Review of Dar Williams. Page 4
Pencil GRE rein
stated 10
Tomato Rumba slacks
spice 4
Bulldogs break even in
double header 6
Weekend Weather: Fair with mderafing temperotures. tows in the 20s Saturday, 30s on Sunday. Highs in the 50s.
The Blue
BANNER
Volume 24, Number 21 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE
March 21, 1996
Its
Coach files personnel proposes new organizationsponsored escort service
grievance against
head of athletics
Kenneth Corn
Staff Writer
Jennifer Thurston
Staff Writer
The UNCA head women’s basket
ball coach has filed a personnel griev
ance against the head of the athletics
department..
According to a story published in
the Asheville Citizen-Times yesterday,
Ray Ingram, the coach, charged Tom
Hunnicutt, director of athletics with
harassment, although the kind of ha
rassment was not specified.
Neither Ingram nor Hunnicutt
would elaborate on the nature of the
complaint when asked to comment.
“I’d really rather let (the grievance)
run its course first,” said Ingram. “Any
thing I say is going to affect how
people view it. After it’s over. I’d be
glad to talk, but I don’t want to make
it a big yelling, screaming match. It’s
just a normal personnel grievance.”
“At this time, I can’t (comment),”
said Hunnicutt. “It’s a personnel mat
ter. When it gets resolved it will be
appropriate to make some comment,
but (not) at this time.”
According the UNCA Faculty Hand
book, a faculty grievance committee
is responsible for conducting an ini
tial screening when grievances are
filed. The committee then decides
whether the grievance requires a for
mal hearing or whether it can be re
solved in mediation. A hearing must
be held within 40 days of the initial
complaint.
The grievance committee reports to
the Vice Chancellor for Student Af
fairs, Eric lovacchini. He would not
comment on the complaint and re
ferred the matter to the Director of
Human Resources and UNCA’s Af
firmative Action Officer, Kristie
Childress. Childress was unavailable
for comment.
According to the Citizen article,
Ingram was quoted as saying that he
had been told to “find another job.”
But Ingram told The Blue Bannerih.2X
he did not expect to be fired and
would not resign.
“I honestly believe that this is a per
sonality conflict between Mr.
Hunnicutt and me,” Ingram said. “I
don’t think it has any merit or any
bearing on my job performance. I
don’t think the university sees me as
someone who has a negative influence
on the university.”
Although Hunnicutt would not dis
cuss how he responded to the official
grievance, he said, “It involves several
issues, primarily the supervisor-sub-
ordinate issue, (and) other things that
I get involved with in the program
that Coach Ingram has.”
The women’s basketball team fin
ished its season two weeks ago with a
record of six wins and21 losses. Ingram
has been at UNCA for three seasons.
“I’ve tried to treat (Ingram) just like
I treat all of our other coaches,”
Hunnicutt told Asheville Cittzen-
Times. “But there are some coaches
you have more confidence in than
others.”
Ingram expressed regret that the
matter had received media attention.
'I don’t feel good about (the story)
hitting the Asheville Citizen-Times.
They don’t give our program that
tnuch coverage when we’re playing
games, so why look for dirt now? I d
like to look at this as the same situa
tion as when a professor has a prob
lem. (Then) it doesn’t get put into the
paper.” ,
The Student Government Associa
tion (SGA) unanimously passed a reso
lution March 6 supporting the forma
tion of a student organization-spon
sored escort service.
Mark Dann, senior senator and chair
of the senate committee for student
affairs, wrote the bill because of “re
peatedly- voiced concerns about light
ing and the sense of safety on campus
in the evening hours.”
“The students have shown that they
desire to have this program by passing
the bill,” said Dann.
When Dann presented the bill to the
senate, Michael Welch, residential
senator, was the only senator to ask
questions about the bill. His main
concern was that the bill was vague
and he questioned who would be re
sponsible if any accidents involving a
vehicle occurred.
Dann said the bill was just a resolu
tion to show that SGA “encourages,
advocates, and supports the establish
ment of a student organization-spon
sored escort service.” Dann also said
any liabilities would be the responsi
bility of UNCA’s public safety de
partment if they agreed to help with
the project. Dann’s answers satisfied
Welch’s questions. The senate then
voted and passed the resolution.
UNCA already has an escort service.
Dann said the public safety depart
ment received $2000 from the UNCA
Parents Association and $1800 from
the chancellor’s office last semester.
With this money, the Public Safety
Department hired two students to be
escorts after dark in the public safety
cars.
According to Dann, the service does
not work very well. He said when the
ESCORT cont. on pg.8
Sudanese professor gains
political asylum in the U.S.
-Kt
. \ :
rUWi«UWUTil«Ail.
Photos by Michael Taylor
Elmoiz Abunura (above) and Afaf Omer (below) ore professors from Sudan.
Abunura was granted political asylum and teaches in the political science
dapartment. Omer teaches in the sociology department.
Susan Sertain
Staff Writer
The civil war in Southern Sudan, led by the
National Islamic Front (NIF) is a topic of
great concern for two Sudanese professors at
UNCA.
