The Michigan Daily-Thursday, September 20, 1979-Page 7
Honors Council
By HOWARD WITT
High attrition rates and minority
recruitment difficulties in the LSA
Honors Program cannot be resolved
until statistics for the program are
available, the new director of the
Honors Council said in an interview
Tuesday.
Philosophy Prof. Jack Meiland, who.
replaced the retiring Prof. Otto Graf in
July as director of the Honors
Program, said many of the problems
mentioned last spring by a committee
reviewing the program cannot be
corrected immediately.
THE LSA HONORS Program,
designed for students of high academic
standing, accounts for approximately
11 per cent of the enrollment in the
College. Students invited to join the
program receive special counseling
and can enroll in special honors cour-
ses. Degrees with honors can be earned
upon successful completion of a senior
honors thesis.
Less than 23 per cent of the students
who entered the honors program as
,freshpersons in 1974 earned degrees
with honors in 1977-78, the Honors
Program study showed. Also, women
comprised only 39 per cent of those
graduating with honors in 1977-78.
Committee members did not have any
statistics on minority enrollments, but
guessed that about 0 per cent of honors,
program graduetes are Asian-
Americans and fewer than 2 per cent
are black.
"The committee felt hampered by a
lack of statistical information about the
program, and so do we," Meiland said.
"We are now freeing up the staff to let
them, compile statistical information
(about high attrition rates and the low
minority and female enrollments)."
TWO COUNSELORS have been ad-
ded to the Honors Program staff to help
alleviate some of the counseling burden
which had prevented detailed studies of
the program. "We hope certain staff
plans program
members will now be free to think A
about policy and long-range planning A NEW UNDERCLASS ho
fo?the program,"Meiland said. award, which would be granted
In addition, several honors students successfulcompletionoftheunderc
will be hired to help complete statistical portion of the Honors Program
studies of the program. Meiland said he posted on a student's transcript ma
was unsure when the studies might be established, Meiland said.
completed and changes introduced. Because the Honors Program
Meiland said he has already planned divided into two parts-freshm
several curricular changes for the sophomore and junior-senior-m
Honors Program. In response to students participate in only the un
Hoorss Program. In repons class Honors program and choose
criticismsmlevelled by the Honors to write a seniorhonors thesis. The
review committee that an insufficient complishments of these students h,
number of honors courses were being gone unnoticed, Meiland said, bec
offered, Meiland will introduce four they do not graduate with ho
honors sophomore seminars in the Win- degrees.
ter term.
nors
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A long-dormant student Honors
Council will be re-activated within
several weeks, Meiland said. The
student group will serve in an advisory
capacity, providing feedback on
various aspects of the Honors Program
and making suggestions for changes.
The Honors Council, a body of 40
professors from all LSA departments,
will convene for the first time in several
years in mid-October to discuss
Meiland's plans.' Also scheduled to be
.discussed are distinctions between
degrees "with honors," "'with high
honors," and "with highest honors."
Welcome Students
TO THE
DASCOLA
HAIRSTYLISTS
Liberty off State-66-9329
last U. at South U--662-0354 y^
Arbariand-971-9973
fMPUSCRISAD
Angell Hall 2235
every Thursday
The Man Who Knew
Too Much moves. on
By ERIC ZORN
The Man Who Knows Too Much has
moved to the other side.
Six years worth of students in the
Honors division of LSA will remember
Bill Schrock as the one person to ask
when there were questions about
anything to do with the University. He
knew more than GUIDE; he knew more
than the counselors.
"HE KNEW everything," asserts an
honors senior about the former office
secretary. "If he's really left the honors
college, that's terrible."
But Schrock, 28, said he got tired of
being "just a secretary," and recently
accepted an appointment across the
hall in the LS&A counseling office as a
pre-business academic advisor for the
business school. This part-time appoint
ment will give him a chance to finish a
master's degree in business that has
been on the back burners for most of his
tenure as the honors secretary.
The Man Who Knows Too Much did
not always know too much.
"I'm a failed honors student myself,"
he confesses, recalling the years 1969-73
when he was getting his undergraduate
degree in philosophy and working at
The Daily. "Those were exciting
(political) times then. People seemed
to care more."~
HE IS MODEST about his reputation
for knowing all things about the
University. "It was my job to keep up
with registration procedures and
faculty bureaucratic decisions," says
Schrock; "I also heard a lot about dif-
ferent instructors, and, since I was full-
time and most counselors are only
quarter-time at the most, I was always
in touch with important things."
Schrock, a Saginaw native, adds that
secretaries who must deal with studen-
ts have the most stressful jobs in the
University, and he never felt content to
let anyone take out their frustrations on
him. Some honors students might not
remember Bill Schrock fondly.
"I was often abrasive, brash, and
opinionated," he says. "If someone
were doing something not academically
sound, I'd argue with him. And remem-
ber, I was just a secretary."
THOUGH SOME students have ex-
pressed a fear that the honors college
will crumble without Schrock, he
remains certain he is not indispensable,
and is glad to have made the move to
pre-business counselling.
It has, however, taken two people to
replace Schrock: Anna Nissen and
Kathy Stein have taken over the chores
temporarily, and one of the most
frequent questions they hear is
"Where's Bill Schrock?"
Well, he's off making his fortune. "I
want to be something other than an im-
poverished semi-student," he says.
Schrock currently lives in the basement
of a farmhouse ten miles out of town
and drives an old car he calls
"Mephistopheles."
As a part-time counselor and part-
time student, The Man Who Knows Too
Much is probably learning more and
more every day.
Daily Photo by LISA KLAUSNER
BILL SCHROCK, who knows all there is to know.
Headlee ruling will
allow-some rise in
A 2taxes without voi
From Wire service and staff Reports ting the Headlee amendment.
A ruling Monday by state Attorney Kelley's interpretation Mond
General Frank Kelley concerning the Headlee implementation law a
Headlee tax limitation amendment ad- city to reverse its May propert
ded a footnote to last May's squabble in without a referendum.
City Council over a Republican-backed Republican Mayor Louis
reduction in city property taxes. supported the reduction in gen
Kelley, in interpreting a law passed property taxes, resulting in
by the legislature last June which im- losing about seven per cen
*plements the voter-approved Headlee property tax revenue, becaus
amendment, ruled that cities which cut it would represent a "long ter
amendentmitment" to the taxpayer.
property taxes do not have to seek voter
approval before raising taxes back to
the level authorized in a city's charter. 1
FOR ANN ARBOR, the ruling means
the tax cut approved by council last
May - reducing the property tax levy Antler Snork
for the city's general fund from seven
and one-half to seven mils can be Fur-Hooded Insulated
reversed again this year by council Jacket
vote, since the city's charter authorizes
a seven and one-half mil levy. 42§98 4
Each mil levied represents one tax SALE
dollar a property owner has to pay per reg $53.98
one thousand dollars of assessed
property value.
City council members last May Dexter Hiking
debated two proposals to cut property -oots-EXT
taxes, one reducing the general fund
" millage and the other reducing the ROUGH AND SMOC
millage levied to pay the city's debt
service. $trs 9
~> The latter alternative, which was SALE
defeated, was supported by council reg. $62.98
moderates on the assumption that the
debt service millage could be restored ENTIRE STOCK C
by council next year, while, because of
the Headlee amendment, reversing aFLANNE
general fund millage cut would require
a city-wide referendum.
201 E. M
AT THAT TIME, the state legislature
had not yet agreed on a law implemen-
Coming October 1°!
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te
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