Brown and White Vol. 86 no. 29

              lehigh university brown and white vol 88 — na 28 bethlehem pa tuesday january 28 1875 s : ft -■'■— - v -- : ; : r?^wk t :.: : w v -■■■■-•■:, w mm33i trustees attack 475,000 deficit reject plan to reduce salaries by effie combias the university's budgeted gross deficit of about 475,000 for 1975-76 came under attack at friday's meeting of the board of trustees i was amazed by the trustees tenacity to have a well-balanced budget and to stay in the black said david amidon forum representative to the board of trustees the trustees considered decreasing expenditures by lowering faculty salaries but ruled out this idea because salaries have to be raised to maintain a quality faculty according to amidon another suggestion by the trustees to get the university out of the red was to admit more students preston parr dean for student affairs said that an increased enrollment would be impossible because of a lack of sufficient housing according to parr a chornic shortage would cause a decrease in the number of applications to the university amidon said the deficit might also have been alleviated by tuition increases amidon said but the 350 tuition room and board increase has already been announced the trustees realized that the estimate may have fallen short of what is needed to balance the budget and w deming lewis president said the increase may have been announced prematurely ac cording to amidon however elmer glick vice president and treasurer gave the board confidential tuition figures from other schools and there was generally a 400 to 600 in crease in the total costs to attend other good private schools lehigh had the smallest increase amidon said the net deficit should only be about 85,000 since an estimated 100,000 of the 475,000 will not be spent and a 290,000 surplus is expected from 1974-75 amidon said the deficit may not even occur he added because of underestimating the amount of money that will not be spent still,,'the trustees are unhappy at the prospect of an unbalanced budget he said it is the first time that the trustees and the administration were really at odds about what to do next year said hugh flesher chaplain and forum representative to the board of trustees according to flesher lewis and the ad ministration favored not raising the tuition further or decreasing faculty salaries and were not as concerned about the deficit the university has always made money flesher explained so one bad year will not hurt very much lewis said the university should just try to break even while the trustees want to make money according to flesher the committee on planning and development reported that three buildings of rh-11 were occupied as of jan 23 1975 the trustees feel the construction work is below typical lehigh standards said amidon but said it was completed within the budget the committee also reported that construction on the 1357,000 field house is in process but no further progress has been made on plans for the arena and wrestling facility comprising the rest of the athletic and convocation center bsw photo by tart david amidon two lawyers retained for new legal aid plan by ed bogucz two bethlehem lawyers have been retained to provide 24-hour emergency legal counseling for university students according to william quay dean of students official announcement of the new program will be made within a week he said , the plan was developed jointly between the legal action committee lac of the forum and quay . a similar proposal was made by the lac more than a year ago the original lac proposal called for a lawyer to be on campus one afternoon a week in addition to 24-hour emergency service in response to the original lac proposal the administration enacted its own legal counseling program in september the administration's program uses the northampton county bar assn ncba for lawyer referral during business hours through this service the student would pay 5 for a half hour counseling session with a lawyer and the university would pay 10 bail-bond coverage was to have been provided by the lehigh valley bail fund however the lac found that the bail fund could not provide 24-hour bail or lawyer referral services as expected the present plan will employ attorneys william dun and steven shields ac cording to quay he said the two lawyers will be available at all times through an answering service william quay lawyer files 4-point reply in fishkin suit by george nowack the university has filed its reply in the mitch fishkin case robert h holland the attorney representing the university said the reply was filed within the 20 days required by law approximately on the first of october mitch r fishkin a pledge of delta phi fraternity died of multiple head injuries after he fell from a car during a fraternity pledge activity on sept 13 1973 the university has filed a four-point reply the university has denied any liability it also stated that fishkin s death resulted from contributory negligence assumption of risk and negligence of other parties a pre-trial conference is scheduled for march 10 in which all the lawyers representing the defendants will confer with the judge this will also afford the lawyers an opportunity to discuss their cases collectively according to holland three delta phi students in the car with fishkin at the time of the accident in addition to the house president were also named in the fishkin suit as defendants they are frank barber 74 john ed pol group to investigate plus-minus byjanemarcin a committee to investigate the effects of the plus-minus grading system has been set up within the educational policy committee ed pol ed pol chairman charles tipton professor of history has appointed 10 faculty members to the committee in cluded is curtis chimp professor of chemical engineering who will be chairman of the committee the committee's purpose is to collect grades and evidence from last semester and this semester and report to the educational policy committee tipton said tipton said he selected for the com mittee members of ed pol who had large class sizes and a variety of class situations to obtain a diversity of opinion four members of the committee belong to the college of engineering three from the college of arts and sciences two from the college of business and economics and one from the school of education although the committee is restricted to faculty members tipton said he asked two students to be observers on the committee the students jim mead 76 and ira schulman 76 will be an aid to main taining contact with the forum tipton said registrar james wagner although flesher calls for policy on gays by linda bondemore the university should establish a definite university-wide policy con cerning homosexuality said hugh flesher university chaplain flesher who has counseled homosexual students during his four years as chaplain said the utilization of the human rights committee could be a partial answer he said such a committee could be in strumental in dealing with the existence of homosexuality on campus and in vestigating how residence halls can handle it now is the time for the university to take a stand on the issue according to flesher as society becomes more permissive toward gays we're going to hit more problems he said the issue is not going to go away he added i'm not looking for lehigh to come up with a courageous stance flesher said however he said the university cannot continue to allow homosexuality to be dealt with case by case as has been done in the past flesher said homosexual students have secretly received counseling from him but added that this is not the answer to the problem at present the university policy is to refer homosexual students to the chaplain's office the university does not recognize any official homosexual organization he added local fraternities should not have to deal with the problem of homosexuality in dividually flesher said this was the case with theta chi he said he added that the inter fraternity council ifc should be informed of a university policy which would give them guidelines for dealing with the problem three homosexual theta chi members moved out of the house during the winter vacation following a recommendation by theta chi alumni flesher said he advised the students to move out gracefully and use their situation to force the university to take a stand on the issue he said he told the students to get the fraternity behind them in confronting the university with the issue of homosexuality the administration is not going to take up the issue on its own so it is up to the students to organize and approach the see university page 5 see lawyers page 4 see gay page 5 see trustees page 8 see ed pol page 6