Brown and White Vol. 94 no. 38

              lehigh univversity brown and white vol 94 — no 38 bethlehem pa friday march 11 1983 215 861-4184 university asked to aid russian in emigration by brett lowy an attempt to influence the illegal immigration policy of the soviet union has stalled at the university the movement was spearheaded by allentown's community relations coun cil in conjunction with the jewish com munity center jcc of allentown it has attempted to publicize the plight of per secuted people in academia according to michael notis professor of metal lurgy at the university and a member of the community relations council the current case involves alexander paritsky of the soviet union a noted physicist inventor and author of numer ous publications paritsky asked the soviet government for permission to emigrate from the ussr emigration is illegal in the soviet union despite the wording of the hel sinki accord which calls for the free flow of people and ideas paritsky and others in the field of academia have had their academic cre dentials rescinded by the russian government as a form of punishment they are thus unable to obtain work it is illegal not to have a job in the ussr unemployed people are consi dered a burden to the state according to notis they can then be arrested and jailed and therefore unable to emigrate thereby in this way russian govern ment circumvents the helsinki agree ment paritsky is presently serving a three-year sentence in a labor camp notis and murray schecter professor of mathematics at the university approached university president peter likins about the possibility of granting paritsky an honorary degree in physics the idea was that if a recognized uni versity in the united states would give a degree to someone who had had his taken away it would show the international community that his lost degree deserved to be replaced notis said it is really a symbolic degree we the community relations council wanted to effectively publicize this injustice to affect the soviet government in terms of a positive reaction lehigh was the first school approached because it is the biggest science-oriented school in the valley notis said an honorary degree from a national university would achieve national press recognition notis continued if it appears in the new york times or the washington post where diplomats see it enough cases will be publicized and the soviet union will be forced to cease and desist from its actions as with all recommendations for honorary degrees granted at the univer sity approval of the committee for honorary degrees and the board of trustees is necessary the head of the committee informed schecter that it is not consistent with university policy to award degrees in absentia notis then took the issue back to the community relations council and the jcc the groups then contacted other m'hinqle a mhing competition has recently joined the ranks of university activities instructional sessions are being offered mondays and thursdays from 7 p.m until 9 p.m in the university card room department split discussed by edpol by lori soderlind a proposal to split the department of management finance and marketing into two separate divisions within the business school was received favorably by the education policy committee ed pol at their meeting wednesday specifically the committee discussed plans to remove the finance major from the conglomerate department thus creating two separate areas of concen tration in the department the proposal was presented to the committee by richard barsness dean of the college of business and economics barsness said he views the change as part of the evo lutionary development of the school according to barsness finance is the second largest major in the business school and the strongest segment of the management finance and marketing department he added there is some con cern among the business school faculty that removing finance from the depart ment would weaken the two remaining areas however the university is cur rently planning to add two members to the management faculty in order to ensure continued strength in the depart ment barsness said another possible problem with the div ision was presented to the committee by frank luh professor of accounting and law luh said he was concerned with the administrative nature of the decision an organizational change would inevit ably lead to a curriculum change luh said he suggested that careful consider ation be given to faculty opinions in this matter some of the possible changes in the finance curriculum should it be removed from its current department would include increasing the depth of the major by broadening course selection according to barsness this type of change within the current structure of the department is likely to benefit stu dents in other areas of the school by pro viding them with a stronger finance background although further discussion and admi nistrative approval is needed to finalize the plans the consensus of the commit tee is generally quite favorable according to edpol chairman mikell groover professor of industrial engi neering barsness further encouraged the committee's approval by stating that he felt the finance department was strong enough to be treated as a separate area and that he felt it shouldn't be con strained by proficiency in other areas in other business a proposal to reor ganize the university's current grading system was presented to the committee by edpol member barry bean asso ciate professor of biology taylor house renovation curbs demand for brodhead demand for apartments in brodhead house next year is down as a result of planned apartment configuration changes due to the taylor house renovation after the initial preference forms were returned two of the four-person suites and 15 out of the 20 five-person suites were not filled said kurt sals burg assistant director of residence operations the brodhead apartments will be filled by students second or third choices students on the waiting list and transfer students he said there will always be people who need housing salsburg said this policy will be fol lowed despite the fact that some tremb ley park apartments will house five students next year instead of four to help compensate for the bed shortage created by the renovation of taylor residence operations has stayed under the maximum number of students that could actually be housed in the trembley park apartments salsburg continued this is simply a question of what people are used to salsburg said that forum xiii resi dence operations and residence life at various meetings had discussed other alternatives as viable options to the housing problems created by the taylor renovations and presented the informa tion to the dean of students who made the final decision despite the five-people apartments salsburg said trembley park is still popular these apartments were filled by the initial preference forms one mark against brodhead deals with where it is situated pat cunningham 86 said it's too far away i've never even seen the inside of that place kim moarefi 84 agreed stating it's so iso lated down there christa strakosch 85 added it's too far from the hill there are also some students who would rather live off-campus allison candidates petition time cut to 5 days by mary frances donley petitions for candidates for the student activities council sac elections are due today five days after they were first available on monday according to sac election rules petitions should be made available to candidates one week before they are due however according to dave dender 83 sac president peititions were not available to sac officials until monday and must be due today in order to ensure enough time for possible reopening of the election see university page 8 see taylor page 8 see sac page 7 correction in the feb 8 and 11 issues of the brown and white the percentage of upperclass women living off cam pus was incorrectly stated in sto ries on off-campus security twenty-eight percent of upper class women live off campus