Pres, hopefuls test campaigns at state rallies By DONALD M. ROTHBERG AP Political Writer Presidential rivals George Bush and Michael Dukakis campaigned on opposite sides of the country on Labor Day, with Bush linking his Democrat ic opponent to Jane Fonda and “the liberal left,” and Dukakis asking, “Can we afford four more years” of Republican economic policies. Vice presidential nominees Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle also were on the road yesterday for the symbolic kickoff of the fall campaign, using the opportunity to find fault with the heads of the opposition tickets. With little more than two months remaining before Election Day, the rival candidates tested campaign themes at rallies in key states. Republican nominee Bush was in California, where he said the cam paign is “foremost about jobs and peace. R’s about protecting the gains we’ve made in jobs and peace and it’s about how to make new break throughs in both areas.” Dukakis told a holiday rally in Detroit “the time has come to bring prosperity home to every home in every neighborhood in America. The time has come to stop ignoring for eign competition and start beating it.” The Massachusetts governor cited Census Bureau statistics he said showed “the rich have become rich er, the poor have gotten poorer” during the Reagan presidency. “High paying jobs being replaced by low paying jobs, average weekly wages down over the past eight years, benefits down over the past eight years,” he went on. Campaigning in California, Bush said Dukakis opposes the MX and Midgetman missiles, the Star Wars missile defense program and two new aircraft carrier task forces. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he thinks that a naval exercise is some thing you find in Jane Fonda’s work out book,” said the vice president. Talks crumble; district teachers go on strike By DAVE HOWLAND and SHERYLYN VENEY Collegian Staff Writers Four hundred and fifteen State College Area School District teachers are on strike today after intense negotiations over teachers’ salaries broke down yesterday afternoon. The strike, which school district officials say is the first in the dis trict’s history, will keep 5,780 stu dents from attending class indefinitely. Negotiations will resume Wednesday, union and school district officials said. Talks over the three-year contract broke down at 3:50 yesterday af ternoon after the school board reject ed a counter proposal from the teachers’ union that was $580,000 less than the teacher’s previous proposal, Randall Bitner, president of the State College Area Education Association, said yesterday. Teachers are striking because they believe the administration is not of fering them enough money, Bitner said. The union rejected a proposed 33 Student trustee plans attack to inform students By SHARON L. LYNCH Collegian Staff Writer Getting to know typical students in an infor mal way, opening the University’s budget and limiting her attendance to University Student Executive Council meetings are some goals Student Trustee Christina Henke will strive toward this year, she said in a recent interview. In October, Henke will complete her . first year as a trustee. With two years of her term remaining, she said she considers herself fortu nate to have time left to accomplish more on the University Board of Trustees. “It takes a year to understand how this place is run.. .now I think I’ll put out the same amount of time and energy, but I think it will go about ten times farther,” she said. In an .effort to make students more aware of the board’s role in University affairs, Henke has planned a three-pronged attack to inform them: ■ She plans to install a suggestion box in the HUB this semester, avowing students to voice Scarf in' This ravenous rodent eats his nut with gusto at a Labor Day feast beside Old Main. He’d better eat while the eating’s good, as autumn fast approaches in Happy Valley. percent salary increase over a three year period Sunday, and then pre sented the counter proposal that the board rejected yesterday. State College area taxpayers will have to pay for the increased sala ries, said School Board Director George McMurtry. Funding for the teachers’ salaries comes largely from local property taxes, but some federal and state programs also con tribute. School District Spokeswoman Pat ricia Best said the strike will hurt both the students and the community. “You always worry about a strike dividing a community,” she sai d.“ Our primary interest at this time is to have the students in school.” Bitner said although he regrets the strike, it is necessary for the teachers to get a reasonable contract. “I’m very unhappy we had to do it,” he said. “It’s unfortunate we had to go on strike in an educational community to receive a career sala ry.” Bitner cited a statewide study con ducted by the union that shows State College teachers’ salaries are below their ideas and concerns regarding the Univer sity and the Board of Trustees. Although stu dent leaders will be free to utilize the box for communication, it is geared toward students who ordinarily would not have contact with board members. The box will function as a substitute office, Henke said. Last year, Henke visited various student groups in an effort to promote interaction with the board, but later realized that the students who belong to those organizations already have a forum to communicate their concerns. “Input from students who are not involved ... is vital to my role,” she said. ■ Henke also plans to write a semesterly newsletter titled “Focus on the Facts,” which is scheduled to appear this spring. The publica tion will concentrate on identifying and ex plaining current board topics, Henke said. Informative rather than persuasive, the publi cation will be funded by the University Alumni Association. ■ Henke is also working on an orientation the state average while State College school adminstrators’ salaries are above the state average. According to the study, State Col lege Area teachers earned an aver age of $26,473 for the 1987-88 school year about $3,500 below the state average of $29,065. The School Dis trict Superintendent receives $17,000 above the state average of $55,715, and the assistant superintendent earns $10,323 above the state average of $47,759, Bitner said. Although Best acknowledged ad ministrators’ salaries are higher than teachers’, she emphasized that teach ers’ salaries have come to what they are today through the negotiation process. “We have had a history of success ful salary negotiations and it’s very disappointing that we haven’t been able to reach a settlement,” Best said. “The board has been using the input from members of the commu nity and has kept that in mind as they develop