The Michigan Daily
Ten Cents
Twelve Pages
PRESIDENT FORD and top aides laugh with relief after hearing the news of the release of the Mayaguez
crewmembers. Left to right: Brent Scowcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Kissinger and Ford.
Regents question suggested
changes in graduation rules
Marine assault
team airlifted
from Cambodia
WASHINGTON (A') - U.S. helicopters flew through
darkness, evading small-arms fire yesterday and re-
moved nearly 200 Marines from Koh Tang Island in
the culmination of an assault which coincided with the
release of an American merchant ship and its crew
from Cambodia.
Shortly after the Marine assault began, a Khmer
Rouge radio broadcast said the ship and crew would
be freed-although it made no mention of the attack
or how and when the release would occur.
MOREOVER, President Ford made it clear when
the landing was publicly announced that the Marines
would disengage upon recovery of the crew.
Thus, observers are uncertain as to why the battle
continued as long as it did-even after the Mayaguez
had sailed.
It is not clear if the Americans ever stepped ashore
onto Koh Tang, target of the intense assault by more
than 1511 Marines and US, fighters.
WHEN FEAR that Mayaguezscrew members might
still be on the island disappeared, the intensity and
number of U.S. air strikes rose sharply.
The planes pounded a tree line from which the
Marines had been receiving fire, allowing the American
troops to advance beyond a small beachhead they had
established.
By that time, three of the Thailand-based helicopters
had been shot down and another two were disabled
and were hobbling back toward their home bases.
AS DARKNESS fell, U.S. military commanders
poured on U.S. air power, and then ordered in heli-
copters which lifted out the last of the Marines.
Meanwhile, the Mayaguez had begun sailing toward
Singapore.
Pentagon officials said preliminary reports showed
two Americans dead and 14 missing. Precise figures
were unavailable on the wounded, but sources said
several were seriously hurt and being treated aboard
Navy ships.
THE MARINES were lifted from Koh Tang to the
aircraft carrier Coral Sea, which then stood 10 miles
See MARINES, Page 11
By JEFF RISTINE
Questions and criticism surrounding recommenda-
tions from the Graduation Requirements Commission
(GRC) dominated yesterday's meeting of the Univer-
sity Board of Regents.
While Acting Dean Billy Frye of the literary school
(LSA) claimed that the GRC report's proposed changes
met, as a whole, with great faculty support, several
Regents were troubled by particular items in the Com-
mission's suggested Faculty Code revisions. The GRC
report advocates major changes in grading policies,
distribution requirements and counseling procedures.
ALSO AT the meeting, the Committee on Environ-
mental Resources, Planning and Design released its
report recommending establishment of a University-
wide Council for Environmental Programs to coordi-
nate environmental studies and a group of Native
Americans condemned the lack of an Indian Studies
Program at the University.
The first strong criticism of the GRC report came
from Regent Sarah Power (D-Ann Arbor), who charged
that approval of the recommendations would result in
"a diminution of one-to-one direct counseling."
Powers said that while there exists a need to make
academic programs "more diverse," the University
also has a responsibility to satisfy students' counseling
needs.
BUT LSA Associate Dean Charles Morris said the
report's intent is toward more "natural" counseling,
not group counseling.
"I don't perceive it as changing one-on-one counsel-
ing," Morris responded, "in fact, I suspect it will make
the exchange between student and counselor more
significant."
Morris said counselors today spend too much of
their time with burdensome administrative business
and that the GRC recommendations are intended to
improve the quality of personal and academic counsel-
ing.
THE COMMISSION proposes that undergraduate
See REGENTS, Page 7
Regents listen to Cobb affair critics
By DAN BIDDLE
The Regents yesterday heard leaders of
black and women's activist groups voice anger
over the literary college (LSA) deanship con-
troversy and support for the Affirmative Ac-
tion Committee's probe of the "Cobb affair."
But the eight-member Board had nothing to
say. They sat quietly and listened as Eunice
Burns of the University Women's Commission
and David Robinson of the Black Faculty and
Staff Association (BFSA) echoed the affirma-
tive action unit's harsh criticism at Vice Presi-
dent for Academic Affairs Frank Rhodes,
President Robben Fleming, and the Regents
themselves.
RHODES also said nothing. Fleming, seated
Jewel Cobb directly opposite the speakers at the other end
of the Regents' table, listened in tight-lipped,
unblinking silence as Burns accused him of
ignoring affirmative action guidelines.
Non-discriminatory hiring procedures were
"either not understood or not followed," Burns
declared, "at almost every step" of the ad-
ministration's negotiations with Jewel Cobb,
the black woman educator chosen unanimously
See RELATED STORY, Page S
by the Regents in January to become dean of
ISA. Her deanship appointment was rejected
in a series of widely-criticized actions.
The president remained silent as Robinson,
reading a BFSA statement, branded Fleming
and Rhodes' dealings with Cobb as "a sham."
When the statements ended, the Regents
asked no questions of Burns, Robinson, or
See REGENTS, Page 10
Eunice Burns