The Towerlight, October 11, 1984

tl19841011-000 "Attendance policy to be considered Students who fail to show up for the first two class meetings of a course may have to drop that course, if a motion before the University Senate is approved at the Senate's next meeting Monday. The motion, submitted by the Academic Standards Committee, would allow faculty to give the space of a student who fails to show up for the first two classes of a semester to someone else, if the student doesn't notify the faculty's department in advance. The student would then have to drop the class through the registar or take an FX. The idea for this type of class attendance policy was first brought to the Senate last April, when faculty members voiced concern that there were students dropping classes on the last day of drop/add while other students were trying to get in to fulfill GURs or graduation requirements in their majors. If approved by the Senate individual departments will decide whether to adopt this policy. The University Senate will meet at 4 p.m. in Rooms 310-311 of the University Union on Monday, October 15. Forensics takes honors debating democracy The Forensics team opened its Fall season with two debaters taking honors at a tournament held at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Varsity Debaters Michele Derlunas and Steve Mister won fourth place after defeating Middle Tennessee State U. in the octofinal round. They were stopped in the quarterfinals, but posted a respectable 7-3 record. The topic of debate was a resolution that conducting Presidential elections in the United States is detrimental to democracy. Other schools competing in the tournament were UCLA, the Air Force Academy, Clemson, Southern Illinois and the University of Miami. The debaters will travel to West Point this weekend. Today is the last day of The Red Cross Blood Drive in the Chesapeake Rooms of the University Union. Watts they need bucks for WCVT, Towson State's FM radio station, will begin an on-air fundraising drive Oct. 18. Although the station is funded by the Student Government Association that funding accounts for only one-fourth of what WCVT needs to operate effectively, according to Joe Gelchion, chairperson for the fundraiser. The station hopes to alleviate production costs with the money raised. ""The fundraiser is for general maintenance and upgrading, so we can continue to operate and, hopefully, improve the quality of the product that goes out over the air,"" Gelchion said. The station's goal during the drive is $50,000. $30,000 more than last year's goal. Contributions are tax deductible. In addition, WCVT will be offering premiums to contributors including movie and concert passes, record albums and T-shirts. WCVT is a student-managed, alternative radio station that has been operating since February, 1976. It serves the Baltimore/Washington area, as well as other states on the East Coast. ""Really, Holmes?"" Dr. Sam Gerber, a dye and chemicals consultant, will be talking about chemistry in the Holmes tales on Wednesday, Oct. 17 in Smith Hall, 524 1 p.m. Hungry orb World Food Day, the anniversary of the founding of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations in 1945, is next Tuesday� Oct. 14. Towson State will be showing the film, ""The Hungry Planet,"" at 2 p.m. in Linthicum 200 to /nark the anniversary, and a Panel discussion of world food Problems will follow. Tom Horton, The Sun's environmental editor, will be one of the panelists. Campus notes The Faculty Art Exhibition begins to-morrow in the Holtz-man Gallery of the Fine Arts Building More details on page 12 Prohibition hangover hits college Stricter alcohol policies at many colleges and universities this year have been met with zealous resistance in some cases, from students protesting those policies. In Wisconsin, students from across the state staged a ""drink-in"" on the steps of the state capitol to protest efforts to raise the drinking age to 21. ""We ... will not stop drinking because the law dictates that we do,"" said Dan Katz, legislative affairs director for the Wisconsin Student Association. At Notre Dame, a bust of famed football coach Knute Rockne was ""kidnapped"" by a group of students protesting new alcohol policies. Along with a photograph of the bust at a nearby beach, the Notre Dame student newspaper has received a ransom note warning that the statue will not be returned ""till the students get their beer."" ""Alcohol related problems are obviously taking up more time of campus law enforcement officials these days, and alcohol abuse is a greater problem, or at least recognized more,"" said Dan Keller, director of Campus Crime Prevention Programs at the University of Louisville. Jonathon Burton, executive director of the National Inter-fraternity Conference, said that ""the whole movement might have been much more effective if the campus alcohol education had been given more time to pick up."" And the new programs may not be having any effect on what it was designed to prevent: alcohol-related incidents. A recent Boston University study found that raising the drinking age had in; effect on traffic deaths or the drinking habits of underage students in Massachusetts. The only thing the law has done, according to study author Robert Smith, is foster among students ""a cynicism toward the legislative process and disregard for law enforcement."" College Press Service Expanding satellite Towson State University at Columbia, which opened this semester with almost twenty credit and non-credit courses, is already seeking to expand its offerings for the Spring semester. The ""satellite"" center, located in the building which onced housed the defunct Visual Arts Center, wants to offer as many as 15-25 non-credit and over 25 credit courses, according to Dr. Norma Long, dean of the College of Continuing Studies, which oversees the center. The exact numbers will depend on enrollment in the courses, which include ceramics, photography, painting and women's studies. Long notes that the College of Continuing Studies has taken steps to see that course offerings are ""relevant to the community."" and that ""tuition is attractive"" so that the centers future looks good. Donoho to be feted at reception Lola Donoho, University Union hostess, will be honored at a retirement reception in the Potomac Room next Thursday, Oct. 18, at 4 p.m. Donoho retired as a state em-ployee at the beginning of this se-mester, but was rehired on a con-tractual basis to work up to three days a week at her post next to the candy counter on the second floor of the Union. TheT �Ewer i Published weekly by the students of Towson State University Vol. 78 No. 6 htTowson, Md. 21204 October 11, 1984 Home-coming 84 Changes emphasize efficiency Tigers v. U.D.C. Special Homecoming insert -- Classified section Judicial affairs system examined By Sandi Van Horn and Jackie Yost Recently, a Towson State University student was charged with sexually assaulting a female on campus. The student was subsequently brought before the