The Michigan Daily-Saturday, July 10, 1982-Page 5
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On the town
Ready to soak up some collegiate atmosphere, these local teenagers gather yesterday on campus.
Research time at issue in SNR review
(Continuedfrom Page 1)
"Except when I stop to get ad-,
ministrative and research things done,
I spend a lot of time with students,"
said Prof. Stewart Marquis, head of the
SNR's department of land planning and
use. Marquis said he makes a strong ef-
fort "to integrate (into -classroom in-
struction) parts of my research that
will stimulate students."
SNR students for the most part
believe that their professors are better
teachers because they are not overly-
involved in research, and are easily
available for out-of-class help.
PROFESSORS in SNR "are probably
some of the best teachers in the Univer-
sity," said Jeff Cox, a sophomore in the
school. "I've been able to get to know
all my professors, and that's the way
you learn."
There are no quotas for research
productivity in SNR, Marquis ex-
plained, but research and publishing
activities are expected, "which come to
a head in promotion, tenure and to
some extent salary." He added that
funds .available for research have
"tightened up," especially over the last
2 or 3 years.
The review charge against SNR,
written by University Vice President
for Academic Affairs Billy Frye, in-
structs the review sub-committee to
look into the quality and quantity of
SNR's research, the quality of its
students, and its commitment to
teaching.
THE SUBCOMMITTEE will review
the school for a (budgetary) reduction
greater than 10 percent or for possible
closure of the school, which has a
budgetof $2.3 million.
Frye stressed that he is only raising
questions about SNR, and that the
review committee will investigate the
facts around the questions. Review
committee members have declined to
comment on the review and have been
instructed in the charge by Frye not to
publicly discuss the review.
"I would expect they had something
in mind," when starting the review,
Marquis said. "Clearly they have some
expectations" of the review's results.
Marquis, who has made presen-
tations to the review subcommittee,
expects the fact-finding part of the
review to be done by September, with
public hearings on SNR's fate to be held
that month. Afterwards the subcom-
mittee will make recommendations to
the BPC.
ACCORDING to Marquis, individual
'Just by the nature of what
we're doing it's (instruc-
tion) going to be more ex-
pensive. You'can't study
trees without looking at
them.'
-Karen Herr,
a junior in the School of
Natural Resources
having six people on the subcommittee
is to have a meeting of minds," said
SNR student Cox.
COX AND some of his fellow students
are staging a letter-writing campaign
among parents of SNR students and
SNR alumni to gain support for the
school.
Another question the review commit-
tee will investigate is whether un-
dergraduate instruction should be
reduced because of cost considerations.
"Just by the nature of what we are
doing, it's (instruction) going to be
more expensive" than other University
units, said Karen Herr, an SNR junior.
SHE EXPLAINED that intensive
field instruction, at places such as the
school's Camp Filibert Roth in the Up-
per Peninsula, raises costs. "You can't
study trees without looking at them,"
she added.
SNR's teaching costs are relatively
higher than other parts of the Uniersity,
Marquis concedes. He compared SNR
to "other parts of the University that
have expensive lab equipment."
According to Cox, the advantage
the school has over its counterparts is
its teaching blend of classroom natural
resource management skills along with
field training at Camp Filibert Roth.
SNR students fear that the camp's fun-
ding will be eliminated by the review.
The review sub-committee will be
basing its judgments on information
filed by the school itself according to the
charge which mentions previous inter-
nal auditings of the school as the basis
for the present review.
Dean Johnson said that during the
summer the school will submit data on
the performance of SNR students after
their admission to the school.
For the administrators who have to
submit data to the subcommittee, the
review is "counterproductive," accor-
ding to Marquis, because the review is
"taking a lot of our time ... we should
be spending with students." He added
the atmosphere of doubt from the
review is being felt by students and
faculty alike.
subcommittee members have been
assigned specific departments of the
school to review. He said SNR ad-
ministrators were "not entirely
satisfied" with this arrangement, and
"we insisted that we have some time
before the whole subcommittee."
SNR eventually was given two and a
half hours before the group to explain
"some things that were necessary that
they didn't ask about," Marquis said.
SNR students also disagree with the
division of the subcommittee along
department lines. "The whole point to