PAGE 6, THE BEHREND BEACON, ANUARY 28, 2000 NATIONAL CAMPUS NEWS Clinton proposes tax cut for college tuition TMS Campus January 21, 2000 WASHINGTON (TMS) President Clinton has proposed a tax credit de signed to make college more afford able. Clinton unveiled the proposed plan Thursday, January 20. It is a $3O-bil lion, 10-year initiative that would make higher education more afford able for millions. When the credit is fully phased in, a family could receive a tax credit of up to $lO,OOO for tu ition, fees and training. The maximum credit would be up to $2,800 a year. Congress rejected a similar plan last year proposed by Democratic New York Sen. Charles Schumer. That plan, narrowly defeated as an amendment to last year's tax-cut package, would have allowed families to deduct up to $12,000 for college tuition. The de duction would have saved the average family as much as $3,360 per student. Schumer's plan was more expensive than Clinton's proposal: $45 billion to $5O billion over 10 years. The President also called for a $1 billion increase in Pell Grants and other federal education assistance. Universities continue to hire part-time professors TMS Campus January 21, 2000 WASHINGTON (TMS) Universi ties are hiring fewer full-time profes sors and more part-timers, according to a recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. The report, based on data accrued in 1997 from almost 4,100 institutions, is released every two years by the department's National Center for Edu cational Statistics. The latest findings show that universities hired more fac ulty members than they did in 1995 but of those new hires at four-year institutions, 11,083 were full-timers, and 24,508 were part-timers. Overall at four-year schools in 1997, 67.4 per cent of faculty members worked full time, and 32.6 percent worked part time. During the same period, the num ber of faculty members at two-year institutions also rose. Of the 22,748 new hires at those institutions, 31 per cent took full-time jobs, while 69 per cent accepted part-time positions. Women still make up less than half of all full-time faculty members. The report showed that 36 percent of full timers are women and that women make up 47 percent of all part-timers. Of the 568,719 academics working at all levels of university faculty in 1997, 5.5 percent were Asian, 4.9 per cent were African American, 2.6 per cent were Hispanic and 0.4 percent were American Indian or Native Alas kan. Welsh Yale agrees to change name TMS Campus January 19, 2000 NEW HAVEN, Conn. (TMS) —Appar ently, the world's too small for two edu cational institutions known as Yale. Yale College, a vocational school in Wales, has agreed to change its name in response to legal pressure from Yale Uni versity in New Haven, Conn. Pending formal approval from its board next month, Yale College will be renamed Coleg lal Yale College of Wrexham. lal, which sounds like "yawl," is the Welsh name for hills near Wrexham. To further differentiate, Yale College has agreed to add "Wrexham" to its Web-site address, which is now www.yale.ac.uk. "There's confusion about whether they are us or not," Yale University's vice president and secretary, Linda Lorimer, told the Yale Daily News. "Who's to know whether they're connected with us?" The resolution ends a disagreement that surfaced in March, when Yale University's attorneys demanded that the Welsh institution change its name Three die in Seton Hall dorm fire, 58 injured by Robert Ingrassia, Ralph R. Ortega, and Patrice O'Shaughnessy Knight-Ridder Tribune January 20, 2000 SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. -- Screams drowned out the fire alarm, choking smoke filled the halls, and flames shot through a Seton Hall University dormitory early Thursday, January 20, as hundreds of freshmen fled in ter- One girl plunged through a wall of flame at her door, and at least two students leaped from win dows to escape a blaze that left three male students dead and 58 people injured. The fire, whose cause had not yet been determined, originated in a sofa in a third-floor lounge in Boland Hall on the South Orange, N.J., college campus at 4:30 a.m., forcing coatless students into frigid darkness. "The screams we heard could have been some of the people dy ing," said Greg Edwards, 18, of Valley Stream, L.I. "I'll never forget the screams. It was the worst thing I've ever heard." A recent spate of false alarms led many students at the Catholic college to ignore the warning at first. "When people came out with black stuff on their faces and yell ing, 'Help me! Help me!' that's when reality set in," said 18-year-old Vanessa Gomez. Lisa Sepulveda, 18, of New York City, said she passed a burned young man moaning as she fled the residence hall. "He looked like he had painted his en tire body; it was purple and blue and orange." The dead victims were all 18, from New Jersey, and third-floor residents of Boland, a freshman dorm. They were identified as Frank Caltabilota of West Long Branch, John Giunta of Vineland, Sit-in ends with Bush agreeing to hearings on affirmative action by Linda Kleindienst and Mark Hollis Knight-Ridder Newspapers January 20, 2000 TALLAHASSEE Gov. Jeb Bush agreed to slow down his push to end affirmative action in state university admissions on Wednes day, January 19, after a sit-in by two black legislators grew into a demonstration of more than 100 legislators, civil rights activists, and students who sang and chanted outside Bush's office for most of the day. A tearful Rep. Tony Hill and Sen. Kendrick Meek, who had camped out in Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan's of fice for 24 