The results for SG elections were announced Thursday at the Rat. Don’t forget, there will be a re-vote for Hecht senator this week in the UC Breezeway. Be sure to get out and vote.

Commuter Central Senator
Patricia Perdomo

Commuter North Senator
Jennifer Rodriguez

Commuter South Senator
Natalie Rico

Eaton Residential Senator
Michael Ershowsky

Fraternity Row Senator
William Walker (Ryan)

Freshman Class Senator
Gustavo Rearte
Kelly Swindall

Hecht Residential Senator RE-VOTE candidates
Daniel Feigenbaum
Jefferson Lima (Brosil)
Ryan Rose
Tommy Walter

Junior Class Senator
Vance Aloupis
Justice T. Walker

Mahoney Residential Senator
Benjamin Mordes
College of Arts and Sciences
Jacqueline Fernandez

School of Business Senator
Jeffery Miller

Senior Class Senator
Robert Castro
Christian Wilson

Sophomore Class Senator
Meredith Friedman
Adam Groom

Stanford Residential Senator
Laura Turano

During the week of Sept. 22, the Student Government senators running for re-election anxiously campaigned to win the votes of their constituents. Throughout the senators’ weekly meeting, many looked around the room, hoping it would not be their last meeting of the school year as a senator.
During the meeting, Senate amended the SG constitution, all sections pertaining to the Cabinet. Senators also sent out congratulations to the four students ratified as elections commissioners: Jessica Yates, Thomas Baumer, Annette Ponnock and Monica Gomez. Their role in SG will be to oversee the elections by publicizing, creating elections packets, managing all voting sites and making sure rules are followed by candidates during campaigning.
Next week SG will encompass a new group of senators so make sure to find out how to contact your senator via the Student Government website.
Also during the meeting, senators passed a bill to allocate $500 to SpectrUM for their biggest event of the year, Coming Out Week 2003: “Celebrating the Colors of Diversity.” The money will directly support the presence of their guest speaker, Rachel Robinson from the MTV Road Rules series.
If anyone has any complaints, problems or concerns, inform your SG senator and he or she will contact the proper individuals.
For more information on SG, visit the SG website at www.miami.edu/sg, stop by the office in UC 214 or call 305-284-3082. To contact SG, e-mail them at studentgovernment@umiami.edu.
Senate meetings are held every Wednesday from 4 to 6 p.m. and are open to the public.

Meredith Friedman can be contacted at m.friedman@umiami.edu.

President Donna E. Shalala isn’t at the Grove or South Beach on Thursday nights – she’s teaching an interdisciplinary course on aging entitled the “Graying of America,” along with professors from a variety of academic disciplines. Students in the class range from typical college students to senior citizens.
“There are older people in the class and younger people,” said Harout Samra, a senior majoring in political science and economics. “This is something that affects everybody.”
Throughout the course, students are educated in a wide array of areas relating to the process of aging, ranging from the politics and economics of Social Security to the biological and medical aspects of aging.
“There is just no place else on earth where you could get some of the people who’ve actually worked in the field, who have created policy, teaching undergraduates,” Shalala said of the class.
Shalala went on to say that Carl Eisdorfer, one of the professors of the course, defined the field of gerontology and psychiatry, and that she herself was responsible for both Social Security and Medicare.
Dr. Stephen Sapp, chairman of the religious studies department and one of the professors teaching the course, agreed.
“A course on aging taught in a specific discipline would be a very valuable course, but it would be limited,” Sapp said.
For the first three weeks of the course, the focus was on the political dimensions of entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
For Samra the subject matter held special interest.
“When I was interning in D.C. [this summer] with Congressman Mark Foley [R-Fla], a lot of the stuff we’re talking about. . . were really pressing issues,” Samra said. “We got hundreds and hundreds of calls daily from senior citizens saying things ranging from how they can’t afford their medication to those not wanting to get forced into an HMO.”
Currently, the focus of the course has moved from politics to the physical and social aspects of aging.
“That was the one thing President Shalala made absolutely clear,” Sapp said.. “The first conversation I had with her was about not a course on aging, but an interdisciplinary course on aging, and she wanted those different perspectives.”
This approach seems to be popular with the students as well.
“I love the fact that right now we have the best of the best teaching the course,” Jami Lawrence, a senior majoring in advertising and sociology, said. “I think it’s just so amazing that we get so many different aspects of it.”
In educating the students on this topic the professors seek not only to educate, but also to prompt the students to think critically about the information presented.
To this end, two writing assignments have been handed out that direct the students to pick one of the areas they have been reading about and deliberately disagree with it so as to gain a better understanding of the topic.
Sixty-nine-year-old Gail Storts appreciates the fact that students are encouraged to question what they are taught.
“I think this class is extremely exciting,” Storts said. “I love it that the students are interested enough to ask questions and to question some of the statements that are made.”
Since Storts is part of the target segment of society that the course covers, the class is not only an educational experience for her but also lends itself to practical application in her life.
Speaking about her experience as a current Medicare recipient, Storts feels she has a better understanding of the program now that she has sat through the lecture on how it works at the administrative level.
“I think I understand it differently and understand more about it than I did before. It’s very appropriate to my life,” Storts said.
According to students, the key to the course is the expertise of the professors.
Both Samra and Lawrence took the course in part because of Shalala’s involvement with it and the experience she brings to the class from her tenure as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
For Shalala, teaching courses like this is what she loves most about her career.
“I’ve always taught. No matter what my job was,” Shalala said. “The only time I didn’t teach was when I was in government.”

