The Daily Tar Heel Wednesday, October 8, 19863
By DAN MORRISON
Staff Writer
The Chapel Hill Housing Author
ity appealed to the Town Council
Monday for extra funds to maintain
low-income housing in the area.
In a work session Monday night,
the council discussed the possible
absorption of the Housing Author
ity's functions by the council because
of the authority's financial
difficulties.
Following approval of the
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings tax bill,
and facing the bleak prospect of the
dismantling of the federal Housing
and Urban Development as a cabinet
office, the authority has been forced
to seek financial aid from the town
of Chapel Hill.
Since 1962, the authority has
functioned as an independent body
and solicited its own funds to pay
rent and maintain low-income
housing.
Last month, the Housing Author
ity Board of Commissioners
requested a study be done on the
prospect of the council absorbing the
Housing Authority's jurisdiction,
but council members could not agree
Monday whether or not they would
like to spend $20,000 on a study that
Handicap
By TOM CAMP
Staff Writer
For most students, strolling
through the Student Union between
classes or visiting a friend in a nearby
dormitory is done without thinking,
but for senior Chris Work and others
who are wheelchair-bound, such
routine actions can present major
obstacles.
"I remember when I was a fresh
man," said Work, an RTVMP major
from Mooresville, "I had a class in
a building that I could get into, but
my class was upstairs, so I had to
get a friend to carry me up."
Work has had two other classes
in his four years in buildings that
were not accessible to wheelchair
students, but the biggest problem he
sees on campus is the lack of ramps
to the Student Union and the
Student Stores.
"When I want to go in the Union,"
Work said, "I have to wait until
Campus Calendar
Wednesday
12 noon 'The Institute of Latin
American Studies announ
ces a talk by Michael Alt
fillisch on "Peru Recent
Events from Lurigancho to
the FMI." Bring a brown
bag lunch to the Union.
Career Planning and
Placement Services is
sponsoring a Career Day
in Great Hall until 5 p.m.
12 JO p.m. Career Planning and
Placement Services is hold
ing an orientation work
shop in 306 Hanes.
2 p.m. ' The PredentPremed
Office is holding an
Optometry Career Confer
ence at the Elliott Univer
sity Center, UNC at
Greensboro. For informa
tion, come by 201 D Steele.
3 p.m. Students for David Price
for Congress will meet in
the South Gallery Meeting
Room of the Union.
4 p.m. The Christian Science Col
lege Organization will meet
in the Gallery Meeting
Room of the Union.
4:30 p.m. The UNC Association of
College Entrepreneurs will
meet in 226 Union. This
will follow the 3 p.m.
lecture by David Thomas,
founder of Wendy's, in
Carroll Hall.
5 p.m. The Association of Inter
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might not offer any solutions.
Council member David Pasquini
suggested the council investigate the
takeover itself before funding such
a study.
Two possibilties for aiding the
authority were discussed, but the
council reached no definite decision.
One option was a PILOT plan,
or payment in lieu of taxes, whereby,
over a three-year period, the council
would return to the authority the
taxes they have paid since last year.
The plan would allocate $18,000
per year for maintenance and
repairs.
At present, $ 1 1 million has been
invested in the Housing Authority
since 1967. In addition, it receives
$197,000 annually from HUD.
The Housing Authority has not
received any modernization funds
since 1984, and it is estimated that
$3,041,000 would be needed to
restore all 312 units it operates.
Similar programs have been insti
tuted in Raleigh and Sanford,
according to Town Council reports.
Raleigh provided $142,000 in
PILOT funds for housing problems
in 1982, and the town of Sanford
gave $50,000 in general revenue
Student Service in meed off aid
someone 1 know can help me in."
Work also said he always gets a
friend to buy his textbooks in the
Student Stores, which he cannot
enter.
Despite a lack of state funds going
into handicap programs, the UNC
Handicap Student Service has made
efforts to help students like Work.
"In recent years, we have not
received any money at all from the
state. The money we have used has
come from outside sources," said
Laura Thomas, coordinator of the
service. The service is hoping for
some "barrier removal funds" from
the state next year to finance projects
for the mobility impaired.
The money would be well spent,
Thomas said. "There's a lot more
that 1 see that needs to be done,"
she said. "We need changes in
elevators in about seven buildings
and we need to make Caldwell Hall,
Alumni Building and Murphey
national Students will meet
in 208-09 Union for infor
mation on party and camp
ing trip.
5:30 p.m. Newman-The Catholic
Student Center welcomes
all to its student night
' dinner at 218 Pittsbdro St.
Call' 929-3730 for
information.
6 p.m. The Lutheran Campus
Ministry will hold its
weekly meal with the
Agape Feast Service in the
Campus Center. Cost for
the meal is $1.50.
6:15 p.m. The Grievance Task Force
of the Student Govern
ment will meet in 218
Union.
