The Towerlight, February 26, 1988

tl19880226-000 "Inside B-ball star All-time career scoring leader, Ruth Ann Holter, does it all page 3 The Tovierlight Published weekly by the students of Towson State University Towson, MD 21204 Index news 1 2 sports 3 4 features & entertainment 5 8 editorial 9 perspectives & letters 9 visuals 2 classifieds 7 8 weekwatcher 10 elen Thomas rates the presidents by Bob Pattison News reporter ""I've just come from the White anse,"" said Helen Thomas, Uni- Press International news re-rter, ""let us pray."" So began Thomas as she opened e Student Government Associa-on' spring speaker series Febru-arY 21. Thomas began working for UPI in 1943 and now covers the White House beat for UPI. In her opening comments on the Presidential hopefuls, Thomas Said ""no candidates are truly Inspired. So let's elect a woman."" Starting with the vice-president, Thomas said,""Bush's involvement In the Iran-Contra [scandal] will haunt him. But then, nobody's per- 4t.""� ""Senator Robert Dole [R-Kan- Bus] voted against sanctions against the apartheid regime [in South Africa],"" she continued, but the candidates will cater to our mutual prejudices."" As a Wayne State University English major, this 67-year-old ative of Detroit joined the UPI taff covering the White House in OP 1961 and has covered the Kennedy, ohnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and rr"" Reagan administrations. Still re-d iorting for UPI, Thomas has a Wealth of information on each r-l.resident and how history will eat them. !Crime ow. ""I think Kennedy will be out-standing. He was inspired. He [negotiated] the first nuclear test ban, created the Peace Corps, set the goal�although he didn't see it�of putting the first men on the moon."" ""Johnson pushed the voting rights act, medicare, federal aid to education, public health, and min-imum wage."" Thomas said Carter was ""great"" in his contibutions to foreign pol-icy, which includes the Panama Canal treaty, SALT II, and Camp David. Absent from these compli-ments was Nixon, and all she had to say of Reagan is ""he turned the country to the right."" ""Reagan is not an intellectual so he doesn't ask for [greater] detail"" concerning matters of foreign and domestic policy. ""he never met a foreign policy he did not lovecrnbr a social program he liked."" ""Anyone running for the presid-ency should be an honest, decent man, and have the highest motiva-tion to serve his fellow man ... the presidency is the greatest honor to come to anyone,"" Thomas said. However, Thomas added that ""if you seek a top government job, make up your mind at age seven and live accordingly."" ""Everyone is on camera in pub-lic office ... and finance, family life, and any skeletons in the closet will be exposed,"" she said. awareness College Press Service In Philadelphia, some 200 angry Urban residents march to protest inadequate police protection. In Buffalo, people meet with their landlord to demand he im- Porve security. In Kalamazoo, Michigan, others Petition for police reassurance that their area be safe from rapists. The people demanding better Protection were, of all things, stu-dents reacting to campus or near eEunpus crimes since September. ""In recent years, there's been a beater awareness of crime issues than in the past,""said Dan Keller, _the director of public safety at the University of Louisville, who helps train campus police departments around the country. ""Students are flore conservative, and they want there anti-crime programs."" ""Students�and the campus com- Inunity in general�are more at- Ilined to things going on around them than in the past,"" said Uni-v, ersity of Georgia Director of Pub-lic Safety Asa Boynton, who also serves as president of the Interna-onal Association of Campus Law tnforcement Administrators. 'They're a more informed public that wants things addressed."" Some are so upset that they want LB make colleges tell prospective students how bad crime is on their eampuses. Largely at the urging of the par-tents of a student murdered at Le-nigh University, the Pennsyl-vania legislature, for one, is consid-ering a bill that would force all Behools in the state to make public their crime rates. , Boynton theorized that, as police uecome more effective in tradi-tionally high crime areas, crimi-nals move to new territories�in-cluding suburbs, rural areas and colleges. ""The situation has gotten worse,"" said Wayne Glasker, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, where scores of students have been robbed and at-tacked in surrounding Philadel-phia neighborhoods in recent years and where the fall, 1987, stabbings of three athletes pro-voked the protest for more police protection. ""Times are bard,"" Glasker fig-ures, ""and people are desperate. College students are easy prey."" ""People are afraid to walk around at night, even if they have a companion,"" said Penn student Sander Gerber. ""It's just not safe."" In Kalamazoo, the violent rape and murder of a Western Michigan University student in November ""shook everybody up,"" WMU stu-dent Don Soper said. At the University of Washing-ton, three attempted sexual as-saults on campus during a two-week period in January have created widespread concern. It's a significant change from the recent past, said State Univer-sity of New York at Buffalo public safety director Lee Griffen, when campuses were viewed as ""Fan-tasy Islands"" that were immune to crime. Thanks to that heritage, more-over, campuses are hard to secure. ""A university is not meant to have a fence around it,"" said Syl-via Canada of Penn's Department of Safety. ""We're an open cam-pus."" ""We haven't closed the campus. We won't throw up barricades,"" said Western Michigan spokes-man Michael J. Matthews. Boynton added that student insis-tence