The Towerlight, January 31, 1985

tl19850131-000 "Senate to reconsider Division I move A controversial proposal to upgrade the University football team to Division I-AA from Di-vision II will be debated at the next University Senate meeting. The Intercollegiate Athletic Committee will ask the Senate to receive its recommendation to mu, football to Division I-AA for the 1987 season. The committee report gives the lack of competitive local opponents in Division II as a major reason for the proposed change. However, the report also recognizes the major obstacle to the change in status is the increased funds necessary to upgrade the team. According to the report, the move depends on whether the Towson State University Athletic Education Foundation (TSUAEF) can raise the necessary grant-in-aid funds before Fall 1987. Last Spring, the committee recommended that the football team be elevated to Division I-AA, while retaining Division I status for other University sports teams, and further requested that student athletic fees be increased $75 over three years to cover higher costs. However, after several long meetings, in which s )me Senate members questioned raising student fees to increase funding loi athletic program, the Senate voted 14-8-2 to keep football at Division II and maintain the status quo for other teams, but made no recommendation concerning fees. President Hoke Smith raised athletic fees by $25 in order, he said, to cover inflation and to give more support to womens and 'minor' sports. The current committee report recommends that along with raising funds for at least fifteen additional grants-in-aid, approximately $35,000 for recruiting, scouting, and coaching would be taken from the athletic budget. This $35,000 ""will not affect other sports programs,"" according to the report. No increase in athletic fees is proposed by the committee. Other items on the Senate February agenda are a motion to approve the changed status of the Dance Program to the Dance Department and to approve the University's general education philosophy as prepared by the task force on General University Requirements (GURs). The Senate meeting will be held Monday, February 4 at 4 p.m. in the University Union, room 309-311. �Terie Wolan The American Red Cross will be holding a one-day blood drive to-day in the University Union Chesapeake Rooms from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Apply soon for Fall financial aid Financial Aid Application Packets for next Fall (1985-1986) are available in the Financial Aid office. Students who have received Ti-tle IV funds, (National Direct student Loan, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, College Work Study or Guaranteed Student Loan) in the 1983-1984 academic year will have an application packet mailed to them. The application deadline for financial aid is March 15 for Fall 1985. Applicants must reapply every year. Students who wish to apply for a Guaranteed Student Loan or a Parent Loan for Undergraduate Student must file a separate ap-plication. Applications for the Maryland program may be ob-tained from the Financial Aid of-fice in March. Campus notes Scholarships, we've got scholarships Six students have been chosen to receive the John J. Leidy scholarship for Spring 1985. The scholarship is awarded on academic merit and financial need. Department chairpersons nominate juniors or seniors who have declared a major and have at least a 3.0 grade point average. This semester's scholarship recipients are: Kathleen Kaiser, nursing major; Marc Kantorow, biology major; Catherine McKesson and Sherry Watkins, chemistry majors; Jocelyn Webb, elementary education major; and Pamela Curtiss, occupational therapy majors. Senior Steven Mister received the Patrick John O'Connell Memorial scholarship as the most promising mass communications major this semester. �University Relations Phillips on top Cindy Phillips becomes bas-ketball's all-time leading scorer page 4. Sunny-side down Glenn Small discusses ""The Silent Crow,"" a distorted view of the chicken holocaust which plagues this country page 12. Computers expanding byte by byte The computer science department, in an effort to keep up with the increased demand for computer space, expanded its computer capacity during the minimester. An increase in the main computer's memory will enable it to handle 60 to 100 percent more students than last semester, said Robert Caret, dean of the college of natural and mathematic sciences. ""This ought to be able to handle our demand for the next three years,"" he said. The department upgraded the computer's removable memory, stored on disk drives, by 1,200 percent. The core memory, which is kept directly in the computer's memory, was increased 100 percent. Caret said the VAX, the main computer for the labs, would be expanded even further within the next two years. With the new computer space, he said, lab hours returned to normal after being extended last semester. The labs had been opened 24 hours a day to give students more available lab time after students complained of long waiting periods to sign on a termlnal. The laboratories have been relocated in preparation