I Fage 10-B-Thursday, September 4, 1980-The Michigan Daily Liberal arts graduates valuable to society? By LORENZO BENET In these times of economic uncertainity and tightening job markets, a University student might be tempted to direct his or her education toward an easily marketable area such as business or engineering. But some students will still desire a liberal arts degree, hoping for the best when it comes time to look for a job. UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT Harold Shapiro admits that n engineering or business graduate will be more marketable" than a, liberal arts graduate over the next several years, but he said the situation should not discourage a student from entering the liberal arts. "detting a job is only one part of an education," Shapiro said. "Universities should continue to make liberal arts an important part of education." School of Education Associate Dean Carl Berger em- phasized that an education should train a student to work with ideas, and to address and solve complex proLlems. "A LIBERAL ARTS education should not be something that trains you for a specific job," said Berger, "but something that allows you to think about your job in such a way that it will be exciting." The value of a liberal arts degree depends largely upon how you perceive yourself as a human being, said Marvin Peterson, director of the School of Education's Center for the Study of Higher Education. He said law, business, and, medical programs are challenged by society to think about Inportant philosophical and societal questions. "In these areas there is an expansion of liberal arts, not a -decline," said Peterson. LSA STUDENT GOVERNMENT President Dan Solomon said a liberal arts education is vitally important if in- dividuals wish to maintain a broad perspective on'life. He said one of the problems with contemporary society is that it is largely entrenched in old methods and solutions for dealing with its complex problems. "A liberal arts education fosters creativity and new ideas," Solomon said. Solomon said he sees a dichotomy developing between technical and social segments of society. The University is discouraging interaction between liberal arts students and engineering students by transferring the Engineering College to North Campus, Solomon said. "WITH OUR SOCIETY becoming increasingly technical with each new day, it is important that social and technical individuals come closer together, not grow further apart," Solomon said. "Separation, is dangerous because groups become isolated from each other." Peterson pointed out that most employers will train graduates to perform tasks on the job. The 1980s will be a fime when universities and colleges will expand their con- tinuing education programs to train people once they have entered the job market, he said. The job outlook for Ph.D. graduates in the arts and humanities will be bleak for the next several years, Peterson added. "THE COMPETITION FOR jobs in these areas is in- creasing," he said, "and universities have to adjust to the fact that many graduates will not be going into academic fields." Shapiro saidit is the university's responsibility to inform students entering these fields about their employment chan- ces after graduation. He continued to say,,however, that it is not the University's obligation to direct students away from entering non-marketable fields. Although the market for the humanities and education fields will be tight over the next several years, Shapiro predicted that in the late 1980s, when many older professors willretire, the job market would loosen up. BERGER AGREED WITH Shapiro's views, and added that the number of people entering the teaching field is declining and there could be a shortage of qualified professors towards the end of the decade. "There are currently shortages of teachers in the math, science, and special education fields, especially on the secondary and pre-secondary level," he noted. "We're always getting calls from schools looking for people to teach in these areas." Berger also said universities are educating un- dergraduates to be doctors and lawyers although there is heavy demand for qualified students in other fields, such as the public health professions. Universities have to expose students to these other fields, said Berger. According to Peterson, academicians who do not find em- ployment at a university have the option of working for private research firms and non-profit organizations. He said universities have been so successful at educating scholars that they have not only created their own competition, but also provided new employment alternatives for their studen- ts. Declining enrollments to have little 4 Daily Photo by JIM KRUZ ONE OF THE FIRST PLACES most students and faculty members go to conduct research is the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, which holds more than 2,242,280 volumes. The University's academic library consists of about 5,479,880 volumes, the fourth largest university collection in the country. Research may suffer in '80s By LORENZO BENET With the economic picture for the country already bleak,. the nation's colleges are finding themselves faced with declining enrollments, tighter budgets, and aging faculty. But the University expects to continue its scholarly endeavors, despite signs in- dicating increased teaching and ad- ministrative loads. How the University decides to deal with this situation will be a critical issue in the 1980s. University President Harold Shapiro said that while he believes the Univer- sity should increase its present level of research, such an increase will not af- fect the quality of teaching. Some University officials say the declining enrollment rates forecast for students attending classes, professors must spend more time at their teaching duties, which restricts their research work. "Increased teaching loads may destroy the University's research func- tion," Brazer said. "How the Univer- sity deals with this conflict depends on how it perceives its responsibility to society." Because the University will be facing a tighter budget in the 1980s, fewer faculty will be hired, causing a "generation gap" between faculty and students. As this gap between older professors and younger students widens, the exchange of ideas between the two groups may become more limited, according to Marvin Peterson, "I DON'T SEE a dichotomy between the faculty and administration," he said. "I look upon President 