Page 4 -The Michigan Daily - Monday, April 16,1990
(1Tbe idrlidJan 3ail
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
ARTS 763 0379 PHOTO 764 0552
NEWS 764 0552 SPORTS 747 3336
OPINION 747 2814 WEEKEND 747 4630
Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Dailv's Editorial Board. All other cartoons,
signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
Daily incorrect on statements about admissions
Athletic department
It's time to hire Blacks for high-level positions
By Richard H. Shaw, Jr.
The editorial entitled "Enrollment"
(4/9/90), contains several very glaring
inaccuracies. Two statements aimed di-
rectly at Admission policies and practices
are absolutely untrue.
The editorial states that the
"Admissions Office relies on policies
which are geared toward admitting a white
student body." We disagree. Our policies
for reviewing applications are designed to
achieve a goal of proportional representa-
tion of African Americans, Hispanic, and
Native Americans in our student body.
Recent data suggest we are on track in
achieving that goal.
The second statement, "the University
does little to recruit from any high schools
in Detroit other than Cass and Renais-
sance," is not true. Each Detroit school is
visited in the Fall and Spring; most other
high schools in the state receive only one
visit a year. All Detroit high school coun-
selors are asked to submit names of high
school seniors whom they would like to
have invited to the Minority Symposium
held at the Ford Fairlane Estate in Decem-
ber. Further, all Detroit high school coun-
selors are invited to a special Work-
shop/Luncheon held specifically in the
Spring to evaluate our recruitment pro-
grams, offer suggestions for new programs
Shaw is the University's Director of Un-
dergraduate Admissions.
and recognize the efforts of many of the
counselors who go out of their way to
support the University recruitment efforts
during the year.
Special campus visits are provided
throughout the year for students from the
public and private schools in the Detroit
area who wish to make a visit to our cam-
pus. Information sessions, student panels,
tours, lunch in a residence hall or Michi-
gan Union, are all part of our program.
Frequently charter bus service is also pro-
vided free to the schools by the Univer-
sity. The Spring visits to the high school
are specifically focused on 9th, 10th, and
11th graders who need information about
college planning and preparation as well as
encouragement to stay in school and do
their best. Frequently two admissions rep-
resentatives, or one admissions representa-
tive and one Comprehensive Studies staff
member make the visit to the school.
Thirty-three Detroit high schools have
been invited to participate this spring. For
the next admissions cycle we will open an
office at the Rackham Building in Detroit
where we employ full-time staff to provide
service to the Detroit public schools and
community colleges. All of these pro-
grams are intended to enhance our success-
ful recruitment of of people of color. In
addition, the Alumni Association created a
number of years ago the High School Li-
aison Committee. This committee in-
cludes alumni and friends of the University
who are in teaching or counseling posi-
tions in a cross-section of the Detroit pub-
lic high schools. The committee has
proven to be an excellent way of facilitat-
ing a good exchange of information be-
tween the University and the high schools.
The University of Michigan is also ac-
tively involved with Detroit and other
schools to increase the number of African
American, Hispanic, and Native American
high school graduates prepared for college
at this and other institutions. Early
outreach programs sponsored by the Office
of Minority Affairs, such as the Wade
McCree Incentive Scholars Program, Pro-
gram in Scholarly Research, King-Chavez-
Parks College Day and Summer Institute
and the Superintendents Forum are only a
few such efforts.
We ask all members of the University
community to help make this campus a
more hospitable and welcome environment
to students of color. In the meantime the
Admissions Office along with help from
the Office of Minority Affairs, Orienta-
tion, Alumni Association, Ambassadors,
Financial Aid Office, Student Alumni
Council, Comprehensive Studies Pro-
gram, School and College Faculty and
other support services, will do our best to
attract these students to campus and facili-
tate their achievement and success to grad-
uation.
FOR YEARS, MANY OF THE UNI-
versity's finest athletes have been
Black. Football star Anthony Carter,
NCAA basketball tournament hero
Glen Rice and tennis pro MaliVai
Washington have all made huge contri-
butions to the success of the University
athletic department. But while minori-
ties have been encouraged to contribute
freely on the playing field, little is be-
ing done to allow them to coach a team
or govern a program in the Univer-
sity's athletic department.
In Friday's Weekend magazine, a
comparison showed that Michigan's
athletic department is lagging behind
most of the Big Ten in terms of minor-
ity employment. With 12 Black em-
ployees in the department, Michigan
has the second highest number of
Blacks working in athletics at a Big
Ten school. However, they have no
Black associate or assistant athletic di-
rectors, no Black head coaches in rev-
enue producing sports, no Black head
coaches in men's sports and only one
in women's sports. This is one of the
worst records for minorities in the Big
Ten.
