4 OPINION Page 4 Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Friday, September 9, 1983 Stewart The Michigan Daily de co-nx. K Vol. XCIV - No. 2 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 It Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board -r Administrators 1, students 0 AS THE DOORS of the engineering college's Humanities Department close, it is becoming quite clear who the winners and losers will be when they finally slam shut: administrators win, students lose. The only things engineering students will get from the college's plan to move its humanities instruction to LSA will be larger classes, less contact with professors, and more chances to take "cake" courses to fill their requirements. Last winter the engineering college announced that it wanted to eliminate its Humanities Department and send engineers to LSA for their humanities courses. They now seem to have gotten their way, and the fate of the depar- tment is all but sealed. A special committee has reviewed the department and agreed that it should be moved, and the department drew little support at a public meeting yesterday. The department's last hope lies with the University executive of- ficers, and they have already voiced some support for the move. But in their haste to rid themselves of a department which they do not feel belongs within their college, engineering administrators have ignored the impact the move would have on the education of engineers. Engineers would have to pursue their requirements in direct com- petition with English and other LSA concentrators, and with very little guidance to coherently structure their humanities courses. The results, unfortunately, would be similar to the way LSA English or history majors fill their natural scien- ce requirements: identify the easy courses, and then take them pass/fail. Students tend to fill distribution requirements with classes that offer the least resistance, and sometimes the least education. Instead of taking the more structured curriculum the Humanities Department offers, engineering students would end up with a menagerie of "blow off" cour- ses. Engineers would also encounter more and more teaching assistants, while seeing fewer and fewer professors. The Humanities Depar- tment has traditionally been geared toward teaching, but in LSA engineers will find that the pressure on professors to publish is greater and the desire to teach is sometimes tem- pered. If the department is eliminated, and there is little standing in the way of that, then the engineering ad- ministration will have had their way; from the very beginning they have left no doubt that they would like to close the department. Yet it is unclear what benefits they hope to reap from the move since financial savings will amount to nothing. The move can only be disadvan- tageous for engineering students, and the zeal with which the college is pur- suing it can only make us wonder how deep their committment is to a thorough humanities education for engineers. To the students it only looks like the engineering college ridding itself of an inconvenience at the cost of a valuable portion of their education. WEWI81 AT LE WE'L LBE WOfi IN A "HIIGH PF ARA.. AST MING 3IORITY" d il r1l),21, V \ ' ~ F PROFESa AGO MP frof University wrongs. civil rights, Teach the children well Y ESTERDAY WAS the first day of with the classes for University students. strike in 19 The event won't seem like a big deal They g after a few more class hours have few daysc passed. Students wake up in the mor- confidenc ning, go to class, and do homework - a tle bit of fairly routine schedule. system. Wednesday was supposed to be the Teacher first routine day for Ann Arbor's public dship if th school students. But because local allowing s teachers and the Ann Arbor Board of negotiatio Education couldn't agree on a new con- tinue. Bot tract, the students are missing out on that the st that routine. That is a big deal. first. The board and teachers are squab- Rest ass bling about a few percentage points in week, or n "salary increases, insurance coverage, from bol and a few other details. Both sides are bargaining doing a lot of posturing and name they'll bo calling - somewhat like U.S. and will say, Soviet arms reduction negotiators. deserved. And both sides, though they continue to Education talk and present new contract plans, adjust the have insisted their latest offer is their contract." last. The los Caught in the middle of this are the how publ students. The students whom both works. Tha teachers and administrators are sup- are learnir posed to be benefitting. As is the case THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE ST .1 i~.k LI t .q . { I + T.Vd ys r 3 y:. 