Friday, MarchNEWS 26, 2004 Technique • Friday, March 26, 2004 • 1 Want more than a campaign Silent Bob tells all! Writer- TECHNIQUE slogan? SGA candidates director Kevin Smith talks to “The South’s Liveliest College Newspaper” present their platforms. the ‘Nique about Jersey Girl. ONLINE http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/technique ELECTIONS 2004 page 10 ENTERTAINMENT page 23 Serving Georgia Tech since 1911 • Volume 89, Issue 28 • 40 pages Opinions 14 · Focus 17 · Entertainment 23 · Comics 32 · Sports 40 McEver Poetry Reading April 1 Firees strikesesHome Home PParkkr residences The School of Literature, By Jody Shaw destroyed the top floor and the Communication and Culture will Associate Editor back walls. It spread across an host the McEver Poetry Read- adjacent fence on the property’s ing featuring former U.S. Poet A two-alarm fire gutted two edge and to the neighboring Laureate Billy Collins at 7 p.m. houses in the Home Park neigh- building, where a side wall ap- in the LeCraw Auditorium on borhood just blocks from Tech peared severely burned. Both the first floor of the College of campus around 11:30 a.m. on houses displayed signs of smoke Management building in Tech- Tuesday causing a plume of damage. nology Square. The event is free. smoke visible from many points According to television news Collins will sign copies of his on campus. The buildings, lo- reports, the residents of the neigh- books after the reading. cated on the 300 block of Cal- boring 389 Calhoun residence, houn Street near Tech’s Home Tech students Shridhar Reddy Park Children’s Learning Cen- and Veer Mahajan, spotted the Housing lottery ter, housed several Tech gradu- fire and alerted authorities. The ate students. two told 11 Alive News they results available Approximately 50 firefight- were able to salvage some per- The results of the fall 2004 ers worked to contain the blaze, sonal valuables from the fire be- housing selection priority lot- which they had under control fore they evacuated their home. tery are available online at just after noon. All the residents Tech’s Dean of Students Of- www.housing.gatech.edu. Sum- in the two buildings escaped, fice, which offers aid to students mer 2004 housing sign-up ends though the flames clearly caused when such events occur, noted Wednesday, March 31. To se- much damage to the structures that none of the students had cure a spot, a $300 prepayment and property. contacted the office to request is due at that time. A list of dorms By Scott Meuleners / STUDENT PUBLICATIONS The fire initially broke out at such assistance. Senior Associ- open this summer is available The charred frame of a Home Park residence. Fire burned the top floors on Tuesday. the three-story Victorian-style online. Helicopters hovered overhead, and a plume of smoke was visible on campus. home at 379 Calhoun, where it See Fire, page 7 Presidential hopefuls face off in debate Student activity By Daniel Amick portation to develop online pay- News Editor ment of parking tickets and a fee budget released 20-minute warning system. By Stephen Baehl Contenders for undergradu- Phuong also said she would Senior Staff Writer ate student body president and work to preserve free student tick- executive vice president squared ets to athletic events, help stu- Everyone knew that budget constraints off in front of the Campanile dent organizations and fight meant the 2004-2005 budget would tight- Wednesday. budget cuts at the state level with en funding for a number of student organi- During the debate, presiden- the SGA lobby board. zations. The full extent of the cuts became tial candidates Adam Bernstein, “I have the experience, I have apparent when the Joint Finance Commit- Ashley Case, Ryan Johnson and the knowledge, I have established tee (JFC) released the draft budget earlier Amy Phuong laid out their plat- relationships with several admin- this week. forms, then took turns fielding istrators across the board. I firmly In response to increased funding requests questions about their candida- believe that I have the ability to from the Campus Recreation Center and cies, the role of student govern- truly, effectively voice your opin- organizations moving into the Student Center ment and their ideas for ion to the faculty and adminis- Commons, JFC tightened its funding guide- improving Tech. trators.” lines for Tier 3 organizations. Speaking first, Amy Phuong Ashley Case followed Phuong. Some things that will no longer be fund- By Jamie Howell / STUDENT PUBLICATIONS listed several goals she would work She said her platform was based ed in budget allocations for student organi- Presidential candidate Adam Bernstein addresses the crowd while for if elected president. She said on the idea of improving com- zations include: travel, publicity, office Amy Phuong, Ashley Case and Ryan Johnson look on. Elections she would work with the De- supplies and food supplies. Also, funding run from Monday, March 29 to Wednesday, March 31. partment of