Page 10
— The Banner —
News
February 13,1997
Faculty members visit Africa
By Stephanie Hunter
staff Writer
Two UNCA faculty members
returned in January from Malawi,
Africa, one of the 10 poorest coun
tries in the world as part of a
Fullbright Scholarship. The schol
arship, which is a program in con
junction with the U.S. State De
partment and U.S. Information
Service, sends scholars all over the
world.
Dwight
Mullen, as
sociate pro
fessor of po-
litical sci
ence, and his
wife Dolly
Jenkins-
Mullen, lec-
II >. II turer in po-
Dolly Mullen
ence, spent
the past year in Malawi, a country
in the southern part of Africa.
The Fulbright Scholarship made
this trip possible for the Mullens.
“The Fulbright program is part of
the U,S. State Department and
U.S. Information Service. They
send scholars all over the world,”
said Mullen.
The scholarship offers aa ex
change program. The Mullens
lived in Malawi for a year, and a
physician from Malawi now works
at Emory College as a result of
this scholarship, said Mullen.
A political science department
failed to exist in the universities
in Malawi because the country
had just come out from under a
dictatorship, saidJenkins-Mullen.
Mullen taught a political theory
course and a course in public
policy, and Jenkins-Mullen taught
in public administration and in
ternational relations.
“The University of Malawi is
made up of several campuses, and
the campus we were on was called
Chancellor College. It was like
the Chapel Hill of Malawi,” said
Mullen.
The Mullens noted many differ
ences between the United States
and Malawi. The student popula
tion of this college only totaled
approximately 1,500 students,
said Mullen.
During their year in Malawi, the
university
received
about
20,000 ap-
, plicants for
only 400
available
spots, said
Mullen.
“The uni-
Dwight Mullen
up based on
a British
model, not
an American model,” said Jenkins-
Mullen.
Overall, the university tends to
be much more formal when com
pared to American universities,
said Mullen.
4 With a less interactive nature, •
the Mullens had a difficult time
getting students to discuss issues
in class, said Mullen.
Unlike UNCA, the unavailabil
ity of textbooks caused the Uni
versity of Malawi to place a much
greater emphasis on the lecture
format, said Mullen.
Before entering college, students
must pass an exam, said Mullen.
The student gets placed in a de
partment based on exam results,
said Jenkins-Mullen.
Not only did the Mullens teach
classes at the University ofMalawi,
they also conducted research and
met with many government offi
cials and acted as consultants and
advisors, said Mullen. The issues
that Mullen researched dealt pri
marily with democratization and
political development.
Also while there, Jenkins-
Mullen acted as a consultant and
advisor for a meeting of women
from different political parties.
This represented the first type
of meeting of this sort ever held
in this countiy, said Mullen.
Despite the many differences
in their work that they had to get
accustomed to, social differences
also arose.
The slow-paced lifestyle and the
beautiful, temperate climate will
be missed, but “the poverty was
hard to deal with,” said Jenkins-
Mullen.
With an average income of
$210.00 a year, Malawi’s pov
erty resembles very little of the
poverty in America.
“A lot of people do not wear
shoes,” said Jenkins-Mullen.
“There was a lot of sickness and
a lot of malnutrition,” said
Mullen.
“I heard a statistic that said a
child in that part of the world
has a greater chance of dying
then entering primary school,”
said Jenkins-Mullen.
AIDS represent? another
struggle that faces Malawi, said
Mullen. “The government esti
mated that 25 percent of the
university students were HIV
positive, but everyone else said it
was much higher than that,” said
Mullen.
“We were in the buckle of the
AIDS belt,” said Jenkins-Mullen.
People did not want to talk about
AIDS.
However, being surrounded by
this disease led to an awareness
of who had AIDS, said Jenkins-
Mullen.
0
Republic of Malawi
MALAWI
Area; 45,747 square miles
Population: 8,556,200
Capital: Lilongwe, pop. 220,000
Languages: English, Chichewa
Religions: Christianity, traditional
Currency: Kwacha
Climate: subtropical
Main exports: tobacco, tea
Britain ruled Malawi from 1891 to 1964. Malawi
became a republic in 1966 and instituted a one-
party system of government.
SOURCE: UNITED NATIONS, ACADEMIC AMERICAN ENC.
Personality traits may
influence TV watching
(CPS) -Youarewhatyou watch,
suggests a new study by a Uni
versity of Florida researcher.
An energetic guy is more likely
to watch “Hard Copy” after a
tough day at work, while the
stereotypically lazy guy will
watch videos on MTV for hours
on end, said Cynthia Frisby, a
UF advertising doctorate stu
dent.