7 p.m. AIESEC will meet in the
Frank Porter Graham
Lounge. Officers will meet
at 7:30.
Career Planning and
Placement Services offers
a presentation by West
vaco Co. in the Carolina
Room at the Carolina Inn.
7-30 p.m. CHIMERA, the UNC fan
tasy and science fiction
club, will meet "planet
builder" Dr. Sheridan
Simon in the Union.
UNC Ski Club will hold its
organizational meeting in
209 Manning Hall.
10 p.m. STV presents "Campus
Profile" and "This Is It!"
at Pizza Hut and on Vil
lage Cable Channel 1 1.
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sharing to its housing authority that
same year.
A second option would make use
of Community Development Funds,
$50,000 of which have not been
earmarked for anything as of yet.
Council member R.D. Smith
suggested internal reform, saying the
town maintenance staff should do
more work of its own on the low
income units rather than bidding for
outside labor.
Some Chapel Hill tenants made
their fears clear Monday night,
favoring an independent Housing
Authority rather than one under the
direction of the Town Council.
"YouVe got these people scared
to death (of being evicted)," Anili
zabeth Young, a former public
housing resident, told the council.
But Smith said the council did not
intend to move any residents.
"It's just a managerial thing
whether the town will manage the
Housing Authority or somebody else
will do it," he said.
Maria Robertson, past president
of the Chapel Hill Tenants Organ
ization, said she felt the town had
too many other projects to work with
without taking on the Housing
accessible." More dorms should be
made accessible too, she said.
"You have to balance the cost with
the list of things you want done,"
she said. "An elevator in a three-story
building could go for $300,000."
All classes, programs and services
must be accessible to handicapped
students mobility-impaired stu
dents are just one group under
Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilita
tion Act, Thomas said.
"The act says no university can
discriminate against an otherwise
qualified disabled person in any of
its programs and services," Thomas
Inside
Elson Floyd, assistant dean of the
General College.
The foreign language require
ments have caused advisers the most
frustration because they change
almost every year, he said. Now
students must fulfill one of the three
different foreign language require
ments depending on when they
entered the University.
"1 went to three advisers before
1 got a definite answer about whether
I needed .to ctake .another foreign
language credit," said junior Traci
Earnhardt of Charlotte, an industrial .
relations major.
lVe had friends who had to go
to summer school and did not
graduate on time because their
advisers didn't tell them they needed
more foreign language," she said.
But administrators said the
General College advising system is
satisfactory. "You can't save every
student out there from pushing the
self-destruct button," Jicha said.
Earnhardt said a "satisfactory"
advising system is not enough. "My
adviser was good, but I was still
always trying to make sure I'll
graduate on time."
"1 need more details," she said. "A
lot of times they assume you know
important things that most students,
especially freshmen, just don't
know."
Only about 30 percent of the
students assigned to some advisers
come in at times when they don't
have to preregister, said Jack Wier,
a General College adviser for about
10 years and associate director of
student affairs for the School of
Pharmacy.
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"The town hasn't got the staff to
visit with the tenants and deal with
them sufficiently," she said.
In other business, council
members discussed density bonuses
for contractors and defined afforda
ble housing for the Chapel Hill area.
Affordable housing should be
priced between $35,000 and $70,000,
the council established.
Under the density bonus program,
contractors are provided with 35
percent more floor area and density
to projects if they provide opportun
ities for affordable housing.
Since 1981, density bonuses have
only applied to rental units, accord
ing to Nancy Wells, town clerk.
Town Council is now debating
whether or not to apply bonuses to
other types of housing.
"We're wasting our time with
this," said Smith. "Why are we
beating a dead horse? It hasn't
worked before."
An inclusionary program was
suggested, whereby a developer
would be forced to build a certain
percentage of his project for affor
dable housing, usually 10 to 15
percent.
said. .
"If we did not offer in-patient care
to the general student body, we
would not have to offer it to the
handicapped students, but since we
do, we are required by law to."
According to the act, some dorms
not necessarily all must be
accessible to wheelchair-bound stu
dents, Thomas said. Some, because
of narrow halls or many steps, are
not easy to make accessible to
wheelchairs. Others, like Old East
and Old West, will never be changed
because they are historic landmarks,
she said.
"You see students who have
problems or who are really conscien
tious and want to plan as thoroughly
as possible," Wier said. "There are
a lot of students you never see
some can take care of themselves,
and for others it just means they
aren't taking advantage of the
system."
Jicha said one of the mistakes
students make about the advising
system is thinking advisers can tell
them what they do best. " We can
only suggest or advise, and tell you
what the rules are," he said. We 're
not psychiatrists or psychologists."
Faculty members who choose to
be advisers are usually willing to
work and enjoy talking to students,
Jicha said. "We don't get people to
do it for the money they get about
$4,000 a year."
