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Conference Confidence
Arizona football and volleyball opened their conference schedules this weekend with varying results
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
We’re the chalk of the town monday, september 28, 2009
dailywildcat.com
tucson, arizona
Outrage at arrest intensifies Regents to seek more funding
ONLINE BUZZ Comments from “Grad student arrested for chalk drawings,” Friday, Sept. 25
Steve: I don’t go to the University of Arizona, however I am a Tucson resident and This is absolutely the most ridiculous charge I have ever heard of being brought against an individual. The biggest question I have on this matter is the whether the police officer or whatever structure exists above him is capable of exercising judgment. This young man did nothing to merit arrest or any kind of scrutiny. I have served my country and this is the reason that I did, so a young man like this can speak his mind. If these charges are not dropped, I think greater pressure needs to be brought to bear on the system that allows this overzealous waste to occur.
By Will Ferguson Arizona Daily Wildcat
paranoid: Actually, the arrest of this mad chalker makes perfect sense … if you protest anything at the U of A, they WILL get you. Paul: Ridiculous. I can’t tell you the number of times, that, as an RA at Kaibab, I was ENCOURAGED to use chalk on the sidewalks to promote events, or communicate various university events. Clean up? We just waited for the next monsoon. Once again, UAPD has their priorities in all the wrong places. UA SUCKS: Typical UA BS at its best — way to go UAPD and waste more money. Meanwhile how many bikes were stolen, cars broken into, etc, etc, etc. Mall traffic and rain would have washed it away for free. Can you say IVORY TOWER????????? Stunned: an act of intimidation and a complete waste of resources. but more than anything, a massive exercise in negative publicity for the administration at the UA. i hope Shelton PUBLICALLY CONDEMNS the arrest as draconian and unnecessary. Rico: FABULOUS! why cant more people be arrested for this... ugly drawing on the pavement... student rallies... THERS NO NEED! this isn’t the 60’s
Casey Sapio/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tabitha Spence (left), a first year masters student in geography, traces third year masters student in geography Lawrence Hoffman at the budget protest on Thursday. The chalk body outlines showed price tags that rally organizers said were meant to represent the commercialization of higher education.
Student detained for chalk drawings finds support on campus By Hank Dean Stephenson Arizona Daily Wildcat Students upset by University of Arizona Police Department’s arrest of Jacob Miller, a 24-year-old graduate student who used sidewalk chalk to advertise a protest Thursday, have been speaking out on campus and online. On Facebook.com, a group called ‘Support Jacob Miller’ started Friday and had grown to 172 members by press time Sunday. The group’s founder, Tom Shea, is a biochemistry junior who decided to start the group after reading about Miller’s arrest in the Arizona Daily Wildcat. Shea, who doesn’t know Miller and couldn’t even find him on Facebook, said, “I was completely outraged by what I read in the article.” Shea is trying to organize an online petition and a protest on Miller’s court date. “(This arrest) can be compared to being arrested for playing hopscotch
or finger-painting …” he said. “The entire idea behind chalk as a medium is that it does no damage and is easily removed. It’s not something akin to spray paint or graffiti — it’s quite the opposite.” On the Daily Wildcat’s Web site, readers are also talking. Many were upset by the university’s initial claim that it cost $1,000 to clean the chalk from sidewalks and walls. UA officials have since backed off their initial estimate. Chris Kopach, associate director of facilities management said the actual figure is closer to $350. Kopach said $1,000 was the initial approximate estimate, before he knew the writing was in chalk. Anne Ranek, a graduate student and member of Arizona for Education, the group that organized Thursday’s protest, said she was excited by the amount of support Miller is getting from undergraduates who probably don’t know him. Dave Talenfeld, president of the
Graduate Professional Student Council, told the Wildcat the arrest was “very silly.” Talenfeld said the anonymous faculty member who reported the chalk probably had a problem with the content, not the medium, of the message. “I would not be surprised to learn that political considerations were involved,” he said. UAPD spokesman Sgt. Juan Alvarez said he hasn’t received any comments about the case and declined to comment on the ongoing investigation. Miller, at his lawyer’s request, declined to comment on the matter any further. His lawyer, Cornelia Honchar, said she found it surprising that a student would be charged with criminal damage, because the crime “seems so banal.” “He’s also charged with disrupting the operations of a university,” she said. “So we’ll see how a campus of 35,000 or 40,000 was interrupted by Jacob Miller drawing something on the student union sidewalk.”
Artist takes poetic license to the sidewalks By Hank Dean Stephenson Arizona Daily Wildcat
S
cratching chalk against a UA wall, an anonymous poet leaves his signature, “Francis the Poet.” The poem above his signature, “The Poet,” is the first of his own poetry chalked at the UA. But, his signature also sits below the names of famous poets at more than 30 locations around campus. Students, faculty and police walk past or on top of his chalk every day, but few know his real identity. Francis the Poet, as the Daily Wildcat agreed to call him after the University of Arizona Police Department arrested a graduate student for writing in chalk at a protest Thursday, started writing poems on campus property at the beginning of the semester.
Francis says he wants to spread his love of poetry and make people stop and think. “I pick a lot of (poems) that are neutral or light in my topics because I don’t want to start a fight,” he said Thursday night in an interview with the Daily Wildcat. “I just want to start people thinking.” He dresses in black and works at night. He often chalks poems by Gary Schneider, e. e. cummings, Jack Gilbert, William Blake and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Francis is a senior in the creative writing department. “At first I was going to try to be totally anonymous,” he said. “It’s not possible, there are people on campus all hours of the day. So I kind of gave up on being totally FRANCIS, page 8
Rita Lichamer/Arizona Daily Wildcat
‘Francis the Poet’ uses chalk to write a poem by the Speedway Boulevard underpass at 1 a.m. Friday. Francis the Poet writes poems by other authors as well as some originals to provoke thoughts in passersby.
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The Arizona Board of Regents said an additional $459.1 million is needed to fill the holes in the Arizona university system’s 2011 budget. The regents also discussed the implications of a new gun law that will allow firearms to be brought on to university property at their Sept. 23-24 meeting in Flagstaff, Ariz. The three presidents of Arizona’s public universities said the funding request currently included in the fiscal year 2011 operating budget is insufficient to maintain high academic standards. Originally, the fiscal year 2011 budget called for a $136.4 million increase over the fiscal year 2010 state operating budget. After discussing the numbers in a private session, ABOR came up with a new figure it says realistically represents the needs of the Arizona public university system. “The message that we heard loud and clear this morning is that we owe it to ourselves to fully express university needs,” ABOR vice president Fred REGENTS, page 10
Trolley must scale back By Austin Counts Arizona Daily Wildcat It’s been two years since Old Pueblo Trolley Inc. announced plans to extend its current route into downtown Tucson as a part of the Fourth Avenue Underpass reconstruction. As trolley rails and overhead wires lined downtown streets, it seemed that service to the area would finally become a reality when the underpass reopened on Aug. 20, 2009. But after only two weeks, Old Pueblo Trolley scaled back service to downtown due to a lack of funding and volunteers, said Dick Guthrie, president of Old Pueblo Trolley Inc. “We are getting little help in the way of funding from businesses south of the Fourth Avenue Underpass,” Guthrie said. “It’s time they pony up for the historic trolley.” Maintenance and operation costs have reached a new high while only one of the two cars at Old Pueblo Trolley’s car depot is equipped to service downtown. However, that car needs additional operators to maintain the original goal of providing regular transportation to the area. Guthrie said these problems could be solved by more financial support from downtown businesses, much TROLLEY, page 12