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CITY ELECTION
ENDORSEMENTS
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Eighty-Nine Years of Editorial Freedom
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Vol. LXXXIX, No. 145
Ann Arbor, Michigan-Sunday, April 1, 1979
Ten Cents
T...niva Pnnae rlose C r, r larrtiar i.
weave rues pus auppement
Students can sample about 25'cake' courses
By MARIANNE EGRI
One student's "cake" can be another's headache.,
But undergraduates say in conversations that truly easy
courses share some characteristics: light homework
assignments, straightforward exams, lenient grades, and
-minimal required attendance.
STUDENTS WILL have the chance to sign up for at least 25
"cake" courses at registration this week - some will use
them to balance heavy schedules, others to fulfill distribution"
requirements painlessly, still more to improve grade points,
.and, of course, most to be able to relax a little in the fall.
"We have an informal list (of easy classes) that we
recommend to people," said Matt Rohr, a coordinator at
Student Counseling Office. "We know from previous ex-
perience, or we've heard it from friends, so we file the infor-
mation away and pass it on. But we keep our eyes on the
department to make sure the classes haven't changed and
the same professor is teaching it."
Here are some opinions from students and professors on
some of the easier courses around:
SPEECH 109 (Fundamentals of Public Speaking),.
Engineering sophomore Kipton Moravec said, "The material
is easy, it all depends on how you present it." Prof. Bill
Colburn said, "How easy the course is depends on the
student's natural ability for public speaking, but we work
hard to present a good course.'l
POLITICAL SCIENCE 361 (Current Issues in World
Politics). LSA sophomore Tom Kramer said, "It's an easy
way to get two credits because there's no midterm, quizzes,
or tests. There is a take-home final, which is two essays, and
the lectures can be really outstanding, or they can be
boring." Prof. Russell Fifield said, "It's a survey course and
a service course. It would be a snap for students concen-
trating in political science, but for the average sophomore
and junior coming from different branches of the University
for two hours credit, I would say it is about an average cour-
se. Last year, the average grade was a 'B'."
PSYCHOLOGY 474 (Introduction to Behavior
Modification). LSA junior Ellen Finegold said, "Everyone in
the class has an opportunity to get an A because everything is
laid out on the table in a contract. It works - everyone learns
the material.because they know they can get an 'A', and it's
interesting.
Prof. James McConnell said, "A lot of students take the
course because it's perceived as having limited intellectual
content, but this is true only for those students to whom lear-
ning is memorization. We don't give 'A's, students earn
them. We specify what they're to learn and we reward them
for doing exactly what we ask them to do."
See TWENTY-FIVE, Page 3
Economic
boycott
for ERA
urged
BY MARION HALBERG
Powerful national organizations like
the AFL-CIO have recently used
economic boycotts to make political
statements in favor of the Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA), and yesterday the
former city NOW (National
Organization of Women) president
suggested that sympathetic individuals
ought to follow suit.
Kathy Fotjik said she feels it's time
those states which have not yet ratified
the amendment felt the economic
pressure of decreased vacationing and
visiting revenues in a speech she gave
as part of the Women In Action Day
conference held in the Union.
TO THE DELIGHTED cheers of the
wholly supportive, mostly female
audience in the Kuenzel Room, Fotjik
said, "I'm asking you not to travel in
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida,
Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina,
Utah, Virginia, Illinois, Oklahoma,
Nevada, Mississippi, and Louisiana
(the 15 states in which legislators
haven't approved ERA). That leaves
you 35 other states to vacation in."
FOtjik's talk on the economic boycott
was only one of a number of speeches
given yesterday. Nan Baily of Detroit's
NOW office addressed Affirmative Ac-
tion questions; Sallyanne Payton, a
University Law School professor, spok-
on the role of women in the law; and
Lorraine Beebe, a former state senator,
spoke in support of women's right to
abortion.
