The Towerlight, November 20, 1981

tl19811120-000 "vol. 75 No. 12 owerlig t PUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS OF TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITY TOWSON, MARYLAND 21204 The savage lives within himself while social man lives constantly outside himself and only knows how to live in the opinion of others. Rousseau November 20, 1981 Presidential press conference Local college presidents, Dr. Calvin Burnett, Coppin State College; John Dorsey, University of Maryland Baltimore County; President Hoke Smith; Fr. Joseph Sellinger, Loyola College; and Dr. Andrew Billingsley, Morgan State University, spoke on the effects of finan-cial aid cuts on their students at a press conterence this week. TL photo by Colleen Kaden Senate study checks campus security By James B. Russ and Quincey R. Johnson Susan Crago, SGA senator, an-nounced Tuesday that the Senate will initiate a study of campus security. The Senate will conduct two ""Night Walks"" in order to find areas that are a security risk to Members of the Towson State com-munity. The ""Night Walks"" will give students, faculty and ad- Ininistrators the opportunity to pin- Point dangerous areas on campus and discuss � the problem with Senate members, Crago said. The first walk scheduled for Tues-day, will be for students. The second Jan Sherrill walk scheduled for December 1, will be for faculty and administration. ""We will show the faculty and ad-ministration the trouble areas found on the first walk, Crago said. ""In the past, the administration has been cooperative in helping us better the University,"" said Beth Joseph, SGA senator. Joseph said, ""When you talk something up, things get done."" Brad Howatt, SGA senator, said it is not the responsibility of the Senate to do anything about the problem financially; however, it is a problem to be discussed and in-vestigated. Howatt said, ""If the state does not pay for necessary im-provements, students fees would have to be raised. ""It would ludicrous, Howatt said, to use stu-dent fees for improving security; the fees are not designated for it."" To fund projects of that nature, the SGA would have to raise money, Howatt said. ""It would turn SGA into a money-making group. It has its benifeits, but it is not our pur-pose to subsidize the state."" Sandra Bryan, SGA senator, said the SGA's capacity in dealing with the crime problem is mainly an in-vestigory one. There has been a 14 percent in-crease in campus crime in the first ten months of 1981, compared to the first ten months in 1980, said Gene Dawson, director of Universi-ty Police. In the first ten months of 1981, 794 crimes were reported to the University Police; 684 were reported this time in 1980, Dawson said. There was a 69 percent rise in assaults said Dawson. Nine assaults were reported in all of 1980, com-pared to 29 reported in the first ten month of 1981, he said. Jan Sherrill, assistant vice presi-dent of student services, said there has been a ""percipitous increase"" in the amount of violent acts on cam-pus. ""Violent acts on campus are a sign of the times."" Joseph said, ""I live in Scarbrough Hall and I see that people make the dorm secure if they want. The peo-ple must make it safe."" ""Students must learn to lock doors at all times and make the dorm area more secure, she added. Dawson said, that using ""corn-mon sense"" is the best way to avoid becoming a victim of crime. ""Not all crimes are perpetuated against students, he said. ""It is a question of freedom verses security, Joseph said. Students want to be free to come and go as they please. Tighter security would require some restrictions, she said. Keith Hark, SGA president said, he supports the ""unpopular view"" that there should be limited visita-tion in the dorms. University reaches desegregation goal by Bill Kenney The desegregation plan implemented by Towson State and the State Board of Higher Education has surpassed its 15 percent freshman black minority recruitment, goal set for 1985. ""Fall 1981 had a total black freshman enrollment of 15.3 percent,"" said Elaine Solez, special assistant to the president and affirmative action officer. ""The desegregation plan is primarily targeted at black enrollment and retention because of previous black/white legal segregation, while other minorities were never legally segregated from whites in the Maryland school system,"" Solex said. ""Additionally, the population of minorities other than blacks is not substantial enough to implement the same guidelines for [them],"" she added. Solez said another goal implemented in the, desegregation plan is the retention of black students. The SHBE proposed that by 1985 the University should either attain equal retention rates for black and white students, or improve by 10 percent the retention rate of blacks she said, ""The gap has already decreased significantly since last year."" While the decreasing quality of students as black enrollment rises is sometimes a question, we find the opposite true for this fall's freshman class. ""As the percentage of black freshmen increased, and total freshman enrollment declined, average SAT scores in-creased,"" she said. ""This is due in part to recruitment procedures and admission qualifications of the university"" she said, adding, another