Scott Wacholtz can be contacted at aramis1642@hotmail.com.

Six hundred environmentally conscious people beautified the coasts of the Miami-Dade area for the Florida Coastal Cleanup [FLCC] this week. Twenty-six of these participants have attended the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science [RSMAS]. Bear Cut Preserve, Bill Baggs Cape Florida Recreational Area, Crandon Park and the Village of Key Biscayne Beach Club were included in the 13 cleanup sites throughout Miami-Dade County.
According to Marella Crane, this year’s site coordinator for Bear Cut Preserve, 15 RSMAS students filled 30 bags of trash on almost a mile stretch of Virginia Key, and seven UM students volunteered their talents as underwater divers, responsible for collecting trash beneath the shoreline, at the Village of Key Biscayne.
The FLCC was founded in 1988 and is a branch of the International Coastal Cleanup, which was developed to track the types of debris on America’s beaches.
In the first year of FLCC, 10,500 Floridians cleaned 915 miles of shoreline, and 194 tons of debris were collected.
Last year, 32,497 Floridians participated in FLCC, and of those, 644 were from Miami-Dade County.
In 2002, Miami-Dade participants collected 14,010 pounds of waste, encompassing over 14 miles of shoreline.
In Florida, the five most common debris items of last year, in mounting order, were cigarettes [220,374], lids [66,710], food containers [63,025], beverage cans [56,018] and beverage bottles [48,204].
Unusual items found last year included a bread machine, the hood of a car, an IV bag and surgical scissors.
“Although data takes almost a year to calculate, trends normally don’t change dramatically from year to year,” Minka McDonald, this year’s regional coordinator of the coastal cleanup, said.
McDonald predicts that cigarette butts will once again top the list of the most common debris items found.
Some interesting items found this year: a barbeque grill and an air-conditioning unit.
“We hope people take a little more responsibility for their actions,” McDonald said. “People tend not to think about dropping trash.”
“Trash accumulates – it doesn’t disappear,” she said.
At Bear Cut Preserve, the majority of debris collected consisted of beer bottles and plastic items.
Crane speculates that the nearby restaurant and fishing dock contributed to the trash left in the area.
Organizers maintain that International Coastal Cleanup is very effective, as 5.2 million volunteers in 120 countries have participated since 1986.
“Coastal Cleanup helps us get hard data to figure out the problems and track trends in debris, as well as clean up [the beaches],” McDonald said. “It’s a really great event and does a lot of good. Participants clean up whatever trash is in the shoreline, mangroves and beaches that is not supposed to be there.”
“Animals can be saved by picking up plastic bags and fishing line,” Crane said. “[Coastal Cleanup] is a form of educational awareness.”
McDonald also said that the biggest improvement in the program, locally, would be an increase in volunteers and support.
According to McDonald, this becomes even more applicable in the light of the average amount of trash disposal per person per day in the United States: 4.6 lbs, the highest average in the world.
For more information on Coastal Cleanup, visit www.floridacoastalcleanup.org

Fizaa Dosani can be contacted at f.dosani@umiami.edu.

Hearing Panel seeks members

Would you be interested in sitting on a Disciplinary Hearing Panel? The UDHP hears cases for minor violations of UM policies to which the student pleads Not Guilty. Panel Members are responsible for ascertaining a student’s guilt or innocence of the charge(s) and have the authority to assess penalties according to the 2003-04 Student Rights & Responsibilities manual. If you are a full-time undergraduate with a minimum 2.0 GPA and in good disciplinary standing you can apply. Applications are available in Building 21-E, or call 305-284-5353 for information.

