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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