“It is a real human tragedy,” said Elmoiz
Abunura, an instructor in the political sci
ence department.
“The fundamentalist Muslim regime is try
ing to run a theocracy and the country is
ripping itself up in civil war,” said William
H. Haas, the chair of the sociology depart
ment.
Abunura, his wife, Afaf Omer, an assistant
professor in the sociology department, and
their nine- month-old baby, Ghassan, moved
to Asheville in January 1995. They met at
the African Studies Association meeting and
married in 1994. They lived in Boston, Mass.
then moved to Providence, R.I., where their
baby was born. They are both members of
the African Studies Association and the
Middle East Studies Association of North
America.
Abunura came to the United States seeking ;
political asylum. He was working in Sudan as
a senior petroleum economist with an oil
company. He was also very involved with
human rights and amnesty organizations
when the military coup took place. He was
very critical of the Muslim fundamentalists
and their undemocratic views, he said.
“I felt threatened, so I came to the United
States,” said Abunura. He picked the New
England area because of many similar orga
nizations he was already involved with, he
said. He worked at the African-American
Institute-Northeastern University, where he
taught African- American studies, econom
ics and political science.
Abunura said he was attracted to the Bos
ton area because of the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts, where they have one of the largest
Nubian collections, he said. Abunura taught
courses on Nubia, the ancient Sudanese civi
lization, in 1993 and 1994 the the Nubia
Summer Institute in Boston.
His arrival to the United States in Septem
ber 1989 did not mark his first time to this
country, he said. He had visited before for a
petroleum convention in Nashville, Tenn.
Omer came to the states as a visiting student
at Princeton University, and she holds her
doctorate in sociology from the University of
Michigan. While a student in Michigan, she
was able to freely return to Sudan yearly, but
after the coup and the civil war began that
ended, she said.
Abunura received his masters in economics
from the Institute of Social Studies in Hol
land and will continue work on his doctorate
in political science.
Abunura and Omer keep many of their
cultural traditions. “She has a different last
name than my name because usually accord
ing to our culture in Sudan, women keep
their last name even after marriage. The last
name is her family name so she doesn’t change
it,” said Abunura.
They both still have family in Sudan. “We
have family outside also,” said Omer. “Those
who can leave the country have left.” They
have relatives in the Persian Gulf, Libya, in
Europe and in Canada, said Abunura.
Abunura does not see the family he still has
in Sudan. He cannot go back there because of
the political situation, he said.
“We left Sudan and we cannot go back,”
said Omer. The.last time they saw Sudan was
in 1989, she said.
Abunura was born in Khartoum, the capitol
of Sudan. His family is from Omdurman and
Rufaa, in the Gezira region, 150 miles south
of Khartoum.
Omer was born in Omdurman. They trace
their families from certain areas rather than
PROFESSOR cont. on pg. 10
State program provides new patrol cars for public safety department
Denise Sizemore
Staff Writer
Last month, UNCA’s public safety
department received two new patrol
cars. These cars replaced two two-
year-old Chevrolets.
The money for the new cars “came
out of our budget,” said Dennis
Gregory, investigation and crime pre
vention officer. In all, UNCA has
three cars patrolling the campus, said
Gregory. The other car is a 1994
Plymouth.
The cars came through a state-lease
program from Motor Fleet Manage
ment, said Gregory. Motor Fleet
Management is a huge department
that buys Fleet-priced cars and then
leases them to agencies that are state
affiliated, he said. Motor Fleet Man
agement has a lease division of Fleet
packaged cars that also leases cars to
other universities and various law
enforcement organizations, said to
Gregory.
“We lease the cars through them so
that when they feel it is not cost
efficient to maintain a car, they tell
us we’re getting new cars,” said Gre
gory. “Basically that’s what happened
in January. They told us it was time
to replace the two Chevrolets and
they had ordered two Fords.”
Motor Fleet Management makes
the decision when to replace the cars,
according to Gregory. It generally
becomes cost efficient to replace the
cars “at about 40 or 50,000 miles
because of the 24-hour operation of
the vehicles,” he said. Prior to the
replacement of the Chevrolets “we
put in almost $1000 in the transmis
sion,” he said. However, that did not
cost the public safety department
anything, because Motor Fleet Man
agement maintains the cars, accord
ing to Gregory. The only money the
public safety department spent on
the cars was to have UNCA decals
put on the sides, he said. “That was
less than $100,” he said.
UNCA has eight police officers
and two security officers, he said.
The two new cars are for the police
officers and the Plymouth is a secu
rity officer’s car, said Gregory. The
cars patrol the campus “24 hours a
day, seven days a week,” he said.
“I think some people are saying ‘why
didn’t you use the money to get more
officers?’,” said Gregory. Gregory
said he wants students to know that
his department has requested many
times for more officers. However, the
new patrol cars have nothing to do
with the number of officers on cam
pus, according to Gregory. The
money for the leased cars comes from
the public safety department, he said.
“No student fees support this de
partment at all,” said Gregory. The
only things that support the Public
Safety Office are a budget from the
state and a small supplemental bud
get from parking fines, he said.
Gregory said he would like to have
CARS cont. on pg. 10