Ninety-Two Years
of
Editorial Freedom
re itg
Iai1Q
NIVEOUS
Continuing cold and
cloudiness today with a
chance of snow showers.
High will be in the mid-30s.
Vol. XCII, No. 75
Copyright 1981, The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan-Thursday, December 10, 1981
Ten Cents
Ten Pages
Ex-p resident ends 'U'
By JULIE ENGE BRECH T
For someone as practiced in
farewells as he, Law Professor Allan
Smith seemed strikingly ill at ease
yesterday - the final class day of his
University teaching career:
It wasn't just that he's grown tired of
"retiring," this being his third adieu in
seven years; Smith was simply em-
barrassed by the attention. After 35
years at the University'- a large por-
tion of those years spent in the limelight
by virtue of his past roles as interim
president, vice president for academic
* affairs, and law school dean - he still
shies from publicity.
YESTERDAY'S farewell, attended,
by such notables as football coach Bo
Schembechler, athletic director Don
Canham, and University President
Harold Shapiro, was thrown for Smith
and his wife Alene by more than 100
members of Smith's property law class.
Smith's first attempt at retirement
came in 1974 when he stepped down
from his post as University vice
president for academic affairs, a job he
held for nearly 10 years. Approaching
65 - the required retirement age for
University administrators - Smith
returned to teach in the law school,
where he had been dean from 1960 to
1965.
Then, in late 1978, anticipating the
need for someone to fill the University
president's post while officials sear-
ched for a successor to then-president
Robben Fleming, the Regents ap-
proached Smith in a hotel bar and draf-
ted him from his "retirement" into
teaching to become interim University
president.
PERHAPS MORE a sign of the tur-
bulent times than of the man, Smith's
most controversial years as an ad-
ministrator were from 1965 to 1974,
while he served as vice president for
academic affairs. Some students and
faculty criticized him for being too
"closed" about the University's budget
and other administration activities.
In 1979, during his short tenure in the
University's top office between the
reigns of Fleming and Shapiro, Smith
played a major role in securing state
approval for the new University.
Replacement Hospital and was forced to
handle student protests over University
investment ties with South Africa, in-
cluding the takeover of a Regents
meeting. Usually, however, he
remained behind the scenes, using his
time to quietly press both state officials
and alumni for more funds for the
University.
Despite a brief term in what Smith of-
career
ten called "the best educational job in
the United States," he was always
anxious to return to teaching.
SMITH, WHO will turn 70 next week,
has been a perennially popular proper-
ty law professor.
In fact, it's not surprising to find a
current student's parent who had Smith
as a professor. Those former students,
among them Regent Thomas Roach,
usually remember him as a professor
who was tough, but fair. They always
remember him as a good teacher.
"He's scary - because he's so smart
and you've heard he's accomplished so
much, so you want to do well - but you
just love him," said Jane Phillipson,
one of Smith's first-year students.
Phillipson's father, a 1950 law school
graduate, was among those in the first
See FORMER, Page 7
Daily roto oy JACIEuBELL
WITH THE HELP of his first-year law students, former University ad-
ministrator Allan Smith, celebrated his final day of classes yesterday before
he retires'at the end of the month.
Reagan
lifts ban
on hiring-
.controlers
WASHINGTON (AP) - President
Reagan, citing a "tradition that'in-
dividuals deserve to be treated with
compassion," opened the door yester-
day for 11,500 fired air traffic con-
trollers to again seek federal jobs - but
not in the flight towers.
"I do not believe that those who for-
feited their jobs as controllers should be
foreclosed from other federal em-
ployment," Reagan said as he lifted a
three-year federal hiring ban against
the controllers who launched an illegal
strike last August.
TRANSPORTATION Secretary Drew
Lewis said that none of the dismissed
11,500 individuals would be accepted at
the Federal Aviation Administration,
where they previously worked.
He ackpowledged, ironically, that
some of the fired workers eventually
might work as military controllers. The
FAA has picked up some of the slack in
its depleted workforce by borrowing
from the military. Pentagon officials
said they are reviewing their policy
against enlistments by fired con-
trollers.
Robert Poli, president of the
Professional Air Traffic Controllers
Organization, called Reagan's action
"a cruel hoax on both the fired con-
trollers and American taxpayers" and
said it is "sheer folly" to think that
many controllers will get federal jobs
because of budget restraints.
