The Towerlight, February 26, 1987

tl19870226-000 "19 Inside igers win tourney reshmen Karen Bianchino nd Lori Salindong led the igers to victory in last week-nd's Towson State Univer-ity Invitational Tourna-nt... page 3. The wer?11 Published weekly by the students of Towson State University igh. Towson, MD 21204 Index news sports 3 4 features/entertainment 5, 6 classifieds 2, 7, 8 editorial perspectives 9 weekwatcher 10 80 No. 18 February 26, 1987 ouse bill calls for police pay parity by Robert M. Graham news editor The Towson State University lice, four years after being up-ded from a special police force a full law emorcement force, are seeking a pay raise that would ye it pay parity with forces it ,ned in the upgrading. Fort Authority, Toll Facility, Nat- 1 Resource, and University of tYland Police officers have star-g salaries at least one grade her than the University Police. Legislation before the Maryland te House of Delegates is ad-ssing the issue. The bill, spon-red by Delegate Kevin- Kelly of rnberland asks for pay parity t colleges governed by the Board Trustees for State Universities d Colleges. Those schools in-tutle Bowie, Coppin, Frostburg, lisbury, the University of Balti-ore and Towson State. The Board of Trustees opposes e legislation. The Board of Trustees is op-ed to the bill...and will so tes-y,� Joe Nawrozki, director of Pub-and Government Affairs for the eard of Trustees said. Specifically, the board does not ant to be bound to the University Maryland in any way, since it is 'verned by a different board, the 0,d of Regents. The Board of Trustees feels it �aid determine the salaries [for "". school's officers] rather than 'eg tied to the University of Mary- Lid,"" Nawrozki said. 'Ionday, the Board of Trustees al the University Police officers at they would not be allowed to bear before the House Appro. ations Committee in their uni-tilts. If they are to appear, they '!st be in civilian clothes and can I),be acting as a representative their respective Fraternal Order Police Lodges, according to oily. having the officers appear 'Uniform' Kelly said, ""deflates Presentation."" ,t�elly said he fixed one possible L'etribling block: The bill was to be topic of the Ways and Means 1mittee hearings yesterday, 7 ' he got the bill moved to an Appropriations Committee hear-ing to be held at a later date. Kelly, who said he became in-terested in the pay rates for officers because of discussions with a high school friend and other officers at Frostburg, said, ""The officers are doing the same law enforcement work on those campuses as the Universtiy of Maryland police are doing on their campus."" ""It's a job that has certain haz-ards to it."" He said college campuses are a good place for drugs and other crimes to occur, many unspoken. ""A great deal of things [crimes that occur on some area campuses] are not on the record because of PR concerns,"" Kelly said. ""The campus police officers take the same risks as any other city municipalities officers do,"" he added. Kelly said he disagrees with critics who contend that because the University of Maryland has a larger campus the police work is more difficult or dangerous. He said the Towson State and Frostburg State campus police of-ficers have ""a damn dangerous job."" Don McCulloh, Vice President for Business and Finance at the University, is the University's high-est authority on police matters. He and the University are caught in the middle of the Board of Trustees system, which has been criticized in the December Gover-nor's Report of Excellence in Edu-cation. He said he believes in the system, but that raises are nec-essary. ""We are part of a system and our system has a payscale for all its schools,"" he said. ""It is difficult to make a salary system for all our schools,"" he ad-ded. He said he feels that there is a ""satisfactory pay scale"" for the other schools but not for Towson State. He said the University would support pay raises for its officers. ""At the very least we should be on a pay scale a grade higher than our present scale,"" McCulloh said. He added that he felt that the University Police should be ma-king as much money as the Uni- Payloader falls clown snowy hillside by Robert Pattison News reporter ) One was injured in Monday's C,Bhap when a payloader that was pie.ing used in snow removal efforts ""i'd sideways down a hill into a itinIP of trees as the operator was Learing a walkway near Smith There was ""no way to stop it,"" ifid John ""J"" Bands, the operator the payloader that was re- Sunday's heavy snowfall the students walkways. 1, the incident occurred about 7 .Monday on the lower walkway al' Smith Hall as work crews Jnggled to clear walkways and tt riting lots of the heavy wet snow ',1 at caused the cancellation of day ses at Towson State Univer-and other public and private ""ir,slools on Monday. h 'lands said that as he tried to th'ek up the rear wheels caught on e edge of the walkway and &41.nsed the payloader to start i'iding sideways down hill �vardsa cluster of trees. 