Flu vaccines available for free

Flu season is here. Protect yourself and those you love by getting the flu vaccine. The flu vaccine is available free of charge at the Student Health Center and will also be available for free ($1 United Way donation suggested) at several sites on campus during the next several weeks. Please visit the Student Health Center web site at www.miami.edu/student-health for times and locations.

Student receives PR scholarship

Heather Solomon, co-president of the PRSSA, was recently awarded the 2003 Ev Clay Scholarship, which annually awards three scholarships, in the amount of $2,500, to outstanding public relations students.

Latino fraternity protests merger

Lambda Theta Phi, the nation’s oldest and largest Latino fraternity, announced that it will begin staging rallies, conducting letter writing campaigns and holding lectures across the country in opposition to the proposed merger of Univision and the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation. The organization believes that the merger will mitigate the responsiveness of Spanish language broadcasting to local communities and eliminate Hispanic ownership in Hispanic media. With this announcement, the fraternity’s 80 college chapters, including one at UM, join a contingent of Congressional representatives, the Hispanic American for Fairness in Media, the Consumer Federation or America, the Spanish Broadcasting System, the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, the United Latino Find and other groups to block FCC approval of a merger that will monopolize 70 percent of Spanish-language advertising revenues in the US by creating a TV, cable, music and internet conglomerate. For more information check out www.lambda1975.org.

Aguirre earns UM Order of Merit

UM President Donna Shalala honored Diario Las Americas publisher Horacio Aguirre with the University’s Distinguished Order of Merit. The University of Miami Board of Trustees established the University’s Distinguished Order of Merit in 1957 as a means of recognizing notable achievements of outstanding individuals. Past recipients of this merit include Maya Angelou, Bob Graham and Luis Botifoll.

TODAY

Are you a commuter student interested in a free lunch? If you want to save some money, eat a good meal and spend time with other commuter students, then the Commuter Student Luncheon is right for you! The first Commuter Student Luncheon will be from 12 to 1p.m. in the Lewis Room at the Rat. For more information, contact Dana Ponsky at 305-284-5646.

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 1
The Counseling Center and Multicultural Student Affairs will be hosting an Open House in the Student Services Building 21. Enjoy free food and enter to win prizes at the raffle.

Join Hispanic Heritage Month for Latino 101, a discussion on issues pertaining to Latinos, at Eaton Residential College from 7 to 9 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

FRIDAY OCTOBER 3
Dress in white and attend Safespace Foundation’s second annual Domestic Violence Awareness March at 12 p.m. at Bayfront Park. This march, in memory of Gladys Ricart and all victims of domestic violence, seeks to raise awareness about domestic violence. Speakers include Alex Penelas, mayor of Miami-Dade County, and Manny Diaz, mayor of the City of Miami, among others. Miami-Dade Transit is offering free rides to Bayfront Park on Metro-Rail and Metro Mover from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. to people wearing white.

Do you think you are hip enough to handle Urban Freaky Friday? Then head to the Rat at 4 p.m. to flex your MC skills at the Freestyle Battle. The top two finalists will battle it out at the Hurricane Howl 2003 Fall Concert. Performances include KAOS and a special guest act.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 4
LINK will be working with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for people in need in the community as a part of National Gandhi Day of Service. If you are interested in participating, meet at the Rock at 8 a.m. Please wear sneakers and pants, and if you have a hammer please bring it along as well. Come have fun building a house while helping out a great cause.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 7
Hispanic Heritage Month presents Chasing Papi at Cosford Cinema at 8 p.m.

THURSDAY OCTOBER 9
Got questions about depression? Come to the breezeway from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and get a depression screening. For more information, contact the Counseling Center at 305-284-5511.

La Casa Cultural, Theater Arts, African American and Latin American Studies and the Foreign Literature and Language Department present Dominicanish by Josefina Baez, an Afro-Dominican performance artist, at Pearson Residential College at 8 p.m.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 11
Join the Hispanic Heritage Month Committee and friends in a night of live music by Tito Puente Jr. and his 15 piece orchestra at Omni Colonnade Hotel from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. Dinner will be provided. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. with dinner being served at 8 p.m. For more information, contact MSA at 305-284-2855.

