The Towerlight, October 20, 1983

tl19831020-000 "The Towerlight Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. --Mal* Twain Vol. 77 No. 7 PUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS OF TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITY TOWSON, MARYLAND 21204 October 20, 1983 Scrum of the earth I' Towson States' undefeated men's Rugby Football Club (RFC) here engages the Georgetown Hoya RFC in a scrum during last Saturday's match at Burdick Field. Towson's ""A"" side defeated the Hoyas 70-0, and the ""B"" side won 14-8. By Jerry Trout SGA drops speaker series; holds funds Clinton Case will still air Sunday By Shawn Hill The Student Government Asso-ciation voted Tuesday on a long-anticipated action to cancel the current SGA-sponsored speaker series. Following long debate, the Senate voted unanimously to cancel the four remaining speakers in the series. Strong arguments against the speaker series came from Senator Kevin Shabow, cosponsor of the bill to cancel the series. ""We voted [on the speaker series] without review-ing it or thinking seriously about it,"" he said. In the past, the speaker series was prepared by the vice president over the summer and approved by the senators through the mail. This year, however, Vice President Jim Clark's proposal was rejected by President Robert Barnhart, who then substituted his own proposal. Barnhart's proposal did not come before the SGA until their first meeting of the semester, August 30. During that meeting, Barnhart had a representative of the agency handling the speakers waiting on the telephone while the SGA delib-erated on his proposal. Senator Alison Dubbert added, ""We were almost forced to vote for the series."" Shabow said that ""the SGA's reputation is at stake"" and argued that the speakers were not a good product and that all the advertising possible could not make the series a success. The $6,100 from the canceled series will remain in the SGA's speaker series account. The four canceled speakers are Theo Brown, James Randy, Mil-licent Fenwick and William McBurney. In other business, Senator James ""Chip"" Dipaula, chairman of the University Affairs Committee, announced a program which he has developed for the SGA entitled ""Ethics and Responsibility in the Media."" The program will feature Bal-timore anchormen Jerry Turner, Nelson Benton and Dave Durian, as well as Reg Murphy, publisher of The Sun newspapers, and James Toedtman, editor of the News American, in a panel discussion followed by a question and answer period. The discussion will be mod-erated by Dr. Richard Vatz of the Speech and Mass Communications Department. The program will be on Novem-ber 20 at 8 p.m. in Stephens Hall auditorium. The Senate also voted to allocate $70 to the College Republicans for the printing of a club newsletter. In light of the organization's request for funds, the SGA Appropriations Committee decided it would not fund politically partisan purposes, but would allocate money to an activity which ""informs the public as to the function of the [SGA affil-iated) group."" Concern about pension cuts draws faculty , administrators to discussion By James Hunt Discussion about the future of the state's employee retirement/pension plans took center stage at Towson State last week, draw-ing a number of faculty and administrators concerned that the state will trim their retire-ment benefits. ""We're dealing with a significant issue, the most important issue facing workers�and teachers are workers�today,"" said Dr. James Hill, a professor of English and former President of the Towson State chapter of the American Association of University Pro-fessors. Hill organized last Saturday's sym- Posium, bringing several speakers to the University to discuss ""The Crisis in the Pen-sion System: Real or Imagined?"" At the heart of that issue is a recent pro- Posal by the state legislative committee on Pensions to place a 4 percent limit on yearly cost of living adjustments (COLAs) added to pensions. The COLAs are presently unlimited for those who joined the state's retirement plan before 1979. According to Paul A. Weinstein, professor of economics at the University of Maryland, it has always been generally accepted that while salaries in the public sector are lower than the private sector, fringe benefits (such as the pension system) help make up the dif-ference. Weinstein, who�along with Melvin Steinberg, president of the State Senate and Joseph Adler, executive director of the Maryland Classified Employees Associa-tion� was a featured speaker Saturday, ac-cused the state of trying to break its pension contracts with its employees without offering them fair compensation. He also chided the state for not considering other options, such as raising taxes or seeking to cut costs for its retired employees. ""Politicans have a tendency to push bills in-to the future, so they won't be in office when its time to raise taxes,"" Weinstein noted, and said that the state ""should be taking a vigorous approach to getting lower medical costs for its employees."" High medical costs, the economist said, account for much of the increase in the Consumer Price Index and, thus, much of the burden on retirees. Steinberg, who is also chairman of the legislative committee on pensions conceded that procrastination was part of the problem. ""The primary cause of our problem began in 1973,"" Steinberg said. ""The state did not pay the appropriate pay raises, that were be-ing demanded (by state employees)."" In-stead, the state ""put in an unlimited COLA in the pension system"" and, in effect, ""put off things until tomorrow,"" Steinberg said. ""Pensions were a tremendous receptacle for pay offs,"" Steinberg noted. The state, however, ""didn't put in revenue increases to cover the program until five or six years later."" Nonetheless, Steinberg said the pension system is not in a crisis. The intent of his legislative committee, he said, is to focus on potential problems, particularly the state's unfunded liability, which has grown to $4 billion from $2 billion in 1979. (An unfunded liability is a debt which will be owed by the state, for which money has not yet been budgeted.) ""Are you taking into consideration the future? If (the pension system) reaches a crisis, it's all over,"" Steinberg warned. The state, Steinberg continued, has other obligations�salaries, capital works projects, social programs�than the pension system; but only has ""finite amount of money"" to deal with them."" Irwin Kramer the man, the myth, the talk show: Kramer Reports By Chuck Jones Irwin Kramer may only have one hour of air time each week on WCVT, but he packs an ear-ful in those short 60 minutes. ""The Kramer Reports,"" a two-way talk show which airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m., offers a variety of guests, all topical, hand-picked by Kramer himself. ""I try to make every program timely,"" Kramer, former news director at WCVT, explained. But he likes to book guests who are of ""great interest to the [Towson] community."" However, Kramer does not invite just anyone to be a guest on his show. ""I schedule guests who are of interest to me�but I have very broad interests,"" he explained. This is not to say that Kramer books only guests who appeal to only him. ""The listener is the main concern."" During the past few months Kramer has had such guests on as State's Attorney Gen-eral Stephen Sachs, former Iranian hostage Bruce Laingen and Baltimore City Comp-troller Hyman Pressman. Kramer even said that the ""quality of guests [on ""Kramer Reports"") is better even than Alan Christian's show."" Kramer explained that he tries to have on guests who are important and relevant to the Public and who help form and change public Opinion. ""It would be easy to just get guests like Psychics,"" he explained, but he added that these types of guests, while they may be of Popular interest, do not inform the public of issues and situations of importance. But Kramer does not run a dull talk show. Explaining the format of the show, Kramer said that he tries to ""focus on the main issues�but do it as a conversation [with the guest], like just getting together for an inter- Sting conversation."" He added that he wants to prove that ""news can be entertaining, too."" But even with the importance of Stephen Sachs and the historic significance of Bruce Laingen, ""The Kramer Reports"" likes to occa-sionally offer lighter, more entertaining, programs. Take, for example, one show that was aired early last August when the guest was Miss Maryland of 1982, Amy Elizabeth Keys.. By Jerry Trout ""Guests don't corne easy,"" Kramer said, but once these guests have been on the show, many express a desire to return. Kramer opened the program with the Miss Maryland contest theme song and, imper-sonating an emcee (doing his best Bert Parks impression), singing, ""There she is .. . Miss Maryland."" He said that listeners heard drum rolls, cymbals and crowd roars before Miss Mary-land and he were able to sit down and chat. ""The Miss Maryland show was a fun show,"" he said, adding that he has a good time on all of the programs. Another one of Kramer's favorite shows was also the show which received the most telephone calls. This most popular program was two weeks after the Miss Maryland show when he had as guest local film producer John Waters. Kramer admitted that he was a bit puzzled with the response to the Waters show as opposed to the show aired a month later, in which guest Dr. Edgar Berman explained how women are inferior to men (jokingly, of course). ""We did not receive one phone call in response to the statements that were being made,"" Kramer noted. He observed that listeners seem to respond more to the popular guests, but added that having important, timely guests is necessary for the show and popular guests are booked once in a while to offer Kramer's listeners a break from the ""news guests."" He said, ""These guests don't come easy,"" but added that once these guests have been on the show , many actually express a desire to return for future shows. That, however, is what Kramer is trying to avoid in the future: booking guests who have been on the show before. He said he wants to avoid the repeat book-ings because he wants to offer his audience as wide a variety of guests, opinions and views as he can. He cited that a lot of radio talk shows like to book the more popular guests many times, sometimes two weeks in a row. He gave one of WCVT's other talk show programs as a prime example. Kramer also said that the ""behind-the-scenes work is tremendous."" He said he tries to schedule his guests as far in advance as possible but, because of the nature of the guests he books, sometimes he does not even know until Sunday who his guest will be on Tuesday. Sometimes he tries months in advance to schedule guests only to have them cancel at the last minute. Once, a guest did not even show up until almost half the show was over and Kramer was forced to rerun a tape of a previously aired program. Kramer said that this show is his program alone because he books the guests, he does the research, and he airs the program (the show was all his idea, too) but he added that the entire station helps him in this tremendous task. ""Everyone at the station is very helpful,"" he said. ""And the show has been extremely successful in arms of interest."" ""There is a necessity to modify contracts,"" Steinberg said, ""if it's in the public interest."" Joseph Adler, executive director of MCEA, countered that state employees ""Have an employmenrconttact, (they) have a right not to have that contract altered."" He agreed with Weinstein's assessment that the fringe benefits such as pension make up for low salaries in the public sector and said, ""for the state to come along and take benefits from (its employees) is wrong."" Adler also cited statistics that showed the pension system took in $120 million dollars more than it payed out last year. He conclud-ed that the ""system is in good financial shape."" He warned that if the proposal changes are passed, employees would not have enough to retire on and admonished the state to ""start funding like a responsible employer."" Keep it clean: new population joins residents By Terie Wolan A larger resident population this semester has brought more prob-lems, according to Mary Lee Farlow, director of residence halls. This semester, there have been reports of mice in Richmond Hall, continued reports of roaches in the old tower, and a lack of sanitation in bathrooms in the new residence complex. A health and sanitation inspec-tion in the rooms was held last week to pinpoint the problems. Farlow said last week's inspection is ""a general clean-up before things really get bad."" Farlow attributed some of the difficulties to a greater number of students who have never lived away from home and are not used to being solely responsible for keeping their area clean. She also wants the housekeeping staff to strive harder to keep the bathrooms and trash chutes cleaner. The residence department is mak-ing ""a concerted effort to keep things clean,"" Farlow said. ""We take these things [roach and mice problems] quite seriously."" How-ever, regardless of what steps are taken by the University, if the students leave decaying food and debris, roaches and mice will spread, she cautioned. Farlow hopes the inspection ""will alert people, and it gives the students who are unhappy a little extra support."" "