Ninety-nine years of editorial freedom Vol. I C, No. 82 Ann Arbor, Michigan - Wednesday, January 25, 1989 Copyright 1989, The Michigan Daily MSA calls for meeting with regents BY ALEX GORDON In response to last week's harsh criticism and threats from members of the University's Board of Regents, the Michigan Student Assembly voted to publicly call for a meeting of the regents and the as- sembly. MSA President Mike Phillips said last night that he will draft a letter to the regents, which will be fol- lowed up by a phone call. MSA will also buy an ad in The Daily expressing the assembly's desire to com- n unicate with the regents. During the regents' meeting, Vice President for Student Services Henry Johnson and Student Organization Development Center (SODC) Director Brad Borland publicly criticized MSA for not follow- ing a regents' resolution last year requiring that the assembly "engage in a consultative way with SODC." "Johnson and Borland incorrectly stated the relationship" between MSA and SODC, Phillips told the assembly last night. He explained that the resolu- tion, passed last summer, called for MSA to meet with six or seven organizations, including SODC. "We were supposed to point out our problems and show that we have direction in solving these prob- lems," Phillips said of the regents' resolution. Phillips said MSA has fulfilled all the requirements of the resolution. He said he has tried to set up meet- ings with SODC twice a month, and that "SODC did not even come to us to start the process until Octo- ber." Particularly, Phillips noted that MSA and SODC together conducted an external survey of 150 student ,groups, but only received 15 responses, rendering the survey's results statistically nonviable. Borland confirmed Phillips' remarks about the sur- vey last night, but would not comment further. Phillips downplayed the importance of the entire episode to MSA's survival. "My main concern is if students decide to defunct MSA," said Phillips. "The credit lies more with the students, not the regents. If students think we're doing our job, were doing our job." Delro Harris, chair of MSA's minority affairs committee, formally introduced the resolution to call for a meeting with the regents. "As much as I'm against MSA for a lot of things they've done, the re- gents themselves are disrespectful," said Harris. Harris is optimistic that the regents will respond to the letter. "I'm thinking positive right now, I see no reason why this shouldn't work." Regent Paul Brown (D- Petosky) said last night that he would be willing to wait until new assembly officers are elected in March before making any final decisions to cut funding. "That doesn't sound unrea- sonable to me - I don't have my mind made up as to what actions are necessary." 4 4 '4 4 .4 J ~4r A *O 4 4 t - k JESSICA GREENE/Daily See story, S tt meets BY TARA GRUZEN' SPECIAL TO THE DAILY LANSING - Gov. James Blan- chard and student leaders from state public universities criticized high student tuition increases and dis- cussed strategies to combat them yesterday. The meeting was the first of its kind since students presented Blan- chard with an award in 1986 for his 1984-85 efforts to freeze tuition in- creases. Alaina Lewis, chairperson and legislative director to the Michigan Collegiate Coalition, a state-wide student lobbying group, said yester- day's meeting occurred because she and several student leaders spoke to Blanchard last Thursday about tu- ition increases. "This show commitment on the government's point of view on higher education - there must be a solution so students have more of an impact on what affects them," said Lewis. Blanchard appeared to share the financial concerns of the approxi- mately 15 public univerisities repre- sented. "Any significant tuition increase, by that I mean a double-digit in- crease, is totally unjustified," Blan- chard said yesterday. "However, we have to be fair to university officials on this too. They have been our al- lies." LSA senior Mike Phillips, presi- dent of the Michigan Student As- sembly, said the meeting gave stu- dents a chance to participate directly in policies regarding higher educa- tion. "The governor is going to be more accountable to the students than the administration," Phillips said. "When you talk to him about tuition, you know he can do some- thing about it." Lewis said students must have more of a voice in decisions that will eventually affect them. She pushed Blanchard to get students ap- pointed to the university boards which make tuition decisions. Blanchard said he will proceed with caution before recommending student appointments to university boards and that the positions would be filled based upon vacancy. "The big concern will be to make sure that the student has some continuity of interest," Blanchard said. "University administrations would worry that students would have a year-to-year interest rather than an interest over a certain time span." Although appointing students to the boards of other Michigan state; universities may be possible, Lewis said a state constitutional amend- ment would probably be necessary to appoint University of Michigan stu- dents to the elected Board of Re- gents. "MCC now has its foot in the door with the governor and we will be here to make sure that he contit- ues his commitment to higher education," Lewis said. During yesterday's meeting, Blanchard also laid out three plans to increase student involvement in state policies between