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An independent student newspaper*
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 1990 • ATHENS,
ity of Georifia Community
1
A » VOLUME 97, ISSUE 99
INSIDE
Editorial cartoonist Mike
Moreu takes a look at
enforcement of Athens’
open container ordinance.
4
Wsathsr: Today, partly cloudy,
high upper 80s. tonight, fair, low
60s. Thursday, partly cloudy, high
upper 80s. Kill Bon Jovl. Bod’
Dobbs and Spineman.
Student Judiciary suspends KA and SAE
hi*
Ron Binder: Said football
game wasn’t registered
By LANCE HELMS
Staff Writer
The Organization Court of the
Student Judiciary euapended
Knppn Alpha and Sigma Alpha Ep
silon fraternities Friday for
summer Quarter 1990 and sus
pended all social events for fall
quarter 1990.
Both fraternities are also on pro
bated suspension for fall quarter
1990 nnd winter and spring quar
ters 1991. They were found guilty
of disorderly conduct, alcohol
misuse nnd violating University
conduct regulations governing so
cial events.
The chnrges stemmed from a
"traditional’' football game played
by the two frnternities Feb. 10 at
Dudley Park In Athens, where 400
to 800 people gathered to watch.
A city ordinance prohibits al
cohol consumption at city parka.
Sgt. Mike Turner of the Athens
police sold the three officers dis
patched to the scene first at
tempted to find the presidents of
the fraternities nnd disperse the
crowd.
"But nobody was listening to us,”
Turner said Monday. 'They looked
at us like we were crazy. It was be
coming a confrontation.”
He said police took the football
and called tor backup units ns the
crowd broke up into a number of
fights.
Turner said they had divided the
crowd into sections and were es
corting people from the field when
Gerry Carson, an SAE member
from Emory University, ran across
the field and tackled a bystander.
He said he told Carson to leave
three times and when he refused,
Turner placed him under arrest.
Turner said Carson mad* a
move a* if to push him, but hit him
instead nnd cut his lip and bloodied
his nose. He said alcohol must have
impeded Carson’s judgment.
Carson appenred in state court
March 7 and was charged with
simple battery, obstruction of jus
tice, disorderly conduct and un
derage consumption of alcohol. His
plea bnrgain was rejected, and a
trial data hasn't been set.
Adviser to Fraternities Ron
Binder said KA and SAE didn't
register the football game with
Student Activities, which they are
required to do.
Turner, who testified at the Or
ganization Court and state court
proceedings, said KA nnd SAE
maintained that they didn’t plan or
romot* the gam* until that day,
ut they admitted the game is an
annual event which get* bigger
every year.
"How could so many people end
up there at on* time?” Turner said
"It was a planned social event.
When you sponsor an event, you
need to ensure that you’ve got
crowd control there.”
The court's decision stated that
for a period of 48 minute*, every of
ficer on thnt shift wn* at Dudley
Park.
The probated suspension will be
activated automatically if either
fraternity is found guilty of failure
to comply with University policies,
or any official enforcing those poli
cies, or of violating regulations gov
erning eocinl events
Binder said the social suspen
sion means KA won’t be allowed to
sponsor its traditional post-football
game pnrties next fall. He added
thnt KA wn* successful in sus
pending the parties after a similar
sentencing three years ago.
Binder said the fraternities can’t
hold parties ofT-campus during the
summer suspension either.
"Our unde-standing is that
chnpter activities are to cense fur
that period," he said “It’s hard to
hid* eocinl events."
KA President Scott Davis said
he’d rend the decision nnd under
stood it but hadn't decided Tuesday
whether to appeal
The fraternities have until
Friday afternoon to appeal to the
Judicial Council
SAE President Richard Swift
wne unavailable for comment
Tuesday
Committee report proposes
UGA Greek system reforms
By ROBERT TODD
Staff Writer
Last January a death occurred
at a Clemson University fraternity
party. About the same time, Emory
University suspended all but one of
its fraternities for vnrying periods
of time. Bucknell University nnd
Gettysburg College faculties voted
to abolish their Greek organiza
tions. Alleged hnzing deaths nre
still under investigation at Fort
Valley State nnd Morehouse col
lege*.
At the University nnd across the
nation, Greek reform is a topic
gnining momentum. As pnrt of the
University’s Solf Study for re-nc-
creditation, the Subcommittee on
Student Activities nnd Student Ju
diciary reviewed Greek life nnd
recommended some changes to im
prove the system.
While the subcommittee’s report
praised the University’s Greek
system for developing "a number of
diverse nnd useful proipnms to en
courage acceptable behavior," the
report also cnlled for nn nctivist ap
proach by the University.
'There nre a lot of incidents hap
pening nround the country," Ad
viser to Fraternities Ron Binder
snid. "But there nre not too many
happening here.”
