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INSIDE
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OCTOBER 29,1996
a Elections'96
P* The Daily Tar Heel looks at
k g council of state candidates
and state constitutional
™ amendments. Page 2
Miscount of Greeks risks town fluids
BY KATE HARRISON
STAFF WRrTER
Chapel Hill might lose population
based revenues next year because of a
possibly inflated estimate of students liv
ing in Greek houses in this year’s report
to the state.
“About 2,600 students, give or take
100, are in the Greek system right now,”
said Ron Binder, director of Greek Af
fairs. “But less than half ofthem—maybe
more like one-third, actually live in
Greek housing.”
Towns receive money from the state
in relation to the total population of a
county. In population estimates, Chapel
Hill includes residents of Greek houses
as residents of Chapel Hill. The 2,500
students that the Department of Univer
sity Housing reported as residents of
Greek houses might be the total popula
tion of students in the Greek system, an
error that could account for about 1,000
extra people in the population estimate.
Binder said he could not recall if he
had been asked to give an exact calcula
tion to the University of the number of
students in Greek housing.
State Demographer Bill Tillman said
he had no proof of whether the Univer
Anonymous
AIDS testing
questioned
■ Some health officials say
identification provides for
better medical treatment,
BY JONATHAN SESSLER
STAFF WRITER
A recent study on the benefits of anony
mous AIDS testing has raised much con
troversy between health officials and
medical researchers.
Thursday’s American Journal of Pub
lic Health stated that more people were
tested for AIDS in counties that offered
anonymous tests than in counties that
required patients to reveal their names.
However, the state Department of
Health has started a movement to elimi
nate anonymous AIDS testing. State
health officials say these studies do not
prove such testing methods are benefi
cial.
A North Carolina study ended anony
mous testing in all but 18 counties, while
launching an AIDS awareness program.
The results found an increase in testing
statewide, but testing increased by 44
percent in counties without anonymous
testing as opposed to 64 percent in coun
ties that allowed it.
UNC Professor of Epidemiology Irva
Hertz-Picciotto, who was involved in the
N.C. study, said, “Testing was rising
faster among all groups of people than in
areas without anonymous testing. This
suggests that this lack of availability is a
deterrent.”
Senior Legislative Representative Jay
Cobum at AIDS Action Council said the
absence of anonymous testing prevented
potential treatment of patients.
"We are trying to get people tested
because of new drugs that are available,”
Cobum said. “We want to get them treat
ment. Anything to discourage treatment
should be avoided.”
Cobum said many people would not
get tested if they were required to give
their names because they were afraid
they would be victims of prejudice and
even violence.
“People with AIDS fear they will be
discriminated against,” Cobum said.
“There was an attempt in Congress to
exclude immigrants from entering the
country who had AIDS. The bill did not
pass, but people who just read about the
bill in the paper became very scared.”
Michael Moser, director of the Divi
sion ofEpidemiology at the state Depart
ment of Health, said anonymous testing
was neither beneficial to patients nor to
the public at large.
“With anonymous testing there is no
See AIDS TESTING, Page 7
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall in an open sewer and die.
Mel Brooks
sity had made a mistake, but if the num
ber reflected everyone in the Greek sys
tem, those students who were in fraterni
ties or sororities but living in University
housing could have been counted twice.
"In the report, we are asking for the
number of students in Greek housing,
not the number who are in the system,”
Tillman said. “The University housing
figures are completely separate.”
The Department of University Hous
ing could not be reached for comment on
the population form’s specifications.
If the town amended its reports to
include only those students in Greek
housing, the city could lose population
based revenues from the state. This year,
the town will already lose abouts2oo,ooo
in state allocated funds because of a 1,309
person decrease in the city’s population
assessment.
“I don’t have the precise figures be
cause amounts vary based on the amount
of gas and sales tax money the state takes
in, but population-based distributions
could be about $ 100 per person per year, ”
Tillman said.
“If the town had to decrease its Greek
count, there is a good chance it would not
have to give back any money, but it
probably would feel the blow the next
Home schooling offers parents choice and control, but critics worry about the impact on children.
Are Moms and Dads the best teachers?
BY JONATHAN WATSON
STAFF WRITER
Five years ago, Carol Norton’s son, Steven,
chipped his tooth at school. The school librarian
told him to wrap it in a piece of tissue and tell his
teacher about it later. He forgot, and when he got
home Carol Norton noticed the tooth was chipped.
“Nobody called to tell me,” she said. This
incident and some others like it led Norton to
choose to teach her son and daughter at home.
“My kids weren’t getting enough individual
attention in the public schools,” she said.
Parents in growing numbers are choosing to
keep their children at home for a wide range of
reasons. Many, like Norton, simply feel dissatis
fied with the public school system. Others fear
ISSUES
ggea (EJjp Satltj alar litti
Top 5 Campus Issues
The Daily Tar Heel conducted an intercept poll
of 395 people on campus from Sept. 10 to
Sept. 15 to determine which of 24 issues
were most important to the University.
