Brown and White Vol. 83 no. 44

              lehigh university brown and white tuesday april 11 1972 866-033 1 a . vol 83 - no 4>i forum self-review to begin this week by steve glickstein although in existence only a brief two years the forum has been the most fre quent source of controversy on campus the organization has survived challenges to its jurisdiction but has yet to manifest itself as the legitimate policy organ of the university in the minds of a substantial skeptic minority the forum has been the recipient of much praise as well as the target of considerable criticism until now however there has been no formal self-appraisal by forum members of their own operations this week the forum will evaluate itself in accordance with a constitutional requirement an exhaustive 25-page report has been compiled by an evaluation committee headed by forum i chairman ferdinand beer to serve as a basic working paper for the review the report was submitted to the general body for consideration yesterday and deliberations are likely to continue through next monday's forum meeting not surprisingly the committee has recommended no sweeping modifications in forum power or structure a strong commitment to the ideals and usefulness of the body prevails throughout the report some minor changes have been suggested to increase efficiency and communication but none will radically alter the nature of the organization a detailed summary b&w photo by smar forum i i studentsfcounting the ballots - for results see page 5 department merger committee recommends p.r r changes the committee to study the merger of the modern language departments has submitted its report to president lewis and recommended changes in pr&r to govern the merging of two or more academic departments according to the report the committee found the attempts by the administration to consult with the heads of the depart ments of romance languages and literature and german and russian regarding their merger were adequate and made in good faith however there were certainly further avenues available for exploration or there were other temporary courses of action open before the final decision on the merger and new department chairman was made the committee was formed to consider the manner and procedure used to bring about the merger of the two depart ments and in the appointment of the chairman of the new department it was also to determine if there were any violations of pr&r or of general principles of ethics in the procedures used although the committee found no rules governing the merging of two or more academic departments in pr&r or in the forum constitution they noted a tradition of university governance which calls for extensive consultation with the department personnel involved in the reorganization of depart ments the committee found that the consultation which included correspondence between dean ross w yates of the college of arts and science committee as well as the executive council college of arts and science was an adequate attempt and made in good faith arts dean appointed fills vacated post dr john w hunt of richmond ind has been appointed dean of the college of arts and sciences effective july 1,1972 dr hunt who is associate dean at earlham college in indiana will succeed dean w ross yates who is returning to a full-time teaching position at lehigh the appointment was announced by lehigh provost and vice-president albert zettle mover dr hunt joined the earlham faculty in 1956 as an assistant professor of english he was promoted toan associate professor in 1962 and to full professor in 1966 he served as chairman of the department of english and bain-swigget professor of english language and literature from 1968 to 1971 , when he was appointed associate dean at the college specializing in the contemporary novel dr hunt has written reviews articles and books on such authors as william faulkner , joseph heller ivan gold wright morris and thomas pynchon he is currently working on an article titled history's rags and straws faulkner's absalom absalom and on a study on the 1968 student uprisings ir tarts he is recipient of the danforth foui i ation's e harris harbison award for distinguished teaching and the ira doan distinguished teacher travel award among the grants and fellowships dr hunt has held are the kent fellowship 1952-1955 and the lily post - doctoral fellowship for research in england on the contemporary british novel 1964-65 dr john w hunt last meeting of forum ii looks at evaluation report last night's meeting of the lehigh university forum was essentially the last gathering of forum 11 the next meeting which will be on april 24 is the spring convocation when forum 111 members officially take their seats after the meeting was opened by forum chairman curtis clump and the appropriate announcements made clump introduced ferdinand beer chairman of the forum evaluation committee he reported on the findings of his committee beer said that the most significant question asked by his committee addressed to the entire university was should the university forum be con tinued of those responding 181 students 122 faculty and all 126 adminis tration members voted in the affirmative while only three students and 29 faculty voted " no a majority of forum members and of the community at large favor the present number of forum members but there is a significant minority chiefly composed of faculty administration and forum i members that want the membership of the forum reduced to approximately one-half of its current size beer said the evaluation committee believes since most of the forum work is carried out in committees the size of the forum itself does not really affect its efficiency the committee recommended that the forum membership be maintained at its present level there are presently four forum meetings per semester beer's committee believes this policy should be continued many students on the forum were critical of the membership's attendance at forum meetings slightly more than half of the faculty believe it to be satisfactory both the students and faculty contend that members be required to attend at least 50 per cent of the meetings the evaluations committee recommends that forum meetings not be made compulsory but each member be made aware of the responsibility and accountability he assumes in accepting his elect or faculty members of the forum were asked whether they felt that the lehigh community had been sufficiently informed of the forum's actions they answered six to one in the affirmative a majority of student members however felt this was not so it was stated that " students clearly favor a forum newsletter con sisting of a summary of all significant forum actions to be mailed to all living groups and departments while the faculty is equally divided on this suggestion the evaluation committee recommends the publication of a newsletter available to all members of the lehigh community the committee believes that the brown and-white is not fully dependable as a communications link between the forum and the various groups on campus it claims that the primary purpose of lehigh's newspaper is to serve as a laboratory for students in journalism it is the committee's belief that there is poor communication between the forum and its constituency beer's committee claims that this is an important reason for the current apathy toward the forum there were two occurrences that took place during the meeting at several intervals during beer's talk there were open discussions towards the end of the meeting one member of the forum questioned the value of the session he said the whole time period had been spent discussing a report which all members were supposed to have read he proposed see evaluation page 6 see department page 4 see forum page 4 lectures in danger british labor party chief harold wilson's scheduled addresses here april 19-21 may be endangered by today's upheaval in the labor party three of wilson's top aids including deputy party leader roy jenkins have resigned fromtheir positions in the labor party in protest of wilson's opposition to british entry into the common market a fourth party leader has threatened to re sign as prime minister wilson was a strong advocate of british membership in the eec it is not yet clear whether the situation is serious enough to force wilson to cancel his scheduled blaustein lectures