University judicial affairs board and was given a 5 year suspension for his violation of student and resident conduct codes. While the board's decision is clear, the steps leading up to a decision on such as this are often unclear to students. This example is extreme, however more corn-mon practices-setting off false fire alarms, bat-tling with fire extinguishers and abusing alcohol, may result in a student facing the judicial affairs board. When a student has been charged with a vio-lation of resident or student conduct codes, a charge letter is written and sent to the student. The letter includes a formal statement of the charge, the date of the incident, the time and place of the hearing, copies of student codes of conduct and hearing procedures, and a name and telephone number of someone the accused may contact if he wants pre-hearing assistance. Although this assistance is available, the accus-ed student must prepare his case himself and personally contact witnesses, if necessary. If a student wishes to settle his case prior to the hearing, he must contact the appropriate ju-dicial affairs officer to mediate a confrontation between the prosecutor and himself. Otherwise, the hearing will go on as scheduled. After the hearing, Dean Thomas Knox, who is chief hearing officer, must determine whether the facts presented at the hearing substantiate the charges brought against the student. The student is then informed by a certified letter of the hearing's outcome. If the student is found not guilty, the inci-dent is erased from the student's record and no further action will be taken. However, if a student is found guilty of the Computer labs still crowded By Elisa Burns The only backup worse than Belt-way traffic on a Friday evening is the line trying to gain access to a computer terminal. Towson State computer science majors and students taking com-puter courses have long complained that the computer hardware lags behind students' demand to use the computer system. The number of students partici-pating in the computer science pro-gram has grown rapidly since Jan-uary 1983, when it was first offi-cially declared a major at the Uni-versity. The University has ab-sorbed between 800 and 1000 com-puter science majors in less than two years. However, because of the advanced technology and expensive equipment, it has been difficult for the department to keep up with the large flow of students into the pro-gram. ""There is still a lot of aggravation involved with the program, but I'd give the department an 'A' for at least trying,"" said Junior Brian P. Kratz, a computer science major. Each student who enrolls in a computer course is guaranteed one hour a week terminal time, but this one hour is not always the actual time the student receives on the terminal. Slow output from the com-puter results in less time for the stu-dent to work on the assigned pro-gram. Students complain of sometimes waiting twenty minutes for the computer to become avail-able, giving the student only forty minutes lab time. Until the computer capacity is in-creased, students will still have dif- It's still crowded in the computer laboratory, but the department wants to expand the number of terminals and the storage capacity available to students CID charges, Knox refers the case to either Dean Dorothy Siegel, of student services, who handles code of conduct violations, or Mary Lee Farlow, director of residence halls, who handles resident code violations. They, in turn, decide the penalty for the offense. After the penalty has been determined, the student is informed of the official's decision. He is also informed of his right to appeal the deci-sion. A student may appeal on the basis of believ-ing his penalty was too severe, there was a lack of due process, or the hearing officer was bias-ed. If the student wishes to appeal, he must notify Knox in writing within five days of receiving his notification letter. At this point, Knox notifies a screening com-mittee whose function is ""to determine whether there are sufficient grounds for appeal,"" eic-plained Knox. The screening committee con- See JUDICIAL, page 2 ficulty signing onto a computer. It is not unusual for a student to find an available terminal, yet be unable to sign on because the memory is overloaded. ""I tried to get in for one hour and I couldn't get in at all ... They should have a bigger computer so that more students could use it on line at the same time,"" said sopho-more John S. Mammen, a computer science major. The new computer system which would help to alleviate the overload of computer memory has still not been installed. The department ex-pects equipment in soon which would expand disk space and inter-nal memory. To help overcrowding, the computer labs will also be re-ceiving twenty to thirty new term-inals every year for the next three years. Additionally, Robert Caret, dean of the college of natural and mathe-matic hopes sciences the installa-tion of computer satellite centers in each of the University buildings will ease the burden on the Cook aca-demic computing center. The satellite rooms would consist of terminals hooked up to a main computer. These rooms would be available for use depending on se-curity maintenance. The expense of paying student monitors or security guards for the rooms is one of the project's greatest hindrances. ""I still hope within the year to get a twenty-four hour room and make the computer available to students (via a telephone modum line) from home computers,"" Caret said. Another option would be to have dial in service extended. Patricia Plante, Vice President of Academic Affairs, has recently approved fund-ing hardware equipment to the de-partment which would connect more phone lines to the system, tripling its present capacity. See COMPUTER, page 2 Jury dismisses Nelson case By Terie Wolan A Baltimore County Circuit Court grand charges jury against d isrn ids senior e h imi e criminal Nelson last Monday. Nelson, had been charged with se-cond degree sexual offense stemming from an alleged incident which occur-red September 4 in a University dor-mitory. Robert Lazzaro, of the State At-torney's office, said the grand jury decided not to indict because of a lack of evidence and some questions regar-ding the evidence brought forth in the case. Also considered was the desire of the victim not to prosecute the case any further. While the charge brought against Nelson by the Baltimore County Police has been dropped, Nelson must still face the final decision of the judicial affairs board regarding his student status. ""The criminal charge is considered totally separate from the University's charges against him. It's two dif-ferent jurisdictions,"" said Katie Ryan, director of University Rela-tions. Nelson was charged with violating the University student and resident codes of conduct. ""We are in the appeal process now,"" Ryan said. Nelson is currently appealing the board's sentence of a 5 year suspen-sion from the University. Ryan expects the board to reach a decision on the appeal next week. "