THE BEHREND BEACON
Outgoing
president
by Jack Wheat
Knight-Ridder Tribune
November 01, 1999
GAINESVILLE, Fla.
Lombardi, a historian, insists that
only time will tell his legacy as
president of the University of Florida
in the 19905, a tumultuous hut
mostly triumphant decade for the
state's oldest and most prestigious
university
"Significance is not my problem.
That's for somebody else to figure
out," Lombardi said days before his
Nov. 1 exit from the president's
office. He will remain at Gainesville,
taking up faculty duties in
classrooms and an office carved out
of the former athletic dorm.
Lombardi was hired in November
1989 and took office in March 1990.
The Lombardi decade saw OF break
into the ranks of the top 25 public
universities by almost any standard.
This fall, it ranked lOth in the annual
U.S. News & World Report college
guide, the country's most widely
read college rankings.
"These are things the people of the
University of Florida
.-accomplished," Lombardi said.
' "The only thing that distinguishes
me is I can sing the song of the
University of Florida
with a voice
that accurately reflects the
aspirations and achievements of the
people of the University of Florida."
But some people, including
members of the Board of Regents,
with whom Lombardi often crossed
swords, are saving Lombardi's
modest closing lines need
amplification.
Regent Welcom Watson of Fort
Lauderdale said Lombardi not only
sang, but taught UF's faculty, staff,
students, alumni, donors and other
supporters the lyrics.
He made them Mink die‘ n uld
Syracuse football player
condition after bar stabbing
by Christine Tatum
TNIS Campus
November 01. 1999
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (TMS) A
senior starter on Syracuse
University's football team remained
in critical condition Monday after
being stabbed during a melee that
resulted in several arrests and sent at
least four people including two
other players to area hospitals.
University and city officials are still
trying to make sense of the brawl,
which erupted early Sunday and
involved as many as 75 people
hanging out at "Sadie's Place," a bar
whose troubled past has prompted
many SU students to dub it
"Shady's."
"This is not a good establishment,
and it's not a regular, college-student
hangout," said Syracuse spokesman
Kevin Morrow. "We know our
athletes shouldn't have been there,
but right now, we're focused on our
hope for David Byrd's recovery."
Byrd, 21, a senior defensive hack
from Schenectady, N.Y., was rushed
Students protest newspaper for
on academic standards
by Christine Tatum
TMS Campus
November 04, 1999
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. (TMS) —A
Chicano student group at California
State Unversity at Northridge is
protesting the student newspaper for
what it says was a harsh and
insensitive editorial supporting a
new state requirement that flunks out
freshmen who fail to meet remedial
standards in their first academic
year.
NATIONAL CAMPUS NEWS
University
looks back
do it, and they did, - Watson said.
The major Lombardi headlines
stemmed from his high-profile
skirmishes and occasional blunders.
Twice in the past four years
confrontations between Lombardi
and regents ere settled in
"He made them
think they could
do it and they
did."
Wat , am
1 at lot t Lauderdale
Lombardi's favor by raw political
In 1995, a conflict over the
university presidents' authority
almost led Lombardi to accept an
offer to become president of Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore. Ile
stayed after the late Gov. Law ton
Chiles and other powerful supporters
compelled regents to rewrite policies
to his liking. His most notable
controversy erupted from a 1 1 )97
dinner-table conversation at a
Christmas party for l'F's highest
administrators. lie offhandedly
referred to Adam Herbert, a black
man who soon would become State
University System chancellor, as an
"oreo," and the remark , A as reported
to regents and Herbert. Lombardi,
ho has often been praised for
supporting minorities. apologised for
his gaffe, but regents seiicd on the
Ile \N. OpPOrtt.lllll, to ou,t 1.01111)ardi.
Again, financial
hackers rose to protect Lombal di. I le
kept his joh almost 1110 more years.
into surgery at University Hospital
with chest w ounds near his heart. Also
hurt were junior defensive tackle
Duke Pettijohn, 22. of Mattapan,
Miss., and sophomore offensive
tackle Giovanni Del.oatch. 20, of
Teaneck, N.J. Pettijohn and Dekoatch
were treated in area hospitals for cuts
on their bodies and heads and were
released. Two other men, who are not
SU students but are friends of the
players, also were injured during the
fight. One remained hospitalized in
critical condition Monday, while the
other was treated and released.
Syracuse police found two knives
at the scene and charged two men in
connection with the fight: Cheiron
Thomas and Trequill Stackhouse.
both 22. Thomas is charged with first
degree gang assault and second
degree assault, and Stackhouse is
charged with first-degree gang assault
and first-degree assault. More arrests
are expected, police said.
