Brown and White Vol. 83 no. 2

              lehigh university brown and white mm 866-0331 vol 83 - no 2 • .■■••• v ■. ■ npmupmim bethlehem pa tuesday september 14 i 971 u faculty maintains language requirement the faculty rejected a proposal to reduce the foreign language require ment for the second time yesterday 98 96 while the defeat can hardly be term ed resounding hopes of enacting a new proposal this semester were slim the proposed motion drawn up by the collective efforts of the college of arts and sciences and presented by ross yates dean of the college was identical to the motion defeated last semester the proposal lost that battle 93-90 dean yates outlined the highlights of the proposal with the most significant point being the reduction of the foreign language requirement from the present ly required three years to two years the proposal would also allow students to fulfill their language requirement on a pass-fail basis in addition students with 599 or higher achetvement scores could receive advance placement in a literature or oral course in their res pective language the language reduction proposal touched off a fiery debate among the faculty debate was sparked by dean yates who contended that a reduction in the language requirement would not necessarily nec essitate a reduction in enrollment in those courses he cited duke university as one of many institutions which did not suffer losses in course enrollment after the language requirement was abolished yates also urged the faculty to keep pace with other leading colleges and universities who have eased or abolished their requirement yates and samuel missimer director of admissions noted that high school and prep students take a dim view of the university's language requirement and label it as archaic both said that the requirement has caused the university to lose good applicants missimer added that the screening of women applicants has brought the prob lem to prominence women who generally have fine academic records in the lan guages in high school tend to desire foreign languages less in their college careers prof john übben chairman of the german department took particular ex ception to the statements made by dean yates and the proposal in general übben adamantly argued against the motion say ing that students could not become proficient in a language under the propos ed program • übben also addressed the faculty concerning student pressure contrary to yates contention that student pres sure should not cloud the real issues übben contended that students had twisted and manipulated the minds of the faculty b&w photo by mccormick over 100 freshman attended the student caucus meeting on sunday night and about 80 students signed up for committees forum vice chair man john fields expressed hope that the high level of interest would con tinue early issues and problems of forum body scrutinized editors note this is the last of two articles dealing with the forum this section outlines some of the more important and controversial issues which con fronted forum i last year by steve glickstein after the formalities of elections forum i soon discovered a plethora of explosive topics early in the year the campus was racked with a series of mug gings and vandalism on the part of towns people this came at a time when many forum members were first becoming aware of the university's responsibility to the community monetary consider ations caused the trustees to abandon plans to build dorms in bethlehem pro eitanctseelrthe cheaper landand building costs of saucon valley city planners were enraged not only did the move cost the city tax dollars but critically altered - their plans for renovating the south side which is dependent on student business the matter was considered so import ant that city mayor gordon payrow and other prominent city officials attended one meeting to urge the forum to reverse its position we feel that lehigh has deserted the community in its decision the mayor said , „ at the same time many forum mem bers were doubting the wisdom of the decision on grounds other than community relations housing on saucon valley would result in fragmenting the campus critics argued that this would destroy one of the university's major assets--its image as a small residential college finally a compromise was reached the first phase of building housing for married and graduate students would be built in saucon valley this would provide housing urgently needed for these students in a setting many found conducive to family life however no undergraduate resi dences would be built far away from campus except under the most severe financial conditions to some this was a triumph in community relations others however questioned whether the admin istration would be only to quick to use the financial out provided in the forum resolution the most heated debates of the year centered on what to do about saturday classes for 105 years university stu dents had been required to attend classes 8 a.m to 12 p.m saturdays for at least the past 10 years ( and quite probably longer they were also the most sparsely attended classes more lectures were cancelled on saturday than any other day even in those classes which were held the attention spans of both students and faculty were limited a forum subcommittee on saturday classes headed by william alpert 71 did an exhaustive study on the alternatives to satuday classes it seemed that almost everyone favored the elimination of those classes but almost none could agree on a new time to reschedule them among tne plans studied were extending the classtime hours from 7 a.m to 6 p.m lengthening classes on tuesdays and thursdays to one and one half hours holding more classes during the usually underscheduled noontime hour and holding night classes r~7 the subcommittee decided that resched uling saturday classes on wednesday night was the most feasible of these plans it was argued that any tampering with daytime classes would increase conflicts to an unbearable degree over 200 students and faculty came to the forum meeting that was to decide saturday classes most students seemed to be enthusiastically in favor of the pro posal however many faculty members questioned the wednesday night alterna tive some argued that wednesday nights would be educationally worse than sat urdays others pointed to the inconven ience said one irate professor rem ember students you'll be out of here in four years but pll still be here teach ing wednesday nights the anti-satur day forces prevailed however and wednesday nights became devoted to adacemic purposes another controversial forum issue was the size of this year's lsat's the law school admission test will be administered on the follow i ng dates ' october 16 1971 december 18 1971 february 12 197 2 april 8 1972 july 29 1972 the registration deadline for that test is sept 24 1971 application blanks are available in the govern ment department and college of arts and sciences offices an informational meeting for all pre-law students will be held at 7;30 p.m on sept 21 in the davis room of the u.c voter registration does not mean qualification editors note sinre this story has gone to press u.s dictrict judge alfred luongo lias ruled that college students in pennsylvania would be able to register ' and vote in their college residencies the registration deadline lias been extended till sept 21 5 p.m this ruling is currently being reviewed by a panel oi three judges including judge luongo that decision is expected later this week voter registration is not necessarily voter qualification noted charles f vihon assistant professor of business law at a freshman forum initiation secession sunday night vihon made this comment in reference to state attorney general j shane creamer's ruling that college students are allowed to register in the district where they attend school < vihon stated that in order to vote in northampton county a student must satisfy the requirements set forth in the pennsylvania election code according to the code out of state students must have resided in the state at least 90 days in order to qualify and in state students would have to satisfy a 60 day residency requirement hence a university student may register but would be unable to vote until the 1972 elections vihon is currently serving as counsel to the plaintiff's counsel in a suit filed by 14 lehigh students the suit is being filed in order to obtain an extension to the registration period which officially ended for the nov 2 elections on monday the american civil liberties union in philadelphia has brought a similar suit to the u.s district court , besides asking for an extension for the registration period the original suit ques tioned the legality of the statute that obligated students of an institution of a higher learning to register in their own home county if they did not reswe in northampton county see state page 6 see size page 4