'Shapiro and Vice-President of Academic Af- fairs Billy Frye as colleagues, not as employers. If there were serious problems I wouldn't be interested in having a third party arguing for me." Some faculty and administrators fear more interference in University affairs from the federal government. Accor- ding to School of Education Dean Joan Stark, increased external interference may restrict the responses to problems taken by universities everywhere. Stark said one of the key problems facing research is the erratic and dic- tatorial nature of the federal govern- ment's funding of higher education effect on 'U' By LORENZO BENET Enrollments will decline by as much as 15 per cent at many higher education institutions nationwide in the coming decade, but this trend will have little effect on the University,4 according to several University officials. This opinion coincides with a study published in the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this year. The report said major research universities and highly selective liberal arts colleges will be least vulnerable to the trend. Economics Prof. Harvey Brazer, the chairman for the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, said that since the number of applications the University currently receives far exceeds the number of students that can be ad- mitted to most of the University's schools and colleges, declining enrollments will have little effect. "THERE WILL ALWAYS be an excess of applications for law, medical, and other professional schools," noted Brazer, "but the College of LSA may have to trade off its admissions standards if it wishes to maintain its enrollment." Coincidentally, the Chronicle report also said first rank universities, like Michigan, are in a position to reduce their admissions standards to adjust to declining enrollments. However, University President Harold Shapiro said he would rather see the University's schools and colleges reduce their enrollment to maintain a high-quality student body ralther than decrease admissions standards to maintain enrollments "If we wish to maintain our standards, there will be some impact, but not a major one," he said. "For the last five years we've been purposely dropping our enrollment in several undergraduate and graduate programs, including pharmacy, education, speech and nursing." He continued to say some of these programs cut their enrollments in an effort to improve the ratio of faculty-to- students, thus upgrading the quality of the program. THE UNIVERSITY IS in a relatively fortunate position compared to most other institutions. Some schools will struggle for survival and may exaggerate the quality of their programs in attempts to bolster sagging enrollments. "The danger that occurs when supply exceeds demand in, education is fraud," explained Marvin Peterson, director of the School of Education's Center for the Study of Higher Education. "There are loads of marginal institutions providing marginal educations and reporting promising things that they can't deliver on, like job placement." Most of the talk surrounding the enrollment issue dwells on a reduction in student quality, fraudulent reporting by second rate institutions, and the demise of colleges and universities that can't compete with others, Peterson con- tinued. Despite these results, there will be some positive ef- fects from declining enrollments.he said. "SINCE THE NORTHEAST and Midwest will be hit har- dest by declining enrollments and other financial woes, in- stitutions in these areas will suffer more than those in the South and Southwest," Peterson explained. "Most of the top institutions are in the Midwest and the East; now the marginal schools in the South and Southwest will have a chance to catch up with us, and this is good." Another positive effect of declining enrollments, he said, will be that programs in the arts and humanities will become more accessible to women and minorities. In the past, he said, Ph.D. programs in these fields were too competitive, and now admissions standards will begin to ease. In addition, Peterson said declining enrollments will force universities and colleges to actively recruit older students to make up f~r the loss of college-aged students. "Currently our educational system is segregated," obser- ved Peterson. "You have teenagers, college-aged students and older people all in different educational settings." HE SAID BOTH young and old students will benefit fron: taking classes together. Peterson added he sees the con-' tinued expansion of continuing education programs for people in the work force. "I'm not sure the University faculty and administration are aware of these benefits," he said. "When you're at a, university that is essentially invulnerable from these issues, you become isolated." This isolation factor could lull the University into a false sense of security, allowing administrators to think they have an adequate number of faculty for the coming decade. According to School of Education Associate Dean Carl Berger, the number of people entering the education field is declining. He said when older professors start to retired in the mid-1980's, there could be a severe shortage of qualified candidates for faculty appointments. The bottom line, said School of Education Dean Joan Stark, is that the country hs more universitiesthan it needs many of which may cease to operate in the 1980's. Education in the 1980: the University will ease the faculty's heavy teaching burden, leaving it freer for research activities. According to Carl Berger, associate dean of the school of education, in the late 1960s, the University experienced a rise of enrollment among the 18-to 20- year-old age group, but didn't have enough professors to teach the in- creased number of students. "Back then, the teaching function detracted from the researach fun- ction," Berger said. "With a drop in student enrollment, perhaps now we can address some of the research problems we could not adequately ad- dress in the past." BUT NOT ALL faculty members agree that the University can effec- tively stress both teaching and re- search. Economics Prof. Harvey Brazer, chairman of the Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty, said he foresees a growth in faculty teaching loads in some departments, that will directly interfere with faculty mem- bers' research work. "Tight budgets and little hiring of new faculty spells out increased teaching loads," explained Brazer. "This will affect the