The Michigan Daily - Thursday, December 1, 1994 - 3
'U' students
*offer hand
to famihes
in pvgram
U Social Services
'Adopt-a-Family'
program alms to
make a difference
By MARIA KOVAC
Daily Staff Reporter
The holiday season is not about
what we receive, but about what we
give to others.
That is the spirit in which the
WWashtenaw County Department of
Social Services is sponsoring the
"Adopt-a-Family" program, giving
the Ann Arbor community an oppor-
tunity to make a difference in a cre-
ative way.
Linda King, supervisor of volun-
teer services at Social Services, said
there are as many as 1,400 low-in-
come families in Washtenaw County
Owho benefit from the Adopt-a-Fam-
ily program.
"We've already matched over
1,000 families with donors, but that
leaves between 300 and 400 families
that still need to be matched," King
said.
Donors can choose what size fam-
ily they wish to adopt, such as single-
mother families or large extended
families. Donors should be prepared
Oo spend between $15 and $20 per
family member to buy food for a
holiday meal and a small gift item for
each person.
"But many people go above and
beyond this," King said.
Donors contact the families di-
rectly in order to find out the specific
needs of its members. They also de-
liver the gifts themselves, usually the
*week before Christmas.
The program has 200-300 donors
who participate year after year, and
the rest is left to recruitment.
King said many groups from the
University collaborate to adopt a fam-
ily. In the past. the hospital and spe-
cific University departments have
supported the program.
This year Alpha Phi Omega, a co-
ed national service fraternity on cam-
pus, has raised money among its
members to adopt a family through
Wayne County's program, "Parents
and Children Together."
"This is a good opportunity for
college students to do something. By
giving in a group, they feel they've
done their part even though they don't
have a lot of money to give," said Jae-
Jae Spoon, an LSA sophomore and
*APO community service co-chair.
The group is still waiting to be
matched up with a family. They plan
to shop for food and gifts as well as
donating used clothing..
U The Washtenaw County De-
partment of Social Services hopes to
have all of its families matched by
Dec. 16. Call 677-1052 for more in-
formation.
NOB MORE DOMES
Choosing classes
made easy with
new 'U' program
AP PHOTO
The new pyramid at California State University-Long Beach has a "space frame" construction design and facilities to
seat 5,000 at home baseketball games and other events.
R10 aradise attracts stuents
By DANIEL JOHNSON
Daily Staff Reporter
Each spring and summer about
200 University students with an in-
terest in biology migrate north to the
expansive University of Michigan
Biological Station (UMBS).
UMBS is a research station where
University students can apply their
interests in field biology and ecology
through classes and research oppor-
tunities.
"Virtually all students say that
attending UMBS was the highlight of
their college careers," said James
Teeri, UMBS director and biology
professor.
The station will begin its 85th
session in May on the shores of Dou-
glas Lake in the northern tip of
Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Some
of the classes offered on the 13,000-
acre site are biology of birds, general
ecology, field botany and ecology of
streams and rivers.
"The majority of students that at-
tend the station are from the sciences,
but there are a large number of stu-
dents from the humanities and other
non-science disciplines," Teeri said.
The station's proximity to a mo-
saic of diverse ecosystems allows stu-
dents to take trips into the field and
engage in their surroundings.
Frequently visited areas include
bogs, stands of virgin forest and sand
dunes found along the shores of the
Great Lakes.
"Ten thousand pristine acres made
it seem more like a paradise than a
school," said SNRE senior Marc
Olender.
Research facilities at the station
include a library containing 16,000
volumes, a lakeside laboratory, a
greenhouse and an experimental
streamside laboratory. Research is
conducted year-round and includes a
multi-million dollar project studying
the effects of elevated carbon diox-
ide levels on ecosystems.
For the first time, a semester titled
"Natural History Writers' Project" is
being held this fall. The semester-
long program offers courses that com-
bine creative writing with natural his-
tory, ecology, culture and the envi-
ronment. The project will be taught
again in the fall of 1996.
Spring term at UMBS runs from
May 21 to June 15 and summer
courses from June 24 to Aug. 19.
Financial aid is available. "In re-
cent years, the availability of aid has
increased, and now all students at-
tending UMBS receive aid," Teeri
said.
Spring and summer terms fill up
quickly, Teeri said, so he recom-
mended students apply early. Inquir-
ies can be made in Room 1111 of the
Natural Science Building.
By SAM T. DUDEK
For the Daily
The CRISP-mas season is upon us
and with it comes an agony worse
than trudging to class in the snow.
