Arizona Daily Wildcaat

Page 1

Cinderella story?

Raring to Read

Women’s hoops advance to take on No. 1 seed Stanford in the Pac-10 tournament

Local and national authors anticipate this weekend’s Festival of Books.

UA&E, 3

SPORTS, 6

ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT

friday, march , 

tucson, arizona

dailywildcat.com

President race to start over

ASUA special election tentatively set for April By Luke Money ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT Due to the disqualification of both presidential candidates, ASUA will be restarting the elections process after Spring Break. When James Allen, the top candidate in the general elections, was disqualified it automatically triggered the special election, according to ASUA Elections Commissioner Michael Colletti. Colletti declined to comment on the exact nature of the campaign violations, citing restrictions from the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. There is no stipulation in FERPA legislation that bars media access to materials related to student body elections. The presidential race is now considered open and anyone interested can seek a place on the ballot, provided they receive enough signatures. One hundred signatures are required to be on the ballot for a special election, according to section 4-6.07 of the ASUA elections code. After a week of collecting signatures, those eligible to be on the ballot will have a week to campaign before elections week. Colletti said he expects the special election to take place three weeks after Spring Break, the second week of April, but that it could be held earlier or later than projected. A special election could be avoided if Allen successfully appeals enough of his violations to get below the threshhold of 10. Those interested in pursuing the presidency can pick up candidate packets from the ASUA offices in the Student Union Memorial Center after break.

David Venezia/Arizona Daily Wildcat

Francisco Lara Garcia, a Latin American Studies and political science senior, speaks to members of various assembled student groups on Thursday about ethnic studies in Arizona. The forum discussed a proposed resolution that would be sent out to all Arizona universities concerning H.B. 2281 and its ban on ethnic studies curriculum.

Students decry ethnic studies bill promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for people of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals. Francisco Lara Garcia, a senior studying political science and Latin American studies, directed the forum and is one of the students drafting the opposition statement. He said that the statement is an important place to start because it is a basis for action by UA students and the Tucson community as a whole. “This (H.B. 2281) is a racist piece of legislation,” he said. “The legislature is trying to

By Eliza Molk ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT A collection of students and ASUA representatives began drafting an official resolution against a proposed Arizona law that would prohibit courses advocating ethnic solidarity. House Bill 2281, a bill that will be voted on in the Arizona Senate on April 18, states that students attending public schools should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not to resent other races or classes of people. The bill would prohibit public schools from offering classes that promote the overthrow of the United States government,

FORUM, page 3

Students and leaders defend Pell Grants

By Brenna Goth ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT

Arizona students and leaders in higher education called on the state’s senators to save Pell Grant funding on Wednesday. Members of the Arizona Public Interest Research Group, Arizona Students’ Association and Arizona Board of Regents urged Sen. John McCain and Sen. Jon Kyl to vote against House Resolution 1 during a press conference call. The spending proposal would eliminate $5.7 billion in Pell Grant funding nationally. Pell Grants provide financial assistance to 9.4 million college stu-

INSIDE Opinions: Police Beat: Odds & Ends: Classifieds: Comics: Sports:

dents nationwide. The resolution would reduce the maximum Pell Grant award by about 15 percent, from $5,550 to $4,705, according in Elma Delic, board chair of the Arizona Students’ Association. The speakers did not expect the bill to pass in the senate and it did not pass following the press conference. The senate must pass a budget extension by the end of next week, according to Rich Williams, higher education advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. “We are urging senators McCain and Kyl to make sure that Pell Grants are not on the table and to vote against any budget extension that includes cuts to Pell Grants,”

he said. More than 5,500 students at Arizona institutions receive Pell Grants, according to Delic. She said they are already impacted by a lack of state-based financial aid and rising tuition costs. “The big point here — many of the students in Arizona are already on the tipping point,” Delic said. “Many of them would be forced to drop out of school (if Pell Grants were cut).” The consequences of reducing the Pell Grant will defeat the purpose of the cuts, said Regent Fred DuVal.

GO ONLINE

4 5 6 7 9 10

education by showing its potential economic ramifications. “This bill would lower the quality of education that all Arizona students are getting,” she said. “And high school students in ethnic studies classes will not want to fill universities in the state.” She added that a resolution, backed by ASUA, will increase the statement’s impact; however, students participating in the forum need to help get the message out using other venues of involvement. Leilani Clark, a creative writing student at Pima Community College’s West Campus who was involved in the Tucson Unified School District ethnic

stick its foot where it doesn’t belong.” He explained that the bill violates the ability of schools to determine their own curricula and that it would negatively impact the UA because ethnic studies programs help recruit students to the university. Katherine Weingartner, the executive vice president of the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, said this was the first time that a group of students made a rough-draft resolution without the help of someone in ASUA. She stressed the importance of having the opposition statement show how the bill would affect UA students and higher

Head over to DailyWildcat.com to see photos from Day 1 of the Pacific 10 Conference Tournament in Los Angeles.

GRANTS, page 2

UA combats armed robberies on campus

Officer Sgt. Juan Alvarez. In 2009, a total of six similar occurrences were reported to the UAPD. Five occurred in both 2008 and 2007, and nine during 2006. From Alvarez’ experience, there is no distinction to robbers between male and female victims when threatening someone to hand over their belongings. Alvarez said that most robberies and aggravated assaults that occur at UA involve people walking alone either early in the morning or late at night. Students listening to iPods or texting as they walk often tune out their surroundings. He said that all of these distractions could cause a person’s senses to “fail to see a

By Lucy Valencia ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT A student walked down Fourth Street, between Vine and Cherry Avenues, on February 27 at 1:13 a.m., when a man in a white car pulled up and pointed a handgun at him. The suspect demanded that the student hand over any personal property. The student did not argue with the Hispanic male, believed to be in his early 20s, and did as he said. The student was not injured in the only robbery to occur so far this year. Last year, two armed robberies occurred on UA’s campus, according to University of Arizona Police Department Public Information

NEXT WEEK

ARMED, page 2

WEATHER

Spring Break

For those of you with Friday classes we give our condelences for the infringement on an early vacation. Please take this paper as a sign of our compassion. We shall publish again when classes return.

News is always breaking at dailywildcat.com ... or follow us on

Today 84 | 52

Tomorrow’s Forecast High

Low

82

52

: @DailyWildcat


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.