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Page 18 -Thursday, September 10, 1981-The Michigan Daily
Gotta leave town? TryAmtrak
By MARK GINDIN
The University of Michigan is a time-
honored port of call; students here hail
from all parts of the world. Thus, tran-
sportation to and from school can be
quite a problem for many.
'All the students who have made it to
school have overcome the problems,
h'wever, proving the obstacles are not
isurmountable. Bus drivers, airline
0ilots, train engineers, and the family
car fill the void and hitchhiking can be a
last resort.
Fortunately, Ann Arbor has
relatively easy access. Detroit
Metropolitan Airport is the major
receiving point for most international
and out-of-state students, and it is fairly
convenient to campus via the limousine
service available at the Michigan
Student Union.
' THE LIMOUSINE departs the Union
every hour on the half-hour, between
,x30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Service is also
available from the airport to the Union,
afar $8.30 each way.
' Most students who live in Michigan
;travel to and from school by car. For
those without a car,"or for car-owners
,who wish to share expenses, a ride
board is available in the basement of
the Union.
Interested parties fill out a slip of
Once-beleaguered transit
rescued at last minute
paper including their destination, and
they are contacted by people with
similar destinations. The student-
operated WCBN-FM radio provides a
ride board on the air, as well.
BUSES, ALTHOUGH not a
glamorous mode of transportation, are
cost-efficient and usually convenient.
Ann Arbor is served by several bus
lines, many of which stop in front of the
Union, as well as at the Greyhound
station, to pick up passengers.
Many students, however,, consider
the Amtrak train service a preferable
way to travel. Amtrak has opened up a
new experience to travelers seeking a
comparably cheap but bearable alter-
native to the bus, automobile, or plane.
Trains are relatively inexpensive, and
the ride - while not absolutely smooth
- is improving. Trains leave four times
daily, so inconvenience is not a factor.
BUT AMTRAK was threatened by ex-
tinction earlier this year in the wake of
severe federal budget cuts. Given the
proposed Amtrak budget, President
Alan Boyd claimed only the Northwest
Corridor, from Boston to Washington
D.C., could be maintained. All other
rail systems would have to be
eliminated, he said.
After several weeks of debate over
the Amtrak budget, the Senate Com-
merce Committee added $122 million to
the previously approved $613 million.
Boyd said 85 percent of the existing
system - including Ann Arbor - could
be maintained with the new figure.
An aide to Sen. Howard Cannon (D-
Nev.), the ranking Democrat on the
committee, said that Michigan service
will not be eliminated. "We do not en-
vision any cuts in Michigan," said Lin-
da Morgan of Cannon's office, "because
the state has a good service record."
LATELY, AMTRAK has been touting
its improved service and new equip-
ment. By this autumn, the line expects
to have its entire fleet made up of new,
recent-vintage, or fully rebuilt units.
Passenger complaints dropped 40 per-
cent during the current fiscal year, ac-
cording to officials.
Clark Charnetski, chairman of the
Michigan Association of Railroad
Passengers, told of Amtrak's advan-
cement before the House subcommittee
appropriations subcommittee on tran-
sportation last May.
Michigan trains have been using the
latest in Amtrak rolling stock, he said.
French-built Turbotrains, American-
built Amfleet cars, and even a limited
run with Superliners.
Now with improvements in track,
stations, and on-time performance,
ridership is often higher than the
regularly scheduled trains can hold,
Charnetski said. Overcrowding is now
Amtrak's biggest passenger complaint,
he added.
Ann Arbor has trains that go to
Detroit and Chicago, connecting there
with the rest of the system. Students
have often been surprised by the low
cost of train travel, and by its
availability.
Although the plane and car are the
means of transportation that come to
mind most readily to many students,
train travel is fast becoming an idea
whose time and funding have come.
Daily Photo by PAUL ENGSTROM
Amtrak engine gets ready to roll following a last-minute financial reprieve
by the Reagan Administration.
Budget woes trigger cooperation among state 'U'
5
san
(Continued from Pagell 1
eventually have to close. But no
legislator will vote to cut back the
pipeline in another (colleague's) area,"
Peterson said, because that lawmaker
might then turn around and vote again-
st the first legislator.
