The graduate's guide to freedom

CAP AND GOWN
Students must order their cap and gown by April 25. Herff Jones and bookstore employees will be at the UNF Arena before the ceremony with the remaining orders for student pick-up.

Students must bring a picture ID to pick up their orders.

TICKETS
All graduates who have met requirements for the May 2 ceremony are able to pick up seven tickets at the Fine Arts Center Ticket Box Office April 28-29 from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and April 24-25 and 30 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

When graduates sign for their original allotment they will be able to request extra tickets. This will be the only chance for graduates to request extra tickets.

Extra tickets will be distributed April 28 and 29. Any remaining tickets will be distributed April 30 to all graduates in line beginning at 8:30 a.m.

CEREMONIES
3 p.m.
College of Education and Human Services, Brooks College of Health and Coggin College of Business

7 p.m.
College of Computing, Engineering and Construction and College of Arts and Sciences

Graduation '08 by the numbers

1361 Students graduating with bachelor's degrees

367 Students graduating with associate degrees

207 Students graduating with master's degrees

5 Students graduating with doctoral degrees

Source: Enrollment Servives and the Bookstore

Compiled by Tami Livingston
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Candlelight vigil honors Virginia Tech losses

By Sarah Gojekian
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

To anyone who is not a part of the Hokie family or was not affected by the Virginia Tech massacre, the phrase "live for the 32" might have little significance. Thirty-two students and faculty members were killed during the April 16, 2007 shootings.

The VT Alumni Association of Jacksonville worked with the UNF Interfaith Center to organize a candlelight vigil April 16 for the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.

A similar ceremony took place after the tragedy last year at UNF when a member of the alumni association contacted a member of Campus Ministries.

With a turnout of 300 people last year, social chair of the association Carolyn Ranieri contacted UNF Dean of students, Tom Van Schoor, at the beginning of the month to see if Campus Ministries could co-host the event again.

"We are so thankful for what your [school] has done," Ranieri said.

The vigil began at 7 p.m. in the Gandhi courtyard and lasted about an hour. Alumni dressed head-to-toe in VT's orange and maroon colors conversed and viewed a display.

Fliers, a collage of pictures from last year's vigil, newspaper clippings, obituaries and pictures of the victims, and a basket of ribbons made by the office manager of the Interfaith Center, Angela Davis, were set up on two tables.

Davis also gathered the candles to be used, donated by Student Government and Faith United Methodist Church.

Attendees stood in a circle around the Gandhi statue, on which three speakers stood. Alan Marsh, UNF ministry chair, spoke first about the tragedy and its effect on campuses nationwide.

Ranieri then read an e-mail sent by a recent VT graduate that brought most attendees to tears. She ended the speech with a quote by Gandhi.

VTAA President Adam Wolf proceeded to cite the 32 names of the victims followed by the lighting of the candles and a moment of prayer.

Ironically, the initial number of attendees was 32 but grew to about 35 near the end.

The turnout was not what everyone expected; it was hoped that 50-75 people would attend.

"[We know] the main audience is the alumni," Van Schoor said. They really appreciated it, and it was a good opportunity for them to see and support each other."

VT had its own "Day of Remembrance" April 16 with events lasting all day and classes canceled.

All of the VTAA chapters ask that VT students, faculty and alumni collectively volunteer 300,000 hours of community service by the end of Spring semester through VT-ENGAGE.

The VTAA of Jacksonville participates in the Second Harvest Food Bank and will host a blood drive May 10 at the Riverside donation facility.

Yet honoring those lost every April 16 is all they really ask for.

"The VT situation had an impact on our campus with safety measures and emotional counseling," Van Schoor said. "We have a responsibility to reach out. If something like that happened to us, I would expect others to do the same."

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Last week by the numbers

Each week the Spinnaker staff reports what's going on around campus: the good and the bad. In this little space, we want to summarize the life of the Osprey during the past week.

