Page 4-Sunday October 8, 1978-The Michigan Daily
LOG BATHE WEEK IN REVIEW
Presidential
selection process
still in doubt
Things haven't changed much since
last week when it looked like the
Michigan. Student Assembly (MSA)
would boycott the selection process for
the next University president.
Tuesday night, MSA decided to wait a
week before deciding to boycott the
Regents' presidential selection process.
MSA has refused to participate in the
process so far to protest the lack of
adequate student representation.
The Regents, who have the, ultimate
power in choosing the new chief
executive of the University, have
presented a system which involves
separate faculty, student, and alumni
committees to consider candidates. The
three groups - 15 faculty members, 10
*students, and 10 former students --
'would exchange names and infor-
°mation, but each group would finally
forward an unranked list of as many
,candidates as it wanted. The MSA has
'proposed to the faculty Senate Advisory
'Committee on University Affairs
(SACUA) that a joint committee of the
,three, groups interest groups offer one
,unified list of presidential nominees to
;the Regents. Delegates from each of the
4search committees could "narrow the
.options" open to the Regents by presen-
.ting a list more manageable in size than
-;the one compiled by search committees
in 1966.
r But neither the professors nor the
alumni liked the MSA Plan. Some
professors expressed fear that only
"compromise candidates" would sur-
face through the MSA-backed process.
Shaw Livermore, SACUA chairman,
made a trip to the MSA Meeting
Tuesday night and told students "We
will suggest this option ithe MSA plan)
to the faculty search committee, but at
this point it is important to consider
that a unified list may mean giving up
the best candidates."
Robert Forman, the Executive Direc-
tor of the Alumni Association, said he is
satisfied with the selection process as
proposed by the Regents.
"The Regents have been generous in
sharing the responsibility with the
alumni," said Forman.
ce last winter.
The victims were treated at four local
hospitals after being exposed to the
fumes.
School district Assistant Superinten-
dent Ralph LaJeunesse blamed
"human error" for the open door. "The
doors aren't part of the routine check,"
said LaJeunesse. He added that "there
is no question" they will be in the
future.
Course evaluations
Some students and staff members of
the Office of Academic Counseling
complained bitterly this week about the
lack of cooperation on the part of some
departments in the University with the
student evaluations program.
Supporters of the student course
evaluation concept are pushing for
increased use of evaluations in order to
provide students with a maximum
amount of information before they
enroll. in courses. But some
departments and certain professors are
balking at becoming involved in the
system.
"Some departments seem to feel that
they are above being evaluated," said
Barbara Roberts, a coordinator in'the
Office of Academic Counseling (OAC).
Why some professors are shying
away from student evaluations is not
clear. Last winter term over 90 per cent
of the classes and professors were rated
"excellent" by students.
ERA extended
Congress gave supporters of the
Equal Rights Amendment some long
awaited good news this week when it
extended the ratifiction period for the
amendment by 39 months. The Senate
also rejected a prosal by Senator Jake
Garn (R-Utah) that would have allowed
states that have already approved the
constitutional amendment to rescind
their support.
Opponents of the amendment,
including Phyllis Schlafly, national
chairwoman of Stop ERA, vowed to
fight the Senate action in the courts.
Schlafly called the extension "a fraud
which will have no legal effect when
tested in the courts."
However, Senator Birch Bayh (D-
Ind.), chief Senate sponsor of the
extension, said: "It has been clear in
every court decision. . . that Congress
has the authority to determine what is a
reasonable time for ratifiction of a
constitutional amendment."
American corporations
in S. Africa respond
They don't like the racist system in
South Africa, but executives at the
banks and corporations in which the
University has investments and which
do business in that country say they
have no intention of leaving. They said
in letters to the University released
with a summary this week that they
think they can effect change through
progressive policies.
Using phrases like "orderly progress"
and shunning "isolation tactics," the
businesses answered a University
questionnaire with a unified message:
anti-discriminatory policies within
American industry in South Africa is
better for blacks and non-whites than
withdrawal.
Nearly all 47 corporations with ties to
South Africa and in which the
University is a 'stockholder, strongly
endorsed the Sullivan principles.
Written by Rev.Leon Sullivan, a
General Motors boardmember, the six
principles call for desegregation in
company facilities and equal pay for
equal work.
The Regents asked that the request
for informaion be sent out during
debate over divestitute last March.
They will look at the responses to the
questionnaire at their Oct. 19 meeting.
There is no indication they will
reconsider their decision to leave
University funds in the businesses
which operate with the approval of the
South African government at that time.
Livermore
At Tuesday's meeting the MSA
decided to wait a week before deciding
to boycott the selection process.
Human error causes
gas poisoning
One hundred students and teachers at
the Ann Arbor Community High School
had a rougher Monday morning than
most people this week.
An open service door leading to a fur-
nace exhaust system was responsible
for spreading carbon monoxide into the
school. Students and faculty began
feeling ill shortly after the furnace
kicked on Monday for the first time sin-
l e , Ittl t ttn+ ttil
How to pick a president- 1966-67
Eighty-Nine Years of Editorial Freedom
Vol. LIX, No. 28
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Freedom of the press
In my capacity as an MSA member doing
research on the students' views of the 1966
university presidential selection process, I
would like to share with the rest of the student
community some of the historical facts
concerning the support that the 1966 process
had from the Student Government Council
(SGC) and other student and campus
organizations. I bring this up for public
knowledge and discussion because some of
the regents have already argued in their
meeting with MSA's presidential selection
committee that the 1966 selection process had
student support then and is, in a way,
therefore, binding to MSA.