Junior Debbie Mitchell of
Raleigh, an English education
major, said she thought her adviser
was "great."
"1 didn't expect my adviser to do
everything for me," she said. "If I
had a question, he was there. A lot
of freshmen want some adult to
make up a schedule for them."
Besides creating perspective
requirements, the revisions estab
lished the Department of General
Education to oversee the curriculum.
"Before, there was no faculty
committee to review the curricu
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General Electric
plains large layoff
By ROBERT KEEFE
Business Editor
General Electric Company
announced Monday it would
soon lay off hundreds of workers
at its Research Triangle Park
semi-conductor plant.
The layoff is due mainly to the
merger of GE and RCA that took
place several months ago, accord
ing to Jan Walker, communica
tion specialist with the GE
Microelectronics Center.
Walker said the cuts would be
entirely across the board, with
layoffs occurring in the manufac
turing, management and support
divisions of the company.
Although the exact number of
employees being laid off will not
be available until next week,
Walker said it would be less than
300.
The GE plant employs around
700 people.
"The whole corporation is
going through an assimilation
process," said Walker. "As a
result, we have had to make many
adjustments, including the
layoff."
Since the merger, GERCA
has decided to move all internal
marketing (marketing to com
panies within the GERCA cor
poration) to the Research Trian
gle plant, and all external
marketing (marketing to com
panies outside the GERCA
corporation) to a plant in Som
merville, N.J., formerly owned by
RCA.
The slumping semiconductor
industry, which has caused the
loss of thousands of jobs nation
wide, was also an attributing
factor in the GE layoff
Semiconductors are small sil
icon chips used to store informa
tion in computers and other high
lum," said William Graves, associate
dean of General Education. "We've
made it more of a dynamic structure,
so faculty and students know what's
going on and what the new ideas
are."
The Office of General Education
makes course selections according to
Faculty Council guidelines, and it
makes sure high schools know how
to prepare students to enter the
University, Graves said. Also, the
office has raised money to help
North Carolina high schools reach
the University's expectations, he
said.
Cell said the General Education
Office is crucial to the continuing
development of the curriculum. But
people need to understand the
reasons behind any set of require
ments to really benefit from them,
she said.
She said the General College
should improve the interaction
among faculty and students, espe
cially freshmen. "I'm concerned
about thinking of ways in which
particularly for freshmen we can
break down the size of this
institution.
"I'm looking at ways in the first
year, whether through smaller
classes or developing individual
programs in the dormitories, to give
freshman students a better expe
rience," she said.
i. 5 ill fell
Wjj
tech products.
Production is also being
phased out at General Electric's
only other semiconductor plant,
located in Syracuse, N.Y.
RCA has three other semicon
ductor plants, which will be
incorporated into the merger over
the next several months.
Walker said she did not know
if employment cuts would occur
at the other GERCA plants.
Just down the road in Durham,
things are on a much brighter side
at North Carolina's only other
semiconductor manufacturing
plant.
According to Kazuo Wata- H
nabe, president of Mitsubishi
Semiconductor America, there
has been no decrease in sales at
his plant; in fact, sales are up.
"I feel very, very sorry for the
problems at GE," said Watanabe.
"But we have had to deal with
the same type of market."
Watanabe said production at
Mitsubishi has almost doubled in
the past year, and they are
currently producing about three
million chips a month at the plant.
He attributes Mitsubishi's suc
cess to good, in-house manage
ment and faithful employees.
GERCA produces semicon
ductors for the aerospace indus
try, the mobile radio cellular
phone industry, the medical and
other industries.
Mitsubishi Semiconductor 1
America, which is the Japan
based corporation's only chip
manufacturing plant, produces
semiconductors for IBM, North
ern Telecom and National Cash
Register, among others.
Mitsubishi also has 10 other
companies located in the United
States, some that use the chips
manufactured in Durham.
from page 1
Cell said she had considered re
establishing small seminar courses
for freshmen. Created in 1970, the
seminars' attendance dwindled after
about four years.
"(Providing freshman seminars
was something I wanted to do when
I became a dean, but when I sat down
and saw the logistics of it, I realized
it wasn't possible with our present
system," she said.
The Office of General Education
shifted its emphasis to developing
capstone courses, designed to top off
a college education, Graves said. .
"We offer 10 to 15 courses a
semester with small sections
challenging courses which are like
the seminars but not geared to
freshmen, but juniors and seniors,"
he said.
In the last four years the General
College has spent more time mon
itoring the progress of freshmen to
decrease the number of dropouts,
Floyd said. '
But Graves said the success or
failure of any curriculum or advising
system depends on how students see
the system.
"If you come here and take the
view that you're going to be
journalism or business major and
we've just set up barriers for you
then you probably won get much!
out of the perspectives," he said. i
7