Brown and White Vol. 86 no. 47

              lehigh university brown and white vol 86 — no 47 80-9331 bethlehem pa friday april 11 1975 forum subcommittee challenges administration stance on tenure by ed bogucz if the administration hopes that teachers and researchers will cooperate in regard to a strained budget , ( it ) must undo some of the dramatic increase in the size of the administration during the past five years according to a report by the forum tenure subcommittee the report which will be submitted to the forum on april 19 also suggests methods of dealing with increased student demand for instruction in specific areas and outlines ways of coping with difficult economic situations the university teaching staff is com posed of 400 members counted in full-time equivalents of which 225 are tenured according to the report the report also states that the tenure process is under attack by the academic administrators because the system binds the instructor to his department and therefore the ad ministrator cannot put teachers into positions where there is increased student demand for instruction however according to sutton monro professor of industrial engineering and chairman of the tenure subcommittee the provost is not being candid when he says that he cannot trade from place to place the real problem is that there are too many tenured faculty in the wrong places and there is a tight budget monro said actually he said the student complaint about the quality of teaching is a more serious complaint than the provost's complaint especially in the long run a six-point outline for the improvement of teaching is included in the report the outline calls for the indent if ication of teaching talent early and the development of that talent in graduate schools as well as the establishment of institutional programs which develop the teaching potential of faculty members at various stages of their careers the outline also calls for student input in tenure decisions according to the guidelines approved at the march forum meeting these guidelines also prepared by the tenure subcommittee require the establishment of standard evaluation forms for student use in teacher evaluation the report also suggested shifting graduate teaching assignments and hiring professionals on short-term contracts as methods of handling increased demand in specific subject areas monro will present his report to forum vi for its approval at its first meeting if approved monro said he hopes the report will be delivered to faculty members and discussed with the provost sutton monro cost-cutting study shows university's effectiveness by linda bondemore our administration has done an ex ceptionally good job at keeping costs down as much as they have said kirk pen dleton a corporate member of the board of trustees referring to rising tuition costs pendleton recently conducted an in formal analysis examining tuition in creases at the university and the overall financial situation of a student of 1975 as compared to 1965 according to pendleton lehigh's cost increase from 1968 to 1975 was 58 percent while 18 sample peer institutions averaged 68 percent increases also from 1965-1974 under graduate costs for tuition room and board increased 74 percent while united states per capita disposable income for the same period rose by 90 percent he said he added that he obtained these figures from the department of commerce and a publication listing price increases at various educational institutions both of which are available to the public pendleton also cited an article in the march 28 issue of the wall street journal surveying cost increases at various colleges and universities according to this article costs for all private institutions were up 8 percent over the past year pendleton said this figure coincides with the increase effective at lehigh he added pendleton praised elmer glick university treasurer for his handling of financial affairs our treasurer has done a good job using money said pendleton adding he always has our money working in prudent ways one reason for the surplus over the past years has been the high interest rates available on short term paper according to pendleton he said these rates skyrocketed 10-12 percent during the recent period of inflation thus giving lehigh an edge in confronting financial crises he added that now because of the recession these rates will fall forcing the university to use the surplus accumulated in the past i think it's imperative that we continue to try to do the kind of thing we've been doing said pendleton referring to ad ministrative budgeting and cost analysis we absolutely can't go to sleep on the job he added fund-raising success is in large part due to the fact that the university is run on a sound fiscal basis pendleton said because alumni support is so essential to the operation of the university such a kirk p pendleton housing outlook is poor for 76 by effie combias this is the last in a series on rh-ll and rh-12 rh-ll is expected to be completely finished and ready for occupancy by 200 students in the fall of 1975 but the university will still face the problem of a housing shortage according to peter shurtleff director of residence halls right now it looks particularly gloomy for next year shurtleff said the university is expecting a shortage of about 30 spaces for next fall said preston parr vice-president and dean of student affairs parr said the shortage is expected to worsen by 1976 as the un dergraduate enrollment increases shurtleff said he thinks the fall of 1976 will be very difficult students want on campus apartment housing according to parr they all would like to live in rh-ll he said the advent of rh-ll has caused an increase in the number of students who choose on campus housing which is one cause of the present shortage parr added even so the housing shortage was predicted as carly as june 1970 in projection 76 published by the office of the dean of residence increasing off campus students by 300-400 in 1974-75 through lack of housing is of course not a reasonable option the study said a proposal for new residence structures to house 603 extra students by 1976-77 was suggested in projection 7 present university plans fall 403 spaces short of the suggested housing needs it has been repeatedly pointed out to the forum by university president w deming lewis that despite the increase in the number of freshmen the total un dergraduate population remains within the projection on which projection 76 is based reported the subcommittee on residence on march 25 1971 the report also stated this ob servation can lead to the erroneous con elusion that the residence system can accommodate ever-increasing freshman classes if this is balanced by comparably rising upperclass attrition however this simply is not the case because it is mainly juniors and seniors from relatively small classes that move into the town apartments it added from the above considerations it should be evident that the campbell prediction of housing for 603 additional students by 1976 sharply underestimates the problem if present trends continue and should be considered as an absolute minimum requirement one solution to alleviate the housing shortage would be to build a new residence hall rh-12 in the spring of 1973 the forum 111 subcommittee on residence said we would like to see rh-12 ready to go by fall 1975 however rh-12 is only in the planning stage according to shurtleff the residence halls office has discussed where rh-12 might be located he said he added that the baseball field in taylor stadium and the park house site parking lot next lo drinker which had good utility availability were some suggestions the residence halls office also con sidered building modular housing ac cording lo shurtleff because the pieces could be brought in and assembled quickly we wanted to find the easiest site and hersh discounts press as savior of constitution by eileen canzian citizens cannot rely on the press to be saviors of the constitution according to seymour hersh investigative reporter for the new york times speaking on the press government and credibility at the forum convocation tuesday hersh criticized the news media's delay in un covering scandals in the nixon ad ministration the press really had a significant role in keeping what we know as watergate from us hersh said adding that he is skeptical of the popular view of the reporter as a folk hero hersh pointed out that the white house press corps was not responsible for revealing watergate carl bernstein and bob woodward the washington post reporters who uncovered the story were police reporters he noted who he said revealed one small part of watergate he criticized the press for not reporting sooner the presence of u.s troops in laos the break-in of the office of daniel ellsberg's psychiatrist and cia in volvement in the overthrow of chilean president salvadore allende where was the press during the 14 months of secret bombing in cambodia he asked noting the khmer rouge an in surgent cambodian military group had repeatedly reported they were being bombed except for one reporter's passing mention of the bombing buried in a news story none of us picked it up he said which he said should detract from the see housing page 4 see pendleton page 5 see hersh page f