Underdog plans trips
for students 4
Baseball team loses to
GATech 6
Final exam schedule
8
Weekend Weatker: Partly cloudy and worn Highs near 70, lows in the 40s.
The Blue
BANNER
Blowfish stink. Page 4
Volume 24. Number 26 UNFVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE
April 25. 1996
UNC-TV films UNCA students join in lawsuit over constitutionality of minority grants
segment on
UNCA
Susan Sertain
Staff Writer
A film crew from UNC-TV filmed
on campus Monday and Tuesday for
a program to be aired on “North
Carolina Now.”
“We are very excited and very
pleased that this is happening,” said
Merianne Epstein, director of public
information.
The program will focus on the 16
campuses in the UNCA system.
Epstein said she thought the program
would air some time after commence
ment.
The project began with many phone
discussions between Patti Meredith, a
production assistant at UNC-TV and
the producer of this assignment, and
Epstein to discuss what is unique about
UNCA.
The day of the shooting, Epstein
and Meredith met again “to re-dis-
cuss and make sure I understood the
university’s focus and to get the mes
sage that UNC-Asheville wants to
tell,” Meredith said.
Meredith consulted the public in
formation staff, the administration,
and students concerning what quali
ties make UNCA different from the
other campuses, said Epstein.
“Merianne has done an incredible
job of organizing everything for us,
making our job easy,” said Meredith.
“What we have collectively, UNCA
and UNC-TV, decided is to focus on
the undergraduate research and to
highlight the NCUR-10 conference,
which is very exciting for us to have
here. It’s a prestigious, well-regarded
conference and we started it, so it is
very exciting, “ Epstein said.
The segment will open with some
footage of NCUR-10, said Epstein.
These shots were taken April 18, by a
video shooter from the UNC-TV crew
and will be edited in.
The regular crew could not be here
for NCUR-10 because they were film
ing the UNC-Wilmingtoii campus,
Epstein said.
There is no overall name for the
show, said Meredith. “These four-
minute segments will air separately
on ‘North Carolina Now,’ our show
that is on weeknights at 7:30 pm.
Each month we highlight a different
campus,” Meredith said.
Once all the footage is shot and put
together, they will decide on a name,
she said.
They began setting up Monday in
the Red Oak room in Ramsey Library
to film Chancellor Reed.
“We want everyone across the state
to understand the great resource we
have in the university system and how
they work together to provide differ
ent opportunities,” said Meredith.
“At Winston-Salem our focus was
on their health program. We just came
back from Wilmington where we
learned a lot about their new marine
science research center, said
Meredith.
The film package of UNCA will
include the role of the undergraduate
research student, the liberal arts mis
sion, and the humanities program. It
UNC-TV cont. on pg-8
Kenneth Corn
Staff Writer
Three students from UNCA, along
with students from four other state
universities, filed a complaint against
C. D. Spangler, president of the Uni
versity of North Carolina, and the
chancellors of the 16 universities on
March 11. The complaint states that
Minority Presence Grants are a viola
tion of the fourteenth amendment.
The complaint wants the court to
declare these grants unconstitutional.
The complaint names Robbie Combs,
Jeffrey Greer, and Joshua Littlejohn
from UNCA as plaintiffs. “Scholar
ships and grants should not be awarded
based on race,” said Combs. Combs
said he could not make any further
comments on the complaint.
The complaint also names Chancel
lor Reed as a defendant, because
UNCA is one of the universities that
has a predominantly white student
population and awards minority
grants. She said she could not make
any comments on the complaint at
this time.
Nathanael Pendley, counsel for the
plaintiffs, wrote the complaint and
submitted it to the district federal
court in Winston-Salem. The com
plaint states that because the plain
tiffs are white they are “excluded from
competing for or receiving Minority
Presence Grants” because their schools
are predominantly white institutions.
This renders them “ineligible to re
ceive a government benefit based solely
on their race.”
The complaint states that the plain
tiffs want the court to declare the
Minority Presence Grant Program
unconstitutional. The plaintiffs are
asking for the defendants to stop
awarding these grants “in a manner
that excludes the plaintiffs from con
sideration.” The complaint also states
that the court should order “the de
fendants to pay all the costs and legal
fees incurred by the plaintiffs in se
curing their rights.”
According to the complaint, the
university system created “what can
loosely be described as a 'financial
aid’ program” in an “aggressive effort
to increase black enrollment” at pre
dominantly white schools. “These
cash payments were gifts” to encour
age black students to attend the schools
and were “not offered to black stu
dents attending the predominantly
black institutions.”
