OTLLEGIAN 100 YEARS
April 1887-April 1987
IBM, GM
By CAROLYN SORISIO
Collegian Staff Writer
University officials said International Busi
ness Machines Corp.’s and General Motors
Corp.’s decisions to sell their subsidiary
operations in South Africa were “in line”
with the Board of Trustees’ divestment poli
cy, but student leaders had a different re
sponse.
The University has $1 million invested in
IBM now and $200,000 invested in GM as of
June 3, said David Branigan, special assis
tant to the treasurer. The University has a
total of $8.7 million invested in companies
doing business in South Africa.
IBM announced plans to sell its South
African subsidiary yesterday, following
GM’s announcement Monday to pull out of
South Africa.
Carlton Waterhouse, chairman of the Black
Student Coalition Against Racism, said the
corporations’ decisions will make the Univer-
Beam Hall office construction a noisy issue
By MEGAN McKISSICK
Collegian Staff Writer
While University student John
Pollock studies, things on his desk
start to shake.
“Things on our desks rattle and
even fall off,” said Pollock (third
term-turf management).
The shaking and rattling comes
courtesy of the construction work
in Beam Hall that will convert 75
percent of the residence hall into
office space. Office construction
began after the end of Spring Se
mester 1986 and still continues.
Currently, 68 students majoring
in the University’s two-year land
management program are living
in temporary housing on the first
and second floor.
The administration decided in
the summer of 1985 to close Beam
Hall and notified returning North
Halls students in the fall that the
building was being converted into
offices and classrooms.
“Whether we plan to get up or
not, we’re awakened at 7 a.m.” by
the construction noise, said Jeff
Lansdowne (third term-turf man
agement), a Beam Hall resident.
“There is also a lot of dust.”
Despite the students’ com
plaints, Donald Arndt, director of
Housing and Laundry Services,
said he has received positive re
sponse from the area supervisors
who have talked to Beam Hall
residents.
“(Turf management students)
like it better than previous years,
when they were placed in Nittany
Halls,” Arndt said.
Lansdowne agreed that Beam
Hall is nicer than Nittany Halls
because it is a newer building, it’s
in a better location and the rooms
are nicer.
Ken Gosselin (third term-turf
management) added this is the
first time all turf management
students have lived together. “We
were split up in Nittany Halls,” he
said.
But Phil Mick (first term-turf
management) said the • construc
tion annoys him.
“It’s really dirty due to the dust
from the construction,” he said,
10 years in the making
Vinle Burrows, a black actress and women's rights activist, performs last night at the Paul Robeson
Cultural Center. Please see story, Page 4.
the
daily
pullout from S. Africa sparks
sity’s administrators realize they have to
review the divestment decision and eventual
ly divest.
“It will have an effect,” he said. “You
won’t find that Penn State is the last Univer
sity holding stock (in South Africa) by any
means.”
But trustees President Obie Snider said the
moves by GM and IBM “support the actions
that the trustees have taken so far.”
Steve Garban, senior vice president for
finance and operations, said the University
will have to wait to see what happens.
“At this time, I don’t see a need for any
change, personally,” he said.
He added that many companies will be re
evaluating their operations in South Africa as
a result of IBM and GM selling theirs, but the
decision of how to respond to apartheid and
the economic conditions in that country
should still rest with the individual company.
Snider said the University’s policy was
based not on actions against companies such
The ruins of the interior of Beam Hall are a stark reminder of the conversion on the building, begun after the end of last Spring Semester, should be
of the residence hall into classrooms and office space now under way. Work completed in about IVi years.
blackening his finger as he wiped it
across his desk, which had been
cleaned the day before.
Last week, some of the 68 turf
management students living in
Beam, who are referred to as
“turfers” by students, held an in
formal discussion with North Halls
President Pat Paul and voiced
their complaints.
Some of the students, who will be
staying in Beam Hall from October
until March, complained that plas
ter and concrete are falling from
the ceiling into the showers. They
said it is impossible to study in the
afternoon since construction starts
at 7 a.m. and lasts until 5 p.m.,
Paul said.
Collegian
as GM or IBM but on letting the companies
directly involved in South Africa act on their
own.
