NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE'
PAID Vol. 8, No.4, June 1992
Permit No. 163 Commac!<. N.Y.
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75·40 Parsons Boulevard. Flushing, NY 11366
Townsend Harris High School at Queens College
'Sing in praise of happy daze' at Tons of Horrors Hi'gh #I
by Zina I zrael Extended procrastinations, thoughts of cancellation, followed by unification, jubilation, and finally a grand ovation are images characteristic of .Sing 1992. After much delay and controversy as to whether or not there should be a Sing, the production was presented on June 5 in the cafetorium. Unlike the heated Sing competitions of seniors versus juniors during prev ious years, the grade barriers were dissolved and, for the first time in several years, the talen ts of both juniors and seniors we re bl ended into one production of Sing under the direction of junior Stephanie Nix and the supervision of Georgette Wallace, English teacher. " A Harris Carol" was about a student, Chris, who graduated from Tons ofHorrors High and finally, got a letter of acceptance to the University of East Cupcake. She was forced, by the ghosts of certain of her teachers, to relive the horrors of her freshman, sophomore,
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doing a kickline and parading down an imaginary runway for
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models . This provoked waves oflaughter from th ewdi ~~
pleasure," according to Sing members . The crisp sounds of conjugated Latin verbs echoed from the mouth of Mr. Ego Sum, played by senior Sean Persaud, and bounced back in a rather spiritless fashion from Chris and her classmates, who seemed rather indifferent as to whether the accent on ambulare was pl aced on the " a" or the
Pianists Elaine Eng, junior, and .. Dien T aylor, "u. n senior,andthe"4 Minutes later, the spirit ofMr. Bones E Skinless," the (junior Keith Tully) reintroduced Chris ~ senior band, sup- to her junior year. Senior Krissy Rice -&. plied the music to played a frant ic male m ath teacher, accompany Mr. Ruler, whohad a violent obsession are freshman Rebecca Parker, Sing's songs, all with striking his ruler agains t most inof which con- animate objects in sight. The end res ult bodies," she yelled senior Felicia Froimovitz, and juniors January Angeles and Donna Weiss. as her class was in the middle of a 30- stuffed green frog swinging from Chris' tained familiar melodies with lyrics of such rage was the breakage of the minutejog with several people, having shoulder. that had been changed to coincide hu- ruler. Was the aud ience surprised? alre ady fainted, lying flat on the floor The audience got a first-hand glimpse morously with the plot. There was not Probably not, according to some math creating obstacles for the rurmers. The of what really goes on in a male locker one moment of silence.' The band students in the audience. nightmare continued with Chris' re- room. Accompanied by Right Said continued playing during intermission Sing Producer Bari Shultz, sen ior, fusal to dissect a frog in biology class. Fred's "I'm Too Sexy," five boys, like and was kind enough to throw in seg- left a word to the wise for future Sing This psychological torture resulted in five fingers on a fist, punched straight ments of "Bar-mitzvah Music From productions: "Don't be veclempt, Rea song and dance about morals with a through the heart of the audience by Hell" for the audience's "listening hearse early and hard," she said.
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A matter of censorship? ·Quad back in business after lock-out by Jennifer Sorowltz Members of the newly-elected Student Act ivities Corporation [SAC] voted to restore the budget of The Quad, the student newspaper of Queens College, on June 1. The journal's staff was locked out of their office on May 20 because of a decision made by the outgoing board, which was a result of the claim that The Quad provided inadequate cov erage of campus events. The action of the outgoing SAC board received widespread metropolitan press coverage because of the First Amendment rights issue raised by the cas e. "We got our $8800," said Bruno N avarro, Edi tor-in-Chief of The Quad. "Every club was supposed to ge t an 18% cut across the board. Instead, we wer e exe mpt from the 18% cu t." SAC , an org anization which distributes funds to student clubs, also voted to establish a Quad advisory committee, whi ch will include faculty and students. Its purpose is "to make suggestions for The Quad ....to train the staff [and] fam iliarize them with the Student Gove rnm ent," said Bruno. "This adv isory comm ittee has no real power over us. It will serv e as a buffer...so we can't just be defunded like that. It w ill be impartial. Th ey'll be more ge ared [toward] ho w to improve the paper." It is yet to be de termined how many people will sit on the board or who they will be, he said. The Quad and SAC must agr ee upon the members. "I'm ho ping we can get professional journalists
on the advisory board," said Bruno. In addition to denying the funds necessary for running The Quad, SAC had originally voted to fund a different newspaper to be run by the joumalism program. The journalism department had not been notified of this decision. 'That's news to us," saidjournalism professor JoannLce. "We were not in anyway involved in that suggestion" (New York Newsday 5/22/92).
