Brown and White Vol. 81 no. 46

              lehigh university brown and white y»i.jh -*•.<« bethlehem pa special edition tuesday april 14 1970 ea-033l discussion produces nothing students and faculty expressed their op inions on the degree of power the proposed student-faculty forum would have but after three and a half hours of debate ln grace halt yesterday they arrived at no basic conclusion the difference of opinion arose primar ily over the major proposals presented to the 750 university participants the edu cational policy subcommittee on ref erence headed by prof lawrence leder of the history department state " the forum shall have the authority to consider and to recommend action to the appropriate body the students proposal referred to as the minority report - called for a uni versity forum as a " legislative and review body over university policies and de cisions three college-level representatives donald ryan chairman of the geology department reed tripp dean of business and economics john karakash dean of engineering reported their impressions of the three morning college level meet ings to obtain some concensus from the student body concerning goverence all three analyzed the student sentiment tobe ln favor of a legislative structure but they did not specify the amount of legislative power the forum should have ken ri lander , member of the suspended arcadia presented the minority report which included one major amendment to the report from the subcommittee gover ence the amendment stated that the forum have the power to legislate and to review and that it's legislation is subject to ap b&w photo by dostbr the trustees get a chance to see how the university is handling the current situation fifteen members of the 25-man board are now in bethlehem to observe the proceedings and to meet with students faculty and administration engineers different ideas from each department by jim sktpkowski over 750 people attended the engin eering college meeting yesterday to pre sent consider and discuss the proposals of the various departments regarding the proposed forum two trustees leonard p pool chair man of the board and chief executive of fleer of air products allentown and dr frank b kear of kennedy and kear washington were present and introduced to the assembly dean john j karakash confined the agenda to presentations and questions pertinent to these presentations chemical engineering representatives stated that at their departmental meeting they had decided that the forum should deal more or less directly with the com munication problem they said the forum should consist of 20 student 20 faculty and five administration members plus non voting trustees and alumni student re presentation would be apportioned accor ding to enroliemt in five colleges arts and science business and economics en gineering the graduate school and the . school of education there would be the power of direct two-way communication with the president and the board of trust ees under this plan the forum would have the power of review and the power to sug gest changes the chemistry department emphasized its concept of maxiraun representa tion . they proposed one faculty member from each department and one student from each living group town and graduate students would be represented by members selected by the town council and a pro posed graduate council the electrical engineers proposed a body composed of no fewer than 76 and no greater than 150 members with a one to one ratio between faculty and students representation would be three parts en gineering tw o parts arts and science one part business and economics and one part school of education under this plan students and faculty would decide on how to select their dele gates the president of the university would be the presiding officer but could vote only in case of a tie the faculty would give to the forum all its corporate res ponsibilities except those concerned with standing of students graduation require ments final action on curriculum matters granting of degrees and faculty conduct the forum could advise the faculty and administration on any matter and would have the right of direct interaction with the ttoard of trustees the depatment of industrial engineering suggested that a non-voting committee of six forum members should be present at each trustee meeting they saw the need for the creation of a grievance committee to consider various problems of univer sity life this committee would report to the forum the responsibilities of the forum would be communication and insti tutional policies both internal and exter nal they said internal concern should be to try to bring all constituencies of the uni versity together whereas the external phase would involve university relations with the community short and long run policies should be discussed by the forum atone with allocation of funds to the various departments the forum should also be concerned with administrative appoint ments and the creation of new posts mechanical engineering and mechanics though the forum should consist of 20 stu dent and 20 faculty members chosen from the three undergraduate schools and the school of education an additional stipu lation was that one resident graduate stu dent from each of the schools be included in the student contingent the president and provost plus three other administra tors chosen by the president would also be members and the entire membership would vote they aiso suggested one trustee and one alumnus be invited to attend every meeting ae observers the board of trustees would be requested to invite a number of forum representatives to sit ln at its meetings the forum members would have no voting rights at the trustee meeting no decisions reached at arts college session it is time toface the issue of governance with as muchcourage as we can bear this statement by ralph llndgren assistant professor of philosophy sums up the reason why some 350 student and faculty members of the arts college met ln grace hall yesterday morning the two-and-a-half hour session concerned itself mainly with debate although sev eral specific proposals were presented and discussed the only motion passed called for the tabling of one of the proposals the session opened with the presentation of the report by the governance subcom mittee of the educational policy committee edpol lawrence leder professor and chairman of the history department outlined the proposals ln the report which edpol approved at an 8 o'clock meeting that morning the proposal called for an all university forum which shall consist of 40 elected members 50 per cent of whom shall be faculty and 50 per cent of whom shall be stu dents the forum was also delegated the authority to consider and to recommend ac tion to the appropriate bodies on various matters two other proposals one by the english department and one by the psychology de partment were presented before the floor was opened to discussion the edpol proposal met opposition on the floor john washburn assistant professor of government said " the forum proposed by edpol is a big jcul he brought out the fact that the faculty is a legislative body with the ability to delegate power he urged that ths edpol proposal be changed to recommend the faculty delegate power to the forunr jeff coll man a gryphon offered an amendment which called for several word changes ln the edpol proposal he said the changes will give the university forum the power we all want lt to have the amendment changes the forum from a review body to a legislative body leder agreed with the changes he said " i find everyone of these acceptable after some debate it was decided that the entire question of the edpol proposal would be put at the need of today's agenda for the arts cellege meeting it was also moved that the first line of the psychology department motion should be adopted as a general principle after some discussion the motion was tabled by a 203 120 vote •- there was a further meeting scheduled today in order to continue working out a pro posal which can be presented to ths all university faculty meeting on wednesday the goal is to achieve a couege concensus business discusses new ideas the \ business college like the other two colleges discussed ln yesterday's morning session the amount of power a student-faculty forum should have no consensus was reached ln the group com posed of students faculty and deans the meeting totaling 125 participants broke down into three segments each supporting a different proposed power structure the majority of the students supported a forum with legislative and revtewal power while ths minority agreed with ths report submitted by the educa tional policy's subcommittee on governance a small number of faculty supported the idea of having student rep resentation oa the departmental and college level as stated la the proposal presented by andrew weintraub assistant see ideas page 3 sea business pago 2 see forum page 2