Page 4-Tuesday, February 27, 1979-The Michigan Daily
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Eighty-Nine Years of Editorial Freedom
Who will be next president?
Vol. LXXXIX, No. 124
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
_
Grievance committee needs
help from faculty group
Committee on University A
T AST WEEK members of a faculty Comte onUirsyA
Agrievance committee publicly (SACUA) and the Senate Ass
criticized the lack of influence they asking for support of its decision
have on University decisions. Several .he reommendations,which
of the members said they were even within the present guidelir
considering resigning from the group if SACUA and the Senate Assemb]
they weren't given more input. for the groups to put more press
SARC-the Senate Assembly Review department chairpersons and de
Committee - examines cases of supporting SARC's decisions.
.aculty members who claim they are We hope' these two faculty
-victims of procedural injustices in will endorse SARC's decisions a
thei r departments or schools. some clout to the committee'sr
Ithe d ten teorssinchitwafoolmendations. If these alterations
In the ten years since it was formed, made, SARC members may cho
SARC has reviewed 12 cases, favoring disband due to the group
the grievant in eight of them. Depar- significance.
-tment. heads and college deans, Another problem facing SARC
however, have turned a deaf ear to the tremendously slow process it
:committee's recommendations - in deal with. Because cases mi
_seven of the eight cases.,.da ih ecuecssm
Tevesnot egases.foragrthrough all other channels first,
There's no reason for a grievance decisions favoring the grievant
committee to exist if no one is going to handed down months after the
listen to its recommendations. At tiff's contract has expired.
present, SARC's voice is nearly in- SARC's decisions must recei
audible. port from these two faculty grou
SARC -is currently in the process of is to be taken seriously by the U
drawing up several recommendations sity. Otherwise the group i
;to be presented to the Senate Advisory wasting its time.
kffairs
sembly
s.
are all
ies of
ly, call
sure on
ans by
groups
nd add
recom-
aren't
oose -to
s in-
C is the
mdst
ust go
SARC
may be
plain-
ve sup-
ups if it
Univer-
s just
Shh..
Chances are that sometime
between now and the days in
April when the kinigdom empties
for the summer, the court will
crown a new king. And when the
eight Regents bestow upon their
choice the authority to oversee
the realm, we'll get out first
chance to assess his or her
lineage.
We may find him wise and
humble, or rash and rompous.
He'll likely make a fine candidate
for the office, with his share of
virtues and liabilities.
BUT WE won't know any of
that until after he has mounted
the throne. When the Regents
come out of their huddle with a
name, it may well be one which
no student on campus (save those
on the Student Advisory Commit-
tee) has heard before.
The arguments for secrecy are
compelling.
"When you're looking for
prospects for a public job," said
Regent Paul Brown (D-
Petoskey), "you get two bad ef-
fects. One, because someone is
considered, it doesn't mean
they're going to be asked, so if
they're considered and not asked,
they're put in an awkward
position with their present em-
ployer. And if he isn't asked, his
employer might wonder what's
wrong with him."
BROWN'S SECOND point was
that nominees need protection.
"Most don't want to be can-
didates - maybe it's the last
thing they wanted. If that person
wanted to let it be known he was
being considered, I don't think
the Regents would mind (cir-
culating his name)."
Brown's colleague, Regent
Sarah Power (D-Ann Arbor) put
it another way: "In nearly every
case, if the names were known,
the people would quietly say,
'Thank you, I'm not interested'."
Power went on to say she thought
right, undoubtedly knows the way
many of her peers would react to
publicity.
AFTER
CLASS
briLan
Blanchard
. it's a secret
h..
most people are happy with their
present jobs and it's simply a
question of whether or not the
Regents can lure them to Ann
,Arbor.
Jeff Supowit of the students'
group - which was granted the
right last week to interview the
final eight candidates - reported
that all of the members of that
committee have agreed to be
discreet about names.
"YOU'RE TALKING about
people for this job who're respec-
table people," said Supowit.
"What if we lost a candidate
because someone says
something?"
Carolyn Rosenberg of the
committee agreed with Supowit.
"I would like to think that the
secrecy thing will go all the
way," she said, adding that the
fewer names left in the running,
the more important it will be to
keep a lid on it.
"I would hate to see the process
all messed up" by spilled beans,
said Doug Farr, another student
who is in on the selection.
PROF. HAROLD Johnson, the
only member of the faculty
committee who is allowed by the
group to talk to outsiders, doesn't
like to talk to outsiders.
Johnson would only say that
among the professors looking for
a new head administrator to pick
up where Robben Fleming left
off, "there is a feeling that public
discussion would impair the
search."