The University’s "tough but
good" regulations concerning
Greek activities nre the main de
terrent, Binder snid, nnd the Uni
versity’s policy of nddressing
potential problems early is essen
tial to continuing that success.
The subcommittee report, which
is preliminary nnd still subject to
revision, outlines several recom
mendations for Greek reform.
ta greek
V} ill reforms
Pleaee see related Greek reform
rtory on page 2
These recommendations include
guidelines for periodic reviews of
fraternities and sororities to main
tain University recognition nnd
others which address hazing and
racial integration.
To combat hazing, the report
recommends nmending University
regulations to provide individual
and group penalties for hazing,
and requiring Greek chapter presi
dents and pledge educators to sign
affidavits attesting to their compli
ance with hnzing regulations. If
the University discovers hazing vi
olations, the organizations and
their presidents and pledge educa
tors would be subject to charges
and disciplinary actions.
To aid the Student Judiciary and
Greek Life Office, the report rec
ommends that University Police
participate in the investigation of
possible hazing violations.
Additionally, the report calls for
n task force to review integration of
the Greek system.
Binder said the University’s
hnzing policy for organizations was
"very good,’ and the harassment
policy could be used on individuals.
However, Binder said this method
wasn't effective enough to deter in
dividuals.
"Right now, if an individual
hnzes the chapter suffers,” he said.
"We need to have the power to sus
pend individual students. We’ve
made tremendous progress, but at
this point we need to get at individ
uals.
Interfratemity Council Presi
dent Cale Conley ngreed that indi
viduals should be held accountable
but said it was unfair to make
chnpter presidents responsible for
the actions of each member of their
organizations.
"I’m in favor of individual pros
ecution," Conley said, “but a lot of
times you canft control all mem
bers of an organization. If a presi
dent knows he’s responsible, he
may have to play policeman. That’s
good and bad.”
Dwight Douglas, vice president
for Student Affairs, said tne report
was too preliminary to comment on
specifically. He said some of the
recommendations already were
adopted or in the works and he
looks forward to seeing the final
drafts.
“I don’t disagree with the direc
tion of the report,” Douglas said.
"The subcommittee obviously
worked very hard and the final re
port should be useful. But there’s
nothing in it right now that strikes
me as inappropriate.”
Student Affairs plans to conduct
a task force study of Greek life,
Douglas said, but he is waiting on
the University's semester-system
decision. Because the shift would
be such a large project for Student
Affairs, Dougins said he was hesi
tant to initiate a large task force
study until he was sure it could be
completed before a possible shift to
semesters.
Oh what a feelin’
Beth Johnson, a physical therapist ana Phd candidate jumping on a
force platform hooked to an amplifier that helps a computer road and
store data. Kathy Simpson reads the computer data In background.
SEA must
leave Tate
mailroom
Students for Environments!
Awareness will have to move out of
its temporary office space at the
Tat* Student Center by next
weekend
Student Activities Director Wil
liam Porter met with SEA rep
resentatives Tuesday to discuss
whether SEA would nnve to relin
quish its office. Though he said the
group could re-apply for perma
nent office space for next year, the
temporary agreement for space
this quarter, which end* next
weekend, will stand
Porter said the temporary office
space SEA occupies ha* never been
ueed a* permanent office space
The space again will he used as the
campus organization mailroom.
SEA was given temporary use of
the mailroom for planning Earth
Week activities.
"We ngreed that they would be
able to stay in the room through
this weekend,” Porter said
He said Student Activities con
siders the available office space
each spring quarter and talks with
groups who nre interested.
“It's important thnt student
groups let us know what their
needs and concerns are,” Porter
said.
Missy Bowen, a junior zoology
major and SEA vice chair, said the
environmental awareness group
currently keeps it* materials at
members’ homes
9he said it's difficult for people
to contact members bemuse there’s
no office where they can be
reached.
Soviets find
Americans
have more
time
By DARA McLEOD
Staff Wrltof
Mnkn Khnratishvili of Soviet
Georgia had dreamed of coming to
the United States since she was six
years old. After having spent the
past week in Athens nnd the pre
vious week in Atlanta, she has dis
covered only a few things
Americans have thnt are un
common in Soviet Georgia — dish-
wnshers, birdhouses and seedless
grapeB.
Today she will head back to the
Soviet Union with Maya Tushu-
rnshvili nnd 248 other Soviets par
ticipating in the Friendship Force
exchange priigiam.
Mnka and Maya are from Tbilisi,
Georgia, the capital of Soviet
Georgia and Atlanta's sister city.
“I want to go home nnd I want to
stay here,” Mnka snid.
Mnkn and Maya stayed at the
home of Mr. nnd Mr*. David Cur
tain nnd their two children in
Athens.
