LOCAL/STATE
The Michigan Daily - Monday, November 30, 1998 - 3A
C~AMPUS im
U' chosen to
teach nuclear
eng neenng
The nuclear engineering and radio-
o ical sciences department has been
osen by the China National Nuclear
Corporation to teach nuclear reactor
engineering and safety education
courses to students from the People's
Republic of China.
Because only three universities in
China have nuclear engineering depart-
nients, the University's program pro-
vides a much-needed resource to sup-
port commercial nuclear safety in
China. The CNNC currently operates
he nuclear power plants in China,
has many as 30-40 more scheduled
to be opened in the next 20 years.
Participants, who will move to Ann
Arbor to take classes, must meet
University admissions standards. The
CNNC will choose candidates for the
program. The program will offer mas-
ter's degrees to students who complete
the program.
Surator t0 discuss
design patterns
Carol Bier, curator at the Textile
Museum in Washington, D.C. and a
specialist in creating Islamic patterns
for oriental carpets, is scheduled to
give a speech titled "Magic Carpets:
Explorations of Meaning and Beauty."
Bier will be joined by Art and
Design assistant Prof. Jamy Sheridan,
a artist who creates dynamic comput-
enerated carpet-like patterns of
light and color.
They will discuss designing patterns,
and how their different fields overlap, at
noon tomorrow in room 1524 of the
Rackham School of Graduate Studies.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
Children's parade
et for Sunday
eindeer will pull Santa's sleigh as
kids play kazoos on Sunday, Dec. 6
during the 10th annual Children's
Holiday Parade.
Scheduled to begin at noon in front
of the U.S. Post Office at Liberty Street
and Fourth Avenue, the parade will last
five blocks and end at Main Street and
William Street.
High school band members will lead
the kids, who will play kazoos. The
Ode will also include fire engines,
floats, animals and buses. A petting zoo
will be waiting at the end of the parade
route.
After the parade, hot chocolate and
cookies will be provided at the Real
Seafood Co. restaurant for all
marchers. No reservations are neces-
sary to participate.
ecturerto explore
rcestermuseum
Residential College History of Art
Lecturer Thomas Willette is scheduled
to give a gallery talk on Dec. 3 about
the Worcester Art Museum, located in
Worcester, Mass.
The exhibition contains 100 selected
drawings from the museum's collec-
tion, showcasing the changing style of
drawings in Europe and the United
Stes from 1300 to the present.
special Sunday tour of the collec-
tion will also be held on Dec. 13 and
Jan. 17.
M-Fit to sponsor
relaxation class.
- *The M-Fit Health Promotion
Division is sponsoring a Time
Management and Relaxation
nique workshop.
he program costs $10 and will be
held tomorrow from 6-8 p.m. in the
lower level conference room of the East
Ann Arbor Health Center.
Professor to speak
In lecture series
The Center for Japanese Studies is
scheduled to sponsor a lecture by
Western Michigan University political
Once Prof. Steven Benfell. The lec-
ture is titled "Rich Nation, No Army:
Politics, History and National Identity
in Post-war Japan."
The lecture is part of the center's
weekly noon lecture series and will be
held this Thursday in conference room
1636 of the International Institute.
Compiled by Daily Staff Reporter
Adam Zuwerink.
Students continue storm relief efforts
By Michael Grass
Daily Staff Reporter
A truckload of donated clothing that left Ann
Arbor this past Tuesday will soon reach Honduran
survivors of Hurricane Mitch, which devastated
much of Central America earlier this month.
More than 3,000 cubic feet of clothing were col-
lected in the weeks before Thanksgiving. The
donated items filled one trailer and one-sixth of a
second one, said Public Health graduate student
Cyrus Boquin, a member of La Salud, a Latino/a
public health organization.
Cintas, a Westland-based clothing company,
donated boxes of uniforms as part of the clothing
convoy.
The trailers, donated by Conway Central
Express, will reach Gulfport, Miss., tomorrow,
Boquin said.
From Mississippi, the clothes will arrive in
Puerto Castilla, Honduras via a Dole fruit compa-
ny ship by Dec. 13, Boquin said.
Dole, along with Chiquita banana company, was
a major employer in the area before the hurricane
damaged the large Honduran fruit industry.
The clothing items will be distributed with the
help of the father-in-law of SNRE graduate student
Shari Ortez, who works for Dole in Honduras.
The clothing drive was the first major effort put
together by University students to aid those affect-
ed by Hurricane Mitch.
"Now we want to approach corporations ... for
mass donations of medicine," Boquin said. "We
are not about to call off our efforts anytime soon."
University students said they will continue to
help in the grassroots relief effort.
The Latino fraternity Sigma Lambda Beta will
start collecting clothing in residence halls this
week, Boquin said.
Public Health graduate student Christina Nyhus, relief effort. F
a former Peace Corps volunteer, left for Nicaragua Sister City C
this past Tuesday to deliver financial donations to Arbor, MI 48
rebuilding organizations, Boquin said. The First B
Those who want to donate clothing and medicine 512 E. Huron
can also leave items in boxes located at the School bazaar for hun
of Public Health at the corner of Observatory Street Central An
and Washington Heights and at the Institute for Mitch, withr
Social Research at 426 Thompson St. Honduras an
Boquin and others currently are trying to coor- communicati
dinate their efforts with other organizations for the region, news
relief effort, including the Greek system and other overall impac
undergraduate clubs. "Central A
"We only pray the impressive response we have recovery and
seen so far from the U of M and Ann Arbor com- Boquin said.
munity will continue," Boquin said. Since muc
The Ann Arbor-Juigalpa Sister City Committee, aged during t
the group that coordinates with the Nicaraguan sis- turally based
ter city, currently is holding a fund-raiser for the years to recov
Students
Financial donations can be sent to the
Committee at PO. Box 8198, Ann
107.
aptist Church of Ann Arbor, located at
n St., will be holding a community
ricane relief on Dec. 6 from 3 -7 p.m.
merica was hit hard by Hurricane
more than 10,000 killed mainly in
d Nicaragua. With transportation and
ons links severed throughout the
slowly continues to come in on the
t of the storm.
merica will be in a critical period of
d reconstruction for many years,
h of the region's farmland was dam-
he storm, Central America's agricul-
economy is expected to take many
ver.
