Brown and White Vol. 86 no. 27

              lehigh university brown and white vol m - no n mmttt bethlehem pa friday december 13 1174 engineer advisors teach freshmen about programs by jeff bodenstab the purpose of the senior counsellor program in the college of engineering is to accelerate the academic affiliation of the freshmen with the college according to john karakash dean of the college of engineering it is essential that fresh men meet and come to know the professors and the programs in the college before they meet them in engineering classrooms he explained senior counsellors are students in the college chosen each year to advise and assist freshmen engineering students they are responsible for meeting the eight to ten freshmen they are assigned whom they counsel and introduce to members of b4w photo by klimowiscz george krauss theta chi split on ignoring alumni decision on gays by eileen canzian the brothers of theta chi were evenly divided in a vote monday night on whether to ignore an alumni recommendation asking homosexual brothers to move out of the fraternity house the vote was 18-18 according to paul seibert president of the theta chi alumni association the statement was a recommendation to the homosexuals to move out of the house and was not presented to the house as action they should take he noted that the recommendation applies to three homosexual brothers in the house and not four as previously reported seibert said the alumni legally do have the right to force the homosexuals to move out of the house but would not comment on whether the alumni would take action to force the homosexuals to leave if they did not leave voluntarily two of the homosexuals told the brown and white that they presently plan to move out of the fraternity and the third said he is un decided if all three homosexuals decide to move out of the house seibert said he did not think the alumni would take further action on the immediate issue if they move out they will have done what the alumni recommendation requested he said seibert said it was very difficult for the executive committee of the alumni retention of plus-minus grading approved by faculty vote 6 1-55 by kevin flanagan the university faculty voted 61-55 to retain the plus-minus grading system at their meeting on monday a poll of the student body conducted last month by the forum revealed that 2,126 students opposed the plus-minus grading system and 204 supported it the poll was given to all undergraduates and 61.8 per cent responded a special committee appointed by the faculty to work with the forum plus-minus subcommittee for the purpose of evaluating the new system was instituted at the meeting the motion sponsored by five faculty members including george krauss chairman of the forum was designed to postpone the effective date for the use of plus-minus grades from fall 1974 to fall 1975 and have the educational policy committee edpol review the im plications of the system and make recommendations at the april faculty meeting the motion was defeated 61-55 joseph mcfadden professor of jour nalism proposed an amendment to the motion to postpone the effective date of the plus-minus grading system indefinitely the amendment was defeated in a voice vote referring to the poll taken by edpol last year when 53 per cent of the 100 replies favored a plus-minus system krauss defended the motion saying that a more extensive poll of undergraduates found student opinion overwhelmingly against the plus-minus grading system the publicity wasn't widespread krauss said referring to the faculty meeting last may where the plus-minus grading system was originally adopted since then a much more extensive poll has been taken he said robert folk professor of physics defended the plus-minus system saying the issue became political when student opinion and the forum were involved robert mills professor of accounting also defended the plus-minus system he said the system should not be referred to edpol for review because he doesn't expect any action to be taken by the edpol committee michael epstein 75 chairman of forum plus-minus subcommittee was not recognized by president lewis who presided over the meeting lewis said that a student need not be recognized at the meeting according to the rules of order for the faculty organization epstein stated in his address to the forum tuesday that permission to speak was denied not because of a sanctioned time limitation but because it was felt that a student's ideas would be an inappropriate extraneous time consuming contribution to the discussion also at the meeting the college scholar program was passed by a voice vote the recruitment of minorities urged by forum motion by ed bogucz a motion urging a stronger com mitment on the part of the university to develop better minority recruitment was passed at tuesday's forum meeting in other business president w deming lewis critized the brown and white for what he called a misleading report of his comments concerning next year's budget other members spoke on plus-minus grading the retirement of dean of residence clarence campbell and on brown and white coverage of the theta chi alumni recommendation asking homosexual brothers to move out of the fraternity house regarding the minority enrollment changes the motion stated that progress toward . a critical mass of 200 minority students by 1980 has not been - significant and suggested a renewed effort to find effective means to solve the problem paul elosge 75 chairman of the ad missions subcommittee and author of the motion defined the critical mass as the number of students necessary to ensure perpetuation of the minority population the motion contained ten recom mendations for increased minority enrollment suggestions included con tinuation of the rolling admissions policy recently established for minorities under the rolling admissions process applications are considered continuously biw photo by gosch w deming lewis lewis submits report on budget at a budget meeting wednesday w deming lewis university president said that looking at the sources it is readily apparent that the only source of any substantial increase in income for next year is tuition unrestricted university expenditures for 1973-74 amounted to a total of 22,245,392 of which 60 per cent went to salaries and employe benefits lewis report points out that each one per cent increase in compensation represents an additional 130,000 in annual expenses the report said that tuition was not increased more than 250 because a larger increase would result in a greater hardship to parents and students and might cause a substantial reduction in enrollment which would have very serious adverse financial consequences the report also cites competition from lower cost public colleges and universities as limiting the tuition increases as an alternative to increasing tuition the report mentions reducing ex penditures but states that the best we have been so far able to do is offset in part only the increase in other costs we are experiencing - to facilitate the proposed reduction of expenditures some belt tightening plans are being instituted starting immediately the report says no one will be employed anywhere in the university whether for a new position or for a vacancy without dr zettlemoyer's university provost written approval in the case of academic personnel or my written approval in all other cases another step being taken is to require zettlemoyer's written approval of any expenditures that will result in more than 1,000 or a five per cent overrun of the expense budget whichever is larger in the academic departments and would require lewis written approval in all other cases the predicted surplus of 300,000 for next year is to be used as an additional source of funds for next year's compensation increase the report states that there appears to be no possibility of a retroactive salary increase in 1975 after many discussions the report says we have concluded that we will recommend to the trustees that the average compensation increase for next year should be tentatively fixed at 7.6 per see transfers page 6 see alumni page 8 see lews page 7 see plus minus page 8 see forum motion page 8 last issue this is the last issue of the brown and white until friday jan 24