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