The Towerlight, February 6, 1986

tl19860206-000 "The A.11, Senate tables AIDS policy Towson State University's AIDS policy, approved by the President's office in December, was submitted to the University Senate Monday, but failed to gain approval. Instead the report was sent back to committee for review. Objections by the Senate centered on both the content and phrasing of the policy. Some members felt that the first part of the policy, entitled ""Rationale"" and pertaining to the known facts about the disease, should not be included in the document. Others felt that the wording of some of the actual guidelines was ambiguous. ""A lot needs to be cleaned up and clarified"", stated Dr. Richard Vatz. President Hoke Smith agreed with the Senate's consensus, his concern being the ""great deal of ignorance"" about the disease, which leads to fear. The revised policy is scheduled to come before the Senate in the next monthly meeting, to be held in March. In another action, the Towson State applicant character-conduct policy, which precipitated considerable controversy when first introduced in November 1985, was again tabled due to the objections raised by many Senate members concerning the wording and intent of the questions included on the application. The questions are ""vague, ridiculous, and do not belong,"" said Dr. Henry Sanborn. He added, ""If the applicant has academic qualifications there should be no other requirement."" President Smith stated that the issue was one of ""privacy vs. protection."" In its final action, a motion presented by the accounting department that would establish a separate eight week summer day session specifically for that department, was tabled in favor of a substitute motion that creates a task force that will review the structure of the summer sessions as a whole. In his opening remarks, president Hoke Smith stated that the Commission on Excellence will tour the Towson State facilities Feb. 14. ""I will show them the facilities that are conducive to excellence as well as those that are not,- said Smith. Smith also stated that this years' budget ""looks tight."" According to Smith, ""estimates were incorrect on (the cost of) fringe benefits,"" but added that he felt it was ""just a one year problem."" Patrick Campbell Priest News from all over The Senate Subcommittee on Education has approved a measure to require juniors and seniors to maintain a ""C"" average to get federal student aid. The measure is part of the Senate version of the Higher Education Act of 1985, which Probably won't reach full Senate debate until February ... City College of New York put one-third of its students on Academic Probation following last semester. Dean Alan Fiellein says the mass disciplining is part of au effort to raise academic standards at the school. ... A recent campus poll at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, found that 51 percent of the students who responded have never heard of apartheid ... Northwestern University's fraternities and sororities have been dropped by their insurance Company. Northwestern's risk tnanager could not find any firms Willing to sell liability insurance 10 the greek houses. He cited big Insurance claims involving greeks at Texas and University of Oenver as the reason. �College Press Service � note campus � NIMM.111��=1. Inside Serves and volleys John Rock calls for more student support 5 Streaks broken The men's basketball team ends slump 5 The women's basketball team loses after building 3-game win-ning streak 7 She's got rhythm Towson State alumnus Gloria Lang is keeping kids on their toes 8 In defense of poetry H. George Hahn talks about value of studying poetry 13 Clinic offered for foreign faculty A pronunciation class to help aid foreign faculty and teacher's assistants is being offered this semester by the English language center. The purpose of the program is to help non-native faculty become more efficient in the use of the English language. The program is being conducted by Dr. James Cook, English language center director. Classes will meet Tuesday and Thursday 7:00 p.m., in Hawkins Hall beginning February 11. Starting with the fourth week of the program the classes will meet only Tuesday evenings. The classes will utilize video taping as an instructional method. ""We're going to video tape them giving mini-lessons� and them critique them to help them improve,"" said Cook. The instruction will be as individualized as possible since each pupil has different needs according to Cook. ""We have developed a very systematic way to help each student with pronunciation."" The class will consist of about ten students so the individuality can be further emphasized. There will be a second part to the program after the initial ten weeks where students will be monitored over the summer. If the participant desires, he or she be checked once a month for progress. Cook