alcohol...tenure...police..., Wed, 30 Sep 1998 15:17:54 -0500.
Welcome!, Wed, 30 Sep 1998 09:56:29 -0500
professors that suck...a superintendent that sucks, Thu, 1 Oct 1998 10:42:29 -0500
Popular Demand, Thu, 1 Oct 1998 21:36:18 -0500
Damn, tell'em like it is prof!, Fri, 2 Oct 1998 08:50:55 -0500
Events..., Mon, 5 Oct 1998 06:55:41 -0500
Debates...events, Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:58:38 -0500
great events, Wed, 7 Oct 1998 11:42:54 -0500
some news, Thu, 8 Oct 1998 11:31:32 -0500
Freeloading...and Ignobels!, Fri, 9 Oct 1998 11:34:40 -0500
News and events, Mon, 12 Oct 1998 08:56:37 -0500
On Campus Bookstore Legislation!, Mon, 12 Oct 1998 11:57:04 -0500
Leave me alone Dad!, Mon, 19 Oct 1998 22:10:20 -0500
BREWFEST!, Wed, 21 Oct 1998 09:48:02 -0500
News, Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:54:02 -0500
News,Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:03:39 -0500
Getting Paid...the GMAT, Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:23:03 -0500
News, Mon, 26 Oct 1998 12:41:39 -0600
News, Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:55:18 -0600
Adams and Tenure, Wed, 28 Oct 1998 12:46:29 -0600
Student Fee Restrictions, Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:26:47 -0600
Events, lies and more lies..., Sun, 1 Nov 1998 20:32:40 -0600
Events and rapist pleads guilty, Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:24:19 -0600
Events, Sun, 8 Nov 1998 12:07:48 -0600
Parking and TAs, Mon, 9 Nov 1998 12:58:56 -0600
Parking, Wed, 11 Nov 1998 08:07:12 -0500
Master Plan, Thu, 12 Nov 1998 10:48:55 -0600
News and Events, Mon, 16 Nov 1998 09:43:04 -0600
Pedestrian Safety, Wed, 18 Nov 1998 09:13:04 -0600
News, Sun, 22 Nov 1998 12:50:57 -0600
The Explanation!, Mon, 23 Nov 1998 09:43:52 -0600
News, Wed, 25 Nov 1998 09:01:37 -0600
News and Events, Sun, 29 Nov 1998 10:23:16 -0600
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Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 15:17:54 -0500
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From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: alcohol...tenure...police...
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
This article appeared in today's
Washington Post.
Congress Votes to Let Colleges Tell On Students
Parents Could Be Notified Of Alcohol, Drug Abuses
By Ann O'Hanlon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 30, 1998; Page B01
Congress has approved legislation that would allow
colleges to notify parents when students younger than 21
commit an alcohol or drug violation, a measure sparked
by a string of five alcohol-related deaths on Virginia
campuses last fall.
The bill, which passed the Senate yesterday and the
House on Monday, needs only President Clinton's
signature to become law. Clinton said he is likely to
sign
the measure.
Current federal law prohibits universities from
disclosing their records on students 18 and older, and
most schools interpreted that to mean that they could not
notify parents about a student's drug and alcohol use.
A Virginia task force on college drinking, led by state
Attorney General Mark L. Earley (R), recommended in
July that Congress exempt drug and alcohol records from
the privacy requirement. Advocates of the change argued
that many parents have no idea their children are abusing
drugs or alcohol and thus can't intervene to help them.
Some advocates also said that students might think twice
about such behavior if they knew that their parents would
be told.
Officials at most Washington area colleges said
yesterday that they would have to study the issue
carefully before deciding whether to change their
policies in response to the new legislation.
Under the measure passed by Congress, colleges would
be allowed to tell parents not only about student
violations of alcohol and drug laws, but also about
violations of the schools' own rules against drinking and
drug use.
Some privacy advocates criticized the legislation, saying
that it strips young adults of their rights.
"It's a ridiculous amendment," said David Banisar, the
policy director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center. "Even drug and alcohol violations shouldn't
override an adult's right to privacy. An adult student
for
better or worse is still an adult. . . . This amendment
would basically be turning the university into a
babysitter for them."
But Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), who sponsored the
amendment at Earley's request, argued that some
restrictions on privacy rights are appropriate.
"I just felt we had to make an exception, as much as I
believe in personal freedom," he said. "These situations
not only jeopardize the health of the person who
consumes too much alcohol, but that individual in turn
can do harm to others. Why shouldn't a parent be brought
in?"
Warner and Earley both said they will encourage
Virginia's state colleges and universities to implement
the new policy as soon as the bill becomes law.
Officials at several universities said they now will have
to study whether they want to establish a parental
notification rule -- and which students and which kinds
of drug and drinking violations should be covered by
such a rule.
"We clearly will be looking at it and trying to figure
out
when this might be an appropriate thing to do," said
Louise Dudley, director of university relations at the
University of Virginia.
Officials at Radford University, however, did not wait
for the federal okay. This fall they approved a policy of
full parental notification, based on the state task
force's
recommendation. Virginia Tech considered doing the
same, but decided to wait for congressional action.
"We wanted to ensure that if we put in place a policy
that said we would do that, we would not be in violation
of federal law," said Virginia Tech spokesman Larry
Hincker.
In the meantime, new students at the Blacksburg, Va.,
school were asked to sign a waiver allowing the school
to notify their parents of a drug or alcohol offense. Now
the school will consider toughening that policy.
Officials at the University of Maryland at College Park
already were discussing such a change at the request of
several parents, but they said they have not made a
decision.
"We've heard from parents that they would like to be
informed in situations like this," said Andrea Goodwin,
coordinator for rights and responsibilities in the
university's department of residence life. "The students
will probably be concerned about it, especially because
it would be a change from our past procedures."
David Z. Rose, 20, a third-year student at U-Va., called
the new legislation a "ridiculous" encroachment on
students' rights but said it will have little or no impact
on
student behavior.
"No matter what the government does, college students
are going to be college students," he said.
But Darren Freeman, 19, a sophomore at U-Md. at
College Park, said the bill is a change for the better.
Freeman, who said he doesn't drink, believes that a
parental notification policy at his campus would affect
what students do.
"I definitely think that -- just the fear of having
parents
know that you're breaking a rule or law is certainly a
means of controlling," he said.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
The Chronicle for Higher Education is Reporting that Academic
Institutions are requiring more information (letters of recommendation)
for granting tenure. I'll get the story ASAP.
This is from the Athens Daily News
(9/30)
If possible, go to this event. These debates give great exposure to
local issues.
A-C candidates' forum slated for Monday
Candidates for Athens-Clarke mayor and commission will face-off in a
debate Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the Student Presbyterian
Center, 1250 S. Lumpkin St.
The forum, which will focus on land use and environmental issues, will
feature mayoral candidates Victoria Pate, a Republican, and
Doc Eldridge, a Democrat.
Republican Linda Ford and Democrat Jeb Bradberry, candidates for the
District 7 seat on the commission, which includes the
Milledge Avenue area around Baxter Street, also will
appear.
Candidates will make brief speeches about their views on land use and the
environment and will then answer questions from the audience.
The forum, open to the public, is sponsored by the Federation of
Neighborhood and Community Organizations of Athens-Clarke County and six
other environmental and community groups.
The Student Presbyterian Center is located on South Lumpkin Street across
>from the University of Georgia football practice fields.
- From staff reports
This institutional editorial appeared
in the 9/28 edition of the Athens Daily News:
Statistics indicate a need to revisit UGA police policies
What's wrong with this picture?
In September 1997, the Athens-Clarke County
Municipal Court processed 246 citations issued
by the University of Georgia Police Department.
Through the first three weeks of September this
year, the court had seen only three misdemeanor
cases brought by campus officers.
Obviously, the campus cops have taken to heart
the UGA administration's recent dictum to be
more like Andy Griffith, the low key sheriff of
Mayberry, and less like Joe Friday, the
by-the-rules detective of Dragnet.
After receiving complaints of over-zealousness
on the part of the police force, UGA Vice
President Allan Barber sent Public Safety Director
Asa Boynton a letter last summer ordering officers
to use greater discretion in making cases.
The recent arrest figures raise the question of
whether the police have gone overboard in their
efforts to comply with the new attitude toward law
enforcement on campus.
Finding a benchmark to measure UGA police
activity against that of other institutions is difficult.
A check on the Internet turned up a wide variance
in the levels of enforcement on campuses around
the nation.
But the precipitous drop in arrests on the Athens
campus from September 1997 to September
1998 suggests a need to continue to evaluate the
effects of the administration's Mayberry approach
to law enforcement.
Nobody likes to get a ticket for going a few miles
over the speed limit, nor should reported practices
like handcuffing those charged with minor
offenses be tolerated.
But efforts to create a warm and friendly
environment, to avoid irritating UGA supporters
and to project an image of the campus as a safe
haven for the children of Georgia parents should
not lead to a situation where law enforcement is
so relaxed that crime, drugs and alcohol abuse
become more serious problems at UGA
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 09:56:29 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Welcome!
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Hello EAC List Subscriber!
In addition to
local news, you'll receive info on upcoming events.
Some upcoming events of interest:
1. Wednesday,
9/30: On the Son of Man: Biases and Agendas in Biblical Studies.
Sponsored by Center for Humanities and Arts. Speaker: Thomas Slater,
Religion. 12:10 p.m. Russell Library. Contact: 542-3966.
2. Thursday, 10/1: Christian Faculty Forum: Evangelicals and the
Mainstream Media. Speaker: Dr. Barry Hollander, associate professor,
Journalism. 12:30 p.m. Room 501, Center for Computational Quantum
Chemistry.
3. Thursday, 10/1: SGA-EAC Voter Registration Drive. Meet at Player's
Club at 5:30. For more info, contact Chris.
4. Friday, 10/2. M. K. Gandhi's Birthday: "I have nothing to teach the
world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills."
5. Monday, 10/5: Sandy Creek Nature Center Full Moon Canoe Trip at the
Park. 8-11 PM Call 613-3615
first!
6. Wednesday, 10/7: Sagan Society Social. Meet, debate, and eat with
faculty and students interested in the sciences. At Compadres. 8 PM.
www.uga.edu/dogsbody.
7. Thursday, 10/8: Christian Faculty Forum: The Political/Religious
Implications of the Pope's Visit to Cuba. Speaker: Dr. Jonathon
Benjamin-Alvarado, Senior Research Associate, Center for International
Trade and Security. 12:30 p.m. Room 501, Center for Computational Quantum
Chemistry.
8. Monday, 10/12: A-CC Voter Forum. Meet all the candidates for local
office from 6-10 PM. A-CC Classic Center.
9. 10/15 Marilyn Manson performs live on the web. Don't miss it!
10. 10/15 is Friedrich Nietzsche's Birthday: "Let us not only endure the
inevitable, and still less hide it from ourselves: Let us love
it."
11. Thursday, 10/15: Christian Faculty Forum: The Gospel of John and
Book of Revelation as Companion Books. Speaker: Professor Randy Beck,
assistant professor, School of Law. 12:30 p.m. Room 501, Center for
Computational Quantum Chemistry.
The law school is hosting a number of political candidates this Fall. All
events are held in the Law School. Just show up, and there will be signs
for the room location:
Mitch Skandalakis, Republican candidate for lieutenant governor (Oct. 8);
Roy Barnes, Democratic candidate for governor (Oct. 10);
Michael Coles, Democratic candidate for U.S. senator (Oct. 15);
U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell, running for re-election on the Republican
ticket (Oct. 12).
News!
From the Athens Daily News (9.28)
Adams again backs affirmative
action
By Lee Shearer
Staff Writer
University of Georgia president Michael Adams reaffirmed his support for
using race as
a criterion in college admissions Monday.
Adams, introducing UGA alumna Charlayne Hunter-Gault before she delivered
UGA's annual
Walter B. Hill lecture, recommended a recent book to the audience of
about 500: "The Shape
of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Using Race in College and
University Admissions," by Derek Bok and William G. Bowen.
Bok, a former president of Harvard University, and Bowen, a former
president of Princeton University, said "race-sensitive
admissions policies" have worked well in accomplishing two
important goals, said Adams, who read an excerpt from the recent book.
Such policies have increased the number of minority members who have
received college educations and have succeeded in
"creating a racially diverse educational environment in an
increasingly multiracial society," Adams read. American higher education
in general, and UGA in particular, have benefited from that racially
diverse environment, he said.
Adams said he did not mean his remarks as a defense of affirmative
action. But he has previously gone before the state
legislature to defend the need for it and would do so again, he
said.
______________________________
Fear is the foundation of obedience.
--Lenin
From ???@??? Fri May 21 17:14:21 1999
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Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 10:42:29 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: professors that suck...a superintendent that sucks.
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Oh, hello everyone. A reminder:
Voter registration drive is this evening. 5:30 @ Player's Club.
Good news from the Chronicle of Higher Education (9/25):
The American Political Science Association did some checking and found
that academe is suffering from "reference inflation."
More institutions are seeking external review of faculty members who are
up for tenure or promotion, according to a survey of 467 political
scientists.
Universities also are requesting more letters of recommendation for each
personnel decision, and they are seeking letters for people in all types
of posts-including entry-level or adjunct jobs that didn't require such
reviews in the past.
This article goes on to question whether writing reviews are worth the
effort--professors paid to write the letters only receive an average of
$127 per letter.
In other news, local wackos Royston Tedder, William G.
Koehlke, and R. Thomas Trimble wrote into the letters
to the editor section of the Athens Daily News
(http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/093098/letters.html).
FYI: The Board of Education director, Linda Schrenko, used to be against
the Parent-Teacher Association! She renounced her position, and is now
pro-PTA. Here she is again in the 9/30 edition of the Athens Daily
News:
State money going to private, nonprofit agencies for after-school reading
programs
By James Salzer
Morris News Service
ATLANTA - The state Department of Education
is doling out almost a quarter of the $10 million
the General Assembly appropriated this year for
after-school reading programs to private and
non-profit agencies, including some religious
organizations.
The recipients include the FBC Outreach
Ministries in Houston County, the Atlanta Korean
Baptist Church, the Lutheran Church of
Atonement in Fulton County, St. Bartholomew's
Episcopal Church in DeKalb County, In His
Image Ministry in Cobb County, the Greater
Tabernacle of Faith Christian Center in Clayton
County and private and non-profit groups in
Athens, Augusta and Savannah.
"It's very troubling," said Debbie Seagraves,
executive director of the Georgia ACLU. "It's very
troubling to know state funds from any sources ...
are being utilized through church or religious
organizations. That is not only a potential violation
of the U.S. Constitution, it is a violation of the
Georgia Constitution, which also provides for the
separation of church and state.
"It is something we will want to watch carefully."
School groups also are worried about grants
going to private organizations.
"Our association is concerned about that and
we intend to look into if this is a proper use of
taxpayer money," said Bill Barr, director of the
Georgia School Superintendents Association. "I
know there is concern that with the limited
resources we have to educate kids ... we seem to
be diverting those funds."
The state Board of Education earlier this month
approved 160 recipients of Georgia's Reading
Challenge grants. The General Assembly
appropriated $10 million this year for the
after-school reading programs aimed at students
in grades four through eight.
Certified teachers, with the help of
paraprofessionals and volunteers, will provide
reading instruction to students, a DOE news
release said.
However, school groups question whether
certified teachers will be used at private sites.
About $2.4 million of the $10 million is going to
private businesses or private non-profit groups,
according to a list of grant recipients provided by
the DOE.
For instance, Greenbriar Children's Center Inc.,
a private non-profit agency in Chatham County, is
set to receive $46,800. The Shoal Creek
Wilderness Camp in Clarke County has been
granted $54,600. The non-profit Augusta Youth
Center and Family Connection in Richmond
County will get $30,000 and $46,800
respectively. A World of Kidz Childcare and
Preschool Inc. in Richmond County will get
$46,800.
The only recipient in Georgia's largest school
system, Gwinnett County, is Atlanta Korean
Baptist Church Inc., which will get $60,000.
Public school groups have long been skittish
about taxpayer money going to private
organizations. That's become magnified in a
political season in which one of the candidates
running for governor, Republican nominee Guy
Millner, wants to use public funds to provide
parents with tuition money for private schools.
However, there is precedent in Georgia for the
public-private partnerships in education funding.
Millions of lottery dollars have gone to private
day-care centers running pre-kindergarten
programs for four-year-olds. If private centers
weren't available, there may not be enough space
for the 60,000 Georgia children in the program.
Schrenko said the state may have run into a
similar problem with the after-school grants.
Some districts probably didn't apply for the
after-school grants. Many of the private and
non-profit agencies that received the grants
already had after-school programs up and
running.
"Some of our public schools just haven't
traditionally run after-school programs and they
didn't want to wade into a new thing," the
superintendent said. "The rationale behind all of
this has more to do with not wanting to start a
bunch of start-up projects and making the existing
projects go away."
Ralph Noble, a Whitfield County elementary
school teacher and vice president of the Georgia
Association of Educators, said his system
applied for one of the grants, but didn't receive
one.
"We (the GAE) are quite concerned about it,"
Noble said. "We are concerned about public
funds going to private groups in any area we feel
we can meet the need."
Schrenko said there was no deliberate attempt
to funnel money to religious organizations. And
she noted, "I do have a problem with giving state
funds as tuition payments to private religious
schools."
Nonetheless, Seagraves questioned the DOE's
decision to send public money to church-based
programs.
"It is very troubling to me if it is true that public
schools, and a public school system, is not
receiving these funds when church or
religious-based organizations are," she said. "I
hope that was not due to any preferences given
to church-based organizations."
____________________________________
If I had my way, any man guilty of golf
would be ineligible for any office
of trust in the United States.
-H.L. Mencken
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Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 21:36:18 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
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From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Popular Demand
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Yes, popular demand has actuated me
to reprint the Michael Floyd story. Here it is:
So, I'm standing in line to buy some food at the Bulldawg Room and I run
into Michael Floyd, the director of food services. I asked him about the
commuter meal plan, and Floyd pointed to my wallet, and told me to use my
credit card as a meal plan. Some other random guy piped up and said:
"Hey, that's really funny when you're not a commuter!"