hours, declared triumph in the late afternoon after Bush conceded to several requests from the 20-member legislative black caucus. Among the concessions, Bush agreed to a month's delay in a vote by the state Board of Regents on key elements of the university por tion of the plan and to three public hearings by a 15-member select legislative committee. The regents had been scheduled to vote Friday, Jan. 21, on changes that would have affected this fall's freshman class. The sit-in began Tuesday after noon. Jan. 18, when Bush refused to meet with Meek and Hill. The two legislators then refused to leave Brogan's office, which is in the governor's suite. Their victory came after a day of noisy demon strations around the Capitol, an overnight lockdown of the governor's office, the physical ejection of nine reporters from the governor's office, and a demon stration against the governor's plan by about 150 people at Florida In ternational University in southern Miami-Dade County. Black legislators were unhappy that Bush never made an attempt to talk with them about his "One and Aaron Karol of Dunellen Frantic parents rushed to the col lege to find their children, 18- and 19-year-olds who seemed much younger as they stood crying in pa jamas, hugging their mothers and fathers. The blaze apparently started in the third-floor lounge in the north wing of the 600-student dorm, spreading quickly into a hallway and sending black smoke through the building. "This was a pretty intense and fast-moving fire," said Essex County prosecutor Don Campolo. Local fire investigators and agents of the Federal Bureau of Al cohol, Tobacco, and Firearms were probing the cause. There was speculation that someone had been smoking on the sofa. An accelerant-detecting dog failed to detect any apparent evi dence of arson, authorities said. "This is an investigation that's going to take some time to com plete," Campolo said. Two of the dead were found in the lounge; they may have tried to put the fire out, authorities said. The three sofas in that room were just charred frames; the hallway was blackened by soot. Dorm room doors left open by fleeing students revealed normalcy computers, books, and sneakers juxtaposed with the horrific scene. The third victim was found in a nearby room; emergency personnel had attempted to revive him, said Campolo. "I actually went back to sleep af ter I heard the alarm, and my room mate had to wake me up and tell me it was real," said Pete Tornatore, 18, of Manalapan, N.J. "It could have been us," said George Kelly, 18, of Wildwoot N.J., hugging his girlfriend who was clad in Winnie-the-Pooh slip pers. "This was a total reality check." Resident assistants ° went from room to room banging on doors to Florida" plan, which ends minority preferences in education and state contracting "This is not the last time you'll see this kind of action if we don't have a voice in the process," prom ised Meek, D-Miami. "You cannot operate in a vacuum up here. You can't just get two or three people and make a decision about what's going on in the state of Florida because we all represent people. That's what it was all about," said Hill, D-Jacksonville. Across from them sat U.S Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Mi ami, Kendrick Meek's mother and the first black elected to Congress from Florida. "This is not the last time you'll see this kind of action if we don't have a voice in the process." Four decades ago she led a protest march to the Tallahassee jail when a group of Florida A&M University students were arrested after a similar sit-in demonstFation at Woolworth's, where they asked to be served at the lunch counter. "Forty years ago I went to jail. God help us that we are going through this again," she said, grasp ing a small black Bible. Bush repeatedly voiced disap proval of the sit-in. After a protest that drew national media attention, however, the governor began to re lent. The final agreement, allowing Bush and the protesting legislators to save face, came together only af ter several hours of negotiations in volving key black state lawmakers, House Speaker John Thrasher, R- Orange Park, and Senate President Toni Jennings, R-Orlando. "In the end, we've agreed to dis agree. I just hope that the hard work we put into this will eliminate some concerns and we can build upon it," Bush said. Earlier he agreed his get the students out. Firefighters guided other students out by crawling with them, forming hu man chains. Later, students who 12 hours before had celebrated the Seton Hall Pirates' upset win over the St. John's basketball team milled around the student center adjacent to Boland Hall, some crying, some in shock, most exhausted from grief and relief. Besides being plagued by 18 false alarms since September including seven times during fi nals week of the fall semester the dorm had no sprinkler system. Sprinklers were not required when it was built in 1971, officials said. Also. fire hoses in the building had been disconnected from the standpipe system, but Campolo said firefighters wouldn't have used those "obsolete" hoses any way because of uncertainty about whether tliiey were in working or der. The residence had 55 fire extin guishers; at least one of them was used in the blaze. Forty-two of the injured were treated at area hospitals and re leased. Of the remaining 16, at least three were in critical condi tiqn. The blaze was extinwished quickly. Flhefighters searched rooms tti account for all the resi One student apparently slept through the whole thing. He was found fn his.roorn in the dorm et 1:30 re.nt. after his parents in quired about him. Classes and other