Brown and White Vol. 90 no. 28

              brown and white vol 90 — o bethlehem pa friday february 2 1979 zl5-mc-4331 •:•:•:■:•:•:•:•:■:•:■:•:•:•:■:■:•: grade scandal brings indictments by lee ann lusardi two former university students were indicted by a federal grand jury tuesday for their alleged participation in a grade changing scheme during the spring of 1977 the students were members of the university's united states air force reserve officer training program ( afrotc the grade-changing allegedly defrauded the government because the program paid for the students tuition and book costs and provided 100 a month as long as they maintained satisfactory academic standing named in the indictment were david w atherholt 22 of coopersburg and david s kaminski 22 of allentown they were charged with breaking into protestors offices replacing their original examinations with new ones with correct answers altering grade books and breaking into the registrar's office to place fake grade cards on their records according to the allentown morning call if convicted the men face up to five years in prison and a 10,000 fine letter prompts investigation university administrators first heard of possible grade falsification in may 1977 when an anonymous letter was sent to university president deming lewis dean of students william quay associate dean of students robert reeves and university registrar james wagner the letter stated students are buying grades for up to 100 a grade it did not contain names or details employees in the registrar's office sub sequently noticed misplaced articles in the office according to austin gavin executive consultant to the president for example the grade cards on whicd professors record students grades were in the wrong order he said the university then rechecked all students grades for the preceding several semesters the five students involved in the case originally claimed they had paid a mysterious person to falsify their grades they said they were threatened with bisons caged bodily harm if they did not pay the person rates ranging from 100 to 225 one of the students would be contacted by telephone and instructed to leave cash in a designated book at night in mart or linderman libraries according to the story the next night the caller described only as a male in his early thirties would instruct the student to locate another book in which he would find his grade card the student was to change the grade to whatever he wanted and return the book however an fbi investigation indicated the students had in fact changed the grades themselves the indictment is consistent with our information gavin said yesterday we never believed the mystery man story he added there was never any evidence to support it in most cases grades were changed from a d or an f to an a a b or b gavin said in an interview last september however three grades of one of the five students were marked down to an f no explanation has surfaced he said university off idals surprised the indictments came as a surprise to university administrators gavin said we first knew about the indictments from the news media he said noting that no university official had been asked to appear before the grand jury maj robert schafer administrative officer of afrotc said the indictments came as a shock when the university program learned of the grade scandal he said the department investigated the matter and dis-enroiled the two men we then turned the paperwork over to our headquarters at matthews air force base in montgomery alabama he continued after a year and a half had passed we thought the matter was dosed it is highly unlikely that any of the five students involved would ever be re admitted to the university gavin said further the students probably could not transfer any credits gained at the university to another school should another school ask for the students trans cripts the university would inform it that disciplinary action is pending against the students he said gavin said he is confident all students whose grades were changed have been identified i'm satisfied that we have made this kind of thing impossible through changes in the manner in which grades are reported he added photo by heiocnreich it's not wrestling engineer fans stand to register their approval far tae basketball during tuesday's game against bncknell tae bisons were upset 82-m with bui griffin kevin riley and paul hanks leading the way for tae eager sale reaction surprises university by eric miller we were totally unprepared for the city's reaction eric otter vik vice president for administration and planning said referring to the university's recent sale of the brodhead properties on main street to the sun inn preservation association at a meeting with city officials and sun inn representatives last friday the university disclosed the sale of the brodhead properties at 554-558 main st to the sun inn group the sale price was 82,500 at that meeting mayor paul marcincin described the announcement as a real bombshell city council member dolores caskey commented on the purchase saying the sun inn and the university had pulled a very effective end run we thought the city would be delighted and that the university would be a hero ottervik said city officials realized the university wanted to sell the main street property but the city did not want to buy it so the sun inn group purchased the property ottervik added no city representatives attended the proceedings during which the university was allowed to change the brodhead will to allow the sale of brodhead property an appeal by the city ended in an out-of-court settlement and last dec 20 the city council voted to accept a settlement which required the university to spend 100,000 on repairs to a number of brodhead properties of which 29,000 was for the main street land the price p*id by the sun inn group for the property below the appraised value of the land this is because the university deducted 29,000 originally committed by the university to repair the facades of the buildings from the purchase price ot tervik said sun inn has not disclosed what it plans to do with the newly-acquired property the university had been losing money on the property according to ottervik another real estate problem pantry pride on broadway could be settled in six weeks ottervik said the university holds the lease for pantry pride food fair inc operators of pantry pride is currently looking for a new tenant for the broadway location food fair not the university is responsible for re assigning the lease ottervik said the current 20-year lease does not expire until 1982 he added with an option to renew at that time although the university has no influence on finding a new tenant ottervik said at least 20 firms have called the campus about the broadway store it is critical that it be re-opened as oa as possible he said ottervik also commented on the search for an assistant to the president no more applications are being accepted for the position ottervik said we received about 300 applications and have narrowed the candidates to nine he added three of the candidates are from outside the university and six are from within the school the departure of spriggs richard spriggs former vice president for ad ministration left a vacuum here ot tervik said a final decision will be reached about the middle of february he added three persons arrested after saturday night brawl by richard hicks three poeple were issued citations by campus police last saturday night after a brawl between brothers of psi upsilon and campus visitors arrested by campus police for disor derly conduct were joseph muldowney and martin donohue both of pottsviile and walter ughes of st clair no serious injuries were reported according to marlon keller president of psi upsilon six or seven people walked into the house during a party and were asked to leave after disrupting it when brothers of psi upsilon followed them outside an argument arose things looked bad and it seemed they would only get worse so i called the campus police keller said just as campus police arrived at ap proximately 11:15 p.m a fight broke out between seven to 12 visitors and about 15 fraternity brothers keller said bethlehem police were called to help end the brawl the citations were issued following the tight no formal charges were filed with the bethlehem police eugene dax captain of the campus police said he thought campus police handled the situation well and moat of the fighting was over before the bethlehem units arrived campus police have the same police power as bethlehem city police dax said he said most students and townspeople do not realize this keller said the same type of situation occurred last year after the pledging ceremony and that next year the fraternity may be forced to hold a closed party the only time we enjoy ourselves anymore is when we have closed parties he said commenting on the brawl hershel dorney assistant to the dean of students said he hadn't seen the police report and didn't know any of the details however he said it was because of disturbances such as this that the interfraternity council had pushed for id checking at parties last year only a concerted effort by the frater nities will discourage townspeople from attempting to come up on the hill dorney said he pointed out that the easiest way for fraternities to deal with the situation is simply not to allow these people in the house any fraternity has the right to decide who can come in and to kick out anyone else he concluded