Floyd said nothing, and then passed through line without paying for his
meal. So, I thought I would harass him a little. Here's the fax I sent
him last night.
__________________________________________
Dear Mr. Floyd:
Just thinking about our short conversation yesterday in line at the
Bulldog Café. You said that my Mastercard would serve as a commuter meal
plan.
I've attached some information on credit card misuse by college students.
Bad stuff. You might want to consider creating a real meal plan
instead.
BTW, did you pay for your meal?
Regards,
Chris Hoofnagle
Law School Senator
Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.
News of the Day
by Alistair Barr
Last Updated: Thursday, August 28, 5:03 p.m. EST
Universities offer students a lesson in
smart credit
Many parents have nightmares about their kids going off
to
college and running up thousands of dollars in debt on
credit
cards they don't know how to use.
If anything, most universities make the situation worse
by selling
student lists to credit card issuers that prey on the
financially
inexperienced 18- to 22-year-olds.
With personal bankruptcies hitting record highs, though,
some
schools have decided to be a part of the solution rather
than the
problem.
John Delaney, a vice-president at Sam Houston State
University
in Huntsville, Texas, says educators have to get involved
before
students get the credit cards.
"Many times we don't hear about students' credit card
problems
until irate parents call us with a child who suddenly has
a $5,000
balance on a credit card they knew nothing about,"
Delaney says.
Spokesperson Gila Reinstein of Yale University in New
Haven,
Conn., says colleges can take a big step in the right
direction by
ending a common practice known as "tabling"-renting space
to
credit card marketers who set up a table on campus and
sell
directly to students, using promotions like free
tee-shirts or food
vouchers.
"Universities need to be highly selective when they
review
marketing requests," Reinstein says. "Our first priority
has to be
our students."
A number of schools have also initiated credit seminars,
to
educate incoming freshmen (and other interested students)
about
the pitfalls of sloppy card use. Scripts from a series of
seminars
sponsored by the Visa credit card company are available
online.
Politicians have also begun to respond to concerns
about
students' credit card use. Bills are pending in
Massachusetts and
New York, for example, that would ban all credit card
merchandising at state universities.
Ultimately, though, the student and his or her parents
are
responsible for making sure college leads to a brighter
financial
future and not the poorhouse.
For more information on the wise use of credit while in
college,
read Credit-Smart College Students from the March issue
of
Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine.
Mr. Floyd said that he received my
fax, and he thanked me.
Next time: The letter to end all letters.
_______________________________________
Reason is the Devil's harlot, who can do
nought but slander and harm whatever God
says and does.
--Martin Luther
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Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 08:50:55 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Damn, tell'em like it is prof!
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Letter time!
Here are some portions of a letter I received from a Professor here. Please bear in mind that this prof has taught
at the University for 30 years. I wrote to him about his class, and
whether anyone would teach it after he retired. This is his response.
It is redacted only to conceal his identity.
"…The problem has nothing to do with my popularity with the university
administration. The problem is that the administration simply does not
care about my course or, for that matter, any course in the university.
They do only what they have to do in order to avoid external criticism.
There never has been a sincere commitment to teaching anybody anything at
any level. Teaching is merely a necessary evil designed to keep the
place open. The administration's mission is to attract as much external
money as possible and to bask in the publicity engendered by the research
and service accomplishments of the faculty. Such publicity increases the
likelihood of attracting even more outside money, etc., etc., etc."
Whoa! The letter goes on… I'll share
more later.
Social Opinion
How about this: An official report from the American
College Association on graduate teaching assistants.
"The teaching assistantship is now a device for exploiting graduate
students in order to relieve senior faculty from teaching undergraduates.
The tradition in higher education is to award the degree and then turn
the students loose to become teachers without training in teaching or,
equally as ridiculous, to send the students off without degrees, with
unfinished research and incomplete dissertations hanging over their heads
while they wrestle with the responsibilities of learning how to teach.
Only in higher education is it generally assumed that teachers need no
preparation, no supervision, no introduction to teaching…"
"The teaching assistantship is invariably a disaster: It says to the
initiate that teaching is unimportant, we are willing to let you do it.
What is important, it says, is to demonstrate skills in the discipline,
and the only way that matters is in research.
Whoa!
Now online:
Are you a racist? Are you self-involved? Do
you hate old people? Do you discriminate based on sex? Find out:
http://www.yale.edu/implicit/
In the News:
The Athens Daily News reports that our new cloning
professor, Steven Stice, will be receiving $140,000 a
year.
Thanks again to all those who came out for the voter registration drive.
There are pictures of us in today's Athens Daily News.
In other news, local wackos Adrian Fitzpatrick and
Larry Chandler wrote into the letters to the editor section
today: www.onlineathens.com/letters.html
Have a nice weekend!
C
______________________________________
"Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love
truth, and to make it public in spite of you."
The owl, which feeds on mice in its hovel,
says to the nightingale: "Stop singing under
your beautiful, shady trees. Come into my
hole, that I may eat you." And the
nightingale replies: "I was born to sing
here--and to laugh at you."
--Voltaire
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Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Events...
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
We're planning an annual
speed-quarters championship for November. Interested? Look for signs
advertising the Robopound Fest soon.
Events!
10/5 Monday: The ACLU will be visiting the law
school at 4:30 for a talk on Human Rights. Room G.
10/5 Monday: The Federation of Neighborhoods is hosting a debate between
mayoral candidates Victoria Pate and Doc Eldridge, and commissioner
candidates Jeb Bradberry and Linda Ford. 7:30 Presbyterian Student
Center on Lumpkin Street.
10/6 Tuesday: Professor Pollack from Psychology is speaking to the psych
club on the psychology of sexual deviancy. Room 111 of the psychology
building at 5. Bring your own cigars.
10/7 Wednesday: The Honor Code committee meets at 9 AM in Old College.
Come see the real reason why there is a culture of dishonesty at UGA.
10/7 Wednesday: The Sagan Society is having a social at 7:30 at
Compadres. Come meet faculty and students interested in science and
rationalism.
10/8 Thursday: The Christian Faculty Forum is hosting a lecture on the
Pope's Visit to Cuba. 12:30 in Computational Chemistry room 505.
10/9 Friday: Come to the law school to see the Georgia Supreme Court hear
real cases! 3 one-hour cases will be heard starting at 9:30. You must
pre-register for this event at law school room 109.
10/12 Monday: The A-CC voter forum. Come out and meet all the candidates
running for local office. At the Classic Center downtown 6-10.
10/21 Wednesday: The Sagan Society presents: "This is a free country, not
a Christian nation," a lecture by Ed Buckner. 7 PM Law School room F.
10/22 Thursday: The Center for Humanities and the Arts is hosting a
lecture entitled, "The religion of the future." 4 PM in Park Hall 265.
10/23 Friday: ARMAGEDDON! The world was created on October 23rd 4004 BCE
at 9 AM. The hoofbeats are approaching! Are you still tilling your
fields?
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:58:38 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Debates...events
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Dear Friends,
I attended the debate between Doc Eldridge and Victoria Pate last night.
The discussion
focused mainly on environmental issues. Here's an article on the
debate.
Candidates see need to improve land-use policies
By Joanna Soto
Staff Writer
While preaching different solutions, candidates
for Athens-Clarke mayor and commission agreed
at a debate Monday that steps need to be taken to
improve environmental and land-use policies.
From bike lanes to zoning, pollution to signage,
the candidates tackled questions about how they'd
like to see Athens-Clarke County in the future and
what they'd do to get it there.
About 75 people attended Monday's debate,
which featured mayoral candidates Doc Eldridge,
a Democrat, and Victoria Pate, a Republican,
along with candidates for the District 7
Athens-Clarke Commission seat - Republican
Linda Ford and Democrat Jeb Bradberry. District
7 includes parts of the Milledge Avenue and
Baxter Street areas.
The general election is Nov. 3. The primary
sponsor of Monday's debate at the Presbyterian
Student Center on Lumpkin Street was the
Federation of Neighborhoods and Community
Groups.
Taking turns, the candidates shared ideas and
concerns about how the environment can be
protected and how land-use issues can ease
population growth.
Pate said urban sprawl can be halted by
revitalizing rundown areas in Athens-Clarke's
older neighborhoods. People will stay in those
neighborhoods if they are maintained, she said.
"We need to revamp the strip malls and older
parts of town and get people back into the
community," Pate said.
Eldridge said the county should use "smart
planning" to design a land-use plan that blends
residential and commercial life in mixed-use
developments. He also thinks the county should
create an urban growth boundary that would
protect rural and agricultural communities in the
county.
Another major concern of Eldridge's is the
protection of rivers and streams in the county.
Areas around water need to be undisturbed, and
pollution from things such as stormwater drainage
should be addressed, he said.
"We need to stay ahead of the curve and we
need to get there before the EPA (the federal
Environmental Protection Agency) comes in and
puts us in the same category as metro Atlanta,"
Eldridge said.
Ford said the comprehensive land-use plan the
county is currently working on will give the kind of
guidance needed to help keep urban sprawl under
control. Ford has been serving on a citizen
advisory committee to the comprehensive
land-use planning effort. The plan will designate
where the county wants to promote, or limit, new
growth.
"If we get this land-use plan done and done right
it can be the most effective tool we have" for
maintaining green space and controlling urban
sprawl, Ford said.
Ford said she would also overhaul the planning
commission to make it easier for people who want
to try innovative forms of development that protect
green space.
Bradberry said he would pursue zoning and tax
policies that encourage single-family homeowners
to stay in the county. He also said the county
needs to step up its efforts to prevent clear-cutting
of trees for construction and enforcing signage
limits.
If the community looks better, Bradberry said, he
thinks people will take more pride in the area and
want to live there. He said the community's
appearance can be improved by doing things like
burying wiring underground on some of the
county's major streets.
"One of the greatest improvements I've seen in
my life in downtown was when they put the
telephone wires underground," Bradberry said.
Another debate with all county and school board
candidates will be Oct. 12 at 6 p.m. at the Classic
Center, 300 N. Thomas St.
More events!
School board hopefuls speak tonight at Chase
The four candidates for the District 5 seat on the
Clarke County Board of Education will face the
public Tuesday at a forum sponsored by the
Chase Street Elementary School Parent-Teacher
Organization.
The forum, which is open to the public, will be at
7 p.m. in the cafeteria at the school, 757 N. Chase
St.
Squaring off for the seat in the Nov. 3
non-partisan election will be Frank Harmon, Dave
Hudgins, Jackie Saindon and Bill Welch. The
winner will replace Clarke County school board
President Charles Belflower, who is not seeking
re-election.
District 5 is one of three Clarke County school
board districts for which opposed candidates will
appear on the Nov. 3 ballot. In District 1, James
Ponsoldt is challenging incumbent Dennis Revell
and District 7 incumbent Chester Sosebee will
face Walter Denero.
Water releases set for Tallulah Gorge
Recreational releases of water into Tallulah
Gorge will continue this week.
The state Department of Natural Resources, in
cooperation with the Georgia Power Co. and the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, will
release water from the dam on five more days this
month and one in November.
The department said the releases are
"aesthetic," only 200 cubic feet per second,
compared to the 500-700 CFS releases made for
whitewater boating. Six weekend days in
November have been scheduled for whitewater
releases.
Aesthetic releases will be Wednesday and
Friday; Oct. 21, 23 and 31; and Nov. 1.
Whitewater releases will be Nov. 7 and 8, 14
and 15, and 21 and 22.
During aesthetic releases, visitors will be able to
hike into Tallulah Gorge State Park, but not along
the river. Free hiking permits, available at the park
interpretive center, will be limited to 100 per day.
Besides this week, one other release date - Oct.
21 - will be a Wednesday, when the $2 day-use
fee at the state park is waived.
In other news, local wackos R. Thomas
Trimble and W.J. Thurmond wrote into the letters to the editor section
today: http://www.onlineathens.com/letters.html
_____________________________________________
"I say that common enemy is the white man!"
--Malcom X (And Greg Skowronski).
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Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19981007114254.00828250@pop.negia.net>
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 11:42:54 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: great events
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Toll-free number offers voter information
The Georgia Secretary of State's office has
launched a toll-free Voter Information Line for
people with questions about the five state
constitutional amendments and five referendum
questions appearing on the Nov. 3 general
election ballot.
The line also offers information on Georgia's
new voter identification law, including a list of the
14 acceptable forms of identification.
The number for the new service is (888)
265-1115. People calling the line may choose to
hear any or all of the pre-recorded messages on
the ballot issues or the voter identification law.
A listing of each ballot issue and other election
information is also available through the Secretary
of State's Home Page on the World Wide Web, at
www.sos.state.ga.us or by calling the Secretary of
State's Elections Division at (404) 656-2871.
EVENTS:
IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN GA POLITICS, THIS IS A MUST-ATTEND EVENT:
10/11 Sunday: James Mackay (author of "Who Runs Georgia?") and Arnold
Fleischmann ("Politics in Georgia") will discuss their research and books
at 3 PM at the A-CC library on Baxtr Street.
10/15 Thursday: Senatorial Candidate: Michael Coles, Dem. Sponsored by
Student Bar Association. Speech followed by question and answer session and
reception. 12:30
p.m. Room J, School of Law. Contact: 542-5172.
10/16 Friday: Noon Speaker Series: Perceptions of Severity of Men's Abuse
of Women. Sponsored by Women's Studies Program. Speaker: Martha Markward,
School of
Social Work. 12:20 p.m. Room 140, Tate Student Center. Contact: 542-2846.
10/22 Thursday: Senatorial Candidate: Paul Coverdell (R). Sponsored by
Student Bar Association. Speech followed by question and answer session and
reception. 3:30 p.m.
Room J, School of Law. Contact: 542-5172.
10/28 Wednesday: Lecture: Kurt Vonnegut. Sponsored by Ideas and Issues,
University Union. Author of Cats's Cradle, Hocus Pocus, and Slaughterhouse
Five and winner of the
literary award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Tickets: $2
students with valid UGACard; $4 non-students. Tickets available starting
October 14th.
7:30 p.m. Georgia Hall, Tate Student Center. Contact: 542-6396.
Publisher to deliver lecture at UGA
Jay Smith, president of Cox Newspapers Inc.,
will speak on idealism in journalism when he
delivers the annual Ralph McGill Lecture next
Friday at the University of Georgia.
Smith has been Cox president since 1994,
moving up after seven years as publisher of the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Cox company,
which marks its 100th anniversary this year, owns
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as well as a
number of other newspapers across the United
States.
His speech, at 2:30 p.m. in the Georgia Hall of
the Tate Student Center, is titled "Newspapering
in the '90s ... Idealism Meets Financial Reality and
Survives." It is free and open to the public.
The McGill Lecture was established in 1977 to
honor the late Ralph McGill, a longtime journalist at
the Atlanta Constitution who was sometimes
called, "The Conscience of the South."
MAKE SURE TO GO TO THE A-JC MEETING AND TELL SMITH THAT HIS NEWSPAPER SUCKS!
_________________________________
How perilous it is to free a people who
prefer slavery.
--Machiavelli
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Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 11:31:32 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: some news
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
NEWS:
Measure to cap salary of UGA president dropped
By Joan Stroer
Staff Writer Athens Daily News 10/8/98
An elected University of Georgia staff group
considered passing a recommendation that the
university president's six-figure salary be capped,
but dropped the idea in favor of working to
improve staff pay, a staff leader said Wednesday.
The UGA Staff Council, an advisory group, has
twice discussed recommending that President
Michael Adams' annual pay of more than
$264,000 not rise beyond its current level, but
decided the plan was not diplomatic, according
to Clyde Anglin, a member of the council's
executive committee.
The measure was dropped from a
subcommittee agenda.
The council does not set policy but sends
proposals to the president and represents a
broad range of the university's 10,000 staff
members.
The complaint about Adams' pay arose at a
meeting last month. The state Board of Regents
voted to raise Adams' base salary to $192,275,
bringing his total pay this fiscal year to more than
$264,000. Raises for the university's non-faculty
employees were delayed this year until
September to fund a new state employee
retirement initiative.
"We really didn't want to attack the president,"
Anglin said. "This man is supportive of the staff
council."
The measure did not come up Wednesday at
the council's monthly meeting.
Instead, the council's Pay and Classification
subcommittee discussed pushing for a
reclassification of the 600 categories of university
staff, which haven't been reconfigured in about 20
years, Anglin said.
He said the classification and pay of university
workers doesn't reflect the skills of today's
college employees.
"A secretary used to be a typist," he said.
UGA responds to complaint on legality of speed trap
By Joan Stroer
Staff Writer
Slow down, son. The University of Georgia ain't
running an illegal speed trap on its campus, the
school informed one of its top business
professors recently.
The university has told real estate professor
Charles Floyd that its River Road radar permit
was perfectly legal when campus police slapped
Floyd with a speeding citation on the road last
spring.
He filed a complaint with the university in August
claiming the road's 25 mph speed limit is too low
and noting that UGA police issued 749 speeding
citations there in the first half of 1998. During the
same period, Athens-Clarke County police
issued 2,390 tickets countywide.
Comparing the school to a small Georgia town
setting records with speed citations, Floyd also
said the school fell afoul of state law in not
conducting a mandated speed and engineering
study.
Floyd's complaint set off a flurry of memo writing
and record checking. The university has
discovered an engineer affiliated with its
architects, Frank H. Gudger of Deion Hampton &
Associates, conducted a study in 1995 as the
road was being redesigned, according to
statements released recently by the university.
"The study was done by somebody," Keith
Canup of the state Department of Transportation
said Wednesday.
The road, 1.7 miles long, stretches from East
Campus Road to College Station Road.
Floyd was initially told by the school's public
safety department that the speed and
engineering study was never
done. Floyd was told otherwise recently. Copies
of the engineering sketches were faxed to
members of the media this month. The
Department of Transportation and the
Athens-Clarke government defend the posted
speed limit.
River Road "traverses a main commuter
parking area with thousands of pedestrians
crossing daily," Todd Long, district DOT traffic
engineer, wrote in a Sept. 30 letter to campus
police. "There are several roadways that tie into
this loop as well as many driveways. ... The
remaining section consists of numerous curves
(some 90-degree)."
