Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 12

MO' Pailjl Friday, April 12, 1991 Williamsburg Obituaries Business WSM. examines policy on assaults Flippin said. Students misper-ceive it as curbing bad publicity "when in actuality it is a means of preserving the confidentiality of the hearings." W. Samuel Sadler, the vice president of student affairs, said he agreed with Flippin's assessment. "We have to work very hard to ensure there is trust in the system," he said.

Student victims of sexual assault are told they can report the offense to local police or they can have an administrative hearing on campus. ed president of the Student Association, told the Board of Visitors committee on student affairs that the view on campus is that the college "is not strong in prosecuting rape cases. I think women are very deterred by that," he said. Board member Joseph R. Koons of Great Falls asked students at the meeting if there was any indication of a coverup by the administration of sexual assault cases.

"The system is very careful to protect the two people involved," Sadler said he has proposed changing the college's sexual assault policy to give the victim the right to appeal the outcome of the case; to punish students found guilty of sexual assault with either contingent or permanent expulsion and to have two hearing officers conduct the hearings. Contingent expulsion would allow a student to be considered for reinstatement. Permanent expulsion would mean the student can never be reinstated. A student found guilty of sexual assault is not now expelled if the Privacy issue considered By CHARLES CLARY Staff Writer WILLIAMSBURG The College of William and Mary's efforts to protect the privacy of students involved in sexual assault cases is often interpreted by students as an effort to quell bad publicity, a student leader said Thursday. Laura Flippin, the newly elect Getting cagey 1 vL -v L-a i'v-lti A- Al-W.

i Jim Spencer Columnist Libraries' purge closes the books on much wisdom Kecoughtan High School librarian Nancy Spain returned from her last sum- mer vacation to discover 10,500 bopks missing from her collection. They had been removed by the school system's chief librarian, Elizabeth Green, in anticipation of computerizing the card catalog system, Spain said. "I discarded almost 1,000 books last year," Spain told me. "I guess she felt I wasn't discarding as many as I should. So she came in and discarded for me." Cleaned house was more like it.

The Kecoughtan library lost almost 45 percent of its collection in a purge that one concerned educator called "an attack on literacy in the interest of turning kids into computer jockeys." No one kept a comprehensive list at Kecoughtan, Spain said, but among books that were removed were Rachel Carson's seminal work on environmentalism, "Silent Spring," and the Twayne Series of U.S. and English authors that included novels and essays by Henry James, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville and Edna St. Vincent Millay. It's hard to say what got pitched at the city's other high schools. Librarians were urged to "weed" their collections diligently because it is expensive to put books on a computer data base.

"If we thought it was necessary to replace a book, we might make a mental note, but we did not keep a list," said Hampton High librarian Connie Scott. "I can't tell you what was discarded and what will or won't be replaced," Phoebus High librarian Grace Parker added. "But there were very specific guidelines for weeding." Those guidelines, said Green, included getting rid of material that was no longer relevant to the curriculum, that was out of date or that was not in a "format" that was attractive to students. The weeding wasn't done solely for the purpose of computerization, Green said. "There was no limit to how many books a library could put on the computer," she maintained.

But, she continued, automation is costly. So people were told: "If you need to weed it, do it before we put it in the database." Green, who this week discussed computerized cataloging at a conference in Charlottesville, told me about a library journal article titled "Less May Be Best." In streamlining Hampton's school libraries, Green speculated that many, if not most, of the books that were tossed were out of date, falling apart or duplicates. There was no attempt to censor authors or remove controversial subject matter, she said. "As a librarian, I have to accept changes. I'm not concerned about anything I deleted from my collection," said Bethel High librarian Travis Cox, who, among other things, got rid of a handbook of job opportunities from 1977 and a chemistry book from 1957.

"I was very careful with my literature section." Cox said she offered some discarded books to teachers in the school. What teachers didn't take may get recycled in juvenile detention homes, jails and community centers. What's left will go to the city dump. Green said guidelines allowed librarians to pitch books because they had drab bindings, small print or were unpopular. "We didn't look first for ugly bindings or small print," Green said.

"But you wouldn't want a book on the shelf with print so small that kids didn't want to read it or that hadn't been checked out in 10 years." "We're trying to create lifetime reading habits," she explained. How about a lifetime habit of good reading? I give a lot of talks about writing in high schools. I usually begin by telling kids that writers are also readers. Then I ask who their favorite authors are. The few who have an answer almost always say horror writers Stephen King and Clive Barker.

Now, that's really scary. "Beautiful books" might be necessary to entice elementary school kids to start reading, but if by the time they're in high school students still care more about dust jackets than words, it's too late to turn them into lifetime readers. Flashy graphics don't make people read; powerful words do. Removing classics from high school libraries because they aren't pretty or popular dilutes that power, but, according to sources, it has happened. One person told of a discard pile from the Hampton school libraries that included books by philosophers Plato and Socrates, poets Walt Whitman and Robert Frost, novelists Thomas Wolfe, Ken Kesey and Alice Walker, psychologists B.F.

Skinner and Jean Piaget, satirist H.L Mencken and 19th-century political commentator Alexis de Tocqueville. If that's true, less may not be best It may be the worst thing that ever happened to a bunch of budding young minds. KENNETH SILVERStaff photographer Jimmy Hall, a construction worker, drapes netting over poles at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News. The new Outdoor Wetlands Aviary is scheduled to open May 1 8 and is expected to cost $60,000. It is funded by the Woman's Club of Warwick, Robert and John Hastings and Rauch, Witt Inc.

