Donna Times 4
Girl group rocks
hard. See Page 3
alie Daily (Har Heel
www.dailytarheel.com
Students, Faculty Defend Speaker Choice
By Scott Brittain
Staff Writer
One week after the announcement of
ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott as the
May Commencement speaker, a small
group of faculty have stepped forward in
protest of the nontraditional choice.
Several students, faculty members
and Scott himself have countered this
opinion, saying these concerns are mis
guided and should have been raised
before the selection.
Scott, a 1987 UNC graduate, will
Schools Review
Security After
Recent Violence
Local school officials stress the need to take
threats seriously and say safety measures
have been increased during the past year.
By Jennifer Samuels
Assistant State & National Editor
Almost two years after a shooting at Columbine High
School left 13 students and two gunmen dead, a similar inci
dent in Santee, Calif., has forced many to question the success
of programs developed to curb school violence.
Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School
Safety Center, said school shootings motivate school officials to
take a closer look at their own methods for handling violence.
“After Columbine, (officials) certainly enhanced security
plans and school safety plans,” he said. “The question is how
you create safe schools without turning them into fortresses.”
Stephens said improvements to safety plans included min
imizing the number of entrances and exits and developing
protocol to deal with threats made by students.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools officials said they think
the methods employed by local schools are effective in pre
venting crime. Steve Scroggs, assistant superintendent for sup
port services for the district, said the system has heightened
security in schools during the past year. He said metal detec
tors were put in place at sporting events after shots were
reported but not verified at a Chapel Hill High School foot
bil game earlier this year.
He added that one of the system’s main goals in dealing
with potential problems has been to develop a uniform plan
for all schools to follow in case of emergency.
“(We) needed to be consistent in our response pattern,”
Scroggs said. “Gain consistency on a very scattered plan about
safe schools - (that’s) one of the lessons learned.”
But Jane Grady, assistant director of the Center for the
Study and Prevention of School Violence at the University of
Colorado at Boulder, said it is impossible to prevent violence
with plans designed only to keep weapons out of schools.
Instead, Grady stressed that combating violence in schools
should be a community issue.
“We’d be fooling ourselves to say everything can be pre
vented,” she said. “We need to improve the environment.
Keeping weapons out of schools is not the problem.”
Grady added that she thinks preventing school violence
should be a common goal in the community. “We see this as
a larger community issue,” she said.
David Thaden, principal of East Chapel Hill High School,
said the high school has been trying to increase communica
tion between students and adults to help prevent violence. He
cited the school’s Advocacy program- in which a group of 10
to 12 students are paired with an adult -as a successful pre
vention attempt. “This year (in Advocacy) we stressed how
important it is to talk to people if you have a concern,” he said.
Thaden also said the program emphasizes encouraging stu
dents to talk about threatening comments made by friends.
He added that the school has been fortunate not to have
many problems with violence. “When you put 1,300 kids in
the same place, this, that and the other will happen, but we
have been remarkably free of physical problems,” he said.
“On campus we’ve been pretty lucky.”
But both system officials said no special plans were in place
to deal with the aftermath of the California shooting.
Thaden said that though faculty made an effort to mingle
with students during lunch and class changes, no structured
plans were made.
“We put out a notice to all counselors, administrators,
teachers, telling them (to watch for kids) showing signs of
needing to talk,” he said. “But there was nothing structured.”
Stephens added that it is important for adults to listen to
students and take seriously any threats they hear.
“No question. All threats need to be taken seriously,” he
said. “(Violence is a) continuing reminder that despite our best
efforts, (schools) are still vulnerable. The best metal detectors
around tend to be students because they are oh the front line.”
The State & National Editor can be reached at
stntdesk@unc.edu.
The mysterious is always attractive. People will always follow avail.
Bede Jarrett
MM
T Ag jL Mpr
deliver the Commencement address
May 20. The decision to have Scott
speak is a change from previous years,
when the Commencement speakers
were prominent figures in government
or the liberal arts community.
Faculty Council Chairwoman Sue
Estroff, who was unavailable for com
ment, was quoted in The Chapel Hill
Herald as expressing concern over the
change in speakers from previous years.