1,It Z c -'{G ~r * 1, + Ilk-&~ pjS . li X ) INYl i }-j.j/ ' last Ann Arbor teacher's 980, the students are cheated. et cheated not only out of a of school, but a little piece of e in their mentors, and a lit- faith in the public school rs would suffer no great har- hey opted not to strike, thus school to start on time while ns for a fair contract con- th sides need to remember udents are supposed to come sured that tomorrow, or next next month when negotiators th sides emerge from a g session with a settlement th claim victory. Teachers "We got what we felt we Members of the Board of will say, "We'll be able to budget. We gave them a fair ers are the students. That's ic education in Ann Arbor at's what Ann Arbor students ng these days. By David Spak A couple of weeks have passed since the 20th Anniversary March on Washington commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. The estimated 300,000 people who at- tended this year's rally have returned to their homes and - those who have them -- their jobs. Most whohwere in the nation's capitol for the anniver- sary or watched it on television probably can't remember much of what any of the speakers said. Other than the vehement anti- Reagan tone of the rally, one theme did establish itself: vir- tually all the progress this nation has made toward civil rights and equality for blacks is a result of strong efforts on the part of blacks and their organizations. Not since the Civil War have any advances in civil rights been made without an initial and sustained effort by blacks. Protests, particularly the mar- ch on Washington 20 years ago, led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. More recently, a massive voter registration drive in Chicago helped Harold Washington become that city's first black mayor. And the nationwide voter registration drive led by the National Association for the Ad- vancement of Colored People and the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH is getting millions of minorities on the voting rolls so they can exercise more effectively their political clout. THIS RESURGENCE in civil rights activity, though, has yet to arrive at the University.aIn fact, due to a combination of circum- stances, the University actually is going in the opposite direction on civil rights. Thirteen years ago the ad- ministration promised to make an effort to raise black enrollment from more than three percent to ten percent. This pledge was in response to the Black Action Movement's student strike that shut down most classes. But the ad- ministration's effort never got going. Black enrollment sits at just above five percent today and apparent lack of effort in developing new sources of finan- cial aid also are keeping blacks away. Tuition at the University is higher than at any other public college in the nation. That is even more alarming if one remembers that Michigan is one of the most economically depressed states in the country. Administrators grudgingly admit there is a problem because of high tuition, as Vice President for Academic Affairs Billy Frye said while he pushed for the most recent 9.5 percent tuition in- =crease. But as usual, ad- ministrators put off solving the problem. Unfortunately, it has becomeg clear that any lasting im- provements for blacks on campus will come only as a direct result of a concerted push by blacks to force change. Administrators, though expressing concern, have placed many other priorities ahead of keeping the promise they made in 1970. Blacks at the University must also shoulder some of the blame. They have been just as apathetic as the average Michigan student, though they have more to gaintby pushing for change. Again, the only way that change is going to happen is if they push for it. The challenge for blacks at the University is to come up with a new strategy and a new cohesiveness. The tragedy is that it appears they will be fighting the administration, first for its attention and then for its cooperation, rather than working with the administration. Blacks across the country are beginning to practice the lessons of civil rights progress. The time is long overdue for such lessons to be applied at the University. jr"' 'r 4/2, " fi Daily Photo by DEBORAH LEWIS The March on Washington: A long way from the University. has been dropping every year. Also, the University's five-year budget redirection plan has put black professors and instructors in comparatively more danger of losing their jobs. Not only are these professors in danger because on the average they have fewer -years of experience and are less likely to have tenure than white professors, but also because they are heavily concen- trated in the School of Education, which is slated to be cut by 40 percent. RISING TUITION costs and an Spak is co-Opinion editor of the Daily. Page 4 rUDY ON THIS' 4'14 Unsigned editorials appearing on the left side of this page represent a majority opinion of the Daily 's Editorial Board. Letters and columns represent the opinions of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the attitudes or beliefs of the Daily. Wasserman "I HAVE ADEAM"' WAS§ T! E&THEM'E Oe TODAY'S MA~C ON UWsGltNC-Tot1 KU WEDO01:T'OUSPRNPS 1 NV TN &,TRG YA fix,, AND~ Vo0WF.DT R iSTIeR MI~LLONS Of BLACkS VOTE IN t%4 -roQ o r I 0 Jt Yo 4L i