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4 • The Red and Black • Thursday, March 15, 1990
OPINIONS
The Red & Black
Ei tabUihrd 1893—Incorporated 1980
An independent itudent neuipaper not affiliated with the University of Georgia
Charlene Smith/Editor-in-Chief
Amy Bellew/Managing Editor
Robert Todd/Opinions Editor
■ EDITORIALS
Equal representation
While the more than 150 members of the
University Council represent about 2,200 members of
the University’s faculty, the more than 7,500 members
of the University staff are represented by the 19
member Staff Representative Group. That just doesn’t
seem right.
The University’s support staff is as important as
the faculty or the student body and deserves a voice in
University operations. Besides numerical superiority,
the council clearly has greater influence on the
University’s administration. University President
Charles Knapp chairs the council, while Personnel
Director Carlton James attends SRG meetings on the
administration's behalf.
It’s time the staff got some equal representation.
To achieve this, the administration can do one of
two things: Increase the size and scope of the SRG or
reform the council.
The council could increase the number of members
and provide for staff representation under similar
guidelines used to determine faculty representation.
Since the issues the council deals with usually affect
the faculty more than the staff, the faculty should have
more representation in this revised council. But this
would still be a great step toward equal representation.
Some people think the council already is too big and
doesn’t represent the faculty. To alleviate this problem,
the council could be split into several faculty and staff
senates, similar to the Arts and Sciences Faculty
Senate. A few representatives from these new staff and
faculty groups could then meet as the full council.
Whether the council’s membership is reformed or
the SAC’s role is increased, the University
administration must find a way to give the staff a more
equitable means of representing itself and presenting
its views.
New representation
Applications for Student Association positions are
due Friday afternoon. If you are unhappy with SA’s
shenanigans this year, now is the time to get involved
and shape up student representation for next year.
It’s easy to sit around and complain about ideas
that never get off the ground or to criticize senators
who don’t show up at meetings. But it’s quite a
different task to serve as a student representative. It’s
a job that takes a lot of time and effort if it is to be done
well. The responsibility should be taken seriously.
Nine of 36 senators have resigned this year for a
variety of reasons.The next batch of SA representatives
should realize the commitment the job entails. Their
terms will last until next April. Applicants should
make sure they are planning to be enrolled in classes
full-time for that year and have a presence in Athens
during the summer.
The next SA should also keep up with its budget. A
responsible method of allocating funds seems to be
lacking. It’s about to run out of money and officers have
complained about not getting reimbursed for money
spent on projects.
It doesn’t sit well with students that their activity
fees may be unaccounted for or carelessly spent. The
SA can never hope to gain more power, especially
involving money matters, if it doesn’t show it can keep
track of its own budget.
The SA can work, but it takes commitment,
leadership and responsibility from the officers. It takes
maturity to get through the internal squabbles. It takes
leadership to make decisions that could affect the
entire student body.
We didn’t get those things in the last SA election.
Let’s push for them this time.
STAFF
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QUOTABLE
■ Someone once told me Wat performing is like a tennis match;
your modest opponent isn’t on the other side of the ne . he's
yourself Pater Flatcher. national finalists in the Music Tea
cher* National Aviation of Colgate Artists Competition.
"Awant! w) TEH6.10H HEADACHE HAS WPEAREP!"
NcRajP
Be counted before you leave for break
Winter quarter is almost over, and you are
busy with finals, papers, spring break plans
and a zillion other things. So you are preoccu
pied and you just dump the daily crop of junk
mail in some comer, casually glancing through
it. But sometime between March 23 and April
1, you will find something different in your
mailbox, something you haven’t seen in a long
time or that you may not have ever seen before.
No, it is not the one-hundredth credit card
offer of your life or the announcement of the
world’s largest sweepstakes. It is something
that you get to see only once every 10 years. It
is your census questionnaire! April 1, 1990 is
Census Day.
