Brown and White Vol. 82 no. 2

              lehigh university brown and white bethlehem pa tuesday september 22 1970 vol 82 no 2 86.6-0331 forum reps named the i'niversity forum elected four non-voting representatives to the board of trustees and approved five standing committees last friday the two students elected were don miles former corresponding secretary for arcadia and howard t bell a graduate student who was very prominent m last year's spring lehigh movement dr j donald ryan chairman of the geology department and dr charles vihon assistant professor of law were the elected faculty members two separate elections were held--one for the student representatives and one for the faculty however all members ofthe forum were allowed to vote m both elections five standing committees academic affairs student affairs priorities planning and resourses community relations and university budget were proposed by prof norman melchert on behalf of the conference on university life the committees and their functions were passed with only slight amendment the academic affairs committee wtll concern itself with innovation m curricula courses and methods of teaching calendar registration library computer and bookstore the student affairs gtoup will consider social life and regulations athletics residence and dining registration and calendar the priorities planning and resources committee will concern itself with long and short range planning m any area including bookstore and physical plant the community relations committee will consider the relationship of community and university welfare in addition it is to provide for the protection of the-right to dissent and for the rights and concerns of minority groups m the lehigh community including bethlehem residents the budget committee will be closely associated with the four other committees and shall review regularly the overall budget of the university one additional motion was carried at the last meeting as the result of a miscount m last friday's elections it was agreed that the actual number of votes that each candidate received would be made public m all future elections chairman ferdinand lieer has called the next meeting ot the forum ior tomorrow at 4:10 p.m m the osbourne room at which time committee size and membership will lie determined the meeting is open to the public forum officers dr ferdinand beer left don miles and howard t bcm dr beer — forum chairman man m the news story and interview by steve glickstein ferdinand beer leaned back relaxed m his chair and answered the question " i was m the french artillery m 1940 said the stout white-haired man m his characteristic french accent our company was defending abridge when i received the orders to withdraw we were on an elevated railroad and i thought it would be safe to retreat below so we tied a rope to the bridge and each man m my unit went down one by one here i was - the last man m my unit on top when i realized i didn't know how to go down the rope you see i was never very athletic m school and since i could never climb up the rope i never learned how to come down so i grabbed the roj-e and slid 30 feet down and burned my fingers now i try to make my courses liave as few prerequisites as possible because if they taught me how to go down the rope instead of waiting for me to go up first i wouldn't have burned my fingers the above story told by dr e.eer reflects many of the qualities which make him the ideal chairman of the university forum he is serious philosophical and at times authoritative but he rarely loses sight of a place for humor as well beer was acquainted with government very early m his life born m brittany france he was raised and educated m geneva switzerland where his father was league of nations reporter for a french newspaper while m switzerland beer became interested m science es pecially applied mathematics when he was very young beer was considering teaching and engineering careers finally opting for teaching he received his m.s and ph d degrees from the university of geneva m addition to an m s from the university of paris beer taught in europe until the outbreak of world war n when he served his brief stint as a second lieutenant m the french army shortly after france's collapse m 1940 he emigrated to the united states in 1941 beer received his first teaching assignment m the u.s at goddard college m vermont and found the educational system here much different from that m furope the american educa tional system offered more freedom and more room for ex perimentation than m europe said beer beer soon discovered that the system allowed students more freedom as well one day i was teaching m a very narrow classroom recalls beer when a student who was sitting m the front of the room put his feet up on the blackboard not being used to such a situation i felt that i had no other choice but to call off the class after leaving goddard college beer went to the university of kansas city missouri they thought being a foreigner was a sickness m the midwest so i came back to the east where i never felt like a foreigner beer then took a job as a physics professor m williams college m a joint program with mit it was then that he became interested m engineering especially mechanics because of its applicable theory m methods in 1947 beer accepted a post at lehigh and became chairman of tiie department of mechanical kngmeerim md m • < i tm just ten years later beer's affable nature as well as his competence made in m a favorite among both the faculty and liis students in 1..g his colleagues elected him as president of the uni versity chapter of the american association of university professors more recently he served on the mid atlantic research council and the american society for engineering education in his 27 years at lehigh beer has seen many changes m both students and faculty attitudes of tive students he says students used to avoid any involvement m public affairs their main concern was to get a diploma so they could go on to a successful career and land the best job offer students now not only at lehigh but all over the world are more conscious of their responsibility even after establishing themselves m a profession the faculty too has increased m its awareness of its deep social responsibility continued lieer however there are those students and facuitv who don't see responsibi lity and those are the people who feel tliat lehigh has gained nothing from the forum last year beer became quite interested m tiie spring lelurh movement he conceived the students as liaving a desire to have a voice m the organization of their own education beer sees the establishment of the forum as uie culmination of co-operation between students and faculty he expressed his desire that as chairman he does not gain disproportionate amount of power but that the responsibility be shared equally by all groups the new chairman forsees many long nights working on tiie forum but does not anticipate dropping any of his teactiing responsibilities because of this extra workload " perhaps alter a stormy debate m the forum i won't lie as well prepared as i'd normally be but being chairman should not adversely affect my teaching beer sees the major goa 1 of the forum as establishing con fidence amongst students faculty and administration we must not only implement the constitution but also reflect its spirit m the cooperation among the three groups on campus as a teacher the new chairman feels that his greatest satis faction comes from helping students develop rational methods and humane ways of thinking we should always remember that we are only the actors of this instant m a long range drama what we do now m the forum should benefit all generations of students and faculty at lehigh dr ferdinand beer