Repetitions exist because there is no
central plan for Michigan's education
system. Each school determines its
own goal or mission independent of the
DISTINCTIVE
HAIRSTYLING FOR
MEN AND WOMEN
Try a 1981 NEW LONG or SHORT STYLE
THE DASCOLA
STYLISTS
Liberty off State.. 6689329
East U. at So. U.... 662-4354
Arborland ........ 971-9975
Maple Village .... 761-2733
others. "There is no overall plan," said
Rick Bossard of the House Fiscal Agen-
cy. "It (academic planning) is the
responsibility of each institution."
This lack of coordination is due
largely to the way in which the state
system has run in the past. Admitting
schools to the system has always been
random, according to Smith. Colleges
were admitted "as they matured," he
said. For instance, Eastern, Central,
Western, and Northern Michigan
universities began as teachers' colleges
and later expanded to their present
status.
Other schools were built in isolated
cities as the only nearby higher
education outlet. If smaller, scattered
universities were closed, many studen-
ts would be forced to move elsewhere to
complete their educations.
Every state school began with a
specific goal and mission, but, most
have strayed from that original plan.
The University's Flint and Dearborn
campuses are prime examples, accor-
ding to Richard Kennedy, University
vice president for state relations.
WHEN THE FLINT campus opened,
its primary purpose was to serve as an
I
"urban liberal arts college, paired with
Mott Community College" in Flint,
Kennedy said. Originally, it was inten-
ded that students would attend Mott for
the first two years and then transfer to
U-M Flint. A similar plan was
developed for the Dearborn campus
and Henry Ford Community College.
But as the number of university
students increased during the 1960s,
both the Flint and Dearborn campuses
developed into full four-year in-
stitutions, and the original plan fell
apart.
Other colleges across the state began
as extensions. These include Lake
Superior State College in Sault Ste.
Marie, which began' as a branch of
Michigan Tech, and Oakland Univer-
sity in Rochester, which started as a
branch of Michigan State University.
But during this expansionary period,
they, too, developed on their own.
THE STATE COLLEGES and
universities went through changes from
teachers' colleges and began to in-
crease their offerings," Kennedy said.
"The 1970s taught us a lesson that that
Sort of thing maybe wasn't in the cards.
"What institutions will do is rethink
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oIbe Dut1I
News Staff
their role and mission, concentrating in
areas where they are strongest," he
said.
Milliken's assistant, Smith, said he
strongly favors a state advisory gob-
vernment body, but still considers
decentralization important.
"Autonomy has served us well and will
continue to serve us well," he said.
For the first time since the
Depression, state support for univer-
sities has declined in Michigan-by
more than $100 million. Hard times for
the auto industry and skyrocketing
unemployment paint bleak expec-
tations for the state's 13 public univer-
sities and colleges avoiding dismissing
faculty members, eliminating
programs, and possibly reducing
enrollment.
'UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT Harold
Shapiro is committed to a "smaller but
better" university with a smaller set of
offerings and a more effective attain-
ment of basic goals. "Smaller is
decidedly not to suggest that we aban-
don our commitment to diversity in our
student body and faculty or to ourspoil-
sorship of diversity of ideas," Shapiro
said in a March 23 open letter to his
university colleagues.
"Rather, it means that all units ought
to examine and order their priorities
and identify at least some activity that,
in the current context, might have a
smaller priority."
Last March, MSU President M. Cecil
Mackey recommended wholesale cuts
in the school's nursing program and
humanities department. Although the
nursing school was eventually saved,
more than 100 tenured professors have
been laid off.
WAYNE STATE University has
faced the budget cuts by instituting 20
percent reductions in next year's
budget, staff layoffs, and token pay cuts
by administrators. But Wayne avoided
raising tuition for freshpersons and
sophomores. WSU President Thomas
Bonner has said, "the crisis is serious
and will continue well into the 1980s ...
We must prepare now for a diminished
university by 1985."
The University of Michigan is for-
tunate in that it has substantial en-
dowments and federal grants to fall
back on for most of its programs. The
University's endowments amount to
more than $120 million and its federal
grants and private gifts for 1979-80
totaled $114 million. MSU received en-
dowments of $15 million, and gifts and
grants of $57 million; WSU has $11
million in endowments, and gifts and
grants of $30 million.
