LSA panel to look at
The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, December 2, 1986 - Page 3
underclass education
PHILIP I. LEVY
LSA Dean Peter Steiner said
yesterday he will create an ad hoc
advisory panel to improve the
quality of education during the
freshman and sophomore years.
At the monthly LSA faculty
meeting, Steiner said Political
Science Prof. Lawrence Mohr had
"accepted in principle" an
appointment as a special assistant.
to the dean to lead the advisory
panel. Mohr said it is still unclean,
whether he will be able to take the
position because of time
constraints.
STEINER'S ACTION was
in response to the faculty's refusal
last month to endorse a proposal
from the LSA Executive
Committee to create a so-called
Council for Collegiate Studies. The
council would have worked on the
problems of the freshman and
sophomore years: too many classes
taught by; teaching assistants,
insufficient space in courses, and
lack of coherence in the curriculum
x for first- and second-year students.
The council would have
monitored the quality of the
program for underclass students,
formulated ideas for improving it,
and applied for funding. The
Executive Committee contended
that the council was necessary
because no existing committee has
time to deal thoroughly with the
problems.
The ad hoc panel that Steiner
announced yesterday will take on
the proposed council's tasks until
LSA officials can present a more
specific proposal for a permanent
council. In an interview Steiner
said, "I need something in place to
deal with problems now...I regard
this as an urgent assignment." The
panel will also define the role of a
permanent council.
While most of the faculty who
opposed the council at last month's
meeting objected to the proposal's
vagueness, some were against
enlarging the college's bureaucracy.
Steiner denied he was
circumventing the faculty by
creating the interim panel. At
yesterday's meeting he said he
thought "the faculty shared the
sense that the problems are real and
deserve attention."
In the only other substantive
development at the meeting, Steiner
said next month the faculty will
discuss proposals to stiffen the
college's foreign language
requirement. The proposals will
recommend that students pass a
required proficiency test to meet the
language requirement, rather than
meeting it with four years of high
school study or four semesters at
the University, according to
Steiner.
Steiner warned that stiffening the
language requirement could force
more students into already crowded
foreign language classes, and could
also dissuade prospective students
from attending the University.
Researchers develop gas probe
By STEPHEN GREGORY
Three University researchers are working on a
NASA space probe that will investigate a comet
scheduled to enter the solar system in the late 1990s,
but a NASA official said yesterday that the spacecraft
may not be launched in time to meet the comet.
Hasso Niemann, a researcher at Goddard Space
Flight Center -- a division of NASA in Maryland -
said it was "hard to say" whether the probe will be
launched in 1992 as expected. He said it depended on
whether NASA administrators decide to officially begin
the project in fiscal year 1989. The project was not
included in the 1988 budget, he added.
"There are still a few hurdles," Niemann said.
SUSHIL ATREYA, a University professor of
atmospheric and oceanic science who is workipg on the
probe, said that because of the Challenger explosion, "a
lot of things are up in the air right now."
According to Atreya, the space craft, if delayed,
could still be launched in 1993 in time to meet up with
another comet, TGK, in 1997. But Atreya said this
comet would be "less desirable" because the probe
could only follow it for a year.
The probe may give scientists insight into the
composition of the original solar system and could
provide clues about how life began on earth.
Atreya, along with Prof. Thomas Donahue and
researcher George Carignan, is working on one of the
probe's instruments that will analyze the composition
of the comet's gases. He said the comet, Tempel-2,
contains "some of the oldest material in the solar
system." Neiman said the instrument, a
neutral gas and ion mass spectrometer, will identify the
gases by determining' the atomic weight of their
molecules. Determining the structure of the comet's
gases will tell scientists conclusively where the comet
was formed, he said.
Donahue, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic
science, said understanding the comet's composition
will give scientists a glimpse of the earth's structure
4.5 million years ago.
According to Donahue, the comet's makeup may
also explain how life on earth began. If the comet is
found to contain the same amino acids that are believed
to be the origins of organic matter, it would support
the theory that a comet crashed into the earth and
deposited these molecules, creating life.
"It's a possibility," Donahue said.
