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Tonigt: Partly cloudy, low
around 20.
Tomorrow: Partly sunny,
high around 42.
One hundred frve years ofeditonalfreedom
Monday
.March 11,1996
Vol cv3 No
M tankers
qualify for
Olymipics
By Nicholas J. Cotsonika
Daily Sports Editor
INDIANAPOLIS - Two hours af-
ter Michigan's John Piersma etched his
name into American swimming his-
t ,he watched an artist paint his name
.,the wall of champions.
Each athlete who qualifies for a trip
to Atlanta gets his or her name placed
forever on the wall of the Indiana Uni-
versity Natatorium where the U.S.
Olympic swimming trials are being held.
"It'sjust indescribable," Piersma said.
"It feels like it's not for real, but I know
it is. I don't know how to act or what to
think ... It's really exciting to know I'm
part of the team."
*Piersmajoined past Olympians on the
all Wednesday night, but four other
Wolverines have followed him since.
Michigan sophomore Tom Dolan has
qualified in two events so far. Fresh-
man Tom Malchow-grabbed a spot on
the team with an upset victory Satur-
day. In addition, former Wolverines
Eric Namesnik and Eric Wunderlich
have completed their quest for a chance
to represent the United States.
*The Wolverines have the largest con-
tingency of swimmers of any school or
club at Indianapolis. Michigan may put
even more athletes on the U.S. squad.
The trials are far from over - several
events remain in the seven-day meet,
which concludes tomorrow night.
"We have shown how strong our pro-
gram is here," said Michigan men's
swimming coach Jon Urbanchek, who
is expected to be named a U.S. Olympic
istantcoach tomorrow. "Putting five
' six people on the Olympic team will
help our recruiting down the road. It
shows how great our kids are."
Dolan may be the greatest kid. The
See TRIALS, Page 7B
Blue to meet Longhorns in NCAA tourney
By Brent McIntosh
Daily Sports Editor
Although several thousand Fridays
ago Texas was a nation of its own, this
Friday it's nothing more than the next
opponent for the Michigan men's bas-
ketball team.
The NCAA Men's Basketball Com-
mittee announced its NCAA Division I
Championship selections at 6:30 p.m.
yesterday. The committee seeded
Michigan at No. 7 in the Midwest Re-
gional and sent the Wolverines to
Milwaukee's Bradley Center to face
the 10th-seeded Texas Longhorns on
Friday.
"I was hoping for somewhere warm,
but it's close to home, so we'll have a
lot of fans," Michigan captain Dugan
Fife said.
Gametime will be announced today
or tomorrow, but tickets will not be
made available to students.
The top seed in the Wolverines' re-
gional is the nation's top-ranked team,
Kentucky. Joining the Wildcats as re-
gional No. 1 seeds are Massachusetts,
Connecticut and Big Ten champion
Purdue.
At fifth place in the conference, the
Wolverines (10-8 Big Ten, 20-11 over-
all) were the least successful Big Ten
team to make the tourney. They secured
their berth with a win over Wisconsin
on Saturday. Still, Michigan coach Steve
Fisher said he was pleased to see the
Wolverines in what pundits call "the
big dance."
"You always cheer when you see
your name come up, whether you know
you're going, or whether you're hold-.,
ing your breath," Fisher said.
For part of the season, the Wolver-
ines were indeed holding their collec-
tive breath. With five losses in six games
during the heart of the conference sea-
son, Michigan's bid remained in doubt
until they beat the Badgers this week-
end.
"I'm just grateful to be in atall," Fife
said. "At some points this yearit seemed
in doubt."
What's not in doubt is that Texas will
serve as a worthy foe. The speedy Long-
horns nearly beat No. 3-seeded Michi-
gan two years ago in the tournament
before falling 84-79; this season's Tex-
ans are 20-9 and still fast.
"They're an uptempo team,"
Michigan's Maurice Taylor said. "They
have a great guard, Reggie Freeman.
He can penetrate, hit thejumper. That's
who we'll probably concentrate on."
Freeman averaged 22.8 points and
seven rebounds per game this season.
He also hit 84 3-pointers for the 'horns,
but the 6-foot-6 junior guard n-ay well
be Texas' lone star. Only senior for-
ward Sonny Alvarado consistently
joined Freeman in scoring double fig-
ures; Alvarado is the Longhorns' lead-
ing rebounder with 8.6 boards per game.