397 People submitted a "Best of UNF" survey by the April 18 deadline

60 Students shaved their heads to raise $1,000 for the American Cancer Society

50 Home runs hit by softball team - a new school record

2 Tents set up on the Green April 18 for the UNF Peace Camp

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Literary journal launched

By Amber Harrington
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Jen Quinn

Senior English majors Michael Chmielewski and Sean Thompson started an online literary journal.

Two UNF students launched an online literary journal April 15 that will cater to readers and writers with short attention spans.

Snap!, co-edited by Michael Chmielewski and Sean Thompson, will feature short "snapshots" of written expression.

The editors, both senior English majors and avid writers, wanted to provide a way for people to express themselves in "quick flashes of thought, wisdom and literature," Thompson said. Brevity is Snap!'s focus.

"There are a lot of good writers out there that don't have it in them to write a full novel or something more lengthy," Chmielewski said. "We wanted to give those writers an opportunity to have their work published."

In addition to its focus on short pieces, Snap! will provide a new twist on things.

"Our focus will be young people who want to get published or anyone who wants to read contemporary perspective," Thompson said.

"The Web page probably caters to a younger audience, but we really want to keep it open to anyone who's a writer or is interested in reading new forms of literature," Chmielewski said.

Luke Holger, a freshman business major, said he was interested in becoming involved with Snap!.

"It seems like an interesting way to express what you feel about things," Holger said. "Would I read it? Yeah, because I'm always interested in reading people's answers to philosophical questions."

Chmielewski and Thompson decided to start the journal when English professor Mark Ari urged them to give it a try.

"Ari's aim is to build a stronger writing program for UNF, which would include a journal like this," Thompson said. "He just needed a couple of editors."

Ari's idea for the journal arose from the desire to follow the technological trend of similar online publications.

"We're hoping to see if we can lead that movement at UNF," Thompson said.

The creative name for Snap! was also provided by Ari.

"It was kind of just handed to us by Ari, and we went with it," Chmielewski said.

It sums up the publication's aim to provide "quick, snap answers to philosophical questions," he said.

More than a hobby, the journal is a serious effort by Chmielewski and Thompson to produce a high-quality publication.

"It's something we are taking very seriously." Chmielewski said.

We hope to be able to produce a print version eventually, Thompson said. The co-editors would even like to publish a book of the best Snap! submissions one day. For now, the journal will function as a "Perpetual May" issue, as the editors will update it haphazardly.

"We may update randomly whenever we get submissions," Thompson said.

Chmielewski and Thompson encourage all students, or anyone in the UNF and Jacksonville communities, who like to write to submit their quick, snapshot answers to the questions posted on the site.

"We already have submissions from students, the Jacksonville community and even from as far away as West Virginia," Chmielewski said.

While the startup questions are mainly philosophical, writers are free to branch out into other subjects as well.

"Answer one of the posted questions or come up with your own question to answer in a quick, creative and interesting way," Chmielewski said.

Thompson agreed.

"We just want to encourage anyone at the university to submit anything," Thompson said.

For submission guidelines and more information, visit Snap! online at www.snapjournal.org, or contact the Snap! editors at snap.decision@yahoo.com. Snap! is also on MySpace and Facebook; search for them with the keywords "snap journal."

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Local president alliance amplifies student voice

By Ashley Beland
STAFF WRITER

Student body presidents throughout the colleges and universities of the river city formed the Jacksonville Student Alliance program to unify and maximize students' voices in city developments.

The program, which was created this year, connects UNF, Jacksonville University, Edward Waters College and Florida Community College at Jacksonville.

UNF Student Body President Rachael Tutwiler said she initiated the program with the hope of strengthening student input in the community and connecting students in higher education throughout the city.

"Jacksonville is such a big place and I realized things were going on at Edward Waters that I wasn't even aware of," Tutwiler said.

There are six primary facets to the program, Tutwiler said. In addition to unifying student voices, the alliance strives to improve the communication of students within state and local governments.

It also tries to foster relationships between student leadership across the city, she said.

The program educates student leaders in Jacksonville on issues that impact the community and increases communication on developments within the city's accredited institutions.

