Opponents criticize motives behind SGA reconstruction
Some say lowering credit hours could benefit unqualified candidates

By Hemi Ahluwalia
staff reporter

Opponents to the proposed restructuring referendum, which addresses changing the required hours needed to run for an executive position in the Student Government Association, have expressed concern that students with less SGA experience will run for positions.

The proposed plan would change the hours to run for all positions, except for president, from 30 credit hours to sophomore standing. The requirements for the position of president of SGA will change from 60 credit hours to junior standing, said Jason Cordova, secretary of House.

The current number of hours required for sophomore standing is 24 credit hours and for junior standing is 54 credit hours. Voting on the referendum, which is online, is 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. today.

“I have the feeling that these changes were made to benefit those who do not meet the requirements of the current system,” said Charles Abbott, Foster Hall representative.

Requirements to run for a position may have been dropped by six hours, but it is not anticipated that non-qualified students will run, Cordova said.

Less experienced SGA members could run for an executive position, but they know from first hand experience how difficult the task is and they would not want to take it on too early, Cordova said.

“The dropping of six hours will not make just any person want to run for a position,” he said. “It is hard to explain the responsibilities that each position requires but it is more work than one can imagine. SGA members realize that only an experienced person could run for any executive position.”

Abbott, a sophomore international business, environmental science and vocal performance major, said the proposed changes are a waste of time because it is not going to make that much of a difference to the students who run for office.

“We need to start taking care of the people who we represent instead of housekeeping,” he said. “I would like for students to say that SGA did something good for the campus while they attended instead of just saying that the constitution was changed every year.”

This referendum hopes to cover any changes that might occur to the campus over the next couple of years, said Brian Becker, elections and regulations committee chairman.

“If a person is not qualified (then) the student body will not vote for them,” Becker said. “We are changing the hour requirement because we do not like to see people get locked out because of a few hours.”

Supporters of the bill say they are just trying to improve the campus and SGA, Cordova said.

“(There) is no underlying motive to the bill; all we want to do is to improve the way SGA is run,” Cordova said. “If there had been a motive, I think that it would have already surfaced.”

The bill was meant to meet the needs of the student body as they relate to SGA, Cordova said.

Ryan Carroll, senior speech communications major, agrees with Abbott that the referendum will not affect the majority of the students on campus.

“This is a petty issue, there are many more important issues that could be taken care of instead of worrying over what classification is needed to run for a position,” Carroll said.

One reason SGA is proposing changes in hours is to add flexibility to the documents so SGA doesn’t have to go through the long process of redoing the constitution again, Becker said.

“TCU is currently looking at changing it’s UCR requirements which could mean that they change the number of hours required for each classification,” Cordova said.

Hemi Ahluwalia
hemia@hotmail.com.

UCR revisions expected to be ‘distinguishing’
Academic skills of core to be looked at by three committees

By Angie Chang
staff reporter

The first of three committees created to help revise the University Curriculum Requirements will meet Friday to make recommendations about the academic skills a TCU student should have upon finishing the core requirements.

Bob Seal, chairman of the Curriculum Outcome Committee, said a recommendation for revision of the core curriculum came from several of the task forces of the Commission on the Future of TCU.

Seal, who is also a university librarian, said the revised core will provide students valuable experiences.

“We want the core to be stimulating and exciting,” Seal said. “We hope the (new core curriculum) will attract more students to TCU. We’re not just trying to update the core, we are trying to distinguish ourselves as an institution.”

In its first step, the committee will have a special meeting with the Faculty Senate today to discuss the skills students need.

William Koehler, provost and vice chancellor of academic affairs, said the revision process will be closer to a major overhaul than a minor tinkering with the curriculum. The revision will start with a clean slate, Koehler said.

Koehler said in the past curricular modifications began by looking at which courses would benefit students most. But the current process will look at what skills a student should possess after completing the core, he said.

“I’m hopeful that this process will be a creative approach,” Koehler said. “We’ll look at what outcomes we want, and then we’ll look at ways to achieve it. (We’re) taking a fresh look at the university curriculum.”

Koehler said the curriculum was last revised in 1985 and implemented in 1988.

Phil Hartman, professor of biology, said revising the core will give TCU the potential to become a better institution.

“What’s pleasing to me is that we’re not just looking to remodel a room of the house; we’re building a whole new house,” Hartman said. “Chances are the house may look the same or it can be a whole new house.”

Hartman, who is also a member of the Curriculum Outcome Committee, said many of the values of the old core may still be central to the new core, but a broad-based liberal arts education will continue to be at the center.

Seal said the committee will meet twice a week until a final report is due Nov. 17.

Koehler said the Curriculum Outcome Committee report will be reviewed by the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate and the Office of the Provost. They will then try to build a consensus among the groups on campus to develop outcomes that the campus can be enthusiastic about and support, Koehler said.

Seal said the second committee will deal with the kinds of courses that will be developed or added to the core, and the third committee will be concerned with how TCU will implement the revised core.

Nowell Donovan, professor of geology, said the committees should be finished by June 2001, but implementation may take more time to complete. A second committee will not be appointed until the Curriculum Outcome Committee has made their final report, Donovan said.

Angie Chang
a_o_chang@yahoo.com.

Student representatives voting records placed online
New House site includes information of legislation passed

By Kristina Iodice
staff reporter

Students can now go online to see how members of the House of Student Representatives voted on bills and resolutions.

