The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, July 12, 1983 - Page 3
Theater to move to Music School
By JACKIE YOUNG
A top University official yesterday recommended
that the Department of Theater and Drama cut its
graduate degree program and move from LSA to the
School of Music.
Charging that the department was a "relatively
low priority" within LSA, University Vice President
for Academic Affairs and Provost Billy Frye said the
transfer should go into effect August 1.
THE UNIVERSITY Regents will vote at their mon-
thly meeting Thursday on Frye's proposal which
would eliminate doctorate degrees in theater until the
department "demonstrates adequate strength" to
support the graduate program.
"Theater has not flourished as well as we might
have wished," since the program began in 1915, said
Frye in his recommendation. "The department has
been expected to do too much with too little."
"With a full time faculty of 13, it is evident that the
Frye says halt
grad. programs
department cannot cover both the professional and
technical aspects, and also do justice to the cultural
and scholarly aspects of theater," he said.
THEATER department faculty and administrators
said the review was initiated by LSA, and not
initiated by the department. The review was recom-
mended in January and a seven-member committee
was appointed in March to study the proposed move.
Theater Department chairman Walter Eysselinck
and Professional Theater Program associate direc-
tor Lindsey Nelson said they would not comment on
the move until the Regents voted.
Jack Bender, associate chairman of the depar-
tment, said he regrets leaving LSA after so many
years in the college, but he said LSA's professional
objectives for the program were not compatible with
the theater department's.
ALTHOUGH THE department would be a part of
the Music school, under the proposal, theater classes
won't be held on North Campus, said Paul Boylan,
music school dean.
Theater students would continue to have classes in
the Frieze Building, he said. But under the proposal,
both the chairman of the department and the head of
the Professional Theatre Program would report to
Boylan instead of the Dean of LSA.
Boylan said he supports the move and added that it
would bring "a strong viable theater department" to
the University.
THE RATIONALE for the move according to LSA
Engin. humanities
faces fall Regents vote
By JIM SPARKS transferred to LSA."
Humanities Prof. John Mathes, who
The end may be near for the College teaches technical writing, is one of the
of Engineering's humanities depar- professors who expects to stay in the
tment, after yesterday's announcement college, but he doubts that the Univer-
that the Regents will decide in Septem- sity will be able to absorb all 16
ber whether to save or cut the unit. professors.
In a report sent to the Regents HE ALSO said he does not believe the
yesterday, Frye saidhe would make a quality of education will be as good for
recommendation in September engineering students in LSA as the
meeting, and if they decide to eliminate humanities education they receive now.
humanities he would begin a plan Mathes and other think sending the
"phasing out the department." 4,000 engineering students to take
LAST NIGHT Frye said he had not literature classes in LSA is to condemn
yet reached a decision on the depar- them to larger classes and more
tment, but hoped to provoke debate and teaching assistants. "I would be again-
hold a public hearing. st having some graduate student
The vote will culminate a process teaching me," said Engineering Senior
which began in October, when a budget Chris Morgan, who is taking a fiction
panel began looking for ways to save and technical writing class.
money by letting LSA take over the task "It would bother me that these
of teaching literature to the 4,000 professors would lose out . . . I think
engineering students. they are doing a good job," he said.
Last March, the panel recommended ALTHOUGH saving money was one
a gradual shift by hiring new LSA of the original reasons for shifting
professors to teach engineering studen- engineering students in the first place,
ts as engineering humanities professors department chairman Dwight Steven-
retired. The panel also recommended son said he did not think a significant
that courses in Technical Com- amount of money would be saved.
munication, Technology and Society, Engineering students would probably
and Great Books 101 and 102 stay in the see more teaching assistants, which
college. costs the University less money, but the
UNDER THIS plan, Frye said in a College of engineering would also have
report to the Regents, the 16 tenured to pay the salaries of new LSA
faculty members in the unit would be professors hired to teach the
able to keep jobs in the University. engineering students.
There are two faculty members in the "My analysis did not convince me
department without tenure. there was any clear short-term or long-
Although some professors have in- term savings," he said.
dicated a desire to leave the college if The final report of the budget com-
the department is cut, Frye said "it mittee stressed that the department
is not clear there will be any professors See ENGIN., Page 4
Daily Photo by ELIZABETH SCOTT
Down and out
Marquita Stephanopulos cools off on the steps of her dress shop in Detroit's
Greektown.
People
overreact
to threat
of AIDS,
offiejals say
By JACKIE YOUNG
Health officials nationwide are attributing a dramatically
low number of blood donors this summer to widespread
misconceptions about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syn-
drome(AIDS), a mysterious illness primarily contracted by
homosexual men.
In San Francisco, a homosexual bathhouse closed yester-
day out of fear of the illness spreading. Also in San Francisco
many morticians, who come into contact with blood in their
work, have refused to embalm homosexuals.
AIDS, HOWEVER, cannot be contracted through donating
blood or sharing eating utensils as many people believe, said
Eve Mokotoff, an epidemeologist from the Lambda Health
Care Project in Ann Arbor. .
"There are a lot of scare stories out there and most of them
are not valid," said Mokotoff, whose clinic is run by mostly
gay health care professionals.
The disease was first spotted in the gay community in June
1981 when people started coming down the symptoms such as
lung infections, Mokotoff said.
SOME OF THE victims' immune systems were so badly
damaged it seemed they had undergone chemotherapy, she
said.
According to Mokotoff about 75 percent of gay men con-
' tract AIDS and many victims are hemophiliacs, Haitians or
habitually inject drugs into their veins.
Many children of AID victims also catch the illness. There
is no medication or known cure for AIDS, said Pat Waters, a
Lambda Health Project professional.
There haven't been any AIDS cases reported at the Univer-
sity Health Services yet, said Caesar Briefer, director of the
University Health Services. But two "pre-AIDS" cases have
been reported at the University Hospital, he said.
The two cases, however, were people from out of town and
were not members of the University community, Briefer said.