Howard University Digital Howard @ Howard University The iH lltop: 1990-2000 The iH lltop Digital Archive 8-28-1998 The iH lltop 8-28-1998 Hilltop Staff Follow this and additional works at: https://dh.howard.edu/hilltop_902000 Recommended Citation Staff, Hilltop, "The iH lltop 8-28-1998" (1998). The Hilltop: 1990-2000. 217. https://dh.howard.edu/hilltop_902000/217 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the The iH lltop Digital Archive at Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in The iH lltop: 1990-2000 by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. I· I I· ILLTOP The yoice ofHow ard University Since 1924 VOUJME 82, No. 2 F RIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1998 .'Million GA Votes to Spike Student Youth' Activity Fee Events Stir by 80 Percent Students Demand Debate List ofAllocat ions Howard General Assembly Backs By APRILL O. TURNER 1wo Marches Uniting Black Youth Hi/{tnn Stqf Writer By STEVEN M. GRAY and Less than a month after the General NATALIE REID Assembly voted 10 send the Board of Hilltop Staff Writers Trustees a reccornendation to raise the student activity fee by 80 percent, ques­ A Federal judge ruled Wednesday that the city of tions have surfaced about the manner New York must issue pennits to organizers of the in which the vote was taken, and Million Youth March, allowing Khallid Abdul whether a rise ofsuc h large proportion Muhammad, the event's leader and the ousted is necessary. Nation of Islam spokesman, to hold the event in During an "emergency" Aug. 10 Harlem Sept. 5. The ruling dealt a blow to hard­ meeting, the GA approved a measure fought efforts by the city ·s mayor, Rudolph W. to increase the student activity fee from Giuliani, to block the event or move it to far-flung $75 each year to $135, a difference of sections of the city. $60 per student If the measure survives Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled that the city's expected scrutiny from the Board of decision to deny a pennit to the march's organiz­ Hilltop Staff/ADRIAN JACKSON Trustees, it will mark the most dramatic ers was unconstitutional, and rejected the city's Throngs of Howard University students choked The Yard last week during fall registration. increase to the student activity fee since contention that Malcom X Boulevard--where the 1969, when a student referendum march will be beld--could not handle the throngs passed a measure to raise the fee from of young people expected to attend. $55 to $65. Organizers told the judge this week that they International Students Weigh In 1987, a student referendum over­ expected fewer than 175,000 people to attend the whelmingly passed a measure adding march. That's far fewer than the million youths $ 10 more to the activity fee. That mea­ they have been expecting. the Costs of U.S. Education sure created the student loan fund. The two marches aiming to unite scores of black See,FEE,A2 youths--one in New York, the other in Atlanta-­ The nation's abundance of academic the stark differences between the two have sparked an intense debate at Howard Uni­ By JAMYE E. SPILLER resources attracted Joseph Nketia, a 26- societies. "Kenyans are more conserva­ versity and around the nation. Hilltop Staff Writer year-old senior accounting major, to the tive about a lot of things," she said, The fust march has been engulfed in controver­ University. "Howard's very popular adding that the seperation from her Phone Strike's sy that has prompted members ofthe nation's black For many American students, starting back home," said the Ghana native. family has been bard to cope with. political establishment to condemn it. a life at a new college is tough. But for Vata Ngande, a 19-year-old biology "I'm homesick," she says with a slow Effects Plagues See, MARCHES, A2 many international students, the chal­ major, moved to the U.S. from her smile. "I miss my parents, my friends, lenge of building a career at a school in native Kenya two months ago. Anned my brothers and my sister. I miss my Students the United States is intensified. with offers to attend colleges in the country. I miss the familiarity.'' Take Maleuti Mazondc. United Kingdom, Kenya and the U.S., For Sunidata Gibbs, an 18-year-old By JASON 'J'. SMITH and Campus Plan 1\vo years ago, before transfcring 10 Ngande said she looked to her family freshman broadcast journalism major, Howard University, Mazonde, 35, for help in making the decision. APRILL 0. TURNER strong prodding from his mother helped Hilltop Staff Writers moved from her native Botswana to the "My parents told me Howard was a shape his decision to leave Barbados to United States, where she spent her fust good school," Ngande said;'TI1ey want­ attend