Investigators spent much of Monday
trying to determine what started the
fight. Police at the scene said
bouncers tried to clear the bar after
The Sundial's editorial
displayed under the headline "How
Did They Get Here in the First
Place'?" read: "If students who
attend CSUN cannot pass a remedial
English or math class, do not admit
them into the university to begin
with." It ends with the rhetorical
question: "Isn't it better to pull the
weed out by its root, instead of
merely snipping the en d s?"
The editorial did not name any
ethnic group, but
students said it indirectly targeted
of Florida
on tenure
"What saved John twice was the
vision he put up for the university, -
Watson said. "If you tried to mess
‘‘. ith it, people jumped on you."
l_oinhai di resigned in August after
Ilerhert made clear that he would
deliver a performance review to
regents that would put Lombardi's
j 01) in jeopardy again. Issues
included large raises to four key
Lombardi lieutenants, and a
complaint from two visiting law
Means ihat he hUIIICII them w hen they
w erc rev icw inC OF law school.
Watson saki all that is history now.
"Everybody feels good about what
he's done at the university."
I.ombardi is a charismatic speaker
and a leading scholar of Venezuelan
history. Ile had experience at three
leading American universities before
coming to CF. I lis graduate studies
were done at Columbia in New York
City l le was a professor and dean
at Indiana university. Ile vas
provost of Johns I lopkins in 1989.
Ills 110 h y is overhauling
automobile engines -- usually the
one in his red pickup -- and his
approach to administration is
tinkering, twitching and
overhauling. The side effects of the
I.omhardi method include a number
of embittered former high-level
administrators w ho were cast aside,
and professors w ho lost their ready
access to LI: funds as a result of
Lombardi's efforts to increase
productivity. Ile engaged in no
holds-barred battling with the Board
of Regents' staff. and more cautious
sparring with the Legislature over
budget restrictions he said made
universitic inefficient, kept faculty
,;ilarie, lw.‘, Lind hc LI up construction
ut much needed facilities. By 1999,
man \ ol the te,trictions were gone.
Faculty salaries remain below the
national average. but the Legislature
ha, pro \ substantial special
NmcHim; marijuana. AN the crowd
outNitie erev, thicker. some of the
,11\pect, and ‘ictinl , , exchanged
v,ords. Soon, the tics unarmed
ictims ere overpowered by more
than a halt-do/en ',mat l:ers, many Of
hom evons, police said. The
player' and their friends did not
appear to lito. c heen targeted because
of their athlete status, police said.
racu,e head roach Paul
Pasqualoin. ho spent Sunday at the
tnispital. said he as "shocked and
saddened that such incident could
occur. Our program di,courages
tirticrit-aililete from going to a place
lik this.'' said in a prepared
~ taternent
- The notion of staying out of this
kind of establishment will be
reint()rLed by both the football
pri):2l - 1111 and athletics department."
Sadie', (lace, owned by the wife of
an Onondaga County sheriff's
deputy, has seen its fair share of
trouhle in the past few years. In
February. a Syracuse man was
stabbed there after trying to break up
a fight
them. Last fall, 75 percent of Latino
freshmen needed remedial math,
and 71) percent needed remedial
English. That compared with 63
percent of all Northridge freshmen
needing help in math and 59 percent
in English.
At an Associated Students
meeting Tuesday, two members of
MEChA -- an acronym for
Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de
\ - said the student
NOVEMBER 12, 1999
raises for thousands of excellent
faculty statewide through programs
Lombardi championed. As OF
enrollment grew from 34,000 to
43,000, the school developed a
system for advising and tracking
undergraduates that has steadily
increased the number of students
graduating within four years.
Much of UF's rise stemmed from
an early Lombardi initiative. OF is
the only Florida school in the
Association of American
Universities, an elite group of
leading research institutions.
Lombardi required departments to
compare themselves to their
counterparts at the top public AA U
universities. UF's administrative
reforms, lobbying, fund-raising and
other initiatives have focused on
closing the gaps.
lie was not afraid to tell the
regents that while the OF was great
in Florida, it could get a lot better
nationally, and he put forth the data
to back it up," said Florida
International University Provost
Mark Rosenberg. "The better the
University of Florida gets, the better
every other university in the system
gets. They raise the level, and that
helps us set a higher standard."
Michael Browne, who was student
body president and now is a Procter
& Gamble executive, said, "We
thought we had climbed the
mountain. Dr. Lombardi showed us
we had climbed a big hill. but we had
a long way to go."
Orlando businesswoman Joan
Railer, a former regent who was
chairwoman of the board when the
1989 presidential search began, said
the final assessment of Lombardi is
simple: "He recognized excellence
and showed the university how to get
there.-
in critical
Last November, former Syracuse
University football player Antwaune
Ponds started a fight with a woman
outside the bar and held a 6-inch knife
to her throat. He was later charged
with menacing and criminal
possession of a weapon. Police have
also reported at least two other serious
assaults just outside the bar.
