The Towerlight, April 29, 1977

tl19770429-000 "'Detective Story' opens tonight on the Fine Arts Main Stage See page 5 VOL. LXIX, NO. 25 Alr ottietit Tigers vs UMW frr M�D lax lead See page 10 TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITY April 29, 1977 Ruark steaming over budget proposals �SGA Treasurer Erik Perkins and his assistant Lisa Offutt explain Financial Advisory Board recommendations.... Senate overruns $ 180,000 limit by Kathy Pascuzzi After three days of budget hearings, the SGA Senate has tentatively appropriated $120,527 to 16 organizations�more than the $118,000 the Financial Advisory Board recommended that they allocate. And the Senate still has 13 organizations' budgets to hear. Budget requests to the FAB from 29 organizations totaled some $320,000, including $62,000 in fixed costs. The Young Democrats, Student Nurses, Grub Street Wit and Star Trek Club have not been recom-mended for funding. As of press time, the recommendations for zero fundings of the Young Democrats and the Student Nurses had been tentatively accepted. The Grub Street Wit magazine and the Star Trek Club had not yet been heard. The Black Student Union was awarded about 90 per cent of its request, although the FAB recom-mendation was considerably less. Tower Echoes budget was reduc-ed 25 per cent ""across the board."" Echoes editor Steve Converse said at Monday's session of the budget hearings, ""I wish I could defend my budget, but I don't have a breakdown of cuts, so I can't defend anything."" Later, Converse said that he was ""disappointed that there was no debate"" on the FAB recommenda-tion for Echoes budget. Converse said that the price of the yearbook will have to go up as a result of the budget reduction. ""If we continue the practice of giving the book free to seniors, the price of the book to underclassmen will have to go up,"" he said. ""I really think the people who will suffer from this will be the underclassmen who want to buy the book,"" Converse said. He added, ""What really hurt was that Pete Binns didn't biing up any amendments."" Senator Binns rep-resents the yearbook in Senate. Binns replied, ""The 25 per cent was really hard to work with. No one knew where the budget was cut, so we didn't know where to restore the money."" Binns added that the budget was ""zipped through"" to a vote, and he ""didn't have time"" to decide how to amend it. The campus radio station also received a serious budget cutback. Steve Curran, WCVT's general manager, offered to suspend AM Operations, and many of the sports broadcasts. ""Most of the budget"" that remained after these deletions ""was for equipment."" said Curran. Curran said that without some of the unfunded equipment, ""if Something breaks down, we could go off the air for up to a week."" Curran also invited senators to Compare his proposed budget with Other colleges in the area. He said he thought they would find WCVT's budget ""low."" Most Senate allocations agreed almost exactly with FAB recom-mendations. Most of the differences between the two involved minor additions of funds. Because of these additions, and because the FAB recommendations were more than $3,000 over the goal of $180,000, additional reductions will be necessary before the budget reahes its final form next week. Senator Binns said he thinks the FAB ""did a damned good job, and they are to be commended for all the long hours they put in."" Binns said that ""the only time I felt they fell down in their responsibilities was with the Tower Echoes budget."" SGA Treasurer Erik Perkins said he thought the Senate's votes ""were very unrepresentative."" He said he thought Senate ""did one thing with the BSU budget, and the opposite with every other group."" Joe Schumann of Beta Beta Beta noted that after Tuesday's delibera-tions, attendance at the hearings dropped off. Wednesday afternoon, the meeting was held up because some senators left the room, leaving fewer than eight senators to deliberate. When a quorum could not be gathered, Schumann said, ""The big thing I object to with this is that these people were elected for a job they knew they would have to devote a lot of time for, and yet they're shirking their responsibility."" Is this boy practicing to concepts in tomorrow's skateboarding contest? The contest, sponsored by Delta Phi Omega, will be held on Towson Cen-ter lots 13, 14, and 19, beginning at 10;30 a.m. All proceeds will go to the TSU Student Day Care Center. by Steve Haas ""I'm furious with what the Senate has done,"" explained SGA Presi-dent John Ruark shortly after the Senate budget hearings for the SGA executive budget and the Black Student Union proposal. Ruark's budget, which had been slashed from $36,120.85 to $17,222.00 by the Financial Advi-sory Board (FAB), a preliminary inspection group which makes recommendations for the Senate, was improved by over $400. However, it was accomplished by juggling figures and the addition was inconsequential, according to Ruark. ""With the budget that the Senate has voted me, I can't do anything,"" he said. ""I have enough money to take calls from administration and call them back."" Senate, which contains nine blacks in a 14-member group, then voted back more than $7,000 to the Black Student Union budget rec-ommendation of $11,230 given by the FAB. The tentative allotment repre-sents about 90 per cent of the BSU's original request, and made them the most successful organization in the hearings in terms of percentage. It represented a $9,000 increase over the BSU budget of a year ago. ""The Senate has been putting their personal needs ahead of the needs of the students. They have completely forgotten the fact that I am supposed to represent 8,000 students, not just a couple hundred like the organizations,"" Ruark said. ""I feel so powerless."" Richard Andrews, ex-parliamen-tarian for Senate, said that Ruark, in fact, has no power to reconcile the apparent disagreements over Sen-ate's allotment of student funds. He described the budget hearings as an ""anomaly."" The proposals are not actual bills, therefore, Ruark cannot veto them. The Senate decision on budget proceedings are final. ""They have allocated more toward the BSU than the executive branch of the SGA,"" Ruark noted. ""And the BSU represents only 800 students!"" 