Michigan's leading rebounder, on the
other hand, said he wants a win against
Texas so he can face one of the nation's
top rebounders. Should Taylor and the
rest of the Wolverines win Friday, they
would probably play No. 2 seed Wake
Forest, team of preseason All-Ameri-
can Tim Duncan. Taylor said before the
season he wanted to face Duncan in the
tournament.
"Beat Texas, and I get my wish,"
Taylor said.
NOPPORN KICHANANTHA/Daily
Maurice Taylor and the Michigan men's
basketball team hope to "mess with
Texas" in the NCAA Tournament.
Students
face delays in
financial aid
JONATHAN LURE/Daify
23 arrested in Detroit Newspapers protest
Police officers carry away a protester outside The Detroit News building at about 7 a.m. last Wednesday. About 600
protesters chanted, sang and spoke in support of the workers who went on strike in July, and some 200 protesters
later marched several blocks to a union hall. Officers arrested 23 protesters, including City Council President Maryann
Mahaffey and Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, for disorderly conduct after they blocked driveways.
U.S. News ranks 'U' grad schools bigher
By Stephanie Jo Klein
Daily Staff Reporter
As students fill out forms and rush to
meet deadlines for financial aid appli-
cations they often worry their requests
will be denied.
This year, computer problems at the
U.S. Department of Education and sev-
eral government shutdowns have left
students wondering if their aid requests
will even be pro- A
cessed. Almost
one million -AS Wit
closetohalfofthe
total - aid appli- new cOfljl
cations have been yt
delayed so far. emy
Thomas Butts,p roblems
the University's
associate vice #u
president for gov-
ermn eainsaid the problems Associate vic
stemmed from govern
two modifications
to a system that
had worked well for many years.
Butts said the government switched
private-sector contractors that process
the aid forms and also changed the
technology used to process the infor-
mation.
Instead of typing in the data from
students' forms, the Department of
Education now optically scans data into
the computer system.
"As with any new computer system,
there are problems with start-up," Butts
said. Unfortunately, he said, the 21 days
of government shutdown prevented of-
ficials from diagnosing and addressing
the problems when they originally hap-
pened.
The Department of Education is
tI
i
th
r1
en
working hard, Butts said, to alleviate
the pressure for students. On Friday,
the department announced plans to dra-
matically increase its processing speed
by today -jumping from only 20,000-
30,000 forms per day to more than
100,000 per day.
The expected date of complete re-
covery is April 15, only two weeks
before the national enrollment decision
date of May 1,
when most col-
i any leges require en-
rollment deposits
Ovter to be paid.
Judith Harper;
interimdirector l
w t the University's
WB Office of Finan-
cial Aid, said the
first two weeks of
Thomas Butts March is the tra-
Spresident for ditional time that
nent S initial responses
trelations totheFreeAppli-
cation for Federal
Student Aid (FAFSA) are mailed out
from universities.
The Department of Education has
assured that aid renewal applicants and
students who file electronically will not
encounter any untimely difficulties be-
cause of the problems with the paper
forms.
Butts said that although 60 percent of
applicants use paper forms to apply for
federal aid, the largest potential prob-
lem will arise for incoming students-
many of whom base their college deci-
sion on financial aid packages.
In particular, some parents are con-
cerned that the delay could seriously
impact the timeliness of theirchildren's
See AID, Page 2A
Jeff Eldridge
Daily Staff Reporter
When U.S. News & World Report
released its annual rankings for gradu-
ate and professional schools last
Wednesday, the University's standing
jumped in almost every category.
The most significant improvements.
came forthe School of Education, which
was ranked ninth, up from last year's
position of 22nd, and the College of
gineering, which placed at No. 5 in
t e nation, up from No. 8.
The School of Information and Li-
brary Studies was ranked second in the
country. This category has never been
ranked before.
"These releases are followed very
closely by people in higher education,"
said Associate Vice President for Univer-
sity Relations Lisa Baker. "The U.S. News
survey is areputational survey, relying on
perceptual judgments, in large part."
The weekly newsmagazine weighs
factors like student selectivity, place-
ment success and academic reputation
to formulate the standings ofthe schools.
Cecil Miskel, dean of the School of
Education, said faculty efforts contrib-
utedto the school'sjump in the rankings.
