The Towerlight, October 30, 1986

tl19861030-000 "Campus Notes can be found on page 2 beginning this week. Vol. 8() No. 7 The Tower Published weekly by the students of Towson State University htTowson, MD 21204 Inside Classified 111,1 1 editorial 12 entertainment features 7 $ perspectives 1 '1 sports � 3,1,5 week�vateher 1 visuals October :30 19S6 Assesment Test funding under fire by Amy Liann Tudor NOWN reporter Last April, the Maryland State Board of Higher Education made the first step towards incorporat-ing an incentive funding program into its budgeting for state colleges. This incentive funding program, outlined in the National Gover-nor's Association report entitled ""Time for Results,"" would require Ntudents on all state campuses to take assessment tests in particular fields or subjects, with a propor-tionate amount of the state budget going to a school according to the test results. The tests are meant to judge how Well students are learning the material taught in class. But the Subjectivity of that judgement has been questioned by administrators and faculty members alike. ""My understanding is that they Eire not assessing the teachers, but rather they are using the test cores to see how well the students Will do on the job,"" William Gehring, a General Education in-structor, said of incentive funding. He added that ""the assessment c�uncept is heartily endorsed, but me inability to agree on what ele-rnents and weights of the assess- 'tents is very difficult to deter-mine,"" He said that the term ""good teaching"" needs to be defined first. , Gehring said one problem with the incentive program is that the I�Nsessment tests cannot measure the true intent of a course. This Problem further complicates the question of' what is to be assessed. ""You can't tell how well someone nos learned something until they Ro out and do it,"" Gehring said. And a teacher can't wait years to Prove that his or her students have learned the class material because knowledge in a field is used grad-ually when a person is in a field."" ,Gehring said that every qual- ' med teacher would welcome being rewarded for his or her instruc-tional accomplishments. But, he added, every teacher would have a different idea on how that assess- Ment should be made. Another controversy involved With assessment testing is when the tests should be given to Students. Giving the tests right after a course is completed would net give an effective assessment, according to Gehring, because the courses are meant to help students after college. Gehring used the first-year pro-gram of college writing as an ex- 4111ple. These students, he said, 11,I)Ply what they have learned in ,Lne college writing courses over lour years of writing papers for various other courses. Therefore, Riving them a test on writing DaPers immediately following the course's completion would not 41low for an adequate or accurate 408essment. Keith Martin, assistant ele-mentary education professor, has a similar view of the testing. At Towson State, he said, ""it is the students who are assessed, not the faculty. Students learn from their own effort and not just be-cause of the teacher."" Martin said he believes that assessment tests must be made on a University-wide level in order to give an adequate assessment. Otherwise, the programs that do not necessarily reflect on a stan-dardized test, such as creative courses, will lose funding. ""As long as the funding de-cisions are not made on a program basis, individual courses (will not be affected), but so many students would be taking the test,"" Martin said . ""If it is done on a program level, then creative programs may be cut off because (the policy-makers) must have a basis to test on."" According to Martin, it is plausible to give student examinations of the General Uni-versity Requirements (GUR's), be-cause of the generally standard material covered in the classes, but he disagrees with testing students on courses in their chosen fields. These ""Junior Rising""examina-tions which are taken be students to see if they qualify to become juniors, are too subjective, Martin said. He based his judgement on the fact that the material is not used until much later. Martin also said that a major problem with incentive funding is that it may not reward better teaching as effectively as it might reward better recruitment of good students. ""I believe that before an asses-sment can be made, (it is necessary) to take in the quality of' the students first. I don't believe that all Maryland state colleges have the same quality of stu-dents,"" Martin said. Because of this difference in stu-dents from college to college, Martin said he feels funding dis-crimination may result. ""I think that there is a kind of discrimination in Maryland be-cause an incentive funding pro-gram would give less money to Morgan State, and Coppin (State) for example, because their stu-dents tend to be less prepared and therefore score lower than say Tow-son State students would,"" Martin said. Martin said he believes that per-haps more money should go to the institutions that are having trouble with students scoring lower on the assessment tests. He pointed out that Maryland has al-ready begun to make that dis-tinction - it gives more money to lower scoring schools. This money, he said, will help schools such as See TESTS, page 2 Politics and religion discussed Titus, Maddox start up symposium Provost Herbert Titus of Pat Robertson University and the Reverend Robert L. Maddox of Americans for the Seperation of Church and State were featured speakers at the Religion and Politics forum. by Karen Gatzke NI'll'M reporter ""America is at the crossroads"" and needs to decide ""whether man is going to follow the laws of man,"" said Herbert Titus, provost of the Christian Broadcast Network Uni-versity in Virginia Beach, Va. Titus, a close associate of Rev-erend Pat Robertson, added ""there is hope for America if' it returns to its religious roots."" His comments came at the opening session of a two-day symposium at Towson State University on religion and politics. Robertson, although scheduled to participate, was unable to at-tend the symposium due to an en-gagement at the Johns Hopkins University, where a similar con-ference was being held. Robertson is also considering running for the US Presidency in 1988. . ""Government and religion do have an interactive relationship. They need each other. We need them both�as allies, not as part-ners,"" said Rev. Robert L. Maddox, the second speaker Monday even-ing and executive director of Amer-icans for the Separation of Church and State. However, he warned that we should all ""take alarm when church and state get too close."" The symposium, which began Monday evening and ran all day Tuesday, consisted of panels of speakers attempting answer the question: Politics and Religion in ""Abuse"" cost students a mailbox Robert M. Graham News editor 'IGeneral abuse"" of a mailbox v''Ete Meant that Towson State Uni- �ereity students can no longer de-teeit their outgoing mail in the 'flai,lbox outside the Residence Tower. �rtecently, the mailbox was re- V e )rveci from the location by Postal ""Jvice employees. We can't deal with the general abuse of a mailbox,"" said Wayne Bender, the area manager of the Postal Service's Eudowood branch. ""In the mailbox on numerous occasions (during a month-long monitering of the mailbox by Postal Service employees) was ice cream and beer poured on the mail or someone had urinated in it,"" Bender said. He said he was contacted by an ""Area Coordinator"" about the sit- Bare pavement marks thy. spot where a mailbox was removed due to repurtod misuse uy students. uation. But Mary Lee Farlow, Resi-dence Director, and Gwen Jones, the Residence Tower's area co-ordinator, knew nothing of the mail-box removal. Jones said that one of her Resident Assistants informed her of the mailbox removal after the fact. ""He (Bender) had had no contact with our residence staff until the box had been removed,"" Farlow said. The box was removed with-out ""the request or knowledge of the Residence Department."" bender did say his decision to of remove the mailbox from the Run- ' dence Tower was made easier be- ' cause of the ""low volume of mail"" ro- the mailbox yields. E He said the Residence Tower mail-box usually receives about ""40 to 3 50 letters a day."" The average the D' Postal Service ""shoots for"", Ben-der !gaid, was ""anything around 150 to 200 letters."" But Bender said that the low volume of mail alone could not have gotten him to remove the mailbox. ""We can deal with the low vol-ume of mail (in the mailbox), but we cannot deal with an abuse of the box,"" Bender said. Tampering with a mailbox or its contents is a federal offense, he said. But he said it is ""hard to enforce,"" so Postal Service employees ""can only act on peer pressure"" to stop the offenses. There are ""no plans to have (the mailbox) put back right now because I am afraid (the abuses) will start all over,"" the U.S.A. Today�Hope or Danger? Speakers came from five continents and :32 countries to speak at the symposium organized by Dr. Karol Borowski, a visiting professor at Towson State and di-rector of the Massachusetts In-stitute of Smitil Sciences, a leader in politics and religion research. Dr, Peter Merani, an associate professor of Political Science at Towson State tried to pose an answer to the symposium's ques-tion. ""It's obvious from a con-sensus that if religion and politics mix too much�if they get too chummy�then you have pro-blems,"" Merani said. ""What is to prevent politics from using re-ligion and religion from using politics to express their viewpoint alone'?"" The symposium, which Bo-rowski said took ""about three weeks to organize, would have taken over two years to organize if we took the traditional approach."" He said that his idea was to deal with a relevant topic now, and therefore he could not wait for grants and other ""administrative channels"" to be pursued. Borowski and the Rev. Andrea Diegel, who was involved with the Jewish and Christian ministries at Towson State, chaired the com-mittee that put the symposium together. ""Considering it was put together so quickly with minimal funds, I thought it was extraordinary,"" said Francesco Luigi Legaluppi, who helped in organizing the affair and is editor-in-chief of the Towson State Journal of Inter-national Affairs, Borowski and Legaluppi both said that they plan to publish the speeches and comments of rele-vance in the Journal., a twice yearly publication distributed to the student body of Towson State and to such countries as Great Britain, Italy, France, India, Australia, Switzerland, and Canada. Legaluppi said that the pub-lication which will include the speeches from the symposium could be expected to be published in December. Robert M. Graham con-tributed to this article. Symposium puts campus ""on map"" by Robert M. Graham News editor Besides allowing for discourse and learning on what most people would consider a relevant topic in the world today, the Religion and Politics Symposium held at Towson State University brought a lot of worldwide attention and respect to the University camps. ""You can put a university on the map with this type of thing,"" Dr. Jean Vaillancourt, a speaker from the University of Montreal, said. He added that ""the quality of 'Towson State] University will be better known because of the event."" Speakers from five continents and 32 countries helped improve the quality of the event, according to Dr. Karol Borowski, a visiting professor at Towson State and or-ganizer of the event. Ironically, several speakers mentioned that Borowski had a knack for getting them to be involved. Most notably, Helen Delich Bentley, a second district Congressional candidate who gave a welcome during the opening of the conferel. -e Monday eveniny. mentioned the impact of his requests: it made her attend. Borowski said he organized the meeting after he had received a ""positive response"" about having a symposium here from several speakers he wished to invite. He then went to his students and told them that this would be an oppor-tunity to be like Ivy League students, were a symposium to occur. The pledged support, he said. Towson State students remained involved in the conference from the first steps until its conclusion. Students helped during ""the three weeks it took to prepare for the conference. Borowski said that students did the public relations for the conference, and the ""trans-portation, hospitality, and some office work."" Several students man-ned the Political Science office giving information about it, he said. Students were also quite helpful as they ran a shuttle service be-tween the University and the air-port,"" said Dr. Peter Merani, a Towson State professor who helped in organizing the event. Student shuttled visiting speakers from the airport to the homes of many faculty members where the visitors stayed for the conference. Borowski said that the par-ticipation by his students in the planning, preparation, and run-ning of the symposium prove that the traditional Towson State student apathy can be overcome. Merani said that Boroski ""single-handedly got a number of students involved"" in the conference, Towson State also proved itself as a good site for discussions of this topic, since many religious groups are headquartered in the southeastern states region. ""Towson is such a geographic and political headquarter and it is close to Washington,"" said Borowski. Vaillancourt said that he was not familiar with the Towson area prior to the conference, but sees it as a good location for such an event. ""This university has resources and is very well situated for this sort of conference,"" he said. So good is the Towson State lo-cation for this sort of event, Bor-owski mentioned in his closing re-marks that it could become a permanent location for a facility to encourage the study of politics and religion. He said that this location would be better than Boston where the Massachusetts Institute of Social Studies, of which he is the director, is located, since this is closer to Washington, DC. Regardless of whether Towson State becomes the home of a perm-anent center for politics and religion research, Merani said he ""hopes to have more conferences on this topic here"" in the future. ""Conferences make a university better known and help to develop links across the country,"" said Vaillancourt, pliffi() hy Alpxikluira 1.1mciati Dr. Karol Borowski was instrumental in setting up the Religion and Politics forum. "