Miami Hurricane, January 26, 1990

              Volume 67, Number 27	University of Miami. Coral Gables, Fla._ Friday, January 26,1990
Federal grants, loans cut for 1990-91
Experts: Banks may drop Staffords
By DEREK HEMBD
Assistant Sports Editor
The purse strings on the pocketbooks of many University of Miami students may tighten under a new federal college budget.
Signed into law Nov. 21 by President George Bush, the budget severly cuts into the amount of available financial aid for students in the 1990-91 academic year.
According to the American Council on Education, nearly 200,000 students nationwide will lose their Pell Grants for the fall '90 semester. An additional one million students will find their grants reduced.
Cuts will also affect students who rely on Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, Perkins student loans, State Student Incentive Grants and work-study programs.
Many banks are pulling out of the Stafford loan program because of the bill.
This situation could mean hard economic times for many UM students, especially in lieu of the Universi-
ty’s planned 9.8 percent tuition increase for next year.
While education costs continue to rise, the amount of financial assistance has decreased under the new law. Yet University officials are confident students should have no problems if form deadlines are met.
“The key for students is to complete the application process by March 1,” said Martin J. Carney, associate director of financial assistance. “Packets were mailed during the vacation period."
A number of factors could put many students into financial straits:
•	Although the US Department of Education was given a 2.2 percent budget increase, the inflation rate of 4.5 percent effectively erases the budget expansion. Congress allotted $10.6 billion to post-secondary education.
•	Of the allotment, the Gramm-Rudman deficit-re-
duction law automatically chopped $226 million off the education budget.
• Because of Bush’s unwillingness to raise taxes, money for the education program has been spread thin.
Students who applied for Pell grants last year received maximum amounts of $2,300. For 1990-91, the highest amount to be awarded is $2,900 to offset higher education costs.
"However, based on appropriations, the actual maximum award will be $2,300,” Carney explained. "It shouldn’t have any effect on our student body.”
Carney also said the University has received $23 million in financial assistance, an 18 percent increase over last year.
Yet the largest problem concerning students centers on the Stafford loan program. According to the Consumer Banking Association, 53 banks in California
and two in Illinois have pulled funds from the program.
"If the cuts go further or the temporary cuts become permanent, it could be a big blow,” said the CBA’s Fritz Elmendorf.
"Recent legislation established by the US Department of Education requires many more complicated procedures for lenders,” said Carney. "Many lenders have begun to look at the cost effectiveness related to the additional requirements and have decided to divorce themselves from the student loan market.”
Carney said students should not worry about a cut in loans since the State of Florida has established a "lender of last resort” program which assists students in such a predicament.
This is the latest act by the federal government which has sliced into the federal college budget since the early ’80s. Former President Ronald Reagan reduced or wiped out budgets for student social security, campus housing and library programs, among others.
This report has been supplemented by College Press Service.
SG sidesteps controversial test-bank bill
Photos by DAVE BERGMAN / Assistant Photo Editor
Parade fetes champs
(Above) Sebastian the Ibis shows off his three championship rings and current national championship cr(^v«k, fTop right) Dale Dawfki««,
and Wesley Carroll celebrate in the'strelft.
Associate
master
leaves
Dr. Marvin Dawkins, director of Caribbean, African and Afro-American Studies, resigned as associate master of Eaton Residential College, effective this semester.
According to a memo written by ERC master Dr. Stephen Sapp, Dawkins resigned "because of the pressure of other commitments and responsibilities within the University and greater Miami community”
Dawkins, who serves as adviser to the Caribbean Student’s Association, was not available for comment. He was an associate master for one semester.
Sapp said he appreciated the contributions Dawkins, his wife and their son made during their stay and their involvememt would be missed.
"We wish all of them the very best as they continue to work for a better University and community, and we look forward to their continued participation in events and activities at Eaton," Sapp said.
Sapp said the ERC staff is seach-ing for a replacement. He described his choices as limited because some of the people under consideration are also being considered to fill the vacancy of associate master at Hecht Residential College, held by former University Ombudsman Bill Mullowney who accepted a position at a California college.
—maureen McDermott
7
By RICARDO J. BASCUAS
Staff Writer
Showers of ticker-tape festooned the nation’s No.l-ranked football team, as cheers and adulation poured from the community during a lunchtime parade in Downtown Miami to honor the Hurricanes. The fanfare, however, did not extend to the UM campus, where classes went on as usual even though Dade County proclaimed thç day Miami Hurricanes Day.
Students, alumni, University emptees and lota) fans attended 4, thepariidfe iRjjcnFcuIminaterf at the Dade County Courthouse
CAVE BERGMAN / Assitant Photo Editor
God Bless America
Miss America 1990 Debbye Turner sings at Gusman hall Wednesday. For story see A ccent page 6.
where local and state politicians hosted the fete.
Led by the UM cheerleaders, Sebastian the Ibis and the Band of the Hour, the players made their way down Flagler Street in 35 convertible automobiles. Halfway through they leapt from the cars to exchange fistfuls of confetti with each other and the crowd.
“This is great,” said defensive tackle Russell Maryland. "It’s even better than the last one. And I’ve been through a couple of ’em.”
