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Volume 25, Number 6 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE October ID, 1996
Campus Highlights CANDffiATES THREATENED WITH DISQUALIFICATION
■ The rumors that you may have
heard about a possible appearance on
national television for UNCA are true.
Last Friday, a crew from Asheville’s
WLOS-TV taped a seven-second seg
ment for “Good Morning America,” a
nationally televised program airing on
ABC. The segment was a “Good
Morning” wave that the program uses
between stories or before commer
cials. The campus representatives for
UNCA’s seven seconds of stardom
were the UNCA Ambassadors, who
gathered on the steps of Ramsey Li
brary for the taping. Air date is tenta
tively set for Oct. 21, and the time
should be between 7:15 and 8:35
a.m. Merianne Epstein, the director
for public information, said that the
airing is “pretty absolute, unless some
thing terrible happens.” She added
that while it would have been won
derful to have the entire campus turn
out for the filming, ABC’s limit is 10
people. Epstein said that the Univer
sity Ambassadors were chosen because
they are “already in that greeting role. ”
So, everyone wake up early on Mon
day, Oct. 21 to see your school on
national television.
■ On Saturday, Oct. 12, the
men’s soccer team plays Radford Uni
versity at 2 p.m. on Greenwood Field.
The game is free to all faculty, staff,
and students with ID.
■ The women’s soccer team
plays Lenoir-Rhyne College at 4 p.m.
on Monday Oct. 14. The game is at
Greenwood Field and is free to all
faculty, staff, and students with ID.
■ “Opening Doors: A Dialogue
on Organizational Racism” will be
held at the MAHEC building on
Biltmore Avenue on Monday, Oct.
14. The dialogue will be from 6-8
p.m.
■ A professor of literature at
Vassar College and author of “Spo
ken in Darkness” will visit UNCA
Oct. 16-20. While at UNCA, Ann
Imbrie will lecture and conduct read
ings in a number of classes. She will
also give a public reading at 3 p.m. on
Oct. 17 in the Laurel Forum. All
students and visitors ^re welcome.
Trish Johnson
Staff Writer
Recent Student Government Elec
tions (SGA) resulted in victories by
three freshman out of seven students
that ran. The Sept. 28 election
occured without incident, despite
candidates being warned about cam
paign tampering beforehand.
A warning was given to the student
candidates while they were campaign
ing, according to Mischa Irsch, sena
tor and coordinator of the freshman
senate elections. There were rumors
about flyers being torn down.
“I had no proof, so I couldn’t dis
qualify anyone,” said Irsch.
Zach Petersen, Myriah Skidmore,
and Eric Winters are the students
who will join SGA this semester.
The warning given to the candi
dates about campaign tampering was
not necessary, according to Winters.
“Myriah, Zach and I did not pro
mote anyone to tear
flyers down,” said
Winters. “Someone
told Mischa that they
saw Myriah tearing
one down, but
Myriah is not that
type of person, nor is
Zach or I. For them
gether and talked about it, and de
cided that we didn’t want this to get
sour, so everything went cool after
that.”
Campaigning
was a lot of
work this year,
because of the
competition be-
The vote count in
the freshman SGA
senate election:
to give us a warnmg,
and to say that we
are disqualified if it
happens again, is
silly.”
“A lot of people said I did some
things, people I didn’t even know, but
I wouldn’t stoop that low to get into
SGA, “ said Skidmore. “ I think it got
way out of hand, but we all got to-
Zach Petersen 89
Myriah Skidmore 80
Eric Winters 75
tween students,
according to
Irsch. The stu
dents passed
out flyers and
candy, and
wrote on the
sidewalk with chalk. Skidmore and
Winters ran for SGA together.
“Myriah and I campaigned our butts
off, and got our names out there,”
said Winters.
“I did all kinds of campaigning, but
mostly I went around and introduced
myself to a lot of people,” said
Petersen.
There was a mixer held before the
candidates were elected that allowed
students to discuss and debate issues
and concerns, according to Irsch.
Around 60 people showed up for the
debate, which took about 45 min
utes.
“The main purpose of the debate is
for people to know who is running,”
said Irsch.
There were two days of voting for
students who had less than 30 hours
of credit. There were 180 students
that voted for three people, and out of
505 votes that were cast, Petersen
received the most votes with 8.9.
Skidmore received 80 votes, and Win-
ELECTION cont. on pg.8
Search for replacement of system president begins at UNCA
Alex Self
Staff Writer
The search for a new president of the North
Carolina University System began last Wednes
day night at a public hearing held by the Board of
Governor’s Leadership Statement Committee on
UNCA campus. The new chief administrator
must live up to high standards, said many of the
community and university speakers who attended.
“We’re looking for a combination of Mother
Teresa and a lot of other things,” said Pamela
Turner, the chairman of the Board of Trustees at
UNCA. “It goes without saying that we want
somebody with honor, high morals, intelligence,
and other outstanding personal qualities.”
The hearing came two months after UNC Presi
dent C.D. Spangler, Jr., 64, announced plans to
retire next year, according to John Garwood, a
member of the Leadership Statement Commit
tee.
The Leadership Statement Committee was one
of three committees appointed by the Board of
Governors, according to Garwood. It’s chief goal
was not to discuss specific candidates on Wednes
day, but to use community input to weed out
candidates as they apply.