important point is, we have not had to turn away any white applicants to accept more black applicants, which is sometimes a problem for other school."" ""Though prejudice does not appear to be a problem, social segregation would best describe the typical classroom situation,"" said Eric Thompson, BSU mem-ber and SGA senator. ""We need role models."" ""The low retention rate of black students at the University is due in part to the lack of available help black student can identify with. Black advisors and in-structors are almost non-existent in certain depart-ments, which makes it very difficult for black students to feel they can be helped as effectively"" as if there were black advisors and instructors to turn to for help, he said. Thompson said it is very difficult for a black student in a class of all white peers to feel he or she can turn to classmates for help, mostly because of socioethnic bar-riers. There needs to be more of an emphasis placed on recruitment of women and black instructors and ad-visors, especially in the business department. Speakers representing black students should be brought in by other departments aside from BSU,"" he said. ""There are no simple, clean-cut answers to the high dropout rate among the black minority at the Universi-ty. It involves complex solutions in a number of dif-ferent areas,"" said Julius Chapman, dean of minority affairs at the University. He said, ""Many black students feel the effects of the impersonal atmosphere at Towson, while other black students may find func-tioning in a primarily white situation new and difficult to adjust to."" ""Many of the black students are commuters, left out of the main-stream of activities on campus, and as a result of alienation, drop out."" he said. ""Students also respond to perceptions that others have of them and are sensitive to attitudes of the com-munity, from secretaries to professors,"" Chapman said. He said, ""The perception of the Towson com-munity is that all minorities are deprived individuals and that most receive financial aid, which is a false perception, detrimental to black retention."" ""The SBHE implemented many additional goals for the University, including focusing the recruitment of blacks to majors in a variety of studies and balancing the percentage of majors consisting of over 19 percent of black majors existing in Political Science, and 16 percent in Sociology."" Solez said, ""The areas rating low percentages of black majors include Physics, Geography and Economics, but percentages in all three have risen significantly since last year. While the total percentage of black enrollees at the University is acceptable, the problem is that blacks tend to cluster to the social science majors,"" she said. ""Disturbing the percentages of blacks proportionate-ly to different areas of study is a problem we are slowly solving,"" she said. Solez said, ""The plan is presently being reviewed by the SHBE for minor revisions."" Freslunan SAT scores by Loraine Mirabella Scholastic Aptitude Test (S.A.T.) scores of Towson State entering freshmen have increased over the last couple of years, Linda Collins, director of admissions, said. Average scores rose from 426 on the verbal section and 460 on the mathematics test in 1980 to 430 ver-bal and 461 mathematics in 1981. Collins said the recent increase in University scores can be attributed partly to the Freshmen Merit Scholarship Program. The program awards 50 scholarships to students on the basis of grade point average and combined S.A.T. scores of 1200 or over. Also contributing to the rise in scores, Collins said, is the limit that has been placed on freshmen enroll-ment by the State Board for Higher Education (SBHE). There were 2100 freshmen in 1979 and will only be 1700 by 1985. The limit creates a built-in method of selectivity, Col-lins said. National averages, which have generally declined since the late six-ties, have leveled off in 1981. The 1980 and 1981 verbal means were both 424, while the mathematics average was 466 both years. Javier Miyares, Desegregation Researcher at SBHE, said. ""Towson's verbal scores are well above the national average,"" Collins said. University verbal averages were also higher than national verbal averages in 1980 and 1979; however, mathematics averages were slightly lower in 1980 and 1979. The national average for the ver-bal exam has dropped 31 points while the math scores dropped 22 points since 1971, a College Board official said. In 1971 a panel whose purpose was to research the national decline in S.A.T. scores, staffed by educa-tion experts was formed by the Col-rise lege Board (the organization which administers the test) along with the educational Testing Service, a Col-lege Board official said. In the sixties an increase of students taking the test cased the decline, College Board official said. In the seventies, results showed, the deterioration of high school stan-dards contributed to the decline. Students were taking fewer academic courses and grading stan-dards were lowered. The impact of television and the breakdown of family structure were also among the reasons for the decline. Of the current stabilization, a Col-lege Board official said, ""a plateau may have been reached."" High school grade point average is considered before S.A.T. scores