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Ninety-six years of editorial freedom
Vol. XCVI - No. 88
Copyright 1986, The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan -Tuesday, February 4, 1986
Eight Pages
I
Free
courses
mayface
fluding cut
By PHILIP LEVY
Free University, a series of non-
credit courses taught by University
students and community members,
could face financial problems if this
year's offerings fail to attract enough
participants.
"This will be a do-or-die year for
Free University. If we find out there
is lousy attendance, we will abandon
the Free University concept," said
Michigan Student Assembly
President Paul Josephson. The
assembly, along with LSA Student
Government and Canterbury House,
funds the five-year-old program.
JOSEPHSON declined to specify
the attendance figure the assembly
expects, but he said MSA will
evaluate its $300 allocation after the
nine courses are finished. LSA-SG
also provides $300, and Canterbury
House, a local Episcopalian ministry,
contributes $150.
Free University courses are
See FREE, Page 3
Student
aid
faces cuts
Bill slashes 4.3%
By PHIL NUSSEL
University officials said yesterday
they are concerned that President
Reagan's first draft of the 1987 federal
budget will contain significant cuts in
financial aid to college students.
The budget is scheduled to be
released tomorrow.
The worries have increased
because of the Gramm-Rudman
budget reduction plan, which Reagan
signed into law Dec. 12. Under the
plan, Congress must cut the projected
1987 budget deficit by $50 billion. The
deficit is to be cut by $36 billion an-
nually until it hits zero in 1991.
NEARLY ALL areas of the budget
are expected to receive cuts. Thomas
Butts, the University's lobbyist in
Washington, said, "Basically, we're
looking at a 4.3 percent reduction in
student financial aid. The dollars
which were gained last year will get
lost."
The 4.3 percent cut will take effect
March 1, resulting in an $11.7 billion
reduction in the 1986 budget unless
Congress devises an alternate plan
before then.
Harvey Grotrian, director of finan-
cial aid at the University, said the
March cuts would not have any major
immediate effects because federal
student aid has already been
allocated.
THE EXCEPTION, he said, would
be for students applying for guaran-
teed student loans for the spring and
summer terms, although how much
they will suffer is uncertain.
Edward Gramlich, a University
economics professor who is in
Washington this semester working in
the Congressional Budget Office, said
this year's deficit-reduction moves
will be "nuisance cuts" but will
See GRAMM, Page 2
Daily Photo by PETE ROSS
Mr. sandman
Two University students near the business school pass a sand truck yesterday on their way to classes.
rMSA,
'U' try to improve relations
By KERY MURAKAMI
When two top University administrators addressed the
Michigan Student Assembly last week, it highlighted an
unusual priority of this year's student government: to im-
prove student-administration relations, which in the past
have been marked by confrontation.
The administrators - Billy Frye, the University's vice
president for academic affairs, and his associate vice
president, Niara Sudarkasa - spoke to the assembly last
Tuesday about ways to improve minority services on cam-
pus.
THEIR VISIT, said MSA President Paul Josephson,
came after he and University President Harold Shapiro
agreed last semester that student leaders and ad-
ministrators do not communicate effectively.
By having administrators come to meetings oc-
casionally, Josephson and Shapiro hope to ease students'
concerns that University administrators are inaccessible,
Josephson said.
Although administrators will be invited to speak as
issues arise, none are expected to attend tonight's
U.S. murderer awaits
extradition in Canada
meeting.
"SOME administrators are paid to repress students,"
Josephson said, "but many are open to our views. We
should learn to work with those who are."
Josephson said student leaders deal most effectively
with administrators in informal meetings. "A lot of people
when they first begin working on the assembly are in-
timidated by administrators. You tell them to talk to
Henry Johnson (vice president for student services) and
they can't handle it."
In addition, Josephson said, some assembly members
foster feelings that administrators are inaccessible and
uncaring about students' welfare.
"SOME ARE, some aren't. By asking them to speak to
the assembly, we'll let each representative decide on their
own," he said.
"Whereas before there was a brick wall between
students and the administration, at least now we can have
a fence to talk through," he said.
See MSA, Page 2
By STEPHEN GREGORY
Orville Davis, the man who escaped
in 1984 from the Allegan County Jail
where he was serving a life sentence
for the kidnapping and murder of a
University student, is being held by
Canadian authorities and awaiting ex-
tradition.
Canadian officials said they ap-
prehended Davis on Jan. 11 for imper-
sonating a police officer. They infor-
med American authorities after
fingerprints confirmed his identity.
DAVIS WAS originally convicted of
the 1973 kidnapping and murder of 20-
year-old Melanie Fahr, an
oceanography student at the Univer-
sity. He was given a life sentence at
Jackson State Prison.
In 1984, according to Gail Light, a
prison spokeswoman, Davis was
moved to Allegan because he had
received death threats from other in-
mates. She declined to elaborate on
the nature of the threats.
