Ninety-One Years
of
Editorial Freedom
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43Iati1
FLURRY
Occasional flurries today,
with a high in the low 30s.
S Vol. XCI, No. 100
Copyright 1981, The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan, Tuesday, January 27, 1981
Ten Cents
Ten Pages
lw
Geography
department slated for
eiimination pending specia review
LSA Dean Knott cites
'budgetary constraints'
GEORGE KISH began teaching geography at the University when Franklin Roosevelt was president. Yesterday, he
learned that the geography department may be eliminated in a cost-cutting move.
After 41 years of teaching prof
astonished' by geography review
By LORENZO BENET
The geography department will be
eliminated after the 1981-82 academic
year unless a review process convinces
University officials that the program
should be continued, LSA Dean John
Knott announced yesterday.
It is the first department that has
been threatened with elimination by the
current budgetary crisis. The review
proceedings will be the first under the
guidelines for academic program
discontinuance that the Regents adop-
ted in 1979.
KNOTT INFORMED Geography
Chairman JohnFNystuen yesterday that
he and the LSA Executive Committee
set the discontinuance proceedings into
motion "after careful deliberation, in
the context of the severe budgetary cuts
facing the college.
"The executive committee and I
believe that the best way to protect the
overall strength of the college in a
period of retrenchment is to make hard
decisions about what activities we
should attempt to sustain," Knott said.
Knott said the cost-cutting measure
could save LSA-which must reduce its
budget by $2 million-$150,000 to
$200,000 over the next several years.
If the department is eliminated, the
college will "try vigorously" to relocate
the eight tenured geography faculty,
Knott said.
HOWEVER, HE said, the University
may not be able to accommodate all
geography concentrators. "For those
tundergraduate) students at the begin-
ning and the middle of the program, we
are concerned with enabling them to
complete their degrees (in
geography)," he said. Undergraduates
near the end of the program would be
able to finish, and graduate students
would continue to work with faculty on
their dissertations, he added.
This is only the second program in the
recent history of the University that has
been marked for elimination. In 1977,
the University discontinued the School
of Public Health's population planning
department.
The geography department is the
only LSA department now under con-
sideration for elimination. Knott said
geography was chosen as a "result pf a
combination of factors.
"OUR ASSESSMENT of our ability to
relocate the tenured faculty entered in-
to the decision," he said. "The chances
for relocation look good."
Geography test ease
for discontinuance
Vice-President for Academic Affairs
Bill Frye said that geography's ability
to be incorporated into other disciplines
could have affected LSA's decision.
If the department is discontinued,
the following positions ,would be
eliminated: five non-tenured faculty,
one administrative assistant, two
secretaries, eight teaching assistants,
and one part-time cartographic
assistant, Knott said. Tenured faculty
See GEOGRAPHY, Page 7
Geography Prof. George Kish has been teaching at
the University since 1940. Yesterday, he learned that his
department has been targeted for a review that could
result in its. elimination. Daily Editor-in-Chief Mark
Parrent questioned Prof. Kish about the pending
review:.
When did you find out that your department was being con-
sidered for elimination?
Sometime between 10 and 11 (Monday) morning.
Did Dean Knott's decision surprise you?
It astonished me.
Why did it astonish you?
Because we are a department that has had an existence
since 1915 in connection with geology and since 1923 as an in-
dependent department. That's a very long time. That's first.
Second, because in the 41 years I've been a member of the
faculty, I know of only one instance when a department was
discontinued-that was in the public health school.
Why do you think the geography department was singled
out for review?
The college was not satisfied with the department's per-
formance since its last overall review three years ago.
Is there any chance that your department will survive the
review?
I should hope so.
On what do you base your optimism?
These things. One: the department's standing nationally.
It is one of the 10 or so senior graduate departments in the
United States. It's been ranked among those 10 on more than
one occasion in the last 20 years. That means that it's one of
the top 10 among over 150-or close to 200-departments in
the United States and Canada. In other words, what I'm
driving at here is that geography as an independent depar-
tment is an established fact of university life all over the
world and in North America.
See PROF, Page 2
For months, the University has
publically discussed the need for selec-
tive program cuts because of the
University's bleak financial situation.
Now it looks as though the geography
department is likely to be the first of a
number of academic programs
eliminated from the University's
curriculum.
Acting LSA Dean John Knott said the
college decided to start making reduc-
tions now "in the context of the severe
budgetary constraints facing the
College."
Several years ago, in anticipation of
the need to make planned program
cuts, faculty, administrators, and
Regents designed and adopted
guidelines to follow when academic
programs are considered for
elimination.
Adopted in October, 1979, the set of
procedures was developed in part to
avoid a controversy such as the one that
developed in 1977 when the School of
Public Health's Department of
Population Planning was slated, for
elimination.
The geography department's review,
under the new guidelines, is expected to
be completed in two months.
The procedures require the case to be
reviewed by a special committee. The
committee will be comprised of LSA
faculty members, excluding members
of the geography department and the
college's Executive Committee. Knott
and the LSA Executive Committee
have decided no students will sit on the
committee. Knott said students "can
voice their views directly to me."
Following the review, the committee
will consult the LSA governing faculty
before the dean and the Executive
Committee decide whether to recom-
mend discontinuation to Vice-President
for Academic Affairs Bill Frye.
