Western Front - 1994 April 5

              And they're off
Viking 21 to race at
1994 Clean Air Road Rally.
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Campus religion
Students use campus outlets
to find fellowship.explore beliefs.
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The Western Front
WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY TUESDAY — APRIL5, 1994 VOLUME 88, ISSUE 1
Spring arrives
Front/John Smith
A sunny day brings a veritable plethora of people to lounge in Red Square. Diana Chaloupka
and Gary Sarlund took time out to enjoy the sun.
Ad memo angers
Herald employees
By Chris Geer
Front reporter
A memo asking Bellingham
Herald employees not to patron­ize
businesses that don't advertise
with the city's only daily news­paper
left some employees dis­turbed
and angry.
A Herald employee unhappy
with what some perceive as a
"bullying tactic" by Herald man­agement
gave a copy of a memo
from Herald Publisher J.C.
Hickman to several local media
sources.
The Feb. 24 HeraldHiLites, an
inter-office memo distributed
weekly to all Herald employees,
specifically targets the wholesale
store Costco because the ware­house
retailer does not advertise
with the Herald. The section be­gins
with, "This note could be
called: "Why I don't shop at
Costco," and is signed by
Hickman:
"/ try to do the majority of my
shopping at businesses that do
business with The Herald. That's
because the advertisers in our
newspaper pay our salaries. We
should support them with our
business. Costco, for example,
doesn 't advertise. Advertising in
newspapers is not part of Costco's
strategy. So I don't support Costco
by shopping there. I hope you
don't shop there either. Iurgeyou
to shop with our advertisers and
not to patronize non-advertisers.
If you do shop at non-advertisers,
don't tell anyone... especially me.
And when you do shop at our
advertisers, tell themyou saw their
ads in The Herald."
Despite multiple inquiries by
the Front, Hickman refused to
comment on the issue.
But Hickman was quoted on
KGMI radio as saying his com­ments
were meant to be light-hearted,
and that he was merely
encouraging employees to support
companies which advertise with
the paper.
See Herald, page 4
Smoking possible grounds RSVP system gets good reviews
for workplace discrimination By Charity Proctor
Front reporter
By Kartr Johnson
Front reporter
Smoking is becoming more
expensive and less tolerated across
the country — and Daniel M.
Warner, local attorney and busi­ness-
law professor at Western,
says smokers may be discrimi­nated
against by potential em­ployers.
"Employers can discriminate
against anyone unless there is a
law prohibiting it," Warner said.
Colorado, Tennessee, Oregon,
South Carolina, Rhode Island and
New Jersey have laws prohibiting
discrimination by employers
against smokers, Warner said.
Washington does not.
Additionally, Western is also
considering modifying its smok­ing
policy to make it more restric­tive.
Warner said none of the above
states have laws prohibiting em­ployers
from charging smokers
more for health insurance.
The Employee Responsibili­ties
and Rights Journal recently
published an article in which
Warner provided the following
explanations of why employers
may discriminate against smok­ers:
•Employers have the right to
choose employees according to
their own criteria.
•There is no constitutional
right to smoke, and no federal
laws exist to ban discrimination
against smokers.
•No state denies employers
the right to ban smoking in the
workplace.
•The American Disabilities
Act does not explicitly include
smoking as a protected disability.
The reasons for an employ er' s
discrimination against smokers
are mainly economical, Warner
said.
"Smokers cost employers a
considerable amount of money,"
Warner said.
The Congressional Office of
Technology Assessment asserts
an individual smoker costs his or
her employer $2,000 to $5,000
annually in increased insurance
expenses, absenteeism, lost pro­ductivity
and property damage.
Western used Registration for Students Via
Phone (RSVP) for the first time this quarter, and the
initial response to the touch-tone registration sys­tem
is good.
The system eased class enrollment for many
students, said Registrar Joe St. Hilaire. RSVP's
sucess has been measured both by a survey con­ducted
during last quarter's dry run and anecdotally
this quarter.
"Things are going a lot be"er this quarter than
they were last quarter," St. Hiiaire said. "We've
(talked to students) a lot, and most of them are
pleased."
Not only did students not have to wait in line,
but very few got a busy signal with RSVP. Accord­ing
to statistics compiled by St. Hilaire, RSVP's
30th and final phone line were used only 40 times
during most of the registration process.
While students around campus could be heard
praising the ease of registering by telephone rather
than waiting in lines, they complained about major
restrictions.
Students who need courses from a major other
than their own have often solved the problem of
exclusive-major preregistration simply by declar­ing
that major. Others declared double majors.
The RSVP system is currently unable to accept
double majors and minors without add codes, but
that may change in the future, St. Hilaire said.
However, solving that problem won't lessen the
pressure on seniors who lose their space in classes
in their major to non-majors. Departments must
weigh the needs of their majors against those of
other students.
"I don't know where to draw the line between
protecting your own majors and providing a more ho­listic
approach," St. Hilaire said.
The sociology department handled the problem as it
has in past quarters: Most sociology courses were
restricted to majors during the first three weeks of Phase
One, and opened near the phase's end to all students.
While this was not a new practice, some students were
confused at the new format, Sociology Chair Carl
Simpson said. However, Simpson said he thought that
most students who really needed sociology classes got
them.
St. Hilaire praised RSVP's efficiency, saying that
although there were 140 fewer sections and 2,155 fewer
seats this quarter than last spring, advance registration's
17-credit limit allowed 484 more students to register
this quarter, he said.
The touch-tone system also enabled more students
to take advantage of class space as it became available.
Rather than wait until the second day of classes, as in
previous quarters, students could make schedule changes
weeks before classes even started.
This was intended not only to increase efficiency in
registration, but also to ease faculty frustration at the
chaos of students rearranging their schedules during the
first week of classes, St. Hilaire said.
RSVP also kept students who intended to pick and
choose what to keep during add/drop from over-loading
classes, St. Hilaire said. In this winter's advance regis­tration,
226 students registered for 19 credits. In the next
phase of registration, only 13 students had 19 credits,
which freed up many classes for others.
Now that the last phase of registration has ended,
further faculty and student reactions to RSVP will be
gathered, St. Hilaire said.