The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 4, 1986 - Pagel9
INFIGHTING RESTRICTS ASSEMBLY DECISION-MAKING
M
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MSA hires mediator to resolve tension
By MARY CHRIS JAKLEVIC
On-going tension among members
of the Michigan Student Assembly
this summer led the assembly to hire
a mediator.
Mediation has resolved some im-.
medite disputes, but assembly mem-
bers say the long-term effectiveness
of the mediation will not be evident
until fall, when the full assembly
resumes meeting. During the summer
only about one third of the assembly is
in town.
Vocal and often heated infighting
and name-calling during meetings
have prevented the assembly from
making any substantive decisions sin-
ce the MSA elections in April.
Tension from elections
Most of the conflict is between MSA
PresidentRurt Muenchow, a member
of the moderate-to-conservative
Meadow party, and members of the
liberal Student Rights Party, who.
hold a majority of seats and nearly all
chairmanships on the assembly.
Bad feelings developed during the
assembly election campaigning last
spring, when members of both the
Meadow and Student Rights parties
engaged in heavy-handed mud-
slinging.
Since then the resentment between
the two groups has been perpetuated
by a number of power plays attem-
pted on both sides.
Much of the controversy during the
summer centered on Muenchow's op-
position to Student Rights supporters
who work for the assembly. In May,
Muenchow fired former Student
Rights presidential candidate Jen
Faigel, and in June he refused to sign
the timecards of Faigel and MSA
Military Research Advisor Robyn
Watts for work they had done since
mid-April.
Faigel was hired by former MSA
President Paul Josephson in
February to research the feasibility of
a University-wide orientation course
for freshmen.
Improving communication
Zena Zumeta, director of the Ann
Arbor Mediation Center, was hired in
June to observe assembly meeetings,
and meet both with the assembly as a
whole and with individual members to
suggest ways to improve com-
munication.
Zumeta spent 25 hours working with
the assembly in June and July, and
charged $50 per hour for her services.
MSA employee Richard Layman is
optimistic the mediation will lead the
assembly away from personality
disputes and toward the issues which
divide the assembly members.
Layman said the assembly has a
more cooperative spirit than it did at
the beginning of the summer. "The
kind of armed-camp atmosphere isn't
there anymore," he said.
Art School representative Dave
Lovinger says the assembly has lear-
ned to place more emphasis on
the process -of decision-making,
rather than merely the content of the
issues. This includes being more con-
siderate of members who hold op-
posing views.
Lovinger hopes this process can be
carried over in the fall, when the full
assembly resumes meeting.
"There needs to be a way for people
to express dissent and also feel like
they're part of the organization,"
Lovinger said.
In the past, more conservative
representatives such as those from
the Engineering College have clashed
with other assembly members over
issues such as military research on
campus, which MSA as a whole has
traditionally opposed.
Some problems to persist
But Faigel said she does not believe
the mediation will make a dent in the
assembly's problems.
"A lot of (the problem) is the per-
sonalities involved. There's been too
much water under the bridge to go
back," Faigel said.
Faigel agrees that volatile issues
could again split the assembly in the
fall. "In certain issues there is going
to be a lot of infighting," she said.
Meadow and Student Rights can-
didates split during the elections over
whether MSA should pass resolutions
on national and international events.
Previous assemblies have taken con-
troversial stances against U.S.
foreign policies, especially insCentral
America.
Muenchow said he is optimistic that
the assembly will run smoothly in the
fall, but he refused to comment on
how the mediation may effect the
assembly.
"The mediation won't resolve those
differences of opinion, but it will help
us learn to deal with them," Layman
said.
Lovinger said the ability of the
assembly to hold together in the fall
depends largely on the issues that
come up, and how the assembly mem.
bers handle a particularly divisive
issue with strong ideological im-
plications.
Muenchow
... heads split assembly
I
Panel suggests partial research ban
(Continued from Page 1)
adopt guidelines which:
" prohibit keeping the existence of a
sponsoring agency or research
documents secret;
" require that the contents of a
research contract or grant be made
public;
" forbid any research where the
results are "unreasonably" kept
from public knowledge;
* allow researchers to use classified
documents in their projects, but for-
bid them to generate classified in-
formation, and
" allow the project's sponsor to
review the documents generated but
not to classify them after completion.
The sponsor has six months to com-
plete the review.
Only nine of the 12 committee
members signed the report. Phar-
maceutics Prof. Gordon Amidon,
Pathology Prof. Rees Midgley and
Philosophy Prof. Carl Cohen submit-
ted a minority opinion calling the
recommended guidelines too restric-
tive because they would apply to all
research.
Minority report
"(The majority report's) restric-
tions would vastly enlarge the scope
of the restrictive rule, inhibiting in-
tellectual inquiry not only when it is
classified for reasons of national
security, but also when the resear-
cher and the sponsor would agree to
refrain from publishing results
longer than one year," the minority
report said.
It also said the majority report con-
centrated on general openess atethe
expense of academic freedom.
Making all research open to the
public, the minority report said, costs
researchers the freeedom to do the
research of their own choice.
Michigan Student Assembly
Military Research Advisor Robyn
Watts disagrees with the conclusions
of the minority report, and says the
majority recommendations aren't
restrictive enough.
"The current guidelines aren't en-
forced enough right now," Watts
said." The committee was called to
make the guidelines more specific,
and not to use the restrictions by
trusting the integrity of the
professors."
The regents are expected to act on
the recommendations during winter
term.
BLOOM COUNTY
Watch for it in
Recruits lose eligibility
P under Proposition 48
(Continued from Page 1)
standards, but dislikes the SAT
requirement.
"I think that (SAT) is so prejudiced
that it concerns me," he said.
"Whether it's due to culture or
whatever, there's no question that
black kids haven't done as well on
that test as well as white kids."
averaged about 40 points higher than
blacks.
Frieder said he was not at all con-
cerned about the academic abilities of
Mills and Robinson.
Coach supports recruits
"I have absolutely no concerns
about (Robinson) or Terry," he said,
"because they're serious students
who'll do the work.
"Phil Hubbard (1975-1979) was a
great player here, but he probably
couldn't pass that test today. But he
got his degree from Michigan and
he's been a great person to have out of
our program," Frieder said.
"Where would Phil Hubbard be
today if a place like Michigan hadn't
give him a chance'?" he asked.
Hubbard is currently a player in the
National Basketball Association.
Frieder said the potential effects of
Proposition 48 would have little in-
fluence on his choice of future
recruits.
Rend
Uoe
~DaiR4
Cwo~6iei&
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Frieder
... questions SAT legitimacy
Hey,.
Uof M
StudentsI
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August 20 through September 5 at our Michigan Bell
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