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Page 4 -The Michigan Daily, Thursday, September 10, 1987
Ailing Nat.

Sciences

hope

to improve

By MARTIN FRANK
The new chemistry building, currently
under construction, is one of the ways in
which officials from the School of
Literature, Science, and Arts plan to
upgrade the natural science departments
which in recent years have suffered from
olde facilities, depleted faculty, and
underfunding.
The planned changes will occur over
the ,next 20 to 30 years and involve
mainly the chemistry and physics
department which rank 30th and19th
respectively in the nation in 1980.
Aside from the construction of the new
chemistry building, the Changes will
include renovating the current Chemistry
Buildings, the Randall Laboratory, and
the Natural Science Building.
"(These improvements) can't help but
influence scientists' and students'

decisions to come here," Chemistry Prof.
Arthur Ashe said.
Last year, each of the two departments
received $500,000 in addition to their
base budgets to hire new faculty, renovate
the buildings, and increase office space.
"We have recognized the fact that the
sciences have been underfunded, and we
are in the process of reinvigorating the
(chemistry and physics departments),",
LSA Dean Peter Steiner said. "If the
departments can utilize their funding
wisely, they can make a case for further
incremental funding."
Steiner added that the lack of funding
in the early '80s was due to the budget
cuts LSA was forced to endure because of
the economic recession.
Each department is using the money to
attract well-known scientists to come to
the University as well as to search for

new chairpersons, which Steiner thinks
"can give a real boost to a department."
Last May, Steiner appointed Homer
Neal, a top physicist, as the new chair for
the physics department. Neal, who is
'from the State University of New York at
Stonybrook, replaced Lawrence Jones
whose three year term expired in July.
"The department and (LSA) have been
searching nationally for over a year for a
distinguished physicist to lead the physics
department as we rebuild the sciences here
at Michigan. I am certain we have found
the ideal person," Steiner said.
Jones said Neal will have to deal with
such serious problems as lack of space
and inadequate facilities. Plans are already
underway to move the physics offices
from Randall Laboratory to West
Engineering, and the free space in Randall
will be converted into laboratories.

"We're in a situation right now where
we're bursting at the seams. We're
definitely lacking in lab and floor space,"
Jones said.
The space in West Engineering became
available when the engineering college
moved to North Campus, but according
to James Cather, LSA associate dean for
Administration and Curriculum, the
physics department's move will take two
or three years.
Even then some laboratories will
remain in Randall because high powered
lasers and other heavy equipment are more
stable in Randall and are very difficult to
move.
The physics department is also
looking to replace many of its faculty
who are either at or near retirement age.
Jones said he has been looking for
younger professors who can replace them

and will remain at the University for a
long period of time.
"We'd rather get a 28 year-old boy or
girl wonder than someone who'll only be
with us for a few years," he said. "Our
problem is we don't have too many
(faculty members) under 40, but we do
have too many over 50."
Jones added that the increases in federal
funding for research projects have not paid
for the necessary renovations or labor-
atory updating that he hoped would attract
new faculty members.
"I'd rather have a space problem than a
problem of getting federal agencies to
fund research projects," Jones said.
But the insufficient office space and
old laboratories has put a damper on
attracting faculty and graduate students.
"We need to upgrade a 50 year-old
See NAT. SCI., Page 6




I
f
r
E
L

The Daily: unique among
college newspapers
By ROB EARLE business leaders, have been manifestation of the sense of
Ninety-eight years of editorial involved with the paper since the history each staff member has, and
freedom. first edition of the then University the Student Publications Building,
This is the first edition of The of Michigan Daily which first hit built in the early 1950s from Daily
Michigan Daily to make this boast the streets September 28, 1890. profits, adds to that sense.
which will appear on page one of Today, with a press run of Many staffers were amused to
every edition this school year. 15,000 and a staff of nearly 150, it. hear that the editor of the Purdue
It is a simple statement - no is the largest unsubsidized student student newspaper boasted last year
All the news that's fit to print, or newspaper in the nation. that his publication was the first to
The daily diary of the American STUDENTS elect their edi - finance the construction of its own
dream but these five words printed tors, hire their writers, business building.

below the logo are the essence of
The Daily and encompass its
history and unique place among
college newspapers.
Since the University has no
authority over the paper, the phrase
"college newspaper" makes some
Daily staffers grimace. They prefer
"student-run newspaper" and bristle
when someone asks for the "faculty
advisor" or "publisher". There are
no such creatures in the Student
Publications Building, an
arrangement almost unheard of at
other colleges.
"WE have the right to bankrupt
this paper if we want to," wrote
1984 Editor in Chief Bill Spindle,
commenting on the scope of
student control at the Daily.
More than 4,500 students,
including Thomas Dewey, Tom
Hayden, and many media and

'College newspapers everywhere have always been,
and probably always will be, a thorn. They are
inaccurate, biased, oten in poor taste, inflammatory.

I

* *

- Robben Fleming, former University president


Daily Photo
Buckling under
A University student makes use of the serenity at the reading room of the Law Library. The reading room is
one of the more impressive study spots on campus due to its highly academic atmosphere.


managers, and account executives;
and make the decisions that affect
The Daily long after they leave the
University.
Occasionally, this causes
problems like the business and
writing staffs snarling across the
center aisle at each other over space
in the paper or the sports and news
staffs clashing over the new
inclusive language policy.
Sometimes these fights find their
way into print.
It is an imperfect system, but
Daily staffers are suspicious of
other ways of running a newspaper.
D A I L Y staffers see the
journalism programs at Michigan
State and Northwestern Univer -
sities, each with large classes of
undergraduate journalism majors
and subsidized budgets, as little
more than career stepping stones for
Yuppie reporters.
The Ohio State Lantern is called
a "laboratory" newspaper and enjoys
all of the faculty control the name
implies.
EVEN the competitive Univer -
sity of Wisconsin's Badger-Herald
and Daily Cardinal have ties too
close to the student government to
make Michigan Daily staffers
comfortable. The thought of the 12-
year old Michigan Student Assem -
bly running the centenarian Daily is
laughable to most staffers.
"Ninety-eight years of editorial
freedom" is the most publicized

B U T with history comes
myths. California Assembly person
Hayden, arguably The Daily's best-
known alumnus, was not around
when "all that stuff happened in the
Sixties." Hayden graduated long
before the sit-ins, Vietnam protests
or BAM strikes hit campus.
And while it is true that two
Daily reporters went looking for
Fidel Castro back when he was still
a rebel leader, they never found
him. Actually the Cuban police
found them.
The Daily is also not the longest
running college newspaper in the
country, though it is the oldest that
didn't stop running during World
War Two. Members of the
"Woman's Page" staff took control
of the theretofore male-controlled
paper while male staffers went to
war.
B UT at a university with no
undergraduate journalism program
and running with a payroll that
hardly covers staff expenses - is a
passion. It's a place most staffers
regret leaving, and it's also a place
the "real world" can never quite
measure up to. At The Daily, one
alumnus wrote, "putting out a
newspaper was a way of life."
"The Daily has successfully
created and is currently maintaining
a separate culture that supports
values and a social system that are
See THE, Page 13

I
I

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"AREW0U
"When the guys found out
I was going to deliver pizza,
they said I was crazy. But,
hey, delivering pizza for
Domino s Pizza is cool. The j
money's good...I can earn an
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