quality and quan- tity of research." Brazer noted the University's economics department's enrollment is increasing, despite predictions of declining enrollments for the college of LSA. He explained that with more director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education. "MUCH OF (this issue) depends on how wide the' age gap grows, general world events, and what student in- terests will be in the coming years," Peterson said. In addition, as the University faculty ages, it may become less productive in the area of research. Peterson said it is difficult for faculty members to main- tain producitivity in both teaching and research as they grow older, but he said producitivity varies with both the in- dividual and the field of study. "There is some evidence to indicate that natural science faculty produce the most in their early years, while professors in the social sciences appear to be most productive in their mid-to- late years," Peterson said. A KEY ISSUE facing the University faculty, said Brazer, is that faculty salaries are falling behind in their pur- chasing power, affecting both teaching and research. "Our income is falling behind the consumer price index at the rate of five to eight per cent per year," said Brazer. "This puts a burden on faculty mem- bers to find other sources of income, which ultimately detracts from the amount of time we can put into teaching and research." Despite the problems surrounding faculty salaries, Brazer said he does not forsee a faculty union. projects. She said there are an ex- cessive number of federal regulations which force universities to spend just as much money on paper work as on research itself. VICE-PRESIDENT for Research Charles Overberger said the govern- ment has increased its scrutiny of University research over the last ten years in two wasys. First, the federal government has called for an accoun- ting of the context in which research is carried out, Overberger said, adding that the government also wants a stricter financial audit of the money spent on the projects. "Federal accountability has to be considered as we conduct research," he said. "But we don't want the agency we're dealing with to tell us exactly how to go about our work. We want a lot of flelxibility for the faculty to carry out their research." OVERBERGER ALSO said some of the accounting procedures demanded by the government do not always fit in- to the structure and thought of Univer- sity procedure. Peterson agreed with this assess- ment. "These tight procedural and contrac- tual controls make it difficult for a professor to integrate his teaching and research work," said Peterson. "The work schedules, deadlines, and other procedures required by the government force professors to devote all their time to the project, and little or no time to teaching." TAs must practice what they preach By LORENZO BENET Question: What element of the Uni- versity must simultaneously take on the teaching burdens of a faculty mem- ber and the studying hassles of a student? Answer: the Teaching Assistant (TA). University TAs are saddled with much of the responsibility for running introductory courses. Although specific responsibilities vary by department, TAs spend much of their time preparing lectures, grading exams an- papers, and supervising labs and discussion sections for professors. Some TAs even teach courses indepen- dent of a faculty member. They also must take classes in one of the University graduate schools. By playing the dual role of student- teacher, TAs can knock off a good sized chuck of their tuition bill, as well as gain hands-on experience as instruc- tors. SINCE TAs INSTRUCT many 100- and 200-level courses, the University questions. I often had the feeling they worked on their own material before they prepared lessons for us," she said. ACCORDING TO David Zweig, a doc- toral candidate and TA in the political science department, one of the primary problems TAs encounter is the issue of "your time vs. my time." "TAs have their own deadlines to meet, so often there are time constraints placed on TAs,"'he said. For example, Zweig said his program involves attending three years of classes with heavy reading and writing workloads, followed by one year of preparing for "prelims" (constructing a dissertation outline and passing a series of oral and written exams), then three years of researching and writing the dissertation, which can often be as long as 200 pages. While some students feel their TAs have been poor, others maintain they're quite competent. "SOME OF THE TAs I've had," noted Engineering senior Gloria Lee, junior Robert Gantz, is foreign TAs. "Some of them don't speak English too well, which makes them very difficult to understand," he said. "IT'S HARD ENOUGH grasping math and chemistry material without having the added problem of trying to interpret what the TA is trying to say," Warholak added. "Whenever I get a foreign-TA, I transfer right out of the class."' Despite these problems, students have said TAs are both more receptive to their questions and frequently more accessible outside of the classroom than professors. "What I like best about teaching a language," explained George Greenia, Ph.D. canidate and TA in the spanish program, "is that you can develop an emotional rapport with your class because you see them so often (classes meet five times per week) and can talk about anything, so long as you stick to spanish." GREENIA STRESSED that a TA must downplay his role as an authority presence. "Some guys can't handle being instructed by a young woman, so they act rebellious." She adIded that it's easier for male TAs to command authority. "Sometimes I get heckled, usually a few guys will lead and the rest will follow suit, I doubt they would pull that kind of stuff with a male instructor. ALTHOUGH TAs WILL encounter various problems with students, more often than not their big problems lay with their faculty supervisors. "I've never encountered the problem myself, but some TAs have told me they teach from syllabi that are more than five years old," noted Zweig. "As a graduate student, you have the oppor- tunity to see new information, so it can be frustrating teaching outdated stuff." He said once a faculty member is tenured, he or she may lose incentive to maintain an updated syllabus, but ad- ded, "it is only a minority of professors that have not gone over their syllabi or changed their approaches." "This problem occurs occasionally of A *A?, 4M. A