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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1972)
Shutting Pandora’s box before others see the evils (Continued from Page 6) On the departmental and school level, recommendations called for cuts in most depart ' ments, and also called for eventual elimination of the department of home economics, the Museum of Natural History and the Bureau of Governmental Research and Service, suspen sion of the Honors College and eventual alternate funding of the military and aerospace programs. Then there came a whole series of departmental defenses, most maintaining in testimony that their programs were important and should be continued or that the cuts were too deep. While the University was bleeding everywhere, HPUP seemed to be getting a little nauseous. Much like a punch-drunk boxer doing a slow motion fadeaway on videotape. Finally the panel asked that President Clark consider their recommendation with the same weight as each individual department’s recommendation. What we were watching was a headache in motion. So finally Clark made the decision—the cut for 1972-73— ^R:th much advice, but Clark ^made the decision alone. As is custom with university ad ministrations the announced cuts were made during the sleepy period of the first summer break in June. The story of the cuts was an exclusive to the Eugene Register-Guard, but let us not assume that that exclusivity had anything to do with the fact that the Guard was about the only newspaper in the state that « supported, against all jour nalistic traditions, the University policy of closed meetings during the HPUP review. The final cut was $1.65 million from the University’s $24 million spending level. Clark, in a letter to the faculty that announced the cut, said that no regular, full-time faculty members would be laid off before the end of 1972-73 and, at last count, eight untenured faculty would be non-renewed at that time and another 40 teachers on visiting faculty status would be eliminated. Visiting faculty status has very Kttle difference than any regular ■acher—only University politics is concerned. We wouldn’t know them on the street from full and associate professors, except, maybe, a visiting faculty might be a little younger. Anyway, what Clark did was to cut 48 faculty members, most of which hadn’t been around here very long and who basically had a little life to them. Those 48 terminations will affect most departments, in fact almost every department and the physical plant too, if you count the eight classified staff, which few people around here do. Anyway, while a few govern ment contract areas were preserved, the final cut had a vague resemblance to an across the-board cut. Graduate students on state employment would keep their jobs, only no new jobs would become available as turnover occurred to meet an anticipated cut of 100 graduate student jobs. The home economics depart ment went caput, abolished, and sendees reduced to the ‘special committee’ level to study ways to provide some home economics instruction outside the depart mental structure. Maybe frying eggs on the sidewalks'5 Contrary to the recom mendations of HPUP. Clark decided to keep the Bureau of Governmental Research and Service, the Museum of Natural History, and the Division of Oregon Daily Emerald President Clark meets with HPUP members. Photo by Phil Waldsteln Broadcast Services—they would remain somewhat intact. Also contrary to HPUP advice, Clark retained the Asian studies program, Slavic program, Scandinavian program, master of arts program in Russian, majors in Chinese and Japanese, and graduate programs in Classics, Chinese and Japanese, Romance Languages, German, and Russian. No administrative salaries, just raised, would be cut—even though numerous students and junior faculty members urged such action. Clark’s headache was over. The cuts to the operating budget were completed. Now for the overall budget. The University proposed a total budget of $107,298,989 for the 1973 75 biennium to the State Board of Higher Education as recom mended by Roy Lieuallen, Chancellor of the State System of Higher Education. The University originally requested nearly $4 million in improvements, but the state system's staff cut that to $2.5 million. This improvement total was to include: 1. New building operation, $255,574. 2. Small group instruction, $100,000. 3. The library, $477,776. 4. The Law School, $240,000. 5. School of Librianship, $126,867. 6. Equipment replacement, $200,000. 7. Improved plant main tenance, $150,000. 8. Public services, $306,351. 9. Summer orientation registration, $21,930. 10. General administration, $103,406. 11. Instructional media center, $220,000 12. Ceramics and sculpture, $129,746 13 Career planning and placement. $78,540. 14 Careers education, $25,000. But that was the $2.5 million proposal The state board cut that lo $1.25 million so the im provement allocation will have to reorder to fit less improvement. Nothing seems to work out for anybody. Now that is about how things financial stand at the University in anticipation ' of the coming year. But last year, despite President Clark’s admonition at the end of the year, that: “despite a con tinued level of severe anxiety and concern and outcry, I think it was a good year. We have some stability we didn’t have before—a hard and fast analysis for setting goals for departments. I believe the public image of the University has changed to some degree. There is generally a better understanding in the public of the convictions and sincerity of our students. Part of the changing climate arises from the fact that we’ve gone into the larger community of discussions.” It was a year of missed opportunities. HPUP abolished itself when it made its recommendations, saying that its job was done. What had happened actually was that HPUP had stared into the Pandora’s box of its own relevancy for too long. HPUP at its best was a good idea. It shook this University to its foundations; it quivered at the guts- money—as no student, or student plea, or student demonstration had ever done. A priority review by its very nature is an open debate, and in public, as it should have been it would have been the slashing open of festering sores, but instead it hid like any good surgeon in the operating room where the in cision, no matter how ragged, could be kept away from the malpractice suits. That HPUP peered into Pan dora’s box and then slammed it shut before the panel or the University community at large could see all the evil there was most missed the opportunity. We never got a look at Hope either. Universities entrench them selves just as any other element of society does, and they fight to maintain that position for their own existence, whether or not that position is justified or not. HPUP had the chance, but shirked it in the end, to justify the position or modify it, or to change it or to lose it. Now our position, slightly in fear and trembling, will be further entrenched behind the scenes. President Clark has already said that the University will “restore a more appropriate balance” between graduate and undergraduate education, and will "maintain an appropriate balance” between the sciences and the humanities, when those may be trends counter to the natural progression of the University life and society as a whole But who really knows? The question was never really asked. This year, watch it slip into the bureaucracy’s drawers. On second, quick thought,don’t. 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