Maroon

              The MAROON Vol. 64, No. 8 Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118 October 18, 1985 S. African students in N.O.: The policy still hitting home By Mari Ban Assistant News Editor THE AGONY OF APARTHEID Oupa Mokuena can't cite a specific incident that prompted him to become involved in the fight against apartheid. He remembers always knowing — even at an early age — that he lived in an unjust society. "Even as a child I could tell something was wrong," he said. "You go to town and see big houses and wonder about things . . . why yours is so small and crowded . . . why you have to walk barefoot to school." But when Mokuena talks about injustice in South Africa, he doesn't use facts from the latest Newsweek or the evening news. Instead, he tells listeners what it was like living there, in a black township isolated from the entire white population, for the first 23 years of his life. Mokuena, vice president of the student government at Dillard University, devotes much of his free time to making people aware of the plight of South African blacks. He described his home in the township of Sebokeng, where his family of eight still resides. "We, like the other families in our township, live in a four-room, 'matchbox house,' " he said. "At night, every room becomes a bedroom." Mokuena, who came to New Orleans in 1983 to study, hasn't seen his parents or four sisters and brother since he left. "Communication is a problem," he said. "It takes about six months Students from Dillard University protest apartheid in South Africa in an Oct. 12 march. _ ~ „ _ . photo by John McC usker Students agree to fund facility in narrow vote By Rene Sanchez Managing Editor Students voted to cure Loyola's parking headache this week, approving a referendum that asked them to help fund a new parking garage/recreation center on campus. The referendum passed with 53.5 percent of the vote. There were 825 "yes" votes and 718 "no" votes cast in the election conducted by the Student Government Association Monday and Tuesday. Students were asked to vote on a $200-a-year tuition increase ($lOO annually for part-time students) that would remain in effect for 25 years. The increase is to lend financial assistance to the $1.3 million annual debt created by construction of a new parking garage/recreation center. That project will cost $12 million. On Wednesday, the State Bond Commission approved the sale of $35.5 million in bonds for Loyola, $12 million which will be used to finance the construction of the new building. John L. Eckholdt, vice president for Business and Finance, said those bonds would have been recalled had the referendum failed. The new four-level parking garage will creatc 835 additional parking spaces on campus, a 135 percent increase from the available space now. Total campus parking will be 1,323 spaces upon completion of the project. In addition, the rec center portion would include a swimming pool as well as an expansion of all facilities now available. Since students approved the referendum, the university can now authorize an architect to begin drawing plans for the building, said Vincent P. Knipfing, vice president for Student Affairs. The Board of Trustees will be asked to give final approval to the project at its November meeting, and demolition of the existing Rec Center should begin between mid-May and June 1 next year, he said. "It was fairly comfortable," Knipfing said of the referendum's passage. "It certainly wasn't a landslide, but I wasn't disturbed by it. Students realized that this was the only realistic attempt at a solution to the problem and without their support it wasn't going to happen." Byron Arthur, SGA president, said the small margin of victory for the referendum will not change the administration's plans for the project, or the way University to decide on AIDS policy By Rene Sanchez Managing Editor Loyola is preparing to set policies and educate the campus community about the deadly disease now alarming the nation — AIDS. "We don't want to play ostrich. We want to deal with it intelligently and compassionately," Jo An Yerger, administrative director of the campus health center, said. The university health committee will meet this month to shape guidelines Loyola would follow if a student or employee contracted acquired immune deficiency syndrome, which destroys the body's immune system and leaves it defenseless against even the most common ailments. "This is going to be a big issue," Yerger said. "It's something very serious, but we feel relaxed about it. We know we have a terrible epidemic that we don't have all the answers about, and we'll deal with that." Colleges around the country are now forming strategies to deal with an AIDS outbreak on their campuses. The American College Health Association soon will recommend AIDS policies to its member institutions. The University of Pennsylvania, for example, has already published a brochure for students titled, "AIDS — What All Students Should Know." AIDS is transmitted primarily by sexual contact among homosexuals. But uncertainty about how contagious the disease might be has spread panic outside gay communities and made AIDS the nation's number one health concern. Recent discoveries of the AIDS virus show it can be carried in body fluids such as saliva, semen, tears, feces, vaginal fluid, white blood cells, plasma and possibly sweat. About a million and a half people are infected with the virus. Yerger said homosexual men constitute 73 percent of AIDS patients. But the disease can also be contracted by intravenous drug users (17 percent), hemophiliacs (1 percent), sexual contact among heterosexuals (1 percent), blood transfusions (1 percent), and a mysterious "other" 7 percent. Yerger said she hopes to present a program this semester to educate the campus community on AIDS facts and myths, and may bring an AIDS victim on campus to speak. In the meantime, the health center is prepared to See Referendum /page 7 See Apartheid /page 4 See AIDS/page 3