'yjT/ Schools and education
Crime
Abortion
Balancing the budget
The environment
ADDITIONAL COVERAGE ON PAGE 4
■ Politicians square off on improving schools
■ Teachers' unions, politicians debate reforms
■ Educators still question ability grouping
Environmental costs of quarry expansion worry neighbors
BY MARY-KATHRYN CRAFT
ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR
A group of Cartboro residents are
worried that a granite quarry’s possible
expansion near their neighborhood will
create environmental problems.
Residents that live in the Bethel
Hickory Grove Church Road area are
involved in mediation with the owner of
the quarry and the Orange Water and
Sewer Authority.
American Stone Company, a division
of Martin Marietta Materials, owns the
quarry and wants to expand it across a
25-acre land tract, said Paxton Badham,
vice president of land and environmental
services at Martin Marietta Materials.
pan Virtual haunts
▲ / Halloween web sites show A
*1 flfi jack-o'-lantern lights and the ”
} jJMH darker side of the Web.
* Page 5
Taxing problems
for the tom
The University possibly gave the Town of Chapel Hill
incorrect numbers of students living in Greek housing.
If the town reports this to the state, it could stand to lose
funds from its share of N.C. tax revenues next year.
DTH/ANNE RILEY
year.”
Sandling Merritt, state supervisor of
sale and use tax audit unit, said last
quarter the43,466Orange County Chapel
Hill residents receivedsl,237,l4l in sales
tax revenue and the 1,382 Durham
County Chapel Hill residents received
$51,451.08, equalling nearly slls per
person, per year.
“Webase our distribution on the most
recent population estimate by Mr.
Tillman’s office," Merritt said. “If a cor
rection was made, the distributions would
dangers they associate with public schools, like
drugs and violence. Some wish to maintain tradi
tional values they feel are challenged away from
home.
“I don’t know of any child who has been forced
into home schooling,” said Norton, who has taught
her daughter and son at home for the last five years.
Some children go back to public schools and find
they don’t like it, so they go back to home school
ing, she said.
Home schooling is nothing new, said Susan
Van Dyke of North Carolinians for Home Educa
tion, a Raleigh-based support group for home
schoolers. “The tutorial method is probably the
oldest teaching method,” she said.
There are many advantages to keeping educa
tion at home, like a superior ratio of teachers to
students, Van Dyke said. While public schools are
moving to lower ratios of teachers to students,
parents can give one-to-one interaction at home.
This means home schoolers greet a program
each day that offers more for the individuality of
the student, Van Dyke said. “People have different
learning styles,” she said. “Not all students learn
best from a book.”
And parents ought to know what method is best
for their children, said Van Dyke, who home
schooled her children for seven years. If parents
want to change the curriculum at home, all they
have to do is change it. She said this allowed
parents to assign work at the level the student was
on.
Another advantage is that home-schooled chil
dren are not always confined in a classroom with
other students of the same age, Van Dyke said.
This interaction of different age groups is benefi
cial because it is a truer reflection of the real world,
she said. “They’re having interaction with all lev
els, including adults.”
Teaching children of different ages together is
not a problem, said Diane Morgen, a Durham
parent who teaches her children at home. Like
Norton, Morgen said she felt her children did not
get enough attention at school.
Morgen said the solution for some families was
unit studies. When doing unit studies, all of the
children in the family study the same thing like the
American Revolution or dinosaurs, but on differ
Badham said after an old quarry was
closed in the 19605, the resulting basin
was sold to OWASA as a water reser
voir. In the late 19705, the current quarry
was dug across the road from the previ
ous one, and the stone company’s cur
rent plan is to connect the two pits and
donate them to OWASA.
“The end result would allow OWASA
to get free of charge a 3 billion gallon
reservoir,” Badham said.
Manual Wortman, a resident who lives
near the quarry, said he and his neigh
bors were concerned about the effects of
expanding the existing quarry on their
water supply.
“There is a good deal of uncertainty
about what (the mining) is doing to the
tYour service or
your sweetheart?
N.C. Hillel sponsored a talk *
on interfaith relationships
Monday. Page 7
change in the future."
Chapel Hill Finance Director Jim
Baker said the reported Greek popula
tion of 2,500 was an estimate based on
the best information the University had.
“I have no reason to believe that the
head of student affairs reported the Uni
versity population inaccurately,” he said.
As for the loss incurred by the town
this year, he said the s2oo,oooloss would
not, by itself, cause any change in the
town’s services, since it was only about 1
percent of the budget.
DTH/AMYCAPHELLO
Horne schoolers bring their children to a local church once a week for special classes and
activities. Friday, Sue Tal helped Andi Zahoori, 7, and Joseph Coyne, 5, make Halloween masks.
ent levels, she said.
