Nominees sought for Foote student leadership award

Nominate a senior with an outstanding academic and leadership record for the prestigious 2004 Edward T. Foote Award for Excellence in Student Leadership. Nomination information can be found by visiting www.miami.edu/leadership or by calling 305-284-6399.

Organization photos ending

Organization photos for the Ibis Yearbook will be taken for the last time the week of Jan. 26 through 30 from 6:45 to 11 p.m. in Mahoney/Pearson Room 103. To confirm a date and time for your organization to have its picture taken, please e-mail the Ibis Yearbook at ibiseditor@hotmail.com. You can also contact Tiffany at 305-284-6385 to schedule an appointment.

2003 yearbooks are here

The 2003 Ibis Yearbook is finally here! Have your 2004 picture taken now to get your 2003 yearbook a week early. If you have had your photo taken already, you can pick up your 2003 yearbook at this time. Underclassmen photos will be taken from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., and senior portraits from 4 – 6 p.m. on Jan. 26-30 in the UC Lounge. For more information, contact the Ibis Yearbook at 305-284-6385.

Quantum holds auditions for ‘West Side Story’

Love acting? Have talent? Then come down to the UC Ballrooms (second floor) from Feb. 3-6 between 5 and 8 p.m. and audition for Quantum Entertainment’s production of West Side Story. Prepare a one-minute, serio-comic monologue and 16 bars from a musical that best shows off your voice. Walk-ins are welcome during any of the hours listed, or reserve an audition appointment by sending an e-mail to WESTSIDECASTING@yahoo.com or call 305-284-4606. Appointments are six minutes in length. Dance auditions are held at 9 p.m. each night.

St. Jude’s seeks volunteers

Up Till Dawn is looking for people who are willing to help raise money for a great cause. St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital is a non-profit organization that treats children with life-threatening illnesses at no cost to the family. They also do research to find cures for these illnesses. If in fact they find a cure or breakthrough, they share it nation-wide free of cost. St. Jude’s is a hospital dedicated to making sure that no child is unable to receive treatment. If you or your organization would like help in this effort to raise money for the hospital, contact VSC at 305-284-GIVE.

UM Ethics Programs, in a joint effort with the Human Services Coalition, the Knight Foundation and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, are helping launch the Greater Miami Community Prosperity Initiative.

The coalition released its first publication outlining the project, titled “Building Community Prosperity in Miami-Dade: Civic Engagement, Dialogue, and Action,” in the Chamber of Commerce on Jan. 7.

The goal of the initiative is to raise the living standards of Miami residents. Its launching comes after Miami learned in Fall 2002 that, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, it is the poorest large city in the country.

Recent efforts of the Community Prosperity Initiative have focused on teaching residents about increasing their use of federal benefits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Food Stamps program, and Medicaid. These efforts have brought $62 million in new income – with a multiplying effect that equals a total of $546 million – into the local economy. The initiative also reaches out to local businesses to teach employees about benefits to which they are entitled.

“It’s of no cost to the businesses, and it benefits employees, so it’s a win-win situation, ” Cava said

Visit www.prosperitycampaign.org, or contact Dr. Anita Cava at acava@miami.edu or Dr. Kenneth Goodman at kgoodman@miami.edu.

Patricia Mazzei can be contacted at pmazzei@umsis.miami.edu.

“He shall from time to time give to Congress information on the state of the union…”

This clause of the Constitution provides the basis for the annual event that all presidents in the modern age have used to communicate their administration’s agenda to Congress and the American people. Council for Democracy, a non-partisan political group on campus, hosted its second annual gathering of students at the Rathskeller Tuesday night to watch the address and discuss their feelings on the issues afterward.

“I think it’s important that students get together and collectively watch the State of the Union address,” said David McCombie, Council for Democracy president. “I think it forces us to think about the President’s policies and how successfully he’s been implementing it.”

Edward Martos, creator and organizer of the event both this year and in 2003, expressed a similar sentiment.

