The Towerlight, October 30, 1981

tl19811030-000 "Towerlight vol 75, No 9 PUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS OF TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITY TOWSON, MARYLAND 21204 The well of true wit is truth itself George Meredith October 30, 1981 Window on the world Scenes like this one along Route 108 near Columbia, Md. hint at what the countryside may have looked like in years past. Shaded vistas, absent of electric wires and high-rises, are scattered throughout Baltimore county where one can catch the last of the fall colors. TL photo by Greg Foster Riffin gets 20 years by Gayle Griisser James Riffin, former Towson State business administration pro-fessor was sentenced last week to a 20-year term for assaulting a Hechinger assistant manager and use of a hand gun in a commission of crime of violence. Riffin was orginally charged with assault, kidnapping, false imprison- Mara, possession of a quantity of drugs and a handgun violation. In a plea bargain agreement be-tween the state's attorney and Rif-fin's lawyer, the state's attorney agreed to drop the other charges if Riffin pleaded guilty to assault and the handgun violation. Riffin was a part-time instructor from February, 1976, through June, 1978, and a visiting instructor from 1978 through 1980. He became a full-time assistant professor in 1980. After his arrest on January 5, the University 'suspended him with Pay, and then terminated him in June when his contract was up. That day Riffin went to the Hechinger parking lot in the 8600 block of Pulaski Highway, and forced Christi Nicholis Geankoplis into the front seat of Riffins car at gunpoint. Geankoplis had testified against Riffin after Riffin was charged with shoplifting from a Hechinger store. Riffin was sentenced on that charge but the case was appealing. Riffin made Geankoplis get in the front seat while he sat in the back holding a gun on Geankoplis and told him he was going to sedate him, said Tom Basham, state's attorney. When Geankoplis said he was sick and got out of the car, Riffin follow-ed and told him to get into the trunk, Basham said. The two men began to struggle and Geankoplis was able to wedge the heel of his hand into the gun so its hammer would not strike. A crowd gathered and started beating Gcankoplis until he told them he was the victim. They started beating Riffin. Riffin was taken to Franklin Square Hospital where he alternated between states of consciousness and a coma for nine days. After Riffin was released from the hospital he was taken to Towson District Court where he was charg-ed and bail was set at $200,000. The trunk of the car had been con-verted into a makeshift gas chamber, Basham said. The inside was lined with black plastic and a propane cylinder attached by two timers was set up to release hydrogen cynide gas. Basham said, ""the portable gas chamber was well made and well constructed."" Riffin could have kill-ed Geankoplis either by shooting him with either the pistol or the two sawed-off shotguns found in the car, drug overdose, or gasing him to death, Basham said. Judge John E. Raine recommend-ed Riffin be sent to Patuxent In-stitution, the maximum security prison in Jessup. Basham said the Institution gives pyschiatric and medical help to criminals believed to have committed their crimes because of their mental makeup. Up until 1976, a judge could sentence a criminal to Patuxent, but now criminals must give their con-sent for psychiatric treatment. Donald Feige, Riffin's lawyer said ne lias not talked to his client and does not know if his client will con-sent to such treatment to go to Patuxent. Dorm-tax agreement reached with county by Quincey R.Johnson Towson State agreed Tuesday to pay $42,000 in fiscal year 1984 to Baltimore county in lieu of property taxes for the proposed 1700-bed dor-mitory complex. The agreement was reached in a work session with university of-ficials County Executive Donald Hutchinson and county officials. Ronald B. Hickernell (D. 1 st) said, the agreement is based on the max-imum use of the developed proper-ty. James Lucas, the official in charge of the county's industrial revenue bond program, said the county estimates that if the land is fully developed with townhouses, the county could expect $42,000. The payments will increase by 6 percent each year. By 1994, Lucas said, the university would pay $70,985; after 1994 the payment would not be increased. The payments are in leiu of an estimated $300,000 in normal coun-ty taxation. The tax, Hickernell said, would be for the services that the university would require to maintain the struc-ture. The agreement between the developer and the state would have denied the county of any tax revenue, Hickernell said. Lucas said, ""We were willing to take the payment in lieu because it will not be a tremendous strain on county taxes."" The county council will vote orl the bond issue Monday. Hickernell said, ""I fully expect it to be passed. I think it is