See REAGAN, Page 3
'Future courses
LSA students may face
new math requirement
By PERRY CLARK
Discussions initiated by the LSA
Curriculum Committee may wind up
putting a little math into each LSA
student's life.
Although nothing concrete has been
proposed yet, the Curriculum Com-
mittee has formed a subcommittee to
examine the possibility of introducing
an LSA mathematics requirement.
ANY REQUIREMENT, regardless
of its form, would be a long time
coming, said Curriculum Committee
chairman and Physics Prof. Jens
Zorn. The earliest such a proposal
could be reviewed by the faculty
would be in April, Zorn said.
Zorn estimated only 20 percent to 30
percent of future LSA students would
be involved in any new requirement,
since the majority of students would
plan to take a math course anyway, or
would fulfill the requirement with
high school credit. Various options to
the math requirement are being con-
sidered, including computer and
statistical classes.
The requirement would not involve
calculus, Zorn said. The level of math
involved in the required courses
might be so low the University would
be embarassed to publicize it, he ad-
ded.
"I'M IN favor of moving toward in-
creasing the math competence of
people in LSA," Zorn said. "People
can have a long and happy life and not
know what an irrational number is,
but they need to have a feel for quan-
titative concepts."
Many members of the subcommit-
tee agree the need for math skills is
increasing for LSA students.
"In a broad sense, quantitative
notions are constantly becoming more'
important with our increasingly
technological society," said subcom-
mittee chairman and Mathematics
Prof. Peter Hinman. More fields of
knowledge, including social sciences
and humanities, are incorporating
mathematics into their domain, Hin-
man added.
HINMAN SAID a knowledge of
quantitative concepts, gained through
math courses, is vital to remaining
well-intbrmed. "Lots of statistical
arguments we see in newspapers and
magazines are just nonsense, and
people need to know that," Hinman
said.
Political Science Prof. John Cham-
berlin, a member of the Curriculum
Committee, said knowledge of math
See COMMITTEE, Page 2
E nin. college rejects
humanities credit cuts
Doily Photo by KIM HILL
Holiday trappings
The shops in Nickels Arcade are ready and waiting for the holiday season
with Christmas flowers, bows and flags to brighten up the winter scenery.
Hi -
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Moslem zealots who com-
mandeered a Libyan jetliner freed their 35 hostages and
surrendered yesterday after a 7,500-mile hijack ordeal that
had taken the plane to Beirut for the thsird time in as many
Wdays, airport officials said.
Officials said some of the passengers left the plane after
the hijackers got off. Lebanon's state radio reported that the
Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727 would fly to Larnaca,
Cyprus, with the rest of the former hostages, who included 27
passengers and eight crew members.
THE SURRENDER came after more than five hours of
negotiations punctuated by bursts of machinegun fire from
the airplane as the lijack team fired warning shots to keep
back security forces surrounding the airplane. Officials said
there were five heavily armed hijackers on the plane, and
they surrendered at 5:30 p.m. yesterday EST.
The officials said the hijackers gave themselves up to
troops of Syria's peacekeeping force, sent to enforce a truce
after Lebanon's 1975-76 civil war, which had ringed the air-
craft, along with units of the Lebanese army since it touched
down and taxied to the end of the runway.
TODAY-
Balloon, balloon!
DETROIT-AREA jeweler marked his 70th anni-
versary in business yesterday by releasing $26,000
in gift certificates into the sky inside 1,000 multi-
colored helium-filled balloons. The
balloons-each containing a certificate ranging from425 to
$700-were released in front of the Sidney Krandall & Sons
jewelry store on the top of the 300-foot Troy Towers. The
owners say value of the certificates can be applied to the
The radio said two buses were sent to the plane for the
passengers who decided to remain in Beirut.
THE RADIO said Nabih Berri, head of the Shiite Moslem
Amal militia, negotiated with the hijackers on final
arrangements for the surrender, as they had demanded.
The hijackers seized the aircraft to back their demand
for an investigation of the disappearance of their Shiite
Moslem leader at the end of a trip to Libya three years ago.
Reporters at the airport said a Shiite Moslem clergyman
wearing a white turban and a black robe boarded the plane
shortly before the release of the hostages, and soon after-
ward a number of men left the plane. It was not clear
whether they were the hijackers.
