COMMENTARY

Recession sends fear into hearts of seniors

Chris Boyce

May is just around the corner. Perhaps the scariest three-letter word ever spoken. It is the month of impending doom. Why is May so bad? Graduation.

As tired as I am of classes and school, May signals the end of the college life for me. It is a constant reminder of the ever-decreasing number of 11 o’clock classes and two-hour days. The three-day weekends and the month-long breaks that let me recharge my batteries after such a tough college existence will soon be a distant memory.

This is not to say the college life is easy but compared to working from eight to five Monday through Friday every day for the rest of your life, it’s a breeze.

Especially this year, seniors of 2002 face not only a ton of debt due to college loans but a recession that has sent unemployment rates sky-high. College hirings are expected to be down 20 percent from now until May, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

This contributes to a wave of stress this year’s graduates are experiencing, stress that hasn’t been matched since the recession of the early 1990s.

Stress that certainly hasn’t been matched in the last few years of the golden American economy.

I for one thought employers would practically beg me to work for them after hearing stories of huge signing bonuses and starting salaries of $35,000 to $40,000 for a business major with a concentration in computer information systems several years back.

But that is in the distant past. The arrogance of allowing a company the right to throw me all that money has been replaced by desperation. Just finding a job is all that anyone could possibly hope for in these days.

And finding a job is a more daunting task than ever before. If qualified, experienced workers are being let go by their employers, what hope does an inexperienced college graduate have?

On the bright side though, all the hard work should pay off. Getting a job that is earned has to be more rewarding than simply being given a job, although I might still choose the latter. Perhaps the stress and poor job market will make us more resilient employees.

Regardless, the masses of graduates that have not secured a job must be scrambling around just as I am.

Resume posting, mock interviews and countless job fairs will fill my precious few remaining college months, and all the while the month of May will slowly creep up and rear its ugly head.

And when that month comes, after I’ve walked onto the stage in my cap and gown with a diploma in hand, I will be ready to enter the real world with a good job awaiting me. Right?

Maybe it’s just time to change majors.

COMMENTARY

NFL lone competitive entity in sports world

James Nix

As the Super Bowl approaches, football fans across the country watch with anticipation to see who will compete for the championship.

The National Football League playoffs have no certainties of who the victor will be.

This, sadly, is not the case for other professional sports in America.
Professional basketball and baseball have fallen into an era of unmatched super-teams.

The Los Angeles Lakers rule the National Basketball Association; Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal are leading the two-time NBA champions through another dominant season.

The playoffs last season left no doubt in anyone’s mind as to who would win. The Lakers thrashed through three series undefeated until the Philadelphia 76ers won one game in the national championship series.

You can see it in the players’ faces on the court. They know the Lakers will win again. They don’t care.

The NBA has become more business than sport. Players worry about their paychecks, not their rivalries.

This is not apparent in the NFL, where a salary cap keeps players focused on the game.

Major League Baseball is ruled by the New York Yankees.
True, the Yankees lost the World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks last season, but as in seasons past, they played in the championship.

At the beginning of the baseball season in 2001, Derek Jeter appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The issue read “Face it, the Yanks will win again.”

No such issue appeared for the beginning of the NFL season. Last year’s champions, the Baltimore Ravens, had just as much chance as any other NFL team.

Both the NBA and MLB have dealt with player strikes over salaries. The NFL has not had to deal with that hurdle.

Many basketball and baseball fans have turned to collegiate-level games, which remain competitive.

Most college athletes will never play at the professional level, so they give it all they have during their limited time.

The NCAA basketball tournament in March is the most unpredictable sporting event in America. Upsets happen all around as college athletes go the limits for that brief moment of post-game glory.

This does not happen only in the tournament, however.

Several weeks ago, the then-undefeated Duke University Blue Devils were defeated by unranked Florida State University. As the buzzer sounded, FSU fans stormed the court to congratulate their team.
That is the type of intensity missing in most professional sports.

Fortunately, that same intensity still exists in the NFL. Fans do not normally storm the field in triumph, but it is a common sight to see fans painted in team colors and other displays of loyalty.

The NBA and MLB need to take the NFL’s example shown the past few weeks of playoff competition and bring the love of the game back into their sports.

Our Perspective ...

Leadership shortfall

Student Government Association Vice President Amanda Privette ignited a firestorm of controversy one week ago when she opted to exclude from the senate agenda a bill calling for the revision of university guidelines regarding the distribution of printed materials.

“Current university policy on the distribution and display of printed materials lay down inconsistent guidelines, which prove troublesome to students seeking to exercise First Amendment Rights,” according to a copy of Senate Bill 035-007 obtained by The Appalachian.

The legislation calls for the removal of restrictions on anonymity, time, place and manner of distribution of printed materials on campus (excluding residence halls).

The major theme of the bill, crafted by Sens. Paul Funderburk and Ian Mance, is that printed materials should not be regulated due to content.

To support their claims, the senators included in the legislation three student testimonials that describe three instances where students claim they “were obstructed from exercising their First Amendment freedoms by university officials …”

These testimonials are the source of the aforementioned firestorm.
Not sold on the inclusion of the testimonials, Privette—who is charged with setting the Senate agenda for the body’s weekly meetings—kept the legislation off the docket.

The vice president’s lone error was her refusal to explain her reasoning for leaving the bill off the agenda to the full body, a move that only intensified a heated senate debate.

She chose to withhold the bill because she lacked ample time to address her reservations to the testimonials because the legislation reached her desk past the usual Monday deadline due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Privette told The Appalachian late last week.

After several days of deliberation, Privette said she will reverse her previous decision and place the bill on the docket of tonight’s senate meeting despite her reservations.

Privette had extended a compromise offer to the authors of the legislation that called for the description of the three events to be paraphrased and would have featured the testimonials as attachments to the legislation. The bill would have been stronger if the events were summarized, Privette claimed before reversing her stance Sunday.

The authors of the legislation had resisted Privette’s compromise efforts, telling The Appalachian the testimonials must remain intact because they represent the heart of the bill.

We feel this legislation strongly upholds the constitutionally protected right to free speech of students.

But we also understand one aspect of Privette’s role as president of the body is to ensure all bills are as sound as possible before appearing on the agenda.

“Given the reservations (Privette) had, she had a responsibility to not include it” on the agenda, said Dino DiBernardi, Center for Student Involvement and Leadership director and advisor to SGA.

After DiBernardi’s clear description of Privette’s duties as gatekeeper of the senate agenda, we feel she failed to uphold the duties of her office.

Her compromise was simply an attempt to further strengthen an already strong bill; yet, she will now give way to pressure coming from a wide majority of senators and place the bill—complete with the testimonials she first objected to—on tonight’s agenda as new business.

There are times when leaders must make difficult and unpopular decisions. This was one of those times.