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An independent student newspaper serving the University of Georgia Community
INSIDE
University President
Charles Knapp ‘brushes
up’ his fund-raising skills
to combat the legislatu-e
in budget battles
4
Weather: Stay inside with a good
book and a drink... Today, upper
50s. Chance of rain 70 percent
tonight, 90 percent Friday.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1991 « ATHENS, GEORGIA • VOLUME 98, ISSUE 43
Sales not expected to soar for costly new contraceptive
Implant to cost $200-$300 at health center
By PATRICK FLANIGAN
Staff Writer
The Gilbert Health Center will
take steps to make a new form of
birth control available to students
in mid-February, but the assistant
director of physical health doesn’t
expect big student demand for Nor
plant.
“I think the cost will be a signifi
cant deterrent for a lot of folks,”
Dr. Florence Winship said
Tuesday.
However, the health center will
have a physician trained to insert
Norplant — six matchstick-sized
silicone rods which release the hor
mone progesterone — into the
upper-inner arm of female pa
tients.
Insertion can be performed
under local anesthesia.
Winship said the contraceptive
will cost the patient between $200
and $300. She doubts the Univer
sity will be able to buy Norplant at
a reduced price as it does with
birth control pills, she said.
Because of the high cost of the
drug and the perceived demand,
Winship said the health center
won’t stock it. Patients will have to
have Norplant prescribed in ad
vance.
“For us to put out $200 to $300
for something that sits on the shelf
is not good use of our money,” she
said.
Barbara Ward-Groves of the
Food and Drug Administration
said Norplant received FDA ap
proval on Dec. 10.
The FDA gave the drug — devel
oped by the Population Council of
New York — a 99 percent effective
ness rating for up to five years
after insertion for women under
150 pounds.
The rods can be removed
through minor out-patient surgery,
and a woman regains fertility
within 24 hours.
In 1972 the Population Council
began testing the contraceptive for
safety and efficiency. The study in
cluded over 44,000 women in 15
countries.
Irregular menstrual bleeding
caused many of the women tested
to stop using Norplant. Other side
effects include headaches, mood
changes, nausea and increased
acne.
Evon Dorling, a health counselor
for the Feminist Women’s Organi
zation in Atlanta, said when she
advises women about Norplant she
makes sure they understand “both
sides of the coin.”
The steep initial cost of Norplant
warrants serious consideration be
fore getting the implant, she said.
Literature distributed by
Wyeth-Ayerst claims Norplant is
cheaper than a five-year supply of
the pill.
“But if two months down the
road someone wants to get preg
nant, they’ve wasted their money,”
Dorling said.
Some women’s partners don’t
approve of the contraception. In
some instances, husbands have at
tempted to dig the rods out of their
wives’ arms, she said.
Dr. Peter Masters, a gyneco
logist at the health center, said he
believes students over 25 will re
quest Norplant more than younger
women on campus.
St«ph«n Moro»kl/The Red and Black
*Kffcclivcnc88 is subject to a user failure rating, with the
exception of Norplant and abstinence.
Textbook blues
"When you arrive at the register please have check filled out payable to the University Bookstore...”
Junior English major Amanda Cooper pauses along an aisle during the quarterly textbook rush, which
spreads bargain-hunting students along the Baxter Street bookstore strip.
Miller puts hold on
law building funds
By CHRISTOPHER GRIMES
Staff Writer
School of Law officials said Wednesday they are
frustrated by Governor-elect Zell Miller’s recommen
dation that funding earmarked for a new University
law building be diverted to expand the World Con
gress Center in Atlanta.
Miller contacted the University System Board of
Regents Tuesday to request a go-ahead for the
funding of four high-priority building projects at
Southern Tech, Georgia Southern University, Dekalb
College and Valdosta State College.
But he recommended two other projects on the
priority list — a permanent home for the Dean Rusk
Law Center and a new dorm at Georgia Tech — be put
on hold, said Michael Baxter, spokesman for the
Board of Regents.
The 1990 General Assembly set aside money for all
of these projects, but the money was frozen in last
summer’s mid-year budget cut — the lnrgest mid-year
cut in Georgia’s history, said Bill Stephens, director of
communications at the Capitol.
But Miller suggested to the Regents Tuesday that
funding for four of the projects be resumed.
Jill Birch, assistant to the dean of law, said the
General Assembly earmarked $2.5 million for plans
for the new law center last summer with the stipula
tion that the University raise another $2.5 million in
private funds.
The law school has drummed up its share of the
money, she said, and had expected to receive the state
money in time to break ground by this fall.
“It’s very frustrating,” Birch said. “When it got
frozen last year, we were hoping it would be re
instated before we took up something new.
“We’ve been planning this since the early ’80s,” she
said, “and we were hoping to finally get this done.”
To expand the World Congress Center in prepnru-
Miller: Priority to World Congress Center
tion for the Olympics, Miller decided to cut the law
school’s bond project and a highway project, she said.
Stephens said Miller’s decision not to recommend
all the University System’s building projects be com
pleted was a matter of priority.
“We would have liked to have funded them all, but
right now, everything’s unpredictable,” he said.
“The governor looked at all worthy projects, and
certainly the law school addition was one of them, but
it’s one we’re going to put oft until later.”
The new center would be a permanent home for the
facility currently housed in Waddell Hall. Birch said
the planned three-story law center would be built be
tween the main library and Brooks Hall.
New government
is ‘well underway’
Fraternity house designated landmark
SAE unhappy with city’s decision
By DAVID M. JOHNSTON
Staff Writer
The president of the Georgia Beta House As
sociation threatened to file a lawsuit after
Tuesday’s decision by the Athens City Council
to designate the Sigma Alphn Epsilon frater
nity house a historic landmark.
