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Intramural basketball round-up — 8
The Red & Black
An independent student newspaper serving the University of Georgia Community
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1990 • ATHENS, GEORGIA • VOLUME 97, ISSUE 55
INSIDE
An interview with
Kentucky Headhunters,
who play the Georgia
Theater Saturday night.
Weather: Today, partly cloudy,
high near 70. Tonight, 20 percent
chance of rain, low 50s. Friday,
mostly cloudy, 30 percent chance
of thundershowers, upper 60s.
Gorbachev denies
report of resignation
The Associated Press
MOSCOW - Mikhail S. Gor
bachev on Wednesday denied a
report he might resign as head of
the Communist Party while re
maining Soviet president, and a
leading newspaper called him too
valuable to risk losing.
Another newspaper, the party
daily Pravda, urged authorities
to strengthen the powers of the
presidency to protect Gorbachev
from efforts to oust him.
Correspondents covering Gor
bachev’s meeting with Brazilian
president-elect Fernando Collor
de Mello asked about a Western
television report that he was con
sidering quitting the party lead
ership.
“All this is groundless,” Gorba
chev said in remarks that led the
Soviet television news
Wednesday night. “It is in some
one’s interest to propagate such
things.”
He added that similar rumors
are becoming common in the So
viet Union, and “it demonstrates
that we are a different country, a
different society. Everything is
discussed, and discussed openly.”
Gorbachev has strengthened
the presidency and tried to shill
power from the ruling Commu
nist Party to the elected govern
ment. But it is far from clear
whether the reforms have gone
far enough for him to dare relin
quishing the top post in the
party, which has Deen the source
of power for all previous Soviet
leaders.
The Pravda article appeared to
tell readers that party power still
is paramount and that the presi
dency is not strong enough to be
the country’s main leadership
post.
Propst:
By WALTER COLT
Staff Writer
Before a packed auditorium
Wednesday, Regents Chancellor H.
Dean Propst said he is convinced
the state of Georgia is at the cross
roads in its development.
Propst was on campus to attend
the annual meeting of the public
academic service faculty at the
Georgia Center for Continuing Ed
ucation.
“Opportunities missed now
cannot be regained,” he said, refer
ring to the need of the people and
legislators in the state to support
the University System.
However, he said there is one
major obstacle.
‘The element that bothers me is
the 'will to make it so,’ ” Propst
said.
It takes the will of the people
and the Legislature to improve the
University and the University
System, he said.
In a question-and-anBwer ses
State at crossroads
sion after his speech, Propst said
the bleak outlook for the Univer
sity System’s funding requests in
the Georgia Legislature this term
may exist because the legislators
have "a dangerous sense of self-sat
isfaction” with the current system.
He said another culprit is the in
creased emphasis on elementary
education. He said solving elemen
tary education’s internal problems
is a definite necessity "but we need
the same zeal with higher educa
tion.”
“If you are going to address one
part of it (education), you are going
to have to address all of it," he said.
Propst also talked about the
University’s future and addressed
the need for public service faculty
in the 1990s.
Public academic service is the
branch of the University which
provides educational resources to
all parts of the state through in
struction, applied research, tech
nical assistance and leadership
development programs.
‘The role you play is central to
what any great university is about.
“We in the state, in this Univer
sity, in this system, need to be
proactive rather than reactive to
the changes occuring around us,”
he said.
Propst said people can no longer
afford to think that they live in iso
lated societies. Part of the outreach
to the changing climate should be
“a full and complete commitment
to reach out to a broad segment of
the population that has failed to re
ceive it in the past — that is, the
minority population.
‘The work force is going to be
older and more minority-oriented
and female-oriented," he said.
After the speech, University
President Charles Knapp said he
agreed with Propst but added,
“The people are going to require
greater accountabilty from us.
Knapp said the public is going to
ask why so much money is going to
the University. In order to bring
H. Dean Propst: Education
needs public support
the needs of the University before
the people of the state, public
service programs must increase,
especially in the area of programs
for minorities.
Black History Month begins
By SANDRA STEPHENS
Staff Writer
The University will celebrate
February as Black History Month
with a variety of events including
art exhibits, films and speakers
such as Giancarlo Esposito, a star
of the films “School Daze” and “Do
the Right Thing.”
The Georgia Center for Contin
uing Education today will sponsor
the first event, a teleconference ti
tled “Beyond the Dream II: A Cele
bration of Black History.” From 5
to 7 p.m., it will cover topics like
education, business, economics and
politics.
