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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1990 • ATHENS, GEORGIA • VOLUME 98, ISSUE 39
Repent, for the end is near
Brother Jed preaches to a group of students Wednesday at the free
speech platform next to Memorial Hall. He began drawing a crowd
around noon, which grew to about 150 by the afternoon.
Recession to hit retailers
Forecast of Christmas season sales not merry
By GWINN BRUNS
Staff Writer
Bargain hunters beware.
You may not be the only people
looking for bargain bams, sales
and lower prices this Christmas, as
the United States and Georgia
move into a mild recession.
According to a study by the Uni
versity's Selig Center for Economic
Growth, Christmas retail sales will
increase by 4.2 percent — about
half the rate of last year’s increase,
which reached 8 percent.
Jeff Humphreys, director of the
economic forecast, said there are a
number of reasons for the decline
in sales.
‘The most important reason has
been the collapse in consumer con
fidence," he said. “There’s a lot of
uncertainty out there, and it’s
largely linked to the Middle East.”
The Conference Board’s index,
“a man on the street index of con
sumer confidence,” showed that
consumer confidence fell from 84.7
to 61.3 in October, he said.
People are concerned about their
job security, Humphreys said. The
savings and loan crisis, high in
terest rates, inflation and higher
gas prices must also be taken into
account.
“The timing was unfortunate for
the Christmas shopping season,”
he said. “But people’s salaries and
wages aren’t keeping up with infla
tion.”
Consumers are going to be
looking for bargains and practical
gifts such as sweaters, socks and
makeup, Humphreys said. And
homemade gifts probably will be
popular.
"I think the big department
stores are going to suffer, because
people are going to go to the dis
count stores,” he said. “Certainly in
Athens they will, because people
are being offered more opportuni
ties for discount shopping.”
Becky Barfield, head of the
misses department at TJ Maxx.
said the Athens store is doing
much better than anticipated.
“We had great sales Thanks
giving weekend," she said. “We’re
an off-price store and there hasn’t
been much competition. I think
people are saying ‘well, if I can get
it cheaper here, then why not?’ "
Humphreys said that large dis
count stores like TJ Maxx will do
well despite the recession. And
others will benefit.
‘I think downtown is
relatively healthy right
now, maybe because
it’s a college town.'
— Lee Pilgrim
Owner of Almanac
Specialty stores and stores with
high-priced items definitely will
see the lack of consumer confidence
when profits are low, he said. Some
stores already are holding pre-
Christmas sales.
“I think a lot of retailers are
going to be in for a surprise, for ex
ample, when they try and re
plenish inventories,” he said.
Many retailers, especially small
stores, forget to take inflation into
account when tallying profits, he
said.
There was an 8 percent increase
in holiday sales in 1989. But when
inflation was accounted for there
Holiday Sales in (i>c*orgia
(in billions of dollars)
SOURCE: University of Georgia Selig Center for Economic Growth
Stephen Morotkl/The Red and Black
was an increase of only 3.1 percent.
Once sales are adjusted for infla
tion this year, there actually will
be a decrease of 1.4 percent.
Lee Pilgrim, owner of Almanac,
said that people have been
laughing at her because she’s been
so optimistic about Christmas
sales.
Almanac hasn’t been afTected by
the recession, she said. But sales
representatives told her that At
lanta stores are having problems.
“I think downtown is relatively
healthy right now,” Pilgrim said.
“Maybe because it’s a college
town.”
Jim McCullough, manager of
Sears, isn’t os optimistic.
He said that Sears hasn’t had
any problems so far, but he expects
that the store will be increasing
sale opportunities.
“We think it’s going to be very
competitive this year because there
are a lot of concerns about the
economy,” McCullough said. “We
expect a very aggressive campaign
to this competitive situation.”
What are consumers going to do?
One downtown shopper summed
it up — “I’ll look for better bar
gains, spend less money and look
for sales.”
Teach For America may touch campus
By LYNN BARFIELD
Staff Writer
Carrie Dieterle and April Brooks never
thought about being educators and preparing
young people for the future, but a new social
service program radically changed their
thoughts about teaching.
‘The education situation in this country is
something that everyone should be concerned
about,” Dieterle said.
The two University students want to form a
campus chapter of Teach For America so tal
ented University students will also change
their minds.
TFA is a national corps of dedicated college
graduates who are recruited to teach in urban
and rural areas that suffer from teacher short
ages.
Brooks, a senior political science m^jor, said
she first learned about TFA last year in a mag
azine article about Wendy Kopp, a 1989 grad
uate of Princeton University in Princeton, N.J.
Kopp decided she didn’t want to go directly into
law school and came up with the idea of TFA.
“She came at the perfect time with the per
fect idea," Brooks said. “(TFA) matches the
need for teachers in this country, and it helps
college students who aren’t ready to go on the
job hunt.”
Brooks said she is like most college students
— disillusioned by the 1980s and the “me” gen
eration that sow college education as the way to
get a six-figure salary.
Brooks colled the Manhattan TFA office, the
home of a board of advisers made up of teachers
and educators around the country, and said
that she was interested in being a TFA liaison
for the University.
Brooks then attended an August conference
in Austin, Texas, where she met with TFA par
ticipants and learned of another University
student, Dieterle, a senior public relations
major interested in TFA.
Dieterle heard of the program while at a
leadership conference attended by TFA founder
Kopp.
The program places its participants in areas
hurt by teacher shortages. Most of the areas
have a large or increasing minority population.
Brooks said the program is trying to recruit
more blacks ond Hispanics to teach in these
areas.
Brooks attended school in Atlanta in an area
with a large minority population. Having dealt
with people of different races and backgrounds,
she hopes this experience will help her if she’s
selected to participate in the TFA corps.
