SGA Approves On-Campus Parking Changes

SGA approved changes Thursday to student on-campus parking and decided to add two 20-minute parking spots to both West and East campus for next year.

Students living in Smith, Carolina, the International Pavilion, Honors Pavilion, Hook, Brannock and Barney currently pay $160 a year for on-campus parking. The change would decrease parking passes for these residents by $20.

Students living in Chandler, Colclough, Maynard, Staley, Moffit, West, Virginia and Sloan currently pay $80 a year for on-campus parking. Next year, students in these residents halls will pay $100 for a parking pass.

Currently, residents with $80 passes pay less because they must move their cars during football game days. According to Junior Class President Sam Warren, these students only move their cars five to six times a year, only in the first half of Fall semester.

Elon Campus Safety and Police Chief Chuck Gantos has already approved the changes. Currently, commuter students and residents in the Oaks and Danieley Center will not be affected by the parking legislation.

The legislation passed with a vote of 26-7-0.

Approved 26-7-0

Elon Will Switch Email Provider To Google Mail

The university will transfer student accounts from Microsoft Outlook to Gmail June 1, 2010.

Vice President of Technology Chris Fulkerson announced the decision at Thursday’s Student Government Association meeting.

Students will keep their same username and password. All emails, calendars and other applications will be transferred for students. The only application that will not be transfered is the tasks menu in Microsoft Outlook.

The email accounts will still end in elon.edu.

“We’ll actually save a lot of money,” Fulkerson told students at the SGA meeting. The current system requires more than 30 hard drives and the maintenance of them. “All of that goes away as well as all the labor that is involved in that,” he said.

With the new Gmail accounts, students will be able to keep their elon.edu account for a lifetime. The account can be deactivated after graduation if the user decides to.

The new account will also allow for more collaboration with the use of all Google applications, including Google Docs.

“My first reaction was that it was going to be really bad, but that was before I knew about it,” SGA Executive Vice President Joe Slocum told Phoenix14News.

After Fulkerson’s presentation, Slocum is looking forward to the new email system.

“I bet you we see students being more comfortable using Google Docs for projects and that will be really good,” Slocum said.

As of now, there are no plans to change faculty and staff email accounts to Gmail.

Watch the Entire May 3rd, 2010 Show

Elon Alumni Celebrate Derby Days

David Hodges
In a dimly lit bar in Durham, the energy is anything but dull. Elon alumni from the Triangle area are getting together for the 6th Annual Kentucky Derby Party.

Though the horses at Churchill Downs will be off the track in less than two minutes, the alumni at the Wild Turkey Bar and Lounge are trying to enjoy the time they have together for little bit longer.

With graduation looming, many seniors are worried about slate of different things. Some aren’t sure about jobs, others don’t know where they’ll be living, but all of them are sure to miss the friends they’ve made over the past four years.