Parking and Trans- See Debates, page 9 for conference attendance, decorations and some other annual requests has been limit- ed. JFC chair Lisa Brown said, “We tried to BuzzPort implements system upgrades only cut things that were not necessary to By Arcadiy Kantor dents who take more than five the organizations, such as publicity, chalk, Contributing Writer “The version that’s just going courses during a semester and office supplies. We felt that things such as online...we thought we were additional enhancements to dues for sports teams to compete, social Tech’s BuzzPort portal sys- BuzzPort’s channel supports. events and conferences were more impera- tem recently underwent a major going to have something like Browser compatibility has also tive to the function of the organizations.” update. The upgrade has signif- that [from the start]” been broadened. Undergraduate Treasurer Amy Phuong icantly expanded the portal’s fea- Many of the features that have said the JFC tried to be as fair as possible ture set, implementing several Robert McMath recently been implemented were with the cuts. “I think JFC as a whole tried of the capabilities users had re- VP for Academic Affairs expected to be functional when to look at policies that were cut across the quested. the system launched. board, as opposed to damaging one organi- One of the most requested “The version of the portal zation over another,” she said. new features that has been im- just limited to those related to a “email” link from within Buzz- which we thought we were go- “We tried to pick things that save money plemented is the ability to share specific class, though each course Port and move directly to their ing to get...was actually delayed but not necessarily hurt the organization in files with other BuzzPort users. has a group associated with it. inbox. by some considerable number continuing its purpose,” she said. This feature revolves largely “There are about 130 groups “We identified that fairly early of months, and so what we actu- While the JFC tried to apply policies around BuzzPort’s group man- that have been created outside on. We worked at that, and in ally rolled out was a more equally across the board, some organiza- agement system. the course groups,” Huseth said. January we rolled out that fea- stripped-down, earlier version,” tions still received a smaller percentage of “You can upload a file and Another new BuzzPort fea- ture,” Huseth said. said Robert McMath, Vice Pro- requested funds than others. This mostly then that file can be download- ture requested by many users was Some of the other new fea- vost for Academic Affairs and was attributed to those organizations for ed by any of the group mem- the elimination of the need for tures that have been implemented one of the executive members of which a large portion of their request were bers,” said Greg Huseth, technical logging in to the Spectrum web- are improvements in the ability BuzzPort’s steering committee. director of BuzzPort. mail system separately from Buzz- to target announcements to spe- See Budget, page 7 Groups in BuzzPort are not Port. Users can now click on the cific users, better support for stu- See BuzzPort, page 6 2 • Friday, March 26, 2004 • Technique NEWS Technique Online Voice Your Opinion! From the files of the GTPD... Last issue’s question garnered 44 responses: CRIME REPORTS ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ When do you think drop day should be? Conduct code violation 3/20/2004 14:39:00 hrs. 3/21/2004 23:37:00 hrs. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ LOCATION: MRC East Lot. LOCATION: 117 Techwood Drive/ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ INCIDENT: Report that a white Field Hall ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Damage to property ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 1997 Mazda 626 was entered INCIDENT: Report that students were ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 3/19/2004 7:44:00 hrs. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ and items were taken. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ in possession of marijuana. LOCATION: 749 Fowler Street/ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Larceny-theft Peters Parking Deck ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 3/19/2004 13:43:00 hrs. 3/22/2004 12:30:00 hrs. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ INCIDENT: Report of a damaged ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ LOCATION: Instructional Center LOCATION: 245 Fourth Street/Delta ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ gate arm. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ INCIDENT: Report that a Samsung Tau Delta House ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Sync Master 150 MP was stolen. INCIDENT: Report that students ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ 3/22/2004 9:47:00 hrs. ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ entered a house and damaged