when admitting university freshmen, said Coffins. The minimal score for admission is 400 out of 800 in verbal and mathematics. Section 12 'Blows up the world' By Marc Goodman Doomsday. . .Thursday, Nov. 12, 1981. ..the day when more than 100 Towson State students gathered in front of Linthicum Hall at 3:16 p.m. to watch the world explode. Although the world was only three feet in diameter and made out of fiberglass and chicken wire, it sym-bolized what a small nuclear war could do to the face of the Earth. Thus, in reaction to Disarmament Day, Section 12, a campus group of activists working for world peace, socialism, racial and sexual equali-ty, civil rights for all people and an end to imperialism and militarism, demonstrated its concerns about a possible nuclear holocaust � a nuclear holocaust that becomes more imminent as President Reagan talks of boosting this country's nuclear power. It was nearly 3 p.m. when a stria crowd of people started gathering around a patch of grass encircled by a brick walkway in front of Lin-thicum Hall. They knew their time was growing short. The crowd grew larger as the seconds on the clock ticked away and Doomsday loomed ahead. By 3:10 p.m. reporters, photographers and even a television cameraman had assembled around that small patch of grass waiting for a close view of what their world may look like in, the near future. The patch of grass appeared as the last sign of life in a world ready to be demolished by a nuclear holocaust. Then came the world. It was plac-ed on a stand on the patch of grass for everyone to see. It crumbled in destruction and smoke rose from its core. Doomsday had struck. ""We don't want a nuclear war,"" said Marty Miller, a graduate stu-dent who is an active member of Section 12. ""Look what could hap-pen."" We don't want a nuclear war � Marty Miller Then, someone wearing a gas mask emerged from the crowd and stood in front of the demolished world. He was introduced as Scott Taylor, a concerned student. As he recited a poem he had written for the occasion, the smoke continued to rise from the crumbled world behind him. ""Fending off would be crusta-ceans with a paper machete aflame/for a dearth of fresh air in darkness/fermenting relenting the same fetching retching glowering rocks for crystaline clocks. . ."" The smoke continued to rise from the remains of the world behind him and his voice rose to a crescendo when he continued, "". . .And in the meddle of the swirling chaotic froth retains a slither of calmness gushing from veins of them. . .In turn they burn in the name of right/They fight in fright in and with spite of confusion, delusion and postscripts of why. . ."" The smoke from the crumbled world rose even higher as he con-cluded his poem at a feverish pitch, "". .Introduction of self destruction to taste the waste produced and lac-ed with enough candy/crud to flood the blood and drown their brains and make us DIE!"" Applause erupted from the crowd, but not loud enough to stop the world from burning to oblivion. No one could stop the damage that had already been done � not even David Greene, a physics professor who spoke to the masses to warn them of the increasing possibility of a nuclear war. ""In 1947 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists started the Doomsday clock. In that year it (minute hand of the clock) was seven minutes before midnight,"" he noted. ""Then the clock moved to two minutes before midnight in 1953 when the nuclear bomb was first tested. In the late 1970's the clock was back to seven minutes before midnight."" ""We are getting closer and closer to nuclear proliferation,"" Dr. Greene said. ""The Doomsday clock is moving closer toward midnight."" Dr. Greene then presented to the crowd a diagram showing the radia- Student Scott Taylor recites his poem written for last Thursaay s rear proliferation demonstration. Taylor along with other student' and faculty presented information concerning nuclear weapons. tion damage a one megaton bomb can produce. ""Radiation burns can be received at a 16-mile radius extending around the area where the bomb ex-plodes,"" he explained. ""The Hiroshima born had 1/6 this power and killed 100,000 people."" ""A limited nuclear war can lead to another,"" said Bob Baer, an active member of Section 12. ""We are trying to raise the awareness of political interest on campus,"" said Baer. ""First and foremost in our minds is equality for everyone,"" said Miller. ""We see the world as an in-ternational unit of economics. We want to break down the tyrrany of nationism. This world is not just a conglomerate of nation-states; it's a unified whole."" TL Photo by Mike Huck Wayne McWilliams, professor of Asian History, who has lectured on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sympathises with Sec-tion 12's concerns. ""I'm glad somebody is coming alive on this campus politically,"" he said. ""I'm encouraged by the fact that here's a group taking up on these issues of racism, sexism and nuclear pro-liferation."" ""I'm bewildered why the public is not up against Reagan and his nuclear talk. Everyone these days is concentrating on economics,"" he commented. ""It will be an uphill fight."" On Thursday, Nov. 12, 1981 in front of Linthicurn Hall at 3:15 p.m. the fight began at Towson State. "