In an effort to deal with shifts in state
support, state officials and education
administrators will have to carry out
significant changes in the state system
of higher education in the next decade,
including redefinition of goals and in-
creased interaction betwen institutions.
MURRAY JACKSON, University
Education professor and a member of
the Wayne State University Board of
Governors, said the retrenchment plan
at the University is a rational way to
preserve the interests of both faculty
and students.
But Jackson, who works at Univer-
sity's Center for the Study of Higher
Education, said that each institution
has its own problems, for' which com-
mon solutions may not be available.
The University, he said, was not as
strapped for funds as other schools
because of its generous contributors.
Per capita support for higher
education in Michigan has declined
fairlv rapidlv in the last five year.
Ji
Hey,
tuition rates are rising at an alarmfng
rate. But Marvin Peterson, director of
the Center for the Study of Higher
Education, insisted that the Michigan
situation is not as bad as some other
states. "We started with institutions
which were stronger than most in the
country," he said. *
IN THE PAST, Peterson said, during
periods of high unemployment and in-
flation, education provided workers
with the option of retooling their skills.
But with the Reagan Administration's
cutbacks, the availability of guaran-
teed student loans and other grants
has dwindled.
"The University can hold its own with
a slight switch in clientele or admission
standards," Peterson said. "Poten-
tially, community colleges could be hit
because students on the economi
fringe can't afford to attend."
Jackson, however, has designed i
method to ease the crunch on city
students and pressure on various iq-
stitutions. He proposes a cooperative
system of urban institutions of higher
learning-suctras WSU, University of
Detroit, and Oakland University-that
pool resources and funnel money into
programs in which they are par;
ticularly strong. Each student would b
admitted to a particular college which
would serve as his home base. He theni
could take classes at any institution-ih
the cooperative-thus providing .A
strong education without duplicating
many programs. Each urban univer-
sity would be free to concentrate on tts
specialty.
JACKSON SAID that too many in-
stitutions suffer from what he calls an
"edifice" complex-the belief that ,15
buildings mean a better university tha
10 buildings. Universities must b.
selective in how they make changes, he
said.
The evolution of higher education in
the next 10 years may involve more
professional or employable tracks of
study in four-year colleges, he said,
Many institutions desire law,:
engineering, dental, and medical
schools because they believe "thoa
determine the prestige of a universi
and they want one," Jackson said:
"That mentality has been going on for
years."
The next decade, Jackson said, may
bring fewer institutions, but increased
roles for community colleges.
Ultimately, the future of higher
education in Michigan depends on
whether the economy takes an upswing
and how carefully measures are taken
now to insure the high quality of af
education. Thus far, the stat
legislature seems committed to fin..
cing higher education.
Beth Rosenberg and Kevin Tottis
conducted the interviews for this
story last March.
U of
Students!
10
Save
Yourself a Second Trip
When you apply for new telephone service, you
will be asked for an advance payment-$20 if
your residence is equipped for modular telephone
service and no installer visit is required; $30
for non-modular service or if an installer visit
is required. This is not a deposit, and it will
be applied toward your first telephone bill.
This advance payment is required on all applications
for new residence telephone service. So bring
your money order, checkbook or cash and some
picture identification when ordering service and
save yourself a second trip.
I
FIRST FALL FESTIVITY
FUN-FOOD-FELLOWSHIP.. .FREE
Sunday, Sept. 13
3:30 pm
WESLEY FOUNDATION
(United Methodist CaMpus Ministry)
602 E. Huron
Corner of Huron & State
Across from the Frieze Bldg.
EVERYONE WELCOME-
For more info-Call 668-6881
You can place your order for telephone service,
and make your advance payment, at the Bell Phone"
Center Store, 413 E. Huron, Ann Arbor,
between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. ,
Monday through Friday.
PLANNED
PARENTHOOD
912 N. Main St., Ann Arbor
567 N. HewittYpsilanti
" Pregnancy Testing
(same day diagnosis)
* Problem Pregnancy
Counseling
e Complete Contraceptive
Clinic
woml en and teen
" Birth Control
Infnrmaatin / F uucatinn
p
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