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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 8, 1981)
Emerald Vol 83, No 25 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Thursday, October 8,1981 Olum rejects ‘let’s get small’ attitude By ANN PORTAL Financial exigency: for sinking Oregon colleges and universities, it represents the last port in the budget storm Portland State University rowed into the financial harbor three weeks ago; Western Oregon State College considered it At the University, Pres Paul Olum directs his crew to patch the boat and stay afloat "You wave your magic wand, and you say those magic words — but what does it mean?" asks Olum For higher education, financial exigency means bankruptcy It means not being able to pay all the bills, breaking personnel contracts and firing tenured facul ty And Olum says it means losing face as an academic institution “It's a pretty strong action — a public announce ment to the academic world that you've broken faith I would like to resist doing that," he says “It takes a long time to live that down " Institutions must be able to prove exigency in order to declare it. he says The amount of time it takes to regain credit and credibility will, in part, depend on whether the declaration was in good faith, Olum says In Oregon, exigency had been declared only once before September's PSU announcement, according to higher education Chancellor Roy Lieuallen The earlier declaration also was at PSU, he says Although declaring exigency is the individual deci sion of the eight state colleges and universities, the chancellor and the State Board of Higher Education both must be consulted, Lieuallen says PSU Pres Joseph Blumel says his decision to declare exigency was. in part, acknowledging what he considers an order from the Legislature to reduce the Graphic by Max DeRungs size of higher education WOSC Pres Gerald Leinwand agrees with Blumel's interpretation of recent budget cuts, viewing them as more than a short-term problem to be handled this year. "In Oregon, the dream of what higher education can mean to the state has been lost,” Leinwand says "We re dealing with a legislative mandate to become smaller.” But Leinwand says he rejected exigency as the means for achieving smallness, although proving ex igency at WOSC next year “would not be a difficult thii to do." “We've discussed (financial exigency) rather ex tensively with them,” Lieuallen says. However, after talking to deans, faculty and students, Leinwand decided on the "more orderly” system of program reduction proposed to the faculty last week. Under state administrative rules, financial exigency and program reduction are the only ways tenured faculty can be fired — which probably will happen at both PSU and WOSC next year Firing tenured faculty will hinder WOSC's ability to attract faculty in the future, Leinwand says, but word of program reductions may not travel as far — or hurt as much — as financial exigency. Many colleges across the nation also are cutting back, he says. Allowing time for comment on both planning and implementation seems to have prevented panic, Lein wand says. “The faculty have reacted with remarkable re straint.” The University already has in place the 4-percent cut for the 1982-83 academic year that triggered the actions taken at the other two schools, Olum says. But work continues on the $2.15 million reduction as guidelines shift on what is included in the cut, he says. For the time being, financial exigency remains an abstract idea at the University. Olum says he continues to reject the idea of getting rid of tenured faculty or eliminating academic programs Decreased tuition, decreased state revenue, or new cuts in the special legislative session could change the picture, he says, but right now the University is riding it out — and waiting for calmer waters. “We've done everything in our power to hang on to what we've got ” P.E. Dept, wants requirement cut By DEBBIE HOWLETT Of Ih* Erin nld Physical education require ments may be dropped if a cost-cutting proposal wins faculty approval Michael Ellis, who heads the physical education department, asked the University Assembly Wednesday to repeal the five term requirement beginning fall term 1982 "We need to unfetter our selves from the constraints im posed by the University P E requirements," Ellis said The assembly tabled discus sion until its next meeting, pos sibly on Oct. 28 University Pres Paul Olum must recommend additional budget cuts to the State Board of Higher Educa tion by Nov 1 If passed. Ellis' motion could alleviate some pressure for further budget cuts because the physical education department would not need funding for ac tivities classes Legislation in the Oregon House of Representatives prohibited the activity classes from drawing general funds To continue P.E. requirements, ac tivities classes would have to be funded from cutbacks in other departments. And after a year of already painful cuts, nobody is happy with that solution Accordingly, Celeste Ulrich, dean of health, physical educa tion and recreation, says "with the Legislature dipping into curriculum patterns, we have a lack of funds What we want to do is explore different concepts to handle the programs ." Ulrich proposes a program similar to that used by Continu ing Education Activity classes would be arranged in a variety of ways, from seminars to full terms, but students would have to pay separate fees to enroll in the classes Ellis says that the transition will be a "hassle," similar to changing horses in mid-stream "We will probably get wet,” Ellis says. In other assembly business, members questioned the University of Washington's de claration of financial exigency, asking whether it was "prema ture." Olum replied, "In my own judgment, it was a bit prema ture There might have been political purposes involved " Olum then stressed that under no circumstances would the University declare financial exigency for political reasons. Cartoonist draws audience Twenty-year-old Jack Ohman is a man living out his fantasies Wednesday, the popular syndicated political cartoonist donned his “Ted Kennedy glasses” and read a prepared text about his life to a capacity crowd of high school journalists in the EMU Ballroom. “In high school, I was a veteran avoider of math classes," Ohman told the enthusiastic crowd “And I started hanging out in the newspaper office.” Now he is what Newsweek calls "Cartoon ing s newest star “ Ohman's satirical drawings appear in more than 350 newspapers across the country. Ohman's break came just last spring, when his syndicate's premier cartoonist, Jeff Mac Nelly, gave up his job to concentrate on the "Shoe" comic strip. The syndicate chose Ohman to take MacNelly's place In college, Ohman worked as the staff car toonist for the University of Minnesota Daily. "In college I got a lot of incompletes, and I lost a lot of weight," he says about his begin ning "I gained all the weight back, but I never made up the incompletes."