"They (Right to Life organization
members) get into the whole abortion
issue and deny you your rights. They
,want to deny you - every woman - the
See BOYCOTT, Page 2
Reactor gas
may become
explosive
Daily Photo by LISA UDELSON
SENATOR CARL LEVIN (D-MI.) stops to chat with Ann Arbor resident Janice Caldwell. He was in town yesterday cam-
paigning for Democratic mayoral candidate James Kenworthy.
KENWOR THY GETS HELP:
From AP and Reuter
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Federal
officials said last night the gas bubble
inside the crippled nuclear reactor at
Three Mile Island is showing signs of
becoming potentially explosive, but
they disagred on how soon that might
become a problem.
Officials said earlier that tens of
thousands of people might have to be
evacuated if engineers decided to try to
remove the bubble, an operation that
could risk a melt-down of the reactor
and the release of highly radioactive
material into the atmosphere.
Harold Denton, operations chief for
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), said here that it would be about
12 hours before the bubble reached a
flammable stage and about twice that
long before it could explode. An NRC
spokesman in Washington,AFrank
Ingram, said it would be several days,
while an NRC source, who asked not to
be identified, said the critical point
could be reached within two days.
An explosion could release radioac-
tive materials into the atmosphere or,
at worst, cause the reactor core to melt,
releasing even greater radioactivity.
Metropolitan Edison Co., operator of
the plant, said company experts were
checking on the report.
IN WISCONSIN last night, President
Carter said he would visit the site of the
nuclear reactor accident for a personal
look at the situation which he described
as serious but improving.
' Without being specific, Carter said
his visit would take place in the near
future,.
Carter made the disclosure while
speaking to a Democratic fund-raising
dinner about accomplishments and
challenges which face his ad-
ministration including energy issues.
"I'VE JUST had word from the site
that the situation is still stable and
slowly improving," Carter said. "But
many people in the region have Peen
severely frightened, and the crisis is
not yet over."
NRC Chairman Joseph Hendrie said
earlier at a news conference in
Washington that the evacuation of
citizens within 10 to 20 miles downwind
of the power plant was "certainly a
possibility" as a precaution if
technicians tried to force the bubble out
of the reactor. He would not say when a
decisidn might be made.
NRC spokesman Frank Ingram told a
reporter later that technicians believed
the bubble consisted mainly of
hydrogen, with a 'small amount iof
oxygen - too little, so far, to form an
explosive mixture.
See GASES, page 2
evrn st
By KEITH B. RICHBURG
Sen. Carl Levin came to town yester-
day to lend his name to the campaign of
James Kenworthy, a fellow Democrat
who's running against incumbent Louis
Belcher for mayor in tomorrow's elec-
tion.
Levin called Kenworthy a politician
who, like himself, has tangled with
bureaucracy and fought for open
government.
THE FORMER Detroit city council
president compared his own council
battles with the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) to Kenworthy's similar bouts
with HUD over abandoned houses in the
Fourth Ward, which Kenworthy
umps AE
represented from 1974 until last April.
"Jamie's battled HUD and I've been
through that battle," said Levin.
While in town, Levin made good on
a campaign promise from last year's
race against Robert Griffin, saying he
will introduce legislation "in a couple of
months" to halt the proliferation of new
nuclear power plants.
Levin said that most of his senate
colleagues are opposed to any ban on
new atomic plant construction, but that
last week's accident at the Three Mile
Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania
will provide impetus for his A-plant
moratorium.
Levin - a member of the senate sub-
committee on energy and nuclear
in Arbor
proliferation - also said that in the
search for alternative energy sources,
he "might end up supporting
deregulation (of natural gas) if there's
a windfall profit tax attached." He ad-
ded, however, his support for
deregulation would be dependent on
"assurances from the oil companies as
to what new production levels can be
reached if we decontrol."