now and early spring. Blanchard proposed an honors in- ternship program in state department See Tuition, Page 2 Blanchard with student reps. The Birds European starlings flee from a tree on Washtenaw Avenue. page 5. Urban' WASHINGTON (AP) - National Urban League said yeste economic gap between Blacks an widened during the F Administration, while Preside may take steps to improve condi Black America. "I expect the Bush White B be a very different place from the White House," said John Jacob, p of the National Urban League. "I am hopeful that h implement policies that close th League crif - The gap that puts African Americans on a ,rday the separate and unequal track from white d whites Americans," he said. Reagan The Urban League, releasing its nt Bush annual assessment of the status and tions for conditions of Blacks in America, cited statistics which show racial inequality louse to growing and Blacks facing increasing Reagan misery from poverty, crime, and drugs. president Jacob said Blacks were the only major ethnic group whose he will unemployment rate rose during the he tragic 1980s. He said housing segregation 0 e icizes Reagan era increased, and black life expectancy at birth began to decline. During the 80's, "Blacks did not share the prosperity and got more than their share of the misery," Jacob said at a news conference. The report, "The State of Black America, 1989," is the 14th annual assessment of Black America by the league, a 78-year-old research and minorities advocate organization: In a summary of economic conditions, David Swinton, Dean of the Business School at Jackson State University in Mississippi, wrote that no progress was made during the Reagan administration to reduce economic disparities faced by Blacks. Bush's Cabinet appointments "have been wise, and there are people at key departments with whom we can work," Jacob said. He called on Bush to adopt as a goal achieving economic parity between whites and Blacks by the year 2000. Director of Phoenix Project nuclear reactor retires BY NOELLE SHAD WICK The goal of the University's Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project - to find peaceful uses for nuclear energy - has not changed in over 35 years, though the pro- ject's director has changed three times. On Feb. 1, Director Dr. William Kerr, who has directed the project and Ford Nu- clear Reactor for 28 years, will turn his position over to Dr. Ronald Fleming from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Kerr retires from his post having watched the public's reaction to nuclear power change, and having developed some ideas for its future use. "In the late '40s and '50s there was lots of enthusiasm for nuclear power," Kerr ex- plained. "There was an idea that it would make electric power so cheap that it wouldn't even have to be metered." The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Pro- ject and Ford Nuclear Reactor, located on North Campus, were founded as part of this enthusiasm. Established after World War II as a memorial to University students and alumni killed in action, the project provided money for faculty to study peaceful uses of nuclear energy and examine its social im- plications. Many of the laboratory's early projects originated from the social sciences and dealt with the legal problems and social dimen- sions of implementing nuclear power into communities. But though interest in nuclear power was initially strong, concern over health risks and radiation caused its image to di- minish. "I guess we thought that there might be more of a positive response to nuclear power than there has been," he said. "As nuclear power has developed it has gotten a negative image." The industry's inability to design ade- quate safety systems for nuclear power reactors has wasted a lot of money, and ac- counts for some of the negative image, Kerr said. However, "In the sense that [nuclear en- ergy] can provide a major source of energy, I think the reputation is undeserved," he added. The laboratory researches the behavior of substances and neutrons, and also provides services for the public and national compa- nies. People from across the country can send in sample materials to be irradiated to de- termine what kinds of substances the mate- rial contains. The money collected from this neutron analysis goes to support other Phoenix funded projects. See Reactor, Page 2 Soviet landslide buries 1,000 MOSCOW (AP) - Rescuers trudged through the muddy rubble and wreckage of their villages yesterday in a desperate search for survivers of the earthquake that killed up to 1,000 people. A 40-second tremor, which U.S. seismologists registered as 5.4 on the Richter scale, hit before dawn Monday. It sent layers of mud cascading onto mountain villages in Tadzhikistan, a rural area about 1,800 miles south of Moscow. Moslem villagers in "endless" f..ticrnl ,nrnC, nhnirid their dped than 100 bodies have been hauled from the mud and wreckage. Rescuers discovered only one survivor, Sergei Muratov, 27. Muratov was reported to be in grave condition. He was rushed to a hospital, where surgeons are "fighting for his life," a spokesperson said. However, Vitaly Zhukov of the republic's official news agency told the Associated Press no survivors were found during excavations yesterday. determined just what help will be needed. INSIDE Does membership havei leges? its privi- See Opinion, Page 4, Have a laugh/wear a smile/stick with us/ for a while... See Arts, Page 10 >... ,, .