If after' consultation with President
Harold Shapiro, the recommendation
is accepted by the executive officers,
and subsequently approved by the
Regents, the program will be
eliminated.
-Lorenzo Benet
I
Body found in
parking garage
INCREASES IN WELFARE AND EDUCATION 'MODEST':
Milliken asks 8.3% budget hike
T " -rTLT! /TT7 T1 m1__, tL f _'tISL._ _ - - - - - ._
By DAVID SPAK
A suspect is in State Police custody in
the apparent murder of a 39-year-old
Saline man, whose body was found
yesterday stuffed in the trunk of his car
in the Fourth and William Streets
parking structure.
The victim, Ford Motor Co. executive
Richard Mosher, was last seen on the
night of Jan. 20 in his 1981 Mustang at
an intersection near Arborland, State
Police Sgt. Kenneth Krause said. A
cousin, with whom Mosher lived in
Saline, reported him missing Jan. 21.
A STATE POLICE spokesperson said
the death is being labeled an "apparent
homicide." Results of an autopsy, con-
ducted yesterday at University
Hospital, were not released.
Ann Arbor police had been working
with the State Police in the search for
Mosher, the manufacturing manager at
the Ford plastics plant in Milan.
John Roberts, the Milan plant in-
dustrial relations manager, said
Mosher had been employed at Ford sin-
ce 1967 in various management
positions, and was appointed plant
manager last May.
"He was a very respected individual
at Ford," Roberts said. "He always
conducted himself in a fair and
equitable manner." Management at the
plant circulated a memo yesterday in-
forming employees of Mosher's death.
LANSING (UPI) - The MilliKen
administration proposed yesterday ,
an 8.3 percent spending increase for
the next fiscal year, including ;
modest increases in such hard-hit
areas as welfare, education, and
mental health.
Michigan State University
may receive a larger percen-
tage of state appropriations
than the University of
Michigan. See story, page 3.
However, Gov. William Milliken's
$4.85 billion general revenue budget
for the fiscal year beginning in Oc-
tober, retains many of the cuts im-
plemented in the current austere
spending plan.
MEANWHILE, STATE depar-
tment heads have been asked to
shave $80 million from the current
hard-times budget or risk further
cuts in the spring.
Budget Director Gerald Miller
said the budget offers "key- new
programs despite a year in which we
expect only modest economic
growth."
The cautious document, which in-
cludes the $125 million cost of the
governor's property tax reform
plan, is "in close harmony.. . with
the views of . . . Michigan tax-
payers," Miller said.
BASED ON AN expected
economic upswing later this year,
the administration predicts general
revenues for fiscal year 1981-82 of
$4.97 billion - up from the current
recession-depressed level of $4.5
billion.
Total budget expenditures in-
cluding federal moxpey are $10.5
billion.{
Despite this, the total general fund
budget would be less than this year's
when adjusted for inflation, Miller
said.
THE BUDGET retains $196.9
million of the reductions in state
agencies adopted in this year's
spending plan and anticipates a
reduction of 500 in the state workfor-
ce from current levels.
Nearly $78 million in reductions
are restored, however.
Many of the proposals will un-
dergo significant revision in the
Democrat-dominated legislature,
however, before they are enacted in-
to law.
Due to the deepening recession,
Michigan's current budget - adop-
ted only last month - was slashed
by $1 billion from Milliken's original
projection and fell below the
previous year's spending level for
the first time since the Great
Depression.
.....
Milliken
.. plans 8.3 percent increase
TODAY-
Join the Daily
S O YOU WANT to be a reporter? Come to one of the
Daily's mass meetings tomorrow or Thursday.
Daily editors will be at the East Lounge in
Bursley Hall at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, waiting to
meet prospective Daily staffers and explain what the Daily
has to offer. There will be another mass meeting at 7:30
Nixon hall-of-fame
The city of San Clemente, Calif., is paying tribute to for-
mer President Richard Nixon with a brand new $800,000
museum. Inside there is a bronze bust of Nixon and two
floors jam-packed with pictures and artifacts to remind San
Clemente of the 11 years Nixon lived there. "We saw his
value in being here because he did put us on the map and we
had the reflected glory," said Charlie Ashbaugh, president
of the San Clemente Historical Society. However, there is
!nothingi in the newsui m w1m~hiph inrliej',tpa th~t Nin
some advice on his retirement. He suggested that Carter
keep busy, and engage in activities "that'll give him a
chance to make observations, maybe some criticisms." Q
Bugs Bunny tan
Spring break is only a month away, but for those who
can't wait to get that Florida tan, Oui magazine may be
able to help. Last year, a Canadian firm developed Oro-
Bronze tanning pills, capsules which' supposedly tan the
the world belongs to a Los Angeles resident named "ZZ-
ZZZ". The man apparently convinced the phone company
that he was known to his friends as "ZZZZZ" because he fell
asleep in class all the time. Thus, he became the last entry
in the phone book, which was ZZZZZ's intention all the time.
Now, he has an automatic answering machine with a
humorous message to callers who dial his number (213) 836-
5566. Keep trying if you get a busy signal; after all, it may
be one of the most frequently called numbers in the
world.od
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