Oregon daily
emerald
Thursday, September 27, 1984
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 86, Number 20
Lieberman wins IFC chair election
By Julie Shippen
Of the Emerald
After two hours of discussion Wednes
day afternoon, the Incidental Fee Com
mittee elected Lori Lieberman as IFC
chair and Darris Rowell as vice chair of
the organization.
Although Rowell’s selection was
unanimous, with the exception of one
member’s abstention, the 4-3 vote in
favor of Lieberman was later viewed
with disdain by at least one member of
the IFC.
Summer IFC Chair Mary Kay Menard
believes a private meeting held Monday
evening between four of the seven com
mittee members played a major role in
Wednesday’s vote count.
“None of the other members were
committed to her (Lieberman) before the
meeting,” Menard said following the
elections. “I got the definite sense there
was sort of pressure. If that meeting
hadn't of been called, I don’t think the
vote would have been as dramatic as it
was.’’
Lieberman. however, said the meeting
was purely social in nature.
“Maybe 10 minutes of the time we
talked about the chair elections,” Lieber
man said. The rest of the time, she said,
was spent discussing personal matters
and generally getting to know one
another. "Just the four of us wanted to
get together and talk,” she added.
But Menard claims the time was used
by Lieberman to accumulate votes in an
attempt to defeat Adam Apalategui,
another IFC member, who had intended
to run for chair and also was nominated
Wednesday.
While Lieberman said “the meeting
was not a vote counting session,” she
added that the practice of gathering sup
r
port before an election is not unique.
"Before any election of this type, you
know where the votes are going to fall,"
she said. "No one said that they would
vote for me. But I came away knowing
that I had a basis of support and that
there were people who thought I’d make
a good chair.”
Menard also said the meeting was in
tentionally held without proper notice to
1FC members Bob Mead, Apalategui and
herself. In addition, she claims the re
maining four representatives — Ryne
Jackson, Lloyd Athearn, Rowell and
Lieberman — knew the reason for the
meeting before they attended it.
"We found out about it purely by coin
cidence. We were not supposed to know
about it," she said. "I know some of the
people at the meeting felt bad we weren't
invited and that’s why we found out.”
She also questions the meeting’s
ethics and legality.
"Personally I do not feel that there was
honorable or ethical intent with Lori’s
meeting with other members of the com
mittee, mainly just because of the
secretive nature of it,” Menard said.
Lieberman claims there was nothing
underhanded about the meeting. “It was
not unethical,” she said, and cites a
similar type of meeting that took place
later between Menard, Jackson, Mead
and Apalategui. “The same questionable
practices that I’ve been accused of have
been practiced by others.”
During the elections, various commit
tee members raised the conflict of in
terest that might occur with three
representatives of the IFC living
together. According to Menard, such
fears are ungrounded.
“Adam, Bob and I don’t talk about fee
committee matters inasmuch as we have
Photo by Bill Harpole
Lori Lieberman and Danis Rowell were elected chair and vice chair, respective
ly, of the Incidental Fee Committee Wednesday afternoon.
that in common," Menard said. “After
we’ve been at the fee committee all day
long, who wants to go home and discuss
it at length?”
She added that former ASUO Ex
ecutive Assistant Sherri Schultz, one of
the other two persons living with them,
never discussed with them at home her
business in student government or her
intentions to eventually resign.
But Menard said the real problem is
not one of living arrangements between
certain IFC members, but a lack of com
munication in the office.
“Had we all made an effort to get to
know one another, I don’t think the issue
of who’s living with who would have
been brought up,” Menard said. “1 think
that meeting produced a sort of secret at
mosphere. The point is that we didn’t
find out about it from Lori.”
“In a sense, she caused a split to occur
already,” Menard said. “When we heard
about the meeting, we felt like a door
had been slammed in our face. I think
that this decision is going to make deal
ings in the fee committee more difficult
for us.”
%
Students get down with the Crazy 8’s
University students swayed, boogied and jived to the incredibly
danceable ska sounds of the Crazy 8’s last night on the east lawn of the
EMU.
The show, sponsored by the Cultural Forum, was temporarily inter
rupted by problems with the electrical connections to the outdoor
stage, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. They waited patiently in the
brisk autumn evening’s air for the power to be restored and the dancing
to begin.
And it did, with a vengence.
Photo by Steven Wall
Senate purpose at issue
By Michael Doke
Of the Emerald
The University Senate — a legislative
body that almost voted itself out of ex
istence last spring — met Wednesday to
discuss new issues for the coming
academic year, only to awake the same
sleeping dog: namely, the issue of its
own effectiveness.
Mathematics Prof. Lewis Ward, a long
time member of the Senate, was
outspoken in his pessimism of Senate ef
fectiveness. Ward said he is “worried
about the relevance of the group” as a
decision-making forum.
The 54-member body composed of
faculty and students traditionally meets
one week before the larger monthly con
gregation of the University Assembly.
The Senate reviews, discusses, debates
and takes action on motions as an ad
visory board to the Assembly.
The Senate also recommends motions
to the Assembly.
Last academic year, after a series of
governance motions — from reducing
student involvement in the organization,
to changes in the size of the Senate itself
— directed at increasing Senate effec
tiveness, the body barely survived an
in-house motion to abolish itself.
The Senate’s lack of relevance, accor
ding to Ward, stems from Senate recom
mendations being virtually ignored at
the Assembly.
English Prof. Bill Strange said that the
University, unlike other institutions in
the state, is the only one that doesn’t
have a faculty senate.
“We are not a faculty senate here
because we have students who are
senators,” said Strange. “We are a
university senate.”
Strange pointed out that having
students in the Senate is not wrong but
the 18 students, as members of the Stu
dent University Affairs Board, meet
away from the faculty at SUAB meetings.
This creates a feeling of a “student
senate,” he said. In turn, a feeling of stu
dent bloc voting is also present.
Strange also said that the University
Senate is the only one in the state that is
unable to take action on motions.
“And that can help explain the lack of
faculty interest in the Senate,” said
Strange.
Senate chair Katherine Eaton said she
is optimistic about the body’s ability to
change and is willing to oversee the
course of the organization for the coming
year.
New issues the Senate and Assembly
will be concerned with this year, said
Eaton, concern faculty post-tenure
review and early retirement.
Before the governance debate. Univer
sity Provost Dick Hill came before the
Senate to report on University activities.
The State Board of Higher Education
has approved a state-wide budget that
calls for a $147 million increase in
education spending, said Hill. The
budget still must be accepted by the state
legislature and Gov. Vic Atiyeh before it
can go into effect.
A tuition freeze would also be possible
under the approved budget, he said.