On this day, every resident of the United
States will be counted and asked seven basic
demographic questions. At the same time some
basic information will be collected for every
housing unit in the country, such as number of
rooms, owned or rented, type of housing unit,
value or rent of the housing unit. The quesion-
naire is simple to fill out — just fill in the appro
priate circles. It shouldn’t take longer than 15
to 20 minutes.
One out of six households will be sent a
longer questionnaire, which will have the same
basic questions as the short form, but will also
ask questions on economic and social character
istics such as education, income, ancestry, occu
pation, employment, etc. Information on
Hortense
Bates
utilities and housing costs is collected for the
housing units.
No matter which form you receive, follow the
instructions — fill it in and mail it back! Stu
dents attending college are counted at the place
where they live during the school year, not at
their parents’ residence. So all of you going to
school here, whether you’re from Hahira, Ho
boken or Hongkong, will be counted right here
in Athens.
Now for the big question: why? Every 10
years since 1790 the United States has con
ducted a census of its population. The primary
use of census data today is the same as it was in
1790 — to fairly apportion the seats in the
House of Representatives. It is expected that if
every Georgia resident is counted on April 1,
1990, Georgia may gain one or maybe even two
additional congressional seats.
But the information collected by the Bureau
of the Census affects our lives in more ways
than just through representation in the U.S.;
Congress. Voting districts and wards for local
and state representation are allocated on the!
basis of census data. If you want political clout,;
make sure you are counted. Forsee any need for
hospitals, schools, day care centers, nursing!
homes and other social programs? They are;
planned using census data. Think businesses',
don’t pay enough attention to your wants and;
needs: Practically all businesses, may they be
radio stations, retailers, malls or restaurants,;
use the information collected by the census in’
deciding where to locate and what services and
products to offer. So if you want services or
products specific to the college-age group, make
sure you are counted.
One final note: your answers to the census
questionnaire are confidential and will remain-
confidential for the next 72 years; only sworn
Census Bureau personnel will be allowed to see
them. The data released are aggregated so that
no one individual can be identified.
So, grab your pencil and fill in those little cir-!
cles. It doesn’t hurt, won’t take much time and
it counts for more than you think.
Hortense Bates is the Data Services department
head and a guest columnist for The Red and
Black.
Big business is luring black politicians
In a University speech to remember Rev.
Martin Luther King, Jr. last month, gubernato
rial candidate Andrew Young spoke more about
the Olympics and economic growth than about
the former civil rights leader. “Encouraging
more industiy into Georgia will elevate all of
us,” the former Atlanta mayor reasoned, at
tempting to bring together the freedon of capi
talism and the freedoms of civil rights. An hour
later, the former Atlanta mayor signed a peti
tion from the Students for Environmental
Awareness (SEA) calling for the University to
establish ecologically sound business practices.
Although Young’s intentions seem admi
rable, I cannot help but wonder, how can he
speak in favor of big business on one hand, and
civil and environmental rights on the other?
Just as Mayor Marion Barry smoked crack
hours after lecturing against the drug, Mayor
Young has shown political hypocrisy by calling
for both. If he and other politicians really want
to help poor African-Americans, they must
overcome the drug of big business, not use it.
As most Georgia environmentalists know,
“encouraging industry in our state” tradition
ally means let’s sacrifice the environment.”
What Andrew Young and other African-Amer
ican leaders who promote traditional American
business practices fail to realize, however, is
that industry usually sacrifices African-Amer-
Richard
Stenger
ican communities first. Whether the rural
South or the urban Northeast, this nation re
peatedly exhibits a disturbing pattern: in
dustry committing environmental injustices
against predominantly black communities. Per
haps more disturbing, a growing number of
mainstream black politicians ignore the injus
tices or support the causes.
The furnaces of city waste incinerators rise
above black ghettos, not middle-class white
neighborhoods. Municipal incinerators, facto
ries and automobiles disproportionately
threaten the lives of poor blacxs Decause they
lack the political or economic power to prevent
the polluters from moving in. One reason is
zoning regulations. They tend to be drawn to
allow hazardous plants near poor urban blacks,
not middle-class whites. Inis is true even
within Athens. Yet many black politicians,
hoping to gain financial support from the same
business interests, ignore these civil and envi-;
ronmental injustices.