Floyd is not satisfied with the 1995 study and
plans to request that UGA President Michael
Adams commission a formal study considering
both pedestrian safety and the low speed limit set
on nearly empty sections of the road.
"They say all you've got to do is ride down the
road and say everything's fine," he said
Wednesday. "I would not maintain it's not" enough
to study a road's speed limit informally.
The episode is not the first time the university's
radar use has been questioned.
The university ran radar on campus from 1981
to 1988 until it was discovered that universities
were not permitted under state law to clock cars
with radar, according to Long.
The school's speed detection permit was
revoked. State law was amended in 1995 to
include university radar use. The school received
a new radar permit in 1996, according to Long.
______________________________
The perpetual obstacle to human
advancement is custom.
--John Stuart Mill
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Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 11:34:40 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Freeloading...and Ignobels!
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
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Status:
>FROM TODAY'S ATHENS DAILY NEWS:
Regents eyeing tuition freeloaders
By Joan Stroer
Staff Writer
A mild-mannered menace could be stalking the
state's college classrooms: bookish freeloaders
infiltrating one of Georgia's new free-tuition
programs, a University of Georgia official said
Thursday.
The State Board of Regents is studying
whether a new program that lets university
employees into college courses for free attracts
students who pose as committed workers and
accept jobs with no intention of staying on staff
after their free courses end.
Educating transitory scholars for free is not the
intent of the state's tuition remission program,
said Carlton James, UGA associate vice
president for human resources.
"Some people have raised some questions as
to some of the people participating," James
said.
Developed as a way to recruit and retain
workers and to develop staff, the regents
approved the plan last year. Full-time university
employees statewide can take up to six hours a
semester, provided they've worked six months at
the school and meet admissions requirements.
The students also must show that their courses
relate in some way to their university work and
they must maintain at least a C average to stay in
the program.
About 180 staff and faculty members at
Georgia take advantage of the offering.
Now regents are considering whether to tailor
the policy more narrowly, perhaps requiring a
longer length of service at universities before the
free enrollment is allowed, James said. It'll be
hard for regents to read the motives of some of
the state's current tuition remission candidates,
he said.
"Is it really meeting the need?" he said. "That's
a concern we're looking at."
>FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Researcher Proves Scientists Are Funny. Some of Them.
By PHILIP J. HILTS
The award ceremony to be held on Thursday at Harvard University
will draw more than 1,100 scientists and their students. But the occasion
will be something less than solemn.
Paper airplanes will sail from the stage and chants will rise from
the audience as the prize-winners receive their awards. They will be the
newest IgNobel laureates.
The program includes an extremely brief opera on a scientific
subject, three one-minute scientific lectures called the Heisenberg
Certainty Lectures (with a stopwatch and a bouncer ready should the speaker
pass the 60-second mark), and a win-a-date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate drawing.
The IgNobel prizes, to be awarded for the seventh time this year,
celebrate actual published research or other scientific activities that
are, in a word, goofy.
Past winners include Ellen Kleist of Greenland and Harald Moi of
Norway for their disturbing medical paper, "Transmission of Gonorrhea
Through an Inflatable Doll"; D.M.R. Georget and colleagues of England for
their analysis of why breakfast cereal becomes soggy; Chonosuke Okamura of
Japan for his "discovery" of humans, horses and dragon fossils, each a
complete skeleton less than one-hundredth of an inch long; and
Robert Matthews of Aston University in England for demonstrating
that toast does indeed fall on the buttered side.
The man responsible for all this is Marc Abrahams, editor of Annals
of Improbable Research, a journal sometimes referred to as the "Mad
magazine of science." It is probably the only scientific journal with seven
Nobel laureates and a felon on its editorial board.
Abrahams, 42, is a Harvard-trained mathematician, former computer
software entrepreneur and columnist whose exploits as editor of the
magazine are passing into legend among academics.
He grew up in Swampscott, Mass., and after his mathematics and
computer studies at Harvard, he developed educational programs to train
people to be good at decision-making. On the side, though, he was writing
science humor and eventually he submitted some work to The Journal of
Irreproducible Results, the predecessor of the Annals. He could not find an
address for it, so he wrote to Martin Gardner, a mathematician and games
specialist who had written articles for the journal. Gardner's reply was
unexpectedly enthusiastic.
"Would you like to be editor?" he asked.
The journal lacked an editor and was undergoing other
organizational change. Eventually, Mr. Abrahams wound up running the new
publication. That was in 1990. Abrahams has since built the journal into an
enterprise that includes dozens of contributors and an editorial board of
distinguish scientists and, of course, the IgNobels.
In its own way, the journal has high standards. "We turn down more
than 10 pieces for every one we accept," Abrahams said. "I think that's a
higher rejection rate than Science or Nature. But then, people think twice
before submitting an article to Science or Nature. Apparently people don't
always think twice before submitting a piece to us."
The journal's contents are divided between real scientific papers
with a humorous side and unreal ones with an occasionally serious side.
Together, they demonstrate, as the physics laureate Sheldon Glashow puts
it: "Scientists do have a sense of humor. Some of them, anyway."
The journal has a paid circulation of 2,000 (at $23 a year) and the
IgNobel Prize presentation annually draws a sellout crowd of 1,200 to the
Sanders Theater, where it is broadcast on National Public Radio.
There are recurring themes. The engineering study "Stress Analysis
of a Strapless Evening Gown," first reported in The Journal of
Irreproducible Results in the 1950's, later appeared in musical form at the
IgNobel ceremonies. Deborah Henson-Conant, a professional harpist, had
turned the work into a four-movement orchestral work. "Deborah gives a
demonstration as she plays," Abrahams said, deadpan.
Nor does the journal shy away from exposé. In 1995, after the
Public Broadcasting Service began the show Barney about a purple dinosaur,
the journal published a report of an investigation that used a wide-field
X-ray device to observe Barney at a shopping mall, and to get images of
Barney's skeletal structure.
"X-ray photographs of Barney have provided our most astounding
observations," wrote the authors, Edward C. Theriot and Earle E. Spamer of
the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and Arthur E. Bogan of
Freshwater Molluscan Research Center, in Sewell, N.J. While Barney's
external morphology was that of a bipedal dinosaur, they found, his
skeleton was "clearly hominid both in morphometry and distribution of
osteological elements." They went on, "If a skeleton of a proto-human
cannot be distinguished from that of Barney, there is a likelihood that
some of the skeletal specimens of early hominids -- "Lucy" for example --
may, in fact, be a skeleton of a Barney ancestor."
The journal has also scored some firsts. One article suggested that
if surgery may have to be repeated, surgeons should install zippers, not
sutures. Surgical zippers are now actually used in some procedures.
________________________________________
What? You search? You would multiply yourself
by ten, by a hundred? You seek followers?
Seek Zeros!
-Nietzsche
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Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 08:56:37 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: news and events
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
TONIGHT: THE A-CC VOTER FORUM. LET'S GO AND MAKE A GREAT STUDENT TURNOUT:
6-10 PM AT THE CLASSIC CENTER.
NEWS:
Athens Daily News
Show me the money
Authors say cash runs Georgia politics
By Lee Shearer
Staff Writer
10/12/98
A lot has changed in Georgia politics in 50
years, but one thing hasn't, two political authors
agree. It's money that matters, former
Congressman James A. Mackay and University of
Georgia political science professor Arnold
Fleischman told a small audience at the
Athens-Clarke County Regional Library Sunday
afternoon.
Political science professor Fleischmann is
co-author of "Politics in Georgia," published last
year by the University of Georgia Press. The UGA
Press this year published "Who Runs Georgia?" -
a book former Congressman Mackay, 79, and
fellow Emory alumnus Calvin Kytle wrote 50 years
ago, when Mackay was a young lawyer and Kytle
a young reporter.
Mackay and Kytle never meant to write a book; it
was a report commissioned by a group of
progressive Georgia leaders after the chaotic
aftermath of Georgia's 1946 election, the first
election following the U.S. Supreme Court
decision that black Americans must be allowed to
vote. Winning the Democratic primary in those
days was the same as winning the general
election, so weak was the Republican party in the
South, and most of the 100,000 blacks who cast
their ballots for the first time voted for liberal
candidate James Carmichael, who won the state's
popular vote by 16,000 votes. But the racist
demagogue Eugene Talmadge won the
Democratic nomination under the "county unit"
system then used by Georgia.
Under the county unit system, each of Georgia's
159 counties was allocated between two and six
"county units" - a system which greatly diluted the
votes of people in urban counties like Cobb and
Fulton, which each got six county units. In the
county unit system, the total votes of Jackson,
Oglethorpe and Madison counties were equal to
those of all of Fulton County - each total
represented six county units.
That election signaled the end of a progressive
era in Georgia politics, but more bizarre
developments followed.
Talmadge, the newly-elected governor, died
before inauguration day, and the state legislature
appointed his son, the equally racist Herman
Talmadge, to succeed him. M.E. Thompson, the
lieutenant governor-elect, disagreed - he should
be governor, he said. With both claiming the
office, the old governor, Ellis Arnall, refused to
leave the state house. The state was in chaos for
63 days before the Georgia Supreme Court
decided Thompson would be governor.
But the progressive movement epitomized by
Arnall was dead, and a group of Atlanta leaders
hired Mackay and Kytle to find out why, going to
every one of the state's 159 counties to ask one
main question: Who runs the state?
They came to four conclusions as a result of their
research, recalled Mackay on Sunday - five
decades after they put them down on paper.
"The county unit system confounded and
frustrated the will of the people of this state. You
can't have a lily-white primary. We knew we
needed a two-party system," he said.
Those problems are gone now. The county unit
system was struck down by the U.S. Supreme
Court, Georgia has two viable political parties and
the state's black as well as its white citizens can
now vote.
Thanks in part to Mackay's vote in the U.S.
Congress. As a freshman Congressman from
DeKalb County, Mackay voted for the 1965 Voting
Rights Act, which removed voting barriers for
blacks in the South. The vote cost Mackay his seat
in Congress in the 1966 elections.
But the fourth concern is an even bigger problem
today than it was in 1948, MacKay said: "How do
you fund campaigns for public office without
corrupting the candidate and the donor?" he
asked.
Fleischmann agreed - the governor's race in
Georgia will likely run up a $15 million tab, and
beginning with the first day in office, the average
U.S. Senator has to raise about $15,000 per
week for the next campaign, he said.
Fleischmann and Mackay also took depressing
note of another disturbing trend in Georgia -
declining voter turnout. Only about 30 percent of
the state's registered voters actually bother to
vote, he said.
Both men also lamented the effects of TV and
opinion polls on the nation's politicians. "It's as if
demagoguery has moved north, put on new suits
and gone on television," read Fleischmann,
quoting from Mackay's book.
"Candidates are taking positions based on the
polls, so we see candidates support no-brainers -
they're for education, against crime, and that's
about all we're hearing," Fleischmann said.
Once it was possible to campaign by talking to
people, having coffees and appearing at every
precinct in a district; when Mackay ran for
Congress, his total budget was $100,000, with the
average contributor giving $60, he said.
No more.
"The logistics of getting your message out have
changed. We're in a different era, and I have no
solutions for it," Mackay said. "The thing that
breaks my heart about it is that everything is a
30-second sound bite."
The Athens Daily News ran the following editorial on Sunday. Let's see if
it actuates action on this issue:
Authorities must take forceful action to halt violence linked
to bars
After the crowd left the scene, the dispute flared
up again about an hour later in front of the 5th
Quarter nightclub on East Clayton Street in
downtown Athens.
Two more men were arrested there when a large
crowd gathered and fights broke out. One witness
reported 13 police cars were on the scene, and
pepper spray again was used after the mob
became unruly.
What happened last Saturday night cannot be
allowed to occur again. Fortunately, no one was
seriously hurt, but the potential for great harm
clearly was present.
Officials do not have to tolerate this kind of
behavior. Police and elected officials should
thoroughly investigate last weekend's melees and
take strong measures to convey the message that
bar owners must maintain order at their
establishments.
If that means pulling liquor licenses or forcing
nightclubs to close down at an earlier hour, then so
be it. Police officers and the public should not be
put at risk so that bar owners can make a few
more bucks.
The Athens Daily News has reported that a child of a local school board
member was killed by a car on Friday. Apparently, the child was just
standing in the street. Anyway, perhaps this child's death will cause the
locals to look at pedestrian safety...we shall see.
Dole to campaign in Athens
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole will be campaigning in Athens Tuesday on behalf
of John McCallum, Republican candidate for Georgia Secretary of
State.
Dole will appear at a McCallum rally and news conference scheduled for 3
p.m. at Athens-Ben Epps Airport.
Also attending will be McCallum's wife, Heather Whitestone McCallum, Miss
America 1995. The McCallums are longtime friends of Dole
and played key roles in his 1996
presidential campaign.
EVENTS FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS:
Moday, 10/12: The A-CC voter forum. Meet all the candidates for local
office at the Classic Center from 6-10. It's important for us to have a
good student turnout at this forum.
Monday, 10/12: Tom Deluca. Sponsored by University Union. Hypnotist Tom
Deluca is featured in the annual homecoming show. Tickets: $2 UGA students
with
valid UGACard; $4 general admission; tickets go on sale Tuesday, September
15. 8 p.m. Ramsey Center Volleyball Arena. Contact: 542-6396.
Tuesday, 10/13: Democratic Party plans open house. The local Democratic
Party organization will hold an open house Tuesday at its headquarters,
1195 S. Milledge Ave. in Five Points.
Thursday, 10/15: Christian Faculty Forum: The Gospel of John and Book of
Revelation as Companion Books. Speaker: Professor Randy Beck, assistant
professor, School
of Law. 12:30 p.m. Room 501, Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry.
Thursday, 10/15: Senatorial Candidate: Michael Coles, Dem. Sponsored by
Student Bar Association. Speech followed by question and answer session and
reception. 12:30
p.m. Room J, School of Law. Contact: 542-5172.
Thursday, 10/15: Concert: UGA Symphony Orchestra. Sponsored by School of
Music. Mark Cedel conducts music by Beethoven, Debussy, and Brahms. 8 p.m.
Hugh Hodgson
Concert Hall. Contact: 542-3737.
Friday, 10/16: Noon Speaker Series: Perceptions of Severity of Men's Abuse
of Women. Sponsored by Women's Studies Program. Speaker: Martha Markward,
School of
Social Work. 12:20 p.m. Room 140, Tate Student Center. Contact: 542-2846.
Monday, 10/19: Louise McBee Lecture. Sponsored by Institute of Higher
Education. Speaker: Dr. Lee Shulman, President, Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of
Teaching. The lecture is free and open to the university public. 11 a.m.
University Chapel, North Campus. Contact: Thomas G. Dyer, 542-0576.
Wednesday, 10/21: Lecture: This Is A Free Country, Not a Christian Nation.
Sponsored by Sagan Society. Speaker: Dr. Ed Buckner, Atlanta Freethought
Society. 7 p.m.
Room F, School of Law. Contact: 542-1784.
Thursday, 10/22: Senatorial Candidate: Paul Coverdell (R). Sponsored by
Student Bar Association. Speech followed by question and answer session and
reception. 3:30 p.m.
Room J, School of Law. Contact: 542-5172.
Saturday, 10/24: Insane Clown Posse at the Tabernackle.
Wednesday, 10/28: Lecture: Kurt Vonnegut. Sponsored by Ideas and Issues,
University Union. Author of Cats's Cradle, Hocus Pocus, and Slaughterhouse
Five and winner of the
literary award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Tickets: $2
students with valid UGACard; $4 non-students. Tickets available starting
October 14th.
7:30 p.m. Georgia Hall, Tate Student Center. Contact: 542-6396.
Thursday, 10/29: Alanis Morissette at the Tabernackle.
Monday, 11/9: Buy your tickets now! Marilyn Manson in ATL. 404-249-6400
NO POSTINGS FOR AWHILE...I'LL BE OUT OF TOWN FOR A COUPLE O' DAYS.
CHRIS
________________________________________
Let each of us boldly and honestly say:
How little it is that I really know!
-Voltaire
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Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 11:57:04 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: On Campus Bookstore Legislation!
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
>From the Dayton Daily News, September 30, 1998
Copyright 1998 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.
Dayton Daily News
September 30, 1998, Wednesday, CITY EDITION
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 758 words
KICKR: STUDENT VOUCHERS
HEADLINE: COLLEGES UNFAIR, BOOKSELLERS SAY
BYLINE: John Keilman Dayton Daily News
BODY:
When Chuck Bills opened The College Store near Wright State University
to sell textbooks and other school supplies, he identified one untouchable
market.
Students on financial aid could get vouchers to spend in the
university's bookstore, but they couldn't use them off campus. So Bills
called the school to learn how he could get a piece of the action.
'They said I couldn't take vouchers because the store wasn't a
designated supplier,' recalled Bills, who now works for The College Store's
parent company in Omaha, Neb. 'When I asked how I could become a designated
supplier, they said I couldn't.'
Off-campus bookstores have long complained about what they consider
the monopolistic practices of colleges and universities. Now, they are
looking to even the playing field with an act of Congress.
The Senate last week held a hearing on a bill that would strip federal
aid from colleges that discriminate against off-campus businesses. Lauch
Faircloth, R-N.C., who introduced the measure, said he wants to curb the
swelling costs of higher education.
Off-campus stores frequently carry textbooks at lower prices than
their university-sanctioned competitors. They also tend to focus on the
cheaper used books students covet.
In most cases, students who receive government grants or loans can use
them for books and other expenses. But off-campus store owners say colleges
and universities try to prevent that money from leaving school coffers.
At Sinclair Community College, about 8,000 of the school's 20,000
students receive enough financial aid to have cash left over after they pay
tuition and fees.
They can spend up to $ 300 of that money at the college's bookstore.
They cannot do the same at the Tri-College Bookstore, an independent shop
that sells textbooks a couple of blocks from campus.
Kathy Wiesenauer, the college's financial aid director, said that is
because off-campus businesses can't access Sinclair's computer system,
which tracks how much money is in a student's account.
But she added, 'I'm certain that the idea is to have students utilize
the campus store.'
