M
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AROUND
BfJiiliBlwIiisi
WORLD
,„and hack
Compiled by Maryelien Corbett
and Sarah Hagevik
■ PLO chief Yasser Arafat and Is
raeli foreign minister Shimon Peres
dosed an agreement Somiay Sep
tember 24 expanding Palestinian
rule in the West B^nk, Pal^dnians
now control most of the territory
which Israel had occupied smce the
I960’s.
tt Peace in Bosnia may finally be
achieved with a meeting on Septem
ber 26 between Serbian, Croatian
and Bosnian leaders; the US {wo-
posed peace plan includes a cease
fire and a divided State with temtory
furis oaoh. ethnic, group; Prudent.
Clinton has promised US troops to
enforce the peace plan which would
end the 42-month conflict
M Alexei Yablokov told German
television that decommi^oned Rus
sian submarineswere“floating
Cfaemobyls” that could explode at
any moment
tt Hurricane Marilyn destroyed St
Thomas, leaving 12,000 homely
and seriously hindering a 1 bilHon
see around the world, page 6
INSIDE THIS
ISSUE
♦NCSSM’s Educational Tech
nology Complex, scheduled for
completion March, 1997, will
provide the school witti a
theater and a student center-
Page 2,
♦Have you been paired with the
world's worst roommate? Some
NCSSM students reveal their
worst experiences with room
mates arid offer advice on how
to deal with them- Page 4
♦ Reviews of Desperado and
Babe, plus upcoming local
events- Page 8.
tentorian
The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
Oct 10,1995
Cheerleading dropped from roster
Anne Fawcett
News Editor
Amid boos by some students
and cheerleaders, cheerleading has
been dropped from the athletic de
partment for the 1995-1996 season.
This, in addition to other factors, will
cause drastic changes for the squad
this year.
Cheerleading’s removal
from the athletic program is not a
sudden move. Actually, Branson
Brown, NCSSM’s athletic director,
has seen it coining for the last sev
eral years.
“Cheerleading was started
explicitly as a support function for
the sports for which they cheered,”
said Brown. “It had evolved to a per
formance-based activity in and of it
self, and did not complement the ath
letic department. I had an objection
to calling it cheerleading, because
they did not lead cheers.”
State rules allow cheerlead
ers to perform only during deadballs
and time-outs in basketball games.
NCSSM’s cheerleaders had to be
reminded to remain seated at times
other than these, and cheerleading
became an irritant, according to
Brown.
To remedy the situation last
year. Brown suggested that the
cheerleaders take part in spirit
week. Seeing how competitive the
squad had become, he also men
tioned that the cheerleaders could
hold a competition at NCSSM. No
effort seemed to be made on ei
ther measure.
“Do we want a gymnastic
team or a group to incorporate the
fans into the support of our [ath
letic] teams?” said Dr. Joan Bar
ber, Director of Student Life. “I’ve
never seen other cheerleaders as
competitive, but I should have ex
pected it by the nature of our stu
dents here.”
Brown agreed. ‘They’re
the hardest working squad I’ve
ever seen,” he said. This raised
other concerns, however.
Cheerleading is not a state-sanc
tioned sport, yet cheerleaders held
formal practices with a coach
longer than any other sport allows-
from October 28 to May 25 of last
school year. This led to quite a few
injuries which Brown thought
were due to fatigue.
“If I were to rank the num
ber of injuries for each sport, only
one other team had more. That
would be soccer,” he said. Aside
from fatigue, injuries also oc-
see cheerleading, page 2
NCSSM Cheerleaders were a hit last year. Due to safety
concerns cheerleading has been dropped as a sport.
Carolyn Chu
Abstinence law not to affect NCSSM programs
Alton Patrick
Staff Writer
Many high school sex education pro
grams across North Carolina will be getting a
facelift over the next two years, but NCSSM’s
won't be among them.
The state legislature recently passed a bill
requiring all public high schools to teach absti
nence until marriage as the only answer to teen
sex. Schools that do not comply by the 1996-
97 school year will have to hold public hear
ings if they want to teach different ideas. The
legislation, however, does not apply at NCSSM.
"NCSSM is not part of a city or county
school system. Because of this. North
Carolina's recent General Assembly legislation
does not affect NCSSM as it would a regular
high school....Because of our unique situation
as a residential school, [Student Life] 101 will
be educating NCSSM students in a number of
relevant and required sexual issues while teach
ing abstinence," said a statement from the Stu
dent Life office.
The Sexual Issues program at NCSSM,
administered through Student Life 101, will
give students a choice among five courses fo
cused on various facets of sexual education.
However, all the courses will include core in
formation about contraceptives, as well as ab
stinence, without showing bias towards one
or the other. The idea behind the Sexual Issues
curriculum is to provide students with infor
mation they need to make decisions rather than
telling them what decision to make. Dr Joan
Barber, Director of Student Life at NCS JM,
said, "We would never want to be seen by par
ents, students, or the community as advocat
ing one idea over another. We want to empower
students to make intelligent choices by edu
cating them about those choices. Abstinence is
a choice they have and it has some advantages."
One of the Sexual Issues courses will be
focused on abstinence. Kevin Cromwell is the
student life instructor who will be teaching the
course. He also believes that abstinence should
be taught, but not by itself. "I think [abstinence]
should be taught, but it's naive to assume that
it will solve all the problems," Cromwell said.
"NCSSM is supposed to create the future lead
ers of North Carolina. If the leaders don't know
about these issues, how can they lead?"
Now that the General Assembly has
taken this step towards reducing the high teen
age pregnancy rate in North Carolina, the ques
tion is, will it work?
Barber suggests that abstinence deserves
a chance. "I think I'd like to see the results of
the experiment first," she said. "There seems
to be a lot of debate that not pushing abstinence
hasn't helped - North Carolina is still among
the highest in the nation in teen pregnancy - so
it will be interesting to the see the results in the
choices high school students make regarding
sexual issues."
Some students, though, prefer the way
most high schools already teach about sexual
issues.
"I think the way they teach about birth
control now is good because you can experi
ment without having to worry about STDs and
unwanted pregnancies as much, and teens are
always going to experiment," said NCSSM jun
ior John Wu.
While the abstinence legislation will not
directly affect NCSSM, it has left a mark on
the future of Student Life at NCSSM.
"The issue of abstinence helped us fine-
tune the Student Life curriculum to fit the needs
of all students," Barber said.