Brown and White Vol. 94 no. 47

              from more than one source stanford said he did not express as much concern about the possible cancellation of the ssig program which was designed as seed money to provide an incentive for states to start their own scholarship programs stanford said pennsylvania and other northeastern states have already assumed much of this responsi bility so the states that will be hardest hit are those that still rely heavily on the ssig the removal of funds for the seog program would cause the most prob lems stanford said the university received approximately 200,000 in seog funds this year which allowed it by michael frisoli the reagan administration has with drawn funding in its proposed 1984 budget for three of the six federal finan cial aid programs the national direct student loan program ndsl the state student incentive grant ssig and the supplementary educational opportunity grant seog . william stanford director of financial aid expressed concern about the possi ble termination of the three programs because they help to take care of stu dents who slip through the cracks of other aid programs these programs are institutionally administered and therefore allow us to identify people otherwise squeezed out of 215 861-4184 bethlehem pa tuesday april 26 1983 lehigh university brown and white tenure denial raises questions among faculty vol 94 — no 47 deny tobak tenure because the docu mentation accompanying the faculty let ters supporting tobak for tenure was weak i guess i feel that this whole thing has been blown out of proportion largay said each year there are a large number of faculty who do not get tenure and this is simply another one of those cases two professors who asked not to be identified said they felt that administra tive politics played a role in the tobak tenure decision one professor said i think it basically was a political decision at the administrative level and i think that decision started in the business school and the higher administration didn't feel sufficiently compelled to over turn it i think professor tobak was caught in the middle of things that were not of his doing joseph dowling professor of history said he questions the role of the adminis tration in tenure decisions as exercised by the deans council which was insti tuted by provost and vice-president arthur humphrey two-and-one-half see tenure pagr 4 opinion was held up not the faculty's deciding how to resolve a difference of opinion between the faculty and the administration is a problem as we see in this case what's clear is that the proce dure is not clear " what the administration is appar ently saying is that they can re-evaluate the information and override the faculty folk said if their only reason is that they re-evaluated the same infor mation and came to a different conclu sion that's not acceptable a faculty member in the business col lege who asked not to be identified said the letter tobak received from the appeal committee indicates that the administration may not have had a com pelling reason to deny tenure the letter says the administration had suffi ciently compelling reason to deny tenure the words sufficiently com pelling leads to suspicion he said james largay professor of account ing and law said the tobak case was not a question of a faculty decision being overridden by the administration instead he said the administration could have found compelling reason to the major responsibility in determin ing an individual's membership in the faculty and that the administration shall concur with the faculty decision except for compelling reasons ." these reasons must fall within the three crite ria used to evaluate faculty effective teaching sound research and scholar ship and services to the university pr&r states the faculty appeal committee judged that the administration did have compelling reason to deny tobak tenure because of his deficiency in productivity of scholarship the committee made a mistake according to kenneth sinclair associate professor of accounting and law this was a faculty decision and they do not have a compelling reason to override the decision aronson who called the faculty appeal committee a faculty watch dog said the tobak case illustrates the problem that will develop when there is a difference of opinion between the faculty and the administration it boils down to a difference of opin ion he said the administration's net result saturday afternoon featured delta phis volleyball tournament sand was dumped on the house's parking lot for the event which raised an estimated 1,300 the money was raised for the big brothers and sisters of northampton county a story on the event along with two other fundraising events appears on page 5 recent graduate killed last tues when hit by car editors note the following story is based on interviews with 18 faculty members con ducted by maryellen connor tom dipiazza patti reilly and paula rutkowski by tom dipiazza the recent decision to overturn a faculty vote and deny tenure to james tobak assistant professor of accounting and law has raised questions among the faculty concerning the role of the administration in tenure decisions what concerns me is the question of whether the faculty was properly over ruled in this case robert folk profes sor of physics said what scares me is the substitution of an administrative judgment for a faculty judgment " j richard aronson professor of eco nomics who has served on the faculty appeal committee said he now ques tions some of the university's tenure procedures i no longer have a good feeling about the way we do things aronson said it's not clear here what the compelling reasons were as to why tenure was denied according to procedures regulations and requirements pr&r the faculty have financial aid reduced in proposed 1 984 budget a 1981 graduate of the university was killed last tuesday night when he was struck by a car in front of his home in verona n.j immediately before michael murray 81 was hit he attempted to push the woman he was walking with from the path of the car according to a member of phi delta theta she was hit however and incurred several injuries including a shattered pelvis and a broken shoulder bone the accident occurred just past the crest of a hill in four inches of fresh snow the 69-year old driver allegedly did not see the couple crossing the street the fraternity member said a member and former officer of phi delta theta fraternity murray was an avid runner and won the turkey trot in 1979 he then opted to run for the univer sity cross country team other programs or to supplement the modest amounts students receive from other programs " he said according to stanford the university received approximately 140,000 this year for the ndsl program the univer sity is obligated to match 10 percent of that amount these matching funds plus the repayment of previous loans brought the ndsl fund up to 500,000 this year we have gotten to the point now where for a college costing 10,000 per year the amount of borrowing a student must do is greater than the amount the student can get from the guaranteed student loan they the students need the option of borrowing concurrently to supplement the pell grant program and to financially take on some of the neediest students the reagan administration plans to replace the seog with the self-help grant with a 800 minimum that requires students to contribute 40 percent to col lege costs gsl funds state grants and work-study programs would be applica ble to the 40 percent contribution stanford said the self-help grant is a valid concept if the spirit of the thing is honored in distributing those grants but i think it's very vulnerable to adminis trative misuse the administration's proposals have encountered opposition in congress