UNC Student Body President Slain

Slain Woman Found Near UNC Was Student Body President

Posted: Today at 12:13 p.m.
Updated: 5 minutes ago

Chapel Hill, N.C. — Chapel Hill police have identified a woman found dead near the University of North Carolina campus Wednesday morning as the university's student body president.

Eve Carson, 22, a UNC senior, was found shot multiple times in the head about a half-mile from campus.

Police have issued a bulletin for Carson's blue 2005 Toyota Highlander with Georgia license plate AIV-6690.

Officers spent most of Wednesday and Thursday morning following up and searching for leads in the case. At a news conference Thursday, they called it a "fairly random crime."

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Chapel Hill Police Department at 919-968-2760.

Meanwhile, an informal gathering has been scheduled at UNC for 3 p.m. at Polk Place for the UNC community, Chancellor James Moeser said.

In a letter posted on the UNC Web site, Moeser described Carson as a wonderful person and a great friend.

"We are saddened and numb with grief," he said.

Carson, a native of Athens, Ga., was a Morehead scholar and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. She was a pre-med major studying both political science and biology.

Original Link

Baltimore Sun: Cheer for this; UMBC Students in the Spotlight

The UMBC community has rallied behind the men's basketball season this year in a fury of school spirit. While students have come out in droves to the RAC, students have consistently left unsportsmanlike behavior at the door. David Steele, a lead sports columnist for the Baltimore Sun, highlights the outstanding school spirit and sportsmanship exuded by UMBC students this season.

In the article, Dr. Hrabowski highlighted the efforts that students have taken to make this positive school spirit a reality on our campus. Jake Steel spoke of the student initiatives throughout the season, as well as in recent conversations with Dr. Hrabowski.

Without a doubt, this type of student ownership and responsibility on campus will go a long way in strengthening shared governance and student involvement on the UMBC campus...

Update on Civil Marriage/Gay Rights in MGA

Here is a link to an update from the Baltimore Sun on more "moderate" alternatives to civil marriage.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-te.md.marriage06mar06,0,3511631.story

Study Groups- Do they benefit you?

In my time as the Director of Academic Affairs, I have gained a lot of experience in dealing with study groups. A lot of experience. But I wonder, do students actually benefit from them? There are scores of studies touting the positive impact of being in a study group on student's grades. That's nice, but I really would like to hear about experiences with study groups from students themselves. I am in the planning stages of having an application added to myUMBC that would allow students to form study groups through that interface. But I must ask, is this something that students want? So leave some comments, and let me know UMBC, are you in study groups? If so, do you feel benefits from them? If not, why not? I am really interested in your feedback.

Buses Available for Binghamton!

After going through the Senate and Finance Board, the SGA has approved of $12,000 towards 4 fan buses going up to Binghamton for the Men's Basketball game. Right now, 2 buses are about full, so if you are interested in going for just $12 a day, go to the Commons Info Desk to reserve your spot on one of the buses.

Student Fees

The Student Advocacy Dept. is currently working on advocating for a student activities fee increase. Please review and provide feedback over the following statement:

An increased Student Activities Fee will be extremely beneficial to the UMBC student body by providing more funding for SGA sponsored events, SEB events, and student organizations. These include T-Payne, Homecoming and its assorted events, Pre-game Tailgates, Ecofest, and the Stress-Free Zone .

The fee will also aid in increasing services to students such as library DVDs, Leadershape and Readership Programs, Prove It!, and many more

This fee, unlike all others, has not increased in the past 5 years and is becoming more limited each year with rising costs and inflation.

Here's some groovy links to find out more about this issue:

Dave's blog entry on the history of student fees
http://cocreateumbc.blogspot.com/2008/01/student-activity-fee-flatline.html

SGA budgets
http://sga.umbc.edu/budgets/


Regards,

The Student Advocacy Dept.

Commons - Weekend Rotation Schedule

For those of you who don't know, food services are doing an experimental opening of various stations in the commons on specific weekend dates over the course of the semester. They are doing this as a result of hearing many complaints from students about how the commons is never open on the weekends (leaving no room for variety, making the area seem dead to visitors on weekends, and to students who reside on campus). I am posting the dates and the specifics of the weekend rotation, so that everyone is aware of what they are and be available to attend. I recommend anyone and everyone who can choose to stay on campus for these weekends in particular and go to the commons between 11am and 5pm for lunch or early dinner to use a meal, or purchase something would be really beneficial. The more turn-out food services sees from these "trial openings" the more inclined they will be to make decisions in the future about possibly keeping it open on a more regular basis. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or concerns please let me know!

Commons - Weekend Rotation Schedule

Sunday 03/02/08 – Petes Arena and Subs
Saturday 03/22/08 – Sandellas and Market
Sunday 04/06/08 – Salsa Rico and Jazzmans
Saturday 04/19/08 – Petes Arena and Subs
Sunday 05/04/08 – Sandellas and Market
Saturday 05/17/08 – Salsa Rico and Jazzmans
(The locations listed will be open from 11am to 5pm. Grill 155 will open 4pm to 10:30pm.)
This schedule can also be seen on www.umbcdining.com

Walker Avenue Adds Gender-Neutral Housing; Still Discriminates Against Married Students

The folks over at UMBC Underground have confirmed that Walker Avenue Apartments will indeed be designating some of their existing spaces as gender-neutral. While this seems to be a good step toward accommodating many of UMBC's students, it frustrates me that both Walker and UMBC as an institution discriminate against married students.

Residential Life has neither gender-neutral nor married student housing, forcing students who have these needs to look for housing elsewhere in the community. However, when students move off campus (I mean actually off campus, not Walker) they are denied the portion of their scholarship funds that normally covers housing. This places these students in a frustrating catch-22, where they are essentially punished for their nonstandard needs.

While I have heard that Walker Avenue has allowed married students to share one of the singles, there are only two of them in the whole complex. On top of that, if your spouse is not a full-time UMBC student as well, you're out of luck. I understand the complications involved with trying to provide these kinds of specialized housing options - so why not allow students who fit these conditions to use their scholarship money to find a suitable place to live?

As Walker undertakes this "pilot program," I urge them to consider married students as well. Hopefully Walker Avenue Apartments can stand as an example to the rest of the university on how students of many different needs can be welcomed onto our campus.

Binghampton Trip Update

From Steve's update on a previous post:

The SGA Senate voted unanimously to provide $12,000 towards 4 fan buses for the Binghamton trip this weekend! The legislation will go through the Finance Board tonight at 5:30pm, and if passed there, we will have the capacity to send over 200 UMBC students to support our Men's Basketball team.

Keep in mind that the Office of Student Life has guaranteed funding for at least two of the buses, so if you know you're interested you can buy tickets now.

Go Dogs!

Reznor does it Right

If you've been following this blog (or my personal one) for some time, you may have read a few of my past comments about the entertainment industry and things like filesharing.

In my mind, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has made a big stand in the music world this week and decided to do things right. The first of the four albums in the set has been released for free either from his site or through popular Bittorrent trackers. The others are available through the tiered system of fees depending on how much physical material you want. The $5 for the complete digital set is little more than a donation - one I think many music fans would be happy to pay even if they downloaded the other three albums from alternative sources. The best part? All of the tracks are full quality, can be downloaded in lossless format, and are licensed under Creative Commons. This means you can use the songs essentially however you want, so long as you aren't trying to profit from them.

I would recommend checking out this instrumental effort by Trent and the band if you haven't already - after all, it's free.