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With Shakespeare’s 447th birthday approaching, Inside Beat casts its attention on contemporaries that transformed the Bard’s work into modern masterpieces.
ANASTASIA MILLICKER ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
With the election process for the 2011-2012 Rutgers University Student Assembly (RUSA) underway, two contending parties — the Scarlet Knight Party and the Rutgers United Party — have emerged with the distinct missions and characters. The Scarlet Knight Party — which consists of Ross Kleiman, Anthony Weigand and seven other candidates — plans to keep open communication with the student body throughout the semester, said Kleiman, a School of Engineering junior. As current School of Engineering representative, Kleiman has been an active member of RUSA and a peer academic mentor for the Math and Science Living-Learning Community and the Rutgers Undergraduate Research Society. Kleiman, who is running for RUSA president, said he is taking an engineering approach, first looking at the problem and then finding a solution. “We need to concentrate on the concerns of the students and sit down with them,” he said. “There are so many issues like getting to classes on time, buses being packed, paying too much for textbooks or tuition and the quality and variety of food in the dining halls.” Initiatives to combat overpaying for textbooks include handing out literature to first-year students upon arriving at the
APRIL 21, 2011
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Today: Cloudy
Two parties run for RUSA board
THURSDAY
MIDDLESEX COUNTY JURY INDICTS DHARUN RAVI ON 15 COUNTS investigators information that would mislead Dharun Ravi was indicted on 15 counts the investigation. yesterday after evidence from a criminal For these actions, he faces three counts of investigation was presented to a 23-person tampering with evidence, three counts of hingrand jur y last week, according to the dering his own apprehension and one count Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. of witness tampering. Ravi, 19, of Plainsboro, N.J., faces two According to a statement from the counts of invasion of privacy and two Clementi family, the indictment spells out counts of attempted invasion of privacy for calculated acts against their son by his forusing a webcam to view his roommate mer roommate. Tyler Clementi’s intimate encounter with DHARUN “If these facts are true, as they appear to another man. RAVI be, then it is important for our criminal jusBoth are third- and four th-degree offenses that could carr y a sentence of up to five tice system to establish clear accountability under years in prison, Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said in law,” according to the statement. “We are eager to have the process move forward for justice in this case a statement. He was also charged with two counts of second- and to reinforce the standards of acceptable conduct degree bias and two counts of third-degree bias. A sec- in our society.” Charges filed against Molly Wei, 19, of West ond-degree offense could carry about five to 10 years in Windsor Township, were not presented to the grand prison, Kaplan said. The grand jur y also found that Ravi attempted to jury. But her pending charges include two counts of mislead investigators and witnesses by deleting a invasion of privacy after the incident. The University has not issued a statement, as this is Twitter post that alerted others to view his roommate’s second encounter and replacing it with a an ongoing criminal investigation, said University spokesman Greg Trevor. false post. They also found that Ravi tried to convince wit— Kristine Rosette Enerio nesses to not testify against him and that he gave
SEE RUSA ON PAGE 4
RUSACU office to shut down BY AMY ROWE ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
NELSON MORALES / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The Rutgers Federal Credit Union on the College Avenue campus, which only serves University employees, aims to add students and alumni like the RUSACU.
The Rutgers University Student and Alumni Credit Union (RUSACU) location within the Rutgers Student Center will close on May 20, and with its departure students may have new banking options on campus. RUSACU, a credit union exclusively open to students and alumni of the University, merged with Affinity Federal Credit Union last year for financial reasons. The University’s
Poll says NJ residents would not vote Christie for president BY JEFF PRENTKY STAFF WRITER
Although Gov. Chris Christie said he does not plan to run for president in 2012, a poll released from the Eagleton Institute of Politics found that if he did, most New Jersey voters would not support him. Results show 22 percent of registered voters polled support a 2012 presidential bid by Christie, while 65 percent oppose and 12 percent are unsure. While 36 percent of voters think having a governor in the presidential election helps New Jersey’s reputation, 42 percent say it makes no difference and 21 percent say it hurts the state’s image, according to the poll. “I’m not surprised that most people don’t support Christie,” said David Redlawsk, poll director. “I think if we had asked about the future, then most of the people who like him would’ve supported the idea of him running down the road.” Poll results were gathered from 773 registered voters throughout New Jersey from surveys conducted on both
landlines and cellphones from March 28 to April 4, with a margin of error of about 3.5 percentage points. Republicans, at 44 percent, support a 2012 Christie presidential run, but no majority of any political group supports the idea, according to the poll. Those who have a positive impression of Christie tend to be more supportive of a 2012 presidential bid, but even among this group, only 45 percent back him, with 35 percent opposed and 20 percent unsure. When asked to set aside personal beliefs about the governor and evaluate if his national attention makes them proud to be from New Jersey, only 40 percent say the attention makes them proud, according to the poll. About two-thirds of GOP backers are proud, while 37 percent of independents and 31 percent of democrats feel the same. But the fact that most New Jersey voters oppose Christie bidding for president in 2012 does not directly reflect his sup-
SEE POLL ON PAGE 6
Department of Student Life felt this merger violated its lease to stay in the student center, said Kristen Clarke, former RUSACU board member. “The department feels RUSACU would no longer be [related to] Rutgers now that they’re with Affinity,” said Clarke, a School of Arts and Sciences junior. Instead of closing the RUSACU student center location when the lease ended in December, Student Life allowed the credit union to stay there
until May 20 to properly serve students, Clarke said. The Newark and Camden campus locations of RUSACU were taken over by Affinity and will not close, she said. “It’s convenient to have on campus,” she said. “They have an ATM in the student center and it’s completely surcharge free for any student who is part of the credit union. In New Brunswick, there are so many ATMs on campus, but
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SING A SONG
INDEX UNIVERSITY A dance group will perform four-minute routines at bus stops on Rutgers Day.
OPINIONS The cancellation of Rutgersfest could prove to be a positive shift for the University.
UNIVERSITY . . . . . . . 3 METRO . . . . . . . . . 8 WORLD . . . . . . . . . 10 PENDULUM . . . . . . . 11 OPINIONS . . . . . . . 12 DIVERSIONS . . . . . . 14 CLASSIFIEDS . . . . . . 16 ASHLEY ROSS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
University students Dennis Kihlberg, left, Kylie Schwartz and Jack Gramlich judge contestants at the second annual “Singing Bee” last night in the Cook/Douglass Recreation Center.
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