel to Hawaii Dance majors go to participate in Asian-Pacific dance competition, and experience and learn about Hawaiian culture. Page D-3
Friday April 10, 2015 • Volume 98, Issue Number 22 • An Independent, Student-Run Newspaper
the rocket
www.theonlinerocket.com
SGA election lacks full ticket By Amber Cannon Assistant News Editor
What the Slippery Rock Student Government Association (SGA) usually call their presidential debate was changed to a candidate information session Tuesday, due to a lack of students running for office. Center for Student Involvement and Leadership Director and SGA Advisor, Brad Kovaleski expressed his concern about the lack of candidates running for senate at the SGA meeting Monday. “There’s not even a whole ticket running," Kovaleski said. "There’s only one position that has any competition and I think there were two residence hall senator positions out of all of them and there were about seven open commuter positions. You approved a quarter million dollar budget for the Happy Bus when we don’t even have enough people on campus interested in the organization. I’m a little concerned with that as far as the representation of the student body running." Kovaleski said the lack of interest in running for SGA officers is a red flag for him. “Wendy shot me an email this morning asking, ‘is this normal’, and I said, ‘oh, yeah, sometimes we have lower numbers’, but I hadn’t opened it up to see the actual lack of names. We had so many nonfilled positions.” The only ticket running for senate is SRUnited. SEE SRUnited, PAGE A-2
CASEY SQUIRES/ROCKET CONTRIBUTOR
SRUnited spoke to students about their platform, goals and future plans for SGA during the candidate information session on Tuesday at 1 p.m.
Domino's reopens after month long renovation By Bridget McClure Rocket Contributor
After being closed for a month, Domino's reopened its newly renovated restaurant to the public on Saturday. Local manager Rob Disman said that renovations were something they needed and wanted. Domino’s now offers seating areas, two 42 inch TVs that display their menu, red and detailed walls, free WIFI, a public restroom, a new oven, a step-up for children to watch the pizzas being made, and even a chalkboard wall for customers to write comments on. Additions still to come are a TV monitor to display the progression of the online orders, a TV for cable, and replacement of the wooden deck to concrete steps. “We were operating in an old beatup building,” Disman said. “As part of my franchise agreement, I had one year to remodel. We’ve had to do some extensive work so we pretty much built a new Domino’s in four weeks.” Disman likes the new open atmosphere because he can interact with the customers who can see that they are operating cleanly. The new red oven that Disman personally bought can handle more volume and is very visible with the exposed kitchen. Although he said a lot of the changes were beneficial, the oven may be the most important one. “Before on a Friday or Saturday, I could get enough employees to make the pizzas but the oven couldn’t cook
them fast enough,” Disman said. “Now I have the biggest and best top-of-theline oven.” Beth Tolbert has been an employee at Domino’s for about three months. She said the work environment is now more efficient, cleaner, and that she wants people to know Domino’s is reopened with inside seating. A definite Domino’s regular and a senior at SRU, Steve Rickard has been to Domino’s two times since its reopening. Rickard said he likes the new restaurant feeling with seating and soon to be TV because before it was outdated and he would go in and grab his food quickly. “Domino’s being closed was a letdown because it killed the variety of food places in Slippery Rock,” Rickard said. “Once one place closes down, you are forced to choose between only two other options every day.” Disman said he does expect business to improve especially with local people because even if they aren’t Domino’s fans, it’s something new they will want to try out. He has already had people stop to see the renovations and not get pizza; they were just very excited to see what it looked like. Posted on a wall inside the restaurant is a statement Dismon is proud of; “Did you know 90% of franchise owners started as delivery experts.” “Just as the sign says, I started out as a driver in college and I worked my way up by saving my money,” Disman said. “I’m a local guy and I want people to know they are dealing with a real local person, not a corporate Domino’s.”
Evening Happy Bus route returns next year By Amber Cannon Assistant News Editor
SGA approved the 2015-2016 shuttle budget, which included the continuation of the evening route of the Happy Bus during daylight savings hours at their regular senate meeting Monday. Wendy Leitera, SRSRA Inc. Business Manager said the decision was made to keep the evening route of the Happy Bus running during daylight savings hours only so the senate can stay within the budget. The total cost of the shuttle budget is $226,115.60. Leitera also said the ridership of the evening route has declined significantly since spring break. Vice President of C ampus Outreach, Jared Stanley said if the senate would have advertised appropriately, the ridership would have been consistent. “I think that it really hurt us starting it in the middle of the semester,” Stanley said. “I feel like it was just really hard to get the word out about it, but if freshmen knew more about it right off the bat, it would have been more successful.” Brad Kovaleski, center for student involvement and leadership director and SGA advisor, Brad Kovaleski mentioned how disappointed he was that there wasn't a full ticket running for election next year. He urged students to run for senate if they ever had a desire to be in SGA. SGA approved the resubmitted budgets for clubs and organizations
'Closing the Gap' SGA Election Tackles Addiction Needs Candidates
Men's Track Wins Nine Events
Panelists discuss solutions for drug and alcohol addiction in Butler County. Page A-3
Men's track has a strong showing at the SRU Open at Mihalik-Thompson Stadium. Page C-1
The small turnout for SGA candidates is a red flag for The Rocket staff. Page B-1
for the 2015-2016 academic year. The budgets reached a total of amount $32,572.29, which was reviewed and recommended by the Finance Committee. SGA President, Katie Hill urged students to vote for Rocky on Twitter and Facebook for the Mascot Madness award, which ended Tuesday morning. Hill, speaking on behalf of Dr. Itzi Meztli, SGA APSCUF representative, reminded students to attend the "Meet and Greet Lunch Rally", which happened on April 9 during common hour. Commuter Senator, Cody Moody informed students about the WRSU’s “About Class Spring Showcase”, which will be held on April 27 in the Robert M. Smith Student Center Theater. The event will showcase 14 different musical acts as well as a comedian. The senate tabled the motion of adopting their 2015 constitution for their next informal meeting. The senate also tabled the motion of adopting their 2015 by-laws. Sister to Sister was granted $300 to help pay for yoga instructors for their 'Yoga after Dark' events that will be held during finals week. SGA approved the SRU Investment and Trading Club and the Bookworms Club as recognized organizations on campus. Freshman Senator, Mattie Morgan was named “liter of the week”. The next meeting will take place April 20 at 8:45 p.m. in the theater of the Robert M. Smith Student Center.
Holocaust Survivor Remembers Past A survivor shares her emotional story of her parents' death at Auschwitz. Page D-1