Brown and White Vol. 95 no. 15

              lehigh university brown and white vol 95 — no 15 bethlehem pa tuesday november 1 1983 f 215 861-4184 broad-based tenure input by faculty proposed by suzette stoddard a proposal concerning the introduc tion of broad-based faculty consulta tion on tenure decisions has been drawn up by the academic council according to john hunt dean of the college of arts and science the proposal was spurred by the denial of tenure last fall for james tobak assistant professor of law in which the administration vetoed the approval vote of the faculty as a result of faculty concern expressed at a meeting last fall a prop osal was drawn up because they felt the tenure decision was a faculty matter and that the administration's review of it needed cleaning up or so i've been told " hunt said noting that he did not attend the meeting the faculty wanted the process to be more specific so the real decision would lie with the faculty hunt noted the faculty also wanted a justification of the administration's decision and an expla nation of the ambiguous phrase com pelling reasons that came up in the case involving tobak he explained during the tobak case the provost turned to the academic deans for advice hunt said the faculty argued that con sulting the deans was not in the sys tem " he added the academic deans are the dean of the graduate school director of the school of education and the deans of the three colleges the question of whether a tenure deci sion should be subject to a group review has been raised hunt said according to arthur gould professor of industrial engineering the college of engineering and physical sciences has had a tenure promotion committee which has been advising the dean of the college since 1970 the college dean gives the faculty committee the material on a tenure candidate lets them review it and asks for their advice hunt explained a structure similar to the engineering colleges faculty committee was then proposed for the university as a whole for the faculty to adopt hunt added the proposal also outlined the process by which each dean would consult a faculty advisory committee on each tenure case a faculty advisory committee pool of nine tenured members shall be elected by each college faculty three per year to serve three-year terms in each case the dean would appoint a chair from the advisory pool and the chair would select three other committee members from the pool and one additional committee member at large the appointed advisory committee would have access to the complete tenure file of the candidate and would advise the dean on each tenure case the proposal states the committee's recommendation would be reported along with the dean's recom mendations to the provost and the president only in exceptional circumstances and then for compelling reasons shall the dean and then the provost make a recommendation to the president and the trustees that differs from the shared opinion of the departmental faculty and the committee the document states the proposal was discussed among the deans and sent to all of the department chairmen for review hunt said it was also sent to the personnel committee the faculty review body for their deci sion ' to use the document as they wish hunt said no faculty advisory commit tees have been set up yet he added cart art b&w photo by rob weisstuchi this new addition to the university's art collection was the anony mous gift of the artist(s its unpretentious title official art object truly captures the flavor of the work revised eoac eyed to better minority situation by rhonda stoner changes in the equal opportunity advisory committee eoac and the hiring of minorities to fill visiting faculty positions are being examined as steps toward improving the minority situation at the university according to rosem ary mundhenk associate to the provost she explained that a proposal from the president's office last year has resulted in plans to alter the structure of the eoac while the current eoac deals with affirmative action/equal oppor tunity matters for faculty students and staff she said the revised commission would have three subcommittees to deal with the three separate groups faculty students and the professional and sup port staff one subcommittee per group she added instead of dealing with all three groups under one roof the new structure will allow each subcommittee to focus closely on one group mundhenk said she added that current eoac members support the planned restructuring in the past some of these groups faculty students and staff were some times forgotten because there were so many problems with minorities at the university the complaints of the most vocal groups got heard most fre quently she commented laura olson professor of interna tional relations and current chairman of the eoac believes the greatest asset of the new set-up is that each of the sub committees will have a fairly high level person working with it as a nonvoting member for instance she said the sub committee dealing with student issues will have a staff person who will report to the vice president for student affairs marsha duncan on affirmative action issues in the same manner the faculty subcommittee will have an associate to the provost to report on affirmative action issues to the provost's office olson said adding the same situation will apply on the staff subcommittee asked her opinion olson said the new commission should be more effective more focused with clear lines to the decision-makers i have high hopes for this she concluded duncan said she believes an adviser on minority affairs would be a great asset to her office the university is in a position where action should be taken to improve its minority status this is a very positive step the commission subcommittees will meet separately most of the time according to mundhenk getting together a couple of times a year to facilitate more comprehensive planning asked what caused the changes mundhenk responded i really don't know what spurred it on likins came and was committed to affirmative action . . one thing just led to another " although an exact date has not yet been set mundhenk said she hopes to see the subcommittees set up in about a month or next semester at the latest the proposal to establish a floating vis iting professorship for minorities is another attempt by the university to bet ter its minority position according to mundhenk she explained the idea to bring in minority visiting professors came as a result of an eoac task force last year on hiring minority and women faculty and administrators ' we thought the yearly professorships would be an additional step towards promoting a black presence at the uni versity that we don't have now she said the university hasn't been attracting blacks and retaining them if we could attract a bunch for a year or so it could change the atmosphere and improve things not a full-fledged proposal at this point she said the plan is in the research stage but she has every hope that minority visiting professorships will be an option for the fall of 1985 faculty expresses opinions on lebanese truck bombing editor note this is the first of a three-part series on the united states involvement in lebanon and its effect on the international and domestic political scene by l'tli;il thumhork sunday oct 23 two explosions ripped through the early morning quiet of the war-torn city of beirut and the shock waves were felt around the world at the university three experts in inter national and domestic affairs offered analyses of the situation in lebanon and its effect on prolonged u.s involvement in the middle east in separate attacks trucks laden with explosives crashed into barracks occu pied by american and french members of the multi-national peace-keeping force in lebanon ' the first warning that something was wrong was when the truck crashed through a series of barricades presi dent reagan said in a televised speech to the nation last thursday the bombings left more than 200 american marines in this country about the continued involvement of the united states in lebanon it's a horror of enormous propor tions said oles smolansky professor of international relations and an expert on the middle east you feel shock you feel disbelief you feel compassion towards the families of those that died it's an awful thing nobody ever expected anything like this to happen american marines first entered lebanon last year to secure the withdra wal of the palestine liberation organi zation plo from beirut and have remained on station at beirut inter national airport since then even before the massacre of the marines many peo ple questioned the reasons for an ameri can presence in beirut i question the absence of a firm u.s policy regarding this and the lack of a and more than 50 french paratroopers dead and raised some serious questions see faculty page 4