The Rice Thresher, Vol. 90, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, February 28, 2003 Page: 1 of 24
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Rice University Woodson Research Center.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
W WW*Hf ™" ™™"™i"'i*1,1 iw?/"™11,11 ■ii™1
. the Rice Thresher
Vol. XC, Issue No. 21
SINCE 1916
Friday, February 28, 2003
Co-presidents elected to SA
Debbink and Leggett elected in highly contested presidential contest
by Daniel McDonald
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
Wiess College senior Michael
Leggett and Wiess junior Bryan
Debbink, running together, won the
Student Association presidency in a
highly contested election with six can-
didates for SA president, a number
matched only once in the last 25 years.
Both referenda fail. See Story, Page 11.
Students cast 861 ballots in the
SA presidential election, part of the
campus-wide General Elections.
Debbink and leggett received
26.88 percent of the intial vote. Due
to the preferential voting system, 11
rounds of voting had to be calcu-
lated before Debbink and leggett
received the majority vote neces-
sary to win the SA presidency, al-
though Debbink and leggett lead
after every round of voting.
Voter turnout is significantly higher
than last year's total of (365 ballots cast.
A total of 1,009 ballots were cast in
2001 and 836 cast in 2000.
Voting was conducted online on
ELECTION RESULTS
Student Association
President: Bryan Debbink and
Michael Leggett
Internal VP: Derrick Matthews
External VP: Clare Johnson
Secretary: Brenda Arredondo
Treasurer: Phyllis Huang
Rice Program Council
President: Mary-Margaret Miller
Rice Student Volunteer Program
Chairs: Trevor Crowell and
Renee Edlund
Internal Vice Chair: Ethan
Varela
External Vice Chair: Rachel
Dickerson
Secretary: Emery Ellis
Treasurer: Jason Cheng
Campanile
Editors in chief: Sarah Rufca
and Heidi Sherman
Sammy the Owl
Lanny Bose
Beer-Bike Blanket Tax: Failed
U. Blue Constitution: Failed
College presidents
Baker: Megan Batchelor
Brown: Kathleen Milazzo
Hanszen: Alex Sigeda
Jones: Reed Macy
Lovett: Catherine Tsien
Martel: Rob Gillette
Sid: Becca Schendel
Wiess: Andy Perez
Will Rice: Ryan Bergauer
See complete election results on Page 11.
the SA Web site.
Debbink said he hopes to increase
student involvement on campus.
"I want three years from now
the Princeton Review to say what's
hot, and what's not and what's hot
is that the students own the cam-
See ELECTIONS, Page 10
No disqualifications
despite code problems
by Jenny Rees
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
A possible violation of the elec-
tion code caused turmoil in the
Student Association General Elec-
tions, which ended Wednesday.
The elections committee de-
cided Sunday that Rob Daniel, a
Sid Richardson College sopho-
more who won the race for Honor
Council junior representative,
and William McKee, a Lovett
College sophomore who lost the
race for SA president, violated
the election code when Daniel
sent an e-mail to all varsity ath-
letes encouraging them to vote
for student athletes and athletic
supporters in the General Elec-
tions. However, the committee
chose not to take action against
Daniel and McKee because of
discrepancies between the elec-
tion code and official instructions
given to the candidates by Alan
Pham, the SA elections chair.
The discrepancies were
caused when Pham, a Baker Col-
lege sophomore, held a meeting
last Monday with SA President
Matt Haynie, a Will Rice College
senior, and the SA presidential
candidates to outline the election
rules. At the meeting, the candi-
dates, Haynie and Pham agreed
that limited use of e-mail for cam-
paigning should be allowed. They
decided the candidates would be
allowed to send e-mails remind-
ing people to vote and providing
a link to the SA Web site where
the voting was held. The candi-
dates would not be allowed to
send e-mails asking people to vote
for them or mentioning that they
were running in the election.
After meeting with Haynie and
the presidential candidates,
Pham sent an e-mail to candi-
dates in all the races warning
them they could be disqualified if
they sent e-mails asking people
to vote for them.
Daniel, who is chair of the
Student Athlete Committee, and
McKee, who is a member of the
See CODE, Page 11
v
►
REN A LA ESCOVAR/THRESHER
Roaring in the new year
The dragon dancers performed at Monday's Chinese Student Association Lunar New Year in
the Grand Hall in the Student Center.
