Saket Vora

This column appeared in the 31 March 2006 edition of The Technician, the student newspaper of NC State University.

It seems what we have here is a failure to communicate. For the past two weeks, an election debacle has entangled the candidates, Student Senate, the Election Commission and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Tom Stafford into a complicated web of accusations, heavy-handed maneuvering and overreactions. Despite the substantial press coverage and flyers all around campus, the underlying reasons for what has unfolded still are not clear, or at least not presented in a coherent fashion. After combing through Technician articles, reading Student Government documents and searching for data on the University’s Web site, I want to try and give a better understanding of what this whole controversy concerning part-time students is about.

For a long time the Student Government has interpreted the Student Body Constitution and the Student Body Statutes to allow the participation of part-time students (those regularly enrolled students who take less than 12 credit hours) in campus elections. For this election cycle, Stafford informed the Election Commission on March 9 that the administration will now be interpreting the rules to prevent part-time students from voting and running in student elections. The Election Commission, in defiance to the administration’s stance, submitted a ballot deemed improper because it included part-time students. Not surprisingly, the elections were suspended due to the improper ballot.

A lot of talk has circulated about how part-time students are being deprived of their rights. Upon reading the governing documents, however, it is difficult to see how. The second paragraph in the Student Body Constitution states “[A]ll students who are regularly enrolled in the University and who have paid the full student activities fee shall be entitled to vote in the Student Body Elections and to participate in Student Body Government.” Noticing the critical adjective “full” in regard to student fees, I found a breakdown of student fees owed based on the number of credit hours at the University Cashier’s Office Web site. Full-time students currently pay $404.00 for relevant fees. Part-time students pay between $100.75 and $303.00 in relevant fees depending on how many credit hours they take. According to the wording of the Constitution, it follows that because part-time students do not pay the full student fees, they are not entitled to participate in the elections.

The Student Body Statutes, which are the by-laws of the Constitution, explain in more detail the election process and the qualifications for candidacy. The statutes make no reference to whether students are full-time or part-time but instead mandate that the students must be in good standing, which simply means that the student “shall be clear of any academic probation, past or present suspensions, academic integrity probation, or disciplinary probation.” It is incorrect to exploit the lack of specifics in the Student Body Statutes as justification for allowing part-time students to participate in elections because the Student Body Constitution supercedes the statutes in authority.

The referendum that people are talking about involves changing the wording of the Student Body Constitution to allow all fee-paying students to vote and run in student elections - the extent of ‘fees’ intentionally kept variable. So the Student Senate and Election Commission are fighting to allow part-time students to vote in an election that includes a referendum motion that would allow part-time students to vote in elections. When phrased like this, the legitimacy and soundness of this stance is tenuous at best.

After going over all the press coverage that this issue has received, the unanswered question that remains is why Stafford chose this election cycle to enforce the wording of the Constitution. Did Student Affairs just recently become aware of the incorrect interpretation by Student Government concerning who is eligible to participate? Is there a budgetary issue or another more fundamental concern for student representation at work here? And why now?

This controversy reveals to me that the Student Senate and the Election Commission appear to think they wield more power than they really do. They unwisely picked this issue to fight and are lucky to have come out of it with a compromise. Debacles like this cast long shadows over the numerous good deeds that student officials have helped bring to fruition and feed indifference and apathy toward student government.

Link

I’m writing this as day 1 of the Sweet Sixteen comes to a close. My bracket has been nuked, but what an incredible night of college basketball. First, LSU beats Duke thus sending the #1 seed Blue Devils back home. Sorry J.J. Redick, no championship for you! Then, West Virginia vs. Texas. WVU’s Pittsnogle makes a three pointer with 5 seconds left to tie the game at 71-71. No timeouts for Texas. Texas inbounds the ball and races down the court, and then they fire up a three pointer as the clocks reaches 0.0. It goes in! Texas makes a three pointer at the buzzer to win! Then we got to #2 UCLA versus #3 Gonzaga. Gonzaga is leading the whole game, at one point they had a 17 point lead, and then finally with 2 seconds left UCLA goes up 72-71! Gonzaga tries a desperate buzzer shot but it fails. UCLA pulls off the win!

On Wednesday, I dropped my parents off at the airport. They are flying to London to meet up with Sapana and then the three of them will go travel in Spain for two weeks. I was tipped off by my friend Frieder that Team Germany will be playing the US National team in a friendly match. We did the necessary trash talking before the game, confident in our respective team’s victory. A lot of pressure was on the German team to win. The game was televised here and fortunately without any commercials (just like in Europe). It was a fun match to watch, but at around the 70th minute the US team disintegrated and Deutschland made some really great goals. They won 4-1. I found out afterward that Team USA has selected Cary, NC (where I live) as their final training ground before they leave for Germany. Pretty cool.

In other news, there are some rumors swirling that the Carolina Panthers football team might get receiver Keyshawn Johnson. Would be a great combo with Steve Smith! Hopefully we’ll here more about it.