Some groups, like the National Education As
sociation and the parent-teacher association, ques
tion the potential for home-schooled children to
learn social skills, like how to get along with others
or how to work in a group.
Van Dyke said socialization was not really a
problem. Most home schoolers are active in many
other activities, such as church groups and the 4-H
Club, she said.
Norton and Morgen both bring their children to
a cooperative teaching program on Tuesdays in
Chapel Hill. At this “Tuesday School,” 19 home
schoolers between the ages of 11 and 15 study
subjects like Spanish, biology and art.
Still, critics question home schoolers’ standards,
qualities of our wells,” he said.
Another worry is how the expansion
would affect the entire community’s water
supply since it would be so close to the
existing water reservoir, Wortman said.
“There are public issues concerning
the watershed,’’Wortman said. “What is
(the quarry) doing to the drainage basin
of Morgan Creek? The neighborhood is
asking why aren’t they a little more care
ful about using a gravel pit in a water
shed.”
Wortman said residents also were con
cerned about noise from the quarry and
the dust created by blasting the rocks.
“Problems are that people in the neigh
borhood hear the noise caused by grind
ing of the rocks and the blasts,” he said.
Today's
Weather .
Mostly sunny; *
low 70s.
Wednesday; Sunny tow 70s.
Report: female faculty
not facing glass ceiling
BY ASHLEY STEPHENSON
STAFF WRITER
A “ glass ceiling” discouraging the pro
motion of female faculty does not exist at
UNC, according to a report recently re
leased by the Office of the Provost.
The report showed the results of a
year-long study of the careers and pro
motions of female faculty at the Univer
sity and concluded that men and women
are promoted to faculty positions at the
same rate.
From 1980 to 1987,134 assistant pro
fessors —Bl men and 53 women—were
hired in the Division of Academic Af
fairs, according to the report. Of those,
47 men and 27 women remain part of the
faculty, and as of June 30,1994,20 men
and nine women had achieved the rank
of full professor. Those numbers had
climbed to 28 men and 15 women by this
year.
Many faculty members and adminis
trators said they were pleased with the
outcome of the report and felt it pre
sented a valid portrayal of women and
said Sandy Carmany, N.C. PTA president. She
said she wondered how grades given at home
could be judged against grades given at school.
“How reliable is an ‘A’ you got from your
mom?” she said.
Parents who want to teach their children at
home in North Carolina need only a high school
diploma. Children must be tested regularly using a
test accepted by the state Department of Public
Instruction, like the California Achievement Test
or lowa Tests of Basic Skills.
Home schooling is a challenge, Norton and
Morgen said.
“It’s a job, but it’s a job with your own chil
dren,” Norton said. And, she added, that makes it
worthwhile.
Before expanding the quarry, Martin
Marietta must obtain approval from the
Chapel Hill Town Council, the Carrboro
Board of Aldermen and the Orange
County Board of Commissioners,
Badham said. Approval processes have
been halted since mediation between the
company and residents began in July.
Alderman Jacquelyn Gist, who rec
ommended mediation to the parties in
volved, said the residents were concerned
about environmental issues as well as
impact of a possible new road around the
quarry. She said she thought the media
tion process would be productive.
“Negotiations are going well," she
said. “We feel like we’re finally getting
somewhere.”
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Serving the students and the Umverary
community since 1893
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Volume 104, Issue 98
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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promotions at UNC.
“I’m very pleased,” Provost Richard
Richardson said. “We did a very thor
ough job, and the figures showed no
problems.”
Richardson said he felt the climate on
campus for women had improved and
would continue to do so.
Law Professor Marilyn Yarbrough,
the author of the report, said she felt
UNC had successfully avoided gender
bias.
“I found (the campus climate for
women) to be a good one for me and my
colleagues,” Yarbroughsaid. “Butlknow
that there have been historical problems. ”
But not every faculty member was
pleased with the results.
Karla Henderson, professor of leisure
studies and recreation, said she doubted
the validity of the report.
“I think that with any report, you have
to look at who was interviewed and
when,” she said. “Idealistically, I would
like to think that there’s no glass ceiling,
See GLASS CEILING, Page 7
Give us a piece
of your mind
The Daily Tar Heel wants to hear from you -
what you like and what you don't like - about the
job we're doing.
Not only that, but we re willing to give you free
food to find out your opinion.
Wednesday the paper will be sponsoring a
focus group discussion. We want about a dozen
average readers, preferably ones who pick up a
paper every day, to talk about ways in which we
can better serve the community,
The discussion will take about an hour.
Any interested readers should come by the
DTH office, Suite 104 of the Student Union, and
sign up for this opportunity.
Any questions should be directed to Staff
Development Director Robin Berholz at 962-
0245.