Brown and White Vol. 94 no. 32

              lehigh university brown and white vol 94 — no 32 215 861-4184 bethlehem pa friday february 11 1983 black schools white students face problems by maryellen connor some of the problems encoun tered by black students at the uni versity are shared by white students who attend colleges with predominatly black student populations brett mcguire was one of five white students attending predomi nantly black universities inter viewed he is a junior majoring in sociology at louisianna tech how ever he takes the majority of his sociology courses at grambling university a predominantly black wine at hourglass ruled violation of state law by peter trumbore the serving of wine at the hourglass will not be permitted and the university will now be examining where it will draw the line regarding which university sponsored events alcohol will be served at rogei wat 1 ~-- is.v.aindtariofsiu ctem said * cvfccent meeting of the stu dent activities council sac . this decision stems from research done by university attorneys on a prop osal by michele small 84 hourglass chairman to permit wine at the hour glass the proposul would have allowed wine to be brought to the hourglass and consumed there nothing other than wine was to be allowed and wine was not to be sold there the university attorneys however reported that if such a proposal was accepted the university would be guilty of violating pennsylvania law which according to watkins states in so many words that knowingly serving or per mitting the serving of alcohol to anyone under the ageof 21 is illegal the results provided by the attorneys watkins said made the decision for us at the sac meeting small responded to the decision by saying that she thought it was unfair she went on to say that watkins had told her that until a decision on the hourglass proposal had been reached no alcohol would be served at a university function she continued saying that alcohol had in fact been served at two university sponsored events in the period when the proposal was still being researched by the lawyers watkins replied that that was not supposed to happen and that it was an apparent oversight on the part of his office as a result of this decision watkins said that starting immediately the serv ing of alcohol at university events would be stopped with a few exceptions the serving of alcohol will be allowed at student/faculty-type events that include a full dinner or buffet watkins said but not at a beer blast at sayre park living groups such as fraternities and residence halls will not come under this sanction however watkins said accord ing to watkins the rationale behind this was that the living groups would be doing something on their own without direct university involvement or funding several eastern colleges and universi ties have taken a very hard line and actu ally made a total prohibition of alcohol including a ban on alcohol in the resi dence halls according to watkins he also said that in some places there had actually been searches of residence halls for alcoholic contraband however wat kins said that he could forsee no circum stance in which such a prohibition would be instituted at the university the university is taking a very criti cal look at the social structure here watkins said we have to try to balance the social needs of the university with the legal responsibilities of the school he said according to watkins this is the beginning of a concentrated effort to educate the students and to make them more responsible edpol structure revised deans and provost to vote by darren maloney a motion to revise the structure of the educational policy committee edpol . to allow the deans and provost to be vot ing members and to increase student membership was passed at monday's faculty meeting in a letter to the faculty from edpol chairman mikell groover professor of industrial engineering he said that the revision consists of five points the pro vost and the five academic deans are to be made voting members three under graduates and two graduate students up from four student members before will be non-voting members the chair elect will be elected at the year-end meeting in may and will take office july 1 other university personnel may ask to be non-voting participants the chair may close meetings to voting members only in other business robert holcombe assistant vice president of development reported that the 6 million cash gifts that the university has collected in the first half of the fiscal year represent an increase of 17.6 percent above last year's figure holcombe also noted that the number of donors is down 10 percent from last year in his report on the forum co chairman of forum xiii donald ryan noted that the forum failed to pass the motion which would have reduced its size by a narrow margin he said the matter may be compli cated by the fact that some of the stu dents who voted might not have been forum members he said the issue of reduction will be reintroduced at the next forum meeting on feb 17 robert thornton , professor of econom ics who is chairman of the faculty com pensation committee discussed the eight percent average annual increase in faculty compensation next year thornton cited reasons for the increase saying that is expected to ena ble the university to remain at parity with the average compensation level of our 14 peer institutions social academic ills plague blacks by scott cagan a poor social atmosphere and a lack of academic support are the primary rea sons many black students do not gradu ate from the university according to vicky sanders admission counselor and minority recruiter according to statistics in the admis sions office in 1975 17 black freshmen entered with the class of 1979 four graduated 23.5 percent in 1976 21 entered with the class of 1980 nine graduated 43 percent in 1977 27 entered with the class of 1981 — 17 gradu ated 63 percent and in 1978 45 entered the class of 1982—15 graduated 33.3 percent . sanders pointed out that blacks leave the university for academic social and personal reasons statistics were not available on how many transferred to other colleges lehigh does not provide much of what minorities need in terms of social life . . . also a lot of students have trou ble adjusting like what courses to take and need advising but many times it just doesn't happen sanders said roger watkins assistant dean of stu dents agreed that academic support should be made a priority there's no strong internal support system for blacks at lehigh watkins said adding that the university needs such a system to get a turnaround on the number of biack students not accepting offers to the university sanders said that the black students who are accepted to the university are highly qualified individuals she added that their high-school records are of the same caliber of those of white students but their scholastic aptitude test sat scores were slightly lower she added that minorities are given special consideration as are ath letes and children of alumni watkins agreed saying that the blacks at the university are equally as compe titive as white students come from the same social background and arc by no means inferior students the numberof blacks enteringthe uni versity in the past four years has been a cause for concern the class of 83 had 40 entering black freshmen the class of 84 had 44 the class of 85 had 34 and the class of 86 had 23 sanders said that increased tuition decreased financial aid and the fact that many of the blacks accepted to the uni versity chose to attend ivy league schools account for the decline in the number of entering black freshmen the past two years black students that can get accepted to lehigh can also get accepted to har soaring b&w photo by john treichler dan raydensky 86 is airborne over the slopes next to rathbone hall sunday's snow and freezing temperatures resulted in fine conditions for both skiing and tray riding see whites page 8 see black page 9