CLASS CUTS

Students Form Group to Discuss Bickering

Students at Princeton University have formed a group to provide students with information about bickering, the controversial process by which the school's eating clubs choose who they admit as members, The Daily Princetonianreported.

After exams, many Princeton sophomores will face the bickering process, in which they meet and talk to members of the eating clubs. While they try to find a club well-suited for them, members of the club have a chance to see how they like the bickerers.

At five of Princeton's 13 eating clubs, where students traditionally eat all their meals after sophomore year, members select who can join. Because of the five clubs' selectivity, critics of the bickering system claim that it forms a social hierarchy among students.

The new group, called Students on Bicker, plans not to condemn or laud the process, but to promote discussion about it, members told The Princetonian.

"We are a group of students concerned about the fact that sophomores did not really have access to information about the bicker," said group member Ken Gold, a senior.

"It is the lack of questioning of bicker that we are against," he said. MIT

Vandals Damage Computers With Soda

Vandals broke into a locked computer center at MIT and damaged 22 computers valued at $20,000 each, The Tech reported last week.

Nine Hewlett-Packard computers, used by students for computation structures, were damaged when the trespassers poured soda in the machines' vents.

MIT officials reported the incident to campus police, but vandals broke in again the next night and tried to destroy the room's other computers, according to the student newspaper.

"The real cost can't be estimated by replacing or repairing the computers but rather by the time lost by students," said Louis D. Braida, a former lecturer on the structure and interpretation of computer programs.

Charles D. Paton, lecturer on electrical engineering and computer science, said that the MIT Police had been maintaining foot patrols around the building, but could not keep a constant watch over the center, which is open to students 24 hours a day.

"We asked [the MIT police] to seal the area by having a 24-hour guard, but they told us they didn't have the manpower to do that," Paton told The Tech.

Although five machines had already been repaired two days after the incident, MIT officials said they still were concerned that students who need the computers for classwork would suffer. UMASS

Radio Stations End Illicit Broadcasting

Two ham radio stations at the University of Massachusetts will have to end their operation because of law that prohibit stations with signals as weak as theirs, the Associated Press reported this week.

Officials at the university and Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees the operation of radio stations in the United States, said that neither of the 10-watt stations had received permission from the licensing authority.

The FCC is currently conducting an investigation to see what to do about the stations, which violate a 1979 law prohibiting stations with less than 100 from operating in this country, the news agency reported.

The FCC learned about the stations after reporters fromThe Collegian, UMass's student newspaper, contacted them about one of the stations, which began broadcasting two months ago. The other station has been operating for the last ten years.

Officials at the university said they do not believe the FCC's action is warranted. Dean of Students William Field told the news agency he hopes the "federal government doesn't rush in and solve a problem that does not exist."

FCC spokesman Allen Meyers told the Associated Press that his organization would probably not punish the university. "As a rule, we are less likely to fine educational institutions," he said. But, he added, "That doesn't mean we won't."

The 1979 statute gives the FCC the right to shutdown broadcast capabilities, impose fines of up to $2000 a day for up to 10 days of continued operation, or even imprison station operators if broadcasting persists. WILLIAMS

Visiting Pre-Frosh May Be Partying Too Hard

The Williams Record,the college's student newspaper, reported last month that three visiting high school students were hospitalized by the college after bouts of on-campus drinking.

In response, Williams sent a memorandum to all freshman and to junior advisors, asking them to "remind their prospective of the College's drinking policy and not to encourage them to drink," according to The Record.

Although incidents of this type have occurred often in the past, they are "a bigger deal now that the law has been changed--the college can be held liable, and has to cover itself legally," one student told The Record.A group of prospectives interviewed by the paper said the recent drinking episodes would not effect their opinion of the school. UPENN

Profs Claim Their Tenure Reviews Were Unfair

Two professors at the University of Pennsylvania's English Department are charging that unfair treatment was a factor in their tenure rejections this month, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian.

One of the teachers has resigned over the alleged prejudicial practices, and the other has filed suit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal organization which investigates discrimination in the workplace.

The Daily Pennsylvanianreported that the English department chairman has denied that sexism was involved in the decision not to tenure the two women, saying, "I challenge her to offer evidence of such a pattern of discrimination or to withdraw the statement."