Like many other departments, the
emphasis in the athletic department ap-
pears to be on filling quotas, not on a
true diversification of the management
and teaching positions. The athletic de-
partment seems symbolic of what many
University figures claim they are trying
to fight.
The athletic department is also in
danger of losing some of the top-rank-
ing minority employees there now,
such as women's track coach James
Henry and men's basketball assistant
coach Mike Boyd. Boyd and Henry are
looking for either better-paying or
more-esteemed positions in athletics. If
Michigan hopes to keep, or attract
more, minorities in the athletic depart-
ment, someone will have to make
changes.
It is time for those changes.
The athletic department administra-
tion is currently dominated by white
males. This is exactly the kind of look
the University has tried to change, but
has so far been unable to alter. If the
University administration is serious
about the Michigan Mandate, which it
so far has yet to prove, it must open up
the athletic department to others.The
athletic department, so visible to the
community and the nation, stands pub-
licly for the University. Because of its
national exposure, the athletic depart-
ment should be at the forefront of di-
versification, not lagging behind.
There are Black men and women out
there, several with Michigan degrees,
who have been successful in both
business and in athletics. The Univer-
sity should bring those people into the
athletic department. The athletic de-
partment should make moves to hire
more Black employees, not only to
help improve the future of the Black
athletes who play here, but to improve
the departments' own future.
Really beautify Diag on this, but when will the Daily follow
suit?
Tuna
U.S. companies now pledge to save dolphins
LAST WEEK, THREE MAJOR TUNA
canners buckled under consumer pres-
sure and agreed not to buy tuna caught
in nets that kill dolphins. The compa-
nies - the H.J. Heinz Company,
owner of the Star Kist brand, the Van
Camp Seafood Company, which mar-
kets Chicken of the Sea, and Bumble
Bee Seafoods - produce and sell
about 75 percent of the tuna eaten in the
United States.
This announcement is a great victory
for environmentalists who have been
campaigning for almost a decade
against the tuna industry which, up un-
til now, has been very adamant that it is
acceptable to kill dolphins while catch-
ing tuna.
Dolphins and tuna often swim to-
gether and when fishing for tuna, dol-
phin sightings are used to place the
nets, which often catch dolphins too.
Because dolphins are mammals and
must breath air at the surface, the dol-
phins drown if they are held underwa-
ter too long. There are other ways to
catch tuna, such as the use of sonar and
observing bird activity. It is estimated
that this new pledge will save the lives
of 100,000 dolphins each year.
The companies all said it was con-
sumer pressure evidenced in letters,
postcards, and petitions that caused
them to change their policy. The com-
panies will start putting "dolphin-safe"
labels on their tuna cans within three
months. They also said that they will
continue to ban the purchase of alba-
core tuna or any other fish caught in
drift nets, which are often 40 miles in
length and kill marine mammals, birds,
and turtles. Sadly, the huge Japanese
tuna industry has not announced simi-
lar steps but has promised to "study"
the plan.
The decision made by these compa-
nies is positive, but the real commen-
dation goes to the environmentalists
and other activists who worked hard
over the the past years to make the tuna
companies change their fishing policy.
To the Daily:
Being just a first-year student, I find it
hard to direct my particular criticism to-
wards the responsible group, so I will di-
rect it at "President Duderstadt and the Re-
gents."
The noble group has sort of an echo of
power to their name. It's too bad this
power is misused from time to time for
unreasonable purposes. One of these pur-
poses being their recent attempts to out-
law and disassemble the shanties on the
diag. Their reason for this is to restore an
aura of beauty by the shanties' removal.
This reason concerns me as to what this
groups' definition of beauty is. Obviously
they feel that the deserts of dirt created by
the absence of grass on the diag have a
unique aesthetic quality almost equal to
the "dirt racetrack" created by the univer-
sity vehicles rounding the cement paths
too quickly. And let's not forget the ce-
ment. The cement is my favorite. There is
nothing more visually stimulating than
seeing another new path of cement created
to connect it with one ten feet away. Of
course the "cement happy" university
workers probably only pour these new
paths to cover up the areas where there is
no grass. If this is the case I have a solu-
tion: Why don't we cement over the whole
diag from building to building?
Granted, I do enjoy using these paths
when it is raining, however I don't think
I'll ever be able to use them all through-
out the 4 years I'll be here.
As critical as I may seem in this opin-
ion I still stand behind "President Duder-
stadt and the Regents" one hundred percent
for the removal of the shanties because we
all know that when they're gone all the
other problems will be also.
