K L. Ninety-One Years of Editorial Freedom Sit 43F1 IEIUIIQ MIXED BLESSINGS Partly cloudy with showers likely in the afternoon. High in the mid-60s. it Vol. XCI, No. 153 Copyright 1981, The Michigan Daily Ann Arbor, Michigan-Wednesday, April 8, 1981 Ten Cents Eight Pages CRISP: Easyas By KATHLYN HOOVER So you think CRISP is complicated? Some engineers will register next fall for the winter term under a trial system-PI. The formula for PI is simple: Divide a student's GPA by four, multiply by his or her total credit hours divided by 16 times the number of terms at. the University, raise to the .585 power, add to the total number of credit hours divided by 96, subtract one, and multiply by 1000! AND IF THE student's PI (priority index) number is higher than his or her peers, he or she will have fir- st dibs on hard-to-get courses in the Mechnical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Department. Despite the complicated formula, early registration should be easier now for mechanical engineering students, according to Bruce Karnopp, department program advisor. . -. ~ _____aaw The department is initiating the system in an- ticipation of enrollment increases and budget decreases, Department Chairman David Pratt ex- plained. "We can handle all the students we have mnow, but it would be irresponsible to not have a scheme to meet future budget cuts," Karnopp added. THE EARMARKED courses are those that have had enrollment problems in the past, according to Karnopp. "They are the ones that students need to graduate or are prerequisites and always have high enrollment," he said. Courses scheduled to be targeted in PI's winter term trial run are: 324, 340, 362, 381, 461, and 471. Karnopp and Pratt say they hope they won't have to use the PI system with all courses, but want to be prepared just in case. In the future, PI courses will be announced about six weeks before early registration. Students' Ifor son priority formulas will be calculated, and students will register for the PI courses before early registration. The student would then register the rest of his schedule at CRISP during the normal randomly assigned time. BUT WHILE Engineering officials contend the new system will increase efficiency, Tom Karunas, Assistant University Registrar, said the new procedure could cause problems at CRISP. "It will increase the costs of registration because of the extra paperwork," he said. According to Karunas, the department has not yet approached CRISP about the new system. "We'd really run into problems if every department started doing it (pre-registration)," he said. He added that many programs request individual procedures but generally, "we have to say no." Karunas said the Art See STUDENTS, Page 8 ie engineers Below is the formula the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Department will use to establish priority for admission to earmarked courses: r=-1000 (GPA/4 X C/16T)SS+C/96-1] GPA =grade point average at time of computation. T=number of terms in residence at the University. C=number of credits earned toward degree at the time of com- pu tation. l= priority index. Students with high "us will be admitted to certain courses before those with lower ls. Eliminate geography, review committee sa YS By SUE INGLIS The geography review committee recommends either complete discon- tinuance of the University's geography department or elimination of the cultural part of the program, according to a report released to LSA faculty yesterday. "We are unanimously agreed that the department of geography cannot be continued in its present form. We believe that to do nothing at this jun- cture would be a grievous mistake," the report from the ad hoc faculty group states. THE COMMITTEE recommendation will be discussed at next Monday's special LSA faculty meeting. Faculty members will have the opportunity to make a motion to accept or reject the proposal. However, the Regents' Guidelines for Discontinuance of Academic Programs specify that a recommendation for elimination come from the dean and the Executive Com- mittee. If the college recommends discontinuance of the geography depar- tment, the final decision rests with the Regents. Geography Department Chairman John Nystuen said the report contained both subjective and objective aspects but "seemed to dwell on subjective areas.I think it's a matter of opinions which are used to create a negative view," he said yesterday. According to the 37-page report, the committee's negative decision was due to high instructional costs per student credit hour, a low number of concen- trators, a lack of a sense of coherence in the department, the recent loss of eminent faculty, and a decline in the quality of teaching and research in the department. THE ALTERNATIVE recommendation calling for selective program reduction suggests discontinuing the program in cultural geography while retaining those departmental programs that are central to the discipline. The document states "there is little reason to believe that the deficiency in research productivity of some mem- bers of the department has been offset by the excellence of their teaching. "No review of geography at the University can avoid notice .of the changes in the composition of the department that have occured over the past eight years." THE REPORT cites an outside con- sultant who told the committee that the department has not yet recovered suf- ficiently from its loss of four senior scholars to have retained its position as the second-ranked department-in the nation (as of 1969), but still enjoys a sound reputation for the prospects of recovery to be excellent." A member of the geography faculty, however, suggested that the depar- tment was not able to replace lost faculty with instructors of the same caliber because the department was denied sufficient funding to do so when it petitioned the college with requests to fill the vacated positions. Geography faculty members main- tain that the report dwelled on the poorest aspects of the department and had little to say about its strengths. "IT SEEMS TO me the report decides the geography department cup is half empty, instead of half full," Geography Prof. John Kolars said. "We have never claimed to be the best department in the world," he said. "We certainly are an average depar- tment," noting the department's statistics on cost effectiveness and grade point average. He added that 8 or 9 LSA departments rank below geography in these categories. Kolars also said he felt the report's interpretation of quality of students was "very unfair." Although the report cites the graduate program as a strength of the department, it stated the GRE scores and grade point averages of graduate students have declined in recent years. THE REPORT also emphasized the undergraduate program is weak, having few