“He’s effective as a political speaker. He’s effective at generating some energy within his constituency.”
-BRIAN AVELLO, Junior

“For one thing, it’s incredibly important for every student to be aware of every issue that’s going on,” Martos said. “The State of the Union is for the most part an opportunity where students can have some exposure, even if it’s only minimal, to a number of issues all at once.”

The theme of the event was: “Is Bush Effective?”

“I wouldn’t say he was the best, but I think he was pretty effective,” Francesca List, freshman, said. “I’m not approving of all his policies.”

“I think Bush has been effective in his own agenda and his administration has been very effective in implementing some policies that have been very good for them,” Ben Geyer, freshman, said. “I don’t see these policies as being good for the American people – I’m not satisfied with the job he’s done.”

The address began around 9 p.m. and ran slightly less than an hour. Throughout the speech students remained attentive, with only a few individuals shouting responses to various points in the speech.

During the foreign policy segment of the speech, when the President remarked, “Had we failed to act [in Iraq], the dictator’s weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day,” one student, expressing the opinion of many Americans, asked, “Where are they, then?”

Students voiced similar expressions of skepticism during the President’s comments on the Defense of Marriage Act and Faith Based Initiatives.

Former SG President Mike Johnston expressed some disappointment with the focus of the speech.

“I think he’s spending too much time talking about external affairs. I want to hear more about internal affairs,” he said. “I think this sounds like a campaign speech.”

Following the speech, Dr. Pete Moore, Dr. Juliet Gainsborough and Professor Paul Crespo – all of the Political Science department – gave their assessments of the speech.

“The President made it very clear that even 28 months after September 11 the threat of terrorism is still there,” Moore said. “The question still looms. . . what is our ‘metric’ for measuring progress in the war on terror? How are we going to know when this war is over?”

“I just think Bush brought up a lot of questions in my mind. . . He brought up so many more questions in my mind as a young voter.”
-LISA COSSROW, Freshman

“Obviously Bush wants to make the case that the economy is much stronger than it has been and he had a list of different statistics to make that point,” Gainsborough said. “At the end of the list he mentioned jobs were on the rise, and that was slightly surprising to me because that’s the one statistic that hasn’t been as good as they would have liked it to be.”

Crespo said that overall Bush struck a good balance between foreign and domestic issues.

“He focused on the freedom theme. . . and I think the freedom theme runs through the entire speech,” Crespo said.

Crespo also added that an important part of the theme of freedom was the economic freedom implied in the President’s statement that “the American people are using their money far better than government would have, and you were right to return it.”

Some students felt that President Bush was effective only in terms of energizing his own party.

“He’s effective as a political speaker,” said junior Brian Avello. “He’s effective at generating some energy within his constituency. He’s effective at getting a basic message with no seeming facts behind it.”

Freshman Lisa Cossrow expressed a similar opinion.

“I just think Bush brought up a lot of questions in my mind. Number one: how he plans to cut the deficit in half after listing all the numbers he listed tonight,” Cossrow said. “I feel like he just catered to the [Democratic] candidates tonight. He brought up so many more questions in my mind as a young voter.”

Junior Don Donelson had a different take.

“To my mind the president is a leader. He is a representative of our country and he’s the one that’s supposed to lead our country,” Donelson said. “As a leader, I don’t believe that we’ve had anyone more effective in recent memory.”

Scott Wacholtz can be reached at s.wacholtz@umiami.edu.

TODAY
In honor of Arab Awareness Week 2004, Oasis presents the first annual Arab Comedy Night, featuring Dean Obeidallah and Maysoon Zayid in the Business Storer Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for UM students, $13 for non-UM students and $15 at the door. To purchase tickets, get online to www.oasisofum.com.

MONDAY
University of Miami’s Multicultural Student Affairs and United Black Students will hold the second annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Breakfast in the Convocation Center, Cane C Room, from 8:45 – 10 a.m. Scheduled to speak this year is Ms. Marlene Bastien, Executive Director of Haitian Women of Miami. For more information, contact Stephanie Jimenez at 305-284-6423.