for the Stephens Hall renovation into one central location on the bottom level of the Cook library. Caret said the department plans on remaining at Cook for the next three to four years until the renovation is completed. In addition, three full-time staff members have been added to the faculty. �Elisa Burns See NOTES, page 2 Published weekly by the students of Towson State University Vol. 78 No. 14 Towson, Md. 21204 John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band take the Ritchie Coliseum by storm. Wild Winter nights Cafferty talks about cruisin' to success By Joseph LaMastra Rock and Roll will never die. And though occasionally its popularity has waned slightly�or rather, occa-sionally that straightforward, high energy style that so caught the world on fire in the 1950's has gone through various transformations and orchestrations�it seems that, always, it comes back to that sim-ple, hard driving ""shake your pants and dance"" energy that made Chuck Berry and Elvis household words so long ago. And on it goes. Not psychedelia, not the homogenization of disco, ne t synthesizers or romanticism can stand in its way. Not even the cavernous, cement, acoustical abomination called the Ritchie Col-ise um. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band proved that Exfootball player charges racism By Joseph LaMastra last Saturday night when they brought their rock and roll jugger-naught to the University of Mary-land. They damn near tore the house down. The story of John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band is an inter-esting one. For over a decade they worked the clubs and bars of New England and the Jersey shore, call- See CAFFERTY, page 14 Nelson sues for $ 4 mil . By Glenn Small Sheldon Nelson, suspended from the University last semester for al-legedly molesting a female student in her Glen Residence dormitory room, has filed a $4 million lawsuit against the University, two campus administrators, and the woman who charged him. The 17-page suit, filed January 9 in Baltimore County Circuit Court, charges that Nelson, the former co-captain of the football team, was suspended from school because he is black A white male student, the suit alleges. admitted to raping a woman student in her dormitory room last Spring, but was not disci-plined. The suit seeks $1 million in com-pensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages from the de-fendants. The suit also charges that Nel-son's privacy was violated and he was libelled when University ad-ministrators gave information con-cerning the case to reporters which eventually was printed in local and national newspapers. That, Nelson's suit says, violated a confi-dentiality clause found in the school's handbook, the Compass. Nelson is also accusing the woman student who filed the com-plaint against him with malicious prosecution. All criminal charges against the former defensive co-captain were dropped October 8 after a Balti-more County grand jury recom-mended not indicting Nelson. they didn't indict because the woman ' who had filed charges refused to testify. University Relations Director Katie Ryan, who, along with Dorothy Seigel, Student Services Director, is charged in the suit, has declined to comment on the matter. Christine Steiner, assistant at-torney general for Maryland and the University's counsel, said last week she could not comment until her of-fice acts on the suit. Steiner said she has thirty days from the date the suit was filed to respond. She would not say what options were available to her, however. Meanwhile, Nelson's lawyer, H. Patrick Stringer, Jr., refused com-ment and said, when asked if Nelson would talk, ""I hope not."" A university hearing first sus-pended Nelson for five years. Sep-tember 8. That suspension was re-tracted because Nelson was not in-formed in writing that the hearing Tougher standards for computer science majors By Elisa Burns University students who want to major in computer science will have to be screened beginning next Fall before being accepted into the pro-gram. The computer science department, in conjunction with the University, proposed screening prosective ma-jors. The Senate passed the proposal last December by a vote of 14 to 2. ""Without the screening,"" said Neil E. Gallagher, chairperson of the Senate, ""you would not be able to ef-fectively service or provide the educational experience."" According to Robert Caret, dean of the college of natural and mathematic sciences, the screening will have the most effect on freshmen. Many students, he said, declare computer science as their major without first taking several computer classes. These students get into corn-puter courses, become disillusioned by the course work and then eventual-ly drop out of the classes. Unfor-tunately by then, he said, it's too late for other students to take the open class space. With the increased number of ma-jors and the limited faculty, space, and equipment, it was necessary to create the screening process, he said. ""We're not looking to prevent anyone from becoming a major,"" he said. ""What we're doing is attempting to advise people of the appropiate background needed