the University. Set for Action It's midnight, and junior nursing year of college studying nursing at the ed me to come but they didn't want to "Howard has one of the better commu­ major Marie Bavwidinsi is in dire need University of South Carolina. let me go." nication schools in America.'' of a telephone to call her boyfriend, By APRILL O. TURNER "It was an agreement between the "I didn't have problems that were dif­ International students make-up roughly who's in PbiJadelphia and patiently Hilltop Staff Writer government of Botswana and Howard ferent from anyone else who's adjust­ 15-percent of the student body, and awaiting her call. In search of a vacant for me to come here," she said, adding ing to the school," she said. come from 109 countries, said the pay phone, Bavwidinsi, 19, runs from 1\vo months after the Board of Zoning Adjust­ that although she often recalls her days As she aims to make the transition International Student Services office. floor-to-floor in Howard Plaza Towers ment approved the Central Campus Plan, the out­ back home, she has adjusted to life from life in Kenya 10 life in the U.S., line shaping the direction in which the University here. Ngande says she has begun to notice West, and finds none. will go in the next 10 years, the plan is ready to What she encountered, however, ' begin implementation. were throngs of frustrated Howard ' The 1998 Central Campus Plan proposes eleven Plaza Towers residents who bad filed projects, only two of which are new building con­ into long lines with high-hopes of structions. The remaining projects involve the ren­ using one of the pay phones that are ovation and reuse of current buildings. The plan placed on each floor. also calls for the demolition of the Women's Gym­ "It is very frustrating," said nasium. 'Mr. Fix-it' Tells His Story Bavwidinsi. ''There arc> lines to use Authors of the Campus Plan, Vice President of the phone on every floor, and over University Ad.ministration Harry Robinson and It's also bener, he says, than "slinging grease" on the gri lls of half of the phones don't work any­ By JASON T. SMITH fast food restauraunts. He did that, too, until joining the Uni­ way." Special Assistant for Campus Planning and Devel­ Hilltop Staff Writer opment Hazel Edwards, spent a year developing versity in 1979 as a custodian. Weeks after a strike sent scores of the plan,U11iverCity 20120. ''I can still remember my fist day of work. It was August 26, Bell Atlantic employees onto the pick­ Forty-five years young, a salt-and-pepper-haired Melvin 1979;' Anderson said, adding, "I loved the job then just like I The Campus Plan, which is done every decade, et lines, clogging requests for tele­ Anderson is what he's always wanted to be: A respected 'Mr. love it now.'' includes all upcoming building projects and phone repairs throughout the region, facelifts that the University will undergo. Fix-it' who handles the problems that surface in Drew Hall, a Although he doesn't complain about it, he admits that people hundreds of Howard University stu­ dormitory housing more than 250 freshmen. often overlook his job and the importance of it. In years past, the majority ofCampus Plans were dents continue to experience delays in Anderson, a North Carolina native, is one .------ - ----, "(The maintenance workers) almost run the done by an outside firn1. Robinson and Edwards receiving new service. are especially proud of this plan since it was the of seven workers charged with maintaining The first in a series dorms, along with the custodians and dorm staff. While the strike lasted two days, it fust to be done "in-house" since 1934. the physical structure of the University'sdor- oif occasional arti- Things would be a mess without us,'' be said. "For was long enough to stall telephone It is apparent that a long-standing history and love mitories. starters, we have to fix the plumbing, light fixtures rcl'airs in the District, Virginia and for the institution were the driving force that After 19 years of working at Howard, cles about the lives andthedoorjams," Andersonsaid,hisNorthCar- Maryland for weeks. Many students, enabled Robinson and Edwards to create such a Anderson bas cultivated his personality to ifb h · d th olinian twang still intact. upon returning to campus earlier this deal with a wide range of students, and has O But despite the non-existent fanfare aud glam­ plan. e m - e-scenes month, were horrified after learning Robinson, who graduated from Howard in 1966, developed an inspiring bond with the resi- workers at Howard our, Anderson says the driving force waking him they could not receive service until served as the Dean of the School of Architecture dents and staff of Drew Hall.