Infant left at Boone Pregnancy center  
Kathryn Booze Police Beat 

At 2:26 p.m. on Tuesday, March 21, the Boone Police Department received a call that an infant had been abandoned at the Boone Crisis Pregnancy Center at 232 Furman Road. 

The director of the facility, Ann Cook, had been in the back of the building when the doorbell rang twice. Coming to the front of the building to answer the door, she found an infant in lying on the couch wrapped in a green fleece jacket. Cook took the infant to the Watauga Medical Center Emergency Room. After examination in the maternity ward, the infant was determined to be a white female, seven pounds and four to six hours old. 

On Thursday night, March 23, a police department investigator received a tip from an anonymous caller about information regarding the mother of the infant. 

The next day, the woman named by the informant was located by investigators. At the Boone Police Department she admitted to leaving her newborn daughter at the Boone Crisis Pregnancy Center at 2:10 p.m. on March 21. 

The mother of the baby (whose name is withheld by law), is in her mid-20’s, married and has other children who live with her. She hid the pregnancy from her husband and delivered the child by herself Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. 

The infant is currently under the supervision of the Department of Social Services and has been placed with a foster family. All required parties will sign the necessary paperwork. The police department declined to press criminal charges against the mother. 

Lieutenant William Watson of the Boone Police Department said, “While the actions of the child’s mother were illegal under the letter of the law, there were significant mitigating factors involved in our decision not to charge. She showed a great deal of concern for the ultimate welfare of her child, and left the baby in a place, and in such manner to insure the well-being of the infant ... the woman has agreed to seek counseling until such further time as it is no longer needed.” 
 

Joseph to speak on multicultural issues 
Office of Cultural Affairs 

On March 30, the Equity Office will present Breaking Academic and Cultural Barriers with Nga Joseph. The forum will be held at 7 p.m. in the Linville Falls Room of Plemmons Student Union on the campus of Appalachian State University. 

Joseph received his master’s degree in biology from Appalachian State University in December of 1999, and is a first generation university student from his African tribe in the Cameroons. He will share the challenging experiences and formidable cultural, political and economic barriers he had to break through in his long quest for education in the United States. 

Joseph will also address the following issues: 

• The Blessings and Tribulations of African Students in American Universities 

• Cross-cultural Contact and Conflict 

• Female Genital Mutilation in the Cameroons 

• The Legacy of Colonialism & Slavery on Africans in the Diaspora 

Joseph is a very engaging and insightful speaker who exudes academic enthusiasm and ambition. Join the Equity Office to celebrate the majesty of academia with this committed African student who says Appalachian State is the mother institution that gave birth to his dreams. 
 

Extended hours, expansion in near future for library 
Caitlyn Payne  SGA Beat 

Dr. Mary Reichel presented an update on current library policies and hours at the Student Government Association meeting Tuesday. 

“Library hours are ... one of the greatest concerns ... the students have,” said Reichel. The library is attempting to extend its hours this spring. Hours may possibly be extended to 2 a.m. three nights a week, starting on April 2. This will be tried until Reading Day, when the library will be open 24 hours a day. 

“I am really pleased we are doing this experiment,” said Reichel.  

There will be a cost of $1,500 for additional student assistance for the hour extension experiment.  The library will also have security guards, and will be “checking student ID’s,” according to Reichel. 

“We have permanent full-time staff who will be working these 24 hour shifts,” said Reichel. Currently, there is one library staff member for every 229 students. This is comparably higher than Western Carolina, which has one librarian for every 119 students. 

The library will receive $327,000 to be used for the book budget, due to the enrollment increase at Appalachian. Approximately $200,000 of that money will be used to create two library faculty positions and five library staff positions. 

With the enrollment increase that is projected in the future, there has been consideration for a larger library. The new building would be called the Information Commons. It would have “plenty of group study rooms,” as well as areas for reading and individual study, according to Reichel. Although the project is considered important, Reichel said she does not see it being constructed in the immediate future. 
 

Native American Council strugles for recognition 
Tiffany Fant Multicultural Beat 

Apathy is a major problem and concern among the multicultural groups on Appalachian’s campus. However, the Native American Council (NAC) seems to be suffering more than any other organization. 

Andrew Meadows, the only member of NAC, has been a member for four years. 

He said he initially joined the organization because he “wanted to find out more about his heritage.” 

Meadows comes from an upbringing where his nationality was never discussed and the NAC was a way for him to find out more about who he was. 

During Meadows’ time in this organization, he said “the numbers dwindled year by year because of conflict.”  The major conflict which he spoke of was between the full-blooded (sic) Native Americans and the other Native Americans who only had some blood. 

He said, “the full-blooded Native Americans did not want to share information that they knew with others because of the suffering that the Native American culture had already endured.” 

Though there was internal strife, NAC also had to deal with outside forces as well. One incident which Meadows recalls is of the pow-wow that had been in the works for three years. NAC became discouraged when they received comments such as “the moccasins will scratch the gym floor” in trying to get cultural events on campus. 

Even though there have been problems, NAC have had some successes as well. One event that NAC sponsored was a clothing drive for a reservation in Montana. This drive raised over 2,100 pounds of clothes for the adults and children of this organization. 

Meadows said, “it saddens me to know that people who are Native American or American Indian don’t represent their culture on this campus.” Because Meadows is a senior, he is afraid that NAC’s future is bleak because he is the only one in the organization. 

According to Meadows, benefits of revitalizing NAC would be that “a minority group would have a voice.”  He also said, “the Native American culture seems to be disappearing and NAC would be a place where people would have somewhere to go and represent so the culture would not disappear.” 

If anyone is interested in joining the Native American Council or helping to revitalize it, they may contact Tracey Wright at 262-6252 in the CSIL office located in the Plemmons Student Union. 
 
 

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