Miami Hurricane, April 17, 1990

              Campus chronicle
College USA feature spotlights national campus news.
News — page 3
■ ' .
Students debate the sale of adult magazines at the UM bookstore.
Accent — page 8

THE MIAMI
URRIC
Volume 67, Number 47
University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla.
Tuesday, April 17,1990
New ombudsman named
Koshy also to assume assistant to VP post
By TOM B. HIGGINS
News Editor
Alice K. Koshy, coordinator of the Volunteer Services Center for the past school year, has been named assistant to the vice president for student affairs and ombudsman for the University of Miami. Koshy will assume her dual post on July 1.
Koshy will fill the position left by William J. Mullow-ney when he accepted an administrative position at Whittier College in California.
“There are many reasons why I chose to take this position,” Koshy said. “Student affairs is something I’ve come to enjoy very much. It’s something I’ve invested my time and effort in, and I love working with students.
"It’s really energizing for me to work in this type of atmosphere,” Koshy added.
Shortened from the Swedish riksdagens justilie ombudsman, which translates as "agent of truth,” an ombudsman historically listened to citizens’ complaints about their government.
In UM’s case, students are the citizens and the administration, staff and faculty are the government.
Koshy described her role as ombudsman as a "troubleshooter” for student problems.
Established in 1970 at UM, the ombudsman program is designed “to minimize impersonality within our large and complex University and to provide students with readily identifiable persons to whom they could turn to express grievances about the University,” according to the Undergraduate Studies Bulletin.
“The University ombudsman is sort of a place of last resort to have issues addressed,” Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. William Butler added.
Koshy’s office will be located within the Office for Student Affairs in the Ashe Building.
Koshy said her dual role will allow her “flexibility of interests” that will include her continued support of
‘It’s really energizing for me to work in this type of atmosphere.’
Alice K. Koshy, new ombudsman
student volunteerism.
Butler, who appointed Koshy, said he is confident of Koshy’s administrative abilities.
“I just want to tell you how enthusiastic I am about having her aboard,” said Butler. "She’s been a great contributor to our campus.”
Koshy was bom in New Delhi, India, and raised in the South Florida area. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in politics and public affairs and religious studies from UM in 1989.
As an undergraduate, Koshy served for three vears as a resident assistant in Mahoney Residential College, Student Government senator and cabinet secretary, academic tutor and publicity chairperson for the Rathskeller Advisory Board.
Butler said the University is searching for Koshy’s replacement at the Volunteer Services Center.
Butler also said UM President Edward T. Foote II has appointed him to lead the University’s efforts in support of the United Way.
“One of my goals next year is to involve students in this effort like we’ve never done before,” Butler said. “With her [Koshy’s) help we’re going to do that.”
In addition to her new post, Koshy said she will study law during the evenings at UM’s law school.
VOTE TODAY
Student Government spring elections will be held from 9 a.m to 5 p.m.
today and tomorrow in t h e Memorial Class-r o o m Building and the University Center. Stu-dents must present a valid Cane Card in order to vote.
For the Hurricane’s endorsements on the candidates please see page 6.
/-c
SPRING
ELECTIONS
VOTE ’90
Student fights
for candidacy
By MICHAEL R. MORRIS
Contributing Editor
Despite having a 2.7 grade point average, Julio Fernandez will not appear on the spring Student Government elections ballot.
Fernandez, who tried to run for treasurer on the Reconstruction ticket, didn’t have a 2.5 GPA when candidates’ grades were verified in March. According to Fernan-
£-,ofP,Z!	“
sor’s error, which has since been corrected.
Fernandez has a letter from the Office of Enrollment Services dated April 4 that states he has a 2.7
Dr. Craig Ullom, SG adviser, turned down Fernandez’s request for reinstatement in a memorandum from Thursday.
“You had two months to make the necessary arrangements with your professor to process a grade change in order to meet the filing deadline for candidacy in the Student Government elections,” Ullom wrote. "However, you failed to do so in a timely manner. Therefore ... you are ineligible to file for candidacy in the spring 1990 Student Government elections.”
Fernandez said he would chal-
Pleose seepage 7/FERN ANDEZ
JONATHAN STRAIT/Stall Photographer
Rolling for dollars
Falconer Jones of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity takes part in the group's annual wheelchair-a-thon held Saturday. Participants rode 12 miles in wheelchairs from the fraternity house on San Amaro Drive to Jackson Memorial Hospital, raising $1,600 for the hospital's rehabilitation center.
