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Show 85TH YEAR; NUMBER 2 SOUTHERN UTAH STATE COLLEGE CEDAR CITY, UTAH THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1990 SU ROTC to close due to defense cuts BY NATALIE COOMBS SU officials received notice Tuesday that ROTC, a program that has been on campus since the summer of 1987 and has commissioned 17 U.S. Army officers, is being discontinued as of June 1991. While the program wont officially be gone until 91, it is, in for freshmen and sophomore students. Maj. effect, Robert Lauritzen said a warning order was issued last week that said the program may be pulled from campus; therefore, registration of freshmen and sophomores was discontinued. Junior and senior students will be permitted to complete their officer training during this remaining year and the ROTC program will be compressed to allow juniors to fill requirements. Those students, after completing the compressed schedule, may stay an additional year at SUSC to complete their degrees. Lauritzen said that although junior and senior students will be allowed to complete degrees from SUSC, freshman students with three-yea- r scholarships will be given the option to decline the scholarship and stay at SUSC or to use the scholarship at a different school. According to Lauritzen, the program is being pulled as a result of world-wid- e political changes and Congress decision to cut military spending. With the Soviet Union and other communist countries becoming smaller threats to U.S. security, said Lauritzen, The U.S. Congress got the idea that now we dont need a large armed force and took advantage of the opportunity they interpreted as a peace dividend. Peace is breaking out all over the world thats when everyone started hearing a lot about downsizing. Of the armed forces, the Army, he said, will undergo the largest decrease, from about 700,000 troops to 500,000. While the plan to cut ROTC programs was conceived prior to the recent crisis in the Middle East, Operation Desert Shield wasnt enough to save ROTC at SUSC and about 50 other colleges and universities around the country. In addition, even with current developments, Lauritzen predicts that closures wont be limited to the current 50. There may be as many as 100 shut down before the machine grinds to a halt. In the face of the largest U.S. military buildup overseas since World War II, we continue to downsize. I dont have an explanation, Lauritzen said. Although SUSCs program has been touted as one of the best in the state, Lauritzen said it is being closed because it has never had a formal contract with the U.S. government. The program has been operating under the umbrella of BYUs ROTC program since it began. It wasnt because the program wasnt successful that its being shut back. SUSCs program enrolled approximately 12 percent of all eligible students on campus, said Lauritzen, compared to larger programs like BYUs which enrolls about 4 percent of students. SUSC has applied for contract for the past two years but has been turned down each time because of a moratorium the government has placed on ROTC expansion. They allowed us to stay without contract and time was on our side, Lauritzen said. The longer we stayed on the ground, the better the chances that our program would have been approved. I am infinitely disappointed about the closure, said Lauritzen, but we feel very proud that we had the opportunity to serve at Southern Utah; were very proud of the lieutenants now serving in the Army who come from SUSC; were indebted to the school administration, student body and entire community for their support. non-existe- Associate Professor of Biology Michael Donovan takes inventory of various chemicals in SUs Science Center. Donovan, on Thursday, found the potentially explosive reagents removed by HazMat Monday night. Chemical explosion averted HazMat removes potentially dangerous materials in emergency action BY KATHLEEN MIDGLEY Three potentially explosive chemical compounds housed in the Science Center were removed and destroyed Monday night by the Hazardous Materials Unit of the Utah Highway Patrol in an emergency action. The chemicals, some of which had apparently crystalized, had become potentially dangerous reagents and the 300 West block between Center Street and 200 South was closed for about two hours while the six containers of chemicals were removed. According to Dean A1 Tait, School of Science, the science department has been in the process of taking supply inventory, getting rid of chemicals no longer used and replacing obsolete chemicals with smaller inventories of newer, safer substances. The inventory turned up some old supplies, including ether, picric acid and trinitrobenzin, which were not needed in the schools inventory, said Tait. Michael Donovan, associate professor of biology, said there is no formal, regular inventory of items, but people are constantly in and out of the storage areas to find equipment and chemicals. Tait said the picric acid was last used about four years ago, when the biology tissue techniques class requiring the acid was still taught. Tait said the chemical was not dangerous when it was purchased, but became so after sitting in storage. Reagents, such as the picric acid, have varying forms, and it is not until the form changes that they become potentially dangerous, he said. In this instance, one of the containers of picric acid would have become volatile if ignited because it had been changed from its granular form into hydrated muted with water and then dried, said Tait. The six containers were removed from the Science Center, said Donovan, including three bottles of picric acid, one of ether and two of trinitrobenzin. Each container needed to be removed individually to reduce the danger of an explosion, lengthening the removal process. State agencies were consulted to determine the best way to dispose of the chemicals. Its not that we thought it was harmful, said Donovan, officials simply wanted to find the safest way to get rid of the chemicals. Tait said, Theyre not something you can just throw in a landfill. Arrangements were made for HazMat employees a private contractor to fly down Monday from Salt Lake City to handle the disposal. However, foul weather kept delaying the flight until the team finally decided to drive to Cedar City. and After spending three hours removing the six containers from the building, the chemicals were taken to the ROTC gun range where they were blown up by HazMat employees. |