Brown and White Vol. 86 no. 23

              lehigh university brown and white vol §• — no 23 .■■..:;: : - •:,:::■. "■ ' ■ '■ ■-■■;■ ■■■.■:■ : xv ■■ ■■ -■■ :: :■:■: ■.: ■■ - ■" .' >^>: ' ■■■: bethlehem pa friday november 22 1f74 mmni mmmmmmm contract tuition not feasible states glick by karen berry it is extremely unlikely that a contract tuition plan would be implemented at the university according to treasurer elmer w glick glick explained that contract tuition is a plan whereby a student pays the same tuition rate throughout his four years at college forum budget subcommittee chairman william rankin 75 has said his committee will look into the possibility of contract tuition at the university some schools experimented with this payment plan several years ago glick said but he added most did away with it in this period of high inflation it is impossible to contract for four years glick said with rising costs and teacher salaries the university would go broke if tuition were held stable he said in order to protect against deficits the schools using the contract plan probably project their costs over the next four years and then average them out glick ex plained the student ends up spending the same amount of money under either plan he noted however he said the student must initially put out more money bs.w photo by hebson john w hunt ed pol passes college scholar minor programs in arts college by linda bondemore proposals establishing minors within the college of arts and science and a business minor for arts students were passed unanimously at wednesday's meeting of the educational policy committee ed pol in other business the term university scholar was changed to college scholar before the motion establishing the honors program was passed a lehigh hahnemann six-year m.d program with a b.s m chemistry and a graduate program m molecular biology were also approved the motion establishing minors within the college of arts and science which would require 15 credit hours m a field was passed with little discussion ac cording to john hunt dean of the college of arts and science the courses required for the minor could vary with the in dividual student however he said he would like to see each department print its requirements for a minor program adoption of the fundamentals of business minor which will be indicated on the student's transcript was also ap proved by the committee the motion was passed by both the business and arts colleges the two parties concerned and does not have to go before the entire faculty for approval the debate over the honors program evolved around the term university according to hunt the committee and college were both aware of the difficulty of that word they simply couldn't come up with something else at present the term university scholar is used to designate any student working for departmental or inter departmental honors the adoption of the college scholar program would not affect the departmental and graduation honors but would eliminate the inter departmental designation a proposal submitted by roy eckardt chairman of religion studies requesting the specification of religion m the description of the scholar program's humanities distribution requirements was passed the qualifying sentence now reads at least one of these courses shall be m philosophy or religion studies one m literature and one m the creative arts drama music and fine arts the proposed honors program which features both stringent and broad distribution requirements independent study culminating m a thesis and com prehensive examination and the at tainment of a 3.5 cumulative average was termed by hunt as a certain kind of education with a classic shape to it he said that he doubted that such a program would involve 50 students the number mentioned at the arts faculty meeting it will probably settle down to a dozen he added brian brockway dean of the business college questioned the necessity and significance of the 3.5 average and said that such a program could advantage only a limited number of students gilbert stengle professor of mathematics said that the program committee would select only those students who they felt were capable of meeting the requirements he added it could attract only those students who attain a high cum stengel said that the committee had tried to form al elitist program which would benefit that small group of students whom it would attract under this program the creative con cepts courses would be replaced by special seminars however implementation of the program would not necessitate the hiring of additional faculty members student input unreliable for tenure hunt says by scott penniman so far there is no method that i know of of gaining student input for tenure decisions w bich is reliable enough to carry the weight that input should have said john w hunt dean of the college of arts and science the college of business and economics has recently adopted a standard questionnaire for students to evaluate instructors hunt said there is no questionnaire for the entire arts college but that sometimes departments make up their own questionnaires hunt said that while student input is valuable there is not an excellent statistical measure of that input that he knows of i'd rather trust student instinct rather than student data he said he added that one of his former mathamatic instructors would have done poorly on standard evaluation forms but was an excellent instructor tenure decisions hunt said acquire a broader base as one goes up the ladder of authority he explained that when tenured faculty vote on granting tenure the teacher is judged strictly on his or her own merits at the level of departmental chairman the individual is judged with the larger shape of the department m mind economic considerations are taken into account somewhat indirectly hunt said while administrators may not say there are a certain number of people that should have tenure they may say that the department can not go out of the black he said john j karakash dean of the college of engineering said that while there is no standard student evaluation form for the college departments sometimes do use student questionnaires m reaching a decision on tenure the individual departments karakash said have the initial responsibility m tenure decisions karakash said that student input cannot be the only basis for a tenure decision one cannot judge a professor who has been teaching a course for two years on the same basis as an instructor who has been teaching the same course for five years he said the primary factor m a tenure decision grab for sou venirs with the score 43-13 there was no need for goal posts in the fourth quarter of last year's lehigh-lafayette game it was lehigh's third straight warn see pages 8 and 9 for lafayette weekend photo-essay students not protected by safety act standards by kevin flanagan last m a series several american colleges and universities have been cited m violation of occupational safety and health act osha standards and fined following inspection by osha compliance officers according to the act students are not considered employees and therefore are not covered by the osha standards however osha will investigate fatalities and catastrophes befalling employees or . students m a college or university ac cording to a spokesman for the osha regional office covering pennsylvania at one university a student working alone m a physics lab was electrocuted m 1972 the institution reported the accident to osha within the required 48 hours osha compliance officers then inspected the institution finding one serious and 65 other violations of osha standards the institution was fined and began to correct the unsafe conditions it spent a total of 225,000 more than the amount normally budgeted for safety to correct all the cited violations according to the assistant safety engineer for the institution he estimates that it will probably cost the institution sl-million over the next three years to bring the see student input page 4 see safety page 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