the proposals." Nate Cattell, a sixth-grade school teacher, is the union’s chief negotia- Please see STRIKE, Page 20 seminar to be presented to incoming students each semester, a seminar she wants to begin next year. The half-hour presentation would teach students about the Board of Trustees, and examine issues such as the relationship between the board and the student body, and when student intervention is appropriate in board matters. One common misunderstanding Henke hopes the workshop will dispel is the notion that a student trustee should “jump up and down” to get a point across. Trustees cannot scream at each other and expect others to listen, Henke said. “I’ve made sure that I don’t alienate half the board,” she said. Henke also said the upcoming year promises some potentially interesting topics and some changes in her own role as trustee. During the July board meeting, Trustee President J. L loyd Huck announced plans for a November presentation about the possibility of opening the University’s budget to the public, for exam ple. Colkrgian Photo I Collegian Photo I Chari Stalmann Patrica Best (left),' spokeswoman for the school district, and Randy Bitner (right), president of the State College Area Educators Assoc., are two of the principals in the techers’ strike. Henke: USG's budget ideas need realism By MARC HARKNESS Collegian Staff Writer Calling Undergraduate Student Government current proposals for an open budget and tuition freeze “un realistic” and potentially impracti cal, members of the University Board of Trustees said the proposals war rant further consideration and possi ble modification before they could be put to use. “We need to put a dose of reality into the open budget issue,” Student Trustee Christina Henke said yester day. “Even if the budget was opened all the way, it would not solve the rising tuition problem.” USG officials have said an open budget could prevent another tuition increase when state appropriations time comes around by allowing legis lators to see how much money is needed and where it is going. Henke said she supported an open budget, but for different reasons than those cited by USG. % * The USG resolution states: “With the question in undergraduates’ heads as to how much of their tuition goes to their own education and how much to graduate support, it has become imperative that the Universi ty open its budget to clear up these concerns.” Henke said taxpayers should be able to see where public money is going. But she noted that making the University’s budget available to state legislators would not necessarily yield a larger state appropriation or prevent another tuition increase. The USG open budget proposal, which was previously presented to trustees in July, is based on open budget formats at other universities, said USG Town Senator Kendall Houk. The open budget became a major issue during the Undergraduate Student Govern ment election campaigns in March, when cur rent USG President Seth Williams and Vice President Amy Manderino ran for their posi tions. Since then, Williams has taken the issue to members of the board, the administration and the state legislature. Henke will also limit her attendance to USEC meetings this year, because she believes in volving herself with the daily activities of student leaders may conflict with her trustee role, she said. Since last spring, USEC has devoted a major portion of several meetings to re-evaluating its membership requirements in the face of pres sure from groups such as the Lesbian and Gay Student Alliance. But Henke said it is not a trustee’s place to decide membership criteria for student organi zations. “I’m beginning to value membership on USEC a lot less,” she added. Requested disclosures in the 12- page document include: ■ Individual administrators’ sala ries. ■ Income from library fines. ■ Office of Physical Plant ex penses. ■ Individual head coaches’ sala ries. Trustee President J. Lloyd Huck appointed an ad hoc committee of trustees after July’s board meeting to look into the possibility of opening the University budget. But Vice Presi dent Mimi Coppersmith, a member of that committee, said it would be consulting with administrators to de cide if the budget should be opened and what items to disclose. “The representatives of the student government have made their point previously and we are attempting to look at, on the advice of the adminis tration, how we can have a more open budget,” Coppersmith said. However, she added, the University cannot be considered a wholly public institution, and that fact should be taken into consideration before open ing the budget. “I’m not in favor of revealing indi vidual people’s salaries,” she said. “I don’t know that that accomplishes a thing.” USG would like to see the salaries of top administrators disclosed in order to see which programs have priority, said USG Executive Assis tant Travis Parchman, adding that the salaries of head coaches are wanted in order to determine racial and gender differences in pay. “It’s not because anybody’s saying that Joepa doesn’t deserve what he’s getting,” Parchman said. University Budget Officer Richard Please see RESPONSE, Page 20 Radiation stays put during fire at power plant MOSCOW (AP) A nuclear power plant caught fire in Lithuania yester day, but automatic safety systems extinguished the flames before radia tion could be released, the official Tass news agency reported. Tass said no one was injured by the blaze which began at 12:50 a.m. in a control cable of the second reactor of the Ignalina power plant in Lithua nia, a Soviet republic on the Baltic Sea. The chief dispatcher of the Soviet Atomic Power Ministry, Erik Pozdyshev, told Tass the reactor’s safety systems automatically kicked in and the fire had already been put out by the time firefighters arrived. He said no radiation escaped the plant, and there were no injuries among the public or plant employees. The reactor, one of two at the plant, was shut down after. The news agency’s prompt report ing of the fire reflected the new official policy under Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s drive for more openness. “Considering the heightened public interest in nuclear reactor opera tions, which is quite understandable after the Chernobyl accident, we de cided to inform the public about what has happened at the Ignalina station at once,” Pozdyshev said. The Soviet Union waited days be fore informing the world of the April 26, 1986, explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. WEATHER Today, sun mixed with occa sional clouds, high just 65. To night, clear and cold, low near 40, but colder in outlying areas. Tomorrow, mostly sunny, high 69 Ross Dickman
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