A
preph
Practice makes perfect
for AIDS day
By Melissa Andrzejak
Daily Staff Reporter
In recognition of World AIDS Day,
scheduled for tomorrow, student
groups in cooperation with University
Health Services will use entertain-
ment to educate students about the
deadly virus.
"Here on campus ... (AIDS and
HIV) seems really far away," LSA
sophomore Sabrina Charles said.
Every 30 minutes one person under
the age of 20 becomes infected with
HIV, Charles said.
Mara Venners, an LSA junior and
AIDS awareness advocate, said students
need to realize "it is not participation in
certain groups that puts you at risk, it is
certain behaviors"
Sponsors of the event want students to
realize AIDS still has no cure.
The recent discovery of improved
AIDS treatments "doesn't mean you
stop using condoms, stop practicing
safe behaviors,"Venners said. Although
AIDS-related deaths have decreased
due to life-prolonging drugs, the rate of
infection is still increasing, Venners
said.
Although UHS does not document
University-specific AIDS statistics, it
estimates that AIDS cases at the
University total near the national
average posted by this Center for
Disease Control. One in every 500
college students is HIV positive,
which would mean about 70 students
at the University, said Janet Zielasko,
associate director of UHS.
AIDS day planners said their goal is
not to scare students, but to encourage
further education.
"College students need to realize that
AIDS is out there - no one is invinci-
ble," LSA junior and event coordinator
Suma Amarnath said.
World AIDS Day organizers said
they hope to alert students to AIDS'
possible dangers as well as give stu-
dents a feel for what living with AIDS
is like.
Campus events for this year's World
AIDS Day include a performance by
HIV positive composer and lyricist
Steve Schalchin.
Promising to bring more than just
facts and figures about AIDS and HIV,
Schalchin's presentation will include
personal testimony of his second
chance at life.
The presentation, titled "Living in
the Bonus Round," will be entertain-
ing, said Amarnath, one of the events
coordinators. In addition to his pop-
ularity among college students,
Schalchin's past presentations have
received incredible reviews from
numerous publications including the
New York Times and Entertainment
Weekly.
Schalchin is scheduled to speak
tonight at the Michigan Union, in the
Pendleton Room at 6 p.m. Admission
to the event is free, however, canned
food donations will be accepted.
World AIDS Day events include a
candle light vigil, in honor of
Washtenaw County HIV positive res-
idents, on the Diag from noon to 1
p.m. The film "Jeffrey" will be
shown at the Michigan Theater at
9:30 p.m.
AP PHOTO
Despite the unseasonably warm weather yesterday, Lansing resident Michael Kerr and his four Siberian Huskies get a jump on
the sledding season by mushing down the River Trail in Lansing.
Legislators to push
bills in final days
.WNW
LANSING (AP) - It's show 'em or
fold 'em time in the Capitol for unfin-
ished business before state lawmakers.
That includes such delicate issues as
electric deregulation, Indian-run casi-
nos and revenue sharing.
The Michigan Legislature enters the
stretch run this week as it prepares to
wrap up its two-year session in two
weeks. And as usual, some of the most
divisive issues have been left for the
"lame duck" final days, in hopes the
cooler, post-election atmosphere will
help members reach agreement where
none existed before.
And time is running out. Legislation
not passed by the time lawmakers offi-
cially adjourn for the year late next
month will die, and have to be reintro-
duced next year to begin the tortuous
journey to passage all over again.
The top issue in the Senate this week
is electric deregulation, a fancy title for
a plan to let Michigan residents shop
around for their electric power. It would
expand on orders already issued by the
state Public Service Commission.
"We've got an excellent bill," said
Sen. Mat Dunaskiss (R-Lake Orion)
chair of the Senate Technology and
Energy Committee which approved the
legislation last week.
"I think we're very close (to an
agreement)," he said. "I think this is the
No. 1 legislative priority. We'll be one
of the leaders in the nation if this bill
passes."
If it must start all over again, he said,
"It will be a real shame. If we do noth-
ing, we do have deregulation in the state
in the state of Michigan" through the
PSC orders.
Under the bills now before the Senate,
7.5 percent of each utility's annual peak
load would be able to choose an alterna-
tive electric supplier within 60 days of
the new deregulation laws taking effect.
That percentage would rise in steps until
all electric customer would have that
choice by Jan. 1, 2002.
The legislation also would:
Freeze rates at the 1998 level until
2003. The Michigan Chamber of
Commerce wanted rates limited, not
frozen, to permit them to drop if needed.
® Authorizes a code of conduct rela-
tive to utilities and their affiliates shar-
ing resources and information. Some
small businesses, such as construction
firms, worry that utility subsidiaries
could steal their business.
Requires utilities to use part of
their excess earnings to reduce
"stranded costs" - the costs of mov-
ing from the current regulated
scheme to deregulation.
"The governor remains very commit-
ted to getting this done in lame duck,"
said John Truscott, a spokesperson for
Gov. John Engler. "Deregulation is
going to happen; we think it's appropri-
ate to do it legislatively" rather than
under the PSC orders.
But critics see the legislation as a gift
for Consumers Energy and Detroit
Edison Co., the state's largest electric
utilities, and a threat for smaller busi-
nesses and residential customers.
What's happening in Ann Arbor today
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