Maya, 31, tenches Russian to
foreign student* in Soviet Georgia.
Maka, 23, is a satellite engineer.
Both Maka and Maya said the
people here nre very friendly, nnd
very similar to the people of Soviet
Georgia.
The biggest difference they’ve
noticed is thnt Americans have
more time for themselves, Mnkn
snid. Everyday things nre less of a
hassle here, she explained.
Mart* C!*y/Tn* See rw »sc»
Maya Tushurashvlli and Maka Kharatishvlll: The goodwill ambassadors from Soviet
Georgia will head back horm
She said most of the things
Americans have also are available
in the Soviet Union, although some
foods, clothing and cosmetics ore
moro difficult to get.
Some things thnt Americans
don't think twice about are fas
cinating to Mnka and Maya. Pat
ricia Curtain, whose family hosted
the two, said Maka was having dif
ficulty expressing her interest in
seedless grapes. After checking in
her Ruseian-English dictionary,
Mnkn referred to them a* "grapes
without bones."
Mnkn and Maya said they were
also fascinated by pictures of bird-
houses recently sold at an auction
by Habitat for Humanity, and by
the work of Alex Murawsxl, a com
mercial artist nnd Athens resident.
They enjoyed visiting the Uni-
today
versit/s main library nnd at
tending a few claeeee, including a
Russian language class. They also
bought souvenirs at the University
Bookstore, Maya said.
Neither Maya nor Maka were re
luctant to express their views on
Lithuanian secession from the So
viet Union. Both said they support
Lithuania's declaration of indepen
dence, and would support the **•
cession of other Soviet republice
that wont independence.
They said Soviet Georgia will
probably follow in the footsteps of
Lithuania by declaring indepen
dence in a few years.
However, they also said Mikhail
Gorbachev has been a good leader.
"He changed not only life in our
country, he changed all the world,”
Maya said.
Friendship Force, based in At
lanta, was founded in 1977 by
Wayne Smith, a Presbyterian min
ister who worked in conjunction
with former President Jimmy
Carter and his wife, Rosalynn. The
goal of the program is to improve
relations between average Amer
ican and Soviet citizens.
As part of the program, 280 So
viets, representing a cross-section
of occupations, ages and interests,
spent about two weeks in Atlanta
and other Georgia cities. The 299
Americans who went to Soviet
Georgia returned to Atlanta
Tuesday.
Maya and Make responded to a
newspaper advertisement for the
program. Maka said more than
2,000 Soviets applied, but only 280
were accepted.
$25,000 cash
Professor wins
— Sandra Stephene
award
By ANNE-MARIE FANQUY
Staff Writer
A University linguistics and
computer science professor won
on* of four $26,000 first-place cash
awards in the IBM National Super
computing Competition. IBM also
awarded the University $10,000 in
nn unrestricted educational grant.
IBM recognized Michael Cov
ington, a member of the Univer
sity's Artificial Intelligence
Research Group, for his work using
an IBM supercomputer in probing
the sentence structure of foreign
languages to increase human and
computer interaction.
"Covington’s winning research
focused on the development of new
approaches to the parsing of va
riable word order in languages
such as Russian and Latin, IBM
Spokeswoman Pam Evans said.
"Previous programs concen
trated on English which is consid
ered easier to parse," she said.
To parse is to determine the
grammatical structure of a sen
tence.
Covington said, “By under
standing language better through
computers, well lenrn more about
how the human brain works. Well
also make it possible for people to
communicate with computers in
human languages instena of artifi
cial computer languages.”
A 1977 University graduate,
Covington earned a master's in lin
guistic* at Cambridge Univereity
and a doctorate at Yale University.
He said a misconception is the
belief that computers have to be
able to think to communicate in
human languages.
"A computer doesn’t have to
think like a human,” he said
"You want to be able to say 'How
much disc space do I have?',” he
said. "Not ask it the meaning of
life.’
Covington said existing pro
grams want to identify the role of
every word by its position. "This
works fine with English, but not
with Russian, Japanese or
German,” he said.
Right now, software and data
bases arc available that use En
glish to diagnose diseases or pick
out which type paint one should
use, Covington said.
"But the industry isn’t inter
ested in thnt, For some reason,
they would rather have you move
around a little mouse and make
pictures,” he said.
'You com* to the computer al
ready knowing English,” Cov
ington said, 'You don’t come to the
computer knowing about little pic
tures and a mouse.”
University President Charles
Knapp was unavailable to com
ment on where the money awarded
the University would go.
AIRP Director Donald Nut* said
if the money goes back into the
AIRP, it should be used to fbrther
Covington’* work.
“W* would use it to support a
graduate student in helping Cov
ington with his research and the
remainder would be available for
equipment,’ he said.
"It surprised him that he won
this award,” Nute said. “I can’t eay
it surprieed me.”