safe to say that it will."" The dormitory is to be con-structed on a 2.12 acre piece of land adjacent to the glen and the Univer-sity Union near cross Campus Drive. The new dormitory will increase the Univesity's residency from 13 percent of its 9,528 day students to 30 percent. President Hoke Smith said, the project will provide considerable relief to the community. In a letter to council members, Smith said that there are 1123 university students living in various off-campus accommoda-tions. Mullan Enterprizes Partnership, the construction firm that has ap-plied for the bonds, is seeking $35 million for the four 14 ,� story residence towers and dining hall. On October 21, the state Board of Public Works conditionally approv-ed the agreement between the Mullan organization and the univer-sity. The two conditions were: the university has the option to pur-chase the structure in 11 years, and that the university would pay up to $450,000 in losses if the project were to fall through. The Mullan organization has agreed to the con-ditions. In a University report to the Board of Public Works, the univer-sity said in 1980, 37 percent of the students admitted to the university and who chose not to attend the university cited the lack of on-campus housing as their chief reason for not attending. The report also cites a study that links on-campus living to high grade point averages; morever, students that live on-campus tend to com-plete their education. Smith said, ""1 am pleased with the county's initial acceptance of this agreement. The university recognizes the essential services that the county provides for the campus community, and this is cer-tianly a fair compromise for both the university and the county government."" The anticipated cost of construc-tion is $29 million but the bond council for the Mullan firm has ad-vised application for $7.5 million for each of the four, 14-story residence towers and $5 million for the dining hall totaling $35 million. Five separate partnerships have been created to develop the dor-mitories and dining hall: Campus Limited, Towsontowne Limited, University Limited, and Yorktown Limited each applied for $7.5 million in bonds to construct the four towers, and Tigerstowne Limited applied for $5 million to construct the dining hall. Alex Brown & Sons will under-write the entire project and the Mullan Partnership plans to oversee the construction if the proposal is approved. The dorms would be used as con-vention and conference halls when the University is not in session. Minimester shortened In order to bring about an earlier spring dismissal date and thus help Towson State students compete for summer jobs, changes have been made in the 1982-83 academic calen-dar that will result in a shorter spring break and a shorter January minimester. The 1982-83 minimester will be three weeks long instead of the pre-sent four. It will begin on January 3 and end on January 27. The 1983 spring break will be five days long instead of the usual 12, beginning March 31 and ending April 5. The minimester was started in 1972. The initial purpose was to ""improve the quality of the instruc-tional program and give students the opportunity to do concentrated Students protest apartheid system (CPS) � More than 125 student leaders of anti-apartheid efforts on nearly 50 campuses, meeting in New York in the wake of militant college protests against touring South African rugby and choir groups, have decided to harden their tactics and try to hook up with other pro-test groups, like anti-nuclear ac-tivists. Until recently, most campus ef-forts against apartheid � the sYstem of racial segregation practic-ed in South Africa � have been aim-ed at convincing college trustees to sell off stocks in companies that do business in South Africa. Hut at the New York conference, cu-sponsored by the American Corn-rnittee on Africa and the Hunter College student government, a number of delegates said they were dissatisfied with the anti-apartheid divestiture emphasis on stock uivestiture. ""What we're about is not only divestment, but supporting a total liberation movement in southern Africa, and also making changes in this country,"" Joshua Nessen, stu-dent coordinator for the American Curnmittee on Africa (ACOA), said. ""Too many schools got involved In the mechanics of divestment When they could be spending time and money on other issues as well,"" he said. ""It's not a matter of just one 1,.,saue,"" said Howard Hawkins, a ,uartmouth anti-apartheid activist. 