Brown and White Vol. 102 no. 34

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 102 no 34 friday march 10 1995 all the lehigh news first it was a dark and stormy night bi w plwio by mark ruhins firemen rescue two trapped students while lehigh patrolman don bartholomew looks on explosion causes campus blackout by michelle demooy news editor at approximately 10:50p.m on wednesday night lehigh univer sity was plunged into darkness due to the explosion of a transformer insulator according to mike barr associate director of residential ser vices the transformer has insulators that protect it and they blew up barr said the lightning arrestor on mountaintop campus which insu lates the power lines is connected to the main electrical line that serves the university this line was severely affected by the changing weather conditions gary falasca director of facilities services said because the temperatures on wednesday were very warm and wet the drastic influx of the incoming ice storm caused the electricity to burn out he said basically when the insulators burn out the rest of the system shuts down to protect itself falasca said when the main lines experience drastic temperature changes it is inevitable that they will short out falasca also said the problem was significant considering ninety percent of the campus receives its power from mountaintop students in almost all of the campus buildings including resi dence halls fraternities sororities and academic buildings found themselves encased in blackness for almost four hours because of alpha phi found guilty of dirty rush by peter sorkin assistant news editor the panhellenic judiciary board found alpha phi sorority guilty of dirty rush violations monday in a closed meeting at the rauch busi ness center the pjb decided alpha phi was in direct violation of lehigh's code of conduct offenses against le high this rule states that no woman shall be extended an invitation to pledge a sorority before the time des ignated by the national panhellenic conference the guilty verdict stems from an incident this spring involving a stu dent who supposedly had been dirty rushed by alpha phi alpha chi omega sorority offi cially brought the charge up with pjb which hears such cases according to the student who was dirty rushed and who did not want to be identified alpha phi called the student on the jan 27 bid day and said she was not going to get a bid from other sororities as a result the alpha phi sisters invited her up to their house for some activities which turned out to be rush events alpha chi was also going to give a bid to the student because of this alpha chi de cided to formally accuse alpha phi of dirty rush violations carrie sendrow 96 alpha chi president said i informed pjb out of growing concern that freshmen women were being treated unfairly contract with america threatens future federal student aid programs federal grants and loans for col lege students have come under attack as part of the republican congress's contract with america to i downsize the i federal gov i emment and i lehigh stu i dents receiv i ing financial aid are not im mune to the cutbacks the congress has proposed to cut student financial aid programs by about 20 billion by the year 2000 this is the largest increase in col lege tuition costs in history accord ing to statistics from the alliance to save student aid if the cuts are made up to 6mi 1 1 ion students may not be able to return to school next year programs targeted for elimination include sub sidized stafford loans,federa\v/ork study the federal supplemental edu cation oppor tunity grant the perkin loan pel grants am state studem incentive grants this is the biggest cut tc education ever brendan brinkman 96 said it's going to affect everybody on this campus in one way or another brinkman worked for and sup ports the united states student as sociation a group representing ap proximately 3.7 million students na tionwide ussa through a program called education makes sense is attempting to halt the progression of the congressional cutbacks through lobbying campaigns the national education budget now represents 1.7 percent of the total federal budget a figure that has decreased from 10 i percent 10 years ago as tuition in federal stu dent aid com i prises 75 percent of total student aid over six mil lion students received 3 1 billion in federal grants loans and work-study programs last year students arc getting squashed as usual but more so than ever before because congressmen don't think we have a voice brinkman said through the education makes sense program students are encour aged to send postcards urging their representatives and senators to in vest n fedcra education programs rather than cut them brinkman has set up a booth mmmmmmmr j n jj r j c h tudent center icre students n learn more about the con tract with america's aid cutbacks and fill out post cards to pro test all this is happening very quickly brinkman said even if peopledon't know their senators and representa tives we can fill that in for them we're trying to get people in also also slated for elimination are federal work study programs perkins loans fseog and the ssig which will cost students 2 billion over five years financial aid cut is going to affect everybody on this campus in one way or another brendan brinkman 96 please see blackout page 16 please see aid page 3 please see alpha phi page 16 f^bfml hi news 1-6 wkj f world news briefs 2 w bi;«is ifc meeting 5 bjjßal music fraternity 8 hhbp^b - j dave noletti 13 hh i^j women's lacrosse 19 jocelyn beck resigns 20 dinner at delta phi residents from rooney house nursing home visit delta phi 6