to be successful as a computer science major."" This semster there were approx-imately 1,200 available seats in the lower level computer science courses. Caret said over 1,500 students registered for the courses, which meant 300 students were turned away. With the screening, students who See COMPUTER, page 2 would address both alleged viola-tions of the student code of conduct and the residene code. Then, when he was suspended again for five years and after the grand jury ruling, University Presi-dent Hoke L. Smith allowed Nelson to appeal directly to his office. Smith turned the matter over to the University mediation commit-tee, which recommended a one-year suspension that Smith imposed Oc-tober 26. In reducing Nelson's suspension, Smith accepted Nelson's appeal that the five-year suspension was too severe. But Smith upheld a ju-dicial hearing officer's ruling that Nelson was ""responsible"" for violat-ing the student code of conduct. The Pittsburgh native, who was arrested September 4 after a woman student filed a complaint with cam-pus police. In the alleged incident, the woman told police Nelson appeared at her door in the Glen Residence Complex around 2 a.m. September 2 asking to talk to her. With Nelson in the room and after refusing his sex-ual advances, the woman said she fell asleep. She charged that she awoke as Nelson was performing an oral sex act on her. January 31, 1985 Federal financial aid fight brewing By Jackie Yost Round one of the 1986 budget battles has begun. In an effort to re-duce federal spending, the Reagan administration has suggested a pro-posal which would limit federal aid for students to $4,000 per year and deny Guaranteed Students Loans (GSL) to families with a yearly in-come over $30,000, according to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. ""I think it is going to be a real battle (to get this proposal passed), said Marilyn Ojudu, Director of Financial Aid. Ojudu said the proposal would not be handled ""quietly or without a fight"" from educators. According to the Chronicle arti-cle, the current Guaranteed Student Loan policy is ""based on a family's need, with no absolute ceiling on in-come."" Under this policy. ""families earning more than $30,000 a year can qualify for the loans if they show they cannot afford to pay col-lege costs."" Reagan's proposal regarding Guaranteed Student Loans would not affect families with a yearly in-come below $30,000. However, it would automatically deny loans to families with a yearly income above $30,000, regardless of that family's individual needs. ""It would almost put (students) back into a state like before finan-cial aid was available,"" Ojudu said. The passing of this proposal would affect approximately 25 per-cent of the students who apply for Guaranteed Student Loans, Ojudu said. This proposal may also affect the admittance of new students to the University. The proposal would ""probably have an extreme impact (on present and future students),"" said Linda Collins, Director of Ad-missions. The second part of the proposal limiting federal aid to $4,000 for any student would ""affect anybody living on campus who is receiving aid,"" said Ojudu. Currently, a student can receive up to $7,000 per year in federal aid. The approximate cost for living on campus at this University is $6,000. Therefore, if this proposal is passed, any student relying completely on federal aid to pay for his education would be forced to find alternative means for funding, said Ojudu. Although Collins said the passing of the priposal would have an im-pact on students, she does not be-lieve it will stop students from at-tending a college such as Towson State. ""They (the students) would prob-ably still be able to attend Towson State with the other aid that is available,"" Collins said. However, receiving other aid may be difficult, Collins said. ""It is going to be really tough unless they (the Reagan Administration) make (requirements) more flexible for the other programs, for example Pell Grants,"" Collins said. Collins be-lieves the issues ""go hand and hand."" See AID. page 2 Screening process for admission to the computer science major: Freshmen students must have one of the following: 1. SAT combined score of 1100 or higher 2. Advanced Placement score in Computer Science of 3 or better 3. Satisfactory completion of 1 year of Calculus with a grade of ""C"" or better Community College transfer studenN with an AA degree Must have a major in Computer Science or its equivalent with a 3.00 cumulative average in the major Second bachelor's degree students Those eligible to be admitted to the Second Bachelor's Degree Program (SBDP) under University regulations are eligible for admission to the Computer Science major. Other students must have taken the following courses: Calculus I (1701.273) or its equivalent with a grade of ""C"" or better and completion of either Structured Programming (0701.236) or its equivalent with a grade of ""B"" or better Any student, not admitted according to the above criteria, who hiels that be or she has completed similar criteria through other courses or experiences may petition the depart tor admission. "