Estroff told the newspaper this week
end that she and other faculty members
felt this school year has focused too much
Investigators: Shooter Had No Target
The Associated Press
SANTEE, Calif. - The 15-year-old accused of
killing two fellow high school students was an
“angry young man,” but apparently lashed out at
no particular target, investigators said Tuesday.
Charles Andrew “Andy” Williams seeming
ly shot at random. He expressed no remorse for
Monday’s shootings at Santana High School, Lt.
Jerry Lewis said.
“We don’t know if he was mad at the school,
mad at students, mad at life, mad at home,”
Lewis said. “He was an angry young man.”
Williams was anew kid in a large school, a
child of divorced parents living with his father,
a skinny freshman whose skateboard had been
stolen - twice.
During the weekend, Williams talked so
much about taking a gun to school that they
frisked him before class Monday, friends said.
BOG to Weigh Tuition Increase Requests
By Koen e Vries
Staff Writer
Tuition increases at five UNC-system
schools could be approved today at the
monthly Board of Governors meeting.
During the past few months, boards of
trustees at five UNC-system schools have sub
mitted tuition increase requests to UNC-sys
tem President Molly Broad.
If the full BOG approves all the tuition
increases as is, tuition would be raised $l5O at
N.C. Agricultural & Technical University,
$l6O at UNC-Pembroke, S2OO for N.C.
Centra] University undergraduates and S2BB
for N.C. Central graduates. But the biggest
increases would be at Appalachian State
University and UNC-Greensboro, which
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
on athletics. Estroff and other faculty
expressed concern last fall when UNC
offered Virginia Tech football coach
Frank Beamer a $1 million annual con
tract “I’m disappointed,” she said of the
selection. “This is nothing personal about
the individual. It has to do with my views
about the nature of the (Commencement)
ceremony. It’s especially disappointing in
a year where the relationship of the acad
emy to athletics has been under a lot of
discussion. It’s ironic that this year, at this
ultimately academic conferral of degrees,
we have a sports anchor.”
AP PHOTO/NICK IT
Brandi Fletcher hugs her daughter Alyssa after placing flowers on top of the Santana High School entrance sign
in Santee, Calif., after a shooting Monday that killed two and wounded 13.
Give the Nod
Come to Suite 104 and apply to
be on the selection committee
to choose the next DTH editor.
Senior Class President Jason Cowley
said he is upset with Estroffs concerns
because she was a member of the com
mittee that decided on the speaker.
“She had a chance to put her input in
at the meeting,” he said. “It’s just plain
impolite to voice this ill will once the
decision has been made.”
Cowley said he feels that those who
were criticizing Scott were not consider
ing the positive attributes that he brings
to the podium. “She’s forgetting the
See FACULTY REACTION, Page 2
But he was known for pranks, and friends wrote
off his comments as one ofhis frequent jokes.
The father of one friend even called Williams
at home over the weekend to ask if there was
anything to his talk of bringing a gun to school.
He decided there wasn’t.
No one seemed to believe the clean-cut kid,
who was frequently teased, was about to perpet
uate the nation’s latest high school bloodbath.
The disbelief remained a day after the shoot
ing, which left 13 others injured.
One victim, Barry Gibson, 18, said he was
more perplexed than angry.
“I have no hatred because I don’t know
him,” said Gibson, who was shot in the back of
his left thigh when he ran back to help a friend.
“I don’t know what was in his mind.”
Williams is expected to be arraigned
Wednesday as an adult on charges that include
murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
—mm
have both proposed
S3OO tuition increases.
The increases will go
largely toward increas
ing faculty salaries and
student financial aid.
If the board approves
the tuition increases, the
N.C. General Assembly
still will have to approve
the proposal.
BOG member H.D.
Reaves, Jr. said board
members were split on
the tuition increase issue.
“I certainly do not expect
a unanimous vote,” he
The BOG's only
student member,
Andrew Payne
opposes the tuition
increases requested
by campuses.
said. Reaves said he would decide how to vote
JOf-
Faculty Council Chairwoman Sue Estroff
has expressed concern that Stuart Scott
differs from previous speakers.
