Wednesday, August 27, 1969 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Seven Wednesday, August 27, 1969 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Seven Student power awaits recognition in 'U bylaws By MARTIN HIRSCHMAN There is much about the Uni- versity which has undergone substantial change since the Student Power Movement of fall 1966 rocked the campus. Required residence in the dormitories has finally been abolished, along with the whole gamut of rules which once characterized quad life. Female students, for example, are no longer locked in their dormitor- ies at midnight each night. Participation in a whole range of University decision-making functions has been opened for the first time to student repre- sgntatives. Students are even beginning to make inroads in the vise-like control the faculty exercises over academic policy. And on the administration side, the Eisenhoweresque lead- ership of Harlan Hatcher has given way to the politics of me- diation under the aegis of Pres- ident Robben W. Fleming. But despite these de facto changes in the University, the most significant, long-lasting by- product of the Student Power Movement remains unsettled - recognition in the Regental by- laws of the rights of students in University decision-making. Now, two and one-half years since the famed one-hour sit-in which brought 1500 students to the old Administration Bldg- in November 1966, students, fac- ulty and administrators are still haggling over key plans to re- write provisions of the Regents bylaws dealing with discipline and the role of students in de- cision-making. Because the bylaws function TWO KEY PARTICIPANTS in the bylaw dispute: Prof. Joseph Payne, chairman of the faculty's Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, and Marc Van Der Hout, executive vice president of Student Government Council. as a kind of constitution for the. University - and because of the controversial nature of the sug- gested amendments - the pro- posed bylaw revisions have been the subject of careful scrutiny by all segments of the Univer- sity community. The first stage of work on re- vising the bylaws was carried out by the President's Commis- sion on the Role of Students in Decision-Making (the Hatcher Commission) which w a s con- vened by President Hatcher in the wake of the Student Power Movement. After over a year of study, the commission issued a lengthy re- port embodying a series of rec- ommendations - both broad and specific - for alleviating grievances which had led to the 1966 demonstrations and calling for a substantial restructuring of University government. t The major proposal of t h e Hatcher Commission w a s the creation of a University Council composed of equal numbers of students, faculty members and administrators who would make rules for all members of t h e University community, subject to ratification by Student Gov- ernment Council and Senate As- sembly, the faculty governing body. The University Council pro- posal was new, but far f r o m revolutionary. In part, it was an attempt to bring SGC back into a stable relationship with the rest of the University. During the Student Power Movement, SGC had "broken ties" with the Office of Student Affairs - the administrative unit which at the time had lin- ear authority over Council de- cisions. (The topic is rarely dis- cussed any more, but the sev- ered ties have never been re- established. The Hatcher Commission pro- posal concerniig the judicial matters was less well defined. While the report noted that the formation of a central student judiciary is "t h e primary re- sponsibility of students," it was never quite clear just what au- thority such a body would have. In other areas, the commis- sion took a fairly firm stand against disciplining students for offenses committed outside the University, and insisted that re- quired residence in the dormi- tories be abolished. (The latter suggestion has since been im- plemented.) But the vagueness in the ju- diciary section of the comniis- sion report-and the general lack of suggestions concerning implementation of the recom- mendations-made writing the changes into the Regental by- laws a task which was at first difficult. and later highly con- troversial. The biggest stumbling block to approval of the bylaws prov- ed at first to be the Regents themselves. Several Regents ex- pressed the fear that SGC would veto all proposals passed by University Council. The Regents therefore com- missioned then-Vice President for Student Affairs Richard Cutler to find a way of amend- ing the Hatcher Commission proposal so that a stalemate ov- er a University Council r u I e could be avoided. And Cutler was soon ready with a proposal under which the Regents could ratify and Uni- versity Council-approved rule over the veto of either Senate Assembly or SGC. But before Cutler was able to bring this proposal to the Re- gents, t h e storm broke loose. Student leaders charged the pro- posal was in complete violation of the spirit and letter of the Hatcher Commission r e p o r t. And faculty members who had served on the commission sup- ported the students' position. Faced with a serious threat of student action if Cutler's pro- ening. Specific issues in the con- troversy center around: -A provision in the bylaw draft which gives the faculty of professional schools the right to exclude a student whose person- al life does not conform to lic- ensing standards in the field. SGC members have argued that this licensing should be left to the state and that students should be judged only by aca- demic standards. Professional school faculty members have countered that they do not want to train convicted felons to be lawyers or rapists to be doctors. - A section of the bylaws which would give students two non-voting seats on the Regents. Faculty representatives h a v e complained that, if students de- serve seats on the Regents, then so do they. - A section of the bylaws which would give a student-fac- ulty policy board control of the operations of the Office of Stu- dent Affairs. SGC members ar- gue that only students should sit on the board because the group's decisions affect only students. But underlying the dispute in a somewhat deeper dissatisfac- tion with the bylaw draft felt by both sides. Students seem to believe they have already suc- ceeded in eliminating non-aca- demic discipline from Univer- sity judicial processes and they do not want to approve a docu- ment which hands such author- ity right back to the faculty. In addition, students appear to feel that they have only to gain by forcing further post- ponement of adoption of the by- laws. The last major postpone- ment followed the dispute over the ratification of University Council rules - a dispute which students finally won. And on the faculty side there seems to be the fear -- exem- plified by the fight over the pro- fessional school conduct issue - that students are trying to use the bylaw revision as a means of gaining new inroads into power now held by their professors. With differences and distrust running this deep, it appears that the controversy over the bylaws will continue for some time. And by next April, when the students who were freshmen during the 1968 Student Power Movement are about to-gradu- ate, it is just possible that there will be no one left who even re- members what the controversy is all about. r' a r Li A rI I GUITAR STUDIO INSTRUMENTS. ACCESSORIES LESSONS Instruments Students stage sit-in to press their demands MADE & REPAIRED posal were adopted. the Regents postponed action on the bylaws at their next meeting, and the locus of the controversy was re- turned to the small group of students and faculty with whom Cutler had been meeting to con- sider the question. Summer 1968 dragged on into fall with the bylaws still in the hands of this ad hoc group. And as time passed and the member- ship of the group changed, the ad hoc committee itself none- theless took on virtually comma plete responsibility for drafting the bylaws. One issue after another con- sumed the time and efforts of the members of the ad hoc com- mittee. At one point, f o r ex- ample, controversy c e n t e r e d around the desire of faculty members to maintain tight con- trol of disciplinary procedures within their school or college by limiting the appellate jurisdic- tion of Central Student Judic- iary- Faculty members were ap- parently wary of the possibility that CSJ would refuse to up- hold convictions made by lower judiciaries. But as soon as each question was resolved, another cropped up. And as time passed, the is- sues began to seem only more difficult to resolve. Finally, af- ter almost a year of work, the bylaw committee decided it would never be able to produce a solution acceptable to the fac- ulty, the students and the Re- gents. So in May, the committee dis- banded, sending the results of its work - a disputed draft of the bylaws - to Senate Assem- bly and SGC. Members of the ad hoc committee said they hoped some agreement between the two groups could be reached in the fall. But as this supplement goes to press, the gap between fac- ulty and student views of the bylaws appears still to be wid- 209 South State (upstairs) 665-8001 I nternalionallty k noicitaid i rcomen ,'d b) nrist major mank/faci television, and eia/ured in, martumor 1))d'U;wb1il2ftw