The Towerlight, February 8, 1980

tl19800208-000 "VOL. LXXIII No. 15 � friltitverJ PUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS OF TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITY CONTENTS Sports 9 Entertainment 8 Classifieds 7 Features 5 Week Watcher 6 Commentary 11 Newsbriefs 4 February 8, 1980 Well, it's February. That means snow and that means class. Students got their first taste this (spring?) semester Wednesday afternoon. These students seemed little affected as they returned from class; those sliding along in the parking lots were not so unconcerned. Although this snow is gone, there will probably be more. For those of you who are ready for a blizzard, it it's anything like last year, it'll be here soon! TL photo by Cindy Sheesley Senate objects Murray proposes $ 1 .75 fee increase by Karen DiPasquale Milissa Murray, Student Govern-ment Association president, told the SGA Senate Tuesday that the Student Comprehensive fee will be raised from $23.25 to $25, effective next semester. The Senate had not previously known of the fee increase, but Murray said the deadline for submitting the fee increase request to Ron Garrison, associate director for analysis and forecasting, was Tuesday. Murray said the increase is nec-essary mainly because of inflation. ""The cost of labor, internal billing, art services, Servomation, the Towson Center, printing, security, supplies, mailing, telephone calls and other things have risen significantly over the last six months. The fee hasn't been raised in nine years,"" said Murray. Another reason the SGA president sees a need for the $1.75 increase is that the projected enrollment at Towson was 9,700, ""but next year, projected enrollment is a little less than 9,000."" With fewer students and more costs, the difference has to be made up with increased fees. Murray said the fee increase will also cover the cost of maintaining the almost 60 SGA-sponsored organiza-tions. ""The students deserve to have organizations function the way they should,"" she said. Michael Burns, SGA vice president, did not support Murray's request. ""I'm disgusted and frustrated and I feel sorry for the students,"" said Burns. ""The SGA is made up of the students it serves and the students should have the right to decide about the fee raise."" Burns also said, ""The way to stop inflation is to stop spending, not to raise student fees."" Senators Will Neumann, Dennis Tully, David Thomas and Jim Szymanski introduced a bill to the Senate which would halt any future at-tempt by the Senate to increase stu-dent fees. None of the senators sup-porting the bill knew of Murray's re-quest. continued on page 2 Council studies students' rights board by Halaine Silberg The Academic Council voted Mon-clay to review the Students' Rights and Responsibilities Committee, as Well as, the Faculty Self-Discipline, ,t,he Faculty Hearing and the 4rievance committees. The motion, proposed by William relharn, physics professor, called for ,an independent committee of five `acuity members, two students and orle non-voting member appointed by 1?resident Hoke Smith to study the 'our committees in question. � Included in the study will be a Leview of the functions, rights and reseonsibilities of each committee With respect to academic freedom c�neerning both faculty members and Students. The purpose of this review ` VI be to clearly define and separate ge powers of each committee. substitute for his original proposal which would have immediately suspended the students' rights com-mittee. Pelham maintained that not only were the functions of that com-mittee unclearly defined in its docu-ment, but its powers appeared to overlap with those of the other three committees. Furthermore, he said, ""There are no adequate protections for faculty members in this document"" regard-ing the committee's power to institute grade changes for students. Dr. Mary Lu Larsen, chairperson for the Students' Rights and Respon-sibilities Committee, said, `There are clearly people who feel that no corn-mittee like this should be allowed to change grades. People seem to think that grades are infallible, but mistakes can be made."" The purpose of the committee, she hAs they are defined now, said Dr. said, is ""to hear cases brought prin-ratricia Plante, chairperson of the cipally by the students and to deter- Council, students and faculty are not mine if rights have been violated and ,1 re to whom they should complain. responsibilities met by students."" She there is too much overlapping,"" she added that although the principal said. function is to make sure that the stu-dent rights are being protected; it's a two-fold purpose; it's rights and Pelham sought this action as a 4bstitute for his orginal