MONDAY OCTOBER 13
Hispanic Heritage Month continues with a presentation from Dr. Jessica Damian titled “Hispanic Community: Making a Difference,” in the UC Ballrooms from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 14
The Adobe Education Video Tour will be in the Cosford Cinema from 12 to 2 p.m. This is a great opportunity for student filmmakers, videographers, DVD authors and Web designers to see product demos of Adobe’s new video production tools. Come to the free presentation to win Adobe software, an HP digital camera or a complete HP. Register today online at: www.adobe.com/education/video or call 877-303-9422.

wednesDAY OCTOBER 15
Don’t miss Hispanic Heritage Month Closing Ceremonies on the UC patio from 12 to 2 p.m.

The National Society of Collegiate Scholars will hold its induction ceremony at 7:30 p.m. in the Storer Auditorium. The keynote speaker will be Jeanne Batridge.

On-campus students who once enjoyed free downloads from programs like Kazaa and Morpheus using UM’s network connection are now being forced to find other ways to access music and movie files. Universities across the nation have clamped down on peer-to-peer file exchanges after the Recording Industry Association of America recently slapped 261 downloaders with lawsuits, each with the potential to total millions of dollars.

Students at UM returned to the dorms after the summer to find flyers warning that, in an effort to protect the server from the Blaster Worm virus, users of file-sharing programs would have their internet connection deactivated by Information Technology [IT]. It wasn’t a mere threat; soon several students found themselves calling up IT to find out how to get their access back.

“When you download from a program like Kazaa, there could be a virus attached to any file,” Rishi Ganga, IT security manager, said. “You could download a movie and watch it, and not even know that you’ve compromised the security of your PC.”

But viruses are not the only threat lurking.
IT realizes that by deactivating users of peer-to-peer programs, they’re denying them the ability to download copyrighted materials – and the chance to be sued.

“We take a stand to inform and protect students. We don’t have a Big Brother type of attitude; we’re not out to catch you,” Ganga said. “The most we can do is tell students about the possible ramifications of sharing copyrighted material and use technology to try to prevent that.”
In the event that a student is sued for downloading music via a campus connection, the University would not be liable. According to policy A060 of IT Policy and Procedures, “The individual who is distributing the copyrighted materials is responsible for any copyright infringement.”
That same policy also lists prohibited network uses that could result in disciplinary action. However, the current emphasis is on preventative measures rather than disciplinary procedures.

Afraid of being sued, or at the very least being disconnected from the UM network, many students have opted to begin paying for music downloads.
Freshman Caralyn Pearson uses Apple’s popular iTunes service to acquire songs. Her Mac can’t host Kazaa, and she had grown tired of using the program on her PC at home anyway.

“Whenever I used Kazaa I would download songs and they’d be cut off or have weird sounds in them. With iTunes it’s a lot better because the sound is quality, and I’m not stealing anymore,” Pearson said.
iTunes charges $0.99 per song and celebrated its ten millionth download (Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated”) on Sept. 3, just four months after its launch.

PC users can try services like buymusic.com or emusic.com. The latter charges $10 a month and allows members to download all the music they want, providing they follow rules about burning songs and the number of computers the files can be shared with – usually three or less.
“I use emusic.com. It’s cheap,” Justin Archie, junior, said. “I usually buy CDs anyway, but now I can use this to preview songs and see if the CD is any good.”

But IT knows that some students will persist in downloading music for free, by opting for programs that run on smaller peer-to-peer networks. That is why they are now forcing all on-campus users of common file-sharing programs to share a narrower bandwidth, a tactic called “throttling.”

With this measure implemented, users who try to download large files could find their connection to be very slow or altogether halted.
Approaches by other Florida universities to curb on-campus downloads have been more drastic. At FIU, students using campus connections can’t receive any files larger than 13 megabytes or send any larger than 5 megabytes.

UF has taken the most extreme steps, using locally-developed software to prevent any file sharing whatsoever, whether the material is copyrighted or not. After three offenses, students could lose their internet connection indefinitely. During its first few weeks of deployment this summer, about one in every six on-campus students lost connectivity. Many users were again shut down in the first days of the fall semester.

“I was booted off the internet simply because I had Kazaa on my computer,” said Eric Pendergraft, a freshman at UF, said. “UF’s computer system has many bugs in it, and I ended up being offline for three days, which was a drag because there was important stuff like registering and payments that I had to do online.”

For assistance with network-related problems or if you have questions regarding peer-to-peer networks or file downloading, contact Information Technology at 305-284-6565, option three, or email security@miami.edu.
Samantha Riepe can be contacted at sriepe@miami.edu.