Murphy certified winner in San Diego mayoral race

San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy was sworn in for his second term as the city’s top executive after the county registrar certified him as the winner of a protracted recount in the Nov. 2 election.

Murphy led City Councilwoman Donna Frye — whose last minute write-in campaign attracted international attention — by slightly more than 2,000 votes, according to official results.

However, a separate recount commissioned by Southern California media organizations showed that approximately 5,000 additional ballots were marked with Frye’s name but were not counted because voters did not fill in the write-in bubble, as required under state law.

Though Frye did not publicly announce whether she would appeal the results, her Web site urges supporters to contribute “financial resources for a legal and campaign team.” Frye supporters have until Jan. 7 to appeal the certified election results.

Faculty to vote on changes for college athletics

Faculty representatives from 28 universities with leading sports programs will cast votes on rules that will eliminate athletic scholarships and call for tougher academic standards for student athletes.

At a January meeting, members of the Council on Intercollegiate Athletics will debate a proposal urging the NCAA to take steps to shorten the lengths of some sports seasons and to elevate minimum grades and admission requirements for students who participate in campus sports.

The organization includes representatives from faculty senates of NCAA Division IA universities, which are one notch below the league’s top Division I schools.

“None of the values ascribed to college sports can be realized if we abandon the principle that personal development through athletics participation and academic achievement are linked,” the COIA draft resolution states.

If approved, the document would call on university administrators to do away with scholarships based solely on athletic abilities. In addition, the proposal calls for NCAA bylaw changes and adoption of “best practices” that would force the association to collect grade information from individual campuses to evaluate their academic integrity and ban coaches from teaching classes.

The reforms are necessary to reverse policies that encourage “college aspirants to prioritize sports over academics” and “let their athletics commitment undermine their academic work,” the draft states.

If approved at COIA’s national meeting on Jan. 6 and Jan. 7, the resolution would be symbolic and not bind NCAA to any actions.

Former student found guilty for A.S. Council disruption

Members of the John Muir College Judicial Board voted to convict former Muir student Bryan Barton of four student conduct violations stemming from his disruption of a May 2004 A.S. Council meeting.

At the time, Barton and a group of 20 masked students — armed with loaded Super Soakers and water balloons — brought a goat into the meeting and proclaimed that the council was facing a “coup.”

In place of the A.S. Council, Barton had said that he and the goat would serve as co-executives of a new student government to be formed after the coup.

After the unidentified students threw water balloons at members of the council — Barton did not throw balloons or fire water guns himself — several councilmembers retaliated with spare water balloons and a bowl of salad.

A UCSD police officer initially detained Barton, but released him after the council declined to file charges.

The judicial board found that Barton’s conduct included behavior that “threatens the health of safety of any person, including one’s self,” disrupted “teaching, research, administration, the disciplinary process or … other university activities,” disturbed the peace and created hazardous conditions, Muir Dean of Student Affairs Patricia Mahaffey wrote to Barton in a Dec. 6 letter.

The hearing was held behind closed doors and Mahaffey did not disclose how individual board members voted.

As sanctions, the board voted to suspend the former Koala editor from campus through the end of spring quarter and prohibited him from officially graduating until fall 2005.

Though he was scheduled to graduate last spring, administrators banned Barton from attending the Muir graduation, forcing him instead to sneak into the Revelle College ceremony for the sake of family members who traveled across the state to attend, Barton said.

In response to the board’s decision, Barton said he has filed an appeal with Muir interim Provost Susan Kirkpatrick and requested administrators to allow an independent tally of judicial board members’ final vote on the case.

“I shall fight the UCSD administration even when fire and water have forgotten enmity, even when lion and lamb have learned to lie together in peace, even when the division of light and dark has been forgotten,” Barton said. “I will fight their injustice even after time itself ceases to be.”