Class registration is in full swing,
burdening students with the responsi-
bility of assembling the ideal sched-
ule. LSA senior Daniel Abrams has
designed a computer program to help
University students avoid CRISP con-
flicts.
Abrams created Course Schedul-
ing Made Easy (CSME) because he
said the old-fashioned, trial-and-er-
ror method is inefficient.
The program is open to all stu-
dents at any University computing
site. CSME, which is currently only
available on Macintosh, can be ac-
cessed by clicking the "Applications"
icon. The program is located in the
"Utilities" folder.
The program works similar to
CRISP-INFO. Students type in the
courses and sections they want and
CSME calculates all possible schedule
combinations with the chosen classes.
This process, however, can create
thousands of possible schedules. To
narrow the search, the program al-
lows users to make specific requests
such as no Friday classes, an hour off
for lunch or even no classes with a
certain professor.
With the help of computer pro-
grammer and University alum Timo-
thy Sharpe, Abrams completed a pre-
liminary version of the program in
May and attempted to sell it to the
University.
After months of phone calls and
meetings with administrators, the
University finally agreed to test CSME
on their computing system.
Abrams said he was very pleased
with the response of administrators
'We wanted to give
students a chance to
try this program.'
- Laura Patterson
University Registrar
and Registrar Laura Patterson.
"Laura Patterson was instrumen-
tal in finally getting CSME running,"
he said.
"We were impressed with what
we saw," Patterson said. "We wanted
to give students a chance to try this
program." She said that the
Registrar's office will review the suc-
cess of the program at the end of the
term. The University is tracking the
use of CSME to determine whether
there is enough support to warrant
licensing it for next year.
"I have a lot of confidence that
this will work," Abrams said. "I've
gotten some wonderfully flattering e-
mail (about CSME.)"
But Abrams said he does have
some worries about his program's
success. "I'm feeling a little nervous,"
he said. "I have no idea how many
people are using it."
Nonetheless, Abrams is not letting
anything obstruct future possibilities.
"The evolution of CRISP is not far
away," he said. "We can look forward
to some even better things."
In addition to a IBM-compatible
Windows version of CSME he has now
completed, Abrams said he hopes stu-
dents someday can figure out their
schedule on CSME and register straight
from the program.
For now, Abrams said he believes
CSME can help many students today.
"I know if someone is exposed to it,
it will be a positive experience," he
said.
Clinton, Dole optimistic as Senate opens debate on GATT
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The Senate
yesterday opened two days of intense
debate on a new world trade agree-
ment as the Clinton administration
stepped up efforts to win over waver-
ing senators and expressed increas-
ing confidence that the pact will be
approved in a final congressional vote
tonight.
Bouyed by a 288-146 bipartisan
victory in the House Tuesday, the
administration predicted the Senate
will scale a normally difficult 60-
vote procedural hurdle to approve the
accord, although officials stopped
short of claiming that the votes were
already firmly in hand.
At the White House, where Presi-
dent Clinton was lobbying the Senate
by telephone, presidential spokeswo-
man Dee Dee Myers said, "We do
expect by the time the vote is cast
(today) we will have the votes."
U.S. Trade Representative Mickey
Kantor predicted flatly that the Ameri-
can participation in the expanded
General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade will be approved. In London,
where he was concluding a brief Eu-
ropean trip, incoming Senate major-
ity leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said, "I
feel confident we have the votes."
Dole's announcement of support
for the agreement last week was
seen as a turning point for its pros-
pects in the Senate, and tomorrow
night's vote is a critical test for
Clinton's wounded presidency and
for Dole's leadership of Republi-
cans as they prepare to take over
both houses of Congress next year.
The Senate debate took shape
along lines laid out earlier by the
House, with proponents arguing that
the new GATT would create jobs at
home by opening more foreign mar-
kets to American products and with
opponents contending it would drive
jobs abroad and tilt trading rules
against the United States.
And, as happened in the House,
the pact drew support and opposition
without regard to partisan or ideo-
logical lines, often reflecting local
commercial concerns - from Florida
grapefruit to California wine and
Montana sheep - more than broader
national interests.
"This historic agreement is es-
sential to our economic future," said
outgoing Majority Leader George
J. Mitchell (D-Maine), predicting it
would reduce foreign trade barri-
ers, stimulate industrial and agri-
cultural exports and "benefit con-
sumers by lowering tariffs that in-
crease the purchase price of con-
sumer goods."
Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen addresses senators and business leaders
during a pro GATT rally yesterday on Capitol Hill.
orrection
Galens Poster Child Reggie Cameron received a bone harvest. This was incorrectly reported last Wednesday.
EVEa&BARB
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