TUESDAY
The Academic Development Center will host Brown Bag Workshop, a 30-45 minute session that will help you become a better college student or staff/faculty member, on “Organization and Time Management,” at UC 241 at 12:30 p.m. Reservations are required no later that 24 hours in advance. For more information, or to make a reservation, call 305-284-4790.

WEDNESDAY
The Academic Development Center hosts the Brown Bag Workshop on “Organization and Time Management” again in UC 241 at 12 p.m. and in the ADC at 6 p.m.

MONDAY JANUARY 26- FRIDAY 30
The last chance to get your organization photographed for the Ibis Yearbook will be from 6:45 p.m.- 11:00 p.m. in Mahoney Pearson in Room 103. To confirm a date and time for your organization to have its picture taken, e-mail the Ibis at ibiseditor@hotmail.com or contact Tiffany at 305-284-6385 to schedule a photo time.

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 3-FRIDAY FEBRUARY 6
Quantum Entertainment is holding auditions for their production of “West Side Story” in the UC Ballrooms (2nd Floor) between 5 p.m.- 8 p.m. To audition, prepare a one-minute serio-comic monologue and 16 bars from a musical that best shows off your voice. Walk-ins are welcome during any of the hours listed, or reserve an audition appointment by sending an e-mail to WESTSIDECASTING@yahoo.com or call 305-284-4606. Appointments are 6 minutes in length. Dance auditions are held at 9:00 p.m. each night.

Currently in the national spotlight, a proposed Federal Marriage Amendment seeks to change the United States Constitution and define marriage as strictly between one man and one woman. It would supersede all state domestic partnership laws and nullify civil rights protections based on marital status.

During its final meeting before the winter break, SG passed a resolution, authored by SpectrUM Senator Daniel Alvarez, to oppose the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. The resolution reads, “The University of Miami Undergraduate Student Government constitutional rights of individuals and fully supports equal Senate strongly objects to the proposed federal amendment that will deny the treatment, under the law, for all citizens.”

The resolution as proposed was titled, “A Resolution to Support Equal Rights for all Citizens of the United States of America.” However, the title was changed to “A Resolution to Oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment” in order to reflect specifically the opposition to the amendment instead of explicit support of gay marriages.

“From the get-go it wasn’t about gay marriage. [The resolution] is about being equal, about human rights,” Alvarez said.

However, some believe that it was not under the jurisdiction of SG to make a decision on what might be considered a personal or value-based choice.

“Whether I’m for or against the amendment, I don’t think this is under Student Government’s jurisdiction,” Phillip Matar, senior, said. “They are saying this is representing the student body, but the way to do that is to ask the students.”

According to the minutes of the Dec. 3 meeting, the senators themselves acknowledged this argument.

Arts and Sciences Senator Mike Levine argued that the senators “have no basis to vote on this without having first spoken to [their] constituencies.”

Senator Jeffrey Miller, representing the School of Business, said, “We are not elected based on our political views, so we cannot represent the student body politically.”

Despite a motion to postpone the voting on the resolution, the resolution was brought to the table and passed – 23 senators in favor, four against and seven abstaining.

According to Carlos Echeverri, the passing of the resolution was not illegal in any way. It complied with the SG constitution and bylaws and was within SG privileges.

“[The senators] are still elected officials in a democratic process. [Students] are electing people they trust to make these decisions for them,” Echeverri said. “It is our duty to represent the students.”

The resolution is now being forwarded to Dr. Pat Whitely, vice president for Student Affairs, who, according to Echeverri, has final word on all legislation.

Student Government is requesting that it be expedited to state representatives. According to Alvarez, SG hopes to eventually send the resolution to President Bush, who supports the Federal Marriage Amendment.

“We want to show him that the next generation doesn’t necessarily agree with this amendment,” Alvarez said.

If sent outside of the University, the resolution would not represent the official opinion of UM; it would, however, represent the opinion of UM students.

“Was it necessary?” Echeverri said. “No. Was it appropriate? Yes.”

The minutes from the said meeting have yet to be approved by Senate. The Miami Hurricane will keep readers informed as more details become available.

Megha Garg can be contacted at UM_News2004@yahoo.com