proposal responsibilities."" two-fold purpose; it's rights and responsibilities."" Pelham, however, said that in try-ing to achieve its purpose, the students' rights committee is unclear in its procedures, explanation of due process and channels through which it travels. He also said that ""nobody should go around changing grades"" except for a faculty member or the university's president. ""I don't know whether it is necessary for a review committee to have student input when reviewing grades,"" said Dr. James Hill, English professor. He said he based this judg-ment on the grounds that grades are not assigned originally with student input. Smith contended that although he ""would tend to favor a strictly faculty committee,"" he said justice and pro-tection for all individuals depend on clear-cut internal routes within the University. He said there is a need for a clear definition of academic freedom and route of appeal for all those involved in alleged violations to prevent individuals from seeking court action in university affairs. Pelham said that he would favor a student committee to discipline stu-dent violators who fail their respon-sibilities, a faculty committee to discipline faculty violators and an ad-ministrative committee to oversee the two. He said that for the student commit-tee to judge faculty violators would be giving it ""two functions."" If this had to be done, he said, the procedure would need to be spelled out more clearly than it is now. Currently the Faculty Self- Discipline Committee is a group of tenured and non-tenured faculty members which deals with faculty violations concerning academic freedom. The group also provides for a faculty screening committee to screen charges of alleged violations and determine if a hearing on the charges should be held. Pelham said the Faculty Self- Discipline Committee superseded the Students' Rights and Responsibilities Committees in investigating and try-ing faculty members. Dean Dorothy Siegel, vice president for student services, however, said that without the students' rights com-mittee ""a student's rights would then be addressed only by faculty."" On the other hand, Herbert An-drews, secretary of the Council, said faculty rights should not be addressed by students. He said that if the students' rights committee charges that a grade has been incorrectly awarded then it is finding fault with a faculty member, and is, therefore, wrongly dealing with faculty rights rather than student rights. ""I think the Students' Rights and Responsibilities Committee has done its job all too well and that's why this motion is before us,"" said Steve Horn, student Council member. He said that taking away the committee's right to voice grievances against faculty members would be denying the only channel of equal representation. Dr. Linda Sweeting, associate pro-fessor of chemistry, helped bring the debate concerning the various func-tions of the committees to a close. ""There is, in fact, a great deal of overlap,"" she said, speaking of the functions of the four girevance type committees. ""What we really need is a complete overhaul of the system. It has to be a complete separation system,"" she said. Following this the Council carried the motion for a review of the commit-tees, 20 to one. During the study all committees in question will remain intact and retain their present powers and functions. William Pelham Most students oppose draft, support registration by Michael Bennett ` ,,While all of the Towson State 'o,Iidents polled in a random sampling campus opinion said they are Isturbed by events in the Middle St , few of them are ready to join the 411htary. ,9111Y seven percent of the students they would enlist if the Russians acted Iran and gained control of the atlian oil fields. Eighty-eight per- :t said they would not and five per-lt had no opinion. 'f ixt31-three percent of the students 'vor draft registration and thirty-sTe,, veb percent oppose the draft. uWson State students seem to be venlY divided on the issue of Dr. Pritam Merani Locally women's participation in draft registration. Fifty-one percent favor it and forty-nine percent are against women being required to register for the draft. However, 74 percent said they think our national security is endangered by the Russian presence in Afghanistan. Seventeen percent do not agree and nine percent had no opi-nion. One example of extreme student opinion was provided by a student who said, ""I think it's a religious war. The Russians are atheists. They fear the Moslems in Afghanistan. The Rus-sians want to eliminate religion from the world."" Many students said that our society will be in danger if we do not stop the Russians now. Dr. Pritam Merani, professor and