Newspaper Page Text
v
*
■ Lady’s golf team begins NCAA play today — 10
The Red & Black
An independent student newspaper serving the University of Georgia Community
INSIDE: Local band
$hackler will give an
outrageous, performance
oriented show to benefit
AIDS victims tonight.
6
Weather: Today, sunny, high mid
80s, tonight, clear and cool, low
mid 50s. Thursday, sunny, high
near 80. Swim naked.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1990 » ATHENS, GEORGIA • VOLUME 97, ISSUE 111
Do you wanna touch me?
Jeremy Haley has done almost everything in his
BVDs, including playing shortstop in the 5th An
nual Underwear Softball Game on Tuesday in
the Reed Quadrangle. There'll be no tan lines
for these fearless diamond dogs.
Amnesty Program
for those in default
GWINN BRUNS
Staff Writer
Those people who have ne
glected to repay their Guaranteed
Student Loans will be given a
chance to redeem their good name
and credit due to a national am
nesty program which allows indi
viduals with defaulted loans to
repay funds without penalty.
The Guaranteed Student Loan is
a federal need-based student aid
program. Those students who are
eligible for aid borrow money from
a commercial lender with intent to
repay the loan, as with any other
student loan.
The state and federal govern
ment will then pay interest on the
loan while the student is enrolled
in school and making payments.
In the past, Georgians with de
faulted loans — loans on which
payments haven't been made
within the past six months — were
turned over to collection agencies.
People then were forced to repay
the loan, plus charges stipulated
by the collection agency.
The amnesty program isn't an
issue for students enrolled and re
ceiving funds from Guaranteed
Student Loans. It’s addressed only
to those individuals who have de
faulted loans upon leaving school.
“Over the past few years the
Default-rate statistics
for all Guaranteed
Student Loan agencies
in fiscal year 1988,
compiled by the United
States Department of
Education, show the
University to have an
extremely low rate of
3.1 percent.
U.S. Department of Education has
tried a number of things to get de
linquent and defaulted borrowers
to repay their loans,” said Ray
Tripp, director of Student Finan
cial Aid.
“On a national scale they’ve
tried to withhold federal income
tax returns, and in Philadelphia
they impounded automobiles of de
faulted borrowers," he said.
Under the amnesty program,
which began March 1, borrowers
will have until the end of August to
repay the loan and interest
without penalty.
Joan Nunnally, manager of the
Athens Credit Bureau, said re
gardless of whether a loan has
been paid off, a bad rating remains
on a person’s record for six years
and nine months.
‘The defaulted loans are re
ported to us on credit files A paid-
off loon looks much better than an
outstanding charge-off,” she said.
Applications for travel cards,
credit cards and employment could
be harmed by a bad credit record,
Nunnally said
Default-rate statistics for all
Guaranteed Student Loan agen
cies in fiscal year 1988, compiled
by the United States Department
of Education, show the University
to have an extremely low rate of 3.1
percent. This can be compared to
the state’s highest rate of 53 2 per
cent for Meadows College of Busi
ness in Columbus.
Currently, 3,500 University stu
dents are receiving Guaranteed
Student Loans
This is not a problem with Uni
versity students. We’ve got great
default rates; and we probably
have a higher fiercentage of stu
dents who borrow and graduate,"
Tripp said. “A good portion of that
3.1 percent are probably students
who have dropped out early on in
their academic career.”
University hires housing director
Will start in mid-to-late June
By TIFFANY BROTT
Contributing Writer
Residence hall drinkers, listen
up.
The University has hired a new
director for the Department of
Housing, and he’s bringing some
strong ideas on student use of al
cohol with him.
Jim Day, currently an assistant
director of residence for Iowa State
University, said he feels alcohol,
though not a new issue, seems to
be particularly big right now.
He said society's popular culture
has sold young people on the idea
that alcohol is synonymous with a
good time. But this prevalent
thought can get underage drinkers
into trouble, he said.
‘The youth culture has been
tuned into thinking of alcohol as a
necessary component for having a
good time," Day said, “but the law
tells us people under 21 shouldn’t
have it.”
Day, who has worked in housing
for 20 years, said he is looking for
ward to working here and hopes to
receive input from his staff and the
students who live in housing.
“We have a strong residence hall
government and a fine housing
staff," he said. “I hope the staff and
the students can work in part
nership.”
Day was one of six candidates for
the position from a field narrowed
from 39 applicants.
He underwent a two-day inter
view with a screening committee
which included representatives
from the faculty, the student body
and staff from the Department of
Housing and Student Affairs.
Day said he will officially start'
in mid-to-late June.
He will replace Daniel Hallen-
beck, now associate vice president
Jim Day: Will replace Daniel
Hallenback
for Student Affairs.
He has a wife, Ellen, « daughter,
Sara, 15, and a son, Steven, 12.
Administration faces scrutiny
Honeymoon may be over for President Knapp
Charles Knapp: Tired of
Edes criticism
By J.D. SQUILLANTE
Staff Writer
After nearly three years at the
University, the honeymoon for
President Charles Knapp and his
administration may be over os in
dicated by recent scrutiny in two
area magazines
Loch Johnson, a political science
professor, said it’s common for poli
ticians to have a "honeymoon” pe
riod just after they take office
where constituents and colleagues
think the new legislator can do no
wrong.
