The Towerlight, October 9, 1981

tl19811009-000 "Towerli VOL. 75 NO. 6 ht PUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS OF TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITY TOWSON, MARYLAND 21204 Relaxation and study Students! Start cracking your book, midterms are Upon us. Why wait until the last minute? Take advan-tage of the last of the warmish weather and study out-side. TL photo by Merick Jeannier There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight. Joseph Hayden October 9, 1981 University helps ease nursing shortage by Rich O'Brien Approximately 50 people will graduate at the end of this academic year with B.S. degrees from Towson State's department of nursing. The number represents the University's commitment to producing trained nurses which helps to ease the state-wide nursing shortage. The first class of 17 nurses graduated from Towson State in 1974. Like their predecessors, the 130 students enrolled in the pro-gram this semester can expect, upon graduation, almost endless lists of job opportunities with start-ing salaries of about $15,000. Despite the great need for nurses, Towson State is not turning them out in factory-like numbers. ""Numbers don't tell the whole story. You have to think about quality,"" Dr. Charlotte Davies, department chairperson said. ""Our program is based on the principles of higher education and professional education. To insure quality you need several things."" Davies cited the practical ex-perience nursing students get in health care agencies, calling it a ""vital part of the nurse's training."" ""Also, we must have an adequately-prepared faculty. the minimum credential today is a master's, with more and more ac-quiring some sort of doctorate. Our whol 1 faculty has to be approved by the State Board of Nursing Ex-aminers."" A nurse does not need a bachelors' degree in order to become police stress rape awareness by Glenn Small Detective Amy Pierce, campus 413�Iice officer, will present a free lec- :.tire to any group or organization on now to deal with and, if possible, avoid the assault or rape situation. Although her program is designed I-for women, Pierce said she e ncourages men to attend not only because men can be assaulted just as women can, but because her talk Will help men understand the emo-tional trauma women experience When raped. How should a guy react if his girlfriend is raped? Pierce said her talk comes from Prederic Storaski's book and film. !low to say no to a Rapist and Sur- 1;ioe which will be shown on an uary 13 at the Owings Mills branch of the County library. Pierce does not recommend the Use of weapons because they may be aised against you, besides usually ueing difficult to get to quickly. Pierce suggests that mace is asPecially undependable as a means of stopping an attacker. 'Besides the effect of wind direction and the assailant's using the mace against t,he victim, a study conducted by the California Sheriff's Department 'bowed mace seldom works, in fact, It more often makes the attacker In the study, women were given mace knowing that they would be attacked. The women would then walk through a park and a police of-ficer would attack them. The mace worked in a few cases, but in actually stopping the at-tacker it failed quite often. Also, ""if someone is on drugs or alcohol it (mace) won't work because they have a super-high tolerance and are insensitive to pain,"" Pierce said. Pierce said she does not recom-mend ""fighting back"" because by using violence as a way to escape assault or rape it more often does nothing but make the attacker violent. ""You set the ground rules,"" Pierce said. Because every assault or rape is different, Pierce said she feels sometimes ""fighting back"" may work to scare off the attacker, but it may just as well make him/her ex-tremely violent, even to the point where he/she will try to kill the vic-tim. Pierce said the rapist is someone who has some deep hatred toward women caused by being mistreated by a woman in his life, usually in the immediate family. The rapist, therefore, is out to get back at women in general by trying to degrade a particular woman. Rape is no longer considered a crime of passion; it's a crime of violence, Pierce said. The rape victim usually is a woman with problems on her mind; someone is raped or assaulted because she isn't aware of his/her surroundings and the possible dangers. People forget to pay atten-tion to where they walk or who's around them, Pierce explained. If a woman is raped, there ae special ""rape"" designated hospitals with special doctors who are ex-perienced in treating rape victims. Greater Baltimore Medical Center and Franklin Square's rape crisis clinic are tow ""rape"" designated hospitals in this area. A rape victim is taken to either one of these places in the company of a female police officer if