Target number of transfers
and freshmen will increase
by Mark Berenson
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
Despite a larger freshman class, next year's
enrollment is supposed to remain the same.
The new student enrollment target for the
2003-04 school year has been set at 720. The
number of freshmen entering in the fall of
2002, which was the target enrollment for the
freshman class, was 700. Next year's larger
projection does not include the target of 55
transfers, an increase from the 48 who en-
tered Rice last fall, which would bring the
target matriculating class size to 775.
Vice President for Enrollment Ann Wright
said despite the larger target, the overall popu-
lation on campus is not expected to increase.
"We go through a rather complicated study
of study abroad, leaves and suspensions, Janu-
ary graduation, previous May graduation in
order to come up with an annualized under-
graduate number of2,700," Wright said. "So it
isn't an increase in the size of the population,
but it is fdling in a somewhat larger gap."
Wright said there is larger gap to fill be-
cause more students are graduating this year
than last.
The targeted new student enrollment was
set at 710 this fall but increased to 720 based on
a two-year-old policy of the effect of enrollment
of faculty and staff dependents on the overall
enrollment target. Faculty and staff who have
met certain length-of-service requirements have
tuition for their dependents waived.
"We have an agreement [as university
policy] that we will increase the original target
by 50 percent of what the entering class's
faculty/staff dependents were from the previ-
ous year," Wright said.
Wright said 19 dependents matriculated to
Rice in the fall, leading to the 10-student in-
crease in the target for next year.
Budget Director Kathy Collins, who serves
on the Enrollment Planning Committee, said
the new policy was driven by an increase in the
number of dependents enrolling and their
effect on diversity in the student body.
See FRESHMEN, Page 4
Alcohol policy meetings
focus on enforcement
by Olivia Allison
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
w
Students should be working
harder to enforce the alcohol
policy, a group composed of chief
justices and presidents decided
after meeting several times this
year to discuss student health is-
^ sues, which include an almost-
doubled percentage of alcohol-re-
lated EMS calls.
Health Education and Wellness
Office Director Kim Lopez said she
and staff in other health offices are
concerned about students' drinking
~ habits, citing Emergency Medical
" Services data. In the 2001-'02 aca-
demic year, there were 584 calls to
EMS, of which 54—or 9.2 percent—
were alcohol-related, according to
EMS Director Dave Melville
(Martel '03). As of Wednesday, 16.8
percent of this year's 447 EMS calls
were alcohol-related.
Students wrote the current alco-
hol policy in the Spring 1999 semes-
ter, and according to federal laws,
the policy must be re-evaluated ev-
ery two years.
Members of the group, which is
separate from the official Alcoholic
Beverage Policy Advisory Commit-
tee called for in the alcohol policy,
said they are not looking to change
the alcohol policy but rather to in-
crease its enforcement.
"(Changing the alcohol policy)
is not what we're getting together
to discuss," Assistant Vice Presi-
dent for Student Affairs John
Hutchinson, who convened a meet-
ing Wednesday, said. "Our conver-
sations to this point haven't uncov-
ered any problems with the policy.
What we're more talking about is
enforcement of the policy."
See ALCOHOL Page 8
INSIDE
v- .<> <*"<; ,=
.: ■ ,
MiSiffflif |
;♦
,.,-Cskg 2 }*>%&v
|§k v '
r > , *--*2 i
;,7>- , - * / H . ; ? I
X- "'
mm
v-: •
tj. l^pgj
A " , - •
* ' *
■ . ~ ■ ' ;•
L *• '
The magic bat
SUSHI SUZUKI/THRESHER
Junior rightfielder Austin Davis drops his bat and heads for first against
Stetson Saturday at Reckling Park. Davis hit a game-winning single in
Sunday's win against UT-Arlington. See Story, Page 16.
Internet free hour
Rice's Internet connection
will be disabled from 12 a.m. -
1 a.m. Sunday.
Snorkel for me
The Recreation Center is
holding snorkeling classes Sun-
day night at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.
OPINION Page 3
Gill is' big move
A&E Page 15
Weird art warehouse
SPORTS Page 19
Lawson leaps into record book
Weekend Weather
Friday
Cloudy, 51-65 degrees
Saturday
Mostly cloudy. 55-70 degrees
Sunday
Showers. 53-71 degrees
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Rustin, Rachel. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 90, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, February 28, 2003, newspaper, February 28, 2003; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443200/m1/1/?rotate=90: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.