It is not completely true that
the University community is
being presented with a fait ac-
compli by the Regents. The
student, faculty, and alumni
committees are all working
diligently, sifting through hun-
dreds of names and trying to ap-
ply the needs statements they
have already drawn up. Those
groups, as well as the Regents,
undoubtedly have what they con-
sider t? be the best interests of
their constituents at heart.
NO ONE wants to see the sear-
ch impaired, or as Farr put it, all
messed up. And Sarah Power, a
notable political figure in her own
But the University is not
looking to fill a ceremonious post.
As Bridget Scholl, another mem-
ber of the student presidential
search committee, wrote on this
page recently, "Policy matters
affect us greatly; it is our
educational - environment, and
perhaps ultimately our future
that is being decided."
There is a trade-off, granted.
Some fraction of those being con-
sidered may scratch the Univer-
sity off their list of possible em-
ployers because of the attention
their nomination would draw
where they work now. But it
wouldn't be anything like the
catastrophe Regent Power
suggests. Would Fleming, con-
tacted on Bascom Hill in Madison
eleven years ago, have quietly
dropped himself from the list of
nominees because his name was
published along with twenty
others? Would someone like
Harold Shapiro, one of the most
likely candidates inside the
University, be sorely offended if
he was identified as a contender
for the post?
MORE IMPORTANTLY, the
Regents are refusing to recognize
that the presidlent of the Univer-
sity is like a politician in that
she/heis directly accountable to
the public.. If some conservative
candidate from Minneapolis and
a radical one in Cambridge are
forced to define positions to the
public before being considered by
the Regents, all the better. It
would not be a disaster, that is if
the aura of royal legitimacy were
lessened, and the bright light of
public scrutiny intensified.
4
Brian Blanchard is the
Daily's University Editor. His
column appears every other
Tuesday.
Students will profit from
cheating rules amendments
AT A UNIVERSITY where students
must all too often pry changes
from the administration, it was
pleasant to note last week's decision to
delete clauses criticized by students in
a proposed Literary College code that,
when finalized, will govern cases of
academic dishonesty in LSA.
When a draft of the propsed Manual
of Procedures of the LSA Academic
Judiciary was reviewed by the
tollege's Administrative Board in mid-
January it contained two clauses
which caused great concern among
students on the Board and student
government members. One clause
allowed "individual faculty members
(to) handle minor cases of plagiarism,
fabrication, aiding or abetting
dishonesty with minor consequences,
and impulsive cheating." Another
sanctioned "disciplinary grading" as a
punishment professors could invoke.
Students worried the two rules left
them,open to abuse by faculty mem-
bers. Several explained the first clause
made the professor a prosecutor, judge
and jury in the, case of "minor"
cheating - and the definition of
''minor' was not really made clear.
The "disciplinary grading" phrase
angered many students because they
felt it formalized a process which too
often occurs now.
While Eugene Nissen, assistant dean
for academic affairs, said the first
clause was meant to encourage
professors to use the judiciary only for
major cases of cheating, he added he
had no objection to removing the
passages if they offended students.
Apparently students were offended,
because Administration Board mem-
bers Kathy Friedman and Dan
Solomon openly protested the rules and
met 'with Nissen and Associate Dean
for Academic Affairs Judy Bardwick
to change the code.
Last week the student demands were
met. Nissen apparently passed on
student concerns to the LSA Executive
Committee, which sent the document
back to the Academic Judiciary for
revisions. That body eliminated the
clauses students crticized.
The manual now goes back to the
Executive Committee where little
discussion is expected. After that, only
the LSA (governing faculty must ap-
prove the code.
We support the rational and fair-
minded decision to delete the poten-
tially disruptive clauses in the manual.
The student concerns were valid and
important, and they effectively ex-
pressed them. More importantly,
Deans Nissen and Bardwick listened
to, and eventually agreed with, studen-
ts. Hopefully, the LSA faculty will be
equally receptive to student wishes
and pass the code intact.
The publication last week of yet another
Surgeon General's report, repeating the fact
that smoking is hazardous to health, raises
the question: whatever happened to Joseph
Califano's much-heralded war on the cigaret-
te habit?
Over a year ago, on Jan. 11, 1978, the.
Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare
announced what sounded like the most am-
bitious effort yet to get 54 million Americans
to quit what he called "slow motion suicide."
Now it seems the battle was doomed from the
start.
CALIFANO OUTLINED a four-pronged $30
million attack, to be directed from a new Of-
fice on Smoking and Health. He proposed a
joint HEW-Treasury Department task force
to consider a cigarette tax increase and a new
tax based on tar and nicotine content.
He called for a $6 million education cam-
paign, directed at youth and those especially
vulnerable to smoking hazards. He said he
was asking the Federal Trade Commission to
bolster warnings against smoking, the Civil
Aeronautics Board to consider banning all
airplane smoking, and insurance companies
to consider non-smoker discounts.