CPA. hearing officers find mitigating circumstances. The policy changes come after a student who was found guilty of rape in an administrative hearing was allowed to remain On campus. Campus groups called for revamping the policy after 18-year-old Katie Koestner, who has identified herself publicly as the rape victim, said she felt victimized by the system. Before changing the sexual assault policy, the administration Please see C4 Class cuts prompt petition students say education suffering By CHARLES CLARY Staff Writer WILLIAMSBURG Students presented a petition with 2,329 signatures to a College of William and Mary administrator Thursday claiming the quality of education will suffer because of cuts in the academic program.

Four of the five students who organized the petition drive had hoped to address the Board of Visitors but didn't know about its meeting in time to get on the agenda, so they gave the signatures to board secretary James S. Kelly. They said the state should not force education to suffer from severe budget cuts while a $200 million state budget reserve fund sits untouched. "Over the past year, we have become increasingly concerned by the actions of the state government and the administration in reponse to the current state budget crisis," the petition's cover letter reads. "We feel that these actions demonstrate a shift away from providing a superior qualr ity education." The cuts have created a detrimental snowball effect on the quality of education, students said.

The number of full-time instructors will be reduced and that will reduce courses available, which in turn will expand the individual class size. "A class required for my major has been cut for next year," said Steve Saari, an environmental science major and one of the five organizers of the petition-signing drive. "I had to sign up for another class I was less interested in." Tentatively, the administration is proposing to replace full-time instructors with part-time faculty, said John J. McGlennon, a government professor. The $350,000 cut from the fiscal 1991 budget for library materials will be restored for fiscal year 1992, which begins July 1.

The students say that there will be 67 fewer course sections next fall compared to previous fall semesters, but college Provost Melvyn D. Schiavelli said there will be 35 fewer course sections next fall. "I can understand the trade in a way, but my education is suffering," Saari said. "When you sign up for school you take it on faith that they will have the same Please see By creating the Peninsula black-majority district, Wilder could be lumping his chief nemesis in the General Assembly, Sen. Hunter B.

Andrews, D-Hampton, in the district with Sen. Robert C. Scott, D-Newport News, who is black. Legislators speculated during the recently completed redistricting session that Andrews may retire or move rather than run against Scott in such a district, but Andrews has said nothing of his intentions. Meanwhile, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Please see Wilder, C3 Va.

top mom her job says is a lot of fun By JILL KEECH Staff Writer FORT MONROE The lessons Judith Silvasy learned from her mother were the foundation for her own success as mother, grandmother and active community volunteer. Thursday, she was named 1991 Virginia Mother of the Year by the Virginia Mothers Association, an affiliate of American Mothers Inc, a non-profit, interfaith organization devoted to developing and strengthening family values. Silvasy will represent Virginia in the National Mother of the Year competition April 25-29 in St Louis. Please see Mom, C3 urder brings tears of rage Lyell said while she had worried about her only daughter when she didn't arrive home after the call, she had hoped the woman, who frequently hitchhiked, was merely sidetracked by a new whim. "She said she wanted to see some more friends in Tennessee, and I thought maybe she had gone to South Carolina to visit her 13-year-old son," she said.

McCall had no home of her own but preferred to move around staying with friends and family members, Lyell said. Please see Murder, C4 Mother hopes death comes to killer By MATHEW PAUST Staff Writer GLOUCESTER Marsha Lyell's free-spirited daughter was so happy she was giggling on March 2 when she called her mother from a pay phone in Tennessee where she had gone to see some friends. "I'll be home in a few days, Mom," were among the last words Pamela McCall, 32, Wilder reported to favor 5 black-majority districts trv v. --'v. 7 1 V.

spoke to Lyell, said the mother, who lives in a trailer near Dutton. Eight days later, McCalFs strangled body was discovered on a wooded knoll off Interstate 65 in Spring Hill, about 40 miles south of Nashville. Spring Hill Detective Ron Coleman said she had been dead about 12 hours. Coleman said because the body had been stripped of all documents, jewelry and articles of clothing that could be used for identification, it remained nameless in a morgue for nearly a month. So.

V'-' Bush's visit to HU has led both Harvey and Alan K. Colon, vice president for student affairs, to issue statements to students and faculty supporting Bush's visit, saying the president has pumped federal money into predominantly black colleges. The statements dispute allegations by students that Bush is unsympathetic to black issues. Colon, in noting that there has been "a lot of discussion" on campus about Bush's visit, suggested in a memorandum dated April 5 that "persons and groups on the outside as well as within the university might be encouraging student unrest These people have their own agenda that might not serve you very well," he wrote to students and faculty. The students at Thursday's news con- Please see Student, C3 DAVE BOWMAMStatf photographer FUN-DAMENTAL- Lynda Robb, wife of Sen.

Charles S. Robb, kicked off a a Reading Is Fundamental program at Thomas Hunter School Thursday in Mathews. HU students: They're not free to protest Bush visit to campus By BOB KEMPER Staff Writer RICHMOND Gov. L. Douglas Wilder's lawyer said Thursday the governor wants the state Senate redistrict-ing plan to include five districts with a black majority, two more than the Senate created.

Attorney Walter A. McFarlane would not specify where Wilder will put the districts but said the governor would review alternatives put forth by civil rights groups. They all place a district in an area roughly south of Mercury Boulevard in Newport News and Hampton. KEWiETH LYONS Sa9 photographer Judith Sihasy, left, receives the Mother of the Year award Thursday. Ofhcials tight-lipped about campus dispute By RON SHAWGO Staff Writer HAMPTON Three Hampton University students said at a news conference Thursday HU President William R.

Harvey has created a "police state" in which students fear they won't graduate if they speak out against the choice of President Bush as the commencement speaker next month. "Everyone's opposed to Bush coming," said Las ham Williams, an HU sophomore. "They are afraid to come out, because they fear Harvey will do something to them." The concern over negative reaction to.