the outgoing board of SAC, consisting of seven students and two administrators. I thas since been replaced by the incoming board, which is operating under old guidelines, said Ron Cannava, college spokesman. The newer board will operate until July I, when a College Association will take over most of its responsibilities. The board of directors of this organization will have less student representation than SAC. The old SAC board had decided to give The ~~~~~iliill11~~illf~t~~ili~~ili~~1~jlm~~~~f~j~~~~ili~Ii1~~~~~ll~lm~ili~lili.~~g®~~~i~ili~~ Quad a budget of zero dollars bec ause "students were not being represented adequately by the .newspaper and when they were represented, they were represen ted falsely," said Matthew (Daily News 5/22/92). "Over eigh ty percent of the clubs on campus feel they are misrepresented by The Quad. [It] wasn't covering events on campus, especially when it came to changes in curriculum and raci al tensions on campus," he said (New York Newsday 5/22/92). Both sides are content with the agreement. 'The decision of the previous SAC board not to "I'm glad tha t we could resolve the matter in an fund The Quad for the fall semeste r was clearly eqitable manner," said Matthew Shulman, Vice an act of frustration. As The Quad's publisher, President-elect of SAC, who m ade the motion to the SAC board used its primary power - the se ttle . "Both sides realized tha t an independent po wer of the purse - to demand changes in the campus newspaper and an accountab le campus p aper ' s structure so that it could better serve the newspaper need not be mutually exclusive ideas" college co mmunity," said Student Association (Queens Tribune 6/4 -10/92). ''This is a pos itive President Charmaine Worthy in a sta tement isstep. It signals a new working relationship be- sue d by the press office of the coll ege (Queens tween student gov ernment and the newspaper," Tribune 6/4-10/92) . "Ch arm aine was really the one respons ible for said Bruno (Queens Tribune 6/4- 10/92). The decision to defund The Quad was made by get ting us back our fund ing ," said Bruno. "If she
,...this action was a violation of our First Amendment right. ..'
had n't taken the initiative...I don't think we would have a paper in September ." When the staff had discovered that the computerized locks had been changed to their office on May 20, they sought Paul Simon, director of the Student Union. "He said the executive board of SAC had requested that we be denied access to the computers," explained Katie Donahue, Features Editor of The Quad . 'They were afraid we would sabatoge the computers." Dr. Simon reprogranuned the key, and the students regained access to their office, but could no t use the computers or dark room until the settlement w as made. . The Quad had filed a civil rights lawsuit against the college. Marc Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center of Washington, had agreed to take the case pro bono. SAC 's actions were based on the "contents of the publication and that's a clear violation of the First Amendment," he said (Daily News 5/22/92) . The Quad had also been circ ulating a petition to the students and faculty in order to regain their funding. "Even students who have cr iticized The Quad in the past are with us on this," K:ltie said in an interview conducted prior to the res toration of the newspaper's fun ding . "We [felt] this action was a viol ation of our First Amendment right of free speech," said Katie. She feels that SAC acted against the paper because of political differences: articles were published which presented the Stud ent Govern -
continued on page 7
Future Teachers p.4
Festival of Nations p.S
Security Guards p.7
'Skating' p.8