Dressed in a baggy jail-issue jumpsuit that
draped past his ankles, the teen stared at the
ground as he was led into juvenile hall Monday.
Bryan Zuckor, 14, and 17-year-old Randy
Gordon were killed; 11 other students and two
adults -a special education student teacher and
a campus security worker - were wounded.
Several had been released from area hospitals.
School officials said Santana High would
reopen Wednesday for students to discuss
Monday’s shooting.
The boy allegedly shot two people in a
restroom, then walked into a quad and fired
randomly, Lewis said. He stopped to relpad as
many as four times, getting off 30 or more shots.
“The information we have from the evidence
and the witnesses (is) the suspect was firing ran
domly at anybody who was going by,” Lewis
said. “Any student who was going by, he was
shooting at."
after listening to the debates on the issue today.
The BOG already approved a 4 percent sys
temwide inflationary tuition increase last fall.
Broad is not expected to make any recom
mendations to the board.
But Andrew Payne, the only student rep
resentative on the BOG, said he thinks tuition
increases have gotten out of hand.
Five other UNC-system schools, including
UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University,
proposed tuition increases last year, which
were approved in a rare split vote.
Payne said he opposes campus-initiated
tuition increase requests, a policy that allows
UNC-system schools to seek approval for
tuition increases. “I don’t want campuses to be
able to call for tuition increases themselves.”
Payne said the UNC-system’s tuition-set
Almost There
Wednesday: Sunny, 47
Thursday: Sunny, 52
Friday: Stormy, 52
Wednesday, March 7, 2001
Local Judge
Doles Out
Homework
A restaurant owner denied
access to a patron and his
guide dog and now must
write a book report.
By Aldesha Gore
Staff Writer
In an unusual ruling, an Orange
County judge has thrown the book at a
local woman.
District Court Judge Alonzo B.
Coleman ruled Monday that Iris
Andros, co-owner of Zorba’s restaurant,
must write a 10-page book report on
guide dogs and the disabled before
April 2. The ruling came in response to
a discrimination suit brought by a blind
man who was denied entrance to
Zorba’s by Andros on Oct 7.
Coleman said he plans to read the
book report book aloud at Andros’ next
court appearance, which is the same date
that the report is due. Andros could face
further punishment depending on
whether the report satisfies Coleman.
The civil dispute stems from an inci
dent when David Oberhart, a visually
impaired man, approached Zorba’s
restaurant and was denied entrance by
Andros because he was accompanied
by his guide dog.
Oberhart said he told Andros that he
was blind and that he needed a guide
dog to see, but he said Andros did not
listen. “We are concerned that she has
not learned from her lesson,” he said.
Kim Steffan, Oberhart’s attorney,
said Andros’ book report will play a sig
nificant role in her upcoming court
date. “What she writes in her book
report will influence her sentencing,”
Steffan said. “And whether or not she
had gained any perspective or knowl
edge from writing the report.”
Steffan also said the penalty for
Andros’ crime could be either a fine of
up to S2OO or a suspended jail sentence
and community service.
But Coleman said his ruling is not
about penalizing Andros but making
her aware that what she did was wrong.
“The book report is not to be a pun
ishment but a learning experience for
her,” he said.
Coleman said he has used this as a
successful type of punishment for simi
lar situations before.
“Recently I had a young woman to
write about alcoholism,” he said.
“When I see young people going down
the wrong road, I have them read a
book.”
But Andros said she is not happy
with Coleman’s decision, which might
lead her to pursue further action.
“We are thinking about appealing the
court case, but we have not decided
yet," she said.
But Steffan said Andros could have
See BOOK REPORT, Page 2
ting policy mandates that tuition increases
only be implemented under extraordinary cir
cumstances, which he says do not exist in this
situation. “I don’t think any of these campus
es have met (that standard).” ■
Student leaders and activists contested the
tuition increases last year, holding rallies and
lobbying BOG members to build opposition
to the increases. But Payne said there was not
much resistance to these five tuition increases
from student leaders. And the student body
presidents at the five schools either supported
the increase or had not voted on the issue.
“They had no choice - either fall behind
(other schools) or have a tuition increase.”
The State & National Editor can be reached
at stntdesk @unc.edu.