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dailycardinal.com
Monday, April 21, 2008
ASM aims to reform for next academic year By Amanda Hoffstrom THE DAILY CARDINAL
CHRISTOPHER GUESS/THE DAILY CARDINAL
The Human Rights Torch Relay came to Madison Saturday to protest Beijing, China, as the site of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Supporters of the Chinese government rallied against the HRTR.
Beijing Olympic Games stir controversy in city By Abby Sears THE DAILY CARDINAL
Hundreds of protesters rallied on Capitol Square Saturday afternoon both in support of and in opposition to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games being held in Beijing, China. The Human Rights Torch Relay, an international effort to speak out against the Chinese government’s actions toward the Tibetan people and other persecuted groups, stopped in Madison on a tour of 43 U.S. cities. Olympic gold medal winner and Wisconsin native Casey FitzRandolph carried the torch from the Capitol steps down State Street to Library Mall. Tenzin Tsetan of the UW-Madison chapter of Students for a Free Tibet said the event aimed to show disap-
proval for the Olympics being held in China and expose the Chinese government’s wrongdoings against the Tibetan people. “We believe the Chinese people deserve [the Olympics], but the Chinese government, that’s the one that doesn’t deserve the Olympics,” Tsetan said. Another group of protesters emerged on the Capitol Square to protest the HRTR and show support for the Chinese government. International UW-Madison students Sunny Lin and Jing Li, both from China, marched in the protest and said they object to turning the Olympics into a political issue. Instead, Lin and Li want to focus on projecting a true image of the Chinese government.
“In China, all the students, all the families and all the people live very peacefully and colorfully, we are very satisfied with my government,” Lin said. Following the same path as the HRTR down State Street to Library Mall, supporters of the Chinese government carried Chinese and Olympic flags in favor of holding the Games in Beijing. Li said the news media portrays the country in a negative way and urged Americans to become more educated of the situations in China and Tibet. “It’s hard for us to show how Tibetan people are really treated here,” Li said. “Our purpose is just to encourage you to go, to see what it’s like there instead of taking the news blindly.”
Fourteen newly elected Associated Students of Madison representatives for next year’s Student Council session, which starts May 1, promised five reform commitments to the UWMadison student body Sunday. “ASM must reform its internal structure in order to increase its capacity to work on campus issues and regain legitimacy,” the ASM representatives wrote in a statement. The five commitments include focusing on quality of higher education at UWMadison, changing bylaws so Student Council approves all ASM campaigns, creating a press office for public relations, forming a time frame to implement a presidential system to create a Student Body President, and implementing a budget cap for ASM expenditures. Although many of the representatives said the reform agenda is not in response to the poor attendance of the April 15 “State of the ASM” address, Jeff Wright,
one of next year’s Student Council representatives, said it “expedited [ASM’s] timeline for publicizing these reforms and communicating them to students.” “I think ASM right now is out of touch with students,” Wright said, adding the reforms aim to make ASM more accountable and accessible to students as a forum for discussion. “I don’t think we have that right now and I would argue that we haven’t had that for some time,” he said. “ASM has been lacking in legitimacy for awhile,” Student Council member Alex Gallagher said. “We’ve had trouble recognizing our failures for quite some time.” Jessica Pavlic, another representative, said having a president to act as the head of ASM is “a step in the right direction” to get more voter participation in ASM elections, which she called ASM’s biggest obstacle. “The biggest issue facing ASM is its alienation from the student asm page 3
Uncommon Illinois earthquake felt in Madison, across Midwest over weekend Many Madison residents who awoke to shaking early Friday were surprised to learn that they had experienced a rare Midwestern earthquake. The 5.2 magnitude earthquake occurred at 4:40 a.m. and was centered six miles away from the southern Illinois town of West Salem, according to the UW-Madison geology department. The quake lasted about one minute and was felt by people in several areas of the Midwest, including Madison. A UW-Madison geology
department seismometer located in Weeks Hall recorded the tremors. Around 10:15 a.m., an aftershock from the earthquake rattled Madison for a second time, according to UWMadison geologists. On Jan. 31, an “ice quake” on Lake Mendota created a tremorlike sensation that shook several lakeshore areas of campus. The ice quake occurred because of a sudden drop in temperature that caused the ice to shift, leaving a visible rift on the shoreline of Lake Mendota.
Students show entrepreneur skills in 100 hours By Grace Kim THE DAILY CARDINAL
UW-Madison students participated in a 100-hour competition over the weekend designed to spur students’ entrepreneur skills. The Wiscontrepreneur Challenge, which started April 17, requires participants to create something socially valuable from recycled surplus material for $10 in 100 hours. “100-hour challenge is an opportunity for students at UW-Madison to test their entrepreneur skills to be creative, to have fun and to see if they can flex their entrepreneur muscles,” said Doug Bradley, assistant director of marketing and
communications at UW-Madison’s Office of Corporate Relations. Bradley said one’s entrepreneurial skills do not reside in just one kind of person or discipline. “I think what the challenge really did for me was to demonstrate that it’s possible to make a living doing something that you love,” said art student Brittany Seabloom, one of last year’s winners, who turned old wooden drawers into a wall sconce. “It has really shown me that anyone can be an entrepreneur.” The goal of the 100-hour challenge is to help students from all academic fields explore their entrepreneur skills through promoting creativeness, organization and pre-
sentation ability. According to Bradley, the recycling theme has been applied to this year’s challenge due to Earth Day on April 22, which overlaps with the challenge period. He said the challenge aims to seek out students who show the potential to help society at large by reusing materials. “We really want to take what we are doing on the Madison campus to the other campuses in the university and eventually state-wide,” Bradley said, adding he hopes Wisconsin will be recognized as an entrepreneurial state. Final submissions are due by 10 p.m. Monday. The winners will be announced April 28.
KRIS UGARRIZA/THE DAILY CARDINAL
UW-Madison graduate student Gene Shiau looks through piles of old and used items available in Memorial Union Friday as part of the 100-hour Wiscontrepreneur Challenge.
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”