'I knew this was gonna' happen. I dreaded this day for a long time. I knew there would be a problem when so many blacks were voted into the Senate after the problems we had with BSU last year."" ""I tried to be fair; to compromise. I tried to make everybody happy, but I went overboard,"" Ruark said. ""The whole thing [hearing] was just a big circus."" The cuts in his budget were mainly the fault of FAB, but Senate upheld many of them. Ruark's student directory was eliminated, even after a motion by Charles Frazer that it should be reinstated if a due date was met. The Faculty Grants, a $5,500 request erased by -FAB, were finally given $1,300 after votes for $3,000 and $1,500 were turned down because ""the Faculty Grants are not directly for students,"" an argument submitted by several black Sena-tors. Later, Senate passed funds for the BSU to take underprivileged black children from East Towson to Washington, D.C. and to give a dinner for parents. The Parents' Dinner is open to parents of all students, but traditionally it has been a primarily black affair. SGA Vice President Debbie Leslie protested, ""They didn't feel the need to appropriate $3,000 for faculty grants, but they appropriate money for kids to go to D.C. and for parents to go to dinner. Maybe that is more directly related to students."" The Senators also reinstated money to workshops, a festival, an art festival and librarians on votes that went close to racial lines. BSU President Erik Hanks said that ""during the voting process, it was not merely the black Senators"" who voted for the amendments to the BSU budget. But Ruark stated, ""I'm not gonna' let the blacks take over this campus. I'll do everything in my power to make sure the white students don't get ripped off."" ""If the blacks could only realize that they're turning off the whites on this campus . . ."" he said. Hanks later said, ""It is not my intention to try and make this a black school and gun down all of the white students."" Ruark was angered by the close attention paid to parts of the SGA executive budget and eight other budgets while so many additions were made to the BSU budget. The newsletter that was the basis of his campaign was axed. He also lost the $150 allotted for his contingency fund (personal inciden-tal expenses) and various Senate workshop funds. The few additions in the executive budget included the Faculty Grant amendment, for a $1,300 total described by Leslie as ""hardly worth the effort,"" and $500 more for Towerlight advertising to offset the newsletter setback. Ruark, assessing the situation where the BSU could stack the Senate for the budget hearing, said, ""I'm hoping that some white students on this campus will finally get off their butts and do something."" SGA Treasurer Erik Perkins noted that a clause in the BSU constitution says that a black full-time student at Towson State is automatically a member of the BSU. ""We've been making 50 per cent concessions to 10 per cent of the student population,"" Ruark said. 'We're gonna' reach a turning point in race relations on this campus real soon."" . . . as Senators revise organizational budget requests during Monday's session of the Senate budget hearings. TL photos by Arnie Budget cuts cause WCVT to lose AM by Bill Stetka WCVT will cease its AM operation before the next school year, and General Manager Steve Curran says it will be difficult for the station to run its FM operation smoothly next year as well. ""We won't be able to funciton as both an FM and an AM station on our budget,"" Curran complained, after seeing his budget request cut by 55 per cent this week. Senate tentatively approved a budget of $24,354.49 for WCVT, the same figure as recommended by the Financial Advisory Board. WCVT's budget request was $53,886.23. Curran said that much equipment and another studio were needed for the FM station to be efficient next year. ""If we don't get this equipment, any breakdown could cause us to sign off for a week or more,"" he said, adding, ""We've signed off maybe a dozen times because of equipment problems."" Although Curran said, ""It really hasn't been decided yet,"" it appears possible that the station may have to end its broadcast of Towson State football, basketball and lacrosse games next year, also. Before the Senate passed judg-ment on the WCVT budget Tuesday afternoon, Curran said, ""If we get $24,000 we'll be in serious trouble on the FM."" Civil rights champion Abernathy comments on need for reform by Steve Haas ""Forty-eight times I have been in jail for standing up for the God-given rights of all Americans; but here I stand at Towson State University, and on high ground,"" proclaimed Reverend Ralph Aber-nathy, the speaker in Stephens Hall last Friday in the final