Independents face uphill battle
in this week's MSA elections
Mayoral candidates' styles differ
Belcher
campaign:
subtle'
By ELISA ISAACSON
Confident of the benefits of incum-
bency, Republican Mayor Louis
Belcher declares his campaign has
been "more subtle" than that of his
Democratic opponent, Jamie Kenwor-
thy. But the mayor admits his elected
position has ironically encumbered his,
efforts to retain it.
Belcher's campaign is conducted in
part from the mayor's chair, where he
continues to hold office hours from 4 to 6
p.m. But he is also taking to the streets,
marching briskly from house to house
and assuring residents that something
is indeed being done about the city's
potholes.
WHILE KENWORTHY is hitting a
wide. variety of neighborhoods, can-
uvasnagin il five wards Relcher is
Kenworthy
campaign.
'personal'
By ELISA ISAACSON
Jamie Kenworthy has become a
familiar face at Drake's Sandwich
Shop, where he frequently catches a bit
to eat between meetings at his
headquarters above the restaurant and
his door-to-door campaign for the
mayor's seat.
With the declaration that he is
reaching all segments of the voter
population, Kenworthy has made a
daily ritual of canvassing neigh-
borhoods, writing the occupants' names
on the leaflets to give them a personal
touch. In a stylewmuchdifferent from
his opponent's, Kenworthy covers the
map in leaps and bounds, literally run-
ning from doorstep to doorstep.
DASHING umbrella-less through the
rain in a low-income housing co-op,
By JULIE ENGEBRECHT
Fifth in a five-part series
It's likely party affiliation will help
those partisans running in the Michigan
Student Assembly (MSA) election
tomorrow, Tuesday, and Wed-
nesday-a contest in which many
voters will make decisions on a whim.
So the three minor party candidates
and 18 independents vying for seats
probably will have to work a little har-
der campaigning over the next several
days if they expect to take any seats.
The three minor parties: Students for
Academic and Institutional Develop-
ment (SAID), the Spartacus Youth
League (SYL), and Our Party Really'
Includes Concerned, Knowledgeable
Students (Our P.R.I.C.K.S.), each have
two candidates. There are also 18 in-
dependents, four of whom are running
for presidential or vice presidential
positions as well as Literary College
(LSA) representatives.
SYL, A well-known revolutionary
communist youth group on campus, is
offering presidential and vice presiden-
tial candidates in Bruce Richard, a Law
School student, and Irene Rhinesmith,
a Literary College (LSA) sophomore.
MSA elections '79
The SYL platform demands the
abolishment of the University ad-
ministration, open admissions, free
tuition, and a state stipend for all
students at the University.
SYL members emphasize a working-
class revolution, and said they are run-
ning to draw student attention to their
program for revolution. "We want to
win students to the socialist.
revolution," Rhinesmith said.
"Student government is no more than
a sandbox in which the administration
allows various student careerists to
play at politics, secure in the knowledge
that the kids will do no harm," Richard
said.
TWO INDEPENDENTS running for
the top seats while also trying for LSA
representativges seats, Gregg Nathan-
son, LSA junior, and Steve Michaelson,
LSA sophomore, said they are running
because they-feel unhappy about MSA
and its relationship with students. They
said something could be done.
"We would contact; a few more
students, and let them know what MSA
does," Nathanson said. "MSA should
provide a leadership role and be the
focus of student sentiment. We have to
find out what students are concerned
about, and make them feel aware and
involved.
"A lot of times MSA and student
groups work in parallel ways to the
See INDEPENDENTS, Page 2
Sunday
" Ninety-six University stu-
dents matched wits yesterday in
the first Michigan College Bowl,
a question-and-answer contest
held in the Michian Union
Ballroom, See story, Page 2.
* Where will the Tigers finish?
See story. Page 11
KENWOR THY .
.the cha"ner
Arab nations to impose
economic boycott on Egypt
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Eighteen
Arab nations agreed yesterday to im-
pose a total economic and political
ference, which was marked by a bitter
dispute between the "hardliners," led
by the PLO, and conservative Arab