Tutwiler emphasized the goal to raise awareness of higher education opportunities for kindergarten through 12th grade in Jacksonville as a primary mission of the program.

"We want to enhance the value of higher education in Jacksonville by including student representation and offering mentoring opportunities," Tutwiler said.

The presidents from each institution met bimonthly and developed a constitution for the program throughout 2007 and 2008.

The program is organized into three main branches.

A Board of Directors is derived from the presidents of the institutions.

Standing and ad hoc committees form the lower tiers. Students interested in volunteering for the program can contact their student body president.

"If we want to continue to grow as a university, the students need to make sure their voices are heard," Tutwiler said.

Representatives from JU, FCCJ and EWC did not respond to phone calls from the Spinnaker.

Alliance members

Jacksonville colleges and universities that are a part of the Jacksonville Student Alliance program include:
- UNF
- Jacksonville University
- Edward Waters College
- Florida Community College Jacksonville

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Police Beat Hall of Fame

Here's a look back at some of the most outrageous police beat moments of the Spring 2008 semester: Incidents of body spray torches and potential hedgehog abuse are all included.

Jan. 11 - Fire Alarm (Building Z) - A resident was spraying a can of AXE Body Spray and lighting the fumes with a lighter "because he was bored." The spray created a flamethrower effect that set off the fire alarm in his room. He was referred to Student Conduct.

Feb. 2 - Resisting officer (Lot 15) - An officer was investigating an incident when a suspect yelled "F*** the police" and fled the scene. The suspect later came to the officer and admitted he was the one who ran. The suspect appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance and was uncooperative with the officer. He was issued a Notice to Appear.

Feb. 8 - Prowling (Building Q) - UPD was contacted about a suspicious man walking around the Crossings area. An officer spoke to the man who said he was visiting a friend but could not produce a last name or room number.

The man's zipper was down. When the officer spoke to the RAs who reported the incident, they told him they saw the man hanging around Building Q and attempting to talk to females. He was asked to leave by an RA and appeared to walk toward Lot 16. A short time later he was seen on the stairwell to Building R and seemed to be trying to follow a resident into the building.

The officer performed a records check on the suspect, which revealed two outstanding fugitive warrants in Polk County for battery and exposure of genitals. The man was arrested, issued a trespass warning and transported to Duval County Detention Center.

Feb. 16 - Lovers' Quarrel (Building S) - A student contacted UPD regarding an argument she had with her ex-boyfriend and his refusal to leave. She explained how they had recently broken up, but he was visiting her to try to work things out.

They got into another argument, and she asked him and his friend to leave. She walked them out and returned to her room. He then appeared below her window asking for a phone charger and walked away.

After a few minutes he barged into the room and knocked a vase of Valentine's Day flowers to the floor. She ran to the RA, and the men were gone when officers arrived. UPD was unable to locate the visitors.

Feb. 22 - Inhalant accident (Bookstore) - An officer was dispatched regarding a man becoming unconscious at the bookstore. Two witnesses stated they saw the man inhale computer keyboard cleaner before passing out. Paramedics examined the man who regained consciousness and denied the allegations. The suspect was issued a trespass warning.

March 4 - Battery (Building X) - Two students got into an argument regarding the volume of their music. One stood up and pushed the other, causing them both to fall. The aggressor also threatened to harm the other student's pet hedgehog. The victim went to a friend's apartment with the hedgehog for safekeeping.

March 7 - Alcohol (Building S) - An RA contacted UPD stating she smelled marijuana coming from a room. When UPD arrived, they found 11 cans of Coors Light and two bottles of Parrot Bay.

No marijuana was found. The RA also told UPD she had an anonymous tip that one of the students urinated on the door of another room. The student admitted to doing it and gave no reason for doing it, only stating that he was stupid.

March 25 - Indecent exposure (Lot 5) - A student contacted UPD about a man exposing himself. The student was standing next to her vehicle reading paperwork about the boot placed on her car when a man around 18 - 25 years old pulled up next to her and said "Looks like they got you."