Carignan, a research engineer, could not be reached
for comment
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Womens' studies ignore minorities
By KATY GOLD
Women's studies classes around
the country must focus more on
women of color, said the speaker at
a Women's Studies informal
seminar yesterday.
Barbara Scott Winkler, a
University graduate student in
American culture, spoke in West
Engineering to about two dozen
faculty, staff, and students on the
need for multi-racial women's
studies. She said it is critical to
include literature by and about
minority students both in core
courses and special topics classes in
women's studies departments.
WINKLER IS studying the
development of women's studies
and has conducted much of her
research at the University of
Missouri and San Francisco State
University.
She referred to a professor at San
Francisco State University who
"concluded that women's studies
were white women's studies" and
assigned texts at the beginning of
the semester dealing with racism.
"White students had to deal,
with... not being the center (of the
course content)... perhaps for the
first time," she said.
Winkler also discussed the
reactions of students taking a course
entitled Women, Race, and Class at
Missouri, a predominantly white,
university.
II
I
SHE QUOTED Karen Hays,
a black student who was astonished
to see such a racial mixture of
students in the class. There were 15
black students and 26 white
students.
, "'I was just, like, freaking out
because there were other black
women in there - because I went
inssuming I would be the only
woman of color in the class,"'
Winkler read.
Hays added that her classmates
were "'leery 'til people told real
stories and they were able to see the
people and know the people and
understand that (racism) was really
detrimental,"' Winkler quoted.
Hays was so influenced by the
class, Winkler said, that she has
become the first black women to
major in women's studies at
Missouri.
ONE REASON these classes
vhave been so successful is that the
students share stories of their
personal experiences with one
another, Winkler said. "It's that
sense of witnessing that has a lot of
power."
In addition she said white
students tend to be quiet at first in
racially mixed classes because they
are afraid their comments will be
misunderstood and interpreted as
racist.
Many people in women's studies
departments often make the mistake
of generalizing the feelings of all
women, said Winkler.
"All too often we have had a
tendency to assume other women's
experiences are the same as white
women's experiences," she said.
. .(
What's Happening
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Campus Cinema
Day For Night (F. Truffaut,
1973), CG, 9:15 p.m., Aud A.
Once again, the subject is
filmmaking as an allegory for life.
French with subtitles.
Accident (Joseph Losey, 1967),
Eye, 8:00 p.m., 214 N. 4th.
The lives of two students and two
professors become increasingly
entangled as they speed headlong
towards....the Accident! Scripted by
Harold Pinter.
Letter To Brezhnev, MTF, 7:45
p.m., Mich.
An English girl falls in love with a
Russian sailor, then pens a letter to
the Big Bear himself in order to see
him again.
Speakers
Dr. Matt Zimmt- "The
Dynamics or Flexible Triplet
Biradicals," Department of
Chemistry, 4 pm., 1300 Chemistry
Bldg.
Rosellen Brown- "Reading
From Her Work," Visiting Writers
Series, 4 p.m., Rackham West
Conference.
Edward Pierce-- "Juilgalpa,'
Nicaragua: Ann Arbor's Sister City,"
The Undergrduate Political Science
Assn.,7 p.m., Michigan Union,
Kuenzel Room.
Anthony J. Irving- "Mantle
Xenoliths and the Petrogenesis of
Alkali Basalts," Department of
Geological Sciences, 4 p.m., 4001
C.C. Little.
Michael J. Wynne and
Spencer L. Bement- "In Search
of Red Algae in the World's Oceans"
and "Toward Microelectronic Brain
Probes," SciencehResearch Club,
7:30 p.m., Chrysler Center
Auditorium, 2121 Bonisteel.
Furthennore
Tuesday Night Tribute- The
music of John Lennon, 10 p.m.,
WJJX Radio(650 AM).
Center, 4:10 p.m., International
Center.
Send announcements of up-
coming events to "The
List," c/o The Michigan
Daily, 420 Maynard St.,
Ann Arbor, Mich. 48109.
Include all pertinent infor-
mation and a contact phone
number. We must receive
notice of Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday events (for
Weekend Magazine) at least
two weeks before publica-
tion; notice of weekday
events is due two days be-
fore publication.
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