The complaint calls the grant pro
gram an attempt “to manipulate the
racial makeup” of the predominantly
white schools, and calls the grants
“cash payments to black students to
entice them to attend” these schools.
According to Adrian Tatum, presi
dent of the African-American student
association, the grants are not “gifts”
or “cash payments” to get black stu-
LAWSUIT cont. on pg. 8
UNCA professor wins excellence award for teaching
i
Ptiok) by Michael Taylor
William Sabo, associate professor of political science, won the Award for Teaching Excellence on April 12 in Chapel Hill. The award was
established in 1994 and is given to a tenured faculty member from each of the 16 institutions that make up the University of North Carolina
system.
Christine Treadaway
Staff Writer
The Board of Governors of the 16 campus
University of North Carolina system recog
nized teachers on April 12 with the second
annual Awards for Excellence in Teaching in
Chapel Hill.
The recipient of this award from UNCA was
William A. Sabo, associate professor of political
science.
“It’s always nice to be recognized. The prob
lem is trying to live up to it,” said Sabo. “It’s
such an impressive thing, it’s hard to accept that
one person should deserve this. I rationalize it
by sort of accepting it on behalf of all the other
people around here who are equally good or
better.”
The awards were presented by Board of Gov
ernors Chairman D. Samuel Neill and UNC
President C.D. Spangler Jr. at a luncheon held
at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center in
Chapel Hill. Each of the 16 faculty recipients
were awarded a bronze medallion and a $7500
cash prize.
The winners represented an array of academic
disciplines and were nominated by special com
mittees on their home campuses and selected by
the Board of Govetnors Committee on Teach
ing Awards, co-chaired by F. Edward Broadwell
Jr. of Asheville and Bert Collins of Durham.
This award was established in April 1994 to
underscore the importance of teaching and to
reward good teaching across the university sys
tem. It is given annually to a tenured faculty
member from each UNC campus. In order to
qualify for the Award for Excellence in Teach
ing, faculty must have taught at their present
institution for at least seven years and no one
may receive the award more than once, accord
ing to a press release.
Sabo has been a UNCA faculty member since
1979. According to a UNCA press release, he
has become known for his unwavering demand
for excellence, as well as the passion and inten-
PROFESSOR cont. on pg.8
Service fraternity, community groups raise money for March of Dimes
Denise Sizemore
Staff Writer
Alpha Phi Omega will participate in
the March of Dimes/Buncombe
County WalkAmerica to be held April
27 at the City/County Plaza.
“March of Dimes is an organization
that funds research for birth defects
and helps families that have children
born with defects,” said Cristina
Alonso, service vice president of Al
pha Phi Omega.
“We have brainstorming sessions at
the beginning of every semester as to
what service projects we want to get
involved with,” she said. “March of
Dimes WalkAmerica was one of the
things we decided we wanted to do.”
Alonso said Alpha Phi Omega de
cided on the March of Dimes as a
service project for two reasons. One
reason is because the members of Al
pha Phi Omega thought it was a great
cause, she said.
The other reason, according to
Alonso, is the fellowship and brother
hood WalkAmerica fosters. “We re
ally have to pull together to work for
it,” said Alonso. “We also wanted to
get the campus community involved.”
“They (WalkAmerica) also have
teams that walk,” she said. TeamWalk
is the special segment ofWalkAmerica
for companies, clubs, schools, and
other organizations.
“In the Asheville area, there are over
100 organizations or companies that
are taking part in TeamWalk,” said
Alonso.
Each participant who walks in the
event pays a $5 registration fee. Par
ticipants are encouraged to collect a
minimum of $100. This entitles the
participants to a WalkAmerica T-shirt.
Each walker will receive free refresh
ments at the cheskpoints. The check
points for the Buncombe County
WalkAmerica include the Reid Cen
ter, Asheville Junior High, Montford
Park, UNCA, McDonalds, Grove
Park, and the City/County Plaza. The
checkpoint is a rest, refreshment, and
communications stop.
Alonso said members of Alpha Phi
Omega are very excited about
WalkAmerica. “We’ve done various
things on campus (for WalkAmerica).
We’re really glad because we feel that
we’ve gotten a lot of support from
other organizations and the campus
community,” she said.
“We had a sneaker sale in front of
the cafe and raised $ 140. We also held
a fundraiser at Skate-A-Round and
raised $217.50,” she said. Alpha Phi
Omega also has a coin drive on cam-
WALK cont. on pg. 8