Program involves commuters, faculty
Luncheon tomorrow to kick off effort
By KIMBALLY MEDEIROS
Staff Writer
A Faculty Friends program, aimed at getting faculty members more involved with commuter students, will begin tomorrow at a luncheon for commuter students and volunteering faculty.
Faculty Friends is being developed because many professors and administrators believe college life is based on the traditional residential college experiences, said Stephanie Palubicki, director of commuter student affairs.
"Faculty who believe this are neglecting those students [commuters and are not being good educators,” she said.
They tend to believe students who don't live on campus really don't need any special help such as setting up office hours that are convenient to commuters, Palubicki said.
Commuters don't spend as much time on campus as residential students and usually need to ask professors to change their office hours for them because they have job-related or family obligations, she said.
Many professors and administrators believe the majority of college students live on campus. In fact, less than half of the undergraduates at the University of Miami live on campus, Palubicki said.
Cyndi J. Cutler, a freshman commuter, said the new program will
be useful. “Administration needs to recognize there is a large student body that does commute,” she said.
Although the Faculty Friends program is just beginning, the department already has begun to meet the needs of commuters. Through its efforts, other departments of student affairs have taken an interest in what commuters feel about the University.
Dr. William Butler, vice president for Student Affairs, hosted a breakfast March 22 for a select group of commuters to find out their feelings about the University.
Besides developing the Faculty Friends program, the department of commuter student affairs has also worked with various other programs since it began in June 1989 to get students, including commuters, to stop characterizing commuter students by myths and stereotypes.
Palubicki said the biggest myth about commuter students is that they generally don't care about campus involvement or don't want to be active.
Through events such as Commuter Awareness Week, which was held in February, the department is trying to eliminate commuter students’ feelings of being unattached.
"However, the myths won’t be shattered by the department,” Palubicki said. “They will be by the commuters.”
SG President Troy Bell explains his reasons for withdrawing his re-election bid during a Friday press conference on the University Center Rock.
race
Says some used his candidacy to avoid issues
By MICHAEL R. MORRIS
Contributing Editor
Speaking over the din of a rock band playing on the University Center Plaza, Student Government President Troy Bell announced Friday that he will cease pursuing a re-election bid.
SG Attorney General Max Adams, the only member of Bell’s Reconstruction ticket to ever officially be on the ballot, also withdrew from the race.
“My candidacy for office has been used to avoid the issues,” Bell said. “I make this decision [to abandon a re-election bid] with great remorse, because I feel I could do a good job.”
He used the forum to speak against the 2.5 grade point average requirement for SG officers, the Undergraduate Student Association and a lack of coverage of SG by The Miami Hurricane.
“The University of Miami has decided that they want to require their Student Government officers to have a 2.5 GPA,” Bell said. He termed the 2.5 referen-
dum that students voted in favor of “unconstitutional.”
Bell cited the SG Supreme Court decision declaring the 2.5 requirement unconstitutional and alleged procedural errors dating back to the senate bill that put the referendum on the fall ballot.
Calling the vote in favor of the requirement a "tyranny of the majority,” Bell said the administration was violating students’ rights and the SG Constitution by supporting the 2.5 policy.
Bell also repeated allegations that the oi.ginal bill putting the referendum on the ballot was
flawed by procedural errors, citing the improper removal and eventual reinstatement of three senators.
Controversy has arisen over the bill bacause a similar bill was defeated on Oct. 11,1989. While the vote was 19 in favor of the bill and 11 opposed, the bill required a two-thirds majority to pass and therefore failed by one vote.
The next week, a reworked, longer version of the bill was brought up. The Oct. 18 senate meeting also saw the dismissal of Karen Grant, Federation of Black Greeks senator; Celia Garwood,
School of Nursing senator and Michelle Lee, freshman senator. All were dismissed because they violated a rule in the constitution that requires the dismissal of senators who have three or more unexcused absences.
According to Beth Susi, speaker of the senate, Grant and Garwood, who has since resigned, were reinstated the next week after their committee vice chairman wrote a letter to Susi, explaining that an error had been made and they should be allowed
Please seepage 4/BELL
Bell
exits