The Stetson Reporter

fbrida's Otdkst Caikgiate fftfeuispaper *r 3- „. y;~ y y '^-'j-^yj s Fern Youe Imfomation; llderhosfeS assistants needed The Department of Continuing Education is planning many Elderhostel programs during the 95- 96 year and has several positions available for student assistants to work with the Elderhostel program. The students involved will spend a week with the Elderhostelers: assist with registration, eat meats in the Commons with them, accompany them to evening events, and generally welcome these guests to our campus - and get paid a nominal fee for their efforts (in addition to free meals for that week). The deadline for applications has been extended. For further information please call Pat Benson at 822, 7500 or stop by the Continuing Education office in Flagler Hall, room 102, for an application. FIAG offered The $1200 Florida Resident Access Grant (FRAG) is available to Florida residents who are full-time undergraduates enrolled for at least 12 credit hours per semester. Additional requirements may apply. Applications must be completed (each year) and submitted to the Office of Student Financial Planning no later than October 6,1995. For more information, contact the Financial Aid office at 822-7120. Reading / Study Skills Course to be held The Continuing Education office will be offering a Reading and Study Skills Course on the weekend of September 30 - Oct. 1, 1995. The course is scheduled from 9 a.m. -1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 30 and from 6-9 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 1. The registration fee is $125.00 prior to Sept. 18 and $150.00 after that date. There is still room available. For more information, or to register, call Continuing Education at 822-7500. Calendar oi Events Tuesday, Sept.19 BSU Lunch, Allen HaU Intervarsity meets (Night Lites) Noon 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 20 ITS: Headstart (Rinker Field) 10: Wesley House Fellowship dinner 5 EEA Info Meeting (Alumni House) 7: CSA: Comedy by Rosen (Night Lites) 8: MSC: Film "Higher Learning" 8 (Student Lounge) 00 a 30 p, 00 p 00 p 00 p m. m. m. m. .1X1. Thursday, Sept. 21 Flame Outreach Meeting (Night Lites) 6:00 p.m. BSU Vespers (Allen Hall) 6:30 p.m. MSC Forum (Stetson Room) 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 22 MSC: Off-Broadway play (EHA) 7:00 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23 Men's Soccer vs. UNC Asheville 4:00 p.m. Women's Volleyball vs FA 5:00 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 24 Wesley House Celebrates Life 7:00 p.m. CCM Mass (Night Lites) . 8:45 p.m. Monday, Sept. 25 ACoA Info Session (CUB 204/5) 3:30 p.m. Drug/Alcohol Ed (CUB 204/5) 4:00 p.m. Chess Club meets (CUB 204/5) 9:00 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18 Reporter issued Body Image Spprt Grp (Cnsling Cntr) 4:00 p.m. If you or your organization has information for this column, send it to the Reporter at Campus Box 8409, attention News Department. Or send submissions via e-mail to News Editors Andrew Dehnart, DEHNART and Julie Siefkas, S1EFKAS. The deadline for submissions is the Thursday before the release is to appear. Fight Bomb threat causes class cancellation in Lynn Center Andrew Dehnart The Stetson Reporter. A bomb threat called in to Public Safety late Thursday evening forced Stetson officials to cancel classes in the Lynn Business Center Friday morning. The caller, who was identified, said a bomb in the Lynn Business Center was set to go off Friday morning. At the time of the" call, the building was unoccupied. According to a letter from David Noyes, Director of Facilities Management, classes scheduled for 8,9, and 10 a.m. on Friday "were cancelled in the interests of safety" — even though "the building [was] searched and nothing was found." Entrances to the Lynn Business Center were blocked until classes resumed at 11 a.m. An investigation is continuing, Noyes wrote in the letter, which was distributed to all University offices that Stetson officials are, "working with the DeLand Police Department at this time." Noyes met with the DeLand Police Department Friday afternoon. Officer Richard Tibbets told the Reporter that the Department of Public Safety had been planning on conducting a bomb drill next week. Jose Mercado, captain of the Department of Public Safety was not available for comment. ■f»nSg»h. Photo by Detene Beeland Members ofthe SAK Improvisational Comedy group perform for Stetson students Wednesday night at Night Lites. See story, page 6. Alcohol poll national, state David Young The Stetson Reporter. Contrasting ideas on university policy plus a controversial campus alcohol policy plus strong opinions equals plenty of media attention, as Stetson has discovered in the last several weeks. The increasingly strained relationship between the University and the South- :,-- zrrrrz-zz:-y~:~ ern Baptist Convention follow "Stetson officials... can't ing the adoption Stop students from drinking or having sex. * of the new alar hoi policy has attracted newspaper and television coverage "*"" * "~ both locally and nationally, and even drew an inquiry from the BBC. According to Betty Brady of the Public Relations Department, which coordinated interviews for many of those reporting on the story, most of the media coverage stemmed from a front-page atricle in the Sept. 2 issue of the St. Petersburg Times about the impending split between Stetson and the Baptists. The article, written by Times staff writer Mike Wilson, was then altered slightly and released as an Associated Press story. Articles in the Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, a brief mention in USA TODAY,and editorial pieces in several publications followed, as well as coverage on Orlando television stations WESH, WCPX, and WFTV and ra- USA TODAYbrief dio station WNDB. "Because we hadn't anticipated [the Times] story would break before the fact, we were a little surprised. But the fact that the press would be interested in this is not a surprise," Brady said. Perhaps most striking was the USA TODA Kbrief, which stated that "SU officials say parting [from connections with the Florida Baptist rz=y:-~-T~~-rzr, Convention] is best since the school can't stop students from drinking or having sex." Brady noted that the British Broadcasting Corp., having read the USA Today piece, called