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SPELMA N THE VOICE OF BLACK WOMANHOOD SPOTLIGHT VoL 31, No. 6 Atlanta, Georgia February, 1978 Will There Be? Sororities On Spelman’s Campus? by Avy Long Over the past four or five years, the issue of establishing sororities on this campus has been more and more em phasized. The most recent of ficial action taken on this issue was a forum held January 17 of this year in the Fine Arts Building with Dr. Pauline Drake, director of the Institute for Teaching and Learning and associate professor of education, acting as moderator. The purpose of this forum was to give the faculty some idea as to how students feel about the issue. The faculty, in turn, would use the feedback received from the students to make a recommen dation to the administrative committee which would make a recommendation to Dr. Stewart. At this forum students were invited to give pro or con statements, not neutral, on the question of the establishments of campus chapters of sororities. Faculty members made remarks about the es tablishment of campus chapters as well as the present appearance of sororities on campus. “The sorority as it functions now is detrimental to the academic climate. It undermines the main purpose for which the students are here. They do not follow guidelines established by the national organizations, but instead, the whims and foolish ideas of individual personalities,” said Dr. Joyce Johnson, professor of music. professor of nutrition and director of the Biochemis try/Nutrition Program, asked the faculty and student body to consider the responsibilities and commitments involved in the presence of chapters on campus before making a decision. She feels that at this time the college does not have the adequate facilities to ac comodate sororities—such as sorority rooms. The prevailing opinion of the student body at the forum was pro sororities on campus. Some faculty members felt that the presence of sororities on campus would improve students’ grades. Others were concerned about advisors fin ding enough time to dedicate to the sororities, and the pos sibility of discriminating against students who could not financially afford to pledge in a sorority. Neither faculty nor student body attendance was very high at this forum. The following are some opinions of various students and teachers concerning sororities: “People who are not active in a sorority have formulated negative opinions about them because they do not know exac tly what goes on inside of a sorority.” In their existing form, “some acts of sororities are ridiculous and impair students’ abilities to function in the classroom.” “The argument in the past was that Spelman was too small to handle all these organizations, but that is not the case now.” “Spelman is always talking about the money it needs. Sororities would bring money to the campus.” “Since there will always be discrepancies wherever there are women, we may as well have sororities.” In the fall of 1977 the Board of Trustees asked Dr. Stewart to discuss the issue with the ad ministration and faculty. Recommendations from the faculty and the administrative committee have been made to Dr. Stewart who will make an announcement of the decision of the college soon. Freshmen Seek Unity by Sheron Covington Through misconceptions, stereotypes and outright lies, the Atlanta University Center. (AUC) Colleges have existed in the heat of intense rivalry. The intensity of the competition has caused dissention to spread rapidly like a cancer, eating away at the ties that bind us. It is ironic that four black institutions can be so close in location, but so distant in kinship. Compelled by these reasons and others, the freshman officers from all of the AUC colleges put their heads together and have arrived at a very timely effort towards a solution: Atlanta University Center Unity Week. “AUC Unity Week will be a variety of events, designed exclusively for the purpose of unifying the entire center and will hopefully include something for everyone,” stated Clark College’s Donna Witherspoon. “The purpose,” added Tony Dawson of Morehouse College, “is to begin to develop unity at an early stage, to pull together all of the AUC students as one.” “As for the idea of Unity Week,” replied David Ferguson, also Continued on page 8 Photo by K.F. Hodges - Ly Bensons Anthony Hawkins has become quite a celebrity within the Atlanta University Center. He was most recently heard at the opening of the Spelmolette Discotech. He has the women oohing and ahhing every time he opens his mouth to let out one af his seemingly magical notes of song. For more on the man with the beautiful vocal cords see page 4. W CLK/WSTB Bump Heads F or Power by Pamela James Radio station WCLK of Clark College has put in an application for higher wattage with the Federal Communications Commission. This wattage proposal is for an increase from 54 to 3400 watts of power, enabling WCLK to expand their listening audience to the Georgia-Alabama state line, or about eight to twelve miles more in signal distance. Presently, the application sum bitted by WCLK is on hold because of another ap plication submitted by Southern Tech’s radio station WSTB in Marietta, Georgia. Ac cording to J.D. Wise, general manager at radio station WSTB, the school has an AM station which serves the campus area, but filed for the FM station in order to reach an audience outside of Marietta. The conflict comes because WCLK filed for channel 220 and WSTB for channel 219. Ac cording to WCLK, Southern Tech claims that an increase in power for WCLK would interfere with the radio station’s channel signals. Wise maintains that the only way “to get through to a solution is for the ad ministrations of both schools to sit down at a conference table and say ‘let’s both try to look at what we’ve got.’” According to Wise, some concessions have to be made on someone’s part. He said that WSTB could amend their application and shoot for a new channel. Or, perhaps WCLK could not go to full power. Other alternatives could be determined and discussed according to Wise. Gary Flannigan, station manager and program director of WCLK said the radio station has made many new modifications in their programming. According to him, the station is attempting to incorporate more structure into their programming. He says that they are “maintaining their com mittment to jazz programming, but also making committment to our education license.” Flannigan says that they are struc turing their programming where listeners might learn something from the music they play. The station manager also said that they are using more “innovative programming to Continued on page 3