Newspapers / North Carolina Wesleyan University … / Feb. 13, 1987, edition 1 / Page 3
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FEBRUARY 13,1987 — THE DECREE — PAGE 3 Campus violence increasing in U.S. Three years ago, Dorothy Siegel, Towson State University's vice president of student services, thought there was something dif ferent — perhaps more violent — about the campus crime people were talking about. After a vain search for statistics about the issue, Siegel eventually organized the first Nat ional Conference on Campus Vio lence, which she hosted at Towson two weeks ago. At the conference, about 150 police officers, student services and residence hall personnel, and judicial officers from nearly 50 colleges submitted reports that, while not fully tabulated yet, indicated the campus crime rate nationwide has been falling but the number of violent crimes is increasing. "What we found was only about one-third of campuses reported an increase of crime, but the violent nature of those crimes is in creasing," Siegel said. Crimes are Book helps relationships Contact: The First Four Minutes, An Intimate Guide To First Encounters, by Leo nard Zunin, M.D. and Natalie Zunin, Ballantine Books, New York, 13th printini>, 1983, 269 pp., $2.95 at local bookstores, available on loan from tiic Office of Co-op/Carcer Plan ning, Room 139. By SUSAN VV. MORRIS Understanding how you relate to other people is essential to developing positive and perhaps, meaningful relationships with oth ers — whether those relationships arc casual or on-going, professional or personal, face to face or through correspondence. Contact includes a brief dis cussion on almost all aspccts of human interaction: verbal contact, nonverbal communication, sexual encounters, contact with children, the classroom and office, by tele phone and by letter. Most, people have experience the "eternity" of those first few minutes of an interview, a male- female encounter, or an introduc tion to someone at a party. Are you aware of the impressions you make? Arc you comfortable with yourself? Do you attract the kind of people you are attracted to? According to Dr. Zunin, there arc some basic principles of contact which can be learned and practiced to assist you in breaking through that "four minute barrier" of initial contact lime when relationships are born or aborted. For example, four points of initial contact arc crucial to creating a response in others, to creating an involvement, to communicating. The points arc: (1) confidence, (2) creativity, (3) caring, and (4) consideration. Sounds simple. However lonli- ness and rejection, shattered friend ships and hollow relation-ships to point to a need for improved understanding of human inter change. Dr. Zunin docs not claim that Contact presents "a universal truth" — "just a guide." 'Aspects' seeking material By DR. STEVE What exactly is the function of reading, writing and thinking about the written word? (groan, moan. Don't they know this is a newspaper? News, news — not English class.) Well, I don't know exactly. We read, so Samuel Beckett might say, to pass the time. We write to express. We read to learn. (Crappola, Ferebee. What's for lunch?) And what about amateur writing? (Hey, bro, this dude says they have writing in the Olyinpics!) What about all those clumsy, half-finished stories; those wild-eyed, never-heard songs; those sad, happy love (here it comes) poems; those passionate (hey, get down Doc!) hot-issue essays; those colorful little drawings? When there's Shakespeare, should we worry about the rookies? I read quite a bit of this stuff as director of Aspects, Wesleyan's literary magazine. Frankly, quite a bit of that bit is (hey, man, he's talking about my 112 essay) weak. But it keeps me in touch with the basics. People write to express. The people we know write about the issues and ideas we want to think about. (Dig, he thinks we want to think when we're not in class. T urkey.) And this is the function of publications like Aspects: to put into public print words written by (or ■ pictures drawn by) us. We withdraw to our respective dorm rooms and try to say a logical work or two about the madness. (What's he know? He's old\) Not all of these words should become public; not all that become public should be remembered. But we ought to try; we ought to care enough about each other to share the reading, the writing, the thinking. Part of our education is here. (Ooo, wee! I'll give him that piece I wrote last semester. See if he can take that!) But it doesn't work if we don't begin the sharing process by typing up the words — or cleaning up the drawing — and submitting them to me by March 21. I take poems, stories, essays, lyrics, plays, graphics. I take them from students, faculty, staff. Then I need help typing them. (What? Do I look like a fool?) becoming more dangerous." The preliminary figures also indicate alcohol consumption is involved in an increasing number of campus assaults. More than 50 percent of the total 350 campuses Siegel has polled also said they now regularly let civil courts try students in volved in on-campus crimes. Ten years ago, Siegel noted, most cases were arbitrated by on-campus judicial boards. Not many people had realized campuses were becoming more violent until they met at the con ference to swap impressions, Siegel added. "Violence exists," Siegel asser ted. "A small but increasing num ber of people know about it. Campus residence directors act ually see more of the violent crimes than police officers." Consequently, "university ad ministrators are at sea about it," said Dr. Michael Smith, criminal justice professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. "They don't know how to respond." An improper response, though, can injure a school's reputation and lead to legal complications if a victim of violent crime on campus decides to sue the college, he added. At Ohio State, for instance, a woman who was raped and ass aulted in a campus dorm sued the school for $250,000 in damages. The suit charges OSU officials with negligence in protecting the woman, breach of a housing con tract by implying the dorm was safe and habitable, and misrepre sentation of campus safety and security. In recent years, in fact, courts have found Washington State, Den ver, Northwestern College, Iowa, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, among many others, liable for accidents and violent crimes on their campuses. "If a campus has a history of criminal events or a campus is known to be dangerous it's a sit uation of 'foreseeable crime,"' said Smith, a key speaker at the Tow son conference. "Colleges have a duty to warn people about such situations even if the administration doesn't want to admit it. The courts said if you don't make such warnings, you're I breaching your duty to students and you're liable." If, for example, college bro chures depict a campus as a quiet, idyllic haven, but the campus real ly is a dangerous place, a student victim of violence on that campus can claim the school was derelict in its duty to warn students of danger. "Courts think universities are important and that they should be safe places," Smith said. "When colleges discipline students or fac ulty involved in criminal behavior, the courts uphold the colleges al most unaminously." The University of South Caro lina, for example, was named in a suit in which a student claims he was hit and his eardrum damaged during a 1985 Omega Psi Phi initia tion. The student argued both USC and the fraternity were responsible, despite the school's strong anti hazing policy. But earlier in January, a circuit judge dropped USC from the case, saying the college is not liable for the unofficial acts of students in situations not under its control. While the courts usually support colleges in incidents where definite school policies have been violated, "they seldom uphold the college in 'foreseeable' suits where a student has been injured," Smith said. Smith said the Towson confer ence served as a sounding board for college administrators who felt isolated by their campus violence problems, and the meeting helped identify new strategies for security, night class scheduling and police procedures. F orce Make It Work D istance SENIORS WANTED FOR MANAGEMENT TRAINEE POSITIONS Roses Recruiter on campus April 8 — Completed credential files re quired. Sign-Up Deadline — Mar. 14 On Campus Speaker — March 2. Stay tuned for notices. Summer Jobs in New England (Nantucket, Cape Code, and Mar tha's Vineyard) Summer Jobs at Champlain Col lege, Burlington, Vermont: Compu ter instructors, counselors, athletic instructors Permanent Jobs with YMCA's ross the nation. See job listings. ac- Part-time clerical position in Rocky Mount: 10-20 hours per week, $4/hr., typing required, personal com puter experience helpful. For more information about these jobs, see the job board outside rooms 139 and 141. Suggested Reading — How To Master The Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins: How To Learn and Study in College by Victor P. Mai o ran a; Top Performance: How To Develop Excellence In Yourself, And Others by Zig Ziglar; What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles. Office of Cooperative Education/Career Planning Rooms 139 and 141 Office Hours 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Evening Hours By Appointment
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