activities had been suspended at least through Sunday, Jan. 23. Boland Hall re opened on Thursday, Jan. 20, so students could retrieve their be longings. Wednesday night, Jan. 19, an overflow crowd of hundreds of students attended a solemn, half hour memorial Mass at Immacu late Conception Chapel, just "One Florida" plan is not perfect, but "it will pass the test [of public approval], I'm confident of that." Jon Moyle, a member of the Board of Regents from West Palm Beach, admitted that the public hearings on Bush's plan would not change his support for it. "I still think it's a good idea," Moyle said. The Tallahassee demonstration sparked a protest Wednesday after noon, Jan. 19, at FIU by more than 150 people. Waving orange flags and posters that read "Jobs with Justice," the demonstrators chanted: "Shame on Bush, shame on Bush," and "What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now." FIU officials said the demonstra tors did not cause any problems or disrupt classes. In Tallahassee, a protest outside Bush's office drew support from fellow Democratic legislators, na tionally known civil rights activists, South Florida NAACP leaders, and scores of students from FAMU, the state's only mostly black public col lege, and Florida State University. At one point well over 100 people gathered in front of the double doors that lead to the governor's suite. They blocked the doors, sang "We Shall Overcome" and other gospel songs, chanted, and criti cized the governor and his plan. Many were angered that the doors were locked to the public. "This office belongs to the people of Florida," said Sen. Mandy Dawson, D-Fort Lauderdale, as she across a field from the fire-rav aged dorm. Hundreds of other grieving students waited outside the stone chapel. "It was a great thing for every one to come together." said Tricia Santiago, 21, a senior. "That's what helps." Mourners walked out of the chapel arm-in-arm, and several wiped away tears. "We just prayed for the ♦lead and unsuccessfully tried to bring break fast to Hill and Meek. "This isn't a democracy. We're embarking on a dictatorship." Among those gathered in support of the protesting legislators was Ci cely Hill, Tony Hill's 21-year-old daughter, who is a psychology stu dent at FAMU. "This is about making a state ment," she said. "My dad is will ing to go the extra mile in order to be heard, and so should we. I am proud of them. They are speaking up for us for the students, for -Senator Kendrick Meek, D-Miami egations joined last Wednesday's protest outside Bush's office, many of them say ing they were willing to be arrested for civil disobedience if that's what it took to get the governor's ear. "This is absolute imperialist be havior," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, as she sat on the floor outside Bush's office, cradling one of her sleeping eight-month-old twins. "When the going gets tough, he thumbs his nose at the people of Florida." But Republican leaders Thrasher and Jennings were critical of Meek's and Hill's protest, saying it reflected poorly on the Legisla ture. "I worry about the honor and in tegrity of the House. It's embar rassing when you have a member going down in the lieutenant governor's office and just staying there," Thrasher said. Added Jennings, "It's not appro priate for a senator to have a sit-in in the governor's office." Hill and Meek met with Brogan those that were i LI red," said Maria Stratigis, 19, a freshman from Fort Lee, N.J. Back at the dorm, the building's exterior displayed nothing of the day's deadly drama. Its pale exte rior walls weren't charred; the icy air had erased the odor of smoke. But bouquets of red roses and white carnations were laid at the entrance in remembrance on Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 18, in the governor's suite. Bush came into the office briefly but said he wouldn't revoke his Nov. 9 execu tive order abolishing affirmative ac tion in state contracting. That's when the two legislators made an impromptu decisitm to just stay. With them were nine newspaper re porters and Barbara De Vane, a Tal lahassee activist for the National Organization for Women. In the overnight hours, Meek and Hill dozed hut slept little. At one point, Hill proclaimed, "We're go ing to stay until hell freezes over." Later, he said, "This is an abomi nation for all those people who have fought on behalf of affirmative ac tion. We're making a stand and hope other people are making a stand." our children, and for their grand children." Most Democratic members of the Broward, Palm Beach County, and Miami-Dade legislative del- At noon Wednesday, the report ers and DeVane were told to leave. Reporters, including one from the Sun-Sentinel, were helped up from their seats by security agents and led, single file, out of the Capitol building. DeVane, who refused to get up, was dragged out the door by agents. About an hour later, Bush met pri vately in the lieutenant governor's office with Hill and Meek while re porters watched outside an office window. The governor repeatedly became animated and waved his arms during his discussions with the lawmakers, who sat passively and listened. Bush left, then returned and talked with the legislators again. Elsewhere in the Capitol, the legis lative black caucus gave Republi can legislative leaders a list of re quests that they said could end the standoff. The key request: delay implementation of Bush's plan un til public hearings could be held around the state. After more delib erations, Bush agreed. At 4:35 p.m., almost 24 hours af ter the sit-in began, it was over.
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