Despite the bar's bad reputation,
Syracuse players told police they
often go there because it's off campus
and gives them some privacy from
students and fans. That allure may
have prompted the players' visit to
Sadie's on Saturday night. The fight
broke out only hours after Syracuse's
24-23 loss to Boston College, a
decided underdog, in the Carrier
Dome.
"It's a terrible tragedy that no SU
athlete nor student should go
through," said Adam Schweizer, a
junior education major. "And it is a
big loss for the team and the school
if none of them play again." Campus
Correspondents Erica Levi and Claire
Weingarden contributed to this report.
its stance
The newspaper's editorial board
has refused to apologize for the
newspaper's stance, which also
sparked a protest by about 30 Latino
students outside the Sundial's offices
last week."l'm in a confusing
situation here," Sundial editor Brian
Franks told the L.A. Times. "I
support their right to protest and I
can see where they're coming from,
but at the same time we have a First
Amendment right to publish an
Lilt editorial."
College bookstore group sues online
rival for false advertising
by Donna De Marco
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
November 03, 1999
Varsityßooks.com, the on-line
college bookstore, is being sued by the
National Association of College Stores
for false and misleading advertising.
The suit, tiled in U.S. District Court
for the District of Columbia, claims
the Washington-based on-line retailer
is misleading consumers in its
advertising for large discounts on
textbooks
The National Association of College
Stores (NACS), which has 3,000
members, is seeking a permanent
injunction to halt the advertising.,
"Our members have been targeted
by a new competitor," said Cynthia
D' Angelo, a spokeswoman for the
association. "Some of their advertising
claims are attacking our members
falsely."
According to the lawsuit filed Oct.
2 9 , Varsityßooks.com's
advertisements, which claim to offer
college textbooks at a 40 percent
discount, are implying that NACS
member stores overcharge students for
textbooks. College stores will suffer
irreparable damage as a result, Miss
D'Angelo said.
"The lawsuit filed against
Varsityßooks.com for false and
misleading advertising is completely
without merit and we plan to contest
it vigorously," said Jonathan Kaplan,
a vice president at Varsityßooks.
"Varsityßooks.com offers college
students a choice when buying
textbooks, and that choice means
better prices, more convenience and
Judge rules in favor of professor claiming
violation of his free-speech rights
TMS Campus
November 04, 1999
SAN DIEGO (TMS) A federal
judge has ruled in favor of a college
professor who claimed his First
Amendment rights were violated
when the South Orange County
Community College District ordered
him to get anger-management
counseling and to soften the
language in two newsletters he
publishes.
U.S. District Court Judge Gary
Allen Feess ruled in favor of Roy
Bauer, a philosophy professor at
Irvine Valley College, one of two
campuses in the community college
district.
Bauer is the chief editor of two
publications that have bashed the
district's administrators: "The
Dissent," a newsletter about the
district, and "The 'Vine," which
focuses on the college. In them,
Bauer has published fictional
accounts of the grisly deaths of
trustees and of his desire to drop a
huge block of granite on the college
president's head. In November
1998, he described a room full of
district administrators and wrote: "In
real value. College students didn't
used to have that choice."
Varsityßooks.com was founded in
December of 1997, when Eric Kuhn
and Tim Levy invested $25,000 to
start the company that became the first
on-line college textbook retailer.
Varsitrßooks.com had $42,000 in
net sales in 1998, which grew to $5.1
million for the first eight months of
1999, according to the registration
statement the company filed yesterday
"Our members
have been targeted
by a new
competitor:"
- Cynthia D' Angelo,
a spokeswoman for NACS
with the Securities and Exchange
Commission
Despite its rapid growth, the
company is still not profitable,
reporting a $13.9 million operating
loss for the first eight months of this
year. Last month Varsityßooks.com
announced plans to go public with a
$75 million offering. "We're
disappointed that [the NACS] would
bring this baseless action [against us]
to try to stop Varsityßooks.com from
competing against them," Mr. Kaplan
said
a room like that, no decent person
could resist the urge to go postal."
District Chancellor Cedric A.
Sampson ordered Bauer to tone
down his work after several district
officials said they feared for their
safety. Bauer responded by filing
suit against the district in January.
In his ruling, released last week,
Feess found that "the speech in
question is a core protected speech
and there is no applicable First
Amendment limitation that would
permit the discipline to be imposed
on Bauer." He added: "No
reasonable person could have
concluded that the written words of
Bauer constituted a serious
expression of an intent to harm or
assault."
Sampson told The Chronicle of
Higher Education that the district is
likely to appeal the decision.
"For us this is a significant
problem: how to protect the free
speech of our professors and protect
the workplace environment from
threats of violence. The judge felt
the language used by Mr. Bauer was
protected speech. We viewed it as
threats of violence, and we still do."
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