that residents be free to come and go complicates security ef-forts. When asked by a member of the audience why it is that presidents seem to come into office on a good note but go out on a bad note, Thomas said ,""They botched up the job."" With Johnson getting the blame for Vietnam, and Nixon's obstruc-tion of justice in the Watergate affair, Thomas said, ""President Reagan failed to see that the laws of the United States were not up-h�ld."" This, referring to the Iran- Contra affair. Thomas quoted Lt. Col. Oliver North as saying, ""if I had my way, I would tell Congress nothing."" She also quoted Fawn Hall, North's secretary, as saying, ""We have to sometimes rise above the written law."" ""Reagan said , 'no laws were broken and did not point the finger [of blame] at anyone.' ""Most things are forgiven, lies are not,"" Thomas said. Not all the sarcasm was directed to the presidents as Thomas told of the many little 'jabs' the men in the White House have taken at the press. Thomas remembers a dinner thrown by Kennedy for the press where the president said, ""Never have so many intellectuals dined together since Benjamin Franklin dined alone."" Then there was Carter who quoted Jesus Christ when speak-increases A Michigan State student, for example, was attacked in her dorm room January 9 by a man who was signed into the building by other residents. A subsequent investiga-tion conducted by The State News�the MSU student news-paper� revealed that students and housing employees often ignore security procedures. And when students victimize other students�the source of most property crimes, Boynton said, al-though ""most of the major crimes are committed by people not part of the campus""�schools sometimes are reluctant to treat it as a crimi-nal, as opposed to a disciplinary, problem. Attitudes frustrate campus crime prevention, too. ""Many males,"" Boynton said, ""don't consider date rape as rape."" Students, particularly middle class kids from the suburbs, also have a sense of immortality that clouds their judgement and makes them easy marks for criminals, added Canada. Nevertheless, students are try-ing to make campus officials be more aggressive in insuring law and order. Glasker, for one, charges Penn hasn't enough to educate students to minimize their chances of be-coming victims. ""The immediate streets sur-rounding Penn aren't patrolled by university police, and Phila-delphia cops offer just the barest security in those neighborhoods,"" he added. Students at WMU are happier with their administration's efforts, said Soper. The school began addres-sing the issue of campus security well before the tragic murder, instal-ling additional lights around cam-pus and sponsoring escort services and on-campus student safety pat-rols. photo by Laura rt. Wagner Commuters can expect a $3 discount on MTA monthly passes. See story, page 2. ing of the press: ""Lord, forgive them, they know not what they do."" Not to leave Reagan out, Tho-mas said ""there was an incident in Central America where a press helicopter was being shot at by soldiers, and Reagan said, ""There is some good in everyone."" ""In World War II, the govern-ment drafted young men [into the service], and women made it into journalism. UPI hired 10 women, and after the war fired eight,"" she said. ""LBJ [Johnson] and Carter both supported women in government ... [but there are] no women in top policy-making positions [today]. It's shocking,"" she said. During the women's movement in 1975, the Grid Iron Club, a cigar-smoking, all-male press club al-lowed Thomas into its ranks. ""The time was right to take a woman after 95 years. Their con-sciences bothered them,"" she said. ""I don't like being a token woman, but if someone opens the door, you go in."" Thomas added that this would open the door to other women. Thomas said that Mikhail Gor-bachev's visit to Washington made a big step towards opening rela-tions between the US and Russia. ""When Reagan goes to Moscow in May, he's going to compete with the image Gorbachev left here,"" she said. However, while in America, Gor-bachev did ask one thing of Rea-gan, Thomas said. ""Ron, you can have all the missiles you want, just keep my wife out of Blooming-dale's."" Donors needed by Dann Berkowitz Special to The Towerlight The American Red Cross will hold its spring blood drive from March 7 to 10 in the Chesapeake rooms of the University Union. The drive is being organized by the Towson State University per-sonnel department in cooperation with Circle K, the University Resi-dence Government, and various other campus organizations. The Chesapeake region of the see BLOOD, page 2 February 26, 1988 photo by David Hammond ""I don't like being a token woman, but, if someone opens the door, you go in,"" said Helen Thomas, UPI press reporter. OAS travels to DC Staff report A delegation of ten Towson State students will be representing the country of Ecuador in the Ninth Annual Model Organization ofAmeri-can States to be held in Washing-ton DC March 21-25, 1988. The Model is designated to en-hance students' understanding of regional cooperation wi t hin the inter-American system through a simulation of the General Assem-bly of the OAS, according to David Dent, OAS advisor. The OAS, which was founded in 1889, is the world's oldest intergovern-mental organization and consists of 31 Western Hemisphere nations. It was formed to provide a forum to peacefullysettle disputes and encour-age economic and social coopera-tion in the Americas. For the past nine years colleges and universities from around the nation have sent delegations to participate in the Model. in the past Towson State delegations have represented the countries of Columbia, Trinidad, Tobago, Ven-ezuela, Honduras, and the Com-monwealth of the Bahamas, among