Brown and White Vol. 81 no. 48

              lehigh university brown and white bethlehem pa thrusday april 16 1970 special edition sssssa ' >. t « yv^-av.vv.:.v.v.v.-.v^.v.-.v.-.-.-.v.-.-.-.v 1 866-033 1 vol 81 no 48 forum size length of terms topics of arts discussion by john schliesman we do not want people to make a career of working on the forum but we do want people on it long enough to understand . . the forum with these words professor i_awrence i_eder of the history department began discussion on the first of two major topics covered in wednesday's arts college meeting the duration of terms for forum members professor nicholas lapara of the phil osophy department offered an amendment to leder's original proposal of faculty terms of three years and student terms of one and two years asking for faculty terms of two years leder would not accept the amendment as a friendly one and lt was dropped lapara said that he offered the amendment in response to student sentiment against the faculty's extra year of service on the forum •• the second major topic discussed was the size of the forum and how the sensi tivity of representatives will be affected by the size of their constituencies pro fessor charles mccoy chairman of the government department proposed an amendment which would douhle the size of the forum to 60 students and 60 faculty members and provide for the addition of five administrators to give the forum a total membership of 125 the group seemed to be almost equally divided over the membership issue some faculty members see med to favor dropping some student representatives and adding administrators to take their place a member of the faculty who did not identify himself opposed this idea by saying tliat we must " take away the excuse of those faculty memliers who oppose the forum . , because of a numerical distribution ls their tke idea of lia vi up any adtffitf lstrators in the voting membership of the forum was attacked when a graduate - student said i think the administration should have a voice but not a vote in the forum opinions still seemed to be fairly evenly divided when prof donald mankin assis tant professor of psychology said the two criteria are whether or not doubling the size of t lie forum makes it " unwleldly , and the breakdown of the various interest groups within the forum mankin cited the university of pennsylvania's forum which lias a representative membership of 115 as a large yet manageable and efficient governing body this example seemed to swing the majority of people in favor of professor mccoy's amendment a vote was taken and the amendment passed by a vote of 74-56 engineers reach agreement by jim shipkowski in three straw votes the students and faculty members attending the engineering couege finally came to some agreement on the details of the forum prof ferdinand beer's one man one vote proposal met virtually unanimous acceptance by those present another . poll saw an overwhelming majority in favor of giving the administrators on the forum a vote approval was also given to a suggestion that the composition of the forum be five administrators and an equal number of students and faculty . ami ntmum of 20 wae set on the number of representa tives from each group dean john j karakash noted how quickly the forum gained universal acceptance even though three weeks ago no one was aware of the concept karakash remarked francis wuest don parsons w deming lewis fornm details worked out several organtzptlonal details were adapted during yesterday's all university meeting and will be included in the second version of the minority report the board of trustees will receive the combined proposals no later than april 71 \ u decided at the grace hall meeting after three and a half hours of debate mo faculty members and 360 students voted in favor of the following equal representation of the students and faculty voting privileges for administrative members the number or members i>«60-6c-3 siud«nts fccsft sd administrative officials respectively that open meetings be held unless closed by a 2/3 vote of the forum and that floor privileges be ranted to members of the university community and the rity of bethlehem election procedures wmi id b decided by meetings of the individual university segments the majority of the faculty supported the idea of equal student representation only one faculty member disapproved and stated that the student should have only on third of representation bill taylor 70 spoke out in favor of the 50-50 proposal he said that a diploma from lehigh university is well accepted only if the school is considered excellent at the time student representation would create a batter university according to taylor and thus make a university diploma worthy the 50-50 proposal was overwhelmingly accepted in principle official approval by the faculty must occur seven days after the motion's introduction unless a majority votes to suspend the rule as stated in " procedures rules and regulations the all-university was divided over the proposal to give administrative officials a vote in the forum but after debate a large majority accepted five voting members the concepts of delivery of opinion and accountability were introduced in defense of administrative voters the president provost vice president for student affairs and two other adminis trative officials appointed by the president would attend the meetings a motion by ell schwartz professor of economics called for a limited number of forum members 30-30-4 so that meetings would be a workable size schwartz regarded the present motion of 60 faculty members and 60 students and 5 adminis trators on the forum as an unwieldly legislative body several students pointed out a large body would offer the broader represen tation while don miles using the former student government as an example sup ported the 60-60-5 proposal miles stated unwieldliness only occurs when a forum's committee members are unacquainted with the government's procedure a large for um would provide the participating mem bers to serve on committees the idea of open meetings met with no debate but some speakers favored the forum's ability to option the closed door policy the original clause containing a provision to vote for a closed meeting was retained after another overwhelming con c ensus of opinion the privileges of the floor to all members of the university community also met no resistance mike golden 71 amended the proposal to include any member of the bethlehem community the student consensus was for an elec tion conducted solely by students faculty involvement was rejected golden stated " you faculty worry about how you want yourself represented and we students will worry about ourself the date for student elections was not announced baw photo by doster dean john karakash of the engineering college comments on the makeup af the proposed student faculty forum the makeup of the body wae decided yesterday but how representatives will be chosen must still be decided see weighted page 3