Perhaps the greatest civil and environmental.
injustice is that state governments build high
ways through inner-cities to accomodate the
growing number of mostly white suburban com
muters. Each year, road-building projects dis
place over 51,000 poor urban residents, most of
whom are black. Neighborhoods near these
highways experience higher rates of illness and
death due to more air and noise pollution.
Urban blacks who rely on public transportation
have suffered further. Mass transit has deterio
rated because it competes with highway pro
jects for government funds.
Even in Atlanta, the predominantly black
inner-city has been sacrificed to developers,
whether in the case of the Georgia Dome which
has displaced several churches, or the spaghetti
junction highways which border a number of
neighborhoods. Present Mayor Maynard
Jackson and Fulton County Commissioner Mi
chael Lomax, their politics built on supporting
business development and not civil rights, offer
little hope to African-Americans who look to
them to protect their communities.
Richard Stenger is a columnist for The Red and
Black.
Hargrove has say on move
■ FORUM
□ The Red and Black welcomes letters to the editor and prints them in the Forum
column as space permits. All letters are subject to editing for length, style and li
belous material. Letters should be typed, doublespaced and must include the name,
address and daytime telephone number of the writer. Please include student classifi
cation and major other appropriate Identificabon. Names can be omitted with a valid
reason upon request. Letters can be sent by U.S. mail or brought in person to The Red
and Black s offices at 123 N. Jackon St., Athens, Ga.
In response to your editorial at
tack on my teaching and editorial
priorities, I would like to nominate
The Red and Black for a Roeeanne
Roseannadanna “Free Peach”
award for Excellence in Journa
listic Misstatement. “Although I
don’t necessarily approve of you
getting free peaches, I am willing
to defend your right to get them.
However, if you decide to eat them,
then I think you ought to leave
Georgia and maybe go to Texaa so
that this University's tuition and
tax dollars will no longer be wasted
on such foolery.’
First, I am leaving because I was
asked to teach more courses, not
because I was asked to teach more
undergraduate intro courses. Had
there been a graduate initiative re
quiring me to teach more courses I
also would be leaving. My under
graduate intro course load had
varied from 50 to 100 percent of my
total teaching load from year to
year, and I have never objected
about the percentage. (I even like
teaching intro philosophy and have
published on how to do it better.)
Second, I began preparations to
leave when I was told that I would
not be allowed any editorial time
beyond the supervision of the refer
eeing of manuscripts, a very small
portion of my editorial workload in
comparison with the editing, pro
duction and business activities
that began after the papers to be
published are chosen. In short, I
am leaving Georgia because I did
not think that the journal should
be reduced to little more than an
unpaid persona) hobby.
Third, the journal is almost en
tirely self-supporting. It currently
pays for all operating expenses, my
secretary and for 25 percent of my
salary. As a result, few Georgia tax
dollars have been wasted on it (and
probably no tuition). To the cont
rary, to have gotten so much for so
little has been a bargain for the
University and the state.
Eugene C. Hargrove
editor, Environmental Ethlce
Criticism misguided
If anyone calls 'The Hunt for
Red October” “the last film of the
Cold War” just one more time, 111
go crazy! This label has been fre
quently misused by the media, ei
ther as a criticism or as an
interest-catcher, and both uses are
radically inaccurate.
First, that “Red October" should
be attacked for having “outdated”
subject matter makes absolutely
no sense. If this criticism is valid,
then all films that deal with the
past should be panned. News
readers could see movie reviews
such as: “We’re not in the Civil War
anymore, so don’t bother to see
‘Glory” Clearly, such a judgement
is wrongly made.
I would just like to live in a per
fect world, one in which movie re
viewers would think before passing
invalid judgements, and therefore,
one in which moviegoers wouldn’t
suffer from reviewers’ slips of the
pen.
Susan Shackelford
Junior, telecommunication arts
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