The circumstances surrounding
Davis' subsequent escape are still un-
clear:
LT. JAMES Ross, an officer at the
Allegan County Jail, said that Davis
may have escaped in one of two ways:
See CONVICTED, Page 3
Chem. prof says he's
bonded to his students
By MARTHA SEVETSON
Leroy Townsend rises and offers a
mug enameled with the molecular
structure of caffeine. "Would you like
a cup of coffee?" he asks. "That's the
way a chemist does it - then you
don't need a stirring stick."
The bearded, stocky chemistry
professor returns, coffee in hand, and
takes a seat at a table covered with
vials of compounds, jars of candy, and
Pro file
drafts of research proposals.
TOWNSEND, 52, has been
fascinated by chemical research sin-
ce his years as a laboratory assistant
at Arizona State University.
"It's exciting," he says, leaning
orward in his chair, "in the fact that
ou create something new. You made
it - nobody else has ever seen that
compound."
"Could it possibly have activity as
an anti-cancer agent? Is there some
possibility that the compound that you
just put in that bottle will be the an-
swer to alleviate some kind of
disease?"
TOWNSEND'S desire to defeat
disease has led him to synthesize
rugs which have been tested for
potency against Herpes Simplex I and
II, cancer, and - in a project initiated
this past year - Human Cytomegalo
Virus, a herpes virus.
In this project, Townsend has
collaborated with biology Prof. John
Drach. "Even before I came to the
University of Michigan six years ago,
we were interested in working
together," Townsend says, as he
gestures toward to comrade.
Townsend synthesizes the com-
pounds, and Drach performs
biological evaluations of the com-
pounds. Their collaboration, Town-
send says, is the "happy marriage of
two disciplines."
"IN FACT," said Townsend em-
phatically, "one of the foremost
reasons for coming here was my close
proximity to a laboratory like Dr.
Drach's."
"This setting is unique in that we're
sitting right here across the street
from each other. The lines of com-
munication between faculty in dif-
ferent disciplines and colleges at the
University seem to be much more
open than they are in most univer-
sities."
This interdisciplinary cooperation,
according to Townsend, demonstrates
the University's commitment to
hiring and maintaining an active and
productive faculty.
"TO HAVE a first-rate research
program, you have to have faculty
that can compete on the open market
for resources. I think there's a higher
percentage of that type of individual
at the University of Michigan."
Townsend smiled and opened a two-
inch thick folder of papers - a
proposal for one study. "A lot of what
I do is pushing paper," he admitted.
However, the flexibility that arises
from conducting the experiments he
wants to do compensates for the red
tape.
Many recent graduates from
chemistry programs, however, would
disagree. As evidenced by the drought
of teachers in chemistry and math-
related fields, a larger number of
qualified individuals are trading
this flexibility for more lucrative
salaries in industry.
"WE DON'T like money," chuckled
Townsend, sipping his coffee. "No, if I
had to say one reason for staying in
academia, it would have to be the
satisfaction I get out of working with
students."
In addition to teaching two courses
a week, Townsend spends countless
hours in a white lab coat helping
students develop research
techniques. "The teaching goes on
outside of the classroom," he says.
In the informal setting of a Satur-
day morning discussion, Townsend
clad in blue jeans, teaches students to
present findings from journal articles
and question each other's presen-
See CHEMISTRY, Page 2
Soviet
dissident
may be
released
BONN, West Germany (AP) - An
East-West prisoner exchange will be
made next week on a Berlin bridge, a
Western government source said
yesterday, and the word in Israel was
that it includes'- Soviet Jewish
dissident Anatoly Shcharansky.
The source in Bonn said the swap
was arranged by U.S., Soviet and
West German officials. Officials in
Bonn and Washington refused com-
ment on newspaper reports that such
a swap was in the making, and White
House spokesman Larry Speakes
said: "We will have no comment,
period. Top to bottom, no comment."
ISRAEL radio said the United
States had informed Israel that Sh-
charansky would be freed in three
days as part of an East-West prisoner
swap. It said the Reagan ad-
ministration sent a message about the
plan to Prime Minister Shimon Peres
and Foreign Minister Yitzhak
Shamir.
An Israeli official in Jerusalem,
speaking privately, said the deal in-
volved 12 prisoners hald in Western
countries to be exchanged for Sh-
See SHCHARANSKY, Page 3
aily rnoto by :JA IuM
Prof. Leroy Townsend, whose recent work includes synthesizing drugs
to combat herpes and cancer, says students are his first priority.
TIODAY-
Muck truck
T HAT A STREET-CLEANING truck takes.
away, a street-cleaning truck can give
cilor, Dave Blick. "Some of the houses are black-and
white half-timbered, and they looked the worst."
Newman apologized: "It was dark and I didn't realize
what was happening."
required by the U.S. Postal Service. That and the
unusual stamp drew the attention of Tilden Postmaster
Richard Schmoldt, who said the letter was found in a
tray of mail that was being sorted. "I don't know how
we got it," Schmoldt said. "I'll never know." Ken
Braun, customer service director for the Postal Ser-
vin i l m~ ir , rna n tth nl t_ nt __nr ne
INSIDE
BELATED MESSAGE: Opinion looks at cutting
back aid to Haiti. See Page 4.
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