“My study determined that a
link exists between program
choice and personality type,”
said Frisby.
Frisby surveyed 289 people
spanning a wide range of ages,
education and income.
The subjects answered ques
tions relating to five major per
sonality traits: openness, extro-
version, agreeableness,
conscientousness and emotion
ality/neuro ticism.
Frisby found the subjects’ per
sonality types not only influ
enced what television shows
they watched, butalso why they
watched them.
Most groups of people in the
study watched TV primarily for
entertainment and escape rea
sons. But certain types of per
sonalities were drawn to cer
tain types of shows.
Hostile or rude people tended
to watch situation comedies for
information, Frisbysaid. “This
could be because they are un
able to interact socially with
people,” she said.
Extroverts tended to tune in
frequently to soap operas and
news magazine shows.
Unenergetic people reported
watching music videos often
and emotionally related talk
shows.
The results of Frisby’s study
could be useful to advertisers.
For example, if people are sit
ting down to watch “Seinfeld”
each week primarily to be en
tertained, an informative car
commercial may not be work
well with the audience.
“If we can define these shows
by personality types, advertis
ing could be much more effec
tive,” said Frisby.
eBANNER
WEEKEND
WEATHER
Rain will arrive this
weekend and
temperatures will
dip below freezing.
))))))
UslilMBE
Fri. 43/32 cloudy
Sat. 44/28 rain
Sun. 44/24 partly cloudy
TRAVEL FORECAST
ATLANTA
Fri. 53/37 rain
Sat. 52/33 rain
Sun. 49/26 partly cloudy
CHARLOTTE
Fri. 48/35 cloudy
Sat. 47/32 rain
Sun. 49/29 partly cloudy
GREENSBORO
Fri.46/34 cloudy
Sat. 46/29 rain
Sun. 46/26 partly cloudy
KNOXVILLE
Fri.46/36 partly cloudy
Sat.40/29 partly cloudy
Sun.38/17 partly cloudy
Weather information
courtesy of the
National Weather
Service
Unexpected snow
PHOTO BY BONNER BUTLER
Students were surprised to find snow falling most of Monday.
The lack of accumulation was disappointing to many.
Berkeley student cracks
encryption code
(CPS) - It took Berkeley gradu
ate student Ian Goldberg only
three and a half hours to crack
the most secure encryption code
that the federal government al
lows U.S. companies to export.
On Jan. 28, RSA Data Secu
rity Inc. challenged anyone on
the Internet to decipher an en
crypted message with electronic
key lengths ranging from 40 to
265 bits.
In general, companies use en
cryption codes to secure sensi
tive material, such as credit card
numbers.
The 265-bit technology is the
hardest to decode, but the U.S.
government allows no more than
40-bit encryption so that au
thorities can decode material if
necessary.
But the challenge, as RSA Data
Security Inc. had hoped, showed
that any kid with access to a
computer network can crack the
low-level 40-bit codes.
Within hours of the contest’s
start, Goldberg had figured out
the code by linking together 250
computers in Berkeley labs and
testing 100 billion possible solu
tions, or “keys,” per hour.
That’s something like
safecracking by trying every pos
sible combination at a high
speed.
When Goldberg finally un
scrambled the challenge message,
it read: “This is why you should
use a longer key.”
Goldberg won $ 1,000 for the
effort, and RSA Data is inter
ested in hiring him as a summer
intern.
“This is the final proof of what
we’ve known for years: 40-bit
encryption technology is obso
lete,” Goldberg said.
This isn’t the first time the
student has made headlines. In
the fall of 1995, he and other
members of a Berkeley computer
security research group found a
major security flaw in Netscape’s
web browser.
UNCA African American Student Development
Underdog Productions
&
African American
Student Association
Present
Otis
speaking at UNCA
on race relations,
Nationally known
lecturer, Harvard
educated lawyer
and author of
Member of the
Cfub and
Prouersicy.
“Lawrence Graham
clearly knows
about the pressures
of being beholden
to two very
different gj'oups.”
-Los.4H{:ete T!m«
—— Thursday, Feb. 13th —
7 p.m.
UNCA Highsmith Center
General Admission $5 at door Student»Fkculty/Staff - Free
Reception & Book Signing / Refreshments.
Information: C704)25l- 6674/6671
UNC
tuNCA bookstore]
GRADUATE SALUTE
The Class of 1997
ATTENTION!
A One - Stop graduation
preparation event in
Highsmith Center Lounge
Wed., March 19 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Thur., March 20 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office,
Alumni Office and the Bookstore