Confusion surrounds hijacked ship passengers
By The Associated Press
Palestinian pirates last night held
more than 400 hostages under threat
of death on a captive Italian cruise
liner, floating in the Mediterranean
with no where to go. A man who said
he was the captain reported by radio
all aboard were safe and pleaded
against rescue attempts.
In Washington, National Security
adviser Robert McFarlane said late
last night he believed the vessel was
anchored off the coast of Syria and he
expected "some movement" today.
He declined to say in which direction.
President Reagan yesterday called
the hijacking "the most ridiculous
thing," and the White House said the
United States was working with other
governments "to bring about an end
to this act of terrorism."
The message from international
waters in the Mediterranean, purpor
tedly from the captain, contradicted
unconfirmed reports that the hijack
ers, who demand that Israel free 50
Palestinian prisoners, had killed two
American passengers.
Columbia, Delaware
divest from S. Africa
From staff and wire reports
The University of Delaware's fac
ulty senate Monday passed a resolu
tion urging the divestiture of more
than $47 million in stocks and bonds in
companies doing business in South
Africa, as Columbia University be
came the first Ivy League school to
support divestment.
Columbia University's board of
trustees voted to sell, over the next
two years, virtually all the universi
ty's $39 million in stock in American
companies tied to South Africa,
according to The New York Times..
Delaware's resolution, passed on a
26-25 vote, calls for total divestment
in companies with holdings in South
Africa. The university's investments
in those companies represents 40
percent of the university's portfolio,
according to an ad hoc committee
report.
The resolution will go to the univer
sity's board of trustees, which does
not have to take action on it. The
board's next meeting is scheduled for
Dec. 13.
Werner Brown, chairman of the
board's finance committee, would not
comment on the resolution but said
the board already practices "selec
tive disinvestment" by buying stock
only in companies that follow the
Sullivan Principles, a code to im-
committee to
examine TA training
New
By CELESTE McCAULEY
Collegian Staff Writer
Improved training for teaching as
sistants will be the goal of a new
committee designed to implement
mandatory training programs
throughout the University, the presi
dent of the Graduate Student Associa
tion said.
Brian Delßuono said the commit
tee, being formed by GSA's academic
division and the Undergraduate Stu
dent Government's Academic As
sembly, is in response to a GSA
survey that found almost three-
the
daily
"Please, please, don't try anything
on my ship," he shouted into the radio
from the Achille Lauro, which was
reported to be off Cyprus at the time,
according to port officials in Leb
anon.
The Palestinian hijackers were
said to have a large supply of explo
sives, and vowed soon after seizing
the vessel Monday night that they
would blow it up if military air or
naval forces tried to interfere. Flotta
Lauro, the shipping line, said 913
people were aboard, including 331
crew members.
The ship sailed west from the Syri
an coast after it was denied access to
Syrian territorial waters outside the
port of Tartus. A Western diplomat in
Damascus said it was bound for Cy
prus, and Beirut port officials said it
was in international waters off the
coast of Cyprus. But a Cypriot gov
ernment source said the ship would
not be allowed to dock there.
Italy's defense minister, Giovanni
Spadolini, said after a late-night
emergency session with Premier Bet
tino Craxi and Foreign Minister Giu-
prove working and living conditions
for company employees.
Columbia's South Africa-related
holdings involve only 4 percent of the
universities $9OO million total invest
ments. The companies from which
Columbia will divest by October 1987
include American Express, Mobil Oil
and Sperry.
Both decisions came six months
after a wave of anti-apartheid pro
tests erupted at campuses across the
country and follow a summer of vio
lence in South Africa.
Some of last spring's most bitter
demonstrations took place at ColOm
bia, where hundreds of students
blocked a campus building for three
weeks to attract national attention to
their cause. But the Columbia trust
ees said their decision had nothing to
do with the protests.
"We are expressing our abhorrence
of of apartheid and the South African
government's obdurate adherence to
it," said Samuel I. Higginbottom, the
trustees' chairman.
"We are in the fortunate position of
having only a small fraction of our
endowments in companies doing busi
ness in South Africa, and so we can
divest without imposing a heavy bur
den of transaction costs on our fac
ulty, students and staff,"
Higginbottom added.
Please see DIVEST, Page 16
fourths of TAs polled consider their
department's training inadequate.
Recognizing TA training as a major
concern, the Faculty Senate in 1981
voted to require TAs who have re
sponsibilities in lectures, recitations
or practicums to attend a teaching
training program.
The senate defined the content and
execution of TA training as "the
responsibilities of the deans of the
colleges."
"Certainly this has not been fol
lowed," said Delßuono, whose orga
nization found last year that 72
Please see TAs, Page 16.
Collegian
lio Andreotti that Italy had not
established contact with the hijack
ers and said there would be not nego
tiations for prisoner "that are not in
our hands and over whom we have no
power."
Andreotti said the Syrian govern
ment had said it would allow the ship
to dock at a Syrian port if the Italian
and the U.S. Governments asked for
such a move.
Onda Pesquera, a monitoring sta
tion in San Sebastian, Spain, said
radio reports circulating among ships
in the area of the Achille Lauro indi
cated some type of agreement might
have beer, reached with the hijack
ers, and they might leave the ship.
The station could not determine who
was making the reports or get specif
ic details.
"There haven't been any solid de
velopments," said an Italian Foreign
Ministry spokesman this morning.
Spokesmen for the shipping line said
they had heard of no agreement.