“If this is going to happen in South Africa,
this is the way it should be done,” he said. "It
isn’t a University obligation to take part in
activism.”
However, Waterhouse said, “It’s a sad
situation when the University isn’t able to
make a decision on whether a situation is
correct on incorrect, but waits around for
others to decide.”
Darryl King, president of Black Caucus,
said the decision “says something: Everyone
sees (divestment) as a method, everyone
except Penn State.”
Branigan said the companies reached their
decisions because they were losing money
and were unsatisfied with the country’s slow
response to apartheid.
Their decisions were in line with the Uni
versity policy, he said, adding that “the
Paul said he is displeased with
the Beam Hall issue.
‘No one has given me the whole
story at any one time. I learn
something new every week,” he
said.
Despite the inconvenience,
Arndt said students are making the
best of the Beam Hall situation,
adding that Housing Services had
to arrange for these students to
‘Whether we plan to get up or not, we’re
awakened at 7 a.m. (by the construction noise).
There is also a lot of dust.’
Jeff Lansdowne (third term-turf management)
Collegian Photo/Michael Houtz
■ -
v * f
Student leaders dissatisfied
with reasoning on trustee
By CAROLYN SORISIO
Collegian Staff Writer
Gov. Dick Thornburgh appointed University
student trustee Mary Greeley-Beahm for a one
year term so she would not serve on the
University Board of Trustees beyond her grad
uation, said Mike Moyle, governor’s office
spokesman.
However, Greeley-Beahm (graduate-mar
keting) and student leaders say they are not
satisfied with the governor’s reasoning.
Questions about the length of Greely-
Beahm’s term surfaced at last week’s Univer
sity Student Executive Council meeting, when
Greeley-Beahm told the group she had re
ceived official notification the length of her
term was to be one year.
When applying for the position, Greeley-
Beahm said she had the impression her term
would be three years long.
When Greeley-Beahm met with former State
Secretary of Education Margaret A. Smith’s
staff last summer to discuss the trustee posi
tion, she said she made clear to the Secretary
of Education’s staff her intentions to remain at
the University for three years.
Greeley-Beahm said she hopes to be ac
cepted as a doctoral candidate at the Universi
ty, but if she is not, she will take continuing
education classes and remain involved in the
University, she said.
•* *'h 5
♦ tV*
stay in Beam Hall because there is
no room on campus.
Arndt said students will not live
in Beam next year. There are
tentative plans to move the turf
management students to the Nitta
ny Suite building near Nittany
Apartments, he said.
Students will not receive any
financial compensation because of
their complaints, Arndt said.
burden of all this should be on the corpora
tions’ backs.”
King said Philadelpha minister the Rev.
Leon Sullivan who developed the Sullivan
Principles, a set of guidelines for companies
to improve conditions for non-white workers
in South Africa is on the GM board of
directors.
Because GM has decided to pull out of
South Africa, ‘‘indirectly what this says is
‘Hey, those Sullivan principles don’t work,’ ”
King said.
Garban said the companies haven’t made a
declaration about the Sullivan Principles yet
and the "Sullivan Principles, for those com
panies that are there, are constructive and
provide guidelines.”
He added that although the companies will
still have a presence in South Africa, it will
“not be the same as the full company, push
ing and pressing for positive change.”
He said that until they decided to leave, the
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Beam residents are not the only
students affected by the noisy con
struction.
Patty Adack (sophomore-busi
ness administration), a resident of
Runkle Hall, the North residence
hall farthest- south from Beam,
also complained of the noise.
Jim Dungan, director of the Of
fice of Facilities Information and
Management, said the Beam Hall
project is divided into two phases.
The first phase, which involves
the completion of 75 percent of the
building, will probably be finished
by spring break 1987, Dungan said.
The second phase involves the
completion of the remaining 25
percent, which will be completed
one year after phase one, he said.
“If the governor had wanted to check, he
could have checked with the Secretary of
Education before he made such a judgment,”
Greeley-Beahm said.
Obie Snider, trustee president, said, “I’d be
willing to bet that it wasn’t done on purpose.. .
what would be (Thornburgh’s) purpose in
doing that?”
