TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010 • PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY • VOLUME 64, ISSUE 89
Event of the day Need help learning to create an amazing résumé and cover letter? Attend today’s workshop in the PSU Career Center. When: Noon Where: PSU Career Center
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Candidates reinstated,
INSIDE OPINION Guest Opinion Let the smokers stay PAGE 2 Riding out the Recession Missing poetry reveals TriMet’s financial woes PAGE 3
VOTING BEGINS TODAY
NEWS Restructuring task forces formed Several campus organizations evaluating Wiewel’s white paper PAGE 4
ARTS
Drew Martig/Portland State Vanguard
Out of the gates: Ozimkowski and Heimensen are now able to compete once again.
Decision to disqualify Heimensen and Ozimkowski overturned It’s the end of the world as we know it Sharan Newman explores apocalyptic predictions from religious to scientific PAGE 6
Friends through thick & thin The Chosen shows families helping each other through difficult times PAGE 7
SPORTS
Virginia Vickery Vanguard staff
The ASPSU Judicial Board overturned the Elections Board decision made last week to disqualify presidential and vice-presidential candidates Jil Heimensen and Johnnie Ozimkowski from the student government race. Voting begins today and all candidates will be listed on the ballot, but the voting period will likely be extended by a week. “All the votes will be valid, it’s just a matter of how long the election will be extended,” said J-Board Chair Brad Vehafric.
VANGUARD
STUDENT ELECTION COVERAGE 2010
Tough times Men’s tennis loses two and women drop another over the weekend PAGE 9 Off the rock and into the city Freshman Britney Yada opens up about college life and golf PAGE 10
The J-Board overturned one of the E-Board’s two rulings on campaign violations brought before them, which were grounds for the disqualification of Heimensen and Ozimkowski. The J-Board also decided to recommend that the E-Board postpone the elections and for the application process for candidates to be reopened. However, after an informal meeting between E-Board Chair Debra Porta and Vehafric last night, it was unofficially decided that the elections would begin at the appointed time but would be extended by about a week. In order to be official, these decisions must be approved by the E-Board at its next meeting, which is currently scheduled for Friday. Vehafric said that the timeline for the election, as it stands, would preclude reopening the application process. In regards to his reinstatement, Ozimkowski said, “I commend the J-Board 100 percent and it’s a step in the right direction. The [current ASPSU] administration completely dropped the ball on this election.” He also said he would support the application process being reopened. “Honestly, I would like to see them open it up for everybody again in order to have a big election,” he said. “The ASPSU election is now in the everyday vernacular and it might have a higher success rate by opening it up to other people…it’s best for PSU.” The disqualification of Heimensen and Ozimkowski
40 Years of Black Studies Black Studies dept. celebrates four decades of scholarship and activism Sharon E. Rhodes Vanguard staff
This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Portland State University’s Black Studies department and Black Studies in the U.S., which was established in 1969 towards the end of the civil rights movement. The object of Black Studies at PSU is to “facilitate the systematic and scientific study of the history
came after the E-Board ruled last Wednesday that two of three complaints brought before them about campaign infractions were grounds for disqualification. The infraction dismissed by the J-Board regarded Heimensen’s use of an ASPSU copy machine to make a copy of the signatures she gathered in an effort to apply as a late-registration candidate. Porta said such use violated the E-Board’s prohibition of the use of student resources for the purposes of an election. Current ASPSU communications director, Laura Morency, brought the complaint against Heimensen. The J-Board members concluded that Heimensen’s use of the copy machine was minor and that strict enforcement of ASPSU’s rules regarding the machine’s usage in this instance would be hypocritical because it is often used for non-student government purposes by others. “Would I have made this decision,” said Vehafric during the J-Board’s discussion, “Well, I’m not on the E-Board…petty comes to mind,” he said. The E-Board’s ruling on the second infraction remains standing, which resulted from a complaint by the opposing vice presidential candidate Selina Poulsen that Heimensen posted campaign information on her Web site, which contained links to the ASPSU Student Fee Committee, on which Heimensen currently serves as a member. There is a point system assigned to infractions and the accumulation of at least 15 points leads to
disqualification. A major infraction is worth ten points and a minor is worth one. The two infractions deemed major by the E-Board originally totaled 20 points. With the overturning of one of those major infractions, Heimensen is down to ten points, which is why she is reinstated, according to Vehafric. Heimensen and Ozimkowski originally planned to appeal to the E-Board, but because the J-Board would ultimately have the final say in the matter, its members decided to go ahead with a ruling because of the tight time frame in which they were working. “By the time [Heimensen] could get that through to us, the elections would be over,” Vehafric said.
Voting is open today for ASPSU student government positions. The voting period will tentatively run from April 13 to April 27. Students can vote by logging into Banweb. See the April 9 edition of the Vanguard for candidate profiles and endorsements. Also visit the ASPSU Web site for official candidate statements: aspsu.pdx.edu/upload/eboard/ candidates.pdf
Virginia Vickery/Portland State Vanguard
Judicial Board: Found the disqualification unofficial.
of origins, development, nature and culture of people of Africa and the African Diaspora as a means of reconstructing and explaining the formation and transformations in their experiences,” according to the department’s Web site. “In the last forty years, the Black Studies Department at PSU has served as a forum between the university, faculty and students of different disciplines, especially those who share interest in the study of the black experience,” said
Dr. E. Kofi Agorsah, the department chair and professor of Black Studies who has a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of California at Los Angeles and a master’s degree in African archaeology from the University of Ghana in Legon. According to Agorsah, one of the main endeavors of Black Studies is “to reconstruct and explain the formation and transformations in experiences, often characterized as
STUDIES continued on page four