The Towerlight, February 5, 1987

tl19870205-000 "Inside Tiger Comeback The men's b-ball team used a second-half rally to defeat Hofstra page 3�. The Tower.ight Published weekly by the students of Towson State University Towson. MD 21204 Index news 1 sports 2, 3 features & entertainment 4 5 editorial 6 perspectives 6 classifieds 7 weekwatcher 8 Vol. 80 No. 15 February 5, 1987i Campus violence discussed at conference Siegel sees rise in acts of violence 150 people discuss violence Three years ago, Dorothy Siegel, Towson State University vice President for student services, thought there was something Mt-ferent� perhaps more violent� about the campus crime people were talking about. After a vain search for statistics about the issue, Siegel, eventually organized the first National Con-ference on Campus Violence, Which she hosted at Towson two Weeks ago. At the conference, about 150 Police officers, student services and residence hall personnel, and Judicial officers from nearly 50 col-leges submitted reports that, while not kully tabulated yet, indicate the Campus crime rate nationwide has been falling. But the number of violent crimes is rising. ""What we found was only about one-third of campuses reported an increase of crime, but the violent nature of those crimes is increas-ing,"" Siegel said. ""Crimes are becoming more dangerous."" The preliminary figures also indicate alcohol consumption is involved an increasing number of Campus assaults. More than 50 percent of the total 350 campuses Siegel has polled also say they now regularly let Civil courts try students involved in on-campus crimes. Ten years ago, Siegel noted, most cases were arbitrated by on-campus judicial boards. Not many people had realized campuses were becoming more Violent until they met at the con-ference to swap impressions, Sie-gel added. ""Violence exists,"" Siegel as-serted. ""A small but increasing _number of people know about it. .;Eunpus residence directors actu-ally see more of the violent crimes than police officers."" Consequently, ""university ad-alinistrators are at sea about it,"" said Dr. Michael Smith, criminal ilistice professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. ""They don't know how to respond."" An improper response, though, Nin injure a school's reputation Vice President of Student Services Dorothy Siegel hosted the first National Conference on Campus Violence in early January. and lead to legal complications if a victim of violent crime on campus decides to sue the college, he added. At Ohio State last week, for instance, a woman who was raped and assaulted in a campus dorm sued the school for $250,000 in damages. The suit charges OSU officials in negligence in protect-ing the woman, breach of a hous-ing contract by implying the dorm was safe and habitable, and mis-representation of campus safety and security. In recent years, in fact, courts have found Washington State, Denver, Northwestern College, Iowa, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, among others, liable for accidents and vio-lent crimes on their campuses. ""If a campus has a history oi criminal events or a campus is known to be dangerous, it's a situation of 'foreseeable crime,"" said Smith, a key speaker at the Towson State conference. ""Colleges have a duty to warn people about such situations even if the administration doesn't want to admit it. The courts say if you don't make such warnings, you're breaching your duty to students and you're liable."" If, for example, college bro-chures depict a campus as a quiet, idyllic naven, but the campus really is a dangerous place, a stu-dent victim of violence on that campus can claim the school was derelict in its duty to warn stu-dents of danger. ""Courts think universities are important and that they should be safe places,"" Smith said. ""When colleges discipline students or faculty involved in criminal be-havior, the courts uphold the col-leges almost unanimously."" The University of South Carol-ina, for example, was named in a suit in which a student claims he was hit and his eardrum damaged during a 1985 Omega Psi Phi initi-ation. The student argued both USC and the fraternity were re-sponsible, despite the school's strong anti-hazing policy. But earlier in January, a circuit judge dropped USC from the case, saying the college is not liable for the unofficial acts of students in situations not tinder its control. While the courts usually support colleges in incidents where definite school policies have been violated, ""they seldom uphold the college in 'foreseeable' suits where a student has been injured,"" Smith said. Smith said the Towson State conference served as a sounding board for college administrators who felt isolated by their campus violence problems, and the meet-ing helped identify new strategies for security, night class schedul-ing, and police procedures. College Press Serowe Students to have more ticket choices by Robert M. Graham News Editor In an effort to provide ""intimoved service to the University commun- 3' and the public at-large,"" the owson Center at Towson State University recently installed two Ticket Center terminals. The Ticket Center terminals, Which replace the Ticketron ter-alinals, will allow ""access to more tenues locally,"" said Jay McCabe, rowson Center director. Ralph Beyer, director of Man-agement Services for Ticket Cen-ter, said the company allows access to over 2,000 Mid-Atlantic events daily. Moreover, the corn- Pany handles over 8 million tickets annually, making in the largest ticket service in the region. ""We re happy to be back and ser-vicsing the Towson State area again,"" Beyer said. Ticket Center offered its services through Tow-son State from 1981-84. McCabe said that the Ticketron service did not offer as