Tom Greene, president of the association
which owns the house, said Wednesday the as
sociation was denied its constitutional right to
due process by the Athens Historic Preserva
tion Commission.
The commission notified the association of
the proposed designation only “five or six days
before the preservation commission meeting,”
Greene said.
“We’re going to seriously evaluate the possi
bility (of a lawsuit),” said Greene, who also
cited association concern over control of prop
erty alterations by local officials.
CEO-elect Gwen O’Looney, a council
member, and Julie Morgan, the historic preser
vation officer for the commission, denied
Greene’s charges.
“We have observed every letter of the law in
this designation,” O’Looney said Wednesday.
The ordinance requires that notice of the
commission’s hearings be published in three
consecutive issues of the legal organ of the city
or “in a newspaper of general circulation within
the City of Athens,” and that written notice of
the hearings be mailed to the owners and occu
pants of the property under consideration.
These notices must be mailed out and pub
lished 10 to 20 days prior to the date of the
public hearing.
Notice of the hearing was published on three
consecutive days in The Athens Banner-
Herald, a daily newspaper and once in The
Athens Observer, the city’s weekly legal organ
at the time, Morgan said.
To have published the notice in three consec
utive issues of the Observer would have vio
lated the ordinance’s time limit — 20 days or
less, she said.
The commission also mailed written notices
to the house and the owner as listed in the city’s
most recent tax digest, she said.
Speaking to the council Tuesday night,
Greene said that “since the early ’80s we have
been operating under an easement with the Na
tional Trust for Historic Preservation," which
requires that any alteration of the interior or
exterior of the house be “approved in Wash
ington.”
The local designation protecting the house’s
exterior would be “redundant,” he said.
But Greene acknowledged on Wednesday the
easement hasn’t yet been signed due to trust of
ficials’ concern over the building’s interior con
ditions.
Establishment of an easement was part of a
1983 agreement between the house association
and the trust in which association members
raised funds, which were to be earmarked by
the trust for renovation of the house.
Please See LANDMARK, Page 2
Money can buy classes — if it’s Joe Frank’s
By BILL DAVIS
Campus Correspondent
A sixth-year University student
who had hopes of graduating this
quarter, Alexandria O’Neal didn’t
part with the money she oftered
during drop/add for the English
classes she needed.
O’Neal, who needed two upper-
division English courses to grad
uate in March, didn’t get the
schedule she needed. She posted
signs saying she would pay fellow
students for their seats.
She got close.
“I got an 18th-century novel
class and an awesome P.E.,"
O’Neal said Wednesday after
drop/add ended. “So I will just take
11 hours this quarter and take the
rest at Gainesville College and
transfer it back."
O’Neal seemed optimistic and
cheerful about the situation, which
started Monday when she posted
her desperation sign.
“I am happy," she said. “Ev
eryone over in the English depart
ment has been so nice to me.”
Michael Hendrick, assistant to
the head of the English depart
ment, was sympathetic.
'This was our most trying
quarter,” said Hendrick. “I must
have seen roughly 50 students
with what I consider serious
schedule problems — that is stu
dents within one or two quarters
until graduation. There has been a
horde of questions.”
Hendrick wasn’t exactly opti
mistic when asked about the situa
tion in the English department.
“It reminds of the scene in Chap
lin’s ‘Modern Problems’ when he is
pulled into the gears of the ma
chine he is working on and is
killed,” he said. “Who is the big
loser in all of this? The student.”
Mike Moran, director of
freshman English, sees others
hurt, too.
“We had to increase the size of
our classes,” he said. “Size hurts
the student, but it also hurts the
person least available to take on
the added workload — the teaching
assistant.”
Laura Sampson, a teaching as
sistant in English, echoes her boss
in his concerns for the future.
“With the increased class size,
my work load is increased by
grading seven more papers a
quarter,” said SampBon, a second-
ear graduate student. “With more
udget cuts, it is probably going to
get worse.”
Aside from attending Gaines
ville College, O'Neal plans further
action.
“It is not the dean’s fault, it’s Joe
Frank Harris and his budget cuts,"
she said. “What I am going to do
now is get some addresses and let
my representatives in government
know what went on ana how I feel
about it.”
By DAVID M. JOHNSTON
Staff Writer
When Gwen O’Looney at
tended her last Athens City
Council meeting Tuesday night,
the work of the new Athens-
Clarke County Unified Govern
ment was well underway.
W«yn« J«ck«on/The Red and Biac-
‘The partnership that
is evolving is one of
faith and trust.’
— Gwen O'Looney
CEO-elect
“I feel like we’ve been moving
for some time. Things are very
much underway,” the CEO-elect (
said in a frantic 10-minute inter
view Wednesday.
Last month, O’Looney named
Russ Crider interim manager of
the new government.
She will ask Crider to serve for
at least the first year of the gov
ernment’s operation, she said.
Crider has been Clarke County
administrator for the last five
years.
O’Looney also appointed each
of the 10 commissioners-elect of
the new government to the
chairmanship of ad hoc commit
tees. These committees will in
volve local citizens in the process
of reconciling the ordinances,
services nnd procedures of the
two present governments.
O’Looney wants the commit
tees to include members of the
community who have a special
interest or expertise in the area
the committee will study, she
said.
But she’s disappointed in the
citizen response so far, she said.
“I’m surprised at the lack of
representation... and have urged
the committee chairs to reach out
to the parts of the community not
yet involved.”
Progress is being made toward
satisfying the concerns of local
black leaders about minority rep
resentation in the new govern
ment, she said.
"The partnership that it
evolving is one of faith and trutt,”
Please See O’LOONEY, Page 2
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