418 the payloader slid down hill OMB said he leaped to safety for �s,- ,r of having the machine roll er and trapping him inside. He fr`Ided that ""14 tons [of metal] is a f weight to roll on top of you."" payloader did not over turn [t1i:' ended up resting against the along the side of the hill ""ere it remained until a tow truck ld be summoned to pull it out. NL'EtYinund Long of the Physical Om, whoe responsibility it is to u""idle removal of snow from the (1'4 grounds, called a local (1.""'ng company to pull out the 114'abled payloader. However it did '414 show up until Tuesday because it was pulling out Oa bled cars and trucks that had ('ePtrie struck during morning hour traffic on Monday. !Ye would of had it our last ht but the tow truck had to go two and 18 wheeler out, Long said. The Pikeway Towing Company vehicle arrived Tuesday morning to pull out the payloader as early morning students walked past the vehicle on their way to classes. Usually smaller plows and hand snow blowers are used on the walk-ways to remove snow but the heavy nature of this snow fall made it nessasary to use a more powerful means of snow removal, Long said. Since all available men were involved in clearing the walkways the payloader is used on those areas that are wide enough for it to travel on. Outside contractors are hired to remove snow on Univer-sity parking lots leaving the cam-pus grounds to Long and his main-tenance crew. Crews started clearing the snow about 11 pm Sunday and worked around the clock until 8 pm Mon-day-, Long said. The workers returned Tuesday about 5 am to finish the job and had about 95 percent of the Uni-versity walkways cleared by the time classes started Long said. There is one stretch of walkway that leads from the University Union up towards Smith hall that creates problems since it is shaded by the trees and sunlight cannot penetrate to the surface in order to melt the snow. It also prevents salt from adequtely melting the snow as the temperature will remain low enough to inhibit its effectiveness, Long said. Since as many able bodies are needed during this type of snow fall Long has offered to hire stu-dents to help maintenance crews clear walkways. However he hes not received any response even from those students who have offered to help. ""The students who offered to help never showed up when they promised,"" Long said. versity of Maryland-Baltimore County police officers. ""The Administration would be in support of our officers being paid comparably to many if not all police forces in tbe statc,"" McCulloh said. Officers, he said, must be paid with respect to their skill levels and for their training. But he said the Administration would not be in support of pay raises ""at the risk of putting our sister schools in any danger."" Stephen Murphy, University Po-lice chief, has the University's per-mission to speak on behalf of the University and its officers, ac-cording to McCulloh. Murphy said the matter was at the ""top of the list to be addressed"" when he became Chief in Decem-ber 1984. House Appropriations Commit-tee hearings on the issue should begin sometime soon. If the com-mittee passes the bill, the full House and Senate must approve it and the Governor must sign it into law. If it passes it would become law July 1. Kelly said that the decision by the Board of Trustees will hurt the chances of the bill's passage. ""We'll do the best we can,"" Kelly said. The University Police officers want pay parity with University of Maryland officers. New officers leaving for more money by Robert M. Graham News editor Paying its officers less than most police forces in the Baltimore metropolitan area makes it hard for Towson State University to retain and recruit new officers, Phil Ross, Classification Control Manager for theU niversity said. ""We have difficulty retaining officers after they go through the academy,"" Ross said. The University pays for the training of new officers at one of the local police academies, but often loses the money invested in the officer-training to higher SGA paying, local forces. Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Uni-versity of Maryland pay their officers more. Don McCulloh, vice president of business and finance for the uni-versity calls the problem ""dis-couraging."" He said that theloss of new officers cuts the University Police's manpower. ""Officers are not of use to us for several months while they get training and experience,"" McCulloh said. By the time they are ready to work on the force, he said, ""They may leave. This leaves us consis-tently short on manpower."" He said the manpower problem can make it difficult for the force to secure the campus, and that it contributes to students and faculty questioning the force's effective-ness. Increasing the manpower by luring police officer recruits to Towson State is also difficult because of the pay rates. ""lt is difficult toe us to � Com-paratively recruit,"" Ross said. He said the other forces offer more money and better working con-ditions is much better than what theUniversity can offer. ""We are probably the only school in our segment (the Baltimore area) that has this type of recruit-ment problem,"" he said. Ross said the problem of recruit-ment and retention is worsened because so many other police forces are close by. ""Other schools are more iso. lated,"" Ross said. He said the problem has gotten smaller in the last two years. ""People aren't leaving as much now as they were, but there still is a problem,"" Ross said. Both he and McCulloh said the feel the problem would diminish more if the officers were to makt more money. passes cultural diversity measure by Doug Wood news reporter After a heated debate, a bill which will promote cultural di-versity at Towson State passed in the Student Government Associa-tion Senate last Tuesday. Senate Bill 1986-87 420, with am-mendments, passed in the Senate by a vote of 7-3-1. Said Senator Dale Graham, who sponsored the bill, ""My purpose in this is to have the SGA make a statement that we ourselves are trying to respect cul-tural diversity and we would like our affiliated organizations to re-present cultural diversity. We are not going to punish anyone for not doing it; we're just encouraging them to."" Much of the Senator's antago-nism towards this resolution stems from the fact that it ""has no teeth:"" it is simply a statement about the SGA's position concerning cultu-ral diversity, and has no real effect upon groups which violate it. Senator Crystal Berkebile said, ""I don't see anything wrong with the bill, but