To Vicky Valerin, owner of the Tri-College Bookstore, that sounds like
restraint of trade.
'The way the system is currently set up, it's as though institutional
bookstores have a monopoly to force students to shop only at their
bookstore,' she said. 'If financial aid students want to buy from us, they
have to use cash.'
Students at Sinclair and Wright State - the only other Dayton-area
institution with a competitor bookstore- eventually get all of the money in
their financial aid account, but they must wait for two weeks after classes
start.
In the meantime, Wright State students can get a $ 300 cash advance on
their account if they fill out some paperwork. About 1,200 do that each
year, according to Financial Aid Director Dave Darr. 'I don't think there's
any reason a student couldn't go off-campus for their books,' he said.
'It's a matter of convenience, not access.'
But off-campus booksellers say that when schools put up extra
obstacles, they encourage students to spend their money in college-run
stores.
This conflict also exists at Miami University in Oxford. However,
spokeswoman Holly Wissing said only about 300 of the school's 16,000
students receive financial aid that pays for more than tuition and fees.
Sinclair and Wright State officials say a solution may come with
college-issued debit cards.
Wright State already uses the cards, which allow students to shop at
businesses within the student center, including the Barnes & Noble-run
bookstore. Within the next two years, school officials say they will
include outside shops.
Sinclair plans to issue its own debit cards next year, though it
hasn't come up with specifics.
Off-campus businesses, though, are wary of the cards, even if they
were eventually able to accept them.
Valerin said they encourage one-stop shopping at university stores.
'I don't think (schools) are doing it to make it easier to compete
with us, or to give students more options,' she said. 'I think they're
doing it so students can make all their purchases on-campus.'
Meanwhile, Christine Hess, spokeswoman for Faircloth, said the senator
hopes to attach his bill's language to an appropriations measure, and that
it will become law before the end of the year.
If that fails, she said, Faircloth plans to raise the issue again in
the next congressional session.
* CONTACT John Keilman at 225-2362 or e-mail him at
john_keilman@coxohio.com
LOAD-DATE: October 1, 1998
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 22:10:20 -0500
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From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Leave me alone Dad!
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
HA! Back from Japan. Did you miss me?
NEWS:
>From the Washington Post
Boomer Parents Renew Their Campus Activism
By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 19, 1998; Page B01
At Virginia's Radford University, parents this year have persuaded the school to notify them when their children commit drug and alcohol violations. At Howard University, most parents will finally get a copy of their children's grades. At the University of Maryland, academic counselors have been retrained because of parents' complaints.
The baby boomers are back on campus -- this time as parents demanding a bigger role in the university's decisions about their children.
Members of the generation that rebelled against authority at campus rallies and sit-ins now are pressuring colleges to let them see their children's records. They are calling dormitory and cafeteria directors with ideas for improving service. Sometimes they are contacting schools because their child received a low grade or was shut out of a class. At many colleges, they have prompted officials to create parent advisory groups that lobby for policy changes.
On the whole, today's college parents are getting involved in school matters to a degree that university administrators say they have never seen. Parents say it's simply an extension of the active role they played at day-care centers, in youth sports leagues and at
elementary and secondary schools while their children were growing up.
FOR THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE, BROWSE TO:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/digest/local001.htm
>FROM THE CDC: THE OFFICIAL REPORT ON SPOUSAL VIOLENCE
http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/mmwr_wk.html
EVENTS:
Monday, 10/19: Louise McBee Lecture. Sponsored by Institute of Higher
Education. Speaker: Dr. Lee Shulman, President, Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching. The lecture is free and open to the university public. 11 a.m.
University Chapel, North Campus. Contact: Thomas G. Dyer, 542-0576.
Wednesday, 10/21: Lecture: This Is A Free Country, Not a Christian Nation.
Sponsored by Sagan Society. Speaker: Dr. Ed Buckner, Atlanta Freethought
Society. 7 p.m. Room F, School of Law. Contact: 542-1784.
Thursday, 10/22: Senatorial Candidate: Paul Coverdell (R). Sponsored by
Student Bar Association. Speech followed by question and answer session and
reception. 3:30 p.m. Room J, School of Law. Contact: 542-5172.
Thursday, 10/22: Athens Mayoral Debate. Demosthenian Hall at 7:30.
Saturday, 10/24: The National Organization for Women (NOW) is having a car tagging/fundraiser for area NOW chapters. 10-2 Buford Hwy at Lenox Road.
Saturday, 10/24: Insane Clown Posse at the Tabernacle.
Wednesday, 10/28: Lecture: Kurt Vonnegut. Sponsored by Ideas and Issues,
University Union. Author of Cats's Cradle, Hocus Pocus, and Slaughterhouse
Five and winner of the literary award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Tickets: $2 students with valid UGACard; $4 non-students. Tickets available starting
October 14th.
7:30 p.m. Georgia Hall, Tate Student Center. Contact: 542-6396.
Stop tilling your fields! Head for the hills! Friday, October 23rd is the Armageddon! Can't you hear the hoofbeats approaching?
C
_____________________________________
Since the beginning of time man has yearned to
destroy the sun. I will do the next best thing...
block it out!
-Monty Burns, The Simpsons
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Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 09:48:02 -0500
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Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: BREWFEST!
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
EVENTS!
Friday, 10/23: The Clarke County Democratic Committee hosts the Fall
Classic. Smooze with Barnes, Taylor, Thurmond, and Eldridge at the Winery
>from 6:30-9.
Saturday, 10/24: Look at Uranus! Sandy Creek Park is hosting a astronomy
night at 7 PM. It's a great event for a date.
The event of the Fall: The Athens Microbrewfest. Sunday, 10/25 at Trump's
>from 5:30-9:30. For $20, you can drink your socks off at the Georgian.
Afterwards, skinny dipping at Legion Pool.
Tuesday, 10/27: Board of Education candidates Jim Ponsoldt and Dennis
Revell debate in the Barnett Shoals Elementary School at 7 PM.
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:54:02 -0500
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: News
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
I pulled most of these articles from the Athens Daily News today. Although
relevant to students, I did not see any of these topics or events in the
R&B.
NEWS:
The Athens Daily News reported today the John Scieszka, the 'Five-Points
Rapist' will be prosecuted in Dekalb County for rapes committed near Emory
University.
For more info: http://www.onlineathens.com/news.html
>From the Athens Daily News: UGA librarian wins state recognition
William Gray Potter, the University of Georgia
librarian, has received the highest award given by
the Georgia Library Association in recognition of
outstanding contribution to libraries in Georgia.
The Nix-Jones Award honors a practicing
librarian who has made substantial contributions
to the library profession.
The award was presented at the recent Georgia
Library Association meeting.
>From the AP: The Center for Science in the Public Interest has advocated a
tax on soda pop. CSPI alleges that soda consumption has increased greatly,
adversely affecting children in particular. For more information:
http://www.cspinet.org/
>From the Washington Post:
FDA Orders Alcohol-Pain Killer Warnings
Associated Press
Thursday, October 22, 1998; Page A11
If three alcoholic drinks a day is your routine, the
government wants you to check with your doctor before
reaching for that bottle of painkiller.
And to reinforce the message, over-the-counter pain
relievers and fever reducers will have to start carrying
label warnings within six months, the Food and Drug
Administration announced yesterday.
The agency said it is making final a rule proposed last
year requiring labels to warn against mixing alcohol and
aspirin; acetaminophen, sold under the brand name
Tylenol and other names; ibuprofen, the active ingredient
in Advil and other brands; naproxen sodium, the active
ingredient in Aleve; and ketoprofen, the active ingredient
in Orudis KT and Actron.
The action is needed to warn chronic alcohol users that
they may be at increased risk of liver damage or stomach
bleeding from use of these drugs, the agency said.
"Consumers need to know that chronic use of alcohol
while taking pain relievers or fever reducers can be
hazardous to their health," said acting FDA
Commissioner Michael A. Friedman. "FDA urges
people with a history of alcohol use to seek a doctor's
advice about their risk of side effects before taking these
medications."
The new alcohol warning labels are to begin:
"Alcohol Warning: If you consume three or more
alcoholic drinks every day, ask your doctor whether you
should take [name of ingredient] or other pain
relievers/fever reducers."
This is followed by an additional warning specific to the
product.
The danger made headlines in 1994, when a Virginia
man won an $8 million lawsuit claiming he needed a
liver transplant after mixing Tylenol and his habit of
wine with dinner.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Holmes-Hunter lecture features ABC
reporter
Michel McQueen, the Emmy Award-winning
Washington, D.C., correspondent for ABC News,
will deliver the annual Holmes-Hunter lecture at
the University of Georgia on Nov. 5, UGA officials
said Wednesday.
The lecture will begin at 10 a.m. in the Tate
Theater and is free and open to the public.
McQueen has covered a range of stories for
ABC News, including segments on government
budget battles, sexual harassment in the U.S.
military and an ongoing series, "America in Black
and White."
McQueen won an Emmy for a story on the
international campaign to ban land mines, and
she earned an Emmy nomination for a report on
children's racial attitudes.
Best-selling author to give Charter Lecture
Author Alex Kotlowitz, whose best-selling books
put a human face on the problems of race and
poverty, will deliver the fall semester Charter
Lecture at the University of Georgia on Nov. 2.
Kotlowitz's 4 p.m. speech in the UGA Chapel,
titled "Writing on the Other America: Is Anybody
Listening? Does Anybody Care?" is free and
open to the public.
His most recent book is "The Other Side of the
River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death and
America's Dilemma." His 1991 book is "There
Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys
Growing Up in the Other America."
Kotlowitz formerly covered urban affairs for the
Wall Street Journal.
_____________________________________
No one in this world, so far as I know--and I
have researched the record for years, and
employed agents to help me--has ever lost
money by underestimating the intelligence
of the great masses of plain people. Nor has
anyone ever lost public office thereby.
-H. L. Mencken
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Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 10:03:39 -0500
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Subject: News
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
News from the Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL) October 2, 1998
HEADLINE: Paying dad sues daughter for picking private school
BYLINE: Gordon Jackson, Times-Union staff writer
ST. MARYS -- A St. Marys lawyer is suing his daughter because she is attending a private university instead of a community college.
In the lawsuit scheduled to go to trial Nov. 12 in Camden County Superior Court, Stephen L. Berry sued his daughter, Katie Berry, to force her to attend Coastal Georgia Community College, instead of Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon.
Berry, who is obligated to pay for his daughter's college education as part of a 1990 divorce settlement, argues in the lawsuit his daughter needs to 'demonstrate an emotional security she has yet to fully show' before allowing her to leave home to attend college.
The lawsuit also said attending the community college would allow the 19-year-old freshman a chance to better develop study skills and 'it would allow a more efficient and practical expenditure of the resources available . . . to finance a college education.'
Berry wants his daughter to attend community college classes for a year before transferring to a four-year university, the lawsuit said.
But the divorce settlement with his ex-wife, Gaila Brandon, never specified what college his daughter had to attend. The only stipulation was the costs for college he was responsible for would include tuition, books, matriculation fees, room and board, and 'shall not exceed the costs required for a state residence student to attend the University of Georgia in Athens.'
Berry argued in the lawsuit he was denied any role in helping his daughter decide on a college and did not believe his daughter was capable of making such a decision without his advice.
'The person financing the college education should have a substantial voice in how and where that college education is obtained,' the lawsuit said. 'No responsible parent would ever give that decision solely and irrevocably to a teenager.'
Berry declined to comment on the lawsuit yesterday, saying he didn't think the matter was newsworthy.
Karen Krider, a Brunswick attorney representing the daughter and her mother, declined to comment. She said she has advised her two clients against talking to the media.
But in her response to the lawsuit, Krider asked for the case to be dismissed in its entirety. She also filed a contempt of court complaint against Berry, saying it was his daughter's decision on where to attend college.
>From the Athens Daily News:
Old Belk store to be razed for upscale hotel
By Don Nelson
Associate Editor
The skyline and landscape in the eastern end of
downtown Athens are about to change.
Benson's Inc., the owner of the East Clayton Street
building that once housed Belk department store, will
demolish the 15,240 square-foot structure to make
room for a parking lot, and eventually, an upscale
hotel.
"Sometime in the next few weeks we will begin the
process of removing the Belk building, and the
contractor will dispose of the building and whatever
contents are left," said Lewis Shropshire, general
manager of the Athens Holiday Inn, which is owned
and operated by Benson's Inc.
Holiday Inn workers were busy Thursday removing
fixtures and other materials from the building, which
has access to both East Clayton and East
Washington streets.
The rest of this story is online at: www.onlineathens.com/news.html
Senator stumps at UGA Law School
By Lee Shearer
Staff Writer
There was not a single question about the
possible impeachment of President Bill Clinton
when Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., spoke to a
largely student audience at the University of
Georgia's Law School Thursday.
But that's not unusual, Coverdell said after his
talk.
"People have other things on their minds," he
said.
In recent campaign appearances, the question
has come up only about half the time, and when it
does, it's usually limited to a single question,
usually about procedure, Coverdell said.
Coverdell said the question of whether the
president is impeached will ultimately be in the
hands of the Democrats, assuming the House of
Representatives votes to send the question to the
Senate.
If the Democrats hang together, there simply are
not enough Republican votes to remove Clinton,
since the Republican majority in the Senate is less
than the two-thirds required to remove a president
from office, he explained.
And it's quite possible that as many as 10 to 12
Republican senators will hear the evidence and
decide Clinton's wrongdoing does not warrant
removal from office, Coverdell added.
Any vote to remove the president would require
a Senate consensus - the American people would
not accept a partisan vote to do it, he said.
The audience had plenty of questions on other
issues, however.
One student complained about the negative tone
of Coverdell's campaign against Democrat
Michael Coles, specifically about a TV ad that
accuses Cole of failing to provide health insurance
for 65 percent of his employees.
Since the employees in question are part-time
workers, the student asked for Coverdell's stand
on health coverage for part-timers and whether
Coverdell's campaign staff is provided with health
coverage.
Coverdell said he didn't know whether his
campaign staff had health coverage.
And when most of an employer's work force is
full-time, the employer should provide health
coverage for them, he said.
"When 65 percent of your work force is
part-time, when they're the rule rather than the
exception, you need to modify the rule (the
minimum number of hours worked per week
before an employee is eligible for health
coverage) down to about 10 hours," he said.
Another student noted the growing trend of
corporations to employ "temporary" employees,
who are not eligible for health care and other
benefits. Should those companies be required to
provide health insurance?
No, Coverdell said.
"I think the federal government has caused the
phenomenon in the first place," through years of
bureaucratic regulation, he said. "They ought to
grant the flexibility to allow employers and
employees to work things out among themselves."
Coverdell also addressed a number of other
issues.
The spending bill passed last week had its good
and bad points, he said - not enough tax cuts, but
it did have increased military spending, money for
hard-hit Georgia farmers, and funding for two
Coverdell bills, a "drug-free work place" law and a
$200 million bill to train reading teachers.
Coverdell says he opposes a national HOPE
scholarship program which would provide college
scholarships to students with good grades, as
Georgia's lottery-funded HOPE scholarship does.
Instead, families who save for college should get
tax breaks, he said.
A national sales tax "would engender more
savings" and could come in six to eight years, he
said. "The present system (of income taxation) is
impossible to understand and has bred cynicism,"
he said. Coverdell said he would support a sales
tax if income tax is abolished at the same time.
Coverdell's appearance was sponsored by the
UGA Law School's Student Bar Association.
_____________________________________
Since the beginning of time man has yearned to
destroy the sun. I will do the next best thing...
block it out!
-Monty Burns, The Simpsons
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Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:23:03 -0500
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From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Getting Paid...the GMAT
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
The Chronicle of Higher Education surveyed the top-paid people in
academe...here is a review of the results from the Washington Post:
Hopkins, GWU Hand Out High Pay; Local Private University Presidents Among
Top 10 in
Survey
BYLINE: Valerie Strauss, Washington Post Staff Writer
The presidents of two universities in the Washington-Baltimore region are
among the nation's 10 highest-paid chief executives in private higher
education, according to a survey being released today by the Chronicle of
Higher Education, which says salaries for college presidents are higher
than ever.
When considering salaries alone, Johns Hopkins University President
William R. Brody ranks sixth-highest, at $ 396,706, and George Washington
University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is seventh, at $ 385,241,
the survey showed.
Factoring in both salaries and benefits, however, changes the
rankings. Brody is ninth, with $ 435,592 in salary and benefits for
1996-97, the last year for which information is available. And Trachtenberg
is 10th, with $ 425,041.
"I always try to stay below 11, so I can't slip into the top 10 --
precisely because I don't want to get a call" from a reporter, Trachtenberg
said. He noted that presidential compensation is set by a school's
trustees, who often do comparative studies that might take into account a
school's size, the complexity of its budget and other considerations.
"These jobs are 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Trachtenberg.
"They are complicated jobs, and if you are in the corporate sector, you'd
be paid a lot more. I think everybody who becomes a university president
recognizes that they are not in the corporate sector and made the judgment
that they are not going to be going after those kinds of salaries."
The Chronicle of Higher Education said it based its survey on data
>from returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service by 475 private
colleges and universities for 1996-97. Although the documents do not
provide complete compensation figures, they are the best source available
for such information.
The 10 highest-compensated private university presidents are: Torsten
N. Wiesel of Rockefeller University, $ 546,966; Joe B. Wyatt of Vanderbilt
University, $ 525,496; Judith Rodin of the University of Pennsylvania, $
514,878; George Rupp of Columbia University, $ 458,480; L. Jay Oliva of New
York University, $ 451,643; Richard C. Levin of Yale University, $ 447,265;
James M. Shuart of Hofstra University, $ 438,554; Robert Mehrabian of
Carnegie Mellon University, $ 436,164; Brody; and Trachtenberg.
Nearly 50 presidents received more than $ 300,000 in pay and benefits
in 1996-97, with 10 presidents receiving more than $ 400,000. Three years
earlier, 25 presidents received more than $ 300,000 in pay and benefits.
The median total in 1996-97 for the presidents surveyed increased by 4.3
percent to $ 168,662, ahead of inflation, which rose by 2.1 percent.