concentrators despite plen- tiful job opportunities for graduates. The report stated the introductory See ELIMINATE, Page 8 Panda production AP Photo Chia-Chia from the London Zoo chews bamboo unperturbed beneath the sharp scrutiny ofwhat zoo officials hope will soon be the object of his affec- tions. Ling-Ling, Washington's female panda, will be in heat next month. Warsaw Pact ends Sborder -maneuvers uY rPoto by JOHN HAGEN GEOGRAPHY CHAIRMAN John Nystuen displays one of 250 letters the department received in support of the continuance of the department. PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia (AP)-Fears of Soviet intervention in Poland diminished significantly yesterday with Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev declaring that Poland's Communist Party could handle its own affairs and the Warsaw Pact maneuvers officially ending after three tension-filled weeks. Walter Stoessel, undersecretary of state for political affairs and a former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and Poland, said in a TV interview in Washington that Brezhnev's remarks meant the Poles "have some more time to put their house in order, according to Soviet lights." BREZHNEV TOLD the Czechoslovak Communist Party congress that although Poland was threatened by hostile forces at home and abroad, he felt the Polish party would "prove able to successfully defend socialism, the true interests of its people, the honor and security of their homeland." A Western diplomat in Moscow said Brezhnev's speech and the end of the maneuvers indicated the Kremlin in- tended to "calm the waters." But the source, who requested anonymity, said the end of the maneuvers "doesn't close_ off the threat of invasion." The Warsaw Pact carried out similar exercises in Czechoslovakia in June 1968, two months before it intervened in Prague, and the source said, "it may very well have been a pressure tactic to begin with." AS BREZHNEV spoke, U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, armed with the latest spy satellite photographs, briefed his Western coun- terparts on Soviet military strength and warned of a backlash in the United States if Europe does not do more for its own defense. A senior Pentagon official, giving reporters an account of Weinberger's remarks at a private meeting of 13 NATO defense ministers, said the session included a "serious and very somber" intelligence briefing on the situation in Poland and Soviet strength in general. Nurse strike deadli~ne set for 6 amn. today By JOHN ADAM As of late last night agreement had not been reached between the 1,100-member University Professional Nurse Council and University Hospital administrators. Nurses said yester- day that if no resolution was reached by 6 a.m. today, the union would walk off the job. University Hospital has already begun to im- plement contingency plans in the event' of a nurse walkout. The hospital has deferred ad- missions and postponed some surgery cases in order to insure that adequate staff will be available to those patients that critically need it. IN ADDITION, hospital administrators say the hospital has been in "close touch" with other area hospitals that will be unaffectedi by a strike. However, according to Edward Schwar2 tz, hospital senior associate director and chief operating officer, most local hospitals "are now operating at or near capacity." In any event Schwartz said all buildings will "main- tain services at the maximum level possible consistent with safe patient care, based upon the number of clinical staff available." Although there is no way to determine how many nurses would actually participate if a walkout is ordered, Margot Barron head of the Nurse Council, said she believes the majority would walk. It is illegal for any public employee in Michigan to stage a walkout. The ad- ministration could seek a court injunction to force the employees back to work, but accor- ding to Hospital spokesman Joseph Owsley, there has been no decision yet on whether any legal action would be taken to force the nurses back on duty. THE NURSES have been working without a contract since September, 1980 when their previous agreement expired. Since then the nurses have been working under terms which have been extended on a week-to-week basis. The Nurse Council notified the University of their intent to strike twelve days ago and negotiations have continued since last Tuesday. As of deadline last night, only minor issues had been resolved. The key stumbling blocks, according to a Nurse Council report, in- clude inadequate staffing, excessive overtime, shift changes, and week-end duty. A strike by the nurses would be the first in the hospital's history. -To DAY Which would you prefer? yOGURT PREFERENCES of dorm residents will be examined more closely at 2 p.m. today in the Betsy Barbour Test Kitchen as the Residence Hall Association holds a taste test in a last-ditch effort to get Dannon yogurt back into the dormitory cafeterias. According to Test Kitchen Supervisor Kay was about to be scratched, but now it's off and running again for next fall. Bill Drew, general manager of New Haven's closed-circuit off-track betting facility, said he has been invited to teach ten seminars on various aspects of this "sport of kings" at a Yale residential college. Drew denied that the course would emphasize the knack of reading past performance charts used in off-track betting. He said that although the charts will be discussed in the course, the class also will include discussions of race track finance, talks by a jockey and a trainer and other aspects of racing. So the course will be non-profit in addition to being non-credit. 0 the legal profession," said Association President Alan Negus, "but we pay a premium price for it. Xerox says that they could save $300 million a year if their machines didn't have to handle two paper sizes." e A multitude of well-wishers James Brady, press secretary for President Reagan, seems to have lots of well-wishers in his hometown of Cen- tralia, Ill. More than 900 signatures have been collected on a 43-foot-long get-well card for Brady, who was listed in serious condition yesterday with a gunshot wound to the room in the world, you'll find it in Houston, Tex. at the Astrovillage Hotel. Known as the Celestial Suite, these ac- commodations feature several elaborately decorated rooms, each with a theme of its own. For example, there's the Tarzan Room, The Lillian Russell Room, and the Ad- venture Room, which is said to have been built with Robert Kennedy in mind. On the lighter side, there's also a P.T. Barnum Room and an Astrodome Room, a miniature replica of the Houston Astrodome. The suite is sometimes rented out to large corporations, and Elvis Presley is said to have stayed there. At a cost of $3,000 a day,*the price for I i i