SHORTLY AFTER the plane landed in Beirut, a
spokesman for the hijackers also asserted he and his
comrades had decided to end the hijacking, which had in-
volved stops in four countries, and free the hostages unhar-
med.
The hijacker spokesman, identified only as Hamza, fired
two pistol shots into the air from the front hatch of the plane
as security forces moved closer, then said he would blow up
the jet unless troops pulled back, radio stations reported.
By SUSAN SHARON
Due Ato heavy opposition from
faculty and students, the engineering
college has dropped a proposal to
reduce the number of humanities
credits required for engineering
students.
The proposal, from the College of
Engineering's mechanical
engineering department, advocated
reducing the humanities credit hours
requirement from 24 to 18 to allow
students more scheduling flexibility.
BUT AFTER being circulated
among the engineering faculty, the
proposal failed to receive enough sup-
port to be presented before a faculty
meeting last Tuesday.
Students also expressed strong
disapproval of the proposal. An
engineering student council petition
protesting cuts in the humanities
requirement received signatures
from more than 750 engineering
students.
The petition asked the engineering
faculty "to resist the encroachment of
technical courses and ensure the
standard of quality for which the
University of Michigan is known" by
leaving the current humanities
requirement intact.
STUDENTS WHO signed the
petition expressed fear that a reduc-
tion of required humanities courses
would limit the scope of their
education.
"Engineers are too narrow-minded
as it is," said engineering junior Bob
Irving. "They've got to teach these
people to be creative; we can't limit
social skills completely. Going to
college should broaden your in-
terests, not narrow them."
Students also expressed concern
that the current emphasis on
technology and computerization
within the college will decrease the
amount of time given to other classes.
"WE NEED TO interact more with
other students," said mechanical
engineering junior Clarke Anderson.
"As it is, we're losing our liberal arts
perspective."
Prof. Richard Sonntag, head of the
mechanical engineering department,
said it was clear a majority of faculty
and students didn't support his depar-
tment's proposal.
Sonntag said the proposed changes
came well within guidelines proposed
by the Accreditation Board for
Engineering and Technology, an
organization which periodically
reviews the school's curriculum. The
University has a greater number of
required humanities courses than
many of its peer institutions, Sonntag
said.
SOME STUDENTS backed the
proposed reduction for the scheduling
flexibility it would allow.
"More electives means I can take
LSA courses geared toward my per-
sonal interests," engineering senior
Ivan Kirschner said. "We wouldn't
have to take the boring humanities
specifically designed for engineers."
Sonntag suggested that engineering
students could use credit hours taken
away from the humanities for courses
in the sciences or other fields related
to mechanical engineering.
Rather than freeing credit hours by
reducing humanities requirements,
Anderson suggested cutting back
some existing introductory courses
within the mechanical engineering
department.
"There's room within the depar-
tment for a more compact course
load," Anderson said.
Stockman as being highly critical of Reagan-
administration economic policies. Stockman said that
Heinz was "chortling" about having secured Stockman to
appear at the fund-raiser on the 40th anniversary of Pearl
Harbor. Stockman told his audience that he said to Heinz,
"John, I have to tell you, 40 years ago the U.S. Navy went
down in the Pacific. Forty days ago I went down in the
Atlantic." Stockman maintained that he had been quoted
by name in the magazine due to a misunderstanding bet-
ween himself and the article's author, editor William
Greider of the Washington Post. Greider has said1 Stockman
agreed to be quoted after Congress had taken action on the
played among college students-is a make-believe rub-out
of fellow students. But the shooting of a college sophomore
by campus police has shown the game may sometimes
become all too real. Mike Reagan, a student at Cal State
University-Long Beach, said Tuesday he was not playing
"Assassin" when he was shot, but he acknowledged that he
was involved in a similar stalking game involving rubber-
band guns. On Saturday night, a campus police officer saw
Reagan and a woman getting out of a car and carrying what
appeared to be a rifle. Police Sgt. Stephen King ordered
Reagan to freeze, but the young man turned around and
pointed the toy gun at the policeman, investigators said.
cing replicas of submachine guns. They fire rubber bands
with enough force to cause eye damage. "It is very
realistic," said Deputy District Attorney Jay Lipman,
whose unit is investigating the shooting. 0
On the inside ..
On the Opinion Page, an editorial of military research at
the University . . Arts reviews BowWowWow and
nrevieuzq Michael Henderson . .. and in Sports, an alumni
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