Many college presidents make more than the president of the United
States, whose annual salary is $ 200,000. But this is far less than other
high-profile Americans, especially many professional athletes, who can make
$ 10 million a year.
At institutions with medical schools and hospitals, practicing doctors
make more than the presidents. At Johns Hopkins, for example, John L.
Cameron, professor and director of surgery, received $ 569,946 in pay and $
38,886 in benefits during 1996-97, more than Brody.
At Georgetown University, President Leo J. O'Donovan received $
270,530 in salary and $ 2,352 in benefits, while Jeffrey C. Posnick,
professor and doctor of plastic and reconstructive surgery, was paid $
707,000 in 1996-97 and received $ 23,742 in benefits. O'Donovan was one of
two presidents of research universities who, as Jesuit priests, donated
their pay to their religious orders. The other was the Rev. Lawrence Biondi
of St. Louis University.
At Howard University, President H. Patrick Swygert received $ 187,757
in salary and $ 2,855 in benefits. Swygert was one of only two presidents
at research universities who reported total earnings below $ 200,000. The
other was Norman Lamm, of Yeshiva University, with pay of $ 192,7000 and
benefits of $ 6,745.
GWU's Stephen Joel Trachtenberg received $ 425,041 in compensation in
1996-97. Johns Hopkins University President William R. Brody received $
435,592.
__________________
THIS JUST GOES TO SHOW THAT TEACHING ISN'T THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF
LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY...WHY DO ADMINISTRATORS MAKE MORE THAN PROFESSORS?
__________________
>From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Testing Service Says 'Fatal Error' Message on GMAT Did Not Hurt Scores
By LISA GUERNSEY
In the past two weeks, more than 400 people
taking the Graduate Management Admission Test
have gotten "fatal error" messages from the test's
software, startling some and panicking others.
Many people have left the testing sites confused
and angry, and at least one man believes that his
score was unfairly lowered.
Officials of the Educational Testing Service,
which administers the tests, say the problem has
not affected any test scores and has since been
fixed. The organization is not offering refunds.
This is the second year that the GMAT, a
standardized test used in business-school
admissions, has been administered by computer
only.
The problems started on October 12, the day after
the testing service installed a new version of the
GMAT software on its system, according to Kevin
Gonzalez, an E.T.S. spokesman. The error
messages occurred randomly -- and nationwide --
until Wednesday, when the bug that had caused
them was eliminated.
The error message appeared immediately after
test-takers had answered the final question on the
three-hour examination, and before the software
had a chance to prompt them to decide whether to
accept or cancel the score they were about to
receive. The software is designed to produce an
instant score for those who want the test reported
on their transcripts. According to students affected
by the problem, the computer screen froze and a
display window popped up with the words "fatal
error."
Michele Petragnani, of Washington, encountered
the bug earlier this week. He said the
administrator at the testing facility had tried for 35
minutes to fix the problem, to no avail. "When I
talked to an E.T.S. representative over the phone
to report the problem a few hours later, I was
pressured to come up with a decision regarding
whether I wanted the scores to be recorded," he
said. "I feel extremely hesitant about whether to
accept my scores."
E.T.S. representatives and administrators at
Sylvan Technology Centers, where registrants take
the tests, received instructions last week on how
to handle the problem. They were told to
determine whether people who had experienced
the error wanted to accept or cancel their scores,
while also assuring them that their scores had not
been affected by the glitch, Mr. Gonzalez said.
"It didn't erase the score, it didn't erase the test,"
he said. "This was not a data-collection error."
The 400 affected registrants, he added, were a
fraction of the 10,000 people who took the test
over the 10-day period. E.T.S. will not refund the
$150 they paid to take the exam, but they can
decide to cancel their scores and retake the test
for another $150. "You can't guarantee a perfect
test environment," Mr. Gonzalez said, "whether
tests are taken by paper and pencil or computer."
The two test-takers who spoke to The Chronicle
were angry that the testing service had continued
administering the GMAT after it had become
aware of the bug. "They knew about the problem,
but never bothered to notify anyone," said David
Hanson, of Gainesville, Fla., who experienced the
system error last Friday.
Mr. Hanson also said that he thought the error had
hurt his score. The number he was later told over
the telephone, he said, was as much as 110 points
lower than he had scored on five practice tests.
"How can I be certain that this flaw was not
affecting my scoring?" he asked. He said he was
planning to sue the service for a refund, at the very
least.
But he was most worried that the problem could
affect his ability to appear competitive to top
business schools, many of which start to accept
students under rolling admissions in the next few
months. The testing service requires students to
wait 30 days before retaking the test.
______________________________________________
Except for hydrogen, all the atoms that make each of us
up--the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the
carbon in our brains--were manufactured in red giant stars
thousands of light-years away in space and billions of
years ago in time. We are, as I like to say, starstuff.
-Carl Sagan
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Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 12:41:39 -0600
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From: Chris Hoofnagle
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To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Get involved in the County! Athens is seeking policy board volunteers:
The Athens-Clarke County government is looking for candidates to fill
volunteer terms on six different policy-making boards. Applicants must be
residents of Athens-Clarke County and registered voters.
The positions open are for three partial five-year terms on the Board of
Adjustments; a two-year term on the Economic Development Authority; three
five-year terms on the Athens Regional Library Board; two five-year terms
on the Board of Health; one partial three-year term on the Historic
Preservation Commission; and two five-year terms on the Construction Board
of Appeals.
One of the construction board seats be filled by a heating, ventilating and
air conditioning
contractor and one must be filled by a general construction contractor.
The application deadline is Nov. 6. Applications are available in and must
be returned to Room 204 of City Hall, at 300 College Ave.
All eligible candidates will be interviewed by the Athens-Clarke mayor and
commission members before any appointments can be made.
For more information, contact Jean Spratlin, clerk of the county
commission, at (706) 613-3031.
__________________________
Our government lies to us...all of our candidates for superintendent
suck...Bob Jones sucks...and don't spit!
CIA says it knew of Honduran human rights abuses in 1980s
By John Diamond
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The CIA knew of human rights
abuses by the Honduran military in the 1980s but
continued to support the anti-communist forces,
according to a newly declassified agency report.
The CIA inspector general's report found that
field dispatches and agency reports to Congress
played down the abuses and sometimes
contained inaccurate information. The IG found no
evidence to support allegations that CIA officials
were present at Honduran torture sessions.
For the rest of the story, browse to:
http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/102498/1024.a3cia.html
Teachers' organization refuses to pick a candidate in superintendent's race
By James Salzer
Staff Writer
ATLANTA - The Georgia Association of
Educators is the state's largest teacher group to
formally back candidates, and the union's
endorsement carries money and prestige.
GAE, an affiliate of the politically powerful
National Education Association, is endorsing
Democrats running for just about every statewide
office except one: state school superintendent.
GAE has decided to sit out the race, saying
neither of the two major candidates vying to run
Georgia's 1.4-million-student school system -
Republican incumbent Linda Schrenko nor
Democratic challenger Joe Martin - fully
measures up.
For the rest of this story, browse to:
http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/102498/1024.a2teachjers.html
Bob Jones University tells gay alumni: Don't come back
Associated Press
GREENVILLE, S.C. - Bob Jones University, the
fundamentalist Christian school that lost its
tax-exempt status in 1970 for racial
discrimination, is threatening to have gay alumni
and certain other graduates arrested for
trespassing if they set foot on campus.
There's little opponents can do about it. Bob
Jones is a private institution that is largely
self-sufficient and shuns accreditation.
"The Constitution simply doesn't apply to the
private sector," said Eldon Wedlock, a
constitutional law professor at the University of
South Carolina.
Bob Jones spokesman Jonathan Pait said the
policy applies only to graduates, not visitors to the
fenced-in 200-acre campus, and also covers cult
members, unrepentant criminals or other alumni
who have strayed from the school's teachings.
"We can't tell our alumni what they can and can't
believe," Pait said. "But we can say, 'You've
made your decisions; please do not return."'
The school did back down a bit Thursday,
saying its outcast graduates can visit Bob Jones'
world-renowned museum of religious art so that
the gallery does not lose its tax-exempt status.
Wayne Mouritzen, a 60-year-old retired minister
and Bob Jones graduate, got a don't-come-back
letter because school officials discovered he is
gay.
The letter, signed by Dean of Students Jim Berg
said: "With grief we must tell you that as long as
you are living as a homosexual, you, of course,
would not be welcome on the campus and would
be arrested for trespassing if you did visit. We
take no delight in that action. Our greatest delight
would be in your return to the Lord."
The school relented somewhat after Mouritzen
brought up the museum's tax-exempt status and
the school's desire to get $28,000 in local aid
from the Greenville County Council.
Pait said a person who returned to campus
would be asked to leave before being arrested by
school police. He said did not know of anyone
who had been confronted or arrested.
The 71-year old school has always gone its own
way. It makes its own electricity, does its own
laundry, grows most of its food and builds its own
buildings. It does not accept federal money, but
its students are eligible for new state-funded
scholarships.
The school's ban on interracial dating or
marriage prompted the Internal Revenue Service
to revoke its tax-exempt status in 1970, a
decision upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tony Snell, president of the South Carolina Gay
and Lesbian Pride Movement, urged the
Greenville County Council not to provide hotel tax
money to improve the art museum entrance. The
council approved the money last month, then
backed away at least temporarily.
Councilwoman Lottie Gibson, who recalls being
told to leave the campus because she is black
when she went to deliver a package of canned
food there in the early 1950s, said the letters
banning people from campus should disqualify
the museum from receiving aid.
"They're just trying to get the money and they
aren't going to let those people go out there
regardless of what they say," she said. "I don't put
any faith in what they're saying now."
Police: Spit gives DNA match for rape suspect
By Pat Leisner
Associated Press
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - After seeing a rape
suspect spit on the street, a police officer
grabbed a paper towel, jumped out of his cruiser
and blotted the spittle, gaining enough DNA
evidence to charge the man with two attacks.
"The opportunity presented itself and I was in
the right place at the right time," St. Petersburg
Sgt. Michael Puetz, who was assisting Tampa
detectives at the time, said Friday.
The amount of saliva he retrieved Tuesday,
about the size of a half-dollar, provided enough
genetic evidence for authorities to charge
Charles Peterson, an ex-convict, in an attack at a
Tampa discount store.
For the rest of the story, browse to:
http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/102498/1024.a3dna.html
__________________________
Events:
Tuesday, 10/27: Flute Recital: Ronald Waln. Sponsored by School of Music.
Assisted by Richard Zimdars, piano; Egbert Ennulat, harpsichord; David
Starkweather, cello.
Program includes works by Bach, Otar Taktakishvili, Philippe Gaubert and
Paul Hayden. Free and open to the public. 8 p.m. Ramsey Concert Hall. Contact:
542-3737.
Wednesday, 10/28: Lecture: Kurt Vonnegut. Sponsored by Ideas and Issues,
University Union. Author of Cats's Cradle, Hocus Pocus, and Slaughterhouse
Five and winner of the
literary award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Tickets: $2
students with valid UGACard; $4 non-students. Tickets available starting
October 14th.
7:30 p.m. Georgia Hall, Tate Student Center. Contact: 542-6396.
Thursday, 10/29: Public Reading: Terry Tempest Williams. Sponsored by
Center for Humanities and Arts. Ms. Williams is the Shirley Sutton Thomas
Visiting Professor of
English, University of Utah. 7:30 p.m. M. Smith Griffith Auditorium,
Georgia Museum of Art. Contact: 542-3966.
Monday, 11/2: Fall Charter Lecture: Writing on the Other America: Is
Anybody Listening? Does Anybody Care? Speaker: Alex Kotlowitz, sociologist
and journal from
Chicago and author of There Are No Children Here. 4 p.m. University Chapel.
Contact: 542-0415.
Tuesday, 11/3: VOTE!
Wednesday, 11/4: Lunch and Learn Series: How Your Unconscious Influences
Your Choice of Partners. Sponsored by Counseling and Testing Center. Noon.
Room 145,
Tate Student Center. Contact: 542-3183.
Wednesday, 11/4: Lecture: Why People Believe Weird Things. Sponsored by
Sagan Society. Speaker: Dr. Michael Shermer, best-selling author and editor
of Skeptic Magazine. 7 p.m. University Chapel. Contact: 542-1784.
Thursday, 11/5: Holmes-Hunter Lecture. Speaker: Michel McQueen, ABC News.
10 a.m. Tate Center Theater.
Thursday, 11/5: Lecture: Beyond Gone With the Wind: The Evolution of the
Southern Plantation into the Modern South. Sponsored by Center for
Humanities and Arts.
Speaker: Charles Aiken, Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee. 4
p.m. Room 265, Park Hall. Contact: 542-33966.
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:55:18 -0600
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Status:
More from the Athens Daily News...Most of this is relevant to students, but
none appears in the R&B:
Eckerd wants to talk
Store officials ask for Five Points meeting
By Joanna Soto
Staff Writer
In an attempt to quell criticism, Eckerd
Drugs officials requested a meeting
Monday with Five Points residents and
business owners to discuss plans for building a
drugstore in the area.
Eckerd Corp.'s exploration of the 1.28-acre tract at
1198 S. Milledge Ave. - current site of the
Downtowner Motor Inn - as a potential store location
has been met with public outcry.
Most complaints focus on the increase in traffic the
large drugstore would cause and fears it would harm
nearby businesses.
"We didn't realize or expect the firestorm or
controversy that's taken place," said Bob Gautier,
director of real estate for Eckerd Corp., who works in
Newnan.
For the rest of this story, browse to:
http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/102798/1027.a0five.html
Albany law stops protest of UGA President Adams
By Joan Stroer
Staff Writer
A small group of south Georgia landowners had
planned to protest the University of Georgia
president's support of affirmative action when he
ventured to Albany Monday night to stump for the
school at a meeting of the UGA National Alumni
Association.
But they called off the display Monday morning
after learning they needed a permit.
A few leaders and businessmen had planned to
distribute fliers and possibly wave placards at the
booster bash to express displeasure at Michael
Adams' championing of the University System's
affirmative-action admissions programs, said
Charles Crisp, a trustee of Georgia Southwestern
University, the Rosalyn Carter Institute and the
State Botanical Garden.
About 100 prominent Georgia supporters,
including UGA alumnus Crisp, attended the
Albany reception at Phoebe Northwest hospital.
But Albany Police Chief Bobby Johnson said the
ordinance prohibits any type of display outside a
hospital.
"I'm kind of upset," Crisp said Monday. "They've
got ordinances against ... doing anything like that
without a permit. The ordinance also said you
wouldn't be able to do it (near) a school or
hospital. This is almost an abridgment of freedom
of speech."
The flier urges supporters to withhold donations
to the state's largest university until the state ends
race-based admissions. A lawsuit targeting the
University System's provision to admit some
students according to race is pending.
Crisp said he and his cadre of friends are tired
of keeping their anti-affirmative action views quiet.
The small group of movers and shakers, led by
Crisp, met this weekend and considered their
options, which he said had ranged from picketing
the gathering to calling off any protest out of fear of
negative attention.
"I'm just morally opposed to affirmative action,"
Crisp said. "I think it's unfair. I think it's illegal."
"My friends feel like it's wrong, yet they're
intimidated because they feel like they'll be called
a racist. I'm hoping this will encourage other
people who feel the same to also make a public
stand."
Adams has vowed to hire more minority
administrators and he lobbied state legislators
successfully to keep race as one of 13 factors
considered in 10 percent of all UGA admissions,
along with factors like legacy status, south
Georgia residency and special talents.
Adams also moved minority programs under his
office's control this summer. Conversely, at least
one minority scholarship program has been
opened up to university wide competition during
his tenure, due to legal rulings in other states.
University spokesman Tom Jackson said the
president was scheduled to give a talk to the
boosters laying out some standard bragging
points about the university, and he wouldn't cancel
the talk over the off chance of any low-key
affirmative-action protest.
"It's a question that comes up at public
appearances from time to time," Jackson said.
"The university is often a forum and a lightning rod
for debate on matters of public policy."
"People often misunderstand how the
admissions process works. We are not going to
let in an unqualified person of any race."
The topic of affirmative action has been
especially high on the public agenda this season
as Georgia gubernatorial candidates publicly field
questions and offer opinions on whether
race-based preferences should remain on the
state's policy books.
In a televised debate Sunday night, when
questioned about using race as a factor in college
admissions, Republican Guy Millner said he's
against the practice and Democrat Roy Barnes
said he's against quotas and set-asides, but did
not directly answer the question.
Jeff Lewis, director of the state Botanical
Garden of Georgia, said Crisp is a highly
respected South Georgian, owner of the estate
Gray Moss and a charter member of the garden's
board. "He's a respected member of the
community," Lewis said. "He has been a very
strong player on our board."
___________________________
As previously published on the EAC listserv, President Adams supports using
race as a criterion in college admissions. Adams has defended race-based
admissions policies in the past in front of the legislature, and he says
he'll do it again.
___________________________
Dentist to buy back candy
By Peggy Ussery Morris News Service
MARTINEZ - Halloween treats can make November a little tricky for an
orthodontist. But Augusta-area orthodontist David Carter thinks he
has found a way around that. Instead of giving candy to
children when Halloween rolls around Saturday evening, Carter
plans to buy candy away from his patients.
For more: http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/102798/1027.a2dentist.html
Case against MIT fraternity in permanent limbo
By Alison Fitzgerald
Associated Press
BOSTON - The decision by an MIT fraternity to
disband after it was indicted in the drinking death
of a pledge has effectively wiped out the
manslaughter case.
The Phi Gamma Delta chapter at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - the
organization, not its members - had been charged
in the case of 18-year-old Scott Krueger, who
drank himself into a coma at a 1997 party and
died.
But because no individual members were
named in the indictment, no one could be forced
to answer charges after the chapter ceased to
exist.
"The criminal justice system has failed," said
Brad Henry, a lawyer for Krueger's family.
"Does it strike anyone as odd that it was not until
Sept. 15, the day after the indictment, that the Fiji
house was disbanded?" he asked. "It wasn't
disbanded because of its role in Scott Krueger's
death, it was disbanded because it got caught."