"I think the faculty in particular have
been working quite hard in recruiting
and building programs," Miskel said. "I
think the rankings reflect this."
Law School Dean Jeffrey Lehman
said the method used to determine the
rankings is flawed.
"It would be wonderful if a serious
analyst would provide these prospec-
tive students with information and guid-
ance that will really help the... Sad
to say, U.S. News doesn't come close to
doing the job," Lehman said.
"(There is) no analysis. Just an an-
nual computer-generated list, based on
a mechanical formula thatincorporates
so many methodological problems -
wrong questions, missing questions,
indefensible biases, random factor
weightings, false precision, etc.-as to
be laughable."
U.S. News ranked the University's
Law School seventh in the nation.
William Martin, Engineering associ-
ate dean for academic affairs, also ques-
tioned the weighting of the various at-
tributes.
"1 certainly have a lot of questions
about the methodology and the statisti-
See RANKINGS, Page 2A
Grad School Rankings
Here are the U.S. News & World
Report rankings for the University.
Last year's ranks are in parentheses.
Education: 9 (22)
Engineering: 5 (8)
Business: 12 (11)
Medicine: 9 (10)
Law: 7 ($)
Library and Information Studies: 2
.(ot ranked previously)
The top in each category were:
Education: Harvard
Engineering: MIT
Business: Stanford
Medicine: Harvard
Library and Information Studies:
University of Illinois
Law: Yale
Rose, Mehta to represent
Michigan Party on ballot
'U' signs $87K contract
with presidential
search consulting firm -
By Laurie Mayk
Daily Staff Reporter
As the last major party to announce
its candidates, the Michigan Party re-
aled its presidential ticket for the
ichigan Student Assembly shortly
before break.
LSA Reps. Fiona Rose and Probir
Mehta, the Michigan Party's candidates
for MSA president and vice president,
respectively, said the party held its an-
nouncement to present a unified front
and an entire slate.
The ticket's strength is the candi-
dates' experience within and beyond
*e assembly, said Mehta, an LSA
junior.
"We both have one foot in the assem-
bly, and one foot in the student body,"
he said.
"Our experiences aren't just within
MSA," said Rose, an LSA sopho-
mnre "We've hard exerience with
mester. Mehta left the Students' Party
for the Michigan Party about two
months ago.
"There's no wrongdoing in going to
where your ideas mesh best," Rose said.
"The difference between parties is the
people involved."
This year's campaign will be dif-
ferent than the one she ran with Stu-
dents' Party member Brian Elliot, she
said.
"My presidential campaign wasn't
positive - that was my downfall.
We spent more time tearing down the
assembly and building up ourselves,"
she said.
LSA Rep. Olga Savic, Students' Party
candidate for MSA president, worked
on the Elliot-Rose campaign.
"At the time I had full confidence in
her and now I have my doubts," Savic
said.
Althouih Rose and Mehta were the
Agreement stipulates
MacKay keep details
confidential
By Jodi Cohen
Daily Staff Reporter
The University will pay presidential
search consultant Malcolm MacKay
more than $85,000 to help find the next
president.
The contact signed between MacKay
and the University before spring break
states that the consultant will receive
about $86,666.67. This figure is based
on one-third of the assumed annual
salary of the next president, which is
currently estimated at $260,000. Presi-
dent James Duderstadt, who announced
that MacKay will keep details about the
search confidential, except information
that can be made public as required by
law.
"I am guessing the confidentiality of
information is something (the Univer-
sity) wanted in there," said Vice Presi-
dent for University Relations Walter
Harrison.
A section in the contract frees the
University from liabilityregarding state-
ments or actions- that MacKay makes
during the search. The University will
not be responsible forMacKay'sactivi-
ties when he recruits and meets with
potential candidates.
Harrison said most of the contract is
standard. He did not know how long the
two parties discussed the terms of the
LSA Reps. Probir Mehta and Fiona Rose will run on the Michigan Party ticket in
the upcoming Michigan Student Assembly elections.
Savic also expressed concern in their
ability to "mobilize the assembly be-
hind them."
"(Rose) has a lot of great ideas, but
she's alienated a lot of people on the
assembly," Schor asserted. "She would
tives and efforts to reduce textbook
prices should play important roles in
promoting "student wellness," Rose
said.
Mehta said the ticket plans on work-
ing with the University's administra-
I
,