Western Front - 1980 February 29

              VOL. 72. NO. 14 WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1980.
Leap-year Day
credit to Caesar
Editor's note: The only thing
more confusing than the English
language is our calendar; the bis­sextile
(Leap-year Day) is a good
example of this. So, after extensive
research with Mabel Zoe Wilson,
this essentially correct story was
written to confuse you even more.
Once upon a time in Rome,
Julius Caesar found spring wasn't
arriving until May, when it should
have begun in March. He thought,
"Well, if I don't fix this, some year
soon we'll just have to skip spring,
and that will really confuse the
populace."
So he solicited the help of an
Egyptian astronomer, Sosigenes,
to solve the problem. Since,
astronomers didn't have much to
do in those days, Sosigenes gladly
accepted.
He based the new calendar on
the length of the seasons instead of
on lunar phases, and came up with
an accurate year's length of 365!4
days, one day less than the
Roman's calendar.
"Well done," Julius said, "but
what about spring,' which doesn't
arrive until darn-near summer?"
Sosigenes had the answer: Make
the year 46 B.C. to be 455 days long
(this is truth!).
With the blessings of Julius Cae­sar,
he inserted 23 days between
Feb. 23 and Feb. 24, and two extra
months before December. This not
only put the seasons where they
belonged but changed the first day
of the year to Jan. I.
„ So, previous errors being cor­rected,
steps were taken to prevent
their recurrence. Remembering
that the year had. an extra quarter
of a day, Caesar directed a day be
inserted between Feb. 23 and 24
every fourth year. This day became
knows as the "bis-sexto-kalendae"
because it was the sixth day before
the new month. Thankfully, that
term has been shortened to
"bissextile."
Anyone born on the bissextile
was ordered to celebrate subse­quent
birthdays on Feb. 23. Later,
the extra day was moved to the end
of the month.
For a job well done, the Roman
senate rewarded Caesar by naming
a month in the new calendar
"Julius," or July. Sosigenes, pre­sumably,
also was justly rewarded.
The name leap year probably,
derived from the Old Norse hlaupa
("to leap") because the Old Norse,
smart people that they were,
noticed whenever an extra day was
added the festivals seemed to jump
dates.
Recently, a new calendar has
been proposed by Willard
Edwards of Honolulu to simplify
the current mess. The perpetual
calendar would have 364 days so
the year may evenly be divided into
quarters. A semi-existent day,
which would not have'a date,
would fall after Dec. 31, and the
quadrennial leap-year day would
be placed after June 31.
Although this plan has been
introduced to Congress a number
of times, it always has failed.
—Eric Hookham
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Law threat to entrance exams
Director answers critics
College entrance examina­tions
are being criticized again,
and the director of Western's
Testing Center and Western's
Registrar have mixed feelings
about it.
Last month consumer acti­vist
Ralph Nader released a
study critical of the Educa­tional
Testing Service (ETS), a
non profit-organization which
administers the Scholastic
Aptitude Test (SAT).
Specific criticism includes:
-ETS tests exclude a dispro­portionate
nember of minority
applicants who are capable of
succeeding.
—Previous grades alone pre­dict
future grades twice as accu­rately
as ETS tests.
—That test scores affect
admission.
"College Entrance exams are
biased against minorities, but
only to the extent that the edu­cation
system is biased against
minorities," Western's Testing
Center director Don BJood
said.
Western's Registrar Eugene
Omey agrees. "I believe the
socio-economic background
affects how someone will do on
a test.
As for the test scores affect­ing
admission, Omey disagrees.
"It's a disservice to say test
results by themselves are the big
determiner. No college uses test
results by itself." Omey said.
At Western, SAT results for
admission are used very little.
Any resident who graduates
from high school with a 2.5
grade-point average (G PA) and
passes the Washington Pre-
College Test is accepted.
It's the non-resident who
applies at Western who must
submit a GPA along with a
SAT or American College Test
(ACT) score.
The SAT or ACT is also used
for residents whose GPA is
beneath 2.5 but applies, for
admission.
Omey* agrees that the tests
alone are' not always a proper
indicator of the student. "A
GPA is a much better predictor
of grades than test results," he
said.
One result of the mounting'
pressure against the entrance
exams has been a new "truth-in-testing"
law enacted in New
York. It requires test-makers to
release the answers if an indi­vidual
request is made. The
answers are only released to
people who have taken the test.
Fourteen states and the federal
government are also consider­ing
smiliar legislation. Washing­ton
state is not among them.
Bo*th Blood and .Omey are
opposed to any sort of "truth-in-
testing" laws.
Blood said that if the answers
are released to students, then
the test is no longer usable for
that student or any others.
"One form of a SAT cost
$20,000 to prepare," Blood
said. "In New York, the ETS
has cut back from giving six to
two tests per year. This makes it
harderfor kids to take the test
and the sessions will be larger."
Nationwide, the SATs are a
required entrance exam for a
fairly large number of colleges
and universities. Many private
institutions in Washington
require the SAT.
Blood, who has directed the
Testing Center for 15 years,
said the main reason tests are
given is because sometimes
other criteria for admission are
.needed than a GPA.
"Always when people criti­cize
tests, I can see some have
legitimate reservations in the
use of scores. But what are we
going to use instead ?"
Campus religious
groups lose lawsuit
—James Huntington
A federal judge Wed nescfaydis-missed
a suit filed by campus reli­gious
groups seeking to overturn
Western's recognition policy.
U.S. District Court . Judge
Donald Voorhees ruled the recog­nition
policy, which limits the use
of campus facilities by religious
groups to twice a quarter and
charging them to rent, is legal.
Mike Dittman, Western student
and lead plaintiff in the suit, said
the decision probably will be
appealed. That appeal probably
would be filed in May.
The religious groups filed the
suit in district court.Oct. 12 claim­ing
the policy violates the First
Amendment freedoms of speech,
assembly and religion.
The attorney general's office
argued in December that the state
constitution forbids free use of
state facilities for religious pur­poses
and the federal constitution
requires a separation of church
and state.
The recognition policy allows
free use of campus facilities by rec­ognized
groups if their purpose is
for other than religious worship or
instruction.
Voorhees, in his decision, said:
"there can be no question that the
university is interfering with the
exercise by plaintiffs of religious
beliefs, sincerely held by them. The
question which must be addressed
by the court is whether the state
has sufficiently justified - that
interference.
"The university's current policy
goes far to accommodate religion
but avoids the very real danger Oi
establishing it," he said.
Voorhees dismissed the suit, say­ing:
"prior restraint in this*instance
is justified not only by the state's
interest in avoiding establishment
dangers but also by its interest in
avoiding entanglement problems."
The suit was filed by Campus
Christian Fellowship, The Naviga­tors,
Inter-Varsity Christian Fel­lowship
and Campus Crusade for
Christ, along with 14 individuals.
It was filed against Western, Uni­versity
President Paul Olscamp,
Jack Smith, AS activities adviser,
Kevin Majkut, adviser to the AS
Activities Council, other adminis­trators
and trustees and the Asso­ciated
Students.
If appealed, the case would go to
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco.
—Gary Lorentson