When she looked into the vehicle, the man had no clothes on below the waist and was masturbating. The student ran away, and the man drove off. UPD is investigating the incident.

March 28 - Intoxicated injury (Building 44) - A student contacted UPD when his friend attempted to jump and hit a parking sign in the garage but slipped and fell backward. The man struck his head on the concrete floor and started to bleed.

The officer questioned the students, and they admitted to drinking before the incident. The officer also noticed a broken light fixture above the site of the student's accident. The injured student's friends refused to leave the scene and all three students were referred to Student Conduct. The injured student was transported to St. Luke's Hospital.

April 5 - Fire (Building Y) - UPD responded to a fire alarm to find all of the residents in the dorms evacuated. Once UPD opened the door, they realized the sprinkler had gone off and three inches of water was covering the floor. There was no smoke present, but the officers did smell some type of electrical burning.

April 6 - Theft (Building 14) - During a drama department activity, $8 in donations and a tub of cookies were stolen off a table. A suspect was later seen eating the cookies but denied any involvement with the money.

April 9 - Damaged property (Lot 9) - A UNF postal services employee accidentally backed his motorized cart into a parked FedEx delivery van.

April 10 - Possession (Building S) - Officers executed a search warrant as part of a drug bust. They found two bongs with marijuana residue, rolling papers, cigar containers and 13.9 grams of marijuana. The student had $884 in his wallet. A search of the student's car revealed a pipe and a scale. The student was arrested.

Compiled by Ashley Beland
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Students discuss nation's security

By Josh Salman
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

The department of political science is hosting a discussion about national security and civil liberties April 30 in the University Center.

The event is scheduled to focus on the upcoming election and American safety. It will begin with speeches from Nancy Soderberg, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations; Georgetown Law Professor David Cole; Hina Shamsi, staff attorney at ACLU; and Dr. Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the board at Council on American-Islamic Relations and associate professor at UNF.

The discussion will then move to an open forum for students to communicate their ideas on the topic, Ahmed said.

"It's a very important topic," said Dr. Henry Thomas, the chair of the Center for Public Policy and associate professor at UNF. "We have co-sponsored a number of events with American Civil Liberties Union in the past, and we felt this was a critical issue for Americans to think about."

The Center for Public Policy at UNF is co-sponsoring the program alongside the CAIR and the ACLU of Florida. They have been working on the project for more than three months.

"We will be speaking and looking at the questions from different angles," Ahmed said. "It is one of the larger issues in our time and of the upcoming election."

Cole and Shamsi will both be traveling from the nation's capitol for the discussion; Ahmed anticipates it will draw 200-300 people.

"It's obvious the given election is all about the future, and students on campus are the future," Ahmed said. "There's a great interest in the subject and many people are looking to participate."

But Thomas is concerned that finals week will cut into some of the attendance.

"The fact we are about to go into finals week is complicating the matter," Thomas said. "I think a lot of people will spend more time on exams than coming to discussions."

The level of experience in the topic is very high with the panel of speakers the sponsors compiled, Thomas said.

"I think we have a very good panel," Thomas said. "We are a public policy center, and we want people to be thinking about these issues."

Aside from her work with the United Nations, Soderberg served as a third ranking official of the National Security Council under the Clinton administration at the White House.

As staff attorney at ACLU's National Security Project, Shamsi monitors military commission proceedings against detainees held in Guantanamo. This is the first national security discussion at UNF, Thomas said.

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Faculty members transform learning

By Saman Quraeshi
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Some university faculty members are set to receive $400,000 during the 2008-2009 school year to fund 21 transformational learning opportunities for students.

A TLO grant is awarded to faculty members to help cover student expenses and any other additional costs that contribute to the learning experience, said David Jaffee, assistant vice president for undergraduate studies.

For faculty members to qualify for a TLO, they have to present a proposal for a class. In the proposed class there has to be a meaningful learning experience so students are exposed to a different environment.

A common misconception is that TLOs are study abroad programs, Jaffee said.