re-quested. Once there, what's called ""the rape kit"" is used to gather in-formation and to check for pregnan-cy and Venereal Disease. Pierce said one should go right to the hopsital for two reasons. First, the rape kit may be the only evidence the police will have to catch the rapist. Second, the pregnancy and V.D. test will give the victim assurance that she is all right and relieve her of the suffering of wondering whether she is pregnant or has V.D. at TSU The rape victim should take care not to wash and to take extra clothes when going to the hospital. As part of the rape examination the victim's clothes are put in a paper bag, blood samples taken, fingernail scrapings gathered, hair and saliva samples collected and sent to the police crime lab. After a rape victim is treated, police use, the identa-kit to help put together a face of the assailant. The identa-kit consists of a series of pictures of various faces, noses, mouths and eyes from which a vic-tim chooses to put together a com-posite of the suspect. By law, first-degree rape is when a . . . person engages in vaginal inter-course with another person by force against the will and without the con-sent of the other person."" First-degree rape carries a max-imum sentence of life imprisonment. Maryland rape laws can be found in the ANNOTATED CODE OF MD, book 3A, article 27, crimes and punishments. The ANNOTATED CODE OF MD can be found on the 3rd floor fo the Cook Library. ""I would recommend everyone read the laws (regarding rape) to know their rights,"" Pierce said. The rape-awareness lecture can be scheduled by calling Detective Pierce at 321-2233. 374 students academically dismissed Dorothy Siegel by Rick Castelli Five-hundred fourteen students were academically dismissed in the spring semester of 1981. This figure is 25 percent higher than the 404 students dismissed in Fall 1981. The class breakdown of the students dismissed is as follows: 40 percent of the total were freshmen, 30 percent sophomores, 20 percent juniors, and 10 percent seniors. Transfer students comprised 29 per-cent of the total. Tom Knox, associate dean of students, said that some of the dismissals resulted from students' taking on too much of a work load. Knox said, ""Bad course selection and the combination of school and outside employment"" are two major reasons for academic failure. Knox said, ""Of the st2dents dismissed, 16 to 17 percat im-mediately enrolled in the Division of Continuing Studies program,"" ad-ding, ""Eventually about 60 percent of the students will come back."" Lonnie McNew, assistant vice president for student services, said ""There is a high correlation betweer being involved or affiliated wia campus organizations and succesE in college."" McNew said, freshmen in par-ticular sometimes aren't aware of repeated course form procedures and accidentally leave bad grades on their record even though they took the class over. Another area of concern is stu-dent withdrawals from enrollment. The number of non-returning students at Towson State in Spring 1981 totaled 733. Fall of 1980 total-ed 950. The Office of Institutional Research and the Student Services Division of the University jointly implemented a research question-naire and compiled the results in a report issued in August 198L The study was designed to tabulate relevant demographic data and reasons concerning with-drawals. Seventy percent of the withdrawing students were females for Fall 1981. The Spring alone in-cluded 80 percent females. Freshmen and sophomores com-prised 69 percent of the with-drawals. Forty-nine percent of the non-returning students had G.P.A.'s between 2.1 and 3.0, and 27 percent had G.P.A.'s from 3.1 to 4.0. Forty-two percent of the students had enrolled at another school. McNew said, ""The number-one reason for leaving is financial in nature, and the number two reason is employment."" He also said, ""Many students are not conscious of options or alternatives � like go-ing part time."" A great majority of non-returning students indicate academic problems as part of the reason. In particular, 34 percent could not choose a major. McNew said some-times it is appropriate for students to leave due to lack of skills, motiva-tion and plans. To study the problem of student retention, President Hoke L. Smith recently appointed an investigative committee headed by Vice Presi-dent of Student Services Dorothy Siegel. The committee, which includes ; representatives from Administra-tion, Campus Planning, Alumni, Academic Affairs, various depart-ments and one student, recently held its first meeting. Siegel said that the committee will operate for two years, produc-ing quarterly reports. She said the committee is presently identifying the issues or areas the investigation will probe. registered with the State of Maryland and gain the title R.N. Many hospitals