Public Relations for more information on the story, only to find out that it was "not as exciting" as it seemed. According to Brady, "To really cover [the story] takes space. And USA TODAY doesn't have space, television doesn't have space." SGA President Rachel Ward, who was quoted in the Times article, said she hadn't read the quote, but said that from what she had heard about it, the article was not entirely accurate in quoting her. She noted, however, that Wilson understood the issues involved in the story well. According to Brady, some of the coverage of the story was very positive, including editorial columns in the Palm Beach Post and the Orlando Sentinel. Male students attacke near Chaudoin Hall Julie Siefkas The Stetson ReporteL. A physical altercation involving two male students and a group of non-Stetson males occurred Thursday night between Chaudoin Hal and the Hat Rack. According to Director of Judicial Affairs and Residential Life and Acting Dean of Campus Life David Bergen, the students, who requested anonymity, were approached by an unspecified number of young men, speculated to be residents of the DeLand area. The confrontation eventually transpired into a brawl, ending before the arrival of Public Safety officers. During the fight, a member of the group ripped off a student's necklace, but it was later recovered after the incident. No injuries were reported. According to students involved, the students and two females students were between the north side of Chaudoin and the Hat Rack around midnight when a group of five suspicious looking individuals approached them. As words were exchanged and the situation began to seem dangerous, the two female students called Public Safety from the Hat Rack. Meanwhile, the two students and the group fought. The altercation lasted for around five minutes, ending with the group leaving the campus. Public Safety arrived approximately two minutes later. The students involved expressed deep concern with the security available for that vicinity, because there is no emergency phone in the area. Also, they questioned the effectiveness of security procedures used with handling their emergency situation. According to the students, when they placed the call to the Public Safety dispatcher, they were put on hold seemingly without regard to the importance of the situation. The caller hung up and called back to demand immediate assistance. According to one Public Safety dispatcher, emergency calls are not to be put on hold. The students did not wish to file a report with the DeLand police department or to pursue the matter any further. Bergen stated that the incident is an isolated one and that the integrity and safety of the community remains intact. He indicated that if any occurrence threatened the overall feeling of a safe environment on the campus, proper security measures would be taken to restore confidence. In respect to Thursday's night incident, Bergen said, "My number one concern is for the well-being of the victims. My number two concern is for the safety of the community." Bergen could provide only vague information as to what events actually transpired, citing information from the Public Safety report. The students involved expressed gratitude to the staff of ths Hat Rack who offered their assistance. Clinton1 s Federal Direct Loan Program causes concern among officials Stacy Gum The Stetson Reporter The new Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP) introduced by the Clinton administration, is causing an uproar among Congress and many American's who have been involved with the guaranteed student loan program currently in use. FDLP is a program in which schools make loans directly to students with funds from the federal government, thereby eliminating subsidies paid to banks and other agencies under the current Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Debora Gray, Stetson's assistant director of financial planning, said, "with the direct lending program, the IRS will be the government's collection agency. IRS will handle the collection and the repayment of loans." Congress is concerned that the Department of Education is focusing too much attention on direct lending at the expense of other student aid programs, such as the guaranteed student loan program. Many colleges approved the program at first because it estimated saving taxpayers billions of dollars in comparison to the guaranteed loan program currently in use. However, the earlier cost estimates were based on budget scoring that ignored all administrative costs for direct lending, while including those costs for guaranteed loans under FFELP. Gray said, They [the federal government] were counting apples and oranges in FFELP, but only counting oranges in direct lending so it made the results look better. They didn't even double check their figures to find out if their figures were accurate. How could they leave administration costs out of budgeting? It's a cost you have. You have to include it." The Congressional Budget Office revised the initial estimations and concluded that reverting to 100 percent guaranteed student loans for the 1996-97 academic year would "reduce outlays by $227 million for fiscal year 1996 and $1.5 billion over the 1996-2002 period." Jack Agett, Stetson's director of student financial planning, is against the new program and urges higher education institutions to maintain the FFELP program which upholds private sector lending. Agett said "the [FDLP] program is not what it's cracked up to be. I will continue to recommend that "we [Stetson] do not sign up now, especially with the new facts that are coming to light." Gray said, "At this point it is a voluntary choice to join the Direct Lending Program and we have chosen not to." Gray said that by using the direct lending program the Federal Government will have no competition, and with such a big monopoly there will be no one else to turn to. Agett does not believe that a government monopoly can be as good as private enterprise in a competitive environment. According to a recent national survey conducted for CSLR by Washington pollster Frank Luntz, "three-in-four (72 percent) believe student loans should be offered through private institutions and not through the federal govern-. ment." In discussing the poll results, Luntz said, "Americans be- see AID, page 2