Sara Donaldson, vice president of the House, said the online voting records are only one part of all the new information added to the House Web site this year.

“There are a lot of avenues students can take to learn about House and this is one of them,” she said.

The new House site includes links to minutes from past meetings, legislation introduced or debated at the House meeting, pictures from all-campus events and spotlights on student organizations and committee assignments. There is an archive with all the legislation from the past two years online. Representative pages were added this semester with details like constituency, contact information, involvement on campus, House tenure and attendance records.

“A representative can miss a meeting and still be completely informed,” House Historian Devon Glick said.

Kylie McCarville, a sophomore pre-major, said it was a good decision to post voting records. Voting records are important to see what House is doing, especially when it is time to re-elect representatives, she said.

The idea is sound provided it continues for years to come, said David Sinclair, a senior neuroscience major.

f SGA was more visible and more students were involved then the idea would be very important, he said.
“It’s kind of useless since TCU students are apathetic about SGA,” Sinclair said.

But the new organizational changes in student government last year have made SGA a bigger part of the student body, Sinclair said. Posting voting records informs the students about their representatives.

“Now there is a lot more potential for SGA to become something important to the students,” he said.
Jacqueline Taylor, a freshman biology major, said she doesn’t know all that much about student government and doesn’t think the voting records matter.

But Glick said voting records should be public.

“How else will you know if a representative is representing your hall?” she said.

Glick said in the past the Skiff published how representatives voted for each piece of legislation introduced. The vote represents the whole dorm or commuter students, she said. The only drawback to posting voting records online is representatives might feel pressured by groups to vote a certain way, she said.

“There is a chance for representatives to be influenced by people other than their constituents,” she said.

Some students think that voting records are unnecessary. Bruce Cline, a sophomore pre-major, said he wouldn’t use the online voting records to see how his representative is voting.

“I don’t give a flip about what they think,” he said.

A representative should be voting for what his or her constituents want, said Brian Becker, chairman of the Elections and Regulations Committee. One reason legislation is tabled is to give representatives a chance to go back to their constituents and find out what they think about it, he said.

“It shouldn't be private information because the House of Representatives is representing the student population,” Becker said.

Josh Wall, a junior political science major, said making voting records public keeps representatives accountable.

“I think it’s a right of a student to know how the people they elect vote on issues that affect them,” Wall said.
It is important to know what legislation has been passed but not who voted for it, said Erik Ledid, a sophomore biology and chemistry major.

“I don’t think people should be judged on how they vote,” Ledid said.

The Student Government Association and House Web sites were overhauled last semester to include a lot more information, said Glick. Former SGA president Ben Alexander basically ran the old SGA and House sites, which featured generic House information and news that an external company would change every day, Glick said. Glick and Josh Hawkins approached Alexander with their ideas on how to update the House Web site last year.

Kristina Iodice
k.k.iodice@student.tcu.edu.

Goodwin speaks on love for history, Red Sox
Students can gain insight to campaign from past presidents

By Emily Ward
staff reporter

By looking into the past and telling the stories of our nation’s past presidents, Americans can gain insight into today’s presidential campaigns, Doris Kearns Goodwin told about 800 students, visitors, faculty and staff Wednesday night in Ed Landreth Hall Auditorium.

Goodwin, who confesses a profound love for both history and the Boston Red Sox, said the past is something that remains within us only through the stories we remember and pass down to future generations.

Sarah Kirchsberg/Co-Photo Editor Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Pulitzer-prize winning author, speaks to a group of about 800 people Wednesday night at the Ed Landreth Hall.

“I shall always be grateful to my intertwined love for history and baseball, which have led me to spend a lifetime of looking back into the past, allowing me to believe that the past remains with us — that the public figures we respected in our history really can live on as long as we continue to count and recount the story of their lives,” Goodwin said.

Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of former presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Abraham Lincoln, Goodwin told audience members that today’s presidential candidates can learn much from their predecessors.

“My greatest problem with the campaign in 2000 is that when we look into (Al) Gore and into (George W.) Bush, we perhaps feel like we are not in the presence of greatness with either one,” Goodwin said. “But it’s encouraging to realize that in the 1860s, very few people saw this in Abraham Lincoln.”

When former president Roosevelt made his first inaugural speech at the height of the Depression, he renewed courage and faith into the American people by promising that the country’s problems would soon be remedied, Goodwin said.

The hope Roosevelt presented in that single speech is what helped our country through that entire decade, she said, proving that communication can move beliefs beyond imagination.

“More recently, we have again learned that communication plays such a critical part in the president’s ability to deal with the followers of a democratic society,” Goodwin said.

Tales of past presidents are not the only stories that have influenced Goodwin’s life. Memories from when she was a small girl watching the Brooklyn Dodgers are what inspire her to tell her stories as well as those of past great leaders, she said.

“When I open my eyes and see my sons in the place where my father once sat, I feel an almost invisible loyalty and love, linking my sons to the grandfather whose face they never had a chance to see and whose heart and soul they have come to know through all the stories I have told,” Goodwin said.

Goodwin is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “No Ordinary Time” and best sellers “Wait Till Next Year” and “Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.” She is a former Harvard University history professor and is currently an NBC political analyst.

Emily E. Ward
e.e.ward@student.tcu.edu.

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