Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, September 2, 1970 ,:s"-1 Flint, Dearborn branches plan expansion By ROB BIER Back when Michigan was still mostly cedar swamps and pine forests, Judge Woodward had an idea for a state university. An ardent admirer of his friend Thomas Jefferson, ,the judge envisioned a university centered in Detroit, with branch campuses over all the state. His "Catholepistemiad Michigana" survived in spirit to become the University of Michigan, but the branch c a m p u s idea never caught on until ten years ago when University campuses were established at Flint and Dear- born. At that time a new idea was making the rounds in educa- tional circles-junior and senior "piggyback" colleges to comple- ment existing junior colleges. A few schools tried it, but although the idea died, the University's branches did not. Flint became a four-year institution three years ago and is now bursting at, the seams. Dearborn is _ still an upperclassmen school, but is slated to begin admitting fresh- men a year from now. Both schools are growing' and changing "to meet the needs of the times and their communi- ties" a c c,o r d i n g to Stephen Spurr, dean of the graduate school and, as of last December, vice president in charge ,of over- seeing, expansion at Flint and Dearborn. At Flint, the plan is for a new campus. Presently, it shares land with Flint Junior College and the Flint Cultural Center. But its over 1700 students only have one building and are al- ready forced to make use of space at the other institutions. Land for the Flint campus has been acquired in an urban re- newal, area about a half mile away from the present site, and the first building is scheduled to be completed in about three years. Other buildings will fol- low as, needed, and an enroll- ment of five to ten thousand is projected for the end of the decade, says Spurr. , Dearborn's plans do not in- clude new construction in the near future, but they do call for expansion of the library for undergraduate work, conversion of some labs, and the hiring of a few additional professors. Spurr hopes a student center with intramural sports facilities can be constructed for the 800- student branch before long, but no plans for that are underway at present. In addition to physical chang- es, both campuses are in for some organizational ones as well, aimed at a larger measure of autonomy for the branches. Committees of students, fac- ulty, administrators and local citizens are working in :both Flint and Dearborn to choose chancellors for their sch'ools. Presently, each campus is head- ed by a dean, but although Spurr points out that chancellors will "clearly run the whole show" as opposed to a definition of deans. as basically academic people, the deans of these branches, he says,. "practically do everything now." Budgetary matters will soon be largely in the hands of these branches as well, Spurr says. While the appropriations for the branches will -still pass through the Regents, amounts will be earmarked! for Flint and Dear- born, But the earmarking will not be binding, Spurr says, as part of the increased autonomy plan is to allow for the branches to make their own spending decisions. But the Regents still have the last say, and although they have insited on autonomy for the Flint campus, they do not think autonomy is a "proper" ques- tion to raise now in regard to Dearborn. The State Board of Education, however, believes the expansion plans for both branches should include a provision that the branches will become indepen- dent when expansion is com- pleted, because it claims branch campuses are not as sensitive to the needs of the local com- comunity as are independent schools. To back up their stand for autonomy, the board has re- quested the legislature to with- hold funds for expansion at Dearborn until a study by a citizens' committee has been made of "educational needs in Southeast Michigan." As this supplement goes to press, it seems likely that the legislature, following Gov. William Mil- liken's recommendation, will vote the funds anyway. But the, autonomy issue for Dearborn is still not settled, and seems cer- tain to cause further trouble in the future. The reason apparently is pol- itics. Since the board is only advisory to the legislature, it is the legislators themselves who must take the lead. When Flint went to a four- year program it was feared that enrollment at Flint Jun- ior College would drop. ' But the opposite occurred, partly because students are allowed at each school to take courses at the other. The result is that the Flint community is more than happy with their unique ar- rangement; and for a local poli- tician to advocate cutting off the source of some of the Flint campus' special offerings would be political suicide. At Dearborn, the story is dif- ferent, since the metropolitan Detroit area of which it is a part boasts a wide diversity of politicians who might have an interest in the Dearborn cam- pus, but do not have to answer to the people in that district. But Spurr says he is leav- ing such matters for others to deal with, while he works on the details of expansion. He says he is not concerned whether the branches are independent or not "as long as they are responsive to the needs of their communi- ties." To that end, Spurr is keep- ing informed on progress at each campus, while ;he handles details in Ann Arbor. He does not see himself as molding the future of the branches, but says "My job is to keep things go- ing and expidite them." How- ever, he does have some defi- nite ideas about how the cam- puses should evolve. "Dearborn is not a city col- lege, but should serve metro- politan Detroit. It should not be a carbon copy in any sense of what we have at Ann Arbor," Spurr says. The same goes for Flint, he adds, and although the aca- demic offerings at both are ex- pected to change "we're not go- ing to dictate on them at this end. So, if everything lives up to plan, complete autonomy will be a moot point. Both Flint and Dearborn will be autonomous, for all practical purposes, while still benefitting from the re- sources readily available to them in Ann Arbor. The people of Flint seem to think that such a set up is the best of both worlds - all re- sources of a big university with- out the size. Whether a four- year branch at Dearborn will be greeted with the same en- thusiasm remains to be seen. 4, Aerial view of Dearborn's campus ° I 'U' and overpopulation By SHARON WEINER As more and more students apply for admission to the Uni- versity, the percentage of those accepted decreasesaas the limit of expansion, at least for the Ann Arbor campus, approaches. With somewhat over 30,000 of the University's 38,000 students studying on the Ann Arbor cam-. pus, financial pressure and a shortage of , classroom and of- fice facilities seem to be the. reason for the minimal growth in enrollment over the past five or so years. In fact, the largest school in the University, the literary col- lege, has made only small in- creases in its freshman quota and overall enrollment in the past four years, with virtually no increase in the college's class- room space. Yet while places are limited,' applications have been inc'eas- ing at disproportionate rates, al- though the increase has slowed down quite a bit since a year ago. One administrator connected with academic affairs attributes the decrease in applications to the $15 application fee required by the University for the first time last year. There was a decrease of from 15 to 20 per cent for the class of 1974, he says, as opposed to the previous year's increase of 17 per cent over the class of '72. But, he adds, there are "justz as -many qualified students ap- plying, if not more-the drop in applications is probably due to the borderline cases being dis- couraged by the application fee." Rackham's applications have decreased about four per cent, and most administrators agree this is due to a lack of fellow- ship support. 1968 was the first year the University was faced with sur- plus qualified in-state applica- tions. The problem was more or less resolved when the extra students were offered admit- tance to summer and winter terms, or were encouraged to apply to Flint or Dearborn. Half of the 300 accepted the provis- ional conditions. Last year, 400 surplus in-state- ers were offered similar options, and this year, even more are being asked to take alternatives to fall admission, or are being turned away for lack of space, even though they are told they are qualified. The possibility of raising ad- mittance qualifications to allevi- late the problem of too many qualified students applying has been suggested, but admission officials call that solution un- realistic. Currently, they say, the University has admissions standards as high as any public university in the country, for in-state as well as .out-of-state students. One possible solution to the long-run problem is, of course, expansion. But even though a University enrollment projec- tion report in 1966 viewed the obligation to, grow as being "political, social, economic and moral", growth is contingent on funding, and the State Legis- lature's reluctance and inability to grant the University's budget request is well-known. And in the meantime, stu- dents take classes in an old automobile agency, half of West Quad has been converted into faculty. offices (while students are temporarily housed in South Quad's study halls and not-so- temporarily in the Union) and the University rents a student apartment for dental school re- search. W.ELC.,OME 41 U . of M~. 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