and community col-leges offer programs which lead to State registration, but the Towson State program carries with it the weight of a university degree. ""With an increased need for com-petencies, came an increased need for education. Twenty years ago, the American Nursing Association came out with a paper in which they stated that beginning level nurses should have a bachelor's degree. Some states are implemen-ting that,"" Davies said. Students wishing to enter the nur-sing program must first apply to the department and pass a screen-ing. If they are accepted to the pro-gram, it is with the understanding that a ""C"" average must be main-tamed or the student will be asked to leave. Only one repeated course is allowed. Becky Lohrmann, a second semester nursing student, said she thinks the program is fair. ""Its a lot of work but it's a really good program. Everything is very clear and they make the re-quirements quite explicit. I always feel like I can Eitic questions. 1 don't feel like the instructors look down on me."" Lohrmann said that the practical experience included in the training is important to the overall program. ""They really heap the respon-sibility on you. The first semester they take you by the hand and show you everything. You could have four hours to take vital signs. This 'semester (2d), you go in there and they have you giving injections. That's what's really good about the Towson program, you get all that hospital xperience at an easy pace,"" Lohrmann said. When student nurses work in a hospital, they operate under the supervision of an instructor. That person works for the University, not for the hospital although the in-structor and students are there to assist the staff and practice the art of nursing, the quality of the ex-perience depends on everyone work-ing as a team. Roslyn Kamoroff, a regular part-time R.N. at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said the effect of having student nurses on the floor varies. ""Sometimes they make the job easier and sometimes not. I remember one group of students, not from Towson State, who didn't have proper instruction. I had to double check a lot of things to see that they had been done. Having them on the floor does help ease things with the shortage, though. lt frees the staff nurses to do things such as teaching and care planning,"" Kamoroff said. Davies stated that the students' effect on the shortage was definitely not to ""fill in."" ""They are not used for nursing service. In fact, the contracts say the facilities can't alter staffing because the students are there,"" Davies said. The Towson State program is responding to a real need, Davies said. A ten-year veteran of the department , Davies has a list of reasons why she believes there is a shortage of trained nurses today. Among them are poor working hours (mandatory shift rotation and working every other weekend are not uncommon), too much respon-sibility with very little authority, and a phenomenon known as burn-out resulting from stress. Lohrmann, who has done four years of nursing assistant work, said, ""Because of the shortage of nurses the patient load is higher, they expect more from you, and you do work harder. I think that is one reason for burn-out, always having to cut corners. Knowing you'll never be the nurse you wanted to be in nursing school. In the end, patient care depends on how the nurse feels. I think that's scary,"" Lohrmann said. Psych certificate gains approval by Jill Miller Towson State's Graduate Cer-tificate of Advanced Study in School Psychology was approved, October 1, by the Board of Trustees of State Universities and Colleges. The proposed certificate will now be submitted to the State Board of Higher Education for final ap-proval. The program was designed more than five years ago by Dr. Barbara R. Slater, professor of psychology and coordinator of school psychology, in conjunction with other professionals in the field of school psychology. It was first presented to the psychology faculty for approval in February, 1976. Dr. Slater said the program basically has three purposes. ""The first purpose is to keep the existing program viable,"" said Slater. All education programs must be ac-credited by NCATE (National Coun-cil of Accredidation of Teacher Education). School psychology programs are accredited by the National Associa-tion of School Psychologists, said Slater, and this organization has stopped accrediting master's-only programs. Without change, the cur-rent school psychology program can not be accredited, said Slater; and without accreditation, the master's Continued on page 10 Easy access Van Bokkelen members of for all students the Hall provides access to its facilities for handicapped student population. The clean well-lit area provides safety and staff using the building. TL photo by Colleen Kadan "