“If you are a white teacher in a predomina
tely black area, you are going to need to get out
in the community and meet these kids’ parents
and get the message across that you want to
help,” she said.
Dieterle grew up in an upper-middle class
area of Fulton County and said she feels that,
like many young teens, she didn’t worry about
how other people lived. At the University she
realized that tne world contained other people
with other problems.
“I felt like I was in a little bubble that was
my world until I came to college," she said.
If she is chosen as a TFA participant, Di
eterle wants to work where she can learn more
about different cultures.
Both women said they hope students with
different majors come to the first TFA meeting
today at 4 p.m. in Room 144 of the Tate Student
Center. Brooks said the program is open to stu
dents who are talented in other fields but who
wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to teach.
“We don’t want to step on education majors’
toes, we want to work with them,” Brooks said.
Dieterle said the program now has 500 mem
bers in New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York,
Baton Rouge, La., rural North Carolina and
Georgia. Kopp visited Wheeler County when
the program first began.
Dieterle and Brooks said TFA is very compet
itive because the best graduates from the best
schools apply.
Other schools involved include Cornell Uni
versity, Yale University, Emory University and
the Georgia Institute of Technology.
“I want Georgia to be on that list because we
have the students to make a great group,”
Brooks said.
Dieterle said applicants go through a selec
tion process that includes two interviews,
written essays and a sample teaching demon
stration. ^
Corps members attend a training instimte at
the University of Southern California in Los
Angeles for eight weeks to learn curriculum
planning, classroom management and decision
making.
“Members are not thrown into this cold-
turkey style,” Brooks said.
Dieterle said she hopes children who are
taught by a corps member will learn more than
she did from her past instructors because the
graduates are young and eager to teach.
“Why didn’t our teacher tell us there was
more out there? I would like to get the chance to
do that for someone," she said.
Behind closed doors
The Red and Black
barred from hearing
The Red and Black was denied
access to a Student Judiciary Orga-
nizational Court hearing
Wednesday.
An editor and reporter at
tempted to sit in on the hearing
which convened in the Academic
Building. Brad Roundtree, student
defender advocate of the judiciary,
said the meeting was closed.
The Red and Black asked to
have a statement put on the court’s
record but was denied.
Arthur Leed, Student Affairs
legal adviser, said The Red and
Black couldn’t attend the meeting
due to stipulations of the Family
Education and Privacy Act of 1974
— commonly referred to as the
Buckley Amendment.
Leed made no further comment.
Student Affairs Director Wil
liam Bracewell was unavailable for
comment.
Mark Goodman, an attorney for
the Student Press Law Center in
Washington, D.C., said the
Buckley Amendment applies only
to the records of individual stu
dents.
“I don’t see any violation of
Buckley,” he said. “In fact, it looks
as if the student court has violated
the state open meetings law.”
Editor-in-Chief Robert Todd said
The Red and Black will appeal the
case through the vice president of
Legal Affairs.
If this action doesn’t produce
any results, he said, the case will
be pursued through the Georgia
Press Association.
“We don’t think Buckley applies
here,” he said. “We don’t have any
problem with Student Judiciary —
it’s a good organization. But the
University would be better served
and the Organizational Court
would gain some credibility if it
were opened.”
— Patrick Flanigan
Leadership UGA
inspired by chair
Bill Bracewell: Program opening doors for students.
By KRISTA HARRIS
Campus Correspondent
Bill Bracewell believes in to
morrow.
As chairman of the steering
committee for the 1990-91 Lead
ership UGA program, he said he
wants to help enhance student
leadership and ensure students’
roles as future leaders.
Leadership UGA provides a
forum for student leaders to
“know, learn and share informa
tion with outside resource people
and each other in ways not other
wise provided on campus,”
according to this year’s applica
tion.
Bracewell said he was inspired
with the idea for such a program
alter tagging along to his wife’s
Leadership Georgia meetings.
Similar to the University’s pro
gram, Leadership Georgia allows
business, political and commu
nity leaders from throughout the
state to meet and share informa
tion, he said.
Bracewell brought the idea to
the University and gained
funding from the Richard B. Rus
sell Foundation for the first pro
gram in 1985. The Russell
Foundation provides most of the
program’s funds.
“You can come to the Univer
sity of Georgia and stay for four
years and no one will know you
were here," Bracewell said.
The program attempts to rec
ognize those students who have
distinguished themselves.
Applicants don’t need a long
resume, he said, but their activ
ities must indicate their position
os a leader within the University
community.
Community involvement and
volunteerism distinguish the
American system of government,
Bracewell said. He said this will
ingness to give time to benefit
others and the crucial role
leaders play in the process are
part of the program’s basis.
“I enjoyed meeting the other
campus leaders,” said Thomas
Stubbs, a senior political science
major who participated in lost
year’s program. He said he saw
the program’s greatest benefit to
be the contacts made available to
students, rather than the en
hancement of leadership skills.
Stubbs said his definition of
leadership as the “ability to ma
nipulate and coerce” is different
from other participants.
Bracewell said this sort of di
versification of opinion is impor
tant to the program ond
something which is stnved for in
icking applicants. He said
earing an Arab and a black com
pare their respective views of dis
crimination in society during a
group interview proved to him
the importance of bringing dif
ferent students together.
The issues discussed during
the program vary from year to
year. Last year’s program cov
ered health enre, education,
media and cross-cultural rela
tions in today’s society. Students
visited the Cable News Network
Center in Atlanta and met with
executives during thd media
workshop.
Bracewell said past partici
pants recommend topics for fu
ture programs ond the applicants
ore given an opportunity to make
suggestions.
Applications for the program
are available in Room 210 of the
Academic Building. The deadline
to return them is Dec. 6.
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