TL20071203-01 "www.thetowerlight.com Published by and for the students of Towson and Baltimore -- twice-weekly Monday TU admin. reconsidering SGA function Univ. discussing process for student group recognition Who will take center stage? Campus Activities Board learns from past, looks to future for spring festival Sharon Leff Editor in Chief For decades, the Student Government Association has decided which student groups become affiliated with the University. But Towson administrators are considering whether that should continue. Teri Hall, associate vice president for campus life, said the office of student activities is looking at peer institutions and investigating a change, but no decisions have been made yet. �This fall, questions were raised about should one student organization be approving whether or not another student orga-nization should exist on campus,� Hall said. Discussion began in October, when an SGA bill to fund a Campus Crusade for Christ retreat and conference failed. The SGA does not fund religious organizations, but it funds cultural groups, including Hillel and the Muslim Student Association. �When we started looking at the funding policies this fall, it seemed to us the notion of recognition and funding were tied too tightly together in a way that was sometimes making decisions more complicated,� Hall said. Jenny Haley, SGA president, said moving to University recogni-tion rather than SGA recognition diminishes the students' right to self-government. �It�s taking more power out of the hands of the student body and putting it into the hands of an unelected administration of non-students. It's not necessarily that we think the administra-tion has malicious intentions, but University recognition has a scary potential to become something malicious,� she said. �It's less about the likelihood that the University would abuse the power than it�s about the fact that they would have the potential to abuse it. Members of SGA can be impeached by the student body; members of the TU administration cannot.� Hall said the goal of University recognition is for OSA to become more helpful and involved with student groups. �[I think] if we go to the University recognition of student groups, we�ll have a lot more groups on campus because the University might not have a specific criteria like the SGA does with funding,� she said. Hall said as Towson grows, OSA has to be prepared to handle a larger student body. �Right now in my mind, I don�t have a clear opinion on what it should look like either way. Maybe we can come with something that involves all parties included,� she said. Hall said the University will probably have proposals about any SGA changes in the next six months. �[I want to be ready by the] end of the spring, so when we come back to the school in the fall, we have all the right things in place,� she said. STUDENT GOVERNMENT The Towerlight Dec. 3, 2007 Blind Rhetoric fi nishes fi rst album, courts record labels Arts, page 17 Illustration by Matt Laumann/The Towerlight Now on TheTowerlight.com: View video of African Explosion, Skate Night and Phi Sigma Pi�s �Guitar Hero II� tournament... Sharon Leff Editor in Chief After some student disappointment with last year�s head-line act for Tigerfest, Towson�s annual spring concert held on Burdick Field, the Campus Activities Board is looking for feed-back from students about who to pick this year. Last year Dashboard Confessional was chosen to perform, drawing a crowd of about 10,000, but prompting negative reac-tions with the Facebook group �Beers not tears for Tigerfest.� A survey available at studentvoice.com/towsontigerfestcon-cert07 asks students to pick from a list of musical acts including My Chemical Romance, Boys like Girls with Cartel, Paramore with Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and All Time Low, All American Rejects, T-Pain, Fabolous, Fall Out Boy, Akon, The Roots with Reel Big Fish and Immortal Tech, Jimmy Eat World, OAR, and Rihanna. The show is scheduled for Saturday, April 26 and also includes food and inflatable slides and games. CAB director Lynn Bucci said she can�t guarantee or promise that the band or per-former with the most votes will be the one brought to campus, but the organization is using it as a guide-line for whom to choose. �They are all potential bands that could play our date and are in our price range,� Bucci said. She said the survey allows students the chance to voice their opinion about the event. �People want to complain they don�t like this band or that band. If you don�t take the time to take the survey, you can�t yell at us for picking a band you don�t like,� Bucci said. In addition to the online survey, representatives from CAB will use Palm Pilots to administer surveys to students in the University Union Wednesday and Thursday. Teri Hall, associate vice president for campus life, said after CAB completes its survey the results will be reviewed, but there is no target date for when a band will be signed. �If the Campus Activities Board is really going to be the pro-gramming group, then they need to make sure they�re collecting data from the student body about who are the entertainers they want to come to campus--especially something as big as Tigerfest,� Hall said. Last year, University administrators created additional safety measures for Tigerfest. Security guards manned the entrances of residence halls, checking for suspicious packages and alcohol a few days prior to the event. During Tigerfest, staff checked tickets at the entrances to Burdick Field. Last year was also the first time CAB charged for admission. Tickets were $2 for students and $8 for non-students. �Because of how expensive Tigerfest is, I think [there�s] going to be some nominal fee to defray some of those costs,� Hall said. She said at certain times the lines for entry were long and she will be evaluating how to improve that for this year�s event. She also wants the event to include lot of activities in addition to the band. �One of the things we talked a little to CAB about is to have more stuff inside,� Hall said. The theme of this year�s event has not yet been determined. TIGERFEST African culture celebrated at African Explosion News, page 17 "