Well, that is the end of our tournament. Numbers wise it looks pretty bad, and the second half sure was disappointing to watch. Texas was making their shots, and we weren’t. As a team that needs strong perimeter shooting to do well, if we go cold on shooting we are finished. The most exciting part of the game was after we were down almost 15 points about 10 minutes into the 1st half. Coach Sendak called a timeout, and when our players took the court again it looked like a different team. My friends and I just stared at the screen in wonderment as NC State kicked into a fast-spaced quick scoring rapid execution team that almost tied the game in a few minutes. It was amazing to watch because it was a such a stark contrast to typical NC State style. I think we will be seeing more of that next season.

The other big news is that UNC lost, so my sisters aren’t really happy either. The difference is that they got upset, while we as a 10 seed lost to a 2 seed.

Anyway, although we suffered a bit at the end, NC State had a pretty good season. A salute to our seniors: Illian Evtimov, Tony Bethel, and Cameron Bennerman. Thanks for a great run.

Go Wolfpack! Last night NC State played California (Berkeley) in the first round of the 2006 NCAA tournament. I hosted a bunch of friends at my apartment, and Naman and Sachi from UNC came over too. We ordered some pizza, had some snacks, and cheered on the Wolfpack and later Murray State, who was playing UNC. I’m glad to see that the NC State team that showed to play was the team that we saw in January, when we were playing good. Cameron Bennerman hit a three-pointer with 30 seconds left which proved to be the game winning basket. Sendak is using Cedric Simmons more and more under the basket and posting up which is great to see. Evtimov still doesn’t have the lift he used to have, and Engin Atsür hasn’t been producing enough. He can be a great shooter when he is on.

While Naman was here we also discussed a possible Senior Design project involving a field unit for detecting malaria in third-world countries. It is still at a very early stage ,and we are not even sure whether or not it’s possible.

My schedule for next semester is set:
ECE 511 - Analog Electronics (graduate level)
ECE 480 - Senior Design project (Engineering Entrepreneur’s Program)
PHI 340 - Philosophy of Science
FLN 101 - Beginning Hindi
PE 101 - Health and Wellness physical education

I’m already looking forward to it. It’s going to be fun.

I went to the gym this morning to shoot some basketball with Mike. He is a really great teacher. He has watched so much basketball and done a tremendous job coaching me and helping me improve my shot. With his help I have gotten a pretty decent three-point shot down, and there is one golden spot on the arc that I can snap a trey almost automatically now. I need to still work on it though.

Now I’ve got a lot of work to do. Not exactly thrilling, but it needs to get done. Tomorrow NC State plays Texas at 2:30, but I’ll probably be home to watch it.

This column of mine ran in the March 17, 2006 Issue of the Technician, NC State’s school newspaper.

Last week, Dubai Ports World (DPW) relented under vitriolic political opposition to its takeover bid and will divest ownership of its American ports to a U.S. entity. Though this DPW-initiated move saves face for the Bush administration, we must realize who the only winners are: the politicians in Congress, not the American people.

First some background. Dubai Ports World is one of the largest shipping and port operations companies in the world. It is owned by the government of Dubai, one of the seven emirates composing the United Arab Emirates. Two of the 9/11 hijackers carried passports from the UAE (lest we forget, fifteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, arguably our closest major Arab ally). In mid-January, DPW finalized the acquisition of Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a British firm that owned and operated six ports in the U.S. The deal stayed under the radar until a Miami company, who was a partner with P&O, hired a lobbyist to protect its business interest. The takeover bid was re-framed as a national security issue with a Arab-country controlling six U.S. ports, and by late January Congress was rustled from its slumber to champion the cause of stopping passage of the deal.

Though the deal was mentioned in business and trade journals weeks before, the mainstream media’s first portrayal of the DPW deal was that of a threat against America. The surface details of the story lend itself towards a typical knee-jerk reaction: how could it possibly be a good idea to let an Arab country control our ports, where only 5% of the cargo is screened? Had the media fulfilled its role of informing the public, more facts and details would be known. The industry of port operations is incredibly globalized, 90% of all container shipping is handled by foreign companies. Foreign companies operating American ports is not without precedent either. The authorities handling the security and customs at the ports would remain the same. The immigration policies would remain the same, with foreign workers from Dubai needing to go through the vetting process for visas. As reported in The Economist, “[t]he United Arab Emirates is a member of America’s Container Security Initiative, which allows American customs officials to inspect cargo in foreign ports before it leaves for America.” Oman is the only other Arab country currently a member of the initiative. Existing problems concerning port security, an issue that desperately needs more attention, would continue to exist with or without DPW taking over P&O’s operations. Instead, media attention was paid to the political drama that was unfolding on Capitol Hill.