Vanessa Williams, assistant di
rector of Minority Services, said
she worked with student organiza
tions like the Black Affairs
Council, Minority Assistants, the
Black Greek Committee and Uni
versity Union in planning and
scheduling the events.
“Black History Month will intro
duce the University campus to
well-known blacks from different
areas and renowned fields,” Wil
liams said.
Schyleen Qualls, who drama
tizes prose and poetry by highly ac
claimed authors, will speak about
African-American literature at the
Tate Student Center Thursday at
7:30 p.m. The speech is sponsored
by the Black Greek Committee.
Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity will
sponsor a lecture by Esposito enti
tled “Blacks In The Media” at the
North PJ Auditorium at 8 p.m.,
Feb. 14.
The program “Shades of Excel-
UPCOMING EVENTS
Today
• The Georgia Center for Continuing Education will present the telecon
ference "Beyond the Dream II: A Celebration of Black History” from 5
p.m. to 7 p.m.
• Schyleen Qualls will present African-American poetry and prose in
‘The Lost Word” in the Tate Student Center’s Georgia Hall at 7:30 p.m.
Friday and Saturday
• The movie, “A Dry White Season” will be shown at the Tate Student
Center theater at 3, 5:15, 7:30 and 9:45 p.m.
Wednesday
• Reflections of Our Past, sponsored by the Block AfTairs Council, will in
clude skits by various organizations on past events in history in the Tate
Student Center’s Georgia Hall at 8 p.m.
Monday, Feb. 8
• The movie “Bird” will be shown at the Tate Student Center theater at 3,
5:15, 7:30 and 9:45 p.m.
• Lorry Blount, associate professor of law, will speak at the Tate Student
Center Reception Hall at 8 p.m.
Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 9 and 10
• State-wide conference on African-American studies at the Tate Student
Center at 1 p.m.
lence,” a combination of art ex
hibits and speakers, will start Feb.
22 with an exhibit of prints by fa
mous black artists. It will be shown
at the Tate Student Center from
noon to 8 p.m.
This program will include lec
tures by attorney Janice Thur
mond on “Black Political
Participation in the 2l9t Century,”
and Curtis Halyard, an Atlanta art
gallery owner, on “Black Art: Its
Relevance and History” at the Tate
Student Center at 6 p.m. Graduate
and Professional Scholars, a group
founded in 1984 to promote unity
among African-American graduate
students, is sponsoring the day’s
events.
Charlene Woodard, a graduate
clinical psychology student and
GAPS member, said the program is
a way to celebrate African-Amer
ican excellence.
“It will shed some light on Af
rican-American art, African-Amer
ican professionals and African-
American people,” Woodard said.
Student retailer
means business
By KRISTINE SCHWARTZ
Contributing Writer
Because of a slowing national
economy, local merchant Marshall
Wellborn, a senior finance major, iB
faced with keeping a new business
alive in cautious times.
Wellborn started Sammy’s Away
Down South, a clothing mail-order
business, in September 1989 from
his home on Milledge Avenue. Be
cause of his successful winter cat-
alog, Wellborn opened a
sportswear store in January which
is targeted toward students. The
store is on Baxter Street.
Wellborn said he feels the effects
of a slower economy. People aren’t
spending money like they used to,
he said.
Wade Moore, owner of
Billingston’s, a men’s clothing
store on Pope Street near Papa
Joe’s bar, said another reason busi
ness has slowed is customers’ wari
ness of overusing credit cards. He
said people seem to realize their
purchases aren’t free.
Danny Kehoe, manager of the
10-year-old Shaw’s Clothing in Col
lege Square downtown, also said
he's feeling the slump of a slow
economy and his sales are down.
‘There’s definitely a recession of
some sort,” he said.
Wellborn said the arrival of
large department stores like
Target on Atlanta Highway forced
smaller stores like Big G in Alps
Shopping Center to go out of busi
ness. However, Wellborn said he
doesn’t expect his store to be af
fected because he doesn’t compete
with big stores.
“We’re so specialized, we have
more to offer,” Wellborn said. “We
emphasize service and quality and
we don’t have all our eggs in one
basket.”
Wellborn said he’s prepared for a
possible decrease in sales.
He relies on the mail order busi
ness for income in addition to a
wholesale T-shirt printing busi
ness. Wellborn said people will al
ways buy T-Bhirts because they are
a low-priced novelty item.
local competition affects Well
born because he competes with es
tablished clothing stores like
Shaw’s and Billingston’s.
'“Being the new kid on the block,”
Wellborn said, “I have to bend over
backward to get students in here,
although 1 feel we have a very good
product.”
Moore said business for his four-
year-old store has “gotten tough”
since October 1989.