Even though he was out of town qh a previously scheduled en-
Please see page 9/ PARADE
Many questions left unanswered
By MICHAEL R. MORRIS
Associate News Editor
The Student Government Senate voted Wednesday to table a possibly controversial bill regarding the creation of a test bank.
The test bank, a clearinghouse for copies of exams professors have given to students, would be available to all students. Those students who bring in tests would be paid. The amount of payment would be decided upon each semester. Students who want to take out a test would have to pay 30 cents per exam page.	.
Peter Christiaans, Eaton Residential College senator and author of the bill, said he wants the bill because many organizations, including fraternities and the Biology Club, have test banks available to their members.
"I thought it would be a very good idea Tor Student Government to start something like this,” said Christiaans, adding the bill is not a violation of the Honor Code. He cited the example of the Biology Clubs’s test bank.
Michael Streiter, president of the rHonor Council, said the bill might ipose a problem.
i "My first inclination is that it would violate the Honor Code,”
Streiter said. However, Streiter wasn't sure what the feeling of the
rest of the committee would be.
“It’s a tough issue.” Steiter saidl. ‘7 don't know how we would rule on that.”
The bill was tabled after Chris-tiaans was unable to answer questions concerning expense and the availability of storage space for the tests.
In other actions, the senate unanimously passed a bill ensuring the clear labeling of pedestrian crosswalks. The bill dealt with the crosswalks between the Richter Library and the Cox Science Center, on Merrick Drive by Building 21, on Stanford Drive across from Mahoney Residential College and the four crosswalks behind the Allen Hall-Learning Center complex.
Two bills concerning the Eye Snack Bar were passed by acclamation. The first asked University Dining Services to extend the Eye’s evening hours to midnight from 10 p.m. during reading and final exam days. The second thanked UDS and its general manager Efren Gort for extending the morning hours of the Eye to 8 a.m. from 10 a.m.
In the senate’s final action, it formally congratulated the Hurricane football team for the national championship.
Justice Blackmun: Live and learn
By MICHAEL R. MORRIS
Associate NewfEditor
A pArson' needs intellectual stimulation, an open mind, individuality and needs to mind the environment, said Supreme Court Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun in a speech yesterday spon-sored by a local law firm and the H
University of Miami School of Law p: V	!
at the Dade County Auditorium.
Blackmun also spoke of the power 1?	j
and responsibility of the court.
“The power of the court is awe-some,” Blackmun said. “Being on a MWgS multi-judge court does not reduce	if|
that agony [of having to make diffi-cult decisions].”
The theme of Blackmun’s speech was "What I have learned in my life.” Blackmun explained the Blackmun idea for the speech came from a seminar he attended where he was asked to moderate a discussion with that theme.
Blackmun’s comments were made as part of the Cole Lecture Series, established by the law firm of Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody and Cole, honoring Robert B. Cole. Cole received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Florida. He is currently on the visiting faculty of the UM Law School.
The spry 81-year-old justice began his speech by sharing a few pieces of mail. Included in his selections were two Christmas cards, one of which expressed the hope that the Christmas of 1989 would be Blackmun’s last. The other contained a picture of the drought in Iowa and asserted that America was being punished for Blackmun’s "bad decisions.”
In his speech, Blackmun often quoted other justices, philosophers and politicians. He also shared several anecdotes of life in the Supreme Court. One subject that frequently came up in Blackmun’s speech was the long history of the court and of the United States, and of the faith Americans have in their country.
"The court has had its ups and downs,” Blackmun said. “The American people have respect for the rule of law, if not for a specific law.”
Blackmun, who was nominated by former President Richard M. Nixon, is perhaps best known for his participation in, and authorship of, the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. He voted against the Webster v. Human Reproductive Services decision.
One of a trio of octogenerian liberals, along with Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, Blackmun was appointed by Nixon in the hope that Blackmun would have a similar judicial attitude. Nevertheless, such liberal senators as Ted Kennedy and Birch Bayh supported his confirmation. The director of the American Civil Liberties Union said Blackmun was a man with "a capacity for objectivity and fairness in the highest degree, combined with a high intellect and a sharply honed legal mind.”
When he first joined the court, he tended to vote with Burger, a boyhood friend in whose wedding Blackmun would serve as best man. This pattern earned him and Burger the nickname “Minnesota Twins.”
Among his landmark decisions have been the Pentagon Papers Case, in which he dissented, arguing that the Supreme Court should have sent the case to a lower court in order to determine if the President's national security interests outweighed the First Amendment rights of the press; Furman v. Georgia, in which he opposed the abolition of state death penalties; Miller v. California, in which he went along with the majority in creating the concept of local community standards defining obscenity, a standard which still stands, and the Nixon Tapes case, in which the court ruled the President did not have sufficient executive privilege to with-old evidence in a criminal trial.
Known for scholary and thorough opinions, Blackmun graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude in mathematics from Harvard University in 1929 at the age of 21. He obtained his law degree from Harvard three years later. Among his professors were future Justice Felix Frankfurter. He served as a clerk in the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals for a year and a half upon graduating. He would serve as a judge on that court from 1959 to 1970. Blackmun became the 99th man to serve on the Supreme Court following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on May 12, 1970 by a unanimous vote.