He added that the governor may have made
an oversight and “perhaps the students are
over-reacting in assuming that Mary’s term
will end July 1. .. she can be reappointed.”
USEC Chairwoman Sue Sturgis said the
governor’s reason for appointing Greeley-
Beahm to a one-year term is not adequate and
she believes Thornburgh put more emphasis on
William Schreyer’s appointment to the board.
Schreyer, chief executive officer of Merrill
Lynch & Co. and chairman of the Campaign for
Penn State, was appointed to fill the former
student trustee seat of Patricia Walsh, which
was a three-year term.
Greeley-Beahm was appointed to fill Jay B.
Claster’s seat on the board, which ends in July,
1987.
“I believe they picked Schreyer because he is
a Merrill Lynch person,” Sturgis said.
Paul Critchlow, vice president for corporate
communications at Merrill Lynch, said Schrey
er was told in the spring he would serve a three
year term on the board.
Wednesday, Oct. 22,1986
Vol. 87, No. 71 18 pages University Park, Pa. 16802
Published by students of The Pennsylvania State University
©1986 Collegian Inc.
Please see TRUSTEE, Page 18,
debate
companies had been a positive influence in
fighting apartheid but they “are being pulled
from all sides” and had to make a judgment
based on the economic feasibility of doing
business in South Africa and the pace of
social change in that country.
Garban said that as a stockholder, the
University did not have a vote in the compa
ny’s decisions to leave South Africa.
But he said the University has been urging
companies doing business in South Africa in
which it holds stock to work to end apartheid.
King said other universities realized they
could pressure companies to divest but
“Penn State has not taken that step.”
Trustees react to BAAD
USG
backs
Wachob
By SUSAN KEARNEY
Collegian Staff Writer
The Undergraduate Student Gov
ernment’s executive endorsement
committee announced its endorse
ment of Democratic candidate Bill
Wachob for the 23rd. Congressional
District.
“What students need is a leader
who will advocate on their behalf,”
USG President Matt Baker said.
“The undergraduate student exec
utives believe that Bill Wachob is the
leader and advocate that students
need and deserve.”
Wachob, a former state senator, is
running against Republican incum
bent U.S. Rep. William F. Clinger.
Baker said the endorsement was
based on personal interviews with the
candidates, public speeches and a
USG supplementary questionnaire
that was filled out and submitted to
USG by both candidates.
Issues in the questionnaire included
tax reform’s effect on students, state
unemployment, the Gramm-Rud
man-Hollings Act’s effect on budget
cuts, pay-equity legislation, defense
spending, trade restrictions and the
issues of South Africa and Nicaragua.
John Jablowski, co-director of po
litical affairs, said the endorsement
was based primarily on issues con
cerning higher education.
Wachob attended the endorsement
announcement and thanked USG,
saying the endorsement would have
an impact on the election.
“The student vote is very impor
tant in 1986,” he said. “I would like to
give something back to students and I
will contine to work for them.”
Baker said USG endorsed Wachob
two years ago for the same race.
“When you look at Bill Wachob’s
record there are very few that com
pare,” Baker said. “We urge the
students to vote for Bill Wachob.”
Baker said USG’s endorsement
committee will be announcing other
endorsements next week. A USG en
dorsement is made after a two-thirds
majority vote from the committee.
The endorsement committee is
composed of 10 USG executives: Bak
er; Vice President Sue Sturgis; Bob
Bender, excutive assistant; Frank
Cleveland, coordinator of the Student
Alliance for Education; Todd Sloan
and John Jablowski, co-directors of
the Department of Political Affairs;
Jennifer Bolden, co-director of the
Department of Minority Affairs;
Cary Hazzard, representative from
the Department of Women’s Con
cerns; Susan Papalardo, director of
the Department of International Af
fairs; and Lizanne Daukas, treasur
er.
Wednesday
tyi
U.S. Senate candidate Bob Bd
gar will appear today at a stu
dent forum sponsored by USG
Department of Political Affairs
at 8 p.m. in 301 HUB.
weather
This afternoon, sunny with a few
high clouds. High 64. Tonight,
clear and pleasant. Low 45. To
morrow, increasing clouds with
a chance of a shower late in the
day. High 66 Heidi Sonen
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