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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1982)
Monday, March 1, 1982 Eugana, Oregon Oregon daily Volume 83 Number 111 emerald Weathersby rejects board’s first offer Compiled by Ann Portal from AmocKM Ptm reports The State Board of Higher Education made its first choice for chancellor an offer he could refuse Friday George Weathersby, Indiana's 37-year-old commissioner of higher education, said he decided to reject the lob offer after he was chosen by the board Friday to replace Chancellor Roy Lieuallen, who retires July 1 However, Weathersby said he might be persuaded to reconsider the offer if the board made some fundamental changes Weathersby declined to say what those changes would be, but said that the board's members know what he has in mind Ed Harms board president, called Weathersby from the chancellor's office in Eugene at the conclusion of the board's monthly meeting After talking with Weathersby for more than an hour, Harms emerged to tell reporters we do not have a thing to tell you "This really is a preliminary conversa tion and it ranged over all sorts of things,” Harms said "We haven’t made an offer which the other side accepted Harms said points to be negotiated included the board's philsophy, the state's economic situation, the local political climate, and other issues — including salary In a telephone interview Sunday, Harms declined to detail what issues were preventing Weathersby from ac cepting the job offer that state education officials said would bring an annual salary of up to $75,000 plus fringe ben efits Harms said negotiations would con tinue Monday morning at 9 a m. in a telephone conference call between Weathersby and the board members ‘ The board will make a decision at that time as to whether we feel we can meet the things he wants," Harms said Oregon's recession and budget prob lems may be partly to blame for causing three of five finalists to withdraw from the race to become head of the State System of Higher Education, Harms said. The state system has been forced to cut spending in the last two years due to recurring state budget deficits “Yes, that (the state's poor economic situation) obviously has an effect on the attractiveness of the job It may lessen their enthusiasm for the job because of the present budget estimates," Harms said. “But we received applications from 140 people — at least 47 were outstand ing people, and we have five very distin guished finalists," he said “Any one of the five is qualified and acceptable." Harms said if the field is reduced to one or two finalists, he and the board members would have to decide whether or not they want to interview other can didates "I think the economic situation is probably one of the most serious things,” he said “The state system has a reputation of being a model system al most across the country. "That was certainly borne out almost without exception in the (finalists’) inter views,” he said. "The System of Higher Education and the administration of higher education is certainly considered an ideal one, as compared to having 10 different systems within a state.” Harms expressed concern, however, that budget reductions that would cut further into the system's budget could endanger what he called an excellent higher education program. Two other finalists accepted other job offers last month after their interviews with the state board. Henry Koffler, chancellor of the University of Massa chusetts, became president of the University of Arizona, and Bruce Poul ton, head of the University of New Hampshire System, accepted the chan cellorship at North Carolina State University. The other candidates under consider ation for the job are George Rainsford, president of Kalamazoo College in Michigan, and William “Bud" Davis, pre sident of the University of New Mexico. ‘Rude’ audiences heckle speakers Whether some audience members at the Northwest National Security Conference sessions were unjustifiably rude is debatable, say organizers of the ASUO-sponsored event Participants at most sessions of the conference hissed, heckled and argued with speakers from microphones set up for audience questions Audience rudeness came to a head at Friday's session on assessing a Soviet threat "This is the rudest college audience I've spoken to in the last five years,' said Ray Cline a senior associate at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies and former deputy director of the CIA Much of the audience applauded the remark Conference co-planner Dave Lesser admits to some regrets about audience behavior at the conference, par ticularly at a Saturday evening session on nuclear war deterrence "I was a little disappointed In order to understand both points of view you have to listen ' Lesser says several audience members verbally attacked conservative confer ence panelists He says his overall opinion of audience behavior is mixed however, because the speakers may have "deserved the comments they got ' The behavior was "regrettable, but honest. ' Lesser says Experienced speakers "should know when they come to a college campus that this is what they re going to get,” he says But Lesser also says there are disadvantages to an uninhibited audience "I’m just fearful that if we persist in this kind of behavior, the only people that will come to Eugene are people we already agree with," he says Co-planner Dave Isenberg says that some criticisms were deserved and some were not "Draim (John Draim, an aerospace engineer and defense analyst) deserved some of the questions he got,” he says On the other hand, some audience members were rude to Cline "just to be rude" to someone formerly with the CIA, Isenberg says "All in all, I was pleased with the audience," says conference co-planner John Stewart, ASUO vice president for state and public affairs "You shouldn't write people off who get emotional," Stewart says, adding that audience members were generally justified in their questions and comments He is apparently more concerned with a lack of University students at the conference "I was very disappointed in student turnout,” Stewart says "There were more students asking questions from Portland State than the U of O" See pages 5, 6 and 7 for related stories Bell OKs FBI recruiting By Debbie Howlett CM the Emerald The FBI does not discriminate against homo sexuals and can resume recruiting vists to the University's law school, says law school dean, Derrick Bell, He expects visits to begin sometime between March 15 and March 17, An FBI recruiting visit to the law school in mid-October was tabled after a student alleged that the FBI did not comply with the University’s affirmative action policy. Although the student, who was never named, did not file a formal complaint with the law school, Bell sent a letter to FBI headquarters asking that the FBI not recruit at the law school until the matter was settled The complaint received by the law school was based on litigation in which an FBI official told a judge that the FBI discriminates against homosexuals, said Bell Because the law school is not an en forcement agency and because the student com plaint was not based on a personal experience of discrimination, the law school must grant the FBI the same opportunity to recruit as is granted to other government agencies and to businesses that affirm that they are equal opportunity em ployers,” Bell said. The University’s affirmitive action statement prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, handicap, national origin or considera tions not directly related to effective job per formance After several letters between Bell and John Mintz, the FBI's assistant director of legal coun sel, Bell said Mintz denied the FBI "automatically bars hiring homosexuals.” The FBI "looks carefully into the sexual practices of all applicants so not to jeopardize the FBI mission,” Bell quotes Mintz as saying. Bell added that the FBI acts with "due concern with regard to rights of privacy." "You have to keep in perspective how im portant this is to total progress,” Bell said. "Our obligation is to ensure that every student is fairly represented Recruiting is one very important part of the educational sysytem." Bell said that the complaint was "based on someone hearing something," not an actual case of discrimination. "There is no more reason to believe that the FBI is discriminating more than anybody else," said Bell. "I could call them liars or launch a full-scale investigation,” Bell said. "But, we've done all that we're obligated to do.” One last hug An irate fan wasn t really trying to give Oregon Captain John Grieg a go ing away embrace Saturday - he was greeting' an official The senior for ward scored 1 1 points in his last home game as the Ducks fell to UClA 88-66 See page 9 for details