By last fall, however, a Treasury Depar-
tment spokesman for the tax review group
told an interviewer that "the task force at the
moment is sleeping - not dead, but
sleeping."
THE FTC WENT along with Califano's
request for stronger warnings on cigarette
packs, but Congress declined to approve
them.
The CAB agreed to snuff out pipes and
cigars on commerical airliners, but few ex-
pect the agency to ban smoking on airlines en-
tirely.
The Food and Drug Administration rejec-
ted a request that it regulate nicotine as a
drug, while tobacco lobbyists managed to
exempt their products from the 1978 Toxic
Substances Act.
BUT THE UNDERLYING problem has
been money. The anti-smoking campaign's
skeptics contended that $30 million (trimmed
HEW's war on.
smoking may" be,
burning out
By Richard Mahler
later to $26 million) is laughable in the face of
the tobacco industry's own $500 million an-
nual advertising budget.
"Califano wanted only $30 million for what
he termed 'the nation's primary preventable
cause of death,' " a Washington pundit
lamented, "when $250 million was made
available for a non-existent disease like swine
flu."
Many critics think that Califano, a three-
pack-a-day man for 28 years until he quit in
1975, must have known his attack could not
get far in the face of enormous power wielded
by the tobacco industry. In 1977, the industry,
claims to have paid $6 billion in taxes while
conducting an estimated $7 billion worth of
business. Its lobby, according to Sen. Edward
Kennedy,chairman of the subcommittee on
Health, is "probably the most effective on
Capitol Hill."
MORE THAN a month before Califano an-
nounced his war on smoking, Kentucky's
Democratic Senator Walter Huddleston
received Carter's personal promise that the
Department of Agriculture's $600 million-a-
year tobacco price stabilization subsidies
would continue.
The President, native son of a tobacco
producing state, has long-standing ties to the
cigarette industry. He sometimes vacations,
for example, at the estate of Smith Bagley,
heir to the R. J. Reynolds fortune. And inside
the office of Frank Saunders, director of cor-
porate relations for Phillip Morris and the
only big-businessman to work full time on the
'Carter campaign, is a photograph of the
President's swearing-ii inscribed: "Your
help on my campaign made this day possible,
(signed) JimmykCarter."
Recently asked to descr ibe White House
reactiontto his anti-smoking atta1c; Califano
replied: "The President sad, 'you're on the
right track.' "
AT THE OFFICE OF Smoking and Health
- which has a budget of $2.million, not the
$6 million Califano wanted - director John
Pinney reports a "steady stream" of non-
threatening, non-accusatory educational
materials are flowing to schools and others.
Privately, though, tobacco lobbyists con-
fess they're less worried about such small
government efforts than they -are about
changes in regulatons or price supports.
In California, for example, the industry
,recently poured more than $4 million into a
successful campaign to defeat proposition 4,
an initiative aimed at tightening public
smoking regulations. The Tobacco Institute
estimates some 200 measures designed to
limit smoking were intorduced in state
legislatures alone during 1977. Besides fun
ding campaigns against such proposals, the
Institute has sent more than 3,000 letters to
police chiefs arguing that local smoking or-
dinances would divert police from apptehen-
ding "real criminals."
The industry is also unnerved by ai
estimate by the Dartnell Institute of Business
Research that more than three per cent of all
U.S. firms are now actually paying their
workers to stop smoking.
In San Francisco, attorney Marvin Belli is
representing several children of a woman
who died of lung cancer. In what could
become a precedent-setting case, the lawsuit
charges major eigarette manufacturers
with liability for selling a product to the
woman that they knew, or should have
known, causgs cancer. Belli argues that ad-
vertising "makes" people smoke, and that
tobacco's addictive components prevent them
from quitting.
Richard Mahler is a free lance writer in
California. He wrote this piece for the
Pacific News Service.
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LETTERS:
Women
Editor's note: the fol/owing
's track team getting runaround
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1 jN S T ,
91 , i
r
is an update on a letter which
appeared last Saturday con-
cerning the women's track
team and its troubles using the
track at times alloted to it.
To the Daily:
Our state of progress has been
zero. After talking to Lund, and
season. He also promised us the
sole use of the track between 2:00
and 3:00 Tuesday and Thursday
and between 5:00 and 6:00 each
day. Finally Mr. Harris promised
us that next year's practice
schedule would be,made equal for
all the athletic teams using the
Track and Tennis building. We
presented Harris with a written
track, and a cross-country team
and a better practice schedule for
next year are unforseeable gains.
We were frustrated with this
obvious set-back. A final
frustration came when we sought
the help of a higher authority. We
called the athletic department
and asked to speak with Don
Letters
to
the Daily
typed and
should be
triple-spaced and must be
signed. The Daily reser-