sru rocket 3-23-12

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Sports

Campus L ife Holocaust survivor Fay Malkin

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Baseball: Rock splits doubleheader with No. 10 Griffins

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shares experience with SRU

The Rocket www.theonlinerocket.com

Friday, March 23, 2012

Slippery Rock University Student Newspaper

Est. 1934

Volume 95, Number 19

SGA elections include greater competition this year By Will Deshong Rocket Staff Reporter

GRAPHIC MADE BY LEXI KOVSKI/THE ROCKET

Student Government Association campaigning is underway, and two of the major parties and one independent presidential candidate are highlighted. Efforts were made to contact Mario Party and Terrel McNeely, but were never answered.

The Slippery Rock University Student Government Association will hold its annual elections for the 2012-13 academic year next week. Three parties are currently vying for positions that will be voted for online from March 28 until March 30. Announcements of the winners will be made in the University Union on April 3 during common hour. Party Rock, Together Our Goals Achieve (T.O.G.A), and the Mario Party each boast presidential nominees as well as candidates for other positions. Joining the hunt for the presidential nomination are two independent candidates, David Matuszak and Terrell McNeely. An assortment of candidates for the executive board is a stark contrast to last year’s election, where all but one of the nominees ran unopposed. As a result of uncontested races, only about eight percent of the student body tallied a vote last spring. Zachariah Dornisch, the commissioner of the SGA election committee, thinks the competition this year will spark interest on the campus. “I certainly anticipate a larger turnout than last year simply because having more candidates should bring interest to the election,” Dornisch said. With a couple opponents fighting for the positions, each party is campaigning various goals and ambitions for the upcoming year. Party Rock’s main focus is to make SRU a wet campus. “One of our main platforms is striving to make Slippery Rock University a wet campus,” Alex Hiller, the presidential hopeful representing Party Rock, said. Hiller said that Party Rock would first appeal to Residence Life and the

vice presidents of other administrative departments to allow the Rock Apartments to permit alcohol. “The reasoning for this is because Rock Apartments residents are older and are transitioning between on and off-campus living, so they should be granted the opportunity to exercise their maturity as adults,” Hiller said. Hiller said that depending on how well it works at the Rock Apartments, they would hope to move the policy onto Buildings E and F, the residence halls mainly for non-traditional students, before ultimately the other dorm buildings. “This is obviously a multiyear process,” Hiller said, “but we are not afraid to fight the administration to achieve the desires of the Slippery Rock students.” Party Rock also wants to provide Ethernet cable jacks next to the tables in Bailey Library so students are not dependent upon the WiFi service, and to create a merit budgeting system that would award the most active campus organizations rather than simply the longest tenured. Party Rock is not alone in hopes of a merited budgeting system, as David Wolfe, T.O.G.A.’s presidential nominee, stated it would be his party’s primary objective. “The first thing we want to change is the structure of the budgeting system,” Wolfe said. “It is currently run on a seniority system and that is not fair. We want to create a new system that is based on merit of organizations.” T.O.G.A.’s merit system would be based on what organizations make a difference on campus, judged highly on the successes of events they hold, and would punish inactive organizations that SEE CANDIDATES, PAGE A-2

Rep. Jaret Gibbons and SRU Coffaro's pizza moves to SR Lanes student robbed at gun point By Jonathan Janasik Rocket News Contributor

A Pa. representative, his chief of staff, and an intern from Slippery Rock University were robbed at gunpoint early March 12 near the Capitol Building in Harrisburg. Representative Jaret Gibbons, who represents parts of Butler, Beaver and Mercer counties, said that at about 12:30 a.m. he arrived in Harrisburg with his chief of staff Kevin Bowser and SRU intern Charles Goodell. Gibbons said they parked at his apartment located “about a half a block away from the Capitol Building.” The group was busy unpacking the car when two men dressed in all black approached them. “They came up behind [Bowser], put a gun up to his head and told us to get on the ground,” Gibbons said. “They said, ‘clear out your pockets,’ so we took everything out of our pockets, and put it all on the ground.” “The man who wasn’t holding the gun picked up the [Goodell’s] keys, got into the car and pulled it out onto the road,” continued Gibbons. “The man with the gun picked up the rest of our stuff, got in the car, and

they drove off.” After the car left, the group went into the apartment, and Gibbons called the police. After giving the police the description and license plate number of Goodell’s car, the police arrived in about five minutes, Gibbons said. The men were arrested within the same hour. Gibbons, Bowser and Goodell then went to the police station and identified both the men and the gun they had used. “It certainly was a frightening experience,” Gibbons stated. “When someone holds a gun at you or someone close to you, you don’t know what’s going to happen.” Goodell declined to comment on the incident. The p olice incident rep or t identified the two men as Michael Chavis, 23, and Donnie Dozier, 41. Both men were charged with robbery, conspiracy, and robbery of a motor vehicle. In addition, Chavis was charged with carrying a firearm without a license. “While it was a scary situation, it had a positive outcome,” Gibbons concluded. “Thankfully nobody got hurt, most of our positions were recovered and the two men were caught.”

LEXI KOVSKI/THE ROCKET

The staff at Coffaro's pizza prepares for their expanded role in the community following their move to the former location of Slippery Rock Lanes.

By Kaitlyn Yeager Rocket News Contributor

Coffaro’s Pizza will host a grand opening celebration this weekend, after the business’ recent move to Slippery Rock Lanes at 216 Grove City Road, next to Straub Distributor. Owner Rob Coffaro, a 1997 graduate of Slippery Rock University, officially reopened the pizza shop at its new location last Thursday, and plans to have the bowling lanes ready for the community within the next few weeks.

“We’re waiting for the computer equipment to be replaced,” Coffaro said. “The pizza shop is up and running and we’re offering a carryout special of a large 1-topping pizza for $6.99 this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. “ Slippery Rock Lanes had been closed for over two years before Coffaro, who had the pizza shop on Main Street for over 14 years, took over the business. “The main reason for the move was for the location,” Coffaro said. “It makes it more SEE BOWLING, PAGE A-3


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