The Carolinian [April 26, 2005]

              J
IN THIS ISSUE
EARTH DAY TAKES
OVERATUNCG
See pictoral coverage of the
annual UNCG Earth Day
Celebration.
PAGE 12
MORALS WEEK
WRAPS UP
Read more about UNCG
College Republican
"Morals Week" events.
PAGE 2
UNDERESTIMATING
CORNEL WEST
What do the two speakers
bankrolled by the American
Democracy Project last
week have in common?
Well, it isn't fashion sense -
or the First Amendment.
PAGE 5
SOFTBALL SLUGS
WAY TO THREE WINS
Jennifer Bonilla has seven
home runs for UNCG this
season, and 14 in her two
year career.
PAGE 7
MISADVENTURES IN
RESEARCH
Joe Scott gets a lesson on
term paper research - from
the subject of his term
paper
PAGE 10
DIRECTORY
Opinions 4
Sports 6
A&E 8
Comics 14
ON THE WEB
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more online at
www.carolinianonline.com.
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FAX: 334-3518
THE CAROLINIAN
VOL. LXXXV
ISSUE 15
EST. 1919
The Carolinian
i-si)u. xi'Kii :<>. :<
Cornel West draws overflow crowd at EUC
Chad Camp
Staff Writer
"I'm sorry, we're over our capaci-ty.
You can listen from the hall, but
please don't block the exits."
This is what hundreds of people
were told as they massed in the halls
outside of the Cone Ballroom where
Princeton professor, philosopher, rap-
. per, and author Dr. Cornel West
spoke last Friday night.
The ballroom, which traditionally
seats 700, was packed to the brim
with more than 1000 people. It was
full by 7:10, 20 minutes before the
speech was scheduled to begin and
by 7:20, they were no longer allow-ing
people in to stand against the
walls.
After a brief introduction by
Religious Studies professor Ben
Ramsey, West took the stage. West,
author of a number of books, includ-ing
his most recent. Democracy
Matters, gave a passionate, humor-ous
speech that ranged from Plato
and the spiritual necessity of true
democracy to 50 Cent and the greed
and envy of American youth culture.
"The unexamined life isn't worth
living," West quoted at the beginning
of the speech, setting the tone for a
talk whose main themes were the
moral values held dear in America
and how they result in social injus-tice.
"People don't have enough
courage to think for themselves these
days. Everything is market driven
and is about now, now, now." West
said.
"People are told to be successful
these days. What does that mean?
Does it mean hoard up materialistic
toys? What does that do for you? It
provides a sense of security."
West also called the morals of pop-continued
on page 2
KATHRYN KENNEDY / THE CAROLINIAN
Dr. Cornel West signed copies of his latest book, Democracy Matters, after
his speech on Friday night. Lines wrapped around the Ballroom, full of
people hoping for a signature and a handshake.
Ten Commandments, pro-life
booth focuses of Morals Week
Kathryn Kennedy
News Editor
As Morals Week came to an end,
a metric-ton representation of the 10
Commandments and a simple pro-life
booth on the Jackson Library
lawn stirred up the most discussion
across UNCG's campus.
The monument, which displayed
the 10 Commandments on one side
and the Bill of Rights on the other,
was loaned to the group by Vernon
Robinson, a city councilman in
Winston-Salem.
'Too long, our secular universities
have been pushing against our reli-gion
and faith," said College
Republicans President Melissa
Westmoreland at the unveiling cere-mony
last Monday. "May they [the
10 Commandment*Is] give you guid-ance
and a reminder of beliefs so
many religions hold dear."
Member John Rouse, who spear-headed
the effort to get it displayed in
the EUC for the week, echoed that
sentiment.
"We are one country, one people,
one set of beliefs," he said. "We're
not forcing a religion. You can't have
safety without people having com
RYAN RADFORD / SPECIAL TO THE CAROLINIAN
College Republicans (from left to right) Ryan Radford, Tim MaJ, Melissa
Westmoreland, and John Rouse stand by the monumnent after its unveil-ing
last Monday morning.
mon creeds and beliefs."
Curious students throughout the
week stopped to read the tablet, with
equal numbers agreeing and dis-agreeing
with its presence.