others. During the five days the Model is in session, the aspiring diplomats will face many perplexing prob-lems, including the Central Ameri-can crisis, human rights, foreign debt and drug trafficking, said Dent. These issues and more will be discussed in five committees that are each tasked with different areas of responsibility. From these committees, resolutions will be formu-lated and proposed in an effort to create solutions to hemispheric prob-lems. This year's delegation has been preparing since early January, begin-ning with a course which intro-duced the model and some of the methods and procedures of the OAS. The sutdents who will be partic-ipating in the simulation are: Susan Taylor (history), Philip Po-korny (politcal science), Tina Long (international studies), Terrence Casey (political science), James Pickett (international studies), David Basoco (political science), Rebecca Renner (Spanish), Beth Toepper (Spanish), Robert Hurd (international studies) and Jerald Franks (business). ""The most challenging part of the simulation is to behave like an Ecuadorean diplomat, expressing his or her views in such a way as to accurately reflect that country's foreign policy,"" said Jerald Franks. WCVT gets additional funds by Andy Stauffer News reporter Towson State University Presi-dent Hoke L. Smith decided Thursday to take a positive look at increasing financial support for WCVT-FM after he met with the provost, the dean of fine arts and communication, and the WCVT faculty staff to discuss the station's budget, said Dr. O. Leslie Bradley, WCVT faulty advisor. Bradley said that the president is interested in raising the funding for WCVT; however, ""no decision was made at the meeting as to whether or not there would be in-creased financial support. There was also no decision made on the type and source of funding."" Increased funding would allow the WCVT staff to hire a full time engineer. Bradley said that a full time engineer could repair equip-ment in a more timely manner whenever needed. The station has two part time engineers, at the present time, who must break from their regular jobs to work at WCVT. ""A funding increase would also allow the station to have a compu-ter interface with the Associated Press for its news department,"" added Bradley. Other stations needs include remote broadcasting equipment used for coverage of live news events and airing live concerts and back up equipment in case the usual equipement fails. WCVT is funded by the Student Government Association at pres-ent. ""There is no break between the SGA and WCVT. The University administration could decide that the funding for the station could remain with the student govern-ment. What is in question only is WCVT's current budget,"" said � Dave Dullivan, WCVT's general manager. The station is to remain student-operated, according to Bradley. ""There is no WJHU plan for WCVT,"" he said, referring to Johns Hopkins Universitys' radio station, which was originally stu-dent- operated but is now a profes-sionally- operated public radio sta-tion with a full time, paid staff. -Bradley also said that WCVT is a valuable resource to all of those students who aspire to be profes-sional broadcasters. WCVT has been broadcasting for 12 years and must renew its Federal Communication Commis-sion license this October before it expires. ""There are no more radio chan-nels in Maryland,"" said S. James English, a mass communication faculty member. ""We are lucky to have a broadcast channel."" English also said that WCVT is competing with other colleges, such as Essex Community College and Loyola College to keep its radio channel. To ensure WCVT's broadcasting license is renewed, Sullivan said that changes and improvements would be made in the station's operation and administration. He urged for continued support in these areas from the staff and stu-dent- operators present at the meeting. Sullivan also said that there will be no format or programming changes at WCVT. He said that the staff would continue to im-prove and refine the program-ming, and that there could be time-slot changes for some programs. Publications urge submissions by Michael Raymond News reporter Tower Echoes and The Grub Street Wit are actively seeking submissions for their upcoming editions, according to the respec-tive editors. Yearbook editor Jennifer Nick-erson cites photographs from fall sports events as Tower Echoes's greatest need and promises that the 1988 book will be on time des-pite the fact that both the 1986 and 1987 editions are yet to be pub-lished. ""Photographs would be great, especially because we missed so much trying to get organized in the fall,"" Nickerson said, referring to the newly recruited, mostly fresh-man staff that is producing the yearbook. ""We also need input from student organizations."" Submissions are welcome at the Tower Echoes office, room 326 in the University Union. Nickerson, a freshman, expects to ship the fin-ished product to this year's gradu-ates during the first week of Sep-tember. The 1987 book should be out by Winter break. Craig Hardesty and Greg Koren, editors of The Grub Street Wit, plan to issue the latest edition of the campus literary magazin May 1. Deadline for submissions is April 1. ""We're asking for all kinds of submissions,"" said Hardesty: ""poetry, prose, essays, reviews, art, and photos, although we can't afford to print the photos until next year."" Noting the small number of recent contributions, Koren added, ""We're afraid that people are in-timidated by exposure or are over-protective of their work. But this is an excellent opportunity to be pub-lished."" Submissions to The Grub Street Wit are welcome at LI 201J. The editors request typed manuscripts with name and telephone number of the author included. "