Western Front - 2009 April 21

              Students volunteer
to help community
PAGE 6
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Comedian Josh Blue concludes
disAbility Awareness Week
PAGE 11
Baseball team succeeds
with player-coaches
PAGE 16
Tuesday, April 21 ,.-2009
AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY.SINCE 1970 I W E S T E R N F R 0 N T 0 N L I N E . N ET
AS prepares
for elections
Megan Tackett
THE WESTERN FRONT
With Associated Student (AS) elec­tion
voting polls opening.April 27, candi­dates
voiced, their platforms on diversity,
tuition ihcreasesand budget cuts at the AS
candidate fbruhr last Thursday.
Candidates running for AS president
and vice president for business and op­erations,
legislative affairs and diversity
spoke at last week's forum. A forum for
candidates5for VP of academic affairs, ac­tivities
and student life will be held at 7
p.m. tonight in Fraser Hall room 4.' .
AS President
Aaron Garcia ^^ ^
Western senior Aaron Garcia served
-as this year's AS production director. He
also served as the 2007-08 VP for student
activities. • ' • . • ' • ' . -;-:
Jn an effort to prevent legislation from
raising tuition by 14 percent over the next
two years, Garcia plans'.to reach a consen-.
sus plan with the elected vice presidents
and other Washington state universities'
representatives before lobbying in Olym-pia.
"There's enough students right now
that are on the border of barely hanging
on," Garcia said. "If [tuition increases],
we're going to lose quality students."
To provide a greater voice to stu­dents
with disabilities, Garcia said he
would like to see a student-led disabilities
office on campus. He said this could be
implemented by consolidating some AS
offices and resources to make them more
efficient, which would provide funds for a
disabilities office.
Matt Jarrell
Western senior Matt Jarrell served
as this years' VP for activities and as the
chair of activities council.
To ensure student tuition is spent ef­ficiently,
Jarrell said-he plans to establish
a database of evaluations to keep track of
funding provided to AS clubs for events
and programs.
"There will be a challenge working
see ELECTIONS page 5
Commuter regulations changing
Kevin Mihnick
Nicholas Johnson
THE WESTERN FRONT
On any sunny day, Western's Red
Square is alive with the sound of cascad­ing
fountain water, missed Frisbees skim­ming
the ground and skateboard wheels
clinking over loose bricks.
Unless students walk to class in the
solitary confinement of their iPods, the
sound of skate wheels fast approaching
has become a daily reality. If proposed
rule changes are implemented skateboard­ing
and biking in walk zones will be al­lowed..
Currently, many commuters—,
either because of ignorance of the law
or conscious disregard—choose to skate
through campus as a way to get to class.
"It's fun. It's quick. Its sustainable,"
Western junior .Vince Howard said. "I see
a lot of people on campus, just riding, get­ting
to class quicker."
Western's Central Health and Safety
Committee has acknowledged alternative
forms of transportation as sustainable and
drafted new skateboard and bicycle poli­cies
after three years of discussion among
student, faculty and administrative bar­gaining
units.
Students, faculty and community,
members will have one last opportunity to
express-their concerns about the proposed
see REGULATIONS page 8
iftjil
Registration fast approaching
Megan Jonas
THE WESTERN FRONT
Current Western students who plan
on registering for fall quarter classes will
now sign up for classes during the end of
spring quarter instead of September.
Registration for returning students
will begin May 20, while transfer students
and incoming freshmen will register in
July and August, respectively, said Su­sanna
Yunker, assistant vice president for
Student Affairs and registrar.
"We were one of the very few institu­tions
left in the United States that did not
offer [spring registration] as an option for
students," Yunker said.
Moving fall registration to spring
quarter takes care of the biggest complaint
about the old system: advisers were not
available for students when it came time
to register, Yunker said.
Kathleen Knutzen, associate dean
of the College of Humanities and Social
Sciences, said the changes are an absolute
advantage to returning students because
they can meet with faculty advisers before
leaving for the summer.
Western freshman Carolynn Tulluck
said she is glad the new system will allow
her to get registration done earlier so she
can relax and enjoy summer.
Although incoming freshmen will
no longer be the first group to register
when they attend SummerStart, roughly
the same percentage of course seats will
be saved for them as in-years past, Yunker
said.
Seats will be saved for transfer stu­dents
as well, Yunker said. Transfer stu­dents
who attend Transitions, a day-long
program offered in July, will be able to
sign up for a major and register for classes
at that time, she said. Previously, transfer
students registered in September along
with returning students according to how
many credits they had.
Knutzen said academic departments
have decided how many spots for fresh­men
and transfer students to save by ana­lyzing
a new database that shows histori
see REGISTRATION page 4