chairman of the political science department, said the idea that the free-world will cease to exist as we know it if the Soviet Union gains con-trol of the Persian Gulf is too simplistic. Merani said most people do not know that the Russians became in-volved in Afghanistan in April 1978 when pro-Soviet forces took control of the government. Merani called the Carter admini-stration's reaction to the Soviet move into Afghanistan haphazard and ill-planned. He wonders why the Presi-dent did not react in 1978. ""Most Pakistani military forces are still on the Indian border. If they were really as concerned as we are, I'm sure they would have made a move by now,"" he said. Merani likens the Russian involve-ment in Afghanistan to the United States' involvement in Vietnam. ""Russia sent troops into Afghanistan for the same reason we sent troops in-to Vietnam. One pro-Russian govern-ment could not maintain control of the country. First they sent aid and ad-visors and when that did not work they sent troops. Once you get caught in that kind of situation, you have no choice but to raise the ante,"" he said. Merani said that while Vietnam and Afghanistan have different land-scapes, the geography of both coun-tries is well suited to guerilla warfare. ""No doubt the Russian generals are saying: 'Just give me a few hundred thousand more troops, and I'll wipe out the rebels.' I'm sure Gen. Westmoreland said the same thing in Vietnam,"" he said. Irvin Weintraub, associate pro-fessor of economics, sees the situation as ""serious but not critical. The issue of Middle Eastern oil concerns our allies, particularly Japan and Ger-many. They depend on oil from that region to a greater extent than we do. If the Russians are after the oil wells, it is a western issue. It should be a joint activity,"" he said. Weintraub said the notion that the western democracies are faced with extinction is absurd. ""If the western democracies depend on oil, cars and wasting gas, then there is something seriously wrong,"" he said. ""The best reaction to the problem would seem to be conservation, however, I'm afraid people would rather fight than conserve,"" Wein-traub said. WASHINGTON D.C. (CPS)--The phone will not let him finish a sentence. This time the call is from a Pennsylvania college student, asking Jack Colhoun, director of the National Anti-Draft Teach-in Project, how to obtain conscientious objector status. ""I don't know how the administra-tion will set C.O. status this time,"" Colhoun said. ""No,"" he continued, ""I think it is going to be even tougher to get into Canada now,"" explaining that the Canadian economy has made irru-ni-gration more difficult than ten years ago. It was two days after President Carter's January 23 proposal to begin military registration of all 18-24-year-old males, and Colhoun quickly col-lected a mountain of call-back slips on his desk. ""A good number of students are freaking out."" Colhoun and other veterans of the anti-draft movement of the Vietnam era, people who still dot their speech with terms like freak out, wasted no time trying to organize the ground-swell of fear and curiosity in the after-math of Carter's proposal. ""I'm from a completely different background than the students now,"" said the 34-year-old Colhoun, a former ROTC officer who fled to Canada in 1970 and edited a magazine for expatriates there. ""It will be interest-ing . . ."" Colhoun acknowledged that many of today's students�the people who would be most directly affected by any new registration and draft system�were too young to recall the Nationally emotions and tactics of the anti-draft movement of a decade ago. ROTC is making a comeback on campus, a phenomenon suggesting that students may not respond to the old anti-military and anti-draft organizing tactics. Recent campus violence against Iranian students, moreover, indicated a certain nationalism on campus that might accept registration this time around. The anti-draft organizers remain optimistic, however. ""I think a lot of In this students who disagreed with the anti- Iranian talk on campus but didn't say anything will speak out now against the draft,"" said Frank Jackalone, na-tional chair of the U.S. Student Association (USSA). Jane Midgely, Washington Peace Center co-director, said, ""Many didn't talk then because of peer pressure."" She said she thinks the current anti-draft effort will be aided by ""the example of Vietnam."" Midgely is the youngest of the continued on page 3 Empty seats Fan apathy�why are there more blue seats than warm bodies at Towson Center basketball games? Page 9 Campus line Follow the trials, tribulations and trends on the nation's other cam-puses. Check out campus Line, You'll find it every week on Page 2. "