THE WHOLE DEBATE around an
appropriate presidential selection committee
started in a response to President Harlan
Hatcher's announced future retirement in the
fall of 1967. SGC, then, took the initiative on
January 27, 1966 by passing a motion that
asked for "student-faculty committee which
would participate in the preliminary and final
decisions regarding the selection of a new
By Mervat F. Hatem
plan for the selection of a new president. At
first, the process envisioned was based on
"the establishment of three separate
committees for students, faculty and alumni
that defined their own needs and gave an
appraisal of present and future potential of the
university. After doing that, the student
committee was to disand and three new
committees representing the regents, alumni
and faculty were to be formed to rank order
presidential candidates" (the Michigan
Daily, Feb. 2, 1966).
IN RESPONSE to SGC's opposition and
active lobbying and support given by the
Daily, the selection process was modified in a
way that still fell short of student demands,
but which eventually became the process
followed in the 1966 process." The regents
invited several student, faculty and alumni
organizations to participate in the selection
HE FIRST AMENDMENT to the
Constitution states simply that
Congress shall make no law
"abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press;" it used to ensure
Americans' right to be informed.
For the past few months, however, the
U.S. Supreme Court 'has taken grave
steps to limit the press and therefore
restrict the quality and quantity of in-
formation available to the public. Fir-
st, the Stanford ruling determined that
police may conduct a general search of
newspaper offices with nothing more
than a searchwarrant-easily ob-
tained from cooperative judges. Now
the high court has decided that New
York Times investigative reporter
Myron Farber may be incarcerated
until he agrees to relinquish all his
notes pertaining to the case of Mario
Jascalevich, a doctor who is being
tried for the murder of 13 patients.
In 1975, Farber began an in-
vestigation of 13 mysterious deaths at
Riverside Hospital in New Jersey in
1965-66. Farber wrote a series of ar-
ticles providing evidence that the
deaths were actually murders com-
mmitted by a person he identified only
as "Dr. X." These articles led the in-
dictment of Jascalevich on 13 counts of
murder.
Jascalevich claims he needs Far-
the police and Jascalevich has the
same access to the undisclosed sources
used for the newspaper articles.
Moreover, Farber asserts that if he
bends to pressure from the courts and
reveals his sources, newspersons, and
therefore every American, would no
longer be privy to anonymous sources.
This is a key point. While everyone
has equal access to sources, persons
are more inclined to reveal secrets to
news reporters because anonimity can
be promised. Sources would be less in-
clined. to come forward if they knew
their name could be forced from a
reporter in a court of law. Watergate
might never have happened had this
ruling been in effect in 1972.
Farber was not involved in the case.
He was not present when the aledged
murders happened. In court his note
could not be considered anything more
than heresay evidence.
Jascalevich is not being prosecuted
by Farber. Jascalevich is not being
tried on the basis of Farber's article.
Farber only brought to light evidence
which led police to investigate the
Riverside Hospital deaths more
deeply. It was the police investigation
which brought Jascalevich to trial, not
Farber's articles.
In short, there was community-wide concern about the
either of the three lists.
IT IS IMPORTANT to note at this point that
in addition to SGC's and the Michigan Daily's
continued objection to the process as it was
defined and their support of one joint
presidential advisory committee, some
SACUA members (The Senate Advisory
committee for University Affairs which
represents the faculty) also requested hit
contact occur between committees
preferably in a joint committee" (the Daily,
Feb. 17, 1966).
In short, there was a community-wide
concern about the structure of the process
and the guarantee that it provides O~r
participationand influenceto each of the
groups involved. Also, some consensus was
reached at least as to the importance of
having one joint presidential selection
advisory committee that included all of the
groups concerned. It is these same concerns
and proposals (even if in some slightly
modified form) that the MSA presidential
selection committee is putting forward for
public debate and consideration by the
University community.
ONE LAST POINT must be made to those
who will still maintain after this review of the
history of the debate that the SGC's
involvement in the 1966 process constituted
de-factoapproval. To these I must counter
that from the point of view of the 1966 SGC,
which was suffering from the university's and
the regents' intransigence as to the
recognition of its right to be consulted in
student related policy issues, the inclusion of
the students in this process set an invaluable
precedent even if the process was far from
being satisfactory. MSA cannot, in my
opinion, be asked twelve years later to
accept a process that was handed down to
them by the regents without and consultation
and which even twelve years ago was not
acceptable to the student government. Last,
but not least, if the quest for morestudent
rights is to continue and if we want student
government to always move one step
forward, we must critically learn from the
lessons of our own history and not simply be
structure of the
(presidential
selection) process and
the
guarantees that it provided for participation and influence to
each of the groups involved.
university president. . . To ensure student
particiation in the selection process of
potential candidates to a final
recommendation on candidates, SGC moved
that one presidential selection advisory
committee be formed by the regents as a body
of 12-16 members. Regents, faculty, alumni
and students be equally represented on this
committee . . . This committee will then
submit final recommendations of at least 10
candidates in preferential order for the
regents" (The Michigan Daily, Feb. 2, 4, and
10 of 1966).
Meanwhile, the regents, without publicly
consulting any of the major groups of the
university community came up with their own
process by designing committees of their own
members to advise the regent's committee.
These advisory committees provided
suggestions of the future needs of the
university as well as names of candidates''
(the Michigan Daily, Feb. 12, 1966). Formally
the committees were to have minimal contact
with each other, but the agreed upon lists by
the three committees were to later on
anonymously circulate among them. In the
words of the 1966 regents, "this arrangement
was created as a method of avoiding formal
requirements binding the boaird of regents"
(the Michigan Daily, Feb. 12, 1966). The
regents have in fact the right to decide on a
candidate whose name does not appear on
trapped
us do.
by it as the regents would have have
Letters
harti feminists' quest
for
why an
ERA etension
"equality", or if they are just
trying very hard to ignore them.
Rather, it is the tactics they uses
The threat of losing a seat in
one's state legislature because of