“The Leadership Committee was created to de
velop a [list] of leadership characteristics to be
used in selecting the next president,” Garwood
said. “The committee will review all of the
comments made during the public hearings and
consider them as we draft our leadership state
ment that will be recommended to the full UNC
Board for its approval.
“The approved leadership statement forwarded
to the screening and search committee will direct
the work of the search process,” said Garwood.
Asheville area resident Lillian Fischer said the
decision to appoint a new chief administrator
should be looked at as an opportunity for UNCA
^4 f*
7
Photo by courtesy
UNC Publicity
UNC system president C.D. Spangler,
to “re-invent itself.”
“We can certainly take some models from our
corporations that are trying to accomplish the
same thing,” said Fischer. “What they are typi
cally doing is that they’re bringing in somebody
fairly young, and typically somebody who has
very different levels of experience.
“I’m not telling you that you necessarily need to
look for someone outside the education system,”
Fischer said. “But you might have a better oppor
tunity to get somebody who is really new at this if
they do come from outside the institutional edu
cational system.”
Bruce Larson, the chair of UNCA’s faculty sen
ate, said that although experience in other sectors
of business was helpful, he wanted a new presi
dent with a background in education.
“Experience in the business sector is a good
thing,” said Larson. “I would not at all be opposed
to seeing someone from the nonprofit sector, the
private sector, be the head of our UNC system, so
long as that person has had experience as a full
time faculty member, and has been a senior ad
ministrator in the public sector university.”
A university system president with no educa
tional background is like a person “herding cats,”
said Linda Nelms, associate professor of manage
ment.
“It is very different to enter a situation when you
have no background in it,” Nelms said. “The
leader of an educational institution is stepping
into something that is challenging to say the least.
“I am a strong supporter of the ideal that this
person should have a background in education,”
Nelms said.
Turner said that along with educational exper
tise, the next chief administrator needs good
business sense in order to run a large university
system well.
“This is a multi-million dollar company that
we’re running, “ said Turner. “We need someone
with business experience.”
PRESIDENT cont. on pg. Sl
Lecture exposes deep emotions on homosexuality from both sides
Aimee Campbell
Staff Writer
A Veritas Forum discussion of ho
mosexuality received mixed reactions
from the UNCA community. The
responses varied, ranging from indig
nity on behalf of the gay community
to gladness from the Christian com
munity that the Christian view was
presented .
“Although he was definitely an edu
cated man, and knew what he was
talking about from a very conserva
tive Christian point of view, I was
rather indignant that he portrayed
the gay community as nothing more
than drug-addicted, alcohol-abusing
individuals led by their libido,” said
sophomore Malyki Ribar.
The speaker, Dr. Thomas
Schmidt,author of “Straight and
Narrow?” spoke on the issues of ho
mosexuality and modern morality
from a Christian perspective, citing
both the Bible and research in his
lecture.
“I think there’s a lot more to the
culture of the gay community and
they deserve to be represented as a lot
"...he (Schmidt)
portrayed the gay
community as
nothing more than
drug-addicted, al-
cohol-abusing in
dividuals led by
their libido."
—Malyki Ribar
more dignified,” Ribar said. “He is
an educated man. I respect that. But
he needs to educate himself from a
sociological perspective, not just a
religious one.”
Some students believe that Schmidt
remained objective and fair through
out his speech, which involved a ques
tion and answer session from the au
dience.
“I think he did a good job being
objective and presenting information
from a point of view that he knows
about,” said junior Doug Flaherty.
Others believe that Schmidt could
have been more objective, but chose
not to do so.
“Everyone has the ability to give a
fair representation, but whether or
not they choose to do so is a com
pletely different matter,” said Ribar.
“In his case, he may have the ability,
but he chose not to. Instead, he was
very biased and very derogatory to
wards the entire community.”
Some students applauded Schmidt’s
use of statistics as a means to back up
his argument.
“I know that statistics can be used
in many ways, but he stayed respect
able by not blowing things out of
proportion,” said Flaherty. “He pre
sented the facts in such a way that
didn’t make it sound worse than it
really is.”
“I’m glad he went about it from a
medical and scientific view, speaking
the language our world speaks,”
Flaherty said. “Some may not have
liked his conclusions, but he did a
good job of presenting them.”
“I think the way he used statistics
worked very well,” said freshman
"I'm glad he
(Schmidt) went
about it from a medi
cal and scientific
view; speaking the
language our world
speaks."
—Doug Flaherty
Michelle Ray. “I think it was good to
use statistics to back his points, I
think it helped people to see his
point of view.”
In his hour-long lecture, Schmidt
recounted personal stories of friends
who had died from AIDS, as well as
statistical information regarding ho
mosexuals. Many of his statistics
centered on homosexual males.
“Monogamy in the gay male popu
lation is almost non-existant,” said
Schmidt. “Are they (pedophiles) the
next civil rights issue?”
“There appears to be overwhelm
ing evidence that, for many, the
body is being sacrificed to the heart,”
said Schmidt. “Power to live the
Biblical norm doesn’t coitie from
rational argument, but from God
himself.”
However, some students thought
that Schmidt’s statistics were in
consistent with what they believe is
the truth.
“I believe he said that the gay
VERITAS cont. on pg. 10