Chad Kirchner
LSA first-year student
Use recycled paper
To the Daily:
Well, the Ann Arbor News has finally
done it. They ran a full-page notice a few
weekends ago touting their use of 20% re-
cycled paper in their paper. I hate to harp
For all the groups on campus that post
flyers. It's really wonderful to see so many
flyers with the phrase "Printed on Recy-
cled Paper" at the bottom of the page.
Keep in mind though, that colored paper
isn't recyclable and that it's just a little
hypocritical to be proud of your use of re-
cycled paper that you've now made unre-
cyclable. It's just as easy to say "plain
white recycled stock" when you order your
printing jobs, and hey, you get the added
satisfaction of knowing that your flyers
can be recycled over again. Did anyone
else notice that the handouts for Earth Day
on campus (the nice brown ones,
"Awareness Rising") were printed on unre-
cyclable paper, and didn't say "Printed on
Recycled Paper?"
Finally, a suggestion for everyone read-
ing the paper: When you're finished read-
ing the paper, consider doing something
really radical. Test you're motor skills by
putting the paper back in order, then fold
the whole paper back up the way you got
it. Now the really unusual step: Put it
back where you got it. That way that same
paper can be reused. The newspaper is
much closer to a book than to toilet paper
- it is capable of being re-read numerous
times before it has to be recycled. Think
about it.
Kenneth Clark
LSA junior
Baker's political activity. Regardless of
the legality of Baker's actions, there are
serious ethical questions concerning his
forged letter and flagrant misrepresentation
of U.S. Rep. Carl Pursell.
There is a disgusting disregard for ethi-
cal considerations in many segments of
modern American society. One would
hope that academics, like Dean Baker;
would act as role models for their students
and lead the way in restoring an ethical
environment to our society by providing a
responsible example. Instead, Dean Baker
is demonstrating to students that ethical
considerations are not important in deter-
mining how you act upon your political
beliefs.
The fact that the FBI has not shown
that Baker's actions were illegal in no way
justifies them. As a teacher and a public
figure, Baker has a responsibility, if not
an obligation, to govern his actions in ac-
cordance with ethical principles. Bucknell
University's investigation of this event
and the circumstances which surrounded it
is not a threat to academic freedom at that
institution. It is absurd of the Daily to
liken this investigation to McCarthyism
and an embarrassment to the University of
Michigan when our school newspaper not
only condones but actively supports the
reprehensible actions taken by our distin-
guished alumnus, Dean Baker.
John E. Mack
LSA senior
Baker was unethical
To- the Daily:
Even after four years as a student at
this university, I still cannot believe some
of the ridiculous statements made on the
opinion page of the Michigan Daily. In a
recent editorial, entitled "Infringement"
(4/9/90), the editorial board stated, "...it is
clear that Bucknell [University's] intrusion
into the legal political activity of its fac-
ulty is a threat to academic freedom."
It is not clear that Bucknell's investiga-
tion is a threat to academic freedom, nor is
it clear that Bucknell is intruding on
former graduate student and candidate for
U.S. House of Representatives, Dean
0
Don't condone hatred
To the Daily:
In response to William Gregor's opin-
ion that "ROTC's restrictions (against
lesbians and gay men) are necessary and
legal" (4/12/90), I would just like to say
that I have always been fascinated by the
hatred that lies within the human heart. In
fact, the only thing I find more interesting
is the way in which this hatred is justified
and condoned.
Douglas Allen
LSA senior
Include everyone
Center for Russian Studies should change name
A PETITION WHICH CALLS FOR A
change in the name of the Center for
Russian and East European Studies
(CREES) has the support of roughly
half of the Center's masters students, a
number of CREES undergraduates and
a number of faculty affiliated with the
center. This petition, formulated by a
few CREES students, proposes that the
word "Soviet" replace the word
"Russian" in the name of the Center
and calls for a survey of the opinion of
CREES students and faculty to choose
another appropriate name, if Soviet is
deemed unacceptable for the center.
Unfortunately there is no convenient
geographical term which encompasses
all the lands of the Soviet Union. While
the term "Russian" applies to a specific
ethnic group, or, historically, to the
imperial Russian state, the word
"Soviet" is more inclusive of the social
and cultural diversity of the Soviet
Union. Use of the word Soviet does
not in any way pass judgement, nega-
tive or positive, on the Soviet state.
However, continued use of the word
"Russian" implies a refusal to recog-
nize the existence of the Soviet Union
and of the non-Russian peoples who
live there. Due partly to this attitude,
the term Russian is frequently misused
in reference to people or places in the
Soviet Union.
The Executive Committee of
CREES should accept the petition and
discuss possibilities to change the name
of the center to include all Soviet peo-
ple.
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