daily%nerald
Vol 83, No 27
Eugene, Oregon 97403
Monday, October 12,1981
Stop decline,
Olum exhorts
ANN PORTAL
Of EmaraM
The University must draw a line on how much it will
cooperate in the significant dismantling of its academic core,
Pres Paul Olum said at his inauguration Sunday
For that reason, he said, plans for the future should be
based on a level of funding before this year's emergency
reductions
"What is important is that we must not plan our own
defeat in anticipation of its arrival,’’ Olum said
Olum asked University departments and school chairers
to submit plans for increasing educational quality, and which
indicate what direction their departments or schools should
take in the next five years
A central committee, headed by Vice-Provost Robert
Albrecht, will consolidate each department and school’s
suggestions into a comprehensive plan which will be pre
sented to the entire University community for discussion,
Olum said
The plans may provoke jurisdictional disputes, which
would be resolved by broad University discussion, he added
Many proposals will outline modest changes, such as
indications of disciplinary areas that should be added — or
dropped — as departmental vacancies occur, he said
But others will propose more comprehensive plans
requiring a considerable amount of reorganization, including
the possiblity of moving and recombining units within one
school, or combining curricula from different schools, he
said
Olum acknowledged that faculty may question plans built
on previous funding levels, but, he said, the University must
get a clear picture of what its potential really is before
worrying about further cuts
“I believe that before we can talk meaningfully about
budget reductions and cutbacks, we must first understand
the University and its real aspirations over the coming years,”
Olum said
"Without that vision, there is little to sustain our spirit as
we face the bad days and the repeated blows of adversity."
When adjustments and cutbacks have to be made, they
will be done in a way that preserves the central purpose and
academic core of the University, Olum said
Emerald Sports
“Feeling the cuts”
On May 7,1981, the University administration announced
that four intercollegiate sports would no longer be funded
The men's gymnastics squad, consistently ranked
among the top five in the nation, felt the ax, and so did the
baseball team, a campus fixture since 1908 Women’s golf
and soccer, two new and relatively inexpensive sports, were
cut as well
For the athletic department, the cuts were a financial
solution to its problems — part of a $945,803 slash in the
budget
But for the athletes, coaches and fans, the cuts went
deeper than that They forced changes in lives, in careers, in
schools
Now just five months later, new athletic director Rick Bay
declares he's committed to restoring the four sports But
where the money will come from, and how they'll be revived
remain unanswered questions
The Emerald Sports staff has put together a five-part
series entitled "Feeling the Cuts" that probes this issue The
series will report the current status of each sport along with
the thoughts of the athletes and coaches, and it will speculate
about the future of those sports
The series begins today, on page 13, with a report on the
University's successful women's soccer team, the lone
survivor of the cuts
Past Pres, says PNRC is
unsuccessful attempt
By SALLY HODGKINSON
Of Hi* Emerald
The Pacfic Northwest Resouce Center is
an experiment that has failed and should be
moved off campus, says former University
Pres William Boyd, who helped create the
program
"When the clinic was still in the planning
stages, (former law school dean) Chapin Clark
and I both knew there were risks involved and
that it was possible it would be a troublesome
arrangement," said Boyd in an Emerald inter
view before the inauguration of Pres Paul
Olum
"But we also saw the advantage of
providing good clinical experience for
students, and that seemed so important that
we thought it was worth running the risk.
"Well, it was risky, it was difficult, and it
hasn't worked out.”
Although Boyd said he doesn't regret run
ning that risk, he added that the clinic isn’t
compatible with the University's concern with
fairness and its emphasis on control over its
own programs
"I think both of those principles are endan
gered by the present relationship."
University control of the PNRC "is contam
inated” by the “essential veto power” of the
National Wildlife Federation, Boyd said, adding
that the clinic's choice of cases to work on "raises
questions about fairness and whether or not
students are getting the kind of training in what is
appropriate in public policy issues."
The clinic's relationship to the University
would still be an administrative headache even if
timber-businessmen hadn’t raised a ruckus last
spring, Boyd said.
"It would be a silent issue, and fewer people
would know it, but the issue would be there and
would have to be dealt with honestly."
It's a "red herring" to assume that Olum is
bowing to business interests if he decides to move
the clinic off campus, Boyd said.
“I’m sorry that attitude exists becasue it
makes it harder to do what, in my opinion, ought
to be done. The thing I hate about this is that Paul
Olum and (law school dean) Derrick Bell are left
confronting a no-win situation they did not
create."