'The system is the problem."" Chris Root, a student at American University, said. ""We have to be do-ing some yelling and some scream-ing."" The conference came on the heels of a series of ""yelling and scream-ing"" protests against the U.S. tour of the Springboks, the South African national rugby team. Political and legal pressures � in-cluding a threatened international boycott of the 1984 Summer Olym-pic Games in Los Angeles � cut short the Springboks' tour. Protests forced one game from Chicago to a ""Secret"" site at Racine, Wisconsin, where two of 500 protestors were ar-rested. A court order ultimately enabled the team to play a second game in Albany, N.Y., where it was greeted by some 2000 protestors. In the throng was a delegation of some 300 State University of New York at Albany students. They chanted for the removal of Albany Mayor Erastus Corning, who originally okayed the game. Four demonstar-tors � including a Harvard students � were eventually ar-rested. The rugby team, Nessen said, was 'harassed from beginning to end."" A similiar fate awaited a South African boys' choir tour, arranged, said Kenneth Zinn of the Washington Office of Africa, as ""just another attempt to give apar-theid a human face."" Zinn organized a group of 25 black children to meet the choir in Washington, D.C. recently. As the choir began to sing a noontime public concert, Zinn had his group of 25 walk up to the choir, face the crowd, and sing, ""Children in South Africa are dying, not singing."" The South Africans � called the Drakensberg Boys Choir � were barred from playing at the Universi-ty of Georgia the next week, when two black student groups asked the Campus union to cancel the concert. The union agreed to cancel it. In the past, the movement's direct confrontations have been limited to facing down campus ad-ministrators in efforts to convince them to rid their college portfolios of stocks in companies that do business in South Africa. By and large, however, protestors have used less militant kinds of pressures to force financial action. In the last year, they've brought on various anti-apartheid shareholder votes, stock sales, and bank account transfers at Swarthmore, Eastern Michigan, Colby College, Harvard, Williams, Mount Holyoke, Kansas, Princeton, Standford, UCLA, and, among other schools, Michigan State, which became the first university to divest itself complete-ly of interests in South African business operations. No ore at the New York con-ference of movement organizers ad-vocated ending divestment efforts on campus. There was, however, a formal effort to place those efforts in a larger perspective. ""Divestment is only a tool,"" Nessen said. ""It's a means, not an end."" Nessen said, the new look at divestment may reflect a recogni-tion that university stock sales are more symbolic than meaningful fiscal blows to apartheid in South Africa. The campus anti-apartheid move-ment, Nessen said, has grown since Ronald Reagan took office and an-nounced he'd seek closer ties to the South African government. The delegates' willingness to try some broader, somewhat more mili-tant tactics may reflect a feeling of greater strength, as well as a desire to join forces with the anti-nuclear movement, which seems to be stronger west of the Mississippi. ""Linkage"" with other protest groups was a major topic of discus-sion at the conference. ""Anti-apartheid groups have been close-knit in this region,"" Nessen said, ""but are disconnected everywhere else. We need to coor-dinate efforts outside the northeast."" The conference set up seven ""regional coordinators"" to com-municate with each other and other groups. Among their new, direct tactics are physically confronting South African ""honorary con- , sulates"" in cities around the coun-try, organizing a major lobbying at-tack against the administration's proposed repeal of a law requiring congressional approval for military aid to southern Africa, and a two-week- long national protest ""in sup-port of liberation movements"" next March. in-depth study in a one-month period,"" said Frank Mullen, associate director of continuing studies. Mullen said minimester courses are designed to be unique in corn-parison to regular semester courses. Most minimester classes are upper division electives. Few of the courses offered fulfill the general university requirements. Norma Long, director of continu-ing studies, said that in 1979 the division of continuing studies sug-gested that ""business as usual' courses be offered during minimester. Long defined ""business as usual"" courses as courses that meet the general university re-quirements and could, therefore, ex-pidite a student's graduation. However, the Academic Council rejected the suggestion on the grounds that it violated the spirit and original intent of minimester, which was to offer unique educa-tional opportunities, Long said. Patricia Plante, vice-president for academic affairs, said that another reason for not offering ""usual"" courses during minimester was the fact that a four-week minimester does not provide the time to cover the material normally covered in a full semester. Plante said the time factor is even more important now that minimester is being shortened to three weeks. Continued on page 2 Piles of pumpkins One of these lowly pumpkins is actually the great pumpkin in disguise. And everyone knows that's what Halloween is all about Charlie Brown. TL photo Cindy Sheesley "