hopes to attract enough students to begin the program this semester ""Right now,"" said Cook, ""we'll settle for five to ten students. We're committed, though, to offering it for late summer if we don't make spring."" The cost of the program is $300.00 per faculty participant and is open to faculty from any institution in the area. Those interested should contact Cook at 321-2552. Loren Harris Campus notes are continued on page 2 TowerliPublished weekly by the students of Towson State University htTowson, Md 21204 Vol. 79 No. 16 February 6, 1986 California Dreamin' While every one else was fighting winter over the semester-break, Lonnie Timmons was in California enjoying ,he sunshine an soaping pictures. See visuals, page 3 for more pictures of sunny California. Minnegan Stadium under repair By Scott Hollenbeck Minnegan Stadium isn't having a good season. The foundation has sunk three inches into the ground, causing breaks and cracks in the concrete. Repairs, costing over $600,000 are be-ing financed by student activity fees and the bookstore. Poor drainage has been blamed as the main cause of shifting and settling of concrete slabs at the west end of the Stadium. The shifting and settling caused cracks in the stadium walls and foundation as wide as two inches. University officials have hired Earth Engineering Sciences and Anchor Construction Corporation to repair Gramm-Rudman wreaks havoc with education By Michele Hart Federal spending on student aid will be cut by about $244 million in order to comply with the Gramm- Rudman-Hollings federal deficit re-duction law. The law mandates that domestic programs except for defense and social security must be reduced in order to balance the budget by 1991. Early predictions by the House Budget Committee had estimated that a 4.6 percent cut could go into effect as early as March 1. Accord-ing to the latest information re-leased by the Office of Management and Budget the reductions will go into effect on March 1, but will only be 4.3 percent this round. The next round of reducing in Oc-tober will bring cuts as high as 30 percent. In the following years, reductions may have to be four to five times larger than this year's in order to balance the federal budget. The Education Department esti-mates that its entire budget will have to be trimmed by $599.2-million. ""We can live with these cuts,"" said Education Secre-tary William J. Bennett, in the January 22, Chronicle of Higher Education, but he added that he hoped automatic spending cuts would not have to be used in coming years. ""It would be far preferable to make these decisions according to some determination of priorities rather than mechanically and across the board,"" said Bennet. Guaranteed Student Loans and Pell Grants will be most affected by the reductions. Origination fees that must be paid by students when receiving a GSL will rise from 5 percent to 5.5 percent. The special allowances that the government gives to banks that make the loans will drop from 3,5 percent interest to 3.1 percent in-terest, thereby convincing some banks to stop making Guaranteed Student Loans or only give them to students and families considered to be ""good"" credit risks. Many minority and low-income students will no longer be considered by banks as good risks for the loans. According to the Chronicle, ""About 2.5 million students�or 67 percent of all students who receive a Guaranteed Student Loan�are ex-pected to be affected by this year's origination fee increase."" Pell Grants will be hit hard by the changes with the Education depart-ment expecting to award 68,000 fewer grants for academic 1986-87 than it would have without the deficit reduction law. The limited funds will force Pell Grants into a ""statutory reduction"" in which students with less need will get smaller amounts of aid. Middle-income students who had typically received grants of only about $200.00 will receive none at all in the coming year. Lower-income students will protected from bearing the brunt of reductions in Pell Grants because of a law that guides the operation of the Pell Grant program. But that may not help many. Ac-cording to the College Press Service, it is estimated that as much as 80 to 90 percent of the students in black colleges receive some federal aid. According to Marilyn Ojodu, Towson State financial aid director, the effects the reductions will have on Towson State are not yet known. ""We don't have any information yet and don't know campus-to-campus who will be hit most."" Ojodu said that forward-funding of campus-based aid with help Towson State deal with the cuts. ""We already have our money for this year."" But Ojodu won't know until May what the University will or will not have for the 1986-87 accademic year. ""If it is 3 or 4 percent nation-wide it will not be as hard to handle. If it (reductions in money given to universities), happens