The Superior Court magistrate who issued a
warrant against Phi Gamma Delta filed it away
Monday in case the fraternity tries to reorganize at
MIT.
Prosecutor Pamela Wechsler said the case
wasn't a failure: The charges drove the fraternity
off campus and prompted MIT to change its
alcohol and disciplinary policies.
"A lot of things have happened as a result of the
investigation and indictment," she said.
The national fraternity had disassociated itself
from the local a year ago. Last week, a lawyer for
the fraternity informed the court that he was not
authorized to represent the local chapter in court.
Until that notice, prosecutors had expected the
local chapter to be represented.
Boston defense attorney J. Albert Johnson, who
was not involved in the case, called the
prosecution strategy silly, saying a fraternity is
simply an association of people with no legal
standing in criminal law.
Police claimed Krueger, of Orchard Park, N.Y.,
was forced to drink huge quantities of liquor as
part of a pledge contest at "Animal House Night"
in the fraternity house.
The family is planning to file a lawsuit, but Henry
declined to say who would be named as
defendants. The Kruegers did not return a call
seeking comment
Student Loan Default rate falls below 10 percent
By Robert Greene
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The default rate on student
loans fell into single digits for the first time, the
Education Department reported Monday, citing an
agency and congressional crackdown as well as
an improved economy.
The drop to a 9.6 percent default rate for fiscal
year 1996 was the sixth annual decline since rates
peaked at 22.4 percent in 1990.
Congress passed legislation in 1990 and 1992
to crack down on borrowers and trade schools
such as beauty colleges and truck-driving schools
that promised more job training than they
delivered. And the country began to pull out of a
recession in early 1991.
"The student loan program is now a shining
example of government providing opportunity with
accountability," President Clinton said in a
statement.
For more: http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/102798/1027.a3loan.html
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 12:46:29 -0600
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Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Adams and tenure
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
The Chronicle of Higher Education has reported that President Adams was the
highest paid President of an American Baccalaureate College. He received
$371,8k a year while working for Centre College of Kentucky. However, he
took about a $100k pay cut when he became President of UGA.
Also in the Chronicle:
A group of professors meeting at Harvard University declared that tenure
will not end in America, but it will be more difficult to obtain in the
future. Colleges are seeking alternatives to tenure, such as 5 or 10 year
contracts for teaching.
C
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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; Fri, 30 Oct 1998 07:51:21 -0500
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Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:26:47 -0600
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From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: student fee restrictions
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
>From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
A court decision barring the University of Wisconsin at Madison from using
mandatory student-activity fees to finance some campus
groups was affirmed Tuesday, when the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Seventh Circuit refused to reconsider the
case. Four of the court's judges filed two dissents that said the full
Seventh Circuit court should have taken the case, and warned
that the earlier decision could stifle free speech on
campuses.
________
Now, this problem with fees does not apply to UGA. At UGA, student fees
cannot be given to religious or political groups according to state law.
We probably will not see any effects from this decision.
________
>From the Capital Times:
Capital Times (Madison, WI.), October 28, 1998
Copyright 1998 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
Capital Times (Madison, WI.)
October 28, 1998, Wednesday, ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: Local/State, Pg. 2A
LENGTH: 349 words
HEADLINE: STUDENT FEE RULING LEFT TO STAND
BYLINE: Staff/news services
BODY: UW students and officials today are debating how to respond to
a federal court's decision that could end the UW System's decades-old
system for funding student organizations with student fees.
Late Tuesday, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago refused
to reconsider a ruling that forbids the University of Wisconsin from making
students pay fees to support political groups they oppose.
The refusal leaves the UW with 90 days to decide whether to appeal to
the U.S. Supreme Court.
''We're obviously disappointed, but at this point, we haven't decided
what we're going to do in wake of this decision,'' John Grabel,
president of the United Council of UW Students, said this morning. ''We
will be talking about what it means and the time frame both among
ourselves and with UW administrators.''
The case began early in 1996, when three Christian students from
UW-Madison filed a federal lawsuit objecting to having a portion of
their compulsory activity fees spent on groups they did not support. They
named the activist organization WISPIRG, the women's center, the campus
center and the UW Greens as
examples of organizations that received their fees in 1995-96. The
students said they also found other campus organizations, such as the
Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Campus Center, objectionable.
U.S. District Judge John Shabaz of Madison ruled in favor of the
students in 1996, saying the First Amendment protects them against
supporting ideas they oppose.
*three-judge panel of the Chicago appellate court ruled against the UW
in August. The full 11-judge court, with four judges dissenting,
decided Tuesday not to reconsider.
Judge Ilana Rovner was among the dissenters, saying the decision
hinders the ability of colleges to support student groups representing
diverse views.
Students and UW administrators have expressed similar fears throughout
the 2 1/2 year legal process.
''This severely alters the ability of UW System to carry out its
educational mission and expose students to diverse opinions,'' Grabel
said, in response to the latest ruling.
____________________________
Students shocked by arrests of classmates in Kentucky dorm fire
By James Prichard
Associated Press
MURRAY, Ky. - Students at Murray State University were feeling a little
safer Thursday upon hearing the news that seven people had
been charged with setting a dormitory fire that killed a classmate.
"Most people would say if they heard a fire alarm, they would just freak,"
said sophomore
Brent Underhill, 20. "A lot of people didn't seem to know why it would take
so long to find out who did it."
Five students were among the seven people charged in the early-morning fire
on the fourth
floor of the eight-story Hester Hall dormitory on Sept. 18. Killed was
Michael Minger, 19, of Niceville, Fla. Four other students were injured,
one seriously.
For the rest, browse to:
http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/103098/1030.a3ky.html
_____________________
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Events:
Monday, 11/2: Fall Charter Lecture: Writing on the Other America: Is
Anybody Listening? Does Anybody Care? Speaker: Alex Kotlowitz, sociologist
and journal from
Chicago and author of There Are No Children Here. 4 p.m. University Chapel.
Contact: 542-0415.
Tuesday, 11/3: Vote! There's a voting guide in Flagpole Magazine this
week: www.flagpole.com.
Tuesday, 11/3: Athens-Clarke County Mayor and Commission Meeting. It's
boring, but educational...7 PM in City Hall (Across from Uptown Lounge).
Wednesday, 11/4: Lunch and Learn Series: How Your Unconscious Influences
Your Choice of Partners. Sponsored by Counseling and Testing Center. Noon.
Room 145,
Tate Student Center. Contact: 542-3183.
Wednesday, 11/4: Lunch-In-Theory: Henry James's Sense of Justice. Sponsored
by Center for Humanities and Arts. Speaker: Adam Parkes, English. 12:10
p.m. Russell Library.
Contact: 542-3966.
Wednesday, 11/4: Lecture: Why People Believe Weird Things. Sponsored by
Sagan Society. Speaker: Dr. Michael Shermer, best-selling author and editor
of Skeptic Magazine. 7 p.m. University Chapel. Contact: 542-1784.
Thursday, 11/5: Holmes-Hunter Lecture. Speaker: Michel McQueen, ABC News.
10 a.m. Tate Center Theater.
__________________
Yet more evidence that our government lies to us...
Report: Military study withheld, altered information about Agent Orange
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - The U.S. military withheld information about possible
links between Agent Orange and birth defects for years, and downplayed the
defoliant's link to cancer among Vietnam War veterans, the San Diego
Union-Tribune reported Sunday.
The newspaper conducted a six-month investigation into a $200 million Air
Force study,
which began in 1979 and has been a key factor in denying compensation to
some veterans.
It is unclear how many people suffer from the effects of Agent Orange,
which was sprayed over wide swaths of jungle by U.S. planes during a
10-year period to strip away cover from North Vietnamese troops and their
resupply convoys.
For the rest of this story, browse to:
http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/110198/1101.a3orange.html
_________________
A call for impeachment deserved? From the Washington Post:
Tests Link Jefferson, Slave's Son
By Leef Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, November 1, 1998; Page A1
Genetic testing shows that Thomas Jefferson almost certainly fathered a
child with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, according to scientists who
argue that their results come as close as possible to solving one of
history's most enduring and contentious mysteries.
Researchers examined blood samples collected this year from known
descendants of the family of America's third president and from those who
trace their ancestry to Hemings. In a paper published in the Nov. 5 issue
of the journal Nature, they report that DNA comparisons all but
conclusively prove that Hemings's youngest son, Eston, was fathered by
Jefferson.
"The question for 200 years has been, 'Did they or didn't they?'‚" said
Eric S. Lander, a genetic researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology who co-authored a companion essay to the Nature
article.
"There is such a strong case that Jefferson had a liaison with Hemings,"
Lander said, "that the DNA evidence converts that possibility into a near
certainty."
For the rest of this story, browse to: http://www.washingtonpost.com
_______________
>From the Chronicle of Higher Education
Two of Georgia's Smallest Colleges
Offer Laptops for Every Student
By JEFFREY R. YOUNG
MORROW, GA.
Two of Georgia's smallest public colleges are
among the latest institutions to provide laptop
computers for every student. But unlike many of
the richer and better-known institutions that have
taken similar approaches, the two colleges sought
out unusual deals to help pay for their joint
technology plan, forming partnerships with a
computer manufacturer, a network company, a
telephone company, an Internet-service provider,
two banks, and several software vendors.
"I got to the point where I thought I was a carney
barker," says Richard A. Skinner, president of
Clayton College and State University, describing
his attempts to sell businesses on the plan. "I
would go to meetings, and businesses would give
me these blank looks."
The plan Mr. Skinner pitched, which took effect
last year, created an auxiliary accounting structure
to deliver technology to students, professors, and
administrators. The college charges students a fee
in exchange for the use of a laptop computer,
unlimited Internet access, and a student identity
card that can serve as a bank card, phone card,
and credit card.
Floyd College, a two-year college located about
70 miles away, created a similar system that
coordinates purchases with Clayton College and
offers similar services. Students are required to
pay a technology fee of $300 per semester to
attend the colleges, even if they take only one
course.
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From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Events and Rapist pleads guilty
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Events:
Friday, 11/6: Concert: UGA Symphony Orchestra. Sponsored by School of
Music. Featuring pianist Justin Estaris, GMTA concerto competition winner.
Mark Cedel,
conductor. 8 p.m. Hodgson Concert Hall. Contact: 542-3737. Free.
Monday, 11/9: Seminar: If You Think Life Used to Be More Fun - You Are
Probably Right! Age-Related Changes in Sensitivity to Reward. Sponsored by
Institute for
Behavioral Research. Speaker: Dr. Gail Tripp, University of Otage-New
Zealand. 3:30 p.m. Room 106, Barrow Hall. Contact: 542-1809.
Monday, 11/9: Concert: UGA University Chorus. Sponsored by School of Music.
Grace Muzzo, conductor. 8 p.m. Hodgson Concert Hall. Contact: 542-3737.
Tuesday, 11/10: SGA Senate. How to write a scorching teaching evaluation.
By Chris. 7 PM in Demosthenian Hall.
Wednesday, 11/11: Faculty Recital: David Starkweather, violoncello.
Sponsored by School of Music. 8 p.m. Ramsey Concert Hall. Contact: 542-3737.
Thursday, 11/12: Farewell Mayor Gwen O'Looney party. 5:30 PM at the
Classic Center.
Saturday, 11/14: A Tribe Called Quest in Athens. Buy tickets at the Tate
Center Cashier.
>From the Athens Daily News:
Scieszka pleads guilty to rape
Associated Press
DECATUR, Ga. - John Scieszka, convicted
earlier this year in a series of rapes in Athens,
pleaded guilty Tuesday to rape, two counts of
aggravated assault and attempted rape in two
separate attacks within six months in DeKalb
County in 1993.
Judge Clarence Seeliger sentenced Scieszka to
life in prison on the rape charge and 20 years
each on the other four charges.
Scieszka was convicted in January on 17 felony
counts in the rape of five University of Georgia
students in Athens in 1995 and 1996. He was
sentenced to life without parole.
His trial for the Athens charges was moved to
Gainesville because of pretrial publicity.
In addition to being identified by the victims,
prosecutors presented DNA samples from four of
the five sexual assault victims, which were an
exact match of the DNA in blood samples taken
from Scieszka.
The five Athens area women detailed sexual
assaults in a series of attacks that began March
18, 1995, and ended March 17, 1996.
Scieszka has also been charged with rapes in
Gainesville, Fla., and Valdosta.
Scieszka had served 12 years of a 30-year
sentence on two counts of sexual battery in Florida
in 1980.
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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Subject: Events
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Events: A week of music!
Monday, 11/9. Concert: UGA University Chorus. Sponsored by School of
Music. Grace Muzzo, conductor. 8 p.m. Hodgson Concert Hall. Contact: 542-3737.
Tuesday, 11/10: Concert: UGA Studio Orchestra. Sponsored by School of
Music. Sammy Nestico, conductor. 8 p.m. Hodgson Concert Hall. Contact:
542-3737.
Wednesday, 11/11: Faculty Recital: David Starkweather, violoncello.
Sponsored by School of Music. 8 p.m. Ramsey Concert Hall. Contact: 542-3737.
Thursday, 11/12: O'Looney honored at reception Thursday. To mark the
conclusion of her eight years as Athens-Clarke mayor, Gwen O'Looney will be
honored at a free public reception Thursday at the Classic Center, 300 N.
Thomas St. The reception will begin at 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, 11/12: Christian Faculty Forum: Medieval Answers to
Postmodernism. Speaker: Dr. Jonathan Evans, associate professor, English.
12:30 p.m. Room 501, Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry.
Friday, the thirteenth: The Sagan Society Superstition Bash. Go to the
Tate Center and open an umbrella indoors, spill some salt, and even walk
under a ladder! 12:15-1:15.
Friday, 11/13: Environmental Ethics Symposium: Is Urban Sprawl Bad?
Sponsored by Center for Humanities and Arts. Speakers: Arthur C. Nelson,
Professor of City
Planning, College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, and
Frederick Steiner, Professor and Director, School of Planning and Landscape
Architecture,
Arizona State University. 2 - 4 p.m. Reception Hall, Tate Student Center.
Contact: 542-3966.
Saturday, 11/14: Concert: A Tribe Called Quest, Black-Eyed Peas, and Slum
Village. Sponsored by University Union and Committe for Black Cultural
Programs. Tickets: $12 UGA students with valid UGACards; $20 non-students.
All seats are reserved. 8 p.m. Classic Center Theatre. Contact: 542-6396.
News:
Strip clubs for kids
By Michael Blood
Associated Press
NEW YORK - A swanky topless club has found
an astonishing way to keep its doors open despite
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's clampdown on X-rated
cabarets and smut shops: Let children in.
"This is, like, nuts," the mayor bemoaned.
"These are sick, perverted places. What do you
want kids in there for?"
The U.S. Supreme Court gave the city the green
light in July to clean up its red-light districts with a
tough law that banished strip clubs and sex shops
from most neighborhoods.
But a sharp lawyer for Ten's World Class
Cabaret in Manhattan figured out that since the
law specifically targets "adult" establishments,
putting out the welcome mat for children would
save the club from a padlock.
Trial-level state Supreme Court Justice Stephen
Crane agreed Thursday, saying Ten's "cannot be
defined as an adult eating and drinking
establishment if it does not exclude minors."
"There's nude Shakespeare. There's movies
with nudity. Why pick on Ten's?" asked the club's
lawyer, Mark J. Alonso.
"You could take your 15-year-old son to see the
movie 'Striptease.' Why can't you take him to see
a striptease?" Alonso asked.
Giuliani called the decision "one of the jerkiest
rulings I've seen" and accused the judge of
ignoring the intent of the law, which prohibits
sex-oriented theaters, bookstores and dance
clubs from operating within 500 feet of homes,
day-care centers, houses of worship, schools or
one another.
The city will appeal.
"I would suggest that if a parent was bringing a
kid into a place like that, we should question
whether the parent should have custody of the
kid," Giuliani said Friday.
Since opening its doors for children last year,
the club has had only one minor customer - a
14-year-old boy who came in with his parents, all
tourists from South America, Alonso said.
Because of liquor laws, minors must be
accompanied by a parent.
The adults-only language was included in the law
so as not to interfere with what city lawyers called
"legitimate theatrical performances and films
including nudity or having a sexual theme."
But the loophole could open the way for other
clubs to reopen or avoid closing, said Herald
Price Fahringer, an attorney who represents more
than 100 of the clubs and X-rated stores.
"I think it's going to have wide ramifications,"
Fahringer said.
Ten's interior doesn't reveal any hint about its
tolerance for adolescent clientele. The kitchen
serves caviar and $35 filet mignon. It's carpeted in
black, with elevated tables and a long, shiny bar.
Dim lighting points toward a small stage.
And don't look for Barney the purple dinosaur in
lingerie.
"We are not revising the atmosphere to have a
children's menu or clowns in the place," Alonso
said.
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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 12:58:56 -0600
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Parking and TAs
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Dear Friends,
The letter below appeared in today's Athens Daily News. I have written a
reply for tomorrow's paper.
UGA president urged to ban freshman drivers from campus
An open letter to University of Georgia President
Michael Adams:
A major institution such as a world-class
university can be an effective agent of positive
social change extending out from its campus, into
its local and state communities and into the world.
I urge you to lead the University of Georgia in
making the pivotal decision of placing restrictions
upon student automobiles on campus.
Specifically, I urge you to prohibit the freshman
class from having automobiles on campus as
soon as is politically possible, and in the following
year to place the same restriction upon the
sophomore class.
Feasible ramifications of the proposed action
include enhanced campus life due to an increased
number of students living in campus dormitories;
increased ridership and, following from that,
overall improvement in both the UGA and
Athens-Clarke bus lines; and increased public
support for passenger rail service between Athens
and Atlanta and for mass public transit in general.
Athens follows Atlanta in proving "Build a better
superhighway, a better parking deck, and they will
come." Yes - cars will come. Permitting unlimited
student cars on campus - even on the periphery of
campus - dumps automobiles into Athens' traffic
and pollution into Athens' air, and the clogging
extends to the arteries leading here. The
university's laissez faire stance on student
automobiles sends to its students this signal: UGA
condones habits of consumption which are
shortsighted and ecologically unsound.
