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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 24, 1981)
dcay emerald Vol. 82, No. 140 Eugene, Oregon 97403 m 4 Friday, April 24, 1981 : * i s' •••V X Pulling the Millrace plug Members of Greek houses bordering the Millrace joined volunteers for the annual Millrace clean-up. The yearly event is part of Photo by Steve Dykes Earth week activities. Eaton, state aide disagree over fee policy By GREG WASSON Of the Emarald Faced with growing expenditures and decreasing revenues, the University athletic department is scram bling for funds. John Moore of the Oregon Student Lobby says the dash invariably leads to students and their money. Monday, Moore outlined the situation for the Sen ate Education Committee. In his testimony, he high lighted the predicament of students at the University and Portland State, who last year witnessed a forced $700,000 expenditure for athletics. "At the two universities, a system of sorts has emerged — that nearly intentional generation of deficits and the annual trip to the incidental-fee well. Student union budgets and educational activities budgets have become a sort of ready reserve account from which a profligate athleticdom can satisfy its fiscal thirst.” Moore was followed by ASUO Pres.Dave Eaton, who outlined last year's negotiations to the committee. Eaton said the IFC recommended to the state board that incidental fees increase to slightly less than 10 percent — to $40 per term — but the board sided with the administration and set the fee at $50 per term, a 37 percent jump. “The entire difference between the recommenda tions was in the allocation for the athletic department,” Eaton said. He pointed out that the students had recommended $7 per term to athletics while “the institution recom mended each student pay $17 per term, a 240 percent increase.” Moore and Eaton made their remarks during a public hearing of SB 720, which would give students control over the level and distribution of incidental fees. Current law vests that power with the state board. The testimony in favor of the bill was contradicted by Bill Leeman of the Department of Higher Education. Leeman listed a host of consititutional and administra tive problems that would result if the legislature gave students control of the fees. At one point, Sen. Rod Monroe, D-Portland, asked Leeman how he would feel if the present system was amended so that whenever a university president seeks to deviate from the student recommendation there must be an election. "I think it would be an infringement on the respon sibility of the president he couldn't live with,” Leeman replied. “This bill is an even greater infringement,” contin ued Monroe, “because this allows a greater lever of student involvement." Continued on Page 3 First-borns fail to look ahead, prof says By CAROLINE PETRICH Of the Emerald First-born children will be the death of America. That’s the view of Vernon Weckworth, anyway. Weckworth claims the methodical style of first borns has dangerously damaged the United States’ corporate structure by concentrating on short-term benefits rather than future achievements. Weckworth, a professor of health sciences at the University of Minnesota, bases his theory on 20 years of research. He spoke last week to a group in Beaver ton. If Weckworth’s theory holds true, then the University may be in trouble. University Pres. Paul Olum is a first-born. So is law school dean Derrick Bell. Other first-borns include vice president for administarion and finance Ray Hawk and associate business school dean Del Haw kins. Their problem, according to Weckworth, is that first-borns approach problems traditionally and follow them step-by-step to a logical end. That's bad, because they fail to take the long view, often to their corporations’ detriment. Better off are the second-boms, who solve prob lems intuitively and work them backwards in their minds. However, it takes a large family to produce truly capable administrators, Weckworth says. Third-born children combine the formal and informal steps to problem-solving while stressing healthy human rela tions. Fourth-borns put it all together and emerge with something new. Putting the theory to use, Weckworth might charge first-born Olum with paying too much attention to management control and ignoring the sensitivities of his employees. But first-of-four-children Bell says he doesn’t fit into Weckworth’s theory. “It’s sort of like reading horoscopes," Bell says. “When you specify under broad generalizations, there is always that aspect that seems to have surf ace validity. I like to think I use all approaches to solve problems.” Hawk is a second-born who was raised as a first-born (his older brother died during childhood). He claims to be a strong believer in human interaction and calls the Weckworth's theory stereotypical. Hawkins is also the second son in his family, but his older brother left home when Hawkins was a year old. However, he doesn’t find Weckworth’s theory so preposterous. Hawkins speculates first-borns have no role models to examine and therefore solve problems in a step-by-step way. Younger siblings can observe older siblings' interaction with parents and then decide to use a different — and perhaps more effective — style. Math department head Theodore Palmer is the third child in his family, but he says his profession demands the logical problem-solving style of first borns. Psychology Prof. Mary Rothbart, who has con ducted a birth-order study of her own, is ‘skeptical of Weckworth’s theory. Rothbart says socio-economic factors, family size and other variables must be considered when analyzing child-development. And first-born Rothbard adds that Weckworth’s theory doesn’t match her adminstrative attitude As Bell says, "It's very difficult to nail human beings down." Another problem with the theory is that it only covers the first four children. That leaves people such as journalism dean Galen Rarick in a quandry. Rarick's an eighth-born.