many choi-ces to students as Ticket Center does. Ticket Center allows students to purchase tickets to many regional events, including all Baltimore Arena (formerly the Baltimore Civic Center), Capital Center, Warner Theatre, Pier 6 Pavilion, Baltimore Oriole games, and Towson State University events. ""We made the switch as a con- Forbes wins national Wadsworth speech prize by Doug Wood News reporter Jennifer Forbes, a sophomore at Towson State University, received a. national speech prize last month in an annual contest sponsored by the Wadsworth Publishing Com- Pany. According to Dr. Richard Vatz, Who sponsored Forbes' entry, the contest is open to any student who delivers an exceptional speech in a 8Peech communication class. ""Any university professor may enter a student into the contest,"" aid Vatz. The student must submit a tape cording of the speech as well as a typed transcript. All submissions are evaluated by a panel of 4ationally-known speech experts. Two national prizes of $100 each, as well as four regional prizes of $50 each. are offered. !`I was completely shocked,"" said Forbes, ""when I found out that I had won. The judging was held in November, and I didn't find otit the results until January."" Forbes' speech addressed the issue of recidivism: the percentage of released prisoners who return to prison. ""Dr. Vatz showed me the contest information, and I made a tape of the speech and typed it up."" Forbes won both regional and national prizes. ""Jennifer was the best student I have had in ten years,"" said Vatz. ""I was not shocked that she won the awards."" Forbes, who has not yet decided her major, is uncertain as to whether her future plans will include public speaking. venience to the Towson State com-munity, including the students, faculty, and staff,"" McCabe said. The new equipment will also speed up sales. ""It is quicker to print up tickets as they are sold with Ticket Center,"" McCabe said. The Towson Center ticket office is open from 10 am to 5 pm Monday through Saturday. by Robert M. Graham & Lisa M. Quill News editor & editor A lot of preparation, including the commissioning of several surveys to document the problem of campus violence, was necessary before the first National Conference on Campus Violence could take place in early January at Towson State University. After all the preparation was complete, about 150 people from over 40 colleges and universities from all over the United States were represented at the two-day conference that tried to determine what campus violence is and who it affects. ""You can't do away with the problem if you don't know what it is,"" host Dorothy Siegel, vice president for student services at Towson State, said. ""There is an assumption�everyone talks about it I campus violence], but no one writes about it,"" Siegel said. ""The idea was to document that Campus crime exists."" Although in recent years the discussions about campus violence have focused on women, Siegel wanted her conference to weigh equally on men and women, violence in general. Towson State decided to document the existence of general campus violence by holding a conference to investigate the problem. First, the University decided to commission a national survey determining the extent of campus crime, said Siegel. Siegel said that when she first began at the University ""all things criminal [that occurred on campus] were handled in the courts."" And, though the courts were taking actions, the University also had to do something to protect its students, so judicial responses to campus violence became an internal action as well. Siegel recalled a case, which occurred at another university, where a student with a live hand grenade was suspended. Had the courts not jailed the person, he legally could have remained on campus as a student, still a threat to others on the campus, except that the university also took action, according to Siegel. With no documentation of campus violence or how it should most effectively be dealt with, Siegel took the investigation of campus violence on as ""a professional challenge."" That challenge led to the idea of a national con-ference, but first documentation of the existence of campus crime through the surveys had to come. An informal survey was conducted two years ago in the University Union to determine a ""picture of perceived violence by students,"" Siegel said. The survey showed that students do have first hand knowledge of crimes being committed on campus, and moreover, many students are victims of campus crimes. Next, a regional survey questionaire was sent to members of the National Association of Student Administrators. Questio,naires were sent to five de-partments at each institution: the Judicial Affairs department, the vice president for student services, the residence' department, the police department, and the student leadership department. Siegel said the results of the regional survey showed that ""the residence department [at each institution surveyed] knows the most of what is going with campus crime."" The regional survey was followed by a national survey, sent to 1,100 colleges, which received 340 responses saying that violence occurs everywhere, 'Siegel said. Interestingly, outside of the residence department, there was no perceived increase in campus violence. ""There was a perceived increase in kind, but not in numbers of campus violent acts,"" Siegel said. ""There is a perception that campus crimes are becoming more violent in nature. ""As behavior has changed, the nature of the acts has also changed,"" she added. The findings of the national survey are still being analyzed, but will be presented to a group in Chicago in March, according to Siegel. Already, the discussion at the conference was documented in