I hope that you will share my belief that 1) the
number of UGA students driving alone to the
university each day is a problem, and that 2) major
universities can be faulted for their failure to offer
leadership in society's search for solutions to the
problems of pollution and automobile traffic
resulting from irresponsible consumption.
Is there not a degree of hypocrisy about a
university, on the one hand, demanding that all
undergraduate students fulfill an environmental
literacy course requirement and, on the other,
shrinking from instituting a policy which would
have real, far-reaching environmental impact?
Because I drive to the university alone each
workday - as does my wife, a UGA staff member -
there is hypocrisy in my calling for freshman and
sophomore students to lose the right to have a car
on campus.
If the action proposed here were instituted, many
of us in the university community would find the
burden of our hypocrisy intolerable. We would also
find radically improved mass transit and, in it, a
road to survival.
Please guide the university toward seizing this
opportunity to lead. The action proposed here
would enhance considerably the quality of life on
campus, in Athens and in the state. The impact of
your leadership would reach far into the future and
beyond our nation. Please consider this bold
move.
Mark Wheeler, Head
Department of Dance
The Office of Instructional Support and Development is taking nominations
for Teaching Assistants. If you know a TA who is worth a damn, nominate
him or her to the OISD by calling 542-1355. 5 TAs will win $1,000, and
will feel more pretentious than ever.
C
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Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 09:51:05 -0600
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: parking
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Dear Friends,
I sent you guys a letter to the editor supporting a ban on freshman and
sophomore parking on campus the other day. I pasted my response below.
Please keep in mind that this professor wrote to the local paper, rather
than the R&B. Why? Because he didn't want you to see it. Well, here's my
response and his original letter:
Letters to the Editor 11/10:
There is a more effective approach to parking and driving on campus than
Professor Wheeler's (11/9/1998) plea to take permits from freshmen and
sophomores: Eliminate faculty/staff access to on-campus parking permits,
and make them commute by bus.
Freshman hold only 2,000 parking permits, while faculty/staff members hold
6,500. Furthermore, faculty members not only consume the most parking on
campus, they also have the closest and most convenient parking.
For some time, students have clamored for the closing of interior
University streets for safety. But, selfish, short-sighted faculty members
oppose closing these dangerous streets. Closing interior streets to car
traffic will save lives, but it will also force faculty to give up their
precious parking.
So, I too agree with Professor Wheeler that President Adams should take the
lead for positive social change, but in a different and less hypocritical
fashion: Eliminate faculty/staff access to on-campus parking permits. The
reduction of 6,500 faculty and staff drivers will make the busses more
efficient. Then, stick professors on busses at the commuter parking lots
and let them ride to school with the students.
On the bus, faculty members would have a wonderful opportunity to interact
with students, the consumers who pay their salaries.
Regards,
Chris Hoofnagle
Chair, SGA-EAC
_____________
Here's the original letter:
Letters to the Editor
UGA president urged to ban freshman (and sophomore) drivers from campus
An open letter to University of Georgia
President Michael Adams:
A major institution such as a world-class
university can be an effective agent of positive
social change extending out from its campus,
into its local and state communities and into the
world.
I urge you to lead the University of Georgia in
making the pivotal decision of placing
restrictions upon student automobiles on
campus. Specifically, I urge you to prohibit the
freshman class from having automobiles on
campus as soon as is politically possible, and in
the following year to place the same restriction
upon the sophomore class.
Feasible ramifications of the proposed action
include enhanced campus life due to an
increased number of students living in campus
dormitories; increased ridership and, following
from that, overall improvement in both the UGA
and Athens-Clarke bus lines; and increased
public support for passenger rail service
between Athens and Atlanta and for mass
public transit in general.
Athens follows Atlanta in proving "Build a
better superhighway, a better parking deck, and
they will come." Yes - cars will come. Permitting
unlimited student cars on campus - even on the
periphery of campus - dumps automobiles into
Athens' traffic and pollution into Athens' air, and
the clogging extends to the arteries leading
here. The university's laissez faire stance on
student automobiles sends to its students this
signal: UGA condones habits of consumption
which are shortsighted and ecologically
unsound.
I hope that you will share my belief that 1) the
number of UGA students driving alone to the
university each day is a problem, and that 2)
major universities can be faulted for their failure
to offer leadership in society's search for
solutions to the problems of pollution and
automobile traffic resulting from irresponsible
consumption.
Is there not a degree of hypocrisy about a
university, on the one hand, demanding that all
undergraduate students fulfill an environmental
literacy course requirement and, on the other,
shrinking from instituting a policy which would
have real, far-reaching environmental impact?
Because I drive to the university alone each
workday - as does my wife, a UGA staff
member - there is hypocrisy in my calling for
freshman and sophomore students to lose the
right to have a car on campus.
If the action proposed here were instituted,
many of us in the university community would
find the burden of our hypocrisy intolerable. We
would also find radically improved mass transit
and, in it, a road to survival.
Please guide the university toward seizing this
opportunity to lead. The action proposed here
would enhance considerably the quality of life on
campus, in Athens and in the state. The impact
of your leadership would reach far into the future
and beyond our nation. Please consider this
bold move.
Mark Wheeler, Head
Department of Dance
_________________________________
How perilous it is to free a people who
prefer slavery.
--Machiavelli
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 10:48:55 -0600
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: Master plan
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Okay guys, I want you to think about something: The Master Plan is completed. Now, they're presenting it to the public and soliciting suggestions.
If the plan is completed, why are they asking for your suggestions now?
Answer: They don't want your suggestions, they want your support. And, by making you feel as if you're part of the process, they are more likely to gain your support.
Another question: What's going to happen to those fraternity houses on Lumpkin?
You'll get a more accurate answer by looking at the plan rather than asking the planners!
C
_____________________________________
Since the beginning of time man has yearned to
destroy the sun. I will do the next best thing...
block it out!
-Monty Burns, The Simpsons
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>From the Chronicle of Higher Ed:
Scolded by Its Students, Wesleyan
Drops 'Independent Ivy' Campaign
By PETER MONAGHAN
Wesleyan University -- where student protesters are
proud of not being part of the Ivy League --
announced Saturday that it would drop a recruiting
campaign in which it referred to itself as "The
Independent Ivy."
That decision came after protests from students, who
said the Connecticut university shouldn't risk being
identified as part of the Ivy League, but should
emphasize its own distinctiveness and academic
status. The campaign was embarrassing, some
students had argued. (See a story from The
Chronicle, October 14, 1998.)
A Wesleyan spokesman, William Holder, said: "'The
Independent Ivy' is a term we have used in a limited
number of admissions mailings to point up
Wesleyan's academic excellence and independent
spirit. However, we have decided not to use the term
in any future mailings."
The slogan, "Wesleyan University: The Independent
Ivy," was displayed on admissions materials sent out
in the spring, but after officials announced that they
planned to use it during a trial of at least two years,
student protests began.
Woman Who Sought to Play Football
for Duke Loses in Court
By PETER MONAGHAN
A federal judge has dismissed a
gender-discrimination lawsuit filed by a female athlete
at Duke University who had charged that she had
been improperly excluded from the institution's
football squad.
Heather Sue Mercer, a walk-on place-kicker, sued the
university and its head football coach, Fred
Goldsmith, in September 1997, alleging that she had
been kept off the team because of her gender. That,
she said, was a breach of Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex
discrimination at institutions that receive federal
funds.
Ms. Mercer, who graduated this year, had attempted
to become the first woman to play Division I football.
She was seeking compensatory and punitive
damages.
But last week, U.S. District Judge Carlton Tilley, Jr.,
ruled that the university and Mr. Goldsmith had "no
obligation to allow Mercer, or any female, onto its
football team." Title IX, he said, requires athletics
programs to permit members of both sexes onto
single-sex teams only when there is a comparable
counterpart for members of the minority sex.
Moreover, he said, Title IX does not apply to
football because it is a "contact sport" of a kind that
is explicitly excluded from the federal law.
News from the Washington Post:
U-Va. Takes Aim at Alcohol-Based Tradition
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 15, 1998; Page B01
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Nov. 14—One measure of how
daunting it is to uproot drinking traditions at the
University of Virginia came early today, on the morning
of the Cavaliers' final home game of the season.
About 360 students participated in a 5K run organized as
an alternative to the ritual "fourth-year fifth," when some
seniors drink a fifth of liquor to mark the end of their
fourth home season. But when Leah Friedman, senior
class president, asked runners at the finish line to sign a
card pledging to forgo binge drinking for the day, about a
dozen demurred.
"They were running the 5K and going home to do the
fourth-year fifth," Friedman said.
Today was the culmination of a week-long campaign by
university officials and students to curtail alcohol
consumption. This drive was a part of a wider effort
sponsored by the university in the wake of the
alcohol-related deaths of 18 university students since
1990, including a Reston honor student, Leslie Baltz,
who died a year ago from falling down a flight of steps
after an afternoon of heavy drinking.
Events:
Tuesday, 11/17: Forum: Pedestrian Safety. Sponsored by Public Safety
Division. All interested employees and students are encouraged to attend.
Panel members: Asa Boynton, Director of Public Safety; Jack Lumpkin, Chief
of Police, Athens-Clarke County; David Clark, traffic engineer,
Athens-Clarke County. 3 p.m. Room 143, Tate
Student Center. Contact: 542-0113.
Tuesday, 11/17: Concert: UGA Symphonic Band. Sponsored by School of Music.
Dwight Satterwhite and John Culvahouse, conductors. 8 p.m. Hodgson Concert
Hall. Contact: 542-3737.
Tuesday, 11/17: Leonid Meteor Shower. Sandy Creek Park. Call 613-3615 for
time.
Wednesday, 11/18: Lunch and Learn Series: Dream Interpretation. Sponsored
by Counseling and Testing Center. Noon. Room 145, Tate Student Center.
Contact: 542-3183.
Wednesday, 11/18: Sagan Society Astronomy Night. Look at the stars from
the roof of the Physics building. 6:30 Physics building.
Thursday, 11/19: Good Day Atlanta. WAGA-TV will broadcast live from Tate
Plaza from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Guests include: President Michael F. Adams,
Vince Dooley, Athletic Director and mascot Uga V. Contact: Pete Konenkamp,
542-8080.
Thursday, 11/19: Christian Faculty Forum: A Critique of the National
Academy of Sciences' Evolution Booklet. Speaker: Dr. Russ Carlson,
professor, biochemistry. 12:30
p.m. Room 501, Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry.
Thursday, 11/19: University Council Meeting. 3:30 p.m. Law School Auditorium.
Friday, 11/19: Lecture: Secret Yankees in Confederate Atlanta. Sponsored
by Learning in Retirement Program. Speaker: Thomas G. Dyer, professor,
higher education. 1 -
2:30 p.m. Callaway Building, State Botanical Garden. Contact: 549-3256.
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Status:
>From the Athens Daily News:
Pedestrian Safety Forum Held at Tate
About 30 University of Georgia staff, faculty and
students attended a Tuesday forum on pedestrian
safety, and spent almost two hours expressing their
concerns to local public safety officials.
The forum, held at Tate Student Center, was
presented by the University Public Safety Division
with a three-person panel: UGA Public Safety
Director Asa Boynton, Athens-Clarke County
Assistant Police Chief Mark Wallace and
Athens-Clarke County traffic engineer David Clark.
Since July, according to UGA police, there have
been more than a dozen accidents on campus
involving bicyclists and pedestrians. There were eight
pedestrian-vehicle accidents and seven
bicyclist-vehicle accidents. One of the
pedestrian-vehicle accidents involved a bicycle
striking a person walking.
Panelists spent more than a half-hour telling the
people at the forum that the key to on-campus
pedestrian safety is education, and to increase
awareness of motorists.
"Our point of view is that the more people we
educate about pedestrian safety, the more we
make accidents avoidable," Boynton said.
For an hour after the panelists' presentation,
questions and suggestions for improving
pedestrian safety poured in.
Some in the audience suggested that the
university close some streets to make the campus
more pedestrian-friendly.
"Some days ago, I was at the University of
Massachusetts in Amherst and I was really
amazed by how I felt there," said Fred Stevenson,
a professor at the UGA Terry College of Business.
"Their campus is located in a small area where
there are other schools ... and it is really refreshing
to be able to walk somewhere and not fear for
your life."
Boynton said the possibility of closing many of
the campus streets to allow pedestrian safety is
"being looked into," and noted that many campus
streets, including busy Sanford Drive, are open
only to university vehicles from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m.
weekdays.
But he acknowledged that bike riders and
pedestrians are still endangered on the
limited-access streets, because many motorists
ignore the university vehicle-only restriction.
Many at the forum said there should be more
citations for motorists who violate the speed limit
or do not slow down for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Boynton indicated that it simply isn't practical to
write up all violations, and Wallace agreed.
"Take the law against passing a stopped
vehicle," Wallace said. "If we did enforce those
laws, then all of Milledge Avenue would be
ticketed because people pass the buses
everyday."
But Chris Hoofnagle, head of the UGA Student
Government Association's External Affairs
Committee, said that writing tickets to motorists
for driving violations would teach reckless
motorists a lesson about driving on campus.
Hoofnagle also wondered whether the UGA
administration had a leash on Public Safety's
police officers.
"The numbers of citations written by UGA police
has dramatically dropped," Hoofnagle said. "I've
talked to UGA cops who are students and they say
they are frustrated because they want to do their
job, but they can't. I was wondering if the
administration has something to do with this."
"We've been asked to show good judgment and
to do our job in a more friendly atmosphere,"
Boynton told Hoofnagle. "Unfortunately, (UGA)
police have to do what they have to do. We are
still writing citations and we are still doing what we
have to do. We have just been asked to take a
friendlier approach in how we do things."
The request for "a more friendly atmosphere"
came from UGA President Michael Adams, after
his recent review of a number of complaints of
aggressive on-campus law enforcement.
Boynton called Tuesday's forum a "good first
step" in educating the university community about
pedestrian safety, and said he would address
each of the issues brought forward.
"But the big thing that we have to realize is that it
is important that the motorist and the pedestrian
work together in making this campus safer."
__________________________________
The more you experience
The less you believe.
-Huey P. Newton
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Gradute students of the world: Unite!
>From the Athens Daily News:
UGA graduate assistants unite
By Joan Stroer
Staff Writer
Honk if you love labor unions.
Some University of Georgia graduate students
and their colleagues statewide are planning a new
union push, complete with bumper stickers and a
campus rally. But the budding college teachers
might find themselves with better pay and benefits
without lifting a megaphone.
As the union movement intensifies on campuses
nationwide, and California graduate assistants
plan a teaching strike that could cripple eight
campuses, a new group of leaders met last week
to consider offering a wide range of benefits for
Georgia's 8,500 graduate assistants, changes
that could hurtle the state toward the forefront of
American graduate education.
"That's the great thing," said Ben Salt, a UGA
Ph.D. candidate and organizer for the Georgia
Graduate Forum, a new Athens-based
organization of teaching assistants that identifies
itself as an independent union. "Potentially,
(Georgia) will be the first state in the nation to
supply benefits to TAs. For a few million dollars,
they can overnight push the university system way
up the rankings."
The discussions are proceeding with the
blessing of UGA President Michael Adams, who
once voiced displeasure with student unions, then
decided that offering full university health benefits,
at least, would improve graduate student recruiting
and enhance the university's research and
teaching missions.
He voiced his support for improved benefits
against a background of dropping graduate
enrollment, falling as student researchers opt for
jobs in the booming U.S. economy. The dip in
UGA graduate enrollment cut into the university
budget this fall and produced teaching shortfalls in
some divisions.
Adams has pledged to work to try to pass a bill
in the General Assembly next session providing
university system health coverage to teaching and
research assistants.
Students on assistantships can purchase limited
coverage through the university's health center or
outside plans, but as non-employees, they are not
eligible for retirement benefits or state-run health
care providing full medical, dental and optical
service.
A committee formed by the chancellor of the
state University System, Stephen Portch,
considered the issue for the first time last week.
Group members mulled the possibility of offering
university-system benefits, including retirement
funds, health insurance and larger nine-month
stipends, which now range from $7,000 to
$17,000 at UGA.
A report from the group is due in three months.
The tentative talks were music to the ears of the
Georgia Graduate Forum, which began its union
effort in Athens 18 months ago, arguing today's
graduate students face a vastly different academic
landscape than their professors did - a
business-like arena with more publication
pressure, more teaching responsibility, higher
living costs and greater chances of leaving
graduate school with a five-figure loan debt and no
slot in academia.
"I believe it takes longer to finish a college Ph.D.
now by a couple of years," said Mary Carney, a
teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate in the
UGA English department. "Number two, the cost
of health care has risen significantly. There's no
question the graduate student bears much more of
the responsibility for (teaching) the freshmen and
sophomore classes."
"Last year we taught more than half the
undergraduate classes," Forum Co-Chair Patrick
McCord said of graduate students in the English
department. "In the sciences, they're recruiting
undergrads" for lab instruction.
With health benefits and improved grievance
procedures as their rallying cry, membership in the
small but vocal forum is rising slowly and contacts
between state research campuses are increasing,
its leaders say.
Inspired in part by thousands of California
counterparts pushing right now for collective
bargaining and employee status, forum members
here are being courted by three different national
unions.
We're "doing some consciousness raising,"
McCord said. "They're terrified of getting a real
Yankee union down here. We and Tech and
(Georgia State University) have been in contact
with each other. The instructors are getting
together at GSU."
However, a key member of the chancellor's
study group, Don Davis, assistant vice chancellor
for human resources, said he entertains grave
doubts about the feasibility of extending health
coverage to workers that the university system still
considers apprentices, whose main job benefit is
the guidance and support of full faculty members.
"We're talking big bucks, millions of dollars,"
Davis said last week of extending the health
insurance plan to graduate teachers and
researchers. "It's going to be a tough sell in the
legislature; someone's going to have to make a
hard decision. We'll have to take the dollars from
some other program" or use funds set aside for
things like classrooms.
Approving state health benefits for teaching
assistants could also alienate part-time instructors
who exist in numbers comparable to the teaching
assistants and who also aren't covered under the
system's self-insured plan.