"I'd like to see more of this," said
senior Jobe Axley. 'These are the
fundamentals of our laws and our
country. They should be in court-rooms
and public learning centers
everywhere."
Junior John Cepulo, however, felt
the display was inappropriate.
"It's more Christian propaganda to
further a religious cause," he said.
"It's hard to separate the deep con-nection
between Republicans and
Continued on page 2
Heated debate sparked over
lack of conservative professors
Charla Duncan
Staff Writer
Daniel Klein of Santa Clara
University and his discussion of
"Ideology of Faculty in the Social
Sciences and Humanities" at last
Wednesday's Honors Coffee evoked
heated debate that filtered through
UNCG's Faculty Center.
The College Republicans asked
Klein to speak at Honors Coffee, a
weekly gathering of students and fac-ulty
that brought out over 40 atten-dees
this go round.
Klein, a libertarian who has "never
voted Republican in his life," pre-sented
a 15 minute argument of his
studies based mostly on statistics
from Berkeley, Stanford, and other
Ivy Leagues; the idea being that these
institutions set the standard.
Klein pointed out that his research
showed a ratio growth over the past
40 years from 4:1 to 8:1 Democrat to
Republican professors.
"Republicans are being systemat-ically
eliminated," commented Klein
who continued to point out that the
situation would grow "more extreme
before it [became] less extreme."
According to Klein, the unbal-anced
scale of professors with differ-ing
political views caused problems
for the more conservative students
who may or may not be getting a fan-chance
to uphold their views due to
professor bias.
Klein went on to say he thought
"tax payers money should be
removed from academia." in an effort
to allow citizens a chance to know
and chose what they're paying for
and if they desire to continue funding
such things.
Though there were undoubtedly
several people who shared Klein's
opinions, the most vocal of the
group-for the most part-found con-flict
with Klein's views.
Sophomore, Leeanna Pittman,
suggested that the liberalism of pro-fessors
in question might be a result
of the political climate today's pro-fessors
grew up in, referring to these
people as a "Vietnam generation."
Pittman also went on to disagree
with Klein by adding, "I'm a moder-ate
Republican and I don't feel
screwed [by having Democratic pro-fessors].
I'm not far enough right to
get hostile and closed minded. I
think it's great to have a market place
of ideas."
"UNCG, being in a red state,
offers students coming from a rural
area new ideas they may not have
gotten from their counties," argued
Christa Cuccaro.
Professor Bruce Caldwell
remarked that a result of Democrats
and Liberals teaching students
"forces [the more conservative stu-dents]
to sharpen their arguments."
Caldwell joked that if anything, it
was the liberal students who were
Continued on page 2
Middle East
conflicts
more than
just "clash
of beliefs"
Lauren DiCiaccio
Staff Writer
Wednesday's history club event
proved to be both a lecture on history
and an analysis of political biases
through both the eyes of Americans
and those of Islamic nations.
Speaker Dr. Cemil Aydin. a
Turkish-born professor, has devoted
his academic life to the research and
analysis of racial and ethnic relation-ships
in both political venues and
religious spectrums. In addition to
presenting his studies. Aydin offered
a compelling argument about the
common notions about the relation-ship
between Islamic countries and
western-based nations.
Aydin stated that the clash of cul-tures
that has been wholly apparent in
news media and political taglincs was
a very recent and ill-founded devel-opment
in international relations.
Aydin began his speech by giving
a history of the relationship between
Islamic peoples and the western
world from the crusades up until the
1980's, an expansive period in which
the nature of the relationship between
the two cultures remained largely the
same.
He explained that the relationship
between primarily Christian western
societies and eastern Islamic societies
had generally been one of peace that
preached protection of the rights of
one another historically. To accom-pany
this political sentiment, Aydin
also noted the religious similarities
between the two groups, which
would suggest that their reasons for
differing, if any, were centered on
something other than a fundamental
clash of beliefs.
As Aydin moved chronologically
through the seeming lack of a clash
of cultures, his thesis became clearly
that the clash of cultures notion is a
direct byproduct of the attacks on
September 11. 2001. alone with the
rise of radical extremists, primarily in
the 1950's and 60s.
He further suggested that it was
due to the American policy of naming
countries or regions that had a high
likelihood of threatening national
safety.
Continued on page 2