segment of this year's SGA Speakers' Series. Abernathy was a champion of the equal rights protests and marches of the Fifties and Sixties. And, as he pointed to his right arm, he said, ""I was right there when they shot Martin Luther King; he fell into this arm. ""Racism must die in America if democracy is to- live,"" he said, in tones that, at times, resembled a sermon-type delivery. ""There is a call for equal rights in our country. There is no longer a begging, but a demanding. And they're saying, 'If there can't be liberty and justice for all, then there will be for none.' "" ""Fifteen years ago, a black couldn't enter a rest room in downtown Atlanta. We've come a long, long way; but we still have a long way to go,"" he said. ""The job market as we view it today is shamefully embarrassing. This country has neglected the poor and downtrodden. We [minorities] are still the last to be hired and the first to be fired,"" Abernathy asserted. He told about his first visit to Atlanta from his home in Montgom-ery, Alabama in 1961. When he reached the outer suburbs, he thought he was in Atlanta and was amazed at the beauty of the city. A gas station attendant informed him that he was not yet in the city. ""President Carter put a few people from the black community in his Cabinet. But we still are on the first floor, we are not represented on the top floor . . in the board rooms. We're still in the suburbs,"" he said. He decried the present employ-ment situation, stating, ""While we have allowed man to stand on the moon, we have not put people on Ralph Abernathy their own two feet. What I'm saying is . . . we don't have time to pass out moon rocks. This country should have been in Alabama, Mississippi, Atlanta, Montgomery. This country can't put its people back to work. ""Young people are graduating and roaming the streets looking for jobs,"" Abernathy said. ""My daugh-ter graduated last May and there were no jobs. She ended up in graduate school. In two years, if we're not careful, there still may be no jobs when she gets out. ""What good is a B.A. degree, a B.S. degree, a Ph.D. degree, if you can't get a J.O.B. degree?"" he asked. Abernathy also called for a national health plan, citing the one in Norway. ""It's cheaper to die in America than it is to get sick. Call [social medicine] communism, so-cialism, or any 'ism' you want to, but I like it,"" he said. He added, ""There is no disease in our country that can kill black Americans without killing white Americans."" He said that, until the various European nationalities re-turn to their homelands, blacks were still entitled to all the rights granted to white ""Americans."" He said that racism is the worst disease in America today. ""We may not have come to America on the same ship, but I'll be damned if we aren't sinking on the same boat,"" he concluded. He said that it would take at least $33,000 to keep the FM station operating efficiently. Curran said that the station would not be in immediate danger, but by the end of the next fiscal year WCVT would be suffering. ""I didn't expect to get this little. Last year we got $28,000,"" he said. ""But I understand realistically that Senate doesn't have the budget for everybody."" Curran said the key to the station's being able to work on both the FM and the AM bands was getting another studio. He had asked for an additional studio, but when he learned that no space was available, he was forced to make a decision. ""Our priority is with the FM,"" Curran said. Since the station is committed to improving its FM operation, which reaches the Baltimore community (the AM station was heard only on campus), Curran proposed to the Financial Advisory Board that cuts be made in the areas of sports and the AM. He said that the AM studio would then be converted into the additional FM studio that the station needs, and the money saved would go toward the necessary FM equipment. Curran said the station is making a concerted effort to get grants from companies but the ""only way to get outside funding is to sound good. ""To do that, you need the proper equipment,"" he said, noting that WCVT needs tuning equipment to improve its FM air signal. When Morgan State's WEAA-FM went on the air, it cut heavily into WCVT's FM signal. Without impr�ving that signal, the station would have little chance of getting grants from outside the University, Curran said. Presently, the station is borrow-ing or leasing much of the equipment that it needs to do its every-day functions. Since the FM station is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission as ""non-commercial,"" WCVT cannot make any money through advertis-ing revenue. While Curran said he doesn't want to cut out the sports broadcasts, he's afraid the $24,354.49 budget won't allow for them. ""There's just too much equipment we need, and $24,000 isn't going to cover it,"" he said. Willie Frank, sports director for WCVT, was almost apologetic in his response to questions about the sports cut. ""My hands are tied,"" he said. ""It's come down to getting an overall better sound or having the sports. ""I think jazz and sports are the two biggest things the station has to offer,"" Frank added. ""I just hope something can be worked out. Several persons have approached the University in the past year with the prospects of acquiring the rights to broadcast both Towson football and basketball games, and it has been learned that the University would attempt to sell the games to a (LTnbtrrocaidac sstt attihenm.f WC""""uld "