Politicians in Congress fed off the public’s ill-informed knee-jerk reaction. Democrats were finally able to gain ground in the coveted issue of ‘national security’, which Republicans have successfully dominated for the past six years. Republicans who were becoming increasingly wary of the administration’s handling of the budget, Iraq, and Katrina (among other things) saw this as the perfect opportunity to distance themselves away from the Bush White House. For some politicians, it was a short-term decision for this November’s mid-terms elections. For others, like Senator Bill Frist, it was a chance to shape a 2008 presidential run. Instead of finding ways to properly fund port security measures, there is isolationist talk against foreign companies. Important lobbying reform that began after the Abramoff scandal has been forgotten, and business analysts are worried about a chill in foreign investments or ‘insourcing’ to the U.S.

I’ll be curious to see the reaction in Congress if the H5N1 avian bird flu were to start spreading in the US and widespread vaccinations were needed. Two of the four leading vaccine providers are based in America, but only one of them is seriously working on a H5N1 vaccine. Far along in development of a vaccine is the French company Sanofi Pasteur, which was contracted by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services last September to produce a stockpile valued at $100 million. The French company runs a vaccine production facility in Pennsylvania. Surely we cannot allow a foreign company to own and operate a facility that plays a vital role in the health security of our country, right America?

Link: Technician Website

An update for my summer plans: I will be just outside Washington, D.C at the University of Maryland in College Park for a research internship at their ECE department. It is part of the Research Experiences for Undergraduates. I think it will be useful preparation for when I pursue my Master’s degree. The program will run from May 29 to August 11, and will provide housing, food stipend, and parking. I’m looking forward to it.

Currently we are having our ‘Spring Break’, a week long holiday from school. The weekend at started off great at home, then I went back to the apartment in order to get work done. Unfortunately, a lot of things I need to finish have kept being pushed to the side. So I’m spending a lot of time during this spring break working on stuff, like:

• Migrating all my study abroad posts that I had on blogger.com to saketvora.com
• Processing all the videos I took in Europe and creating a compilation video.
• Getting an web application form ready to go live
• Creating tutorials for Oracle Web Calendar
• Writing columns for the Technician
• Doing homework for the upcoming week
• Research for my independent study course

The ACC tournament is starting tomorrow, with four games in a row. NC State is playing on Friday, and we will be facing either Florida State or Wake Forest. When (not if!) we beat them, we will likely face Duke on Saturday, then if we win against them we will likely face UNC in the final. We need to win on Saturday in order to get a good seed for the NCAA tournament. Go Wolfpack!

I am re-focusing my efforts at updating this blog on a more regular basis, such as two or three times a week. Like I did with the journal I kept while studying in Sweden last semester, I’d like to explain the fundamental routines of this semester. I’m taking two electrical engineering courses (Controls and Analog Integrated Circuits), an electrical engineering independent research course, an engineering economic analysis course, and an online technical writing course. The research course is the one I’m mainly concerned with, mainly because the precise goals or outcomes desired continues to be a little vague. The field I’m looking into, field programmable analog arrays, is an exciting field but as an undergraduate stepping in there has been a lot of background that I’ve had to first learn. Though at present I am not making real strides in FPAAs, I am learning far more about electrical engineering than had I stayed in the digital signal processing course.

My Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday usually have me busy from 8am to 3pm. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I don’t have class per se, but I dedicate the entire work day (9am to 5pm) to working on the research project. On MWF I usually grab lunch with my friends.
So you can see a little bit of my university, here are some pictures below. The first is of Engineering Building II, which is located on Centennial Campus and which is still under construction.

This building was supposed to be completed last fall, but construction has been delayed. This next photo is over looking the southern side of the ‘Court of Carolinas’, which is located on the eastern half of the original NC State campus. The lawn you see there is the closest thing we have to a true ‘quad’.

This is a picture of Daniel’s Hall, which used to be where the Electrical and Computer Engineering department was located. NC State is in the process of moving the whole engineering department over to Centennial Campus.

Here is a picture looking into the ‘Brickyard’, the major gathering place at NC State. The round building on the left is Harrelson Hall, which is either loved or hated by students and faculty. All the rooms are curved! On the right you can see a glimpse of the D.H. Hill Library, the university library. It’s probably the tallest building on campus.

This is a picture from a bit of grass lawn we have overlooking the brickyard.

Here is a photo of the D.H. Hill Library. Some universities have several libraries, but so far we have this main one. I’m hoping in 10 or 15 years after the College of Engineering moves to Centennial that they can construct a dedicated ‘Engineering Library’.

Let me say a bit about where I’m living this semester. My Delphi friends — I doubt any experience will ever match the good times I had in N217-230! This is a photo of the outside of my apartment building. These are two-person apartments, and I live on the second floor in the back.

This is the view looking out towards the parking lot from the front of the building. It is a pretty nice and quiet apartment complex.

The living room:

This is what the dining and kitchen area looks like. Oh how I miss the nice Ikea-supplied kitchen we had at Delphi!

Our friends who were in the apartment before Jordan and I were kind enough to leave their furniture for us to use. I brought in this desk cause I wanted a larger work surface, but everything elese is Pat’s (who is in Hawaii now). Looking into my room from the door:

What my desk usually looks like:

And last but not least, a picture of my car. It is a Mazda3 and I thank my parents for trusting me with it!

This should hopefully give you an idea of how things are generally going for me this semester.