Of the state's 34 colleges and universities,
two-year colleges and many four-year colleges
probably won't rush to support the new benefit
package either, Davis said.
"The two-year schools have no TAs," he said. "A
lot of four-years don't."
There are philosophical arguments against
heightened student organization and hierarchy,
which some believe can erode the faculty-student
apprentice relationship and hamper a student's
academic freedoms.
McCord said he's aware of the misgivings
among state officials and entertains some of his
own about the sincerity of the health-care effort.
The university system working committee rejected
attempts to have a graduate student put on the
system's committee. But students leaders still like
their chances in the state benefits game and plan
to continue the union effort.
"The economy is booming; the faculty get their 4
to 6 percent raises," Salt said. "We're the ones
who need that slice of the pie. It's really in their
interest. We're still the bargain of the century."
Regents' campaign
contributions favored
Barnes
By James Salzer
Staff Writer
ATLANTA - When the people who run Georgia's
public university system had to choose between
the two major candidates for governor, it was an
open-book exam in elementary logic.
With Roy Barnes, they would get a politician who
promised to maintain the legacy of the great
patron governor of Georgia higher education, Zell
Miller. With Guy Millner, they would get a
businessman who vowed to cut state spending 7
percent.
"There was a great deal of concern about that,"
said Board of Regents member Thomas Allgood
of Augusta, a past chairman. "That was one of the
reasons I supported Roy Barnes, because of his
commitment to higher education."
Actually, Barnes said little about higher
education during his successful campaign for
governor.
Nonetheless, 11 members of the University
System of Georgia Board of Regents - the
governing body of the state's 34 public colleges -
and their families contributed about $104,000 to
his campaign, according to a computer-assisted
review of disclosure reports by the Athens Daily
News and Banner-Herald.
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Newspaper: Federal prosecutors break law to pursue convictions
Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - Federal agents and prosecutors
around the country have repeatedly broken the law
over the past decade in pursuit of convictions, the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said it found as the result
of a two-year investigation.
The newspaper, in a 10-part series that begins
Sunday, said it found examples of prosecutors
lying, hiding evidence, distorting the facts,
engaging in cover-ups, paying for perjury and
setting up innocent people to win indictments,
guilty pleas and convictions.
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>From the Washington Post:
Protesters Demand Closing of Army's School of the Americas
Reuters
Sunday, November 22, 1998; Page A05
COLUMBUS, Ga., Nov. 21—A thousand protesters
marched today outside a Georgia military base to
demand the closing of the U.S. Army School of the
Americas, where opponents claim that Latin American
soldiers are taught torture.
"I believe it should be shut down simply because of its
history, and the history can't be denied," said Dan
Anderson, of Grand Rapids, Mich., who served in the
U.S. Navy during World War II. "They'll all admit some
of the awful things those graduates did."
The protest outside the sprawling Fort Benning military
installation, about 85 miles southwest of Atlanta, has
been an annual event since 1990. It has been held each
year to mark the Nov. 16, 1989, massacre of six Jesuit
priests in El Salvador.
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___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof
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Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 09:43:52 -0600
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>From the Chronicle of Higher Ed:
Students whose parents are highly educated and
affluent are more likely to drink, use drugs, and
party frequently, and are less likely to spend time
studying, than are less-privileged students. Among
the nearly 800 students we surveyed, white
students did have higher grade-point averages than
African-American, Asian-American, and Latino
students. But the differences among the groups
were not dramatic. More telling was the fact that
among white students, those with the lowest
"adversity" scores also had the lowest G.P.A.'s. If
students in general are paying less attention to
academic and cultural matters, it is not because
more of them come from disadvantaged
backgrounds.
Of course many white, upper-middle-class students
study diligently and participate in community
service. But we have noted that students from
relatively disadvantaged backgrounds -- students
of color, those from working-class backgrounds, or
those who are immigrants or the children of
immigrants -- often set the pace in campus
political, intellectual, and cultural affairs. At Santa
Barbara, students of color hold disproportionate
numbers of student-government offices, and events
sponsored by the Multicultural Center are often on
the cutting edge in music, dance, and film.
_____________________
Do Bans on Fraternities Violate the First
Amendment?
Right of free association is cited in attempts to
restore Greek groups, and to bar them
By BEN GOSE
Colby College has clubs for all types of students,
including environmentalists, homosexuals, and
Republicans. But try to start a fraternity and you'll
be suspended for a year, or expelled.
Colby is among a small group of private
liberal-arts institutions -- Bowdoin, Middlebury,
and Williams Colleges are among the others -- that
have abolished Greek systems and have vowed to
quash any attempts by students to start off-campus,
"underground" fraternities or sororities.
David K. Easlick, Jr., national executive director
of Delta Kappa Epsilon, which had a chapter at
Colby until the mid-1980s, has argued for years
that a ban on fraternities denies students the
constitutional right to associate with whomever
they choose. Courts generally have sided with the
colleges, but Mr. Easlick thinks that a resolution
recently passed by Congress will give the upper
hand to the fraternities.
The non-binding "sense of Congress" resolution,
which was in the Higher Education Act legislation
signed into law last month, expresses lawmakers'
belief that colleges should not act to prevent
students from exercising their freedom of
association. It was sponsored in the House of
Representatives by U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, who
had belonged to Delta Kappa Epsilon at Tulane
University. In floor remarks, Mr. Livingston -- who
in January will become Speaker of the House --
said the resolution would "put Congress on record
defending the rights of students who face expulsion
and other severe consequences by daring to enjoy
their most basic constitutional freedoms of speech
and association, often off campus and on their own
time."
In a letter this month to the presidents of Bowdoin,
Colby, and Middlebury Colleges, Mr. Easlick
cited the resolution, noted that alumni and students
on each campus would soon be preparing for
fraternity rush, and asked the colleges not to
interrupt the process.
"We trust that it is your intention to obey the law,"
wrote Mr. Easlick, whose fraternity is based in
Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.
"We're not asking for recognition, a subsidy, or a
meeting space," he says. "We just want these kids
to be able to be Dekes or Kappa Kappa Gammas
or whatever and not be thrown out of school."
The executive director of Delta Phi, another
national fraternity, mentioned the resolution in a
letter this month to the president of Williams, in
which he asked the college to comply with "federal
law" by permitting the return of fraternity chapters
-- including Delta Phi -- that the college had
abolished in 1962.
Colby and Middlebury abolished their fraternity
systems in the mid-1980s. Bowdoin announced last
year that it would phase out its fraternities by
2000. Two other private liberal-arts institutions --
Denison University and Hamilton College -- forced
fraternity chapters to abandon their houses in 1995.
(Four fraternities are challenging the Hamilton
move in federal court, arguing that the policy
violates antitrust laws.)
Officials of Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury, and
Williams say they have no plans to change their
policies. They note that the Congressional
resolution is merely an expressed opinion, and not
"federal law," as some fraternity leaders have
called it. Even Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho
Republican and a sponsor of the resolution,
acknowledged that fact in a memorandum seeking
his colleagues' support. He wrote that the
resolution "would not limit any school, public or
private, in any way."
The four colleges say that they have been able to
recruit a greater number of highly qualified
students since phasing out fraternities, and that
there appears to be little interest in Greek life
among currently enrolled students. They also point
out that three lawsuits brought by fraternities
challenging the bans -- two against Colby and one
against Middlebury -- have been won by the
colleges.
"Many students have chosen to attend and associate
themselves with the Colby community precisely
because it does not have fraternities," wrote
Justice Donald Alexander of Maine Superior
Court, in a 1986 decision upholding Colby's
policy. "A court order authorizing fraternity
activity at Colby would violate the rights of these
students to associate with each other and gain an
education in a fraternity free environment."
William R. Cotter, Colby's president, sent a
two-paragraph response to Mr. Easlick. "The law
has clearly been interpreted to uphold Colby's own
associational rights," he wrote.
While judges have ruled for the colleges, the
fraternities have some support in the court of
public opinion. The American Civil Liberties
Union, for instance, supported the recent "sense of
Congress" resolution.
Robert E. Manley, a lawyer who has represented
fraternities, says "there's something fundamentally
wrong" about the bans on fraternities. "The
colleges are telling students that if you go to a
meeting off campus of a private association that
happens to use Greek letters as its name, you will
be expelled or punished, but if you go to a meeting
of the Ku Klux Klan, you won't be thrown out of
school," says Mr. Manley, whose Cincinnati law
firm publishes a journal called Fraternal Law.
"It's amazing that in this day and age, when
everything is tolerated," says Mr. Easlick, "that
these colleges won't tolerate a mainstream social
organization."
The colleges maintain that fraternities are not like
other student organizations. When Colby abolished
fraternities, in 1984, it cited a variety of reasons:
The fraternities were "anti-intellectual,"
encouraged narrow social and academic
experiences for members, had restrictive
membership policies, practiced hazing,
discriminated on the basis of sex, and were
hampering the recruiting efforts of the admissions
office, the college said.
What's more, at a time when many of the recent
alcohol-related deaths on college campuses have
occurred at fraternity events (The Chronicle,
November 6), Representative Livingston may not
be the fraternities' best advocate. In a recent
profile, The Washington Post noted that his
"Deke" chapter at Tulane in the 1960s was
"notorious for wild, Animal House-style
behavior." The chapter painted a warning on the
street in front of the house that said "Slow -- Drunk
Zone," the Post reported.
Moreover, it's not clear that many students at the
colleges that have banned fraternities would be
interested in joining one anyway.
Stu Gittleman, executive director of Delta Phi,
based in Athens, Ga., declines to comment on
whether any students at Williams have expressed
an interest in Delta Phi. He says he simply has a
"gut feeling" that plenty of Williams students
would be interested in Greek life.
But Scott Moringiello, a Williams sophomore and
news editor of The Williams Record, the student
paper, says he has checked with almost every
classmate he knows and has found no one who
favors the idea. "It is something that students are
very hostile to," he says. "It's not something that
people come to Williams for."
Mr. Easlick says there's a simple reason that
students aren't expressing interest in fraternities: "It
would put a young man in jeopardy of being thrown
out of school." He has not spoken this fall with any
Bowdoin, Colby, or Middlebury students who are
interested in joining Delta Kappa Epsilon, he says.
Many students at the colleges that have abolished
fraternities say the campus social scene is thriving
without them. Middlebury, for instance, has six
"social houses," similar to fraternities but
co-educational. The houses are selective (current
members pick new ones) and have "initiation"
periods. At least one, Kappa Delta Rho, has kept
the same name and building that it had as a
single-sex fraternity; in fact, it is still loosely
affiliated with the national fraternity.
But the social houses have restrictions that some
fraternity systems at other colleges do not: Students
can't join until their sophomore year; "pledge
activity" can last no more than 15 hours per week;
and all parties must be open to all Middlebury
students.
John Felton, a Middlebury senior and a member of
Kappa Delta Rho, says most students would not
want fraternities to return. The social houses "don't
overwhelm your life like I hear that fraternities do
at other places," says Mr. Felton, who is president
of the Student Government Association.
At Colby, committees in the residential areas,
known as "commons," plan campus-wide social
events. Bands from Boston that play salsa and funk
music have performed on the campus in the past
month. In mid-November, one commons area threw
a "semi-naked" dance party, at which students
danced in white clothing beneath black lights. "We
were slightly less clad than we normally are,"
explains Walter Wang, a senior and a member of
the student government.
"The social life here is pretty good," he adds. "We
don't really need fraternities or sororities."
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>From the Washington Post:
College Board Study Questions SAT Coaching's Impact
By Linda Perlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 25, 1998; Page A02
Despite their popularity among zealous high school
students and their anxious parents, special SAT coaching
programs do relatively little to raise test scores, a study
by the College Board found.
The Scholastic Assessment Test, required for admission
at many of the nation's colleges, is taken by more than 2
million students each year. Of those, 12 percent enroll in
commercial SAT preparation programs, spending about
$400 each.
The nation's two largest coaching companies boast that
their courses help students raise SAT scores more than
100 points, on average. But the new study found that
students who enrolled in such classes before taking the
exam a second time were likely to have improved only
19 to 38 points more than students who had no
commercial coaching.
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>From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Police Chief at College in Virginia Says She Was Ousted for Enforcing
Alcohol Ban
By LEO REISBERG
The police chief at Emory and Henry College, in
Virginia, says she was fired last week because the
administration feared that her strict enforcement of
the campus ban on alcohol would anger alumni
donors who enjoy tailgate parties at home football
games.
"They got complaints from benefactors," Wallace
Ballou, the fired chief, told the Richmond
Times-Dispatch. She could not be reached for
comment.
College officials denied that the police chief's
crackdown on drinking had led to her termination.
"Those claims by her are exaggerated and have
nothing to do with why she was dismissed," said
Dirk S. Moore, a college spokesman. "All I can
say is that the college has lost confidence in her
ability to lead and direct the campus police force.
In dismissing her, we had no dispute about the
way she was enforcing the alcohol policy."
Ms. Ballou became the campus's first police chief
in January 1997, when the college turned its
security force into a full-fledged police
department.
Alcohol is prohibited at the United
Methodist-affiliated college. But Ms. Ballou told
the Times-Dispatch that beer-drinking revelers
had enjoyed tailgate parties in the parking lot at
football games, and that trash bags filled with
empty beer cans were hauled from campus
dormitories every weekend.
She said that the police department had charged
four people with public drunkenness last month. In
one case, a prospective student had been charged
with public drunkenness and underage possession
of alcohol after he ran through a dormitory
banging on doors at 1 a.m., she said.
Afterward, the dean of students, Anthony
Campbell, wrote a memorandum to the chief
stating that "any procedure that calls for the arrest
of a student or prospective student must include
consultation with me," the Times-Dispatch
reported. According to Ms. Ballou, the dean was
"saying we can't arrest anyone without his
permission."
But Mr. Moore said she had misinterpreted the
memo. "Although we want our campus police
force to work vigorously in enforcing the law, we
don't want to be left in the dark about these
things," he said.
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Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 10:23:16 -0600
Reply-To: External Affairs Committee
Sender: External Affairs Committee
From: Chris Hoofnagle
Subject: news and events
To: EAC@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status:
Events:
Tuesday, 12/1: Provost Holbrook will address the SGA Senate. 7 PM
Demosthenian.
Wednesday, 12/2: Sagan Society presents Ed Larson on Anti evolutionism. 7
PM Law School Auditorium.
Thursday, 12/3: Washington Post's Carl Bernstein will give a lecture in the
Tate Center. 7:30 PM.
Mom, stripper accused of lewd conduct during 15-year-old girl's party
Associated Press
PLEASANTON, Calif - A male stripper hired
to perform for a group of teen-age girls faces
lewd conduct charges for allegedly fondling at
least four of them during his routine. The mother
of the girl who held the party, accused of hiring
the stripper, also faces charges.
The girls apparently were willing participants
in the strip act last month but Alameda County
prosecutors said they were pursuing charges
because the stripper touched four 15-year-olds
during his 30-minute show.
"His hands were on bare breasts, under bras,
down pants," said Deputy District Attorney
Deborah Streicher. "If this was just stripping, I
don't know if we would have charged him. But
he went beyond that."
Steven Schmitt, 29, of Walnut Creek was
taken into custody Thursday and faces four
felony charges of lewd and lascivious conduct
with minors. He could be sentenced to three
years in prison if convicted, police Sgt. Ron
Parker said.
The 39-year-old mother faces a felony charge
of exhibiting lewd material to minors.
Authorities withheld her name to protect her
daughter, who was one of the 15-year-olds
allegedly fondled.
The mother was not arrested but was
expected to be arraigned next week, and could
face a year if convicted.
The mother told police she watched as the
stripper perform for the nearly 50 girls who
attended the Oct. 30 party.
Partygoers told authorities the mother helped
hire and pay for the stripper, although she told
police her daughter hired him without her
knowledge. She said she only let him continue
his act to avoid embarrassing her daughter,
Streicher said.
Angry parents who learned of the affair called
school officials and police after their daughters
told them of the night's events, authorities said.
The party, billed as "Girls Night Out" on leaflets
distributed at Amador Valley High, charged $3
to $5 for admission.
X-Rays Offered as Alternative to Strip-Searches
Associated Press
Friday, November 27, 1998; Page A07
Airline passengers suspected of carrying illegal drugs
are for the first time getting a choice from U.S. Customs
Service agents who want to search them: submit to a
strip-search or be taken to a nearby hospital for an
X-ray.
The Customs Service began testing the X-ray option at
New York's Kennedy International Airport and Miami
International Airport in October in looking at ways to
make searches less intrusive and less embarrassing for
passengers and inspectors. The tests will end in
mid-January.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-11/27/080l-112798-idx.html
>From the Athens Daily News:
Males get break in admissions
By Lee Shearer
Staff Writer
It's not much of a break, and technically it's not
"affirmative action," which is supposed to make
up for past burdens which have acted to keep a
group of people down.
But men now get a special break when they
apply for admission to UGA.
The male break affects only a few cases - "in the
tens, not in the hundreds," estimated UGA
Admissions Director Nancy McDuff.
According to Assistant Admissions Director
John Albright, the male break was adopted by
former UGA President Charles Knapp and the
University Council Faculty Admissions Committee
because the gender ratio "was somewhat out of
balance. There was some concern we'd want to
balance that."
For the rest, browse to:
http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/112998/1129.a11gapmales.html
More profs highly paid as years of raises, competition, kick in
By James Salzer
Staff Writer
ATLANTA - More than 1,200 Georgia university
administrators and professors now knock down
six-figure incomes - a 28-percent rise in just the
past year - thanks in part to the consistent pay
raises pushed through the General Assembly by
Gov. Zell Miller.
The number of faculty and staff who will earn at
least $200,000 this year has jumped 37 percent,
according to salary records obtained by The
Athens Daily News and Banner-Herald from the
state's 34 public colleges and universities.
The increases, college officials say, are the
product of two developments: four consecutive
years of 6-percent pay raises, and a desire by the
system to be competitive in bidding for top talent
from across the country.
For the rest of the story, browse to:
http://www.onlineathens.com/1998/112998/1129.a2highpay.html
___________________________________
Chris Hoofnagle
University of Georgia School of Law
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~choof