Brown and White Vol. 89 no. 26

              lehigh university brown and white voi?89 — no 26 bethlehem pa friday december 9 1977 215-866-0331 by michele macdonald and linda pickens liss to leave university next week lora liss affirmative action officer will leave her job at the university dec 16 after several weeks of negotiations liss and the administration have reached an agreement which places her on a terminal leave of absence ending feb 28 1979 the administration and i differed continuously on what we could do for af firmative action liss said in explaining her departure they relied too much on persuasion and stopped me from pushing for what needs to be done the relationship between liss and the administration obviously didn't work according to austin gavin executive consultant to the president the agreement was announced wed nesday by liss gavin and chaplain hugh flesher who acted as intermediary in the negotiations in an interview with three brown and white editors after the decision was announced the following points were made liss will receive full salary and befefits during the leave of absence if the agreement had not been reached liss said she would have sued the university for discrimination over her recent transfer representatives from the ad ministration will meet with campus groups concerned about affirmative action before the end of the semester the affirmative action office will be restored to a higher position in the ad ministration when a new officer is hired the administration suggested that liss receive full pay for the leave of absence during the negotiations she also will receive full benefits in that period unless she accepts other employment this type of agreement is not stan dard according to gavin but has been used before with other employes it was not my idea liss emphasized liss office was transferred in october from adminstrative services to the personnel office it was the office's third transfer to lower ranking supervision in three years i would have had legal claims against the university regarding the transfer liss said if the agreement had not been reached my understanding of the root causes of discrimination would have led me to seek adjudication she explained the administration has designated gavin nan van gieson assistant lora liss many seek cancelation of reems lecture and film by joe burke the dean of students office chaplain's office and the newman center received over 100 phone calls and letters seeking cancelation of the lecture of harry reems and the movie deep throat according to the heads of these offices harry reems spoke last night in packard lab without incident the nature of a number of these letters and calls points to an organized protest urged by some unidentified religious group according to arthur mann associate dean of students the sac has responded to this opposition with even firmer support for its objective of diversity in entertainment according to chuck heller sac president william quay dean of students pointed out that though a few comments came from alumni and faculty the majority involved people who have no affiliation with the university the administration is supporting the sac in their decision to run the lecture and film quay said but the dean of students office will re-examine the issue next semester quay added that only university students staff and faculty will be allowed to view the movie and the showing is legal obscenity laws in the state of penn sylvania expressly exempt colleges and universities as long as only legal-aged members of the university are admitted he said the legal age in pennsylvania to view an x-rated film is 18 three on-campus religious leaders voiced great disapproval to the weekend's program the rev hugh flesher university chaplain noted that he had shown x-rated films in his own series but stated that those involved social questions worthy of discussion in deep throat ! don't believe lehigh should be franchising a hard-core porno fiim for the viewing of students father robert cofenas director of the newman center the on-campus roman catholic organization voiced opposition if anything we as priests are attempting to raise the level of moral consciousness among students this involves staunch disapproval of pornography one of the biggest things that amazes me is that the sac voted unanimously to show the him and considers this decision representative of the entire student body stated father richard schware assistant director of the newman center i don't think this is a representative decision of the high class of students i've ecoun tered he added in response to the growing criticism the sac has offered an open letter to the university regarding policy the letter states that the key to the sac is to provide diverse activities for students not decide their morality stated heller in supplying movies and lectures we leave it to the individual to decide for himself whether or not to at tend he added as long as activities are popular we feel we're doing our job robert rosenthal sac lecture chair man responded to the criticism with dismay we're doing our best to provide students with activities even when our backs are to the wall he said chaplain flesher has shown x-rated films it doesn't make sense that the sac should show an x-rated movie and receive so much flak he added robert cofenas whitehead named coach of the year in division 2 john whitehead whose engineers will attempt to become national champions tomorrow has been selected ncaa division ii coach of the year whitehead 53 will fly to new york city sunday to videotape the award ceremony for abc-tv the ceremony reportedly will be telecast during halftime of one of the upcoming bowl games currently in his second year as head coach whitehead previously had served as an assistant under former head coach fred dunlap whitehead's team sports an 11-2 record for the year in other awards recently announced fyed akers of the university of texas was named coach of the year in division i rosse termed honest creative by eric hokenson the dismissal last week of the university's director of physical plan ning joris rosse has been received with both disappointment and concern by student leaders and dean of students robert reeves the fact that l_e was dismissed and the way he was dismissed causes me to wonder about the manner in which the university would treat its ad ministrators reeves stated i enjoyed the working relationship i had with mr rosse in my dealings with him he seemed to be honest straight forward and concerned with where the university was going in terms of plan ning reeves said reeves had no comment on the feasibility of rosse's recently released housing needs report over the proposed fourth st highrise in his report rosse called the proposed highrise a poor third choice to other residence possibilities the highrise is being supported by the administration rosse advocated the purchase of the birkel estate and renovation of presently owned university buildings in order to meet future housing needs jeff lobach 78 head of the residence hall subcommittee termed rosse's dismissal not surprising it seems to indicate an intolerance of dissent on the part of the administration lobach said because the people i've talked to said he rosse was doing a good job lobach said that rosse's report made sense especially since students have been against the highrise from the start rosse was a creative and innovative robert reeveb see rosse page 8 see office page 7 inside steel crisis p 4 cheech & chong p 8 the game p 12