Brown and White Vol. 96 no. 17

              lehigh university th e brown and white bethlehem pennsylvania friday november 2 1984 vol 96 - no 17 215 861-4184 likins oks new social policy by scott cagan editor-in-chief and chris palme ri president peter likins approved without amendment yesterday forum xv's proposal to abolish the social regulations instituted m 1981 and adopt a new university-wide social policy governed by three rules and five standards effective immediately the forum had passed the new policy 44-1 at its special meeting tuesday forum co-chairmen jeff brotman and metallurgy professor john wood delivered to likins after the meeting a letter requesting the president accept the proposal likins yesterday sent brotman and wood a letter formally approving the new social policy the letter are reprinted on page 7 what's happening here is the students and administration are going forward together likins said we're sharing a problem that's very real but one we feel can be resolved i think today we've just taken a giant step m the right direction an excited brotman said i think we can make it work because lehigh students come together as a community likins said it's worth the risk to undertake a challenge of this kind m order to ac complish the educational ob jective...an education of enormous value wood congratulated at the forum meeting tuesday those who helped create the rules and standards and asked for a round of applause he called the new policy " a challenge we can all rise to meet in response to the lack of debate he said i don't think there has been an issue discussed more by the forum in a meeting of the campus life committee on monday brotman was asked how the forum planned to monitor the campus social life he described a four-part feedback mechanism that would allow the forum to follow any trends m social behavior and catch anything before it becomes a problem these four methods of feedback were presented to the forum on tuesday the transcript of the new social policy will be published m tuesday's brown and white m its entirety witch way to our readers included m this issue of the brown and white will be a special four-page sec tion on tuesday's presi dential election page eight will feature patrice kauderer and larry clif ford of the college demo crats banging it out with the college republican's adam malofsky page nine contains a debate between associate pro fessor of government edward morgan endors ing mondale and urban studies lecturer david amidon arguing for rea gan page 10 presents let ters to the editor from var ious students and page 11 offers a issue-by-issue capsule analysis of the two candidates don't forget to look on tuesday for the b&w results of the presidential poll b&w photo by george cook associate dean of students mark erikson checks out lehigh's newest transfer at wednesday's halloween party m taylor hall it is rumored the student formerly attended wichita state university subpoena power alters discp system by pete trumbore editor's note this is the seond of a six part series on the university's discipli nary system examining the initiatives leading to the 1981 revision and the major changes which became part of the pres ent code of conduct i had the perception that the discipli nary system and code of conduct were not fair psychology professor edwin kay who was instrumental m the revi sion of the system m 1981 said but it's hard to know whether that's an assess ment of the truth or a perception of the situation the present university code of con duct arose out of a revision that was the result of initiatives begun by kay sev eral years before he became chairman of the discipline committee m 1982 and the efforts of other faculty particularly phi losophy chairman ralph lindgren that followed the wet t-shirt hearings of 1980 the process was accelerated by the violent incidents of the 1981 greek week including an alleged sexual assault kay was prompted to push for changes because of what seemed to him to be an unfair process i was ignorant of the code of conduct until i acted as a uni versity friend for two or three students who were charged by another student with harrassment there were two particular things that bothered him about the code the hear ings were closed and the dean of stu dents not the person but the office acted as chair of a small committee which heard all the cases because the dean of students at the time william quay happened to be a good friend of the person making the charge kay said it put the defendants m a very awkward position of having the dean of students be chairman of the discipline committee we didn't know whether to challenge him for bias or not so it seemed to me there was a conflict of interest m the way the committee was being run to kay it did not appear to be a fair system i wanted it to be an open process to appear to be a fair process kay com mented ' of course i wanted it to be fair but the appearance of fairness was also important because of this experience with the committee kay decided to seek some sort of changes m the system due to his initiative a faculty committee was formed to examine the system but according to kay they were slow m reporting and nothing susbstantial was accomplished it was then that the wet t-shirt hearings took place rallying faculty opinion behind the notion of disci plinary reform i made the first initiative alone ' ' kay said the second time a lot of faculty wanted to see some changes m the disci pline code wagner announces retirement by david leight registrar james wagner has announced that he will take early retirement m july after 36 years of service to the university i've been thinking about taking this for some time wagner told the brown and white wednesday it's a good time to retire wagner 62 came to lehigh m 1949 as assistant registrar suc ceeding registrar george curtis m 1951 he has held the office ever since he explained that when creat ing the class schedule it is built to ensure that students are able to obtain the desired course combination--not just for the faculty it's not always easy for the stu dent body to see what's going on he said it's a problem to keep conflicts as low as you can keep them if two courses are offered during the same hours the regis trar's office may decide to change the hours of the course with the smaller enrollment to enable stu dents who wish to take both the opportunity to take them m the same semester many schools wouldn't do that he added but his office has tried to fit the needs of the students as well as possible at other schools wagner con tinued students are able to sche dule the courses they want and the times they want them but stu dents and professors tend to sche dule 10 and 11 a.m classes too often which causes conflicts and room shortages at lehigh the schedule is formed inductively by creating the schedule first from which the students ian choose he explained asked what he plans to do after he retires wagner answered i cross my bridges one ut a time adding that he hasn't worried about it yet he said he hasn't had much vacation time m the last 13 years so he'll probably vacation for a while first wagner has spent 36 years balancing pressures from all sides he said and no matter what we do somebody shoots at us the registrar added it's been a real challenge any body can process grades and set up a registration system but to get all curricular and interdisciplinary areas together there are a cou ple tricks involved i've enjoyed it he said i don't have any regrets l can't be here forever maybe this is a smart time to wrap it up epitome photo james wagner see open page 3