an Evening Sun op-ed page article called ""Violence In the Ivy,"" Jan. 6, co-authored by Siegel and Jan Sherrill,assistant to the vice president for student services. Of the surveys and conference, Siegel said, ""You can't solve the problem in society if you can't solve it on the campus. Senators GPA's rise over Fall 1986 by Doug Wood Neleti reporter At Tuesday's Towson State Uni-versity Student Government Asso-ciation Hoffman said the Schaef-fer Commission on Higher Edu-cation has suggested that Towson State University form its won board for higher education research. The University of Maryland, which currently maintains its own research board, is planning to expand its research role. Towson State is involved in a research board with several other state colleges, but does not have its own board. . ""We may get left out of some things if we do not form our own board,"" Hoffman said. Additionally, two consitutions were introduced: that of the Co-alition of Black Greek-Lettered Organizations, and a revision of the Young Democrat's Con-stitution. Also, Senate Bill 1986-87 #15 was introduced, calling for supple-mental budget allocation of $378.10 to the Towson State Honor Society for the purpose of holding their Omicron Delta Kappa Char-tering Ceremony. In other news, President Melanie Goldsmith reported that some activities previously handled by the Office of Events and Con-ference Services would now be handled by the University Union staff. Also, student groups will no longer have to obtain liquor licenses for activities: the Uni-versity Union staff will handle licensing. ""The main purpose of the change is to simplify procedures,"" stated Goldsmith. ""Before student groups had to run here and there to get licenses. Now the procedure is centralized between the SGA and the Union."" Goldsmith also said that the grade point averages of SGA Senators had increased during their terms of office. for male Senators, average GPA's rose from 2.693 in Fall 1985 to 2.821 in Fall 1986. For female Senators, GPA's rose from 2.914 in Fall 1985 to 2.946 in Fall 1986. The cumulative average GPA for both men and women in the Senate rose from 2.797 in Fall 1985 to 2.879 in Fall 1986. Sen. Jeff Rinaca reported that the teacher evaluation surverys were being analyzed and that two of the six planned college visi- Faculty receive new appointments by Robert M. Graham News editor Several faculty members at Towson State University recently received new appointments, in-cluding University President Dr. Hoke L. Smith. Smith was named chair of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) at the association's 26th annual meeting in November. Smith has been an active member of AASCU and is on the association's national commission to study the role and future of state colleges and universities. Also, Smith is a member of the AASCU board of directors and is the author of several of the association's pol-icy statements. He will serve as chair for one year. Vice President of Business and Finance Donald McCulloh re-cently announced that David Garafola will be the new associate vice president for auxiliary ser-vices. Garafola fills the position vacated by Terrence Smith last year. Also, Dean Annette Chappell has announced that H. George Hahn, an English professor will be the new director of Honors Pro-grams. Hahn replaces R. Guy Sedlack, a sociology and anthropology pro-fessor, who resigned after six years at the post. Sedlack will still remain as an Honors Collegeinstructor. He will also conduct research on the Honors population at Towson State, nnoto by Ann mason University President Hoke Smith recently was appointed as president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. tations had been completed. ""I have found that students need to be educated about the purpose of teacher evaluations; they know nothing about them,"" stated Rinaca. Rinaca suggested that dis-tributing pamplets explaining the purpose of the evaluations might be helpful. Finally, Vice President Chris Krivos said that he would hold an Open House Friday from 12-3 pm in room 314 of the University Union concerning the SGA speaker series. ""We have come up with a list of diversified speakers,"" said Krivos. ""Students can rank the speakers according to their preference. They will choose the speakers."" Anyone wishing to examine the list of possible speakers or more infor-mation should plan to attend the Open House. Senate tables motion by Robert M. Graham News editor The Towson State University Senate voted Monday to table a motion that would revise the pro-cedures for promoting to professor or associate professor exceptional faculty members who do not possess a doctorate degree. Also, at the fifth regular meeting of the University Senate, the an-nual report of Intercollegiate Athletic Committee (IAC) was accepted. The revision of the promotion requirements developed by the College/School Promotion and Tenure Chairs for the University and the University Promotion and Tenure Committee in 1985 and revised over the last two years, was tabled due to some inexact wording in parts of the requirements. At the Dec. 15 continuance of the fourth regular meeting of the Uni-versity Senate, held on Dec. 11, a motion to amend the guidelines for the Academic Calendar to allow the inclusion of a one-day mid-semester break in the Fall Semes-ter was defeated. A substitute motion calling for a two-day Fall Semester break and the addition of a sixth exami-nation day was also defeated. The Calendar Committee was asked to. consider possibilites that might allow for a two-day Fall break and also allow a six-day examination period. A motion to revise the makeup of the ad hoc Smoking Committee by making the Residence Staff repre-sentative a voting member also was passed. "