The Silver Bells: UK’s Naughty and Nice list

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With the holiday spirit creeping upon us (and with this being the last issue of the semester), the Kernel editorial board decided to help out Santa and make a naughty and nice list for the entire campus. Without further adieu, here’s who deserves plenty of presents on Christmas and who deserves a big bag of coal (with a special card from Joe Craft thanking you for your support of nonrenewable energy).
Naughty:

• President Lee Todd has to be at the top of Santa’s naughty list. Todd did some good things this year, but accepting $7 million to build a new basketball dorm (when the old one is better than every other dorm) with an awful generic name is not one of them. What’s next, Toyota Classroom Building?

• The Board of Trustees will probably love a big lump of coal, considering they bent over backward for coal interests just like Todd did. But combine that with a hasty vote and quick boardroom exit to avoid criticisms on the coal lodge vote and a faulty speaking policy that not one single trustee has offered to change (including you, Ryan Smith) and you have a close second in terms of UK’s naughtiest.
• The smoking protesters: While your antics may have been humorous, they certainly aren’t nice. The protest down in the Free Speech Area was something to admire. But waiting for UK Police to leave Patterson Office Tower and then moving from a protest to a circus sideshow in front of POT was not. Maybe next time you’ll realize the method that creates the most fun isn’t the one that solicits the most change.
• Vice President for Campus Services Anthany Beatty surely makes this list. Between flip-flopping about a police chief search, going to the Lexington city council to ban smoking on sidewalks near UK or on UK’s campus because UK is too lazy to enforce its own smoking ban and telling everyone to get use to a commute (including employees), there isn’t much Beatty hasn’t done to sour this campus.
• Mayor Jim Newberry wants to clean up the neighborhoods around campus of all us stinky college students. But in his effort to “clean up,” the real problem has been masked. It’s not the students who are creating the slum housing around campus. It’s the landlords that sneak by on fire code. And once the city cracks down on such bad housing, it’s the students who are forced to the streets while the landlords still operate. That backward thinking lands Newberry on the naughty list.
• The Difference Makers land on this list for a bad self-given name and an even worse name for a dorm. Joe Craft has ties to coal, but the majority of you have no excuse. Being wealthy enough to donate money must mean you don’t have to have creativity in naming buildings.
• UK Athletics Administration has handled the James Paxton situation all wrong. Since when does the Student Code of Conduct not apply to students? It’s hard to say that the policies “simply aren’t applicable” to a student, but UK Athletics made that distinction and earned their spot on the naughty list.

Nice:

• Student Government President Ryan Smith hasn’t proposed any ideas that were already law or sent out offensive e-mails. And he stood his ground and listened to students while voting no to the Wildcat Coal Lodge. He’s proposing another good idea in a split Finals Week. We won’t hold our breath that Smith stays on this list come May, but so far, so good.
• UK Athletics Student Athletes  has put this campus in a frenzy not seen since, well, the other Italian men’s basketball coach in UK’s history roamed the sidelines at Rupp Arena. The men’s basketball team will end the fall semester undefeated. The women’s basketball team is currently following the same trend. The volleyball Cats made it to their first Sweet 16 since 1992, and the football team is going bowling for the fourth straight season. Not to mention, there’s a new kid on campus looking to take over the President Todd’s job: John Wall.  If he has his way, you can book your tickets for Indianapolis.
• The UK Violence, Intervention and Prevention Center.  Through its Green Dot program, the VIP Center has made students aware of domestic violence, sexual abuse and forcible rape issues surrounding this campus.  Those numbers have decreased from 2007 to 2008 and the VIP Center has a large role in these decreases.  Combined with the successfulness of the Green Dot program, the VIP Center received a $2 million grant in October from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the effectiveness of the Green Dot program.
• William T. Young Library, Student Government. At the end of last school year, the Young Library was set to scale back its 24-hour policy but with the help of SG and the Provost, it remained open.  The same debate came up again at the beginning of this year when costs were looking to be saved.  With the aid of student debate, SG and the Provost, the library decided to remain open with the regular hours.  Students can continue to pull all-nighters at the library while getting on Facebook and talking about how they hate studying.