He said the same idea can be ap-
f ilied to University politics. Knapp
eft a vice president’s position at
Tulane University in July of 1987
and in the last month his adminis
tration has been the subject of
scrubni ration by some members of
the press, most specifically May ar
ticles in Atlanta and Athens mag
azines.
“But after six months, a year or
a year and a half a politician
reaches the point where ne starts
making real decisions,” said
Johnson, “and those decisions help
some people, but unfortunately
might hurt some people in some
way."
Knapp has reached a point
where he is having to deal with
problems like the need for higher
faculty salaries, Johnson said.
“Salaries aren’t going up and
people are becoming more unhappy
— understandably so — and are ex
pecting solutions,” Johnson said
“So naturally they look to Knapp,
where the buck stops, and can’t un
derstand what’s wrong."
A recent column in Atlanta mag
azine stated that Knapp is disap
pointed with Georgia politicians’
lack of interest in higher education
and willingness to give the needed
funds for such increases. The ar
ticle also indicated that Knapp is
tiring of criticism he’s received for
his hiring of Nik Edes as vice presi
dent for University Relations and
Development.
Bill Shipp, a former University
student and syndicated columnist,
wrote in the column that he thinks
Knapp is so disheartened with life
in Dixie that hell leave the Univer
sity by next year.
Knapp said the claim is “all
wrong.
‘These things happen in public
life," he said, “and I haven’t lost
any sleep over them."
In the column, Shipp said Knapp
wants to leave the University
“even if he insists publicly he does
not."
Knapp said he thinks Shipp’s
conclusions were shaped by some
of the issues Knapp has faced since
coming to the University and more
specifically the attention he re
ceived during the University of
Virginia’s presidential search.
Shipp wrote the column shortly
after Knapp’s flirtation with the
UVA presidency in March.
“I have been disappointed by the
General Assembl/s and the gover
nor’s budget decisions in regard to
higher education," he said. “We
have an excellent University
system in Georgia, but I think
there’s some complacency because
of our strength.”
Knapp said he thinks there are
two ways to handle such disap
pointment.
“I could get out and run from any
frustrations or disappointments or
I can move forward to achieve my
goals here," he said. “And I have
every intention of staying here and
getting higher education higher on
the political agenda."
He said he agrees with state pol
iticians who’ve emphasized pri
mary and secondary education.
“Students who come to the Uni
versity need the strong base of a
good elementary and high school
education,” he said. “But I think
the time has come for attention to
move on to a higher level.”
Johnson said spotlights have
shone too brightly on Knapp’s
relationship with Georgia poli
ticians and that state budget prob
lems are behind lack of state
funding for higher education.
The general state economy isn’t
as robust as everyone would like it
be,” he said, “so every unit of the
University System is suffering a
lack of resources and that can't be
Loch Johnson: Says critics
deemphasize the positive
blamed on any shortcoming of
Knapp’s.”
Johnson, a University Council
Executive Committee member who
sits on a faculty advisory com
mittee, said Knapp is a very com
municative administrator.
“He’s a wonderful diplomat to
the community outside of the Uni
versity and has great personal
skills,” Johnson said. “He has a full
approach to involving faculty in
what goes on at the University."
Knapp said he and Shipp, who
interviewed him for the column,
are “great friends.”
The article was flattering to
me,' he said.
In the article, Shipp aaid Knapp,
who he described as “bright,
friendly, studious and serious,”
Please See KNAPP. Page 3
Bush being criticized for
renewed benefits to China
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Bush’s expected call for renewal of
mtyor trade benefits for China brought sharp rebukes Tuesday from
lawmakers objecting to China’s human-rights policies.
Republican leaders braced for a major new China-policy battle
after Bush told them he planned to act within the next day or two.
Tm not sure I’d like to have that vote come up this afternoon,"
House Minority Leader Bob Michel, R-Ill., said he told the president
at a morning White House meeting.
Bush narrowly won a bruising veto fight with Congress last
winter over a bill extending visas for Chinese student*.
Michel, who support* extension of the most-favored-nation
trade benefits, said he believed the administration could overcome
any attempt by Congress to block such a move, since that would
take two-thirds majorities of both the House and Senate. But, he
added, “We haven’t really taken a good temperature of the House,
yet, on that."
Senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, said Bush would propose a one-year extension of the
most-favored-nation preferential tarifF treatment for Bering within
the next few days.
The declaration would contain “some conditions" spelling out
Bush’s unhappiness with numan rights progress in China, the offi
cials said.
Although Bush has until June 3 to act, he wants to get the deci
sion behind him well in advance of the June 4 anniversary of the
bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown, the officials said.
Most-favored-nation status gives China the same trade benefits,
including lowest-possible tariffs, that the United States extends to
most of its major trading partners.
Cancellation of the benefits would cause tariffs to rise sharply
on some $12 billion in annual Chinese exports.
In his meeting with GOP lawmakers, Bush made a strong argu
ment for continuing the trade benefits and clearly hinted that was
the course of action he planned to follow.
Still, Bush told the lawmakers he had not yet made a final deci
sion.
Other administration officials said that the White House did not
want to announce the action until key Democrats as well as Repub
licans had been contacted. Bush planned to meet with Democratic
leaders on Wednesday.
Congress can block Bush’s decision, but only by passing a “reso
lution of disapproval.” That, in turn, could be vetoed. And it takes
two-thirds votes in both houses to override a veto.
Bush, a former U.S envoy to China, has often been accused by
critics of being too lenient toward the current government in
Beijing.