In Tunisia, the No. 2 man in the
Palestine Liberation Organization,
Salah Khalaf, said the PLO had taken
Senate retains plus-minus grading
By DAMON CHAPPIE
Collegian Staff Writer
An attempt to repeal the new plus
and-minus grading system failed yes
terday as the University Faculty Sen
ate dashed an attempt to preserve the
present five-level grading procedure.
The senate sustained the new sys
tem, which will add grades A-minus,
B-plus, B-minus and C-plus to the
current system of grades A, B, C, D
and F. The University will begin
using the new grading system Fall
Semester 1987.
Under the approved system, an A
minus will equal 3.67 grade points; B
plus, 3.33; B-minus, 2.67; and C-plus,
2.33.
The senate had approved the plan
at its last meeting of the academic
year in April after the idea had been
tossed around for nearly two years.
But several senators believed the
marginal 58-53 passage vote did not
reflect the will of the entire senate.
steps with the Italian and Egyptian
governments "for the liberation of
the hostages and the peaceful solution
of the affair." He said the PLO, which
has condemned the hijacking, had
sent envoys to the Egyptian cities of
Port Said and Cairo and had called on
the hijackers to return the vessel to
Egyptian waters.
The pirates said they were from the
Palestine Liberation Front, one of
eight guerrilla groups that comprise
the Palestine Liberation Organiza
tion.
An Italian Foreign Ministry official
said the PLO in Tunisia told Italian
authorities that five to seven hijack
ers, using false South American pass
ports, boarded the vessel in the
northern port , of Genoa, where the
ship began its Mediterranean cruise
Most of the Americans who had
been on the Achille Lauro cruise were
among about 600 passengers who
disembarked in Alexandria, Egypt,
before the Palestinians seized the
ship about 30 miles west of Port Said.
Reports indicated about a . dozen
America= still were aboard.
Because that meeting ran long and
some senators left before the vote,
Cara-Lynne Schengrund, professor at
the University's Hershey Medical
Center, moved to reverse the decision
this year.
But in a relatively brief hour-and-a
half meeting yesterday, the senate
voted 79-48 to defeat Schengrund's
motion and uphold the new grading
policy.
Jay Clark, president of the Under
graduate Student Government's Aca
demic Assembly, said he was pleased
with the senate's action.
"They approved it the first time
and I was pleased. They've approved
it a second time and I'm even more
pleased," Clark said.
He said he believes the first vote
was representative of the senate's
will and the second vote simply re
inforced that impression.
Most senators favored the new
grading procedure, but several sen
ators including Schengrund said they
Wednesday, Oct. 9, 1985
Vol. 86, No. 64 16 pages University Park, Pa. 16802
Published by students of The.Pennsylvanla Stale University
©1985 Collegian Inc.
would like to see more divisions in
grades especially an A-plus catego
ry.
"I don't understand why I cannot
give an A-plus when we can give an A
minus," Schengrund said, adding
that students wishing to go to grad
uate school may be hurt by not get
ting the plus with an A grade.
In a related matter, George Simko
vich, professor of metallurgy, pro
posed a measure that would add
grades of A-plus, C-minus, D-plus,
and D-minus to the new system.
Faculty Senate President Donald
Rung said the measure would be
debated at next month's session, but
that "perhaps we will have some way
of disposing of it before then." -
University Registrar Warren R.
Haffner said that at Washington State
University, which adopted a similar
grading plan in 1979, the number of
students who received As dropped
from 25.8 percent that year to 14.3
percent in 1984.
Strict alcohol
rules linked
to problems
By JOHN KING
Associated Press Writer
PROVIDENCE Universities that
permit underage drinking have fewer
alcohol•related disciplinary problems
than schools that strictly enforce
state drinking laws, a study by a
national students' group says.
"Severe or prohibitive policies do
not produce a lower incidence of
alcohol-related problems on cam
puses," the study by the American
Association of University Students
said. "The approach of a student as a
responsible citizen appears to have a
better impact" on curbing alcohol
abuse, the study asserts.
The group polled administrators at
32 schools nationwide and found
schools that do not enforce drinking
age laws had fewer cases of vandal
ism, assault, harassment and• disor
derly conduct.
"By de-emphasizing the prohibition
and strict, enforcement, universities
with permissive policies develop
stronger alcohol education programs,
alternative• programming and send
messages of concern and respect to
the students to make their own re
sponsible choices," the study said.
"Univefsities which have devel
oped strict prohibition policies seem
to be bogged down in the enforcement
of policy and notifying students of
policy."
Schools allowing minors to "deter
mine their alcohol-consumption lev
els," such as Stanford University and
Yale University, have developed
stronger alcohol-education programs
than other schools, the study con
cluded.
It said Stanford in 1984 did not try a
single alcohol-related case in its stu
dent courts, while the University of
Wisconsin, which strictly enforces
that state's legal drinking age of 19,
reported that 95 percent of its vandal
ism cases were alcohol-related.
Correction
Because of an editing error, State
College Borough Manager Carl
Fairbanks, Solicitor Robert Kistl
er and council member Felicia
Lewis were incorrectly identified
in a photo caption in yesterday's
Daily Collegian.
Fairbanks and Kistler were
incorrectly identified as council
members and Lewis was incor
rectly identified as Council Presi
dent Mary Ann Haas. Council
member Gary A. Wiser, who was
also pictured, was correctly iden
tified.
f_l43ia.
index
opinions Page 6
sports Page 8
weather
Another nice day with mostly
sunny skies and a few high
clouds. High 73. Tonight, partly
cloudy and mild and not as cool.
Low 47 Heidi Sonen