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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 7, 1978)
emerald Vol. 80, No. 47 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Tuesday, November 7, 1978 Sociology affirms ‘conservative’ win By WILLIAM KOGUT Of the Emerald A sociology department battle that erupted last spring over the hiring of Marxists apparently has ended this fall with declarations of victory from one side and state ments of indignation and discour agement from the other. ‘‘We’re the winners," says As sociate Prof. Dan Gordon,a member of the conservative fa culty bloc, which last spring op posed the hiring of Marxists, and later moved to hire a conservative as the department's new head. Gordon says he claims "vic tory” for a number of reasons. The "conservatives" last spring limited the department to hiring one Marx ist on a temporary basis and then succeeded in gaining the ap pointment of one of their mem bers, Prof. Ben Johnson, as de partment head. Johnson has since reduced the decision making power of the sociology graduate students, who had monoiithically opposed the con servatives last year. The change in department heads represents a shift in de partmental priorities. Donald van Houten, a member of the “liberal” faction that favored hiring Marx ists, resigned as department head after the hiring dispute. Van Houten says Johnson had the right to make changes in the department's governance sys tem, but he says the new head has New head shifts department priorities violated the essence of a com mitment made by the faculty as a whole last year not to make gov ernance changes. “We wanted at that time to set tle the issue (of student participa tion) once and for all,” he says. Since his appointment by Dean Baldwin on the recommendation of the sociology faculty vote last summer, Johnson has upset sociology students and some fa culty members with changes in the degree of decision-making power wielded by students. Among those are: — eliminating some graduate student positions from commit tees that affect hiring and graduate curriculum. — selecting graduate students for committee positions through ap proval of volunteers instead of graduate student elections. — abolishing the executive com mittee, which was designed to channel grievances to the de partment head. The committee had three graduate and two fa culty members. “I abolished the executive committee because I'd rather take a more informal approach to hear ing grievances within the depart ment,” Johnson says. Since 1969, sociology graduate students have participated, with full voting rights, in department committee and general depart ment meetings. "I exercised my perogative and altered the methods of selection and reduced the numbers of graduate student committee members because some of us had been convinced that graduate student power had to be counter balanced by the faculty,” Johnson says. "The concern on the faculty that graduate students were exerting too great an influence was more widespread than many people thought,” he adds. "The students have no legal right of election, only of suggestion.” Johnson says he has changed the method of selection to one that parallels the method used to choose faculty committee mem bers. Forms are sent out asking students to volunteer for commit tee service, and Johnson then chooses from among the volun teers. This year, the graduate stu dents had already held their elec tions when they received the forms. But graduate students pro tested Johnson’s intentions, says Jane Reisman, a general depart ment meeting representative for The Forum, the sociology graduate student organization. Many of the student-elected representatives then volunteered for committee service in the spots for which they had already been elected, says Reisman. In addition to abolishing the ex ecutive committee Johnson has made other department changes, including: — reducing from two to one the number of graduate students on the Staff Development Commit tee. Currently there are three fa culty members on the committee, which evaluates applicants for fa culty positions and recommends candidates for departmental con sideration. It also recommends which graduate students should teach courses in the department. — reducing from three to two the number of graduate students on the Graduate Curriculum Commit tee. There are also three faculty members on this committee, whose prime function is to re commend course additions and deletions and change, when necessary, graduate degree re quirements. — creating the Ad-Hoc Commit tee on Promotion, Tenure and Constant Review to come up with new promotion, tenure and re newal practices for faculty on fixed term contracts. The creation of the Ad-Hoc Committee was not a bone of con tention in the battle over graduate student power. Its projected com position points up Johnson’s ef forts to re-involve undergraduates in the department. Johnson plans to appoint one undergraduate to the ad-hoc committee, to serve along with the graduate student already appointed. The undergraduate student ap pointment is contingent upon the revival of the moribund sociology undergraduate union, says John son. Nominations then can be ac cepted for the ad-hoc committee, he says, as well as for the Staff Development Committee, the Af firmative Action Committee and the Undergraduate Affairs Com mittee. Johnson says he plans to place one graduate student on the un dergraduate affairs committee. “I approve of the cutbacks,” says Associate Prof. Dick Gale, a member of the conservative side. “There were too many graduate students on those committees, and they had too much weight. We spend too much time haggling over the graduate program, to the neglect of the undergraduates. “I approve of the cutbacks on the Graduate Curriculum Commit tee because I don’t believe stu dents should set their own gradua tion requirements,” Gale adds. “I don’t think the cutbacks on the Staff Development Committee were vindictive.” Students just don’t know (Continued on Page 3) Lines were long for Monday’s voter registration and are expected to be even longer today. Most of the 158,715 registered voters are expected to show up at the polls between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Recall may prod heavy poll turnout Nearly 71 percent of Lane County’s registered voters will go to the polls today in what might be a large turnout for an off-year general election, says Don Pen fold, county elections officer. Penfold says most of the 158,715 registered voters will vote today. The percentage prediction for state-wide voters is somewhat less, he says. Penfold predicts that more than 110,000 county residents will vote, a slight increase over the 1976 election. That increase could be caused by the ballot measure to recall County Com missioner Archie Weinstein, he says. "The recall measure is worth a few percentage points or so, he explains. That measure may also cost the county an additional $3,000 be cause it will be on the general election ballot, Penfold says. Penfold says nearly 3,500 ab sentee ballots have been issued, and he expects several more be fore the polls close tonight. An election night party is also planned by the Lane County Democratic Centrai Committee, in the Eugene Hotel Forum Drinks and peanuts will be served begin ning at 8 p.m. Television will also be available to broadcast the elec tion results. ■-1 ■ A new terrorist group, the “Meteorite Cleaning Service,' is claiming responsibility for a recent meteor-napping. University Pres. William Boyd found the object this morning in his driveway. Details on Page 3. Students head io the pods again, this time to determine final IFC and SUAB members in the ASUC runoff election. Booths will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m Wednesday and Thursday. Page 6. The report criticizing the University s lack of affirmative action in hiring is stalled until Nov. 29. No implementation is possible without the Faculty Senate's approval See Page 12 for the story.