He said making money will be
harder for his store in the future
because so many new stores have
opened. He’s preparing for slower
sales by advertising more and
buying merchandise carefully.
With sales for Billingston’B at
$100,000 in 1989, Moore predicts
another good year for the store.
“You can talk yourself into
having a good year,” he said.
“We’re not going in blind like a
bunch of idiots."
Kehoe is planning ahead by
keeping a close eye on Shaw’s mer
chandise.
Marshall Wellborn: Dis
plays some merchandise
For the Christmas retail season,
he carried some higher-priced
clothing, but it didn’t sell as well as
he had hoped, he said.
“As a small retail business,”
Kehoe said, “Well have to get used
to making less and making adjust
ments. But I do think the economy
will get back on track."
Jerry Harris, assistant director
of the North Georgia Regional
Small Business Development
Center, said the Athens small busi
ness economy is similar to the na
tional economy.
He said about 75 percent of
small businesses nationally and lo
cally fail within the first five years.
‘There’s a big challenge," Harris
said, “but that’s why entrepre
neurs make money — because they
take the big risk.”
Search for aliens stepped up
The Associated Press ■ - 1 - "
PASADENA, Calif. — The search for intelligent life
in space soon will expand to the entire universe when
Argentina gets a high-tech radio receiver to listen for
signals from the regions of space visible from the
Southern Hemisphere.
'There are so many stars like the sun that it’s im
possible to think the sun is the only one that has life
on an orbiting planet,” said Raul Colomb, director of
Argentina’s Institute of Radioastronomy.
The Planetary Society — a Pasadena-based non
profit group that advocates space exploration —raised
$150,000 from its 125,000 members in 70 nations to
pay for the sophisticated radio signal analyzer, named
Megachannel Extraterrestrial Assay II.
The size of two large refrigerators, META II will be
flown to Colomb’8 institute in two to three weeks, said
Thomas McDonough, coordinator of the Planetary So
ciety’s part of the worldwide Search for Extraterres
trial Intelligence program, known as SETI.
Two Argentine engineers have been building the
device at the Harvard-Smithsonian Oak Ridge Obser
vatory in Harvard, Mass., west of Boston.
Since 1985, the Planetary Society’s identical META
receiver at Oak Ridge has scanned the space visible
from the Northern Hemisphere seeking a radio signal
from an alien civilization.
Steven Spielberg, director of the film “E.T., the
Extra-Terrestrial,” donated $100,000 for the first
META project, which is the world’s most powerful op
erating SETI system.
Such research began in 1960. Since then astro
nomers have conducted more than 50 separate but
mostly limited searches for any radio waves that may
have been intentionally beamed into space by intelli
gent extraterrestrials.
' Scientists would know they discovered an alien civi
lization if they found an ultranarrow frequency signal
that laws of physics soy couldn’t come from any nat
ural phenomenon or Earthly source, McDonough said.
Almost all previous searches listened to Northern
Hemisphere space, with only brief, partial scans of the
Southern Hemisphere from Australia and Colomb s
institute, in a park 30 miles southeast of Buenos
Aires. The center of our Milky Way galaxy is visible
One scientist said the discovery of
intelligent aliens ‘will change
everything in the world.’
only from the Southern Hemisphere
Tests of META II will start in June after the 8.4
million-channel receiver is hooked to one of the Argen
tine institute’s two dish-shaped, 98 foot-wide radiote
lescope antennas.
By its dedication on Oct. 12 —the holiday commem
orating Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New
World in 1492 — the device will spend at least 12
hours daily for three or more years listening for signs
that humanity is not alone.
With both META receivers working, the Planetary
Society will be conducting “the first systematic search
of the universe as a whole for signals from another
civilization,” McDonough said. This could be the
system that makes the first contact with another civi
lization.”
“Man has always asked who we are and where are
we going, and this is part of the answer,” said Colomb,
who discussed the project Tuesday during visits to the
Planetary Society and to NASA and the SETI Insti
tute in Mountain View on Wednesday.
Colomb said discovery of intelligent aliens “will
change everything in the world."
The knowledge there are strange creatures out
there would make it much harder for Armenians and
Azerbaijanis to look at each other as if they were ex
traterrestrials," McDonough said.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
scientists plan a more sophisticated SETI effort. They
plan to start listening to the Northern Hemisphere in
1992 and the Southern Hemisphere no earlier than
1995, said Nick Renzetti, who heads the radioastro
nomy effort at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
But the 10-year, $100 million effort may lag be
cause NASA budget increases are smaller than many
scientists proposed to the government, he added.