"There is a whole range of possibilities," Jaffee said. "We suggest categories, but there can be multidisciplinary TLOs."

The 2008-2009 grants have been awarded to classes ranging from the study of the gopher tortoise habitat at UNF to service learning projects in West Africa.

Other classes that have been funded for the upcoming year include health care and culture in China: the Qingdao experience, impacts of environmental stressors on coral reef development, and medical signal classification in collaboration with Mayo Clinic for undergraduate research.

This fall students will have the opportunity to learn what it means to be critically engaged in the 2008 political campaign in a class funded by a TLO grant.

Paul Harwood, a professor in the political science and public administration department, has been awarded $28,000 for his fall class. Harwood's class will create a national survey asking people questions they would like answered by the presidential candidates.

Students will have the opportunity to build and analyze what makes a good question, Harwood said.

The applied skills the students will learn make this course transformational, Harwood said.

"[It is a] new class, a special topic, but it is also an applied class - skills you can use at your job," Harwood said.

Harwood's class will partner with communication and other political science classes to generate press releases for media attention.

Harwood anticipates publicity from the results of the national survey. The TLO program began in the 2005-2006 school year.

Currently, there is no way for students to find TLO courses. This is because the faculty decides the recruiting and the way classes are organized, Perry said.

"I would be interested [in signing up for a TLO class], but I don't know much about it," said Lina Aman, a freshman biology major.

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Sunshine Law experts emphasize importance of public records, access

By Diana Frazee
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Courtesy of Martina Perry

A panel of Sunshine Law experts discussed Florida's expansive open government policy on campus April 18.

Under the Sunshine Law in Florida, every citizen has the right to public access of public documents and records at both the state and local levels.

Three experts on Florida's open government laws came to UNF April 18 and discussed the importance of public records and why they are vital to a proper and functioning democracy.

Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, began the presentation by stating Florida has set the standard in open government laws in not only the country, but around the world.

Since Florida has the most progressive open government laws in the country, she receives daily phone calls from other states and countries asking how they can make their laws more like Florida's, she said.

"I get about 150 calls a month from people who have questions about the Public Records Law or the Sunshine Law," Petersen said.

Peterson said she often replies "everything" is a public record under the Sunshine Law. A few common examples include voicemail, e-mail and handwritten notes from a meeting relating to a specific business or agency, she said.

Florida Sunshine Law applies in situations when two or more members of the same board of commission have a discussion related to public business.

This means these members cannot talk about public business without providing notice, taking minutes and allowing the public to participate in that meeting.

"You cannot have a representational government if you do not know what those people who are representing you are doing with your money and power you have invested in them," Petersen said.

Constitutional guarantee of access in Florida applies to all three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial, while in most states, it only applies to the executive branch.

JoAnn Carrin, director of the governor's office on open government said the governor's philosophy is the government is there to serve the people.

One of the greatest projects of public records by the governor's office is the Google partnership, which has made state agency data more accessible through Google searches.

"We went into an informal partnership with Google," Carrin said. "Now, we are able to open millions of data through a Google search."

One example of how this partnership has been profitable is the sex offender search, Carrin said. Prior to the Google project, if the name of a sex offender was typed in the search box, that individual would not have come up as a registered sex offender. Now, Google searches yield sex offenders' identity and information.

Joe Adams, author of the "Florida Public Records Handbook" and editorial writer for the Florida Times-Union, discussed the numerous benefits of Florida's public records laws.

"If we didn't have access to public information, you would start seeing holes in news stories and holes in public consciousness," Adams said. "There would be so many issues that were not discussed."

Adams listed a few examples of ways public records can aid in making better decisions.

Neighborhood property values, daycare inspection reports, school bus driver records and background information on doctors are all available, Adams said.

"Public records can change the world," he said. "They can change your world personally, and they can also change the world of government institutions to help make things better."

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Shaving for charity

Josh Salman

Alex Murphy, a sophomore accounting major, gets his head shaved on the Green April 22 to raise money for cancer research. Two of his Delta Upsilon fraternity brothers were recently diagnosed with cancer.

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