dispropor-tionately, it will be devastating,"" said Ojodu. ""We may do a lot better, or we may do a lot worse depending on who else is in the pool,' Ojodu said. Requests for applications for Pell Grants have raised from the normal 6,000 to 9,000. ""We've had to re-order the forms twice."" But Ojodu does not know if this is due to cir-cumstances such as double mail-ings or concern about the cuts. ""Some people have felt they've (the government) been out scream-ing wolf and it won't happen. But it will this time."" Des;attitiiistiot itlatma Int erionitasoded) Student assistance Plead 1986 Propo�ed budget cut Pell Grants � $3,588,000,00 $154,284,000 Guaranteed Student Loans 3,300,000,000 34,059,000 College Work-Study 592,500,000 25,477,000 Supplemental Grants 412,500,000 17,738.000 the stadium at a cost of $648,439. The companies were chosen through a bid process. ""It's almost finished,"" said William Auth, deputy director of the Physical Plant. He said the construction workers are getting ready to close up the openings in the grounds where new slabs and drainage has been in-serted. The repairs include digging out the old slabs, and pouring new concrete slabs and installing intercept drains. Auth said the University was for-tunate since the slabs only sank about three inches. The concrete slabs settled into the ground because surface and underground water seeped under the original slabs and washed soil onto the running track. This caused the stadium sinkage. However, with the repairs, the stadium will be level. The slabs will rest partially on the ground See STADIUM, page 2 y A own ra n au Repairs to Minnegan Stadium are in the final stages. The stadium began sinking and cracking due to poor drainage. Job market for Spring '86 graduates dimming '1'he job market for spring, 1986 graduates may be dimmer than ex-perts had earlier predicted. In November the College Placement Council had predicted a two percent rise in job offers this spring. But the latest survey of hiring plans of businesses, the Endicott Report of Northwestern University, predicts only a slight rise if any at all. Victor Lindquist, supervisor of the study said that he expects the job market to be flat, ""maybe plus or minus one percent compared to last year."" Lindquist said his report is less optimistic than the CPC report because it polled firms three months later than CPC, and because they did not sample government agencies like CPC does. Also cited in the Endicott report was a decline in job openings for previously ""hot"" majors such as engineering, computer sciences, and chemistry. Engineering majors will suffer a drop of six percent in job of-fers, while computer majors job op-portunities will decline five percent. Chemistry majors will suffer the biggest drop; nine percent fewer openings than last year. ""Students are going to have to commit to a longer job search and be satisfied with fewer choices,"" said Lindquist. But the entire job market outlook is not that bad. According to Lind-quist there is a continuing employer interest in business and marketing degrees. The Endicott Report also found that firms plan to make twelve percent more offers to liberal arts graduates than they did last year. ""Companies think liberal arts majors are more able to deal with desparate thoughts and ideas. Their thinking is more holistic,"" Lind-quist said. Lindquist said American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) recruits liberal arts majors as managers because their perfor-mance is better than holders of any other degree. Much of this can be credited to the move by many liberal arts majors to take a more diversified curriculum, which often includes computer, math and business courses. ""Kids are getting better prepared for jobs,"" said Lind-quist. Social forecaster and author John Naisbett also predicts a rise in employment opportunities for liberal arts graduates. In what he calls the dawn of the Information Age, Naisbett predicts that students will be entitled to ask more questions about the company as labor becomes more scarce. New companies are springing up at a rate unequalled since the 1950's, but the fine balance of labor and capital has shifted significantly since then, Naisbett said. Labor us-ed to be cheap and money dear, he said. Now labor is the most valued resource. ""It's because companies know they need creative minds that can apply technical knowledge. A knowledge of software isn't as valuable as being able to design software programs that revolu-tionize industry."" These companies tend to be less hierarchial than Fortune 500 com-panies and are more nuturing to-wards their employees. ""As we become more high-tech, we are also becoming more high-touch,"" Nais-bett said. Liberal arts majors will be increasingly valuable in a ""high-touch"" society because of their abili-ty to apply knowledge and create ac-cording to Naisbett. College Press Service "