4 Planting city Cornell trees CHRONICLE 4 Learning math and science 8 Volume 18 Number 22 February 19, 1987 The super duper supercomputer Program addresses bigotry, sexism on campus The university's multi-facted Human tions training immediately for non-faculty Economic Research and released in said she was "very pleased to see the pro- Relations Program addressing racism, sex- supervisors and staff, including President November by the Advisory Committee on gram's agenda. It provides tangible hope for ism, sexual harassment and all forms of Rhodes and his executive staff. the Status of Women. minorities and women that real progress can bigotry on campus incorporates a number • Conducting semiannual reviews, start- The chairman of the president's task force be made and means the task force report is of new programs to be instituted this spring ing this spring, of the effectiveness of on human relations, Dean Robert E. no longer a lifeless document." and throughout the year. affirmative-action hiring programs in all Doherty of the School of Industrial and Among task force recommendations still Designed for all university employees, the units on campus. Labor Relations, lauded the university's under consideration by the administration is program's 21-point agenda announced ear- • Making human relations skills part of program, saying, "It should have positive whether workplace grievances should be lier this month by President Frank H.T. all annual employee performance and far-reaching effects on Cornell as a submitted to arbitration. Rhodes includes: evaluations. workplace and a community. I am pleased The "how to" of the program has been • Hiring a full-time professional this The program is a response to recommen- with the way the administration has the subject of various staff meetings over spring to conduct mandatory human rela- dations made in October by a 12-member grabbed hold of the issues and, in many the past few months and will be the focus task force appointed last spring by Rhodes ways, gone beyond our recommendations." of a second meeting with more than 150 See related story, page 3. and to a survey on sexual harassment con- Catherine L. Murray-Rust, an associate senior and middle managers scheduled in ducted by Cornell's Institute for Social and librarian and a member of the task force, Continued on page 3 Catastrophic health care seen as flawed Rather than giving Americans "that last full measure of security," as President Rea- gan claims, the administration's catastrophic health care plan will aid the rich more than the poor and ignores the elderly's overpow- ering fear of nursing-home bills, according to Roger M. Battistella, professor of health policy and management. "This proposal is written in language chosen to sow confusion, and they've suc- ceeded," said Battistella. "Only 2 percent of the population 65 and older would benefit from this program." "It's nursing homes that generate the fear" of losing one's estate to pay medical bills, he said. The Reagan proposal "creates expectations that the aged will no longer have to worry about the costs of long-term care in a nursing home. This bill will do nothing for nursing home care." Nursing homes are costing about 1.4 mil- lion Americans an average of $22,000 a year; for some, the cost is $40,000 or more, Battistella said. "For progressives who think the govern- ment can and ought to do more, this pro- vides an opportunity to break a logjam in health care," he added, predicting that Con- gress will make major revisions to the proposal. Claude Ixvet The Reagan plan would allow Medicare Members of Young, Gifted and Black, an organization of 50 black childrerr ages 7 to 17, who perform works of black culture, patients to purchase government insurance sing at Bailey Hall Feb. 13 as part of the Eleventh Annual Festival of Black Gospel. for $4.92 a month, limiting their out-of- pocket expenses for doctor and hospital bills to $2,000 a year. At present, only the second through 60th days of a hospital stay are fully covered by Medicare and there is no limit on out-of-pocket spending. Gibian: Soviet openness has its limits The $2,000 deductible would be the same for everyone, regardless of income, Battis- How many of the estimated 1,500 or this kind of modernist play, that kind of giving things at home. As to the release of tella complained. Seriously ill elderly with more human rights campaigners still impri- film is shown some people will ask, 'Why people imprisoned or exiled on charges of poverty-level incomes of $5,000 a year or soned in the Soviet Union are released even- can't we make a film like that?' or 'Why anti-Soviet activity, they get a lot of public- less would be forced to pay at least 40 per- tually depends in large part on the impact can't I write this kind of critical article?' " ity abroad when they're released, but so far cent of their income for medical care before • of previous releases on various elements in he said. this has not come out in the newspapers in the new catastrophic insurance would take the Soviet population, according to George "Conservatives will be frightened. They'll the Soviet Union. If this [information] gap effect. Instead, the deductible should be Gibian, professor of Russian literature. say to remember Hungary in 1956; it should narrow, it would be significant." based on income, he suggested. Gibian, who visits the U.S.S.R. fre- started out with a free press, and before it Gibian's view is that Gorbachev also may "No elderly person should have to spend quently, feels that Soviet leader Mikhail was over, Communists were hanging from be currying favor with some intellectuals more than 15 percent of his or her annual Gorbachev can't take the lid off altogether, lampposts. So Gorbachev has to balance who are beginning to say he might be the income on medical care, and we should on the assumption that "some people will these considerations." kind of leader who could do good things expect those more well off to pay more never stop asking for more, and, if you give Gibian acknowledged that the Soviet for the Soviet Union. That endorsement toward their care," Battistella said. them an inch, they'll ask for a mile. leader gets a lot of credit around the world would be worth the risks he could be "Medicare was an exciting and progres- "If sentences for anti-Soviet activity have for prisoner releases, but noted, "There's a taking. sive new development in the 1960s," he been suspended, or lifted, if some writers gap between the publicity they're aiming at "I'm convinced that he does believe that added. "Since 1965, however, the protection are. allowed to publish this or that, and if foreign countries and the publicity they're Continued on page 12 Continued on page 12 2 February 19, 1987 Briefs Trustee to head Wellesley College Wentink winners Cornell Trustee Dale Rogers Marshall has been appointed acting president of Wel- to lecture Feb. 19 lesley College for one year beginning Aug. • Gannett encourages safer sex: "Safer Sex Five winners of the Wentink Prize for Packs" are now available 24 hours a day 1. Marshall, who earned a bachelor of arts Outstanding Graduate Students will give through University Health Services in brief talks on their research at 4:40 p.m. response to an increasing number of student degree with high honors in government from Cornell in 1959, is an authority on Feb. 19 in 135 Baker Laboratory. requests for birth control devices. The award is sponsored by Tunis Wen- University Health Services has developed urban politics. She will serve as acting pres- ident while President Nannerl O. Keohane tink Jr., who received a Ph.D. in physical two birth control packages that each cost chemistry from Cornell in 1954 and is cur- $2. One consists of eight condoms lubri- is on sabbatical leave. Marshall has been a Cornell trustee since rently a professor of physics at the Univer- cated with spermicide; the other consists of sity of Alaska's Geophysical Institute in four condoms lubricated with spermicide 1983. Before joining Wellesley in the summer of 1986 as dean of the college, she Fairbanks. Recipients of the prize, which is and a contraceptive sponge. awarded through the Department of Chem- During the day, the packs may be pur- served as a professor of political science at University of California at Davis and as istry, have distinguished themselves both chased over the counter from the cashier's academically and in the quality and quan- office at Gannett Health Center. Students associate dean for program development and interdepartmental programs in its Col- tity of their research. must present a valid I.D. to make the pur- Michael J. Eis will speak on "The Syn- chase. After 5 p.m., packs are available in lege of Letters and Science. Marshall is committed to women's issues thesis of an Artificial Vaccine against Bru- the Overnight Unit, accessible through the cella abortus." He also has been awarded emergency entrance. and educational concerns at both the state and national level. She represented UC an NIH Predoctoral Traineeship and plans For information regarding safer sex prac- to pursue a career in industry following tices and the "Safer Sex Packs," call the Davis on the Women in Higher Education Project of the American Council on Educa- graduation. Contraception, Gynecology and Sexuality Gregory S. Ferguson will discuss his Service at Gannett at 255 3978.