I fail to see any impact in this bill. I don't understand why we are passing it."" Senator Mike Burton said, ""I agree that we need to respect the beliefs and ideas of the students on campus, but I don't see where we need to state this in a bill. ""I was against this bill last sem-ester, and to a point I am still against it now. I agree with what it is saying to a point, but what we are saying is that this is what we believe, but we're not going to do anything about it,"" Burton said. Senator Jeff Rinaca, however, brought up the point that the reso-lutin was more of a goodwill ges-ture than an actual rule: ""This bill is not supposed to have teeth, it's simply a statement of what we believe. We're just putting it down on paper."" Many of the Senators do support the measure, despite the fact that it is not binding. ""In my opinion, this is an important bill because we're making a statement [about cultu-ral diversity]. We hope this is what happens, but people can still disre-gard cultural diversity. I think it's good that this SGA is making a statement about what they feel is a good policy regarding cultural di-versity. I don't think in any way we're infringing on groups' rights to do whatever they want anyway. We just feel that it is good to sup-port cultural diversity,' said Sena-tor Vicki Francese. One of the clauses in the bill states, ""Whereas, names of activi-ties of student groups as well as dates and times of these activities may be considered not in the best interest of cultural diversity."" To some senators, this language was too similar to that of an earlier bill concerning cultural diversity which failed to pass the senate. In this earlier bill, phrases such as ""slave auction"" were listed and forbidden, a measure which of-fended some senators. Burton said, ""I really have a problem with [this clause]. I really don't see this as relevant with the facts stating that we would like to understand the student's ideas. I really dont see any need for the bill."" Burton sug-gested that the bill be reworded not to inclide any mention of ""names of activities of student groups."" Senator Joe Little said, ""I am in a fraternity (Sigma Alpha Eps-ilon), and we have slave auctions all the time and we're not using the term ""slave auction in a bad way. These groups are still going to do it, and the SGA is not going to do anything about it. I see no need for this bill.' Rinaca stated that the bill had ""nothing to do with slave auctions"" or any other questiona-ble phrases. Senator Chuck Lee objected to a clause in the bill which states, ""The director of Organizational Ad-vancement shall make this resou-tion known to all affiliated organi-zations and assist them..."" Said Lee, ""I thought [the bill] was a good idea, but I really didn't see any purpose behind it. In the last part, where it says, 'Be It Further Resolved,' I don't see where it has to say 'the Director of Organiza-tional Advancement.' We as a stu-dent government body should not have to place this on the head of one person,[The Director of Organ-izational Advancement], to make our feelings known. We should do that ourselves."" Rinaca, trying to clarify the point, stated, think the purpose of this bill is to let it be known that this is the student government's voice here. This is how we're going to let it be known."" Senator Ginger Mylander ad-ded, ""I think we should let it be known [that we support cultural diversity]. I think it would be nice to have this in writing, just to show the groups that we believe in this. We need to have the Director of Organizational Advancement ex-plain this procedure because groups coming into the SGA really don't know SGA policy. This is important for the SGA. The suggestion was made that the bill be sent back to committee, but I3erkebile said, ""The bill does not need to be sent back to commit-tee. The issue is not the wording, it's whether the body should spend the time passing a bill which some of us already feel doesn't mean' anything. This issue should be in-herent in the SGA anyway."" Another heavily debated issue was the Constitution of the Coali-tion of Black Greek-Lettered Or-ganizations. While the con-stitution was received favorably oversall, requiring only two minto amendments in its structure, many senators were upset with a clause which permitted the frater-nities to engage in suspected haz-ing activities. These activities included walk-ing in formation across compus, dressing in prominent attire, and social probation for members. So-cial probation is a restriction of all activities not relating to academic and athletic concerns. �Another concern of the senate was the automatic SGA affiliation of the Sigma Gamma Rho frater-nity if the constitution passed. The suggestion was also made that the section of the constitution concern-ing the procedures in question be removed. Graham stated, ""It is my under-standing that the coalition is hap-py with this at this time, and they are not willing to make any chan-ges on it. So it would be up to the committee to make changes, and I feel that we, here as a Senate, can make those changes that the com-mittee would make out of here, and I don't see need to put it back on the burner for another week,"" The bill was finally sent back to committee by a..vote of 8-3-0. In other news, the Senate, after suspending rule D-2 and acting as a committee-on-the-whole, gave favorable recommendations to Sen-ate Bill 1986-87 #19, which would give a supplemental budget of $287 to the American Society for Per-sonnel Administration (ASPA) for the purpose of purchasing books, and Senate Bill 1986-87 #18, which would permit bills to stay on the table if the Senate adjourns for more than 30 days. see SGA, page 6 The second annual Battle of the Bands took place last Friday night. See story page 6. "